Thursday, September 24, 2009
1) What expectations do your parents have for you?
My parents expect me to do well in school, get into a good university and hopefully being able to get a good job. I guess that is the expectations most parents would have for their children. That is also why my parents are pressurizing me to get good grades.
2)What expectations would you, as Singaporeans have for your children?
I would expect them to do well in school, but I would give them more time to relax. I believe that a person must be happy and have a positive attitude to do things well, and same goes for learning.
3) Would the expectations of the two generations differ?
Not really. At the end, the target for the children is to get a good job and lead a good life.
- 7:06 AM;
Friday, September 11, 2009
This story is about a boy by the name of Dylan Hughes. The story starts by Dylan talking about how his dad can fix anything.
Dylan's family operated a petrol station with a little shop that sells chocolates, sweets, etc. One night, a lot of vans and a few cars went up the hill beside the petrol station. It was found out later that valuable paintings were being evacuated to the quarry at the top of the hill for safekeeping. The person in charge was Lester Quentin.
One day, when Quentin went to the petrol station to fill up his tank, in his conversation with Dylan, he found out that the hens Dylan kept were called Donatello and Michelangelo. Dylan initially named them after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but Quentin mistook them for the names of famous artists. Thus, Quentin mistakenly thought that Dylan was interested about art.
Because of customer relations, Dylan did not tell Quentin that he was mistaken about him until later in the story. Once, Quentin asked Dylan a question about these famous painters. Dylan didn't know the answer, so he guessed it, and got it correct. The misunderstanding continues.
After a period of time, the insurance company decided not to insure the garage anymore, and the petrol company which has been supplying petrol has decided that Dylan's family should pay for the petrol rather than the company putting the petrol in and then collecting the money when it is sold. Because of these financial difficulties, Dylan's parents appeared to have some sort of misunderstanding because of it.
The father went away to London for a period of time. During this period of time, the mother became depressed and did not seem to care about the garage anymore. This was when Dylan's sister, Minnie, decided to do something to help the situation at home, she decided to steal one of those valuable paintings up in the mountain and try to pull off an insurance scam.
All this worked out until the end, when things started to go wrong. The painting was sold to Lester out of coincidence. Then, when the father came back, everything went back to normal as he tried to cover up what they did buy doing a similar painting. The story ends stating that everything was back to normal and better than before. An interesting story.
- 4:43 AM;
Monday, July 6, 2009
Lesson 6: Compulsory Blog Entry
Seeing a lot of people queuing outside Singapore Pools is a common sight on weekends, but have you ever thought about the problems lottery have brought about for Singaporeans?
Lottery is a type of gambling, albeit a cheap one. Many Singaporeans are hooked onto lottery, and as what my parents say, “ They take lottery as a type of hobby, a way to relieve stress “. It’s true, whenever Singaporeans have time, they would go and buy lottery tickets.
The casino that Singapore is going to open, will bring about a host of problems, although it will bring many advantages as well. The disadvantages is that more Singaporeans will go to the casino to squander their hard-earned money there, leaving their own families in distress. My parents also warned me, “ When you grow up, never go into such places, as once you go in, there is a good chance that you will be addicted “. When you are addicted to gambling, it takes a lot of will to stop. Opening a casino in Singapore is merely provoking the situation, making some extreme gamblers to not go to work, but go to a casino to gamble. The people working in the casino, may also be addicted to gambling, resulting in a catastrophe for their families.
Thus, I think that it is not a good thing that a casino is going to be opened in Singapore.
- 4:11 AM;
Monday, June 29, 2009
My favourite poet is Lucille Clifton. She is an accidental poet, as she only began writing when she quit her state and federal government positions to stay at home. Clifton began her writing career by completing 2 collections: Good News About the Earth (1972) and An Ordinary Woman (1974). After this, she began writing collections of poetry like, Blessing the Boats and many more, some which went on to win awards. She also got an Emmy award from the American academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Some of her poems which I have read include blessing the boats, cutting greens and sorrows. In blessing the boats, there is this calm feeling that you will feel when you read it. The setting is at St. Mary's, where she hope somebody would sail through this to that.
In the poem cutting greens, she talks about the way she cut the greens, which may go largely unnoticed to some people, then she links it to people. She look at the greens as if they were people. I like this poem as I think that the verses that she had written are very intriguing.
Sources:http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/79
- 6:47 PM;
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Messy Room by Shel Silverstein
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or
--Huh? You say it's mine?
Oh, dear,I knew it looked familiar!
from:http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/shel_silverstein/poems/14818
The only type of figurative language used in the poem is the personification use of figurative language.
It is used on two occasions in the abovementioned poem, they are:
1.) A lizard named Ed is asleep on his bed. (The lizard is named Ed, so as to give a human feel to the lizard.)
2.) Donald or Robert or Willie(The poet also gave the person who owned this room names to show ownership of the room )
I like this poem because it is a realistic poem. A messy room is a part of my life, although mine is not as messy as mentioned in the poem. Everybody experiences a messy room, and the description in the passage describes the messiness with great detail, with a humorous ending, when the author realised that he was talking about his own room. This poem also shows that sometimes, we can be unaware of our own shortcomings. The author brings this out perfectly, knowing that all this happens in everybody's life. Although the poem is a little exxagerated, it is a great pleasure to be reading it.
- 5:57 PM;
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Howling Tower ( Book Review )
This book states that a long long time ago, wild men fought with the cave bears for the land. In this book, it depicts the scene now, if the cave bears had won the fight with humans. It is a very interesting book as we could never have imagined this kind of situation in real life.
In this setting, bears are now playing the roles of humans in real life. Bears are going to work, taking trains, etc. Humans are however, all servants. If any human gets caught by the bear police without a bear, they are taken to into a facility for captured humans called the Howling-Tower. Humans are called saps by the bears.
The story goes that a young sap, by the name of Benjamin Wildfire, was sick and tired of his stay with a bad-tempered bear. The bad-tempered beaer had bought him for a guard-sap, which means that he have to help the bear keep watch of the house. Benjamin was thus chained by a heavy chain to a post. One day, he discovered that a rock in the back garden could be used to break the chain that is chaining him. He managed to try many times, ( whenever he goes to the garden to do his business ). Day after day, night after night, the chain finally gave way. All this while, he had also been storing some food for his planned runaway. One time, on the day that he had broken the chain, a girl next door, Milicent Ophelia Patience Snubnose, Mops for short, told him that she had been watching him sneaking food to hide. She wanted to run away too, so they decided to run away together.
After successfully escaping from the bear's clutches, Mops and Benjamin tried to make their way around without arousing the suspicions of the bears, who would in turn notify the Sap-catcher. Soon enough, when they alighted from a slither train, they were detected by a ticket sniffer without a bear accompanying them. They were caught by this huge bear called Inspector Dictatum.
They were sent to the Howling-Tower, where they were kep captive for many days. Attempts to sell them had failed and they were shortlisted to go through a dangerous experiment performed by the bears that helped to find formulas to make various potions and lotions. The trio, ( Spike, Benjamin and Mops ) didn't give in to temptation when they were tempted by the highly poisonous mixtures. Benjamin and Mops had met Spike in their cages.
Benjamin, after careful observation and thinking, found a way out of the Howling-Tower. This method could also save the children in his block of cages. He carried out the plan, and all the children sucessfully escaped from the block except him. He was caught by Inspector Dictatum, who was so enraged that he wanted Benjamin to be put into the Mincer. Benjamin had to go through the washing process, to prepare him for getting minced in the mincer. He was sent into the condemnation chamber where he would spend his final night in the Howling-Tower.
However, a servant-sap, called a trusty-sap, was moved by his braveness and courage. He thus offered to stand in his place to be sent to the Mincer. After much persuasion, Benjamin finally escaped from the Howling-Tower in a trusty-suit. Together with Mops, who was waiting for him outside the Howling-Tower, they watched the trusty-sap, called Twelve meet his end. But just before he jumped into the hole which led to the Mincer, he jumped into the river beside the mincer and swam away. Sucessfully escaping.
If the world was in this stage, life for humans would have been extremely terrible. Thus, we must learn to appreciate what we have now and not complain.
- 8:49 AM;
Sing To The Dawn ( Book Review )
This is a story that talks about the life of villagers in a village in South East Asia. Dawan is a young Thai girl who wants to pursue her studies in the city. But her family is not supportive and felt that a girl does not need much schooling. Her brother also have the same wish; go to the city to study. When Dawan, the girl, approached her family after being chosen to go to the city to further her studies ( only 1 student would be chosen ), her family disapproved of the suggestion.Only her grandmother, supported her and gave her her consent.
But Dawan's brother, Kwai found out that he had ranked second, behind his sister, Dawan, he began be a little more hostile to his sister. He also accused her that she had robbed him of his chance. However, Kwai did not want to tell their father that he had gotten second place as he was afraid that the father would become very angry after learning about it.
After a few days, Kwai's father eventually heard that Kwai got second from his teacher and was enraged that Kwai had purposely kept it from him and demanded to know the reason. Kwai's father also found that if he prevented Dawan from going to the city, the student placed second could go.
In the middle portion of the story, Kwai's thinking were very unsure as he could be happy and agree to what his sis ter said a day and become extremely moody the other. That lead to the series of events that happened after Dawan insisted on going to the city to further her studies, including Kwai injuring Dawan, etc. At the very end, Kwai made a brave stand to the father and told the father that he wanted Dawan to go to the city and not he. The father finally relented and Dawan was due to go to the city in the bus soon.
Kwai chose a very unique way of bading goodbye to his sister. He did not bade her goodbye at their house, but instead stood on the little wooden bridge that he and Dawan frequently go to and waved there. He also sang the song that Dawan made herself. Dawan was happy that her brother had come to bade her goodbye.
In some villages in South East Asia, people still have the type of thinking that girls need not study. This type of thinking is incorrect as everybody deserve an equal chance of studying. The prize should definitely go to the person who has the best academic results, not because he is a boy.
- 7:23 AM;