Distance fares

RIGHT. DISTANCE FARES. Land transport and authority's new policy for road users. How did it work out? BAD. well, not to insult ANYONE or show a biased view, but honestly, it did not work out that well.

Well, for anyone who did not know, Singapore, on 3rd of july tried a new policy, which is to charge commuters by the distance they travel. and APPARENTLY small number of people would pay a LITTLE BIT MORE. How ironic.they said that 2/3 of the people in Singapore would be able to save money and only a small number of people needed to pay extra money.

Let me fill you in on something. Last time, every time a person changes a bus, he have to pay 60 cents as entering fee. Hence, if one changes more busses, he had to pay more. Now its the opposite as we do not need to pay any money if we change bus, as it would be cheaper if we change bus. Hence, now, if one wants to travel to destination x and he transfers buses, he will pay significantly less money than another person who wanted to go to destination x with direct buses.

This is where i feel unjust for everyone. Well, to be honest, i actually benefited from this new policy as I change bus everyday going to school and going home, but hey, i am trying to feel sympathy for the other commuters, basically, the adults. Most people are already accustomed to taking direct routes to offices or schools, and very little people, YES, VERY LITTLE PEOPLE, likes to transfer bus to go somewhere and they will only do so out of emergency. Hence, the fast policy change caused the people in Singapore to protest as they could not adapt to the new policy in short time.

This policy also had some flaws and miscalculations. For example, the most serious case is the 170 bus ride and the distance was 7.1 km, but the distance being calculated was 9.5km, resulting in commuters paying 2.4km more fees.

Basically thats the policy.

What do you think?

Well, my friend and i had a debate over this topic. You see, he thinks that the policy is good and beneficial to the people of Singapore and he supports it. Yeah, but you see, i do not really believe in this kind of policies and i prefer the old policy.

Seriously. No joke.

He said that he supported the new policy as it was a more fair distribution of fares and it would not be biased towards anyone as it is purely based on distance. Yeah and something like that.

My opinion? Hasty generalisations.

While i indeed must say that the land transport and authority had did well in trying to satisfy everyone and they are under a lot of stress and pressure, i felt that it is still not good enough to satisfy everyone. This is because even though by each passing week alot more people changes their ways to travel by transferring buses, there are still some 20% of the whole population that could not change their ways. Who would want to change bus if they could arrive at a same destination with a direct bus and faster in terms of speed and time?

Last time, my mother travelling to Clementi from Jurong East costs 60 cents, and now? 1 dollar plus. How ridiculous. I do not understand why do we all need to increase the amount of money we needed to pay just to ensure a fair distribution of fees. I think that the government should consider using back the old policy. That was completely fine and there were little mistakes and everyone was happy about it.

Yeah, and thas my point. I know the post's a bit short but i will try to post more next time!

What are your opinions of this matter? Feel free to post a comment to let me know :D

world cup

When we get older, we will be stronger, they' ll call me freedom just like a waving flag.....

World cup's here. Yay! Football fans, you will have your delights everyday!

I am also a football fan, yeah of course, ever since i was fascinated by the game of football when i was as young as primary four. No kidding. Soccer, or should i say football, caused a total change in the world of sports and today, it has even became the most watched and celebrated sport. The world cup, held once in 4 years, is a great event and will always be a time whereby people will risk everything - and by everything i mean EVERYTHING - to watch their favorite teams in action and cheering when they scored a goal, or shouting when they conceded a goal.

That is football.

This year, South Africa was the country to hold the world cup and believe me, they did a great job, probably better than the last few world cups. The only beef was probably the fact that 7 reporters was robbed of their particulars, but lets not get on to that, shall we? South Africa led us see the customs, traditions, and beliefs through their opening ceremony and although many people was not watching but was anticipating for the first match to happen, i think that the opening ceremony was a good idea. Why? Through this world cup, South Africa also introduces to everyone how it is like and people will get to know South Africa better!

Also, lets not forget the vuvuzela. Ok, i think that anyone who is reading this post will be thinking, curse you vuvuzela. I understand. The vuvuzela, the horn of Africa, was a very noisy object played in the world cup and during the matches, it is filled with the vuvuzela's sounds, making us unable to comprehend the what the commentator is saying. I know what it feels like. Very irritating. However, i think that it is a very special item for the Africans and we should respect them by allowing them to continue blowing. Its their culture. We can't really change that.

Right.

So as all of you know, South Africa also produced two songs about the world cup. Can you tell me what are these two songs? YES YOU ARE RIGHT! It is waka waka (This time for Africa) and Wavin' flag! These songs are simply amazing! You should listen to it more often. They are catchy and nice. You can feel football inside the songs. As a freak of music, i just love the songs!

Ok, as a crazy football fan, i am so desperate for this world cup to come. It would be so nice to watch. As usual, i am supporting Argentina. ARGENTINA GO GO GO! Now the world cup finally comes, i know i can watch the expert playing of Argentina now, but, my hopes were blown, kinda.

Guess what happened.

You need to pay $88 to watch world cup.

My first reaction: Jaws dropped, textbook slipped from hand, shocked face.

Second reaction: pinched myself, shouted, rubbed my eyes, more shocked face, almost fainted.

By the way, the almost fainted was a joke. Oh my lord......... I was thinking. 88 dollars? What the hell? How can it be so expensive? The previous world cup was much much much much MORE cheaper. Argh! I am not buying it. I am so not buying it. It is so expensive and my father who is very thrifty..... you think he would buy? Then, i was like....

Panic! panic!

Yeah, i think people are complaining now. And i think i know what they are complaining about. Kinda.

I just don't understand how is it so expensive! Why? Perhaps, the number of people that bought the package last year? Or is it the popular demand that made Singtel and Starhub so unreasonable? Who know? But we just know that the price is high, very high.

Oh well, i think i have to face the fact. I hope the web addresses my friends gave me were usable because i am counting on that to watch Argentina in action. Pretty desperate, don't ya think. But i can go to extremes in football! So let the world cup begin!

Those who bought the world cup package, make sure you have a cup of popcorn, a bottle of cold drink, a miniature zakumi in your hands, and a Vuvuzela at your mouth and you are ready to go!

For the likes of me, oh well, i think i will just have to surf the net and if unsuccessful, go down to the noisy coffee shop near my house and lets hope i get at least a peek at the screen among the sea of faces.

Annex A steps in analysis

Have you all seen the poem analysis on conflict i posted just now? No? Well, what are you waiting for? Read that! Anyway, the thing is, you need to read that to understand this post that i am writing.

So firstly, the point of view of this poem.

Point of view :

Evidence: "America did not foresee" , "nefariously America led astray"

Elaboration: From these two quotes, we can see that this poem is in a third person point of view as the poem wrote America which is referring to the general country. It does not necessarily mean someone who is involved in the war itself, and the speaker can be soldier who survived the war, yeah, that is a possibility, but it also can be someone who witnessed the war or was born after the war as agent orange was spread after the war, which is why the poem itself tell us that there are still some wars after the wars supposedly ended.

Lets move on to situation and setting. So, you may ask, what is the setting of this poem? It seemed so general that it has no setting.

Situation and setting:

Evidence: actually all the lines can be used as evidence, but i will just pick out a few important ones: "Nefariously America led astray, generations untold will pay, execrable effects of agent orange spray!"

Elaboration: Basically all of the quotes are about the situation in this poem. As you can see from the three quotes (i combined the three), it kind of summarized the whole poem's situation. It tells us of the aftermath of the war and how it could kill innocent people in the later generations and how America's mistake allowed it to deteriorate. The situation here is that America used agent orange to kill the Vietnamese, but the agent also spread to its own personnel that came in contact with this agent and how this agent will then affect the innocents in the later generations. As i said before, this poem has no setting as it is based on a general theme.

Now we are dealing with language and diction. As we all can see, there is a heavy use of language and diction in this poem. Although its a short poem, it is enough to express its content with the help of language.

So what is language and diction? I shall continue in the next day!

Home learning - poem analysis

Right.

so i have home learning today and yesterday. Hooray. Sense the sarcasm. I prefer school to this. Ok, nevermind, due to home learning, i will need to write an analysis of one of the three poems.

That's hard.

Anyway, among the three poems, i chose rainbow death. Woah, ok. Why did i choose rainbow death? The first thing that captured my attention was the title. Rainbow death is a strange title. What is it? And as i read on, although the poem was shorter than the other two, it displayed war in the form of colours. Rainbow's colours. So how did the poet do it? Which is exactly why i am researching on that right now.

Ok, here's the poem,

America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!

Lets begin.

As i begin to research on this, i find that this poem had something to do with agent orange. I mean, look at the last line, execrable effects of agent orange spray! It tells us this is caused by agent orange. "Agent orange is the code name for a herbicide and defoliant—contaminated with TCDD—used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. " - Wikipedia. As i continued my research, i found out that millions Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, which resulted in many deaths, disabilities, and children born with birth defects. So what is the conflict here?

As Agent Orange was the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides", agents Purple, Pink, and Green dioxins were also produced, which resulted in health problems for alot of people. In my opinion, my opinion, i think that the conflict in this poem is that although America wanted to use agent orange to kill the Vietnamese in the Vietnam war, the American personnel or soldiers who came in contact with this agent was also infected and this led to some parts of America being infected. Hence, the conflict is when America was trying to kill someone, it also killed its own country. And this tells us that there are still some "wars" going on when they are supposedly finished. Ok, to be honest, i cannot find the conflict and i attempted this conflict based on my own understanding of the poem so i think it may be wrong so please understand.

Background of author:

Hubert Wilson, author of this poem, was a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF Security Service. He stayed for about 14 months at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, Texas, and after that period, hoped to be sent to Vietnam or elsewhere in southeast Asia in 1970. He was assigned to Shemya Island, Alaska, with the 6984th Security Squadron. He began having health problems like unexplained headaches and limb pains. Slowly, his central nervous system deteriorated with severe headaches, progressive limb pains, etc. and he did not receive help from any physicians.

Quality or quantity?

Here we go again.

So now, get serious.

Quality or quantity?

Quality, which refers to how good it is, and quantity, which refers to how much it has.

So which one is more important? (Ok i am like jumping to the point too fast here this time to save your. Oh look i wasted some time.

Let me start off with quantity.

Quantity is how much something has. Right. How much. So is it right of me to say that the more i do, the better i am? Ok, perhaps you all have not understood my point. Let us take blogger as an example. So is it right of me to say, the more i blog, the better i am? I will get more ace points? Is that really the case? I know everyone heard the phrase, the more the merrier. Peoples' mindsets are always thinking that if i do extra work, i do more work, i would get good results as my good work will be covered by my bad work and they tend to do more work. However, is it true? Is it accurate? Or is it a misconception? I have always been thinking about this and i cannot come up with an answer. Ok, after reading this, you may think, aiya, since you say its not so accurate, then of course it is bad. Think again. That is rather only my perspective of viewing things. People sees things in a different light. But there are also people who shares my views in an indirect way. For example, my biology teacher.

So what's so special about him? What is so special about him you may ask. Well, he only allow us to do one ace per person per term. OY MY GOSH, SO STRICT! That is what you may think. People can only depend on this one ace to get all five marks. That is seriously strict. However, think of it in a positive light. By doing this, isn't he making us do quality work? If we only do one biology ace, we will make sure we do it good and we do it neatly, hence we will all produce great ace submissions. By doing this, he is stressing us to force us to be afraid and anxious and prevents us from having the mindset, " Ok we can submit one ace after another. If it is not accepted then we do another one." Given this mindset, people tend to relax and not do work diligently.

You got my point? Right. Let us move on to quality.

Quality is how good something is. Great! How good something is! When we do things, we tend to say qualitive work. That means that the work produced must be nicely done. So quality is better than quantity? Hmmm...... I agree this to a certain extend. Of course, when we do things, we must do them with our best effort. My mother always tells me, if you want to do this, do it well. I agree. I f we want to do things, we cannot or should not anyhow do it. We should put in our best effort so it is worthy! My teachers also often tell me, Quality, not quantity! How many times do i have to tell you! You see, i always hand in quantitive pieces of work when i was in primary school. Obviously i changed for the better now! I had enough of that then and was pondering over that since then. well, at least i got to write down this in a blog! So after all this blatant blabbering, you all think that quality is better than quantity, right? Think twice.

Right. So which is better, quantity or quality? You all may think, aiya, quantity no hope already. It gotta be quality. Haha, i do not really think the same way.

In my opinion, both are equally important. Whoa whoa whoa. You all may be dropping your jaws and saying, ARE YOU NUTS? Quality is better than quantity! If that is what you think, think again.

Lets put this in a different prespective then.

As we all know, if we do qualitive work, we need to put in a lot a lot of effort into it and we need to sacrifice a lot a lot of our time into it. We would need to concentrate on it and pay full attention on doing it. That is really quite hard to accomplish as people usually do not have the time and effort to do those things. This is when quantity comes in.

(To be continued)

Everyone can be a genius

Hi people of the world! Good morning world! Oh yes, here' a new topic. Sorry i have not been regularly updating this blog, but yeah, i will try my best to share my feelings with you all. Right.

Okay.

So let me ask you all one question. You all may have all sorts of reactions, but yeah.

"Everyone is born equal and could all succeed in life and become a genius"

Okay, i think all of your first reactions would be staring at the screen shocked with your jaws dropped and saying, "you got to be kidding me." Quite the contrary. Really.

Now, yes, i know. Many of you are not that clever or do not really succeed in life and you would be looking at this shaking your heads. No offense, but i am not trying to say i am a genius, so keep with it.

You all should be thinking, "What? Everyone, born equal? " Yeah, i know how you feel. When i was young, there were always those kids that appear very intelligent. You have a point here. However, look at the larger picture! Well, yes, everyone in this world may not be born equally smart but their intelligence levels are close. Very close. Who disagree here? Maybe some still do.

Maybe you all are wondering, "Hey, why is it that i am not smart? I am also born around the same intelligence of the other students, right? How come my studies are so lousy." Haha, here is when you start thinking. What have you been doing in your youth? Your early days?

You may ask, why is it that from statistics, a lot of poor men's sons or daughters are able to do so well in school? The answer is that when they are still very young, their parents had the time and effort to help them study and learn. Their parents teach them all sorts of things and learn from their mistakes so as to prevent their children to end up in their poor state.

On the contrary, rich people (no offense, seriously) tend to not fare that well in their studies. Ok i am not prejudicing here but i am trying to cover this on a larger scale. That is because in their early days, their parents are very busy with work and hence left them to their own devices. Hence they had no one to teach them things and would not learn a lot. And when they grow a bit more, the parents would pamper them and they would not focus on their studies.

SERIOUSLY I AM NOT PREJUDICING HERE. THEY ARE JUST STEREOTYPES! Okay, there are some cases that are different from this, but lets not talk about that and focus on this, shall we?

Ok lets not venture further about what happened in your early days and years. Lets talk about why is it you are not a genius by secondary school or older.

You may ask what i meant. So, lets put it in another perspective.

When we are all in primary one, some of us are stupid and some of us are clever. That is a fact. Right. So look at my question, well, statement to be precise. It states that everyone COULD become geniuses. Yeah. And i did not mean it in a way by chance.

I meant it by hard work.

Well, i have seen lots of these cases and you may ask what do i mean?

A lot of people, my friends, were very very clever and intelligent in primary one. On the other hand, some of my friends were not very clever. And i mean not very clever. However, when i reached primary six, some of my ""clever friends" became lowest in class while some were still at the top. Amazing, some of my "dumb friends" also went to the top and of course there are those that still lack knowledge.

What does this show?

This show that we can succeed, we can become geniuses, we can do it and nothing is impossible if we put in hard work, dedication, sweat and blood.

Even if we are stupid, we can always work hard and try to catch up with other people. If that does not work, we can try working double hard, triple hard and i am sure that we can succeed and become clever. It also shows that there is no such thing as a born genius. Sure, there may be smart people born everyday, but they are just smarter than others by a tiny little bit. If we want to outsmart others, we can try to gather more knowledge. Those of my friends who are clever in primary one were not in primary six as they did not persevere or put in hard work to do well in school but relied on their natural intelligence to do the work for them.

So after so many perspectives and thinking, do you all agree to this statement? Personally, i agree to this statement as i had already stated that only hard work and dedication can help us succeed in life.

What do you think? Drop a comment to write down your thoughts!

If there is any questions, please feel free to post a comment and i would answer it as soon as possible.

Thank you!

The craze over the iPAD

Right.



So today we shall kick off on a new topic, which is the iPad. You guys out there must be either jumping with joy right now, crying in despair, or feeling envious. Well, there are those that are not crazed over the iPad, but there are very little people like that. Oh and by the way, i am not sterotyping, this is the truth. Everyone loves the iPad, right? Say yes.



Okay. iPad. Cool. A very good invention in the ---- HOLD IT!



Wait, wait, wait. I need to ask you all a question before we proceed. Is iPad a very good invention? You may laugh, you may feel this is stupid, but let me tell you, critics and quite a lot of people out there feel that the iPad is good, but not that good. Why? you may ask.



Well, that is because critics found out that the iPad lacks basic functions such as a camera, a phone and a ketboard function. Well, i agree with some of you that the iPad is not supposed to have these functions, but since it is so great, why should it lack such basic function? Well, that may be the case, but people and reviewers do not really care much about these functions when all they see are the unique designs, the elegance and the mesmerizing features of the iPad that differntiates it from other portable computers.



So do you agree that iPad is an extremely good device? Well, there had been over 450000 copies sold since its debut and people are raving about it. However, we could not really decide from there if it is really significantly beter, not only better.



Hence, i came across an article called,"Can the iPad pass the mom test?" I was very intrigued and i found out that the author wanted to see if the iPad is good enough for his mum, who is not really interested in technology and stuff, to like it.

Well, i guess that the author's mum took a while to be persuaded to go to the store as visiting it may be the last thing on her mind. After using much effort to persuade his mum to go to the store, the author's mum looked at the iPad, and was automatically attracted to it. In the report, it was stated that she thought it as the best thing in the world.

So why is this so?

Well, i might not know all answers, but in my perspective, i think that people when viewing things do not really care a lot about their function, well that applies to most people, and they just care about whether it is nice or not. Same with the iPad, it is very elegant an beautiful and its design is unique. Although it may lack those functions, no one will notice and no one will care as it has better functions and more advanced things.

What are your views?

Policy for Chinese language in PSLE

HI everyone! Please help to comment as not everything i wrote is perfect. Man make mistakes! I hope that all of you can give constructive comments on my posts and are able to spot my mistakes so i can improve. Thank guys! I will be getting more apps so please wait patiently! :)



Ok, so were was i?



Right, today's new topic. Not really new, but really a good topic. What is it again? Oh yeah, MOE's decision to lower the weighting if chinese language in PSLE.



Woah.



That is really a big decision.



That was my first reaction to this news. Dr Hon posted this EMB message that MOE is going to lower the weighting for chinese language in PSLE. When i saw it at first, my jaws dropped, literally. I was like rubbing my eyes and pinching myself. Of course, anyone would have reacted like that to such an important decision.



Impossible. Unacceptable.



That was my first thought. When i continued reading, i became furious at the MOE's strange decision. Why would they suddenly do such a rash thing? How could they just lower the weighting just for the sake of a few people? Unacceptable! I became very interested in this and continued to look for online discussions and newspapers relevant to this topic. Based on what i found, most people voted for letting PSLE stay the same.



So why is the ministry changing? Why are the ministry changing this policy?

I was furious and asked my mother on this matter. She said that the ministry received a lot of complains that just because of chinese language, it pulled down the marks of alot students' total marks, hence resulting in not being able to enter good schools. She also expressed her fury to me.

The government is simply selfish. They only cater to those small groups of people that complained and complained all day long that chinese is too hard for their son, daughter, they came from another country and cannot study well, Chinese is too complicated......

WAKE UP, PEOPLE! SERIOUSLY!

What kind of stupid excuse is that? Oh yeah, and looking through the discussion threads, all of them had at least 70% of the people agreeing not to change the current system. If this was the case, then why..... why did the government change its policy? I think this is a stupid action. Right, you may think that i am exaggerating things a bit as a came from a chinese background, but hello people, this is simply outrageous.

How many people, how many students taking the PSLE every year are good in chinese and use Chinese as their only hope of entering good schools and by lowering the percentage, the ministry are just trying to extinguish their hopes! How could this even be thought up! What about others? What if people like me, who is good in chinese and bad in english, take the PSLE and got very high for chinese and low for english? Compare it to someone who got high in english and low in Chinese. Right, same thing. But if this policy is used, then it would not be the same thing! I would get lower marks than that student, and he may be able to get into a good school and i may not! That is the difference. Some more, we are not in a country like America, of which the common language is english.

We are a multiracial society!

We do not have a common language! And the ministry's actions of reducing the weighting of chinese shows that it is biased! Why not reduce the weighting of Maths? Why not reduce the weighting of science? Why not reduce the weighting of English? Why not reduce...... Yeah, why not, ministry? Why not? Why Chinese?

There are alot of people who are very good in Chinese in Singapore. As i have mentioned, if the ministry reduced the Weighting of Chinese, then wouldn't it be unfair? Why can't the ministry just let things remain the same. It would not hurt, right? And on the newspapers people even wrote that in the past, the Chinese language in PSLE was so much harder than nowadays. So why are the people complaining?

If YOU cannot get a good score in PSLE, don't complain! Work hard! Work smart! Work diligently! Don't always complain this, complain that, and think that things would fall in place. Don't expect the MOE to do everything for you! Could you at least spare a thought for others? How they would "die" if the weighting is reduced? At least the ones whose English are bad did not complain right? So why is it that you should complain?

And the MOE also has responsibility over this issue. No offence, of course.

Lee Hsien Loong said a few months back that Chinese is a very important subject. If we can master chinese, in future it would be very useful. I was agreeing to him at that time.

What a joke.

If even our prime minister said that Chinese is important, why are they reducing the weighting? The ministry's actions are simply contradicting themselves! At one time they said that we should study Chinese well, another they are indirectly saying that Chinese should be studied less. What are they doing, changing their thoughts every once and then?

I feel that this matter should not be even discussed. It is a rhetorical question. However, i think the reason the ministry did this was because of a reason.

But anyways, i think that the ministry should not come up with such a policy.

Maybe you have differing views? Tell me then!

How should people be educated?

Hi guys! Iam back for more.


I know. Little blog posts, but nevermind, i will produce more blog posts than you will ever imagine!


Okay, back to the point. Right , so what is the point anyway?


Forgot to tell you all, but today i will be discussing on education. Now you will be asking, education? What is there to talk about for education? Folks, this is where you are wrong. There is a lot to talk about for education. What do i mean? Oh, and just to inform you guys, today i will not talk about what is education. I will be talking on a different topic.

I was studying on a random topic when a thought struck me hard. I was thinking: How should the young be educated? Then i thought another interesting thing: Who should control education? The parents, the student, the society or the state? Should a student be taught to think for himself or to adopt the beliefs of the society? Should man be educated to be free and live for his own interests, or to subjugate his own desires and serve others or the state?

I was amazed at this thought. Yes, students like me had always been living in the shadows of the ministry. For many years now, students do not think for themselves for a lot of things and always rely on the society to help them. The society is like a grip on us that prevents us from producing fresh ideas, and live for our own interests. I think that the fact that the world wanted children to take up school is an excellent idea and a sensitive one. However, just being curious, what would happen if we students are allowed to think for ourselves or we do things of our interests. If there is no school and we are allowed to investigate the area of interest we prefer, for example, physics and we investigate it until we became very good at it and can contribute to the society. Of course, this sugestion is not offered to everyone. It is offered to those who are good in areas and already knew what the teacher is teaching. For those students, if they take up that path, they might become famous and stuff. If they go to school, they may waste time on things they already know. I know that school is important, but shouldn't thhe more higher level pupils learn better? Look at Enstein, look at all the famous people who skipped school for their own interests. Ok, maybe i am exaggerating a bit, but it is worth a try, don't you think?

The ministry is doing great in teaching us these things and i appreciate it a lot. I learnt a lot from teachers telling us the way we should be educated. However, looking at another prespective, i could say some people would want to live for their own ideas and think their own way. Of course, i am not one of them, i am just trying to loook at another perspective. People may feel the way ministry educate us does not suit them and they want to be educated their own way so they can learn more effectively and easier.

Why don't we look at this from another prespective?

Well, yeah. Students al like to live for their own ideals, but their definition of ideals may not be idealistic. What do i mean? In the society, there will always be at least a few who hate school, hate homework, hate studying and just love to play games etc. etc. You should know what i mean. If we allow students to think for themselves, these people, who usually stand a high percentage of the whole society, would spend their time not studying on their favorite subject, not doing experiments, but doing things irrelevant and lazy. They would be glad that there is no school, but would not work hard on his own. These are the ones that are not independent. They do not have a goal in life. If we adopt this, they would suffer and the society at large would not have that much people who are good at a certain subject, maybe even lesser. There are also those who do not understand things or does not have a good mindset to think about what to do. They would also suffer.

So should we be educated our own way or get educated by the beliefs of the public, the society?

Well, i guess the answer is still unknown, but most likely it will be the latter. Yes, i admit it. The ministry teaching us is probably the best way now. If we do the other way, it is i'm afraid not very realistic. Aa high precentage of Singapore is made up of students that are not really that smart and if we think for ourselves, then Singapore may make a loss in the outcome.

However, it is still a good thought and i think that it may happen in the future, if anything changes.

I offered my opinions.

Can you tell me yours?

Singaporeans lack of Moral values and public awareness

Hi, everyone.


Sorry for the lack of posts as i had been busy Lately. Today i am going to talk about a common topic. Singaporeans' lack of moral values, public awareness and how they are not so civic minded.

As a Singaporean, i feel shameful.



Now, don't get me wrong. I did not say i am shameful to be a Singaporean!


But yes, indeed, indeed i feel shameful. Now you may ask, you may ponder, why do i feel shameful. As much as i want to say no, i had to answer this with this phrase, "Singaporeans' behavior in public".


Now you may ask, why? What is wrong with Singaporeans' behavior in public? Let me tell you, there are so many problems with the Singaporeans in public that i was shell shocked. I was amazed to have read an article on this topic in school and i investigated further on the net, only to find more and more articles appearing commenting on Singaporeans' behaviour in public. I was quite frustrated to find that Singaporeans lack such basic courtesy when we are ranked among the highest for being courteous. On the actual fact, numbers don't lie. We seriously needed improvement.


Firstly, i want to share on the topic of littering. Now, now, people, don't get confused. You must be thinking, littering? Yes, littering. Littering has always been a severe problem for Singapore. Yes, i know. Singapore is a "garden city", with no litters and people are doing their job to dispose litter properly, keeping it a clean and conducive environment, and you know what, there are litters everywhere.


Wake up people!


Now is not the time to spread lies about Singapore! Singapore, as it is now and as it has always been, is filled with litter everywhere. There are cigarettes butts in the mud, plastic bags and wrappers flying in the air, even loads of rubbish flowing through rivers, especially the Singapore river! Singapore river is supposed to be a clean river. How could it be filled with rubbish? It is all Singaporeans' fault.


Singaporeans' fault.



No one, no one should have taken up the blame except for the citizens of Singapore, who promised to keep Singapore a clean and conducive environment for everyone usage.. Look at the condition now. Are they keeping their promise? Well, how about no. Singaporeans really disappoint me. What does this show? This shows how uncivilized Singaporeans are, how they lack in public awareness, how they are willing to achieve benefits for themselves instead of willing to care for the country, care for the nation, care for Singapore, in which they are born in. Singaporeans, no matter how bad they are, should at least be grateful to Singapore by returning the favor and not add fuel to the fire. Do we have a sense of respect for Singapore? Do we care to stop for a moment and think how difficult it is for the cleaners to clear our rubbish? Do we even spend time to consider if what we did was wrong?


Singapore is dependent on tourism for our economy. If the tourists see how much littler there is on the ground, what would be their impression of Singapore? How disappointed would they be? And when they feel disappointed, what are the chances, what are the chances of they coming to Singapore again or telling their friends something good about Singapore? Very very little. Singapore had always been considered as an advanced, a respectable and clean city. How could we live up to our reputation if we continue doing this? It is always the good side of Singapore being shown on TV, magazines, newspapers. Wake up! We could not only appreciate our reputation and sit there basking in the sunlight. We must look at the big picture, the problems of Singapore!


Singaporeans are too self centered, too selfish, too lazy, too unthoughtful, too brave, too despicable, too not respectful, too atrocious! How could we throw rubbish on the floor, when the rubbish bin is just a few feet away? How could we throw rubbish on the floor, when Singapore is the very country we were born in? How could we throw rubbish on the floor, when so much effort are put in to clear those rubbish? How could we throw rubbish on the floor, when there are so many expectant tourists looking forward to see Singapore? How could we throw litter on the floor, you tell me? How could we......


Now, now, as much as i hate to say this, littering is not Singapore's only problem. There are more major ones.


For example, Singaporeans' lack of civic mindedness. A very simple topic, yet a very disappointing one for Singaporeans. Singaporeans' problems are that we are too kiasu in many ways. We want the best for ourselves and do not care about the welfare of others. What do i mean by this?




Very simple.



For example, in public transport, it is very obvious and apparent that Singaporeans lack this manners and civic mindedness. Now you may ask me, in what ways do we lack those? Well, how many instances have you seen people giving up their seats to the elderly, reaching out a hand to assist the elderly in movement, or helping the disabled people, pregnant ladies or elderly? I bet that these instances are very rare.





There was this one time, that i was on the bus going to school. As it was the new kind of bus, it has four seats reserved for the disabled, pregnant women, and elderly on the left side of the bus and 3 seats on the right. On the next stop, a few people boarded the bus. There is one free seat on each side of the reserved seats. An old and fragile lady carrying grocery bags was walking towards one of the seats and was preparing to sit down. However, before she could even react, a teenager around my age sat down on that particular seat and began untangling his earphones, not even paying attention to the helpless lady. When she turned around and prepare to sit at the free seat on the right, a school girl sat down, snatching away her chance of sitting down. At that time, everyone was watching the whole incident with disapproval. However, no one dared to ask the girl or the teen to stand up and give away the seat to the lady. I was tempted but i was too shy at that time. Now i regretted it. The old lady then was really helpless and looked tired out. She could not find any more seats, and guess what? Another elderly lady stood up from the reserved seat and gave it up to the old lady. The old lady thanked the other elderly and sat down.




From this, i am sure that all of you would find how awful Singaporeans' behaviour are. Okay, okay, lets not even talk about how Singaporeans are unwilling to give up their seats to the elderly. If Singaporeans do not give up their seats, then i do not really think so bad of them as most of them are too shy. However, this is a more severe case. This is a complete mistreating of the elderly! The teens just literally snatched the whole seat away from the elderly, not even bothering to look at their surroundings or bothering to look at the signs that read the seats are reserved for the elderly. They just wanted to get the seat for their own good, they are just too kiasu. They should at least look at the surroundings! Furthermore, an elderly gave up her seat for another elderly! How ridiculous does that sound? That just shows how bad our moral values and awareness are. No matter how adamant we are or how unwilling we are to give up our seats, we should not let an elderly giving up her seat for another elderly. This is very shameful to our society at large. Everyone here is the culprit. Even i am. We should at least pluck up the courage to tell the teens to give up their seats, but no one did that. This just shows how ill mannered we are.




Singaporeans are smart, we are well educated, so why is it that we are unable to get the meaning of the posters, flyers, advertisements and help the public in one way or another?

About giving up seats, i think i do not have to rant on anymore. You all should get the message.

Singaporeans are just too kiasu, no matter what thing we also need to compete, and because of this, because we wanted things for our own personal good, we often forget about the environment. We do things our way, without civic mindedness, with just ourselves in mind. How disappointing......




Singaporeans are also too loud in public. Sometimes i board a bus, the first thing i hear is not my e z link card being tapped, but the shouting of several people, or one person for that matter. Sometimes they shout out excitedly, wanting to congratulate people, or having won something; sometimes they curse swear words in different dialects, angry at people; sometimes they are just having loud conversations with their friends. By doing that, Singaporeans are being too selfish as the bus is being shared by many and so many people will get distracted by their loud voices.I know, i know, as compared to china, we are very good already. But come on people, be realistic, we should aim higher, compare with countries that are better, and learn from them!


Even there are several times whereby people stick their legs out and block peoples' way of moving, people put their bags on the seats and prevent people from sitting....... So on and so forth.




Are we really like this? Are Singaporeans' really this self centred? Does Singaporeans really lack moral values?




Think about it ourselves, reflect upon it and i hope that we can observe this and realise our mistakes, and change for the better.




What do you think?

Litter bugs, the criminals of Singapore

Litter bugs, as we all know, are people who throw rubbish everywhere without showing concern to the environment's cleaniness or beauty. They destroy the reputation of an area, and are regarded as serious offenders in public. The problem of litter bugs are most common in Singapore, the garden city.

Its pretty ironic to me, that Singapore was nicknamed garden city while people have been going around throwing litter. Simply Ridiculous. Litter bugs, to me, are considered the worst of human nature. How could people be so lazy and unthoughtful towards the environment, of which our ancestors have worked so hard to beautify. We should show respect to Singapore and our ancestors by preserving the nature instead of polluting it. We should observe our actions at all times and we must put in mind that we should not dispose rubbish everywhere but in the bin.

I do not know what or why people wanted to litter on the floor. Why do they want to do such a despicable action? Do they have a purpose? I always ask myself. I figured out that most of the time is that people could not find rubbish bins at the crowded areas and have no idea where to find, and hence they litter. However, we should not only think about ourselves, but we must care for our nature. Singapore was once really a garden city, with trees and flowers blooming everywhere. Human actions such as littering had caused our country to end up in this state. We should not dispose litter anymore. We should observe our manners at all times and protect the environment, preserve it, to enjoy it.

Litter bugs are a big problem of Singapore. It ruined our reputation as a garden city. However, we could still revert back to our nickname, garden city if we work harder in the future, preserve the environment and do not litter!

Home learning 2 : Interpersonal intelligence

Interview with mother on her views on prejudice and discrimination.

(Translated from chinese into English)

Me: Mother, what do you feel about prejudice and discrimination all around the world? Do you think it is acceptable? Or do you think it is not allowed?

Mum: I feel that prejudice is not acceptable as every man or woman born into the world cannot change their looks and appearance no matter how much they wish for it. Everyone must accept thier skin colour, body size, appearance etc. No one can change their looks. Everyone is equal from the very start. That is why i hates discrimination and prejudice. Who said that blacks are ugly, fat people are stupid, white people are clever and good size people are good? That is only a presumtion. I have this thought that everyone is special in his or her own way and nothing you do can change the way they look. I white man may be stupid and a black man may be clever. Discrimination would let the innocents feel pitiful and sad for themselves. No one is superior and no one is inferior. Prejudice makes people feel discouraged and lonely. People discriminate only because they do not know what it feels to be discriminated. Although i was not discriminated when i was young. i saw how badly treated the discriminated people were. I felt pity for them. That is what i think.

Me: So when you were small did you encounter any discrimination or did you hear any news about it/ If so, how did you react?

mum: As you know, i lived in China and therefore had little interacts with white bullying blacks. However, there wre prejudice against fat people and nerds. Fat people were often ostracized and bullied. When i saw what was happening, at first i was afraid it would happen to me. Then, i felt pity for those people and went out to lend a hand. I simply could not stand the sight of the innocents getting teased around. I as very small at that time and did not understand a lot of things.

Me; Thank you.

Home learning 1 : Intrapersonal intelligence

Diary entry for Scout Jean Louise On the first day of school:

Today was the worst day of my life. It was not fun at all. Who knew that school could be so tiring...... It was so much different from the days where i could play with Jem and Dill. Sigh......

It was all because of Miss Caroline! How could such a pretty person be so scary and frightening? She was so mean towards me that i lost all my courage to speak! She even said that my father does not know how to teach! She did not want me to be literate! I am so confused. I thought Atticus told me that knowledge is good? Is reading in the first grade really that bad? I never imagined school to be such a scary place. I think i should check this out with Atticus. Then they would quarrel and... and... I would be the victim. Did i do anything wrong? I always gained new knowledge when i read with Atticus. And when she said damage, did she mean i read the wrong things?Or is it...... Argh! I do not understand. I don't know! I just don't know...... And i also cannot write? What kind of place is a school? I always thought school is to teach us how to read and write, but why is Miss Caroline teaching us how to not read and not write? If that is the case, i will rather not go to school...... And what does Jem meant by a new system and we need to learn about cows? Oh man ......

Things just get worse and worse after that. Did Miss Caroline even cared to know each student well? She does not even realize who a Cunningham is! And when i told her that A Cunningham only lives with what they have and that she is shaming him, she whipped me! hauled me up to the front of the room and whipped me! That was very pain. Did say something wrong? Did i offend her? Why is she being such a difficult teacher! I was just trying to explain the facts to her. Why would she whip me? Did she mistake me for offending her when i said shaming him? I never knew school was so painful and hard. She whipped on the first day of school! I was so humiliated in front of everyone! I did not feel i deserved it. I have a feeling that she is not going to like me as a student. This is going to be a tough year. I wonder what will happen tomorrow? Will i again get scolded by her? I hope not.......

Multiple intelligence test

I just took a multiple intelligence test but i could not post the results on my blog because of technical reasons.

In my learning profile, musical and kinaesthetic aspects of me are my strong forms of multiple intelligence. Music being my top form of multiple intelligence is not surprising as i often listen to music and i could detect music easily. I was quite surprised that kinaesthetic is one of my best intelligence. i was not particularly body smart some time ago. I was also quite shocked to see my logical intelligence low as i am always quite logical and number smart.

Based on the results of the test, i felt that multiple intelligence test is very useful as it helps you to know your weakness, strengths and areas you need improvement on. It tells you about your various intelligence areas so that you will be aware of that and choose your paths according to that. I personally felt that this test is quite accurate as it gathers most possibilities in a person's life and try to find out your multiple intelligence.

Facebook - is it harmful?

I believe that many of you would be facebooking right now. No surprise here. Nowadays, facebook has evolved into a platform that many teenagers use for a lot of things ranging from gaming to chatting. I, personally, is also facebooking right now. Of course, i had done my work. I show concern over nowadays' teens' behaviour towards facebook, as such, is myself. The first thing we do when we got back home is to chat with friends, play games and share the latest news on facebook. But here is the issue ---> Is facebook harmful?

Many of you would think it is okay as it is not as violent as MMORPGs and it could help you interact with other people and make new friends, but we always have to face the reality. Facebook is a big distraction for teenagers and had me forgotten to do my homework several times. Facebook somehow always attracts me to move around facebook and search for new groups, games or fun stuff. I could almost never get off it once i am on it. It works like a magnet. We teenages nowadays are reaching the most important part of our lives and therefore sohuld be more focused on studies and exams instead of joining useless groups, playing boring games or randomly searching around. Our grades would drop drastically if we are addicted to facebook and spend almost all our time facebooking. People would say, games on facebook are usually passive games such as ghost trappers, fish wrangler , and the famous mousehunt. I beg to differ. There is a misconception that when teenagers "sound the horn", they would spend the 15 minutes revising and studying. This is impractical. I believe many of you have experienced the feeling when your fingers were just too itchy to get away from the tabs. During the 15 minutes, i normally would check other hunters' profiles, travel, or play other games. I would completely forget about my homework! People would normally be too excited to continue studying. They may also see thier friends playing some other games, and try it out, and would spend the whole day playing that game. The cycle repeats.

Facebook is also a massive online interaction site with all kinds of people having an account. This could lead to stalkers, interaction with strangers which may lead to cyber bullying and we, being naive and experienced, would fall into their trap and accidentally expose our passwords, allowing the people to hack our accounts and meddle with them. Applications may also hack into our account if we allow an application by giving it our passwords.

However, facebook also have its bright side. As mentioned, facebook allows us to interact with each other, forge new friendships, build new bonds and let us have fun. In my opinion, We could go facebook to interact, only if we finished our work and had revised well.

Technology- Beneficial or Harmful?

I was very intrigued when I analysed a painting in the art gallery while doing my duty.

It portrayed a family sitting together watching television. On the outside, it seemed as if they are having a family bonding time. However, after further scrutinizing the picture, i was stunned to see that actually everyone was busy indulged in their own activities such as a boy playing play station portable, a girl tapping on his laptop, the father listening to mp3 and so on and so forth. What does this show?

I feel that this painting is very relevant to our everyday lives. We are too dependent on technology to deliver our needs and our whole lives revolve around technology. Everywhere we go, there is always technology to assist us, to help us. Now, i want to ask a question. Who in secondary school, just secondary school, does not have a phone? I am a student in XXX instituition and all of my classmates have phones. I would not be surprised if 95% of my school have hand phones. And i am pretty sure that almost every household in Singapore has a computer, be it desktop or laptop.

What i am saying is this: Technology is invented to help in our everyday lives. It is too make our lives easier. However, is it really making our lives easier? Is it really useful?

I was very insistent on technology being inmensely helpful in our lives. That is, until i looked at this issue in a different perspective. I am aware that we would not "survive" until this day if not for the numerous inventions of technology.

I was shocked when i saw that picture because i was thinking of that issue while walking in the art gallery. I realised that technology is in a way harmful to our lives. In the past, there was no technology and everyone did things in traditional methods. As such, they were very united and had a strong bond. Nowadays, when teenagers like me reached home, we would more or less throw our bags onto the floor, switch on the computer, and start playing under the eyes of our parents. Last year, just because my parents were not at home for 1 day, i spend 5 hours playing games. Afterwards, i slapped myself for that. Technology, to me, had in a way blinded teens to see things in a wrong way and get addicted to playing online games. For example, Mousehunt is such a popular game in our school right now that it gave the school so much problems that they had to block facebook in the internet network around the school. Technology has benefitted us, yes, but it benefitted us too much such that teens get addicted and corrupted in a sense. In this way, we teens would get too indulged in the internet and would have no time to revise our work. In this way, it is a lose lose situation. Hand phones are the same thing. In school, there will surely have s group of black sheep who play hand phone games under the desks during lessons. In this way, they would not know what the teacher taught them and results in them getting high MSG.

Now i would move on to the next problem. Technology has also, in a way, lessen the family unity. As the art had suggested, even thought the family had settled down together to enjoy an evening, they were lost in their own worlds, indulged in their own technological devices, paying no attention to the other members of the family. This is the worst part of technology. Technology made people forget their purpose, values, etc etc. Technology made it seemed as if you are close to your friends, family, but in reality it is pulling you apart from your loved ones. That is really disappointing and bad as family bonding is an important thing and technology is making it not very possible. Moreover, you and your mum or dad will quarrel over your computer limits and will also result in a lose lose situation where none of you benefits.

Technology is making our lives easier. However, in my opinion, it is also making us too dependent on it. We people of the 21st century are too technologically advanced, resulting in us relying too much on technology and are becoming too lazy. If we continue to do this, then there would not be any one who want to do new things. The consequences would be dire.

So, let me ask you, what would be your opinion? Do you think technology is harmful? Beneificial? Or Both?

The term so far......

Well, so some of the term had passed by in a flash.

I had poor time management, very few time to do my homework, packed schedule everyday. Sigh...... Welcome to Secondary 2, Zhang Aolun.

Secondary two was harder than i expected. I initially thought not so much of struggling through secondary two as i pretty much glided through sec 1 smoothly. Secondary two was an eye opener for me, as i spent most of the time in secondary 1 at home playing computer games and not put in that much effort in school work. Well, lets just say that its quite the opposite in secondary two. Nowadays, I do not even have time to spend quality times with my family. Just the first week of the term had me going through much administrative stuff, syllabus introduction, whatsoever. I was struggling to handle everything. I was being forced into competitions. It was an all new experience for me and to be honest, i was glad that i was able to represent my school to go for competitions. It was a chance, a golden opportunity that i could not get in my secondary 1 life. Well, i guess things are different nowadays. CCA matters were also rampant as we were ordered to come back to school on saturdays for rehearsals. All in all, it was not exactly what i would call a relaxing school experience.

Just when i thought things were going to get easier, lessons began. I had different experiences for different subjects and was quite surprised to say the subjects were totally different, new, and of course hard as compared to last year. LA was cool. Lessons were enriching and interesting. I liked how the teacher teached us with examples, interesting facts, broad knowledge, and humor. Math was somewhat the same as last year as the teacher's teaching style was same as last year's teacher. And for me, being somewhat good at maths, the subject was a piece of cake. The only teacher that was the same teacher as last year was our chinese teacher, so i'm not surprised when her expectations for our class were exceptionally high. Science was a blast. I was stunned to find that i could not understand most of what our science teacher was saying. l was terrified that i could not ace my science tests well as usually as she drone on about the subject, i could not comprehend much of her teaching. Well, i guess that is what would happen if you are in a future school class. I need to revise my science harder now. Well, as for humanities, it was a tough nut to break. I did quite badly for humanities in secondary one, but the topics in secondary two left me spinning around in confusion. *SIGH*

So, secondary two had just begun and i am already distraught by the difficult subjects and how am i gonig to survive the year. Oh well, time to buckle up, and in the upcoming exams i will be firing all cylinders. No more facebook, no more games, no more slacking.

CSE, here i come!

WELCOME!

Hi everyone.

This is Aolun.

This blog is specially made for my Language Arts studies and i would appreciate it if you all could refrain from using profanities on my blog. This is my second year at blogging and i really hope that everyone could spend some time to give their valuable suggestions about my blog. Constructive criticism is welcomed so i could enhance the layout, font, content, etc. of my blog. I am considered a beginner at blogging but i would try my best to listen to your views/ thoughts/ ideas on my posts so i could improve. I would try to increase my length of each post and i would make sure that every post is at least 300 words long. I would certainly not be using any short forms / abbreviations on this blog as I am sure my english teacher would not tolerate that. I hope you do too.

Now, for the content of my blog. I am well sure that you might be curious about the content / plot/ whatsoever of my blog. When I was in secondary one, basically, my focus was on some interesting questions, mostly philosophy questions. I am not a person who likes to blog about newspaper articles but i am willing to change that this year and include a couple of current affairs news in my blog. I also likes football, and I am a supporter of Manchester united. If my LA teacher allows, i may blog about topics relevant to soccer's statistics and stuff. I am also an animal enthusiast. I love biology, especially animals and had read tons of encyclopaedia on animals. So expect to see some posts regarding to the animal world. And that is that.

Now, if you please, take your time to read through my posts and please please please comment. I cannot stress that fact enough. Criticism is also welcome.

And that is that.