MyBlog

Role Models

2010-08-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

We all need role models in our lives. Role models, ideally, must be a person whom some one looks up to. When he looks up to the role model, he is very likely to follow in his footsteps(of course, the role model must be walking in the right direction). There are many role models around me. My father is a role model. He only had secondary education, yet he managed to be the man he is today with a hard work. Nobody had taught him where to go in life. My grandparents were perfectly happy for him to have a low-paying job as long as he could feed himself.

Another example would be my cousin. When she was younger and attended school,her parents didn't know anything about her studies, nor did they engage any tutor for her. They didn't want her to go to university as they could not afford the fees. Thus, she came up with a plan to save money. She set targets and met them. And now, she is a newspaper journalist in New York. She is a perfect role model for me.

I have many other role models. Another cousin of mine, she was offered a job by IBM even before she finished university. Back then, competition was very stiff but she still managed to get the job, and whats more, IBM approached her to give her to job, not the other way.

Of course, the so called role models who lead people in the wrong direction are called bad influences. My youngest brother, who is 7 this year, loved to read when he was in kindergarden, and was very enthusiastic about doing homework. However, my 2nd younger brother, who hates studying and loves to play, influenced him rather badly. Nowadays, he would grumble when he was asked to do homework. When asked to read a book, he stood up every 5minutes.

In life, we have to identify the role models, and keep away from bad influences. If you really want those bad influences to be your friend, then you must not learn the the bad points which he has, which is highly unlikely considering that we are human beings.

Dreams and targets

2010-08-21T20:05:00.001-07:00

Do you have a dream? Something that you would like to be? Perhaps a doctor, perhaps a scientist. Everyone has something that they work towards, their source of motivation. And a really worrying thing is that I do not have a dream job yet. I am in secondary school now, and I still have no target in life. I have nothing to work towards, and I shouldn't be acting as circumstances dictate. During my CA interview, the teacher interviewing us told us a news article about more and more young people getting drunk at bars and other places. I thought that it was because the people are living in a highly competitive world, and they needed to chill. The teacher told me that it was only applicable for a minority of the cases. The main reason was because the people do not have a goal to work towards. Thus, they have a lot of free time and they spend it getting drunk. If someone has a goal, he would work towards it until he has achieved his target. Thus, dreams are very important.

Again, I am using my father as an example. Yesterday we had a long talk and we covered many topics, including my previous post of me having the "brain-lag disease". This is the second topic we covered.

" So Zhan Yi, what do you hope to become?"
"Dunno."

My father then proceeded to tell me the importance of having a dream, which are all listed above. He then told me that when he was a kid, he had dreams of living in a big house, driving a car, able to get on a plane...and "now (he) was able to fulfill (his) dreams". My grandfather was an architect, and it is during this time when my father was interested in being an architect too. When my father was older, he requested some friends to assist him in setting up a company. Then when they set up the company, my father set targets every year, and he would try his best to make sure his targets were achieved. Thus, his company got more and more successful every year and my father was able to achieve his target

Having a dream, or a target, is something that is necessary in life, as it would be your source of motivation, to keep you moving on.

Always on the losing end of the argument

2010-08-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

I am forever on the losing end of an argument. Even during current affairs, when someone posed a question, I am unable to think of any good replies to the question, so the only thing that I can do is just to stare blankly at the wall. After it is over, I would think of a really good reply or comeback. Thus, I would definitely fail all my CA interviews, current affairs discussion and anything that involves debating. I am very worried about this as failing Oral Communications would result in me going to 3Q.

Yesterday, I told my parents about this, and asked them whether I was suffering from "brain-lag", and if so how to make me think faster. My mum said I might be suffering from brain-lag, but my father told me this was not the case. He told me that, I just lack practice in thinking about current affairs. He told me that I should read newspapers and watch the news everyday, and after that, think about how what I saw would affect me. My father told me that while he was reading the news, and he sees some government policies, and immediately he thinks of how it would affect our family. He also offered to help me by listening to me opinions of some of the news weekly, and correct me if I show flawed thinking. If I do this every week, soon I will be able to have a more mature perspective and will have no trouble rebutting some of the questions my classmates pose.

I think I will keep this short and sweet, and go read some newspapers.

Happy birthday Singapore-- and me

2010-08-09T06:21:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday Singapore! Well done making it through the toughest times, the harshest moments, and becoming a first world country in just 45 years!!! We are small, but we are efficient. I'm proud to be a Singaporean!

Fun fact: Why is 10 August also a holiday?
Because it is Choo Zhan Yi's birthday :)(duh. why would anyone declare 10 Aug a sch holiday for no reason?)

Happy birthday myself!! In an attempt to raise my negative self-esteem, I will be talking more about myself. I celebrated my birthday today instead of tomorrow, and it was just a normal meal outside. I have no need for any presents and have already asked my parents not to get me a present. My father is more than happy not to, but my mother still got me one. My brothers forced me to accept their gifts for me as they wanted a present for their birthdays(Special mention of my youngest brother, who made a birthday card with <5 words on it). I refused when my parents offered to buy a birthday cake. What's the point of all these? I would only celebrate my birthday as if it were a festival when I am at least 65 years old.

I can already feel my gradual maturity. When I was younger, I pestered my mum for the whole day for a cake, then sulked for the whole week if I did not get presents. That was in the past. Now, its all about, examinations, test, ace and recently blogs(Yes, recently). Thanks to myself, I have one more day to wake up late. You know, every student in Singapore should thank me for this holiday. This is a very short post as I need to catch up on some sleep. Will post some more updates about my real birthday tomorrow

10 Aug: My real birthday
Nothing much happened, my brother only remembered to wish me happy birthday at about 11, and I thanked my mother for bringing me to this you(which is a smart move as I will probably get some good stuff to eat during lunch). Next time, instead of my mum getting me a gift, I should give my mum a present. As the chinese say, " A child's birthday is the mother's day of hell" or something like that. My birthday is nothing much, it should be the mother who gets the credit.

The other contributing factor to success

2010-08-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

2nd post in 2 days! Goodbye LA ace. But today I am going to talk about the other less prominent factor to success, besides digging out enough creativity to last you for about 30 years and the willingness to slog it.The other factor is... luck. Sometimes, people are just unlucky. There may be a few talented people who have thought up some brilliant new idea but their boss is currently in a bad mood after a having his divorce and he just skims through the report and dismisses it as " load of crap". Luck and chance can be seen and found everywhere, they may bring good luck or bad luck.

For example: During Adolf Hitler's rise to power, there was a little bit of luck involved as the time he came to prominence was when the worst of the Great Depression was over. If not for that little bit of luck, millions of Jews wouldn't have died(and we would have less to study for history). A few years later, when Hitler took a BIG gamble and remilitarized the Rhineland. Hitler was risking everything he had here. If the French had opposed them in anyway, they were to retreat, which would humiliate Hitler. Of course, as luck would have it, the French decided not to act and Hitler got away with his gamble.

Another example would be in the Merchant of Venice, during the casket test, the Prince of Morroco chose the wrong casket and thus doesn't get Portia as his wife. Again, what if luck had interfered and the Prince chose the lead casket, things would have changed entirely. Although this is a play, but things like these do happen in life.

As luck would have it, I suddenly cannot think of any other points to write so I'll end off here.

Wanted: Creativity

2010-08-06T00:06:00.000-07:00

Its been n+486834 months since I last posted... and I believe that most of my classmates are the same. The reason: No blog prompts. Ms Soh doesn't seem to have given us any blog prompts this term. I had a look at my other classmate's blogs and most of their last posts was based on a prompt or an assignment. I spent 2h searching for the prompts on Ms Soh's website and after finding nothing, I tried to think of a topic to write otherwise I'm going to have negative LA ace. Nothing. My mind was clear, but I just couldn't think of any topics. People like Martin(see his amazing blog here http://www.i-suppose-you-blog-at.blogspot.com/) can compose a poem as easily as blinking. Thus, I think the problem is lack of creativity. I am unable to think up of any new ideas and this is a serious problem as I will never be able to improve myself if I cannot think up plans for improvement(and this is affecting me rather badly when I am writing compositions as "those few scenarios" always come up). The rest of the world moves on while I am stationary.

How do I solve this? Since I lack creativity, I...erm...well... can't think of anything to help me. Looks like I have to GOOGLE this. There was an article about some guy who wrote a book called "The Role Of Creativity In Business" on AUGUST 12, 2006(Sim Zhi Xin's 10th birthday). Of course, creativity is not only limited to businesses.Step 1:I will start by quoting some lines from the article.

"We’re all creative. We all have boundless imaginations. We always have"

"Without creative thinking how will the engineering team discover the next breakthrough product? How will the marketing team break out and stand above a crowded market place"

"we’ve had decades of structured learning that tells us to ignore our creative side and to only focus on the logical"

After looking at these quotes, particularly about the education we are receiving, I feel that they are right. Maybe our educational system is not what is best for us. For example, for comprehensions most of the answers can be obtained from the passage given. There is not much thinking involved, and personal response questions are a minority. Maybe it might help if there were more personal response questions because it encourages more thinking. Another quote from the article "Creativity isn’t a special gift – we’re all born with it. It never leaves, it’s just hiding. Look for ways you can let the two year old inside come out and play". This shows that we need more practice to let the creativity come out of us. But of course, we have to start from a young age because my creativity is already buried very deep inside me and by the time I dig it out I will probably be an old man.

I will end of this short post with another quote because I am not creative enough to think of anything fast and I'm struggling to keep awake

"If everyone has the same view, the same ideas, the same approach, the same results then why are all of us still here?"

Home learning

2010-05-25T16:34:00.001-07:00

Rainbow Death

America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri( an unusual or interesting mixture of things)!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent(having unlimited power; able to do anything) and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously(evil or immoral) America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable(very bad) effects of agent orange spray!

Task 1

"Rainbow Death" talks about modern day ingredient of warfare that has caused appalling death and suffering – not only to its intended victims, the Vietnamese people, but also the service personnel that used or even just came into contact with “Agent Orange”.

"Agent Orange" is the codename of a herbicide and defoliant—contaminated with TCDD(Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin)—used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War.

Coming into contact with "Agent Orange" have resulted in numerous deaths and disabilities, and many children were born with birth defects.

They were other "Agents" too. Agents Purple, Pink, Green, blue and white were also used.

Task 2

POV: The point of view is from a Vietnamese soldier.

Evidence:"Toll on the innocent and unborn" "disregarding who will mourn" "Nefariously America"

Elaboration: During the Vietnam war, America joined the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.It used Agent Orange, a toxic herbicide, which caused many deformities and many babies were born with birth defects. Thus, the poet describes America as "nefarious", which means evil or immoral.

Situation and Setting: After the Vietnam war.

Evidence: "America did not foresee"

Elaboration: The phrase did not foresee shows that it was some time after the Vietnam wart.

Language/Diction: Alliteration

Evidence: "thinking twice"

Elaboration: The "t" sound is similar to spitting. The poet is showing his contempt for the Americans for what they did to generations of Vietnamese people.

Personal response: Even when war is over, the effects of war will linger.

Evidence: "Generations untold WILL pay" "illness, birth defects and prematurely dead"

Elaboration: When people are exposed to agent orange, it will result in death or deformity.The deformed people will then pass down their condition to the next generation of people, and so on.

To Kill A Mockingbird-Questions(2)

2010-03-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

Q:Who would you want to be friends with in the novel? Explain.

I would like to be friends with Miss Maudie Atkinson. She respects everyone, including children,and sees them as slightly less experienced adults,and treats them like one, as seen in "She had never told on us, had never played cat-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested in our private lives", unlike Miss Stephanie Crawford, who is always poking and prying into other people's affairs. I would not like to be treated as a baby, and I do not want my friend to poke in my private life.

Her respect also extends to African Americans. When Aunt Alexandra learns of Tom's death, she was depressed and upset because she thinks that the town people are pushing everything to Atticus. Miss Maudie speaks up for the small group of people, as seen in " The handful of people in this town who say that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for everybody, not just us; the handful of people with enough humility to think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord's kindness am I".

Miss Maudie also uses her sharp tongue to counter meanness rather than to perpetrate it. When Miss Stephanie told Miss Maudie that "she woke up in the middle of the night and found him looking in the window at her", and Miss Maudie retorted with "What did you do, Stephanie, move over in the bed and make room for him?" This joke embarrasses Miss Stephanie into holding her tongue, but this might also show the simple truth that Miss Stephanie knows so much about other people it was akin to her sleeping with them.This shows that Miss Maudie is a no-nonsense person.

Thus, I would like to be a friend of Miss Maudie.

Changes in my blog

2010-02-28T18:33:00.000-08:00

Changes in my blog

1)Last year, my blog is totally black. This year,it has erm.. around 2 to 3 colours, which is definitely better than black(no racism intended).

2)Link list of the whole class. That way, I can access people's blog more easily and I can comment on their posts.

3) Slogan. My slogan motivates me to work harder and of course, follow a plan.

Changes that I want but do not have

1) Not enough followers(I want at least 15)

2) I have to comment more on other peoples post(and I want people to comment on mine)

3) My posts have to be longer.

This post is too short! I am going to post another one after my short break.

To Kill A Mockingbird-Questions

2010-02-28T16:00:00.000-08:00

Q: Conduct an interview with a friend (not from HCI) or family member. Find out from their point of view on prejudice and discrimination. Either record the interview or write out the interview transcript.

(Interviewee: Johnny Kingster)

Me: Hi Johnny!

Johnny: Yo

Me: I am here to conduct an interview about your views on prejudice and discrimination. Could you tell me your views on prejudice and discrimination?

Johnny: Well, I feel that it is very unfair. All human beings are made equal, so there shouldn't be any discrimination. Let me use the racial discrimination in South America in the early 20th century as an example. The blacks were treated as animals, and refused certain privileges and were totally marginalised. There have even been cases of black people being hung because they were rude to white people!

Me: It's outrageous.

Johnny:I agree. I feel that the white people then are really very arrogant. What makes them think that they are superior to black people, and they can ship them back to their country to be slaves? Well, actually, I just had an interesting thought.

Me: Tell us.

Johnny: What if, it was the black people who shipped the whites back to their country as slaves? Would racial prejudice still occur? Will prejudice and discrimination still exist with the black people in charge?

Me: Well, personally I feel that as long as there one party assumes higher status, racial prejudice will still occur.

Johnny: You have a point here. Anyway, I still feel that racial prejudice is very unfair and should be condemned.

Me: Anything else you want to add?

Johnny: Nope.

Me: Thank you for telling me your views. Good bye

Johnny: See ya

Maids

2010-02-26T18:48:00.000-08:00

Hi all! This is Wk 8, and only my second post. CRAP! I blame it on the comprehension passage that talks about procrastination(Just kidding). The passage talks about how procrastination is good, and the last line told us to delay to the last moment possible. This was why I delayed it to the last possible moment. Anyway, I am going to talk about maids today.

A lot of people depend on maids to help them, especially the old aunties who live alone. My family are not excluded either. My mum has so far employed around 5 maids in 8 years, with only one being what my mum called " satisfactory". So now, I often asked myself, what is the problem? Whenever my mum sent the maids back to the agency, the people often told her that she was too kind to the maids. When I reflected on this, this appears to be quite true. My mum have always treated maids very well. They were allowed to sleep at 10, much earlier than me. My mum have increased their pay every 6 months, and during Chinese New Year, we give them a $100 Ang Bao. However, the maids repay us by slacking off, stealing money and all sorts of things. My latest maid, who just got "kicked out", turns out to be from a rich family who has gone bankrupt, and she has no choice but to work as a maid. That explains her lousy attitude.

Talking about maids, this reminds me of the post I read in Martin's blog(http://i-suppose-you-blog-at.blogspot.com/2010/01/pina-my-familys-awesome-maid.html). Well, Martin's family seems to be very fond of their maid and I think that they will not forget about her even if she leaves. That does not seem to be the case for my family. BUT, my mum can't seem to forget our maid. She is always talking about our last maid. "Aiyo, you see, that piece of glass has been there since Chinese New Year. I don't know what that lazy maid has been doing, besides watching TV. Hahaha, lucky we got rid of her." My mum was in such good spirits that after she "got rid" of the maid, she took me to eat at some restaurant with some awesome food.

So, back to the topic. I was wondering, what was the difference between my aunt's maid and ours. My aunt's maid is intelligent, she could cook excellent food, she had common sense, she quietly listened to criticism and tried to improve. Our maid was just the opposite. She was stupid, I mean, she IS stupid, her cooking is lousy, she had no common sense, when criticised, her face was as black as thunder, and after that, she still did things her own way. Last year, I got a lot of unnecessary scoldings from my mum because our maid had put her in a bad temper. You might have noticed, that I did not even mention my maid's name so far. This is a bit childish, I think, but this is my way to show my dislike for the maid.

My mum chose a new maid yesterday, hope she turns out to be much better than the previous one. Maybe I should go to the temple to pray....

First Post since last year

2010-02-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

Hi all, this is my 1st post since last year and er... I have lots of things to share. Firstly, I have just moved house and I FINALLY GET MY OWN ROOM!! Yeah!! 2nd, I was inspired by 2 Sec 4 seniors talking about their MSG and how they plan to make it a reality, and I have come up with my slogan. As you know, there is this quote that says:" If you don't plan, you plan to fail." However, a plan has no use unless you stick to it. So, my slogan is " If you make a plan, stick to it! If you haven't made a plan yet, plan it now!" And that, is what I think is my problem. Last year, I have made lots of plans, but I did not follow it strictly enough.

Typical Scene...

*Flips open book* “x+y=a+b=e+f... I think I need a short break.”

3 hours later...

*Flips open book* “ I feel so refreshed! x=a... I give up on Math. I’m going to study some science.”

So last year was wasted. WASTED. So I’m determined to make good use of my time this year. I have a plan, and I am going to stick to it.

Since it’s a bit late now, I think I better close off. This looks a bit short to me, can someone tell me what's the minimum length requirement for each post???