LA Essay Final Draft.

Singapore

“Argh! Why do we have to move to Singapore!” Tom said for the 100th time. Tom's Father was transferred to the Singapore branch and offered a pay 3 times his current job there in Australia. It was too good a offer for Tom's father to turn down as his family was barely making ends meet with his current pay. Since he was going to work permanantly in Singapore, he decided to bring the whole family along with him and migrate to Singapore.

Even though Tom could understand his fathers decision, he still stood firmly in his stand of not going to Singapore. He did not want to leave Australia where my friends and relatives were and go to a foreign country without any friends .

“You know the reason very well so you better stop asking!” My mom replied impatiently. Tom knew that there was no room for negotiation and quietly went back into my room. Just as Tom entered his room, the main door of the house was unlocked and in came his father with a happy expression on his face. " We are going to Singapore tomorrow! Look, I even booked the tickets!"

The next morning, Tom bid his relatives and friends goodbye reluctantly. It was the most emotional moment he had in his whole life. He board the plane unwillingly and was soon on the way to Singapore. On the plane, Tom tried to imagine how Singapore was like and concluded that Singapore was a messy and run down small little country as it was very young.
But when Tom and his family reached Singapore, He was extremely surprised to see that a country as young and small as this could be developed into such a beautiful and clean country. It was way better than what he had expected. As they walked out of the airport, there were all amazed by the greenery of Singapore which were only seen in gardens in Australia. It was as if Singapore was a Garden City. The streets were clean and was well planned just like in Australia. As they moved into our new flat, Tom saw many facilities like swimming pool, badminton court, tennis court and so on. Tom started to think that Singapore was not such a bad place after all. The apartment was quite spacious and my room was bigger than before. School would not start will 1 month later anyway. Tom would just have to explore Singapore within this time.

The next day, Tom was forced by my mom to shop within the district and explore around first. There were many new shops that he have never ever seen in my life and it was quite fun roaming around. After 5 hours of continues shopping, Tom started to feel hungry and went around finding some food stall. But after a long search for some ‘normal’ food, Tom still could not find any. Tom decided to buy a plate of chicken rice as it looks edible not like the Laksa which made me tear just by looking at it. The plate of Chicken Rice was so unexpectedly good that he ate 2 servings straight! He wondered why they did not sell this delicacy back in Australia. It would definitely be a hit! Tom spent a good 8 hours going around the neighborhood and familiarize myself with the new environment. He even visited his new school and explore it a bit.

This little trip developed his interest of Singapore a lot. He thought that the food and places of interest in Singapore are a part of Singapore's rich history. He spend the rest of the day searching for more information online about Singapore and found other specialties other than Hainanese Chicken Rice which he ate that afternoon such as the Hokkien Mee and Laksa which he saw while eating at the hawker centre. Tom listed down all the places that he found interesting, all the local food he found very special so that he could visit or eat them during the 1 month holiday.

During the month, Tom visited many places of interest like the Merlion and the Under Water World. He learnt a lot about the history of Singapore during this period where he would go online and research about the origins of the food and the reasons why those landmarks were so important. Tom had a more in-depth understanding of Singapore’s history

During the last week of my holidays before school starts , Tom accidentally bumped into a gang of students of his age when he was shopping for some clothes in 77th Street , a Singapore company selling all kinds of cool stuff. They were kind and friendly and after chatting for a while, Tom discovered that he was attending the same school as them!. They exchanged numbers just before Tom went home so that they could keep in touch. Finally the holidays ended. Before Tom went to bed on the last day of the holidays, he began to wonder if he would be accepted by the rest of the school. I was the only few ‘Ang Mor’ and was different from them. Even though he had made some friends during the holidays, he was still not confident enough.

The next day, when Tom entered my new classroom, he found that to his amazement that most of them looked just as friendly as the ones he saw during his shopping trip. After a few days mixing around with them, Tom gradually felt that he was getting accepted as one of them. Up till now, 10 years after Tom stepped on Singapore soil, he has become a proud Singaporean.

24/2/11 and 25/2/11 stress period

24/2/2011 and 25/2/2011 were the most stressful days of my life. Back in primary school, the maximum tests that we had was only once per day. During this 2 days, we had a total of 4 tests , averaging out to 2 tests a day and it was harder to revise compared to primary school. I had to put in 5-6 times more effort to prepare for the tests. On top of the test, there were the Ace Assignments too. Our Chinese Ace dateline on the coming friday. Last year, 3 newspaper cuttings was worth 5 Ace points but this year, 3 newspaper cuttings are only worth 1 Ace point. Even though I find that our new China Chinese Teacher has too high standards for chinese, he is very generous in giving CIP points and test marks. Maybe this is because his new to the ACE system. I hope the class will give him a chance to get use to the system instead of criticizing him.

LA Blog Post 5 - Character Sketch

For this ACE blog post, I will be writing about Atticus Finch form To Kill A Mockingbird. I decided to do this blog post on Atticus because I feel that he is a very great person who is very honest, polite, persistent, knowledgeable and is not prejudice against the coloured folks. He took up the case of a black man,Tom Robinson, who was accused of raping a white girl because he felt that the black man was innocent. Despite knowing that people would criticize him for defending a black man and that the chances of winning the case is very slim, he still put in his best and fight for the rights of Tom Robinson. Along the case, people insulted him by saying he was a nigger-lover etc. but he still kept his calm and tolerated all the insults. Despite losing the case in the end, he has no regrets because he has already put in his best to fight for what he thought was right.

Neighbourhood photos

The even black and white zebra crossing connecting 2 passageways together.

The bulb in the middle of the zebra crossing brightens up the zebra crossing.

The yellow pillars supporting the passageways.

The white arrow pointing the exit of the to direct cars.




The long zebra crossing with even black and white stripes, spanning from one end of a passageway to another, connects them together.

The small little bulb in the middle of the zebra crossing brightens it up.



The long zebra crossing with even black and white stripes, spanning from one end of a passageway to another, connects them together. The small little bulb shining on the zebra crossing make the white stripes shiny and the black stripes even darker and duller because of the contrast. The place is very mysterious because of the dark background and the only shiny thing is the white stripes, making it very special.

Blog-Writing Prompt #12

I am tired of the workload of our Chinese online lessons which will take me 1-2 hours everytime. On average there will be 2 such lessons that we have to complete. Almost half of the homework is Chinese homework and its killing me. Last year there was very little or almost none Chinese homework. Chinese Ace also became harder to do. Last year, 3 Newspaper cuttings was 3-5 Ace points but now, 3 good and lengthy Newspaper cutting is only worth 1 Ace point. Because of the sudden increase in workload, I normally have to stay until midnight to finish all my homework.

Neighbour Hood Pictures 2

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Neighbout Hood Pictures

Secondary 2 Life

Secondary life has changed alot from Secondary 1 to Secondary 2. In Secondary 1, Kuiran was still in our class, bring joy and laughter to us . There was also no Future School program and no Malay Language classes. Now in Secondary 2, Kuiran had to leave us and return to China and Malay classes took over our fun and interesting music lessons. Computers are essential for our learning such as the 10- minute blog post that we do in almost every LA lesson that can help us reflect on our actions etc. Even though in many ways Secondary 1 life is better than Secondary 2's , I still feel that Secondary 2's life is much better. We have a form teacher from China who teaches interesting stuff in the history of China and helped me learn many new words. Our IH teacher explains clearer and makes lessons more lively compared to our previous teacher. To sum it all up, our teachers have improved and school life is more stressful.

Found Poem

Mrs Dubose was close to a hundred
And she was the meanest old woman who ever lived.
She spent most of each day in bed and the rest in the wheelchair
It was rumored that she kept a CSA pistol

Jem and I hated her
When we passed her porch
We would be raked by her wrathful gaze
But we could do nothing to please her

‘Hey Mrs Dubose’
‘Don’t say hey to me, you ugly girl!’
‘You say good afternoon Mrs Dubose!’
She was vicious

‘Don’t contradict me!’
‘What are you doing in that overalls?’
‘You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady’
‘You’ll grow up waiting on tables if somebody doesn’t change your ways!’

‘Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one in the courthouse lawing for niggers!’
Jem stiffened.
I was terrified.
When she died, Atticus said ‘She was the bravest person I ever knew’

Blog-Writing Prompt #11

I live in a neighbourhood called Choa Chu Kang Cresent. Outside my house is a T shape road which links the road to othr buildings. Behind my building is a very very small playground and kids rarely go there and. In the middle of the neighbourhood is a very big clock , like the clock tower, on a platform higher than normal ground. There are some gym facilities beside the clock and some children would also climb up the tall clock. There is also a basket ball court right beside the clock. It was once a street soccer court but as no one ever goes there to play, they decided to change it to a basketball court ( still no one plays there ). At the corner of my neighbourhood, facing the MRT station is a food court. Whenever I pass by there on the way home, I would buy a bowl of noodle either from the malay store or the fish soap stall.

Review on the video game : Special Force ( Just doing because of my interest )

Well as most of the class know im playing the game called Singapore Special Force a First Person Shooter (FPS) but few wanted to try it. Here I will describe the game both negative and positive points and bit about its history. It is developed by Dragonfly and license by CDC Corperation in China who made into a game which is highly supported by the Korean military. Special Force was launched in Korea in July 2004 and has been the top ranked online game in Korea's Internet cafes for the past year with close to 12% market share in a recent survey by a leading games research company. It has over 11 million registered users and a professional league with 36 teams and the richest prize money for online gaming in Korea. CDC Corperation also published the game in China. Now around the world soldier front is played. Special Force now is played across 30 countries with players exceeding 100 million and there are more than 20 servers around the world. Singapore's and Malaysia's Server is held by DragonFly itself and has a short history of less than a year. Although the game's graphics is one of the worst in the list of the top few fps, but I can ensure that it is more challenging and the gameplay is more fun. As the idiom says, Don't judge a book by its cover. In this case it will be " Don't judge a game by its graphics". We choose a game that is fun, worth spanning our time on and not because the graphics (looks) is nice. It is like choosing a soulmate. No one would choose a soulmate by their looks. I hope people who have time to spare will try this game out and give it a chance. And in SF , guns are permenant, gameplay is realistic, unlike wolfteam, and they provide you with sufficient game money. In Blackshot guns are not permenant and are expensive.

Today's Infocomm Test

Many people feel that the Infocomm test on the programming language , C++, is hard but i do not think so. The logic is simple and it is more or less like maths. The only reason others find it hard is that they would talk among themselves when Mr. Koh is explaining. When people talk on the first lesson, they would not understand the second lesson even if they payed attention as there would be many linkage between the lessons. Due to time constraints, the teacher would also have no time to explain to those people who do not understand. When it reaches such a state, the students would never be able to catch up unless he puts in 10 times to effort to catch up, asking friends or surfing the net for answers.

Blog-Writing Prompt #10

A vivid childhood memory of an event that helped to influence the person i am today was the memories of my stay in an Australia farm. I was about 5-6 years old then and i still remember a little bit about the trip , feeding some animals and I even took a photo with a koala bear in the background. I also took a ride with my aunt(2 years older than me) on the 2 seater horse machine that swings us back and forth. Until now, whenever I am feeling down, I would take out the pictures and admire the scenery and the 1st time i went to Austrilia. Ever since than, I had been with my family to Australia 2 more times and I love the place very much including the koala bears :)

Chinese New Year Celebration

I celebrated chinese new year as usual this year. My father's side is more traditional and we would prepare our own "Yu Sheng" to "lao yu sheng" every year during chinese new year. Everytime this year, my whole family of 40-50++ people would gather over today around the ancient round table that was there since I was born and start tossing the Yu sheng. Loud shouts of " Huat Ah! " , which means prosper, could be heard repeatedly as we begin tossing the Yu Sheng, spilling over the whole table. After the little " ceremony " like usual, we would play a little game called " finding the abalone" every year, in the enormous plate of Yu Sheng, there would only be 1-2 cans of Abalone, making the little " game " difficult and challenging. The whole scene was very chaotic as everyone took a pair of chopsticks and begin snatching for the abalone. I got 2 slices of abalone this year after a good hard work, ransacking every corner of the plate of Yu Sheng. After everyone got a share of Yu Sheng, we would clear the table and prepare for the 2nd course, the steamboat. The whole family only gathered together today and we cherished this time very much.

LA Essay

Singapore

“Argh! Why do we have to move to Singapore!” I said for the 100th time. My Father was transferred to the Singapore branch with a pay 3 times his current job here in Australia. It was too good a offer for my father to turn down. He decided to bring us along with him to migrate to Singapore. I firmly took my stand of not going.I did not want to leave Australia which my friends and relatives were and go to a foreign country where I did not know anyone. “You know the reason very well so stop asking! You have to go and that is that!” My mom replied impatiently. I knew that there was no room for discussion and quietly packed my bag. We were leaving that day on a flight scheduled at 5pm.

I had always thought that Singapore was a undeveloped third world small country. But when we reached Singapore, I was extremely surprised to see that an island as small as this could have such an amazing airport. It was very beautiful and it was very big. It was way better than what I had expected. As I walked out of the airport, I will amazed by the greenery of Singapore which could not be seen in cities in Australia. The streets were clean and was well planned just like in Australia. As we moved into our new flat, I saw many facilities like swimming pool, badminton court, tennis court and so on. I started to think that Singapore was not such a bad place after all. The apartment was quite spacious and my room was bigger than before. School would not start will 1 month later anyway. I would just have to explore Singapore within this time.

The next day, I was forced by my mom to shop within the district and explore around first. There were many new shops that I have never ever seen in my life and it was quite fun roaming around. After 5 hours of continues shopping, I started to feel hungry and went around finding some food stall. But after a long search for some ‘normal’ food, I still could not find any. I decided to buy a plate of chicken rice as it looks edible not like the Laksa which made me tear just by looking at it. The plate of Chicken Rice was so unexpectedly good that I ate 2 servings straight! I wondered why they did not sell this delicacy back in Australia. I spent a good 8 hours going around the neighborhood and familiarize myself with the new environment. I even visited my new school and explore it a bit.

This little trip developed my interest of Singapore a lot. I spend the rest of the day searching for more information about Singapore. I found other specialties other than Hainanese Chicken Rice I ate that afternoon such as the Hokkien Mee and Laksa which I saw while eating at the hawker centre. I listed down all the places I would like to go, all the food I would like to eat and all the things I would like to buy during the 1 month holiday. I visited many places of interest like the Merlion and the Under Water World. I ate almost all the delicacies I could find from a website. The website provides addresses of some of the best hawker centres and even recommendations made by the people! I learnt a lot during this period where I would go online and research about the origins of the food and the reasons why those landmarks were so important. I had a more in-depth understanding of Singapore’s history

During the last week of my holidays before school starts , I accidentally bumbed into a gang of students of my age when I was shopping for some clothes in 77th Street , a Singapore company. They were kind and friendly and after chatting for a while, I discovered that I was attending the same school as them!. Finally the holidays ended. Before I went to bed on the last day of the holidays, I began to wonder if I would be accepted by the rest of the school. I was the only few ‘Ang Mor’ and was different from them. Even though I had made some friends during the holidays, I still was not confident enough.

The next day, when I entered my new classroom, I found that to my amazement that most of them looked friendly. After a few days mixing around with them, I was gradually accepted as one of them and up to now, 10 years after I stepped on Singapore soil, I am still a proud Singaporean.

Blog-Writing Prompt #9

This scene is from my favorite movie Shakugan No Shana. The scene shows Yuji, A normal human who can move inside a fuzetsu ( a void where no normal humans can move in ), getting captured by the Denizens of the Crimson Realm( a group which tries to take over the world). He has a treasure inside him, known as a "Hougu", a device possessing special abilities of sorts, and an extremely powerful and valuable one at that. The hougu inside Yuji allows him to remain in existence rather than fading away like other torches as it supplies him with unlimited power of existence. He is trapped in a a ball of energy which prevents him from moving while the leader of the Denizens of the Crimson Realm steals his memories and the treasure inside him. A group of 3 Flame Hazes,Shana(Flame-Haired Blazing-Eyed Hunter)who has a crush on Yuji, her adopted mother Wilhelmina Carmel(Manipulator of Objects) and a friend of theirs Margery Daw(Chanter of Elegies)

Blog-Writing Prompt #8

My favorite character in To Kill A Mockingbird is Atticus Finch. He is a lawyer and the father of Jeremy Finch and Jean Louise Finch, raising them as a single parent. He felt that a white girl was wrongly accusing a black man for rape and attempted to defend the man. Even though the jury thought that what he said made sense, as the man was a black, he was charged guilty. I feel that he is a righteous person and will fight to the end for a guy who he thinks is guilty even though there was no chance of winning. He is also a good father and raised two very smart and righteous children who supported him all the way through the trail.

Blog-Writing Prompt #7

My favourite fictional character is Shana from the anime series Shakugan no Shana. It is a series of Japanese light novels and related media works written by Japanese novelist Yashichiro Takahashi and illustrated by Noizi Ito centering around Yuji Sakai, an ordinary Japanese high school boy who inadvertently becomes involved in a perpetual war between forces of balance and imbalance in existence. Shana is a main female character of the anime. She is very brave and strong and strive to protect the world and the main male character,Yuji, who has a unlimited source of existence ( something like mana in other games )from falling in the hands of evil who plans to take over the world. In the end, Yuji and Shana fell in love wih each other and the forces of evil was defeated.

All Summer in a Day

The person who should be held responsible was the boy who started the whole thing, bullying Margot and coming up with the idea to lock her up.

I would have stepped out and bravely support Marget, explaining to the rest why was she different compared to the rest. Or at least try to delay time until the teacher arrives, or save Margot after the others have left.