Significant post 1: CNY party @ HCI

On the 27th of February, a Chinese New Year party was held at our school. The celebration is specially for students from HCI who are not citizens of Singapore or living at Singapore, which means they live in HCI boarding school. I am one of them who are unable to go home that time to celebrate Chinese New Year with friends and family. On that day, we sec2 Malaysians were required to sing the Chinese New Year songs; they are '大地回春' and '恭喜恭喜'.

Before that I tried very hard to memorise the lyrics for the songs, and at last I successfully memorised them. I have been to this party before last year, but the only thing special is that I am able to perform, which was singing the Chinese songs. I am able to experience the feeling of performers behind the stage, feeling nervous, while the audience are watching the performance happily. This is my first time being the performer.

The party starts at 10:00 am, but we performers have to arrive at 8:00 am to prepare everything and do the last rehearsal to ensure a good show. There are audiences from many different countries, they are students from Malaysia, China, Vietnam and Indonesia. Most of them stay in the boarding school, but because the others are PR of Singapore, they do not stay in the boarding school.

There are a lot of fun and interesting performances such as wushu, dances, drama, lucky draws, singing of the Chinese New Year song and quizzes on the history of CNY. There were also lucky draw where you can win hampers back home with a lot of finger food inside. There were also fun games where you win prizes home. The students from China had a great advantage because they know the most about Chinese New Year among all, and they celebrate it traditionally. There are groups divided according to the arrangements of seats. We received an ang pao from a teacher after our performance.

After the performance, it is not the end of the story. There was still buffet lunch for us. But before that, we did the traditional Chinese ritual to wish for something to come true, which is '捞鱼生'. It is believed that the higher you lift the stuff in it, the higher the chance of your wish coming true. It is nice as there are raw salmons which I always aim for. After that only we can have out delicious buffet meal.

I think this time I am able to fully know the feelings of being the audience and the performer at the party which I think is meaningful as I get to appreciate the performers as they worked very hard to go on stage. I hope there will be another CNY party next year.

Is Maycomb a good place to live?

Naturalist:
a. Do a research on the natural habitat of mockingbird. In your research, include the kind of flora and fauna you think exist in Maycomb and explain why the mockingbirds live in Maycomb.

Mockingbirds are renowned for their ability to mimic the songs of other songbirds. They serenade the neighbourhood for hours in the spring and summer, often at night by the light of a full moon or nearby street light, probably because of the hormonal changes that accompany mating and nesting during this time.

Originally natives of open scrub pine and oak forests of the West and Southeast, mockingbirds have edged northward over the last 30 years. They developed an affinity for mowed lawns and ornamental shrubs that offer them insects and berries they love to eat. They are very comfortable around people. They are not harmful at all as they only sing songs. The Mockingbird is the state bird of Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. Mockingbirds will live 4 to 12 years.

They are about 11 inches long -- the size of a robin but a bit thinner. Both sexes look alike. They are soft gray with paler breasts, marked with white wing bars and outer tail feathers. White patches under their wings are visible when they fly. They have long, thin beaks and long perky tails.

Mockingbirds love just about any fruiting shrub or tree, many of which you are likely to have in your yard already. Honeysuckle, a hedge of privet, dogwood, cherry trees and eleagnus are staples of many home landscapes. Cats, dogs, squirrels, other birds and wildlife are always harassed by the mockingbirds to protect its territory.

Five personality traits that describe Boo Radley would be innocent, protective, courageous, scary, and clever.

Boo Radley is quite innocent with the fact that he never steps outside the doors of his house in Maycomb County. He is protective because as the novel progresses, we see how he helps Scout and Jem throughout numerous events that transpire. He is courageous because he knows that if people saw him leave his house they would be all over him; interested to see him. He is scary and somewhat mysterious because no one has seen him for quite some time now. Various rumours about Boo and his life have spread throughout the novel. And lastly, Boo although he is not seen much, is quite clever with the fact that he leaves little objects inside the hole of the tree for Jem and Scout. It seems as though he plans what items he will leave-- however, once his brother patches up the hole, the objects then stop. However, that does not stop Boo from helping/gaining two friendships with Jem and Scout.

Interpersonal:
a. 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.

Interviewer (W.M): How would you like to start expressing your opinion?

Interviewee (I.V.): I would like to start with the family. Sibling rivalry normally begins with the feeling of prejudice and discrimination from the child who is not being favoured. The parent should try not to make it so obvious in giving special treatments or privileges. Any such extra benefits should be explained patiently to all children.

WM: What other things do you want to add?

IV: Oh yes, if step-parents are involved, the situation may become disharmonious and there may even be fighting among step-children,

WM: What about in the school environment?

IV: It is to be expected that a student from a minority race would face prejudicial behavior from other students, at least initially.

WM: Do you think this is a certainty?

IV: Well, I know for sure that a Malaysian student in another school was picked upon by the rest because he was one of only two Malaysians in the whole class.

WM: What has happened to him?

IV: There is a happy ending in his case. Somehow, he learned how to interact with other students and even caught on fine with a lot of his seniors. Those seniors even helped him to do some of his assignments and prepare for some of his tests.

WM: Is that all you have you say about schools? Besides the racial bias, what other points can you think of?

IV: I feel sometimes prejudice and discrimination can take the form of bullying an intimidation. This is not necessary on the racial basis but more likely on size and number of friends. Those who are bigger size and have a lot of friends are normally safe.

WM: Do you want to say anything about working people i.e. adults?

IV: Whenever I think of working life, I always remember what my mum has told me before. She said that practically all females have to work extra hard to gain promotions or to achieve success. She said that it is well known throughout the world that prejudice and discrimination against working female are the norm.

WM: What is the conclusion as to your previous answer and overall summary?

IV: Well, I don’t really know how the working environment is but I can say for sure that in most families and in schools prejudice and discrimination exist one way or the other.

Multiple Intelligence Test

Today, I did the Multiple Intelligence Test. It consists of many questions which ask about your interest on something. I think this kind of quiz will make one feel bored and start to simply select answers, and the result will turn out to be different as what it should be. After this quiz, I get to know more about me as the quiz mostly ask about a characteristic, and you will choose whether you are or are not like this. In conclusion, I think this quiz is quite important as it is essential to know yourself more than others do.

February: Short yet busy

Not long ago, I last posted a post here which was on middle of January. Now, it is already February, eight more months to 'Great' holiday. This is a short month, with 4 Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Only twenty days of school which I did not count the holidays in this month. But yet, the pro test system in our school made our tests cramped up in ONLY February, in <20>20 days become 40 days (psychologically). Here are some solutions on how to "face" tests, like this student's answer on a maths test (left & right pic), what a "good" way to cope with busy environments like we have.
This year's history subject is quite interesting, it's all about the events that happened in the world during world war time. People lived in poor conditions, but we do not learn this in this year, we learn about how and why world war started. It was mostly Germany's fault, which is what I learnt during lesson. But it is all the countries fault for being so greedy in wanting to dominate the worlds and cause world war, if not, we students will not be mugging for any history stuff.
I have said enough before getting despised by everyone (except students), hope this coming tests will not be so difficult, if not, I will start to be nerdy, like this guy! (No offence, he looks nerdy to me)

New syllabus, new schedule

I am not quite used to the condition in Secondary two. From teachers to assignments, and from assignments to schedule. Our schedule is very full, a new schedule system is created with thirty minutes as one period. There are especially more lessons and enrichments for scholars as we have to strengthen our English basics, maintain our Malay standards and enhance our Chinese standard to be even better.
This year, we have an extra subject called thinking. I think this subject is to replace our art lessons which we missed very much. We were told to draw a mind map in our first lesson, which I think it was not interesting.
Of course, the first picture on the right is surely not my mind map (mine is black and white and not attractive), but I am trying to show how a mind map looks like. If I put my work here, it will destroy the fun part of drawing a mind map.
Our second lesson was fun, we were given small papers and we had to label it under different words, and as we flipped over, we saw a message for us. The message given to us was said by the teacher to be right. I hope that I can have fun lessons for the rest of my thinking lessons.

Significant post 2: New year, new syllabus

It was already one week after the start of school. We all have many new syllabus which gave us stress but some subjects are quite fun. The subject I feared the most is English Literature.
We had read and been tested on Village By The Sea by Anita Desai during secondary one. I can still remember that it was about a dysfunctional family, with Hari and Lila, the eldest boy and girl in the family, replacing the role of their parents. The father was a drunkard after being jobless and the mother was always ill and needed constant care and nursing. After many thicks and thins, they eventually earned some money and the father had turned over a new leaf as he stopped drinking. On the other hand, the mother had also recovered from her long-term illness and both the parents had taken up their role as parents again.
However, this time our secondary two English Literature is on To Kill A Mockingbird. This book is far more difficult to read compared to Village By The Sea. The words are small and there are about 287 pages altogether, I could only cope with the story with the help of some of the To Kill A Mokingbird summaries in the Internet.
Besides, we also have Emily Of The Emerald Hill. It is a small book and it is quite interesting, but it is only tested in the second-half of the year while To Kill A Mockingbird is tested in the first-half of the year. It is very tough for us. All these three books actually can't compare with the storybooks that I read in free times. They are really much more boring and dull than my personal books, I wonder why they are also award-winning books which I think that it is because of the content that are very much alike as the situation in the past and present society. But for lower secondary students like me, I don't think we can appreciate these books. In fact, we like books that are more in the illogical and funny. But no matter what, I can only comment and we all must study for result's sake anyway.

A new year: 2010

It has been a long time since the last time I post my latest post. After my secondary one end-of-year examination, I had forgotten about my blog and every thing in school. It was my happiest moment in my life.

Now that school has started, I have to resume everything and continue this blog. I had a bad start, for I was ill just three days before school starts. I was admitted for five days and I missed school for two days.
The year 2010 is a new year, nobody knows about things that are going to happen in the future. But there is an event that interest me this year, which is the South Africa Fifa World Cup. I support Brazil, the country which has the most World Cup trophies in all these years.
Last but not least, I wish to have a better result in my studies in school and not be as bad as my result in the previous year. I hope to do well in my both sports and academic in this year.