Some things that REALLY irritates me

Yeah, crazy homework, crazy studies, crazy parents, crazy teachers can really get on my nerves sometimes. But what really irritates me the most was when someone asks something that you have already answered before.

Just an example:

Son: I just wrote an email to our form teacher to say that my friend and me will not be going to school tomorrow.

Mother: Did you include your friends name in your email? I heard that he will not be going to school tomorrow too.

Well, that is EXACTLY what happened to me today. Just that I tweaked the events a bit in the example. The example is just a short extract of the events. The whole conversation you will find out that the Son have been answering the exact same question over and over, although the way the question is phrased may be different. Obviously I got mad at my mum and I shouted, immediately regretting it later.

What does this kind of conversation show? It can show two things, the mother is only concerned about what she is trying is to put forward and did not know the son is actually trying to clear her doubts. The next thing is that the mother does not trust the son, hence repeatedly asking the question to assure herself that the son is telling the truth.

In my opinion, the second option is absurd, because in the example above, you cant say the mother could not trust the son in adding his friend's name in the email. Hence, I take the first option.

This kind of attitude is definitely flawed. Listening is the key to understanding and preventing misconceptions. You have your time later to put forward you point or your question. Listen to what the other guy is talking about and it will definitely prevent misconception. People with this kind of attitude can be deemed to be selfish, only caring about their own points, their own thoughts.

Unfortunately, I have noticed that this kind of attitude is quite common among people. People tend to think they are always right and others are always wrong, is this human nature? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. It leaves you to decide.

I am feeling really sleepy after the long fight with my mum. Today's post shall be a short one. Goodbye.

Some thoughts on Hwa Chong's new education system

Okay, I shall just give an overview of the current system. Apart from academic studies, there is still the scholastic part, which worries the cohort the most. Because, if you get B3(65) or below for independent studies( ace + projects), you will not be promoted to sec 3.

Take a typical sec 2. He did not make it to the finals for projects day. For passing prelims, he gets 5 marks. Semifinals is a total of 30 marks. HOWEVER, if he did not pass in to finals the capped marks is NOT 35, it is 25. This is because those people who get 21 or above for semi-finals make it to the finals. So, in other words, it is impossible to get full marks for semi finals and still dont make it to the finals.

In this case, lets take it he gets 20 for semifinals, adding the 5 marks form prelims, total 25marks. Now, doing a little math, you will know that he needs to get at least 40 for his ace to get promoted. This is still possible to get promoted.

However, 1/4 of the whole cohort only gets around 16 for semifinals. In this case, adding the 5 marks from prelims will get them 21 marks. They need to get 44 for ace to get promoted. Losing 6 marks for ace is not difficult. Considering we have our studies to focus on, CCAs until 7pm for 3 out of 5 working days, and on those days reaching home at 8pm. To get enough sleep one needs to sleep for at least 7 hrs. Lets say students have to get up at around 6am, then he will have to sleep at 10pm. 2 hours for homework, ace, dinner, entertainment.

You cant possibly leave out entertainment, without entertainment, life is seriously meaningless. And by entertainment I mean family bonding too. However, 1 hr spent on entertainment should be enough.

Getting back to the topic. For the 3 days of CCAs, total makes it 6 hrs of home-life. For normal days, lets say students reach home at 3. 7 hours for homework, ace, other school related preparations, necessities, Entertainment. 2 days for free days per week. 14 hrs + 6 hrs. That leaves in 20 hrs for homework, ace, necessities, in other words, lesser than 1 day. Plus saturday and sunday, make it another 20 hours for studying and school related stuff.

That leaves it around 2 days to complete 1 week of work. Having so much stuff to work on, and thats excluding random activities that may pop up and CIP hours, how is it possible for a student to lead a healthy life?

The Hwa Chong syllabus is already much faster than normal schools, we still have to deal to two extra subjects, independent studies and oral communication. How is it possible? The math I have done is already assuming people as robots, people will tend to forget, procrastinate(even if it is just for a few hours, it matters a lot in this kind of schedule). And when you do not get promoted, you go to the O level class. Thats equal to getting mocked by the whole school. It is not simply getting transfered to another class.

I suggest that we could tweak the system a bit. Instead of stating the criteria as C5 for oral and B3 for independent studies. Why not just let it be 3.0 for overall msg? This will work so much more better.

I hope someone considers.

Songs.

I was thinking about the different genre of songs and how people often comment on how disgusting a song or a typical genre of song can be. So what exactly is disgusting about these songs? I typically prefer those quite, peaceful songs. Some pop or rap ones are nice too. I also seem to have a particular fondness of chinese songs.

I guess why some people hate a certain song genre is because they do not truly understand the genre and do not know how to appreciate what that is special. I could not understand why people even like rock and pop songs before, to me, they are just random beats and "noise", there is not much melody in it. However, I realised that my definition of music was wrong. Music is something that evokes emotions in us, any kind of emotion. My definition was something that calms you down. I have since learnt to appreciate pop and rock music.

Different pop or rock songs have their special rhythm, something that evokes excitement, something that makes you actually reflect on the lyrics. Different artists also have their own special voice tone, something that everyone can appreciate. I can feel what the singer is trying to convey his/her emotions to us just by listening to his/her music.

Rap music are special in their own way too. Rap music also has interesting rhythm, however it has another type of property, it is articulation. Articulation is rather hard to achieve, since rap music are often fast and rapid. Breaths have to be taken in fast. Listening to certain rap music sometimes motivates me to compete a task. The feeling just could not be decribed in words.

Now onto the type of music that I specially like. You can say it is country music. Song artists like 苏见信，许嵩，周杰伦 are my favorites. The special effects they have in their songs are intriguing. Some of their songs actually make my tears flow. I think this is exactly what differentiates a good song artist from an average song artist. Their songs have great melody with deep meanings that could apply to everyone. It is a lesson learnt to every song you listen to.

People's tastes and likes cannot be changed or controlled. But I that by gaining a better understanding of a certain genre could help a lot.

Steps Analysis

Rainbow Death

Point of View: The speaker of the poem is the poet himself
Evidence/Elaboration: The author shows what he think of the Vietnam War, and criticizes it. This can be seem from the first line" America did not foresee" which appears that the author is blaming America. The speaker also cannot be one of the soldiers because from " Toll on the innocent and unborn" we can see that the poet is showing sympathy to the soldiers and not complaining himself.

Situation and setting: The situation and setting of the poem could be in a battlefield, with the poet as one of the soldiers. He could be fighting and the poem could be a thought in his mind, blaming America and showing his own opinions of this "Agent Orange".

Language and diction: The poet purposedly capitalised the WILL in "generations untold WILL pay". This is to emphasize on the horrible results when exposed to "agent orange" and how not only the soldier himself will suffer but his future generations will suffer too. The first stanza shows how mistaken America is, they wanted others to pay a high price, however, instead it was a toll on the unborn and innocent too. The second stanza talks about the effects of "agent orange", by using phrases like "deceit continues to spread", shows the vast majority of people who are affected.

In conclusion, this simple poem vividly captures the scenes of how horrible it is to be exposed to "Agent Orange". The poet is able to use rainbow, a pleasant object to contrast with the horrible reality of it.

Rainbow death

Here is 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!

Hubert Wilson
____________________________________________________________________

It is a small poem that talks about how warfare has caused death and suffering to victims like the Vietnamese people and also service personnels that came into contact with "Agent Orange".

Agent orange is the codename for a herbicide and defoliant that is contaminated with TCDD used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal program during Vietnam war.

Close to 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to "Agent Orange" and this results in 400,000 deaths and disabilities. There were also 500,000 children thereafter born with birth defects.

"This poem reminds us that wars aren't over when the wars are over." I find this quote rather interesting. What I think it means is that when all the wars are over in the world, but in a particular country, the war still is not over.

The poet Hubert Wilson is a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF security service. He himself was exposed to this "Agent Orange" before and suffered which is what inspired him to write this poem.

Sources: Wikipedia and http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2010warpoetry.html#Rainbow

Naturalist(TKAM homelearning)

Yeah, Just to state my point, I HATE BLOGGING. okays, screaming over, back to work.


Anyway, here are some information i got from wikipedia about mockingbirds(yeah, wikipedia ftw!!!)

They are called mockingbirds basically because they have the habit of mimicking the sounds made by other animals, regardless of whether it is birds, mammals or amphibians.

Disclaimer: The following arent from wikipedia anymore

Mockingbirds live from southern Oregon through northern Utah to Newfoundland and south to Mexico and the West Indies. Mockingbirds require open grassy areas for their feeding, thick, thorny shrubs for hiding the nest and high perches where the male can sing and defend his territory. Gardens are among its favorite dwelling places especially if winter berries are available.

I guess Maycomb has lots of open grassy areas for the mockingbirds to feed. It may also have thick and thorny shrubs for hiding the nest and high perches where the males can sing and defend his territory. The may also be many gardens in the houses of the people living in it, where mockingbirds will dwell there since it is their favorite places. Plenty of winter berries could be available in the gardens in maycomb to attract the mockingbirds. Well thats a lot of reasons why mockingbirds want to live in maycomb.

Learning Profile

Heres my learning profile... yep, i have no idea how to paste it here so i used the printkey method...

Anyways, I realised i am quite good in the musical area. I have a love of music since i am young. I can pitch notes exactly as long as you give me the first note and i can pitch whatever note you give me after that. It seems to be a gift of me. I realised i am also quite good in the intrapersonal part... which I have NO idea why. Well i guess it is because i know what i am weak in always( just that sometimes im too lazy to go improve :P), and what i am good in, such as the musical area. i also understand most of my feelings, except for some really complicated ones such as feeling sad although i got a A1 for any subject, perhaps it is because it is not up to my expectations? I dont know. I totally stink in using words i realise... Well, seems like I cant construct a poem then... and dont be surprised if there are wrong uses od vocabulary in this post and other posts onwards. And "CRAP", my EQ rots... guess i have to socialise more and make more friends.. ok, thats all i have to say, BACK TO CHINESE ACE....