Sensory Details Writing

By the coast are two negro children playing on the vast beach of white sand happily, their faces showing bright smiles. The sun was shining brightly on them, and there were two rather dark shadows beneath them. The beach had pellets and pellets of pure white sand, it was hot, and soft to be standing on. No litter was around and the two children had their own freedom to do anything they wanted, for there was nobody else other than them, not even animals. The cool gentle breeze by the coast was so comfortable that the negro children enjoyed it alot. There was a small island in the distant, which seems to be enveloped by the clear blue sky. The gentle waves in the clear teal sea produced the faint stir of various different noises.

Prejudication

Prejudication. A very common source for misunderstanding people. I have both been in the company of a group of where I was clearly not included, and also been part of a group of people that were unkind to one or more individuals. However, the most unmemorable event happened last year in my class. I am pretty sure almost everybody in my current class this year, 2I2, are all writing about this too. Not giving out of names, giving out random names as cover for his name. I feel that such an action is more hurting towards him if he actually read our blogs. His name is Xin Cheng. Lin Xin Cheng. I personally feel that the source of prejudication is he himself, but perhaps he was not to be blamed much, and I would slowly tell you why later on.

He, has been sleepy in classes ever since the first term. He seemed like a perfectly normal and fine student, he probably handed up his homework, didn't sleep in classes although he always seemed very sleepy. It probably started right from the start of the year, maybe he was trying his best to cope with it, but then, it probably became obvious from the time where we were briefed on Projects Day. He was among the few who didn't register for a group in Projects Day. He then had not much time to finish his project, whereas everyone else had. He formed a group with Jerry, and they had our form teacher, Mdm Lim as their mentor. Due to the lack of time, they didn't pass the preliminary round like we did. They went to preliminary round two and passed.

Also, he slowly got worse. He began to hand up some homework late, and feel asleep in some classes. He even discussed with some of us, including me, about games. Games like Black Shot and Wolf Team that he played, and also DotA that some of the rest of us play, but not him, and he even joined us in playing DotA. We didn't really expect him to join DotA and in fact, I actually thought that perhaps he could be able to cope with studies like the rest of us did. However, his predicament was pretty bad. He actually failed in the term one IH test whereby most of the rest of us got A1 or A2 for it. He was also pretty much left out, and perhaps, maybe to attract our attention, he claimed he had some sort of "sleeping disease", and also imitated some monsters in Warcraft III (DotA is part of it). Some people liked it, and others thought that he was some freak. Well, personally, I just found it rather amusing.

Also, he was the Welfare Secretary of our class. I guess he didn't do much for that post, he didn't organise CIP activities well, didn't tell our class about CIP activities, and he didn't talk much anymore. Our form teacher made me the Welfare Secretary instead and gave him a special post of Announcer for him to talk more. However, he slowly got worse. He then got late once in a while, and one week, he was actually late for five consecutive days. He had all sorts of excuses, which may be true, for example, he mistook bus 872 for 852, and once, he was actually still sleeping at 8 am when the class chairman Gary called him. Then, later on, he actually didn't come for school at all for quite some time, then he came for school, and then skipped school for the remaining year, from the time during the National Day holidays. Perhaps he didn't come later because he was always mocked at during the times he came back for school.

Everyone assumed he was playing computer games which made him unable to cope with his studies. Maybe that was true. However, later on during PE lessons, the PE teacher asked us what kind of MC he had, because his list stated that he was on long term MC. My class got worse and started spreading that he was skipping school to play computer games, skipping school because he has mental illness, and things like that. I guess everyone was wrong, for soon later I came into contact with him, and he said he was granted permission to stop attending school to prepare for next year's secondary one again. My class was wrong on that point. Nobody probably believes him anyway. I guess i believe that he was indeed given permission to skip school.

As for the excessive gaming part -- I don't think anyone really knows the truth, perhaps he himself knows it. I believe the cause of the prejudication was that he acted like a freak, making wierd sounds, imitating monsters, and things like that. But all this happened because of my class, because we didn't care for him much, because we didn't put ourselves in his shoes, we didn't have the compassion to deal with him in a more civilised manner, we didn't deal with him with empathy. Prejudication. I believe all people need is empathy for others, and the word prejudication probably wouldn't exist in this world.

Edit: I have recently come into contact with him, and according to him, he has gotten full marks for his first Mathematics test, and 93.75% for his second Mathematics test (Not too sure about the second test though, and they are both term one tests, Note: He had once gotten 2.5% for his Mathematics test last year). This is enough proof to say that nobody is stupid, or that nobody can't work hard. Also, yes, I can now confirm that my class's prejudgement about him having played computer games when he wasn't at school was wrong. I am pretty sure the rest of you can think about this slowly, about whether you should have had prejudice against him or not, for those who were in my class last year and had prejudice against him.

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Frost

This poem has left on me a very deep impression for it is the first poem I have ever analysed before. And also, i met with lots of difficulties in analysing it that time, and soon later I had to analyse it a few more times after learning more about the different poetic devices. The first time I analysed this poem, I had no choice but to google for the meaning of this poem because it was considered quite complicated for me. Of course, i started off by reading the definitions by Wikipedia. It claimed that Robert Frost had merely chosen between two different roads that were equally worn out. However, some websites whereby the poems were analysed by the public claimed that Robert Frost was depicting the choice of one's life, whereby he chose to be a bad person and regretted it as he had sighed. Because it was meant to be an assignment and I had to make a choice, I decided that the definition by Wikipedia seemed more logical, and copied its points and paraphrased it a little.


Now, I still think that Wikipedia's definition was correct. This is because the two roads were supposed to be the same, as he was sorry for not being able to try out both roads because he was one person, and that the road had bent in the undergrowth, which meant that even if the roads were different, he couldn't have seen it clearly. I personally feel that he just felt like calling a road "less travelled by" and decided to walk on it, maybe because he felt that the grass there was more hardy and he had to "punish" it by passing through it, and decided he could try the other road another time. However, later he realizes that there will be more diverged roads after this, and that he would never come back to the first two diverged roads again. I believe that his last stanza actually means that he, having labelled a road as "less travelled by", and having passed through it, decided that passing through only one road had made a difference, whereby he has the slight sense of regret for not passing through the other road, and not that he has chosen "the wrong road in life" as some websites have said.

I have learnt from this, the first poem I have ever analysed, and the poem which I have analysed the most number of times, never to judge a poem by its cover, and never to attempt slacking through googling for "answers"; but to analyse it very carefully by myself, to pick out all the important details in it. Most importantly, I have learnt that a poem could be in fact judged from many different viewpoints, and I guess my "definition" is not 100% correct, as much as the other definitions are not 100% correct, but we are after all, all correct over certain points.

Home Learning Lesson for 24th January

By tsaimc | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

By tsaimc | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

The theme of the story is about Singaporeans not sparing thoughts for others. The plot shows a young man getting onto a bus first instead of letting a old man get onto it first, and snatches the only seat available instead of giving it to the old man. The setting is mostly in the bus, and also the places where the old man boarded and alighted from the bus. The characters are, the ill-mannered young man, a helpful young man, the old man, and other commuters. The dialogues tell us more about what is happening in the plot.

A New KWL System for LA

Today is my second LA lesson in my Secondary 2 life. Today, my new LA teacher, Miss Huang, shown us a new system called KWL in which we are to ask ourselves Know: What do I already know about...? and Want: What do I want to know/learn about...? before the lesson and Learn: What have I learnt about...? after the lesson. This system is considered new to me although I have used it before many years ago when I was Primary 3.

In my opinion, I feel that this system has its pros and cons. Its advantages are that it can help students organize what they have learnt easily and increases the efficiency of learning. However, there are its disadvantages too. I personally find it difficult to think about what I want to learn. For example, today we learnt about the word "Prejudice" and were told to make a mindmap to generalize its meanings. But as I did not know much about the word, except for that its meaning is something like "biased", and then there was probably nothing that I could think about that I wanted to learn except for "meaning of the word".

Know: I had knew that the word "Prejudice" means like "biased" or "one-sided".

Want: I want to learn the exact meaning of the word "Prejudice".

Learn: I have learnt that the word "Prejudice" means something like the assumptions people have of others without knowing what they are really like and despise them, bully them, etc. For example, the black people in America.

Below is the mindmap i have done with my group and also some generalisations.

Generalisations

1. Prejudice means to pre-judge someone, or to judge a person before you actually

meet or know the person.

2. Prejudice is caused by discrimination to a certain people different from you.

3. Prejudice can lead to varying results from minor offeances from ignoring, to mass

murder.

4. Rumours can cause stereotypes which will in turn cause prejudice.

5. Prejudice will lead to more prejudice.