Earth Hour

The first global election was observed on Saturday from 2030 to 2130. Switch off your lights to vote for a cleaner and greener Earth, leave your lights on to vote for a dirtier and smellier world. This event occurs only once a year for only an hour so I believe that everyone should participate actively in the event. The Earth is suffering because of us, so we should save our Earth since it has provided land for us to develop. Let me share with you my experience on that day.

I was rushing through my dinner as it was almost Eath Hour and I have not bathed yet, but luckily I managed to bath finished in time. However, my grandmother refused to switch off totally as she was watching her drama shows, I do not hold it against her as she may be too inflexible to change. To prevent any further temptation of swithching on any other lights, my relatives and I went out for a walk. I walked around my house and found that 1 in 4 leave their lights on even when they are not doing anything, leaving their porch's lights on. Some even remain their lights just to play a round of mahjong. I found that intolerable as they would rather play mahjong than care about the Earth, by the time they cared, it may be too late already. Above are the pictures of my neighbours's houses who have played their part in saving the Earth and those that did not. Well, the picture on the left is obviously not doing their part and yet there is still no one in the living room. The one on the right actually shoes two houses, one which has left its porch lights on, while the other is totally in complete darkness. (My relatives)My uncle is even resting on the grass looking at the stars. Speaking of stars, I felt that there were more stars in the sky during the Earth Hour. My neighbours were making a big fuss out of it and kept calling her family members to admire the stars, maybe thats the way Earth repays us for our effort. Step forward, save the Earth.

Leaders

Animal Farm, a popular book that is known to many people, has leaders leading the animals. Like the animals, there are many great and good leaders in the world who have changed the fate of their countries and one of them is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi, the great soul who led India to independence and aspired movement for civils rights and freedom around the world.
A great leader is one who is intellectual, has foresight, able to make quick decisions or decisions that have a great impact on the country. He should also think of the people welfare and selfless, and charisma all of which Mahatma Gandhi possess. When India was ruled by the British, they were left in extreme poverty as the British kept on leving a tax on them. This great leader spent time, suffering and money to to help his fellow villages in many ways, for eample, building facilities for them. He managed to gain independence for India without the use of violence but through non-cooperation, non-violence and peaceful resistance as his "weapons" in the struggle against British. Imagine how hard it is to struggle for independence but without the use of war and violnce, I find it an impossible act to carry out.
In conclusion, I feel that Gandhi is a very aspiring person that can commit to what he do. His selflessness, charisma and peacefulness gained independence for India and has inspired many to fight for their own rights without the use of violence.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi

Pre napfa thoughts

When I first saw the smb message that the napfa test was on 26 March, I received a huge shock as my primary scholl always conducted it in August. Well, I do not need to spell it out that i am physically at disadvantage.(what a nice way to say it) I am short, therefore, I will lose out in my weakness, the standing broad jump. I also was born inflexible, which just does not help at all in sit and reach. Arm strength is insufficient to pull myself up so I will be struggling in inclined pull up. I am slowing stunning me in the shuttle run component. Stomach muscles will not be strong enough to get a good score and will be thrasing trying to 'sit up'. I think I have the confidence in sit-up even though I am having difficulties get my target points. Hence, I trained a bit for my 5 items during the holidays. I just do not think I'm sporty enough. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst, although I already forsee that I will do badly. Anyway, good luck for everyone.

March Holidays

The March had ended so fast while it took ages to arrive. With a not-so-eventful holidays I returned to school but I would rather have another week of rest. However, I heard that a school started their week at thursday, with only 3 insufficient daysto rest for 3 months hence we must treasure our time preciously. The only memory that I will remember is our first primary school class gathering at a friend's house. Although only a quarter of the class was invited, we had a whoping time, with the classical game of halo3. There were incidents that sparked old memories and some new ones that will be etched in our memory. We should always treasure friendship and find time to keep in touch with them.

The Lottery

The lottery has a lot of relevance to the society today. By using the themes in the lottery, we can find that the lottery is somewhat related to today. For example, the lottery made a sacrifice, hoping to increase harvest. In the working world, people often speak bad about people to our superior, hoping that they will be promoted. In both cases, human used another person for his/her personal gains.

Secondly, the problem of hypocrisy. When Tessie have not drew the winning ticket, even in the previous years, she did not complain. In fact, she was chatting away with her friends happily. But when she drew her winning ticket, she comlained that " it wasn't fair ". In our modern day society, some company claims to be environmentally-friendly but when I entered the office, the air-conditioner was blasting cold wind while all the lights were swithched on when there were very little staff working.

Thirdly, in the lottery, the people just complied to the meaningless tradition, without asking if they should eliminate it, afraid of being laughed at. We should not comply with what others say, instead we should question it if it is acceptable or not.

Post camp thoughts

Sorry, I could not write my feelings for the camp any earlier and my computer crashed so now I'm using this computer,its spacebar has a problem and therefore, please forgive and words typed together.

1st day

1) Gathered in school and formed our groups, process was slow and noisy.<->
2)Went into our groups and drawed on a piece of paper, this was slow and boring.<->
3)Proceeded to class to retrieve our bags, again slow, noisy and boring.<->
4)Boarded the bus, perhaps the funniest thing I've done today.
5)Arrived there and sat under the blazing sun to wait for the other groups, hot and boring.<->
6)Took my longest lunch ever by sitting down, re-arranging ourselves and sitting down again, taking an hour.<-->
7) Activities next were boring like problem solving.The cooking, no one bothers. And they made us sit on mud.<-->
8)Song session was lame, singing childish songs.<->
9)Cancelled the BMT, which is fun, to cheer.
End of day 1 with a <-9> scoring.

2nd day

1)Area cleaning, there were not enough jobs and some people had nothing to do. The people working were just wetting the floor.<->
2)Fun fitness games was probably the best thing in the camp.<+++>
3)Team building is plain boring.<->
4)Rafting, only three people could raft, which means those who were not rafting had nothing to do.<->
5)Sarimbun challenge wasn't a challenge, quite simple and easy and worst still it rained, but it was slightly fun.<+>
6)Campfire was lousy. It was made from a make-shift one instead and the I couldn't hear what the perfomers said.<->
7)Just 10 seconds after I went back to the tent, they were scolding me for coming out to late.<->
End of day 2 with a <-1> scoring. Improving...haha

3rd day

1) Clean places where we did not live in, boring and hot.<-->
2)We were only supposed to clean the area but had to strike down tents too.<-->
3)Prize presentation wasn't any better.
End of day 3 with a <-4>scoring.
End of camp with a <-14> scoring.

It was boring throughout the camp and the most memorable moment was when we boarded the bus back.

Pre-camp thoughts

I think almost everyone in this class is going for this camp, i persoally not looking forward to it but not dreading it either. The camp has certain facilities like a rock wall, archery range, high elements, fling fox, a lake (not nice), huts, dorms, mess hall and a gathering point. Not too big at all. Haha, I've been to the camp before and it is not as nice looking as it seems. Here's why:
1. The ground is not paved or tiled to become a pavement (and i don't think it will be) so if it rains, the ground will be very muddy and there will be brownish pools of water everywhere so watch where you walk so your shoes will not be covered in mud.
2. No proper sleeping hours and no naps (i don't take naps). You may be used to sleeping late and waking up early but first you must understand that the environment there and your house is a world apart, no fans/air-con,+mosquitoes, the coil some times doesn't work. You sleep at 11 and wake up at 6, after a whole tiring day may seem a bit short, though.
3. The toilets. Its crazy. Its smelly. Its muddy. Can you imagining bathing there? Your shoe is dirty and you step into the toilet and naturally the toilet becomes muddy. Then, you have to take out your shoes to shower and your legs get dirty. Hence, the toilet will reek of mud. And since 500 people have to bath in a mere 40 minutes with 10 cubicles and an open area shower with 9 shower heads. Even if they bath at 5 minutes per student, you will need to have 85 minutes. So, to keepin time you need to bath only 1.5minutes per student.
Thats all I will say for now as I do not which to damper excited people feelings. Although I stop there, that doesn't mean I don't have any more to say. However, we will need not study so we can at least rest our brains for a few days.

Reflections for changi beach clean-up

This is very irritating. I accidentally deleted this post, which cannot be retrieved forever. Now, I will try to type exactly the same thing i typed 3 days ago.
Why do we have to wake up at 6 in the morning to rush down to school just to do something so boring like a beach clean-up, well it is because we have to play a role in serving the community. Some people who are lazy would say that they are too young to serve the community, when they grow older, they can become a world class singer/actor/doctor/lawyer/engineer... and singapore would become even more popular but why look so far into the unsure future and start focusing what we can do now instead of procrastinating.Others may argue that what is the use of a beach cleaning? Well, singapore is interested in attracting more tourists to flock to singapore for a holiday. Hence, by cleaning our beaches we have a more presentable image for the tourists and this may attract the tourist to come back again in the near future. See, such a small action from the heart can make such an impact. Remember CIP is not about the amount of time you put in but is the amount of effort you put in. So why not help in the community right now, right here.

I hope i remembered it correctly.

The Singapore culture

As I was taking 151 home today, I saw four schoolgirls boarded the bus and at this moment of time the bus was pretty empty with many seats available. The girls then proceeded to the seats at the front of the bus and after putting down their bags on the other seats saw down at chit-chatted. Their bags actually occupied 5 seats! Thats more than the amount of seats they are sitting on. A boy from another school also did the same thing but was biting his nails and shaking his legs. After changing to 153, there were a lot of people,(not including me), doing the same exact thing. But is doing this considered an inconsiderate behaviour. I personally feel it is fine as long as there are other seats available, but not if there are less than 5. It can provide comfort for the person yet does not cause inconvinence to other people, but yet other people feel it is morally wrong. But thing changes when there is a disabled or senior citizen who need the front seats as it is more convenient to alight, we should let the space to them if we know that this is the case. What do you feel？