Swine Flu (reflections)

As everyone knows, the world is currently battling a dangerous virus, namely swine flu. It will come to Singapore in a matter of time and hence we must all be prepared for the worst. By the way, according to the newspaper, Singapore already has three suspected cases of swine flu. However, I will not be touching on this very much.

Instead, I would like to discuss about the starting cause of swine flu. It was stated in today's Straits Times that the very first person, Edgar Hernandez, four, who caught the swine flu has just recovered from it after a very torturing journey to regain his health. Now, people around the world are accusing him of spreading the swine flu around a "notoriety that makes his parents anxious". So, is he really the one to be blame for the swine flu becoming a pandemic.

I feel that such a poor child should not be put through such suffering, especially after just recovering from swine flu. Firstly, the flu "is infectious in the 24 hours before any symptoms shows in a the victim." and " victims may not display any symptoms at all". Hence, I feel that someone could have transmitted the germs to Edgar without even knowing that he has contracted the disease. Following, Edgar may have fallen ill and was taken to a doctor, before knowing he has swine flu. While the other person may not display any symptoms, he would not have seen a doctor until his conditions worsen. Therefore, anyone could have made this misunderstanding and accidentally blamed Edgar for spreading the swine flu.

Therefore, no one is to be blamed, but we must take up the responsibility. Please share your views on this issue.

Carelessness

Carelessness leads to all things bad. For example, if you intend to rob a house and you accidentally drop something out of carelessness, you are putting yourself in jail. I'm sure carelessness has affected everyone, if not almost everyone. People right about being unlucky but I'm going to relate a true story about carelessness:



It was a normal Sunday morning and my mother and I decided to visit her mother. To be as efficient as possible, I decided to bring the Animal Farm literature practice along to do at my grandmother's place. So I packed as usual, making sure I brought my pencil case as I had forgotten it the last time round. Pencil case, pencil case, literature, literature. As soon as I arrived, I was greeted with a shock of my life, I did not bring the book, Animal Farm. It was actually no problem as I could find it all on the internet but they were without annotations. Nevermind, when I go home at 5, I will finish up the last question. BUT I had forgotten to bring my foolscap as well! Now I couldn't write as well so I had to write out on a piece of paper and later go home and copy it out. Argh...

As I was heading home, another carless mistake was made by me again. I had left the question paper at my grandmother's place. I was so angry as I was already on the bus. Hence, I had to walk one stop back, cross an overhead bridge and clime another six storeys. Then, I had to walk to the bus stop and wait for another bus, which took an eternity to come. What an careless day!

To be perfectly careful is impossible as no one is perfect, try to be very mindful of what you should do or should bring. I'm sure that if we put in effort, we can avoid carelessness in our everyday life.

Swine Flu

What started off as an insignificant flu has grown into a likely imminent pandemic. The swine virus is a respiratory diease affecting pigs that is caused by type A influenza virus. Each and every country is stepping up its security to contain this deadly virus. Singapore is also tightening border checks, at Changi Airport last night/ today has thermal scanners which screens the arriving passengers to prevent the swine flu from entering Singapore. So far Singapore has no known, or even suspected, cases on this disease but we cannot afford to be complacent as once the virus enters Singapore, we will all be badly affected as Singapore is very dense. This imminent pandemic is not only capable of claiming lives but also will greatly affect the growing economic from last year crisis. Imagine losing money, after the terrible crisis, while you are sick, that wouldn't be pleasant at all.

Please be considerate and if you are sick, please do not comt to school or work as it may spread to so many more people may fall prey to this deadly virus. Please seek medical help immediately if you have influenza like symptoms: running nose, cough, sore throat, high fever or even breathlessness. To prevent yourself from contracting this flu avoid people with flu-like symptoms, avoid crowded areas, wash hands thoroughly with soap as frequently as possible, cough or sneeze into your arms as your hands may come into contact with another thing, which other people may also use.

For fun and trivial facts, a previous flu affected the world whole so badly that half of the world's most populated country died, that is half of China's population died, but of course, it does not only affect the Chinese. Please remember to take care of your health.

Sports meet

Yesterday, 9 out of the 15 Secondary 1 classes went down to the Chua Chu Kang stadium to cheer on for our track and field team. It must be a very grand event for the school as the school has used reading period for cheers practise. As I stepped into the majestic stadium, home of the SAFFC, I saw that the terraces opposite the stadium hanging with banners to support the own school on. We were than 'ushered' to our seats and I felt that at that angle, I could not see all the events at once as there were people blocking my view. We were told that other schools brought drums and pails to support their team. As part of propaganda, it was greatly exaggerated but they did really brought items to the stadium. As soon as the running events started, we were cheering our hearts out for our fellow runners down on the track. We were immersed in our school spirit thoroughly. However, for the 100m, 400m and 1500m we were not so fortunate as we did not manage to clinch the first three places, but I feel that we are cheering for the runner himself and the hard work he put in, not for the sake of winning a medal. As the relay events started, we started to fare slightly better as the runners could feel our spirit lingering in the air of anticipation. It was really tense as the runners were running their lives out back to back with their opponent.

Finally, the most anticipated moment has arrived. Everyone listened carefully with bated breath as the results were being released, the HCI track and field team has done the school proud by clinching the 'B' and the 'C' division champions for the fifth (i think) consecutive year. They have acheived commendable results. However, the students there were not satisfied yet and requested for half-day the next day. I think that the school cares about the welfare of the students very much as half-day will lead the student in liking that school. I hope that our school can continue thinking of the welfare of the students more so more 'cynical' people will start to like the school.

Nothing but the truth (pre-thoughts)

I have read finished the novel from Avi, Nothing but the truth (nbtt). I felt it as a good book as its format in dialogue captures people attention, the order of events are clearly stated and there are several meaningful yet thought-invoking discussion questions at the back of the book. To begin my first post about nbtt, I will pen down several misconceptions that most people have when they have read finished their book.

• Everyone thought Miss Narwin was the one who suspended Philip, but in actual fact she was strongly against it! It was Dr Palleni who did the suspension
• Humming or singing? That's the most important question of all

I am very sure of these two misconceptions when I read the book for its first time. However, I cannot guarentee these are the correct and only misconception as Ms Soh has not gone through it yet. Jake Barlow was not helping the matter much and was biased against Miss Narwin and Miss Steward wasn't any better spreading rumours. So as of now, I feel that Miss Narwin is the victim unless someone else convices me.

Busy

Ever since joining my new school, life had became harder, in terms of amount of homework. However, I had been coping them farely well with enough time to rest before I sleep, which is considerably early. But that is only term 1, now in term 2, workloads are getting heavier and are tougher to complete. Projects are building up on a daily basis. Besides, I have third language twice a week. There is a Chinese common test this week and I have to take the test after my Malay, from 3.30 to 5.30, which will be very exhausting. Malay is also getting harder and harder to cope but I am sure I can persevere for now.

Last week, I had to complete my IS project and a chapter analysis in one night. The IS project was the root of the problem, draining away all my time and the worst thing is that they were useless. I had wasted at least 5 hours! Creating a web page sure is hard. In the end, I did not meet the IS project deadline and missed it by 4 hours. I hope Mr Yong would not be angry as i really had problems doing the project. At least team's chapter analysis passed and I would have to feel even more demoralised. To relief all the stress, I went to the Marina Barrage. It was an interesting dam and I learned how they control the amount of water in the reservoir. If it is raining inland and is low tide in the sea, they would open the gates to allow water to return to the sea to prevent flooding from happening. If it was raining inland and happens to be the high tide, they will pump water into the sea. The walls of the dam are created high enough to prevent water from overflowing. The pumps can pump an Olympic size swimming in one minute. They have a gallery which is very informative about the dam, they even have a live simulation. The Barrage is built for three purposes. To prevent flooding, to purify water and as a lifestyle hub. Wait, the title is busy yet I am talking about relaxing, lets get back on track......

In the past hectic weeks and the coming ' whirlwind weeks', time management is very important. If you are researching and you cannot search for what you want, you will spend a lot of time trying to accomplish the impossible. Therefore, you must be focused at the talk at hand and not to waste time. I also realised that secondary school is not a breeze as no one promised you so. You must be prepared to lose your enjoyment and sleeping time to finish up your projects. As long as you focus on the process, instead of the outcome, you are sure to enjoy amidst your busy schedule.

Friends

I have not blogged in a long time so today I will talk about one of my primary school friend. He is called Derrick but it does not matter at all. We were in the same class during P5 and P6, however, during primary five, I was not very close to him but only when I was primary six then I was closer to him. He is not a very friendly person at first sight but once you know him deeper, you will see that his friendship is very important. Let me describe his funny antics clearly. He loves to spite our former form teacher, he does not pay attention during class and like to make jokes about her, hence he will get sent out off the class 6 out of 10 lessons. When a relief maths teacher relieved our form teacher for a few weeks, he always like to spite her.
"Who has gotten this question wrong?" the teacher asked, and Derrick will raise his hands for every single time she said that until she realised that he was a lousy student. I just do noy understand why he does not like our teacher.
Besides that, he also has pronunciation problem, he reads 'me' as 'meh' and 'no' as 'nor'. We were accusing Derrick when he said,"Who? Meh, meh". It was so funny that me and another guy (seah yi, if you know who is he)laughed all the way from the hall to our classroom. Hitherto, I still do not know if he can speak this words properly. RTA will definitely help him pronounce the words cleary and accurately.
Then there was this 'Cold War' between me and him, sparked off because, I think, because he ate in the canteen while I ate in the classroom and he got very angry with me. He often tried to get me out off the class with rude and obscene gestures, even in front of the teacher, of course the teacher wasn't looking. However, now I am sure he will not do it again as he is mature enough to think.
He always wanted to beat me academically but he wasn't always successful. If he did badly in CA1, he would say that he would try harder in the next term test until PSLE, which I do not know if he is satisfied with his marks but I am sure that Derrick, being a competitive person, would surely like to improve himself in the new environment of secondary school. Hope that you will strive to become the top.
We joined the Infocomm Club together and the training was totally useless. The trainer took 30 minutes just to take attendance and another close to an hour to teach us to how draw a table on Fireworks. Our class often make jokes with each other to spend our time.

Now we keep in contact with each through MSP, we still make the same jokes but the friendship never changes. I hope we will not lose 2 years of friendship so easily and your maturity really help 'overcome' your childishness.

P.S. I know that you will read this post, hope to see your long comment. Thanks for your constant support towards this blog and I will always remember you as a friend throughout my life, at least secondary school.