The Road Not Taken (Personal thoughts)

I feel that this poem is about the choice we have to made in life. It is described as a journey that we would need to take after the choice of our decision. We would have to walk on with our decision and there will be no turning back. It seems that such a decision would be a crucial one in life such as education, marriage or even family, which needs crucial decision before heading down the journey. The journey would be like consequences faced after choosing the road that you wished to walk on. This poem is quite meaningful to me as it teaches me about the importance of thinking before choosing the right path to go. Both path may look the same but the consequences that we faced differs. It may be a journey to success with many hardship or one which has less hardship but leads you no where in life. Thus, this poem teaches me to consider how do I want to walk my life on.

Recount- Make someone happy but forced to make a sacrifice

Staring at the mountain on my desk, it just laze me from going over to my desk, it is such a fine and sunny morning but my feelings are totally opposite. Gloomy, I have to say. Still, I dragged myself to the desk and started doing the worksheets of end-of-year examination paper one by one, subject by subject. I was nearly suffocating in the loads of worksheets till my sisters bulged the door, ringing my room with her high-pitched voice. "It is time for breakfast and then to some shopping in Vivo City", I said sister said cheerfully. Turning around and looking at her with the helpless look on my face, I gave a reluctant expression just as my father came to rush me too. I explained to my father that I am studying for PSLE and could not go out with them.

His face colour totally changed as I finished my last word. He shook his head and mumbled, "I have such a luck to be free on Saturdays and you tell me that you need to do your work, seems like you have grown up, do not want to care about us anymore..." He continued his hurting persuasions as he moved towards the doorsteps. He just could not understand that preparation for this examination is very important and he thinks that I am using this as an excuse to not go out with them. My heart sank to the bottom of the sea, cold and hardened.

I was walking back and forth of my room, frustrating over this situation, thinking to go out with my family or to reject them and stay at home to study. If I reject them, they will be sad and they will think I am using studying as an excuse, but if I go out with them, I will have to sacrifice my study time for the entire day which may cause a big change in my PSLE score and my admission to secondary school. So how should I choose? To go or not to go? As I was thinking, I could hear my footsteps getting louder and faster even second, finally, I made a final decision. I shall go out with them and give up my study time instead. Why? A very simple reason, I just wanted my parents to feel happy as they have been waiting for such a long time for a chance to go out for breakfast and a day together, how could I destroy such an occasion just by my studying?

I changed out of my home clothes and wore a natty outfit and off we go to Vivo City.  

Should character development place more emphasis than academic excellence

I feel that character development should place more emphasis than academic excellence. Without character development, a student would not have the right attitude to learn and study. Also, intelligence without morality could also result in bad situations to occur. However, academic excellence is also important as it has gain many opportunities in life.

When a student does not have character development, he would not have the right attitude to study and learn. A student with better brain but no character development will definitely think that he is very superior and whatever things taught by the teacher is redundant due to his complacency. Thus, he would not pay attention in class and start disturbing other classmate that wants to learn since he thinks that he knows everything. These students might also mocked at other students that are not doing well and hurt them emotionally. Such attitudes and actions are ridiculous but teachers would not care about them since whatever they want is their academic excellence and nothing else. This would have a hazardous result on the up-bringing of the weaker students as they are being laugh at by such despicable students everyday which will cause negative effects on the mental health of students. Thus, character development is of utmost importance to maintain a person's attitudes towards learning and studying.

Without character development, intelligence might not be good after all. A person has intelligence but no morality would bring adverse effects to the society. Just like what happened to the Jews that were imprisoned. The scientists and doctors are very intelligent but they decided to do experiments on the hated Jews where they start slicing their bodies and obtaining their intestines to do further research. They killed the Jew on the spot by such acts due to their immorality towards people. Another example will be Osama bin Laden. He is very smart at construct bombs but he decided to use his intelligence to wipe out human race. He started to be a terrorist and start bombing countries and killing thousands of people. Thus, talented is good, but without character development, it is very easy to go on the wrong road.

However, academic excellence is also important as it helped us gain many opportunities in life. With academic excellence, we could further pursue our dream of becoming somebody in the future. With academic excellence, you will be given more opportunities in the society as employment will mainly look at your academic excellence. But, academic excellence could only bring to you opportunities more easily than others, but character development is what is required after the opportunity is given to you. If bosses see that you are someone without integrity, someone that is lazy and do not do work, they will also fire you due to negligence to your work.

In conclusion, character development should be placed more emphasis on than academic excellence as character development is the one that chooses how your intelligence is going to help you or not.    

My ideal school

The ideal school that I want could have clean and beautiful environment as a background of the school, the students and teachers are also caring towards each other. Last but not least, the timetable come up by the school must have a balance between studies and relaxation.

An ideal school must have a clean and beautiful environment so that students feels like their at home. The land around the school is decorated with plants, flowers and trees and the concrete floors along the corridors should be rubbish and litter free. In the middle of the school, we could have a small “playground” with ponds and swings for students to take a rest from studying in school. An eco-garden could be set up so that students could learn how to conserve the greenery around them and preserve what they have now. With such beautiful environment, it helps to mitigate the stress level in school as they study. Therefore, a clean and beautiful and environment could aid a person in studying as the tense atmosphere is broken apart part the greenery.

An ideal school must also have caring teachers and students. Teachers that are caring will be well-liked by students and they would naturally obey and follow instructions of teachers. Teachers could have little talks with students that are outside of academic so that they develop some bonding in them. Teachers could also try to talk things out during misunderstandings and helped out those students that are troubled. Teachers should also reprimand students when they are wrong but explain to them why and what they are wrong at. With such caring teachers, students will be able to grow and learn in a wonderful environment. Students must also be caring towards each other so that friendship would be tightened among the school. Students can help each other when they need help, accept all different races of people and understand their culture, last but not least, students should not scold coarse language and hurt others’ feelings. In such a school with students of such character, this school will be peaceful and bonded. Therefore, a school with caring students and teachers would be best for students’ holistic development in academics and morality education.

Lastly, a balanced timetable between academics and relaxation is utmost important in my ideal school. The students are not forced so hard to excel in every subject by giving them tons and loads of test papers, but instead, identify their interest and pursue them. They are given more hands-on activities so that both theory and practical could be taught together which saves out a lot of time for them learning a particular topic. Relaxation could be in a form of sports, recess and CCA activities. Every week, school set aside 2 days for PE and 2 days for CCA activities and a recess as long as 40 mins. When a student goes through such a timetable, they would not find that school life is boring with just academics but also other aspects such as sports and fun. Thus, a balanced timetable is utmost importance for the student’s interest in coming to school.

In conclusion, an ideal school for me should consist of beautiful scenery for studying, teachers that are caring and nice and a balanced timetable for any activities.  

Online lesson 12

Step 2: The common theme here is whether judging appearance is so important than the true inside self of a person. Prince Morocco decided to choose the gold casket as he thought that only the gold is comparable to Portia's elegance and beauty which in turn failed to get the portrait of her. This gold casket's skull and scroll represents simply the cliched moral that one should not judge "a book by its cover", for inside the gold it could very well be a gross skull that belongs in the tomb. As for Arragon, he chose the silver casket and what he got was an idiot smiling at him and as for Bassanio, he decided to choose the lead casket and he got the portrait of Portia. In all, this casket proves that all that glitters is not gold.

Step 3: This is stupid man! So is this the answer or that is the one? Using the laws of physics, and by the law of it, both answers seem to be correct! How I am able to choose the correct answer? I have eliminated 2 of the answers and now, I am left the last 2. Let me work it out, 20 divided by 2 and then multiply by the velocity of 3m/s2.. Wait, both answers could also use that! Crap, this ain't getting anywhere, come on, what is the answer! Never mind, I shall skip and moved on to the next one. Great, the next one is even worse, all 4 could be the answer? What kind of test paper is this? Is there a model answer, I cannot proved that this concept is wrong when it is correct.. This is just great! Almost the whole paper is like this! How am I able to do this kind of paper, it is getting the heck out of me. This is bad, I am only left with 10 mins but I have 40 questions more...... This is just great!

Students' feeling towards school

I feel that many students come to school is not because of studying but instead of their friends made in school. Just look at my own class, 2P4, how many of them are willing to learn seriously in class? 0 maybe? Other than the reason that they are forced to come to school, all of them do not actually want to come school. I, sometimes, also have such mentality. Why? Due to the fast changing society and high level education perhaps.

Singapore is a country that focus a lot on education and also seeks for greater heights for education, which pushes the students to study very quickly and understand them very quickly too. This puts a lot of pressure on students and we may not be able to cope well. Most of us come to school is because that there are friends in school that you can talk with and play together. The only motivation in us students is friends and not education. Actually, everybody wants to do well in subjects but due to the fast-rapid education system that tires us out totally just by catching up with it.

Thus, I feel that Singapore's education system has pushed us to our limits and we are already "dying" in their hands. Thinking of giving up education is equal to losing your future. It is a very difficult choice to be made by us as many of us still consider our future as priority. Therefore, education in Singapore is killing!

National Day Event

This year's national day celebration is much better than last year's, no doubt. Although we had started with parade as usual, at least we could see that the Uniform Groups has improved by lots since last year. They moved more uniformly than before and they marched with more sense of pride. It was a sight to be seen.

As we sat down in Kah Kee Hall awaiting for the celebration to start, my heart was thumping very quickly but it is not because I am excited about the celebration, instead, I was very worried about the test upcoming after national day celebration. What an irony here! I am supposed to enjoy my national day but now, I would need to take a test on national day! the celebration started with some Australian doing some break-dance which kept me so engrossed with their cool and extraordinary dance moves that I forgot about my worry for the test. The introduction for this year national day celebration was awesome, much better than last year's! The rest of the performance was also awesome, with the Wushu students performing their amazing stunts with their weapons. Wonder how they performed so beautifully. The best improvement performance should go to the NCC people. Still remember what happened last year, they threw their rifles into the air and dropped at the start! This year, they performed flawlessly with even more spins of their rifles than last year. Unfortunately, the gymnastics did not perform this year, their performance was superb last year, spinning in the air for like 5 seconds, bet no one can do such stunts!

As the celebration ended, my worry started to come back. This test is different from any other LA test, it is R and R! This is the worst component of my LA, and I had to dragged my feet all the up to Ortus room......