Blog Post 9 - My Favorite Memory of Chinese New Year

My favorite memory of Chinese New Year was in the year 2009. On the first day, I visited my paternal relatives, received my red packets, ate lots of delicious New Year cookies, and heard lots of traditional new year songs.

On the second day, I visited my maternal relatives. I had lots of fun on that day too. I ate my grandmother's hand-made pineapple tarts, and the aroma was beautiful. I also played games with my elder cousins. And the best thing was, I received more red packets.

I really love Chinese New Year and I look forward to the next Chinese New Year, which is just around the corner.

LA ACE Blog Post 10 - A Situation in Which I Collaborated Intensely at Length with Another Person

Last year, there was a soccer tournament held by the Ortus consortium, called the O!League. My class decided to take part in the competition, and I was a member of the team of 5. We planned a tatic before every match and we knew that teamwork was really important, so we had to co-operate with one another.

Our strategy worked out in every game, and we proceeded to the finals. In the finals, we had abit of slip-up after scoring 2 goals, and we conceded 2 goals also. During the half-time break, the team leader told us that we had to work together as a team and that we could not play solo, or we would lose. We heeded his advice and in the second half, we scored 3 goals and conceded 0. This just shows how important teamwork is. If we cannot get along well with one another, the team will fail. However, if we work together as a team and collaborate intensely with our teammates, the team will succeed.

I feel that the moat important thing in every team is not each person's ability, but everyone's ability to work as a team and cooperate with one another. Only then will the team be able to succeed. If everyone cannot agree with one another and keep quarelling and arguing among theirselves, the team will fail and achieve nothing. This is why I feel that teamwork is the most important thing needed for a team to succeed.

Blog Post 7 - Reflection on Comic Strip

I really enjoyed the home learning session on 24th Jan 2011. For the online lesson, we used the online comic creator, ToonDoo, to create a comic strip. I felt that this was a unique and interesting way of learning as we have not done this before. Not only are we able to widen our imaginations and make full use of our creativity, we can also learn better this way because we are enjoying this method of learning. I would certainly use comic strips to learn in future because I feel that it is really very interesting.

ACE Blog Post 2

Task A:

Task B:

The reason why I chose the background of a quiet room with only a table inside the room is because I wanted to give readers the impression that the room was a conducive learning environment for John. The readers would go on to think that John is a hardworking and obedient student who studies hard for his exam, because they would think that John had been studying in the room during the time his mother was out. By characterizing John as a hardworking student, I made a twist in the 3rd picture to show that John actually had not been studying, but in fact he was playing computer games. The readers would be surprised to find out that John was actually such a lazy student who cannot be bothered to study for his exams. His mother was not aware that John did not study and in the 1st picture, she even told John that she would buy him a new laptop if he does well in his exam. This just goes to show how little his mother interacts with him. She thought that John was studying hard and wanted to reward him if he did well in his exam. Actually, John has changed. Instead of his old hardworking self, he is now addicted to computer games. The 3rd picture shows burning the midnight oil to do some last minute preparation for his exam the next day.

The last picture was in the classroom, when the class was having their end-of-year Language Arts test. As John had slept so late last night, he was too tired to do his exam paper and fell asleep on the his desk. The moral of the story is that we should not cheat others, as by cheating others, we are actually also cheating ourselves. The result of John cheating his mother is that he had to stay up late into the night to complete his revision for his exam the next day and in the end, he was too tired to even do the exam paper.

Blog Post 6 - Learning Goals for Language Arts this Year

My learning goals for Language Arts this year is to improve in my understanding of poems, to improve in my vocabulary, and to improve in my literature skills.

The reason why I want to improve in my understanding of poems is because sometimes, I cannot really understand the exact meaning of the poem. Thus, I would not be able to answer the questions properly if I cannot understand everything in the poem.

I also have to improve in my vocabulary, because when I am doing comprehension, it is very important that I can understand most of the words in the passage, so that I can answer the questions effectively. If my vocabulary is weak, I would not be able to do well in Language Arts, because I will lose out to my classmates.

Lastly, I want to improve in my literature skills because when I first read the book " To Kill A Mockingbird", I found that it was quite difficult to understand the story. However, after re-reading the first parts a few times, I managed to grasp hold of the content of the story, and I found that the book which I thought was so difficult to read at first was actually such an interesting and touching story. This is why I want to improve in my literature skills, so that I can read more story books with a better understanding of the content.

LA ACE Blog Post 1

Q2.

Yes, I have. I am in the Wushu national team, and during the June holidays, we had to train twice per day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. In between, we had a three hour break where we would eat our lunch and rest before the next training starts.

Whenever we went out as a group for lunch, there would be a member of our group who was 'austrasized' by the others. The group would insult him and call him names. However, the victim would only keep quiet and ignore their unkind remarks. The victim suffered in silence, but the group continued to bully him verbally.

I felt really sad for the victim, and I told my friends to stop being so bad to him, but they just told me that they were just having fun. They also told me that he was actually very irritating and said bad things about people behind their back. They said that I should just ignore him and told me that he was not worth my pity.

Even though I felt sorry for the victim and tried my best to help him, there was nothing I could say that would make my friends stop bullying him. Even when I tried talking to him, he would just keep quiet or nod his head in silence. I hope that my friends would stop bullying him as I feel that he had not done anything wrong to deserve this kind of treatment.

Blog Post 5 - The Song that Has Left the Greatest Impact on Me

The song that has left the greatest impact on me is ' For The First Time '. This song is sung by 'The Script'. Here is the lyrics.

She's all laid up in bed with a broken heart
While i'm drinking jack all alone in my local bar
And we don't know how we got into this mad situation
Only doing things out of frustration

Trying to make it work but man these times are hard
She needs me now but I can't seem to find a time
I've git a new job now in the umemploymentline
And we don't know we got into this mess it's a gods test
Someone hulp us cause we're doing our best

Trying to make it work but man these times are hard
But we're gunna start by drinking old cheap bottles of wine
Sit talking up all night
Saying things we haven't for a while, a while yeah
We're smiling but we're close to tears
Even after all these years
We just now got the feeling that we're meeting
For the first time

She's in line at the door with her head held high
While I just lost my job but didn't lose my flight
But we both know how we're gonna make it work when it hurts
When you pick yourself up you get kicked in the dirt

Trying to make it work but man these times are hard
But we're gunna start by drinking old cheap bottles of wine
Saying things we haven't for a while, a while yeah
We're smiling but we're close to tears

Even after all these years
We just now got the feeling that we're meeting
For the first time

Drinking old cheap bottles of wine
Saying things we haven't for a while, a while yeah
We're smiling but we're close to tears
Even after all these years
We just now got the feeling that we're meeting
For the first time
For the first time
Oh, for the first time
Yeah, for the first time

Oh these times are hard
Yeah they're making us crazy
Don't give up on me baby
Oh these times are hard
Yeah they're making us crazy
Don't give up on me baby

Oh these times are hard
Yeah they're making us crazy
Don't give up on me baby


Oh these times are hard
Yeah they're making us crazy
Don't give up on me baby

The reason why I chose this song is because I thought that this song is very meaningful. This song is about a man who lost his job and how he wanted to pick himself back up. He talks about how tough the times was without a job and without his woman. I feel that this song is very touching. Even after so many years, when the singer and his woman stay up late at night drinking old cheap bottles of wine, they smiled but they were close to tears.

I really like this song very much.

Blog Post 4 - Most Valuable Thing I Learnt Last Year

The most important thing I learnt in Language Arts last year was comprehension skills. When I first entered Hwa Chong, my comprehension skills were weak and I did not do well in comprehension.

After Mr Lundberg taught us some comprehension skills, I found that doing comprehension is actually not very difficult. We just have to read the passage carefully, and analyse the questions carefully too. We then have to go back to the passage to find out the key points which is needed to answer the respective questions. Mr Lundberg also taught us that if we did not understand a word in the passage, we should just try to see how the word is used in the sentence, and then try to interperate the meaning of it.

I feel that these comprehension skills are the most valuable thing that I learnt last year in Language Arts as without these skills, I would still be struggling with comprehension now.

Blog Post 3 - My Favourite Storybook

My favourite book is a book that I read during the December holidays last year. It is titled ‘ The Mysterious Benedict Society ‘ , written by novelist Trenton Lee Stewart. I like this book very much because of the interesting storyline, the way the author keeps his reader in suspense and the many twists in the story.

The whole story is basically about 4 talented children who passed a series of special tests and were being selected to go on a secret mission to stop a man from using children to brainwash the whole world. The 4 children faced many difficulties during the mission, but with teamwork and friendship, they eventually managed to accomplish their mission and save the world from the brainwash.

I really enjoyed reading this book very much and I would recommend the book to my friends.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83369.The_Mysterious_Benedict_Society

2011 Blog Post 2 - Answers to Shel Silverstein's Poems

Poem 1 - The Little Boy and the Old Man

1: The underlying message that is being conveyed in this poem is that matured adults do not pay enough attention to children and the elderly because they feel that they are troublesome. Children and elderly should receive more care and attention from adults.

2: He uses repetition of words, rhymes and assonance.

Poem 2 - Messy Room

1: Yes. The poet critises the owner of the room, stating how messy the room is and the owner of it should be ashamed of himself. However, at the end of the poem, he realised that he was the owner of the messy room, and he had been insulting himself all along!

2: Criticism of others, not reflecting upon oneself.

Poem 3 - Cloony The Clown

1: When Cloony tried to be funny and make the audience laugh, they did not laugh but instead felt that he was boring and they did not like what he did. However, when he tried to tell them how he felt to make them symphatise him, they laughed instead.

2: Yes, it conveys sadistic people.

3: He uses repetition, rhymes and assonance.

2011 Blog Post 1 - Answers to 'Big Fish' Questions

1. The phrase “a big fish in a small pond” means that someone is outstanding within a group of people.

2. He wanted to let people know that in order to catch an uncatchable woman, you have to offer her a wedding ring.

3. As a boy, William Bloom was interested in his father’s telling of the tale. However, as he gets older, he felt that his father’s telling of the story was getting more and more boring and feels annoyed whenever his father wanted to tell him the story.

4. He felt proud of himself whenever he told the story and he wanted to emphasise the message of catching an uncatchable woman using a wedding ring.

5. The tale revealed that Edward and William Bloom were very close to each other because Edward actually released the fish after catching it so that William could catch the fish again. However, after Edward told William the tale many times, the relationship between the father and son was strained and both of them ignored each other for three years.

6. Myths. We would not know if the event really took place in the past, or whether it was made up. Thus, we would not know whether or not to believe the story.

7. Yes, bending or exaggerating the truth for the purpose of conveying an entertaining story does undercut the believability of such a story and a tall tale is less valid than a straight reportage of the facts. By bending or exaggerating the truth for the purpose of conveying an entertaining story, the reader may find it hard to believe the story and think that the story is fictional.