This Week. Sniper Frenzy,

This week has been the busiest moment in my school life so far. With powerpoints popping up here and there, CA Interviews, and Panel Discussions beckoning me from all directions, I have to admit: It's fun.

Somtimes you just wonder. Why am I pushing myself forward? For what purpose? For Whom? And the first things that pops up into your mind are politically correct answers. I am doing this for my own good. For my parents. For my Life. And you just know it, its true.

I had Council General Meeting today. For that purpose, I had to wear the prestigious council uniform all day long. It gave me heaps of trouble but oh well, its cool. At least I didn't have to change into swimming trunks today and go throught the tedious process of putting on formal clothings twice.

Math Test was on Monday. Trigonometry. Somehow I had studied so hard for it and I still had 2 questions unanswered. And I realised, you mustn't just study hard, you have to study smart.

Language Arts Lessons were the most memorable these few days. Presentations we had to craft ourselves from different points of view all presented before everyone's eyes. Not repetition. It was a great experience. Miss Loh's modules just does those.

This week was not just mirror images. There were differences almost every day. And that's what made it so fun. Variety. A twist from repetition. Repetition. It just tires you out whenever it has the chance. Same old process. Same old actions. But one thing is clear about it. They're safe. And steady. And reliable. I gotta go now. Sichuan Landslide and Three Kingdoms are waiting for me.

Sniping Luck.

Luck. What is luck? Luck is the unknown factor in which pleasant or unpleasant things happens to you. While luck is considered a form of superstition, surprisingly many people believe in it. I do. Or more likely, I did.

I used to have several superstitions regarding luck. For instance,

1. Doing well in Term 1 makes you do badly in Term 2. Then you do well in Term 3, and you do badly in the EOYs.

2. Thinking the opposite of the desired outcome produces the desired outcome.

3. Listening to Chinese Songs will make your skin oily.

Some of them are really ridiculous and I do not wish to post it here for the world to see but, you get what I mean. What really compelled me to believe in these is that, they did work. Evey year, I do badly for Term 1. Then I do well for Term 2. Then I do badly for Term 3. And so on. Whenever I thought of the opposite of my desired outcome, I actually got the desired outcome. Well, most of the time.

However, I have come to reality and realised that these are mere superstitions. They are not my principles. Never, my guiding light. Instead they were mere psyhological effects. For example, if I believe that I will do badly in Term 2 when I did well for Term 1, my semi-conscious state will cause me to perform poorly for the Term due to my belief. The thought of the opposite outcome was merely a random pattern.

In life, no matter what you do, if you put your effort and sweat and confidence in it, you will most likely succeed. Life does not have regulations. There is no such thing as bad luck after good luck. I should have realised that 3 months ago. I really should.

Sniper Rifle. Specs

Specs. Computer Specs. These marvelled values of personal computers has been ever improving since the birth of computers themselves. A little bit of techy talk here by the way.


I was flipping through the Straits Times recently and came across a "Courts" Computer Sales advertisement page. I briefly sailed my eyes through it and gaped at what was staring back at me.

An HP laptop with Intel Core i7 coupled with a 2GB RAM and 500 GB HDD Drive, only for $1499.


An Acer Desktop with Intel Core i5 coupled with a 4GB RAM and 320 GB HDD Drive, on sale for $800.

Those were just a few of the unbelievable prices of these specs. My very own 2 year-old personal laptop was only armed with a Core 2 Duo Processor and a 250 GB HDD Drive. And I bought it for $1499. The same price as the HP laptop mentioned above.

Amazed at the advancement of technology in just 2 years, I briefly surfed the web and came across even more amazing specs.

A 27 - inch Apple iMac. Intel Core i7. 4GB RAM. Nvidia GeForce. and best of all, 1TB hard drive. What more can I say. I once marvelled at my own PC, thinking that it was the best of both worlds in terms of price and specs. Look what happens 2 years later. They've even come up with a 1TB hard drive for a Mac ! Totally Awesome.

And another 2 years later I can guarantee you that these specs that I am marvelling at right now would be outdated and outshone by whatever new engineering. I guarantee.

Sniping Comeback - Upgrades

Right. So how many weeks has it been since I last posted the Home Learning entry? Let's see... 2 Months. Wow. I guess I deserve to have an explanation for this. I've been away for the entire June holidays and well, got a little lazy for the first 2 weeks of Term 3 but now, I'm staging a comeback. Of course, 2 months is a long time and I'll start off with a few updates regarding my life.

1) The 16th Student Leaders Convention

I am involved, or more likely, was involed as an organizing team member of this huge event Hwa Chong, in conjunction with different schools each year, holds annually. It was in its 16th year running and I must have mentioned this before in my previous posts as this took a huge toll on me in terms of both academicallly and physically. Recces every week, late night meetings twice a week for 6 months all ended with a flurrish in a mere 4 days. That's a huge ratio.

From 1st July to 4th July, all our hard work has proved itself commendable in front of our eyes for these 4 days. Student leaders from all over the world and in Singapore crowded in the Hwa Chong campus for this prestigioius convention where they would experience everlasting friendships and brainstorming sessions. And you know what's the most amazing thing? We are the ones who planned, executed, and managed EVERYTHING. Quite a feat for a bunch of middle school students eh? So technically for me, the June holidays officially began 4 days later.

2) Homeland - in 3 years.

A week after the 16th SLC, I finally got to breathe in the very air of my homeland - South Korea... and my Father. It has been 3 years. 3 YEARS since I saw my Dad and other relatives. However, ths happiness was to be shortlived as I was scheduled for an ingrown toenail surgery and dental treatments in Korea. So practically, I spent the whole 2 weeks of my stay visiting the dentist and the eh.. how do I describe a toe spcialist? Nevermind, you get the point.

3) CSE or IPSP ?

So the biggest question for me right now after Term has started is... to take China Studies or not to. Basically, if you select CSE as your academic path in Secondary 3, you have to, coupled with the special programme you're taking, take a subject known as China Studies in Chinese (CSC). Sound scary doesn't it? Especially the fact that I'm a native Korean and has no root for China. In IPSP you basically do the same special programms they offer but with less independence granted AND no CSC. Hooray? However, I do aim for the best in life and have decided to try for CSE as my first priority. If all fails, then IPSP. Sounds fair enough eh?

So... what am I doing right now? I'm now studying my butt off, hoping for my dreams to come into reality at the EOYs to excel and for a path to my bright future and for my life to succeed and shine. Sounds Cheesy but that's all I can do right now. Studying. Gaining knowledge. Excelling at the exams. Be on the Teachers' and classmates' good sides. Excel in Sports. Now that one less commitment is off my list (SLC), I can now REALLY and SURELY concentrate. Thank god for this opportunity.

Term 2 Online Home Learning - Poetry

Task 1

I have selected the poem "Rainbow Death" with a difficulty rating of 2 stars.

Rainbow Death

America did not foresee

Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!

Expecting others to pay a high price.

Now thinking twice?

Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.

Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.

All the deceit continues to spread.

Nefariously America led astray -

Generations untold WILL pay -

Execrable effects of agent orange spray!

Hubert Wilson

Conflict in "Rainbow Death"

Hubert Wilson
Ssgt USAF, 1968-1972

This small poem speaks of a modern day ingredient of warfare that has caused appalling death and suffering – not only to its intended victims, the Vietnamese people, but also the service personnel that used or even just came into contact with “Agent Orange”.

Wikipedia reports, “Agent Orange is the code name for a herbicide and defoliant—contaminated with TCDD—used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War.

According to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.

From 1962 to 1971, Agent Orange was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides" employed in the herbicidal warfare program. During the production of Agent Orange (as well as Agents Purple, Pink, and Green) dioxins were produced as a contaminant, which have caused numerous health problems for the millions of people who have been exposed. Agents Blue and White were part of the same program but did not contain dioxins.”

This poem may remind us that wars aren’t over when the wars are over.

Task 2

Point of View

The poem is written in the point of view of a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF Security Service.

America wanted to win the Vietnam war badly and would resort to anything for that outcome. Propelled by such human greed, they initiated the launch of the highly toxic Agent Orange on the Vietnamese "to pay a high price". However, things backfired and they are now "thinking twice" as the Agent Orange not only heavily affected the Vietnamese, but also affected themselves, "tolling on the innocent and unborn", causing innocent people to be eliminated.

Situation and Setting

Sadness - "toll on the innocent and unborn". Because of the war and the use of Agent Orange, many innocent people have been killed, thus causing a sad setting, together with the use of "toll", a harsh word, which means that the lives have to be sacrificed in order to win the war.

Harshness - "Generations untold WILL pay". By emphasizing on the word, "WILL", it causes a harsh setting as the younger generations will be paying the prices for what the older generations had caused. Also, "Expecting others to pay a high price" also creates a harsh setting as though the USA are going to make the Vietnam have a life worse than death.

Language and Diction

"potpourri" - is a mixture of dried materials. In this poem, potpourri is used to refer to the combination of the deaths of many people caused by the combinations of the different Agents.

"toll" - is the number of deaths resulting from some particular cause such as war. In this poem, toll is used to refer to the necessary deaths/sacrifices of the people regardless whether they are from the same country for USA to win the war.

Personal Response

War is frightening. What most of us know about war we learned from movies. The few who have first hand experience of war generally don't talk about it, and the rest of us don't ask. We know our soldiers will die if Singapore goes to war. We know they will also have to kill. But war has all sorts of social rationalization around it. We believe deep down that the soldiers will kill judiciously and die heroically, regardless of what we have learned from Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Born on the Forth of July, Good Morning, Vietnam, Saving Private Ryan, and countless other war movies. We want to believe that no one will die in vain. We want to believe that no young soldier will return psychically broken by morally ambiguous killing. And our culture goes to great lengths to preserve the heroic image of the soldier who dies defending their country.

Is Maycomb a Good place to live in? Analysis of a Sniping site.

My best 2 learning styles as seen from the previous post, are Intrapersonal and Linguistic. Therefore, I shall proceed to choose a task from the Linguistic and the Intrapersonal section.

Let us consider this: Is Maycomb a good place to live in? Is Maycomb corrupted? [2 Main Themes: Courage and Prejudice]

Linguistic
b. Write a newspaper article/report on an incident that happened in the novel. Be sure to do your research on the language features of a newspaper report.


Grudged man stabbed himself while trying to kill 2 children
by Mr Park Seong Jin, Maycomb Press Senior Editor
September 19th, 1935

Yesterday evening, at about 11o' clock, a homicide occurred, resulting in the death of a grown man and a serious injury of a child. The man, Bob Ewell, assaulted Jem and Scout Finch , the 2 children aged 13 and 9 respectively, in the schoolhouse after the "Maycomb County Ad Astra Per Aspera" performance ended, this year's Halloween pageant, directed by Mrs. Merriweather, held in the school's auditorium. Scout was a ham and had to wear a ham costume. Scout and Jem were in the schoolyard when they heard someone following them. According to them, it was so dark they could scarcely see any thing but Scout's costume fat streaks with shiny stuff that everyone could see her in the darkness. "I heard someone shuffle and drag his feet," Scout said. She said that things happened too fast that she didn't even clearly know what happened. But still, she recounted that someone grabbed her, mashed her costume, and she fell to the ground. She heard fighting, kicking sounds, which sounded like they were bashing against a truck. Next thing she knew was that Jem was up, found her and started pulling her toward the road. Scout said: " Then someone, I reckon it was Bob, pulled him backwards. There was more fighting and I heard Jem scream," According to her, she ran into someone, who was probably Bob, who tried to strangle her and squeeze her to death. She couldn't move but recalled someone suddenly yanking him down. Next thing she knew was that someone was coughing, panting fit to die. " I then saw someone I don't know carrying Jem towards her house,' Scout recalled.

Atticus said: " I have never conceived that someone could be that cruel enough to do such terrible things," Mr Heck Tate, Maycomb's town sheriff, went to the scene and found Bob lying there under the tree with a knife under his ribs. Jem Finch, who had bravely protected his little sister, was badly injured with a broken arm and a bump in the head. He is currently still unconscious. Dr Reynolds said:" We have to feel thankful that the situation didn't get worse. Jem could have been killed down there, but he is alive." The mysterious man who had carried him to the house had protected his children. His name is Arthur Radley. He had never been out of his house for 30 years. There are several rumours about him and everyone seems to be intimidated by him, especially the children. "When I was smaller, I always thought he was some kind of a ghost. He was said to have eaten rats, killed his father and a lot more terrible things. But the truth is not like that. It was very brave of him to save Jem like that," Scout said.

Everyone knows the motivation of the assassination. After the famous trial in summer, Bob seemed to have a grudge against everyone connected with that case. He had guts enough to bother and chunk at poor Helen Robinson, Tom Robinson's wife. If Mr. Link Deas, Helen's new employer, had not talked to him and dared him to bother Helen again, Bob would have done something terrible to the poor woman. He burgled Judge Taylor's house on a Sunday evening and cut his screen door. He seemed to have paid off his grudges by furtive and dissolute actions. A month ago, Bob approached Atticus, cursed him and threatened to kill him if it took the rest of his life. From this, everyone assumed that Bob was definitely after Atticus, but it never occurred to anyone that he could do such dreadful things to Atticus, lawyer of Tom Robinson's case, by trying to kill his children. Mr. Heck Tate said: " That evil man never had enough courage to face Atticus in daylight. With enough liquor, that skunk had enough bravery to kill children surreptitiously. Atticus said: " I have to say that I am very shocked about the way things turned out. I couldn't imagine of such a coward trying to kill my children stealthily. I never thought that my children would be harmed because of me."

When Atticus heard news about Bob's death under the tree, he assumed Jem had killed him according to Scout's story. So he said Jem had to come before the county court. But Mr. Heck Tate persisted in Bob killing himself. He said that Bob stabbed himself by driving his whole weight into the knife.

The assassination ended without the results Bob would have liked it to be. He ended up being the one who was killed, not the children. It was very fortunate indeed that Arthur Radley saw this and ran to help the children and that they were relatively safe.


Intrapersonal
c. Write a diary entry for a major character of the novel.


This is a diary entry of Scout Finch after her day with Walter Cuningham.

Dear Journal,

Today wasn't a great day for me. When I first woke up I thought, hmmm... today ill be a great day, but them I went to school. Miss Caroline was having a real bad day, I can just tell this sort of thing sometimes with grown ups. She started looking through our lunch boxes, of course Walter Cunningham didn't hae any lunch, but Miss Caroline didn't know that. She was asking Walter why he didn't have a lunch box and he jsut sat there and didn't say anything. So I thought that I would help Walter out and explain that he wouldn't have any lunch, 'cause he's a poor boy, and I got WHIPPED FOR IT! Wow, it hurts a lot, but I didn't want to let it show, so I didn't do much.

When we got to go outside, I thought I'd show Mr. Walter Cunningham a little bit of my bad side, so I punched him. It was a good punch too, not one of those little wimpy ones, but a good hard one to maybe knock some sense into that boy. I was proud of myslf, no matter what people try to tell me, act like a lday, wear a dress now and then. If I wanted to do that kind of stuff, I'd buy a dress and not play in the mud, but as far as I know, this is how I an going to be for a long, long time!


With love,
Scout

Multiple Intelligence Test. My abilities to Snipe and Shield.

Right so, this blog post requires me too post my learning profile here, on my blog and in no less than 100 words the implications or what I feel about this so called "test". Ok, here's I go.

First I'll show you what I got for my recent MIT profile. Take a look at it.


As you can see, I scored highest for Intrapersonal, which is, "Myself Smart". I actually partly agree on this as I tend to think and reflect on myself a lot, either through thinking or writing it down through any means. I judge myself whether I did the correct thing in my mind, I talk to my mind through thinking, something like that. And guess what? My "naturalistic" part is the worse. I fully agree. I once killed 3 terrapins by letting them have diseases and not knowing it and a hamster by feeding it Gerbil food accidentally. Must have had a bad effect on it. Ever since my last terrapin died, I vowed never to keep any pets again, not even fishes, the simplest of all pets, as my brother recently kept some fighting fishes and within a week their floating carcasses disgusted me. The second highest are Linguistic and /Visualistic as, well of course I'm in AEP and I'm also aiming for HP next year. Coincidence eh? Quite cool actually. This thing works - partly.

Of course there are many implications and limitations of this test and that's the purpose of my blog post here. First, let me highlight to you one thing. The implications of this test are enormous, for both teaching and learning. Just because some people have trouble learning in the logical-mathematical sense is no reason to assume they are no intelligent. They could be strong in one or several other areas. They could become more intelligent in that area through practice and special study. Also they could probably compensate for their weakness in one area by using other areas of intelligence they are strong in or naturally prefer to use, providing the learning environment permits them to do so.

I also find that the questions in that test are a little too direct which will cause the candidate to "cheat" a little by deceiving themselves as the questions are simple, direct questions. Imagine if someone asks you " Are you a good boy? " You would most probably reply "yes" instead of "no", I mean, who wouldn't protagonise themselves in front of other people? Only really honest people could truly see their results of the test, provided that the world only has aroun 2 percent of truly honest people.

Well, here are my thoughts about this Multiple Intelligence. Guess I have to judge by myself to acquire an accurate shot of the scope. Cheers !