Emergency IT Lesson 3: Analysing & Composing Poem

Another poem provided by Mr. S!

The Son is in Secondary School
by Affran Sa’at

My badge has a Latin motto Hope for the future
The future is hope
Or something
At times black crows try to interrupt
When we sing the National Anthem
It is difficult to maintain
The whiteness of my shoes
Especially on Wednesdays
I must admit there is something quite special
About the bare thighs of hardworking scouts
The Malay chauffeurs
Who wait for my schoolmates
Sit on the car park kerb
Telling jokes to one another
Seven to the power of five is unreasonable
On Chinese New Year Mrs Lee dressed up
In a sarong kebaya
And sang Bengawan Solo
The capital of Singapore is Singapore
My best friend did a heroic thing once
Shaded all A’s
For his Chinese Language
Multiple-choice paper
In our annual yearbook
There is a photograph of me
Pushing a wheelchair and smiling
They caught me
At the exact moment
When my eyes were actually closed



Q1.What are the poet’s thoughts? What were his feelings as he think back on these?

The poet's thoughts as he writes this poem may be that he is wishing for his primary school days to return, with great longing for those days and all the fun times he/she has experienced inhis school life judging by the fact that many insights of interesting moments were goven to the readers and it is written in a very lighthearted and humorous tone. Furthermore, the poem ends with another interesting fact, the camera capturing him on a wheelchair with his eyes closed.

The most probable reason that he wished for his primary school days so much was that, although he was in a wheelchair, and was physically handicapped, he was able to enjoy his life in primary school. I guess after his primary school days he did not have the same joyful days as a handicapped person maybe due to social or more physical problems.

Q2.Think back on our days in Primary School. Do you share the same sentiments? What were your memories of those days? Write a poem of no less than 4 stanzas.

Of course, in fact, almost everyone would. Who wouldn't miss their primary school days with friends who have shared their worries, happiness, sorrows, joy with you for 6 years! Class bonding was more prominent iin my primary school days and of course, less stress although PSLE is an exception. Now I dedicate the poem below to my days in primary school.

Grateful Days


Giant metal bird lands
And me and my parents
Are off to find a new school
Foreign land,
Foreign home,
Foreign school.

When everything seemed
So foreign
So different,
Friends in school
Are my guiding light,
My guide to Singpore,
although they chided me
For not bringing
Colour pencils,
And instead crayons.

I met two friends,
Of the same origin as me,
And we played,
We ate,
We studied, together.
Good times did not last though.

As one by one,
We parted.
At Primary 2,
There were two of us.
At Primary 3,
There was one of "us".
I was alone.
Or was I?

At primary 3,
At the beginning of the year,
I took a test,
And promoted,
As clasmates were too young.
Finally at my right age,
at Primary 4,
I did realise that,
Friends were everywhere,
Friends were not just,
People of my origin,
They were also,
People of my foreign land.

As time passed,
I opened up to them,
And they opened up to me,
And we became bonded,
As one,
As a class.
I wasn't alone anymore.

By Seong Jin
In memory of his primary school days

Emergency IT Lesson 2: Favourite poet

Robert Frost

(1874 - 1963)

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.'"

- Robert Frost, "The Mending Wall"

Introduction

Robert Frost is recognized as an important "nature poet" in American literature, famous for his depiction of the New England landscape. Some of his most famous works include: "The Road Not Taken," "Mending Wall," "After Apple-Picking," and "Home Burial."

Robert Frost attempts to conceal the troubles of his life through the use of symbolism, metaphors and other literary devices in his writings. His tragic vision of man is disguised through the themes of love, friendship, family, and social relationship. He wrote to ease the tensions of his struggle for survival, individuality and happiness.

Frost's poetry not only teaches readers to understand basic concepts, but to contemplate them as well. Hence, Frost is also a philosopher. "The Mending Wall" is a wonderful example of this side of Frost. The surface of the poem comments on the literal walls neighbors build to separate their property. When pieces of these walls crumble, they are mended quickly. Further scrutiny leads one to a more personal understanding of this concept. One "must think beyond the stone walls of New Hampshire to walls within themselves and in the world, which in our day, are breaking and reforming" (Sergeant 415). Clearly, Frost is questioning the purpose of a physical wall around one's property; but he is also questioning the purpose of the symbolic walls people build around themselves. Frost makes his opinion apparent in the first line: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall" (Frost 983). The something that does not love a wall is the heart. In order to love and be loved (a need felt by most all of mankind) one cannot keep a barrier around their feelings and emotions."

Birth and Death

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874. His father came from prerevolutionary Maine and New Hampshire stock but hated New England because the Civil War it had supported had robbed his own father of employment in the cotton mill economy. When Frost's father graduated from Harvard in 1872, he left New England. He paused in Lewistown, Pa., to teach and married another teacher, Isabelle Moodie, a Scotswoman. They moved to San Francisco, where the elder Frost became an editor and politician. Their first child was named for the Southern hero Gen. Robert E. Lee.
When Frost's father died in 1884, his will stipulated burial in New England. His wife and two children, Robert and Jeanie, went east for the funeral. Lacking funds to return to California, they settled in Salem, Mass., where Mrs. Frost taught school.

Frost's Complete Poems appeared in 1949, and in 1950 the U.S. Senate felicitated him on his seventy-fifth birthday. In 1957 he returned to England to receive doctoral degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. On his eighty-fifth birthday the Senate again felicitated him. In 1961, at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, Frost recited "The Gift Outright," the first time a poet had honored a presidential inauguration. A final volume, In the Clearing, appeared in 1962.
On Jan. 29, 1963, Frost died in Boston of complications following an operation. He was buried in the family plot in Old Bennington, Vt. His "lover's quarrel with the world" was over.

Poems

Three well-known poems by Robert Frost are listed below.

After Apple-Picking

by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was wellUpon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tellWhat form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling soundOf load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too muchOf apple-picking:

I am overtiredOf the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

A Patch of Old Snow

by Robert Frost

There's a patch of old snow in a corner

That I should have guessed

Was a blow-away paper the rain

Had brought to rest.
It is speckled with grime as if

Small print overspread it,

The news of a day I've forgotten

--If I ever read it.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Bibliography:

http://www.terebess.hu/english/haiku/frost.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/robert-frost

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_frost.html

http://www.thesisabstracts.com/articles/publish/printer_178.shtml

Emergency IT lesson 1: Figurative Language

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Figurative Language

Hyperbole

1.I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Used towards the end of the poem to emphasis that he has come to the decision that, for good or ill, the choice he has made will be permanent and highly effecting of his life. He looks ahead to to time when he can look back and tell that the choice he made, whether wisely or unwisely, was the point at which his life's path was set.

Personification

1.And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Here, Frost uses personification, saying that the road has a claim. Here the speaker seems to be contradictory. He has made a choice, but is still unsure about it. It is "just as fair" yet it has "the better claim." Personification occurs here also if wanted means desired. No personification occurs, however, if wanted means lacked.

Metaphor

1.Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

This line compares a decision to two diverging roads. To travelers, two diverging roads obviously mean this is the time to make a decision, choose one or another.

2.And that has made all the difference

This quote tells us that the road the speaker chose, which also means the decision the speaker made, has made differences in his life, showing that his choice impact his life.

Simile

N.A

Symbolism

1.Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

The two roads symbolize, obviously, the choices that the speaker faces in life. He cannot take both, as much as he would like to, so he spends time in comtemplation and observation.

2.And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth;"

This symbol shows to me that the person who needs to make this life decision is trying to peer into the future to see what the outcome would be if he takes a certain path.

Why I like this poem

The Road Not Taken

Although I must admit I am not a poetry fan, many of the poems of Robert Frost appealed to me, and this would have to be the one that appeals the most, in other words, it is my favourite poem. When I first read this poem, I liked it because of it free verse style (which I like) and its apparent simplicity, but after much study, its true meaning became apparent. The obvious basic meaning is that the poem is about a person's choices in life. The narrator describes coming to a problem with the fork in the road. He must go down one but he feels he will not be able to take back his decision. He looks to see the pros and cons of each choice, and then takes the one he says the least had travelled. He leaves the outcome up t the reader and the sigh at the end can be taken as good or bad. This leaves the reader the choice of deciding whether it is better to conform with society or rebel like Frost did and take up a less stable trade.

Book Review #1

War in the PACIFIC :
From the fall of Singapore to Japanese surrender

Written by Jerry Scutts

144 pages

As the title foreshadows, this book, more like an encyclopedia, features every single significant event that has taken place in the pacific from the fall of Singapore to Japanese surrender. Unlike our normal classroom textbooks, this book has history of war outside of Singapore, not only in Singapore. Therefore, this book gives an insight of the life outside of Singapore when she fell to the Japanese.

This book is a big non-fiction book which mainly uses illustrations and pictures to relay its message. Texts are rarely seen, and this irony of text and illustration is very much soothing for the eye. Through these black and white images, readers are constantly provided insights on the situation of war in the pacific. Maps with grids, actual army plans, pictures of real fighter planes are all comprised of in the book. This book is definitely ideal for soothing the eye for leisure reading and project work. By chance, it might even cure myopia.

This book is definitely my choice of non-fiction books and I strongly recommend anyone who wants to read non-fiction books without stress, this book.

The Mercurial Tom (Assignment)

Double Valentine



I wish to gift my wife,

on this Valentine’s Day.

She is so caring,

from my shirt’s button to shoe’s lace;

she never complain but take pride in serving me.

So, I am at this mall where young ones gather.

There I saw our neighbour, Tom and my wife,

drinking cola from the same bottle.

Micro Fiction #2 [Reflections]

Effects

New School.

New Faces.
New Formats.

New Assignments.

"Set up your blogs by next week,"

A Blog?

Astonishment. Disbelief.

"It will help you improve your writing,"

How's that possible?

Blog assignments were given,

and soon I realised,

the true effectiveness of blogging.

Thank to it,

I can finally write a Micro-fiction,

and of course,

ACE points.

55 words

Angels & Demons

On a perfectly fine Saturday, while my mother and I were eating at Junction 8, my mother suddenly suggested, "Hey, why don't we go for a movie today?" Upon hearing this, I was elated as it has been quite some time since I have watched a movie. I instantly agreed.

At the Cinema, I saw the movie poster "Angels & Demons". I had recently heard comments from my friends saying that the movie was great. Hence, as the other movies were all fully booked, I decided to see that one.

Under the watchful eye of Father Silvano Bentivoglio and Dr. Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), the CERN scientists start the Large Hadron Collider and manage to capture three vials of antimatter. Immediately afterward, someone kills Father Silvano, and uses his retina to break into the containment room to steal one vial of anti-matter.
In Rome, the Vatican mourns the passing of the Pope. The Vatican staff prepares for the Conclave of the College of Cardinals, which will select the next Pope. Until the Conclave selects a new Pope, Patrick Mackenna, the Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor) assumes day-to-day control of the Vatican. Reporters, nuns, priests and other faithful all crowd into St. Peter's Square, waiting for the white smoke from the Conclave. But the Illuminati, a 400-year old, underground secret society of scientists, kidnaps the four most likely candidates (preferiti) before the Conclave goes into seclusion. The Illuminati threatens to brand and publicly execute them at 8, 9, 10 and 11 PM, choosing methods of murder linked to the four elements, earth, air, fire and water. They do this as as vengeance for 'La Perga', when Illuminati members were cleansed of their sins and executed. They then threaten to destroy the Vatican in a burst of light at midnight, using the highly explosive anti-matter, shown on a live video illuminated by artifical light. The command is then given to systematically shut off the power in areas of Rome and the Vatican, so that they will find out which area the Illuminati are hiding the canister in.
The Vatican summons Dr. Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Vittoria Vetra from CERN to help them solve the Illuminati's threat, save the four preferiti, and replace the vial's batteries. Langdon listens to the Illuminati message and deduces that the four cardinals will die at the four altars of the Path of Illumination. However, no one knows where these altars are located. Vetra demands the Swiss Guard fly Father Silvano's diaries from Switzerland. They hope he wrote down the name of whomever he discussed the CERN experiment. Langdon demands access to the Vatican Archives (a request he has made ten times already, in order to perform research for his book, and which has been denied each time) to see the original copy of Galileo's banned book. Using the clue from this book, Langdon, Vetra, and Lieutenant Olivetti (Victor Alfieri) of the Vatican police race to the first church, only to find the corpse of the first Cardinal, branded with the word 'Earth'. The first Cardinal's mouth and throat is found full of earth. They find the direction of the church with the second Illuminati altar, but arrive just in time to see the next Cardinal die, branded with the word 'Air', this one has been stabbed in the lung, thus making him unable to breathe.
While Langdon returns with Lieutenant Chatrand to the archives in order to discover the fire altar, Vittoria stays behind and begins to read the popes journals. Langdon finds out that the next altar is the sculpture of Theresa on Fire. Suddenly the power in the room, kept in a partial vaccum to protect the documents inside, cuts out. The oxygen levels begin to deplete and Langdon attempts to break the door by knocking it with a book case, which has no effect. He takes the hand gun of the now unconscious Chartrand and shoots the glass, before climbing back onto the book case and blacking out. However, the combination of the bullet-weakened glass and the pressure of the book case breaks the door just in time for the power to return. Langdon locates the third church with the third Illuminati altar, but fails to save the third Cardinal from burning to death, while the assassin kills the Vatican policemen. Langdon convinces the Roman police to race to a public fountain, the location of the Water altar, and manages to save the last Cardinal from drowning.
Vittoria meanwhile, explains to the Carmelengo that the Pope may not have died of a stroke as first thought, but of an overdose of medication, and that the signs on his body would only be apparent a week after his death. The pair go to the tomb of the pope, and sure enough the Pope has signs of an overdose on his body. Commander Richter then confiscates the diaries of the Father Silvano, outraging Vittoria. As 12 o'clock approaches, Langdon and Vittoria hurry to what they think the final altar, where they discover that there is a fifth brand, meant for the pope himself, or the Camerlengo. The assasin has been in the room the entire time, and reveals himself. He tells them he was not asked to kill them, but if they continue to persue him, it will be another matter. The assassin then abseils down the building and gets into his car, but it is unbeknownst to him that a bomb has been fixed to his car, which subsequently explodes, killing him. Vittoria and Langdon eventually return to find Patrick lying on the floor, branded, pointing at Commander Richter and accusing him of the branding. Chatrand then shoots Richter. The three eventually discover the canister, but there isn't enough time to change the batteries. Patrick grabs the canister and runs out to the helicopter stationed to evacuate the older cardinals. He gets in and begins sharply ascending with less than 5 minutes. Vittoria and Langdon watch, believing that Patrick is going to sacrifice himself, until they spot his parachute coming down. Suddenly the anti-matter explodes, destroying The Sistine Chapel and seriously damaging the surrounding area. The cardinals then decide that Patrick should be made pope, and summon him. Vittoria and Langdon return to Richter's office to take the journals, and discover that there are surveilance cameras installed throughout the vatican. Watching the evenings events, they discover Patrick was actually behind the entire Illuminati story, in order to appear a martyr and become pope. Cardinal Strauss sends Chatrand and his men to kill him, but before they reach him, Patrick douses himself in holy oil and sets him self alight. The only remaining member of the Prefereti is made pope, choosing the never-before used name 'Luke'. As a gift for his help, Langdon is given the document he needs to complete the second part of his book, with the request that in his last will and testimony it 'finds its way home'.