Blog Prompt 31/01/2011

I, myself, have friends from other races, and I feel that having friends of another race is very important. In this way not only can we enlarge our wide social circle, we can also know and understand about each race, and be able to behave appropriately when together with this race. If one does not know the religious rules of a race, we might end up doing something disrespectful against their race unintentionally in front of them. Hence, in order not to cause such conflicts, we must also try our best to learn about other races' religion as well.

I also feel that some people, though racist at heart, should not openly state that he dislikes certain races, or even try to be rude to them. Courtesy always comes first. Once, I saw someone asking in front of a Malay food store, "Do you sell pork?" I feel that that is very disrespectful and insolent, as the Malays could not eat pork, it was wrong to ask from a Malay pork. We might end up hurting other races or religion. Therefore, we must be mindful about what we say in front of different races too.

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

I agree that Chinese Mothers are definitely more superior than other mothers, as generally they are more strict than other mothers. They have high expectations for their children and expects that their children should have the capability to achieve satisfactory results and there should be no reason at all for blunders or careless mistakes. They are also not allowed to go to any occasions such as sleepovers in other friend's house.

There are pros and cons to this kind of behavior I guess. The good thing is that the children will learn and study well and not at all slack down due to their parents' high expectations. Therefore, they will be smart and definitely reap in satisfactory results due to the large amount of hard work they put in their work. The bad thing is that the child might feel restricted by his parents' rules and regulation and under a lot of stress to meet up with the requirements of their harsh parents because they know if they don't, they will definitely receive a spanking and a lecture from their parents. Henceforth, it causes a lot of emotional burden for the child too, as the child might feel no freedom at all.

Annotating and Descriptive Writing

Today, we learned more about descriptive writing in a story. It consists of a plot, a setting(mood or atmosphere), point of view and characterization. It must also have a theme. The supporting of characterization make uses of figurative language, diction sentence structures and paragraphing. She went through with us the story," All Summer In A Day", and made us annotate the points that the writer used to raise the tension of the story, give a 3-dimensional image to the a character, so on and so forth. Our composition piece was largely annotated after that, and that shows that every single word, paragraph, or line can make a huge difference to a composition passage. She also gave us more pieces to anootate about, so as to increase our word power.

Mindmap

My Mind map. This topic may be related to the story To Kill A Mockingbird.

poem strip.

This is a poem about a boy being bullied in class for a certain purpose. Prejudice is evident even here. I know my drawing is atrocious, but it shows someone throwing a rock at a boy, and the whole class taunting him. He is dismayed and does not know what to do.

Is it betterto have never known something than to know something and ultimately lose it later?

Hmm....what an interesting question. In my opinion though, I feel that it is better to know something and ultimately lose it later, instead of not knowing it at all. One gets to at least experience with it and share fond memories together with it before losing it at the end. As such, I believe that the person would have a more enriched life than a person who does not experience anything out of the ordinary at all. It is good that we try out different sorts of experiences (not wrongful actions though) in our lives, and as we can only live our lives only once, why not make it a more memorable and fruitful one by being adventrous and try out different things even though you know that there is an element of risk of losing it later? And anyway, on the other hand, all good things often come to an end, don't they?

Losing something you know later is needless to say a painful process for one. It is indeed hurtful for one to completely sever ties with something that he has shared fond memories with, which he has a good relationship together with. Nevertheless, one can still cherish and remember the fond memories that they had shared together. Having a feeling of something before losing it totally is definitely better than not having a taste of it at all.

A blog prompt given by my LA teacher

Yes, I have been in a company of a group of which I clearly wasn't a member. But before we go into the details, let us think: why in the first place are certain individuals treated unpleasantly by the rest? Usually, this is because they are considered to be different from us in some ways, for instance being taller/shorter than most of the people in class, being fatter/thinner than most of the people in class, and so on. To me, it seems to happen almost everywhere.

Not being treated like a member would indeed be a torture as one would feel alone without the warmth of the company of others. That time, a friend of mind (Richard, if you happen to come across this, don't worry, it's not you)invited me to his birthday party.Other than recognising my friend the other day, I did not know anyone present at the birthday party at all. I thought perhaps we might be able to interact with each other, and maybe be friends with them. However they seem unwilling to talk to me. The longest conversation I had with one of them was: "Hi, I'm Gavin, what's your name?" "Oh, my name's ........., pleased to meet you." Nothing much was said between me and them anymore. Worst of all, everytime I laughed at one of their jokes, they would look at me as if I was a strange and queer specimen being examined under a microscope. If I acciendentally did something wrong they would stare at me with evident hint of hostility. Unfortunately, my friend did not know about it, and I did not had the heart to spoil his special day by telling him about it.

It was evident that just because I didn't know them, they just ignored me or even worse, look at me strangely or with hostility. This shows that people behave to others different from them unpleasantly most of the time

Prejudice

Yes, this word. A main theme not only in storybooks like"To Kill A Mockingbird". An attitude that not only occurred in history, but is also evident in modern society. It rests on negative stereotypes about individuals because of their background, be it cultural, religious and so on.

Our teacher said that prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping are though commonly used at the same context most of the time, but they have a difference in their meaning. Prejudice means to have a problem with certain people, though not taking any action against them. Stereotyping is overgeneralising statement with people of similar characteristics. Discrimination is th ACT of doing something against a certain group of people, e.g Xenonphobia. Hence, although they are used at the same context, they do not have the same meaning.

We also discussed on how prejudice is evident in our society, how it has affected history, and how it still affects our lives.

This time, we watched a video for the first 7 minutes of the film Big Fish. The storyline revolves around a father and a son,and the son grew up from a small boy who believed in his father's incredulous lies to a person who feels that his father was not telling the truth from the very start, that had never cared for his family. The father repeated his tales over and over again to his friends, even to everyone on the son's wedding day. The son was so frustrated that he did not speak to his father ever again.
The father's quote,"A big fish in a small pond",shows all the more that he is arrogant and pompous, concealing the insecurity and inferiority that he has. This shows that he wants to be in the limelight all the time. Hence our teacher gave us a question to think about,"When do you think a lie is justifiable?" In my opinions, I feel that lying is definitely wrong, but telling a "white lie", in other words a lie used for good intentions, may not be always right. Like the example that my teacher gave: if one day after I grow up, my mother asked me if she was very fat; then I would see the situation: if she was indeed plump but still in the pink of health, it was not wrong to tell her that she wasn't; but if she was obese and unhealthy, then it would be harming her to tell her that she wasn't. However, all in all, telling a lie is definitely wrong as it does not allow people to trust you anymore.
Also, exaggerating an account would definitely undercut the credibility of the story itself, and it would make people think that you are always making the mountain out of the molehills. People would also as a result, not believe whatever you say again just in case if you are exaggerating again.

First lesson....

Well, for the first lesson, we did nothing much, but I learnt that poems do not really convey its underlying meaning directly, it is to be inferred indirectly as a hidden meaning. Let me give you the example our teacher gave us......

The little boy and the old man by Shel Silverstein
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Said the little boy,"Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man,"I do that too."
The little boy whispered,"I wet my pants."
"I do that too."Laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy,"I often cry."
The old man nodded,"so do I".
"But worst of all," said the boy,"it seems,
Grown-ups dont pay attention to me."
And he felt a warmth of a wrinkled old man,
"I know what you mean," said the little old man.

This poem shows that both the boy and the old man are not being paid attention by grown-ups obsessed with their pursue of wealth. It highlights indirectly that while it is true that technology is advancing swiftly, people are becoming more and more self-centred, giving more to themselves only while neglecting their parents, even their children. It also makes one infer that as adults were once children, their parents might have neglected them, causing them to not take care of their parents well after they grow up. This hence turns into a malignant cycle which repeats itslef over and over again as people steadily become more selfish than ever. Presumably the poet had observed this and it inspired him to write about this poem.

Self-Reflection for last year

1) What went well for last year?

Well, I managed to score an A2 for my EOYA, and I have also attained A2 for term 1 and 2, which was my intended target after I fared badly for my English for term 1. I strived hard so as to achieve the satisfactory mark I got for term 2, 3 and my Eoya.

2)What went wrong last year?

I did not fare very well for my English in term 1, getting only a B4.I was disappointed, as the comprehension passage which I had actually thought to have scored well attained only a pathetic 19 upon 45.It caused my overall results to plummet as a result, getting me an unsatisfactory grade for English in term1. It was indeed a disappointment as I had scored rather well for my other subjects that term.

3)What is my target msg this term?

At least a 2.00. I also want to achieve at least a A2 for my English again.

4)How do I intend to achieve this?

I would definitely read a diverse range of booksto benefit myself, and I would try my best to take the effort to read the newspaper to keep up what is happening around us.I would also put a lot more effort in my work, and not hand it in sloppily, I would revise for my examinations adequately should there be any near the corner.

Intro

Hi I'm Gavin Goh. This is just a short introduction about myself. I study in HCI and I am from class 2O1......And this would needless to say be my LA blog of the year. In this blog I would post subjects that my class has discussed in class. I hope that by the end of this year, I would improve my English standard and through the process, gain knowledge from the process. We would be touching on topics affecting the world as a whole, like prejudice, and study meaningful novels like To Kill A Mockingbird. Through these topics can we analyse the ultimate reasons resulting in them occuring in our society. Henceforth I hope that we would definitely benefit from the english lessons and make this year a fruitful one.