my competition season

M y competition season has just started in what i would say perhabs a good way. Despite us being only 4th in placing in west zone we only lost to RI who were the champions of the North zone by 3 points with the final score at 48-45. We were leading almost throughout the game and gave RI quite a scare until the last part which was quite disapointing.

However, it's not over for us yet and we would get into the next round if we beat christchurch and ngee ann on 22nd and 24th of July. Before and after a matc, we would usually reflect on the different aspects of the game so as to improve ourselves.

I hope that i up my level of playing and after this competition, i look forward to next year's.

Lesson 2: Favourite poet

Lesson 2: Favourite poet

Choose a poet by going online to a couple of the internet sites such as Poets.org ( Academy of American Poets website) or American Poetry Online. Blog on your favourite poet. Your entry should be approximately 400 words. You should include the following:

-Ask yourself why you chose this particular poet. Why is he/she intriguing? Begin with an interesting fact, quote from a literary critic, an interview with the poet, etc. and move on to a thesis (yes, a thesis) which is not just a statement of fact, such as Sylvia Plath is a deeply disturbed woman. Think about what you feel about the poet's work after having done the research; create a claim or opinion about him/her and let the reader know in the thesis what exactly you will be covering in the paper.

-Background and historical context. Biographical information is fine, but make sure that it provides insight into the writer and his/her work

-Three poems by the poet

-All outside source material or links must be cited.

The poet I choose is Shel Silverstein, I choose this poet since I came to like his poems since young as he had a laid-back and conversational style of writing and his poems were also easy to understand despite the amount of slang used. Besides, Shel Silverstein was very successful in his many careers which includes: An author, a short story writer, a poet, cartoonist, songwriter, playwright and screenwriter.

Shel Silverstein was born in Chicago (Illinois) in 1932. Shel Silverstein never planned to be a writer or poet when he was young as quoted from an interview "When I was a kid - 12, 14, around there - I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls. But I couldn't play ball, I couldn't dance... So, I started to draw and to write. I was... lucky that I didn't have anyone to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style, I was creating before I knew there was a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price and a Steinberg. I never saw their work till I was around 30."

My three favorite poems written by Shel Silverstein:

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends

And before the street begins,

And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright,

And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

And the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And watch where the chalk-white arrows go

To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,

For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

The place where the sidewalk ends.

Messy Room by Shel Silverstein

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!

His underwear is hanging on the lamp.

His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,

And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.

His workbook is wedged in the window,

His sweater's been thrown on the floor.

His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,

And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.

His books are all jammed in the closet,

His vest has been left in the hall.

A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,

And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!

Donald or Robert or Willie or--

Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,

I knew it looked familiar!

The Little Boy and the Old Man by Shel Silverstein

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 don't pay attention to me."

And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.

"I know what you mean," said the little old man.

Sources:

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/6166/ss/ssbio.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shel_Silverstein#Bibliography

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/shel_silverstein/poems

Lesson 1: Figurative Language

Lesson 1: Figurative Language

Watch the video at the following URL for more information on figurative language.

An Introduction to Figurative Language in Poetry

Search for your favorite poem or song lyrics on the internet or at this website http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/

Copy and paste the poem/ lyrics on your blog and answer the following questions:

1. How are the figurative language used in the poem? Give the specific word(s), explain what type of figurative language it is and why the poet chose to use this figurative language?

1. Tell us why you like this poem in no less than 100 words.

Question 1

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends

Alliteration is used in which constant sounds are repeated as shown in bold in the above poem.

Question 2

I like this poem as the author is very desciptive and always puts for example does and adds the desciptive of that action at the end of the line as underlined in the first stanza. In the second stanza, the author describes the movement of the subject as underlined in the stanza. In the last stanza, the author repeats the action words twice to emphasize the meaning.

Inspirating tips

As i was browsing through some basketball websites yesterday, i came across a blog started by a coach who gave wome tips on how to pull up your team by putting in your own effort. The blog stated that as part of a team, you must be very good at the position that you play, such as a "Centre" who specialises in taking rebounds and shooting close shots. If you are only average in that position that you play in, you must push yourself and work harder so as to pull up your team as a whole. A player should never be average, but exceptional.

Similarly, this can be applied to our real life where we are for example during group work, we should never put in sub-standard effort but put in our best, in this way we can pull up the group together.

uh oh... 2nd post reflection of the holidays

Half of the holidays are gone and it's just about two weeks before school reopens.

During school days, we would usually get back quite late and to the extend of doing our homework until late at night. On the other hand, during school holidays we would have more free time to complete the work that is due and to work on other extra ACE projects.

However, I feel that we are more work efficient during schooling days as we will feel the pressure to complete te work that is due tomorow and hence would not procrastinate. However during the holidays we do not feel that pressure and hence tend to procrastinate. Thus i feel that we should not procrastinate our work and try to complete it as soon as possible.

Bye!!! Off to do my homework.

The holidays start!

As we have been told, we would have to post a total of 10 posts for term 3, therefore i've decided to start posting regularly now instead of rushing all my posts in a week.
Another term has passed and the next one is soon to come, although a month of holidays might seem quite long, time flies... with all the homework that we have to do coupled with my CCA trainings every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
As my results for term 2 aren't satisfactory, I plan to work harder for term 3 by putting in more effort in my work as well as paying more attention in class. during the holidays i will revise on the subjrcts that I am weak in to pull my grades up.

reflection of my life in Hwa Chong

When I entered Hwa Chong, I didn't expect life to become that hard and challenging, but everyone has to be flexible and adapt to the new lifestyle. My CCA which is basketball is held 6 times a week and up to 5 hours per training. Therefore I only manage to reach home at about an average of 7pm each day. And I only manage to complete my work on time, it is because of my CCA that I have managed to learn how to manage my time well.

Secondly, I would like to comment on the class. In the starting of the year, when we entered the class, we seemed too be kind of distant and everyone was “shy” and the class was very dull. However, as the days passed, the class seemed to work more like a team and took many initiatives as well as taking part in many events and/or competitions together.

To end this post off, I would like to thank the CMC for making the class a better place for all of us and for efficiently carrying out their duties.

Summary of "The Gift Of The Magi", by O. Henry

The Next day would be Christmas, but Della only had one dollar and eighty-seven cents despite trying her best to save up for it. Della had badly wanted to buy a gift for Jim for Christmas, but could not do so with the amount of money she had. Jim took a pride in to posscessions of his, that is had father's gold watch that had been handed down by his granfather and the other, Della's long hair. To buy a gift for Jim, Della sold her hair for twenty dollars. Della than bought a platanium fob chain to suit Jim's watch. 

On Christmas day, when Jim entered the house and saw Della had cut her hair short, he stared at her with a shocked expression that terrified Della. Della only understood why Jim had reacted that way when Jim gave her the expensive combs that she had longed for. Della than gave Jim the Dandy that was meant for his watch, it was than that Jim broke the news to her that he had sold the watch to buy the combs for her.

In the end, Della bought a Dandy for Jim who had no watch and Jim bought a set of combs for Della who had cut her hair short. Both Gave the other a better gift but caused them to lose even more than what they originally had.

The full story of "The Gift Of The Magi", by O. Henry can be found at this link: 

http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html

Comparison of my feelings when i first entered Hwa Chong to now

When I first entered Hwa Chong, I was firstly amazed by the size of the school and as every other sec 1, I was naturally confused as to where to go to and how to get there. When I entered, I thought that school wasn't going to be that bad as I had friends from my previous school and the work wouldn't be very tough. 

However, as the day by day passed by, the workload was getting larger and the level of difficulty also rised steeply. There were also many problems I faced like how was I supposed to keep up with the school work and revise for the test during the basketball competition season, naturally I would feel like giving up and putting the work to one side and rest, however one must persevere to be able to produce results.

Due to the long CCA hours, and the heavy load of work, I would feel stressed over whether i could complete it on time. From this I have learned to manage my time and put important things in the front queue.

summary of the beggining of animal farm

Animal Farm is a fable set on Manor Farm, a typical English farm. George Orwell uses a third-person perspective, and reports events without commenting on them directly. The narrator describes things as the animals see them.

Old Major calls a meeting of all the animals in the big barn. He announces that he could die anytime soon and relates to them the concepts and rules to abide by in Animalism. He explains why man is the greatest enemy of all animals, therefore the animals must take charge of their destiny by overthrowing Man by Rebelling. He relates his dream of rebellion.

Old Major soon dies and the other animals prepare for the Rebellion under the pig’s leadership. One night, Mr. Jones passes out drunk, creating the perfect opportunity for the animals to rebel. They are so hungry that they break into the store-shed. When Jones and his men try to whip them, the animals run them off the farm. Snowball changes the name of the farm to “Animal Farm” and comes up with Seven Commandments, which are to form the basis of Animalism. They are:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animals shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

Every Sunday, Snowball and Napoleon lead a meeting of all the animals in the big barn. The pigs are the most intelligent animals, so they think up resolutions for the other animals to debate. Soon after, the pigs set up a study-center for themselves in the harness-room. Snowball comes up with various campaigns for social and economic improvement. Napoleon opposes whatever Snowball does. Because most of the animals lack the intelligence to memorize the Seven Commandments, Snowball reduces them to the single maxim, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” The sheep take to chanting this at meetings.

soccer game

Firstly, i regret to have only started blogging now, however i will try and blog to meet the deadline.

For your information i have added a musicplayer and a tagbox.

In today's soccer match organised by ileague against 2I2, I am pleased to say that we won them over a margin of 5-3. This is an unexpected result as the sec 2's have much more experience in soccer therefore we were not very confident of winning.

Goals's breakdown:
The first goal was scored by me(goalkeeper, lol), which gave us a 1 point lead (technicaly i didn't score as it was an own goal as the other team's keeper touched it). Unfortunately the sec 2's made a comeback with by scoring two goals. Justin scored two goals and the 2I2 scored 1 more. the game was tied until justin ended the first half by scoring once more. We ended the first half leading by one with the score being at 4-3 to our advantage.

In the second half Our team scored one more goal extending our lead by one more. This goal also proved to be the last goal of the game. The game ended with us winning 5-3.

goals scorer:

Timothy Lung-1

Aloysius Poh- 1

Justin- 3

With a combination of teamwork and fighting spirit, we managed to overcome 2I2 with our tough defence and justin scored mercilessly.

Lastly, I wish to thank the supporters who were there, you kept all of us going. Hope you'll be present in the match against 1I2. Three cheers for 1I3 for being the first class to win a sec2 class.

With this, I wish you the best of luck in the examinations to come.