My Favourite Poet

Mark Strand. Who is he? He is a poet, a translator, and also writes short fiction stories. He has also been a professor of English at Columbia University since 2005.Finally, he is my favourite poet!

This is because I feel that he has great ideas for his poems and liked the way he views several things. For example, in the poem, Eating Poetry, it talks about about the character eating poetry which I guess is due to the person in the poem's dislike of poetry. I didn't really understand the poem initially as the idea for the poem is kinda weird. Though I am not interested in poetry, I found this poem interesting and enjoyed reading it.

He also wrote several collections of poetry including the Blizzard of one(1998), The story of our lives(1973), Dark Harbor(1993), The Continuous Life(1990), Man and Camel(2006), Selected poems(1980) and lastly, Reasons for Moving(1968).

The three poems written by Mark Strand are Eating Poetry, Keeping things whole and the room.

Is progress necessarily beneficial for society?

Is progress necessarily beneficial for society? I don't think so. I feel that progress can be either beneficial or detrimental to the society. There are times when the society start to progess but it does not work out and it causes harm to the society. For example, in "Village by the Sea", They decided to bulid a fertilizer factory in the village of Thul. But jobs would not be given to the villagers of Thul as they do not know much about fertilizers. The land used by the villagers for farming would also be used to build the factory. Thus, the villagers, like Hari, would have to find work in the city, or try to adapt to the change, which is not very easy in my opinion.
Another example is Biju's boat. It signals the progress of the society in the village. Technology is getting more advanced and this would help catch more fishes.from these two examples, we can conclude that progress is not necessarily beneficial for society.

My favourite part of VBTS

I guess my favourite part of "Village by the sea" is the ending. Not suprising since its a happy ending and everything turned out great. There wasn't anything much to like about the other parts of the story due to the fact that most of it was about the problems Hari and Lila faced.

At the end of the book, Hari managed to earn some money during his time in Bombay and learnt that we have to adapt to the changes in the world around us. He decided to set up a poultry farm and help others mend watches as plenty of people are coming to Thul once the factory is built. With the help of the De Silvas, their mother was sent to the hospital and recovered from her illness. Their father also turned over a new leaf.So, it was a happy ending and my favourite part of the book.

Favourite character in Village by the sea

I had read the book "Village by the sea" for the literature test. So... who is my favourite character in the book? i guess that would be Mr.Panwallah. I find that he is very helpful,kind and cheerful. When Hari went ot work in Jagu's restaurant, he helped him a lot and even taught Hari how to mend watches. He taught Hari that we should adapt to changes in the world around us. In Hari's case, he should set up a poultry farm and help to mend watches for a living. Mr.Panwallah also brought Hari out on several occasions, helping Hari during his time in Bombay. Even though Hari was just a boy working at Jagu's restaurant, he was willing to help him and made his life easier in Bombay. Thus, Mr.Panwallah is my favourite character.

I rather be the city rat than the country rat

City rat or country rat? Both of them have their advantages and i will list them down below.

City rat
I guess life as a city rat would be alot more comfortable than being a country rat. Technology is also more advanced in the city. There are computers, televisions etc. Thus, it makes life more comfortable and interesting. We are also able to get all our daily neccessities in the city easily.

Country rat
Life as a country rat would be very different from life as a city rat. There isn't any computers, televisions, refrigerators etc, making life very difficult. Some people are poor and might not have enough. But despite all of these, being a country rat can be fun. You could go fishing and other leisure activities to have fun and pass time.


In conclusion, There are advantages and disadvantages in being either a city rat or a country rat. But if i had to choose, I rather be a city rat.

Play about Tan kah Kee

Hi everyone, sorry for not posting for so long! First, let me update everyone on what I had done for the past one month. I had withdrawn from my japanese lessons:P. No more rushing for classes after school and reaching home at about 8p.m on Thursdays. I also started doing media tech duties very often, and thus learning a lot along the way.

Yesterday, I watched a play about Tan Kah Kee,along with the rest of the sec 1s. The school has made it compulsory. I enjoyed the show. Although I don't think that it is a really great show, i find it very meaningful and at some points quite touching. Through this show, I have learnt a lot about Tan Kah Kee and his contributions to Hwa Chong.

I would try to post once every week from now on so please visit my blog.

Nothing is impossible

Miss Oh Siew May, aged 38, has cerebral palsy. For those who do not know what that is, it is a condition caused by brain damage and affects the muscular control and coordination. This has made her an easy target for cruel jokes and discrimination. Her family members has also suffered several tragedies

But what did she do? She didn't feel depressed, she did not pity herself and felt that life was unfair. Instead, she was optimistic and did things that people with this condition would not. For example, she Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia!Last December, she wrote a book on her life story. It was named 'Scaling Walls'. Despite facing several difficulties in publishing the book, she managed to do it with the help of some close friends who started a company.Now, the book has already sold 3000 copies.

I feel that other people infected with cerebral palsy would follow in the footsteps of Miss Oh. I also hope that Miss Oh would be able to lead a better life. Nothing is impossible

Horrible day

This is my second post for today but since the first post was an assignment, i think that I should post again. Today, I started off the day in quite a nice way, getting A1 for history. But things sort of gotten horribly wrong after that. First, there was a chinese test. I think most people who know me should know that my chinese sucks :( So i kinda hate chinese tests.

Secondly, after grabbing something to eat at the canteen, I went to the bus stop. But while walking to the bus stop, it started raining very heavily. It was only a slight drizzle before. I immediately ran towards the shelter. But what's the point? It was raining so heavily that the shelter was practically useless. In the end, i was drenched by the time I reached the bus stop.

Next, I had to wait for half an hour for the bus. But halfway along the road home, the bus broke down. The tyre had punctured. So I had to waiting for the bus and then blah blah blah. By the time i reached home, i was so damn tired. Luckily there wasn't much homework. Now I go play computer games.

LA Assignment

The article that I am going to write about is '74 dead in Shanxi mine explosion' from The Straits Times on 23 February 2009. I think that this article is an event story as a gas explosion at a coal mine in northern China killed at least 74 miners yesterday. This event has also caused 60 other miners to be trapped underground only to be rescued several hours later. Due to this event, the power supply has also been cut off. Some miners also fainted due to the lack of oxygen. Hence, through all the deaths and injuries of the miners, i think that we can conclude that this incident is a tragedy that happened to the miners working there.

After this incident, the Chinese government has vowed to make working at the mines in China safer. Most of the miners has been rushed to the hospital as they suffered carbon monoxide poisonong during the incident. Hence, i feel that the rescuers have done thier best in saving the poor miners.

I feel sad about the deaths of the innocent miners working there. They had done nothing wrong. In my opinion, the miners working in other parts of the world should learn from this incident. They should try to prevent such incidents from happening again.

I guess the best way to make the mines safer is to try to be more careful and alert. People coundn't just stop mining because of the dangers as they have to mine for natural resources.
I hope such incidents would not happen again and people reading this post will feel the same way as me.

Sleeping in class

Nothing else to post so talk about people sleeping in class. Although it seems wrong, but I think we cannot blame them. Lessons could get really boring sometimes, especially chinese. Me myself tend to feel drowsy during chinese and japanese lessons. I never had this problem before in primary school before since my chinese teacher was not boring at all and I hadn't started taking japanese. Luckily, our chinese teacher this year is very nice, never scold us. Haha.

I am also getting really bored recently. No fun games released recently. I haven't played my wii for two months now and playing my ds is just not enjoyable. Wah now already 1a.m. Feel like listening to some music. Someone please post some comments on my blog! Thanks!

Japanese test

Last Thursday, I received my previous japanese test. I failed. 17/37. When I received my test, the teacher said' YOU BETTER READ UP MORE!!!!!!!!!' So scary. After that I got another japanese test. I did even worse. If I am lucky, the most I would get is about 2/10.I look forward to this thursday.(as if) I seriously feel like quitting third language. So tough. Also very tiring. But my parents don't allow me to quit. Guess I have to work harder for the upcoming hiragana test and learn katakana.So anyway, please check my blog often. I would try to post more.

Back to my primary school

Sorry for not posting for so long!! Kinda busy with some stuff. On Friday, school ended horribly early so I grabbed the opportunity to go back to my primary school. I took bus 157 back to the bus stop near my primary school with my friends. After the tiring journey back to school, the security guard did not allow us to go up to the second floor as the CNY celebrations were still going on. Meanwhile, we just went to the 7-eleven just opposite the school. I just drank a large slurpee. then I had my lunch at the school canteen. I missed eating there! Great variety of food, food taste fantastic, and very cheap too. Yeah, the canteen is great, unlike certain canteens...

Then, I was finally allowed to meet my teacher. Could not find my old class at first. I thought it was gone. Luckily it just moved to the second floor. Don't know why they did it. I did not looked for my chinese teacher. I just did not want to hear her nag at me. I had a great time. I also met some of my old friends.Hope to go back soon. So damn fun!!!

I am VERY BORED!!!!!!!!! So I decided to share the video which my history teacher showed to the class. Please click here and have fun watching!!!!!

The issue of integrity

I had just read an article, 'The issue of integrity', on friday, 14 Jan. It was about the 'Families Against the Casino Threat in Singapore' who, before sending their petition to President S.R Nathan, deleted names without proper identification numbers or contact details. This is due to the fact that someone could actually generate multiple entries on a petition.

I feel that they had done the right thing. By doing this, others would trust them and believe that the number of people who signed the petition is true. Through this article, I learned that we must have integrity no matter what the outcome.

yay a blog (: haha