My First Semester As a Secondary One Student

Finally, a gruelling 6 months have passed by from the start of the year 2009. Time flies pass when you do not really notice it. Also, now I find myself here, in front of the computer, typing out the contents on my first semester as a secondary one student. It all started way back in January third, the year 2009m, when I entered the famous grounds of Hwa Chong Institution. Around me was a class of complete strangers, whom I might have met before and not bothered to care, nonetheless, I doubt they would have remembered seeing me. Thus, from this point of time, the infamous days of hectic secondary school life began.
The first day of school was not as bad as I had expected it to be, with no much teaching or remembering to do. There came the second and third days, and nothing had much changed in those few days. However, the fourth day came the trial, and lessons began. Still, I did not find it that bad, though I was announced to have seven subjects to take. Next came the next toughest trial of decision, the Co-curricular ativity I was going to take. Many choices flooded my head when asked to choose, though shortlisting a not that short list of CCAs, or as they call it the EP3s. Air rifle would be good, out of the sun, cooling and relaxing, but it would be too boring. Next came badminton, not bad a choice though, but they were only willing to take in the good ones in as they had a competition coming up soon, really really good players, so, another selection crossed off in my mind. So, it was after these tiresome task of crossing out and listing the pros and cons, I decided to go for the Track and Field team. I heard that they were holding the legacy of the B division boys champion for 18 years, and the C division boys, for 8 years. Thus, my mind was set, with all the abilities of a sportsman, I thought to myself, okay, Track And Field it shall be, and I hope to be part of the legacy when they hold the C division boy's champion for the 10th year and the B division boys' for the 21st year.
After the selection of the EP3, came the even more tedious task of balancing homework, with EP3, it was a little hard to do it at first, with me having to burn the midnight oil to finish them sometimes. As the saying goes, "Practise makes perfect". I practise my time management skills through my everyday timetable and has finally managed to strike a blance between work and play. As in how I am coping, there is not much homework to be done in the first term, striking that balance was afterall, quite easy a task, I wonder if how I am doing things now would tide me through the rest of the year, or maybe even for next year. From what the seniors say, homework is going muliply into a terrible beast which would soon gt out of hand. So I believe, proper time management is vital in "surviving" the homework load.
So all in all, I have learned many things in secondary school, though only in the first semester. Time management and critical thinking, are what I have learned, and what has helped me to survive the "treacherous" days of secondary school. With many more years to come, I will definitely learn many more survival tips and help me achieve high in the days, of the infamous secondary school life.

Competition:Yay or Nay

Today's post is quite obvious, about competition. In our lives, we will and had, come across many competitions in our lives. Whether is it in a musical competition or a sports competition, some of us might had been in it. Ask yourself, whenever you take part in a competition, do you take it very very seriously, as if your life were on the line, or do you take it not that seriously, that it is just another chance to learn and gain experience? Well, competitions are mainly to pit a person or team against another. Also, the main point in a competition is to see how well you perform in a particular environment. Therefore, it is advised not to take a competition too (keyword being too) seriously as we would probably take part in many other competitions later on.

Moving on to the issue of competitiveness in school and between schools. Many parents nowadays are worried that their children might get too competitive and and might not be able to take the blow if they lose. I have to agree that children nowadays are more focused on the result of the competition then on the process of the competitions and the experiences gained by it. The whole main purpose of the Ministry Of Education introducing the SYF competition, track and field nationals and many others, is to let children learn from the competitions and improve on what might have gone wrong in the competition. However, the children have now forgotten the true meaning of the competitions and became competitive, in a wrong way. That is why the parents are complaining that the competitions have made their children grow too competitive, and lack the correct values when in a competition. For example, the children attending the track and field nationals would even jeer at the schools that are rival to theirs. This deviates from the whole point of a competition. Under these circumstances, the children are unable to understand the true spirit and meaning of the competition.

Hence, the true spirit and meaning in a competition is the process, experience and then, the result. It does not matter if you win or lose, it is what you gain from the compeition that counts, and that is where you grow from, by learning, understanding and improving. With that, we become a better person, a more learned person and a more experienced person.

What is the world becoming of now?

Sometimes, weirdly enough, this question will pop up in my head: What is the world becoming of now? Since the start of the 21st century, many disasters have struck the planet we call home. Firstly, two of the world's largest earthquake has occured. The Paskistan earthquake and the Sichuan earthquake with a magnitude of over 8 on the Ritcher Scale. Secondly, the polar ice-caps are now beginning to melt ever faster than before due to the Greenhouse effect. Next, is the spark of the many terrorist attanks. From the incident of the World Trade Centre to the Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Then, there is the escape of the Jemaah Islamiyah Singapore leader Mas Selamt Bin Kastari. Fourthly, there is the tsunami that struck the shores of Sumatra and other neighbouring islands causing millions of deaths. Also, there is the 2003 outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Furthermore, the outbreak of two new Flu virus species, the H5N1 and the H1N1. Lastly is the crash of the world's economy.

What is becoming of the world right now? It is because of our own actions that have caused all these disasters (except for the natural ones). Man is the cause of the unseen chaos in the world right now. There are two main reasons that the world is falling apart because of man: Greed and Selfishness. It is because of Man's greed that sparked off the terrorist attacks. man's constant desire to be able to have more and more things. it is also because of Man's greed that has caused the great economic downturn now. If the fellow businessmen were to just know their capabilities and to borrow only if they are certain that they will be able to return it. They did not, and see what happens now, the great economic downturn. Moving on to the next topic of taking precautions. Many of the victims of the disaster could have survived if the people took more pracautions. Take the tsunami for example, if the people there were to install more wave barriers and tsunami warning alarms, many more people's lives would have been spared by the unforgiving waves. Many things in life can be changed when you become more selfless and careful if people were to be more like that, this blog post would then be unnescesary.

Singapore's vigilance: enough or not?

I am posting this entry today with reference to the JI Leader: Mas Selamat Bin Kastari. Quite some time ago, This dangerous fugitive escaped from the Whitely Detention Centre. This resulted in the largest manhunt in Singapore, with a bounty of a million Singaopre dollars for information about his whereabouts.

For the first few months of the manhunt, Singaporeans all were constantly vigilant for the fugitive. the police carried out searches day and night to find even a small trace of his whereabouts. However, towards the later parts of the year, Singaporeans start to forget about Msa Selamat. Even the police have started to reduce their searches. Are Singaporeans nowadays really that absent-minded? The escaped fugitive had once harboured a plan to attack the Changi International Airport. Why do the people then tend to forget that there is such a dangerous fugitive on the loose? If you do not even mention the fugitive's names to them, they completely forgot that there is such a person on the loose. Even I myself had at times, forget that Mas Selamat is on the loose and could be plotting a revenge on Singapore. This issue concerns our safety. What if he attacks the airport and we happen to be victims? I was reminded at times about this issue when I was ordering a plate of "Nasi Lemak." The shopwner says it so quickly that it seemed as though she had just said "Mas Selamat". Though the fact remains that Singapore have indeed heightened their vigilance but it did not last long. After the last peice of news that he could still be hiding in Singapore, there were no more news about him. The People then slackened and did not care much about the fugitive. Finally, just yesterday, Mas Selamat was announced to be arrested in Malaysia. What were the police force doing? They did not even give the people updates on their latest information. Mas Selamat had penetrated through the Singapore guards after all. This was all thanks to the Malaysian Police who had arrested the fugitive. Singaporeans, not that much to be credited. So, thionk about it, have you at ay time forgot about Mas Selamat and the threats he could pose?