Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Descriptive Essay

This is my draft on my descriptive essay. My English isn't that strong, so help me by giving me feedbacks. Thanks!



Sounds of gunshots are heard everywhere. Civilians are running in every direction, babies crying and women gathering their basic belongings in top speed. Chaos is in the air as the Japanese troops marched in, shooting remorselessly any humans alive and the British troops are scattered like ants everywhere. In the midst of chaos, a little foreign boy, John sits in a corner and watched this live movie with great interest.
The British had surrendered to the Japanese after various attempts to defend in desperation, but the Japanese had cut through the British defenses like a blade through paper. Somehow John managed to escape the strong Japanese, even with the soldiers raiding his magnificent house and all his family members taken. Once he thought his country’s people as highly, powerful men are actually hopeless people just like the locals. Everything was changed in a few days after the gory event: bodies everywhere, rubble could be found in every corner, and reproachful looks could be seen on the people’s face. John did not dare stroll around the streets anymore, as reality started creeping to him with his live movie coming to an end.
The Japanese took over, and changed the people’s was of living completely. Shops that were very familiar to John changed into Japanese shops, while learning Japanese was compulsory and no one was allowed to use other languages. Food supplies were awful and inedible, but there was no choice. John felt life getting more difficult, and now a teenager, his appetite is starting to give him trouble. Once he asked for more food, but a cold, powerful slap was the reply to him. A stray orphan down the post-war street is not a nice scene for anyone. The Japanese people acted like God in the street, people were tortured for no right reason, and girls were taken away by them. Every corner was searched, and many innocent people were taken to jail. With the helping hand of God and sheer luck, John escaped once again from the Japanese, undetected.
John was giving up his hopes, as he now has difficulties with his survival. Finally, one sunny day, John saw an unlucky family being caught by the Japanese. As they were beaten up and took away, he thought of his family and got really emotional. He stood on the banks of the still Singapore River and let all the emotions flow into him. He got ready to do his first and last dive, and closed his eyes. Just at the moment, loud shouting could be heard everywhere. John stopped in a moment and saw people everywhere. Many people were, rejoicing in the streets! This is weird, thought John. He forgot what he was going to do, and walked into the crowd and talked to the people, asking them what happened.
The story was told like a legend: the little atomic bomb was dropped. It touched the ground swiftly, but the effects were devastating. This made the Japanese surrender, with thousands of people killed brutally in the process. Now, cheerful voices filled the streets and smiles are seen everywhere. But problems are arising. Everything was ruined and people are poor. The British are back, however people started to detest them for their failed attempts to save them. They took John, now a strong young man, to their office for a nice offer, as John’s father was one of them before he got caught. However, he declined the offer, and had just requested a little house for himself. With the help of the British, John got a job easily and his income steady.

When Singapore had a merger with Malaysia, John, who is able to speak in many languages, was invited by the government to be their translator. By now, John had a family and a lovely son. Relations were quite strong and things went well in the early years, but with various heated arguments with the two countries, John was sacked, just like Singapore. Having a family to support, and being unemployed, suddenly, John felt that he had gone back into time, with a difficult life. Now, Singapore is independent, which encounters many important issues to deal with, just like John.
Finally, after months of job-finding, John got a job as a clerk. Gradually, he went higher, from a normal clerk to the company’s boss. Now a leader of a big company, John traveled everywhere to deal with business, with an income flowing in like a waterfall. Once a poor, skinny boy whom faced death many times, is one of the wealthiest man in Singapore during those times. Just like Singapore, once a little island became a mega city, having amazing technologies and sophisticated systems.
John reached his 70’s, retired from work with the company passed down to his son. A wealthy old man, John enjoys his life as much as he could. One day, his grandson asked him: “How was life during the war?” John sighed, gave his little grandson a sad smile, and said: “Sounds of gunshots are heard everywhere. Civilians are running in every direction...........”

Monday, January 31, 2011

Poem for characters in To Kill a Mockingbird

After reading the literature book assigned to us, we did a poem to familiarize with the characters in the story. We did Miss Maudie, Scout's lovely neighbour which had affected her quite a lot in the story.

Miss Maudie

Miss Maudie hated her house,

Time spent indoors

was time wasted.

She was a widow,

A chameloen lady who worked,

in her flower beds.

She loved everything that grew

On God's earth,

even the weeds.

She made the best cakes in the neighbourhood,

She would call across the street :

"Jem Finch! Scott Finch! Charles Baker Harris! Come here!"

Our promptness was always rewarded.

When her house caught fire,

She stared at the smoking

Black hole in the yard,

She deed not seem to want to talk.

But the shadow of her old grin crossed her face.

"You ain't grieving, Miss Maudie?" I asked.

"Grieving, child? I hated that old cow barn"

"Thought of setting fire to it a hundred times to myself."

Jem said he didn't know what was the matter with her,

that was just Miss Maudie.

Done by Akira and me of course

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Seaside Description

It is a windy sunset, with lots of coconut tree growing sideways with the tree. The sky is like a painting, from the dark blue to purplish-red, and no sun can be seen. Many coconut trees are to be seen along the shore, tall, short, straight, sideways and many various sizes. It was a calm seashore and there is a hut built near the sea, with a long wooden bridge connecting it to the shore. A few more of these hut are also found further away down the seashore.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Home Learning

Home Learning
By raywen | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

The first comic background is a typical place with a busy road, to make it look like reality. The old woman hopeless expression shows that she couldn't cross the road by herself. This creates a suspense to attract readers.
It continous in the second strip when a little passerby kid saw the situation. This extends the story by making the readers wonder the cabability of the kid in helping the old woman.
In the third comic, both of them crossed the road. with difficulty. This is the climax at no one knows what happened to them and this is one of hte interests.
In the last comic, they had finally crossed the road safely and the old woman thanked the little boy. This is the ending and the whole meaning of the comic is to promote helpfulness in helping the needy.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Summary and Rounding up of "Prejudice"

So after brainstorming and every means of understanding this "chim" word is done, i did a summary and concept map with my group:

1,Prejudice defines people being biased and judging others whom they do not know unfairly.

2,Prejudice is caused by the discrimination of people with different status and race. Prejudice causes misunderstanding among people, forming misconceptions of certain people, like the Europeans towards the ‘black people’, which lead to poor treatment of these people by the people who prejudiced against them. Prejudice leads to discrimination.

3,Prejudice may lead to racial tensions and even cause some undesirable events to happen such as civil wars, riots like the one in Singapore in the 1950s.

4,Prejudgment still occurs in current society, but it is not as serious during the 19th and early 20th century in Europe, possibly because there a clear distinction between people with higher status and commoners or with laws implemented like that in the USA against all the discrimination.

5,Examples of historical happenings and dictation of prejudice include speeches given by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., and also books like ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’. These examples have described the prejudgment in the society during their times.



Done by Houyu, Boshen, Jerry and me!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Prejudice

Time flies and here we go with another assignment to post on this blog. The Question: What is prejudice? Oh no. My vocabulary is the my WORST thing in english. Prejudice? heard VAGUELY in 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Lucky for my helpful friends, i somewhat think i know what is it.

What do you KNOW about prejudice:
unfair judgement?
pre - before , judice - justice, prejudice - justice beforehand?
racism?
bias?

What do you WANT to know about prejudice:
everything?
what forms of prejudice are there
able to understand what is the true meaning and how to idntify it
understand how to use it effectively as the theme for essays

After various of brainstorming and teaching, i finally understood what is prejudice
What have I LEARN about prejudice:
an unfair treatment to others, no matter different or not
racism - a form of prejudice
fight, war are consequences for being prejudice

Friday, January 14, 2011

New Year - 2011!

Wow.... time flies and one year of secondary life is gone. Yeah. GONE D: anyways Sec 2 must be better than before, having almost failed English (Phew!) otherwise OK. Now now, almost everything is new, teachers and homework and learning system and everything else which I'm lazy to point out :P We have a new english teacher, Miss Huang. She's quite strict,but not too much which i like because we won't slack and wouldn't hate those teachers that are TOO strict. Hope my english won't fail this time, and i hope everything will be better than 2010!(btw 2012 is next year)