Preparation for EOYs- LA

Paper 1(Narrative and Situational writing):

I will definitely have to go over the notes that were given out and create my own notes from them. Memorising letter writing formats, especially letters of request and complains, will also be a must on the list. Re-writing micro-fiction would also be a big boost to making my story as tight as possible. Besides, as the saying goes "the more you write, the more you get wrong!"
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Paper 2(Comprehension):

PRACTICE is critical to honing one's skill at comprehension. The ability to carefully and accurately make inferences and picking out the right points is the outcome of countless practices.
As for the vocabulary section, reading more of the newspaper and maybe even the dictionary would help to increase our "arsenal" of vocabulary. For the summary, again, practising micro-fiction will be an essential tool to conquering the paper.
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Paper 3( Literature-Unseen poem/ Unseen prose):

Re-reading Animal Farm is one of the main points in this part of revision. I can also re-read the previous tests or written practices on unseen poems or prose to see my mistakes and hopefully manage to correct them with the help of the many notes with regards to figures of speech, how to do character sketches etc.
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Here's me signing of with a famous quote by Julius Caesar(not Caesar salad, which was created by Caesar Cardini but I will not go into details...):
Veni (I came into the Examination room), Vidi (I saw the examination scripts), Vici( I conquered it...hopefully) Buh Bye till the next post...=]

MBA(Major Blogging Assignment)

This is the song I think represents me the most:

"Perfect"by Simple Plan

Hey dad look at me
Think back and talk to me
Did I grow up according to plan?
And do you think I'm wasting my time doing things I wanna do?
But it hurts when you disapprove all along

And now I try hard to make it
I just want to make you proud
I'm never gonna be good enough for you
I can't pretend that
I'm alright
And you can't change me

'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late and
We can't go back
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect

I try not to think
About the pain I feel inside
Did you know you used to be my hero?
All the days you spent with me
Now seem so far away
And it feels like you don't care anymore

And now I try hard to make it
I just want to make you proud
I'm never gonna be good enough for you
I can't stand another fight
And nothing's alright

'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late and
We can't go back
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect

Nothing's gonna change the things that you said
Nothing's gonna make this right again
Please don't turn your back
I can't believe it's hard
Just to talk to you
But you don't understand

'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late and
We can't go back
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect

'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late and
We can't go back
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect

ANALYSIS

The first stanza is basically about a teenager who asks his father as to whether he has made his father proud in the phrase "Did I grow up according to plan", showing the persona's uncertainty on whether he has done anything to please or disgrace his father. In my case, I have always been uncertain on whether i should do certain things, as I am afraid it might displease anyone around me.
"And do you think I'm wasting my time doing things I wanna do" represents my feelings of whether my parents would actually disapprove of me doing things of my interest. "But it hurts when you disapprove all along" describes my feelings as I find out about their disapproval of my interests. In the second stanza, "And now I try hard to make it I just want to make you proud" shows that I am constantly trying to adapt, to fit into the criteria of what other people and my parents want me to be. "I'm never gonna be good enough for you" shows two meanings. One, is that I have a low self-esteem, and that I do not feel confident enough to be "good enough for you". Two, is that I keep striving to be "perfect", that nothing is good enough for me. "And you can't change me" describes that I will stick to my ways if I feel that it is the correct thing to do, and not blindly follow others.

The third stanza is repeated in the sixth, eight and ninth stanza. "'Cuz we lost it all/Nothing lasts forever" shows that my relationship with my parents are strained, that I fell they do not understand me at times, and vice versa. "I'm sorry/I can't be perfect" show that I feel that I cannot live up to my parents' requirements, hinting my desperation. "Now it's just too late" for us to go back the way we were. The fourth stanza starts with "I try not to think/About the pain I feel inside" which shows that I am trying hard to forget the bitterness within me, trying to forgive possibly. "Did you know you used to be my hero?" shows that I once looked up to them as role models, but my view has changed as "All the days you spent with me/Now seem so far away", that "it feels like you don't care anymore". The seventh stanza reveals that "Nothing's gonna change the things that you said" which means that I will not trust them the way I did before. However, I actually want to communicate with them to solve our problems, asking them "Please don't turn your back". In the end, "I can't believe it's hard/Just to talk to you" that you will not listen, and that "you don't understand".
I feel that the tone in this song is rather pleading, as the teenager in the song just wants his father to be proud of him, to proudly announce that he's his son. It sort of relates to me too, as I want my parents to be proud of me, even though they keep comparing me with people of better caliber, no matter how much effort I have already put in.

Here's my response to the the song in the form, of a poem..Enjoy!!=]

Please Don't Turn Your Back
by Joel Lee

Please don't turn your back
Lest you miss what I mean
Engrossed in your activities
Anxious about all the wrong things
Still giving me the cold shoulder
Engrossed in your cards which form the dealer's deck

Do listen mother and father
Oblivious to motion
Neglecting emotions
Tearing apart the fruit of your labour

Tumultuous weather threaten cloudy skies
Under attack away the small clouds flee
Respite found only in the depths of the sea
Nursing the sick and close to die

Your parents have left you, haven't you see?
Oblivious to the danger you kids were left in
Unanimously the clouds voted in
Responded "we were just trying to please"

Beware parents who do not care
A future in where both parties suffer
Concrete blocks that make a tower
Keep tumbling down


And now...My father's response!!*gasp*
"I never knew that he thought he did not live up to our requirements. He was really brave to come up to even ask us to respond to his analysis as this has always been quite an important matter to him. I hope that my wife and I can change how he describes himself, but in a more positive way."

Extended Metaphor Poem of a Household Item

Fabled to reflect souls
Filled with secrets untold
An item of immortality
with its fragile heart

Filled with kindness or cruelty
A being of many personalities
A marveled work of art
unlike any other

Unduly playing its part
Hung on a wall or even a cupboard
Ode to all mothers
that man in the mirror

Lesson 5: Poetry on Gambling

Thread 1:
Paul's weakness was that he never managed to contain his fervour for betting on horses, and this led to his addiction to it. He only allowed it to fester like an infected wound, only draining him of his strength and weakening his mentality, a contrast to what he thought of it. This just led him to repeatedly betting on horses which causes him to die in the end.

As for the cards stacked against him, it meant that things were not likely to go entirely his way, as he started losing money despite his initial wins, causing him to use a lot of effort just to predict who will win for the next match.

Paul was better off dying early rather than as an old man seventy years of age. If he had lived to seventy, who knows how addicted he would be to betting, seeing how addicted he was already when he was such a young boy. He is also unable to contain his interest for it, if he had money in the future he could most likely squander it away with a bad pick if he was unlucky, or made many times its original amount in profits if he was in luck. Money and horse betting could be all he thinks about, with a possibility that he would explore even more aspects of gambling leading him to use different methods to source for "luck". If one of this sources was to kill someone, would he not have done it for the sake of amassing a greater fortune? It would not have been worth it, killing just to win in a bet.

Thread 3:
Ah Boh could be said to be blinded throughout the entire story - by superstitions. Even up till the end of the story I doubt that she has repented. Despite saying that she would buy a grand coffin for her dead mother-in-law, she said that it would be with her winnings. If she did not win anytime soon, would she carry on gambling, using the excuse of buying a grand coffin for her mother?

As for numbers, she was obsessed with them, interpreting everything around her as a sign for a winning number in the lottery. Even sacrificing much of her time to go around looking for such numbers show how much this numbers really meant to her.

Eventually she would end up with no income or savings if she continues to squander her money away on useless gambling. In the meanwhile, her interpersonal relationships have spiralled down as she fails to listen to her friends and family's advice to quit. Her hopeless hope for a quick windfall would cause her ultimately - zero dollars.

Lesson 4: Gambling

Thread 2:
As seen in the story, Ah Boh was very superstitious when it came to gambling. She was also addicted to it as she could forsake her mother-in-law and her own daily needs. She interpreted winning numbers from dreams, even taking the effort to pen down her dreams and figure out what they meant, like a spider represents the number three and so on. Weighing her employer's cat and even asking a month-old baby to help her pick numbers, these are just a few ways in which she satisfy her superstitious needs. She would even go so far as to rush to accident scenes and stand the gruesome sight just to copy down the car plate number of the cars involved in the accidents. These unfounded beliefs just led Ah Boh to gamble even more.

Thread 3:
The person who led Paul to his demise was his uncle, Oscar Cresswell. Although the person who introduced him to gambling was his gardener, Basset, Paul won his first race using ten shillings which Uncle Oscar had given him, causing him to think that Uncle Oscar was lucky. This caused Paul to ask Uncle Oscar to join him in horse betting and become partners. If Uncle Oscar disagreed to being partners, Paul might have given up on horse betting. In addition, when Uncle Oscar started winning money through Paul, he started to get greedier, and this encouraged Paul to continue with his gambling habits, eventually leading to his death.

Analysis of The Son is in Secondary School by Affran Sa’at

My badge has a Latin motto
Hope for the future
The future is hope
Or something

At times black crows try to interrupt
When we sing the National Anthem

It is difficult to maintain
The whiteness of my shoes

Especially on Wednesdays I must admit there is something quite special
About the bare thighs of hardworking scouts

The Malay chauffeurs
Who wait for my schoolmates
Sit on the car park kerb
Telling jokes to one another
Seven to the power of five is unreasonable

On Chinese New Year Mrs Lee dressed up
In a sarong kebaya
And sang Bengawan Solo

The capital of Singapore is Singapore

My best friend did a heroic thing once
Shaded all A’s
For his Chinese Language Multiple-choice paper

In our annual yearbook
There is a photograph of me
Pushing a wheelchair and smiling
They caught me
At the exact moment
When my eyes were actually closed

Affran Sa'at has chosen to write this poem in the form of a free verse, structuring it like daily conversation, as if he is trying to engage the reader in casual conversation, relating events about his school, rather than in a poetic form. The absence of alliterations show that making this poem musical is not the top priority in composing this poem. There were instances where imagery was used. For instance, "black crows" and "whiteness of my shoes". Even though these are not very strong "word pictures", they enable the reader to visualise what the poet is talking about.


Response to threads:
1. The poet misses his secondary school, as he remembers many significant details of it, regardless of whether it happened once or regularly. Many of the things he remember are those of happy thoughts, that he did not leave this school having a grudge with it. He seems to want to go back to secondary school life if he had the chance, to relive his past memories.

2.
Cross atop a building
Angel at the front gate standing
Spiritually filled it stood
A guardian of what is good

Field with memories never forgotten till time's end
A bed of barren, desert land
Hours of tackling, scoring, passing
Disregarding the need for studying or spelling

Classrooms filled with shaky fans
Whiteboard stained with the mark of our hands
A little souvenir for the classes below
A tinted glass window from the shaky side panel

Friends who moved about and stayed
Memories that would never fade
Quarrels, fights, arguments and brawls
Nevertheless a family, one for all

Our science teacher was a young bloke
loved to make all kinds of jokes
English teacher wasn't the same
A big NO to fun and games

Many things to say
Many stories to share
But at the end of the day
It is how you live life, over there

Favourite Poet!!

As you can see from my previous poem, the poet I favor is Robert Lee Frost, though more famously known simply as Robert Frost. Why is that so? One reason is that he was one of the first poets I came to know about and therefore he has left an impression on me with "The Road Not Taken", which was also the first poem that I have read since starting literature.

It was noted that mental illnesses ran through the family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, while his sister was admitted to a mental hospital. He led a life filled with grief as his children and wife started succumbing to different illnesses, with only two children out of six outliving their parents.

An author who wrote on his life quoted that Robert Frost was "a loner who liked company; a poet of isolation who sought a mass audience; a rebel who sought to fit in." He also "traveled more than any poet of his generation to give lectures and readings, even though he remained terrified of public speaking to the end." Despite initially being regarded as an ordinary "farm-poet", Robert Frost eventually gained recognition through his literary works with realistic depictions on rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.

He attended Dartmouth College and Harvard College, but dropped out halfway to support his family. However, he managed to obtain honorary degrees from several well-known colleges including Harvard Oxford, and Cambridge universities at the height of his fame. A high point in his life was when he read out a poem at JFK's inauguration‘s president. The plan was to originally read out a new poem he wrote for the inauguration, entitled "Dedication". However, but due to certain factors regarding his age and How new the poem was to him, he decided to fall back and read another poem, entitled "The Gift Outright".

Three of Robert Frost's more famous poems include:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

This poem is basically about the fact that nothing in the world remains pure and perfect for long.

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

It discusses the end of the world, likening the elemental force of fire with the emotion of desire and hate with ice.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

This poem was what Robert Frost claimed as one of his favourite poems, saying that it was his "best bid for remembrance". A broadcasting station read out this poem during the report of John F. Kennedy's casket reaching the white house. The person who was reading the poem at that time, Sid Davis, was overcome with emotion when he signed off his report with it.

Sources:

en.wikipedia.org

http://www.google.com/