Something interseting that happened today

Today, something very interesting happened in school. Usually, for the first two periods after recess, my classmates and I would go for our OPW lessons in the computer lab. OPW stands for online project work, where secondary 2 Victorians have to create a three-dimensional image which is an upgrade of a school facility. This project is graded and if our submission is one of the top 3 best submissions in the entire level, we get an additional 2% overall marks, which could help us in getting into the secondary 3 subject combination of our choice.

Usually, during these lessons, we would go the computer lab and continue writing our proposal for the project, which includes how we are to improve the school facilities and how this will benefit the school as a whole. But today, instead of this, several vendors came to our school to teach us how to use "Google sketch up". This is the software that we are supposed to use to create our 3D image. As we do not have any background knowledge about this programme, these vendors had come to our school to teach us the basics of the software that would enable us to complete the project without much difficulty. The training course is spanned over a 4 week period where the vendors would progressively teach us more and more ways to use Google Sketch up.

So today, we had our first time using the software, and I must say that I was very impressed by it. We could mould figures of complex shapes in a short time. We learned how to use the basic features of the programme and even how to make a chair in less than a minute! We were shown the more common errors made by past users of the system and how to create models in a short period of time.

I found the first of these lessons very interesting and I am very excited to be using this programme in the near future for the OPW projects. I hope that I will be able to learn enough from these lessons to allow smooth progress in the completion of projects that require this programme years to come

Somethinng in school

Today, I had the first RSP lesson of the year. RSP stands for regional studies programme, where pupils from my class study about the region around us, such as Indonesia and Brunei. We learn about the culture of the people there, how they live their lives and how it differs from ours. It is an interesting programme and I have greatly benefitted from it in terms of general knowledge and about the world around us.

This was my first lesson today as they previous ones were either cancelled, or missed because of half days and teacher meetings. So today, we were introduced to the new secondary 1 student, or our juniors, who were to take the same programme as us. Firstly, we were told that we had to prepare a "tour" for our juniors to show them what they would be studying about in the programme. This is a tradition that is carried on every year, and it happened that this was our turn.

We had to show our juniors examples of some spices that could be found in Brunei and Indonesia, as well as the musical instruments that people in the urban areas of these countries are using. They were also to be given a hands-on experience on how these instruments were to be used, and where their origin was. We, as their seniors, were to teach and educate our juniors on all of the above. It was similar to a test to see if we had been paying attention the classes conducted the year before. My classmates and I split into groups of 5 and were each given a specific area to prepare for. We would have two weeks to prepare a station or stall in the school where our juniors would visit and we were supposed to share information we had learned about the topic we were given.

For my group, we were given the topic on general knowledge of South-East Asia and my group members were Adam, Isaac, Cheng Geng and Yuan Wen, who are some of my best friends. Tze Yong, one of the members in my group represented us by volunteering himself as a guide for our juniors, to usher them from station to station. This is a very laborious job as the secondary 1 pupil were said to be extremely noisy and difficult to control. I am grateful to Tze Yong for doing this for the group.

Our proposal for the tour was to show our juniors PowerPoint slides on parts of South-East Asia. The slides would be brief and short, just enough to give them a rough idea of the countries that they would be learning about. Each of the five group members were given a country to research about, and I got Indonesia. I was very fortunate to get this as my teachers had covered a lot about Indonesia and it was probably, apart from Singapore, the easiest country to talk about.

Also, after the presentation, we would hold a mini competition to see which group of the secondary 1 student had absorbed the most of what we had presented to them about. The members of the winning group would each get a prize, just to congratulate them for paying attention to us. We only have 15 minutes to do all these, so we have to plan our time accordingly and ensure that everything goes smoothly on the day itself.

Overall, I think that this experience will be a great one for my classmates and me. This is not only a chance for us to train ourselves to become better leaders, but also boosts our ability for time management and to know our juniors, who we will be spending an entire year studying together with.

Something i did with my family

Today was declared a half day by the principal of my school. It was a rare occasion and everyone in the school could go home at 10.45 am, which was hours apart from 4 pm, the time that my classmates and I would usually be released. The reason of this break was because of the excellent "O" Level results that the class of 2010 had achieved. This was mentioned in one of my earlier posts.

So when I got home, I did all the things I could not do for the past few weeks because of my late dismissal time. I finished all of my homework early that day, which included this post as an English assignment. Later in the day, after all of my family members got home, we went out for a nice dinner.

But the best part was what came next. We spent the last few hours of the day watching a movie at Kallang leisure Park. The movie featured Nicholas Cage and was titled "The Season of the Witch". It was about two knights who had won countless of battles, in the name of God for the church. Then after a few years, they realised that what they were doing was wrong, and went on their way as travellers. Then one fine day, they stopped by a town, which was plagued by a curse. The two knights were made to deliver a girl, which was believed by the villagers to be a witch, to a temple far away, where some monks were to judge her.

 Personally, I found the movie very entertaining, although I thought that it lacked the "witchcraft" factor which the movie was supposed to be based on. However, my family and I still enjoyed the movie greatly. We all have busy schedules so it is rather hard to find a time that suits all of us. It was a rare opportunity and I am glad to say, that we made full use out of it. I don't know when I will be going out for another movie, but let’s hope that it’s soon.

A problem i encountered today

Today, my class and I were given some Biology homework. At first, I didn't think of it as much of a challenge as I had successfully been completing my biology class work that week. Unlike some of my other classmates, I had completed both worksheets which my teacher deemed as "not simple", and actually passed then with over 50% of correct answers.

However, as I got home and took out my homework, I realised that it was much harder than I had expected. Even though the questions were of topics that I had done in class, they were presented to me in a different way and that I had never seen before. I understood the concept, but I did not know how to answer them in a way that was scientific and would allow me to get the full marks. For the 4 mark questions, which would normally require a "yes" or "no" answer with 3 reasons, I could only find 2 of them. This was rather infuriating as I had revised the notes which were given to me before.

As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures. I had no choice but to resort to surfing the net for the answers. I tried Wikipedia, but all the definitions of the terms that I was looking for were too complicated, and were all long words and facts that I could not make sense out of. I also tried several other sites but none could provide me with the answer that I needed. So if the net could not help me, what could?

In the end, I decided that I had to refer to my textbook once again. I read through the chapter which the questions were based on again. I finally realised that the answers were actually all there, just all mixed up because of the way the question was phrased !The question was just made a lot trickier with all the extra stuff the setter put in to confuse us ! And so, that was how I solved those extremely complicated answers. All the answers were right there in the textbook, hidden from me all because the setter changed one little thing in those extremely long questions.

Something interesting in school

Last Monday, I something extremely interesting in school. After the regular school hours, we went to the third floor of the school building. We were supposed to have our RSP classes there and then. However, just as soon as my classmates and I got there, we found out that the lessons were cancelled. Some of my friends left in a hurry, while others gathered in the school hall. I only realised after a short while that it was the day the "O" levels results were to be released. I immediately gathered in the hall with my fellow classmates and hundreds of Victorians of different levels to watch the important ceremony begin.

Lines of anxious seniors were queuing up in their respective classes, waiting for the life changing results. Our Principal made his way in front of the stage and announced the overall performance of the school. The level did their best in the 3 sciences, with 100% passes for all 3 of them. Furthermore, 70% of them achieved a distinction, which is 75% of their total scores! I was rather shocked to hear that. Then, the Principal announced the pupils in school who did the best in the level. We had the second highest Malay pupil in all of Singapore, as well as the highest scoring Indian student in the entire country! This was amazing news and everyone was extremely happy.

The Principal also announced the average score of the class of 2010, which was 10.8 points. Although they did not hit their target of 10 points, they came very close to doing so. The Principal said that they set a high target for themselves, and should be proud of having come so close. I do not know how I will be faring when it comes to my turn to sit for the "O" Levels, but I hope that I will be able to continue the excellent results that my seniors have achieved, and live up to the schools' name.

My thoughts about blogging

Blogging is something that i have never done before. I am completely new to it and this is my first blog ever. I have seen some blogs belonging to several of my friends and i often wonder why they do it. You can get sued over every little thing that you post because of copyright, and you risk lossing thousands of dollars over it.   

A blog is just like a diary, which is open to everyone in the world, and i do not understand why people can get so enthusiastic about it. I have never understood blogging, which is why this is so alien and new to me. A question i often ask myself, why would somebody rather spend an hour of his time typing out what he did and felt, what he saw and heard that day, as compared as to playing computer games or reading a book. Books are educational, games are fun. from what i have seen and heard, blogging is neither of those. It does almost nothing, other than letting family members and classmates comment and have discussions on your posts.

Futhermore, i have heard about cases over comments made on blogs that have ever led to depression, sadness, and sometimes even suicide ! So in summary, i hope that from this experience, i will get a chance to be able to understand the purpose of blogging, other than those mentioned above and improving on our computer skills. I hope that I will finally get to appreciate the inner beauty of blogs, and appreciate whatever it may have done for us.

Hi

Just made my blog. Just to test if i know how to operate it.