Wednesday, June 30, 2010

What a holiday!


Finally, the long holiday is over. It has been a very long period of time since I last posted on this blog, since before the holidays. I hope that all of you have done what you set out to do, whatever homework, revision, gaming, anything. The holidays are the best time to do whatever you need to do. Now, I will share how I spent my holidays, having such a busy schedule despite it being the "holidays".

In primary school, when the word "holidays" comes into your mind, all you can think of is eat, play, sleep. Very few people see the holidays as a time where you will be so busy that you barely have any time to even do anything else. For me, my holidays was spent in quite a fruitful and busy way. First of all, like all other holidays, I have my waterpolo training that schedules us to train three times a week, occupying the entire morning. Furthermore, after every training session, I would already have been worn out by the strenuous training elements, falling onto my bed immediately when I get home, just wanting to sleep. However, throughout the entire holidays, it is impossible to sleep in peace. When you sleep, you think of all the work, the piles of work you have to complete by the end of holidays, and mine being reading novels and researching on war poetry. To be truthful, I procrastinated this and left almost most of the work to the end of the holidays. As a result, I always go home, knowing that I have all this work to complete, but I would have always been too exhausted to do anything, even too lazy just to get out of my bed. On other free days, I would spend those days going out, playing at home, or simply just slacking. However, from this holiday, from the way I spent, from how I had to rush everything frantically at the last moment and spending some late nights, my only piece of advise is that procrastination is bad. Seriously, procrastination will never lead to good things in this type of situations. It only gives you the psychological burden, having to think that you haven't done something throughout an entire month would make you extremely tedious as well.

Another main reason why I have been very busy during this past holiday is because of my project for Project's Day. As you should know, the semi-finals are approaching really soon and most of the project work should already have been done. Doing two projects, I had to carry out the necessary research and experiments for both projects since both involve scientific procedures. One of them, I had to be present in the lab only once, which was the entire afternoon. However, for the other project, it involved many protocols that I had to do, and they were extremely time consuming, honestly. I took many afternoons doing these protocols and preparation work and it spanned over the entire holiday. I really hope that both these projects can go far since we have really put in a lot of effort for both projects. However, still, if we cannot go far, it might just be fate and we have to live with it and face reality.

Well, this kind of sums up my entire June holidays and how I spent it. Although I got some work done, I am still not contented with the way I spent it. I should not have procrastinated so much and left everything to the last. It is a bad habit and I have to change it. Moreover, I should have used my holidays in a more fruitful manner, getting some revision done as well, instead of leaving everything to the last minute. So, how did you spend your holidays?

Sunday, June 27, 2010

LA June Holidays Assignment

Now, I will be doing my other assignment, which is to discuss the effects of war. My teacher instructed us to either read or watch war novels or movies respectively. Not being a fan of reading, I decided to choose the latter. I watched the famous war movie, "Saving Private Ryan". To be frank, it was one of the most grotesque movies I've ever seen. The gory, bloody scenes are very disturbing and I cannot imagine placing myself in one of those soldiers' shoes, watching your own friends die right in front of your very eyes, at the risk of being killed, and killing others. I can imagine just how traumatising this would be if I were there. Right from the very start, we are already introduced to the horrifying scenes of the cruelty of war, where the Germans kill the Americans at Omaha Beach. In on of the attacks, three of the four Ryan brothers in the movie were killed, showing how one war could ruin an entire family. How easy it is for all to get killed. After the small journey just to save the last Ryan, 2 out of the 8 people in the rescue team survived, with the leader being one of them who got fatally wounded. This just shows how easy men can lose their lives just for saving a man in a war. In the end, the leader died as well while Ryan survived and got home. This movie shows us the cruelty of war and the risks involved in it, so is it worth it having the war? Personally, I feel that it is not worth it having a war, thinking of all the negative consequences a war would result in. I do not understand why people cannot settle their disputes amicably and must always resort to violence. War would be the last thing on my mind to settle a dispute or conflict. Besides, war doesn't settle everything, it only makes the problem go away for the time being, with the winner being the last man standing, but there won't be an agreement reached ever. Rather, war increases the number of problems, causing such great damage to society. Thus, I believe war should not be introduced at all.

From the movie, we can thus infer some impacts of the war, as well as other kinds of impacts from witnessing the wars happening in other countries right now. This brings me to my task of crafting a mind map with the effects of the war. Hence, I append my mind map below.











Take a look at my mind map. Do you think there are more types of impacts in a war? Do you think having a war can solve all the problems? Share them with us.

LA June Holidays Assignment

One of our assignments for the June holidays is to read the book, "Merchant of Venice", by the renowned William Shakespeare. After reading the book, we are supposed to make a mind map on the plot of the book. This book is a play, a romantic comedy. After reading the book, I find the plot very interesting, having a twist in the end. The characters are extremely dramatic and it pokes fun here and there. Being the first play I have ever read, this gives me a very good impression of plays, making me more interested in drama and plays. Well, of course it is expected since it's by the great WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. So below I append my mind map.














Take a look at my mind map and enjoy it! :)