So, on my study table there's this poster of three young monks, first guy has his hands clapped over his eyes, the second, hands over his ears, third, hands over his mouth. My dad brought it back from overseas. In all honesty the title of this post has nothing to do with what I'm going to write, but I couldn't think of a better one. Anyway, after gazing at the poster for days, it prompted me to think: which of the three senses would I keep if I had to forgo the other two?
So I sat down for some time and began to think. Let's examine each one individually first.
Starting with the least likely one to keep: speech. Sure, I value my voice-don't we all? And I must say I consider myself one of the more vocal people in class, or at least not one of the silent ones. I love to talk, I love telling jokes. But in this era of technology, that's no barrier to communication. Emails, facebook, forums...the list of what I could use to talk to others is endless! PErsonally I feel that this would be the least popular choice to keep, among the three, unless the person's life centres around his voice, for example, if he is an orator or singer.
Next, the sense of hearing. Music is awesome, granted, but besides that I can't really think of much else that would require me to use my ears, besides communication. In any case, I would prefer to read what the other party is trying to communicate to me, instead of hearing it. The one practical concern of being unable to hear is that I would be unable to hear warnings others shout at me in cases of danger, or announcemnts over the intercom system.
Finally, sight. There are so many things which require one to see to fully enjoy, far too many for me to list down. Just to name a few: Telivision, computer games, Gunpla-ing, drawing...the list goes on. Also, from a practical viewpoint, sight is the sense which is the most useful in everyday life. I'm honestly unsure of what I would do if I suddenly became blind. Everything I've learned will be useless.
Therefore, I arrived at a conclusion. If I did have to choose, the sense I'd keep is sight. Obviously it'd be a horrible thing to have neither the ability to talk or hear, but it would be worse if I couldn't see. Life without sight is unimaginable for me.
Well, others may have differing opinions from me. This is just my take on which of these three senses is the most important, make of it what you will. Thinking about this makes me appreciate the fact that, in most ways, I am a healthy boy with no major problems. We really do take things for granted sometimes.
Now, moving on from such melancholy topics.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Newer...old new phone. Meh.
So, three days ago I changed my new old phone to my newer older new phone. *sigh* I can see you shaking your head in confusion. Fine, let me try to clear things up a little. It's a long, convoluted story.
During P5 or 6, I upgraded my really old LG phone (with no features at all, unless you consider a colour screen as a feature) to a far better Walkman phone. AFter barely half a year of usage my dad took it away from me to backup his phone contacts in his old phone since his new phone had some sort of contact limit, meaning that the contacts in his SIM card could not be fully transferred over. Due to the nature of his profession (insurance agent), my dad has thousands of contacts in his phone. So anyway, he used my new phone to backup his contacts from his old phone instead of his new phone. He let me use his older phone (a Cybershot) for the time being, while he got the mess sorted out. Now, his older phone was actually one of the revolutionary, groundbreaking phones in it's time. Which was roughly seven years ago, in 2003.
Fast forward about two years, into 2009. My parents get awesome touchscreen phones, in my dad's case, an iPhone, which had no problem backing up his contacts. I persistently begged for my Walkman Phone to be returned, since
a) My Cybershot phone had serious battery issues. It ran out of juice after 10 minutes of talktime.
b) It had 64 Megabytes of memory space. Most of which was filled up by whoknowswhat, so that only 30 megabytes remained, which was enough for roughly 7 songs. Compare that to the Walkman, with 1000Mb of space, or roughly 15 times that of the old Cybershot.
In any case, it was one of those things which one alwats wants to do, but never has the time, or when he has the time, forgets about it.
Which was why I only got my newer-old-new walkman phone three days ago. I exchanged the new-old cybershot for it and immediately flooded it with a little over a hundred songs. The new-old cybershot remains, thoguh, in case one day my Walkman dies suddenly and I need a backup phone. Just imagine the scenarios! My dad's iPhone screws up and he needs to back his contacts up in my old Cybershot, and he gives me his new-older other LG phone to use, but that screws up as well and I'm forced to use my new-old-older Cybershot phone and...!
Sorry, I didn't confuse you, did I? :P
During P5 or 6, I upgraded my really old LG phone (with no features at all, unless you consider a colour screen as a feature) to a far better Walkman phone. AFter barely half a year of usage my dad took it away from me to backup his phone contacts in his old phone since his new phone had some sort of contact limit, meaning that the contacts in his SIM card could not be fully transferred over. Due to the nature of his profession (insurance agent), my dad has thousands of contacts in his phone. So anyway, he used my new phone to backup his contacts from his old phone instead of his new phone. He let me use his older phone (a Cybershot) for the time being, while he got the mess sorted out. Now, his older phone was actually one of the revolutionary, groundbreaking phones in it's time. Which was roughly seven years ago, in 2003.
Fast forward about two years, into 2009. My parents get awesome touchscreen phones, in my dad's case, an iPhone, which had no problem backing up his contacts. I persistently begged for my Walkman Phone to be returned, since
a) My Cybershot phone had serious battery issues. It ran out of juice after 10 minutes of talktime.
b) It had 64 Megabytes of memory space. Most of which was filled up by whoknowswhat, so that only 30 megabytes remained, which was enough for roughly 7 songs. Compare that to the Walkman, with 1000Mb of space, or roughly 15 times that of the old Cybershot.
In any case, it was one of those things which one alwats wants to do, but never has the time, or when he has the time, forgets about it.
Which was why I only got my newer-old-new walkman phone three days ago. I exchanged the new-old cybershot for it and immediately flooded it with a little over a hundred songs. The new-old cybershot remains, thoguh, in case one day my Walkman dies suddenly and I need a backup phone. Just imagine the scenarios! My dad's iPhone screws up and he needs to back his contacts up in my old Cybershot, and he gives me his new-older other LG phone to use, but that screws up as well and I'm forced to use my new-old-older Cybershot phone and...!
Sorry, I didn't confuse you, did I? :P
Thursday, September 2, 2010
What Motivates People?
Sometime ago I did rather badly for a Chemistry test. I felt horrible after that, because it was the only test I ever did really badly in, excluding a chinese test in primary school, and anyway that was because I only found out about the test on the day itself. Okay, I'll admit that this wasn't my first time doing Chemistry, I even had some introduction to it in Secondary 1. I can't say I didn't revise either, I started mugging days before the test, and especially hard on the day before the actual thing. Still, that didn't stop me from getting a miserable C6. As said earlier, I really felt like crap after the results were released. While I was dissapointed in myself for not getting a high mark, I was honestly more worried about the reaction opf my parents towards my bad result.
This led me to wonder: do people fear failing a task simply because they truly care about it and do not want to do badly, or is the main reason fear of the repercusions that will inevitably occur when one fails at that task?
The most obvious way to demonstrate this is by using an example based on a test. Lets call our characters 'Tom' and'Henry'.Tom is neglected by his parents, while Henry comes from a family where his parents are very protective and concerned about him. Lets say Tom and Henry both fail a test. If he truly cared about the result and not the consequences that getting the bad grade, he would punish himself and become all gloomy and depressed, and resolve to work extra hard to correct this mistake and do better in the next test. The scenario would be the same for Henry as well, provided that his character fits the description of the former. However if their persanalities are of the latter, which is to fear failing for the possible repercusions, then the two scenarios will be vastly differnt. Tom will be unaffected by the result and life will go on as usual, since his parents neglect him so much that they do not even bother about his results. Henry on the other hand will be scared of the dissapointment his parents will feel towards him, or the punishments they will mete out.
That said, I believe that no one can possibly be happy after doing badly at a test or examination. While some may put on a facade of nonchalance and act as if they do not care, in their hearts they will be at least a tiny bit dissapointed in themselves. Even if the person in question does not care in the least towards the subject, for whatever reason (say, me toward a malay test, since I don't give a fig about the subject itself, and also because it is not a graded subject), he will feel a little...disapointed? Sad? I repeat: No one can possibly feel good about doing badly in anything, even if it does not affect him and he does not care about it at all.
Anyway, back to the original topic at hand. My personal opinion is that most people are motivated by a combination of both extremes manifested above in the cases of Tom and Henry.
This led me to wonder: do people fear failing a task simply because they truly care about it and do not want to do badly, or is the main reason fear of the repercusions that will inevitably occur when one fails at that task?
The most obvious way to demonstrate this is by using an example based on a test. Lets call our characters 'Tom' and'Henry'.Tom is neglected by his parents, while Henry comes from a family where his parents are very protective and concerned about him. Lets say Tom and Henry both fail a test. If he truly cared about the result and not the consequences that getting the bad grade, he would punish himself and become all gloomy and depressed, and resolve to work extra hard to correct this mistake and do better in the next test. The scenario would be the same for Henry as well, provided that his character fits the description of the former. However if their persanalities are of the latter, which is to fear failing for the possible repercusions, then the two scenarios will be vastly differnt. Tom will be unaffected by the result and life will go on as usual, since his parents neglect him so much that they do not even bother about his results. Henry on the other hand will be scared of the dissapointment his parents will feel towards him, or the punishments they will mete out.
That said, I believe that no one can possibly be happy after doing badly at a test or examination. While some may put on a facade of nonchalance and act as if they do not care, in their hearts they will be at least a tiny bit dissapointed in themselves. Even if the person in question does not care in the least towards the subject, for whatever reason (say, me toward a malay test, since I don't give a fig about the subject itself, and also because it is not a graded subject), he will feel a little...disapointed? Sad? I repeat: No one can possibly feel good about doing badly in anything, even if it does not affect him and he does not care about it at all.
Anyway, back to the original topic at hand. My personal opinion is that most people are motivated by a combination of both extremes manifested above in the cases of Tom and Henry.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Class Fads
Class fads. Not that I disapprove, but I was just daydreaming one day when I wondered: What is tje reason and fascination with all these class fads?
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, you're probably not a member of class 2i2. Thats fine. A class fad is basically something an outgoing member of our class randomly shoutsout, during lessons, and activities. Some people even use it to start a conversation.
SOme of our class fads are derived from internet memes, which is a huge topic by itself, so just google it. (On a side note, I have no idea how memes are formed and why they are so popolar) An example of this would be "Its OVARR 9000!"
Someone in class would shout out a class fad when a teacher asks a question like "Who was Hitler's minister of Propoganda?" and the answer would be a random class fad. People like Tsun Lok would say something like "Graherm" when the topic relates to money, or "Wang Fan" when the topic relates to general stupidity. Myself, even though I'm not the fattest one in class, I'm associated with food, for many complex reasons which would take far too long to explain.
Anyway, back to the main topic at hand, the reason why class fads are so popular. After reflecting on the issue for a while, I came to the conclusion that the only reason our class fads are so insanely popular (at least in 2i2) is that there is simply nothing to replace them. When one dies, another takes it's place because if something didn't fil the void, something would just be ... missing. Fads are one of the things that makes 2i2 what it is, besides the people. I'd say that everyone in our class has used at least a few fads in speech before.
I guess there's a reason they're called fads. Long live 2i2!
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, you're probably not a member of class 2i2. Thats fine. A class fad is basically something an outgoing member of our class randomly shoutsout, during lessons, and activities. Some people even use it to start a conversation.
SOme of our class fads are derived from internet memes, which is a huge topic by itself, so just google it. (On a side note, I have no idea how memes are formed and why they are so popolar) An example of this would be "Its OVARR 9000!"
Someone in class would shout out a class fad when a teacher asks a question like "Who was Hitler's minister of Propoganda?" and the answer would be a random class fad. People like Tsun Lok would say something like "Graherm" when the topic relates to money, or "Wang Fan" when the topic relates to general stupidity. Myself, even though I'm not the fattest one in class, I'm associated with food, for many complex reasons which would take far too long to explain.
Anyway, back to the main topic at hand, the reason why class fads are so popular. After reflecting on the issue for a while, I came to the conclusion that the only reason our class fads are so insanely popular (at least in 2i2) is that there is simply nothing to replace them. When one dies, another takes it's place because if something didn't fil the void, something would just be ... missing. Fads are one of the things that makes 2i2 what it is, besides the people. I'd say that everyone in our class has used at least a few fads in speech before.
I guess there's a reason they're called fads. Long live 2i2!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Recap of Racial Harmony Day
Well, this post is MANY days late, but I came back late on RHD due to CCA, and the days after that I kind off...forgot. So, sorry. Anyway:
I was actually quite excited about this, as I was looking forward to going to the various stalls set up by the various classes. The morning passed without major event, and soon it was time for the Secondary 2 batch to go down to the stalls.
The bazaar only got in full swing after about 30 minutes, since most of the stalls were still getting the food items ready and whatnot. I helped my class set up our stall and gave them the idea for the name. Credit to me~
Anyway, I went off to explore the bazaar and the first item I bought was some 7-up lime cordial mixture from the 2i1 stall. Then I saw many people walking around with packets of Nasi Lemak which got me HUNGRY. So I walked around a little more and found the Nasi Lemak stall. $2 a packet, which was a preety good deal compared to the total RIP-OFFs from some other stalls.
I walked past the "Operation Rainbow" booth and that was when the fun started. One of my friends was manning it along with some of his classmates, and we had to pay to shoot at targets which they were wearing with Nerf guns.
There may have been prizes for actually hitting the targets, but I aimed for the face.
I had a decent (in my opinion) accuracy rating of 3/6 shots hit, especially since it was my first time handling the gun.
The irony? I paid two bucks to shoot at the friend of mine, when I got to fire unlimited shots FREE OF CHARGE before my CCA started. The best thing was that there were 3 guns in total so some of my batchmates (and myself of course) had a shootout in the privacy of the dojo.
Oops, digression.
Back to the recap. So then I basically walked around a few other stalls, bought some food, and then it was time for the RHD concert.
Didn't really mind the bazaar being disrupted as one of my CCA mates was performing, and I was hoping for him to do something stupid so that I could have a good laugh. Despicable me. Sadly, all the performances went off without a hitch and my friend, although he smiled a little, did not do anything TOO stupid, denying me a chance to chuckle. *sigh*
So the concert ended, and it was back to the cultural bazaar for me. I bought some other assorted snacks, some were a scam, some were not. An example of a scam: 3 rice dumplings for two bucks. A non-scam: 2 rice dumplings for one buck. Two stalls, selling the exact same thing. Guess who won?
At this time, I realised that I was running dangerously low on coupons. I headed to Operation Rainbow, borrowed one of the guns, and played Russian Roulette with a friend. For those who don't know how it's played, you load a bullet (in our case a rubber bullet ;D) into a six-chamber gun, then spin the chamber and fire the gun at your head. Pass the gun to the other guy and the cycle ges on until somebody 'dies'. Then it restarts, sometimes with an additional bullets.
Then it was time for the Indian Mass Dance, which half the Secondary 2 level skipped out on. Heh. I proceded to waste another 1 1/2 hours playing Russian Roulette and messing around with the guns.
Then it was time for lunch, yada yada. Racial Harmony Day celebrations officially came to a close.
Well, that was fruitful.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the same program next year. :)
I was actually quite excited about this, as I was looking forward to going to the various stalls set up by the various classes. The morning passed without major event, and soon it was time for the Secondary 2 batch to go down to the stalls.
The bazaar only got in full swing after about 30 minutes, since most of the stalls were still getting the food items ready and whatnot. I helped my class set up our stall and gave them the idea for the name. Credit to me~
Anyway, I went off to explore the bazaar and the first item I bought was some 7-up lime cordial mixture from the 2i1 stall. Then I saw many people walking around with packets of Nasi Lemak which got me HUNGRY. So I walked around a little more and found the Nasi Lemak stall. $2 a packet, which was a preety good deal compared to the total RIP-OFFs from some other stalls.
I walked past the "Operation Rainbow" booth and that was when the fun started. One of my friends was manning it along with some of his classmates, and we had to pay to shoot at targets which they were wearing with Nerf guns.
There may have been prizes for actually hitting the targets, but I aimed for the face.
I had a decent (in my opinion) accuracy rating of 3/6 shots hit, especially since it was my first time handling the gun.
The irony? I paid two bucks to shoot at the friend of mine, when I got to fire unlimited shots FREE OF CHARGE before my CCA started. The best thing was that there were 3 guns in total so some of my batchmates (and myself of course) had a shootout in the privacy of the dojo.
Oops, digression.
Back to the recap. So then I basically walked around a few other stalls, bought some food, and then it was time for the RHD concert.
Didn't really mind the bazaar being disrupted as one of my CCA mates was performing, and I was hoping for him to do something stupid so that I could have a good laugh. Despicable me. Sadly, all the performances went off without a hitch and my friend, although he smiled a little, did not do anything TOO stupid, denying me a chance to chuckle. *sigh*
So the concert ended, and it was back to the cultural bazaar for me. I bought some other assorted snacks, some were a scam, some were not. An example of a scam: 3 rice dumplings for two bucks. A non-scam: 2 rice dumplings for one buck. Two stalls, selling the exact same thing. Guess who won?
At this time, I realised that I was running dangerously low on coupons. I headed to Operation Rainbow, borrowed one of the guns, and played Russian Roulette with a friend. For those who don't know how it's played, you load a bullet (in our case a rubber bullet ;D) into a six-chamber gun, then spin the chamber and fire the gun at your head. Pass the gun to the other guy and the cycle ges on until somebody 'dies'. Then it restarts, sometimes with an additional bullets.
Then it was time for the Indian Mass Dance, which half the Secondary 2 level skipped out on. Heh. I proceded to waste another 1 1/2 hours playing Russian Roulette and messing around with the guns.
Then it was time for lunch, yada yada. Racial Harmony Day celebrations officially came to a close.
Well, that was fruitful.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the same program next year. :)
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Online Mindmap $econd Edit!on
"From the novels or movies that you read or watched, do an online mindmap where you can identify the similarities about war and the short-term and long-term effects on the soldiers and civilians."
Didn't watch or read much though. Some sources are some war stories from the BBC website, as well as one book and one movie.
Well, here the mindmap is, anyway.
Didn't watch or read much though. Some sources are some war stories from the BBC website, as well as one book and one movie.
Well, here the mindmap is, anyway.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Bubbl Mindmap on plot of Merchant of Venice
"Do an online mindmap on the plot of the Merchant of Venice and embed on your blog."
Here it is, then.
Here it is, then.
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