The poet Stephen Dunn once said about Collins’ poems, "We seem to always know where we are in a Billy Collins poem, but not necessarily where he is going. I love to arrive with him at his arrivals. He doesn't hide things from us, as I think lesser poets do. He allows us to overhear, clearly, what he himself has discovered."
I think that Billy Collins is different from other poets. What sets him apart is that he lets us know things that other poets would not have and this makes the reader feel more involved in the poem. His poems are very unique because they make you think something is going to happen, but in the end it does not. For example, in Flames (see below), a reader might wonder who Smokey is; is he or it human or animal? What is he or it doing? In my opinion, I think that Smokey is a bear who is tired of chasing away people who intrude his territory. He decides to give the humans a taste of their own medicine by choosing to start a fire so that they will stay away from him.
Billy Collins was born in New York City in 1941. He is the author of several books of poetry, including Ballistics (2008), She Was Just Seventeen (2006), The Trouble with Poetry (2005); Nine Horses (2002); Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001); Picnic, Lightning (1998); The Art of Drowning (1995), which was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Questions About Angels (1991), which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series; The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988); Video Poems (1980); and Pokerface (1977).
Three poems:
The Art of Drowning
I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.
After falling off a steamship or being swept away
in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope
for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand
turning the pages of an album of photographs-
you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.
How about a short animated film, a slide presentation?
Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph?
Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash?
Your whole existence going off in your face
in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography-
nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.
Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance
here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,
an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,
dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.
But if something does flash before your eyes
as you go under, it will probably be a fish,
a quick blur of curved silver darting away,
having nothing to do with your life or your death.
The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all
as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,
leaving behind what you have already forgotten,
the surface, now overrun with the high travel
of clouds.
Another Reason why I don’t Keep a Gun in the House
The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.
The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,
and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.
When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton
while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.
Flames
Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.
His ranger's hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.
His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.
He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.
He is going to show them
how a professional does it.
Acknowledgements:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/278
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-art-of-drowning/
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/another-reason-why-i-don-t-keep-a-gun-in-the-hou/
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/flames/
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Billy-Collins/797/comments
Lyrics to All Fall Down by One Republic:
Step out the door and it feels like rain
That's the sound (that's the sound) on your windowpane
Take to the streets but you can't ignore
That's the sound (that's the sound) you're waiting for
If ever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
That's where you'll find me. (Yeah)
God love your soul and your aching bones
Take a breath, take a step, meet me down below
Everyone's the same, our fingers to our toes
We just can't get a right, but we're on the road
If ever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
That's where you'll find me. (Yeah)
Lost 'til you're found
Swim 'til you drown
Know that we all fall down
Love 'til you hate
Strong 'til you break
Know that we all fall down
If ever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
Whenever your world starts crashing down
That's where you'll find (find) me
Lost 'til you're found
Swim 'til you drown
Know that we all fall down
Love 'til you hate
Strong 'til you break
Know that we all fall down
All fall down (x6)
Lost 'til you're found
Swim 'til you drown
Know that we all fall down
Love 'til you hate
Strong 'til you break
Know that we all fall down
1. There are several uses of figurative language in this song. For hyperbole, there is the phrase ‘all fall down’ which is repeated many times in the song especially the second last stanza (or bridge [or whatever it’s called]). It exaggerates the singer’s emotion that he is very sad that all people must eventually ‘fall down’.
There is personification in the song. This comes when the singer sings ‘… and your aching bones’. Bones are inanimate objects but humans can feel achy, so that means he is using personification.
As for metaphors, there is this part of the song:
“Lost 'til you're foundSwim 'til you drownKnow that we all fall down
Love 'til you hateStrong 'til you breakKnow that we all fall down”
This is linking falling down, which is not directly related to drowning or breaking or hating or being found, and linking it to these terms. From there, we can infer that falling down, is like failing to do something as there is always an end to things.
Next, there is simile. Unfortunately, I am not able to find any similes in this song so I am very sorry.
Lastly, there is the symbol. A symbol used in this song is the world crashing down. This symbolizes the singer’s sadness that people’s lives will all eventually fall apart.
2. I like this song because of its good use of instruments (the cello and guitar are utilized fully) to create the sombre atmosphere which the singer is in. The guitar and the cello are used to fill in gaps in the song and join the parts cohesively. The lyrics are also very meaningful as it teaches us that everyone has a down point in life but we must struggle to carry on with our lives. This tells us to persevere no matter what happens and to never give up as we will eventually find a way out of any dilemma that we might encounter in our lives.References:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygoLat5y_4Q
One Republic’s album Dreaming Out Loud
Book Read: Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
A Different Childhood
When I compare my childhood with that of Eragon’s, I feel that my life has been very boring compared to Eragon’s. Eragon’s life (until this book) was full of adventure. When he was still quite young (in the first book), he found a dragon’s egg. This egg hatched into a dragon he named Saphira. Together with Saphira and several other people, Eragon embarks on countless adventures to fight the evil Galbatorix and his minions. He encounters many difficulties and challenges, but every time he never fails to succeed (except one or two times). Even if he fails, he will not give up and will still go on and try to defeat Galbatorix. My life, on the other hand, has been very dull. I follow the same routine almost every day; nothing interesting ever happens to me. The closest I got to adventure is going to a theme park. I wish I could go on many exciting adventures like Eragon and meet more people.
Differences and Similarities Galbatorix and Eragon
Eragon and Galbatorix are both different and similar in several ways. Eragon and Galbatorix are both good at using magic and are also one of the very few dragon riders left. However they use their powers differently. They have far more differences than similarities between them. Galbatorix is a cruel and power-hungry dictator. He killed off all the remaining dragon riders after he realized that they were a threat to his power. He kept the heart of hearts of the dragons whose riders he had slayed to make himself more powerful. He also does not care about the lives of the people who serve him. One example is in Brisingr, when he had several hundred of his soldiers made immune to pain so that they could fight more people before dying. This shows that he was ruthless and only cared about killing his enemies, no matter how many of his own servants die doing this. Eragon, however, is the opposite. He is concerned about the lives of innocent civilians and even tries to refrain from killing his enemies. He feels bad when he is forced to kill people, even if they are trying to kill him. He is also kind. When he had a chance to kill Sloan, a person who had betrayed him, he chose not to, instead sending him to the elves kingdom to spend his life there.
Battling Varaug from Eragon’s Point of View
My thoughts crashed against a mental wall that was Varaug’s mind. His mind was so complicated, so incoherent; I feared I would go mad if I spent too much time battling him.
Suddenly, I felt that I had lost control. Varaug seized the chance, pushing past the barriers in my mind. I felt an excruciating pain surge throughout my body, and I could not do anything about it. I struggled as much as I could, but my efforts were to no avail; I could only stare at Varaug’s physical form, unable to do anything else.
“Yes!” Varaug cried with glee. “You are full of light! You will be able to feed us for a long time!” At that moment, Arya grabbed his wrist and broke it into three. She fell to the ground and rolled away before he could heal himself. I saw her gasp for air as she reached for her sword. The shade growled and pounced on Arya, wrestling for control of her weapon. Arya screamed and struck Varaug’s right temple with the pommel of her sword.
The shade looked as if it had fallen unconscious and Arya made full use of that time by scrambling back to her feet and backing away. I felt him lose control over my mind and I continued my attack on his consciousness, trying to restrain him for a few moments.
Varaug rose to his right knee, face contorted with loathing.
“You can’t kill me!” he said with anger in his voice. “I’m a Shade!” I doubled my efforts to restrain his mind and the Shade faltered for an instant.
“Get him now!” I shouted to Arya. She lunged forward, sword pointing downwards towards Varaug; sweat glistening in her dark hair.
And she stabbed him through the heart.
The Shade extricated himself from Arya’s sword looking shaken and took a few steps backwards. His skin started to fade and I could see the countless mass of evil spirits contained in him.
“NO!” he screamed in rage. “You cannot kill me!” As he said those words, the dark mass of spirits tripled in size and started seeping through his form.
“ARGH!” he screamed once more and he crumpled to the floor before his form exploded in a blinding flash of light. I had to cover my eyes to protect them from the strength of the light. When it was over, I saw what was left of the spirits fly in all directions, passing through the stone walls of the tower as if it were non-existent.
Why this Title is a Good One
I feel that this title is a good one as it contains an important part of the book. It is also very creative as it will attract a reader’s attention because they will not know what it means. This will add some mystery to the story. Brisingr actually means ‘fire’ in the Ancient Language, but people who have not read the book will not know. One part of the storyline is Eragon’s search for a new sword after Murtagh takes his original one after a fight in the previous book. When Eragon finally gets a sword worthy of a dragon rider, he names it ‘Brisingr’ which is the sword’s true name. Every time he says ‘Brisingr’, the blade of the sword will burst into flames, which hints that the sword is responding to its true name. The writer of the story, Christopher Paolini, probably wanted to highlight the importance of the sword in this book, thus he named the book Brisingr, which is quite creative.
Book Read: Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
Lesson I Learnt from the Story
This book has taught me several things. I learnt that we should always be wary of the people around us. Even the least unsuspecting of things could be the problem. When it was found out that there was a spy at the camp, everyone started suspecting each other. They all thought the spy would be one of those more ‘bad’ people. In the end, however, Silena was found out to be the spy after she revealed the secret to the rest when she was dying. No one had suspected that Silena was the spy. She had not acted like one and even helped out her fellow campers by bringing the Ares cabin into the fight when their leader would not help them because of a minor dispute.
Difference Between Percy and Kronos
Percy and Kronos are two different characters in the story. Kronos is the evil villain who wants to take over Mount Olympus while Percy is the good guy trying to save Mount Olympus from the clutches of Kronos. Mount Olympus is the place where the Greek gods (also good) who are trying to resist Kronos reside. However, they have been tricked by one of Kronos’ schemes so that they will not be able to guard Mount Olympus. Kronos is a power-hungry character who wants to overthrow the Greek gods. This is evident when he rose from the place where he was being imprisoned in, Tartarus, just so that he could reclaim power from the Gods who managed to overthrow him and send him to Tartarus. Percy, on the other hand, is trying to prevent him from taking over Mount Olmpus and overthrowing the gods. He just wants to help save Mount Olympus, unlike Kronos, and this shows when he still wanted to try to warn the gods about Kronos’ second scheme even though Hades told him that there was no way Olympus could be saved from Kronos.
Luke’s Death from his Point of View
I felt I had regained control of myself.
“Please, Percy…” I groaned with difficulty, clutching my burnt hands as I collapsed. Out of my flickering vision, I saw Percy move towards me, Annabeth’s knife in his hand.
“You can’t… can’t do it yourself. He’ll defend himself. I can suppress him; keep him under control while I do it.” I managed to say. Percy looked as if he did not hear me, raising his knife. I felt like I was glowing, like power was radiating from me. Then Percy stopped, turned and looked at Annabeth and Grover. He seemed to be thinking about something important.
“Please, hurry. Time is running out,” I groaned again. Percy brought the knife down, but he did not attack me. Instead he handed the knife over to me. I grasped the hilt, blade pointed backward. I unlatched the side straps of my armour, exposing a small patch of skin under my left arm. I forced all the thoughts out of my head and did it.
The pain was unbearable. I felt I had lost myself. Pain seeped out of me and I screamed like I had never done before. The sound was foreign to me but yet it felt so familiar. Light burst forth from me and I couldn’t even bear to open my eyes and look at myself. I knew something was leaving me; yet I felt like I was leaving my body too. Then everything turned black.
When I awoke, Percy, Annabeth and Grover were standing over me. I felt something I had not felt in a long time.
“Good blade,” I croaked. When I heard myself, I couldn’t recognise the voice. It sounded so different. I felt like I was not going to be able to breathe much longer. I heard Annabeth’s voice. I tried to tell her how sorry I was but she silenced me. With much difficulty, I told Percy what I wanted him to do, and I think he nodded, but I wasn’t sure because all I could make out were a few blurred images. I struggled to breathe; it felt like the same thing as just now was happening once more, but there was definitely something different. I felt so cold. So very cold. Then warmth. Everything went black again.
Why I liked the Ending
The ending is good because it finally explains the prophecy. All through the book, everyone has been thinking that the hero mentioned in the prophecy is Percy, but in the end it was actually the most unsuspecting of people, the ‘bad guy’, Luke. ‘The hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap’. This line in the prophecy was talking about Luke. He had chosen to save Olympus but had killed himself to do it. He was the hero, not Percy. The cursed blade was Annabeth’s knife; cursed because it was the knife he had given her along time ago and he betrayed her by helping Kronos. ‘A single choice shall end his days’. Percy had chosen to give the knife to Luke, and that was the choice that allowed him to get rid of Kronos, but unfortunately at the same time, sacrifice his life. ‘Olympus to preserve or raze’. By sacrificing himself, Luke had saved Olympus. Rachel had been right when she said that Percy was not the hero. It was Luke.
This question is very open-ended. Almost every person has a different emotion he or she wants to eliminate. For some, sadness would be that emotion. Won’t everyone be happier if they cannot experience sadness? However, if you cannot experience sadness, you would not treasure the happy moments in your life so you might feel sad as there is no more ‘happy’ as everything feels the same.
On the other hand, if you are an emotional person, you would want to eliminate happy and this just makes things a whole lot more complicated which is why I am not going to bother to explain this unbelievably long and boring (not to mention utterly useless) sentence so I will just leave this as some food-for-thought.
In the working world, anger and frustration are very common emotions. Wouldn’t anybody feel frustrated if you have just been missed for a promotion despite working at that same place for ten years? Wouldn’t you also feel angry if that promotion was given to a rookie who had just started working a month ago? I know I would if that happened. No one wants to see all their hard work go to waste.
For me, I would not eliminate any emotion even if I had the power to. I feel that every emotion has a purpose. For example, frustration can be a bad thing, but it also could be a good thing. It can make people give up but it can also spur them on and encourage them to try harder. Nobody likes frustration, but it is an essential part of our lives.
Another example would be jealousy. If we feel jealous of someone, we will want to be better than that person. Then, we will try to beat that person in what he or she is doing. That way, we will be able to improve ourselves. See? Jealousy is not that bad after all.
I feel that all emotions should be appreciated. Without sorrow, there wouldn’t be happiness. Without frustration, there wouldn’t be satisfaction. We need all these emotions to be a proper person. Each person is different because of the emotions that they choose to strive for; and for those that they neglect. I am not in place to answer the question because everybody has a different answer.
“I am lying”. Now this is a really tricky question. However, it is not that hard to solve; although the answer is a bit hard to understand because it is just repeating almost the same thing just that it is worded differently so as to give it a different meaning.
Alright, enough of the long-winded sentence. This is my explanation of the answer, put as simple as I can put it. If someone said, “I am lying.” it would not be correct because if you are lying, you are not telling the truth. A liar would not tell the truth. Therefore, ‘I am lying’ is the truth and by saying that it means that you are lying, which makes this a whole lot more confusing.
Let me try to explain this again if you did not get the first explanation. If you say, “I am lying.” it is not exactly correct. When you say, “I am lying.” you can’t be lying because if you were lying, you wouldn’t say that you were lying because if you are a liar, you would not be telling the truth. Understand?
To the second half of the explanation. If you said, “I am lying.” it would also not be correct because if you were telling the truth, you would not say that you were lying and by saying that you are lying, it would mean that you are no longer telling the truth and that you are now lying instead of telling the truth because liars don’t tell the truth and you just said that you were lying which means that you are not telling the truth which means that you are lying.
Wow. That’s really complicated. I hardly even understand what I am writing. Give me one more chance to explain, this time with help from the internet. If the phrase ‘I am lying’ is indeed true, it would be false because I said that I had told a lie when I did not. However if I had said that I was lying when it was false, I would be telling the truth when I said that I was lying because I did lie about lying.
So do you understand now? If you still do not, which I find very hard to believe after so many attempts to explain the answer to this age-old philosophical question, here is the ‘brilliant’ yet short answer t: If the statement ‘I am lying’ is true, it is false. When the statement ‘I am lying’ is false, it is true.
Now you would most likely be able to understand this explanation. If you still can’t, too bad, because I am not trying to explain any more.Reference (an enormously long one just like the sentences in this post) note – it is one sentence, not a few:
http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=gCRrVOawWZUC&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=i+am+lying+true+or+false&source=bl&ots=nEFY5uLcw9&sig=8dzif7XuQsFY942BKn_hwpDJQ5o&hl=en&ei=2Q4ySsLsIqCQ6AOerdnLBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA116,M1
To find out the answer to this philosophical question, you must first go back to its roots. What is friendship in the first place?
Friendship takes on many different forms, from helping your friend up when he falls or letting him copy you homework without telling your teacher *wink* (I think I am guilty of the latter. Being both the one who copies and the one who lets others copy. Hey, that’s called class spirit!).
Friendship is normally a special bond shared by people who have similar interests (I’m not talking about your average fan club). A real friend wants to see you improve and grow in life (and occasionally the need to borrow your money without returning). Unlike a real friend, a ‘fake’ friend will only stay with you as long as you are of some use to him.
A real friend will stick with you no matter what happens. When you break a window in school because you kick a football way too hard, he won’t run away with the rest of your team when they see that bad-tempered teacher running towards you with a snarl on his face. He will stay with you and help you ‘deceive’ the teacher to make him think it was your teammates who broke the window so that you will get the least amount of scolding possible.
A real friend will not get jealous when you get good grades (Okay fine. But just a little). Neither will he tease you when you fail that mathematics test (Yes, I know. Maybe a fair bit. It’s only natural for that to happen.). A real friend will never put on an angry face and stomp off in a huff when he notices you have thirty more marks than him. Only a ‘fake’ friend would do that kind of thing. A little competition is good but you must remember not to take things overboard. If your friend wants to borrow your notes because he missed class, you should lend him your notes if he is your friend. Don’t try to sabotage him and tell him that there were no notes as this can only bring things downhill.
Lastly, a real friend will help you up when you fall down. He won’t be so bad as to leave you on the floor with passers-by staring awkwardly at you (although, you’ve got to admit that’s pretty funny). He will help you to your feet and support you to wherever your original destination was. A ‘fake’ friend, however, will most likely just ask you to get up by yourself and get to where you were headed by yourself even though you have a nasty gash and blood trickling down the side of your leg onto the pavement.
We should treasure our friends and stay loyal to them if they are indeed real friends. If they tell you secrets, you shouldn’t go around telling the whole world (name here) likes (name here). Keep those secrets to yourself. If that person told you those secrets, he meant for you to keep them secret. Otherwise they wouldn’t be called ‘secrets’. If the person trusts you enough to tell you that, you can be sure he thinks of you as a friend. Don’t ruin your friendship over secrets.
Everyone needs friends. Even the richest of people would still be lonely even though they had all that money because they had no friends. We need someone to share our experiences, feelings, etcetera with. No one can live with everything bottled up inside of them. Remember your true friends; do not get tricked by those who only pretend to be your friend.
Should we criticize people and or opinions they have?
Eek. That’s another tough one.
After much thinking (although it was only 10 minutes), I decided that the answer is both a yes and a no.
We should respect others peoples’ actions and opinions. You wouldn’t like someone coming up to you and slapping you just because they did not like the way you felt about something. However, if the thing that you did is wrong, you should accept the criticism and act differently in the future.
If you are the one who is criticizing another person, stop and think before you act. Is what the other person is doing that unacceptable and wrong that you have to tell that person off? Put yourself in that person’s shoes. Would you get angry if another person told you off for something that you did? Remember that you must put your perspective from the other person’s point of view, not your own. You would naturally say that it is right to criticize the other person as you are not the person that is being criticized.
You might not know it, but the person who is doing the thing that you think is wrong may have a good reason for doing it. For example, if you are in a car driving to a hospital to see your dying relative whom you are very close to and you are scolded by another driver for cutting into his way, what will you feel? If you are any normal person, you would most likely think that this person is being very unreasonable.
However, if you were the one who is criticizing the person who just cut into your way, you would probably feel that the person who cut into your way is being stubborn. This shows the different points of view that each driver has towards a certain situation. The driver who cut in would think that he should not be criticized as he was just trying to get to the hospital as fast as possible to be with your loved one during the person’s dying breath.
On the other hand, the driver whose way had been cut into would very likely think that they were right to criticize the other driver as they had wrongfully had their way cut into.
This brings us back to the main point. If we criticize people, it should be because we care for them, not because we want to upset them. When you criticize a friend, you might think that it is for that person’s own good. The friend might take it differently. The friend might think that you don’t want to be his friend and just want to upset him.
If you really care for the person, criticize him out of the good of your heart. Whether he chooses to accept the criticism, it is his own choice. If he gets angry over it, it shows that he is not really your friend as he does not accept criticism which is for his own good. As I have stated earlier in this post, whether we should criticize has both a yes and a no as an answer. After all, it is a philosophical question.
Time passes so fast.
The last time I looked at the calendar, it was at February (Seriously, I hardly check the calendar). Then four days ago, I decided to give the old date-keeper some long needed attention. At that moment, I felt shocked. I felt like I had been shot.
Half a year had passed.
Honestly, it felt like only a month had gone by. It was unbelievable. I never imagined that the saying ‘time flies when your having fun’ would ever apply to a normally boring thing like school. I guess it must be the camaraderie of our classmates. I think we are the most ‘together’ class in the entire secondary one of the school. I’m not kidding. Still don’t believe me? I can tell you how I managed to get through the school semester so easily.
I play soccer with my classmates almost everyday (the place where we play is a confidential secret). Never have I felt such joy when I play soccer with them. In my primary school, like I said in the previous post, if you couldn’t shoot, you would hardly ever get a chance to touch the ball. And if you made any mistakes, you would be yelled at.
When I play with my classmates, it’s alright to make mistakes. “Never mind, we will have other chances” has become a very common statement at matches. We hardly scream at each other unless the mistake is so pathetically stupid that the person who made that mistake ought to be shot.
Back to business. This year has been a big jump from last year. There are more subjects now so it’s more stressful. The amount of homework has also increased compared to primary school and the jump in the difficulty of what is taught is also great. There are many exams and these exams are almost every once in two weeks and this means there is less time for leisure because more of it is taken up studying.
Don’t worry though. I find some ‘homework’ rather relaxing. For example, this blog. I am able to express what I want to say without actually saying it which is quite good for me to de-stress.
My CCA is also quite fun. There is hardly any stress and you get to vent your anger on stuff like acrylic. In my CCA, you get to use power tools such as the jigsaw, the electric drill, the solder, etc.
Overall, I feel that this has been quite a nice first semester. So far, I have been able to cope with my homework. The journey will be long and arduous but I will strive to do the best I can. I still have much to adapt to but I will persevere and hopefully I will make it through the year.
When I first got my PSLE results slip last year, I was shocked. The three numbers that were to decide my fate were larger than I had thought they would be by over twenty. That was the start of my amazing journey. Too bad, my primary school friends said, you’ve already accepted the DSA into that school (I shall refrain from using the name of that school).
However, there was a way out of my predicament. So I said goodbye to my classmates and left. My father brought me to two secondary schools with the hopes of getting into one of them instead of the school that I had DSA’ed into. I had originally wanted to go to another school (I will not mention the name of that school or the school that I am in right now) but now I realize that being in the school I am in right now was actually a blessing in disguise.
When the mail came one afternoon in December, I was disappointed. I read the first three words on it and knew my hopes were crushed. ‘We are sorry’ were those words. I knew what would come next. I felt even worse after I found out that I had missed the cut-off point by 1 mark. 1 paltry mark. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for myself. If only I had answered that questioned correctly...
A few days later, I received another mail. This time it was from the other school that I had appealed to. Unlike the other letter, this one had a positive reply. “Oh well,” I said to myself. “At least I made it to the second school of my choice.” I felt sort of sad for only managing to get into that school.
When I went to that school to start my secondary school life I was surprised in a nice way. I had never experienced so much class spirit. This I found out when I started playing soccer with my new classmates in February. I never thought I would be able to make so many new friends so easily. I felt this… this strong feeling inside me. It only showed when I was with my classmates, playing soccer.
Their style of soccer was way different from the students who used to play soccer in my primary school. The intricate passing, the fantastic shooting, the great team-spirit; all of these were totally different. I had never experienced this before. What’s more, I was actually appreciated for my playing style. In my primary school, if you could not attack, you would never be able to touch the ball. None of the forwards on your team would ever pass the ball to a non-forward.
That meant that if you were better at defence, you would only be able to clear the ball if one of the opponents made a mistake. What’s more, when you cleared the ball and it went out, which it usually did, your team’s strikers would yell at you for being such a lousy passer. Talk about ironic. That’s why I hardly played soccer in primary school.
It’s a totally different story now that I am in secondary school. People like me who are better at defending are almost as appreciated as the attackers if you can do your job well. As the saying goes ’defence is the best offence’. If you can defend well throughout the whole game and just have one good shot at the goal, you will win. On the other hand, if you just keep attacking you will be worn out by the defence sooner or later and you will lose.
Now, I’m really glad that I made it to this school instead of the other school. I don’t think I would be this much appreciated there.
