As you might notice from the INTENSE posting drought, I have run out of ideas. If you have not, well, now you know. So i would really appreciate it if someone could help me think of several ideas... I really don't want this blog to go dead even though I think I have already maxed out my ACE... I put so much time and effort to build up and maintain this blog. By the way, this is my 50th post!
I should be celebrating but there isn't really much to celebrate when this post is just a cry for ideas... I was at the 49th post for almost a MONTH so I really think that I should write something even if it's totally nonsensical (hey, but that's my blog name anyway) in order to reach the GLORIOUS 50th post which is the crappy one your reading right now. This blog is really dying...... I wish that I could be as 'pro' as Jonah and come up with blog posts once or twice a week (but at least i don't make as many spelling/gramatical errors as him ;D ). I really wonder how he manages to post so much!
Alright, now i'm just sitting in front of the computer, staring into blank space and typing at the same time (wait; that didn't sound right...). Anyway, I'm in desparate need of inspiration or else i won't be able to write anymore posts and this blog will really go dead. So I'm begging you now, PLEASE HELP ME THINK OF IDEAS! Write your suggestion in the tagbox at the side or comment or DO SOMETHING just so this blog won't go dead! I'm being serious (wow that's harsh).
Oh yeah, and please tag. I think that the tagbox is dying too. Please help with that also. Hey, do whatever you want with the tagbox AS LONG AS it does not involve vulgarities and spam and other unwanted crap (this is NOT a dump even though the title says so). Go ahead flood it with junk but it must be USEFUL junk (OK what i'm writing is completely contradicting the title) (ooh big words; scary!).
Question 1:
I do not support lotteries. They are bad for people because they burn away the people’s hard earned money. Even if the person eventually wins something, it does not really make a difference because the person might have already spent so much money on lottery tickets that the winnings are not enough to cover the amount spent on the tickets.
For example, if a person spends $10 on 4D tickets everyday, and he does this for lets say 1 year, he would have spent: $10 X 30 days X 12 months = $3600! This is a lot of money even if $300 a month does not seem like a big amount of money. With $3600, you could buy lots of other more useful things like… a television set… or groceries… or… erm… I don’t know but you could always just save the money!
On the other hand, if you do win something in a lottery and you have only tried a few times so you have made a profit, you should just stop participating in the lottery. After all, the chances of winning a prize again are relatively low counting the number of other punters entering the lottery each day.
Even if you have won a lottery but is still not able to make up your losses, you should also stop participating in it. It is still better to earn some of your losses back then to lose your winnings by continuing to enter in it in the hopes of winning it another time.
This is the adult’s quote that is needed for this blog post: ‘Lotteries are a waste of time and money. There is no shortcut to earning money in life. You just have to work for your cash. The time you spend on the lottery could be used to look for a job or to work overtime.’
These are some of the quotes from NPR on gambling: ‘Addiction is a quiet monster.’ and that addiction is ‘behaviour that becomes so excessive it interferes with peoples’ lives’. These quotes show how dangerous gambling is. Once you are addicted, it will affect your life.
The best thing to do is still not to buy lottery tickets in the first place as then you will never lose any money to the lottery. You will also not get addicted to the lottery and continue to spend your money on it. Spending a large portion of your money could be potentially dangerous as that can lead to problems in life. These problems include being in debt and social difficulties as no one wants to be a friend to you because they are scared you will ask for money.Reference (note this is ONE URL):
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=90213926&m=90213905
Part 1
Paper:
Generally, I agree with Dao Ming and Mun Kit. Paper is very fragile and easily torn; this probably refers to the stock market which is also very volatile and easily ruptured.
The stock market is just like gambling; you can easily become rich, but also become bankrupt. The stock market is also like gambling because you are never sure if the stocks will increase in value or decrease. When you make gains, it is just on paper, not in reality, and you may just spend what you think you have earned until you have none left.
Tay Soon was very foolish not to take out his stocks when he had made a huge profit. Everyday he hoped that the stocks would increase in value, but they decreased. He should have taken out his money immediately when he made a profit.
As Dao Ming wrote, there is no shortcut to anything. Almost everything has to be achieved by sweat and tears. We also cannot be obsessed with things, just take life one step at a time.
We should strive for things in life, but do this with hard work. Even if you have stocks in the stock market, remember to sell once you have made a profit, don’t wait like Tay Soon did. If the stocks increase, count yourself unlucky, but if they decrease, then you have made the right decision.
It’s better to be safe than sorry in everything that we do. It was ironic that Tay Soon died with the thing that he wanted the most, his dream house, but how he achieved this is not a good way.
Part 2
Lottery:
I agree with Jun Kai and Jonah. This book was written some time ago so the writer probably had knowledge on that era as people are not as superstitious in today’s modern society.
When Ah Boh had finally won some small prizes, she would not stop gambling even though she had won something. This is most likely because she was greedy and wanted even more money. She was probably uneducated like many people of that time were. They believed in superstition because they were naïve about the world around them as they did not have an education.
Ah Boh got so addicted to gambling that she would run to almost every accident scene near her and take down the numbers, not even bothering about the people hurt in the accident. She was so superstitious that she was even performing weird rituals in hopes that she would become very lucky and win.
The last part is rather ironic. Because she used up all her money on gambling, she did not look after her old mother. Further more, she continued gambling even after her mother had complained about it. She spent all her money on gambling and totally neglected her own mother. In the end, her mother died but that did not stop her from gambling, in fact it pushed her to gamble even more. She was delusional, using her mother’s death as an excuse to gamble more so she could buy her mother a good coffin.
Part 3
The Rocking Horse Winner:
I agree with Xue Hao. I think that Paul’s mother was one of the greatest causes of Paul’s death, although there are others who contributed to this.
Paul’s mother taught him that you had to be lucky in order to have money, which of course is not a good way of explaining. She probably did that because Paul was still young at that time. However, this had a bad consequence on his life.
Paul wanted to make the ‘whispers’ in his house go away, and he thought he could do that by making his mother happy by giving her money. He turned to gambling and won much money but he got obsessed with it. The house started whispering even more loudly and this drove Paul to gamble even more. This in turn led to Paul taking a wild ride on the rocking horse, collapsing, and despite being right about the winner of the Derby and making a lot of money, dying.
However, Uncle Oscar and Basset are also at fault. They should not have influenced Paul to gamble when he was so young as this adversely affected his life. They should have told him that he shouldn’t gamble no matter how lucky he was but instead they encouraged him and looked to him to find luck and make money from him.
Paul was also at fault. He was so addicted to gambling so that he could earn money for his mother and stop the house from ‘whispering’ that he did not care even if something bad happened to him. He should have listened to his mother and not gamble even if the money was needed.
Part 1
Analyse the following poemThe 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
There are thirty-one lines or nine stanzas and three ‘extra’ lines in this poem. I agree with Ao Lun to some extent.
There is symbolism in the first four lines. The author felt that his school badge represented ‘hope for the future’. Unfortunately, he does not really care about this as he wrote ‘or something’ at the end of the stanza.
In the next two lines, he says that at times, ‘black crows try to interrupt’ when they sang the national anthem. He probably likes his national anthem as that is why he used the word ‘interrupt’.
From lines seven to nine, the writer states that he likes ‘getting dirty’ as in when he does physical activities like soccer. That is why he did not complain even though he had his shoes soiled. He most likely has some form of physical activity going on in school on Wednesday.
Lines ten to eleven tell us that the writer admired the ‘hardworking scouts’ not because they worked hard but because they had thighs that the writer wanted to have.
He also was not very rich as he was envious of some of the other children in his school who were rich enough to have chauffeurs. This is shown when he included the part of chauffeurs in the next few lines.
The writer thinks that his teacher is weird because he stated in lines seventeen to twenty that she dressed up in a sarong kebaya and sang Bengawan Solo when it was Chinese New Year because these were things associated with Peranakan or Malay culture.
He is probably quite smart as he finds the things his less smart classmates do funny in a sarcastic manner. This is when he wrote that one of his classmates was very ‘heroic’ to give all his answers to the Chinese multiple-choice paper as ‘A’.
In the last few lines of the poem, he reveals that he was handicapped. This is a stunning revelation as all through the poem, he has been doing things that normal children his age would be doing. This shows that his disability did not stop him from living a normal life.
This poem does not rhyme but some of the lines have rhythm. This poem is mainly free verse and there is no use of alliteration. There is also no use of imagery or exaggeration. There are, however, uses of metaphors but no uses of similes. Onomatopoeia and idioms are not used in this poem. There are symbols like stated above. The writer’s mood is positive and his tone is quite good as well. He describes his school life as a good time.
Part 2
The days have past
There’s no turning back
But If I could
I would change some things
Well, maybe I wouldn’t
I remember that day
I scored my first goal during P.E.
I was so happy
But it was offside
I didn’t know what that meant
Then there was the day
I got myself into big trouble
Because I called this irritating kid
An idiot
I was in primary 5
Was that still counted as vulgar?
That wasn’t what the teacher thought
But I had a reason
He was interrupting my class’ soccer game
I had the ball when he tripped me
It was on purpose
Of course I would scream at him
Apparently my teachers don’t make mistakes
Those days are gone
As my friend told me:
To make mistakes is human
But to forgive them is against school policy
