A few days ago, my class went on a CIP (Community Involvement programme) trip to an old folk’s home during the school founder’s day. What we are supposed to do at the old folk’s home is to interactive with the old folks by chatting with them. There was also a performance for the elderly at the beginning of our visit and we were told by our teachers to bring our rags so as to clean up the home after our interaction with the elderly but the person in-charge told us that we need not give the home a clean up.

I can say that I was quite excited to go to the old folks home as it was my first time and that I was equipped with hokkien and I knew that it would come in handy when I am conversing with the elderly. I was also put in-charge as the translator and I was to give an introduction of ourselves before we began the performance. Although I had rehearsed my lines, I was shy and lacked confidence as I feared I might make a fool out of myself so I did not really perform well while giving the introduction.

When we first entered the home, I was greeted by about 20 old folks and some of them were sitting on wheelchairs. Although the place was quite clean and there were many nurses attending to the old folks, I cannot help myself but feel a sense of sadness. I did not know that so many ungrateful children are willing to send their parent to an old folks home. When I heard that that were more old folks upstair, I was stunned. I told myself that the reason we were there was to let the old folks have some fun and be happy and I got a hold of myself.

There were a lot of activities prepared for the elderly, to entertain them. However, we only rehearsed for the first time the day before only because a teacher requested it. Many did not want to cooperate with the organizing team in previous attempts to hold rehearsal. We were tasked to sing 4 chinese songs, two of which were taught during music lessons (满江红 and 细水长流) while the other two songs are 月亮代表我的心 and 城里的月光.Due to the fact that we did not practice a lot before hand, we did not know the lyrics like the back of our hand and thus, have to look at the lyrics on the paper which was not very professional. As for the two songs we had learnt during music lesson, we were confidence of singing it correctly and thus did not have any lyrics but in the end, we mixed the verses up and sang wrongly. However, with a few talented musicians in our class, Kang Le playing the piano, Darren and Jim and Jong playing the guitar, they made up for our mistake and the mass singing performance turned out quite well.

Next, we have the Magic show whereby Jun Mun performed a few magic tricks like pulling a blue cloth out of a handkerchief and making three ropes of different length into the same lengths. Till now I still cannot not figure out how he did it and I am sure the old folks enjoyed it.

Lastly, we have a wushu performance put up by Zhan Yi and Xavier who threw punches and kicks and execute their moves wonderfully.

All in all I think the elderly enjoyed it as they were clapping at the end of our performance and they were all smiling and appreciate what we have done for them.

After the performance, we had the interaction with the elderly. Although I was equipped with hokkien, I found it very hard to communicate with them. This is because of the language barrier between us. Most of the elderly spoke different dialects like Hokkien, Teochew Cantonese etc. And it is hard to find an elderly who speaks hokkien as some of them have hearing problems while others do not understand what exactly we are saying. However, despite all this, we still pressed on and managed to find out some information from the elderly like their age and what they like to do during their free time. We found out that the elderly’s age range from 60-108 and was surprised as I did not know that Singaporeans can live that long!

One elderly told my classmate that the nurses working there were very bad to them. It was only when guests like us come and visit them, did the nurses pretend to be friendly and kind. I do not know whether the elderly was telling the truth or she was just trying to let us know that the nurses are cruel and possibly ask her children to take her away from here. The person in-charge also told us not to lent the elderly our phone for fear that the elderly will use the opportunity to call their children as the children did not want their parent to call them or pester them.

Another elderly told me that I should not bring my parents here next time. I feel that this statement has a very big impact on me. Coming from someone who has been left at the old folks home, I think I will heed her advice and not put my parents in the old folks home.

This bring me to my next point that why did so many ungrateful children are willing to leave their parents in the old folks home, especially when their parents have spent so much effort and time to raise them into adults. However, all the thanks they get are being sent to old folks home. Although the children might have their reasons to leave the old folks in the home such as: there is no one at home to take care of the elderly or maybe they find their parents too much a trouble or a nuisance and decide to put them in the old folks home. Whatever the reason, they should also visit them frequently to show that they still care for their parents and let their parents’ mind be at ease by showing that they are doing well in life, because though their parent might be in the old folk home, they still care about their children and are constantly worried about them.

I have learnt many things from the trip to the old folks home like doing things ahead and not at the eleventh hour and that we should be grateful to our parents for enduring hardship while bring us up and let them live a comfortable life by not sending them to the old folk home. All in all, the trip to the old folks home is an eye opener for me and it is an interesting experience. I hope that the school can organize more such trips so that we can help more elderly by bring joy to them.

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Today was my finals for the National Water Polo Championship 2010, C Division. The night before the competition, I could not sleep, thinking about what will be the outcome of the competition. I know I should be optimistic about the game and that my mindset is to win, is to give it my all. However, there is this feeling tugging me, the feeling that I am sorry to say is losing. ACSI is a notch above us, though it is not an impossible task to overcome them, it would be difficult, very difficult indeed.

Before I went down to play I was nervous. I had to calm myself down and tell myself that I just had to play my best. Gulping down a few mouthful of redbull, I hoped that it would come into good use during the match.

The match was against ACSI, a strong rival of my school. At the preliminaries, we lost to them 8-3. However, both HCI and ACSI won all of their remaining matches and thus we met again in the finals.

At the finals, I can say that I did not perform well, or maybe I always did not perform well. You might say that I might be underestimating myself but I do not think so. During the finals, I was often lost, caught between attacking and defending. Whenever I wanted to swim towards the opponent side of the pool to support my teammates, the possession of the ball always changes side and I have to swim back. Thus, I gradually stop swimming to the opponent side as I was fearful that the ACSI guy that I was marking would do a counter break and we would from there lost a point. I just stayed where I was, neither attacking nor really defending. I feel that me being in the team and me not being in the team does not really make much of a difference. I do not score to help my team and this can be supported by me only having a total of 3 goals in all the matches that I played while others are averaging at a total goals of ten and above. My defending is also not good so is my stamina and I often remain stationary, refusing to swim after I have just sprinted to chase the opponent.

I feel that I am useless and did not know why coach put me into the team. Maybe for the only reason that I can swim quite fast and that was all. My technique and skill cannot match up to some of my teammates. Slowly, my teammates are catching up with me on swimming and I would gradually be left behind……

Coming back to the finals, the score in the first half was 2-1 in favour of ACSI and it was quite good as we were putting up a good fight. However, our stamina slowly decrease and we started to let in free men and counter breaks in the second half where ACSI increased the margin by a fair bit and in the end, the match ended with 10-4 in favour of ACSI.

Although the margin is quite big, I feel that we have done the best we could. We have put in all our effort to want to win this competition, but ACSI was generally fitter in terms of stamina, faster in swimming and much stronger in physical strength. These caused them to win us by such a huge margin in the second half. However, I will not stop here. I will continue training to fight for the team and to fight for myself. I will come back stronger again next year in B’ division and hopefully I will know what I am doing during the match but that all depends whether coach will put me in the team. Nevertheless, I am going to train hard to convince coach to put me in the team next year so that I can get another chance to prove my worthy. I will not want to fail those who believe in me again. ACSI you guys better watch your back.

Competition among one another is everywhere. From competing in competitions like swimming to students competing with each other on their results. From competing for a higher position in a company to competing on how much money each has.

Competition can both be a good thing and a bad thing. Too much of anything is harmful to us. This also applies to competition. Having competition among one another is good and helpful in its own way. However, having too much can result in dire consequences.

Students compete with each other over their examination results. This pushes each student to strive hard and try to overcome other students, and get better results. This is a win-win situation. However, if the student takes the competition too seriously, it may result in the student putting too much pressure on himself. Thus, if he did not get the desired result, he will just break down, as his expectations are just too high to meet. Too much competition can also result in the breaking of many friendships. What may seem as just a harmless rivalry, might cause Student A to hate Student B if A did not score as well as B and A will from then on bear a grudge on B and will do anything to get back at him, resulting in a vicious cycle. Furthermore, it is not very good for him to experience this at such a young age, which will affect his future relationships with others greatly. Moreover, parents also pressurize their children by comparing their children result with others. “ Why didn’t you beat Terry in this test? You will be grounded until you win him.”

In companies, employees compete with each other fiercely, much more than that of the students. They will resort to despicable means to reach their goals, even if it means backstabbing their best friend. Their goal is to be the manager and the CEO to earn money and more money. Is the money worth it to betray your friend? Some people might say yes as they feel that it is a cruel world out there. It is the survival of the fittest. They will grab any opportunity that is given to them.

Next Tuesday will be the Waterpolo finals against ACSI. Although we can't underestimate our opponent, neither can we feel inferior to them. We must have the right mindset, the mindset to fight and to win. We must have the right attitude, the attitude of not giving up. The competitiveness here is different. It is not too much nor too little and it is just right for us to excel to the best of our ability. Although most people feel that ACSI has a higher percentage of winning, I feel that it is our mental that makes up for it. Although ACSI maybe physically fitter that HCI, it is the Hwa Chong spirit that burns within us spurring us on. We will definitely put on a spectacular show to all the teacher and students that will be cheering us on Tuesday.

This is life. This is society. Competitiveness is good but not too much. I hereby suggest all parents to not stressed up your children too much let them enjoy life while they can as it will be difficult to enjoy life once they are all grown up.

I feel that the Life cycle of a human is like this:

You are born to this wonderful world.

You get to spend the first few years playing and enjoying.

Just when everything seems so peaceful, things start to turn ugly. You have to go to school. No fun and games anymore.

Work your ass off as a student. Suffer hardship and faced many obstacles but still managed to hang on and not give up.

Work your ass off again but now as an adult. Try to earn as much money as possible.

Retirement comes first then illness. Spend the next half of life suffering from illness, spending the money that you have earned.

Wait for death to come knocking.

What a wonderful life this is and I sure hope this will not happen to me.

Please view the video below.

Are you furious at the Caucasians who did not pay for the ride? Or do you think that the Trishaw uncle charged his service a little too high? Is it really the Caucasians’ fault? Or is it just the language barrier that separates them?

Whatever the answers are, they are not important. What I want to talk about today is the difference in social class in our society.

In a company, there is always the Director of the company followed by the managers of respective department and then the “low class” employees.

In our society today, it is also the same. There is a difference between people of higher class and people of lower class. Since the education system in Singapore is that all children must have at least an education of up till Primary 6, less people are illiterate, leading to more people doing the white collar jobs. With less people willing to do the blue collar jobs, for example: road sweepers, garbage collectors, toilet cleaners etc. Thus, Singapore has to allow immigrants from mostly China and India to do these jobs.

Many people of the higher class do not want to socialize with these people of the lower class. They go to the extent of despising them and feel that they should not even exist in the growing economy of many developed countries. However, without these people of lower class, any countries will not be able to operate or even survive. Many rubbish an debris will be left on the road and floor, the toilets will be dirty and smelly, the buildings will not be re-painted for many years to come, the trees and grasses will be overgrown, etc. Therefore, it is not morally right to despise them as they do all the “dirty work” so as to allow the people of higher class to function.

However, just because it is one’s job to do something, does not mean that the people of higher class can abuse it. For example, many customers at fast food restaurants do not take the initiative to clear they trays themselves. They feel that they should let the cleaners to do it since they are hired solely for this reason. Similarly, road sweepers are hired to clean up rubbish to keep the roads of Singapore clean. However, just because of this, we should not litter everywhere we go just so that the road sweeper can sweep them up. We should throw our rubbish into rubbish bin instead to reduce the road sweepers workload.

In the video, the Caucasians should not take the trishaw uncle service for granted even if they do not agree with the price they were charged. They should at least pay him for the ride and sympathise with him that he is already so old yet he still tried his best to cycle.

As people of higher class, we should show more compassion to the people of lower class to reduce their workload and stress as much as possible and not make it worst. Furthermore, we should not despise them just because they are of a lower class. They are still humans and they do not deserved to be treated this way. We cannot change the cruel truth of the difference between people of higher class and people of lower class, but we can make their life much easier. They have already suffered enough hardship and poverty, some do not even know when their next meal will be. Must we be so cruel as to make it difficult for them?

How I wished everybody’s life will be peaceful and happy. But sadly, some things just aren’t fair.

Spatial / Visual
a. Draw a map of Maycomb (think google map!). Take into consideration the locations of the homes, the streets etc.

Reference:
http://www.enotes.com/images/enotes/9061/large.jpg

Intrapersonal
a. Who would you want to be friends with in the novel? Explain.

I would like to be friend with Boo Radley although he is a bit of a weirdo who stay shut in his house for fifteen years.

Post your learning profile on your blog and write in no less than 100 words the implications or what you feel about the Multiple Intelligence test.