Sunday, January 20, 2008

CA1 Entry 3 ---------(Story of my nails)

This morning, I woke up and to my horror, I realised that my nails are much shorter than before! It has to be her way of taking revenge.I really regretted offending her. The result of me opposing her is the tragic fate of my innocent nails. Last night, we had a quarrel over the television channel. . .
"Hey its my turn to watch the television." Fiona, my elder sister, spoke in a demanding tone. "But you watched it last night! Its not fair!" I argued back. She simply snatched the remote control from my hand and changed the channel. In the past, I would simply tolerate her unreasonable actions. However, I am not giving in to her this time! I had waited a week for this programme, and there is no way I would allow her to have her way. I decided to keep my stand firm.
Without hesitation, I snatched it back. The quarrel began with her first sentence of rude words. Vulgarities were also exchanged in the midst of the quarrel. The quarrel lasted for about 3 minutes, before she ended it with another rude sentence. Fiona stormed back to her bedroom and slammed the door shut. I knew I had won the 'battle'. I was glad that I stood firm in my decision and accomplished my 'mission'. Little did I expect the consequences of my foolish act. The reward for me winning the quarrel is a 2 hours show. That fateful night, I turned in after brushing my teeth. But I had clearly remembered that I did NOT cut my nails!
I guess all of you can picture what happened next; while I was enjoying my wonderful sleep, she on the other hand had a whale of time taking revenge. From this unfortunate incident, I derived a survival philosophy---- that is never to mess with women. God knows what she will do to me the next time I offend her.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Commonwealth Essay---------(Now, when I was your age...)

"Now, when I was your age..." whenever Grandpa begins this sentence, I would sit up and get ready for a great storytelling session. Grandpa never runs out of childhood stories to tell, and with every story he tells, I await new surprises. He has a unique way of telling his story, which immediately captures my heart and attention. . .
"Hey silly boy, how many times must I tell you not to waste food?" Grandpa raised his voice. I must admit that though Grandpa is old, but his vision never seems to fail him. No matter how quiet and sneaky my actions are, they could never escape his powerful pair of eyes. Grandpa had again caught me dumping carrots into the dustbin. "But Grandpa. . ." before I could finish reasoning, he disrupted it. "Now when I was your age, I didn't waste any of my daily meals. Every grain of rice was precious to me. I had already been helping my parents to work. . ." Grandpa became energised all of a sudden.
My ears naturally 'stood up', as if expecting another interesting story from Grandpa. I quickly made my way to the sofa and sat next to him. Grandpa continued after acknowledging my presence, " Back in those days, Dad owns a chicken farm. The farm was enormous, and its size was easily twenty times the size of this house. There were thousands of coops in the farm and each of them were full of chickens. All the chickens were fatten up with corn and wheat until they were plump like big, round balls!" Grandpa paused and coughed to clear his throat. His eyes seemed distant, and I could tell he was reliving the story from his memories. "Everyday after school, I would rush straight back home to help Dad in the farm. Those were the best moments, when Dad would impart his knowledge of running his chicken farm to me. He would do a 'live performance' of injecting immunisation jabs into a chicken, cleaning up their coops and feeding them . Now, don't think that these jobs are easy. They are much more complicated than you thought. To inject a chicken, there is a basic skill you need to know. You would have to learn how to hold a chicken correctly, which is by their wings, unless you want to get injured by their pointed beaks and sharp claws. Then, you got to distract the chicken while injecting the medicine in case they struggle too much from the pain and break their wings. Okay, enough of farm tending, I would like you to know about the business of the farm. Each month, the farm makes a net income of about five thousand. In those days, it is really a big sum of . . ." Grandpa coughed for the second time.
He then spoke again, "So, you get the rough idea that the farm business is fairly good. However, lady luck can't be with us forever. I could still remember that it was somewhere in June that Dad discovered the chickens were decreasing in numbers day by day.On investigation, he found holes in the fences of the coops. It was obvious that a thief had been 'visiting' the farm and stealing our chickens. It was the first time I saw Dad blowing his top off in front of me. From then on, he stayed awake throughout the night to wait for the thief." This time, Grandpa paused really long and looked straight in my eyes with a serious look.
He then carried on with a sudden change of stern but mysterious voice, "It was just before dawn, that fateful day, when I was awaken by a loud shout and then gun shots that followed up. I immediately knew that something was amiss. I hurried to the farm only to realise that there was not a single soul in sight. However, I noticed some bloodstains on the ground. I was dumbfounded and terrified. . . Following the trail of bloodstains led me to the bush. It was there, where I saw a dark figure sitting over another. I went closer only to discover that Dad was sitting on another man and punching his face. I immediately knew that Dad had caught the thief. The thief was then handed to the police station." Grandpa then stopped and gave me a wild smile, "Don't you think my Dad, your Great Grandpa, is superb?" I returned a smile and nodded my head. Grandpa patted my head and excused himself to the toilet. He ended his story as abruptly as he started it. I was left sitting on the sofa, blankly recalling the story he had just told me. I had to admit his stories would never fail to amaze me and set me thinking. It is a undeniable fact that Grandpa is a great story teller.

Friday, January 18, 2008

CA1 Entry 2 ----------(My passion for Maths)

As I had announced in my previous post, I love Maths and would practise it whenever I could to sharpen my skills. I used to go for Maths Olympiad tuition at Patson's tuition centre in Bugis, every week.
However, my tuition teacher had called me last month to inform me that she had changed to another tuition centre which is located at Novena. This meant that I would have to travel from Changi to Novena every Sunday just for a 2 hour Maths tuition; well, I guess I had got no choice as Ms Loh is such a good teacher and I seriously need this tuition to develop my interest in Maths Olympiad. But god, who knows what terrible news await me. . . The tuition centre that Ms Loh is teaching in will not conduct lessons for Secondary 1 and 2 due to insufficient enrolments. I felt extremely disappointed. You might think that I am exaggerating, but the tuition really meant a lot to me. Without Ms Loh's coaching, I could not find a better way to develop my interest and skills. Ms Loh said that she would still email me worksheets every week and told me to contact her whenever I encounter problems in Maths. I really appreciated her kind assistance however I still needed a tuition.
For the past 2 weeks, Dad and Mum has been earnestly helping me to scout for a new tuition centre which could train me for the coming Maths Olympiad competition.
My prayers had finally been answered. I was informed to meet Mdm Esther Teo at the Maths lab. Straight after school today, I headed for the Maths lab and was elated to learn that the school would enrolling me and the other few students for a Maths Olympiad training. I am looking forward to the training and will seize every opportunity to learn as much as I could.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

CA1 Entry 1 --------- My Hobby

I really need a break, or at least to sit back and relax. Man, I seriously cannot recall when was the last time I took a nap. Perhaps, since the beginning of the year...
Back in secondary 1, I used to sleep whenever I came back from school.However, this year has been exceptionally hectic, and my time had been fully occupied by CCA and tuition homework. Today, there is no CCA and projects to do and I finally get to do something I enjoy! I cannot afford to waste my time on taking a nap. I decided to forgo my 'precious' sleeping time to practise my sketching skills. Only through drawing can I relieve my stress; or at least to stay carefree for a while before returning to this miserable reality of getting buried by tonnes of homework.
Well, what should I draw? The plants in my garden, the mug on the table, or the vase in Dad's bedroom? I could not decide on what to draw, drawing these things are boring and not at all challenging. I thought that drawing portrait of someone would be much more interesting. I scanned through the photos in my handphone and stopped at a picture. He has a wrinkled but benevolent face and also carries a unique smile. Grandpa is definitely the best person to use as my model for practicing my sketching skills. Anyway, Grandpa's birthday is round the corner and I might as well draw him a portrait as a gift. I am sure he would like it.
I spent approximately 30 minutes to make a rough sketch of Grandpa. I was not really satisfied with this piece of drawing and felt 'empty', as if something was missing. I decided to learn how to draw cats from a guide book. The book was clear in showing each step of drawing and I followed each step seriously. This time I spent about 1.5 hours to finish sketching three cats sketches and was quite pleased with my 'masterpiece' . I am glad to have another 3 sketches to add to my collection and felt much better after unwinding myself through drawing. How I wished I had all the time in the world to pursue my interest in drawing, without worrying about my undone homework. Interest aside, I still have to place my pencil down and start on my tuition homework. I must have discipline and work hard in order to achieve my goal. I believe that good results would be the fruit of my labour and there is no short cut to success. I look forward to hearing all of you air comments about my drawings.(sorry about the photos would be posting soon)

Edited/










Thursday, January 10, 2008

Who am I?

Hi I am once again back. Forgotten to introduce myself in the last post. I am Truman, 13,would be celebrating my birthday on the 2nd February. I live at Changi, somewhere opposite the prison, it is rather deserted and transport is not very convenient for me. I study in Victoria school, currently in class 2D, an AEP class. I love drawing and reading comics, playing computers games is also my favourite. My best subjects are Maths and Physics, which I would pay most attention to. I think Fish and Chips with iced milo is the best combo on Earth. My current goal is to get straight As and be in the first 3 positions in class.Though it seems hard, I still believe that nothing is impossible, I really need to revise more on my languages and chemistry. This is a brief description of myself and its time for me to brush up on my studies. Good bye.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

My experience on creating a blog

Hi all, this is my first time creating a blog. This afternoon, my english teacher Ms Neo brought us to the IT lab to create a blog. It was much more easier than I had thought. Just 3 steps! All you need to do is to create a google account and everything can be done in 5 minutes' time! So, for me, I had not encountered any difficulty while creating a blog. Instead, everything went rather smoothly. Before I could explore and understand how to blog, I had to give in to the other classmates who had problems with their computers. Well, guess we have to learn to share things... In summary, I am glad to have learnt something new and look forward to the next assignment.