In every school there are CCAs, obviously right? Hwa Chong's no different. Schools have niche CCAs and normal CCAs. Well basically, the difference between the two is thatone receives more funding than the other because of its better achievements, but in all other aspects, they are treated equally.
CCAs, especially sports, in Hwa Chong, are divided into two, mainly, the elite sports, and the non-elite sports. Elite and Non-elite? I didn't like that. I still don't.
I come from a CCA(table-tennis) that belongs to the category of Non-elite sports. We are the so-called Perennial Underachievers, bringing back puny zonal medals while the high and mighty elite sports bring home national championships. At this description, you might think being labelled non-elite sports isn't too unfair, because we dont acheive much, but the effort in which "non-elite" sports, in no way, pales in comparison to the high flying sports. For example, let's look at the volleyball and badminton teams.(I won't talk about table tennis, in case of suspicion of bias) They train relentlessly, and make full use of their limited resources and training times, and seek to improve unwaveringly. But yet, due to the high standards of the competition, they are unable to achieve much. Do we simply disregard them as lower grade sports in the school and label them as mediocre? I am not saying that elite sports do not train hard to achieve what they have today, but that they are the only ones being recognised, while the other sports who also train hard but are unable to achieve, are being neglected and pushed aside.
I do feel that CCAs/sports, should not be judged base on their achievements, but based on their efforts. Being recognised as elite sports makes students from such CCAs have arrogance, they think that because they are the creme de la creme, they are above everyone, and many look down on others, whule the others feel dispirited because they aren't recognise for their efforts.
Elite sports.Non Elite sports. There should be no superiority or inferiority, as the effort put in do not differ, and it should be recognised regardless of achievements.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
You are what you eat.
"You are what you eat." We have seen this many times, be it on the streets or through the television, encouraging people to eat healthy,and telling people that their health depends on what they eat. Many think that it is exaggerated, but "You are what you eat" isn't baseless.
Recently, on an article by the straits times,it was reported that singaporeans today are fatter, taller and heavier than singaporeans in the previous generation. One of the main reasons is because Singaporeans have a better life now. But the food that we eat plays a very big role too.
Have you ever wondered what your potato chips are made of? Potatoes? Salt? That's all? Not exactly. If potato chips contained just potatoes and salt, they wouldn't be so popular now. Those chilli, onion flavours dont just come from potatoes. Then those flavours come from real onions, chillies, right? Apparently not. The so-called orginal flavours come from artificial flvourings which are detrimental to our body. Additionally,Potato chips are deep fried in oxidized oil that is re-used for weeks at a time. Deep fried at high temperatures which cause the chemical, acrylimide to be released. Acrylimides are a known cancer causing agent that also causes nerve damage. When you eat 1 single serving bag of potato chips you may be eating up to 500times more acrylamide than the maximum level allowed in drinking water. The simple chip ain't that innocent anymore.
Chips aren't the only culprits. Burgers, another all time favourite. Most Burgers contain MSG (monosodium glutamate), which is a chemical used for flavour enhancement and fattening of animals. MSG is also common in most foodstuffs. MSG also causes many problems. It can cause headaches, swelling of cheeks and constant dehydration. Such problems are not uncommon, in fact, my mother experienced swollen cheeks after eating an especially delicious bowl of noodles.
Chickens today are a lot fatter than they used to be. So what fills them up? Hormone injections. As we consume the hormome laden chickens it enters our bloodstream, and we become hormone laden, being intoxicated with this causes health problems ranging from cancer to obesity.
You are what you eat. And today, that isn't good. For better taste, we have forsaken the genuine goodness in our food with artificial flavourings and hormones or whatever, that do nothing but harm us. The reason why we are fatter now as compared to the previous generation is not just because they had a tougher life, but that their food was just food, today, food is more hormones than food itself. The potato of the past has now transformed into the cancer-obesity-blahblahblah disease-causing, and probably life threatening chip.
Which do you want? If we want to be in the right shape, size, condition, then we have to curb this unhealthy processing of food, food should not be artificial and full of taste but void in benefits, and full of detriments, food should be kept natural, and the way it should be. A great man(sorry, forgot his name) once said "let food be your medicine, and let medicine be your food.That was before our food had things added to it. When food was clean and "untouched", things were like that, until we ruined our food. Food used to make us fit, now food makes us fat. Cancer used to be a rarity, now its the norm. The solution to being healthy lies in our food.
We are what we eat.
Recently, on an article by the straits times,it was reported that singaporeans today are fatter, taller and heavier than singaporeans in the previous generation. One of the main reasons is because Singaporeans have a better life now. But the food that we eat plays a very big role too.
Have you ever wondered what your potato chips are made of? Potatoes? Salt? That's all? Not exactly. If potato chips contained just potatoes and salt, they wouldn't be so popular now. Those chilli, onion flavours dont just come from potatoes. Then those flavours come from real onions, chillies, right? Apparently not. The so-called orginal flavours come from artificial flvourings which are detrimental to our body. Additionally,Potato chips are deep fried in oxidized oil that is re-used for weeks at a time. Deep fried at high temperatures which cause the chemical, acrylimide to be released. Acrylimides are a known cancer causing agent that also causes nerve damage. When you eat 1 single serving bag of potato chips you may be eating up to 500times more acrylamide than the maximum level allowed in drinking water. The simple chip ain't that innocent anymore.
Chips aren't the only culprits. Burgers, another all time favourite. Most Burgers contain MSG (monosodium glutamate), which is a chemical used for flavour enhancement and fattening of animals. MSG is also common in most foodstuffs. MSG also causes many problems. It can cause headaches, swelling of cheeks and constant dehydration. Such problems are not uncommon, in fact, my mother experienced swollen cheeks after eating an especially delicious bowl of noodles.
Chickens today are a lot fatter than they used to be. So what fills them up? Hormone injections. As we consume the hormome laden chickens it enters our bloodstream, and we become hormone laden, being intoxicated with this causes health problems ranging from cancer to obesity.
You are what you eat. And today, that isn't good. For better taste, we have forsaken the genuine goodness in our food with artificial flavourings and hormones or whatever, that do nothing but harm us. The reason why we are fatter now as compared to the previous generation is not just because they had a tougher life, but that their food was just food, today, food is more hormones than food itself. The potato of the past has now transformed into the cancer-obesity-blahblahblah disease-causing, and probably life threatening chip.
Which do you want? If we want to be in the right shape, size, condition, then we have to curb this unhealthy processing of food, food should not be artificial and full of taste but void in benefits, and full of detriments, food should be kept natural, and the way it should be. A great man(sorry, forgot his name) once said "let food be your medicine, and let medicine be your food.That was before our food had things added to it. When food was clean and "untouched", things were like that, until we ruined our food. Food used to make us fit, now food makes us fat. Cancer used to be a rarity, now its the norm. The solution to being healthy lies in our food.
We are what we eat.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Birmingham Grid For Learning
Kinaesthetic-17
Linguistic-10
Logical-2
Interpersonal-3
Intrapersonal-16
Musical-0
Visual/Spatial-11
Naturalistic-6
These are the results of my MIT. I feel that the Multiple Intelligence test is not an accurate guage of "Intellience in specific areas". The test comprises of 40 questions, and they are basically on the above intelligences. I feel that this test is unable to provide accurate answers due to the fact that a big part of the results depend on the mindset of people. People who are "modest" would feel that they do not have substantial intelligence on a paticular area, this would lower their rating. On the other hand, people who are more"proud" and have more confidence in their own abilities would rate themselves highly. Fluctation caused by this factors would hence cause inaccuracies in the results.
Furthermore, it is very hard to guage intelligence with tests like this and numerals cannot be used to rate such "stuff". The questions are not very appopriate and like alex said, fufiling the requirements of the question, does not mean that you have or are efficient in that particular intelligence.
Hence, I feel that the MIT is not an accurate guage of someone's intelligence as it is simply to vague and general and that the results are suceptible to fluctuations which would cause inaccuracies.
Do you think MIT is accurate? why or why not? Pls comment!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Intrapersonal (TKAM)
Who would you want to be friends with in the novel?Explain.
I would want to be friends with Boo. Being locked in his own home for 15 years and regarded as a phantom monster by the mass of Maycomb, Boo Would still be my choice of a friend. Simply because I know he harbours no evil intentions nor ulterior motives. He leaves chewing gum and many gifts in the tree for the children and still wants to communicate with them in spite of being made fun of by the children. He even saves them from Bob Ewell, and as Ming Hao had pointed out, Miss Maudie, the voice of reason,, viewed Boo as a polite boy.
Boo has a clean heart. As he has not been exposed to the evils of the world, he stays clean. Many people in society often don't show their true colours to you, on the surface, they may be the best of friends to you, but behind your back,deep down, they could be your worst enemies. People work against each other for their own selfish gains and the word friendship no longer exists to many.
But being blocked out from the world since he was just a boy, Boo does not know even about the evils of society. As we all commonly know, children are innocent creatures who mean no harm, much less a well mannered boy who only knew about being as good as he could.
Introverted he may be, weird to some extent he may be,he is not pretentious and what more can you fault him for? In fact, a friend who does not harbour any thought of harming you, or a friend who has only one true face is a friend indeed. Boo Radley would hence be my friend of choice.
I would want to be friends with Boo. Being locked in his own home for 15 years and regarded as a phantom monster by the mass of Maycomb, Boo Would still be my choice of a friend. Simply because I know he harbours no evil intentions nor ulterior motives. He leaves chewing gum and many gifts in the tree for the children and still wants to communicate with them in spite of being made fun of by the children. He even saves them from Bob Ewell, and as Ming Hao had pointed out, Miss Maudie, the voice of reason,, viewed Boo as a polite boy.
Boo has a clean heart. As he has not been exposed to the evils of the world, he stays clean. Many people in society often don't show their true colours to you, on the surface, they may be the best of friends to you, but behind your back,deep down, they could be your worst enemies. People work against each other for their own selfish gains and the word friendship no longer exists to many.
But being blocked out from the world since he was just a boy, Boo does not know even about the evils of society. As we all commonly know, children are innocent creatures who mean no harm, much less a well mannered boy who only knew about being as good as he could.
Introverted he may be, weird to some extent he may be,he is not pretentious and what more can you fault him for? In fact, a friend who does not harbour any thought of harming you, or a friend who has only one true face is a friend indeed. Boo Radley would hence be my friend of choice.
Boozy Chimp sent to Rehab-Vices Ruin
Ok, here's something weird. A Russian Chimpanzee has bee sent to rehabilitation to curb his smoking and drinking addiction.(I only heard of a tiger going to rehab,if you know what i mean) According to his zookeeper, he picked up his vices in the zoo, and that it was ruining him as his health took a toll and he harrassed visitors to quell his desires.
Funny right? A drunk monkey who's a smoker.But that isn't the key point. It shows one thing, vices ruin your life, whoever, or whatever you are. One perfect example of course, is golfer Tiger Woods. A few months ago, he was a role model to the world, but a few months later, because of his vice(in the form of his sex addiction), he has been "promoted"
to becoming the black sheep of sports. Now his marriage is in danger, his reputation in tatters, and his life turned upside-down.
He's been severely hit , with endorsements he took so long to get slipping away from him and loss of trust in him by many people in the world,he has hurt those that were close to him and almost definitely, he is ruined
.
Those who watch soccer closely would probably know about the recently fired captain of England's football team, John Terry, like Woods, his vice put his marriage and career in jeopardy. His marriage may have been saved, but he was stripped of his captaincy, and was told that he would never get it back again.
Worse still, the woman whom he had an affair with, was the former partner of his best friend, due to his vices, he has lost his best friend and affected his career, he has also shattered the unity of the England Team. He too, has been ruined, from my point of view.
Look at that, because of his infidelity, they have turned from best friends to enemies(his friend refused to shake his hand.)
Also, Gambling has been a vice that has ruined many. There have been many reports of problem gambling breaking up families. People who are addicted often chalk up large debts and burden their families.
Sadly, in spite of so many example of people being ruined and ruining other people with their "evil" vices, people still adopt vices and end up harming themselves.
On a final note, I hope that the chimapanzee would curb his vices and go back to being a good little chimp.
Please comment. :)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Parent-children Relationship.
Recently, I watched this television show on channel 8: "Your Hand In Mine". Frankly, this show is a bore. However, this particular episiode was a bit different.
The scene was first of a mother talking to her daughter's teacher. The mother was telling the teacher that she does not want a boy in a class(his name is H20), to mix around with her daughter, and that she wants the boy to be stopped by the teacher if he tries to go near her. The teacher says that that is not the way,but the mother insists. She then says that parents are always right.
The second scene shows the mother confronting the boy, and telling him straight in the face not to make friends with her daughter, her daughter witnesses these, and is furious at her mother's domineering ways.
The mother wants to control the daugter's life as she fears that she would have bad company, so she goes to the extent of limiting the friends the daughter mixes with.
This doesnt go well with the daughter, who feels that she is old enough to run her own life, and does not want to be like a robot.
Often, many of us feel the same way, parents and children (teenagers especially), have different perspectives, parents view that they are always right due to the "sheer weight" of experience which helps them to make the right descision, as compared to teenagers, whom they feel are too young, inexperienced and rash to make their own choices.
Teenagers on the other hand, feel that they have matured enough to be able to make their own teenagers, and feel it rude of parents to try and intefere with their lives, they too think that they are always right.
This hence causes conflicts between both parties.
With the supposed rising of teenage misbehaviour, like underage sex, smoking, playing truant, the natural instinct of a parent trying to keep his/her child on the right track kicks into action, causing them to take "preventive measures", and restricting them in everything they do. Parents nowadays are of the common view that a child shouldnt be given much freedom to do much they want to do, as when they are young, they tend to do wrong things. Yes, parents do have some fault in trying to dominate their children's life, however, all this is done because the parent loves his child.
Teenagers, on the other hand, do not intepret it this way. They feel that parents are restricting them and trying to stop them in everything they do, and making them do "good stuff" simply because parents want to use them to brag about in front of friends and relatives. They feel angered when parents insist on something and seemingly do not care about their own needs. As adolescents, we would want to venture out and experience things, the last thing we want is to be resticted by people, and that is often precisely what teenagers to feel irritation, and occasionally, dislike for their parents.
Frankly, there is no specific or detailed reason to solving this ever-present problem between the teenager and his/her parent. The solution is simply to think from the other party's point of view. To have an agreement, one must have a compromise, which would be impossible if both teens and parents stubornly stick to their own mindset on what they think is right. If parents restrict children too much, they will come to resist the dictatorship imposed on them and fight back, like a rubber band stretched too much will snap. However, if parents let children have to much freedom, things will go out of control, as children after all, do not have adequate experience to make the correct judgement.
Hence, I feel that,parents should have "freedom with guidance", meaning that both sides meet halfway, that teenagers are able to decide what's good for them, but if they are unsure, they would have to consult their parents. Good communication is essential for agreements to be made. Such conflicts are caused due to a lack of communication where both parents and children firmly believe in their own stand and do not understand why they think so differently, the parent children relationship is worsened due to misintepretation of each others intention.
Overall, Communication and putting yourself in the shoes of others is the way to solving the widening gulf in relationships between the child and the parent.
The scene was first of a mother talking to her daughter's teacher. The mother was telling the teacher that she does not want a boy in a class(his name is H20), to mix around with her daughter, and that she wants the boy to be stopped by the teacher if he tries to go near her. The teacher says that that is not the way,but the mother insists. She then says that parents are always right.
The second scene shows the mother confronting the boy, and telling him straight in the face not to make friends with her daughter, her daughter witnesses these, and is furious at her mother's domineering ways.
The mother wants to control the daugter's life as she fears that she would have bad company, so she goes to the extent of limiting the friends the daughter mixes with.
This doesnt go well with the daughter, who feels that she is old enough to run her own life, and does not want to be like a robot.
Often, many of us feel the same way, parents and children (teenagers especially), have different perspectives, parents view that they are always right due to the "sheer weight" of experience which helps them to make the right descision, as compared to teenagers, whom they feel are too young, inexperienced and rash to make their own choices.
Teenagers on the other hand, feel that they have matured enough to be able to make their own teenagers, and feel it rude of parents to try and intefere with their lives, they too think that they are always right.
This hence causes conflicts between both parties.
With the supposed rising of teenage misbehaviour, like underage sex, smoking, playing truant, the natural instinct of a parent trying to keep his/her child on the right track kicks into action, causing them to take "preventive measures", and restricting them in everything they do. Parents nowadays are of the common view that a child shouldnt be given much freedom to do much they want to do, as when they are young, they tend to do wrong things. Yes, parents do have some fault in trying to dominate their children's life, however, all this is done because the parent loves his child.
Teenagers, on the other hand, do not intepret it this way. They feel that parents are restricting them and trying to stop them in everything they do, and making them do "good stuff" simply because parents want to use them to brag about in front of friends and relatives. They feel angered when parents insist on something and seemingly do not care about their own needs. As adolescents, we would want to venture out and experience things, the last thing we want is to be resticted by people, and that is often precisely what teenagers to feel irritation, and occasionally, dislike for their parents.
Frankly, there is no specific or detailed reason to solving this ever-present problem between the teenager and his/her parent. The solution is simply to think from the other party's point of view. To have an agreement, one must have a compromise, which would be impossible if both teens and parents stubornly stick to their own mindset on what they think is right. If parents restrict children too much, they will come to resist the dictatorship imposed on them and fight back, like a rubber band stretched too much will snap. However, if parents let children have to much freedom, things will go out of control, as children after all, do not have adequate experience to make the correct judgement.
Hence, I feel that,parents should have "freedom with guidance", meaning that both sides meet halfway, that teenagers are able to decide what's good for them, but if they are unsure, they would have to consult their parents. Good communication is essential for agreements to be made. Such conflicts are caused due to a lack of communication where both parents and children firmly believe in their own stand and do not understand why they think so differently, the parent children relationship is worsened due to misintepretation of each others intention.
Overall, Communication and putting yourself in the shoes of others is the way to solving the widening gulf in relationships between the child and the parent.
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