The End of The End of The End of The End

From the title, I guess you know what happened. That's right - the end of this blog. No more posting here. This thing is dead. But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, and like life itself, the spirit of this blog is reborn elsewhere - HERE.

Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish!

A Dark Truth

Creeping in the darkness,
Mankind slaves away,
Looking for its partners,
Who are now here to stay.

Viruses in the air,
Poison in the sea.
It just wasn't fair,
Just to blame you or me.

We are all at fault now,
For causing all this mess,
But I still don't know
How we can put ourselves at rest.

Someday you will realise,
That we will be the end.
So don't think that I feel wise,
For I am just Godsend.

Truth be told to humans,
To Adam, Eve and Child,
To small freaks and large mutants,
To domestics and wild.

It falls onto our shoulders,
To fix the world again.
In the eyes of beholders,
Earth will soon be right as rain.

Phantoms and Monsters - Paranormal, UFOs, Cryptids and Unexplained Phenomenon

Above is a very interesting title. What does it remind you of? For me, it reminds me of a very nice refuge where I can retreat to at the end of a very long day, and where I can relax and unwind while immersed in a subject that interests me more than anything else in the world. It reminds me of - The Unexplained.

The above title is also the title of a blog which I often visit. Its content is far better than any other blog I've ever seen. The main content of the blog is about:

1). Cryptids or Cryptozoological Creatures (Ghosts, Close Encounters etc.)
2). UFOs or Lights in the Sky Phenomena
3). Fortean/Oddball News (Which is basically strange news from across the globe)
4). Unsolved Mysteries

This list is arranged in descending order of preference, meaning the higher up an item is, the more I like it. Mainly my favourite posts are the ones which detail discoveries of new evidence to prove the existence of cryptids. These are followed by UFO reports, then the strange news reports from around the world. Last but not least are the Unsolved Mysteries, most of which are not very interesting.

Several posts also appear when the creator of the blog, Lon, is unable to find anything interesting enough to deserve a place on this blog. The most significant of these are the Monsters, which are elaborations of folk tales told around the world about Monsters or Creatures not yet proven to exist.

What I like about this blog is that it has a wide variety of posts, and posts are made every day. Also, these posts give us insight into things which are happening all over the world right now. Besides, who wouldn't like to read a blog that talks about their favourite subjects over and over on a daily basis?

If anybody is interested in checking out or visting this blog, you can find it at this address: http://www.naturalplane.blogspot.com/

Do give it a try! Who knows, you just might find something that catches your eye!

Homework for Term 3 (Part 2)

This post will be even more boring than its prequel. Therefore, I advise you turn back now and remove this site from your History (unless you are a Language Arts teacher).

1) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a fantasy book by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or Mark Twain as he is commonly known. It tells the story of a young boy living in the Mississippi river town of Missouri.

The story tells Tom's adventures and misadventures in the town. Some of the adventures include the way Tom got his friends to whitewash a fence for him, when he himself did not want to do it. This was the basis of one of Mark Twain's famous quotes - "In order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain".

I first read this story when I was very young, and for some reason, memories of those days were imprinted into the book although I did not understand it then. Memories of long ago came flooding back when I read it again, and this has made a very good impression of the book.

2) The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

The War of the Worlds is a science-fiction story by H.G. Wells. It is the narrative of an Englishman living in London, during the time of a Martian alien invasion.

The story starts from the day the aliens' first scout landed and ends several days after they are defeated by you-know-whats - viruses. These tiny little things proved yet again how important they are to our life cycle! The aliens were never adapted to life on Earth, causing their downfall and our survival.

The interesting part of H.G.Wells' stories is the fact that he imagined scenes long after his time. This, combined with his descriptive writing style, makes H.G. Wells' stories delightful reads, especially to bookworm science-fiction lovers like me.

The Maria Hertogh Riots

This is a nice bunch of slides for our project:

The Maria Hertogh Riots

View more presentations from mrsirvinglong.

Homework for Term 3 (Part 1)

This post is my homework for Term 3. Please ignore this post unless you like to read boring, uninteresting and monotonous words about some random subject that you've never heard about and never will.

1) A Prison Diary III : North Sea Camp : Heaven by Jeffrey Archer

The third of Jeffrey Archer's chronicles of his time in jail after being convicted for perjury. The first two books are called A Prison Diary Volume I : Belmarsh : Hell and A Prison Diary Volume II : Wayland : Purgatory respectively, and it is clear that the third book is a much happier one than the previous two.

What makes the book different from other titles is that it is not a work of fiction, and that it details Jeffrey Archer's entire time in jail. The book tells how Jeffrey Archer's time in North Sea Camp was much better compared to the previous two. He gets more freedom, better privileges and also more tales from the inmates.

This book was a change from the fiction I stories I read throughout the holidays, and it was nice to get a little more back-to-earth in this book.

2) The Master of the Fallen Chairs by Henry Porter

This book is the first of a trilogy of fantasy books by Henry Porter. It tells the story of Kim Greenwood, orphaned after his mother died, and his adventures in the House of Skirl, the house that belongs to the Drago family of which Kim is a descendant of.

One day, a servant of the house goes missing, and that very same night, a stranger comes to the door claiming to be a long-lost descendant of the Drago family. As the stranger and Kim explore the house together, they learn more and more about their family history, and find the painting of 11 gruesome deaths and 11 fallen chairs. There are two chairs left standing in the painting, and they wonder: could these two chairs be meant for them?

The captivating part of this book is the adventure and mystery that goes with it. Although most of the story's loose ends are tied up at the end of the book, a few remain, and this is what makes me desire the second book in the series.

Part 2 will come shortly after. Please do not anticipate it as it will be even worse than this post.

Home Learning Assignment

Today is another Home Learning day for the boys of Hwa Chong Institution. So here's my next assignment for Language Arts. Blog posts should follow shortly after this, so don't worry.

The Son is in Secondary School by Affian 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

---

This is the unseen poem which we have to analyse for our assignment.

Stanza 1: The author can briefly remember that the motto was in Latin. This shows that he was trying to withdraw old memories from within his mind.

Stanza 2: This is an example of imagery used in the poem. It creates the humorous mood which some of the other incidents point to.

Stanza 3: This is another of the examples of imagery found in this poem.

Stanza 4: The words "quite special" do not tell how they are special, but we can infer that in this case, it is funny. It also shows how the author remembers his school days.

Stanza 5: Another of the things that the author remembers about his school.

Stanza 6: This refers to Mathematics, and how the author could not do such a simple sum, thus the word "unreasonable".

Stanza 7: Bengawan Solo is an Indonesian song. On Chinese New Year, Mrs Lee, apparently a Chinese, dresses up in Malay traditional clothing. This stanza tells of Singapore's multiracial and multicultural society.

Stanza 8: This refers to Geography, and hints that he was not good at the subject, like stanza 6 does.

Stanza 9: This is another of the funny incidents which the author remembers about his school life. It is a memory which hints at the author's thoughts at the time of writing.

Stanza 10, 11,12: These three stanzas are closely linked, so the explanations will come in one go. The photograph of the author in the yearbook shows him doing charity work, yet the funny thing is that his eyes were closed when the photo was taken. This is the funny incident that sums up the poem.

By reading this poem, it can be inferred that the author was reminiscing about his school life, thinking about the happy and funny incidents which happened then. Being a free verse poem using imagery to present the mood, this poem clearly shows the author's sentiments.

The second task is to write a poem about your own sentiments about school. Here's mine:

School

When I went in while I was four,
I didn’t know what school was for.
But now, at the age of thirteen,
I know what a “school” really means.

School is known to be a place,
Where there is not a time to waste.
You must finish all your work,
For in the cupboard, long canes lurk.

School is where you go to see
All of your friends and enemies.
A place where friendships sprout and grow,
A place where you learn all you know.

I miss the days when we had fun,
Feeding ants with crumbs from a bun.
There was a small ant colony,
It grew large in our hearts.

When I see innocent little kids
Doing all that we once did,
I feel a pang of longing and guilt,
For deserting the friendship we built.

Now we work hard into the night,
Lest we face the discipline master’s might.
If I do not complete my work,
Out come the canes that used to lurk.

We used to have no stress at all,
We played around and had a ball.
Now we don’t stop studying,
Now schoolwork, not play, is king.

When I went in while I was four,
I didn’t know what school was for.
But now, at the age of thirteen,
I know what a “school” really means.