My favorite poet is probably Shel Silverstein. He was a person who wore many hats as an artist, his artistic credits include being a poet, playwright, novelist and cartoonist. He never seemed to run dry of inspiration and it was proabably due to the fact that he simply created his own style, using the things he saw and combining them with his imagination. He is appealing to me because the poems he wrote are not bound by and any subject. Another one of Shel Silverstein’s great literary characteristics is probably the rhythm of his poems. The rhyme scheme is crafted such that the lines are intensified as the reader reads on. As one reads the poem by him, one can feel the words and rhythm seem to speed up and come to a boil. Finally, when the reader feels an explosive moment is about to occur, Shel throws in huge twist to the story that the poem is telling.
Shel Silverstein did not always write poems for kids. In some cases, they were graphic, moving, picturesque, slices of life. These were meant for the adult audiences to enjoy. Much of the time, these poems kept a steady beat the whole time.
By reading his works, I can feel that Shel Silverstein has been trying to remind readers that poetry can be fun and easy, and still deliver the same amount of enjoyment again and again, and will continue to do so through its timeless and ageless appeal.

One Inch Tall by Shel Silverstein
If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.
The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.

If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,
And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
You'd swing upon a spider's thread,
And wear a thimble on your head
If you were one inch tall.

You'd surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum.
You couldn't hug your mama, you'd just have to hug her thumb.
You'd run from people's feet in fright,
To move a pen would take all night,
(This poem took fourteen years to write--
'Cause I'm just one inch tall).
This is the poem I have chosen to post on.
There is some use of figurative speech in this poem one of them is the use of hyperbole. Basically, the entire poem itself is a hyperbole. For example, “If you were only one inch tall, you’d ride a worm to school. The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool,” portrays horseback riding and swimming in a one inch tall version of life. However, exaggeration in the descriptions gives the reader a feeling of being diminutive themselves. The phrase "one inch tall" is also repeated several times. It is a metaphor to describe the weakness of man. By writing this poem, the writer is probably trying to tell readers that he acknowledges that he has weaknesses and is not perfect just like any person in the world. This can be further seen when he states that he is one inch tall at the end.
This poem appeals to me because I am actually on the short side. It actually gives me the feeling that being short is not that bad at all as everybody has shortcomings according to this poem. (Being short is probably one of my shortcomings) This poem also talks about man's weaknesses and somehow, I feel enlightened after reading this poem.

My First Semester As A Sec 1

Well, we shall dispense with the formailties for this post. I shall be talking about my first semester in my school. Urm... So as all the terms pass by, of course there will be some memorable incidents and thus I will be talking about some of my experiences.
I have just realized that my grades have deproved quite a bit since the first term. This is probably because I have been slacking after term 1 and that I have not been really doing my work consistently.(I am ashamed to say this.)I just pray that my teachers will be kind and not provide bad feedback about me.
Of course, to pull up my grades,I have already drawn up an ace plan for the holidays. (Hopefully I will not feel too compelled to play so much computer games). I will also work on my projects day competition and try to attain my goal of getting 1.3msg at the end of the year. Well, that was for the minus parts of my sec 1 life. I just hope that my grades will improve and that my conduct grade remains at A.
As for the plus parts, well, I feel that my class is friendly and amicable compared to my Primary 6 class. We hang out together when we are free and had much fun with each other. Another plus point is that we get to have a third language which is pretty fun except when there are tests.
Yeah so this is pretty much it.
Signing Off,
C.C.

My Apologies & My Post

First off, I will start this blog post by apologising to readers for having not posted for weeks. So much has happened in these few weeks and I am going to address them all in this blog post. (Hopefully):)

I am very disturbed by the fact that my sister in now in Junior College and guess what? She is actually in Hwa Chong Junior College! (Nothing disturbing in that, but read on.) She also has the same CCA as me, that is Chinese drama! In Chinese Drama, students are put into five different groups each in charge of different things. I still cannot believe the fact that she is also in the same group as me! When I told my classmates about this, they were shocked and felt that the blood of Chinese drama runs in my family. (I think so too) I mean, how can there be such a coincidence? I am disturbed.

Next, I will reflect on my results for Term 1.

Overall, I got 2.65 for my MSG, which equates to about 68 for each subject. Personally, I feel that its a decent grade but I could have gotten higher. I was careless for many of my subjects and most of them just needed that 1-2 mark to go to the next grade. If I had not been so careless, I could have gotten at least a 2 for my MSG. Then again, I am constantly being compared to with my sister who scored a perfect 1 while in secondary 1, so I have been affected and my target for this year is actually a 1.3 or less. (My initial targets were 1.5 and below.)

My mother often says that I have low EQ and that a person with high IQ but low EQ is as good as rubbish. You might be wondering, what has this piece of information got to do with anything? Actually, Today, while taking the bus 67 home as usual, something unusual happened....

The bus was packed like sardines when I boarded it. But, stop by stop, the passengers alighted and I was able to squeeze to the back without any hassle. But, that could not be said for some other passengers.

There was this old lady who was very inconsiderate and while she was sitting down, there was this empty sit next to her but she did not move to allow ease of access. To make things worse, she started shouting at a girl who tried to squeeze to the sit beside her. Then the old lady continued scolding the other passengers who were not moving to the rear while she was the one at fault. After the "scolding spree" she jerked the air conditioning thing on the bus roughly towards herself, thus depriving the poor girl of the air condition.

I feel that this act has shown lack of EQ by the old lady. I have finally realised what my mother meant when she said that a person without EQ is worthless. People who lack EQ actually embarrass themselves and members of the public do not treat this people kindly. In fact, I would not be surprised if someone had taken a video on the woman and posted it on YouTube. Thus, the moral of the story is: Be a person who has IQ, EQ and AQ.

Thanks For Reading,
C.C.

P.S. C.C. is Keng Jun Xian, just in case you thought he had been kidnapped and his body taken over by aliens.

Can Cows Walk Down Stairs?

Okay, this post is about a philosophical question and I have not posted in days. I was inspired by Ms Candice Lim to post about such stuff.
The question for today is "Can cows walk down stairs?"You might not have heard of this question before but it actually poses a dilemma for people who have been asked this.
The answer is actually no.
Why? You may ask, for the explanation of this question, you have to pretend that you are a cow.If that is not possible for you (for whatever reason),then just try to think like a three year old child would. When walking up stairs, the weight is on your hinds legs, (I'm referring to the movement of a cow) and thus your knees can help to push you up.
Now, when walking down a flight of stairs, the mentality of a cow or a three year old boy would be as such"I'm scared that I will fall down, the probability of me falling down seems very high."Also, when walking down, the weight is on the front legs which increase the chance of falling down headfirst. Of course, a kid or a cow would not analyse it this way, but when they see that the ground is very "far" away they get scared and thus refuse to walk down.
This is also the reason why parents have no problems in getting their children to walk UP stairs but they have to teach the children to get down which needs a lot of patience.
Up till now, you might have some queries. One of the questions you might have been dying to ask is "How come then can cows walk down hills in shows and movies?"
The answer is actually very simple. When you walk down a hill you have no steps which leads the cows to believe very strongly that they will no fall as in a sense, it is a "smooth" surface not like stairs.

Finished Annotating 'The Taximan'

Well, today I finished annotating 'The Taximan' and I was inspired to post about my thoughts after reading the story.

I feel that the author has carved the story in a beautiful way, and the hints given in the story are subtle. This makes the reader stop at the end of each paragraph to ponder about what would happen next. that is the mark of a good writer, being able to influence and affect readers to read on.

The irony of this story is such that the taximan is opposes his daughter hanging out with boys after school, however, he seems very supportive of other students hanging out with their friends after school. The plot is a well crafted one, with the characters being very "Singaporean". This also brings out the author's unique style of writing.

Bascially, I feel no pity for any of the characters of the story as they are all wrong in their different ways.

Finally, I would like to say that although the story has a simple plot, it is actually quite a nice read and would like to recommend the book to all lovers of short stories.

P.S. The title of the book is "Little Ironies: Stories Of Singapore"

Projects Day Problem Resolved

Phew. after three days of staying back after school, me and my group finally found a mentor. And yes, it is hard work.
I feel quite angry with all the "kiasu" Sec 1s who found a mentor immediately after the talk about projects day without even having a proposal. Us, we had a proposal but were rejected every time because the teacher mentors had already agreed to mentor other groups which did not really have much of a proposal or idea of what they wanted to do, for that matter.
I also want to tell you about this habit that our group shares. We usually play "rock, paper, scissors" to choose who to present the proposal to the teacher. Well my group and I were about to give up when we decided to try our luck with a random teacher. After a quick round of "rock, paper, scissors", (lol) we went to talk to the teacher and she readily accecpted our proposal and decided to be our mentor. In other words, we were saved^^ Although she decided to be our mentor, I do not really know her name as i'm not good at remembering names and stuff like that.
P.S. I have decided not to put up brainteasers anymore as they do not seem to be that popular. But I will post up a few perplexing questions if I've nothing to write about

I had a fruitful new year holiday this year. The first two days of the holidays were spent on rushing out the homework given to us. After that our entire family went to Chinatown to grab last minutes bargains. We reached home at about 10p.m. and I fell asleep almost immediately.
I received about $100 in pure profits! Why do I say that and what do I mean? Well, my grandfather just passed away recently so according to the Chinese tradition, we are not allowed to give out red packets during Chinese New Year for a period of two years, while our relatives can, so when they give us red packets, we need not give them back, so it amounts to pure profits!
Oh yes! I remembered that I said I would reveal the answers for the brainteasers given, so, for those who gave up halfway and did not know how to do them, its time to rejoice!
*Drums Roll*
First Question: Faredce
Answer : Red In The Face (Geddit? The word "red" is in the word "face")
Second Question: Ban ana
Answer: Banana Split (This is quite obvious. There's no need to explain, is there?)

P.S. Please post your comments about the brainteasers on the tagboard. If you support them, I will include one for every post and reveal the answer on the next.