Comment Links

http://2a315languagearts.blogspot.com/2011/02/characterisation-story-excerpt.html#comments

On Kevin's blog post: Characterisation, Story Excerpt
Weiran said...

Hi Kevin,

I like your excerpt on Michael Schumacher a lot. Being a Formula One fan myself, I think that the incident was not Schumacher's fault fully. During the 1997 season, Schumacher was the highest paid driver in Formula One and everyone expected him to deliver. However, the Williams team had the better car and in the end won the championship. After seeing the replay of the incident, I personally feel that Jacques Villenueve pushed Schumacher to the limit and Schumacher would've gone on the grass had he not crashed into Villenueve. I think this is simply media biasness to schumacher as there was a similar incident involving him and Damon Hill which he got away with. I've always stressed on not writing stories from a certain biased point of view. But anyway, this is a interesting excerpt of yours and I would like to see more of it in the future!




http://2a335la.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-excerpt.html#comments

On Peiyu's blog post: Story excerpt
Weiran said...

Peiyu,

I like the plot of this story very much. It shows the change emotions of Schweinsteiger from the start of the game till the end and the descriptions of each footballer's abilities are very interesting. However, I feel that your story is too biased towards Bayern. It is so biased that it looked too good to be true. You should have given different sides of the event. I think as a soccer player, Schweinsteiger surely will have a lot of praises for the opponents that defeated him. If you could add a few more views from the opponent's angle, it would be a much better story.

and
Weiran said...

Peiyu,

You seemed to change the story to be less biased to Bayern but for the Inter side, the only one you are praising is zanetti.




http://2a335la.blogspot.com/2011/02/short-story-draft-2.html#comments

On Peiyu's blog post: short story draft 2
Weiran said...

Hi Peiyu,

I like the plot of your short story very much, however, I think it is too anti-climatic. Your descriptions of the characters are very vivid especially for Li Bo but I feel that the character Xue bo is very nicely portrayed and it is one of the better characters I've read from people from my same level. There was a improvement from draft 1 and I'm looking forward on reading your final draft!

Point of View in Short Stories

1) Headmaster:I entered the hall with a thunderous applause. Bagpipes music followed. It was a start of a new school year, a whole new year of excitement was about to begin. I was then invited on stage to address to all the parents and the new students. Just a moment after I've stepped onto the stage, we passed the candle lights from the older batches to the newer batches, signalling a new era was about to begin. I told the parents about our wonderful achievements over the years and all students stood up to recite our morals and values. Towards the end of the ceremony, I introduced Mr Keating, a new teacher that will be joining us from Chester School. At the end of my speech, I wished all people a happy year ahead.

2) New Student: The headmaster was so weird, and his speech is more boring than James May on the Moon, I wanted to sleep, but I knew I couldn't. My parents, on the other hand, was very excited about my future in this school. Just as I was about to fall asleep, we were made to say a pledge about the school morals and values. Looking around, I saw all the students standing up and reciting the pledge, and not knowing the words in the pledge, I mumbled something out in confusion. I was then brought to my room by my senior, Neil Perry. He was a friendly guy. But his friends were like hooligans and I felt very left out. Just then, his father came and told him that he needed to quit a ECA, which pissed him off.

Sec 2 LA lesson review

I feel that the secondary two Language Arts lessons are as enriching and enjoyable as the secondary one LA lesson. Mr Bryan Lum's teaching is every bit as good as Mr Jason Erik Lundberg's and arguably more interesting with more group work. I feel that my writing skills have improved since the start of the year with more knowledge of figurative language. I like this programme as it is much more enriching than normal english. In normal english, what the teacher talked is basically textbook stuff and focus mostly on vocabulary and grammer. however, in LA, there is a much wider approach. There is a different topic every term, and I feel that this is a better way than studying everything at the same time.
However, I feel that this module can be improved. For example, we only practice a certain part of english like composition in term one. I feel that we can also learn to write poems as it is similar to short stories. Since Hwa Chong is a future school, more IT lessons can be incoporated into the lesson. There should also be a wikispace site for LA and all the essentials should be in there.

Term 1 Week 6: (Weekend Assignment)

The road that leads from my home to the MRT station is like walking inside the Singapore Botanic Gardens. There is green leaves on the ledge of the Lakeshore, a condominium that I would like to compare to a 5 star hotel because of the facilities inside. On the left hand side, there is two schools side by side, the one that is slightly front of another is the big brother, Yuhua Secondary School. The one nearer to the MRT station is the small brother, Shuqun Primary School. The two schools are seperated by a field of greenery. Even though the condition of the field is like a deserted place, people still enjoy playing in the field. Surrounding the road are small plants and trees lining up neatly along the sides of the road like in the army. Several taller trees are like mother and fathers for those small plants growing at the foot of the trees, helping them shade from the sun and the rain. When I walk from my house to the MRT station, I never failed to notice the small rabbits inside Yuhua Secondary School. More often than not, they will be lying as soundly as a patient inside the cage, resting.

Draft 2

Name: Yu Weiran Date: 08/02/2011
Class: 2A3

Becoming

“Where am I?” Michael thought to himself, “I thought I was in the science lab doing a time travel experiment?”
Michael stood up and walked around the weird looking circle on the ground that was shiny blue in colour aimlessly, trying to figure out where the hell he was. Suddenly, Michael heard a noise, “Watch out!”
Michael turned around and saw a strange looking vehicle floating on the sky coming towards him at a speed of 570 kilometres per hour.
“Argh!” Michael screamed and ducked, the vehicle just missed Michael by inches.
The vehicle stopped moments after missing Michael and Michael stood up and tried to figure out what that thing was. A boy around the age of Michael stood out of the vehicle and said, “You okay there? I was just trying out my newest buzzmobile and it went a little out of hand.”
“Buzzmoblie?” asked Michael, puzzled, “Are you even old enough to drive a vehicle?”
Seeing the puzzled look on Michael’s face, the boy smiled and invited Michael to take a ride in his buzzmobile to have a look of the city despite the reluctance of Michael of going into a vehicle with a stranger alone. Michael finally relented and climbed inside the buzzmobile of the boy. Once inside the buzzmobile, Michael was flabbergasted by the electronic equipments inside the buzzmobile. The whole dashboard was just a screen with numbers and it could alternate to serve as a television screen or a GPS. The gearbox had not only two, but three modes. The first is a manual 9 stick gearbox, the second one was the automatic, while the third was fully automatic, which did not require the driver to do anything except to step on the accelerator. The windows can be switch into just about any scene in the world. The boy was friendly too. He introduced himself to Michael that his name is Jacques Pironi.
Michael was getting comfortable enough with Jacques, so when the buzzmobile stopped at a junction, Michael took one gulp and asked Jacques “Where am I?”
Jacques was shocked upon hearing this question. He replied “Don’t tell me you do not know where you are? You are just opposite the newly renovated Marina Bay Sands in Singapore!”
Michael looked opposite, the Marina Bay Sands have changed do much. “What is the date, Jacques?” Michael asked, he was desperate to know how he had landed in this weird place.
“It is the 3rd of December, 3011.” replied Jacques.
Michael was stunned. He could not figure out how he ended up some 1000 from his time. Seeing the confused look on Michael’s face, Jacques asked Michael what have happened. At first, Michael wanted to hide the truth from Jacques, but after persuasion, Michael decided to tell Jacques what he suspected had happened. It was Jacques’ turn to be stunned when Michael finished telling his story. Jacques was so shocked that they were of a thousand years age difference that he almost rammed his buzzmobile into an old lady.
Michael followed this up by asking Jacques to give him a tour of the Singapore in 3011, and Jacques was so shocked that he agreed. Michael was astonished by the Singapore in 1000 years time. Buildings have became a few thousand stories tall, cars were travelling at at least a speed of 500kph, the old integrated resorts, HDB flats were long gone and Singapore have became the richest country in the world after the discover of petroleum under the bed of Singapore River.
Surprised by the fact that there was petroleum under the bed of Singapore River, Michael asked Jacques if they could visit the sites using the buzzmobile. Michael was so impressed with the petroleum site that he leaned forward just a little, but just then, a giant fish leaped out of the river and attacked Michael. Trying to fight free from the giant fish, Michael attempted to push the fish away, but both of them fell into the river. Michael grabbed the sides of the pavement as the fish slowly but surely brought Michael down. Jacques also tried to help to pull Michael up, but to no avail. The fish was too strong for the two boys to withstand.
On the sight that Jacques might also be dragged into the polluted Singapore River, Michael bravely said “Jacques, it is a great pleasure to know you as a friend. Even though we’ve only met for a few hours, I’ve enjoyed myself a lot. I don’t want to drag you into this.”
Jacques wept on hearing this. He replied “Michael, I do not want to lose a friend like you, please take this pendulum with you. It has always been with me since the start of my life. Hope you can survive this attack.” Moments later, Michael was completely in the water.
The next thing Michael knew, he was in the toilet bowl of his secondary school, his clothes were soaked and smelly. However, Michael reached into his pocket and found a pendulum, the exact same thing that Jacques had given him. Stepping out of the toilet, he was confronted by his science teacher, whom because he could not stand the scent on Michael, stood ten yards away and asked Michael what he wanted to do for his science project. “A project that helps to keep the water clean, I do not want people living 1000 years later to have unclean waters and big ferocious fishes.” Michael replied.
“Don’t be stupid, you know the world will end in 2012.” The teacher replied, before storming away. Michael knew this wasn’t going to happen, and he would do his best to give his descendents a better life.

Characterisation: Story Excerpt

The story excerpt that I'm going to do on is Former Formula One World Champion, who drove for Sauber, McLaren and Ferrari in F1, and current Citroen Junior WRC team driver Kimi Raikkonen.

Exerpt: "Raikkonen sat coolly inside the McLaren motorhome, he had just qualified second for the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix. His main championship rival Michael Schumacher has qualified last, only a miracle will stop the “Iceman” from winning his first championship. While Schumacher was busily telling the reporters that Raikkonen has a great chance of ending Schumacher’s dominance to the sport for 3 years, Raikkonen was quietly sitting on the sofa inside the motorhome, thinking about the race tactics. He knew that the Ferrari launch control system is better than that of McLaren, and that Michael Schumacher’s team mate Rubens Barrichello, who will be beside him the next day, will almost surely hold on. However, Schumacher have to be eighth if he finishes in second. No one knew what Raikkonen’s feelings were after the grand prix, but Barrichello was uncatchable on that day, and won by 11 seconds. Now all Raikkonen has to hope is that former team mate Nick Heidfeld to hold on to eighth from Schumacher and he will be world champions. But that was not to be. Schumacher beat Heidfeld by 0.3 seconds. After the race, Schumacher was celebrating with the Ferrari crew in the pit lane. They have an unexpected visitor that was enjoying himself, Kimi Raikkonen."

Podcast of Civil war in America

Recording done by Zhou Peiyu
Members: Yu Weiran, Kevin Li, Cheong Yiwei, Timothy Loe

My favourite place in the neighbourhood

The picture shows the road that leads from my house to the MRT station when I go to school every morning. Since I am a student, the road would be the start of my journey of learning of the day, and it will also be the end of my journey of learning at the end of each day. I think that it reflects my identity as a student rather well as in the morning, there will be only students using the road.
Beside the road is two schools, Yuhua Secondary and my primary school, Shuqun Primary. Walking past this road will help me to remember all the things that I've learnt in primary school and also to check out my juniors when I walk past it at the end of the day. When I look past Yuhua Secondary, I always feel very fortunate to be able to enjoy all the world class facilities that Hwa Chong have given me.
There is also a lot of insects and plants on each side of the road. When I was in primary school, I used to stand at the near side of the road and observe the grasshoppers or the snails for a long time. This helped me with my science a lot as there were times where my CCA, which was got something to do with biology wanted me to research on field animals.

Prejudice and Discrimination

I think that discrimination is actually more severe than prejudice. Prejudice is where you look down on someone just because the person is abnormal or has a too ambitious dream. Discrimination is where you attack either verbally or using violence to people of different races. Discrimination usually happens to the black americans or the africans. This is because in the early days, black people were sold as slaves. However, I think this is morally wrong. It is not their fault that they are descendants of slaves or they wanted to be black. Actually, being a different skin colour with the majority is not wrong, it is perfectly right. It doesn't mean that when you are a white american or european you are of a higher level than the other races. This should not happen at all. In fact, I think it is the failure to educate the racist people correctly that caused all these problems. Now even people who are tan gets picked on. All races should be equal. God create people equally, no one is better than another in anyway, it's just the mindset that is wrong.
Prejudice, I think was evolved from discrimination. Some people have the urge to just pick on people randomly just because they don't like them, this is very wrong, as all people should deserve respect. The most common kind of prejudice is being sizist or sexist. It is not like people can decide their gender or how big or small they are, they shouldn't be picked at. To solve these problems, the only solution is to teach them at a very young age, so they will not bully others when they are older.

e learning comic strip

I chose the background of a bus stop because there was very less politicians on buses, and to the rich, taking buses is a sign of little salary.

The setting of the bus stop was that there was a lot of cars on the road, as to say that the politician have just finished work. The politician is a stingy man, and he wanted to cover up his high income.

There were many onlookers, as to say that the government might be covering up truths and the cricket players is to show that because most sportsperson earns a lot, and so does politicians, they should be treated equally.

Black Eyed Peas-Where is the Love meanings

I was extremely touched by Black Eyed Peas' song "Where is the Love". Even though I have no idea who they are or what kind of people they are, or what skin colour they have, I am pretty sure that they are really into saving many people from being abused by the "white" christians. The chorous, "People killing people dying, Children hurtin you hear them crying, Can you practice what you preach, Would you turn the other cheek?" was extremely touching. I wouldn't thought in a million years that rapping can be so touching.
In the first part of the song, there was a lot of discremination. The song was trying to tell all the Americans to stop bullying the black Americans and all the terrorists in the Middle East. They are also trying to tell the americans that they should not invade the middle east just because they want to earn money. The singer is trying to warn the government not to create a negative image of them to the middle east countries.
In the last part of the song, there is "Father Father help us". They are trying to tell the government that even the god is against them bullying the black americans or the middle easterns.

How a movie have impacted me

The most recent movie I've watched, 2012, also happens to be the only one which affects me a lot. The movie is about the ancient Mayans' predictions about the world ending in 2012 coming true. Before I watched the movie, I thought the Mayans' predictions will not be true and they were just a bunch of people with bold predictions using some ancient instruments. however, after watching the movie, I was really freaked out even until now by the realistic snapshots in the movie. The graphics was so realistic! Even though I doubt the part were the most important leaders of the world and other important businessmen who was able to stay alive on a submarine that was built in Tibet. Strangely, I was not extremely touched or motivated by the fact the main protagonists tried to avoid being killed in the mayhem by trying to escape to China and sneak into the submarine. I was scared out of my wits after the first few days after I've watched the movie, and occasionally after that. I felt that I was being too complacent thinking about how a peaceful and harmless life that I was living. I am now very cautious about what I do as I felt if the world really will end in 2012, I must at least do meaningful things, even though I would not want to watch 2012 again.

Movie Webpage: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/2012/