Friday, August 20, 2010

Days ahead.

Can I predict the future? Sure I can! And I will tell you what is going to happen!

After this week, we will have something only Hwa Chong has. That is none other than sabbatical week! Isn't it exciting?! Its the BEST time to take a break from all studies(not really actually...) and enjoy what you will be attending in that week.

After that, we will have Teachers' Day! On 31st August, we will be thanking every teacher who has taught all of us and I hope you will do it sincerely like how I will. On the special day itself, it will be a school holiday and its time for the teachers to take their breaks.

The one week September holiday comes ... and goes...

The next big thing then will be the DOOM of all students including me. THE END-OF-YEAR examinations!

When the EOYs are gone, it will be like a beach walk from there. Having class outing, parties and going out with friend. Now, doesn't that sound SOOO good?

I'm good right? With all the predicting of the future?

No?Everyone knows that? IMPOSSIBLE! oh wait. "Nothing is IMPOSSIBLE"

Well then.

BYEE~

Work in Progress!

Hey guys!

I hope you like the previous two book reviews. However, I have BAD news! The next two books is currently in progress due to the fact that are many tests these couple of weeks. I hope you can be patient while waiting. Thanks for your cooperation and sorry for not being able to show you the book reviews in time.

Regards,
JunYi:D

Monday, August 16, 2010

Book Two - Tales of Mystery and Terror

Title: Tales of Mystery and Terror
Author: Edgar Allan Poe

This book is a is a combination of stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. As the title of the book has said, these stories are mainly classified as horror. In total, there are thirteen stories in this book. However, for today, I will only be telling you about one of the stories, “The Pit and the Pendulum”.

The narrator started the story by saying that he was sentenced to death. When he received the news, he swooned and went unconscious. When he wakes up, he found himself to be in a dark enclosure. He then thought that he was in a tomb but soon, he thinks that he might be trapped in a cave at some deserted place. He tried to see how many steps it takes to walk round the perimeter of this enclosure. Thus, he took a piece of ham, stick it the wall, and started walking.

Suddenly, he fell into a hole and he slept there. When he woke up, he found offerings of food and bread. He eagerly consumes them and went on the explore the place he was in. From here, the story gets more interesting as more unusual things happen. What happens in the end? That's for you to find out, and for me to know!

Do borrow or buy a this book as the stories are pretty interesting and you can also know the end of "The Pit and the Pendulum".

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Book One: Stormbreaker - Anthony Horowitz

Title: Stormbreaker
Author: Anthony Horowitz

Stormbreaker is the first book in the Alex Rider series. The Alex Rider series is about a boy, Alex Rider, who unexpectedly becomes an secret agent in MI6. MI6 is a British Secret Intelligence Service. They sent their agents undercover to different missions so that they can bring criminals to justice.

It all starts when Alex's uncle, Ian Rider, dies. He was told that Ian Rider died in a car accident because he did not put on his seatbelt. However, being close to him, Alex had a suspicion due to the fact that his uncle was and had always been a very cautious person and never forgets little things like putting on his seatbelt. And because of his curiosity, he then went to the junkyard and saw his uncle's car filled with bullet holes. It was then that he realised his uncle was murdered.'

He was then partially forced to join MI6 due to certain reasons. Then, he went to a two week training course and went on the mission where Ian Rider was killed.

Well, of course there is always a bad guy in these types of books. So, the criminal here is Herod Sayle. Sayle is a multi-millionaire producing state-of-the-art computers, Stormbreaker. Stormbreaker has a new technology that Sayle created and is said to be a milestone in technology history. And he is going to generously donate these to every school in Britain. However, MI6 thinks that something fishy is going on. Furthermore, Ian Rider died on this particular as well, thus, this created more suspicion.

The final resort is to sent Alex Rider undercover there to find out the truth. Many things happened when Alex was there and in the final chapters of the book, Alex had uncovered that Herod Sayle had actually place a deadly virus to kill every child in Britain since he had lost his childhood. However, before Alex had the chance to report this matter, he was caught. He was placed in a large tank, with one of the most deadly jellyfishes in the world, to die a slow and miserable death. But he used one of the gadgets he was given and escaped. In the end, he had stopped Herod Sayle's evil plans and saved the millions of children in Britain.

These are just the general storyline of the book and you want to know more of the story? That's for me to know and for you to find out.

Overall, this is a interesting book but I seriously doubt that it would happen in real life. This book is more suitable for teens. Moreover, this book has even won awards like New York Times #1 Children's Bestseller.

Personally, I feel that this book, written by Anthony Horowitz, is rather interesting because somehow, it makes me visualize the scenes and thus, making me understand the book better.

Thats all from this book!

Holiday Assignments

Hey guys,

My June Holiday assignment is to read books and then of course to write about the book I have read in this blog. I said that I have to write about the book because I am not sure whether its a book review or a book summery as a review and a summery are two very different things.

Thus, the next couple of posts will be about the books I have read. The books that I will write about are:

Stormbreaker - Anthony Horowitz
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
Tales of Mystery and Terror - Edgar Allen Poe.

Enjoy and of course, comments are welcome.

Cheers,
Jun Yi

Friday, May 28, 2010

Term Two Sabbatical Week

Term two sabbatical week was held on week nine, 17- 21 May 2010. Sabbatical week is an event that happens in Term one. two and three. It gives students a chance to pick up a new skill or experience something. There is a list of programs to choose from and I chose guitar.

In this course, we learnt about the guitar, the basics of playing a guitar and even had to learn a simply song and play it with the drummers on the last day of the course. We learnt C, G, A minor, B minor, F and B minor cords. Actually, we only had to learnt the first four cords i mentioned earlier. However, as I said, we had to learnt a song and the song required F and B minor cords (which will only be learnt intermediate level). The song is 'Photograph' by Nickelback. Of course, we played a shorter version of it. Overall, this is a good experience for me and I plan to continue learning guitar as it would quite wasted after learning guitar for a week and not continuing. The song below is 'Photograph' by Nickelback.

Cheers
Jun Yi.

Projects Day Preliminary Judging

It was held on the 7th of April. The projects day is something that only Hwa Chong has. Lower secondary must participate while upper secondary can choose to participate if they want. There are various categories that you can choose to take part in for example, inventions, experimental research, language arts.

My group chose mathematics and it is based the history of mathematics. Our mentor is Mrs Chang. On the 7th of May, we were at the classroom of 3Q for our preliminary round. Before we presented, we were pretty nervous as it was our first time participating in projects day.

However, after we presented, we felt normal as the pressure was already off our chests.

The results were out a few weeks after the preliminary round the outcome is that we have passed! We were were quite shocked as the judges remarks were not what we expected but we will work hard for the semi-finals next term!

Cheers,
Jun Yi.

Combine Sports Meet with Nanyang Girls' School

On 14 May 2010, our school together with Nanyang Girls' school had our annual Combine Sports Meet( CSM). The CSM had track and field events such as sprints, pole vault and high jump. On that day, the CSM started at about 8am, if I'm not wrong, and ended at roughly 10.30am. There most anticipated event was the 4x100m relay run. Lots of people went down to the track to support their classes. For our class, Zi Han was our first runner, then Yu Xiang, followed by Kevyn and lastly, Jack.

Other than all the excitement on the track, there were also games held on top of the terraces and in front of the clock tower. There also booths selling food and drinks. Also, there was event a band playing and singing music for everyone present. After the CSM was over, our class, 1O2, 1P2 and 1P3 went to little India to have some Indian food. Personally, I enjoyed the experience but the food was just too spicy! I could hardy consume it but in the end, I did. So that was the day when the last CSM would be held in our school's track before the Tan Kah Kee MRT Station finish building.

Cheers,
Jun Yi.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Founders' Day

Hey everyone,

The Founders' is on 21st March. On this day, Hwa Chong Institution became 91 years old! To celebrate this, there was a dinner in the evening. However, on this day in this year is a Sunday. So, the students were not able to celebrate on the actual day. Thus, we celebrated this occasion on Wednesday, 24th March 2010. For the Secondary ones like myself, we went for beach for beach cleaning. My class and a few others went to East Coast Beach.

We arrived there and were given garbage bags to each groups. Everybody started going around the beach collecting all kinds of rubbish. I mainly picked up the common ones like cigarette butts and bottles. My classmate even found a SHIRT and a PANTS! How unbelievable is that! You can practically find anything at the beach. However, at the end of the day, I notice that there is seriously a LOT of rubbish at the beach. This is pretty scary as a beach is suppose to be a nice and relax place but after seeing all the rubbish, it could just ruin your mood. Overall, it was a pretty nice experience as it was my first time doing beach cleaning and there is a sense of achievement in me for the fact that I think I have done my part in cleaning the beach but I will do better if I ever go for beach cleaning again.

Cheers,
Jun Yi
Hey all,

Its been quite a while since I posted on this blog. The previous two posts are the assignments that I am suppose to do for LA(hope you like them, especially the poem, I racked my brains to create that poem) in the Home Learning that I have currently, 25th and 26th May 2010. There was a couple of school events this term. They consist of Founders' Day, Combine Sports meet with Nanyang Girls' School, Projects Day Preliminary Judging and Term Two Sabbatical Week. I will give you more details on the above events by the end of this week as I have to do my research for my Humanities Home Learning assignment. BYE~~

Cheers,
Jun Yi