Book Review

First Book: "The Secret Country" by Jane Johnson

A boy named Benjamin Christopher Arnold also known as Ben wanted to buy a pair of Mongolian Fighting Fish. When he entered the pet shop opened by Mr. Dodds, a black cat signalled him to buy it. Due to the sympathy of Ben towards the cat who was tortured by Mr. Dodds, Ben used all the pocket money to buy it. The cat, known as Iggy the Wanderer, came from another world called Eidolon. Iggy claimed that Ben held the bloods of Eidolon, and asked him to bring itself back to Eidolon. On the journey, Ben met Silver the Selkie and Twig the wood-sprite, they also asked Ben to bring them back to Eidolon. They encountered the same problem, that was they became unconsciously suddenly in Eidolon, and was brought to the human world. After sending them back to Eidolon through a series of adventure, Ben met Zark the Dragon who was trained by Mr. Dodds and his uncle Mr. Aleister as a garden incinerator. Zark disobeyed their command and stopped incinerating the grass of others' house yard. Mr. Dodds and Uncle Aleister planned to kill the dragon as it had no more value again. Ben who saw the dragon tried his very best to save it. When Uncle Aleister drove the dragon together with the family to the mysterious path to Eidolon, Ben sneaked to the dragon and released it, they rushed to the path to Eidolon. Mr Dodd and Uncle Aleister noticed them and chased them, so they entered Eidolon too. Mr Dodd, known as Dodman in Eidolon who was going to take the throne of Eidolon and Uncle Aleister, known as Old Creepie in Eidolon succeeded in capturing Ben and Zark. When Ben was nearly killed, a dryad saved him. Since Ben was truly the prince of Eidolon(His mother was the real Queen in Eidolon), Dodman and Old Creepie arrested him and imprisoned him in the Rose Room which was once his mother's room. Then Iggy the Wanderer and Silver the Selkie came to rescue him, Ben succeeded to return to the real world, but Old Creepie chased him from Eidolon too. In the end, another dryad nearby entangled Old Creepie and his black business was discovered by the policemen, that was to transfer creatures from Eidolon who possessed special abilities to sell them in the real world and made fast money.(The policemen who did not know the existence of Eidolon thought that Old Creepie altered the DNA of the animals which was in fact illegal in the real world) Ben true identity was revealed but he chose to stay with his mother who was once the Queen of Eidolon.

Second book: "The Marvellous Medicine" by Roald Dahl

George's irritating Grandma had started to torture George again by asking him to do a lot of things when his parents were not at home. George could not resist his Grandma's attitude, so he wanted to create a medicine for his Grandma to eat so that she would treat him more politely. During the medicine time, George mixed a weird concoction made up of many ingredients such as shampoos, toothpastes, animal pills, floor polisher, a variety of powders, a handful of grease, engine oil and many other substances. He cooked them as fast as he could so that Grandma would not suspect him to change the medicine into the weird concoction. When Grandma had a spoonful of George's medicine, weird things started to happen: Grandma felt suddenly very hot, her body started to expand, Grandma started to grow and finally she was higher than the roof. She asked for more medicine so that she would grow higher. George tried the effect of this medicine towards the chicken their parents had breed. As expected, the chicken began to grow bigger. When George's parents returned, they was surprised. George's father was a person who liked money very much, he did not care to save Grandma, but he asked George to create more such medicine. But George had forgotten the process and the ingredients he had used in the making of the medicine. The chickens and goats who had sipped in the medicine began to grow awkwardly, like none of their parts grew except their necks, none of their parts grew except legs. After a few tries, Grandma started to feel impatient and asked George to make her returned to the original size. So George boiled a medicine again, but Grandma shrunk gradually and did not stop. At last, she shrunk into nothing and disappeared.

Reflection on "The Soldier"

Singapore has National Service, Malaysia has Khidmat Negara. The difference is that all male Singaporeans are required to attend National Service, but Malaysia does not make Khidmat Negara compulsory for all Malaysians.

Through Khidmat Negara, people will have a sense of belonging of being a Malaysian holding Malaysian's IC, and this will make them to be more patriotic to Malaysia. It may be unnecessary for a resident in Malaysia to attend Khidmat Negara since Malaysia has no war, but it will encourage the people to have the will to serve the country better. So, we should not blame the country but to appreciate such training provided by the government.

Khidmat Negara has somehow instilled patriotism on me, I will take it as a opportunity for me to train myself. It would not be a torture, it just depends on the mindset of the person. Since I do not participate in Khidmat Negara before, I cannot really feel the sense of patriotism in the deepest of my heart.

Back to the poem, the soldier expressed his patriotism and love towards the country. This can be seen from the literary devices he had used in the poem, he left a wonderful impression of England to the readers. He conveyed that he was borned in England, and he had to repay the country by sacrificing himself in the battlefield to achieve victory for England. He did not regret to die for the country, he thought that it was the most glorious moment in his life.

War - A Personal Response

War – A Personal Response

‘I am hungry, brother.’ ‘Oh shut up! We have no more food to feed you, find the food yourself!’ This photograph gives me this first impression when I see this photograph. Some thin children are standing in the forest, this indicates that they are homeless and have to seek a shelter for themselves. They look desperate, their faces look pale too.

The children are lack of nutrition, they are quite pathetic as they are as thin as bamboos. According to their characteristics, I know that most of them have been affected by the disease. The war happened around their homeland has been the main cause of their homelessness, so they have to be outside as they have no home. Their mother and father are not present, most probably they are either called to war or have been killed. We should feel pity for them but not ridicule at them.

The war has caused the immense destruction in the country. In this photograph, not only these children are homeless, so do the rest of the children who can be seen not far away from these children. They are quite poor too, they have no clothes to wear, no food to eat and no shelter to live in. Their bodies do not develop well, and they will face a lot of health problems even the war has been put to an end.

We should be grateful for what we have now around us. Some people are not rich, and some people are rich, but we must know that there are more victims in some countries who suffer more pains as compared to ours. They even cannot afford their basic needs to survive, they have to depend on their fates. They will suffer more, or they can have peace and find their parents, they have no choice unlike us who live in such peaceful country.

Final Draft

Note: This is the improved version of the first draft, some grammatical errors are amended and more settings will be put into the story.

I walk into the darkness, my heart was trembling, I received the paper anxiously. The dire questions in the paper seemingly could not be solved, I was stunned. Then the invigilator started the exam, his terrifying voice startled me badly, I move my heavy hand and grabbed a pen to start writing, would I get good result or would I returned in shame? I turned and rolled my head continuously, tried to solve the questions. An annoying mosquito flew around, tried to distract me, but this motivated me to pay more attentions to the questions....

Since primary 2, I join the Olympiad Mathematics Training. My talent in Mathematics was noticed by an experienced Mathematics teacher, Mr. Lim. I often get good result in Mathematics Test. This also changed my life as I would be studying in Malaysia if I did not join the team. Mr. Lim nurtured me and other teammates to participate in the Olympiad Mathematics, it was rather different than the normal Mathematics questions as it required additional working and formulae as well as logic.

Before I joined, Mr. Lim sent me an letter to invite me. I took out the white piece of paper with only some illegible fonts. At first I thought it was a letter of reminder to pay the bills, but soon I noticed the purpose of the letter. Although I was invited, I refused to join at first, my mother also did not want me to join since the fee was costly and it was unnecessary to me. My mother always told me that tuition would not fix your hole so called weakness but it would make it bigger because some of the tuition teachers did not even teach properly, the most common way of “guiding” the students to get an A for result was to recognize and memorize the entire essay, and then pasted in their essay test such as English test and Chinese test.

But Mr. Lim seemed to be able to read both my parents' minds and mine. I also found out that he always tried to seek a chance to acquaint my mother. His effort continued until one day, whilst my mother was reading a newspaper, she suddenly shouted, “Oh my God, I can’t believe this!” In the newspaper, there was a big headline wrote “Talented Malaysian Gets Scholarship to Study in Singapore“. After reading the report, my mother encouraged me immediately to go to the Olympiad Mathematics Training so that I could also get the scholarship to decrease her burden very much since I was a burden to her too. Studying at no cost was great for parents because they could save a lot in their children's expenditure. I was shocked because I did not anticipated this moment. From that day onward, my life was covered with dark endless orb.

Knowing the fact that I would join the training, Mr. Lim was much obliged. I learned very hard to strive for the incoming Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad for Primary School. Although I wanted to reject, but for the sake of my future, I had to bear it. I also did not want to disappoint my mother who had high expectations to me. At first I tried to skip the training lesson, but my mother advised me to think of the next generation as the currency of Singapore Dollar was much bigger than Ringgit Malaysia, which meant that Singapore’s economy was better than Malaysia’s economy, and I could have better standard of life in Singapore.

To be honest, my mother transferred her burden to me. I felt stressful after a few orientations of the training, every time I heard the explanations of the answers of the questions by Mr. Lim, they were like thousands of piercing razor stabbed fatally into my heart, I carried the burden alone, it was too heavy for me to carry, I would be squashed to death. Sometimes I thought myself: Should I gave up, yielded, surrendered to the God of Fate? I did not want to continue this type of life, I wanted a life that was full of freedom and no restriction or stress. My life was getting boring and uninteresting. My mother always tried to assure me, it was Mr. Lim who gave me an analogy of studying in Malaysia and studying in Singapore, I thought for a whole day every time Mr. Lim advised me and assured me.

Finally, I decided to continue this stressful life because I would feel the hardship for only this short reading period, but I would be successful after this period as I learned more things than other classmates and therefore got higher opportunities compared to other students when I became grown-up. The competition arrived at last; I was chosen to be one of the competitors because I did well in the primary round, I felt quite exciting when my result was announced, one of the reasons was because I did not visit Singapore before, the other reason was I did not fail to meet my parents' expectation. Some of my chosen teammates and I went to Singapore by bus for the secondary and final round. This competition would judge my future fate and destiny, hence I became quite nervous.

I passed the second round successfully, and I would enter final round. If I did well then I might get the scholarship to study in Singapore. I walk into the darkness, my heart was trembling, I received the paper anxiously. The dire questions in the paper seemingly could not be solved, I was stunned. Then the invigilator started the exam, his terrifying voice startled me badly, I move my heavy hand and grabbed a pen to start writing, would I get good result or would I returned in shame? I turned and rolled my head continuously, tried to solve the question. An annoying mosquito flew around, tried to distract me, but this motivated me to pay more attentions to the questions...

Guess what? Now I am studying in Hwa Chong Instituition, it was very obvious that I did very well in the final round to get this scholarship to study in Singapore.

Settings and a short excerpt of a story

Taken from : http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=72043

The chilling wind blew my face, terrifying stray wolves howled at night. This was not a usual route I had taken to return to my "home sweet home". This place was abandoned very long time ago, there were dumped wastes and broken, uprooted trees here. The dim light flashed like an unused wasted bulb. The shadows of things here waved on the wall, the noise of the thrown cats and dogs instilled paralyzing fear on me. I gradually slowed down my pace of footsteps as I noticed something weird. There were scribbles of the word "DIE" everywhere, the words were painted with the color which seemed like the mixture of the bloods of human and animals. I began to imagine all the scary things I would meet during this trip. Suddenly, I felt like my chest had been touched by something, a blurred shadow appeared at the back of me under the dim radiance of a corrupted road lamp......

Jews in Germany before World War II

1)Around 1933, Hitler who was the leader of the Nazi Party became the president of Germany, to get more supports from the citizens, he claimed that Jews were guilty of leading to the defeat of Germany's army in World War II, he also blamed Jews and the prosecution of the Jews started to spread widely among Germany after Hitler successfully convinced the Germans. It was considered as religion discrimination since it did not affect the entire Jews in the world but only the Jews in Germany who followed the culture of Germans.

2)The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal punishments and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. In Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, concentration camps were held to imprison and capture mostly the German communists, socialists.

3)Genocide, the destruction of a people, is the most extreme form of persecution. During World War II, Hitler's dream of destroying European Jews came true. Through the use of propaganda, he successfully convinced millions of followers that the Jews were to blame for Germany's troubles, including Germany's humiliation of being defeated during World War I, and its economic depressions. Six million Jews were captured and tortured and brutally killed by the German's Nazi Army.

4)'Mein Kampf ' this book was written by Adolf Hitler about his autobiography as well as his point of views over the politics, when he started to write this book, it was in November 1923, Hitler was still not the president of Germany yet. He had the opinion to write this book was because he was 'inspired' by his fail attempt to seize the power of Germany.

Short Story First Draft

Short Story First Draft
I walk into the darkness, my heart was trembling, I received the paper anxiously. The dire questions in the paper seemingly could not be solved, I was stunned. Then the invigilator started the exam, his terrifying voice startled me badly, I move my heavy hand and grabbed a pen to start writing, would I get good result or would I returned in shame? I turned and rolled my head continuously, tried to solve the questions.

Since primary 2, I join the Olympiad Mathematics Training. My talent in Mathematics was noticed by an experienced Mathematics teacher, Mr. Lim. I often get good result in Mathematics Test. This also changed my life as I would be studying in Malaysia if I did not join the team. Mr. Lim nurtured me and other teammates to participate in the Olympiad Mathematics, it was rather different than the normal Mathematics questions as it required additional working and formulae as well as logic.

When I received the invitation letter, I refused to join, my mother also did not want me to join since the fee was costly and it was unnecessary to me. My mother always told me that tuition would not fix your hole so called weakness but it would make it bigger because some of the tuition teachers did not even teach properly, the most common way of “guiding” the students to get an A for result was to recognize and memorize the entire essay, and then pasted in their essay test such as English test and Chinese test.

But Mr. Lim seemed to be able to read my mind. I also found out that he always tried to seek a chance to clarify the advantages of this training to my mother. One day, while my mother was reading a newspaper, she suddenly shouted, “Oh my God, I can’t believe this!” In the newspaper, there was a big headline wrote “Talented Malaysian Gets Scholarship to Study in Singapore“. After reading the report, my mother encouraged me immediately to go to the Olympiad Mathematics Training so that I could also get the scholarship to decrease her burden very much since I was a burden to her too. Studying at no cost was great for parents because they could save a lot in their children’s expenditure.

Knowing the fact that I would join the training, Mr. Lim was much obliged. I learned very hard to strive for the incoming Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad for Primary School which could be called APMOPS. I also did not want to disappoint my mother who had high expectations to me. At first I tried to be truancy of the training lesson, but my mother advised me to think of the next generation as the currency of Singapore Dollar was much bigger than Ringgit Malaysia, which meant that Singapore’s economy was better than Malaysia’s economy.

To be honest, my mother transferred her burden to me. I felt stressful after a few orientations of the training, every time I heard the explanation of the answers of the questions by Mr. Lim, it was like thousands of piercing razor stabbed fatally into my heart, I carried the burden alone. Sometimes I thought myself, should I gave up, yielded, surrendered to the God of Fate? I did not want to continue this type of life, I wanted a life that was full of freedom and no restrictions or stresses. The life of me was getting boring and uninteresting. My mother always tried to assure me, it was Mr. Lim who gave me an analogy of studying in Malaysia and studying in Singapore, I thought for a whole day every time Mr. Lim advised me and assured me.

Finally, I decided to continue this stressful life because I would feel the hardship for only this short reading period, but I would be successful after this period as I learned more things than other classmates and therefore got higher opportunities compared to other students when I became grown-up. The APMOPS arrived at last; I was chosen to be one of the competitors because I did well in the primary round. Some of my chosen teammates and I went to Singapore by bus for the secondary and final round. This competition would judge my future fate and destiny and hence I became quite nervous.

I passed the second round successfully, and I would enter final round. If I did well then I might get the scholarship to study in Singapore. I walk into the darkness, my heart was trembling, I received the paper anxiously. The dire questions in the paper seemingly could not be solved, I was stunned. Then the invigilator started the exam, his terrifying voice startled me badly, I move my heavy hand and grabbed a pen to start writing, would I get good result or would I returned in shame? I turned and rolled my head continuously, tried to solve the question.

Guess what? Now I am studying in Hwa Chong Instituition, it was very obvious that I did very well in the final round to get this scholarship to study in Singapore.