article: clean fun or crude act?
august 26 2009
Just what is wrong with such activites being held during a Singapore University's orientation event?
Firstly, just as Kenneyboy46 had told Shin Min Daily News, such activites should not happen in Singapore. Why not? For one, Singapore is a conservative Asian society with a majority Chinese population. As such, Singapore's culture does not encourage sexual-linked acts to be carried out in public. Students should understand the context of the society which they are in an adjust appropriately so as to not bring up wrath among the conservative Singaporeans, which are still largely around today. Kenneyboy46 is one of these conservative Asian chinese, as can be seen in his statement saying that “It is unacceptable for a man and woman to act in this lewd manner.”. The views of all should be respected, and this is one of the reasons why such activites should not be carried out.
Secondly, the organisers had gone against the boundaries set by the university. It is an offence to plan “any activity that causes embarrassment or loss of dignity or well being to another student”. In the context of a conservative society, such lewd acts goes against the normal social behaviour. Instead, such lewd acts should only be carried out between married couples behind closed doors. When such acts are held in public in full view of others, some students participating would definately feel embarrassed as they have grown up in a conservative society and have values instilled in them which does not encourage participating in lewd activites in public. When the organisers went against the boundaries set by the university, they are disregarding higher authority as well as intentionally breaking rules meant to protect all students. Should student leaders grow up not respecting higher authority and boundaries set, our country's future would be in danger in the hands of these leaders once they grow up to lead our nation.
However, such activites are only suggestive and does not result in the students engaging in the real act. Should pupils come in with the right attitude to just have fun, enjoy themselves and learn to be open to various forms of activites, they will surely gain much from these activities. Moreover, such activites make orientation activites more memorable, as these are the few opportunities that you get to engage in an activity that is unique and can only be held in safe grounds such as schools to ensure that there are no negative repercussions.
Despite that, i agree that while some people would dismiss the act as nothing more than amusing it is an erroneous way of thinking. People should always not be self centered and put others first. In this case, these students and camp organisers should have considered and heavily weighed the fact that Singapore has a conservative society that does not encourage such lewd activites to be done in public. Moreover, the camp organizers should not have broken or tried to stretch the boundaries provided by the university, as these boundaries are meant to protect all students. By breaking these rules, these camp organisers had created the risk that students may suffer negative consequences from the lewd activity planned in the orientation camp.
In conclusion, such activites are wrong as Singapore culture does not support such lewd activities and the organizers should never have organised such lewd activities as it went against the rules set by the higher authorities for them to abide by.

personal narrative assessment

3a)
My mother was always there on the sofa in the living room awaiting my return from school. She would ask about my studies, friends, teachers and anything else that came to her mind. I dreaded the conversations as i felt that she was restricting my freedom, trying to poke her nose into everything i was involved in. Wanting to end the conversation, i would excuse myself by telling her that i had a great amount of work to complete.
16 May 2007. The date still clearly rings in my ears. On that faithful day, i came home expecting to go through yet another round of nagging. Instead, i came home to an empty house. My handphone rang. It was my dad calling. “Ma has suffered a minor stroke. I'm coming to pick you up now to visit her in the hospital” A rush of emotions came crashing down, overtaking me as I dropped to the sofa with tears rolling down my cheeks. I did not know how to react. Tears filled with anguish flowing uncontrollably.
The journey was quiet. In a way it was good as we both needed to sort out our thoughts. When we arrived at the hospital, my mother was still sedated from the effects of anaesthesia administered during the operation. The doctor explained to us that she had suffered a minor stroke, and she should fully recover in a couple of months.
When i went home, i decided to make a card for my mum. It was the first gift i had given her in four years. It was a simple card, but yet it brought a wide smile to her pale face when i visited her the next day. The card read, “I love you mum, please get well soon. I need you.”
That was when everything changed. She shared with me how she would weep in the middle of the night as she felt unloved by me, about how it hurt her so deeply when i told her i was busy with school work even as i spent hours after dinner chatting with friends on the computer but yet could not even hold a conversation for five minutes with her. I could feel the emotions stinging my heart. Realizations were painful. Then she said, “despite all these, what kept me going was the hope that you would grow up into a successful and good person and live a good life.”
Her words pierced my heart. I had heard many stories about how some mothers love for their children was so great but i did not even realise that i was living in the same story too. I started sharing with her, how i felt restrained by her probing and how at times i longed for personal space.
That turned our relationship 180 degrees around. Throughout the two weeks that she spent in hospital, each day spent with her improved our relationship. i started to fully appreciate that she nagged and poked her nose into my business cause she cared for me, and she too came to realise that i need my personal freedom and space as well as my own personal time. That new understand that was deeply rooted between us drove us in the right direction. Two years down the road, i can assuredly say this, that my mum's more than a figure who nags at me at home. She is the silent but yet powerful force behind my every day. My mum is my superhero.

prev:The tradition of students streaking in Xavier College should not be banned as not all pranks created on the day which led to physical damage or harm were caused by streaking.

prev:It was a little over 2 years ago after PSLE, when i went to visit a college in the US and witnessed what didn't come across to me as streaking back then. All i saw was a crazy group of people running nude past the school blocks, with their faces carrying huge megawatt smiles. Other than the fact that it seemed so wrong to be looking at nude people, it all seemed so fun and they looked as if Singapore's soccer team had won the world cup. (well, they never even made it into the world cup). After all, they did not even make any trouble, and since the West are so open minded unlike Singapore i doubt that it would have been counted as sexual harrassment. Now, i've learnt about streaking and how it's a tradition for graduating students to streak. I would personally testify to the great relieving effect it has on students, and the amount of stress that can be relieved with the happiness they experience during the event.

Commentary: Streaking
The tradition of students streaking in Xavier College should not be banned as not all pranks created on the day which led to physical damage or harm were caused by streaking.

Although one of the complains was that students had left off fireworks at a railway station, streaking is not directly related to this. streaking involves running naked or partially naked through the school campus. however, in this instance, the pranksters could have set off fireworks on any other day at the railway station too. Hence, this argument against streaking does not quite make sense as there is little relation. Should such an argument stand, then it could be said that school should be banned as there is little family time left with the busy schedules Singaporean students have.

However, indeed, students running naked through school assembly wearing only their school ties as G-strings is unacceptable. This shows disrespect for the school and for other members of the school such as those not from the graduating batch as well as the teachers. It will also disrupt the normal schedule of school. They also lack respect for other religions as although it is a Catholic school, there may be other religions such as Islam which is a rather conservative religion. They are also attracting unnecessary attention as revealing too much of themselves could attract wrong attention such as sick minded people, who may take revealing photos or/and videos of them and spread them through mass media such as through the Internet. Despite that, it is a form of celebration and should pupils object to it, they could find ways to skip it such as staying in their classrooms. Streaking could also be a form of stress relief as it marks the end of their studies in the university and no one would mind them streaking but instead join in as they would be extremely excited by the fact that all the late nights that they had to put in just to study and the great amounts of time spent on project work would finally be over. This also is not a form of prank as the tradition has been around for many years and members of the school population will probably already be mentally prepared to experience the tradition of students streaking.

In conclusion, as there was no physical harm or damage caused by streaking but only a possibility of emotional harm, streaking should not be banned in Xavier College.

first argument

topic: schools promote "correctness" over "creativity"

I agree that schools promote "correctness" over "creativity".

In schools, subjects are split according to whether they are "academic" or "aesthetics" subjects. academic subjects in my school, raffles institution refer to mathematics, english, mother tongue, philosophy, sciences, as well as the humanities. A pass in philosphy, a pass in English Language and an overall pass is required for promotion. In comparison, art and music, the aesthetics subjects, are only offered in lower secondary and no minimum grade is required to be kept. This also means that students generally do not focus on these subjects as they do not need to have the "correct" information to excel. This results in unneccessary stress for students as the "academic subjects" demand high amounts of concentration and memory work in some cases. All these stress then cannot be channelled away as students do not engage deeply in their aesthetics subjects, which promotes creativity. Music allows students to relax their mind through producing their own songs and art allows students to express themselves through drawings which in many cases others may not understand. Schools also do not make the aesthetics subjects mandatory in upper secondary, where the workload from academic subjects is even higher.

hence, schools promote "correctness" over "creativity"

what is an exposition?

An exposition provides much needed information about a piece of difficult material. an exposition is normally found at the start of a piece of writing or material. It is also used to introduce themes in a piece of literature.