Responding 3

The ending surprised me AND did not surprise me.
It surprised me in the way that Boo actually spoke for the first time, and they way that Boo suddenly becomes a nice person after he was depicted to be a monster from the beginning of the book.
It however, did not surprise me as Bob Ewell died. All stories end like this. In fact, it was a little too expected. If I were the writer I would have made the ending more special and unique

Responding 2

I emphasized most with Tom Robinson as I followed the action in the courtroom. This is because the book basically had been written in a style that creates the most empathy with him. The book makes Bob Ewell appear rude and unlikeable. The book does so for Mayella also, but also generates some pity for her as she has "no friends". I do not believe however, that she deserves any pity as she lied in court for her own sake. We should never discriminate anyone based on their skin colour. They did nothing wrong except for being black.

Term 1 LA test

I wasnt very happy with my test results. It was my first B4 in my life.
The topic was "compromise", which means mutual agreement on something. I have to admit, I dont really know anything about compromise that had happened in real life. In the end I had to resort to writing something I was unfamiliar with. I failed horribly.
I really have to change my attitude in LA. I have to admit, i was just lazy and didnt really care about LA. This post is also a rushed one just for ACE points I have to admit. But maybe its not only my laziness. Maybe its my time management too.
Nowadays Im getting really busy. I have SYF, March Camp, Music Exam... and alot of things on top of that. At least now my music exam is out of the way, I hope that I'm able to manage my time well.
And how am I going to do that?
Firstly to improve LA I want to read more books, get exposed to more historically significant events, get exposed to more values... get exposed to more of the problems in the world. I must also be more organised in my thoughts. Only if I do that would I be able to do well in not only LA, but everything in life.

Leaving people out of a group...

Although now I hate people who make fun of others or leave them out on some important things, i know reflect that I was once like that too.
In my old class 1i2 there was someone who was, you can say, different from all of us. He always did stupid things and scored very badly for results causing our class MSG to drop. Truthfully we all hated him. Even me. But know, thinking back about it , i shouldnt have done all the things that we did to irritate him. We always called his name wrongly, we would make fun of him behind his back, we would do a lot of things that are very irritating. But he managed to keep calm. Truthfully, I trust that he didnt mean to do that... that he was a nice guy deep deep down. Anyone who sees this post probably would know who I am talking about.
He's not in our class anymore.
He has left our life forever.
There is no more chance for us to seek forgiveness...
It's all just too late...

Responding... post 1

As I read Scout's experiences in TKAM, I remembered some things that I have done as a small little child which I think is quite childish to me now. I remembered that I used to go down to the play ground and play a game my friends and I called 'mission'. I don't really remember what it was like, but what I know was that it was basically going around the area, not touching things of a certain colour, or only touching things of a certain colour, or, we might also be playing catching under a certain theme, like a murder, or theft and we would assume one of us to be the "bad guy". I remembered this as in TKAM, there was the scene where the three kids would act out some stories, and make stories about Boo Radley and act them out.

Analyzing Literature
1. The three of them tested their courage by trying to touch Boo's door. This tested their courage as they pictured Boo as a monster whom will kill them all if they got to near, and they would die if they touched Boo and a lot of stuff like that.
2. They find a sculpture of they themselves, and some bubble gum. Apparently whoever put things into the knothole knew that they were taking stuff from it and wanted to give them things. This was probably Boo as after a while Nathan Radley sealed up that tree. This shows that Boo wasn't the monster that everyone thought him to be. Also, during the fire, Boo had put a blanket on Scout. He had also found Jem's pants for him.
3.They had insulted her father as a nigger-lover. I can thus see that Maycomb is actually a very discriminative place, where Negros and everyone who did not hate them were outlawed and hated.

Mississippi Burning

Today, Ms Huang finished showing a movie "Mississippi Burning". Personally, I don't really like the show as there are many sensitive issues of racism in the movie. I personally find some parts quite disturbing.
Basically, the story is revolves around the lynching of three civil rights workers. I have learnt alot about the history of racism in Mississippi and also about the Ku Klux Klan and all their evil deeds.
There were some disturbing scenes like the Negro FBI's interrogation on the Mayor.. I found it really disturbing as many disgusting scenes were described such as "cut his scrotum" and "dipped into a pool of blood bottom down." I was really scared of what the Negro man would do to the Mayor, luckily for me, the scene cut off at that point. But was re-enacted by showing the scene of the Mayor hanging from a rope. He probably felt guilty and killed himself.

Personally, I don't really like these kind of shows which shows racism because it gives a constant reminder to the past Singapore had to go through... whats more is that I'm half Japanese, and that peers would always make fun of me/disturb me when I was in primary school.

Essay draft 2

My second draft for the essay, I dont think its pretty well done, I'm not good at writing... comments? anyone?

Akira Makino (1) 8^th Feb 2011

Narrative essay draft 2

The sound of the war planes soaring through the night sky was heard from every corner of the small little town. Curious heads poked out of windows, looking up into that vast stretch of darkness filled with little white spots questioningly. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a loud boom could be hear. Within a split second, everything changed. Mangled bodies lay everywhere. Babies wailed, women cried, dogs howled, birds screeched, the whole town was in a mess.

The bombing marked the start of the period of time in Singapore history when so much was lost, and when so many suffered.

I stood near my window looking out to the disastrous scene. I was only a small little boy then, and I did not understand much about what was happening around me. But somehow, I could feel danger creeping up on me. I felt that something was seriously wrong. I started crying.

Then, I felt a pair of warm hands gripping tightly around me, and a small, gentle and soothing voice spoke to me, “Its okay, everything would be fine. We would be fine.” It was my mother, I felt calm almost immediately. If she said so, I would believe her, but how I wished that what she said was true.

Through the next few months, the atmosphere became very tense. There was a scent of danger lurking around everywhere. Nobody, at anytime, anywhere was safe. My mother strictly disallowed me to go out and play. I did not understand why, and after a while of enduring the torturous curfew, I decided to rebel and go against her words. The moment I stepped out of the door, I saw a soldier marching along the road. A young Chinese man came over and started shouting vulgarities at him. Immediately, the soldier cornered him, and stabbed him with a bayonet over and over and over again. Blood spilled everywhere, and the screamed of the man echoed everywhere. Suddenly I heard someone calling my name. It was my mother again. She dragged me in and slapped my face once.

“I told you not to go out!” She said, crying.

I thought I finally understood the meaning of the curfew.

Within the next few months, we had no inkling of what tragedy was going to hit our family. It was like any other day. News of more and more murders spread. That day, it was a fine sunny morning. Somebody started knocking on the door, more and more persistently. It was a Japanese soldier. He started talking to my father in a strong Japanese accent.

“You come with me to beach. I talk to you about work.”

My father obliged, as disobedience meant death. We waited all day. He never came back. My mother cried when she heard the news. She almost resorted to suicide. That was what started my profound hate for wars.

A few years later, the Japanese had finally lost, and things started to get normal. However, I would never ever forget the suffering people faced, the losses we all incurred. But I guess the experience strengthens us for further adversities in time to come.

I think my sentences sound awkward and my plot isnt good enough... PLEASE COMMENT EVERYONE