The Diary of a Schoolkid

The Past and the Present.

2011-07-09T20:06:00.002+08:00

I revisited this blog after a hiatus of more than a year. I only took up blogging during Sec 1 for the sake of school, and indeed, my blog was not very sustainable thanks to my hectic schedule and inefficient time management. I have forgotten this blog in its entirety for many months....but I was brought back here by "A Distant Shade of Green", a piece by New Age artist Kevin Kern which I really love which is in this blog's playlist. It brought back memories of the days when I was idealistic, and young, energetic, and full of myself.

Sec 2 was a relatively good year for me. I did quite well in terms of academics, and juggled 3 extra subjects. But nothing gold stays (Robert Frost). My Malay and LEP are sunk now. My Chinese isn't capable of scoring A1 too.

Project's Competition is just over, and I think my group did well enough. Term 3 is the craziest term. There are more tests than usual, there are SPAs and this is the last term which determines whether you get exempted from exams or not. And who wants to take exams?

In this time and age, everything we do has a purpose. After term 1 last year, I gladly "relinquished" this blog-it did not do me much good. I told myself, maybe if I have the time I would create another blog. I would start anew. I would post what I wanted to, and not what the school wanted me to. But the tide of time swept such thoughts away. I am only writing this now because I am reminiscing. I think of 细水长流 as I write this.

Literature: Art for To Kill a Mockingbird

2010-03-02T23:07:00.004+08:00

The second assignment for me is spatial.

The tasks (out of which I have to pick one):

1. Design a map for Maycomb (think Google map!) Take into consideration the location of the homes, streets, etc. (I have totally no clue for this, I'd better play safe!)

2. Design an obituary for Mrs Dubose (this sounds morbid, no way I'm doing it!)

3. Design a comic strip for the Tom Robinson trial

4. Design a civil rights movement poster for Maycomb.

I picked the fourth and last task.

Analysis:

Purpose:To encourage people to support civil rights for the Blacks

Audience: People of Maycomb

Setting: Maycomb (fictional town in Alabama) during the 1930s, a time of extreme racial prejudice against Blacks

I have tried to infuse the themes of courage and prejudice in this poster. I hope I'm successful...

A note here: the person with a lot of bullet holes and who is shedding tears is Tom Robinson. Why so gory? Ermm...that's the price for not having civil rights! >:)

Literature: Nature in To Kill a Mockingbird

2010-03-02T20:17:00.003+08:00

Since one of my two strongest areas is nature, I have to do the To Kill a Mockingbird task about nature.

The task:

Do a research on the natural habitat of mockingbird. In your research, include the kind of flora and fauna you think exist in Maycomb and explain why the mockingbirds live in Maycomb.

Mockingbirds are a fairly widespread species and live in areas such as the Galapagos and North and Central America. The species of mockingbird in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird is the Northern Mockingbird, which lives in Northern Mexico, USA and Canada. They are intelligent, highly adaptable and bold birds which dare to nest near houses but naturally live in areas with open ground and shrubs.

Mockingbirds eat ripe berries, garden insects and small vertebrates such as lizards. The Radley’s yard is mentioned to have pecan trees with numerous pecans. (“tall pecan trees shook their fruit into the schoolyard, but the nuts lay untouched by the children” page 15) This would attract the opportunist mockingbirds looking for a meal. Maycomb also has a wide variety of choice insects, as seen from the “roly-poly”, “lightning bugs”, “night-crawlers” and “flying insects” present about the area on page 244.

Maycomb also has good habitats for mockingbirds. Mockingbirds prefer leafy trees to pine trees and have a particular preference for high places (“tall pecan trees” page 15, “oak trees” page 14), such as the topmost branches of trees. All these characteristics are present in the trees of Maycomb. Furthermore, mockingbirds like to forage for food among vegetation or on open ground. Maycomb has low-lying vegetation in gardens which would allow such behavior, such as “Giant monkey-puzzle bushes”, page 155, “azaleas”, page 14 and “rabbit tobacco”, page 14. Mockingbirds use dry grass and small twigs to construct their nests, of which Maycomb also has plenty, having species such as “nut grass”, page 48, and “johnson grass”, page 155.

In all, Maycomb is an ideal place for Mockingbirds to live in as it has their preferred habitat and ample food for their dinner menu.

Some types of flora and fauna in Maycomb have already been mentioned earlier- roly-polys (which are probably woodlice), lightning bugs (which are fireflies but fireflies aren’t actually flies but beetles) and deciduous leafy trees such as oaks. Some other wild animals were mentioned throughout the length of the novel-such as opossums, adaptable, forest-dwelling marsupials which the Negroes cooked for Christmas, and rabbits, which unfortunately were also included in the Negroes’ barbecue (page 177, by the way Atticus is wrong, wahaha, possums live in Australia). From Jem’s description of Boo Radley eating “raw squirrels”, I can also safely infer that American red squirrels, which are widespread in North America, are present in Maycomb. However, their main food source is the seeds of conifer cones. Therefore pine trees probably exist in Maycomb as well. And since m ockingbirds have a strong preference for certain trees such as maple, sweetgum, and sycamore, which are present in North America, there are probably these trees in Maycomb too.

Multiple Intelligences Test

2010-03-02T18:20:00.003+08:00

Hmm. My school is currently conducting e-learning (yesterday and today), and this is a compulsory language arts blog posting. To make it clear for all, for Language Arts e-learning we are supposed to take a Multiple Intelligences (MI) test, post its implications on the blog, and according to that pick our To Kill a Mockingbird assignments (two of them, which we shall also post on our blogs). Oh well, here goes nothing.

I do not know how to post a picture of the Birmingham grid for learning, but the url of the website which I took the test is www.bgfl.org and my secret code is cc2shg8gd88028g. You can view the results if you want to.

As expected, my strongest two areas are Naturalistic and Spatial. Not much of a surprise…if you read my profile. My other stronger fields are Interpersonal and Linguistic. I would gladly exchange my Intrapersonal score with my Interpersonal score, though. I do need to brush up on my interpersonal skills. And now for the ouch part. Logic, Interpersonal, Music and Kinesthetic- I expected that too. I guess it did not take this MI test for me to know my abilities. Oh wait-that means that the test result stating that my Intrapersonal abilities being high is accurate!

Okay, and so what does this mean? Basically, it paints a rough picture of what my strengths and weaknesses are, and what I am like. I am clearly interested in nature and art, reserved and not so social (and therefore not very good in mingling around with others), stronger in the languages but weaker in logic (I always knew that!), music and body (both kinesthetic and strength-wise).

But a note of warning here: while the results I obtained from the test are fairly accurate, this test is prone to much inaccuracy. MI tests judge you on your opinions (e.g. questions: I know myself well, or I keep or like pets), which are subject to your own perspective of definitions. Your very good may be another person’s normal. Therefore such tests are only a rough gauge of our abilities. You would probably know them better yourself, anyway.

Laptops in green technology

2010-02-06T11:23:00.012+08:00

It's surprising for me to talk about technology; I think I was influenced by the talk and use of laptops in my class.

Our class is a "guinea pig" for the Future School Programme, in which students will rely more on technology such as laptops, e-portals such as wikispaces or wetpaint sites and the internet to learn. In other words, we are being used to test whether the usage of advanced technology will prove to be successful in our school. Better to be safe than to be sorry, isn't it. So far, not many of us are bringing laptops to school. In a class of 28 students, about 9-10 of us have our own laptops. I guess most of us will have laptops around the Chinese New Year season due to the laptop subsidy programme.

But the thing is, not all laptops are environmentally safe. Several laptops do contain hazardous chemicals such as cadmium, lead and mercury. Just for interest's sake, I will introduce two fundamentally different, interesting and eco-friendly (in their own unique ways) computers on the market.

Macbook Air

Features

-mercury and arsenic free
-highly recyclable

-thin and light; portable

-5 hour battery life

-120GB hard drive, a lot of storage space

-not very affordable for the mainstream (1499 USD)

My opinion: Fusing technology, creativity and consideration for the environment is not what one sees everyday. This laptop is great in both technical and design aspects (design is Apple's specialty after all). Unfortunately in a green revolution of laptops the Macbook Air would not be as appealing to the mainstream as compared to cheaper yet almost as efficient laptops due to its higher-end cost.

XO-1 laptop (OLPC)

Features
-energy efficient
-light (about 1.5kg) and small, portable
-durable
-no toxic heavy metals
-very cheap, being less than $200

My opinion: OLPC's cause is more than commendable-they seek to provide poor children with low-cost yet stylish and efficient laptops. The organization is a non-profit one, and it can be seen that they really have the needy children in mind when they designed the notebook-it is child-safe, having rounded edges and being light enough for young children to carry. The laptop also has the programme SUGAR which is targeted at young, growing children.

However, the XO-1 laptop is definitely not as powerful as notebooks such as Macbook Air and mainly appeals to children without considering adult users (designed for children). All the same the XO laptops have quite a lot of potential both in aiding humanity and saving our environment.

It is amazing to see how technology has made such progress in a mere few decades, and thankfully several major international companies do consider the environment while making their products. Green technology is definitely a key to our future success, and introducing it in the form of laptops, devices most people of the younger generation use in this computer-age, would definitely jumpstart a green technology revolution that will reverse our planet's precarious situation. I wonder what green computers of the future will be like?

The Revamped Blog

2010-02-01T22:29:00.009+08:00

Hi all,

It has been many months since my last post. Now my first year of blogging has about ended, and I have decided to spruce up my blog. For those who have not visited my old blog, let me describe to you what changes I have made.

1. Change the blog template

My previous blog template was almost entirely composed of hues of green with tinges of white (the words) but I have recently change it to a different template and edited the template to contain shades of cool colours such as blue, green and purple.

2. Delete unnecessary widgets

There were too many widgets on the right sidebar, many of them rather useless. I got rid of them. Frequent visitors of my blog will also realize that I have changed many aspects of my mixpod. I have changed the skin to that of a MiniPod and added several more new tunes, including several pieces from Kevin Kern's Endless Blue Sky disc and Richard Clayderman's Autumn Leaves. All the soundtracks in my mixpod are new age soothing music.

3. Change my profile

I have decided to change my profile picture to one I edited using photoshop (and got from wikipedia prior to that). I have also edited the content of my profile completely. In my profile I now clearly state my interests and fragments of my school life. I have changed my profile name too, to prevent distancing myself from others due to different interests.

4. Change my blog title

I have changed my blog title (originally "the environment...and much more!") also because of the aforementioned reason-to make it appeal more to readers as a whole. Not everyone shares the same interests as me, but people of my age and in my social circle definitely are schooling!

In all, the current layout and personal profile of the blog will give you a rather truthful insight into me.

For once, a short and sweet post!

Literature: William Wordsworth

2009-07-02T15:03:00.001+08:00

His magnum opus is The Prelude, an autobiographical poem. And that poet is William Wordsworth. William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

From "London, 1802", I can tell that Wordsworth thinks that the Englishmen are self-centered and stagnant, and also thinks very highly of Milton. It seems as if Wordsworth is using this poem to encourage people to be more selfless (thus showing his righteousness) and virtuous. From this poem, I can tell that Wordsworth is a very sophisticated and complex person (just like many other great poets are) who boldly expresses his views about various important issues (regarding morals, Nature, etc.).

"I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud" reveals Wordsworth's passion for nature. In this poem, Wordsworth compares himself to a cloud, a part of nature, and the daffodils to humans. Perhaps he is trying to suggest how closely related Nature and Man are. In this beautiful poem, Wordsworth openly expresses his liking of Nature in this poem, and describes his joy at remembering the daffodils (even when he was despondant or pensive) which he cherishes.

In "The World is too much with Us", it can be easily inferred that Wordsworth is criticizing the mordern world for placing too much emphasis on material goods or being materialistic, in other words. He resents people forsaking our wonderful nature for possessions that may not be important to the world, or even us. I can tell that Wordsworth has a deep love for nature (as mentioned earlier) and resents many people's attitude towards it. He believes that materialism and the viewing of Nature as a commodity is separating Man from nature. I strongly support him in this, as being obsessed with anything can be detrimental to oneself, and being overly materialistic is rather foolish as one will waste much money on useless, overpriced goods and also spend a lot of time shopping instead of doing useful things.

London, 1802

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness.
We are selfish men;
O raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

I Wandered As Lonely As A Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending linealong the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Source: Wikipedia

Literature: William Shakespeare

2009-06-30T18:42:00.001+08:00

"Shakespeare's reputation as dramatist and poet actor is unique and he is considered by many to be the greatest playwright of all time, although many of the facts of his life remain mysterious." Such was a comment about Shakespeare from BBC.

I feel that Shakespeare is a very sophisticated and complex person who thinks very deeply. Undeniably, he also has a great command in the English language, and is capable of weaving the language into beautiful poems. Shakespeare has a deep understanding of the human mind and behavior. This is evident in the first poem, King Lear. King Lear is a tragedy about the cruelty of human nature, which includes the treacherous, selfish and wicked behavior of Man, but focuses mainly on the ungratefulness of unfilial children. King Lear is probably one of the best plays Shakespeare ever wrote. It reveals every hidden aspect of the evil nature of Man and leaves the reader in deep thought with its tragic end. Shakespeare is also rather philosophical, and loves literature a lot. The very fact that he compared the seven stages of a man to different scenes of a play is already evidence enough to reveal his poetic self. Shakespeare being philosophical can be seen from his viewing of life as a play, and the world as a stage. Being purely based on a person's point of objective, philosophy can have several loopholes sometimes, and Shakespeare also generalized the life of a man, although we know that this is not entirely true, for not everyone leads the same life. Thus it is obvious that Shakespeare's comparing a man's life to a play is purely philosophical, evident of his deep thinking. From all the below poems, especially in the third poem, one can tell Shakespeare's complex nature. The third poem was probably written when Shakespeare was in love, but even then, it is not too easy to tell so. The third poem also reveals that he is poetic.

Three poems (from poets.org):

King Lear (Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!)

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head!

And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!

As You Like It

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.

At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school.

And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow.

Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth.

And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part.

The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound.

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to

Time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Literature: The Road Not Taken

2009-06-29T10:02:00.001+08:00

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

1. A lot of figurative language is used in this poem, but almost all of them are symbolisms, which are used from the beginning of the poem until the end. "The two roads" probably symbolize the two careers which the author could take. "And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;" symbolizes the author's longing to take both careers. One road being "Grassy and wanted wear" symbolizes the career being unique and special in the author's eyes, as nobody had done that job yet."Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same" symbolizes the author realizing that the career he chose was actually not unique because many other people had also done this job. The poet chose to use a lot of symbolisms as he wanted to refrain from directly telling the readers his follies. In other words, the author wanted to mask his blunders yet express his regret to the reader."Somewhere ages and ages hence:" is a hyperbole, on the other hand. The author used the word "ages" as he wanted to make those words seem like from a fairy tale and appear to be a very long time ago, although both of them are not true.

2. I think that this poem is good as it is not straightforward or direct but requires some thought to fully understand what it actually hints at. This is because it masks much of the true content with symbolisms. This poem even has a twist at the end, as the poet lies by saying that, "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." However, it is already known that the author is lying as he stammered, hesitating before telling the lie as seen from "and I-I". It also can be deduced using logic that the poet is lying, as the front part of his poem betrays him, along with "I shall be telling this with a sigh", as if the author really thought that the career that he chose made a difference in his life for the better, then he would not be sighing.

Nature: A Photo Montage reminiscing Pulau Semakau

2009-06-13T11:20:00.002+08:00

Hi all,

This is a continuation of the previous Pulau Semakau posts. It is a collection of photos taken there some time back. Beneath the dull and deceivingly lifeless facade, it is actually home to more than what the mind can picture. Enjoy!

This little critter here is a fiddler crab, and is a male, no prizes for guessing correctly. Its right claw is rather large and brightly coloured, but not quite as beautiful as that of some other fiddler crabs which I had seen before. Some of such crabs are home at the beaches of Pasir Ris park. This crustacean here was scurrying along on the mud near some mangrove trees. Fiddler crabs are more terrestrial than aquatic when fully grown but cannot climb well, unlike their mangrove companions, the vinegar crabs.

First picture from the top : A fiddler crab, barely outside its burrow, prepares to scuttle back to safety should there be any imminent danger.

Second picture from the top: A close-up picture of a fiddler crab, showing the stalked eyes and the predominantly larger right claw.

Here is an upside-down jellyfish, which the guide scooped up from the water into a plastic container and released back into the mudflats later. It is quite cute, appears soft, is a not-very-vibrant brown and white, has a very mild sting and sucked and pushed water in and out of its bell furiously (in a rather fruitless attempt to move) when confined in the container. It camouflages quite well in its natural environment, as seen in the above picture.

Do you think that the mudflats are home to only shells and crabs? In reality, the answer is no, of course not! The biodiversity in mudflats is quite rich, and the people who are in charge of catching or pointing out interesting animals (which they caught or found) to the visitors managed to capture this snapping shrimp. Is it not obvious why the snapping shrimp obtained its name? It is just called so because it makes snapping noises! These noises the snapping shrimp makes using its enlarged claw which is specially meant for that purpose. A snap from that claw creates enough pressure to kill small fish and can create a loud clicking noise. I heard much of those clicking later on in the walk, but I could not find any shrimp. Those invertebrates were probably snapping away in the luxury of their burrows, which were difficult to find in the muddy waters. Immediately after this shrimp slightly longer than my middle finger was released, it disappeared into the seagrass and muddy water in less than two seconds.

First picture from the top: A species of snapping shrimp that resides in the mudflats. Note the noticeably larger snapping claw.

Second picture from the top: Some seagrass and a little snail atop it. This particular species of snapping shrimp hides amidst the seagrass.

I am sure that all of you know this organism. To the Chinese, it is a delicacy, one of the "山珍海味" that is eaten during the Chinese New Year. This is one of the several species of sea cucumber, known as the ocellated sea cucumber or the eye-spotted sea cucumber. (Yes, it is harvested for food.) Compared with the other fauna I mentioned earlier, this one is a "colossus", being slightly shorter than the length of my entire forearm and hand. Obviously, this lazy creature did not need to be caught, for it was too large and too slow, rendering the small plastic container obsolete. This sea cucumber, like many others of its species, is somewhat soft, but has a bumpy texture. It squirmed (though very slowly) a little at the foreign stroking of its skin by many fascinated visitors and made no move to defend itself.

I suppose all of you recognize this animal. It falls under the class of brainless echinoderms (literally!) and it is none other than the common starfish, more accurately called the common sea star. Not all starfishes are vibrant and colourful, and this starfish that is a resident of mudflats is such an example. On noticing a starfish atop the mud, I was very excited-that is, until I discovered that there were tonnes (metaphorically) more of them lying hidden beneath or half-buried in the mud. Many of them were seemingly mating, and there were numerous pairs of sea stars, with one above the other. As sea stars undergo external fertilization, they do not actually mate but just release their eggs and sperm into the water. Starfish use sea water to substitute their blood, and thus I learnt that it was very stressful when they are taken out of the water, for they would not be able to move if so. Unfortunately I learnt that only after the trip. Luckily I placed the starfish back to their original position after touching them.

Second picture from the top: A starfish turned upside down. Note the small tube feet sticking out of the grooves in the middle of the arms.

First and second picture from the bottom: Two sea stars "mating".

The above pictures show a type of gastropod, which is a family that includes slugs and snails. It falls under the class of molluscs. This organism is either a marine flatworm, a nudibranch or a sea hare, all of which are less commonly known invertebrates. I do not think that it is a flatworm, for I feel that flatworms should be flatter than this and be more oval in shape. This gastropod could possibly be a sea hare, but sea hares appear to be of a different colour and much "hairier". There is also a possibility that it might be a nudibranch. Being unfamiliar with these types of molluscs, I am not too sure of this creature's identity. However, I can remember that it was placed into a plastic container for our convenience in observation and photo taking.

This organism, as all of you can tell too easily, is a shell. But what type of shell exactly is it? This shell, according to the Pulau Semakau brochure, is a noble volute. A noble volute is no small shell that you can easily pick up and bring home without arousing suspicion from anyone, but is a fairly large mollusc that is several centimeters longer than my entire hand. Usually, noble volutes do not appear especially beautiful or attractive as they are covered in mud, algae, etc., or rather basically anything which can help to camouflage them from us horrible humans (no offense to any homo sapien who is reading this, ha ha!). Scrape away the grime and dirt on the outside, and there lies the true appearance of the noble volute: a beautiful marbled pattern that makes you feel like smuggling it home. And what may be the identity of the peculiar clump of translucent whitish objects beside the shell? Well, those are eggs of the parent noble volute! Surprised? I never thought that such large and weird looking eggs could belong to this shell too. I actually thought that they were some type of odd plant at the first glance...

First, third and fourth picture from the top: A parent noble volute lies with its eggs. Note how large the eggs are in comparison to its parents.

Second and third picture from the top: The noble volute actually has beautiful brown markings on its green shell that greatly resemble marble.

In a plastic container, our group finds a scallop. Scallops are bivalves and can be much more beautiful than this. They can be a bright orange in colour, as proven from the specimens which my brother and I collected a long time back. This scallop was stubbornly immobile, like many other types of shells, although it can move quite quickly, relatively speaking.

We also found this heart cockle in the waters. Not taking its size into consideration, it is quite noticeable, judging by its unique shape and colouration. It really resembles a heart very well, and is a rather delightful shell. It can easily fit into my palm. I never knew about this species of mollusc before I went for the intertidal walk.

This small gastropod, probably a marine flatworm for it has no external gills, was found crawling along on the mud underwater. Marine flatworms are generally faster than nudibranchs and have no external gills. Only a handful of flatworms are not parasites and are free-living. What a pity, for marine flatworms are quite colourful and interesting molluscs.

I think that you should know what this organism is, but unfortunately the photographs aren't exactly of the best quality, so, my apologies. You might raise your eyebrows in disbelief, but this really is a cuttlefish. It was a small juvenile around the length of my middle finger, and was placed in a pail. Cuttlefish really are great colour-changers, and this one displayed its skill right before my eyes by turning into a much darker hue in less than three seconds when I put my hand inside the water. The cuttlefish, petrified at this "mysterious-alien-which-appeared-from-the-sky", let out several small jets of ink, which slightly darkened the water.

Good-quality pictures at last! The first picture depicts some soft corals. Soft corals grow much faster than hard corals as they lack an exoskeleton. Most of the corals you see in aquariums or brochure pictures about the Great Barrier Reef are hard corals. The hard coral in the second picture is a brain coral.

And walking on, our group discovered several knobbly starfish, large reddish-pinkish sea stars that are the mascots of Chek Jawa. They were rather heavy, being several kilograms in weight and from arm tip to arm tip measured over 30cm.

And so I shall end this photo montage with the icon of the mudflats. See you until my next post!

Issues: The Integrated Resort's Whale Shark

2009-06-13T10:25:00.001+08:00

Hello everybody,

It's been a long time since I last made a blog posting, as I was and am still rather busy. The school holidays are not much of a respite from the hectic school term, and I have yet to complete my holiday homework.

Straying away from that "unpleasant topic", did you know that the Integrated Resort in Sentosa is not having the whale shark anymore? I know this piece of news was made known to the public some time ago, but I want to express my views about this incident. As many of you know, whale sharks are gigantic creature, being the largest living fish today. They can grow up to about twelve meters in length and weigh up to approximately thirteen tonnes. Fortunately, whale sharks are filter feeders, and feed on microscopic plankton in the water around them with their large mouth. Being gentle giants, they will not harm humans at all, and will allow divers to swim beside them. Despite the relatively slow speed of whale sharks (whale sharks move at 5 km/h whereas blue whales can reach up to over 40km/h), they still require a lot of space.

Due to space constraints and maintenance, it is very difficult for aquariums to house whale sharks. However, several aquariums are keeping whale Sharks in captivity, such as the Georgia Aquarium. Personally, I would be thrilled to see a live whale shark, but if it is kept in a cramped tank and is not given sufficient food, then I would rather it be released into its natural environment. Note that the actual and proper purpose of zoos should not be just to earn money, but to conserve rare animals that face the threat of extinction, as by Gerald Durrell in his policies for zoos. Regarding enclosures, he wanted them to be built keeping the animal's comfort in mind first of all.

Zoos, as I think, should not be only for profitable purposes, but should be even more about educating the public about conservation and helping endangered animals to escape their imminent extinction. If the IR in Sentosa does not fulfill that, then the Whale Shark has every right to be released back into the pelagic zone.

Literature: Animal Farm

2009-05-10T08:43:00.001+08:00

Hi all,

I am currently learning an interesting novel by George Orwell titled "Animal Farm". Animal Farm is a fable and at the same time an allegory as it has a deeper meaning too. Ultimately, the moral of the story is Lord Acton's famous quote: "Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The entire novel closely parallels the Russian Revolution in 1917. The main characters of the novel are Napoleon, who represents Joseph Stalin, Squealer, who represents propaganda, Snowball, who represents Leon Trotsky, Boxer, who represents the workers, just to name a few (there are many characters in the book which parallel certain people in the Revolution).

Here is a summary of the character traits of several main characters. Napoleon is self-centered, scheming and cruel, often using fear and terror to manipulate the animals once it was made known that he had his own private army of dogs.

Snowball is also to some extent self centered, as seen from his agreeing to reserving the apples and milk only for the pigs. He is also inventive, thinking about the plans for the windmill and creating many animal committees.

Squealer, the mouthpiece of the pigs, is sly and can manipulate the animals by using his gift of the gab to convince the animals that what he says is the truth.

Boxer represents the proletariat. He is overly sacrificial and very hardworking. He is also strong and brave. However, his downside is his ignorance and blind loyalty towards Napoleon.

That's a quick introduction to Animal Farm's characters for you.

Issues: Earth hour

2009-03-29T22:23:00.002+08:00

Hello readers,

Yesterday (Saturday, 28/3/09), from 8.30pm to 9.30pm, was Earth hour. Last year, about a billion people from approximately ninety countries switched off their lights for an hour to play their part in saving the Earth.

Yesterday, I took part in this event for the first time. My family and I huddled together in one room and switched off all the other lights. When any of us went out, we relied on torches as our source of light, for it was pitch dark outside. Despite the inconvenience, I was glad that we had switched off our lights for that one hour, for by doing that, we have contributed to the fight against Global Warming.

However, even if one billion people switched off their lights for an hour, it would only be equivalent to stopping China's emissions for a mere six seconds. That is a sad fact. Our never-ending need for energy is slowly but surely, destroying our planet's life. 2008 was the year of the frog as many realised the terrible danger amphibian species were in, not only from chrytid fungus but also from global warming.

We all share only one planet: Earth. It will require an international, transboundary effort (and also green technology) to reverse the damage done.

Events: A trip to Pulau Semakau (the wildlife 2)

2009-03-16T21:55:00.001+08:00

Hello all,

Besides those two organisms I mentioned earlier, there is definitely more than meets the eye in these seemingly lifeless mudflats. Scuttling on the mudflats and darting away once we got too close for comfort were a few fiddler crabs. Fiddler crabs are well known for their enormous right claw, which dwarfs the left claw in size, is loudly coloured (usually red or orange) and is grossly large in comparison to its body. Actually, this enlarged claw is only present in males, which use their gargantuan claws to wrestle against each other to fight for the right to mate. They live in burrows under the sand and emerge to feed during the low tide. Once danger is imminent, they scuttle back to the safety of their minute hiding holes.

As the group ventured out to sea, we saw numerous tiny hermit crabs and mud-brown gobies in the tide pools. We also saw more types of small crabs, sea snails and shells in the vicinity. The picture on the right shows one of the many shells we saw in the mud, whereas the picture on the left shows a sea snail in a tide pool.

Further out, we saw a large stretch of seagrass before us. The tour guide told us some facts about seagrass and proceeded to show us sponges among the seaweed. Unfortunately, I am not very educated or interested in sponges or seaweed, so I know very little about them and have hardly any information about them to share with you. However, I learnt from the tour guide that you should never touch a sponge, as the consequences would be dire should you foolishly do so. If I remember correctly, many miniscule "splinters" would lodge themselves into your skin, just like fragments of broken glass. The lesson learnt? Never ever anyhow touch things that you are unsure about.

My brother spotted something round and brown in the water which he initially suspected to be a sand dollar. However, it was later revealed that the organism was in fact an upside-down jellyfish, a jellyfish species which I had never known before. The jellyfish carries algae in it and breaks down the algae's cell wall to let the sugar in it flow out. The sugar is in turn used by the jellyfish as a source of food.

Okay, this is enough for the time being.

Events: A trip to Pulau Semakau (the wildlife 1)

2009-02-21T11:19:00.001+08:00

Hello readers,

The main highlight for the Pulau Semakau trip was definitely not the rubbish. It was a several-hour intertidal walk (the picture depicts the shores of Pulau Semakau). We got to explore the mudflats and observe the flora and fauna there. En route, my brother and I spotted around two eagles soaring high above us. They were presumably white-bellied sea eagles (which can be found in Singapore).

Not long after, the group of about 20 of us reached the mudflats. Because the tide was extremely low that day, we were able to see the fauna living in the tidepools. Despite the tide being low, however, the water was still almost up to my knee level (about 20cm deep) at the deeper parts. I suggest that if you want to go for the intertidal walk in Pulau Semakau, it is best that you wear boots or shoes with long socks (which is what I wore). Never wear slippers or sandals or even worse, go barefoot. For all you know, you could step on a stonefish or sponge and get hurt. If you want to explore the mudflats of Pulau Semakau and find the trip meaningful, you must appreciate nature and not be afraid of dirt (frankly, I was a little wary of the water level rising above my shoes but I got used to it later).

At a first glance, the murky waters seem lifeless and dull, but at a closer look, the organisms that secretly live in the mud would be noticable. Farther away from the sea, there would be little holes in the sand with several minute balls of sand near it. Those holes are made by sand bubbler crabs, which sift through the sand for microscopic food and produce the little balls of cleaned sand as a result, which they then chuck away. Numerous mangrove trees can be found farther away from the sea (the picture depicts a close-up photo of a mangrove tree). The guide pointed out to us the seedlings of the mangrove tree. To increase the chance of the seedlings' survival in such a harsh environment, the seedlings germinate while they are still on the tree and are later carried off by the high tide. By the way, the below video shows what the mudflats of Pulau Semakau would look like at a glance.

Okay, that is enough for the day.

Events-A trip to Pulau Semakau (the landfill)

2009-02-21T10:54:00.002+08:00

Hello all,

I want to share about a trip a few weeks back. I went to Pulau Semakau on a Sunday. Contrary to what many people think, Pulau Semakau is not a filthy, stinky rubbish island with maladorous debris all over the place. Instead, there is little sign of the island being a landfill as the the country's rubbish is incinerated before being sent there. As a result, the rubbish is only reduced to a mere 10% of its original mass. The ashes are then covered with a layer of soil, on which grasses and other plants grow on.
Despite the rubbish's mass being greatly reduced, it is still quite a substantial amount. Pulau Semakau would only last us for a few more decades (perhaps until 2040) if we continue to produce this much waste. This is where the three Rs come into place. The Singapore government has already been taking steps to increase the recycling of our rubbish. New recycling bins are popping up all over the island. But of course the government cannot succeed without the people's support. Hopefully, more people would become conscious of the damage done to the environment and play a part in reversing it.

Man and the environment are interlinked.

An introduction to my blog

2009-02-21T10:15:00.002+08:00

Today is my first day of blogging. Read my profile to learn more about me. As the title suggests, I will write about events in my life (be they trekking, competitions, etc.) or random but interesting issues on my blog.

My current display picture is that of a mantis shrimp, an interesting type of crustacean that has a very speedy punch (about 23 metres per second).

Actually, mantis shrimps are neither mantises nor shrimps. I guess they are named so because they resemble both species of animal. This species of mantis shrimp is also very vibrantly coloured, thus its name "Peacock Mantis Shrimp". I found this rather beautiful picture (my display picture now) on the internet. However, the video which I put up below shows a green mantis shrimp (which is a smaller species). I will also occassionally add in some interesting events that happened to me. Due to my tight schedule, however, I might not have the free time to write so many blog entries.

Most importantly, have fun reading!

(This blog post was slightly edited due to the blog revamping on 6/2/10)