Wednesday, August 18, 2010

YOG games

The Youth Olympic Games have come to an exhilarating start. Singapore was chosen to be the host for the first ever Youth Olympic Games (YOG). It is an event that pits youth in the stadium for a chance to win medals, just like the normal Olympic Games, although a smaller version but equally important. These games serves as a platform for young athletes aged 14 to 18 to develop their talents in a certain sport and compete with people from the same age group from other countries. However, true sportsmanship must never be forgotten and the young athletes would benefit through this experience both experience wise and an improvement of their abilities.

The opening ceremony held at the Floating Platform, Marina Bay on August 14, 2010. It was a stunning performance and the lightings were dazzling. The fireworks used were even more than those used on National Day itself. This shows the importance of this event to the government. It is a gathering of talents and a showcase of their abilities. The YOG games are indeed an event to look forward to. The games are planned to be held every four years in staggered summer and winter events consistent with the current Olympic Games format

I remember before the ceremony on Saturday, the Olympic torch was passed through my school. All students were asked to line up and cheer on the runners with the torch. Dr Vivian Balakrishnan was the guest of honour and we certainly felt honoured in his presence. The welcoming ceremony was lined with activities like Precision Drill performance, etc. The most memorable event of the ceremony would be the air planes that flew past at the start of the ceremony. I was awed by the display of skills.

All in all, I can say that the Youth Olympics game is indeed a new perspective from the Olympic game. This game would allow youths to develop their skills young and have a wider knowledge of the outside world.

Posted by Ho Siu Joon Jones at 7:01 AM

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Vuvuzela horn


During the World Cup this year held in South Africa, the heated debate of the restriction of the Vuvuzela horn this year is still ongoing. Both spectators and players have complained about the noise given out by the Vuvuzela horn. For spectators from other countries, the horn disrupts the peace needed to watch a football match and for players down in the pitch, many of them would have a wavered concentration and poor performance due to the high noise level. Even after the game, players would not be able to get enough sleep because there would still be an incessant tooting of the horn from another match away from the hotel.

The good points of the horn are as follows:

1) The horns are a motivational force which drives the players of South Africa to fight on for their country.

2) The horns, if used properly, can be a musical instrument that produces good and loud monotone music.

3) It gives a European feel to the atmosphere.

The bane:

1) The horn disrupts peace and quiet.

2) The horn gives players who are not use to the sound a poor performance and disables them from communicating within the pitch.

3) The horn might lead to poor hearing or loss of hearing because of the decibals it releases.

All in all, I feel that the FIFA officials should put a ban on the use of the Vuvuzela horn because performance would be sharply sliced.

Posted by Ho Siu Joon Jones at 2:50 AM

Sunday, June 13, 2010

FIFA Fever

The World Cup is a few days away. I cannot wait for it. Although the FIFA world cup TV viewing package requires an extravagant $70 subscription fee, I am willing to fork out the money but I am still a child. J. Buying the Straits Times everyday to read and find out about the latest happenings in South Africa is a sacrifice I should make to keep abreast with the matches.

The opening match would be South Africa versus Mexico. The two teams are equally rivaled and it can prove to be a good match-up. If Africa wins, this would prove that the country is capable of hosting the FIFA world cup. However, if Mexico emerges victorious, South Africa would have to put in more effort into the subsequent games.

I am rooting for Argentina this time round because Lionel Messi is a player for his home team there. Lionel Messi comes from Barcelona Football Club (FCB) and I support that club very much. Lionel Messi is also one of the top players in the world, this adds on to how much confidence I have for Argentina to win.

Let me give you a brief introduction of World Cup.

The title to host championship has been awarded every four years to different countries since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not contested because of World War II. The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation over a period of about a month. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation. Brazil has won the World Cup a record number of 5 times, followed by Italy with 4, and Germany with 3.

Italy, the defending champions, does not seem to have any chance of winning. Hopefully England's Wayne Rooney will try to curb his temper or else England's hope of the title will disappear into thin air.

I hope Singapore would have a chance to host the FIFA world cup one of these years.

Posted by Ho Siu Joon Jones at 12:03 AM

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Task Two (Home Learning)

Steps in Analysis

1)Point of View

Point: Dramatic tone
Evidence: "Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!" and "Generations untold WILL pay"
Elaboration: "Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!" suggests that the different agent colours will cause more deaths and cause the "death potpourri". Furthermore, "Generations untold WILL pay" suggests that the later generations will pay for the sins the current generation had committed.

2)Situation and Setting

Point: The setting of the poem is after Agent Orange has been used.
Evidence: "Toll on the innocent and unborn"
Elaboration: The speaker is talking about the devastating effects of the Agent Orange. Those innocent soldiers losing their lives while fighting and the unborn having birth defects when they are born. Toll is a harsh word which evokes emotional feelings.

3) Language/Diction

Point: Death is inevitable in large-scale wars
Evidence: "Death potpourri"
Elaboration: Potpourri is any mixture of any object which in this case, a mixture of deaths. Death potpourri is a mixture of deaths due to the devastating effects of war.

4) Personal Response
I share the same sentiments as the writer. In a war, many innocent lives are lost. Its just not fair. Furthermore, the future generation will be affected due to the effects of Agent Orange. The devastating aftermath of the war will always be remembered in the hearts of many.

Posted by Ho Siu Joon Jones at 8:33 PM

Task One (Home Learning)

Rainbow Death


America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!

Hubert Wilson

Brief Introduction of Hubert

He was a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF Security Service. Along with a dozen or so intelligence school grads, prepped for about 14 months at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, Texas, before anticipating being sent to Vietnam or elsewhere in southeat Asia in 1970. About half ended up in Da Nang (an Agent Orange hotspot) in the 6924th Security Squadron. The rest of them were assigned to Shemya Island, Alaska, with the 6984th Security Squadron, and what eventually was a more contaminated environment than Da Nang.

Hubert's health problems started around 15 years ago with limb pains and unexplained headaches. His central nervous system radically deteriorated with Parkinsonian type tremors, severe headaches and progressive limb pains four years ago. No physician has ever diagnosed the specific illness and ever rendered any medical assistance to Hubert. He guessed that the symptoms were caused by the drinking of large amount of contaminated water at Shemya during that year there as an intelligence analyst. Organo-phosphate toxins may not run their toxic course until 20 to 30 years after initial exposure.

Reason why Hubert wrote this poem

Agent Orange is the code name for an herbicide and defoliant—contaminated with TCDD—used by the U.S. military in its herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War.
According to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4,800,000 Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects. This chemical has been reported to cause serious skin diseases as well as a vast variety of cancers in the lungs, larynx, and prostate.

From 1961 to 1971, Agent Orange was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides" employed in the herbicidal warfare program. During the production of Agent Orange, dioxins were produced as a contaminant, which have caused numerous health problems for the millions of people who have been exposed. Agents Blue and White were part of the same program but did not contain dioxins.

He wanted to remind people that the war does not end even though it was over.

Posted by Ho Siu Joon Jones at 8:30 PM

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

World Wide Web


According to a 2001 study, there were massively more than 550 billion documents on the Web, mostly in the invisible Web, or deep web A 2002 survey of 2,024 million Web pages determined that by far the most Web content was in English: 56.4%; next were pages in German (7.7%), French (5.6%), and Japanese (4.9%). A more recent study, which used Web searches in 75 different languages to sample the Web, determined that there were over 11.5 billion Web pages in the publicly indexable web as of the end of January 2005. As of March 2009, the indexable web contains at least 25.21 billion pages.On July 25, 2008, Google software engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj announced that Google Search had discovered one trillion unique URLs. As of May 2009, over 109.5 million websites operated.Of these 74% were commercial or other sites operating in the .com generic top-level domain.

Posted by Ho Siu Joon Jones at 6:12 PM

Monday, March 1, 2010

Casino debate

My view points

The Singapore casino debate currently underway lies against a backdrop of increasing economic urgency, combined with concern over casino gambling's potentially negative social effects. Pragmatists view casino gambling as an unstoppable worldwide phenomenon that has the potential to bolster the small nation's slowing economy. Conversely, moralists in this notoriously conservative country fear the social consequences legal casino gambling is likely to bring. Before building the casino, Singapore will have to reverse a 40-year old ban against casinos. The government's decision regarding the ban is expected to be announced on April 18th.

The new and refurbished casinos of the IR have just recently opened its doors to the public. The hotels, packed in with the IR facility, are also proving to be a hit among the visitors of the casinos. The hotels are almost fully booked everyday, some by “money hungry” Singaporean. They just can’t bear to live so far away from the casino, so why not just live beside it.

The government sees the IR as an opportunity to boost the country’s economy. However, in order to curb the overuse of the casino by the locals, the government has imposed some laws and levies. For example, all Singaporeans have to pay a levy of $100 before they can enter the casino. The government hopes that this would deter the locals from the casinos, but I see no effect. The locals are just too happy that there are casinos in their own homeland. I believe the levy should be increase to about $300 or more. That would make the locals wonder whether to enter or not.

Posted by Ho Siu Joon Jones at 5:03 PM