Max's reflection

I think that we should not take things for granted and treasure what we have now. Through my experiences all over the world, there are many people in the world that cannot even afford the daily necessities and have to live on the street. For example, in Paris, even though Paris looks beautiful in the day, many beggars come out to live on the streets at night. The fact that the teacher showed us the pictures of beggars have only enabled me to reflect more. We must know that we are already very lucky to have a house to stay in and food to eat, realizing that this is because of our parents hard work. Hence we must be filial to them and give back to them in the future.

Styles' Colour, Symbol and Image

My favorite colour to wear on Chinese New Year



I have to be constantly on the go to visit my relatives.



The long distances that I have to go to reach my relatives' house.

Swee Leng's CNY

Colour

Yellow

I'm looking forward to Chinese New Year and am happy because I get to receive angpao money:D

Symbol

Fireworks

I chose fireworks because I will be launching fireworks in Malaysia during CNY and it also represents the festive mood.

Image

捞鱼生

I chose this because it is necessary to 捞鱼生 for CNY reunion dinner. 

Swee Leng's reflection

Lesson 2:

In this lesson we were told to choose who to help between two beggars, a woman carrying a child or a man who was robbed of all his possessions. Initially, I chose the woman with a child as I thought that she needed money to provide for her child. I thought that since the man seemed healthy, he should be capable of finding a job to sustain himself. However after I read the background stories of the two beggars, I found out that the man was the one who was really pitiful. From this lesson I've learnt that we cannot judge a book by its cover.

Zhong Xun's Chinese New Year work

The colour yellow is creative from a mental aspect, the color of new ideas, helping us to find new ways of doing things.

Since this year is the horse year, thus a chinese chess character "马” symbolized it the best.

The moment when everyone is having a good time is what I am looking forward to for Chinese New Year. :D

Yong Xuan's Chinese New Year Work

One colour:

Red symbolises Chinese New Year.

One symbol:

I will be able to receive many red packets during Chinese New Year.  

One image:

Many delicious goodies to eat!

新年快乐，万事如意。

Yong Xuan's Reflection

Lesson 2: A picture paints a thousand words.

From this lesson, I understood on how to gather meaning and thoughts from what I see, as well as being able to know the importance of looking beyond just what is on the surface during reflection.  For example, we were shown two pictures of beggars.  One of them was sitting on the streets, holding a cardboard pleading for help as all of his possessions have been stolen.  Another picture was a lady, carrying a baby and walking around begging for money too.  At first, I thought that both of them were rather pitiful and I would help them both if i were at the scene.  However, after we were shown the real background behind the two beggars, I have never expected the lady to be somewhat of a scammer, whereas the man is really pitiful.  Hence, we should always think more than we see and not be too gullible.

Si Min's Chinese New Year thoughts

Feeling very excited XD 😋

It's the horse year.🐴

Want to party all day through Chinese New Year 😍

Si Min's reflection

Lesson 3: Observation and communication 

We cultivated our observation skills by basing on the reason, we guessed that person might doing this or that. We also presented our pictures that depicted the school spirit, happiness, fear and life.

I learnt about using factual, process and emotional description. I felt that these descriptions can help to better convey our message to the the person who's looking at the picture. In addition, we took a look at our friends' blog. Some are interesting while some are quite wordy. In conclusion, we had learnt about how to convey our meaning through pictures well and how to look beyond the looks. 

Jiun Chyi 's colour, symbol and image

    Caption: Relaxed since all the spring cleaning has been done

    Caption: Feeling lucky as if something good would happen

    Caption : Hoping to get a lot of red packets and treats!

Jiun Chyi's Reflection

Lesson 2 where we learnt about the beggers I learnt that we should not blindly help them unless we really know who they actually are.there were 2 photographs one is a picture of a man who is holding a cardboard writing that his belongings got stolen, while the other is a picture of a women carrying a child while trying to beg for money from a passerby. But actually although the women is poor, she is working for a syndicate which uses people's sympathy to earn a living. The man however was just trying to make an honest way of living.

Photo Challenge

( a ) School spirit

Caption: Colourful school with lots of spirits!

( b ) Happiness

Caption:  Happiness, when everyone is all smiling.

( c )  Fear

Caption:  Fear on the first day of school?  Fear not!

( d ) Life

Caption:  This is what you call the mighty RV school life.

Poverty in Singapore.

In Singapore, being poor is often being frowned upon by the government.

The Economist had summed up the Singapore’s government’s approach, by saying that, “the state’s attitude can be simply put: being poor here is your own fault. Citizens are obliged to save for the future, rely on their families and not expect any handouts from the government unless they hit rock bottom.”

Our government has tended to believe that if the poor remains poor, it is because they are not “hardworking” enough and that they should buck up. And so, the poor shouldn’t deserve any more financial assistance than the government is willing to give.

But what if it is precisely because of the government’s attitude towards the poor that keeps them stuck in poverty?

Here are some examples of poverty in Singapore.

And this is the statistics of the poverty in Singapore over a period of time.

It is highly unlikely that you will find beggars lining the streets or see starving children walking the pavements, scrounging for food. The poor and needy in our society struggle with “relative poverty” —simply defined as that their financial resources fall substantially below what is needed to pay for the necessities of living in Singapore.

Due to various factors like health issues and family circumstances, they struggle to survive on a day-to-day basis. Moreover, they are caught in a vicious poverty cycle, with little or no means to make a better life for themselves. Their children are often not able to do better than their parents due to lack of access to knowledge and educational support. For example, the child would quit school to work and supplement the family’s income, simply trying to put food on the table.

Is it possible to break this cycle?

While the factors impacting the poor’s plight are complex and often involve systemic issues like housing and employment, and it may take many generations to overcome, some concrete things can be done. One way is to focus on our younger generation. Programmes like money-management workshops allow children to grasp the concept of money and how to use it wisely. Upgrading of work skills also allow adults to gain a more competitive edge in the job market, while better coping with economic challenges.

It is critical that the young remain in the education system, and that they receive the best support they can to gain the knowledge and skills for a better future. 

Zhongxun's holiday

My holiday

Last holiday, was a special one as it was my first December holiday as a year one student. It was two months long, much longer than the one I had in primary school. It was along break but I still have to go back to school for projects and cca training for almost every week. Despite the fact that I had a tight schedule, my family and I still managed to spare a week for the trip to Bangkok. It was a very interesting and fun trip, also a great opportunity for me to spend time with my family. These are some photos I took during the trip:

1. Central world shopping mall

2.Train market

 
 

3. water market. It was one of the best moments in my whole trip to Bangkok as it was something unique that u could not experience it in other countries.
 
 
 4. Royal Grand Palace & Wat Phra Kaew

 
 
 
 
 

 
In a nutshell, I felt that I had spent last year holiday meaningfully, I have done my homework, go for training, went overseas, revised my work and most important of all i have rested well. My holiday was a wonderful time. thank you :)

Yeo Si Min's holiday reflection

I went to Korea with my family on a tour. After we arrived at Incheon Airport, we went to eat the famous Ginseng chicken soup. 

Next, we went to Doota where it has mountains of clothes, bags, shoes and stuffs. It is a shopping paradise!! 

After that, we sat our tour bus to Gimpo airport to take our one hour flight to Jeju island. Jeju island looks as big as Singapore from what I see and it turns really dark when it's only 6pm there.

We rested one day at the hotel and our Jeju island adventure started the next day. We visited the mandarin orange farm and tasted orange chocolate for the first time. 😋 We went to the Glass palace, Teddy's bear museum and horse riding. 

We went to have our dinner after our visit to these places. After our dinner we went to the Ice musuem where it has beatiful ice carvings and a ice slide. 

Next is the trick eye museum. This is actually a place where I wanna go a lot because I have seen my friends going there and it's very funny and cool. 

This marks the end of our Jeju adventure. The next day we went back to Seoul and have our lunch. Next is our long awaited EVERLAND! Yay 😻

Next we went to Vivaldi Park where it's the ski resort. Almost all Koreans know how to ski from a very steep mountain slope and the view from our room was simply majestic. We went skiing the next day. We were taught the basics by our tour guide. It was really hard to move around when I'm not on a slope because I'm too heavy haha😹. 

After our fruitful skiing experience, we went to the Ocean Park next to the skiing mountains. As it was really cold, we could only go to the indoor pool and it was not really fun. The most interesting thing of all is they do not bathing cubicles for women. Every girl and woman just go naked walking around when they finished bathing. I was really embarrassed that time 😹. 

Right after that, we went to a new hotel and stayed there for one night. The next day, we took a ferry to Nami island which is the place where the renowned drama 'Winter Sonata' was filmed. 

We went to watch a non verbal artistic comedy "Drawing Show" after our shopping at Shinchon University street. It was very hilarious and they were really professional in their drawing. We travelled to Gangnam province and stayed there for 2 nights. During the 2 days there, we went to Gyeongbuk Palace. 

We went to the local cosmetic shops. There's like hundred over cosmetics there. Ginseng showroom is place we visited too. After all this, we went to Lotte world and there were like millions of people as it was Christmas and I only get to ride one attraction ><. The next day, it was goodbye Korea 😢. It was a fruitful and enjoyable experience although I had food poisoning in the end.