Value of money

Would you bend down and pick up a 20-cent coin if you saw or dropped 1 on the ground? Probably not. In Singapore, everything has become so expensive that no one would waste their time in bending down and picking up a coin that would not buy them anything. Everyone has a busy life, and everyday is spent earning money.

However, a 20-cent coin is also earned with hard work. If we want a product in the shop that is worth $20, we would not be able to by it if we only had $19.80, even is the difference is only 20 cents. Thus, I think that it is quite wasteful if we drop or see money on the floor, and not pick it up. Even if it does not stand for much monetary value, it is still earned with hard work.

In places like India, 20 cents is nearly $7. In other words, 20 cents can actually buy you a meal, etc. When there is a disaster and people have nothing to eat, the 20 cents might be able to help a number of survivors of the natural disaster. Thus, we should not think that the 20 cents is insignificant.

Any comments?

Dickson

IS - Should it be used as criteria for continuing studies in HC?

In Secondary 1, many of us did not take ACE very seriously, because we did not know the importance of it. After all, it affected 10% of our overall mark. Many of us started rushing out our ACE in term 2 and term 3. However, we were still able to do well in the end, as some of us did very well in the exams, and even if we had little ACE, were still able to get through to Secondary 2 in the end.

However, now in Secondary 2, we are needed to do ACE as compulsory work. Come on, isn't ACE supposed to be something that we do if we are interested in a particular subject and something that we do for the fun of learning? By doing this, the school is forcing the students to do ACE in order to pass their exams, which does not address the main point of ACE at all.

Now, we are not able to do the last-minute rushing of ACE, if we wanted to do well. This, to me, is quite unfair as we are no longer able to leave work to the last minute and still do well.

If you use me as a real-life example, I think that I might be going to the Q class, because I do not have enough ACE in term 2. Sigh...

Dickson

Grades - Are they a correct representation of a students intelligence?

Well, there are many people in this world who just cannot do well in school, no matter how hard they try. These people may be smart in other areas, but they just are not able to show their intelligence in terms of their grades. I will state a few reasons why below :

1) Wrong way of studying

These people make up a huge percentage of the people who are smart but are not able to do well in school. These wrong ways of studying include listening to music while studying, watching television programmes while studying, etc. It is mainly these distractions that prevent these students from concentrating their efforts in absorbing the information in the textbook or notes.

2) Physically demanding CCAs

Some students participate in co-curricular activities that use up a lot of our energy. For example, swimming. Trainings for competitive sports like swimming usually take place very frequently and such swimming sessions can cause the student to not have the required energy to study. When they get home, they are just so exhausted that they might just lie down and sleep. This would cause them to not have the energy and time to study as their CCA is just too demanding. Hence, they would not have the time to prepare for their exams and their grades would suffer as a result.

There are still many other reasons, but I think that most students who are smart but cannot do well in school fall into the above two categories.

Any comments?

Dickson

YOG - Efforts of ordinary Singaporeans

Yesterday was the opening ceremony of the YOG. In my opinion, it was all very well-organised and the organising team can be proud of their efforts, in ensuring that there were no major hiccups in the ceremony. If there was one hiccup, I would say that it was during the march in of the flag bearers of all the countries. Some of them were unsure of where exactly to go, and I was rather amused with some of them, who walked all the way to the front, or to the wrong side, etc. Other than this, I think that the ceremony went quite well. The weather also did not pose any problems and there was no rain during the time when the ceremony was held, which was lucky because there were a number of activities that could not have taken place if there had been rain. These activities included the lighting of the cauldron with the Olympic Flame, and it would have been a major spoilsport if the 27,000 spectators had to use umbrellas and ponchos to view the ceremony. ( Even after paying so much to go to the Marina Bay Floating Platform to watch the ceremony live. )

But, we should ask ourselves. What can we, as ordinary Singaporeans do, to help leave a good impression in the minds of these foreign young athletes? These athletes are mostly between the age of 15 and 17, and they make up the future of the sports world. If they have a bad impression of Singapore, this might pose a major problem in the future, because these athletes would not come back to visit Singapore in the future if they do not have a good impression of Singapore.

So, what can we do to help? Firstly, we can ask our parents, who drive, to give way to the coaches that bring the athletes to their destinations. I think, if we give way to them, they will think that we are gracious and they might want to come back again in the future. Secondly, we can do our part by not littering. I mean, how would you feel if you are an athlete and you go to some country that you have never went to before and you see litter everywhere? Would you want to come back again? Obviously no.

So, I think that by doing our part, we can all help to leave a good impression on these athletes. Even if what we are doing are quite insignificant, I think that we can do a lot if we all work together. You can leave a comment if you have any other ways of leaving a good impression on these athletes.

Dickson