Blog Updates And Changes

Here are the changes I made to my blog and some updates. It should prove to be better than last year's blog, I guess.

Change 1: New blog address http://alex-is-blogging.blogspot.com/
Use: It is easier to remember. Just think about it, who is blogging? It is me, Alex, so the blog address says that I am blogging - completely logical.

Change 2: New blog slogan mySchool, myLife, myBlog
Use: I have elaborated on this in my second post, I think. But just a summary of it, this new blog is about school life and personal stuff, thus the blog slogan - completely logical too.

Change 3: Brightly coloured blog skin
Use: I see that many people use dark coloured blog skins with white fonts. To me, reading words in a dark coloured background makes my eyes get tired easily. Also, bright colours can help make a person happier, I guess, and more refreshed.

Change 4: Blog posts with more pictures
Use: A word is just a word. A picture paints a thousand words. See the difference when using pictures instead of words? This has already been practiced in my last two or three posts. The posts seem more interesting and catchy right?

Change 5: At least one post every week
Use: There is no point posting like ten posts in a go after seven weeks of nothing right. Consistency is as important as content when blogging. So I will try to blog one to two times every week, so people can also look forward to reading my posts every week.

Change 6: Visitor count and time
Use: Widgets, may be useful if you are keeping track of your time when doing something. Visitor count shows number of people who have visited my blog, in this way I can also keep track of my blog popularity level.

Change 7: Blogs that deserve to be read section
Use: Idea taken from Martin's blog. This also help boosts the popularity of the blogs which I think are well written (content and opinions).

Here are some updates of my blog. Visitor count almost hitting eight hundred - a good sign of my popularity level (also thanks to Martin for recommending my blog).

Yes, that is about it. Bye.

Posted on Term 1 Week 8

Magnificent Places And Sights In Hong Kong

As mentioned in my previous post, there will be a post on some interesting and special places in Hong Kong. It has been almost two weeks since I came back from Hong Kong so I only could recall some places I had been to. Sorry for this, for the whole of last week I have been spending most of my time revising for tests and some other crap... But luckily I have the photos I took at Hong Kong.

Okay, back to the trip. So far, the places I remembered going was the "Walk of the Stars" or 星光大道, Repulse Bay, Victoria Peak, The Madame Tussauds Hong Kong Wax Museum and Ocean Park. I also remember going to Hong Kong Disneyland. However, I will not be mentioning it later on as I feel that Hong Kong's Disneyland is not as good as Japan's, so to me there is nothing interesting there.


This was taken at the "Walk of the Stars" or 星光大道. The Walk of the Stars is not a path with a red carpet that many Hong Kong celebrities had walked on. Instead, it is just a normal path that can be seen almost everywhere. The interesting part of this path is the hand prints embedded along the walk. Although I only took a photograph of the hand print of Jackie Chan, There are much more hand prints of celebrities - around a hundred of them. Besides this, that path has nothing much special or worth looking at. Let's move on.


This was taken at Repulse Bay. As you can see from the photograph, the beach is a lot different from that of Singapore's. The sand on the beach there is very clean - no litter at all, the sea water is crystal clear (but very cold). The sea breeze there is makes me feel very relaxed and the feeling is awesome? See those houses and buildings in the background? Those belong to some Hong Kong celebrities including Jackie Chan and Andy Lau who are actually neighbours. That's about it. Next.


This is not an everyday sight in Hong Kong's Victoria Peak. The magnificent lighting of the buildings and a skyline are astoundingly beautiful and breath-taking. Although you may not feel that Victoria Peak is magnificent place just by looking at this picture taken by none other than me, you would feel otherwise if you were standing at that location in Hong Kong. Victoria Peak is one of the highest places in altitude and the city would only be lighted up during special events or occasions like Chinese New Year, so I was quite lucky to be able to capture the sight on camera. If you ask me, I feel that Victoria Peak is a must to go if you are in Hong Kong. Done, shall we move on or do you want to continue staring at the picture?


Look, I saw President Obama in Hong Kong. Never mind, no one would believe me. And if you actually believe what I just said, you shouldn't. Yes, this picture was taken from the Madame Tussauds Hong Kong Wax Musuem. There is a similar wax museum in London, I remember. The wax statue of Obama was just added to the collection of many others just a few months ago, I think. Look's pretty real, right? I had also taken photos of Albert Einstein, Adolf Hitler but due to lack of space I did not put it in this post. The wax museum is located at Victoria Peak (Why did I even write this? Who cares anyway?).


This is the Panda from Ocean Park. I did not expect to find the panda at Ocean Park, since the name Ocean Park should mean ocean animals and wildlife? Ocean Park is actually somewhat like a theme park, just that it has another area for animals and wildlife. I find it better than Disneyland, not so childish and lame stuff there. Now I realised that I should put a video of the panda because it looks very fake in a photograph. But too bad, no videos... The next photograph is also a "product" of Ocean Park.


I almost forgot what this was called. But when I was in Hong Kong, I heard people calling it the red panda (I think it is because this little creature also eats nothing but bamboo shoots and leaves, just that its fur is red in colour). These two kinds of animals were what I found the more interesting ones, since it was my first time seeing a panda up close in real life. The end.

So, this was what I still remembered about Hong Kong. Comment on anything, please. Bye.

Posted on Term 1 Week 8

CNY Hong Kong Trip

Although it has been a week since the first day of Chinese New Year, I am still posting a blog post on my holiday trip because this is what I did then. So, very sorry for the delay of this post.

Now, back to my holiday trip. As you should know from the title of this post, I went to Hong Kong. And during my five days there, I found out that the restaurants and food stalls in Hong Kong provide very "good" service. If you had been to Hong Kong before, you should know what I mean by saying this. Do you know how the employees at the restaurant serve you food? They just slam they bowls and plate on your tables! After five days of such kind of service, this made me "pissed off" and think that it is a requirement to slam stuff on the table to make Hong Kong people special in a certain way, so that people would immediately think of Hong Kong when it comes to slamming food on tables. However, I do not mean that the employees of fast food restaurants like MacDonald's and Burger King. This is because these fast food restaurants have other branches worldwide and they have a certain standard of service, thus they are not "ill-mannered". Therefore, I think that the people of Hong Kong should improve on their standards of service.

Another thing I do not really like in Hong Kong is that many of the stuff sold there are more expensive than those sold in Singapore. So I only bought some unique and special items because why take the trouble to buy items which can also be bought in Singapore at a higher price and also have to bring it up the plane? Hong Kong also has many night markets but they all sell fake branded products like shoes and bags. The point is that I do not like fake branded goods. So on the overall, the part on shopping and buying stuff in Hong Kong is not really enjoyed by me.

The final thing is that there is a communication problem in Hong Kong for me. Many of the Hong Kong residents only know how to speak Cantonese and minimal Chinese. And I myself do not know how to speak Cantonese except a few vulgarities I heard and learnt. Only the younger generation of Hong Kong people know how to speak English and Chinese. There older generation of Hong Kong people are also quite rude in the sense that they call the Caucasians by nicknames in Cantonese.

Actually I did something wrong in this post. I should have put the good points of Hong Kong at the front part of the post first then the not so good points. Okay, now on the better points. I like Hong Kong's weather. It is not really freezing, about an average of 13 degrees Celsius. It is too hot in Singapore, you just keep sweating if you stand out in the open for too long. The good weather in Hong Kong is further enhanced by its mild rain everyday.

This post is just a general overview of what I think of Hong Kong. There will be another post on what special and sightseeing places I went in Hong Kong. Bye. One more thing, please comment.

Posted on Term 1 Week 7

Handwriting

Another post by me. It has been around 1 week since I posted something. So, I thought of posting something interesting and random. Compare and contrast! Of handwriting! Let's get started with the computer-typed handwriting, followed by the "autistic and ugly" handwriting and finally the normal handwriting.

Here it is. Looks pretty good right? Actually, this cannot be counted as handwriting, it is done by the computer. Let's move on to the next image.

Taken from the science notes.


Guess who's handwriting is this? This type of handwriting can be unreadable and some people may think it is written by an autistic person. Autistic people have difficulty in writing words or alphabets with curves, therefore they may have such a problem of "illegible" handwriting. The way the words are written are somewhat weird. For example, take the word "potassium", if written in the way of the image below, most of the time only the first 3-5 letters can be read. This leaves the reader to have to guess the entire word. Let's move on.

Taken from Samuel Yu's worksheet. However, I find it quite weird as Samuel does not suffer from any problem that affects writing abilities, such as autism. So what do you think is Samuel's problem? Feel free to comment on this.


This is normal handwriting to me. Does it look normal to you?

Taken from Ong Yinn Jaye's worksheet

Handwriting is used in our everyday lives and is not just important for doing homework and assignments. Through handwriting, others know our attitude of doing something and whether we are serious or not. If you have bad handwriting and someone who does not know you may have a bad impression of you. Thus, handwriting is very important! That's all, bye.

Posted on Term 1 Week 7

Cellphones & Cancer: Ring Of Truth?

I came across this article in the Forum and Review section in The Straits Times yesterday. The information in the article involves everyone in the world using cellphones, be it young or old. Cellphone radiation causes brain cancer and the world may be expecting a epidemic only from year 2030, when the brain cancer can be detected. However, by then, it would be to late for those with the brain cancer as the cancer would have reached its final and fatal stage...

Here are some of the important points of the article (or maybe you could go flip yesterday's newspaper to see for yourself). In September last year, the first International Expert Conference on Cell Phones and Health was convened in Washington. 13 countries were involved in the study of cellphone radiation called the Interphone. It was discovered that children and teenagers, aged 20 and younger, who have started using cellphones would be more likely to suffer from brain damage over the years as their brains are still maturing and their skull bones are relatively thin. Although it does not mean that adults would not suffer the same fate. Since brain tumours are known to take decades to develop, an epidemic of brain tumours would be expected as a result of widespread cellphone usage worldwide. And if it occurs, only from the 2030s. By then, it may be too late for us. A number of measures can be taken to try to prevent an epidemic from occurring in the future. Cellphone sellers must display prominently how much radiation their models emit,adults should advice children to speak less on the cellphones. Even if it is urgent to speak on the cellphone, use the speaker, earphones or just send an SMS. But the best is to just switch off the cellphone and put it as far away as possible.

So, I think we should all try to reduce our cellphone usage as much as possible, at home or at school. If everyone tries their best to reduce cellphone usage, I believe that the epidemic which the scientists predict might not occur. What do you think? Please comment.

Posted on Term 1 Week 5

Plagiarism?

Hello everyone, another post by me again. Recently, my class has been involved in a case regarding plagiarism during our History lesson. We were given a worksheet on the facts of World War I. Some of my classmates made use of the Internet to search for some of the answers. Amazingly, they found a website with the exact same questions as those on the worksheet. Obviously, they took some of the answers from the website and handed up the worksheet after completion.

However, on the next History lesson, our History teacher Balan said that he believed that some of us had copied from the website and said that we were plagiarising and sent all of us each an email entitled "Academic Dishonesty". In the email, he stated that the entire class plagiarised and that he might take disciplinary actions against us. Thus, most of us also said that Balan was plagiarising as he did not cite the sources used for the worksheet.

You see, the definition of PLAGIARISM in the dictionary is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work. However, the answers to the questions given are all facts, not opinions. Also, facts cannot be altered. Therefore, Balan's accusation that we plagiarised does not stand. Our consortium director also came to our class last Friday to talk to us about the situation and agreed with us that we were not in the wrong.

So, do you agree that my class was wrongly accused or do you have other opinions? Please comment. Bye.

Posted on Term 1 Week 5