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Shylock is one of the antagonists in Shakespeare's play, Merchant of Venice. In here, he is seen as a sly and crafty villain in Merchant of Venice and is obsessed with money.
This can be seen in the play whereby when Jessica went away, he cried in anxiety ‘‘my daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! / Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!" from here, we can see how crazy shylock is with money that he treats money above all even above his daughter.


Next, Shylock is seen as a sly and crafty villain who slowly plots his way to kill Antonio. We can see how he turned an innocent loan into an agreement between life and death and he slowly persuades Antonio to sign it by telling him it is worth it. Later once the Antonio broke the agreement, he immediately made preparations to kill his enemy as he wants the kill mainly Antonio by taking a pound of his flesh through a bond which he signed with him. Shakespeare here is probably trying to depict the Jews as bloodthirsty and sly evildoers who sin and is prejudice against him.


However another thing to take note is that Shakespeare also criticizes Christian in his play. We can see how he portray Antonio whereby Antonio normally hurl unkind insults at shylock calling him a dog etc and even going to the extent of spitting on him.


Hence, in conclusion, although Shakespeare wanted to show the extent of the evilness of Jews in his play, he also emphasizes that everyone sin and this can be seen about how he portrayed Antonio. Hence I feel that Shakespeare wanted to make everyone be it Jew or Christian a sinner and that no one is perfect.

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I feel that Shakespeare is biased against the Jews and this can be seen from how he described shylock in the play whereby he was described as a cruel and heartless person in the book unlike the christian characters like Portia etc. In the Merchant of Venice, Shylock was often discriminated by Antonio whereby he would usually spit on Shylock and hurl nasty insults at him. This clearly shows how Antonio, a Christian, looks down on Shylock, who is a Jew. Also Shakespeare gave him a pitiful life story whereby not only he was terribly punished in the end but he lost his daughter, servant and wealth. This shows how terrible a fate and person shylock is as the way Shakespeare wanted to picture it and shows how Jews were treated at that point of time. In conclusion, I feel that it is through these events that Shakespeare reveals the Anti-Semitism theme to the audience.

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I feel that Shakespeare is biased against the Jews and this can be seen from how he described shylock in the play whereby he was described as a cruel and heartless person in the book unlike the christian characters like Portia etc. In the Merchant of Venice, Shylock was often discriminated by Antonio whereby he would usually spit on Shylock and hurl nasty insults at him. This clearly shows how Antonio, a Christian, looks down on Shylock, who is a Jew. Also Shakespeare gave him a pitiful life story whereby not only he was terribly punished in the end but he lost his daughter, servant and wealth. This shows how terrible a fate and person shylock is as the way Shakespeare wanted to picture it and shows how Jews were treated at that point of time. In conclusion, I feel that it is through these events that Shakespeare reveals the Anti-Semitism theme to the audience.

post 4

I feel that Jim Roger's argument in which he decides to send his children in order to prepare for the future where Asia would be the leading super power in the world. He argues that he sent his children to Singapore to study in order to enable them to be bilingual as to prepare for the future and I strongly agree as with China undergoing rapid industrialising and is slowly immerging to be the world next super power, we definitely cannot sit back and do nothing and instead we must be prepared, prepared to change. The ability to adapt is very important and we must quickly adapt to the rapidly changing world in order to stay at the top. Hence I agree with him due to our common belief that we need to have a global perspectives it will be unwise to think that a country would forever be the world’s leading market. Hence in order to prepare ourselves from the unkwonn future, learning a skill or 2 now is defintetly useful and that is why he sends his children here to learn Chinese.

blog 3

I feel that she is right with her points being extremely effective and clear. They are impactful and useful as they are not only truthful but also talk straight to the problem. She cover three main problems in this letter which are killing the children curiosity, affecting the inquisitive nature of a child and the way the school teaches moral values. In this letter, she has questioned the meaning of the word education to the government with her trying to bring out examples and what she had experienced to give some feedback to the government so as to make the government realise the flaws in the education system. This has proved effective with the education minister of Singapore request to invite her in a discussion which he plans to start where they will discuss possible future education policies. He hopes that many youths will come and join in the discussion so as to improve the system and bring the nation forward.





In my opinion, I feel that there can never be an "ideal" education system. Every single person is born differently and everyone has special talents and weaknesses and there can never be a system so good that it caters to everyone and develop everyone talents and skills to the maximum. Furthermore with different opinion of everyone on the education system and how it should be run is different, there can never be one that fits all. Hence, I feel that the best form of education would be to separate students into different streams so as to cater to people with different learning paces so that teachers will be able to focus on the capabilities of the students better and bring the best out of them. Hence despite an ideal education system is impossible, a good one can still exist.

Term 3 Week 2 (Blogging Assignment)

In many parts of the world where the people are extremely in need of water either because of pollution or the lack of it, it is important that everyone gets enough for survival. If it is the case of commodity in these places of crisis, only the rich will triumph for they are the only ones who can afford it while the rest will perish. This can be seen from third world countries like Africa whereby only the selfish and rich people can afford and abuse it while the people get dehydrated and die in vain due to the lack of supply. It is clearly unfair for this is our world and it is everyone’s right to have access to this valuable resource instead of only the powerful being able to obtain this. The wealthy people are not in any way more deserving of Earth's water than the poor people.
Hence it is clearly important for water to be treated as a human right to ensure the continuity of mankind. With water treated as a human right, everyone will be able to obtain water fairly and only with this can everyone be treated fairly as it should be as all humans are equal.

Some self centred people may argue that it is unfair for their ability to obtain a vast amount of water to be taken away from them as they deserve it for they can afford it. However, the simple fact is that this model of privatization doesnt work. You cannot marry the profit motive to something like water or air which people need to survive. We have to take this notion of fresh water out of the market place and say that it belongs to the earth, it belongs to all species, it belongs to future generations, and no one has the right to commodify it for personal gain

In conclusion, this world belongs to humanity. Hence everyone should have the rights to have access to this valuable resource and we should all share it equally for this doesn’t only belongs to us, but to every single soul living in this world.

Term 3 Week 1 Assignment

In my opinion, maids should not be given a rest day in Singapore as the situation and environment here is simply not suitable to do so. Some people say things like maids should be acknowledged as humans, not properties and we treat them like slaves etc….how wrong they are. In our civilised first world country with the population being so well educated both academically and morally with the lowest crime rate and a strong charity fund, it is clear that many of us have a morally upright character here and seldom will one find an employer mistreating a maid making her work so much that the maid is overly fatigue. Instead it is common to find maids happy working here with a good salary and such excellent working conditions here that makes Singapore one of the most popular places to work in the world, with firm laws that prevent abuse to them. And with all these measures and environment in place are maids treated so stressful that they need a break? Are they treated so miserably that they feel that they are treated like slaves so much that a third party who does not even know about their feelings and most importantly ours have the rights to make such a bold claim?


No, that is my answer why should maids be given a day leave when all they are doing are simple household chores and looking after the employers’ needs? Furthermore with the stressful environment here, which employer will want to give a maid a day leave when it will simply add to their worries? Thoughts like this will pop up: what if my maid has bad company and steals when I am not around during her free time? What if she is influence by outsiders to go against the law which will implicate me? What should I do when there is no one at home to look after my baby? Who will look after my aged parents when I am busy at work? This will simply add to our worries and increase our already high stress level. Many Singaporeans do not like this idea hence creating the online buzz and many employers around the world detest the idea so much that they are willing to ‘bribe’ the maid by giving her extra money so that she will stay at home on the free day. Furthermore to the worry that without these conditions that we may find it costlier to hire maids in the future as supply of maids to Singapore decreases, this is very wrong as the main reason why maids come here to work is due to the good salary here with the Singapore dollar so strong which will allow them to live a better live back home instead of these conditions.


I agree that everyone has human rights but only to a certain extant and by giving them a one day leave a week is simply crossing the line. Many people especially youths who are immature in my opinion who simply do not know the consequences behind this movement. This can be easily supported by our top class government disapproval to the idea. In my opinion, maids can be given some free time in a day like a few hours whereby not only can they have a good break which will solve this problem, this will also ensure that they do not get lead astray at the same time relieving the employers’ worries. This in my opinion is a win- win solution instead of that myopic person who came out with this idea that maids should be given a one day leave a week without thinking about the negative consequences that might harm our society.

poem analysis

Children in the darkness


(1) Point of View
The point of view is from a third persons perspective. He is adopting a point of view where he who is an outsider is showing his feelings and pity for the innocent children and hence tries to show the contrast between the way children are living there and the right way children should live to evoke feelings in the readers to know that war is bad.

(2) Situation and Setting
The situation here is that a military conflict between the communist forces and anti-communist forces in Vietnam at this point in time. This cause the country to be in a very chaotic and devastating state with the children lives ruined by poverty and war plunging them into the darkness.

(3) Language/Diction
The language involves some rhyming. He also use metaphors to give a very negative and sad feelings about war and require a level of understanding and interpretation.

(4) Personal Response
I feel sad for the children in the war as they are innocent and yet have to go through the pains of war due to some childish actions of the adults are their childish decision to solve conflict by fighting instead of negotiating. Hence their childhoods have been robbed and they must suffer unlike other children in other parts of the world who enjoys peace and good education and a good standard of living. This feeling in me was evoked due to the language of the poet who was successful in doing so. Hence this is a good poem.

Background of the poem

Children in the darkness

In my opinion, the poet was most likely a soldier in the Vietnam War and he pitied the children there as their lives are destroyed by war and corruption. When he was fighting in the war, he felt that these innocent children should be sitting in classrooms and receiving proper education enjoying a peaceful childhood instead of suffering by fighting the war and experiencing torment and sadness. He feels angered because he thinks that children should not live such a meaningful and suffering life and were treated unfairly due to the war. Hence he wrote this poem to pour out his grievances and used children in the darkness as the title to give us a clue on the contenet.

References
http://keyserzone.blogspot.com/2010/05/poetry-analysis-children-in-darkness.html

Does nuclear energy still have a part to play in the world?

In my opinion, due to the devastating worsening of the global warming reaching a critical level, the use of nuclear power seems to be a good solution and alternative solution to the harmful energy sources like fuel etc. however like all things, the use of nuclear energy has its pros and cons
I feel that the advantages of nuclear power generation are that nuclear power generation emits low amounts of carbon dioxide which is harmful to the ozone layer. The emissions of green house gases and therefore the contribution of nuclear power plants to global warming is therefore relatively little. Furthermore, this technology is readily available, it does not have to be developed first and it is very easy to generate a high amount of electrical energy in one single plant.

However, the use of this energy has a few problems. For example, the problem of radioactive waste is still an unsolved one as the waste from nuclear energy is extremely dangerous and it has to be carefully looked after for several thousand years. Furthermore it has high risks as despite a generally high security standard, accidents can still happen. It is technically impossible to build a plant with 100% security. A small probability of failure will always last. The consequences of an accident would be absolutely devastating both for human being as for the nature. for example the recent Fukushima nuclear crisis has affected many people there as many workers had died, the food the farmers planted there are ruined by the radiation and the radiation leaks are channeled to the sea killing quite a number of fishes already and making the seafood there inconsumable. This clearly shows how devastating the outcome of a ruin nuclear plant. The more nuclear power plants are built, the higher is the probability of a disastrous failure somewhere in the world.
Furthermore, during the operation of nuclear power plants, radioactive waste is produced, which in turn can be used for the production of nuclear weapons. In addition, the same know-how used to design nuclear power plants can to a certain extent be used to build nuclear weapons just like in North Korea. The energy source for nuclear energy is Uranium. Uranium is a scarce resource, its supply is estimated to last only for the next 30 to 60 years depending on the actual demand.

In my opinion, nuclear power is neither good nor bad given the pros and cons, unfortunately, this is one of the only few options left for mankind to keep us going and to preserve the world for the next generation. Hence in conclusion, nuclear energy is very important despite its cons and we should use it given our situation now and it is clear that it plays a big part in the world.

comments

These are my comments for Wei Cong, Wei loon and Jiong wei blogs respectivly

Ceremony opening speech by headmaster

Ceremony opening speech by headmaster

A new student –Upon hearing the headmaster giving his speech about the school’s latest achievements, it pressures me to excel and my imaginations ran wild as I thought of what lies ahead of me in the future. This had always been my dream school as I am honored to be able to be selected to study here as this is a renowned and prestigious school, I am extremely eager to start my new school life and embark on a chapter of my school life. As I sat on the bench, the headmaster called us to recite the four pillars. I stood up after my father told me to, but being a new student, I do not know what the four pillars were. I stood there and looked around cluelessly.

A parent - –Upon me hearing the headmaster giving his speech about the school’s latest achievements , I was very impressed with the school performance but this gives me more stress upon thinking and worrying about my son’ future in the school. However I was very pleased with my son’s ability to come to this prestigious school and I believe that he will be one of the best students here. “Please recite the four pillars,” the head master announced. The students stood up and I called my dear son to stand up too, as he was a student too, but I was wrong as no one stood up.

REFLECTION

I have learnt many valuable lessons in this term so far. For example I learn how to use dialogues in a good and proper way like leaving a paragraph after every dialogue and I learn how to improve my writing skills by implementing more stuff like characterisation, metaphors, similes etc. I this program as it is very interesting with many power points which bring colour to the lesson and we can watch videos too, furthermore there are many opportunities for group work and this make the class lively. I hope to see lesser usage of laptops in class as it is not effective and I like a lesson about discrimination as we can watch Susan Boyle sing. So in all, i enjoyed the term lesson and i am looking forward to next term.

wk 5 assng

This is the College Hall & Canteen in our campus. The sun above is like a friendly and cheerful guy, shining its glory to the earth. The fluffy clouds spread across the clear blue sky as the gentle breeze drift them slowly. The grass is like a soft fluffy carpet which looks so inviting to sleep. In the afternoon, the place will be as crowded and noisy like a wet market bustling with joy and excitement with people chatting, playing and eating together just like a family. However in the morning, the place is as quiet as a mouse with tired students taking their morning nap, sleeping soundly like a baby. After school hours just before my cca training, the peaceful surroundings here, just like the gentle breeze, resulting in a calming atmosphere here allowing me to do my homework quickly. I love this place as its atmosphere is so great that it makes me feel at home.

Characterization

After a long journey from pallet town Ash arrives in Sunyshore Island, Ash was determined and he was sweating profusely and his eyes were burning with fury. He wanted to get back at Volker for injuring his Pikachu. Wanting to battle Volker Ash rushed to the gym, but the gym wouldn't let him enter. After getting fed up with Ash's persistent knocking, the high-tech gym forcefully escorts him of the gym premises. Knowing that Ash will not let it go easily, Volker went out of the gym and offers Ash a Gym badge instead of a battle, which meant Ash did not have to battle him to get the badge. Dawn suggests Ash should just take a badge, but Ash believes that winning them with effort is what makes badges significant, with Brock agreeing with Ash. Ash's determination sets in and prepare to defeat him
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Ash s seen as a very determined boy by judging how he braves the long journey from pallet town Sunyshore Island without complaining. He is very determined to take revenge and kept knocking the gym door despite the guards ignoring him. He is also a guy with pride as he did not want to be seen as a coward who takes a gym badge without a proper fight.
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picture-----identity

This is the College Hall & Canteen in our campus. the reason why I feel that this is my favorite part of the school as I come to this part of the school regularly to eat as the food here is 10 times better than the high school side and I come here also for my cca volleyball. I feel that this is very peaceful place in our school during the time I come here as the JC students are having lessons and very few high school students actually comes here. Hence it allows me to do my homework, rest, play and reflect in peace without disruptions. It is linked to my identity as like this part of the school, I like quiet times as this allows me to be in peace and relax after the long school hours and also to reflect on the day and when the bell rings, the place is crowded and noisy just like me in class. So I hope you will like this post.

comic :)

Hi everybody, this is my comic that i have created during elearning. The theme is racism with the white man looking down on the china old man. This scene takes place in a street whereby the old man is standing in front of the wall begging for money whereby he got insulted by the white man. I chose the street because it looked kind of gloomy, a perfect place for a person to beg and for 'crimes' to happen with the rich looking white man insulting him. Hence I hope you this

Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love REFLECTION

In my opinion, this song means that racism is bad and to the fight against this. It talks about how youngsters are getting involved in gangs, influenced easily by bad stuff and getting themselves in a lot of trouble. This also tells us how horrible this world is with suffering and death everywhere with people getting killed form these and hurt from things such as war in Iraq. We need to fix our situation. we cant be going to war as it says in the song "if you practice what you preach then you turn the other cheek" this is not only referring to war but other issues that take place in Singapore whether it be racism etc. In conclusion, this song is
In this passage, the part that have the strongest effect from me is
"calling out all of the hatred and to call in the love today.
Can practice what you preach
Would you turn the other cheek?"
This part of the song is so real in these days that we are so stressed in our lives and easily get angry over trivial matters and this anger accumulates to become hatred. Also we Singaporeans are normally shy and do not express their love to those around us and we often do not practise what we preach by scolding others on their mistakes but not reflecting on one selves before doing so.

task 1------book reflection

Over the holidays, i have read a book called 'how to kill a mocking bird'.

This book is very good as it has a lot of rich meaning in it. To start this reflection, this book is about how 2 innocent people are the victims of discrimination and are linked to the mockingbirds and there are great people like Atticus to stop this.

After reading the book, many thoughts ran through my mine. In my opinion, now the world is very corrupted with violence, bloodshed and crime everywhere, don't you think that there are so many 'mocking birds' suffering day by day without justice and respect? Discrimination is also happening everywhere with people affected badly. For instance, a guy who is an ex-convict will find it so hard to find a job in society because everyone thinks he is bad without knowing he has turned over a new leaf, his family may have deserted him too. These thoughts have impacted me in a way that perhaps i will be more mindful of this and when the opportunities come like a guy getting bullied, i will try to stop the bully. Using such small actions would have given a positive impact on the victim's life and he can life a joyful life which he deserves, just like the 2 victims in the book should have.

This is how this book has left an impact on me. Thanks for reading.