4E1 English Blog

Since I'm currently "free", I wrote something out the blue.
Do comment and HEALTHY criticism is welcomed.

I race up five flights of stairs and break open the door to the roof with a single kick. Once my eyes adjust to the brightness of the sun, I hurdle a few solar power generators, dodging gun fire from my enemy nearby.

I need to lose altitude fast, so I leap off the side of the building, my arms and legs pumping furiously as I gaze down at the tiny cars a dozen stories below. When I land on the roof of a nearby building, I tuck and roll to absorb the impact. Despite breaking my fall, my ankle got twist real bad. My enemy targets me again as I notice that there’s a chicken-wire fence topped with barbed wire between me and my next objective. How the hell do I get past that?

With less than a second to think, I clearly lost control of myself. Instincts soon took over, daring me to make another death defying move, jumping off the building and grabbing hold of a pole that protruded out of building. Should I do it?

Maybe if I'm a little bit more free, I might continue the story. DO COMMENT thanks.

Do teenagers face more frustrations than delights in their lives?

As a teenager, I do not think that teenagers have more frustrations than delights in their lives. On the contrary, I feel that teenagers live life with all kinds of adventure and excitement that will never bore them. Most of them have a happy-go-lucky nature that is always happy and does not worry about anything. They are carefree and take things in a very easy and relaxed manner. Having said that, even when meeting with stressful events in their lives, teenagers nowadays tend to respond by doing something relaxing such as listening to their favourite music or spending time with their close friends. Even when going for a meal at a fast food restaurant with their good friends can also be enjoyable for an easily contented teenager. For me, I would love to have quiet moments at home whereby I will play soothing music from the music player and lie on my bed in a relaxing manner, accompanied by air conditioner. I believe this is a good way to relieve stress as this can make me reflect on the things that I have done for the past few days.

Even though I feel that the delights of the teenagers are more than their frustrations, I think that teenagers will still face frustrations which are unpreventable. One of them is the difficulties faced in their school. Teenagers often get stressed up by their studies because some are heavily affected by their unsatisfactory results and these can lead to losing attention and focus during lessons.

Family and friends are also major factors in causing frustrations on teenagers. Due to intolerable amount of nagging, a teenager at his/her rebellious stage will easily raise arguments with his family members. This can create a tension between the teenager and the family, resulting in a communication breakdown and teenager receiving insufficient love and concern from family members. A communication breakdown can be caused by not showing adequate care by working parents with their increasing busy schedules which can easily make them lose focus on spending quality time with their child.

Those who are involved in a relationship, which is known as ‘puppy love’ to the adults, will probably, be affected in their studies when they face a break up. As what our cohort manager Mr Felix has said, having a relationship at this moment is unfavourable because if a relationship ended undesirably at the wrong time, it will be a disaster for both parties as we are soon taking our O Level’s next year.

However in my opinion, most teenagers do not recognize these factors as problems which will affect their daily lives. With their happy-go-lucky nature, they will tend to face their problems with a positive and cheerful attitude. So I reckon this is one of a common character that teenagers nowadays have that is taking things very lightly.

After reading the article, we are still just as guilty and ugly are the citizens of Singapore that reside in a country that still adheres to something as archaic is the policy of minding your own business.And to bring oneself to reprimand the Australian who stood up in public for the 'damsel in distress' is just incomprehensibly immoral and unethical. He had the moral courage to help and defend someone who was in need of it.But before I start criticizing uncontrollably about the disgusting attitude that is of apathetic Singaporeans, my bone of contention today is with something else. Even though we honestly wish there was something we could say to disagree with your view of the general public in this country but we can't.I have experienced the same apathy and nonchalance, and unwillingness to step in when it was necessary, with little to counteract this perception. Even though I know that feeling intimidated was part of the reason others were afraid to move in, fear alone can never justify inaction. I feel the most salient difference between this country and certain others is that even though acts of violence do occur elsewhere and people may not step in, it quickly happens after that the incident becomes heavily spotlighted once the news spreads, and in turn vigorous debate and intense self-reflection follows.

But in Singapore, where one grows up sheltered and ignorant of the world, we are rarely exposed to violence save in theaters and other media, and hence we are poorly equipped to deal with it when it happens in real life.Youth are much more informed about the issues thanks to the Internet, but knowledge isn’t translating into action who can only spectate but not analyze, who can work out a sum but only think for themselves, who are quick to criticize but possess little empathy to cushion the harshness of their words. In addition, education here in general does not go beyond the the representation of real life situations - we are taught and learn only what is necessary to live our lives quietly and successfully.

Perhaps I sound contemptuous and pessimistic,perhaps I am being cocky. But this is my sincere opinion.It's no surprise then that I, and I believe many others, are justifiably disgusted at such behavior exhibited by thoughtless members of the public. Telling the Australian off at the Ang Mo Kio MRT station... Is that really necessary?