Care

The article is written by the director of the Neuroscience National Institute. Broadly summarising it, she describes cases in which handicapped people have affected their caretaker's personal lives for the worse. This doctor wants to help the caretakers, thus the title "Who Cares For The Caregivers?".

Vulnerable adults need not be taken care of by their relatives, even though it is encouraged by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. They could just as easily be put in a home that will take care of their every need.

So why not put them in homes for the disabled? It is the compassion that fills their interests. But to adopt a utilitarian perspective, it is better for both the care taker and the patient to send the patient to the home.

Characterisation?

In the story All Summers in a day, The Venus children ostracised Margot, a child from Earth who had seen the sun for 4 years. The Venus children knew that Margot was different as she longed for the sun, and kept a distance from her.

I guess that in the same way, if aliens who looked like us were to come to Earth one day, and tell us of things more beautiful than the sun, the sky and the sea, we would ostracise them too. After all, we are humans, and even though the aliens look the same, we would still marginalise them, just like we do to people of different skin colour.

Back to topic. The children on Venus dislike and discriminate against Margot as she was different. More specifically, because she had seen the sun and they had not (or rather, they forgot what the sun was like) they were jealous of her. With this jealousy came open discrimination, and they showed acts of cruelty, for example pushing her into the closet against her will, and making her miss her opportunity to see the sun.

Also, Margot was partially at fault. She was arrogant and introverted. She did not socialise with the children well, and the children's efforts to make her a class member failed.

In my opinion, I feel that the children did not mean to be cruel to Margot. It only takes a few people to set an example, and the rest will follow due to peer pressure. I'm sure that some of those children would want to make friends with Margot, but peer pressure killed that desire and replaced it with loathing. Coupled with the fact that Margot was not much of a socialite, one can understand why Margot was discriminated against.

Setting! ~

The destruction was devastating. The streets were lined with rubble, if one could even call them streets. Distant air raid sirens cut through the still air, a grim reminder of the destruction. I stepped through dust and ashes, and walked dazedly along the once-grand streets of Berlin.

The colossal buildings fell to their knees. The siren stopped abruptly, and with it pin drop silence - save for the distant wailing of an infant from the street at the other end. The birds and crickets stopped their chirping, and the buildings that had not quite collapsed yet stopped their moaning. Rubble buried underneath layer upon layer of rubble, with a destitute structure as a marker.

"Is anyone out there?" I called out.

The baby continued wailing.

Youth Happiness

According to a recent Straits Times survey, The youth of Singapore today are generally satisfied.

I myself am satisfied with my life, very much more than the average person of 13-34 years of age. I keep myself happy through adequate food, exercise and recreation.

However, this Straits Times survey does not convey the entire truth. I assume that this survey did not cover the entire population of people aged 13 to 34. The surveyors may have chosen a select group out of the entire population to take the survey, and these people might be among the happiest in Singapore.

My point is that the Straits Times is a form of state-owned media, and anything it says should be taken with a pinch of salt. With the state elections coming soon, the government may be taking measures to show that the general population is happy under their rule. They may be using the media to put themselves in front of the opposition.

Apart from that, I believe that the general youth should be satisfied with what life has given them. In other countries such as Haiti, where a huge earthquake struck, children are living through the hunger and thirst, and still manage to smile. Meanwhile, almost everyone in Singapore has adequate food and shelter; however, the youth are simply "satisfied". Shouldn't they be happy? Isn't education and love and family enough for the youth in Singapore? Are we, as my father says, a generation of "strawberry kids"?

I'll leave that to you, dear reader, to decide.

Chinese mothers

Before we decide which is better, we need to analyse both of the parenting methods.

First, the "western" method.
This method focuses on giving the child choices and responsibility to live his/her own life. The child is given the task of unpressurised learning, and the theory is that even though the child might not be under pressure, the child will still perform well as he/she is performing according to his/her own desires and action. This will also foster a bond with the parent and child, and also theoretically increase the child's self confidence to do better.

Next, the Chinese method.
This method involves straining the child to his/her maximum potential, so that the child will realise their true capability. The child is put under constant pressure to perform to their best ability, and the parents will work with them, continually practising until the child finally perfects the skill or crumbles under pressure. According to the author, if the child goes through this type of parenting, he/she will perform better than those under the "western" method.

I will support the Chinese method. As the author said, to get better at something you must continue practising over and over until you reach perfection. That said, I do not think that pressure is a bad thing either. Pressure allows people to do better, just like competition.

However, I feel that the author should not generalise Chinese parents. Many Chinese parents in the US follow the softer approach, allowing children to have more freedom.

Are Singaporeans kind?

http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_626522.html

According to this article, Singaporean students can be very kind. The mother of the autistic child compares her son's experience in an international school in Dubai to a mainstream school in Singapore.

My take on this is that Singaporeans CAN be kind. Unlike citizens of other nations, we are not constantly troubled by fears of natural disasters or starvation.We are, in fact, one of the more affluent citizens in the world with our unemployment rate in Sept 2010 being 2.1%

However, some Singaporeans can be very unkind too. The autistic child cannot communicate his thoughts clearly to the average student, thus he is excluded and left out. I have seen a case first-hand in which a student with high-functioning autism was being left out of groups and made fun of behind his back.

Ms Reema Bhatti has made a good point about discrimination against students with autism in schools. Her son is a lucky boy as he was able to find friends who do not discriminate openly against him despite his autism.

Summarizing my point, this is a problem not only restricted to that certain Dubai international school. This problem is present everywhere.

The pain of loss is worse than ignorance

I believe that it is better to never have known something than to have something but to lose it. The latter creates the sensation of loss, and in certain cases also takes away the hope that the loss may be temporary. If you have never known something, you can continue living your life without any sense of loss.

However, there is a benefit to knowing something and ultimately losing it. One can have bragging rights that he has experienced this and that, while the ignorant one listens, knowing that he can never experience what the knowledgeable one has.

Summing up my thoughts with a quote, “Ignorance is Bliss.” When you do not feel the pain of losing something, you can go on living your life as per normal, instead of dwelling upon your losses, and perhaps eventually going mad.

Have I ever been left out?

Yes. I have.

I remember that in my 5th year of primary school, I would sit in a corner of the classroom alone during recess while others were out playing soccer. I would look from the classroom window, and while they were playing, I wondered why I never would get invited to play with them. I wasn’t exactly Ronaldo material, but then again some of them were not as well. I remember that on many Physical Education lessons when they played soccer, I would never play.

Why, I wondered. Why was I never part of the huge group of boys that always played soccer in their free time together?

Maybe I’ll never know why, but it occurred to me that there must be some reason for this. I guessed, and came up with a few solutions:
1) I appeared overweight, clumsy and basically not the type who would be active in sports.
2) I was too mischievous, and might "screw up" their game
3) I was just not active/"pro" enough to join their games.
Either way, it just made me feel terrible that I was not a part of their group. On occasion, I would be the odd one out in group projects, and would be forced to join a group I did not like or a group that did not choose me as a member and being in situations like that made me feel awkward.

Luckily, there were a few other friends who were caught in the same predicament as I was, thus I did not feel ostracized and left out as I would be if I had absolutely no friends. This concludes an instance in which I was left out.

Another year

The new year has come about, and with the new year comes a new set of challenges. To face these challenges, learning from my past mistakes is crucial. Looking back to the freshman year-

-I got better than expected for the EOY examinations (A2)
-I found out that my summary question was quite well done,
-but my OEQ took what extra marks I earned from the summary question
-on the brighter side, I improved tremendously (my Primary 6 writing was horrible)
-however, the improvements are definitely not enough

Because of these shortcomings (and strengths), I was able to set some goals.

1. Write carefully

You write how you speak. I noted that my composition had some conversational terms, definitely not suitable for writing. Also, my spelling of certain words (definitely -> defenitely) was based on pronunciation and thus wrong. I plan to correct this by doing two things: expanding my vocabulary through reading, and consciously correcting any word i find spelled wrongly.

2. Apart from being more careful, I see the need for better penmanship. My 'u's could be confused as 'a's.

Both of these goals are being worked towards, also, this blog post is tentative and subject to changes (when I set new goals).

That ends my targets for LA this year!