Singapore ASEAN Plus Summit

When I arrived at Singapore, I had this weird feeling that was made up of nostalgia and wonder. I saw my old home, and other places that I had commonly visited. However, I also saw modern buildings and new places, like the casino and universal studios. On the first day, we went on universal studios, and I had a great time. Although I lost track of my team members, I had this great roller-coaster ride. It went up and down at great wavelengths.

There was 12 people from our school, and we were divided into two teams. One time represented South Korea, and the other represented Australia. Each member was responsible for a council. I was part of the group that represented Australia, and I was responsible for the transnational security council. We discussed combating terrorism and human trafficking, and our council wrote resolution papers addressing each problem. For me, I did enjoy talking about these topics, however, I did not like sitting on the same spot for 6 to 9 hours on end. The crisis session on the last day was fun. The Chair simulated a problem that a Chinese ship carrying nuclear wastes crashed into a Burmese oil tanker. As delegates of different countries, we had to formulate our own opinions to address to this problem. As the problem is simulated, and we did not have any time to prepare for this topic beforehand, a lot of the discussion was improvised. Soon, different alliances formed. Some alliances wanted China to pay for the damage, and others maintained absolute neutrality. In the end, the resolution paper did not pass, due to too many differing opinions on the issue.

In conclusion, I am sure that my teammates and I gained a lot of experience after attending this summit. We saw how other people made speeches, and how they talked formally during this conference. Also, I stayed up late and night and played a really enjoyable card game with my classmates, and I thought this was the best part of the trip.

Reflection: Last Quarter of Curious Incident

After finishing the last quarter of the book, I have a few thoughts to share. I think the ending of the book was a little abrupt. At the end, Christopher's mother takes Christopher back to Swindon and lives in a seperate apartment. When Christopher's mother goes to work, however, Christopher would need to stay with his father. Near the end of the book, Christopher's father and Christopher agreed to start trusting and start spending more time with each other. Personally, I thought that there will be a greater revelation or conflict that Christopher or his parents will experience in the process of their deepening trust and friendship. The book also does not seem to go into detail about the relationship between Christopher's mother and Mr. Shears. However, I think the author, Mark Haddon, has a great mastery over the portrayal of autistic traits. Christopher thoughts on different subjects like religion and god, Christopher's dreams, and his actions expertly convey a possible perspective from an autistic person. Many of Christopher's thoughts seem reasonable on the surface, but when more thought is spend deliberating on many of Christopher's views on differing subjects, sometimes, I feel that Christopher's opinions on things are incorrect or oversimplified (like the thought that showed similarities between a human mind and a computer). Also, I really love the way Mark Haddon conveys Christopher's thinking in a vivid manner. On page 198~199, for example, talks about Christopher's dream that people that are not autistic all die out, leaving people like Christopher living in the world. He expresses how carefree he could be. He could go anywhere, knowing no one will talk to him or ask him a question. He could take anything from the dead and make their possessions his. He could be alone. This dream clearly shows that Christopher still long to live in his own world of isolation. Overall, I think I had an interesting read. This book goes deep into the mind of an autistic person, and it think that it particularly helps our understanding of how autistic people percieve things. This is practical, since it gives you another perspective of how other people look at things.

Reflection: 3rd Quarter of Curious Incident

In the 3rd quarter of the book, Christopher's dad told Christopher that he had killed Wellington after Christopher found out that his dad had been hiding his mother's letters. Christopher decides that his father was too dangerous. He finds his way to the train station to go live with his mother in London. In the third part of the book, readers can see that Christopher's father's sudden emotional release that caused the murder for his neighbor's dog, Wellington, caused even his son, Christopher, the closest person to him, to leave him. From this, I think that emotions really influence a person's life. As any person is responsible for the consequences of their actions, any extreme or violent emotion that is released could possibly cause damage to someone or something else, and that release has a potential to drastically affect someone's life. Just like Christopher's father, for example, if he had not killed Wellington, his son probably would not have left him.  Eventually, Christopher's father even had to approach the police station and seek for help from the policeman to stop his son from leaving him. Although Christopher's reason and way of thinking that lead him to leave his father might be even humorous for the reader, the book narrates about a sad reality of a disunited family.

Reflection: Changing Education Paradigms + Curious Incident

After looking at the movie about educational paradigms again, I have a few thoughts. It is true that the current education system is built on the image of industrialization, as children are seperated into different batches by age. It is also true that the current education system is very sharply defined. You either be academic, or non-academic. You are either considered to be smart, or not smart. A very sad example of this system would be the education system in Singapore. Recently, the government passed a new law: that the capability of a student of going to a proper college would be decided in grade 4. At such a terribly young age, these Singaporean students are met with the pressure of succeeding academically. Of course, many have succeeded under our current educational system, however, many have been oppressed by it (like Bill Gates, who was forced to study a myriad of different subjects in Harvard, and as a result, he could not concentrate on what he wanted most, which was computer programming). On the other hand, although the current education system has some great flaws, people who do not fit under the education system should not wait until it is reformed. People should experiment and find the best circumstances for themselves to learn. However, human nature has never changed since history of mankind began. Sadly, there are normally undesirable traits like laziness mixed in our gene pools. My point in mentioning this is that there are many people who know they do not fit under the current education system and do not try to find what is most suitable for themselves. They wait for things to happen and waste their whole life wishing for something to happen.

The second part of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time greatly influenced my thinking. I learned how love plays such an important role in a family. Near the end of the second part, it is revealed to the reader that Christopher's father had lied to Christopher about his mother's death. His mother had gone with Mr. Shears to England. If this story happened to anyone else, it would be hard to accept once the person knows the truth. However, this story would be even harder for Christopher to accept, since he is an autistic child, and he would be less proficient in understanding abstract feelings like love. My family gets along really well, so I am not met with family difficulties. I find that love is like the air. Sometimes, you do not feel it, but when you do not have enough if it, you find that you really need it. One should not take love (or anything else) for granted.

Reflection: Inheritance + The Curious Incident

This week, our class did some reading on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - time, and reviewed some of our quizzes. Reading the Curious Incident was a bit like reading Born on a Blue Day, however, the latter is written by an autistic savant. When I just started The Curious Incident, I thought that the main character, Christopher John Francis Boone, had a family with good relationships. But as I kept reading, I found out that Christopher knows nothing of the relationship between his father and mother. The sad thing is, Christopher seems to have a father who drinks, and a mother who had an intimate relationship with another man named Mr. Shears in the neighborhood. The best part I liked about the first quarter of the book is the way the main character speaks. Christopher speaks so logically and in such an autistic way that I cannot help marveling at the author's mastery of impersonation. Christopher's way of speaking is also humorous. He would list things in numerically (1., 2., 3.,...) or alphabetically (a.,b., c.,...). He calls the person he is most suspicious of by the name of prime suspect.

Regarding on the article on inheritance, I find Burt's way of distributing his wealth after 21 years after his grandchildren's death very unusual. But if he did not like his family back then, this method of distributing wealth is very effective. If I ever became wealthy, I would think about leaving all my money to my children. I would need to know their personalities first. If I know that they would not use the money wisely, and waste the fortune, what is the point of leaving too much money for them? I would not judge my children based on their gender or their age, but I would judge them on their character. I would not consider about leaving money to the generations after my grandchildren. I feel that it is my responsibility to provide wealth to my next generation, therefore, it would be my next generation's responsibility to maintain the wealth and provide it for their next generation, and so on. Although I think this way, it does not necessarily mean that all my money is given to my next generation. If I know that it is better to put the money somewhere else, rather than letting it go to waste, I will find a more effective method of distributing my wealth, like donating to charity. The amount of money that will go to charity would depend on my accumulation of wealth, and whether my children are dependable.

Project Week

This week, our english class did projects. Our group went second, and I think our group did a pretty good job. To be honest, before I did the project, I felt that visiting the Kanner foundation and interviewing an autistic person through Skype was just a silly idea. I did not really want to do it. However, after making a series of phone calls and finding an appropriate time to get off from school, we finally made it to the foundation. I have seen autistic people before, but not with so many of them at the same time. Also, they had much more severe conditions than the people I know with autism. From this, I learned that it is really important to not make fun of people (not autistic people, but people on the whole). When you make fun of a person you do not know really well, it might hurt them, and your joke does not signify anything. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the person before any deeper interactions take place.

During the interview through Skype, the most important thing I noticed was that the parent of the autistic child maintained a thoroughly positive behavior. As she is christian, she describes her child as a "lovely gift from god." She thinks that God gave her this child to remind her of the world's difficulties. Through the interview, I think that the autistic child is a very lucky child. His family has the resources and wealth to support his education and correct his social behaviors. Now, his autism seem to be much milder than when he was young, but behind is gradual recovery are education, care, and loving parents. I think we should all cherish our time with our parents, as everybody lives for such a short time, and that there is not much time to spend with your loved ones. As a show of thanks to mama, and dad and I made breakfast on Mothers Day (with the help of Mom, of course. Nothing can be done without mom in the kitchen:)).

Cycling Around Taiwan (2 Weeks)

Our campaign to cycle around Taiwan for 12 days had officially come to a close. Cycling was probably tiring, but I found out that coming back to school is even more tiring (probably because I have not used my brain for 12 days). Although everything has finished, I found listening to the songs I heard during the cycling trip being extremely memorable. My classmates, and my friends shared deeper friendship bonds that lasted even after the trip.

After completing this trip, I found that my knowledge of Taiwan has risen to another level. Before, I judged Taiwan on how Taipei looks like. However, after cycling around the whole island, I found that my method of judgement is incorrect. During the trip, I saw both beautiful and ugly aspects of Taiwan. The east part of Taiwan is pretty beautiful. It has more uphills and downhills, which make cycling less of a bore. The scenery could be spectacular. I captured a scenery of the sea with different colors. Near the sandy beach, the water was a comfortable bright blue. Further out, the color deepened all the way to sapphire blue. 

Taiwan has many aspects that can be improved. Near cities, beetle-nut shops are all over the place. These shops are so popular that there can be 3 shops that sell beetle-nut in a single block. Also, on average, we usually see a dead carcass lying on the floor every single day. These carcasses range from pigeons and other fowls, cats, monkeys, mice, to even turtles. I have no idea how these animals died, but something needs to be done about these carcasses (since they do not smell nice and that there are so many of them). Lastly, when we temporarily park our bicycles and stop for traffic lights, sometimes, the acrid rotting smell of the sewage goes up into our noses. The smell of the sewage was not too impressive. The government should probably clean up the drainage system. Having visited other countries, no other country that I have visited has such serious sewage problems.

Overall, I think that the trip was worthwhile. Seeing how our class worked together, knowing more about my motherland, and making deeper friendship bonds are definitely precious rewards.