Chinese CA discussion was held today, the 26^th of March. Essentially, the topic was “ Should smoking areas be retained in Hawker Centre?”

There are two teams involved in this debate, consisting of 4 members each team and are named as 正方and反方. The motion for 正方is that smoking should be totally banned in hawker centers while the motion for 反方 is that smoking areas should still be retained.

My role was to play as the citizen member of Singapore in 正方，and attempt to argue how smoking can negatively affect us citizens and should be banned. Personally, I felt that I did not perform very well, as compared to wencong or haochen. Both of them were experts in Chinese and throughout the debate, they were able to express themselves fluently. Even though I’m the opposition, I can’t feel but be awed by wencong’s talent to capture his audience’s attention.

Well, moving on to my speech. I covered 6 aspects in my speech of 1000+ words. The first point was that smoking and passive smoking are potentially dangerous to the human health, and we citizens should not be harmed by passive smoking. Furthermore, unlike smokers, citizens do not actually choose to smoke passively, and thus smoking ban should be imposed to protect the rights of us citizens.

The second point covers the fact that passive smoking can not be avoided as most hawker centers generally have 3-4 smokers hanging out at the smoking area. Unless citizens remain at home and do not go to hawker centers, they will be affected by passive smoking. Other than that, passive smoking is the cause to many diseases, varying from dry cough to serious illness like heart attacks.

As for the third point, I talked about how ban on smoking can help smokers to wear off their smoking habit. When smokers lose their regular “smoking spot”, they have to seek for alternatives. It’s unlikely that they’ll be able to find another permanent spot, as smokers enjoy congregating at hawker centers to chat with their friends. Gradually, they’ll find the task of finding a spot to smoke tiring, and stop smoking entirely. ( I find this point rather naïve, and initially, I thought that I was going to be questioned for it. Sad to say, I was put down by wencong)

My fourth point shows how smokers in hawker centers can affect teenagers. As teenagers are young and generally impressionable, they’ll be influenced by these smokers to start smoking. I moved on to talk about how many hardcore smokers start from the first, innocuous sniff.

My fifth point comprises of two main parts, mainly the one on hygiene and ambience. When a customer ventures into a hawker center filled with smoke, they will be unable to enjoy their food with a happy attitude. Generally, the person’s mindset will go like this, “ Omg.. The smoke is making be cough. Am I getting heart attack?” Furthermore, smoke and dirt will land onto the person’s food, rendering him sick if he ate it.

The last point was used to suggest how a win-win conclusion can be reached. I suggested the building of an air-con room in shopping centers or places near hawker centers to allow smokers to smoke there. Due to it being an enclosed, air-conditioned room, smoke is unlikely to spread outside and affect citizens. However, there is the issue regarding the excessive about of smoke in the room. Personally, I feel that ventilation systems can be built, and that the smoke be transferred to somewhere far from the current location, preferably underground.

As my project's day is based on procrastination , allow me to explain what Procrastination really is. Many people, especially teenagers, teen to procrastinate. In order to understand why teenagers procrastinate, we must first explore secondary school life.

Introduction to secondary school life by a Secondary 2 student( Absolutely not a procrastinator):

Guess it’s time for me to shed light on what secondary school life is all about, eh? Basically, secondary school life revolves around one word. Just one.

WORK.

When it comes to work for most people ( Including me in the past), it would usually come with words like stress, procrastination, idiotic, useless. However, work in secondary school can be fun, enriching and interesting. Ironic, isn’t it?

In doing project work with your friends, you can benefit in terms of leadership, teamwork, empathy, understanding and not to mention, your friendship will grow stronger over the project work. Most importantly of all, is your personal development. Through work, you will have better time management, stronger sense of responsibility, and better leadership.

Back to me:

Sadly, many teenagers fail to grasp these few points. With so much work and learning to be done, why is it that we still see so many teenagers in malls, arcades and computer cafes? Are they escaping from something?

This brings me back to my earlier topic, Procrastination. Procrastination refers to the counterproductive deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Simply put, it means that people, especially teenagers, put off work to a later date due to certain reasons.

As a student surrounded by tones of procrastinators, I feel obliged to help my fellow mates wear off the habit of procrastination.

Let’s spark off this section with a quote from William James, “ Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task”

Indeed, with work not being done, we constantly have to worry from it. Slowly, it will build up, causing more stress and people to procrastinate.

But why do people do that? One main reason is Perfectionist.

Perfectionist: “ A propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards.”

Everyone wants their work to be the best piece of work they have ever done, me included. To accomplish that, they plan their work, and decide to have lots and lots of research, up to the point where the mere thought of it gives them stress. However, stop and think, “ When is enough, enough?”

Hence, with reference to a few sources, I have discovered a few ways for students to stop procrastinating.

1. List down the pros and cons of procrastinating and list them down. Next, reflect. You will find that Perfection is almost impossible to achieve.

2. Allow yourself to make mistakes. One of the bad things about Perfectionist is that they don’t permit themselves to make mistakes. However, I believe that even great minds like Issac Newton and Einstein makes mistakes!

3. Encourage yourself. Wearing off the habit of procrastinating is not something that can be done overnight. Start by encouraging yourself through self talk( I’m the best, etc), patting yourself for your small accomplishments.

With this, I conclude my introduction.

1. Special Episode 2 of Celebrity Blogger-Procrastination Thief Of Time

2. Celebrity Blogger Episode 3- My very own dream

3. Celebrity Blogger Episode 2- Interpreting Dreams

4. Something ExTrA- Poster for Civil Rights

5. Picture Montage

6. Celebrity Blogger Episode 1- Dreams and How to interpret them

7. Picture of Dubose

8. English Ace- Character Analysis of Mrs Dubose

9. Introduction

10. Intrapersonal- Who do I want to be friends with in the Novel

11. Speech

12. Learning Profile

13. Special Episode of Celebrity Blogger- Gases and Applications in WarFare

Okay. Technical stuff over! Allow me to now blog on my dreamsJ

Dreams/Goals (Meaning 1: Goals, Aspirations):

1. Score MSG of 1.5 termly, and 1.17 for EOY

2. Establish close bonds with my friends

3. Improve my Chinese

4. Read more books

5. Cut down on gaming time

Well, I do realize myself that my goals will not be easily obtained, especially clause 1 and 3. An MSG of 1.5 would mean 9 points, divided by 6 topics. This is not easily to achieve, considering English and Chinese as towering obstacles that has always prevented me from scoring better marks. Out of the two topics, my bigger problem is Chinese, as I am unable to neither express myself freely nor converse fluently. Still, I am determined to improve my Chinese foundation, and subsequently, my results.

My plan for improving Chinese is revolved around the concept: TLLM. Nono, not Tui le lo mo! What I mean is, Teach Less Learn More. I plan to dedicate 2 hours per week reading a Chinese book, to allow me to learn more about words outside of the syllabus. Other than out, I’ll also spend 30 minutes per day browsing and memorizing Chinese phrases and idioms. Having done so, I will then apply it to my essays. In time to come, I believe that my Chinese will improve.

;) Wish me luck!

Dream (succession of images, thoughts, sounds, or emotions which pass through the mind during sleep):

Alright, I admit I digressed from the main topic for the above paragraph. Can’t be helped though, I was too excited about my goals. Moving back to the main topic, the post I will be sharing with you today concerns a dream that I had years back. Unlike ordinary dream, this actually had a large impact on me, and I was able to remember it vividly despite the years that have gone by.

Essentially, this dream isn’t one of those “ made-up” ones, whereby you stare out of the window and dream of yourself as a hero. This dream came naturally to me, and before I started researching on my hobby, I never knew what it meant. Okay, here goes.

Prologue:

That night was like any other night; I was fast asleep, snoring. The crescent moon hung up on the night sky, its crooked face sending rays of light towards my window. Never did I knew, that I would soon have the most life changing experience of my life.

Dream:

It’s very brief, surprising if you consider the fact that I slept 10 hours that day. Omg! I keep getting distracted. Okay, here comes.

I sat in the car, a newly bought sports car, with exotic colors and strong engines. Excited I was, careful I was not. Clicking on the button which started the car, the engine spurred to live. Being the amateur I was, I quickly stepped on the accelerator, and sped forward. As my car tore down the road, I bypasses cars with surprising and impossible turns. However, all of a sudden, I lost control and my whole car spun off the lane into the tree.

-The End-

I must admit, that the dream wasn’t really interesting, but what happened to me was. Following the incident, my body reacted instinctively. In my sleep, my body literally buckled! It was a responsive move following the incident. Strange, no? I bet it never happened to you before.

Time to analyse the dream!

1. Theme: Something bad happened to me, and my body instinctively reacted.

2. The newly sports car represents my good health

3. The direction and turns represent the place I’m heading

4. The death/incident represents change or something bad in my life.

If I link it to my life, I can say that I kind of predicted the future. Days after my dream, my beloved grandma passed away. The mourning lasted around 7 days. As it’s an emotional topic, I shall not delve any deeper than that.

Ciao.