LA Online Learning-Is Maycomb a Good Place to Stay? Pt/1

This is the first post from my two posts regarding the online learning. My biggest learning style is Intrapersonal, therefore I will start from there. My choice of question is "Who I would want to be friends with in the novel."

I would like to be friends with Jeremy "Jem" Atticus Finch. This is because he likes to joke around sometimes, but he learns quite quickly. Also, he is creative, as he forms games for his sister and cousin to play. He has a distinct personality, making him able to make decisions and learn about people around him, thus caring for their feelings.

He will make his feelings be seen, even though he is not satisfied. Therefore, he is a straightforward person. He has some knowledge of everything and everyone in Maycomb County, making him and experienced person of the life in Maycomb.

These are the reasons why Jem would be my friend in the novel.

Peace out,
Wong Yik Hin 2A229

Significant post #1

Hey all. This post is for my blog assignment. For it I need two significant posts. Therefore, this is my first. Please post constructive comments on my entry and, if you have not done so, follow my blog. Yes, press that Follow button at the bottom. Come on, you know you want to.....

A significant post for my curriculum means a post that discusses about a topic that is important and significant to the world or the nation. Therefore, I am going to discuss a topic that I read online lately. "Should Obama add troops to Iraq for the battle of Taleban?"

There could be two points. I used both my inference and news online to determine my choice. First, he could have sent troops there to eliminate the terrorist groups. As the news goes, one of the group leaders have been caught and that they are close to ending the war, and therefore to speed up the war, Obama has chose to add troops to Iraq. Also, the act of withdrawing troops might show that USA is a "coward" to the Taleban.

However, the points 'against' are more compared to those 'for'. First, mobilizing more troops could increase the tension between the terrorist groups and the army. After all, what the USA really wants is for the Taleban to surrender the leader of the Al-Queda organisation, Osama bin Laden, who planned the 9-11 attack on the towers nine years ago. For one person, or more likely, for a group of people, what will be at stake for the military?

Also, the main reason that Obama won the election was because the voters thought that he would erase what George W. Bush did, that was retreat the American troops stationed in Iraq. However, he broke his promise by sending more troops to Iraq, making his support drop significantly. This could possibly be affecting his opportunity to get the next four years in the White House and controlling the nation.

There are many other arguments that I have never read in depth. This is my argument, and thus, my conclusion is that Obama should not mobilize the troops to Iraq as they would worsen the condition, both for the tension between the two parties and Obama's chances to get into the White House after his reign.

Hope you liked my debate. Peace out. Wong Yik Hin 2A229

"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." ~Eleanor Roosevelt

The Tiger year!!

Now is a close time to safely say that Chinese New Year 2010 is arriving. This year is the tiger year, making myself a fourteen year old and my tiger-spirited brother to celebrate his 12 year-old birthday. The tiger year has a huge impact on activities for CNY celebration, the animal symbolising bravery and strength, as well as good luck. Its the tiger year! Buy me a Tiger Beer.

It's on the 14th of Feb, but somehow murmuring the lyrics make me have a better impression and gets me in the CNY mood. I'm happy and can't wait for the arrival of CNY as I can finally go home and celebrate, not to mention finally seeing them after six weeks.

Wong Yik Hin, signing off.

Seems that my blog days aren't over yet....

It has been a very long time, almost five months since my last post. Well, it's been a long blogging time i've done, and it's changed to this site. If you accidentally clicked this URL by mistake, well, its http://coasterovermountain.blogspot.com/. If you came here to read my blog, the absolute first thing that you must do is scroll down, yes scroll down and click the tiny "Follow" button down there. Well, I am modifying my blog, so please point out mistakes. Till next time, peace out.

Long time no post

I haven't been posting my blog for quite a while, ain't it? Well, its the new season again and sadly, I haven't got a good head start yet on my blog and my studies as well. This is one really rare chance that I can post a blog post now since my cluster mentor kept my computer for 'safekeeping' as someone's been playing games, so I have to keep my head down for awhile and not consider free browsing as an option. As for my time now, I have to endure until next week which is the end of my tests. Most horrifying. Also coming out is the 5th 39 clues book , the black circle, which is going to be a major installment.

A poem

In my English assignment, it requires us to write a poem. Here is what I wrote:

Another year comes into sight,

Another huge brick wall.

Even though the future is bright,

The past I still recall.

An umbrella I have to hold,

for it had just started to rain,

This is for sure, wherever I go.

The photo of my friends will surely remain.

I know it's over, I know it's done,

All I have is this photograph.

Well, obviously it's better than none,

But it's useless to adapt to my new life.

It sometimes make me feel like I lost a bone,

or sometimes I just need a rest.

But i'm just all alone,

So I've to go out and do my best!

My favorite poet

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809. Poe's father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a tobacco exporter, sent Poe to the best boarding schools and later to the University of Virginia, where Poe excelled. After less than one year of school, however, he was forced to leave the University when Allan did not pay his gambling debts.

Poe returned to Richmond alone. In 1827, he moved to Boston and serviced in the United States Army. His first collection of poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems, was published that year. In 1829, he published a second collection named Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. Neither volume received significant critical or public attention. Following his Army service, Poe was admitted to the United States Military Academy, but he was again forced to leave for lack of financial support. He then moved into the home of his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Poe began to sell short stories to magazines at around this time, and, in 1835, he became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. He brought his aunt and twelve-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, with him to Richmond. He married Virginia in 1836. Over the next ten years, Poe edited a number of literary journals including the Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. It was during these years that he became a professional poet, a short-story writer, and an editor. He published some of his best-known stories and poems including "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Raven." After Virginia's death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe fell into deep despair. He returned to Richmond in 1849 and then set out for an editing job in Philadelphia. For unknown reasons, he stopped in Baltimore. On October 7, 1849, Poe's life ended but his famous literary works will never be forgotten to the world.

The reason I like Poe is because of his creativity in his works and his words that he uses are somewhat deep and resounding and yet understandable poems. His striking poetry and his ability to write good poems when he was just 18 years old makes me like him even more. Even though his education was not finished, his works make him look like a professor.

Here are some of his works that are good:

A Dream within a Dream:

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow: You are not wrong who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand-- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep--while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?

El Dorado:

 Gaily bedight,  
  A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow,
   Had journeyed long,
   Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
     But he grew old,
   This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
   Fell as he found
   No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.     And, as his strength
   Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
   "Shadow," said he,
   "Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

   "Over the mountains   Of the moon, 

Down the valley of the shadow,
   Ride, boldly ride,"
   The shade replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

 The Raven:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door--
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
               Only this and nothing more." 
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
               Nameless here for evermore. 
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;--
               This it is and nothing more."  Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door;----
               Darkness there and nothing more.  Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"--
               Merely this and nothing more.  Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
               'Tis the wind and nothing more!"  Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
                Perched, and sat, and nothing more.  Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
               Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."  Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
               With such name as "Nevermore."  But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered--not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before--
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
               Then the bird said "Nevermore."  Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
               Of 'Never--nevermore.'"  But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
               Meant in croaking "Nevermore."  This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
               She shall press, ah, nevermore!  Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
               Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."  "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore--
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!"
               Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."  "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
                Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."  "Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
               Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."  And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
               Shall be lifted--nevermore!

The Bibliography:
http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/130
http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16093
http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15638