Favourite poet

My favourte poet is Robert Frost and in this post, I shall be explaining why and also provide some biographical information about him, including the events which affected his style of writing poetry.

Robert Frost (March 26, 1874(1874-03-26) - January 29, 1963) was born in San Francisco, California and he was a student at Harvard university. He had to drop out of school before he was able to obtain a formal degree due to ill health. He married Elinor Miriam White (1872-1938) , one of his schoolmates at Harvard, in 1895 and had six children.
Throughout his life, he experienced many tragedies, which included the death of his father when he was 11 years old and the deaths of two of his children and his wife. These memories filled with grief were reflected in some details of his works sometimes. Home Burial, which is one of his more notable works, described how a couple tries to cope with the death of their child, with the grief and frustration of not being able to come to terms with each other, eventually resulting in their parting. His emotions of losing his own child were largely depicted in the poem and bear many similarities to the feelings of the couple.
He also had a love for nature and a passion for describing the rural landscape of New England vividly. An example of such a poem was Going for Water, which describes how two children went to fetch water at a brook and the magnificence of the stream under the moonlight.
In my opinion, a large part of his poems chronicle the different turning points in his life, also his perception towards life itself. Quoting Frost, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on". Although one, when reading his poems, may not immediately see it, proper inference-drawing would make the message conceived through his poems clear. The most obvious being the one in the poem The Road Not Taken. It talks about decision-making in life and how things cannot be undone once a choice is made ("Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back").
Here are the three poems which I have randomly chosen, out of all the ones which he has written. I did not include the poem itself, as I think that it is unnecessary for me to do so. You can look them up on Google if you are really interested.
The Road Not Taken: To be really honest, this is the poem which I like best so far. The interpretation is mentioned above so I will not repeat myself.
Fire and Ice: This poem examines how the world will end in, whether in fire, which represents desire, or ice, which represents hate.
Nothing Gold Can Stay: This poem is trying to tell the readers that there is nothing in the world that will will remain untarnished forever, which is what the title implies ("...Her hardest hue to hold...But only so an hour...Nothing gold can stay").

Sources:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/192
http://www.online-literature.com/frost/
(1874-03-26)

Going for water - Robert Frost

Going for water by Robert Frost

The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;

Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.

We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.

But once within the wood, we paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.

Each laid on other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush we joined to make
We heard, we knew we heard the brook.

A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.

"As if to meet the moon", "like gnomes that hid us from the moon" and "now a silver blade" are examples of similes, one of the forms of figurative language. Robert Frost used the two similes to depict the two children who were going to fetch water from a brook (a stream) as mischievous youths ("gnomes") who enjoy playing under the moon. He used the third one to describe the fascinating appearance of the brook in the moonlight, which he said was a "a silver blade".

I like this poem because it is a simple one, and it allows you to appreciate the beauty of the language used without reading between the lines and ponder the deeper meening, which is what many poets love to let the readers do. Sometimes, these poems turn me off as my frustration mounts when I am unable to understand them fully. Looking at Going for Water, you would realise that the poem is rather elegant. Instead of putting everything in crude laymen's terms, the poet masterly uses language which is more subtle and slightly more difficult to understand. The details of the whole process of going to the brook and finallly reaching there are also outlined very vividly. At any rate, Going for Water is a splendid poem and reading it was rather enjoyable.

Flu pandemics

According to multiple online sources, other than the current H1N1 'swine' flue, notable pandemics which occurred recently were the 1918 Spanish flu, the 1957 Asian flu and the 1968 Hong Kong flu. I shall be describing each of the 3 pandemics briefly.

The Spanish flu was a severe pandemic that spread globally, affecting even minor countries. About 50 - 100 million people were killed in this pandemic. It had an infection rate of 50% and killed about 1/5 of the infected. Earlier, before the flu was discovered, patients infected with the Spanish flu were diagnosed as having dengue or other diseases which had similar symptoms. The most distinctive symptom of the flu was bleeding from parts of the body which produced mucous, such as the nose. The origins of the flu were unknown, but some speculated that it originated from China.

The Asian flu pandemic was actually a type of avian flu which originated from China. Online sources state that the flu was actually developed from a mutation of the flu virus in wild ducks, which then quickly spread to humans. It affected mainly Asian countries, but reached the US very quickly. It spread to Singapore by about February 1957. About 1-4 million were killed in this pandemic.

The Hong Kong flu pandemic involved from a flu, which developed genetically from another category of flu virus. The flu originated from Hong Kong and spread globally, killing approximately 1 million.

By the way, an epidemic is a disease which is widespread throughout a locality (you could think of a locality as a relatively insignificant area, as compared to a country or a continent). A pandemic is an epidemic on a large scale.

History ACE project

Today, Darrel, Zhu Cheng and I went to Changi Museum and Changi Beach to do our ACE project. The exhibits in the musuem were not too intriguing to me as I was taught quite a lot about the Japanese Occupation in my primary school SS syllabus, hence the things on display only refreshed my memory and gave me nothing really new. However, one thing I found interesting was the Changi Chapel. Changi Chapel was just outside of Changi Museum and it could be seen at the entrance of the museum. According to the brochure, it was actually a recreation of small chapels and simple churches during the Japanese Occupation, which were built by POWs at that time. Families of ex-POWs come to Changi Chapel in remembrance of the deceased. The chapel had a wooden board on the walls, where relatives of Austrailian ex-POWs could pin up notes of the words they wish to pass on the dead or the living. Beside the board was a display of paper cranes and the explanation of the meaning behind folding paper cranes. In the centre of the chapel was a cross, donated by a general of a regiment. Then, beside it, there was a poem dedicated to the people who died during the war, and a box of sand with a few lit candles in it, to remember the victims of Sook Ching who were executed at Changi Beach.

After we were done touring the museum and the chapel, we started filming ourselves. Since the museum did not allow for photography and video recording, we decided to do an audio tour of the museum and film the chapel instead. I started by introducing the chapel, and Darrel went on to describe the objects on display in it. It went quite smoothly, except that before we began there was a small dispute over how the recording should be done.

We had lunch and moved on to Changi Beach. Changi Beach was a well-known spot used by the Japanese to execute anti-Japanese suspects. There was memorial near the seashore, which explained the events that took place at the beach. Zhu Cheng took over as the guide and after we were done recording the place, we went home.

History of blogs

Blogging is very popular nowadays and according to online sources, the craze began in the late 1990s. In 1998, a person named Cameron kept track of the all the blogs which existed on the Internet then. At that time, blogs already existed but there were very few blogs, as blogging was not popular then. It was actually possible to keep track of all the blogs and there were about 23 in existence in 1999.

Then in early 1999, people took interest in blogs and more began reading them. It was then, the craze for blogging took the public by storm. People created their own blogs and soon it was difficult to keep track of all the blogs on the Net. The earliest definition of a blog was a website with dated entries. Brad Fitzpatrick started Livejournal and Pyra Labs launched Blogger in 1999. Pitas was also created in the same year. Blogging became very popular and continued all the way till today.

Keyboard shortcuts

Acting on the request of Rayson, I have decided to post more keyboard shortcuts for both his and others' reference.

F1: Opens Help pages in Internet Explorer and Firefox, brings out Office Assistant in MS Word

F5: Refreshes opened tab in Internet Explorer or Firefox

Alt-Spacebar: Displays list of actions available with opened window - Restore, Move, Size, Minimise, Maximise, Close (similar to right-clicking on the blue space on top of your current window)

Alt-Esc: Cycles through windows in the sequence of them opened

Ctrl-A: Selects all the text in open window

Ctrl-Alt-Del: Brings up Windows Task Manager

Ctrl-Backspace: Deletes entire word typed

Ctrl-Enter: Appends “www." and ".com" in front and at the end respectively of your typed address (e.g. "example" - ctrl-enter - "www.example.com")

Ctrl-Shift-Enter: Appends "www." and ".org" in front and at the end respectively of your typed address (e.g. "example" - ctrl-shift-enter - "www.example.org")

Shift-Arrowkey Left/Right/Up/Down - Selects text towards the left/right or up/down

Shift-Enter: Appends "www." and ".net" in front and at the end respectively of your typed address (e.g. "example" - shift-enter - "www.example.net")

NPCC Road Safety Test

On Thursday, June 4th, I had my NPCC Road Safey Test. This test was quite important because if I failed it, I will not qualify for the test which allows me to advance to the next rank. Again, like the Bronze Badge Proficiency Test, it was not too hard and I have a fair bit of confidence that I would be able to pass it.

Anyway, on Thursday, I assembled at Salt Centre in my NPCC uniform and a bus brought the NPCC squad to the NPCC Road Safety Park. The trip took only about half an hour and there, we were brought to lecture hall, where we would be having our Road Safety lecture and test. I learned stuff like the types of signs you see on the roads were divided into three categories: warning, informative and prohibitory. There are a few other categories, but we were only taught three.

After the lecture, we had the test. Here is a question which was in the test:

1. Name the purpose of this sign:
Well, it's obvious that this is a "No Entry" sign, hence its purpose is to prevent the entry of all vehicles into a certain area.

The setters of the test did not state the passing score, but it should be around 5/10.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Japanese_Road_sign_(No_Entry_for_Vehicles).svg/470px-Japanese_Road_sign_(No_Entry_for_Vehicles).svg.png

Tripod '09 CIP

Last Saturday (June 6th), I took part in a CIP event (newspaper collection again) organised by Tripod 2009. Most of the students at the CIP activity were from Bukit View Sec., New Town Sec. and Crescent Girls' Sec.

I arrived at blk. 102 in Jurong East at about 8.00 a.m. and soon I was assigned to a group. It was not much fun as I knew none of my group members and they were talking about things which I was not really interested in.

The newspaper collection began and I discovered that they did not really have an efficient way of collecting the newspapers. Each block had 25 stories, and after each group was done with a level, they were supposed to leave the newspapers at the lift lobby and call up the two people waiting at the ground floor. They would then inform Friedrick (some guy from BtVSS) and I, who would have to rush up to that level and bring the papers down. Two was really not enough to cope with the 'summons' and plus, the organisers neglected the fact that the lifts did not stop at every floor and took moved up and down slowly. I had to rush up an down the block to collect the newspapers. I made a few suggestions but they insisted on going with the plan. In the end, we took much more time than we should have.

This newpaper collection was not as fun as the one at Taman Jurong, and I had less CIP hours in this one. 3 1/2 CIP hours is not too bad, so I guess I should be satisfied.

Chess

I shall talk a bit more about chess in this post.

The main governing body of chess competitions is the FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs, French for "World Chess Federation"). It was founded in France with its first president being Alexander Rueb. It organises major chess competitions like the World Chess Championships and the bienniel Chess Olympiads. The FIDE was also in charge of awarding chess titles like Grandmaster (GM) and International Master (IM) to strong chess players. The first chess players to receive the GM title included Mikhail Botvinik, Paul Keres and David Bronstein, who were all from the Soviet Union.

The Elo rating system, also known as Elo's system, was a set of ratings created by Arpad Elo. It was intended initially for chess players, but the system became widely adopted for other things like sports teams. A chess player's Elo rating was calculated by the FIDE, and currently, as of April 2009, the chess player with the highest rating in the world is Veselin Topalov, Bulgarian chess grandmaster, with a rating of 2812. He is closely followed by V. Anand, Indian chess grandmaster, with a rating of 2783, Magnus Carlsen, Norwegian chess grandmaster and prodigy, with a rating of 2770 and Vladmir Kramnik, Russian chess grandmaster, with a rating 2759. By the way, Singapore is ranked 64th in the world, with 3 GMs and 10 IMs, and an average rating of 2400.