9/11: The Tragic Day Which Changed the Whole World

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6666420467125611107#

After watching the documentary, I truly realised how serious the incident was. As I was still young at that time, the incident on September 11 2001 did not leave much impact on me. However, after studying it, I realised that the world had changed from then on. All countries were extremely cautious of terrorists. Since then, our MRT and airport began to have soldiers roaming about with rifles and guns. The world had changed. Osama bin Laden had showed the world how easily he can penetrate U.S. 's defense in broad daylight. It was a perfectly normal day like any other day. And bin Laden had simply proved America's vulnerability. It was a fateful day that all Americans would remember.

What happened exactly?

On September 11, 2001, a total of 4 planes were hijacked. Two of them were success in crashing into the two World Trade Center Towers. One was only partially successful as it crashed into a portion of the Pentagon (Ministry of Defense for America) where all the top secret files of the country and its security were kept. The last plane was headed towards Washington, D.C. . However, the passengers on the planes heard about the news of the collapsed of the World Trade Center Towers and suspected the same scenario was happening in their own plane. The passengers aboard the plane then decided to overpower the terrorists to prevent it to cause any further damage to the unidentified location it was going to crash. These selfless passengers were very brave. They knew that they had little chance of surviving. There are no other pilots left except for the trained terrorist. The plane would either crash into some important building in the end. Therefore, these passengers decided to stop the terrorist to reduce the death rate. A memorial was built at the site where the plane crashed.

The two hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers and less than an hour later, both tower collapsed. It was as if all the measurements were calculated exactly (which part of the building should be crashed into and what is the speed of the plane etc.) because both towers collapsed vertically and destroyed both towers totally. At the Pentagon, another plane crashed through one portion of the building. Less than an hour later, the portion of the Pentagon collapsed. Again, this proved how accurately the measurements had been made.

Nearly 3000 people died in on this day.

I was shocked and I felt a strong sense of sympathy for those who had lost their families. Today, a museum is built at the same location where the twin tours once stood (Ground Zero). There will be fragments from the twin towers in the museum too. September 11 reminds everyone in the whole world the dangers of terrorism.

After that fateful day, the world largest manhunt begin. Osama, who was always one step ahead of the rest managed to hide for ten years before he was finally caught a few weeks ago. He became the most wanted and dangerous man in the whole world then. Because he had managed to overcome the world most powerful country easily. After he was killed, his body was disposed of in a place which was not announced. The body was not even buried. This was because the U.S. did not want his followers to pray to him as if he were a saint.

I feel that Osama bin Laden was actually a very talented man. However, because of what America had done to him in the past, he vowed to launch an attack on America. Today, Al Qaeda had given out clues that they were going to launch an even larger scale attack somewhere in Pakistan. I hoped U.S. would prepare safety precautions and ensure security in Pakistan before the attack is launched. Now that Osama had been killed. Members of Al Qaeda would be enraged and they would definitely hope to take revenge on America.

My Holiday Doesn't Seems Very Free After All

Although there are 2 more weeks left before the holidays, I decided to start on my holiday plans now since we only have another half week of lessons left. However, this holiday is only 4 weeks long (my apologies, but 4 weeks seem rather short to me as compared to end of year holidays :D) and I have many school activities during the holidays. Some of these activities include CIP activities (which I feel that I am suppose to do since I am free) and workshops conducted in school. However, the largest event in my June holidays is the June Council Camp. This year, I have taken up the challenge to be the Organising Secretary for this year's June Camp. Initially, the council ExCo has already chosen one of the senior councilor to be the OS. However, the councilor was afraid that he may have other commitments and therefore, he gave up the position as the OS. I have only recruited my OT members n0t long ago. This is going to be one of the major camps throughout the year. Fortunately, one of the days is organised by the High School Council for a combined council workshop when all the four consortium councilors come together to attend a few hours of workshops. This is my first time organising an event. I am going to consult the advisors on what are the main activities for the camp first. I hope they would help me. Because I am organising this whole event from scratch and had no idea what are the activities and plans for it.

Looking Forward to War Poetry: KWL

Next term, we would be studying and analysing war poetry. I am excited and anticipating the things we are going to go through next term. War is a very controversial topic. Nobody can stop war. It just the nature of men to fight among each other, usually for one particular reason: Greed. Greed is a curse in society which brought many living creatures on earth to do their death. Greed has caused creatures of the same kind to fight among themselves and to harm each other. Most animals in the world are greedy. But Men has certain additional advantages like power and the ability to think. When people fight against one another (because of greed), the war would continue for a long time because people would seek revenge.

What do I know about wars / war poetry

I know that war have been around for a very long time. Sometimes, there isn't always war between countries but civil war within a country itself. This would even be worse as this shows how foolish men is to fight your own friends and your own people because of greed. War involves many people such as the soldiers, the citizens of the countries, the leaders of the particular country or association. In war, there would be more people who suffered as compared to those who gained. Till today, there are still many disputes happening all around the world. In the past, many of these major disputes could eventually lead to the bloodiest war in history. Nobody can predict what would happen next and most of the time, people are unable to prevent wars.

I have little knowledge about war poetry. I haven't even experienced or seen any war that is closely related to me in my life. However, I have a brief idea of what a war poetry is about. I think (not absolutely sure) war poetry is written by soldiers, prisoners of war, generals or perhaps the innocent civilians who are harmed in war. They probably described scenes during the war and their emotions. Some of these descriptions can be very gruesome and I believe most would elicit our feelings. The contents of these war poetry could be the opinions towards certain war during the aftermath of a war, or about the times during war. (could there be any war poetry which predicts an imminent war?)

What do I want to learn more about war poetry?

Of course, I wish to learn how to analyse war poetry. I also wish to learn more about war poetry (who writes them, what do they talk about, how the persona or writer actually feels). I want to learn how to write a simple war poetry. But I think this is not easy and requires a lot of imagination as we don't really feel the sufferings and hardships of war. And lastly, I wish to know what does Dulce Et Decorum Est means. :D

What have I learnt about war poetry?

Reflection on Term 2 LA Progress

I am not very satisfied with my Term 2 LA performance. I feel that I could have put in a lot more effort in Term 2 as compared to Term 1. Last Term, when school had just begun, I was very motivated to complete all assignments on time and ensure that I had did good quality work. I was confident in myself and was very enthusiastic about academics.

However, when I move on to Term 2, my pace began to slacken down. I did not feel as enthusiastic as before and there were a few times when I submitted my assignment late. I was very disappointed in myself then. Because I knew that if I had the right attitude and perspective towards studying LA, I would not have made so many minor mistakes. And because of all these minor errors, I did not have as much confidence and self-esteem as before. Examples of my mistake is not studying the To Kill A Mockingbird carefully. Another example would be not putting enough effort in learning how to write a good expository essay. I was greatly disappointed in myself and regret giving so little attention to LA. I feel that Language Arts would be a very interesting and enriching lesson if one had listened attentively during lesson. On the other hand, if a person did not put himself in the lesson and his mind was roaming to faraway places, then this person would dislike the subject because he feel lost in it.

Next term, we would be doing Habits of Mind for AAT. I hope I can apply some of the skills in my other subjects as well. Some of the habits I would like to highlight is listening with understanding and empathy, thinking flexibly, metacognition and questioning and posing problems. One last habit I am going to highlight is creating, imagining and innovating. Next term, I believe we are going to go through war poetry and imagining the scenes and their emotions is very essential in analysing the poems. I strive to achieve better results in future.

How has learning about newsworthiness and types of news articles affected the way you read newspapers?

How has learning about newsworthiness and types of news articles affected the way you read newspapers?

After learning about the factors leading to newsworthiness of news articles, I have begun to take note of certain details which I seldom notice in the past. Some of the factors of making a piece of news article newsworthy are unfamiliar to me. After learning more about each type of news articles (straight news and featured news), I realise that each type of news articles depend on different types of factors to make them newsworthy.

Straight news (Prime Section of newspaper) are usually more formal and have a serious tone. The factors which make them newsworthy are the number of people affected in the news, prominence of the characters involve in the incident, exceptional quality and sometimes human interest.

On the other hand, featured news (news article which elicits feelings and emotions) are written in a more discussive and casual tone. It includes more narration and descriptive details about certain shocking events in the newspaper. Usually, such articles depend on factors such as pathos, human interest, conflict, proximity (how close is the incident related to you) and probably the number of people affected. The narration in the article elicits the readers' feelings because it somehow made the readers feel as if they were in the scenes themselves!

After learning about newsworthiness and types of articles, I had look out for the respective factors in each articles. Most of the time, each type of articles would be able to prove its newsworthiness by including those factors. Of course, news articles would not be published if they are not newsworthy. But I had realised recently how much the factors in each type of articles would attract the readers attention. For example, recent news articles such as "Obama Captured Osama" include very prominent figures whom everyone knows. And without doubt, this article capture much attention from the public. The main factors affecting the newsworthiness of featured articles are the shock value of the articles and the pathos which elicits human emotion such as sympathy. Incidents about others in plight usually capture readers' attention as readers tend to be attracted to such news and sympathised with the people in the news articles.

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