English home-learning homework 2

Musical [pick one]:

b. Write a poem on the Tom Robinson Trial / life in Maycomb/ any other incident.

I sit, I wait, I ponder

What is good, what is bad, how it shows

Through words, thoughts, feelings?

Through black, white, yellow?

I sit, I wait, I ponder

Why we have to take the blame

Of all crimes listed;

Don’t they feel ashamed?

I sit, I wait, I ponder

Why they judge by colour?

Yin and yang;

Black and white;

Good and evil;

I sit, I wait, I ponder

English home-learning homework

Naturalist:

a. Do a research on the natural habitat of mockingbird. In your research, include the kind of flora and fauna you think exist in Maycomb and explain why the mockingbirds live in Maycomb.

Mockingbird

Mockingbirds are renowned for their ability to mimic the songs of other songbirds. Their own call is a musical burble punctuated with an occasional harsh tone.

Originally natives of open scrub pine and oak forests of the West and Southeast, mockingbirds have edged northward over the last 30 years. They developed an affinity for mowed lawns and ornamental shrubs that offer them insects and berries they love to eat.

Mockingbirds are very comfortable around people. They now range from parts of southern Canada to southern Mexico. Some mockingbirds, typically those in the west, and in the northern most part of their range in Canada, migrate toward warmer regions south or to the coast. The Mockingbird is the state bird of Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. Mockingbirds will live 4 to 12 years.

Mockingbirds love just about any fruiting shrub or tree, many of which you are likely to have in your yard already. Honeysuckle, a hedge of privet, dogwood, cherry trees and eloigns are staples of many home landscapes. To attract mockingbirds and encourage these otherwise cheerful birds to visit your yard, try planting:

In the eastern part of the United States

Eastern Plants Loved by Mockingbirds
Bayberry	Chinaberry	hawthorn	redcedar
Beautyberry	crabapple	holly	sassafras
Bittersweet	greenbrier	juniper	serviceberry
Blackberry	elder	mulberry	viburnum
Blackgum	elderberry	palmetto	Virginia Creeper
Black cherry	hackberry	pyracantha	winterberry

In the southwest:

Plants In Southwest
Blackberry	condalia	holly	Virginia creeper
Bluewood	hackberry	ehretia

On the west coast:

Plants On West Coast
Bearberry	California peppertree	elderberry	laurel
Blackberry	Cascara	fig	nightshade
Buckhorn	cedar	grape

Referring to the environment and climate of Maycomb, I think the plants that would grow would be the Eastern plants as listed above. This attracts mockingbirds as there is a wide variety of choices for them to pick from.

Newspaper article review

China not main enemy: Ma 10 min-->
TAIPEI - TAIWAN'S President Ma Ying-jeou said on Tuesday that forces of nature rather than China might be the island's main enemy in the future after Typhoon Morakot killed more than 120 people.
'In the future, the armed forces of this country will have disaster prevention and rescue as their main job,' he told reporters.
'From now on, disaster prevention and rescue will be taken into consideration when the military drafts its military strategy, manpower structure, budget, and equipment.'
'Now our enemy is not necessarily people across the Taiwan Strait but nature,' Mr Ma said.
Mr Ma made the remarks amid public anger over the government's slow response to the devastation caused by Typhoon Morakot after it struck on August 8.
Taiwan and China are still technically at war despite a dramatic improvement in cross-strait ties after Mr Ma came to power last year.
Mr Ma announced that his government would purchase 15 rescue helicopters at a cost of US$300 million (S$435 million) to boost the rescue capabilities of Taiwan's airborne police unit.
He said the money would come from the budget originally set aside for the army, which calls for buying 60 UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters to replace its aging UH-1H fleet.
The president said he had decided to create a national disaster prevention agency to take over crisis management, replacing the National Fire Agency.
He also said the military would undertake intensive disaster response training. -- AFP

Based on the article above, I have wrote a review.


Review:
This article is based on the recent Typhoon Morakot that occurred on Taiwan. Quoting from the President, Mr Ma Ying Jiu , “forces of nature rather than China might be the island's main enemy in the future”. Due to the recent natural disaster, Taiwan has finally realized that the main enemy of Taiwan is not China but natural disaster after Typhoon Morakot killed more than 120 people.
Taiwan has been at war with China for a long time due to the fact that Taiwan had once been part of China until it decided to be independent , thus most of Taiwan’s money had been focused on war machines and training soldiers, leaving nothing for other purposes such as training rescue teams and buying equipment for rescue missons.
I feel that a country can never really be independent but interdependent as no man is an island and must receive help from other people sometimes. Thus, I think that China and Taiwan should sign a peace treaty and stop war as it will only hurt their relations even more. Signing a treaty with China is also an advantage to Taiwan as China is now improving rapidly.

My Favorite Food

My Favorite food:

My favorite food is chicken wings, especially homemade ones. At home, my mother makes the chicken wings with lots of corn flour, thus giving it a crispy texture which I like the most. She sometimes also cooks spicy chicken wings, much like those from Pizza Hut, only that it tastes better and is still steaming hot instead of the cold chicken wings they serve in Pizza Hut. The color of the chicken wing is also appealing, with its light brown hue and some darker parts that were overcooked, I simply could not stop salivating upon looking at it. Combined with the aroma that wafted into my nose when the dish was being cooked, I could almost taste it.

Unfortunately, my mother does not cook this dish very often, about once a month, so I have to turn to other alternatives. The alternative is McDonalds. McDonalds’s chicken wings or Mc Wings also has a very crispy texture, even more crispy than homemade ones but their exterior skin hides the little meat that they contain, which is not as appealing the ones my mother make. KFC or Kentucky’s Fried Chicken is the next in line but even though it is supposed to be renowned for its fried chickens, I find myself hating its chickens as they are not crispy even though the chickens they serve are bigger than that of McDonalds.

http://images.google.com.sg/images?hl=en&q=chicken+wings&cr=countrySG&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=3k-LSvivC6OG6APNy4ClDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4

Why keeping up with news is important

Have you ever been slow on getting all the latest trends? Ever wondered why? That is because you do not keep track of news!

Although the consequence of not keeping track of the latest fashion is not fatal, not keeping track of current news will. As everyone knows, H1N1 is roaming about now and people are dying so what if one day MOE asked everyone to stay at home for fear of flu transmission? You may not read the news and continue to go out, thus putting yourself in danger.

Reading the Smb is also in a way reading the news, thus it is also important to read the Smb daily. Not reading the Smb will not only cause trouble for yourself, it will also cause trouble for others. Imagine this scenario, you have to bring your thermometer to school, you forget and then you will have to go down to a station for teachers to take your temperature, and so wasting both the teacher's and your time.

What if the school closed down and you did not read the news or Smb? You would still come to school the next day and as Hwa Chong is not a neighbourhood school, many people live far away from it, so what if the person lived in Johor Bahru, he would have wasted his time and money. So i urged everyone out there, reading the news if important and be sure to read it everday.

Tips to stay healthy

Since the H1N1 virus is running free now, everyone needs to stay healthy to prevent oneself from dying so how do you stay healthy? Let me tell you.

Firstly, wash your hands before and after every meal, thats the most basic thing. However, i am sure not everyone pays attention to these. The hand hides a lot of germs as i touches the mst things daily, tus it is very important to wash them.

Secondly, Eat more fruit and vegtables. Since everyone knows this, i will not elaborate further.

Thirdly, stay away from crowded areas since the H1N1 virus is contagious and can be transmitted via a sneeze or cough.

And these are my tips for staying healthy! Hope you stay healthy!

Thoughts about home learning

Personally, I do not think home learning is effective at all as we cannot ask. Firstly in school when we have questions, we can immediately ask the teacher face to face. Some people may argue that we can use MSN to ask the teacher but we will be more likely to learn something if we ask face to face. Secondly, students may slack at home instead of doing their homework by just finishing the whole weeks work in one or two days. Some teachers might post their homework a few hours befor but only some teachers do that. Lastly, students can just copy answers from each other in subjects such as math where there is only 1 correct answer. The teacher will not suspect a thing and the student would have learnt nothing. So to conclude this, home learning is not good.