family before friends/work

Reunion dinners are a Chinese tradition. Although many people still follow this tradition, most people do not know the real meaning of a family reunion dinner. On New Year’s Eve, I had my reunion dinner with my family (including my cousins, aunts and uncles). I am happy to say that my whole family bonds well with each other and have no problems. We all attend the same church and therefore spend lots of time together. However, some families do not get chances to meet each other very frequently; hence they do not feel very intimate with their family members. Some parents do not even spend time with their kids, causing their children to resort to computer games and online chatting to confide in others. Even if they gather for reunion dinner, it would be pointless to meet for the sake of meeting.

This year, because of the economic downturn, many Chinese people from China who came to Singapore to work find travelling back to China for reunion dinner a waste of money. They would rather spend their new year alone than with their family. Has family reunion lost its meaning?

In contrary to what many young people think, I think that everyone should put family before friends as friends come and go, but family will always be family.

I think that the real meaning of family reunions and bonding is getting together to share your troubles and joy as a family and enjoying and cherishing the moments you have with your family before it’s too late...

picture from www.24dash.com

Something that happened in school

I think we should do it this way, it’s much more innovative!' It was a typical day at school in science class. We were split into groups to have our discussion about our group work. In the middle of the discussion, I realised that my shoelaces were untied. Without much hesitation, I bent down to tie them and continued with the discussion. But after a few seconds, I found my shoelaces untied again! Wondering, what was happening, I again bent down to tie my shoelaces. At that point of time, I was getting a little irritated, however it did not affect the discussion of the group.


Just as I was bending down to starch my legs, I found one of my group mates holding on to my shoelaces laughing away. 'Stop playing a fool! It’s not funny...' I exclaimed as I pushed his hands away from me. However, I was shocked to find him pulling my shoelaces despite me noticing. I was so frustrated that I kicked him in his leg. 'ARGH!!!' he shouted while grabbing his leg tightly. I was surprised from his strong reaction as I only used little force kicking him. I later found out that his leg was injured and apologised to him.


The next day when I got to school, I was told to see Mr Chia during recess. I felt very nervous as I had never been called to the discipline office before. 'Ring...' the bell went off as I made my way to Mr Chia's office with my heart pounding vigorously. When I got there, I saw my group mate (the guy whom I kicked) and Mr Chia standing inside the office. That was when I knew what was going on. My group mate’s mother had called up the school to complain about me kicking her child. Because of that I was scolded very badly by Mr Chia and was scared out of my wits......


After reflecting on what had happened, I regretted making that decision of kicking him as I felt that I was acting too rashly. Due to what had happened, I had learnt a valuable lesson. That is to hold my temper and be more patient. Acting rashly with violence cannot solve any problems but only creates more trouble. After this incident, I will think before I act and consider the consequences of my doings.

Music

I love music, not only listening to it but playing music. I am now currently playing 4 musical instruments, they are the violin, guitar (electric and acoustic), saxophone and a Chinese instrument called suona.


I attend lessons for saxophone and violin. However, I self-learnt the guitar. I am in the Victoria School Chinese Orchestra, hence playing a Chinese instrument. Initially, I hated the suona as I was forced into playing that instrument. My intention of joining Chinese orchestra was to learn how to play the Dizi, which in other words a Chinese flute. But after playing the suona for one year, I now find it very fun and interesting. Not many people play this instrument; therefore, I think it is a privilege that I have the chance to learn how to play it. Before I joined the Chinese Orchestra, I used to dislike Chinese instruments and how they sound. Now, I think that they are very interesting and cool!
A few years back, I used to play the piano but I stopped at grade three as I did not like it very much. Many people think that playing the violin is harder than playing the piano but I think otherwise. The instruments I have at home includes like a keyboard, a piano, 2 violins, a saxophone, a suona, 5 guitars and a drum set. You must be wondering why do I have a drum set at home... well my brother had just started learning the drums and therefore uses it to practice.

There are a few genres of music that I listen to. I like rock, pop rock, R&B, jazz and sometimes classical. I own a couple of iPods as they have such cool designs. I have the iPod touch, iPod nano and an iPod shuffle. Everyone who likes music must have great sound to play the music. Hence I bought the portable Bose iPod speaker as I can bring it when there a picnic or when I travel. I like Bose because it provides awesome bass and crystal clear sound.
In the next few years, I hope to pick up some instrument like ErHu and maybe the cello. Maybe you might think I want to be some kind of musician when I grow up but actually I only learn music for fun and leisure. Music helps me to de-stress and I hope that more people can appreciate music.

My hobby, what i enjoy doing alone

I actually have two hobbies. I like to play golf and play with yoyos. I learn golf at Seletar Country Club with my brother. My coach's name is Trent and he is from Australia. He is very friendly and treats us well; hence I developed an enjoyment in the sport. I just took my handicap test and I passed with flying colours, now to get a handicap, I have to play ten full games and submit the scorecards to the club. I am hoping to get about 18 or below.

Now about yoyo-ing. I had just picked up yoyo-ing recently about 3 to 4 months ago from my classmates and now I can do several cool tricks! Other than playing with yoyos I also like to collect yoyos of all shapes, sizes and colours. I now have 9 yoyos in my collection and all of them are used for different types of tricks as they all have different spin times. Among all my yoyos, 3 of them are made of metal, which are more expensive and spin longer, and 6 of them are made of plastic. Although they are made of plastic, two of them in particular are not very cheap. My Dark magic, which is the one in black, cost approximately $60 and my Freehand Zero costs approximately $55.

Two of my metal yoyos cost more than $200 and the other was $100+. These yoyos are not like toys as they require regular maintenance .I like to learn new tricks from the internet and challenge myself to expert tricks which require high accuracy. Other than learning tricks from the internet, I also exchange tricks with my classmates in school during recess time.I feel that a hobby like yoyo-in and golf are very productive as they both require patience and concentration. I am glad I have hobbies as such rather than playing computer games as that would spoil my eyes.

A family outing disaster

'Yawn...' I stretched myself as I woke up from a dreadfully long sleep. Today was the day that my cousin's family arrived from Australia and we had plans to go ice-skating. It was eleven o'clock when I got washed up and changed. Then, my family and I set off for Jurong leisure Park to meet my cousins to have lunch. The first disaster happened when my cousins and my brother got me to buy iced Milo from Mac Donald's. Feeling bothered, I made my way down the escalator and bought the iced milos. When I came out of Mac Donald's, I saw my cousins and brother rushing me to go upstairs. I ran up the escalator and tripped on a step. 'Splash!' the iced milos were spilled all over the end of the escalator as I fell with a thud. Hoping that nobody saw me, I quickly ran away and pretended that nothing happened. Fortunately, a cleaner cleaned up the whole mess in just a matter of minutes. I heaved a sigh of relief not knowing about what was going to happen...After lunch, we made our way to the skate rental to rent some skates just before making our way into the skating ring. For the first half and hour or so, everyone was having a good time. However, another disaster struck when my brother slipped and twisted his ankle!

He sat there crying and he could not walk. My father then tried to skate there and almost fell too as he was not that good in skating. Me and my father dragged him out of the ring and took of his skates. Apparently he did not wear his skates tight enough, hence twisting his ankle so easily. My brother weighs quite a hefty amount of kilograms but my father had no choice but to carry him to the nearest Chinese physician for some massage. In the end, we only skated for about 45 minutes and I think that it was a family outing disaster.In spite of all the unhappiness back then, looking at it now I actually find it quite amusing to see my brother's expression when he was crying. Although it was a disaster, we still get some time to chat with our relatives from overseas as we all went for a drink afterwards.