back from the cold

Hellloooo!

Phew! What a term this has been! Are you all partying "like it's 1999" after the OP? That's what Prince (I think that's his name now) the music artist would say in one of his songs.

Are all of you happy with the promotional examination results? I must say I was quite shocked at the results for the comprehension paper. After looking through the paper and also, looking at how you all did for individual questions, I think the reason for many who didn't do well was that most of the questions were phrase questions that required you not only to define the phrase or word but to also use a higher degree of inference. And sadly, I have not given you much practice nor challenged all of you sufficiently on that.

I will be looking into ways that we can all improve in this area next year. And doing so, I will be sharing the difficulties you had experienced with... your new GP tutor. Unfortunately, I will not be teaching your class next year. In fact, I'd be teaching the next batch of year ones. This might work out to your advantage as a more experienced teacher with perhaps a more refreshing way of teaching GP will be able to impart something of value to you.

I'm sad about this as i've gotten to know your class much better. The saying that "Familiarity breeds contempt" holds no truth at all in this situation. I want to thank all of you for putting up bravely and... patiently, with the trying moments when I was still fumbling with my teaching skills and classroom management. I am truly grateful for the times that we had because I had learnt much and I enjoyed myself just being with your class.

You might already know that you'll be having a new teacher even before you read this. But this is just my way of saying "goodbye" by saying (or typing) all the things that i wish to say before "it's too late".

HAha. Sounds like some sappy movie when the lead character is dying. So don't be a stranger when we meet each other in school! You can still sms or contact me if you need any help.

Oh I don't know as yet who will be your new GP teacher. It will surely be someone of more experience than me so you'll be in good hands i'm sure of that. I'll be checking it up with the rest of the teachers...

But do you know??

Signing off,
Mrs Yim

Blowing up the union to save the union

Dear students,

Here are the answers to the above mentioned article. I won't be going through the answers in class so if you have any problems, feel free to leave your comments on this site.

Mrs Yim

1. AARP takes over benefits that were formerly given by the company and only requires the company to contribute a minimum sum to these benefits. This is not so in older versions of the trade union as the scope of the older version was narrower and was only limited to the welfare of workers in that particular company. AARP includes all workers from different companies and works hand in hand with company policies for the benefit of both employer and employee. Older versions of the trade union saw the trade union in loggerheads with employers.

2. AARP will be appealing to workers because a majority of them want better working conditions but are afraid that they will be retrenched if they resorted to the traditional method of wage negotiation that is collective bargaining. AARP will appeal to corporations because the measures taken by AARP will ease the cost of maintaining benefits by the companies.

3. The connotation of this phrase is that Stern’s education policy for California goes against conventional labour policies and the traditional notions of labour. Furthermore, Stern’s ideas will cause much discomfort and disagreement among others.

4. Democrats think and behave in a conservative manner as they are not willing to try new ideas and methods like Stern’s. They are also narrow-minded because they are unable to put aside their agendas like the welfare of the poor to look at larger issues for the greater good.

5. Andy Stern is innovative and creative as he is able to come up with solutions for the trade unions and employers such that both are in a win-win situation. He is also very charismatic as the writer contrasts his engaging style with another senator’s dry and uninteresting speaking style.

6. The writer’s motive is to bridge the gap between the two political parties, Conservatives and Liberals, such that the problems that America faces will be resolved speedily and effectively. Thus, his write up on Andy Stern serves to illustrate the point that Andy Stern’s ideas may resolve not only problematic relations between trade unions and employers, but they may also resolve the differences between the two political parties and achieve greater benefits as a result.

Some interesting sayings

Hi there,

Here are 2 common sayings that you might find amusing and interesting to know. Hopefully, you may use this in your essay or when it appears in a comprehension passage, you will know what the writer is trying to imply.

If you are up to it, you may construct a sentence for each saying that clearly shows the meaning of the saying in the sentence. And I will give you my comments on your sentences.

Achilles' Heel
Definition
It refers to the weak and vulnerable point in something, or in a person's character, which is otherwise without fault.

Origins of the saying
It originates from the story of Thetis who held her son by the heel, when he was a child, and dipped him in the river Styx to make him invulnerable. During the subsequent Trojan wars, in which Achilles distinguished himself as the bravest of fighters, he was finally slain by an arrow directed to the one vulnerable part of his body - the tendon of the heel by which his mother had held him, and which had therefore remained dry, when she dipped him in the Styx.


An albatross around one's neck
Definition
It refers to the guilt one has to bear, which may be with one for a long time, for something one has done wrong.

Origins of the saying
The albatross is a remarkable sea bird with an 11-14 ft (3-4 m) wingspan, depending on the species, which enables it to sail with and against the wind, without visible wing strokes, for half an hour or even more at a time. These birds circle the globe in eighty days, and this is not uncommon. They make use of the Roaring Forties and other trade winds, only landing in remote oceanic islands to breed. They can live to over thirty years of age, although some are believed to have reached seventy.According to nautical superstition, it is considered unlucky to kill an albatross as these birds are believed to embody the souls of departed mariners. Coleridge's well-known poem The Ancient Mariner, first published in 1878, tells of the story of a sailor who kills an albatross. When this brings bad luck to his ship, the dead bird is hung round his neck by his shipmates as a sign of his guilt. Although he repents, and is eventually forgiven, his conscience continues to distress him, even though he goes from land to land warning others against the cruelty of killing God's creatures.

Evolution at its "best"

Since we are on the topic of evolution, I thought this picture was rather apt. :)

Bush weighs into evolution debate

Bush weighs into evolution debate
By Jonathan Beale BBC News, Washington
9 August 2005
BBC News

Bush said students ought to hear different schools of thoughtPresident George Bush has started a national debate in the US over the teaching of evolution in school. The president has suggested that a theory known as "intelligent design" should be taught in the classroom.

It proposes that life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and an unseen power must have had a hand. President Bush's championing of intelligent design will be interpreted as further evidence of the growing influence of the religious right.

The US president told newspaper reporters in Texas that children should be taught about intelligent design so they could better understand the debate about the origins of the universe.
Intelligent design differs from biblical creationism in that it is not tied to a literal interpretation of the biblical book of Genesis. Nevertheless, intelligent design points to the role of a creator, and it has become increasingly influential in Christian circles.

Scientific arguments
Yet even those on the religious right, such as Republican Senator Rick Santorum, are cautious as to how it should be taught.

"I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom," he says.
"What we should be teaching are the problems and holes, and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution."

The debate, though, is already having a real impact.

In Kansas, the board of education has been re-evaluating the way evolution is taught - a sign that more conservative politicians and officials want to reflect the theory of intelligent design.
Many scientists insist, though, it is just that - a theory.

Alan Leshner, the chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says that the proponents of intelligent design are "trying to cloak a religious concept in the mantle of science".

"There is no science to intelligent design, it's not even a scientifically answerable question," he says. In 1925, the Scopes trial marked a defeat for creationists and opened the way for evolution to be taught in US classrooms. Eighty years on, intelligent design is offering the creationists new comfort.

Once again, they are putting evolution on trial.

Look out for these Documentaries!

Hi there!

Hope you have been enjoying your break! Well, here is some good news to share with all you GP enthusiasts. Every Sunday on Channel News Asia, a documentary would be screened at 7.30pm. I caught one last sunday and it was about Hiroshima and the atomic bombings on Japan. Absolutely riveting because of the true life account of many witnesses and its interesting perspective on the historical event.

You can visit this link for more information.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/documentary/list.htm

Happy viewing!

AIDS: Too much morality, too little sense

The Economist
July 28th 2005

Politicians must suspend moral judgments if AIDS is to be defeated
Get article background

THE world is not winning the war against AIDS. By the end of this year, 3m poor people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are supposed to be receiving the treatment they need. So far, though, barely 1m are. At present, about 40m people are living with HIV, some 5m are infected with it each year and over 3m die from it. The human and economic cost is huge. India may well have more infected people than any other country. China's epidemic has the potential to dwarf all others (see article).

In most of the world, AIDS tends to affect fairly discrete groups, usually prostitutes, homosexuals and drug addicts. In most societies these people are frowned upon. Democracies like them no more than autocracies. When it comes to receiving help from taxpayers, they are never at the top of anyone's list, especially in countries so poor that basic health care is not available to most citizens.

But if AIDS is not contained among the groups that harbour it, it spreads into the general population, as it has in Africa. There, it affects every section of the population—slum-dweller and sophisticate, peasant and professional. Everyone who engages in that near universal activity, sex, is at risk. As it is, AIDS is no respecter of morals: it affects babies as they are born, children as they are orphaned, nurses as they are accidentally pricked by a dirty needle, patients of any kind as they receive a transfusion of contaminated blood. Indeed, it affects the entire society in which its victims live and die.

It also affects the faithful wife of the unfaithful husband. That is why the ABC slogan so beloved by the Bush administration—Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms—is, in practice, a slap in the face to many people. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief commits at least a third of its promised $15 billion to “abstinence until marriage” as the main way of stopping the spread of AIDS. It also urges that the use of condoms be confined to people who engage in “risky behaviour”—prostitutes or couples with one member who is HIV-positive. Many groups are reported to be ending or reducing their condom-promotion schemes to qualify for American money.

That might not matter if condoms did not matter, but they do. In the absence of a proper vaccine, an absence that is likely to continue for years, condoms are the best prophylactic available to anyone at risk of HIV infection through a sexual encounter, within or outside marriage (see article). Abstinence might, it is true, be better still, but abstinence will not, in the real world, be practised widely enough to bring AIDS under control. Now, in a further demonstration of its moral zeal, the Bush administration is insisting that all groups, American or foreign, that are engaged in the struggle against AIDS must declare their opposition to prostitution if they are to receive American money. The administration is also against all needle-exchange projects for drug addicts, one of the groups most likely to contract, and spread, AIDS in Russia, India and China.

The poor countries that have got on top of nascent AIDS epidemics—Brazil (see article), Thailand, Uganda and Cambodia—have done it by changing behaviour. That is no easy task, involving as it does a variety of actions across a wide front. It has proved possible because limits have been set on the endeavour: people have not been asked to act morally, merely in their own self-interest, which happens to be in the interest of society.

The lesson for rich and poor alike is that to contain AIDS morality must take second place. Politicians may find it easier to yield to sanctimonious lobbyists than to explain why refraining from judging other people makes more sense. But that does not excuse them. Too many lives are at stake.

GP consultation groups for 1st common test essay

Dear class 24/05

Here is the list of names that are scheduled for the various slots. Do let your gp rep know if you are not able to make it. This is so that the gp rep may compile a list of names of those who are not able to attend.

If you will like to attend the session that covers the question that you have not attempted, please feel free to do so. :)

Thank you everyone and hope to see you in class soon.

Consultation groups for 1st common test:

Friday 22nd July
1615-1655hrs
venue: 10-27
topic: Why do parents find it increasingly difficult to protect...
Names:
Min Yuan
Pamela
Vincent
Elvin
Priscilla

Monday 25th July
1455-1535hrs
venue: 10-25
topic: Computer games and Education system
Names:
Jerica
Warren
Kenneth
Shuwen
Kuan Yan
Shu Ying
Ee Ting
Ser Kun
Ada

Tuesday 26th July
1455-1535hrs
Venue: 412
Topic: Tourism
Name:
Arlene
Yi Yang
Clarence
Shu Min
Ashley
Sophia
Yi Zhen
Jasper
Joshua
Lay Koon