Sunday 2 December 2012

Where I'm From

This is my first draft, don't laugh!

I am from hairclips and hairbands,
from the sand of the playground,
and the shop down the road.
I am from the beach, from the sea.

I am from Charles and Keith, from Ben & Jerry’s.
I am from Oreos and Milo, from fried rice and satay.
I am from Singlish, from the ‘Lah!’s to the ‘Ah!’s.

I am from a family who says ‘carats’ more than ‘carrots’.
I am from hugs and love, from fights and hate.
I am from the “She’s the little one,” and the “Aww, so cute!”

I open the cupboard of photo albums, all in a messy, random order.
I try to sort them out, find out where they’re from,
to find out where I’m from.

By Navya

Tuesday 13 November 2012

My Poem

Here is a Limerick I wrote:

You should be a vegetarian,
Since you're a veterinarian!
You eat your own patients,
what happened to this nation?!
You've really become a barbarian!

Veterinarians, please don't take offense! I couldn't think of anything else!
You see what a bad poet I am!?

Tuesday 6 November 2012

10 Things I Absolutely LOVE.

1. Cheese, because there's so many different tastes
2. Cupcakes, which sweetens all the sour in the world
3. Pizza, because there's loads of cheese and lots of toppings
4. Baking, because I can eat it at the end!
5. Helping Endangered Animals, it's not their fault they're dying, right?
6. Art, to go into my own dreamland
7. Vegetarianism, because I know I'm doing a good deed
8. Reading, it helps me learn from a different perspective
9. Venice, no land vehicles! Just the sound of waves...
10. My silly brother, My responsible sister and my loving parents

What is important to you? What do you love? What are you grateful for?

Friday 2 November 2012

No Line In Between

There is no line between prose and poetry. What is prose? What is poetry? DON'T look it up in the dictionary, I've tried. It just comes up with something stupid like: Prose is plain, ordinary, dull writing, and: Poetry is a form of writing where special intensity is given to the expression of feelings. Seriously? Poetry can be plain, dull and ordinary, and prose can have special intensity given to the expression of feelings. Can anyone actually define what poetry and prose is? Everyone's definition is different from each other's. They are never going to be the same.

Today in class, we were supposed to compare prose and poetry and write down the differences. I can write the differences between a poem and an essay. I can write the differences between an essay and a vignette. But between prose and poetry? I was stuck with this one. Actually, I didn't even know the meaning of prose before this lesson. And I still don't.

As I said earlier, no one can define poetry or prose. So how can you compare them? how do you tell if a piece of writing is a poem or not a poem? And if it's not a poem, is it a prose? All these famous poets can write literally anything and pass it off as a poem. But if someone ordinary writes something and says it is a poem, they get judged and told off that it's not a poem, it's a prose. But how do they know? It's a poem to the writer, right? So you can't tell them off that it's a prose.

To me, poetry and prose are the same thing. The forms of writing within these two categories might not be, but the categories are the same. There shouldn't have even been a line of differentiation in the first place. And I don't get it. Poetry has only one style of writing in it: Poems. But prose has everything else: essays, vignettes, biographies, etc. Why are they comparing ONE style of writing with the rest?








Monday 22 October 2012

To see a World in a Grain of Sand


To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.


This poem, To See a World in a Grain of Sand, by William Blake, has endless meanings.

The idea, the idea of seeing the world as one grain of sand, is quite amazing. Think of the world as one, just one, not many. Everyone thinks the world is huge, the biggest thing, so to think of the world as one small grain of sand, hasn't ever crossed my mind.

In this poem, William Blake is using metaphorical language. Heaven is a wild flower, while earth is a grain of sand. It really narrows your mind down, when you think of big things as small, everyday objects. Compared to a wild flower, a grain of sand is tiny. Compared to heaven, the world is tiny. This poem definitely emphasizes the fact that Heaven is a lot more bigger and better than the world. A flower is much prettier than a grain of sand. Which is saying that Heaven is much prettier than the world.

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand. Infinity. The meaning of infinity is never-ending. Can infinity fit in the palm of you hand? Maybe. Again, it's metaphorical. Maybe William Blake is trying to make you imagine yourself as God. When everything to you is small, and in your control. He wants you to see everything as a whole, and as small, everyday things.


Eternity in an hour. The meaning of eternity is never-ending time. Never-ending time in an hour? You have to imagine such a small amount of time representing a big amount of time. 


But why? Why is William Blake trying to make us see this way? Well, I bet everyone has different interpretations of it, but I think he just wants to show us a different way of seeing the world and heaven, and that once you narrow your mind down to think like this, it is so much easier clearer to see everything in this way.

It takes lots and lots of time and effort to write something which has so much meaning. It has taken me 2 weeks to finish this blog post, and it takes ages to figure out what this poem is trying to say. I have to say, this has been the hardest blog post I have ever done, but it was worth it!



Wednesday 3 October 2012

Why do we share stories?

Have you ever had a really exciting moment in your life, and you want to tell it to everyone? We always have different stories and experiences that we want to share. Sometimes they are happy experiences, and sometimes sad ones. But we will always have stories to tell.

I think we all agree that each experience and story will say something about us. The way you react to each experience, will tell you something about yourself, your emotions, your likes and dislikes.

We share stories to tell people about ourselves. If you hear a person's story, you might be able to make a connection with them, or you might not. But either way, you will have a little more knowledge of the person.

Sometimes we share stories to express ourselves and our feelings. When you had a bad day, and you tell someone about it, doesn't it feel good to have let it out? Sometimes we share stories for advice and opinions. We want to hear what other people think of the problem, if you're right or wrong. We want to see a different perspective.

Sometimes we share stories to teach lessons. We tell stories so others can learn from other's mistakes. Sometimes people tell a story to get a message across.

Some people write auto-biographies about their whole life. Why? Maybe they want to share their experiences and stories because they just had the most interesting ones. They had a life full of ups and downs, and they want to share it to the whole world!

Maybe they feel writing is the best way to get their feelings out. They want to express themselves in their own way, see what other people say. They might want feedback from other people, a different perspective.

Now I have to find out what the best way is to share my stories! Any ideas?






Sunday 23 September 2012

Our Trip to SIBU!

What a trip. I definitely learned lots in the past five days.

Play Hard. Play Fair. Play Safe.
That was one the of 'sayings' of Wasabi, one of the instructors.
Play hard. Do your best. Put 100% into anything you do.
Play fair. If you're not going to do it right, why do it at all? Let everyone have a chance.
Play safe. Safety first! Use your mind; don't do silly things.

25 Kilometres of kayaking. I can't say it was the most fun and easy thing we did, but I definitely picked up some skills from it. I obviously learnt the physical skills (sweep stroke, rock hopping, etc.), but also, how you think, affects what you do. I learnt that if you don't push yourself mentally, you'll never get there. If you keep dreading what you're doing, you will never get the most out of it. Kayaking was a thing that I didn't want to do at first. But slowly, I got used to it and pushed myself to keep going. Time will go by really fast if you live in the moment, and don't think what's ahead of you. Think about the journey, not the destination.

I also realised how we take so many things for granted. We camped out for two nights, and it wasn't easy. We set up our own tents, collected firewood, washed our own dishes. We cooked our own food, which I actually enjoyed. But those nights, I realised we were really being pushed out of our comfort zone. At home, we have air-cons, fans, comfy beds, helpers to cook food for us. But here, we had the wind, stars, the sound of the waves, insects, campfires. Which, I think, isn't that bad either.

Overall, I can't say I had a spectacular time. But I definitely got to know my classmates better. I got to bond with them. Now I see a totally different side of them, a side I never knew. I will always remember the great and tough times I had at Sibu!

Friday 14 September 2012

Reflection

In English class, I've learnt the meaning of writing a well-written piece. In a well-written piece, you have to add description, emotion, personal thoughts. You have to show, not tell. At first, I didn't understand what that meant. Show, tell? You can only show someone by showing them the literal thing. But after 5 weeks of school, I now understand how to show using words.

I find the table discussions very useful. I like the way we don't raise our hands, it gives me a feeling that we're not at school. I think it's a great way to get our ideas across, and tell people what you really are feeling. Of course, it's going to take a little time getting used to, and some people will have to challenge themselves to speak up. 

One thing I would like to change about English class is the speed. I think we are given too much time to work on one thing. I feel that every lesson, we are still working on that same thing that we worked on last week, therefore sometimes I am not looking forward to class. We are going a bit slowly in terms of our learning, so I hope that we will work a little faster in our lessons to come.

Thursday 6 September 2012

A New Start
Hi! Welcome to my blog, The Icing on the Cake. I hope to take you through my journey through this blog. I just started as a new student at UWC, and I've been really excited for my experiences ahead. Stay tuned to my blog to see how my journey progresses!

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Kayak Training!

Yesterday, we went to Mana Mana Beach Club to kayak! We were training for our expedition to Sibu in mid-September. It was a tiring, but great fun! 

We were separated into 3 different groups, with 3 different instructors. We kayaked out in the sea for a couple of hours, and then came back to eat lunch. After that, we went back into the sea to kayak again. Then we came back to clean all our equipment. Finally the long day ended and we sat on the bus back to school.


The water at Mana Mana was very, very dirty! It felt a little gross capsizing in it! The instructors were really nice and funny, and it was a really fun day overall!