Eileen
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 @ <
$BlogItemDateTime$>
Angry People Cheer Up - By Punching A Panda
Angry enough to punch a defenceless panda? Then come to New York. Every week, there will be a person don a panda suit, head onto the streets and challenge members of the public to take a swing. The panda will hop down the sidewalk like a boxer. He will urge passers-by on a freezing afternoon in busy Union Square and said, "Hit me. You know you are angry. You were angry this morning." This is seen as a "community service". This is because in a world filled with angry people, this persona of Punch-Me-Panda will lighten their day. The purpose is to relieve some of the suffering on the street.
Starting, many see this scene will roll their eyes at the sight. Some confused Punch-Me-Panda with an advertising campaign. Others seemed horrified at the idea of punching anything. Or they might just not have been angry. To attract a beating, the panda will thump his chest with a red boxing glove. He will assure in a muffled voice, "I am not going to hit you back."
Then the idea started to catch on. A woman gave a gentle jab and a young man fired a quick left-right. A group of men egged one another on, punching, kicking and shoulder-charging the ever-patient victim. However each time, the panda pugilists walked away, faces glowing. "I felt so good afterwards. At the first punch, I was kind of hesitant but, upon the first contact, I could tell it enlivened the panda and I decided to go for it."
I feel that if Singapore can have this kind of scene like in US, it will be great. This is because Singapore is a fast-paced country, especially the education system is stressful nowadays. Sometimes if we are frustrated or feeling upset, punching a defenceless panda will definitely reduce our stress tension and help to lighten the mood of angry passers-by. With this concept, violence cases in Singapore may reduce as there is something for Singaporeans to vent on. Moreover, they will feel better mentally with this concept when things are not going smoothly or right for them.
Labels: Eileen
Eileen
@ <
$BlogItemDateTime$>
3D Animation Puts Singapore On World Map
This animation is titled "Dream Defenders" and is targeted at 6 to 9 years old. This is Singapore's first animation series in stereoscopic 3D. The plot begins with 2 heroes, Zoey and Zane who move between dreams and reality, fighting off literally your worst nightmares. The unique aspect of this series is it features cool gadgets, consists scary villains and above all, a lesson to children in conquering their fears. The ideology brings across to children is "No worries, no monsters".
As we all know, animation market is getting bigger these few years in Singapore. The government is investing a huge sum of money in the animation field and creating many jobs for animators' fresh graduates. This shows that there is potential in animation field in Singapore. Although not as good as Western countries' productions such as Dreamworks, Pixar and Disney etc, this animation, "Dream Defenders" from Singapore is definitely an exception. I am proud of how Singapore is able to overcome all obstacles and come out with this unique animation series.
I believe animation sector will definitely grow in these few years. "In its 2009/2010 annual report, MDA reported that the media sector contributed S$5.5 billion of value-added and S$22.4 billion in revenue to the Singapore economy in 2008, employing some 63 000 workers. In the period between 1997 and 2009, the compounded annual growth rate was 6.8%, higher than 5.9% growth for the overall economy."
This series has a very strong content and strong cast, with strong demand in the West such as US, Europe as well as in Asia. The work has impressed a major US network so much that it commissioned Tiny Island to work on one of its projects. Since animation is a high strategic priority for Singapore's media industry, soon there will be more animation properties coming out of Singapore across multiple platforms, and into games, publications, hard copy, electronic, television as well as feature films.
Labels: Eileen
Eileen
@ <
$BlogItemDateTime$>
Cameron Highlands Worst Tragic Accident
Seems like a coincidence, me and my family also went to Cameron Highlands during the December holidays. But my family went the day before the tragic accident took place. I was horrified by this news when the next day after my family were safety back to my grandma's house, my aunt told and gave us this news in the picture shown. The horrifying part was the accident took place at the spot, where my aunt drove us back home. I still remembered when my aunt drove us back was around 6.30pm. As it was nearing 7.30pm, we were still in the mountain. It took us to reach the nearest village at 8pm. At 7.30pm, it was quite scary as the sky was very dark and there were no lights/lamps to guide the drivers along. My grandma was scared until she kept looking at the road hard and even prayed for our safety. My aunt, who was driving us, was very conscious and careful where she was driving. Deep inside, she was also very terrified because it was very dark, and we could not see the other side where the cars were heading towards us. Moreover, the mountain roads were quite curvy and narrow.
It was really saddening to see that 27 people died in the accident, 22 died on the spot and 5 died in the hospital. Those 22 people who died on the spot, I believed the crash was really fatal and severe. The crash was so fatal until the upper deck of the double decker coach was actually shelved off! I actually saw the coach 2 days later, when it was bought back to Ipoh, with the upper deck shelved off. It was really a gruesome sight. I heard that there were brains seen and blood flowing. When the 27 passengers were about to leave Cameron Highlands, they actually saw black crows flying around; a bad omen that something really bad would happen to them later. 3 of the people died actually died at a very young age. To think they came all the way from Thailand to enjoy a relaxing holiday, they never expect this is where their lives would end.
I hope there will be no more tragic accidents happening in highlands places. This tragic accident is known to be Malaysia's worst accident so far that has taken place. A very saddening news, especially to the victims.
Labels: Eileen
Eileen
Saturday, November 27, 2010 @ <
$BlogItemDateTime$>
I have heard from a guy friend of mine, who is 6 years older than me, told me that in the past in his secondary school, there used to have 2 gangs (Chinese VS Indian) in his school. The scary part was the 2 gangs had been passed down for 3 generations. The 1st and 2nd generation were the fiercest and scariest. There used to be fights, even slashes in the school itself. The school could not even handle this situation because the 2 gangs were not even scared of the teachers and principal. Imagine if you are a student there in the school, and everyday you have to go to school in fear. I did not expect to have gang fights because maybe I did not see one before and did not expect to have one in a civilized country, Singapore.
Nowadays due to teen gangs fights have made it into the headlines of newspapers, I start to see the seriousness of teens gangs. It is certainly extremely important to have schools teaching students how to avoid when you happen to see teen gangs and also, not to join their society. Schools should recruit counsellors to protect their students from gang activities and boost their self-confidence to keep them away from gangs. If only we could avoid these, we could actually prevent things from going beyond control, such as teen gangs fights and teen gangs will not have the confidence to do bad and dangerous things openly in Singapore.
A few major reasons teenagers chose to join the teen gangs society were because they did not like to study, could not make any friends in school, no self-worth, lack of parental love, dropouts, no self-control, no sense of belonging and no confidence. They feel that after they join the society, they will be able to make lots of friends and will feel good about it. They feel that if they are involved in fights, they are not a 'softie' but a tough person. By joining the secret society, they believe they will have a sense of belonging and this will build up their confidence.
Moreover, there is a major difference in today's and in the past teen gangs. Nowadays teen gangs tend to be disorganized, unlike in the past, gangs followed specific codes of conduct and were controlled by a headman. Recently I keep getting this sms or happen to see this message in facebook about teen gangs, "This message is for every girl who goes to work, college or school alone: if you find a child crying on the road showing his/her address & is asking you to take them there, take them to police station no matter what you do. Don't go to that address, this is a new way for gang members to rape females, please copy and pass this to all girls & boys so they can inform all friends and family members." This is rather horrifying, and when have Singapore become so unsafe?
Labels: Eileen
Eileen
Thursday, November 11, 2010 @ <
$BlogItemDateTime$>
FACEBOOK
I started using Facebook in the year 2009. Before using the social network website 'Facebook', I have been using Friendster instead since year 2006. However it seems like no one has entered Friendster ever since Facebook has turned popular. In order to follow the trend of using Facebook to connect with friends, I stopped using Friendster and switched to Facebook instead. Indeed, Facebook has captured my attention right from the start, and until now I am still an active user in Facebook. As of July 2010, Facebook has more than 500 million active users. Facebook has also become the top social network in Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
I feel that Facebook edges over Friendster because Facebook has games applications such as Frontier Ville, Mafia Wars, FarmVille, Restaurant City and Pet Society etc. Another unique thing about Facebook is it has many quizzes, especially quizzes on psychology, relationships and personality, which attract teenagers. I also like several features such as wall post, comments, notifications, creating events to inform friends, join groups and most importantly, able to see my friends' latest updates where I can gauge how are they doing currently from the photos they have uploaded and the posts they have written and catch up with them. Facebook sees the importance of privacy and users are able to customize who are able to view their profile.
Facebook is an addictive social website, just like Blogspot and Twitter. With so many social networks around nowadays such as Twitter, MySpace etc, Facebook has to compete with these social networks by maintaining and grow its current members. It has to upgrade its layout constantly and introduce new features that are appropriate and user friendly to its users. Or else it may end up like Friendster, resulting users to switch to the next popular social network.
However, Facebook has met with some controversy. The social network has been blocked in a few countries; Pakistan, Syria, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, Iran, Uzbekistan and North Korea. It is also banned at many workplaces to discourage employees from wasting time using the service.
Labels: Eileen
Eileen
Monday, November 8, 2010 @ <
$BlogItemDateTime$>
SMARTPHONE
Imagine having a few devices in your bag, such as your cell phone, PDA, PSP and mp3 gadget. Wouldn’t it be extremely inconvenient bringing all four of them around with you wherever you go? If you own your very own Smartphone, you will have a device with all the functions that you can name and also lighten your load with just one device to carry around! Owning a Smartphone is definitely a smart move because you can use it for everything! In Singapore, you have a variety of brands to choose from, such as the well-known Apple iphone 4, HTC, Blackberry, Android, Samsung etc.
Smartphone may be a want for young adults, but definitely a need for most businessmen and career women. Businessmen will consider a Smartphone because it runs complete operating system software providing a platform for application developers just like a desktop computer, and it is considered a Personal Pocket Computer with mobile phone functions. Businessmen can get the latest updates on their work and receive emails immediately through the portable Smartphone. Nowadays, Smartphone sales have increased tremendously, and have dominated the mobile phone industry, especially in United States.
I will prefer HTC because I feel that HTC has carried its brand well through mass media and it is famous for its touch screen. Young adults like me can use Smartphone to scan the folders for our schoolwork, browse Internet, email and most importantly, it has a large memory space. What engages me is HTC includes a messenger that has a chat-style layout, unlimited characters, which seems like a real-time conversation experience with friends! I urge everyone that if you have not experienced owning your very own Smartphone, experience it now and you will be unable to resist the temptation of what a Smartphone can actually does! This is my dream phone of HTC, HTC Mozart 7!
Labels: Eileen
