This morning in school, I had a 1 hour talk on time management conducted by my consortium's counsellers. They gave us a worksheet on how did you spend your time for the week and how do you plan to spend it. After we had completed the worksheet, they then call up some of my classmates to share how they had spend their week and how do they plan to spend it. I had a friend who played in the afternoon and crammed all his haomework in the night at 10.00pm to 1.00am the next morning! The counsellers then shared with us the importance on good time management and the consequences of bad time management and showed us a video clip from youtube on time management.
Honestly, I feel I have bad time management but I am trying to make an effort to change that. I am also a procrastinator and I dislike it as the feeling of pressure of doing your homework and assignments piled up over a period of time is terrible! Though I have not made much progress, I am still trying hard to get rid of this horrible habit.
In conclusion, I believe that having good time management is important as we can efficiently complete a task assigned to us according to priority. Everyone is given an equal amount of time, 24 hours and no extra. Once the time have past, we cannot take it back. So how we want to spend our time depends on us.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Carelessness behind 95% of bush fires
Today, i would be talking about the article" Carelessness behind 95% of bush fires" from the "home" section of The Straits Times.
This article is about what caused the bush fires here in Singapore.
Blame careless smokers who toss lit cigarette butts into vegetation. Blame those who leave behind lit candles and burnt offerings at makeshift altars. Blame those who decide to cook out in the open using charcoal stoves. They accounted for 95 per cent of the 339 bush fires so far this year.
According to the Singapore Civil Defence Force, this is a "very alarming" situation as there were 182 such fires last month compared to 24 in January last year. Unthinking actions, coupled with the dry season, have resulted in a huge waste of firefighting resources. The remaining 5 per cent of bush fires are caused naturally- when dry grass rub and trigger sparks, leading to spontaneous combustion, or when they are hit by lightning.
The difficulty of putting out a fire depends on the thickness of the vegetation, the gradient of the land and how windy it is. The more an area is covered in vegetation, the more deep-seated is the fire. If it is burning on a hill, that also makes it tougher for firemen, as they have to haul water hoses up the slope. It could take an hour to bring under control a fire that has spread over an area the size of two or three football fields.
When I read this article, I was disappointed. If careless acts like this continues to happen, it may cause a firestorm. For instance, recently, there was a major firestorm in Australia. Many innocent lives and homes were lost as a result. To make matters worst, this bushfire was not caused naturally but by an arsonist. So do not think that throwing a cigarette butt into vegetation is harmless, it might cause serious disasters.
To reslove this problem, the SCDF advises the public to avoid throwing lighted materials, such as cigarette butts and matches, on grass patches and fields. It also warns against dumping trash on vacant land, as this can provide an additional source of fuel in the event of a fire.
In conclusion, do not throw lighted materials like cigarettes into grass patches or fields, as you will give unnecessary trouble for the SCDF and waste its resources.
This article is about what caused the bush fires here in Singapore.
Blame careless smokers who toss lit cigarette butts into vegetation. Blame those who leave behind lit candles and burnt offerings at makeshift altars. Blame those who decide to cook out in the open using charcoal stoves. They accounted for 95 per cent of the 339 bush fires so far this year.
According to the Singapore Civil Defence Force, this is a "very alarming" situation as there were 182 such fires last month compared to 24 in January last year. Unthinking actions, coupled with the dry season, have resulted in a huge waste of firefighting resources. The remaining 5 per cent of bush fires are caused naturally- when dry grass rub and trigger sparks, leading to spontaneous combustion, or when they are hit by lightning.
The difficulty of putting out a fire depends on the thickness of the vegetation, the gradient of the land and how windy it is. The more an area is covered in vegetation, the more deep-seated is the fire. If it is burning on a hill, that also makes it tougher for firemen, as they have to haul water hoses up the slope. It could take an hour to bring under control a fire that has spread over an area the size of two or three football fields.
When I read this article, I was disappointed. If careless acts like this continues to happen, it may cause a firestorm. For instance, recently, there was a major firestorm in Australia. Many innocent lives and homes were lost as a result. To make matters worst, this bushfire was not caused naturally but by an arsonist. So do not think that throwing a cigarette butt into vegetation is harmless, it might cause serious disasters.
To reslove this problem, the SCDF advises the public to avoid throwing lighted materials, such as cigarette butts and matches, on grass patches and fields. It also warns against dumping trash on vacant land, as this can provide an additional source of fuel in the event of a fire.
In conclusion, do not throw lighted materials like cigarettes into grass patches or fields, as you will give unnecessary trouble for the SCDF and waste its resources.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Nuisance callers dial up a 999 logjam
Today, i am going to elaborate on one of the articles in "Home" section of The Straits Times.
It is titled "nuisance callers dial up a 999 logjam."
The article is an idea-driven Story.
The main idea of the story is about pranksters swamping the police hotline while others treat it as a phone directory or compliant bureau.
After reading the article, I was disappointed and astonished. Singaporeans have been using 999 as a round- the-clock information bureau. They wanted the contact numbers of hotels, ministries and other agencies. I feel that this a self-centered act as others might have to use the hotline for emergencys. If they really need to know the location of a place or a contact number of a company, they should look for it from other sources and not the police.
The police 999 line is meant only for police-related emergencies, but officers not only have to deal with a daily influx of nuisance calls but also take other non-emergency calls. In Parliament earlier this month, Second Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam said the emergency line received 1.5 million calls last year, with close to six in 10 of those being nuisance calls. Of the 320 000 incidents the police responded to, six in 10 did not present an imminent threat to life or property. These include noise-related complaints and sightings of stray animals.
Among the genuine callers were many people who used 999 as a hotline of first resort. Over four in 10 of these calls in the day and night were non-emergency in nature, meaning the callers could have called the neighbourhood police centres or relevant agencies directly instead. Many of such calls, especially those at night, were complaints about noisy neighbours and noisy work sites.
There was a incident where a police officer while taking a call about a motorcycle accident, calmly entering the details into her computer for the police and paramedics, she received a call from a prankster. This is an instance of how nuisance calls can sometimes hamper the speed at which information is passed on and can potentially delay police response in situations where every second counts.
People seem to forget that the public also has a responsibility to use these resources properly. We should treasure this resource and not abuse it as other countries do not have such a resource.
To reslove this problem, I feel that the police could give out phamplets or broadcasting advertisments telling the public to be more considerate and the when to use the police hotline.
In conclusion, I think we should not trouble the police by making prank calls as the police have a lot to do to keep the society safe. And remember, police are humans too, not robots.
It is titled "nuisance callers dial up a 999 logjam."
The article is an idea-driven Story.
The main idea of the story is about pranksters swamping the police hotline while others treat it as a phone directory or compliant bureau.
After reading the article, I was disappointed and astonished. Singaporeans have been using 999 as a round- the-clock information bureau. They wanted the contact numbers of hotels, ministries and other agencies. I feel that this a self-centered act as others might have to use the hotline for emergencys. If they really need to know the location of a place or a contact number of a company, they should look for it from other sources and not the police.
The police 999 line is meant only for police-related emergencies, but officers not only have to deal with a daily influx of nuisance calls but also take other non-emergency calls. In Parliament earlier this month, Second Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam said the emergency line received 1.5 million calls last year, with close to six in 10 of those being nuisance calls. Of the 320 000 incidents the police responded to, six in 10 did not present an imminent threat to life or property. These include noise-related complaints and sightings of stray animals.
Among the genuine callers were many people who used 999 as a hotline of first resort. Over four in 10 of these calls in the day and night were non-emergency in nature, meaning the callers could have called the neighbourhood police centres or relevant agencies directly instead. Many of such calls, especially those at night, were complaints about noisy neighbours and noisy work sites.
There was a incident where a police officer while taking a call about a motorcycle accident, calmly entering the details into her computer for the police and paramedics, she received a call from a prankster. This is an instance of how nuisance calls can sometimes hamper the speed at which information is passed on and can potentially delay police response in situations where every second counts.
People seem to forget that the public also has a responsibility to use these resources properly. We should treasure this resource and not abuse it as other countries do not have such a resource.
To reslove this problem, I feel that the police could give out phamplets or broadcasting advertisments telling the public to be more considerate and the when to use the police hotline.
In conclusion, I think we should not trouble the police by making prank calls as the police have a lot to do to keep the society safe. And remember, police are humans too, not robots.
About Me
Let me just share with you a little bit about myself and what I would be doing on this blog. I am a fan of Manchester United, but I am not a football fanatic. What I would be sharing about on this blog would be on current affairs from the newspaper and other stuff such as snippets of my daily life and school experiences.
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