During this great culture revolution era, African Americans finally got the chance to thrive, among which is the song, Mother to son, comprised of the monologue of an African American mother whose life was surrounded by misery encouraged her son to follow her, be optimistic and overcome all the hardships and surmount all the obstacles in life. The three main themes in the song are hardships, courage, and the role of a mother, and these are highlighted by Hughes through the song’s form and literary devices.

In the poem, Hughes highlights the inevitable hardship dealt in any individual’s life. The idea is shown by the use of symbolism and anaphora. The speaker mentioned the “crystal stair” at both the outset and the end of the song.

The crystal stairs symbolize the comforting life style, which the mother does not possess. This very idea is repeated in the close line when the speaker says
”and life for me ain’t been no crystal stairs”. using the same symbols at the beginning and closing lines, the speaker depicts a vivid image that African Americans are far away from obtaining the American life style no matter how hard they try, the beginning circles back to the ending. The technique of anaphora is used when the speaker repeats: “And splinters, / And boards torn up, / And places with no carpet on the floor—” The word “and” is repeatedly used at the start of each line, highlighting the adversities and various challenges in the life of the mother, each “and” introduces a new impediment, highlighting the never-ending sufferings in the mother’s life journey, as well as the hundreds of thousands of African American.

The song is written in free verse, without a particular rhyme scheme, stanza pattern or rules in the length of its lines. This could be a possible implication of the theme of courage. When one is courageous, with its perseverance, one could persistently break through all the difficulties hindering, restricting it from moving forward. Under the background of the song, the difficulties here could be implying poor living conditions, the “tacks”, the “splinters”, the “boards torn up”, the “places with no carpet on the floor”, but on a higher level, referring to racism, discrimination and inequality that are faced by African Americans in the early twentieth century. The theme of courage suggested by the free style of the song could be the fight against the dark elements and dangerous situations. It is the determination that the less privileged classes need in order to survive and achieve their goals.

Moreover, the poem presents the mother as a role model for the child. The mother and her son seem to be strongly bonded. The mother uses her life experiences to point the correct directions for her son and intends to prepare her son mentally ready for life, leading her son to a better future and to become a better individual.

As a conclusion, through a monologue of a representative African American mother in the song, the speaker has effectively reflects the situation of African Americans and their difficult fight against discrimination and racism. It plays a key role in the artistic movement in Harlem during the 1920s.

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Circular motion

When a weight (or any other objects) is hanged on a string and doing circular motion, the length of the string, the velocity and the centripetal acceleration is linked by the formula:

Since F = m · a, the force applied on the object will therefore be:

Knowing the formulas, what are the magnitudes and directions of velocity and acceleration in circular motion?

Acceleration has constant magnitude but varying direction (therefore even though the object might be traveling at a constant speed, it is constantly accelerating). Velocity is a vector. When the object travels it is constantly changing. When it is traveling at a constant speed it has a constant magnitude but a varying direction.

The velocity and acceleration in an object in circular motion are always perpendicular.

Uniform circular motion can be described as the motion of an object in a circle at a constant speed.

Collisions

There are two types of collisions, elastic and inelastic.

Video from Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-physics-1/ap-linear-momentum/inelastic-collisions-and-2d-collisions-ap/v/elastic-and-inelastic-collisions

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Squeezing through the flock of people, he finally emerged inside the station. People around him were shoulder to shoulder, face to face. They were talking, some yelling into their phones, others patting each other and shouting with flying saliva. There was also the beeping of the ticket scanner, groaning of the conveyer belt, zipping noise of luggage and suitcases. Far ahead, there was the sound of a lady broadcasting the state of the trains, but it was soon unidentifiable, being smothered by footsteps as the crowded queue started to move forward again. All of the different sound was mixed together, twirling around him, as if the crowd was a huge swirl in the middle of the ocean, intending to suck him in. The crowd, the low ceiling, the limited seats and check-in stations seemed to be an invisible hand pressing on passengers, making people unable to breathe.

Eventually, he got past the security check and stepped towards his station. There was no train on the rails yet, so he tried to find a seat. The sitting area was milling with people. Some were on the seats, some were sitting on the floor, while others lay asleep with bags under their head, waiting for the train. He laid his suitcase flat on the floor and sat down. He counted the number of seats then observed each one. Most of the seats were covered with spots of heavy rust. It was hard to imagine how bright and smooth and shiny they used to be. The plastic parts of the seats were deformed in the high temperature, their faded skin coiled up and flakes of plastic was peeled off. On the potholed wall, there were the yellowed fans, fanning in all directions uselessly.

Ages, centuries seemed to pass, until eventually, the train arrived with a gust of wind. Soon it started accelerating away from the station, as if it was a happy bird breaking out from a crowded, tiny cage, gliding freely, smoothly into the wild.

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Unseen passage analysis (IGCSE Paper 1 Question 2 d)
— Ch. 3, Nineteen Eighty Four

The question will be based on the following extract.

At this moment his mother was sitting in some place deep down beneath him, with his young sister in her arms. He did not remember his sister at all, except as a tiny, feeble baby, always silent, with large, watchful eyes. Both of them were looking up at him. They were down in some subterranean place — the bottom of a well, for instance, or a very deep grave — but it was a place which, already far below him, was itself moving downwards. They were in the saloon of a sinking ship – sibilance, looking up at him through the darkening water. There was still air in the saloon, they could still see him and he them, but all the while they were sinking down, down – epizeuxis into the green waters which in another moment must hide them from sight for ever. He was out in the light and air while they were being sucked down to death, and they were down there because he was up here. He knew it and they knew it – epiphora, and he could see the knowledge in their faces. There was no reproach either in their faces or in their hearts – anaphora, only the knowledge that they must die in order that he might remain alive, and that this was part of the unavoidable order of things.

He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to his own. It was one of those dreams which, while retaining the characteristic dream scenery, are a continuation of one’s intellectual life, and in which one becomes aware of facts and ideas which still seem new and valuable after one is awake. The thing that now suddenly struck Winston was that his mother’s death, nearly thirty years ago, had been tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible. Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy, love, and friendship – rule of three, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason. His mother’s memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable. Such things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there were  fear, hatred, and pain – rule of three, creates contrast, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows – anaphora. All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and his sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms down and still sinking.

The first paragraph is about Winston’s dream of his mother’s death. The second paragraph is about Winston’s feelings towards the society he lives in.
Explain how the writer uses language to convey meaning and create effect in these two paragraphs.

In the first paragraph, the writer conveys Winston’s guilt and helplessness through the use of contrast, repetition and sibilance. Firstly, the writer describes that in Winston’s dream, “They were in the saloon of a sinking ship”. Here, the writer uses the language technique of sibilance, repeating the “s” sound in close proximity. This highlights the quietness of the sinking ship, showing that Winston’s mother and sister accept their fates, perhaps desperately, without a blame, and Winston resigns their deaths. Thus, it could be seen that Winston is helpless upon the deaths of his family members. Secondly, the writer shows the reason, as Winston believes, as his family’s death: “they were down there because he was up here”. These words seem to be in a symmetrical arrangement, and sets of antonyms are used, such as “down” and “up”, “there” and “here”. This creates a strong contrast, showing that the situations of Winston and his family are completely different — Winston himself away from danger, while his family approaching death. The contrast shows Winston’s mental burden, which keeps him conscious at all times that he is alive due to others’ sacrifice therefore showing that his heart is filled with guilt. Thirdly, the writer says that for the fact that Winston’s family died to keep Winston alive, “He knew it and they knew it” and that when they are “sinking down, down into the green waters”, Winston’s sister and mother have no reproach “either in their faces or in their hearts”. Through the use of three types of repetition, epiphora, epizeuxis and anaphora respectively, the writer creates a rhythm that seems to resonance in the readers’ heart, perhaps just as the way how these pieces of memories rings again and again in Winston’s mind and he can’t get rid of them. This suggests Winston’s uneasy emotional experience after the death of his family, thus clearly showing his heart is full of guiltiness.

In the second paragraph, the writer shows Winston’s hatred towards the society he lives in through the rule of three, repetition and exaggeration. First of all, in Winston’s opinion, in the ancient times there are “privacy, love, and friendship”, while the time the story is set there is only “fear, hatred, and pain”. The use of the rule of three in the first phrase indicates that the traits of ancient society are memorable to Winston, and his appreciation and yearn for those characteristics. Rule of three used in the second phrase creates a strong contrast with the first phrase. The phrases have the exactly same structure, with three nouns separated by commas, but the words in the second phrase have completely opposite meanings. They seem to replace the three words in the first phrase one by one, suggesting that traits from the past, which Winston is fond of, are completely wiped out and are replaced by negative ones. Thus, it was shown that Winston hates the society he lives in. Secondly, the writer describes that in the society in which Winston lives, there is “no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows”. Anaphora is used here as “no” is repeated in the beginning of each phrase, listing things Winston would like to have in the society while stating at the same time that these do not exist in Winston’s society, showing that the society is frustrating and disappointing to Winston, leading to his hatred to the society.

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Secondly, badminton training. It has been a long time since I last met my teammates and it was so great to do exercises and drills with them again. The sport halls looked exactly the same as when I had my last training before the circuit breaker, we were in our usual training shirts and with our usual racquets. (everything felt the same except that everyone had longer hair and that I got fats around my waist…)

Another important thing I have been doing is revising for all the subjects. Due to corona, all internal exams for the grade 9s were cancelled, meaning that we will be doing the mocks at the start of the next school year without any practice at school before it. It feels like being pushed onto the battlefield with a sword and a shield but no prior experiences. At the same time, I realised a horrible fact…

I don’t feel that IGCSE was hard before, since I was getting everything my teachers were talking about and I passed most of my subjects with a 7, but there was this one day when I was checking through my email, I found that the school had sent us materials (mostly internal papers from the past years) from all of our subjects’ teachers for us to revise for IGCSE.

As I attempted a few papers, I was stuck on a few questions that I had no idea of how to answer them. For instance, the Chemistry internals paper include questions that were about cations, which was in the Electrolysis chapter which we haven’t even learnt about. It doesn’t seemed to be a problem since the chapter will probably be taught in Grade 10. However, when I thought about this carefully, I realised that these papers were for Grade 9 students in the past few years. This means that at the same time in the previous years, students have already learnt about these chapters.

We are behind schedule ?

Myself 2020 July

So what I did in the following weeks were mostly revising for all the subjects, working on all the past papers as well as learning those contents that our teachers haven’t taught us but were included in the internals. There was this friend of mine who complained that I was doing too much that she couldn’t play games with me anymore (we were playing the same game named “Sky: Children of the Light” developed by ThatGameCompany. It is a social game that allows you to interact with online friends and to take flights with them. It really helped me to be positive during the time when I wasn’t able to stay connected with most of my friends). I don’t think I was doing too much. In fact, I am worrying that what I am doing isn’t enough. I believe that all those people who could pass the internals were autodidacts during the holiday, even though most of them never speak of how hard they were working. There was a Chinese saying that metaphorically describes hard-working people as ducks — they seemed to be relaxed above the water surface, but their feet were moving really quickly beneath the water surface where no one could see, and this is the reason why they swim fast. No pain, no gain.

The thing that saved my day was an apple function. I would really love to thank the person who came up with the idea. So what happened today was that I was listening to music on my laptop while reading a digital book. And then I heard my mum, her footsteps coming towards my room. I was terrified as she did not allow me to listen to music on my laptop at all. I understood that that was for my good and listening to music could reduce my productivity, but I still thought that reading a book is a relaxing process and listening to music without lyrics could help me concentrate. Anyways, so I was scared that my AirPods will be confiscated and I decided to hide it somewhere (I guess no one does that anymore when he is a fifteen-year-old but that was what I did ￣□￣｜｜). I don’t really remember what was in my mind at the moment but I opened my wardrobe doors and chucked both of my AirPods inside the the bunch of clothes, leaving the charging case on my table.

Mum came in, found nothing and got out. Time to get the AirPods back. I sneaked back to the wardrobe and then… Facing the messy bunch of clothes, I had no idea where the two tiny AirPods were. My fingers quickly went through the corners of the wardrobe but there were nothing excepts T-shirts, hoodies and leggings.

Then I remembered that there was a function on phones and updated macs called “Find my…”. When I dropped my phone somewhere I didn’t remember, I used this app to find it by locating it on a map and to make it make sound. I was still worried — even if an AirPod could be located, the location of it should be of the case, right? How much technology could the tiny AirPods fit?

I started researching desperately and then I found this article. I was completely wrong, and I was glad that I was wrong.

In fact, AirPod could be located, and the left and right thingy that goes into your ears could make their own sounds separately. I was on the edge of bursting into tears due to thankfulness when I read through the article. The moment was amazing when I heard sounds from my wardrobe. After taking all my clothes out from the wardrobe, I found one of the AirPods, then the other. I quickly got them back into the charging case and didn’t put them on for the rest of the day.

Overall, I was pretty amazed by the design of the function. I realized how cool it is to design something that people actually need. Perhaps it was just a simple choice of the designer — to put the sounding device on the charging case or the AirPods, but to the consumers, the simple choice could save their day.

Regarding useful designs, I had this amazing idea came up by one of my Product Design classmates that I would really love to share. Basically, his design was an app that comes with a set of stickers (these look exactly like the stickers my sister plays with). So when the user had something that they think they might lose, they “Add an object” in the app and connect it with one of the stickers. After this they stick the sticker on the object. These steps enable them to track the location of the objects on their phones with the app, anytime, anywhere. Cool, right?

P.S. I would love to have one of the stickers on my Kindle. I lost my Kindle in New Zealand on my school trip once and got it back (thanks to my teacher who has a home in New Zealand) in Singapore after 6 months.

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Chapter 11 – Gas exchange in humans

Questions

1. Explain as fully as you can why the lungs show adaptations for a rapid rate of diffusion.

Lungs show adaptations for a rapid rate of diffusion. Firstly, they have alveoli growing at the end of the bronchioles, which have a large total surface area of about 70 m². This allows a lot of diffusion of oxygen and carbon dioxide to happen within the lungs. Secondly, they have thin permeable walls. This keeps the distance between the blood and the air to the minimum and makes it easier for the diffusion of oxygen and carbon dioxide to take place. Thirdly, there is a moist lining inside the alveoli, which dissolve the gases before they diffuse across the walls, again making diffusion easier. Fourthly, there is a high concentration gradient for the gases, delivering carbon dioxide out and taking oxygen in. The high concentration gradient is formed partly because of the diffusion that is happening all the time, and is also because of the ventilation of the lungs which refresh the air in the air sacs. Since diffusion is a passive process and no energy is required, it only occurs when there is a concentration gradient.

2. List the structures of the human respiratory system and, for each structure, explain its role in breathing.

The trachea is the windpipe located under the larynx and connects to the bronchi. The passage that provides air flow to the lungs for respiration. The bronchus are where the branch is divided into bronchioles and are supported by rings of cartilage to prevent collapsing during breathing. The bronchioles are the smaller branches of the bronchus and carry air to the alveoli. The alveoli are sacs that are adapted for the diffusion of oxygen and carbon dioxide into and out of blood.

3. What is the role of the cilia and mucus in the human respiratory system?

The motion fo the cilia forms a wave, which sweeps the sticky mucus produced by the goblet cells together with dust, bacteria and pathogens trapped in it out of the trachea and into the throat. This protects the lungs from damage and infection.

4. Describe what happens during the inhalation in terms of
a) movement of structures in the respiratory system and

During inhalation, the muscle around the diaphragm contracts and the diaphragm flattens (moves down). The external intercostal muscles (those that join the ribs together) contract and make the ribs move upwards and outwards.

b) pressure and volume changes in the thoracic cavity

The pressure inside the thorax decreases and the volume of it increases. This draws air into the lungs.

5. Describe what happens during exhalation in terms of
a) movement of structures in the respiratory system and

During exhalation, the muscle around the diaphragm relaxes so that the diaphragm returns to its normal shape (moves up). The ribcage moves downwards and inwards.

b) pressure and volume changes in the thoracic cavity

The pressure inside the thorax increases and the volume inside it to decreases. This causes air to leave the lungs.

6. Describe and explain the differences in composition between inspired air and expired air.

Inspired air contains a higher percentage of oxygen and a lower percentage of carbon dioxide. Expired air, on the other hand, contains a higher percentage of carbon dioxide (the product of respiration) and a lower percentage of oxygen. This is because the oxygen inside the inhaled air is used for respiration and is diffused into the body. At the same time, carbon dioxide, as the product of respiration, is diffused into the air inside the lungs and come out of the body as part of the expired air. There is also a higher percentage of water vapour in exhaled air than inhaled air because water evaporates from the moist linings of the alveoli due to the warmth of the body.

7. Describe the effects of exercise on the rate and depth of breathing.

The increase of exercising increases the rate and depth of breathing.

End of topic questions

1. a) Define the terms diffusion and gas exchange

Diffusion is the movement of particles from a place with higher concentration to a place with lower concentration. Gas exchange is the exchange of gases between the air and the body through a gas exchange surface such as the lungs.

b) Describe the role of diffusion in gas exchange in humans.

During gas exchange, diffusion happens at the alveoli at the end of bronchioles in humans’ lungs. In the process, oxygen diffuses into the blood from the air and carbon dioxide diffuses out into the air from the blood. This helps the body to get rid of the waste product of respiration and obtain oxygen for more respiration in order to produce energy.

c) Explain how the tissues and organs of the lungs are adapted to maximise the rate of gas exchange.

Firstly, the alveoli at the end of bronchioles have large surface areas of a total of 70 m², allowing more diffusion to take place. Secondly, the walls of the alveoli are very thin so that diffusion can easily happen. Thirdly, there are moist linings inside the alveoli which dissolve gases before they diffuse, making diffusion easier too. Fourthly, a high concentration gradient is created due to the ventilation of the lungs and the diffusion that happens all the time.

2. Fig. 11.8 shows a model that can be used to demonstrate the role of the diaphragm in breathing.

a) Describe and explain what will happen to the balloon “lungs: when the rubber diaphragm is:

i) pulled down:

When the rubber diaphragm is pulled down, the air pressure inside the balloon lungs will decrease and their volume will increase. This will result in the balloon taking air into itself and become larger.

ii) pulled up.

When the rubber diaphragm is pulled up, the air pressure inside the balloon lungs will increase and their volume will decrease. The balloon will be pushing air out of it and become smaller.

b) Which parts of the body that can be involved in breathing are not included in this model?

The larynx, the trachea, the c-shaped cartilaginous rings and the ribs are all not included in the mode.

3. Fig 11.9 shows a few cells of the epithelium lining the trachea.

a) State where the trachea is found and explain its role in the body.

The trachea is found under the larynx and above the bronchus. It is the wind pipe that provides air flow to the lungs for respiration.

b) Name the type of cell shown by cell A and describe its function.

The cell shown by cell A is a ciliated cell. Its function is to create a wave in the mucus and to gradually sweep the mucus as well as the dirt and microorganisms trapped in it away from the lungs and into the throat.

c) name the type of cell shown by cell B and describe its function.

The cell shown by cell B is a goblet cell. Its function is to produce a sticky fluid called mucus that can trap dirt and microorganisms.

d) Explain the role of these cells in protecting the body.

Together, with the dirt and microorganisms trapped by the mucus produced by the goblet cells and being swept away from the lungs into the throat by the ciliated cells, the lungs will be protected from being damaged or infected and the trachea will be clear without anything blocking it.

Chapter 12 – Respiration

Questions

Be clear in your answers that you are using the term respiration to mean cellular respiration, and to use ventilation not respiration when talking about breathing.

1. a) b) c)

oxygen (from ventilation) + glucose (from digested food) –> carbon dioxide (breath out into the air from the alveoli) + water (through sweating, urination) (+ energy) (used in muscles constrictions, keep a balanced temperature in the body, active transport, form chemical bonds during the synthesis of new protein molecules, producing chemical needed for cell growth and division, movement of nerve impulses along neurones)

d) Describe how your answer to part (c) might differ for a camel on a long journey without water, and explain your answer.

The respiration reaction of a camel differs to the respiration reaction of a human. Firstly, camels use fats in their humps instead of glucose. Secondly, the water, as a product of aerobic respiration, isn’t excreted (or very little excreted) by camels but instead is consumed.

2. Where does respiration take place in the body?

Respiration take place in all cells everywhere in the body. (Sample answer: inside cells)

3. Give three examples of the use of energy from respiration in the human body.

Energy from respiration is used on the contraction of muscles, active transport and the synthesis of protein molecules.

4. Write the balanced symbol equation for aerobic respiration.

C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ –> 6H₂O + 6CO₂

5. Explain why muscle cells sometimes need to respire anaerobically.

Sometimes muscle cells need to respires anaerobically, for example, during vigorous exercises. Since the oxygen in the muscle cells is rapidly used up, and the cells still requires a large amount of energy so oxygen in the blood is not enough. In this case, humans start to breath anaerobically.

6. Describe the similarities and differences between anaerobic respiration in yeast cells and in animal cells.

In both animal and yeast cells, glucose molecules are broken down to release energy and no oxygen is needed. However, while animal cells directly break glucose into lactic acids and energy, yeast cells break glucose into ethanol, carbon dioxide and energy.

7. Compare the amount of energy released during aerobic respiration and anaerobic respiration of glucose in a muscle cell. During aerobic respiration, a large amount of energy is released with glucose and oxygen. On the other hand, when a muscle cell is respiring anaerobically, no (or little) oxygen is used and a small amount of energy is produced with the same amount fo glucose molecules (for one mole of glucose molecules, only about 150 kJ is produced for anaerobic respiration while 2900 kJ of energy are released when the muscle cell is using aerobic respiration).

8. Explain why bread dough rises and becomes soft and spongy if it is kept warm.

The bread dough rises, becomes soft and spongy because when it is kept warm, yeasts are no longer able to respire aerobically. Therefore, they start to do anaerobic respiration, which produces carbon dioxide as one of the products. Since carbon dioxide is a gas and has very low density, the bubbles of it trapped in the bread dough allows the bread dough to rise in water and become soft and spongy.

End of topic questions

1. a) List the body systems in a human that are involved in supplying the reactants of cellular respiration.

Digestive system (for glucose), respiratory and circulatory system (for oxygen).

b) List the body systems in a human that are involved in removing the products of cellular respiration.

The circulatory system, the respiratory system (to carry carbon dioxide to the alveoli), and the excretory system (for urination).

2. Draw up a table to summarise the similarities and differences between aerobic and anaerobic respiration.

3. a) What was the role of the second set of apparatus? Explain you answer.

By having two sets of apparatus, the state of the limewater can be easily compared. Or else it might be quite hard to identify the limewater as cloudy or not.

b) Suggest what happened to the limewater in the two sets of apparatus.

In the set of apparatus with some woodlice, the limewater will gradually turn cloudy and in the set without woodlice, limewater will remain clear.

c) Explain as fully as you can your answer to part (b).

Apparatus with some woodlice will make the limewater turn cloudy, because since woodlice are organisms, they will respire inside the boiling tube. Carbon dioxide, as one of the waste products of cellular respiration, is released from the woodlice and into the tube of limewater through the delivery tube. As limewater turn cloudy when it meets carbon dioxide, it will do so here as it encounters carbon dioxide from the woodlice. On the other hand, the limewater of the apparatus with no woodlice inside will remain clear, because no respiration had taken place inside those apparatus and therefore no carbon dioxide is formed in the boiling tube and the tube of limewater.

4. A whale takes a deep breath of air and then dives for half an hour. Suggest how energy would be generated in the whale’s muscles over the period of the dive.

The whale will be respiring aerobically because it has enough oxygen stored in its lungs (or close to its lungs).

5. a) Explain why sugar solution is added to the yeast at the start.

Sugar solution is added to the yeast at the start so that the yeast will form ethanol as it breaks down the sugar solution added to it as it is breathing aerobically.

b) i) Explain what would happen if the temperature was lower than this.

At a low temperature yeast will not be used to the environment. It will slow down respiring but will not die either.

ii) Explain what would happen if the temperature was higher than this.

When the temperature was higher than this the cells will become stressed meaning that their content becomes damaged. This might lead to little or no respiration at all and the bread might not become soft and spongy.

Good luck to myself and hope this helps you too!

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NYAA stands for National Youth Achievement Award. In order to achieve the award at the end of the school year, we were required to spend a specific amount of time on both services and sport activities at school. At the same time, we will need to go on a 3-day expedition to Perth, Australia in March or April.

In order to get prepared for the expeditions, we practiced how to make a tent, how to use a compass, how to cook and what to do during emergencies. We did training at both lunch time and afterschool. We even prepared for a training weekend in which we would trek on the beaches of Singapore then stayed at school overnight in order to prepare for the situations in Australia. However, not long after the outbreak of COVID-19, I found this in my email inbox:

“Following on from the emails that you have received regarding the cancelation of all expeditions until August 2020, we hereby confirm that the Silver Training Weekend #2 (14th to 15th February) and NYAA Silver Expedition to Australia are both cancelled.“

I was feeling really disappointed when I read about this, but after all going to Australia was indeed quite risky. Looking back now, that was indeed a wise decision. It was amazing how the school made the decision so early and stopped us from packing for the expedition. This has saved me a lot of unnecessary time and effort.

So well, the expedition was cancelled, what about the award? Fortunately, the organisers of NYAA had came up with a solution — instead of doing the expedition, we could choose to do a project of any kind in our groups to achieve the award. After lots of discussions, we came up with a general plan.

In our project, we aim to raise awareness on illegal animal trade through art with a viable solution represented through a website which will include information such as, why, statistics and alternatives / ways to help to raise awareness on the issue.

There were 4 people in my groups; two were doing art, which was going to be a large oil painting, and I partnered up with a classmate and we planned make the website together. However, since my partner was applying for a high school in the United States and was busy working on the paperworks, I started on project first on my own.

As stated above, the website should include information, several pages for raising awareness of the issue, and also statistics. The informative pages should be quite easy as they are just static files with information that will rarely be updated. On the other hand, the statistics is much harder. What I had planned to do at first, was to make a python web crawler to crawl the information for 5 chosen animals that suffer the most from illegal animal trade from other websites, as well as some newest articles about the animals. Even though I knew the basics of Python, a python web crawler was a completely new thing to me. I frequently heard about it and vaguely knew what it could do, but I had absolutely no idea how to start coding it. At first, I was browsing on the web for tutorials and youtube videos and hoped that those could guide me through making the website.

Learning more and more about web crawling had made me realise that it would take a long time to learn about the concept and the basics of it, not to say putting it into my own project. I was not sure if I could finish the project before the deadline in June and I couldn’t even make a plan because I didn’t know how long it would take to learn web crawling. Eventually, with the help of mummy, I found a teacher who could teach me everything in a requirements document for the project I created earlier.

The teacher sent me a plan and a syllabus, I was so glad that I don’t have to worry about not finishing the project on time. Also, I found out that the teacher had decided to let me to code the frontend of the website by myself. I thought we would be focusing on backend coding and python web crawling, but since I have never done the frontend of a website on my own before, it was a great opportunity to have a try.

From my current plan, making website is roughly divided into the following processes:

1. Design
2. Front-end coding
3. Back-end coding

Designing the website started with a wireframe, which was basically lines and text. At first, I had no idea how to do it, so I drew a box with a random size, representing the outline of the website, then fill in lines and text. Afterwards I learned that the desktop wireframe of the website must be 1440px wide. That was much wider than what I originally did, so then I changed all the lines and all the font sizes ?.

From this process, I found out how hard it was to design a website. Even though I did everything by drag and dropping in the app called “sketch”, it was still a challenge to design the elements as well as deciding the margins, paddings and heights of elements, where to put them. I enjoyed the process a lot though, seeing a website gradually formed and getting closer and closer to finishing the design.

This is all the pages I had designed, including a home page which includes the 5 species and a dropdown menu that will be triggered when “Species” in the navigation bar is clicked, 1 article page for all of the 5 species and a mobile phone design for all of the above.

When all of the wireframe were finished, I moved onto finding the images and colouring the website. Feel about the website with the screenshot below:

The article pages look like this:

For the drop down menu for the Species, I thought it would be quite boring if I merely create a simple menu with text like the one below, so therefore I browsed online for create menus, I took a look for the drop down menus of lots of famous websites, until I saw the one on National Geographic. Click on “Menu” in the navigation bar, I saw the wonderful menu. It was white text on a black background at first, but if you hover on one of the topics, the background gradually changes to an image.

Therefore I tried out something similar with my species dropdown menu. This is my design of it:

Above are the desktop design of the website. The website is meant to be responsive and the following are the designs for the mobile end.

This is mainly it for the design part of the website. It was quite a great start, and I will soon be working on the codes and the web crawler. These updates on the IAT project will be introduced in later posts.

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Now it had been a month of online lessons already, all of my lessons were on Google Meet. However, I have realized that things weren’t going the way that I thought they would be. I am not able to finish the class works in class since there are too much of them. Some of my teachers have no idea how long tasks will take. Even though they are getting better at lesson planning, I still need to finish quite a lot of class work for homework.

At the same time, facing my laptop for the whole day is really tiring. I do run around my house and design sport games with things in my room as instructed, but I am still tired. I get too lazy to update my blog too, although I have a lot of ideas for my blog posts.

Here I would like to share 2 articles that I read recently: What are some unspoken rules teens follow? This article is so true, especially the rule about drinking from your friend’s hydro flask. It is quite meaningless to share this with my classmates right now, but I think it would be fun to introduce these to my friends in China.

The second one, as I spend so much time with my laptop everyday, reading things from it and writing things into it, I started wondering: Does my laptop get heavier (physically) as I use it and store things in it? Read this article and find out if that is true…

At last, let’s hope that the coronavirus cases in SG to get lower soon. I miss PE and the hot April air in campus.

The post A Month of Online Lessons appeared first on Nightingale.

Tampermonkey

Installing a Teamie theme is not hard. There are only 2 steps in total: Step 1 – Install the Tampermonkey extension. In order to give your Teamie page a different look, you need to install this extension (if you haven’t) called “Tampermonkey” in your browser. If your browser doesn’t support Tampermonkey, there are alternatives like Greasemonkey or Violentmonkey.

First of all, what is Tampermonkey? Tampermonkey is the most popular userscript manager, with over 10 million users. By running one or multiple userscript(s) at a time, it can change how a webpage displays or behaves in your browser.

To install Tampermonkey, go to this link which will take you to the extension in chrome webstore. If you are not using chrome, simply search Tampermonkey in the webstore of your browser. If it doesn’t appear, try its alternatives. Click on “Add to Chrome”. When the extension is successfully installed, it should appear as an icon just above the bookmarks bar.

Userscripts

After you install the extension, you are half way done! The next step that you need to do is to visit one of the following links.

Rainbow and Shiny
Pink and Soft
Purple and Sweet
Green and Fresh

If you are unsure which theme to choose, you can take a look at demos at https://blog.becomingcelia.com/teamie-themes/, or you can just choose one randomly — you can take all of them later! After you click on the link, you will be led to a page something like this:

Click on the green button that says “Install this script”. You will be taken to another page that looks like this:

Click on the small “Install” button over here:

Yay! You are done. Now go to your school’s teamie page. You will see this on the top right corner of your browser:

When the green switch is on, it means that the theme is on. You can repeat the steps and install other themes.

If you have multiple themes, leave the one you want for now switched on and the others off. Remember, only leave one switched on!!!

Ok, the tutorial on how to install teamie themes is √ finished. Should you have any questions, please comment below the post!

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This is an essay question in an actual exam a few years ago. I enjoyed writing this but if I have a choice, I would definitely not write a detective story in an exam. My imagination is too much for an exam ?

“Sir, I didn’t see anyone coming in here last night, and there were no alarms either, no sounds, no sirens, nothing.” I observed the glass showcase with my magnifier. It looked normal, neat and tidy — except nothing was in it as if nothing were ever there.

The Museum of Savoca is a landmark of the small village in Italy. There were lots of cultural artefacts here, including vases, pots, urns, sculptures, etc. The morning sun was shining through the tall French windows, filling the museum with warmth. I looked around, holding the printout of the picture of the vase. It was a ceramic vase yellowed with age, decorated with hardly-recognizable Egyptian drawings on it, faded patterns, and notches all over its surface.

The curator of the museum was a bald, old man.  While holding up my hand in his trembling palms, tears filled his eyes. He told me that the vase had been here for the last three or four decades and that no one had ever moved it out from its glass case. There was no evidence left where the theft appened. The vase seemed to have disappeared out of thin air.

Since a lot of security guards guarded the museum, the person who had stolen the vase must be very familiar with the structure of the museum and found a way to pass all the guards and the alarm system with the antique vase. The security guards handed me a list of people who had visited the museum in the past two days. I went through the list carefully. These visitors were all foreigners who had just come to the country for at most three days. There were no chances for these museum visitors to examine the security system of the museum within such a short time and without anyone noticing.

Technicians checked the security system for me. Everything was operating as usual. One tried to hammer on the armoured glass, the siren immediately started.

There was also a possibility that the person who stole the vase was one of the guards. However, even if it were the guards who had taken the vase, there would be an alarm. No one other than the curator of the museum himself, who had added a facial recognition system to the glass showcase and had set his own face as the only face that the system recognized.

And then I thought for a while, brainstorming all the possibilities, and eventually, I wondered: are there other antiques that were stolen from this museum before? As I performed the search, I saw the picture of the antique vase on my screen immediately. On the webpage, it said: “Precious antique vase from ancient Egypt disappeared from the Museum of Savoca” I stared at the line of text astonished.

I read the whole article carefully. Everything was exactly what the museum had experienced in the past few days, the detective came, checking through the list of visitors until the case ended without an answer. A few days later, the detective was lost in desperation and frustration and committed suicide! I sat up in my chair, trembling. When I tried to find out when all of these were “predicted” I found out that the news article was published 50 years ago. The case it described was not the one that we were going through, but was remarkably similar.

Quickly scrolling through other news articles about the same case 50 years ago, I no longer doubted the credibility of the news. I was more and more astounded as I saw the perfect conformity between the two cases — except that they were 50 years apart. As I was researching, I also found out that the antique vase was found one year after its disappearance, right in its showcase, returned secretly without anyone knowing how, just like how it had disappeared. It was the same as the day before it disappeared a year ago; it had the same number of notches as before, not one more, not one less. There were no fingerprints nor scratches on it. The paintings on it had the same yellowish colour. The professionals, after measuring, realized that the vase was facing precisely the same direction as when it disappeared.

Just as I was exploring in the images on the webpage, one security guard who was also researching, patted me on my back: “Sir, come, I’ve got something to show you.” He showed me a scan of a newspaper archive he found on the website of the local library. The title of the article says: “Ancient Egyptian vase stolen from the Museum of Savoca.”. The article was written in the early 1900s, exactly 100 years ago. “… and the most surprising thing was that the vase reappeared…” Before he finished his sentence, all of a sudden, as if a flash in my mind, I realized something. Piecing everything that I had found out through researching together – the unchanged position, the two news 50 years apart, I felt like I had uncovered a mystery: it turned completely transparent every 50 years and reappeared after one year! I turned towards the glass showcase. The vase could still be inside the showcase, even though people were unable to see it.

I asked the curator to open the glass showcase for me with his facial recognition, there was nothing in there, but I put my finger to the place where the vase was supposed to be. As I did so, I felt a freezing cloud of gas going into my veins, spreading through my whole body. Out of my instinct, I attempted to pull my finger back, but my body was as if frozen. I screamed, but no sound was coming out from my throat. The gas flowing through my veins was in control of my body, pushing warmth as well as my consciousness out of my body, into the glass case. My consciousness, or perhaps my soul, could vaguely see a figure of a vase inside the glass case, glowing light-blue. I was pushed into the vase, into a space filled with darkness. I could talk now. I shouted for help, but no one standing outside the showcase could hear me.

“Who pushed me?” I cried, “Who are you?” A deep voice started laughing; there was a sense of brutality to it.

“You are number 421, and I am 420. I was pushed into here, um, about 50 years ago, by 419, the 419th spirit of the vase.”

“He took my body, 419 left my soul here and took my body. He took the body of the famous detective and killed it, pretending his death was a suicide. I don’t deserve what I went through — what did I do wrong? Why should I suffer? Now I want you to experience everything I experienced 5 decades ago! Sleep now, sleep for one year, and when you wake up, the vase will be seen by humans again. Look for 422 and you will be a free man.”

There were a few sneers and he went away, leaving my soul in the darkness. I could feel that my body outside the glass showcase shook a little bit, then I was completely disconnected from it. I felt a sense of dizziness, and slowly, my eyelids closed, I sank into the darkness.

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