THE BONDMAID

This story chronicles the different stages of the life of Han, a girl born into a poor family. As a child, she lived with her siblings and her mother. Her father, was not dutiful and went about messing around with other women. When she was 4, she was sold to the House of Wu by her mother as they were experiencing yet another financial crisis and badly needed money. At the House of Wu, Han led a cheerful life where she would play with the young master Wu everyday after her chores as a bondmaid, even though she often got punished for not completing them properly. Gradually, she grew up to become a woman and became even more beautiful than she already was. Her good looks caught the unwanted attention of the perverse Third Brother and the monk who preyed on every chance to catch hold of her. However, she intelligently escaped from their claws with her clever tricks. At the same time, she was deeply in love with the young master Wu and engaged herself in a war against the head bondmaid and Ms Li-Li, her love rival from a more prominent family and fiancee of young master of Wu. Her undying devotion to the young heir caused him to realize how much he actually loved her too. However, their love was not smooth-sailing, as he had to marry Ms Li-Li and could only meet Han once a month. With the help of a goddess, Han and the young master of Wu were reunited but due to the pressure from his family, the young master of Wu had to return to his wife. The story ended with a sad turn, as Han died after thrashing about a pond in a bid to save her drowning goddess while she was weak from childbirth.

By Bay Pei Lin :)

Hiies :)

My book report is on The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
About: During the World War 2, Anne Frank and her family had to hide to protect themselves, and they hid in The Annexe. This book tells about life in The Annexe, and also Anne’s feelings, worries and thoughts.

Thoughts: This book is generally interesting, though there was one point of the book where a whole series of entries about the quarrels in The Annexe (their hiding place) which I found quite boring. But as Anne grows older, her diary entries are more interesting. She is about the same age as us, and she would ask many questions about the world and life, that we would sometimes also wonder and question about. Through her entries, we can see how she changes from time to time, her thoughts and worries also changing as she matures. This book also gave me an idea of the war, how afraid the people were, living one day at a time, and how much they longed for freedom.

Lessons learnt: I learnt to be more appreciative of everything I have now. We should even count ourselves lucky that everyday we can see the blue sky, the sun, starts and moon. Anne, cooped up in The Annexe, was unable to see any of those as they had to keep the windows and shades down so as to not attract attention, and she wanted to see all those so badly. We should count our blessings for the food, clothes and shelter that we have. At least we are full every meal, and we have enough to wear and we have a nice home to live in. Lastly and most importantly, be glad that we have our family and friends. We are lucky to be able to spend time with them in peace and harmony. Anne worried about her school friends when she was in hiding- whether they were being tortured at a camp or were they safe and sound.
Conclusion: This book is not bad, and a good thing is that it is real, though it seems so fiction. Still, I would prefer Chinese Cinderella and the Dragon Society(which is also about World War 2).

Carissa JH101<3

update: tagboard is up.

heyy
another update here from CHERYL<3
ok, i've managed to put the tagboard up.
:D

sorry for being so slow & late/

CHERYL<3
JH101

summary

Jane’s love for nature led her to become a woman pioneer in the area of wildlife study and conservation. She started off as a secretary in Nairobi, Kenya, in Africa. However, it was only after meeting the Leakeys that she was introduced to ethology or primatology. Leakey later employed her as his secretary. After time, he promoted her to be a project member and assigned her to a study on chimpanzees, as he feels that he can get a more objective view pint from Jane. Jane is still on the same chimpanzee project today and has been for the past 38 years. And in these years, Jane’s research had been used on wildlife television series and children’s books. She is also aware of the importance of the conservation of chimpanzees and has set up homes for them, started an education program for kids, and established a non-profitable organization for the purpose.
129words

low qi ran
jh103 : )

book review

The bondmaid.

The book depicts the life of a bondmaid, Han, right from the beginning.
Our heroine of the story undergoes many trials of life; born into a poor family with uncountable children, she had to sleep on a coconut stuffed mattress on the floor along with all her brothers and sisters.

Finally, her widowed mother can no longer support the family and has to sell Han to the rich house of Wu at the age of 4. While working at the Wu s, Han found a 6 year old friend and secret playmate, the young master Wu.

As time went by, Han grew increasingly beautiful. It was only a matter of time after Han and Wu became lovers. However, their relationship is nothing but easy and after Han returned from school, she found Wu to be married to another woman.

The story ends in tragedy when Han and Wu were discovered and Han was pregnant with their baby boy.

update: tagboard

heyy.
update from cheryl here.
i have no idea how to put tagboard into blogger's skins, so click after the end of every post [theres a link] to go to the tagboard. or simply go www.njc_jh1-09.cbox.ws to tag! :D

CHERYL<3 JH101

Summary- Jane Goodall

Jane's love for nature led her to become a woman pioneer in the area of wildlife study and conservation. She started of as a secretary in Africa when she was in her twenties. Opportunity came knocking when an anthropologist Louis Leaky were digging nearby. She went to meet them and fortunately, Leaky hired her as his secretary. Surprisingly, more opportunities came and Leaky, after observing her performance, thought Jane might be better as a project member as he wanted someone with little training so as to have a objective view on the subject. Jane was chosen to begin the Chimpanzees project in Tanzania, and her study was funded by Leaky. She has been doing it for more than 38 years. Jane, the director of Research at Gombe since 1967, has inspired a television series and children's books. She has set up many projects and lessons on protecting animals, environment, constructed homes for injured or orphaned chimps and founded a global institute for study and conservation of apes.

(143 words)

Carissa JH101 <3

What you see is only what you think you see.

Hello everyone!

I'm sure you're all quite relieved now that your Time Capsule Assignment is done.
Take a short breather! :)
Hope you'll all have a good weekend and will manage to get some rest.

Sad to say, it seems like I'm the only one writing here!
Come on, you should all try to make this platform more alive!!!

Alright, here's what I have to say...
Remember I mentioned in class during the lesson when I showed you the video on "old America" versus modern America?
I started off with: What you see if only what you think you see.
Many of you said this is all about having perspective, that we should not judge a book by its cover etc.

Here's a short story which is very telling.
Let me share it with you. :)

Remember, many a times, there's more beneath the surface of things, and we shouldn't be too quick to judge. At least, we can always try not to. :)

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Do You Judge People Too Quickly?You May Be Wrong
June 26, 2009

Once upon a time there was one storyteller. After getting tired of telling old fabricated stories, he left his house in search of a real life story.He reached a village and took a cottage for rent. After roaming in the village throughout the month, in search of true story, the storyteller couldn't find one. Disappointed, he decided to stop his search.

The next day, while sitting in the cottage, he suddenly heard a voice - a woman was yelling at someone. The voice was coming from the big wall behind his cottage.He tried to hear the conversation; it sounded like the woman was abusing her daughter-in-law. The storyteller didn't like it but he was happy to finally get his story. Listening to the conversations each day he added them to his story. Though he couldn't see the characters of his story, he started hating the Mother-in-law, as she seemed to be villain.Now it was time to finalize the end of the story. But before he did, the storyteller wanted to see the characters once, so he climbed the wall.

There he saw the mother-in-law sitting in a wheelchair. It seemed she was handicapped and that the daughter-in-law was resting nearby.He saw the old lady trying to get a food item lying on the table near her chair. But because of her condition, she couldn't reach it and the daughter-in-law looked like she was enjoying the old lady's helplessness.Suddenly the old lady fell from the chair and started abusing her daughter in-law.The storyteller went back and quickly changed the ending of the story and was stunned at how different it was compared to what he originally thought it would be.Truly he had found both a real life story and a real life lesson.

Lesson: Never judge a situation unless you know all the aspects well. Sometimes you can't imagine your distance from the reality.

--- Copyright © 2009 Kamlesh Kharteta

http://www.motivateus.com/stories/do-you-judge.htm

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Yours,
Ms Wang

Just a low-down on the upcoming LA work!

Hello my dears,

Here is a summary of what is to happen next week for LA:

1) LA files - I want them all in by Tuesday. All 3 booklets (for Term 3) must be inside the file + all the extra worksheets/handouts that I have prepared for you (they all should be completed!).

2) Unit Booklet 4 - Pg 3 Mini Class Presentations. This is a group effort - as a group you must research on that personality/character assigned to you, then come up with a Powerpoint slideshow presentation to tell your classmates about who this person is. You can talk about his/her childhood, her achievements, any specific/important contributions that he/she had, any peculiar habits etc., anything significant about him/her - basically anything you find interesting at all. Each member to have 3 minutes to speak.
--> I have already given you all (JH103 - you should have collected from Ying Hang) the Oral Presentation Rubric, which has all the pointers about how to give a good oral presentation written clearly on it. Please refer to that when you are preparing your presentation. I have already mentioned most of the points when I went through oral presentation tips with you after your Nobel Prize speeches last term.
--> This is to prepare you for your Time Capsule Oral Presentation on Week 5. While this Pg 3 mini presentation is just a practice (i.e. ungraded), the one in Week 5 will be graded (20%).
--> I will be giving you all Peer Evaluation forms to "grade" and give comments to your classmates during class practice so that everyone can learn from one another. :) The graded oral presentation will only be assessed by me.

3) Time Capsule Written Assignment - DEADLINE: 25 September, this coming Friday, 1pm. There will be NO EXTENSION of the DEADLINE. I will look at your drafts/entertain any questions etc. until Wednesday, 23/9/09. After that, you have to "wrap things up" on your own. Give me a good piece of work, okay? :)

4) PLEASE GO TO THE LA COLUMN on the JH1 NOTICEBOARD and WORK ON THE WEEKLY PUZZLES!!!

5) This LA (READING) BLOG will be a channel through which I can reach out to all my 3 classes - so please check this regularly. :) And, where are your entries on the book that you were supposed to have read during the September holidays? Many of you haven't written/posted anything!!

Yours "naggingly",
Ms Wang :)

Change of Template and Deletion of Tagboard

Hello all,

I'm sorry - I've accidentally/unknowingly deleted the tagboard when I changed the template of this blog. I wanted one with the comment box so I could leave comments on your entries, and all of you can do the same for your peers.

Please, can someone put the tagboard back on? - It's not that urgent, but I'm sure you'll all want/enjoy a tagboard. :)

Thanks,
Ms Wang