Poem Analysis, Da Man's Way

The Little Boy and the Old Man by Shel Silverstein

After reading the poem, naturally there would be questions to be answered and questions to be asked. Here are some questions we have to answer.

1) What is the underlying message that is being conveyed in this poem?
The poem is trying to tell us not to look at the bad side of things for there are people who also faces the same problem as you and not to keep looking at the past, but rather, look ahead towards the future we will all face.
2) He has used dialogue specifically in this poem, and it is very evident from the poem that it brings out the message more clearly as each sentence of the poem contains a dialogue. The direct speeches made convey the message faster to the reader as the reader does not need to interpret what Shel Silverstein is trying to say and just understand straight from the dialogue given.

Messy Room by Shel Silverstein
1) Can you say that the poem is humorous? If so how?
At first, the persona was giving negative comments on the tidyness of the room, and making sarcastic remarks. He also comments on the owner of the room and feels that he should be ashamed of himself and his behaviour. But he only realises that he was talking about his own room all this time and I feel that his ignorance and inability to realise his own faults is humorous.
2) What aspect of the human character has been highlighted in the poem?
The most evident human character highlighted here is the fact that one is so quick to blame others, such that one deludes the fact that he is probably committing the same fault or perhaps he is actually the one at fault. One fails to see his own faults when he gets blamed, and instead, immediately pushes the blame to others.

Cloony The Clown by Shel Silverstein
1) Explain the irony in this poem
The irony in this poem is when Cloony tries everything he can to make everyone laugh and tries to be funny, he failed to do so and everyone felt that he did not have the ability to be funny. But when he honestly hopes to confide to everyone about his negative feelings, what he received was laughter and mocking. The irony is that he is not happy in the end even though he hopes to make everyone laugh at the beginning, and this is mainly because the people are laughing at his misery, rather than laughing due to his effort he puts in to make them laugh.
2) Does Shel Silverstein manage to convey such harsh realities in this poem?
He manages to convey the message that the world can be sadistic towards anyone and laugh at your miseries when you confide in them and seek condolences from them.
3) What poetic devices has the poet used to effectively convey his message?



Which of the above poems can you identify with the most? Write down your thoughts on your blog.

I can identify most with the poem Messy Room by Shel Silverstein. The poem underlies the fact that one is so quick to blame others such the one often deludes the fact that the same situation might apply for himself. For me, it happens quite often, especially during my secondary 1 year.

One experience for me was closely related to my CCA, a group of friends, including me, was recruited to Track and Field sprints group. We were very reluctant at first, but we withstood the temptation to skip trainings and tried our best to attend all the trainings as many times as possible.

But after the first few months of training, most of us got sick of the training. So, to skip the boredom we face each training, most of us begin to skip trainings. Being the captain with so tme responsiblity, I endured and still continued to attend training. But my friends thought otherwise. They started to skip trainings and I began to get irritated by their attitude. So, after much hesistation, I scolded them.
After much reflection done while lying on my bed thinking about it thoroughly, I felt that I myself had a bad attitude too. I think the underlying message Shel Silverstein is trying to underline to readers with this poem can fully apply to the situation I faced. Without looking and reflection about my actions, I reprimanded my teammates for their bad attitude. Perhaps they all could have learn it from me, in any case, I was wrong and unfit to scold them without being disciplined myself.

Esio Trot Book Review

This book basically revolves around the three characters, Mr Hoppy, Mrs Silver and Alfie. This book is written by Roald Dahl. Mr Hoppy is a man who is secretly in love with Mrs Silver who lives just directly below him. Mrs Silver has a pet tortoise called Alfie and Mr Hoppy envious that tortoise so much as Mrs Silver always embraces Alfie that Mr Hoppy wishes to be Alfie.

Mrs Silver loves Alfie so much but she feels that Alfie is a little too small in size. She thinks that Alfie wants to grow up but he is unable to grow up faster and would feel sad when he sees other tortoises that are so much bigger than himself. Alfie has only gained about three ounces for the eleven years Mrs Silver had him. Mr Hoppy then thinks of a brilliant plan to help Mrs Silver as Mrs Silver said that she was willing to be his servant for the rest of her life if he managed to think of a plan to help her.

Mr Hoppy then says that he has a secret which he knew of when he was in North Africa where all the tortoises in England came from. He pens it down and gives it to Mrs Silver. It writes :

ESIO TROT, ESIO TROT,
TEG REGGIB REGGIB!
EMOC NO, ESIO TROT,
WORG PU, FFUP PU, TOOHS PU!
GNIRPS PU, WOLB PU, LLEWS PU!
EGROG! ELZZUG! FFUTS! PLUG!
TUP NO TAF, ESIO TROT, TUP NO TAF!
TEG NO, TEG NO! ELBBOB DOOF!

These are actually words written backwards by Mr Hoppy. It is actually :

TORTOISE, TORTOISE,
GET BIGGER, BIGGER!
COME ON, TORTOISE,
GROW UP, PUFF UP, SHOOT UP!
SPRING UP, BLOW UP, SWELL UP!
GORGE! GUZZLE! STUFF! GULP!
PUT ON FAT, TORTOISE, PUT ON FAT!
GET ON, GET ON! GOBBLE FOOD!

This is actually just a scam-plan devised by Mr Hoppy while he goes to a tortoise shop to buy all kinds of tortoise varying in different sizes. He then replaces Alfie with a tortoise two ounces heavier than Alfie with his tortoise catcher which he uses to reach the Alfie which is directlybelow his balcony to bring him up to his house. Starting from then, he replaces the tortoise in Mrs Silver house with a tortoise two ounces heavier to prevent Mrs Silver from noticing the distinct change in size. Also, the tortoise must have the same shell colour as the previous tortoise. Until the eighth week, Mrs Silver then feels that his tortoise has grown two times bigger and then weighs the tortoise. She then finds out that her tortoise has grown two times bigger and thank Mr Hoppy so much.

But Mrs Silver finds out that Alfie is too big to enter his pet house and then wants Alfie to be smaller, Mr Hoppy then applies the same concept on Mrs Silver. He gives the same coding to Mrs Silver, except that the coding now has the words "Bigger" is replaced by "Smaller". He then quickly replaces the tortoise with a smaller one that has the same shell colour. The tortoise is then able to fit into its pet house.

Mrs Silver then accepts Mr Hoppy and they get married. They then live happily ever after. As for Alfie, he lives with Roberta who took him to her home when she was young. She is now married and has two children of her own. But Alfie still lives with her, finally growing twice his size only after about nineteen years.

The reason I like this book is that this book shows the innocence of a vibrant man who is in love with the his neighbour. It also reflects his wit and shows that he is willing to do anything to gain his crush's love. This brings me back to my childhood and makes me feel nostalgic about the innocent thinking I once had.

Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian

This book is basically about the Percy Jackson, a.k.a Perseus Jackson, which is the son of the Greek god Poseidon in the book. This book is actually the last book of the entire series, which actually has five different books. But do not misread my point here, the book is still relatively thick.

In this book, the main point of this book is that Perseus is waging a very huge-scale war with the other evil Olympians. Apparently, they are having war right in New York. The leader of the enemy is Kronos, the evil titan, as he wants revenge from the time when he was cut up into pieces with his own sword and thrown into an abyss. He then seeks revenge by gathering forces to stage a battle with the other gods. The other gods consists of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades and many of Zeus's children. Poseidon, the god of the seas, is also having problems in his own territory. Kronos has garnered some support from some sea lords and they are giving Poseidon many problems so he himself cannot help out in the war against Kronos.

Most of the Gods were having problems dealing with Typhoon, a monster with incredible skills raging through the cities so they were not able to help out in the direct battle against Kronos.

Perseus and all the other young heroes from the camp are called out to help out with the battle. Perseus carries his pen-sword as usual which has a special function, it can change into a sword when the cap is removed and it will always come back to his pocket in a few seconds no matter how far it is thrown to. Annabeth, Perseus crush, although he refuses to admit it, is also involved. During the battle, they were successfully dealing with the enemies on one side of New York but they were surprised by the sudden outburst of enemy from the other side, led by Kronos in the form of Luke. They were then cornered right all the way to the Empire State Building, where in the building, is the place where all the Gods gather in their human forms to have meetings. They then continued fighting and fighting all the way to the top, where the final battle between Kronos, Luke and Perseus is staged. Luke is still being possessed by Kronos. When Kronos uses his body to hurt Annabeth, Luke suddenly goes back to his normal self as he remembers his promise to Annabeth, never to harm her.

Finally, the decision lies with Percy as to whether he should hand the dagger over to Luke or to keep it with himself. He then hands it over to Luke and Luke commits suicide, killing both himself and Kronos inside him. The story then ends with Percy finally admitting his crush on Annabeth and the story ends.

I like this story book as the plot reveals itself very naturally and the reader, in this case myself, is totally absorbed in the book while he reads it. The detailed descriptions of the things happening in the book and the suspense it gives you while reading it makes me want to just continue flipping the pages on and on forever. The plot is also very well developed, having a captivating first book, and an extremely exhilarating climax and finally, a suitable ending which puts the book in proper.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Book Review

The first classic I have read during my holidays are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.


The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The 1st story is about a boy who is extremely rebellious but in actual self he is a very kind person. However, he is only excited about the new things that happen in life and not the usual routine of life. He loathes the normal life he has --- going to church, going to school and so on. The story is talking about his self-initiated adventures when the last adventure lead to a happy ending. At the start, it was just about his excitements in life, playing with a beetle in church, having a crush on a girl and using his wits to cheat others to do work for him. Then, after the character Huckleberry Finn was introduced, the story starts to develop as a whole on the path of adventure.

There were two major adventures in this story. The first, after he gets hurt by the girl he likes, Becky, he is heartbroken and plans to leave the town to make everyone who once felt bullied or made him unhappy feel sad. He then source for his friends to go on a pirate adventure. He finds Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper and they set off on a pirate adventure, pretending to be pirates on a nearby island, bringing with them the bacon and ham they stole. Tom and Joe learnt to smoke from Huckleberry Finn then.

The other adventure is based on the time when Tom meets Huckleberry Finn to go to the graveyard. There, they saw a murder case happen right before their eyes. They saw Injun Joe and Muff Potter with a doctor there. They then started to argue and a fight broke out. In the midst of the fight, Potter got knocked out and Injun Joe stabbed the doctor. He then put the murder weapon into Potter's hands and accused him of murder when Potter woke up. Potter took the story and believed that he was the one who killed the doctor. Of course, Tom and Huckleberry witnessed the whole thing and is afraid to tell the truth.

Soon, Potter got arrested because he "admitted" he was the one who kileed the doctor. Tom's conscience began to eat into him and he finally relented, telling the truth in court. But at that very time when Injun Joe was present and Tom began to speak the truth, Injun Joe took off, crashing into the window and running away.

After that incident, Becky tore the principal's book by accident and Tom witnessed it. She thought that he would expose her but he didn't. Instead, after looking at how nervous Becky was and knowing that she would expose herself, he took the blame for her. This made her so touched for him that they made up.


Tom was then afraid that Injun Joe would come back to kill him. But after getting over with that fear, Huckleberry Finn and him then began to search for underground treasures. Coincidentally, while doing so, they land themselves in a Injun Joe's Spanish friend and Injun Joe's hideout. Coincidentally again, Injun Joe and his friend dug up a hidden treasure with so much money in it while Huckleberry and Tom was staring at it with large eyes. They then began to search for the treasure after hearing where Injun Joe has kept it. But they could not find it until one day while Tom went out with Becky on a picnic she has organised. They went extremely deep into the cave and got lost. They soon used up their provisions, which included candles and some cake Tom had saved from the picnic. With one last try, Tom found his way out and found Injun Joe hiding in the same cave as him. He then realised that the treasure was actually hidden there. He then escaped and and they were saved out of the cave. Before that, Injun Joe was trying to kill a widow whose late husband humiliated Injun Joe, while Huckleberry followed them sneakily, thinking that they would lead him to the treasure they had hidden.

Tom and Huckleberry then headed back to the cave by themselves without letting anyone know and they found the lost treasure. After taking the lost treasure out of the cave, they were invited to a party to celebrate them as heroes of the town, as Injun Joe died without water and food trapped in the cave after the cave was locked momentarily and Huckleberry Finn saved the widow. At the party then, they then declared that they were rich by showing everyone the gold and money they had brought from the cave. They were then highly respected after these series of incidents and Huckleberry Finn was adopted by the widow. Soon, Huckleberry Finn escaped from the widow as he could not stand the tidyness of the widow as he liked his old living place, the streets where he was free to do anything he wants. He preferred being dirty to being clean.
Tom then coax him to go back by saying that if he does, he would tell the widow to abandon some rules of hers and allow Huckleberry Finn to join the gang he would soon create.

The whole story then ends like this, after revolving around Tom's adventures, saying that the adulthood of Tom is not to be revealed.

I gave you two choices. Don't give me a third.

The title is rather cool isn't it? Just thought of it while I was eating dinner. Lets get back to the topic here, if we even have one. These twenty nine days of non-blogging shaped me into a non-blogger but my life still goes on, learning new stuff and of course, falling down. Lets start with the new stuff first before I become a pessimistic guy when I blog about the latter.

Hurdles, hurdles and more hurdles. It was during June, when this word entered my life and well, affected my life. I was given a new aim, to cross hurdles at the fastest speed possible. Of course, that would come with a risk, a BIG one indeed. Every time you jump across a hurdle, what happens, you either hook your back leg or jump with the wrong technique. I got the former more often, resulting in a BIG cut every Wednesday. Wednesday seemed to be a really bad "omen" day for me, I trip over a hurdle every Wednesday, Wednesday is usually packed with homework and finally, the next day holds my third language classes.

There are two types of hurdle races for me now, the 100m hurdle race and 400m hurdle race. I am more focused in the 400m hurdle race as 100m hurdle races focuses on the person's technique but 400m hurdle focuses on the acceleration of the person before the hurdle to use momentum to carry you over the hurdle. Well, I will keep you updated about this soon enough, after I master the art of HURDLING.

Maths test comes and goes again, leaving me in a complete whirl. What have I done wrongly? Was my efforts not enough? But, there is one last final chance to prove to myself that I can do it. There is another Maths test coming up on week 7 and this is the final test of the whole year. After this, it will be the end of year exams. But of course, I know that I will not be exempted for maths anymore as I need an average grade of A1. I am sure that you all can see from my post that I will not be able to make it.

Nevertheless, I want to work hard and do my best to score well for the test.

My Book Review

The two Classics I have read throughout my holidays are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Mysterious Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.


The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The 1st story is about a boy who is extremely rebellious but in actual self he is a very kind person. However, he is only excited about the new things that happen in life and not the usual routine of life. He loathes the normal life he has --- going to church, going to school and so on. The story is talking about his self-initiated adventures when the last adventure lead to a happy ending. At the start, it was just about his excitements in life, playing with a beetle in church, having a crush on a girl and using his wits to cheat others to do work for him. Then, after the character Huckleberry Finn was introduced, the story starts to develop as a whole on the path of adventure.

There were two major adventures in this story. The first, after he gets hurt by the girl he likes, Becky, he is heartbroken and plans to leave the town to make everyone who once felt bullied or made him unhappy feel sad. He then source for his friends to go on a pirate adventure. He finds Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper and they set off on a pirate adventure, pretending to be pirates on a nearby island, bringing with them the bacon and ham they stole. Tom and Joe learnt to smoke from Huckleberry Finn then.

The other adventure is based on the time when Tom meets Huckleberry Finn to go to the graveyard. There, they saw a murder case happen right before their eyes. They saw Injun Joe and Muff Potter with a doctor there. They then started to argue and a fight broke out. In the midst of the fight, Potter got knocked out and Injun Joe stabbed the doctor. He then put the murder weapon into Potter's hands and accused him of murder when Potter woke up. Potter took the story and believed that he was the one who killed the doctor. Of course, Tom and Huckleberry witnessed the whole thing and is afraid to tell the truth.

Soon, Potter got arrested because he "admitted" he was the one who kileed the doctor. Tom's conscience began to eat into him and he finally relented, telling the truth in court. But at that very time when Injun Joe was present and Tom began to speak the truth, Injun Joe took off, crashing into the window and running away.

After that incident, Becky tore the principal's book by accident and Tom witnessed it. She thought that he would expose her but he didn't. Instead, after looking at how nervous Becky was and knowing that she would expose herself, he took the blame for her. This made her so touched for him that they made up.


Tom was then afraid that Injun Joe would come back to kill him. But after getting over with that fear, Huckleberry Finn and him then began to search for underground treasures. Coincidentally, while doing so, they land themselves in a Injun Joe's Spanish friend and Injun Joe's hideout. Coincidentally again, Injun Joe and his friend dug up a hidden treasure with so much money in it while Huckleberry and Tom was staring at it with large eyes. They then began to search for the treasure after hearing where Injun Joe has kept it. But they could not find it until one day while Tom went out with Becky on a picnic she has organised. They went extremely deep into the cave and got lost. They soon used up their provisions, which included candles and some cake Tom had saved from the picnic. With one last try, Tom found his way out and found Injun Joe hiding in the same cave as him. He then realised that the treasure was actually hidden there. He then escaped and and they were saved out of the cave. Before that, Injun Joe was trying to kill a widow whose late husband humiliated Injun Joe, while Huckleberry followed them sneakily, thinking that they would lead him to the treasure they had hidden.

Tom and Huckleberry then headed back to the cave by themselves without letting anyone know and they found the lost treasure. After taking the lost treasure out of the cave, they were invited to a party to celebrate them as heroes of the town, as Injun Joe died without water and food trapped in the cave after the cave was locked momentarily and Huckleberry Finn saved the widow. At the party then, they then declared that they were rich by showing everyone the gold and money they had brought from the cave. They were then highly respected after these series of incidents and Huckleberry Finn was adopted by the widow. Soon, Huckleberry Finn escaped from the widow as he could not stand the tidyness of the widow as he liked his old living place, the streets where he was free to do anything he wants. He preferred being dirty to being clean.
Tom then coax him to go back by saying that if he does, he would tell the widow to abandon some rules of hers and allow Huckleberry Finn to join the gang he would soon create.

The whole story then ends like this, after revolving around Tom's adventures, saying that the adulthood of Tom is not to be revealed.



The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

This story is about a man named Mr Utterson, a lawyer which holds a will of Dr Jekyll stating that if Dr Jekyll dies, all his properties and money will be transferred to a man called Mr Hyde. Mr Utterson then finds out that this Mr Hyde is actually a very cruel man who is seldom seen except for midnights who once stepped over a little girl who blocked his way. He is then intrigued by the will of his old friend, Dr Jekyll.

In actual fact, everything is revealed when Mr Utterson and Poole, Dr Jekyll's butler break into the office of Dr Jekyll as they suspected that Dr Jekyll was replaced by a certain Mr Hyde, but what the find is a dead Mr Hyde.

The whole story is revealed in the end when Mr Utterson reads the letter written by Dr Jekyll and Dr Lanyon, another old friend of Mr Utterson and Dr Jekyll. Dr Jekyll is ACTUALLY Mr Hyde. Dr Jekyll invented a potion to change his appearance and personality into Mr Hyde when he drank it. Therefore, Mr Hyde is rarely seen. But Dr Jekyll soon lost control of himself and the personality change came by itself, not by its will. He had to increase the dosage and strength of the potion to change his personality if he wanted to do so. But after some time, he lost total control of his personality change. On a certain midnight, he was in the form of Mr Hyde when his personality was evil and cruel, he killed a man. The police was chasing after him all over London and he immediately tried to change his personality back to Dr Jekyll and burnt all of Mr Hyde's papers and stuff in Mr Hyde's stuff. But the next morning, he wakes up finding himself in the body of Mr Hyde. He cannot come out of his house as he would be caught so he had no choice but to call Dr Lanyon to help him.

He wrote a letter to Dr Lanyon and the butler, calling Dr Lanyon to enter his laboratory with a key given to him by his butler to get the ingredients in the drawer for the potion he needs, then he himself would take the risk to go to Dr Lanyon's house to get the potion and drink it. But, when he drank it, he purposely drank it and turn into Dr Jekyll in front of Dr Lanyon. Dr Lanyon then became listless throughout, unable to accept what the potion can do to a person.

Dr Jekyll eventually turned into Mr Hyde not by will and died in the body of Mr Hyde. The story then ends like this, after revealing the story.

My 2 weeks (Ouch)

I am so sorry for not posting for this past two weeks of my holidays. Well, the main reason is I went to HOLIDAY. I went to Port Dickson for my Church Camp Retreat. Everything there was nice, and the most important thing was, I slept with my friends in a same room. This was the first time I slept with my friends in the same room for 3 entire nights. Well, as you can expect, the tidyness of our room was definitely not up to standard. Sand was everywhere, towels were everywhere, undergarments were everywhere, so dirty that we had to call for Housekeeping just after one night. The Housekeeping helpers were extremely helpful in helping us clean the room.

For the last night, we went to party, well as it was the last night. What a night it was. The joy in every man's heart began to manifest as we played cards, played a game called Saboteur and many others until it was 3am. My freinds and I just went back to our room to sleep as we thought that we had hit the limit, but before we went back, our party group decided that we would meet at 6am to see the sunrise. After reaching my room, I just plopped on my bed and fell into a deep slumber, but my other two friends decided not to sleep for the whole night. Well, one of them suceeded while the other fell asleep while doing his Kumon homework.

Finally, we all woke up at 5.45am and went down at 6am. But there was absoulutely no one! We waited, and waited, and waited until waiting had became a habit of us, then I decided to call their room. To my surprise, they were all sleeping except for one who answered the call as they could not wake up after partying the whole night without sleeping until six.

Then after much twisting and turning of events, we finally headed home. The journey was nevertheless tedious and I, tired and sad. These past few days were gone as fast as a whirlwind, leaving me behind to reflect on my actions and think about what I have learnt from this Church Retreat.

Going on from that, three days after I came back, I have a swollen eye, headaches, and a horrendous cough. Either I am super unlucky or some mysterious guy passed this diseases to me, now,

WHO HAVE THIS DISEASES AND HAD CONTACT WITH ME THESE PAST 3 DAYS PLEASE OWN UP?