Can Mercy co-exist with Justice

Yes Mercy can co-exist with Justice. Mercy, is to act with compassion, and be willing to forgive as compared to Justice, whereby what must be done will be done. In my opinion, although they can co-exist, but mercy should still come above Justice. In a example of the law, a person is a victim of a crime, but if he chooses to forgive the person, the person should be cleared of all charges. Also, if the person deserves mercy, then the judge can be lenient. Mercy can also bring salvation to the person and benefiting both parties, while Justice will benefit none. Thus it is better to have Mercy.

Mercy can only bring about good, and bring salvation for both sides, thus benefiting. Mercy can be seen practiced in many areas, for example, a case in Iran, whereby a woman was splashed with acid from another man, but she chose to forgive him, and he was released of all charges and the punishment which was to blind himself. As the quote from Ghandi, an eye for an eye can only make us blind.

So I feel that Mercy can co-exist with Justice, it is just that Mercy should come over Justice. Mercy is at a much higher level.

He is making the argument that in current times, it is no longer enough to raise a kid that is according to the old standards. It is now important to raise a kid that fits a global level. I can only partially agree with his statement. This is due to the fact that nowadays, everything is getting globalised, everything is becoming international. It is common to be sent to foreign countries to work nowadays. By not allowing the children to be able to adapt in foreign countries, understand their cultures, allowing them to prepare for the future. Also, if a person were to look for a job, and if he has experience abroad for a long time, he would stand a better chance. Also, being able to adapt, would show that, the person is stronger, and is probably a independent person, who can take care of themselves. Also, by being more "global" it adds to the diversity of the person. Also, this allows the person to not only be educated in the normal academics, and sports and other activities, but this allows the person to have experience of how other people from other countries work. Thus not constraining the person to only a certain country. But, must the child get educated when they are still young? Can they take this training to be come more "global" when they grow up. Yes it is possible, but it would take some time to train this, but if the person is grown up, the parents would probably be less worried. I think the deciding factor is the choice of the child and parent when to take this experience.

I think that Shakespear's intention of creating Shylock was to show how bad the Jews were. This is because Shylock was displayed and portrayed as the villain in the book always scheming and up to no good. He was someone who only cared about money and revenge. He even cares more about money then his own daughter. This can be seen from the part where he says that he would rather having his money bury with his daughter, then give it to someone else. He is portrayed to be someone who was always scheming, which is brought out from the deal he made with Antonio, that if he did not pay by the time, Shylock would be allowed to cut a pound of flesh from anywhere he likes. And in the trial scene, even though Antonio is able to pay Shylock, but he still wants that amount of flesh he wants from his bond.

In my opinion, I feel that her view of the education system is somewhat right, although I still partially disagree in some parts. Firstly, I strongly agree with her that the education system focuses a lot on just plain remembering and factual memorising. And this is all for the reason to get the A1 that we need to have better grades. For example, we should understand the theory behind the geometry that we learn, as a lot of the rules relate to each other. So I feel that the education system should focus more on trying to make the students why is it done this way. The system should encourage study deeper into our subjects. As with understanding comes knowledge and also bringing us to use it. But I would just disagree with her comparing of the metals. This is due to the fact to understand this, it would take a lot more of studying, and at a too high level for the students as of now. I also agree with her about the point about students voicing their views and opinions about the education system. This will help the education system continually improve and allow the students to better in education. Also, this will improve creativity, which is very important in the society today. I also like the point about that education is supposed to give a voice, to make better decisions, and not merely blindly following. Also, another point I agree with her that the education system should not be trying to teach us what is CME and to have character is not just to be able to know what is right or what we should do, but it should be the act itself of doing it. But still, we cannot blame the education system for this, this is due to the fact that, is it possible for the system to always be there and supervising the students and telling them that they should do this? Instead it should be cultivated from both the parents and the system from young, this will allow the students to understand what is character and build a good one, as a good character takes a long time to develop. I feel that the education system should educate parent and child about good character, and how to achieve it.

To achieve a perfect education system and an ideal one, would be really hard to achieve. This is due to the always changing ways of education. But to achieve one that is close would be much easier, but we should always strive achieve one that is ideal. This is due to the fact that the needs of education are always changing. It will need the help of those getting educated, and the educators.

Water is something needed by everyone, we cannot live without it. Without it, life cannot continue without water, but we treat water as a commodity, something we pay for, something we use trade. So why is water being treated this way, it should be as a human right, as a human right would mean having something we need, something we cannot live without, not something we should be paying for, and if we do not have the money, we do not get any. I feel that this is a very wrong way to treat something so important to us humans. And also, by treating water as a commodity, it allows it access to be determined by the market, and the pricing to be changed by those who have it. So, yes there is a large difference to treating water as a human right or commodity, because if it is a human right, then people should get it regardless of where they can pay for it, but if it is like a commodity, then if the person does not have any money, none is given to the person. So we should treat water as a human right, as without it life cannot continue. But we also have to see a point, which is if we do treat it as a human right, and water is provided in limitless amounts to people, then what if many people waste the water? And what if those people feel that since they can have a limitless amount of water without paying, then they will just let the water run, without worrying to pay more. So, we should partially treat it as a human right and a commodity, so as make sure that everyone gets water, yet no one wastes it, but still everyone will get the water they deserve to get.

Term 3 week 1 : should the giving of weekly days off to maids be legislated in Singapore?

In my opinion, no it should not be legislated. Firstly, I feel that the once a month off day for them is really too little, but once a week might be too much for them. Instead, they should change it to a twice a month full day off, and maybe two more half days off, whereby maybe in the morning, after they have finished what is necessary, they have the rest of the day off to do whatever they want to, but the holidays should be decided by the maids themselves, but cannot be taken consecutively over the days. The government, should also maybe make a ruling that if the maid wishes to return to their hometown, they should be given a week or two weeks off to go back to their hometown every year. Also, if the employer has a specific reasons for the maid to come back early, the week or two should be given. Also, I feel that there should be a yearly health check for them, to be paid by the employers. Also, I feel that in making all these rules, I feel that the number of people that the maid is caring for, or the area of the house she is in charge of should be taken into consideration, when maybe giving her the number of days off, thus making it more fair. I believe this rules will make it much more fair to both the employers, and the maids themselves, thus creating better relations. After thinking of all this, I feel that maids are also people and workers, and they should be treated equally and fairly.

Justin Chia said...
I agree with your point about how children are acting like what they see in the cinema, I feel that many youths like us are always being influenced by the media, to do wrong things like how the adults do it. I feel that there should be more censoreship in such movies, so as not to influence youths like us who do not have mature enough thinking.

February 24, 2011 7:54 AM

Justin Chia said...
I agree with your point about how confidence is really important. This is because, without confidence, you will might not have eye contact and might not be able to bring out points the way you wanted to. I also want to add on to your point that if you are reading a text, it will also help if your read about 8-10 words ahead, thus allowing you to maintain good eye contact and at the same time being able to bring out your points in a way that your listeners can understand.

Online lesson on slaves in the US years ago

What I have learnt so far in the recent LA Lessons

1. I have learnt many ways of writing a good story, for how to make a character very vivid not only in looks, but also in the way he acts, moves and his character.

2. I have also learnt how to systemically plot a story, which has its own climax and conclusion.

3. I have also learnt more ways to understand why writers write things in a certain way, using literary methods, and I have learnt how to identify them.

Thoughts about the current LA lessons.

I think the current La lessons are good as the way it is, as it is not rushing to teach us different skills and I am able to catch up with the lessons.

Thoughts about the song "where is the love"

I feel that this song really describes how many of us actually live today, people now always just care about materialistic things, like money, but do not actually show genuine care. There was also a part where the songs states that the many nations always send troops out of the country to fight terrorism, but it later states that there is actually terrorism in their own country. This shows that they do not even care to solve the ongoing problems internally and want to go out of their country to fight. This also shows that they are prejudice because they choose to attack this group of people, when even in their own country there is the problem, and the problem is as important as going overseas to fight, but they still want to place the large focus on overseas operations.
I must admit that even myself would care alot about money. I think there we should care less about money, although it is important, and show some care. Besides, care like this does not always need to use money, thus I think it never actually hurts to maybe help someone in need to the best we can, or maybe if someone bumps into you, we do not necessarily need to shout at the person even though it is not your fault. Although many people may be like this now, I still believe that there is still that sense of humanity in us.

"I want my shoes on

my feet now!" Timmy shouted

"but its just a few feet away!" Wanda, his fairy, said in a nagging tone. Timmy gave a frown and she relented and used her wand to do magic. The shoes then went on timmy's feet and he walked out of the room when his parents shouted for him to eat dinner.
When he reached to the dinner table, they gave him a large bowl of vegetable, it included spinach, carrots, tomatoes, and almost every other vegetable you could think of. Timmy then covered his mouth and his face

turned green. He then made Cosmo,his fairy, eat all the greens, who did it willingly.

"man, I hate vegetables, how good would it be if every meal is junk food. Hey! thats an idea!" He then gave the order that every meal in the town would be junk food, while wanda nagged about consequences that may arise. But he nonchalantly gave the order the second time, and poof! The second bowl of vegetables became sweets, chocolates and potato chips. Ironically, wanda became happy and crazy when she had seen all the chocolate. Cosmo then said that wanda really loves chocolate, but the sugar rush would come. But seeing Timmy and wanda enjoying the food, he also joined it. Just a few minutes later, the whole town was in a sugar rush, everyone was jumping, runing, and everyone finished their day fast.

After awhile it wared off, and everyone was tired. Soon a few days past, and everyone had grown almost 5 times heavier. Timmy had a stomach as big as a crate, and a double chin. Timmy felt sick, and kept vomiting. Soon Timmy could not take it anymore and gave an order to make everything back to the way it was. But his fairies had also become really fat, and they just did not have the energy to find their wand. Timmy then had to do something that he hated alot, he had to eat vegetables. He took a can of it out and ate it. They then found the wand.

Timmy is a lazy boy, who is irresposible, and does many things that are sometimes stupid. He also does not think about the consequences of his actions, but usually only realizes it after it has already happened, but always tries his best to fix the problem. He has two giant front teeth. He usually seems selfish, but he is actually a kind boy, as his thinking is still immature.

My comic strip talks about the recent handphone lottery scams which many people have fallen for. The theme is being greedy.
I chose a working man in a suit to show that not only do lowly educated people fall for such scams, but so do people who are educated, and thus it contributes to part of the theme which is prejudice. Also I want to show that being greedy is wrong, and we must always be on our guard to prevent us from being cheated. To know whether it is a scam or not, we should actually think about how they verify their identity, and how they also verify our identity. And if we are only informed through a call, we should already have our guard up.

Edited after comments.

The book that I have selected is "Village By The Sea" written by Anita Desai. This book was actually my Literature text last year, and I have chosen this book because it is actually one of the longer books that I have actually read, and understood, It was probably the book which also started my interest in reading books. Before that I thought books were always boring, but this book proved me wrong. Also, this book portrays how the poor live. For example one of the book's main character, and his family lives in poverty in the villages along India's coast. Due to their parents not being able earn money, the children themselves have to go out to work for money to buy everyday necessities but have no extra to indulge in other things, compared to us here in Singapore where most of use have a comfortable life. They also have to go to the beach to find food for their meals sometimes also. Whereas here in Singapore, we could just get it from the Supermarket.

Also this book has taught me that whoever you are, there is still a chance that you can do something you want, or your dreams. For example, the main character manages to get to the city, meeting nice people, who one becomes his master in making or fixing watches. This book has taught me a few important things, counting my blessings and pursuing my dreams. I feel that I should read more to improve my command of English language.