[CE] The Hong Kong Education System

There is another article that I have read that is about similar obstacles that gifted students have to overcome, however the other article is written is Chinese, so I posted this article instead, but this article focused on ethnic minority gifted students’ troubles.

The article is about a 12 year old Indian boy Singh, who has been constantly ordered by his teachers to stand outside the classroom because Singh asked too many questions.

‘His later primary school studies were suspended when he was in Grade 5, while attending an international school.

He was told that the school could not upgrade him, and that he should instead go to a gifted school. ‘

When Singh approached a Secondary school and took a form-three examination as recommended by the Education Bureau (EDB), he was told that he failed the test, however the scores were not shown. But within three months after Singh was rejected by the school, he took the International General Certificate of Secondary Education and his results showed that his ability to be educated at the university level.
The schools that EDB offered for Singh are either ordinary ethnic minority schools, Singh’s family were shocked when they learned there was a list of schools offering gifted development programs for primary or secondary students, including some English-as-a-medium-of-instruction schools, which the EDB has never broached.

I feel bad for the boy, while the Hong Kong educational system is fucked up by making students and parents stress over almost everything. The government had to made things worse by trying to forced the ‘traditional’ Chinese teaching on the new generations, who apparently have responded to the teaching by ignoring.

note to self: I think I went a little overboard over the boy when that was not what I really want to express over the article.

[FP] I love my family

I swear when I’m 18, I’m going to move out of this miserable place. I hate how my parents always try to guess the motivation of me doing something they don’t like (like having 4 ear piercings instead of two), they always think I’m doing this because I want to rebel against them. I hate their unrealistic expectations of me. It’s not that I don’t understand their struggling and pain of immigrating here to America, but does he have to include that part whenever he gives me a lecture? Somehow the fucking drama of how my parents and my uncle’s family broke up relations is always included in the lecture.

Or since I am the oldest, I’ll be expected to be the role model of my already corrupted siblings. They always expect me to be the loving sister, or the friendly sister, who cares for her brother and sister more than herself. Well I refuse to do that anymore, the more I helped them the more they relied on me and lose their independence. The worst part is now my brother and sister thinks I’m some kind of douche bag and they can blame everything on me. They’re the victims no matter what. My parents didn’t even realize that, they still think my brother and sisters are perfect little angels.
The worst part of this family is my parents love to make up crap, like how I lied to them all the time or I have been taking my anger out on my sister since she was born. I give up,

I’m tired of all this fucking drama and accusing. They want to see rebellious? I’ll show them.

[CE] Abortions

This article talks about a group that has turned in its initial signatures to begin a petition drive to enshrine in the Ohio Constitution an amendment saying that life begins at conception.

“The amendment would define a person to “apply to every human at every stage of the biological development ... including fertilization.”

says the director of the movement, Dr. Patrick Johnson.

Recently other anti-abortion moves are not as far-reaching. The Heartbeat Bill is being debated in the legislature that would outlaw abortion if a beating heart is detectable.
The author than offers a quote of an opposing perspective:

“We could be looking at government investigations into miscarriages,” she said. “It does nothing to prevent unwanted pregnancies; in fact, it does the exact opposite.”

Says Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio.

I have never been a big fan of babies, whenever they started crying, I always feel like shoving something straight into their mouths just to get some peace and quiet back. However I still believe that whether the infant should survive is not our place to determinate. I’m sure that though not all women who seek abortion are in difficult situations where they could not afford to raise the baby well, or they already know that the baby they’re carrying have a serious disease, that after the baby is born, the medical expenses is too big a burden. There are women who choose to have an abortion simply because they view the baby as an excess package that will become their obstacle to their pursue of happiness and love in life.

I know this is a current events post, but I can’t resist putting this video here. The song of the name means ‘blood clot’ in Japanese, and the song is about a mother’s pain and sadness because the embryo has died in her womb. I somehow think that it’s related to this post. :\

[FP] Friends

To whom it might concern,

Our AP Statistics class made an analyzed of your caramel-filled Ghirardelli chocolate hearts. Your company advertises the chocolates with the foil weigh approximately 8 grams individually. However, some consumers may think that your advertised weight is incorrect and the company does not meet the truth in advertising laws. Our class conducted an experiment using your caramel-filled chocolate hearts as samples, we have three samples:  32 groups of five and two separate samples of 32 individual chocolates. Each sample would contain independent chocolates and no chocolate has been recorded in more than one sample.
           
            Our first sample is distribution of the individual chocolates. Our study concludes the mean weight to be approximately 8.3136 g with standard deviation .5449 g and ranges from 7g to 9.2g. The box plot shows left skewed association and has a median at 8.4. However, the box plot has no outliers and is large enough to use the Central Limits Theorem to assume the sample chocolate hearts come from a Normal population.

To find the true mean weight of the chocolates, we use the 95% confidence interval equation for 1 mean test of significance of 5%.

   =  = 8.1909, 8.4463

Therefore we are 95% confidence that the true mean weight of the chocolate should be between 8.1909 grams to 8.4463 grams.

 

-3.232 =         

-.2188= 8.3136

 = 41.0213

With foil paper, the advertised weight of the Ghirardeli chocolate heart should be 8.0948g to meet the truth in advertising laws. There should be no more than one of every thousand less than 8.0948g.

            The next sample contains groups of chocolate hearts in 5. The data has a mean weight of 41.6906 grams with standard deviation of 1.1713 g, ranges from 39.2g to 45.6g. This sample is also slightly skewed to the left with two outliers, the median is at 41.5. As the sample size is also large enough to use the Central limits Theorem, we can also assume that the sample chocolate hearts come from a Normal distribution.

To find the true mean weight of five chocolate hearts’ weight, we will also use the 95% confidence interval equation for 1 mean.

 =  = 41.2848, 42.0964

The true mean weight of five chocolate hearts is between 41.2848and 42.0964.

-3.232 =      

-.6693=  

 = 41.0213

With foil paper, the advertised weight of the groups of five Ghirardeli chocolate heart should be 41.0213g to meet the truth in advertising laws. There should be no more than one of every thousand less than 41.0213g.

No more than one out of every thousand package of five hearts should be under 41.0213g, the advertised weight.

Thank you for your patient.

[ME] Going For The Look

Although it is undeniable that the majority of human beings favor beautiful things; one typical conflict that always occurs is when one finds this and that attractive while the other disagrees, is there an exact policy to judge the beauty of all things? Cohen's argument cast a supporting vote towards the “classic American” hiring methods of Abercrombie, an uprising clothing retail superstar which most American teens love and desire. Elizabeth Nill, a sophomore at Northwestern University, were spotted three times by Abercrombie's managers and offered her a job as a clerk. To the company, a sales clerk is actually the brand representative and his or her duty is to project the brand and themselves with energy and enthusiasm so it will capture the customers' awareness to the brand. Ms. Nill stands 5-foot-6-inches tall and has long blond hair. “She looks hip, in fact, she looks like she just walked out of the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.”- described by Steven Greenhouse, author of this article.

With people appreciating and acknowledging your looks and appearance is definitely an honor that one should be proud of, you don't know how many people went to that store because of the blond, blue-eyed and preppy model on the catalog. The shirt itself looks...alright just by itself sitting on the table, but once it was placed on the sexy model, even a plain white t-shirt would look amazingly exquisite. Hiring by looks is no news in the retail industry but the real question is: Is the “classic American” look really considered by public to be the most lucrative advertisement? Does everybody in the whole wide world adore the “classic American” look? I found this sales act rather short sighted and straight up racist. This boasting American pride that that Abercrombie has eliminated other races' charm by praising themselves to such a high point they had gone blind. It is completely arguable for they can only set their target on white Americans but not the other races. If the company is really ‘hiring for the look’, shouldn’t they also hire applied candidates of different ethnicity, since “Classic Americans’ are not the winners of every worldwide beauty contest?

[RP] Walking in the Dark

I enjoy of having my headphones on and walk around at the darkness…but this is what I love to do…I like the feeling of being in my own little world, have my music on... When it gets down to the dark and where there's only me on the street, I can do stuff that I want and no one else can see me. Another thing that I like is to enjoy the beauty of the stars and moon as I walk. You can probably found it really cool and it's so quiet around that you can be looking at a such amazed view by yourself.

I saw this on Ming’s post and thought that I would want do a response post on this. Like Ming, I also like walking in the dark. Before our family moved to America, we lived in a city where the brightness never dies -even at night. Numerous of tall buildings and almost everyone (except for housewives, elders and children) that prefers to hang out at anywhere help keeping the city crowded and alive at night.  Since everywhere is bright and peoples everywhere, it is almost impossible to have any experience of strolling in the dark, unless that place is far too isolated from the city for anyone to go there.   

Now that we moved here to Alameda, the nights here are so quiet that I can actually hear others’ conversations even in my own house on the second floor. Although I enjoy walking home with my friends, I also love moments where I walk home alone with my headphones on.  I get to listen to any music I want, no need to be afraid of others that would criticize my taste in music. I can hum along to the songs and sing one or two lines of the lyrics that I remember , no need to worry about my sister’s staring. I can even do all sorts of weird body movement, because I have the darkness as my invisibility cloak, where no one can see me clearly unless they have a flashlight. The darkness is one of the few places that I can be the real me, where my only audience is the shadows of the whatevers on the pavement.