William Wordsworth

LIFE OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTHBorn in England in 1770, Wordsworth attended Cambridge University and afterwards went on a walking tour of France and Switzerland. When war broke out in 1793 he returned to England, moving in with his sister Dorothy in Dorset. It was during this time he discovered his calling as a poet with a predominant theme of the common man close to nature. In 1798 he was instrumental in the advent of Romantic Poetry, together with Coleridge writing the Lyrical Ballads, which began with Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" and ended with Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey". He spent a year in Germany, then settled down in Dove Cottage, Grasmere with his wife Mary Hutchison in 1802, where he wrote his poetic autobiography The Prelude and two other books of poems. He was selected poet laureate in 1843 and died in 1850 of a case of pleurisy.

LONDON
Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent , bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

???

???

St John's Competition

Yesterday my CCA uniform group just had a almost useless trip to the St John's Headquarters to support our school to support a team(consisting of Sec 3 St Johns) in a competition. The Sec 1 squad was expected to report at the Lavender MRT Station at 12 in the morning and wait for the senior. The few earlier ones than reach there like me just pass time by buying some nice soya ice cream until our NCO(senior) arrived.

He then brought us to a near by building to measure our shoe sizes, for collecting our St John's shoes next time. Everyone then went to eat lunch at the hawker centre one storey below, but I had already eaten an early lunch. So me, Gui An, Andrew, and Marvin went to buy a small but nice bowl of Wanton noodles and a cheap drink. We got like only a short while to eat so Marvin cannot finish his soup(lol) then there we go to the headquarters to view the competition. We then assenbled at the third and highest floor of the HQ. It was quite comfortable in the competition hall but it was quite small and squeezy, and we couldn't really see the competition as it was behind thick blinds. The floor there was also very dirty. The minute we sat on the carpeted-floor, our butts were smeared with dust and hair.

We were expected to sit there and cheer for the HCI team for hours but most of the time, only other schools came OBVIOUSLY a waste of time!

Chinese Discussion

Today we had a Chinese discussion as usual for every Friday but there is an unexpected turn. The topic that the speakers practised yesterday has been changed at the last minute. The speakers were then very nervous as they had no idea how to present, so all we did was go through the documents for the new topic. It is just about dangers students faced nowadays such as car accidents, and many more. As expected, the presentation of the points are quite a failure. Almost all the speakers did not know what to say and do in the presentation. I shall just sadly say that it is a waste of time<:(

NAPFA :)

Today our class just had the NAPFA five stations. I thought that I would surely fail due to my standing broad jump:P but I surprisingly passed by 10cm! Other than that, I also have some trouble with sit & reach since the teacher pulled the measuring thing too far away from me, which is quite unfair, causing me to get a D although i got C throughout the past few years.The way the test was carried out was very fast but this PE lesson is that it eaten into our recess by 31 minutes! We all just expected a loss of 15 minutes. Everyone was so pissed off as we only had 9 minutes of recess, only to go back to class and change into our uniforms. Still, I managed to pass my NAPFA!

Tan Kah Kee the epic drama

I got a Chinese worksheet on Tan Kah Kee and it keeps on reminding me what happens in the performance. It may happen very long ago but I just feel like talking about it.

The performance was quite great as I could not understand how Hwachong students themselves performed it, they must have a long practice! It starts (weirdly) with 12 boys singing with 'old' Tan Kah Kee walking in. Then it shows us his life experiences based in three sections, young, adult and old. It was weird at certain periods when old Kah Kee walked into the first section, regretting about his past life. The last section shows something like Tan Kah Kee 'revived' and visiting the school in the future when he is supposedly dead(if not, why would there be a laptop in the scene). Of course, it also shows his contributions to the school such as donating all of his money.