Photo Montage

Below is my photo montage which was done by me and Xavier Neo (19) from 1A1.

Conflict is one of the themes in many stories we came across in our LA lessons, like “The Scarlet Ibis”, the internal conflicts of the protagonist and the conflicts of the protagonist and Doodle, “Animal Farm”, the conflicts between Snowball and Napoleon, Federick and Pilkington, the animals and the humans, the internal conflicts of Charlie and between Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur in “Flowers for Algernon”. The various types of conflicts here are: internal conflict, conflicts with others and opposition in views.

The first picture over here is Keng Jin doing his assessment book. The conflicts depicted here is internal conflict, conflicts going on in his mind, all the solving and analyzing and all that. This may also be considered conflict with homework, probably because of the contradiction of thoughts in his mind.

The second picture shows a big plant and several other small plants growing extremely close together. The conflict here is the conflict between these plants to obtain enough sunlight, nutrients and water to survive.

The third picture shows Wei Loon about to smash me with his knee. The conflict here is the fight between these two people, the bigger and taller one, Wei Loon, bullying the smaller person which is myself.

The fourth picture depicts me angry with myself for failing his test. The conflict here is the internal conflict in me, the anger with himself for achieving such an undesirable grade.

The fifth picture shows two “dinosaurs” fighting, the Tyrannosaurus Rex versus the Triceratops. The conflict shown here is the battle between these two dinosaurs, just like the conflict depicted in the third picture with Wei Loon and me. We initially wanted to take real animals, but we were unable to make our pets pose. We wanted to portray the aggressiveness conflicts between two beings which cannot express themselves with speech.

The last picture shows a cane. When we refer to caning, we are talking about judicial caning, the punishment some criminals suffer from for committing crimes like theft or vandalism. There are different views towards this subject. Some feel that this violate human rights and is cruel, while others feel that this physical punishment is necessary to lower crime rates. Such opposition in views is defined as value conflict. It is when two oppositions argue whether something is right or wrong.

The photos are arranged in this manner because conflict is defined as an opposition of needs and interests. It can also be used to refer to wars or revolutions, like the Rebellion in Animal Farm, where the furious animals chased Jones and his men out of the farm. In this case, chaos usually exists. By placing our pictures in a disorganized way, we hope to portray the chaos during conflicts.

Thank you for your time. Do give your comments!

Memoir of the World Cup

Yes, the World Cup may have ended but scenes of those electrifying moments still linger within our minds every time someone mentions "football". We do have to thank South Africa for their hospitality which they have shown while hosting this exquisite game of football. Despite South Africa's high crime rate and looking at the number of rapes committed every year, South Africa did not let any get in their way in hosting the FIFA World Cup. There's no doubt whether another football fiesta should be held on that continent again. Africa have indeed showed the world what they are capable of. South Africa has always been under the opression of foreign countries. Looking back at South Africa's history, the whites have always triumphed over the blacks. Take apartheid as an example. It was a system of legal racial segregation and many blacks suffered under the rule of the whites. There was, however, a brave man who stood up for his country, Nelson Mandela, who succeeded in freeing his fellow countrymen from the clutches of the whites with the African National Congress. Back to the future, look at how the Africans were supporting teams during the tournament. From annoying vuvuzelas to painted faces, they were treating others as their own kind, even the Dutch, who were the colonialists of the Cape Town area. This has been the best World Cup I've ever watched. Even Sepp Blatter agrees, giving South Africa 9 out of 10. Now, another four years till we go to Brazil.