Lotteries- THINK

Lotteries may be an economic lure, due to the amount of revenue made each year, but for your social life and morals, it can be a disaster. Lotteries in an area may give rise to another problem Compulsive Gambling. I believe buying lottery tickets, may give you a high, making you feel good, on the meagre chances that you would actually win. If you did, you would probably put that money you won back into the lottery, thinking that your lucky streak will not end. It probably did already end. Saw any black cats lately? So the money would just disappear. Not through some ghostly means but probably through your own hands at the lottery. You would want to gamble more to recoup your losses. So you end up in a lose situation. Your chances are probably 1 in 13 million. Why take the chance. Asking my dad, i have decided not to quote him entirely. He always has some way of insulting anybody or maybe blaming himself. I don't want any government getting me into trouble for this. So he said, " why open lotteries and tear apart the morals of singaporeans, causing trouble in their families and financial problems, when people waste their money buying slips of papers which have numbers and this small bit of hope under the illusion that they may be making a big amount of money?" So he believes that gambling has not very good prospects for anyone, an therefore does not gamble. Its true, i have not seen him gambling anywhere, and when he does have to play mahjong, he plays with no stakes. (according to my mom, mahjong improves your memory.) The NPCG advertistment also brings up a point. Im against lotteries as they may give rise to the problem of compulsive gambling, and as in the advertistment, they give a lot of excuses to gamble. They would say that is their last try, but how many last tries do you think they may have done. Once you gamble, it is difficult to stop as you think your next try will be lucky, and just waste your money. So to quote the advertistment,"Often the people who really suffer from problem gambling aren't the gamblers." those would be the family members. I still dont believe in easy money as that is easy come, easy go. The money that is made would be gone just as easily. Dont start. So that is why i am against lotteries.

I made a cute little song for it sung as twinkle twinkle little star. More about slot machines though

Give me money, shooting star

Give me money, shooting star,
Instead I wished upon a bar
If three met, little win
Never big, it was a sin
Wasted money, shooting star,
how I wish I did not start.

Wei Ron

Favorite Poets - E learning

"For here the lover and killer are mingled who had one body and one heart. And death who had the soldier singled has done the lover mortal hurt."

Keith Douglas is my favorite poet, and this is a quote from one of his poems. He writes many war poems and intrigues me with his stands and perspectives. Keith Douglas is a good poet because he manages to convey a message that war is horrible in different perspectives such as a soldier killing or the only soldier surviving in the second world war. (that was a thesis statement, was it??)

Keith douglas did not have a really pretty life. His parents were financially poor, and their marriage collapsed, leaving Keith with his mother. He reflected on his childhood that "I lived alone during the most fluid and formative years of my life, and during that time I lived on my imagination, which was so powerful as to persuade me that the things I imagined would come true." By University his poetic talent was recognised but he could only publish one of his volumes of poetry before he was sent to army and the war. After certain battles, he would recount them and that would become part of his poetry. Pity he died young, in his army years.

Why does Keith Douglas intrigue me? He focuses on a external impression, making even the enemies of the allied (he was english) look humane. The people in his poems have mothers, people they care about, and not just killing. This makes his poems a lot more realistic. He has many different perspectives but all convey one message, that war is horrible, and not wanted. Like in the poem, How to Kill (i remember just doing some brief stuff on that) it shows how a soldier kills an enemy. The poem makes the enemy seem normal, and by killing. The description of the enemy is: "He smiles, and moves about in ways his mother knows, habits of his." And yet Keith Douglas makes killing this person supposed to be the enemy, a burden on the soldier's mind. So it is easy to kill but difficult to handle the consequences, showing that the poet does not like war.Vergissmeinnicht (Forget-me-not) is another poem by him, showing the aftermath of the battle. It describes tanks guns like demons mouths the place as a nightmare ground and is able to let you see a picture of the horrific effects of war.Cairo Jag was written when he was sent to the subsaharan area, near the middle east. He describes Cairo as a place but in the last stanza reaches a new world, a warground, where vegetation is of iron, metal brambles have have no flowers or berries, the dead themselves, their boots, clothes and possessions clinging to the ground, and manages to put a huge difference between cairo and a warground near cairo.

Poems How to kill, Vergissmeinnicht (Forget-me-not),Cairo Jag

http://www.poemhunter.com/keith-douglas/poems/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Douglas

My favorite poem

The Death-Bed by Siegfried Sassoon
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Someone was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water—calm, sliding green above the weir.
Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird- voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer; drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes

Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace
,Gently and slowly washing life away.

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But someone was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.

Light many lamps and gather round his bed
.Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

This is a war poem as you can see in the last paragraph Then far away, the thudding of guns. WHere a man, in his deathbed, is far away from the war, and in safety and silence. The is use of figurative language in the poem, like in the first stanza, there is personification as the silence takes a human action, and "heaped" around him. In the next stanza, there is a lot of reference to water, that he remembers, his good memories on a summer day, and in the third stanza, there is use of personification as the clouds are seen to wander, and the use of metaphor as the clouds are referred to as blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, and the use of the word drowning is a hyperbole, as it shows his struggle against death. In the next stanza, there is more reference to water, in the form of rain. And there is a hint that he would die, as the rain was slowly and gently washing life away. In the next stanza, it is shown a simile as the pain is referred like a prowling beast, and this is yet another personification as the pain "gripped and tore" his dreams with "grinding claws and fangs". By the next stanza, the people know the person is going to die, and are gathering. The person next died in his sleep, and there was silence, once again.

Why I like this poem
War poems are somehow nice, with the person dying, but what a person thinks of when he his killing another or dying of a wound. Take another poem, how to kill, yet another war poem, but since i did it before, i believe this would be a good add on to see what people think and what happens, when they die. Death is seen as a person and the poem actually needs you to read in depth to actually check whats the meaning of the poem. It is also more simply written, unlike those with Thou, Thee, Thy and others like those. Those are just difficult to read.