Ghost Tales

There was once a tale told by my maid. She had begun to serve our family before I was born ( you could guess how long =D ). SO our relationship was certainly not bad compare to my relatives. She had a husband and two sons. While I was still in premature age, she told me a supernatural or could be say as ghost tale happened near her village and the supernatural incident was fall upon her husband.

One day her husband was drunk and came back home in the midnight. To get into the village , there's a narrow long muddy road. There was barely any trees stood beside the road only some which located further from the road. My maid's husband was walking on the narrow road drunken. While he was walking imbalance, he saw someone opposite of him walking towards him in a distant.His mind started to reactivate and wonder why there was a man walking alone in midnight. He thought of who is the man? The man was coming out from his village but the people of the village slept quite early. He was curious and keen to find out who the guy was . Thus he pretended to walk past him like a drunken man and take a good look of him. Unfortunately, he couldn't see his face. It was just too dark to see clearly.

Suddenly he noticed one terrifying spot. The man casted no shadow under the moonlight. He slowly turned his head around to check out the mystery man and confirm his vision. But the horror of truth just had to taunt him. The man's face suddenly turned hundred and eighty degrees and he was laughing insanely with a tormented face that you would not want it to be in your dreams. He was shocked and his feet was trembling hardly. He tried to calm down and act as if the incident was just merely his imagination of things. Soon, he reached home.

This tale was told by my maid quite several times and she was totally serious about it and did not mean to scare off the pants of mine. She also told me several supernatural cases like her husband saw a huge black cat in the size of a human laying in front of her house and also her house's light were switched on during night time when she and her family when for a vacation. And also there's party noises in their house.

As I grew older and started to interact with more things and received different knowledge and information around me. I started to think in depth about those scenario described by my maid. Why her family always had such cases? Is it because they were haunted? Or they were been cursed by some witches or what? Or those tales were simply a myth or lie. Till now, it still stay as it is as a LEGEND.

The Messy Room by Shel Silverstein

The poem describing a room being totally messed up and filled with undergarments, filthy stuffs, messy workbooks and several attires flying across all the room. Its an undesirable condition to live in and the air has to be so stink that breathing once will be like stuffing rubbish into nostrils. The poet also state that whoever lived in the room should be ashamed. This poem brings out some humors along and a little irony. They way the poet described the messiness is hilarious like "underwear hanging on the lamp" and " workbook is wedged in the window. It is a tongue in cheek humor because it is lined with sarcasm and irony. The irony is that he could easily point out the mistakes of others while he is the one who is irresponsible and the room is his.

Firstly, I personally thought that personal hygiene is really important especially when we live with others in a big group. Our personal hygiene could reflect our character and personalities. Messy and untidy living conditions could prove to someone that you are an irresponsible and dirty fellow. People will certainly distant us and had a bad impression in their mind. As what had written in the poem, the owner of the room is definitely lack of hygiene and was not conscious about the consequences and importance. Firstly "underwear hanging on the lamp" gives people the impression that the owner does not have daily washing of his clothes. His "workbook is wedged in window" shows how he does not take care of his works and obviously a lazy person who seldom studies. Its ashamed that a person room was such dirty and it really gives a bad image to whoever who steps into the room.

Above evidence clearly shows that from different aspects of a person a hygiene could actually have a good look of the person's attitudes to their lives, personalities, attributes and different sorts of personal informations.The poet describe terribly of the room in his poet but at the end there was a joke that the truth it was his room. He successfully conveyed that the person in the poem was extremely unaware of himself instead he could analyse a person's mistake in details without realizing that it was him that was going wrong and being irresponsible. The poem highlighted an aspect of a human character that we are quick to blame others instead of having a quick glance of ourself pointing out our own mistakes.

I was a neat and clean person and I hate to be in a filthy condition filled with strong odors, rodents,rubbishes and sorts of dirty stuff. I get used to tidy up my bedroom and cupboards whenever I have the time. It is important for me as I was living in a boarding school with other people and I don't like people calling me dirty cat. Having a clean environment, studying effectively is not a major problem. In compare of me to the poet, I think that if I could do it i bet everyone can do it as well. Maintaining a suitable and clean environment always surely has a positive effect instead of negative. Lastly, seeing other mistakes more than ourselves is always a human's characteristic. We human tend to cover our mistakes and bury it so that we couldn't look at them. While the other people mistakes, we tend to dig it as much information out from them. And I admitted that I was one of them. This poem is great as it really reflects alot of our human aspects in different ways through hygiene. It really gives us a good reflection on us.

White Fang and The Call of the Wild

This book "The White Fang and the Call of the Wild" was written by a naturalist writer called Jack London. Much of his novel is written about the animals like how they view their world, and how they view our world. In this novel, there are two stories-"White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild" ."White Fang" is a story about a wild wolf-dog's journey toward becoming civilized in the Canadian territory of Yukon during the Klondike goldrush.

The story begins with two men and their sled dog team. They were Bill and Henry with a team of six dogs pulling a sled. They were hunted down by a pack of starving wolves for a few days. During it, all his dogs were eaten by the wolves. After that, Bill and Henry has been killed too. At the end of part 1, they were searched by a search party. The story then follows the pack of wolves which killed Bill and Henry. The famine is over and the wolves begins to split up. And the story continued with the she-wolf and her mate, One Eye. The she-wolf later then gives birth to five cubs but all die from hunger except one. In the later of the story, a tragedy happened. One Eye is killed by a lynx when he was trying to search some food for his cub and mate and was discovered by the she-wolf. And so, of course the she-wolf felt depressed but no choice she and her cub had to survive themselves alone.

One day,the cub met five Native Americans and under the she wolf protection it was safe after all. But among the men, there was one called Grey Beaver, recognizes the she-wolf as Kiche, which was his brother's wolfdog, who left during a famine. So after the recognization, he takes Kiche and her cub home. The cub later was given a name by the man called White Fang. At the man's home, White Fang is treated harshly by the others pack of puppy at home. He was seldom bullied by them and was marginalised. He is not accepted at there. White Fang then grows to become a deadly and fierceful fighter. In order to face any more obstacles and danger during his life, he started to develop predatory and defensive skills. He became quicker, more enduring, more fierce and smarter. White Fang told himself that he had to become like that or else he would not guarantee his survival under the environment he was facing.

When White Fang is five years old, he is taken to Fort Yukon to trade with the gold-hunters. At there, he is sold to a dog-fighter, Beauty Smith. With the dog-fighter, White Fang defeats all his opponents, until he met a bulldog. The bulldog manages to beat down and defeat White Fang until White Fang is nearly to death. Just then, a young rich gold-hunter, Weedon Scott came and stopped the fight and also bought White Fang away from Beauty Smith.

Under Scott's cares, White Fang was tamed by him. After a long period of patience and guidance, Scott succeeded tamed White Fang. When Scott wanted to return to California ,White Fang pursues him, and so Scott decides to take White Fang with him back home. At the end of the story, a murderous criminal, Jim Hall, tries to kill Judge Scott, who had sentenced Hall to prison. But not knowing that Hall was "railroaded". White Fang kills Hall and is nearly killed himself, but survives. Because White Fang's bravery , the women of Scott's estate name him "The Blessed Wolf", and the story ends with White Fang relaxing in the sun with the puppies he had fathered with the sheep-dog Collie.

I chose to write about "White Fang" and not the "Call of the Wild" because I personally feels that White Fang this story is touching because the starting of the story, the cub, White Fang when he was just born, he had to live in harsh conditions. But he did not give up and strive to survive under different circumstances. This story actually teaches me to be courage and tough towards different obstacles in life like White Fang. I really apreciate this book and hope that others could read this book as well. As it really teaches us to think things in a different perspective of views of life and death. It also awaken humans that we are not the one who are facing difficulties in life. Animals too who had the same experience as we are. Last but not least, this book quoted a phrase in my mind--"We must toughen ourself and face the different path of life till wee see the light of success."

20,000 leagues under the sea

This book is called 20,000 leagues under the sea. It was a classic novel written by Jules Verne in 1870, before submarines were a reality and invented. The story begins with everyone in Europe and America spreading rumors about a giant mysterious creature sinking ships on the sea and destroying surface vessels. Due to this mystery that haunts every sailors and people that involved, the United States government decide to send out Abraham Lincoln to search and capture the creature. On board the ship are a marine biologist and a protagonist, Professor Pierre Aronnax along with his servant, Conseil. And in addition, Ned Land , the king of the harpooners. They had join a task force to rid the seas of a monster terrorizing shipping lanes which also known as the "monster".

And so, the journey starts at the Alantic Ocean. Traveling across the sea for a long period of time, the team still has not find the sea monster, but little they know, they find out the creature in the Pacific Ocean and they chase it along to where it goes. But unfortuntely, the monster is far beyond faster than the Abraham Lincoln to catch its prey. During the long chase, the Abraham Lincoln is damaged badly and sinks to the bottom of the sea the three characters have fall overboard into the ocean. To their surprise, they eventually become conscious and find that they are on top of the mysterious creature that they are hunting for. And on top of it, they realize that the creature is not alive at all, its actually an underwater vessel controlled by the commander of this vessel, Captain Nemo. Under Captain Nemo's acknowledgement, the vessel is called Nautilus. It is powered by electricity and is a highly technoligical submarine. Captain Nemo is also a scientific genius, he created the vessel. In order to "escape" the real world and seek for adventure. He recruited his crews and live his life alone under the sea.

Later, Aronnax, Conseil and Land were captured and were told to stay in the vessel and enjoy the freedom . And also they were permitted to leave the ship and were treated as prisonners. In the vessel, Captain Nemo treats the men very wel, especially Aronnax. They are clothed and fed and could wander around the vessel for their pleasure. However, Ned Land remains firm and promised that he will try to escape the vessel. In the vessel, they almost spend all their time in the vessel observing the mysterious sea life . Arronax who are guided by Captain Nemo was fascinated by the wonders of the sea, as well as Conseil. Meanwhile, Aronnax also studies and writes about every sea creature that he sees and observes. Despite the amazing sea life surrounding the Nautilus, that was difficult to be found by man in a hundred of years and the captain's continous generosity and servings. Ned still want to escape the vessel and was losing impatience day by day. Sighting Ned's impressions, Arronax gave his words to Ned that if there are chances to leave, they will leave. But because of the greatness of the captain's genourisity, he does not want to least anger the captain and was still hesitating about his promises to Ned and Captain Nemo.

Years in the submarine, they experience exciting adventures like travelling to barbarian lands, the lost city of Atlantis,trapping underneath a gigantic iceberg and even the fight of an enormous squid monster. On the voyage to the South Pole, the Nautililus was stuck in an iceberg. At that moment, everyone was told to take turns to break the ice so that the vessel could work again. Because of the incident, The vessel almost runs out of oxygen and the men in the ship eventually grew tired. However, they manage to escape under the hardworks of the men. After about one year on the Nautilus, the submarine was in the North Atlantic, the vessel met an incident again, it was attacked by a giant squid. The three main characters and the men in the vessel were forced to fight the squid with axes and spears because they cannot kill the squid with bullets. Along the great fight, a crewmember is killed by the squid and Nemo was depressed and in tears. Finally, the men drived off the squid. After the attack of the squid, the three main charcter decide to take the chance to escape from the vessel. But on their way, they got trapped in a whirlpool that no ships had ever survived through it. But amazingly, the small boat they boarded manage to overcome the whirlpool and emerge safely.

At the end of the story, Aronnax is awaiting his return to France and rewriting his memories of his journey under the sea. After reading this classic novel, I feel that this book is incredibly amazing and interesting to read as it had lots of science-fiction and a space of imaginations. I also feels that this book inspired me alot to think more creative and in depth when writing a story. And more importantly, the pleasure of imaginating unbelievable stuff.

Around the world in 80 days - Book Review

This is a adventure based and science-fiction story written by an author called Jules Verne about a guy called Phileas Fogg traveling around the world in 80 days. He was one of the most prominent members of the London Reform Club. On the very day he hire a new servant Passepartout, Phileas Fogg bets half his fortune that he can travel around the globe in eighty days with the members in the club. Immediately, the pairs set off on a race against time that will see them either win fame and fortune or face obscurity and ruin.

Before they start their absurd journey, there was a bank robbing happened not long before the departure of Phileas Fogg who was then quite popular in his names in the newspaper indicating his impossible journey. So, here comes a detective, named Fix. He then suspected Phileas Fogg for the man who robbed the bank. Unfortunately, such coincidence that Phileas Fogg start his journey right after the case of robbing. And so, Fix the detective claimed that Fogg was undertaking the tour around the world on the pretext of a wager. Thus, Fix requested a warrant of arrest without delay to Bombay.

To assure Phileas Fogg to be arrested, Fix kept on track with him and consequently search opportunities to delay Phileas Fogg and his servant, Passepartout to get the warrant in Bombay to arrest them. Fix tried to approach Passepartout and be friend with him to gain his convidence and also seeking details about his master from him.

In India, Phileas Fogg saved a woman that would be force to sacrifice for her husband who died. The woman was to be burned alive for the ceremony. But the man of heart-Phileas Fogg decided to save her as he had twelve extra hours to spare during his journey. The woman was successfully saved by Fogg and she decided to follow Fogg to a safer place where she could land. The woman was Mrs. Aouda.

On the way, suddenly the detective Fix who continuously set obstacles on Fogg’s journey turned his objectives. He decided to sort of assist Fogg and make him reached London without delay so that he could arrest him in English ground. Passepartout who then knew that Fix was a detective and tracking them along the way bet with him that Phileas Fogg was an honest man and not a robber. The journey then continued with different exciting obstacles and a rush against time.

My favourite character in this story is the guy called Passepartout. I loved him because he was quite humorous and foolish (in the sense of funny).One time, He left a burning gas in his room and the expense of wasted gas will be docked from his salary. Every day along the journey, he was always worrying about the gas expenses. He was also very brave when rescuing Aouda. Besides, he was quite friendly towards the people around him such as Mr. Fix, the Frenchman and Aouda. He also expose to lot of strange things like get trapped or left behind which makes him a interesting role to find out. The greatest admiration of me in him was his loyalty. Along the journey, he plays a critical role, saving and companioned Fogg during the tough journey. Thus, without a loyal servant like Passepartout, Fogg would not have make it through the journey.

Kidnapped - Book Review

Kidnapped is a novel about a young man known as David Balfour. His parents have recently died and he was to stay alone .He received a letter from Mr. Campbell and was told to deliver it to the House of Shaws in Cramond, where David's uncle, Ebenezer Balfour, lives. During his journey, David seek help from people to find the location of the House of Shaws and he was been told that it was a place that filled with fear.

When David arrives at the house, he was confronted with his uncle. He was allowed to stay after he handed the letter to his uncle. Once, his uncle asked him to get a chest from the top of a tower in the house, but he refuses to provide David a lamp or candle. In the tower, he realizes that it was unfinished in some places and the steps was dangerous as well. David later found out that his uncle intended to make him dead to prevent him giving over his inheritance.

On the next day, a cabin boy, Ransome, arrives at the house of Shaw, and told Ebenezer that Captain Hoseason wanted to meet him. Ebenezer then took David with him to meet Hoseason. Leaving his uncle alone, he went to visit the docks with Ransome. Suddenly, David was struck by something on the dock and went unconscious. When he woke up, he found out he was kidnapped! On the dock, he was weak and sick due to lack of food. He also met some guy called, Mr. Riach, Mr.Shuan, Hoseason and of course Ransomes.

One day, they strike a small boat and all of the crew on boat was killed except one man, Alan Breck . Alan tried to be reasonable to the captain, Hoseason and he offered the captain money to take him to somewhere but until he acknowledged by David that Hoseason planned to kill him. He then with David armed with guns and swords prepared to defense themselves. At the end, they defeated five crews on dock and the others refused to continue fighting.

Hoseason has no choice but to give Alan and David passage back to the mainland. Soon, David and Alan are separated with David being washed ashore on the isle of Erraid near Mull, while Alan and the others row to the same island. David had a few days exploring alone in the island . Eventually, David found that Alan and other crews had survived.

Alan and David then began their flight avoid been seen from English soldiers day by day. As David and Alan continue their flight, David becomes more ill. On their way, they met a lawyer of David.s uncle who agrees to help David to gain back his inheritance and after which the story of David is revealed .It was said that his father and uncle had once quarrelled over a woman, and the older Balfour had married her; informally giving the estate to his brother while living as an impoverished school teacher with his wife. And so David was provided two-thirds of the estate's income for as long as his uncle survived and the novel ended with Alan going to France and David went to the back to settle his fortune.

My favourite character in this novel is Alan because he was courageous and was considered a hero to David as he always intended to help David to across different obstacles with all his might. And also he was very kind and friendly too, on the first day David met Alan. The two of them was very cooperative fighting against the crews of captain Hoseason and they got along very easily too.

Schooldays (A Poem by Me)

Sorry teacher for posting this poem for so late. I did those analysis and poem but I forgot to post it in here. Sorry again. This poem was about me during schooldays and the beautiful memories.

Waiting for a bus

to get to school

I make a fuss

And look like a fool

Late for the lessons

I crept into the classroom like a thief

But caught like a rat

Hoping forgiveness

Lessons were boring

I were sleeping

Heard friends laughing

Knew what was happening

Recess came

The students ran

Rushing for the line

To get a meal

Some did not eat

But play in the classroom

Chasing everywhere

And have a "Bang"

Crying sound was heard

And crowd was there

Search for the "Bads"

But could not find anywhere

Couples were everywhere

Holding hands

Friends laughed and teased

But the same goes to him

The bravest student was him

But when exam comes

The most afraid was him

Especially getting results

There's a curse on me

I never get one

But always get two

In exam

School ends

buses and cars waiting

Friends says goodbye

Hands wave in the air

The last day of school for me had arrived

Friends hug and cry

They have to leave

But memories stay forever

Looking back the annul yearbook

Memories flashing by with laughters and cries

I closed my eyes

And smile......