Projects Work

I love Science. That is why last year and this year I have chosen to do Category 1 Projects. This year I am investigating the plant-fungal symbiotic relationship through the production of Ascorbic Acid in Arabidopsis thaliana.

My team consists of Wee Yong, We Boon and Yi Fan. I am the leader. Honestly, we are quite laid back but we always make sure that our research is done on time.

Based on last year's experience, experiments take up a huge portion of our holidays. When our set ups get contaminated by bacteria, we have to redo the whole experiment. Also, we need to go back every two days to record data.

Our mentor is non other then the wonderful Mr. Tan Kai Yuan Zachary. He is very knowledgeable. He was our mentor last year. As such, we knew him better than most other students did. However this "special" relationship did not really put us at an advantage as compared to other students. This is because he treated everyone equally at the start of the year. When we approached him to be our mentor, he made it clear that he would not agree until we gave him a "solid" proposal. Thrice we failed. However, our team persevered nonetheless and we eventually managed to win him over :)

As quoted by Michael Jordan:

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed...

ACE Work

Now that the tests are all over, I have been doing a lot of ACE projects. This term I have chosen English, Chinese, Maths and Integrated Humanities.

For English, I have done a few article explorers, two short stories and a movie review on "Dear John".

For Chinese, it is nothing but newspaper article reflection after newspaper article reflection. This gets kind of boring at times. I think the while point of ACE is that we should be allowed to do research in things that we enjoy and expand our knowledge at the same time instead of just doing ACE just for the sake of doing. For Chinese, our teacher only restricts us to just newspaper article reflections!

Maths is more interesting. We can do virtually on anything we like except that it has obviously got something to do with Maths! We are set tasks to find out more about certain topics. Plus I am a Math guy so Maths ACE is an enjoyment. However, Ms Low please don't get the wrong idea... I really enjoyed doing the movie review for "Dear John" too!

Integrated Humanities is kind of fun but at the same time not exactly very enjoyable. That is because I do not really like the Humanities. Ok I know you are staring at me again. But honestly, I like literature though at times it gets hard to understand the text. If only literature could be enjoyed without it affecting my marks.

ACE last year was so much of an enjoyment. Now it is just a chore... ok maybe not so bad but close to a chore.