Land pollution

Land pollution is the degradation of Earth's land surfaces often caused by human activities and their misuse of land resources. It occurs when waste is not disposed properly. Health hazard disposal of urban and industrial wastes, exploitation of minerals, and improper use of soil by inadequate agricultural practices are a few factors. Urbanization and industrialization are major causes of land pollution. Here are some factors of land pollution.

The first factor is increased mechanization. The major increase in the concentration of population in cities, along with the internal combustion engine, led to the increased number of roads and all the infrastructure that goes with them.

As the demand for food has grown exponentially with the increase of the human population, there is an increase in field size and mechanization. The increase in field size makes it economically viable for the farmer but results in loss of person and shelter for wildlife, as hedgerows and copses disappear. When crops are harvested, the naked soil is left open to wind after it has been compacted by heavy machinery. Another consequence of more intensive agriculture is the move to monoculture. This is unnatural, will deplete the soil of nutrients, allows diseases and pests to spread and, as it happens; it quickly exhausts all the natural resources in an area, causing the introduction of chemical fertilizers and foreign substances to the soil that poisons it. The chemical fertilizers in the soil cause its infertility.

The next factor is the use of pesticides. A pesticide is a substance or mixture of substances used to kill a pest. A pesticide may be a chemical substance, biological agent (such as a virus or bacteria), antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest. Although there are benefits to the use of pesticides, there are also drawbacks, many of the chemicals used in pesticides are persistent soil contaminants, whose impact may endure for decades.

The last factor is the increased waste disposal. When solid wastes are dumped in drainage channels and gutters, they block the flow of the sewerage. This may cause flooding. At the same time, solid wastes also affect soil drainage which hinders the growing of crops.

Next I shall be talking about how to minimise land pollution. We can minimise land pollution by the 3 Rs, reduce reuse and recycle. By doing so, we can minimise waste disposal. We should also refrain from using pesticides and try to find a more environmentally-friendly way to get rid of pests like using predators and genetically engineered plants. We should also use high-tech agriculture methods so that lesser land is used for agriculture. Technology has also allowed soilless agriculture like hydroponics. This will minimise land pollution caused by mechanization.

Does wealth bring happiness?

I agree to a small extent that wealth bring happiness. Although everything in the world costs money, food, drinks, etc and our ultimate motive in life is to get a job and earn money to support our family, we should not be obsessed with money as money cannot buy happiness. True happiness is when you spend time with your family and friends. Furthermore, financial conflicts have sown discords between many families, the members of the family think egocentrically, wanting the most for themselves. Lastly, as we all know, elderly and children need people to talk to and play with as they get lonely easily and they do not only want the things we give them. Thus, spending time with your family brings happiness, not only wealth.

Merchant of Venice on Facebook

1.http://www.facebook.com/pages/Portia/247366961963710

2.http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bassanio/156771407735863

3.http://www.facebook.com/pages/Antonio/164193693655023

LA test and R & R exercises

Recently, I just got back my expository and R & R exercises' results. I did badly for both. I admit that I am weak in LA but I have never gotten so low before. Thus, I decided to reflect on what I have done wrong and try to learn from my mistakes.

Firstly, I will reflect on my expository essay. Even though I listened to my teacher's advice to use transition words, my language marks was still quite poor. I guess that this is because of my poor sentence structure. I will try to improve on it. Also, I misunderstood the question (I thought that Arts include LA) and could not provide any real life examples to prove my point. Thus, I scored badly.

About my R & R exercise, I couldn't understand the passage, even though I annotated!(I thought that the Camilla represents purity!) and thus I scored badly. I will try to re-annotate TKAMB if I have the time.(more carefully this time)

But these are all over already, no point crying over spilled milk. So during this 2 weeks, I will try to remember quotations and examples and hopefully do better for the mid-term exam.

黄城夜韵 Chinese Drama

After watching the Chinese drama "黄城夜韵" organized by our school , I feel that it is a very good show in total. It acts out problems that can occur in our real lives. From this drama, I have learnt a lot of things. The drama was about the problems met when producing a drama.

Firstly, I have learnt not to prejudge other people or assume anything in situations before actually knowing the person or understanding the situation. In the drama, a lot of people thought that the 2 directors were in love, never taking the drama seriously and being unfair to them as they are here to produce a drama. But actually, the female director was not in love with the male director. The 2 directors often stayed up late in the night together to do the scripts for the drama. The female director, after seeing how hardworking the male director is, admired him but not love. If we prejudge a person for example based on their looks. We will ignore those with average looks but that person may be kind in heart and we might have lost a good friend.

Secondly, I learnt to think for others and not only yourself, if not your friends will leave you. In the drama, the female director always thought that only her views were correct and that the people whose expertise was at that certain area was wrong and scolded them. This even caused some of them to sign a contract with another company to work there. When your friend leaves you, it is already too late for regret. We should cherish our friends, unlike the female director in the drama.

Lastly, I learnt about the importance of teamwork and perseverance which are probably the main theme of the drama. In the end, after the people producing the drama worked together and never gave up, they finally succeeded. In life, if there is a will, there is a way, we must persevere till the end. Furthermore, teamwork is very important. A famous Chinese saying: “在家靠父母，在外靠朋友”. At home you depend on your parents, but after going outside and working, you will depend on friends. A lot of things cannot be done by one single person, but with many people together, nothing is impossible.

Favorite Anime

My favorite anime is Detective Conan(mentioned in previous posts) and its name suggests, it is a anime about mysteries. It is about a famous high school detective, Kudou Shinichi, who was with his girlfriend, Mouri Ran, in a amusement park and he saw some men in black(black organization members) doing some illegal business there. As he was watching, he did not notice one of the men coming behind him, the men hit him with a bat and forced him to take a new experimental pill, APTX 4869 which was supposed to kill him. However, a rare side-effect happened and turned him into a child. Then, Kudou Shinichi changed his name to Edogawa Conan to hide the fact that he is alive in case the black organization searchs for him and to search for clues to apprehend the black organization and cure himself. Meanwhile, he stays at Ran's place(Ran does not know Conan is Shinichi). Ran's father, Mouri Kogorou, who is a novice detective, also lived in there. As Conan searches for clues, a lot of cases happened, as he cannot solve the crime as Conan, he has to use Professor Agasa's inventions- a wristwatch that can put people to sleep and a bowtie that is a voice changer- to solve cases. He often poses as Kogorou and thus Kogorou became a famous detective.

I recommend this anime to all of you especially those studying Japanese, as this is not only very interesting(every episode is unique) and EPIC(especially parts with black organization but it also helps to improve your Japanese. Lastly, it is still producing new episodes. Luckily, the author and editors of Detective Conan were not affected in the recent Japan earthquake.

Science Center

I went to the science center on 2th May. It was indeed a fun and enriching trip. We went around the exhibitions first. What interest me the most was the maths room where there were lots of interesting formulas such as e=mc2 and e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 which I have no idea why. Besides going to the usual exhibitions that everyone have seen before, we also went to a science show which was about liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen is a liquid colder than dry ice which boils at -196 degrees Celsius, so its actually boiling in room temperature. When we pour it on the floor, it instantly vaporizes. The experimenters also made a soft banana into a hammer by pouring liquid nitrogen on it, as the banana contains water which turn into ice, it becomes as hard as a hammer and successfully hammered a nail into a chair. But when they tried pouring liquid nitrogen on a flower, although it became hard, when we tried to hammer a nail into a chair, the flower shattered into pieces. This was because that the frozen flower was like a thin layer of ice, it is hard but brittle. Then, they poured liquid nitrogen on a rubber balloon, they used it as a nail and hammered it in. This was possible even though it did not contain water due to the properties of rubber, when rubber contracts, it loses its flexibility and becomes stiff. Next, they tried to contain liquid nitrogen, they poured some into a plastic container and capped it with a lid tightly but the lid still popped out. Then they poured some into a glass flask and covered the mouth with a balloon. The balloon inflated and finally burst. This was because when liquid nitrogen vaporizes, its volume increases by about 600 times. After that, they tried to squeeze in a lot of balloons into a small box by pouring liquid nitrogen on it, this was possible as the air contracts when it is cool and the balloon's volume becomes smaller. Then, they took out the contracted balloons and the air inside expanded and the balloon had a bigger volume. However, some of the balloons burst as the air inside expanded faster than the rubber becoming flexible. Finally, they created a giant cloud by pouring lots of liquid nitrogen into a big unsealed container and adding hot water to it, the liquid nitrogen vaporizes faster and created a gigantic cloud. As I was seating in the first row, I could feel the nitrogen vapor, it was very cooling and I could not see the thing in all of that cloud. In total, the trip was very fun and enriching, I hope to come here again.