Impromptu Speech

          What is high cost of living? It means that the cost of living is the monetary cost of maintaining a particular standard of living.  It is determined by the amount of money needed to buy the goods and services necessary to maintain a specific standard of living. For example items such as food, clothing, rent, fuel, and miscellaneous items such as recreation, transportation, and medical services are considered. The cost of living is usually measured by calculating the average cost of a number of these particular goods and services; the average cost is then used as an index.

          The cost of living in Singapore is high as Singapore is a well developed country. It is necessary to maintain high cost of living so that 90% of the population do not accumulate excess wealth. If Singaporeans starts to accumulate wealth, nobody wants to work and there will be insufficient labor to fill up the plants set up by foreign investors. Factors affecting high cost of living are housing, healthcare and transport. This is to ensure that the people are easily manageable. With loans, mortgages, and monthly expenses to repay, the population will be gainfully employed and no one could afford to slack.

         Hence, living expenses are foremost on everyone’s mind, particularly in today’s bleak economic times. The biggest expenses are likely to be on schooling, housing and transport. For housing, in order to minimize rent costs, we could do so by sharing a flat, living in an HDB, or living further away from the city center. Vicinity that is less favorable to most of the people would be less expensive.

       For transport, we could do so by taking MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) or taking a bus. This would save money than buying a car, which is far more expensive as it needs to pay the petrol, maintenance, which could spend more than expected. By taking MRT or bus, we could be environmentally friendly and saves more money than buying just a car.

       For schooling, families whom have low income could have a problem sending their children for education. They could use the FAS ( Financial Assistant Scheme) from the school by the government. This could help the families to not worry about their children’s education as the school would be providing free resources. For example, textbooks, assessment books from school. It could help parents to be less worried about money for their children and they could possibly send their children for education.

      Hence, problems could be resolve if they think wisely about what they buy or do. They should plan beforehand to get the head start of how much things cost. This could ensure the preparations would not be wrong when they plan. 

Creative Piece

Hi, my name is Shirely, I am here to present me, my partner, Catherine Kung’s creative piece. It is a poem done by her and I am here to present it. It is about friendship, and it goes like this.

Text	Thoughts/ feelings expressed
It is like a magnet Full of shape and sizes Different poles and edges Like the different people around us Here, it has two poles, When the North and South pole Attract each other Just like the strong thrust between us But when we quarrel, Just like how magnets repel each other No giving way to other After all, Magnets do still attract each other When one of us apologizes	Our friendship is described like a magnet. When we get very close, we can be close like North and South pole attracting to one another. But when we argue, we ignored each other like how magnet repels itself too. However, if we are willing to apologize, our friendship will be back to normal and magnets will still attract one another in the end.

Personal Recount [ Draft 2 ]

           I will never forget that day at growth camp, this year, two months back. Leaving the bustling cities and to the remote place of the campsite, mosquitoes greeted me before I even entered in. As I remembered,  I had my zonal on one of the camp days and could not think more as I know it would be a tiring camp for me.
           As I had my zonal in the afternoon and could not enjoy the low elements with my friends. But what I have heard from is that they had a nature walk and they enjoyed it very much despite the scorching sun. After arriving back from my zonal and back to the campsite it was already evening and I was already half-dead. I had to continue the activities planned for us at night. The activity was a night nature walk,  I was scared as during at night, I could be as blind as a bat. But with my friends encouragement, I persevered till the end, and it was all worth it. After the walk, I enjoyed myself with my classmates, star grazing, it was the most amazing thing that happened in my life, I could feel the bonds between my classmates.
          The next day we were allocated to play the high elements. I thought it would be great as I thought I could overcome all the obstacles. But sadly, it is not. I realized, I had Acrophobia, fear of heights. I did not know about it till I went up to one of the obstacles. It was so high that my heart was in my mouth. I was the center of attraction as people were encouraging me, not to be scared and jump, but I did not heed their advice and I stood up there for 12 minutes? I was hesitating, but I could not bear to jump down. The instructor had no choice but to pull me down. I gave a sigh of relieve that everything has ended.
        During the rest of the time, I sat at one corner like a stone under the scorching sun. Looking at everybody faces, they seem to enjoy themselves very much, especially the Flying Fox. The day passes by with the low elements and the campfire. Everything was great, I felt the connections between my classmates more.
      Even though the growth camp is over,  the most memorable thing I did was the overcoming the high obstacles. Even though I did not try and complete all the obstacles, but at least I did tried on one of it. That scene has been haunting me till now, I could not forget about it because that was once in my whole life had been so scared of heights. That day, I will never forget..