E-commerce in Singapore

by Li Hao

Recently two minor incidents that happened to me made me think about e-commerce in Singapore a lot. The first one: I needed to buy a huge chemistry textbook at the beginning of this semester three weeks ago. The new ones which were sold in NUS co-op is about 70 dollars each. For me, a future mathematics student, buying such a dear chemistry textbook was not a good idea. At first, I decided to photocopy the chapters I needed. Then someone told me that I could buy a secondhand one through IVLE (Integrated Virtual Learning Environment). After I asked several “sellers”, I made a deal with one of them. We settled on a place and a time to meet and also fixed the price of the book. Few days later, I got the nearly new book by paying him only 20 dollars. Another incident is that I was supposed to see the Chinese production this Wednesday, but one of my best friends in China came to Singapore on Tuesday. Since he could only make time to meet me on Wednesday night, I had to give up the Chinese production and send my ticket to others. Whom should I send my ticket to? I asked many friends around me but they either had already had the ticket or did not want to have one. Finally, I broke the silence in the NUS SM2 13^th discussion group and sent my ticket out in less than 15 minutes.

Maybe you think the two stories of mine are so dull and ask me: where’s your point?! My stories can prove that Internet makes information travel fast and the fast information exchange does evolve the way we do shopping. Actually, Amazon, Taobao and so many e-commerce companies have proved it for ten years, so why do I have to show these two incidents of mine? These two incidents noticed me that I had never tried an online trade for my first year in Singapore. The only online trading experience of my friends’ is buying smart phones on the official websites. Since I use Internet almost only for entertainment and getting information about my work in Singapore, I almost forget that I can use Internet to buy stuff and make my life much easier. When I was in China, I always used, for example, Taobao.com to buy stuff. Taobao.com, as a middle man, provides me huge amount of sales information. The goods on Taobao.com are cheaper than the same ones in real market, and many of them cannot be found in real market easily. I think that Singapore needs a local Internet platform for online trading. Maybe many people only consider that Singapore is a small city and commodity exchange can be easily performed, so they think e-commerce is useless. My secondhand textbook experience tells me that it is not true, and there are also many goods that I don’t know where I can buy them such as the fancy stuffs sold in NUS bazaars. The online trading platform can also bring Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia into a whole e-commercial group. I think the online trading can make Singaporean’s life more colorful, and the Singaporean version of Amazon can create a fortune.

my english

To be honest, I don’t like English at all. But why don’t I like English? Am I born not good at English?
My first time to touch the English formally was in junior school grade 1. I thought English was very interesting at the beginning, and my English was very good. But later I found I need to recite many English vocabularies to keep the high marks. I was so lazy that I didn’t want to recite so many vocabularies. As the result, my English become worse and worse.
When reached the senior school, all my subjects were very good expect the English. It made me hate the English subject, so I spent less time on English and my English become worse and worse. When I realized that English was very important and try to work hard to improve my English, I began to recite many vocabularies every day, but the effect was not obvious. What was the worse, I could not suffered the boring of reciting vocabularies any more. When I wanted to work hard again, some days late I gave up again, it became a bad circle. So my English never improved.
When I came to Singapore, English became more important, every subject was in English here.
Now, I realize English is the wound of my study, and I don’t want the wound become worse. I want to learn English well, though I don’t know how many times I have said this before. I don’t dream that my English become very good, I just don’t want the wound become worse.

Should I Kill Myself?

When I was surfing the internet, I came across an piece of news about a teenager killing himself, in other words, a suicide kid. Honestly speaking, after everything that happens nowadays all over the world, one single kid guilty of murdering himself can no longer attract my insensible mind. However, an article on that piece of news grabbed my intension, because the very first line of the article was “Once again, I am considering about the parents”.

The title of the article was about the relationship between suicide and Internet, but the thing that really had me was that we should not kill ourselves, for our parents’ sake. It is a strange saying if you put it that way. Considering the fact that we are living as an independent creature, our lives belong to nobody but us. In other words, we are living for ourselves. In this case, what does it have to do with our parents?

In fact, in the ocean of the world, no one is an island. As long as one is alive, he or she must have some connections with others. In my point of view, death is the easiest way to deal with a thing. Actually, death is one of the several things that can be done by only lying down. Getting murdered is something beyond our power to control, but killing ourselves is a choice of our own. Suicide, apart from self-sacrifice, actually is nothing but an escape of life, which makes suicide a significant characteristic of cowards. When facing stress or challenge, the better way, though also harder, is to get over it. On the contrary, killing yourself doesn’t change the situation at all.

Then let us come back to the parents. Out of every creature on earth, your parents love you the most. After everything that your parents have done for you, you cannot afford letting them down, you even do not deserve the right to make them shed tears for you anymore. After all, it is them who gave you a life and all you can do with your life is to live it well. Imagine if you have struggled years to raise your child and finally send him to a university. After a whole semester, instead of a grown-up college student, you receive a body sealed in pieces of worn-out planks, maybe you cannot even recognize the face for is has crashed the ground a few seconds after you little boy “fly off” the building. What would you feel for this kind of situation? In fact, instead of making things good, suicide can only make the situation worse. The result caused by simply jumping out of the window is not simple at all. It can never be good to take a life; no matter it is yours or others.

At last, I would like to state my opinion again. Regardless of what have happened, there will always be a solution other than suicide. In this case, we should not commit suicide, even for our parents’ sake.

First love is not a little thing

First love is not a little thing

Cao Xilang

Is first love truly worth trying? This is the first question popped into my mind after I watched the recently popular Thai movie First love is a little thing which triggered a hot debate on the Internet.

The movie mainly talks about a girl named Shui who felt a crush on her senior called Liang at the first sight and her untiring pursuit for the relationship. Shui is a quite normal girl with plain test results, poor sports talent, and the even worse thing is that she is only an ordinary-looking girl. How could she compete with those outstanding babes for Liang? Liang, on the other hand, is a gorgeous guy who is popular, member of the school soccer team and incredibly good-looking. Instead of only drifting into day dreaming, Shui did many silly little things in order to attract Liang’s attention. In addition, she also made up her mind to improve her study and get herself to participate into more social activities in the hope that she could be a shining girl who would be well-matched for Liang. On the day of her graduation, she finally told Liang about her secret love and admiration for him. However, life does not often turn out the way we think it will, and Liang was admitted to a professional soccer club so that the chance to develop their relationship is out of their hand, but it is up to the fate to decide. Time flies, and nine years has passed. When they came across as adults, the feeling for each other was still there. Luckily, the movie has a fairy tale ending.

After watching the movie, I really admire the courage of Shui and her indomitable spirit from the bottom of my heart. In the process of forming her self-identity, she rises every time after falling down. I am sort of wondering whether I could be that brave to love a person without hesitating, especially when I am too plain to be easily ignored. Frankly speaking, it is like begging for the moon. However, it is said that the biggest fear is the fear itself, and as long as we convince ourselves, nothing can bring us down. This principle can be applied to not only love, but also every difficult obstacle in daily life.

Apart from the courage issue, I also doubt that is first love worth that lot effort? First love is like a glass of wine, one may become drunk in it so that he or she cannot help but feel head over heels for the other person, and the relationship usually ends up with broken hearts. Maybe that is why many people regard first love as a waste of time. Undoubtedly, in real life, many people just spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. However, one can only be young once, and one should step out to have a try when first love comes.

As for the first love issue, I really think it is an unforgettable memory according to my friends and even my mom. Sometimes, she talked about her old love story which happened, like more than twenty years ago. From her expression, I can image her myriad of emotions raging from excitement to sadness when she was in a relationship, and I finally understand that she used to be an eighteen-year-old girl with the same hopes and doubts that I had. If the beautiful memory can last for so many years, it is worth a try.

The movie—First love is a little thing almost brought me to tears due to its emotional tensions. First love is not a little thing.

The Prophet, Your Choice for Reading

The Prophet, Your Choice for Reading

An Dongmei (Annie)

In this new semester, which is a good time for you to grow up spiritually, I would like to market a book to you. While, I am hired neither by the bookstore since I bought this book in China, nor by the publisher. Let me ask you who do you think hired me do the marketing then? The author? Impossible! The author, Kahlil Gibran, already died many years ago. However, in a way you are right, it is the author who hired me. The author hired me through his wisdom and soul in his writing. The twenty-eight chapters in this book are about twenty-eight topics such as on love, on giving and on death. I want to share my interpretation to this book by just summarizing three points. How many of you have read this book, the prophet? Well, for those who have not read, you can consider whether it is worth reading; for those who have read, you can evaluate my interpretation to this book.

The first point comes from my first time reading this book. After reading, I realize that life is just like an adventure. We often forget that, owing to our everyday routines. For example, we leave home for work, acting and believing that we will reach our destinations without any unusual event keeping us out of our set expectations. But the truth is that we know nothing. For instance, we do not know where the car will fail or when the bus will stall, or whether, we will arrive and stay alive till the end of our journeys. Therefore, let us treat life as an ongoing adventure so that when what we expected to happen does not happen, we are able to remain flexible to notice and acknowledge it. We should bring all our energies to each encounter. We should remember that we are created creative and can invent our own scenarios.

The second point comes from some certain chapters, such as on pain, on crime and punishment, as well as on law. I learnt that no one experiences the same world. Although we all live in the same environment, we make many worlds. There was one quite boring English tutor in my Junior College. She made us spend every whole afternoon on listening. However, none of us liked such long and boring time. But she enjoyed it and thought we also enjoyed it. After we told her the truth, she still continued. At that time, most of the students complained, but few did not. This book told me that when you don’t like something you are supposed to change it; while if you cannot change it, then change the way you think about it. I just treat the listening as the toughest listening training and the time with her as a training of my patience and tolerance. No one could predict whether I would meet such a person as my boss in the future. Never waste time in complaining.

My third and last point is from the time when I apply what I read to my life--we sometimes need a readiness to forgive. To forgive, I do not mean that we should suffer like fools gladly, but rather remember our own shortcomings, and when encountering another one with flaws, don't be eager to righteously seal ourselves away from the offender forever. Take a few minutes and imagine ourselves having just committed the action, which has set us at odds.

As I mentioned in the beginning, these three points are my simple and short summary, according to my understanding to the wisdom and soul of the author. Life is a pure adventure; do not complain since we are in different world; keep a readiness to forgive. I did not talk too much on the context of the book. I leave the context to you, wishing you could read by yourself. While, more importantly, to find your own interpretation. The prophet -- your choice for reading.

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Dear all
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