Life and School in Malaysia

Malaysia is a country with a population of 25 million people. It has thirteen states and the capital city is Kuala Lumpur. It is located near the equator and the weather is hot with heavy rain throughout the year. Malaysia’s neighbor is Singapore to the south, and Thailand in the north. Malaysia’s population is made up of Malay, Chinese, Indian and other ethnic groups. Bahasa Malaysia is main language but Chinese, Indian and English are widely spoken.
Each race has their own special kind of food so there are many kinds of food being sold here. Some of the food is hot and spicy but still delicious to eat and most food shops are open 24 hours a day. Besides the local food, you can still find Macdonald or Burger King being sold.
The three types of schools found here are governments, private or international schools. The children goes to school everyday from Monday to Friday when they turn seven years old. The school terms start from January till November with three midterm breaks. The children in Malaysia stays in school till they reach seventeen years old before going to colleges. Students going to schools here have to wear uniforms and school starts at 07.30 am and finishes at 1.00pm with 20 minutes break. The main subjects taught are English, Mathematics, Science, History, Religious Studies and Physical Education. The schools have their sports day at the beginning of each year and school concerts in November. Football is a popular game in schools and the school will have matches with other schools in the neighborhood. Private schools children spent longer hours in school but they learn the same subjects as the government school students. International schools are for expatriates only.
The children here likes to play video games and cyber cafes are popular especially during the weekends. Going to the movies are also very popular and the theatres would have the latest movies especially during the school holidays. Listening to music is another way of how the children here spent their free time. They would download the songs from the internet or buy CDs from the music shops. Since the weather here is hot, the children do not need thick clothing but they still dress up in the latest fashion as other kids their age do.

colors of malaysia

Speeches

Internet and English.mp3

Who invented the parachute?

Many names are associated with the invention of parachutes but who was the 'real' inventor of the parachute? There were many"theoretical " and "practical" inventors. According to the website "inventors.about.com", the credit for the invention of the first practical parachute goes to Sebastien Lenormand who demonstrated the parachute principle in 1783 but it was Leonardo De Vinci who made designs of the parachutes centuries earlier (1452-1519). Other inventors who had contributed included Croatian Faust Vrancic who constructed a device based on Da Vinci's drawing and jumped from a tower in Venice wearing a rigid frame parachute. Jean Pierre Blanchard, a Frenchman was the first person to use a parachute for an emergency when he escaped from an exploding hot air balloon.



Browsing through the "inventors.about.com", I was impressed by the information found there. The writer had given a choronological dates of all people involved in the invention and their experiences using the parachutes that they had invented. The other websites had the same information but the information was all mixed up with no proper sequencing. The "inventors.about.com" also showed us other inventions and inventors giving us an impression that the writers had done an indept studies on all inventions available till to now. At the end of the page it has the Disclaimer statement and the Ethics policy which promised users accurate information and the Privacy statement stating that the materials published are protected. Thus I can safely conclude that the website is reliable.

Social Networking - Fanpop

There are various social networking websites to be found on the internet for example the facebook, esnips, friendster, youtube,the fanpop and many others. For my review I choose the fanpop because I am impress with the appearance of the website that greets me. It looks simple yet full of intresting topics such as the latest updates on the movies, tv series, best selling books, articles on Arts and Culture, gardening, Science and Technology. This list of topics goes on and on and the best part is that despite the long list of topics available and your favourite topic is still not included, you can create your own Spot and contribute your ideas and opinions .


What is a Spot? Fanpop is broken down into small units call Spots and these Spots are created by the members. For example you are a big fan of fishing and you cannot find any articles on fishing then create a spot on fishing . All you need is some write up on fishing, pictures and your own trademark or banner. Your pictures and banners do not have to be of any particular size as the fanpop system takes what you load and make it fit. It takes about five minutes to create and you need not be a technical expert to do it. You can now write whatever you want on the topics and invite your friends to contribute ideas or tips. You will also get responses from people with the same interest. Should you decide against being a member of a fanpop, it is ok because you can still take advantages of all the information contributed by other members. The language used is simple and easy to understand.

I like gardening and most of my free time is spent in my tiny garden. Browsing the articles on gardening, I am able to get endless information on how to to grow various plants from roses to hisbiscus, the most suitable fertilizer to use or even the number of times I need to water the plant. Watching televison is my other passion and fan pop will publish the latest televison series, gossips about the actors, actresses and what other fans think of the show. I can contribute my opinion if I want to.

I don't know how long my interest in this website will last but for the time being I am just happy that I have found a website that suits my present needs.

Is the internet safe? What kind of risk are there?

The internet is not safe if it is in the wrong hands, meaning children who are on the internet without any parental guidance. The children will tend to access forbidden sites on their own or by accidents. They might also reveal information that put them or the family at risk. One of the things that people found appealing about communication via the Internet is that the children can communicate with anyone on the internet. They are not limited by appearances, age or gender and are free to express themselves in anyway they like. There are reports where children thinking that they are having conversations with another teenager but only to find out that they have been communicating with an adult who is just waiting for a chance to take advantage of them. Due to the element of anonymity on the internet, these perverts who have been lurking will make inappropriate comments or suggestions to the children. Since the feeling of trust has been developed, the children will obey whatever being asked of them without questions. Unknown to them, the person on the another end might be recording their actions.

Propaganda can also be spread in the internet by groups of dissatisfied people. Whether it is the truth or otherwise, feelings of resentment will breed and will cause disunity in the country.

Emails or downloading certain websites may inadvertantly have virus that could damage your computer or cause you to lose information. This will cause alot of inconvenience and costly if there is no back-up files. Valuable time will be loss while trying to do recovery.