The Star Has Fallen

One had been praised and honoured
With his talents unique and high,
But he must finally meets the day
He must throw away the facade.

The gifts and blessings had promised,
His excellence in the tasks of deduce.
He had problems disintegrate to ash,
Riddles with solutions infuse.

Yet confidence has faltered—
Later on the papers unsolved:
With a loud and mournful cry
His will and power turned to naught…

The child has fallen! The child has fallen!
The parents declared and the teachers thought.
He would never rise, he would never return,
Treat the warrior’s greatness as no war was fought!

He had no tear to tell when people said,
His honor was nothing but trash!
While men had teased and sounded regret,
Was his solutions torn and burnt to ash.

The star has shattered to cracked clay,
But days must solve his task.
With twice the might and twice the grit,
Shall he become the knight of his art.

Change

Winds come and winds wane,

Raindrops chop as storms destroy,

Harm is the summer.

Once have I wonder,

What thing can be more stable

Than the hot weather?

Temperature drops fast—

As leaves fall and jackets worn,

Coolers sleep for long.

Yet biggest question:

Why the mood shift suddenly?

Awaits curious…

I rise and gaze meets the sky

Whose face tells the tale of change.

Should Secondary Schools be Started 30 Minutes Later?

As students' schedules are packed with more and more activities, they start to face deprivation of sleep, along with other issues. The problem of later school start time is highly debated due to this. Some suggest that later school start times can help students to sleep better and perform well, while others argue that this may be impossible to achieve, since normal schedules will be disrupted. The question remains, whether secondary schools should be started 30 minutes later?

An undeniable advantage of this is the extended time to sleep. According to an article from Nationwide Children's Hospital, the average sleeping time for teenagers is 7 hours, 2 hours less than recommended. By allowing teenagers to sleep more, students will be more alert in lessons, improving their academic performance.

Another benefit of later school start hours is the decrease of alone time for students. Some students, whose parents have long working hours, tend to be left at home for several hours. These students have a higher risk to be involved in unhealthy activities, such as smoking and drinking. If the dismissal time of schools are later due to this policy, they will have less alone time, which contributes greatly to their physical and mental health.

However, activities such as ECAs, sports trainings and tutoring will be interupted. The daytime hours are decreased if schools start later and end later then current situations. ECAs and sports trainings will be cancelled or shortened, resulting in less time for teenagers to relax and develop in different skills. In addition to this, tutoring classes need to be rearranged, which is difficult as most tutors do not have flexable schedules.

Meanwhile, the schedules of most families will be disrupted. If parents leave home early due to work, students will have to go to school on their own, which is problematic for students who live far away. Family schedules, which are adapted to school hours, need to be adjusted and modified, which will be hard for them to adapt at first. Additional cost for transportation will be produced.

All in all, schools starting 30 minutes later does more harm than good, since multiple activities, from tutoral classes to transport, will be disrupted by new arrangements. Therefore, disculpine for earlier sleeping hours should be encouraged instead of later school starting hours.

The Storm

Harming is the storm,

And thrashing is the rain:

Shooting as arrows of death,

Mankind lives as they drain.

Harming is the storm,

And threatening is the wind:

Waves as their sword they stamp on land,

People flee as terror’s their kin.

Climbing as their homes flood,

While the humans scream and fear.

Towns torn and trees collapsed,

As if nightmares are woken here.

However I once wonder,

What mere mortals can alone face?

Through buildings built and inventions done,

The nature forever still the hardest case.

All the World’s a Theatre

All the world’s a theatre,

And all stages seen laudable lives.

As all men and women merely involvers:

Some enter and exit stages, watching actors,

Preparing settings and writing plots.

Yet a man of the times does it all.

First as the pure, sweet and smoothing in his heart.

Held by the doctor, he doesn’t know his art.

Then as the student, who learn but doesn’t understand:

Little does he know he is directing his play—

Setting his hopes and fears, likes and dislikes,

Spinning his strings of fate, writing his script, preparing his lines…

Years later he reviews the paper with insecure confidence,

Though critiqued and criticised he follows his heart.

He fights joyfully with comrades, resists bravely near enemies,

Justice and victory come and he embraces the end.

Next from the audience, comes a lady in his dreams:

The Bianca against the shrews, the Beatrice among the timid.

Holding hands, as they step into the chamber for two:

Opening it, they find a backstage new, for a new actor arrives.

They set up for their child, putting wise words like old birds.

The child doesn’t realise, but he force him to know all—

Harsh reality like cracked clay, ruined fantasies like spilled milk.

The child rebels, the lady betrays, but he never analyses what’s wrong.

As he’s sixty he walks down the stages, watching others playing the act.

Still he cannot fill his empty hole, and soon ills with regret.

Soon there he falls, to what he thought a second childhood,

Sans fear, sans betrayal, sans despair, sans evilness:

Alas, he finds himself in a second theatre,

Whose skeletal faces painted with sorrow for each to show.

The Judge

"Match starts!" the judge shouts.
Cards gather and people rest.
But little they know in the duel of bluffs
Nothing is certain till end has set.

After days of confusion talks,
A player claims she is the seer.
With her aid the good team joyful,
Finding the view suddenly crystal clear.

Yet the audience know the fact
That the trusted is evil in act.
Chomping the nights have passed,
The audience mad but feral still intact.

Eventually the wolves seize the win----
Good argue and outsiders blame.
The judge slient still in the chaos,
Watching his plot running the game.

The Harbour

At evening embrace the city did I,

Where buildings chatter, and apartments devised:

Conspiracies plotted yet nothing could defy,

Stabbing the lively loner whose anxiety arised.

Near skyline seen the city had I,

When lights celebrated their hours last:

Gossips discussed but nobody familiarized

With the knowledge exchanged, mortally divine.

Left was the moon shone alone,

Seeing the best humans thrown.

Views biased they agreed, inefficient skills they honed,

Yet with experience some observed as I.

But who would realise how much they knew

Until their downfall seen the night?

Only me, and the moon shall feel,

The sadness of ignorance still.

The Tale of the Infinite Hotel

 Once upon a time, there was a hotel. It had a spacious pool, a high-quality spa, a buffet with every type of food and most importantly, a countable infinity number of rooms. One night, the hotel was full, totally booked up with an infinite number of guests.

At that moment, a man walked into the hotel and asked for a room. The hotel manager Hilbert suddenly had a strange idea. Rather then turning him down, he decided to make room for him. How? He asked the guests to move 1 room larger than the current room. Since there is an infinite number of rooms, there is a new room for each existing guest. And room 1 is available for the new guest. He also found out that this method can be used for any finite number of guests, and served more customers.

But then, an infinite large bus with a countably infinite number of customers appeared to rent rooms. This perplexed Hilbert at first, but then he asked the guests in the hotel to move to double the number of the current room, filling up only the infinite even rooms--and this leaved all the odd rooms for the new customers. He also realized that this can be applied to a finite number of infinite buses.

All guests were satisfied, and one might be tempted to think the hotel's business was booming more than ever. But it was actually booming same as before--banking an infinite number of money every day. Words spread about this fabulous hotel. Guests poured in from far and wide. But one night, the unthinkable happened...

That night, Hilbert looked outside and saw an infinite line of infinitely large buses, each with a countably infinite number of customers. What could he do? If he failed to find rooms for them, the hotel would lose an infinitely number of money and he would surely be fired. He sat on his chair for a while, and decided to assign all guests to move to 2 raised to the power of the current room number. Then, he filled the customers on the first bus to move to 3 raised to the power of their seat numbers. After that he repeated this with primes and filled all customers in the hotel.

Although there were many empty rooms since they weren't powers of primes, his boss was fortunately bad at math (and only good at business), so Hilbert's job was safe... for now. What happened two weeks later sealed his doom, but also the hotel's.

Two weeks later, a strange bus with the same number of customers as all the numbers from 0 to 1 passed the hotel. Hilbert thought it was interesting, and it would give him a promotion if he accomodated all of them, so he decided to find rooms for them. He tried the methods he used before, and arranged rooms for them in 3 hours. Hilbert was tired and thought the job was done, so he headed back to his office for a nap.

But 4 hours later he received a phone call from his boss. The boss asked him angrily, 'Why there are customers outside?'

'I...I don't know. I thought the customers were...' Hilbert answered.

'All accomdated? Are you blind? There are lots of customers outside!'

'How come this happen? Anyway, I need to investigate--May I have a call with the customers?'

The boss redirected the call to the customer counter. A customer told him, 'My seat number's first digit isn't the same as the first digit of the first customer.'

'Then?' Hilbert questioned, 'it may be the same as any guest, right?'

'Not really, manager. My seat number's second digit isn't the same as the second digit of the next customer, my third digit is different from the third--My seat number isn't the same as anyone in the hotel. I don't have a room!' The customer yelled at him.

'Me too! Me too! The hotel is not infinite!' The other customers protested.

Hilbert's face turned pale. He found out it was impossible to fill all customers into rooms, and apologised to the customers. His boss was furious, and fired him.

But as stated before, the only person who knew math was fired now. The boss couldn't even deal with a customer when facing the full hotel! He was forced to turn down many customers, and rumours spread that the infinite hotel was a false claim. After several months, all the guests left without paying, and the hotel was shut down.

And that's the end of the (countably) Infinite Hotel.

Note: This imaginary story is based on Hilbert's infinite hotel paradox and information from DGS math team. Credits to them, and wish you enjoy the journey of the infinites.