Organ Trading: Illegal or not?

Recently, there was an incident about organ trading, if you recall.C K Tang Executive Chairman Tang Wee Sung will likely plead guilty to supposedly agreeing to buy a kidney. He was desperate for a kidney because he had a severe kidney failure.

He allegedly purchased a kidney from Indonesian Sulaiman Damanik for S$300,000. However, Tang's deed was discovered before the transplant could take place.

Wang Chin Sing acted as the middle man who allegedly facilitated the kidney-for-sale deal.

There was a forum by the parliament, debating whether organ trading should be legal or not. The result of the heated debate was: the new law did not seek to legalise organ trading. Here are my view points on this topic:

1. Organ trading has its own advantages and disadvantages.
   
2. Organ trading can save lives. However, there is a shortage of organs all around the world. That is why people resort to buying organs illegally from the black market.
3. What's bad about organ trading is that the newly transplanted organ may not be used to the new body and therefore causes disease or damages the body.
4. In addition, the organ seller may not get the sum of money originally promised by the middle man if they sell their organs to the black market and the middle man might sell the organ at several times the cost price to the buyer. This occurs because people are desperate to live and may resort to buying organs from the black market.
5. One last point. I think that the government should allow legal organ trading at a subsidised price. This will benefit both parties as the sellers get the original sum promised and buyers will be able to afford the new organ as the original price is subsidised by the government.

What do you think of organ trading. Do you feel that is illegal or legal?

My review on blogging so far

What can I say about blogging? Three opinions:

1. It's fun, enjoyable and exciting.
2. It allows us to express our feelings about events which happened in our everyday life.
3. Best of all, it improves our English!

What I like about blogging is basically what I have stated above. However, what I dislike about blogging is the fact that sometimes people are too lazy to search the internet for our blogs so they would not read our blogs. Therefore, I really hate the lack of reading and posting comments.

Here's a quick glance of my opinions in improving this process of blogging:

1. I suggest that we should blog about thrice per week to improve our blogging skills.
2. Secondly, we should link to others' blogs so that we can read up on their most recent posts. Reading will also help in improving the blogging process.
3. Lastly, we should read more books. This might give us some ideas to blog about.

In one of my previous posts, I have linked to my bookshelf at weread. I think this is a very good idea as it will introduce readers to some good books and also might allow people to be more interested in reading.

Beach Cleaning 2009

Today, I went to Changi Beach with my class to pick litter on the beach. A few observations of mine include:
1. There is so much litter on the beach! This goes to show that most Singaporeans are irresponsible.
2. The beach breeze is so cooling. Usually we do not go to beaches, so it is a real treat to be there.
3. Me and my partner collected a lot of rubbish (probably one of the most full rubbish bag ) without cheating ( some people cheated by collecting rubbish from rubbish bins! )
From this experience, I learned that we should do more things for our community to improve other peoples' lives. Please comment on this. Thanks.

Have you read "Nothing but the Truth" by Avi? It is a cracking good read. In this post, I am writing a diary entry by Philip Malloy after his first day at his new school (last page of the book).



Dear Diary,

I wish I had not made that single mistake which lead to my transfer from Harrison High to Washington Academy. It all started just because I had to hum the tune of the Star Spangled Banner during Miss Narwin's class. Now, life is so miserable in Washington Academy. There is no track team which I had always wanted to join in Harrson High. Today, I was even asked to lead in singing the Star Spangled Banner. The truth is, I only know how to hum the tune, not sing the lyrics!
How I regret makng that dumb mistake!

My Reading Habits

Want to know what are my reading habits? Here an overview of what I'll do:

1. Pick up a book. Make yourself comfortable like slouching in a sofa, listening to music, drinking something or eating snacks.
2. Start to read it. Maybe around 10 pages, 20 pages, 50 pages? If you feel that the book is starting to get boring, PUT IT DOWN. There's no point in reading a book withut really enjoying it.

If you follow this steps, you will begin to love books more. Here's a link to a list of some fantastic books I have read on WeRead:

http://weread.com/profile/1P404/081A099C-84FC-4A2D-9B5F-5BBAE3AA4080?refuid=081A099C-84FC-4A2D-9B5F-5BBAE3AA4080&src=&auri=

Hope you all enjoy books. Happy reading!

The Long Journey Back Home

Want to know how I go home after a long, long, long and exhausting day at school? Here's a list of the brief descriptions of what happens every school day.

1. I walk slowly with much difficulty and fatigue out of the enormous school compound for about 400 metres ( imagine walking in and out of the school every day; you would not want to do so!) With my "one ton" schoolbag, I always barely make it out of the school and to the bus stop before needing to sit down and take 10 long, deep breaths. ( you may think I am exaggerating, but in fact, I am not!)
2. Next, I will have to go through a torturous bus ride which is simply boring. ( readers may say that I could read a book etc. on the bus, but do you think I have a book in my bag since my bag already weighs "one ton"?) After a tedious round of changing of buses and trains, I finally make it to the interchange near my home.
3. While waiting for a shuttle bus to get to my home, I would usually take 15minutes to go to the nearby library or get myself a drink or snack. ( Hey! I do not have as much relaxation time as you do!)

Now that is the end of my trip back home. It altogether took more than 1 hour to reach home. Sounds scary, yeah? For those people out there who are as miserable as me, I sympathise with you as a fellow "sufferer".

Plagiarism

I've just learnt about plagiarism in class. I have some thoughts about plagiarism.

• Plagiarism is basically a form of cheating, or rather copying others' ideas without permission.
• For all netizens out there, I suggest that you place a citation after a phrase or picture etc. if you take an idea from a website to avoid plagiarising.
• Finally, plagiarism doesn't pay.

I have some other tips here to help you avoid plagiarism:

• another person’s idea, opinion, or theory;
• any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings—any pieces of information—that are not common knowledge;
• quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words; or
  paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words.

See? I even placed a citation and a link here!http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml