The biggest lie I ever told and its consequesnces

‘Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I am you captain for today’s flight from Sydney back to Singapore, this will be a long flight, the temperature for today is 15C. Thank you for flying with Singapore Airlines and I hope that you will have a pleasant flight.’

Jack, the co-pilot and I started the normal drill, checking the normal flight procedures and whether everything was functioning normally. I had a bad night yesterday, I was awake for most of the time, watching the World Cup final. I was having a slight headache but I was meant to fly back to Singapore today so I just hanged on, wishing that there will be no turbulence and I can have a safe and comfortable flight back home.

Just before we are to take off, my co-pilot noticed that I was not feeling well and he asked me whether I was feeling bad, the traffic control also felt that there was something wrong with me as I sounded sleepy and asked me if I wanted to have a switch with another pilot, a taboo for a pilot that is to take off for a long flight. I lied to them and said that I was fine and that I had a long sleep last night. Everything was ready to go, and we took off, without much difficulty the plane has risen to the normal cruising height and it was switched to auto-pilot and soon, I fell asleep.

It was not long before I was awoken by a mayday transmitted by my co-pilot to the air-traffic control. The plane had flown into an ash cloud formed by an erupting volcano and the plane was plummeting fast. There was nothing that we could have done to save the flight. The plane fell fast and it crashed, out of control.

My co-pilot died, along with half of the 245 passengers, I should not have flown that day, I should not have watched the football match, I could have watched a replay, now it is all too late, and I will be behind these bars till I die.

Stomp

As many of would have known, there was a recent case of a student from Hwa Chong who went on Stomp, a website to share his story about how his whole class’ belongings were gone after they went for a event and only knew that it was one of the teachers who took all of the things as the class did not lock up their doors when all of them left for an event. The post was open to the public and many had commented and shared their views. Many agreed with the boy that the teacher should not have taken the students’ things although she wanted to teach them a ‘lesson’ for not safe-keeping their belongings by locking their classroom door, however there was also many who felt that what the teacher did was indeed the right thing to do.

Now, I would like to share my feelings and thoughts about this incident with you. The teacher who decided to take all the students’ valuables as they did not lock their classroom door when no one was in the classroom, an open invitation to people who wanted to steal them, later returned the belongings of the students, giving them warnings and also asked them to write a letter of apology. I believe this move was necessary to teach the students a lesson for leaving their valuables unattended, at least the students got their items back in the end, instead of if it was a real theft case, they will never get their things back.

Students in Singapore nowadays are very much over-protected, they think that as Singapore has a low crime rate, it means that they can leave their valuables lying around as no one will steal it, especially those in premium schools, thinking that they are well protected and safe in school. This idea is very much present in the students from elitist schools, they feel that they are so clever that they can outsmart the thieves so their valuables will still be safe even if they leave it lying around.

I do not think that what the teacher did was wrong, it was the right thing to do, the students deserve some punishment, some warnings. If the students already leave their valuables lying around when they are in school, when they grow up and start working they may even leave some company files lying around, creating a threat to the company if someone took it. That is why the teacher wanted to give the students some warning, their guard were down, they are not aware of the threat outside of their comfort zone, out of school, home. I believe that students nowadays need to really go out to the society and see how cruel it is out there, instead of always staying in their comfort zones, they should really see the outside world clearly and it is then when they will truly appreciate what the teacher did.

Although they are from elite schools, they don’t even have the common sense to safe-guard their things, their valuables, and this is what is so bad about the elitist schools, they focus in teaching the students how to be a leader, how to become successful but they don’t teach them life skills, assuming that they can learn it at home but the thing is this is what we go to school for, is to learn to be a better person. So what if he becomes the president in the future, he can’t even safe guard his belongings, he can’ even look after his own ass so how is he going to govern a country when he can’t even look after himself?