ELC 121

INTRODUCTION TO LIRA
LIRA
LISTEN.INTERACT.RESPOND.ANSWER
‘WHAT IS A PERSONAL REFLECTION?’ 

• “a Personal Reflection is a response to a particular

stimulus. Often, it is written by an individual to
explore personal experiences, feelings and events. A
personal reflection is an opportunity to reconsider
events, thoughts and feelings from a fresh
perspective”.
GOOD PERSONAL REFLECTION?
• The key to write a successful personal reflection is to remember that
a personal response is made by you. Therefore, your responses are
usually different from someone else’s. Your response will be
influenced by:

• 1) Your opinions, beliefs and experiences

• 2) Similarities or contrasts to your own life (i.e. experiences you can
identify with)
• 3) How real or believable a subject / text is
• 4) Your emotional state at a given moment
• 5) Sympathy or empathy with characters
 JUSTIFY!
• Even though you have been asked to provide a personal
response you will still need to justify  your opinion. This means
you need to give reasons why you developed your ideas. You can
support your response through:

• 1) Examples from the text

• 2) referring to specific events within a text
• 3) referring to specific quotes within a text
 EXAMPLE 1
Question 1: Elaborate TWO (2) lessons learnt from the story.
From the story, I have learnt that love could be unconditional. This could be seen
through the sacrifice made by the blind girl’s boyfriend. Personally, I think that the
boyfriend’s sacrifice is too big which would not be done by everyone easily. If I were to
donate my eyes to someone, it would only be for my closest family members, however, it
is only after consideration. Therefore, the boyfriend action shows me that unconditional
love without expecting anything in return does exist. The second lesson that I learnt from
the story is we should accept others’ physical appearance just the way they are. I know
that in today’s context, we tend to judge others by look. This is shown through the blind
girl character. She leaves her boyfriend because she thinks that he is imperfect. Little did
she know that the gift to be able to see again is because of the boyfriend. That is why I
think that judging someone from look is the biggest mistake we tend to make. To
conclude, the two lessons that I have learnt in this story is love could be unconditional
and we should not be judging someone based on their physical.
 EXAMPLE 2
Question 2: With the reference to the story “The Blind Girl”, do you think unconditional love exists?
Justify TWO (2) reasons for your answer.
Even though “The Blind Girl” emphasises unconditional love, in my opinion, I do not
think that unconditional love exists. Firstly, unconditional love could only happen in
unrealistic world such as television series, movies or fictions. I do not think realistically,
someone would donate eyes for a person, unless, organ that is being donated will not
harm the donator's life. For example, after giving eyes to the blind girls, the boyfriend
would be living as a blind person for the rest of his life which would later trouble him in
performing his job. Also, people will always expect something in return. For example,
when you love and care about someone, you expect the person to love and care about
you the same way because that is how you maintain a healthy relationship. I think this is
similar to the blind girl’s situation, the relationship does not work when the blind girl
does not accept her boyfriend the same way. Hence, I strongly believe that
unconditional love only exists in an unrealistic world and people will always be
expecting something when they love someone.
 EXAMPLE 3
Question 3: In your opinion, how did the girl blind feel after she knew it was the boyfriend who donated
her the eyes? Would she regret breaking the promise to marry him? Explain what her feelings might be
and justify your answer.
Personally, I do not think that the blind girl would regret her decision. This could be
seen when the blind girl dumps her boyfriend after she knew about his condition. If she
is sincerely to accept her boyfriend as he is, she would have agreed to spend her life
with him the moment she see the world. I am sure that the boyfriend would have been
very nice, kind and considerate towards her before she could even see, but just because
of his blindness, she just turns him down. However, I think the blind girl would feel a
bit shocked and embarrassed by her action because she has already sworn to marry that
guy before. Based on my personal experience, people would usually end up being regret
of what they have done, however, this does not mean that she would actually change her
decision to marry that blind guy because he might end up being a burden to her later.
Hence, I strongly believe that she is never regretting the decision that she has made.
THANK YOU ☺