Poetry analysis

I feel so great that it is second semester already, of course, this signals the mock and final exams are coming soon. Recalling what happened last semester, I do agree that EALD is a tough subject. We discussed about the culture and all the abstract issues regarding culture. But what I afraid the most is the English itself, the language empowerment!

Study English literature remains me about my Chinese lesson in my secondary school. What I mean is Chinese literature, those who had studied it will know. A Chinese, typically, is more shy and reserved. He or she will prefer to express what he or she thinks in figurative ways and not in literal way. That is part of the reason why SPM Chinese is so hard to score!

Funny, a future engineer is comparing the rose with love!

Poem is an expression of emotion in figurative way. But, how the poets deal with those abstract themes (love, hope, war, loneliness...)? Metaphor, simile, personification, allusion and many other approaches give the solution. I personally think that metaphor is the best. Everything in nature has been assigned their meaning; for example, red is angry, white is clean and naive, blue is the unity, green is peaceful, spring is the hope, summer is active, autumn is leaving, winter is freezing. Wow, the world of hidden power is awaiting!

Journey to Malacca

I feel so lucky that I am still alive.

10 June 2009, while I was still in my hometown, woke up early in the morning, just because that day was special. After breakfast, my father drove us using his 35-year-old Toyota to the Malacca city. I was in mixed feeling because tour with my family always was restricted by budget and time. But I still anticipated the journey as I seldom went to Malacca in these years.

This time, we visited almost all the Buddhist temples near the Jonker Street (鸡场街). Among them, the oldest temple (青云亭) already had 400 years history. Consequently, we went to Dataran Pahlawan Megamall to do window shopping. The megamall was built beside the historical tourist site, A’ Formosa fortress and Dataran Merdeka. The building of this new shopping mall was a fantastic idea as it linked between the histories to modern lifestyle.

After lunch, we started our journey home. We were stuck in the traffic caused by an old broken car. Then later, my father tried to overtake a towed car in the highway, but eventually discovered that his car breaking system had some problems! When this speeding car came to the junction, it simply could not be stopped! My father was alerted but unable to cope with the situation.

You may have watched how Jackie Chan controls a truck which could not stop in his action movie. But in reality, who dare to control such a crazy vehicle? The two incidents during my journey home were the premonition of something dangerous, but who knows?

Luckily, after some die or live situation, we came to a foreman who proved the break was still functioning but just needed a harder press. Terrified, we went home safely. Father promised to send the car for repair. I only can say that the car was old enough for transporting.

Pursue of happiness

Life is irony. What you want is what you don’t have; what you have is what you don’t want. That is what happening in the journey to pursue happiness. We are in bitterness! That is why we are seeking for the happiness, because it simply is not with us (maybe it just beside you, but you not own it).

I watched ‘The Pirate of Caribbean’ currently. The movie depicts truly what I mean. The pirates, typically, want to live in luxury. So, they are competing for grand treasures. They may kill the others, sacrifice their friends (as what the Code says) and more, their lives are in danger. But what they actually get? They become poorer, live in intimidated condition and the government is chasing after them. Criminal, they are called. They have the freedom to go everywhere, but nowhere are safe. But why they still want to be pirates? This is their destiny. They are happy, because happiness is hard.

On the other hand, looking at Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, they deeply love each other until they can sacrifice their love or go against their will. Will hates pirates, but the reality forces him to become a pirate in order to marry Elizabeth. Similarly, Elizabeth kisses Captain Jack as a trap to lock him on the ship. She also accepted to be given to the Singapore pirate, Sao Feng, in the parley. These acts make me pondering how great the power of love is. They want to be together and that is why they are apart.

In addition, the greedy one always gets nothing. Men are easily tempted by treasure, power and women. The crews in the Black Pearl take away the treasure even they know they will be cursed. Lord Beckett wants to control the sea and in the end being killed. These people can use any methods just to get whatever they want, but what are the consequences? They suffer!

This movie definitely is an excellent master piece. Maybe just like Ms Chan said, violent and dramatic potential sell in media, but behind the scenes show a lot of things.

Persuasive speech

Be frankly, I never give any persuasive speech before in public or in class. What I have done is just in essay form, and I never study in deep what persuasive speech is. I know how to convince other, but what is the real technique? I don’t know. What I know is present what I think through the language.

My first persuasive speech was not a good one, even I have put a lot of effort (many not enough) inside. The topic was euthanasia (I never hear this before, as Joel said, it should like a continent). My preservative thinking told me that I should against this new ‘continent’. Yes, I do. I searched up the net, doing a lot of research on it. To prevent plagiarism, I actually put in effort to think of some new idea, although they are weak.

Thanks a lot to Ming Chai who had helped me throughout the preparation. I am weak, and he kept correcting me. He contributed his ideas, commented on my pronunciation and intonation, gave me invaluable advises. I was SO touch. He was having test in the next day but he accompanied me throughout the 4-hour exhausting rehearse. I would be more nervous without his help.

Pretty odd, I did my speech not during EALD lesson, but after school, together with the German class student. As usual, I became nervous and hair-wired. Numerous grammatical errors were made and the fact all had leaved my mind. Like a robot, I passed my speech with marginalized mark.

Suddenly, I knew I was so far away from Joel and the others. Joel, typically, did not prepare much for his speech, but his impromptu skill and lively presentation style had already gathered all the attention from every corner of the classroom. Moreover, he had all the information he need in his speech: emotional appeal (key to success), strong viewpoint (although you may find them over the need) and funny element (is euthanasia a continent?). When he came to the part regarding real life stories (at his maximum speed), I suddenly feel the sorrow had aroused me. It is touching, really.

Even I feel Ms Chan was so bias to give him such an incredible high mark, but I knew he deserve it. Compared to his emotional appeal, my shocking statistic was not longer shocking.

Bilingual 双语

I still remember Ms Chan had discussed about the issue on bilingual versus ESL. I personally support the bilingual education because I had received this kind of education in my early education. The following part of this post contains some of my personal thought.

First, mother tongue is the only language for a child to communicate with the world. I observed this through my little nephew. He is just one year old but is already capable to listen to instruction. How he understood the language? The answer is simple. He imitates the action of his parent and guesses what his parent want the language (as get it right, they will be so pleased and keep praising him). Slowly, this language will be planted deep in his heart.

I wonder, what language a bilingual (or even multilingual) person will use when he/she in danger. At first, I thought he/she will speechless because I thought he/she will face a conflict to choose the right language which other will understand. But, who bother about other when in extreme condition? Yes, he/she will choose the mother tongue which is deeply cultivated inside their mind.

After 6 years ESL teaching, I still have problems with my English. This primarily because I need to convert every thing in my mind (which is mostly in Chinese) to English before I can speak it out. This is why I am very slow when writing English essay and some time I am just unable to complete the essay on time. However, I can write 5-page long essay (which is around 2000 words) during the exam condition, even Chinese words are more complex and it take longer time to write one single word. (That is why I found blog is easier to write in Chinese rather in English)

I notice that every time I count number, I will use Chinese involuntarily. Maybe Chinese use a shorter syllabus to pronoun a number and I can say a word a few time faster than I speak in English. However, as what I say, it comes naturally form our mind as it already there.

In short, mother tongue is the first language to communicate with other mankind, but one language is never enough to converse with this diversified world.

Short Circuit 短路

Last Friday, I went home earlier since I had nothing to do at the library (I simply did plan to study any more). Hot weather had made my room so warm. The worst thing was the fan suddenly stopped working. Initially we thought our electricity supply had been cut off since the house lord always forgot to pay the bill.

After my friend checked the circuit breaker, he found that the electrical circuit in my room had problem. Of course, they chose to switch the power supply to my room. They called the warden, but he could not do anything except passing the problem to his college. So, my room remained lightless for nights.

Compared to the study stress (as mid-year exam is just around the corner), I just feel too tired to bother the situation. I have to study, still, even without the power supply.

周五，我总在冷冰冰的藏书阁里度过。可这回，我却背叛了一言不语、知识渊博的她。我承认，我选择了酷热的家，陪伴诱惑。

也许是一种惩罚，每每我避开她时，她嫉妒的心，尝试把我身边的一切带走。这次，赌气的她与光明离去了。说明了，卧室的电源被截断了。灯管的休息，让黑暗肆无忌待地吞噬房里的每一个角落。

不知何故，这不便只在我疲惫的心上掠过。她就是看准了我不会因为这类问题让我们之间的关系疏远。考试的火苗已烧上眉梢！无论她怎么闹，我总得哄她回来，让她回来陪伴我左右。

Study Log

Be frankly, I am asked by Ms Chan to write somethings on study as preparation for the speaking test end of this month. The following is the detail of my study in this month.

Basically, I found Ms Chan always can make the class alive. I admit that sometime I find other lectures are quite boring, but not the EALD classes!

However, discussion of culture and language becomes more and more abstract. We were focusing on multiculturalism in the beginning of this month. Ms Chan explained about the diversity of culture in Australia and racism occurred there. Australia as an international country, has all the immigrants from all around the world. It is just like a mini global village where you can find a wide range of people here.

However, this complex society has its own problems. They practise 'melting pot', that is, all the Australians practise a national lifestyle and have their own identity. But this arises the problems of race discrimination. The diversity of culture will die off, and the minorities will be discriminated. Discrimination is obvious through the White Australian Policies (Europeans were encouraged to immigrate to Australia). The selective of the immigrants is due to the facts that 'alien race' might be dangerous to their culture.

Then, it came to the discussion of status of refugees. Refugees are totally different from the legalized immigrants. Some of them are victims of war and natural disaster, but the other are 'queue jumper'. Due to this, there exists a issue (a important topic of discussion) whether government should allow them to settle down in the host country.

Finally, we have a lecture on sexual harassment. By definition, sexual harassment is unwelcome disturbance (mentally or physically). We have a fun time talking about 'pun' and how different intonation and expression which may cause misunderstanding.

I think this should be the end of this post. Thank for reading.

Borderless loneliness 空虚的寂寞

It is so simple to know a friend, but not a friend who know you. Same thing goes to my emptiness, who know? I was trapped in this expanding world, challenges is getting more complete each day. The extraordinary pressure already misshapes my soul. I travel on uneven path numbly, never care about the surrounding. Until I reach the junction, I simply fail to make a decision where to go, yet more choices are coming.

Reality is just like an illusion. I rather busy with other things, but not face the reality. I just want to be alone, being preoccupied by emptiness, just the eye of heaven chooses to continue to shine, and even the people feel too hot. I admit that I am selfish, because I am human too.

I will go, until the end of the day.

朋友易寻，知己难求。心底的空虚，谁知？迷失于迅速膨胀的世界里，挑战日益艰辛，却谁知我的心已被压力挤压得变形？麻木，行于崎岖的路上，路边的景色已模糊。分叉路口间踌躇，可这只是千万个转捩点之一啊！

现实麻醉了自我。我情愿荆棘遮蔽了视线，也不想面对那残酷的未来。我选择了独处，选择了寂寞，选择了空虚，俨如烈日让温度计里的水银长高，也不理会冷气室里的人的毒骂。是啊，我选择了自私，就像那些自私的人受不了烈日一样。

我会一直走下去，直到终点。

因果

Hot weather, warm air,
Stared the table fan,
My mind started stirring,
Looking into the past.

I am rather like a observer,
watching what was happening surrounding me.

Busy,
I came closer to myself,
Loneliness preoccupied my soul.
One way to escape:
Doing endless homework and assignment.

Evil April
At the first day being fooled,
'Don't fool people as you will be fooled!'
Yes, we change things, but things change too.

We are close to our friends,
Makes influenza closer to us.
Illness is just unavoidable,
Because we are under one roof.

We want to be strong,
God makes us even stronger.
Incident happens,
Accident is the consequence.
Who will be the next unfortunate one?

Do appreciate yourself, your family,
And your friends.
Because you care, you are cared.

Week 11: Oscar in IT World

12 March 2009 seemed to be an important date for some IT friends. For those who play strategy game, they will be anticipating the latest version of Red Alert 3 expansion. Edward has waited for months just for this moment. And for those who are fanatic of the latest technology development, this is also the day the latest version of Windows 7 (Built 7057) available on the net. (It is released earlier, but torrent and direct download are available on this day).

Oscar Awards were given out currently, Joel has downloaded the whole ceremony. He has currently turned to a download mania, who continuously sucking bandwidth just to fulfill his endless desire for movies and games. You should understand that life will be boring without these digital stuffs. Moreover, we have too little homework after we done the documentary (I wonder how Ms Chan influence other lecturers, they all said we need time to relax and postponed all our homework).

What I feel both exciting and nervous was the result of our documentary. It is just like a mini Oscar. We all wanted to see who get the Best Documentary Award. Keoh Ying always says our documentary is the best. I has faintest confidence about it. There are 3 groups of students who are doing tattoo as their title. I watched others' documentaries. They are all up to the world standard. I shall give all 50 over 50 if I were Ms Chan.