At last...

This is my last blog for this course as we have to end it this week. It is my fourteenth week of my seventh semester and only few days ahead to end it. I felt a great relief as I’m going to hand in my research paper this Wednesday which means my final exam is over for this paper. My supervisor asked us to give the best piece as the final draft so I have edited the paper again and hope it would be better than the first draft. Throughout this course I learnt a lot, eve though I’m not sure how to apply them in my teaching. Maybe not now but later, I guess. I had a hard time completing my two major assignments for this course but it taught a lot especially to do work earlier to avoid problem. From a person who never borrowed books from library, for the purpose of research paper I borrowed six books at once, which I will never forget. It was an interesting course that makes us to be more matured and prepare for next semester, my final semester in UPM. I’m going to miss all the fun of doing assignments but I know it will be replaced with lesson plans. And I should forget to thank Dr.Edwin who guided us a lot in completing our position paper, thank you Dr. Ok this is the end, bye…

Freedom For Writers...

Last Friday we watched a move entitled Freedom for Writers, a fantastic movie. Its actually a motivating movie for us as we are becoming teachers in future.. :) It is about a teacher who manages to unite the students and make them to realize about themselves as an individual and community. The students are from native and non Native Americans and both of them hate the side of each other. The teacher faced a lot of challenges before she could capture their attention and interest. Slowly with her dedication, patient and care she was able to put them together under one roof called classroom. They forgot about their past life, revenge, hatred, gangsters and realized that none of these will lead them to a good way. Every step the teacher takes inspires the students to change themselves. I like the teacher’s idea when asked them to write journal everyday where it was chance and opportunity for them to pour out their sadness, frustration, depression, anger, loneliness in their life. Although at first many of them reluctant but it was actually their first step to become writers. Knowing their interest, problem the teacher provided some reading books that are inspirational and motivational for them. It does really work for them. They became immersed with the books and tend to change the perspective on life. Even though the teacher lost her family life but she gained a very big family called as students at the end. Every individual has their own talent but it will be not discover until they discover it by themselves or others. As a future teacher, it was motivating movie for us even though I’m jot sure whether we can make changes like in the movie but at least we could try... I guess…

First draft

What next week he wants the first draft? I’m going to die as I never touched anything yet except for finding the necessary information. I will never learn my lesson L I should start working now itself. The first two parts and the implication on education are quite easy to do. Literature review is a bit though because I’m not sure on how to do it. For the first time in my university life, I borrowed six books at once just to do some readings regarding my literature review. It is not an easy job to do research paper, you need to read, write, and think a lot. Even for the position it took one whole week to finish it, how about this assignment? Worst still I have exams ahead next week and I need to revise. I manage to do the introduction, synopsis, background of the author and implication on education in one day so it means I still have plenty of time to do the literature review and my actual study. After three days of struggling, burning the midnight sleep, I was able to complete it. It’s a relief but I’m sure I have to re do it again. Never mind it is better to learn from mistakes. During the raya break I’ll try to do it again.

Proposal Paper.

My supervisor has already asked for the proposal paper and I haven’t draft it yet. There is only one day for me to sit and do it. Luckily, Kumutha taught me on how to do the proposal paper. I manage to do everything except for the issues that I’m going to discuss on. What exactly I want to do research on? According to Kumutha, she said we should have at least ten issues to discuss and it’s better to have more. At least ten, I can’t even think of one now! Relax, don’t be panic and be cool after all it just a proposal paper, this is what I thought at first but thinking back on the mark,40% it is better to do it properly. After a while I was able to list down few issues, actually only 9 issues. Hope it will be accepted. Research paper is a complicated process but it was my fault also I should have prepare it earlier. It’s a lesson for me.

Enid Blyton

After our first meeting with my supervisor, I kept on thinking on what to do. The topic that I chose need to be changed and I don’t have any idea. Oh God… why mind is so blank this semester? I was talking to Tharani about this dilemma and she suggested me to work on Enid Blyton’s work. Yes, it is a good idea since I have read a lot of her story books. She is a young adult writer and the stories are interesting to read. Now, I have the idea but on what topic should I do? Think… think… maybe I will work on the portrayal of theme in her writings. As I don’t have any of the books with me, so I went to MPH bookstore to buy them. I choose to work on ‘The Island of Adventure’ and ‘Five Run Away Together’ but my bad luck I didn’t get the second book. So I decided to do on ‘Five Go to Mystery Moor’. Now I have to sit and read to decide on the theme that I’m going to do research on.

Finally done!

Yahoo! I’m done with my position paper. We hand it over this Wednesday. Most of my course mates were confused because some of them thought it’s the first draft that they should submit without realizing that it’s the final work they need to hand over. Thank God, I didn’t think like that. To tell the truth until now I’m not satisfied with my position paper, I still feel it is incomplete. I feel that the explanations and arguments in my position paper are not good enough. But it too late to think on it as I already submitted it. I felt a great relief and happy as though I completed a big work. The result of this paper, I have to wait……

How to start?

After few weeks of struggling with the thesis statement now we have to crack our head to write the position paper. It is not easy to start you should have the right words, mood, idea and so on to do it. Ehem… how to start? By giving the definition of fantasy and reality or straight to the point? After reading the sample I had a clear idea on how to write a position paper. It took me three days to start the first paragraph. Each time I write I’m not satisfied as I don’t feel it is a good start. At last, I have started to write it and each day I will write two paragraphs so it took me almost a week to complete the position paper. It’s easy to construct the points but it is hard to develop the points since I have to argue and provide textual evidence as well. Above all this, I need to keep track with the word count as it should not exceed 1000 words. I’m not sure how many words it had exceed, I’ll know after I started to type them out.

First meeting

We are going to have our first meeting with Dr.Jaya, supervisor for the research paper. We were informed a week earlier so that we can think of the aspects and texts that we are going to work on. There were six of us waiting for Dr.Jaya in the FPP library. I took the chance to ask around on what they are going to do for their research. Compared to mine, theirs are far better than mine. After a while, Dr.Jaya came in and explained to a bit on the research paper and asks each of to tell the topics and texts that are used. When it was my turn, he said that the topic is ok but it will be easier for me to work on the same authors rather than two different writers. What he mentioned was right and I should think about it. At the end of meeting he said he will meet us with the proposal papers next week at the same time. Now I got some work to be done and I must be serious in this assignment since it consists of 40%.

Another day.

I’m not sure why I will be always late in getting approved from Dr.Edwin regarding the position paper. I didn’t go last weeks class as I had to attend a funeral urgently. As usual, I was among few persons left to write the points on the board. Actually I already got the points but when I checked it out my other friends they said it is not enough so I sat and worked on it again and again. As Komala and I are working on the similar area, I checked the points since Dr just checked them for her. I change few mistakes and finally wrote the points on the board. There were few mistakes here and there but the points are all ok. Now I can start working with the position paper since next week we need to send in our drafts.

Worried

I’m quite worried with my research paper, almost all my course mates had met their supervisor and they have started to work with the proposal papers. We haven’t got a chance to meet our supervisor yet, it’s not his fault since he got to attend meetings and programme. We understand about his situation. So we waited patiently for our confirmation on the appointment to meet him. In a way, it gives us plenty of time to decide and work on with the topic that we have selected. Not only that, we learnt a lot from reading other course mates proposal paper so that we won’t have trouble in doing one later on. What I’m going to do for research paper? I don’t know why, but I thought of doing the theme of class distinction in Pygmalion and A Street Car Named Desire. It just an option but I will think on other topics as well as I still got time to think.

Finally it is settled

Early in the morning, before going for Dr.Edwin’s class I checked again with my thesis statement. I was so nervous on that day. As we have plenty of time, I checked the statement with Tharani and Rahayu. They helped me to redo the statement as it is too board to discuss on. At last we came up with one, hope it will be accepted. Before writing it on board I asked about it to Dr.Edwin and guess what it was accepted with minor changes. Wow one issue is settled and now have to work with my points. That day itself we got to know about our supervisors for research paper. I will be supervised by Dr.Jayakaran with my other 5 course mates. I just got done with the position paper and now I have to crack my head again for research paper. Never mind its part of learning or at least I’m giving some work for my brain.

Not settled yet..

My tension is getting me to no where. Until now my thesis statement is not approved. I tried so many times but no avail. Today I tried my luck again but end up making fool of myself. I’m not sure why each time Dr.Edwin asks questions or explanation I will stammer and my words will go hair wire. I’m still afraid of him. Back to the story, I’m not sure how I’m going to settle it? Most of my course mates are working with their points now and I’m still working at the bottom. Maybe I should change my topic. According to Dr.Edwin this will be last week to settle our thesis statement, oh God! I went back and thought about my statement again and at last I decided to change the whole idea instead of working with Pygmalion, I decided to on A Street car Named Desire where I’ll be working on Blanche’s fantasy life. I manage to construct a statement; I do hope that it will be approved……

Mahabharata vs. Parable of The Prodigal Son

Mahabharata is a famous Indian epic and we are an extract from it as a reading task. Even though I have the epic at home, but I never thought of reading it. Actually the extract was given a week before but I totally forgot about it, somehow I manage to do a fast reading before Dr.edwin’s class. Thank God, he didn’t ask anything about the extract. I should never do this again. The extract is about the relationship between son and father. King Shantanu sacrifices happiness for his wife Ganga as he stopped her from throwing the eight child in the river and questioned her act. As a result she left him with the child but later returned the son to him as she promised. After a few years, King Shantano fell in love with Satyavati a fisherman’s daughter. When he asked the hand for marriage from her father, he gave him a condition. The fisherman wants Satyavati’s son to be the King after King Shantanu. Hearing this, he walked away without a word since he can’t accept the condition. Devarata, King Shantanu’s son knew about this matter and went to see the fisherman. There he took a very big oath where he will not become the King after his father and he will remain celibate and die sonless. He did this for the sake of his father’s happiness. For him, his father’s happiness is greater than anything else. We are supposed to find another story that has similar theme like this extract and I chose the Parable of The Prodigal Son. It’s a story of a rebellious son who rejects his father and goes of on a wild adventure. He faced failure and despair, finally he came back for his father’s mercy but to his surprise the father received him with warm hearted and forgiving arms. Both these stories show the sacrifices that they do for each other, father and son. It shows that there nothing wrong in sacrificing for our loved ones. But there is one question to think about; are people in this century willing to do the sacrifices to their father or their loved ones? Maybe there are few out there, I guess…

Daedalus and Icarus

We were assigned to find the picture on the fall of Icarus as our first task for reading. To tell the truth I never heard of this story before so I was not sure which picture to choose as there were so many versions. My course mates brought so many pictures some are funny pictures with Icarus flying down and so on. Actually I got the right picture which describes the landscape when Icarus fell down and he is only a tiny part in the picture where we can only see his legs. Talking about this story, it shows the relationship between father and son, Daedalus loves his son. He kept on crying when he fixes the wing on Icarus before they ran away. He also warned him not to fly high as the wax will melt under the blazing sun. Icarus who was following his father, suddenly started to fly near the sun, and the wax melted and he fell down and drowned in the deep blue sea. Same goes to these days’ youngsters who ignore the advice of their parents and elderly people. These days’ youths thinks that, they have their own ‘wing’ which will help to come up in life but they forgot that without their parents help they won’t be able to have the ‘wing’ or to fly safely in their life.

Thesis statement?

Today my pressure went up for a while when Dr.Edwin said that each of us has to present a thesis statement. I never think about it all. I’m going to get scolding, that’s for sure. Thank God, he asked us to think of an issue first and later develop on the thesis statement. After a while it was my turn to read out what I choose to do, which was the examining the theme of class distinction through the use of language in Pygmalion. Dr.Edwin said it was ok, but has to construct it into thesis statement. I tried so many times and checked it with Dr But it was rejected since it is still an issue not what he asked for. Some of my course mates got it right; I wonder how they did it. I hope by next week mine will be approved also. It seems I got to work it out during my weekends ..Ehem…

The journey begins......

After two months of semester break, we are back to campus. Finally we are in our final year, 7th semester which means we have only more semester to end our course. Time really flies! Even though we are in final year, work load does not decrease but increase especially when we are taking EDU 3234 (Readings and Project Work) with Dr.Edwin. On our first day we received our course outline and I turned to the assessment as I usually do that, cool! There is no exam for this paper BUT WAIT.. The marks are based on our assignments and it is not going to easy like our previous assignments. In my life I never came across the word position paper. What is that? After the explanation given by Dr.Edwin I was able to understand at least 50%, I guess. Actually we have to develop a thesis statement and then elaborate or talk about it in our position paper. But how to develop a thesis statement? My confusion turns out to be nightmare when another issue arise, RESEARCH PAPER. Gosh! For research paper we have to choose an area and do small research on it. Thinking of these two major assignments makes my anxiety to go up, how I am going to do both assignments with no ideas at all. Maybe I need to clear my doubts first and we will see about it…