The End of The Days

Goodbye Pro English, hello Finals!

Yes, the saddest thing to do in everyone’s lives is a GOODBYE. An indication to separate people from seeing each other in a long time. Everybody hates goodbyes. Even me.

The time has come for class Madam Baiti to end. I will definitely remember everything that she has taught us in all of the hours we had spent together. It was indeed a memorable memory, and never will I forget the experiences that we have been through.

The most memorable and my favourite in all time was the ‘Runway’ theme. I enjoyed every tiny bit of all the hours and time spent in making our creation comes to live. It was indeed an unforgettable experience. It was as if I was in the competition myself, and Madam Baiti was the ‘Heidi Klum’. And yes, she did make ‘Heidi Klum’ happened. (^_^)

Whatever it was, the bad and the good things that had happened in the class were indeed extraordinary. We have learned so much in the class and thanks to Madam Baiti for making it happened.

I would like to apologise to anyone if I had said the wrong words, in accidently or even purposely. And I would also like to thank Madam Baiti for the exposure she has given us. It had greatly improved on my communication skills and without a doubt; my English as well.

So, thank you Madam, and please pray for all our finals.

Screens

People would always get confused when such topic occurred. But I don’t. I personally think that with televisions, computers, video games, and cell phones, modern culture makes it difficult to escape time in front of a screen, especially for our newest generation of kids. Today, children six and under watch over 28 hours of television a week, nearly half of them have used a computer, and more than one in four has played a video game.

What does this growing exposure mean for our children's literacy development? Is it more harmful than helpful? Can parents and teachers use media effectively in their homes and schools? If so, how?

Questions like these that possess my mind when I see children, not only in Malaysia, but the whole world. Of course I can’t blame them; they are currently born in a technological world. But their parents were not. So, why should they expose their children on so many screens when they know that their children can be drowning into the cyber world?

There is plenty of evidence that sitting for hours at a time stores up health problems for the future. Sedentary behaviour is linked to rising risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke. But resourceful information also shows increases in blood pressure in children playing computer games and says that screen time is associated with unhealthy eating behaviour. Children respond to junk food adverts and eat in front of screens, which is such a distraction that it disturbs their memory of what they have consumed and they want to eat again.

More concerning to the parent who thought children's TV was educational and harmless are the studies that suggest screen time has an effect on a baby's developing brain. A US study found that those who watched TV at the ages of one and three years had a significantly increased risk of developing attention problems by the time they were seven years old. Then there is ‘Facebook depression’, reported by the American Academy of Paediatrics: an increased risk of disengagement and vulnerability to victimisation after high levels of screen time in early childhood, poor social skills and an impaired ability to express empathy. Screens effect on familial interactions, with children too absorbed in their screen world to greet a parent arriving home.

But blaming computers and TV may look like too simplistic an answer towards to many parents, who will have alternative interpretations of what is happening in an era of social as well as technological change, and none of the studies prove that screens can cause children harm. But they should have known better to limit the time for children in using screens too much. As they say, prevention is better than cure! (^_^)

Die in Dumb Ways

YouTube.

When you see the word above, what would be on your mind? Of course varieties of videos right? The ones that you upload, subscribe, and even search! And as I was searching, this one particular video caught my attention, and it has become a well-known in a social media world.

‘Dumb Ways to Die’

This particular video is indeed a creative, yet informative and descriptive. It is basically a video made to convey a message to the youngsters to be safe around trains. It was actually a safety campaign video by a train company called Metro in the United Kingdom.

But if you ask me, personally I think that this video is inappropriate for children and adolescence under the age between one until eleven. Why? Because this video contains violence. Even though the characters look cute and they are animated, the actions during the message were unsuitable.

Frankly, this video reminds me of the series made by Mondo Magic in YouTube; Happy Tree Friends. Happy Tree Friends featuring all those cute and cuddly animation animals, in hope of they would somehow creatively think of an idea of contradiction between cuteness and violence. I personally thought it was brilliant, because they have shown creativity to showcase the animals in term of comedy, and at the same 

time, viciousness. It was indeed different than any of the videos in YouTube.

But this video, ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ is a different thing. Happy Tree Friends, its targeted audience are adults, and Mondo Magic had put the R Rated warning before showing their every series. ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ targets children as their viewers, and in hoping they would understand the message given.

To top it off, this ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ video got me interested in its creativity and the cute animations it showcased. But I still think it is inappropriate to display this video as a lesson to children in a safety campaign. They can be more creative than that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw

The Narrative

The story continues....

So, as I said from my last post, I was attacked by a terrible fever on Saturday morning and missed my test. And I had to make up for the test during this particular day.

My time given was longer than everyone because I was the only one who had the MC. So, I took the test. Truth be told, it wasn't as hard as I expected. But then again, it wasn't that easy either.

And after the test, I was actually confused because I didn't know what to do in the class. I wasn't there when  Madam Baiti gave out the orders as we were supposed to take our test in a different class. So, I asked my friend Min, and she said that we ought to do a narrative essay with an involvement of a few vocabularies, situations, locations, and our career paths. And the story has to be written in a Mahjong paper.

And as the time passed, we resulted in a story of a photographer on how he met his wife the first time. I wish I could tell it in here, but frankly; the time is not adequate for me to spend in front of the computer. So, I would likely to post-pone this memorable story, and to post it another time when the time is right. =]

But overall, it was indeed a fun experience. But then again, Madam Baiti's classes are all fun.

Test?

During the 30th, the September badge of 2011 was organising an event on Forum. The Forum was called Maturity and its interrelations with Social Media.

We were supposed to go to Madam Baiti's class that evening, for the event dispersed at 3pm. However, we were too tired to go to her class, so we begged the Madam to post-pone the class, and she agreed to do it on Saturday. 

Unfortunately, on Saturday morning, I noticed that I couldn't even budge from my bed because I was too tired. Actually, after the forum event, I had another event on Friday night. And the event went on until 2 am in the morning.

But still, the whole week was a tiring week for me and I was attacked by a fever and didn't go to class. So, I went to the clinic and consulted the doctor. He then gave me the MC (Medical Cit) for one day.

So, as to make up for the test on Saturday morning, I had to take the test on the next Tuesday. And the next Tuesday, was another Madam Baiti's class. 

To be continued....

Graph

The graph.

I'm sure most of you would imagine business or even physics. But in English, graph means description. No, graph IS description. We received handouts from Madam Baiti and she asked us to describe the graph and what does it indicate.

Basically, we were ought to create an essay about the graph given. It was hard at first, because we had to be very observant and very descriptive about the essay. But as soon as we learned on how to do it, it was not that bad. =]

PR

What does PR stand for? Does anyone know?

For your information, PR is actually an acronym for Public Relations. Public relations is the practice of managing the flow of information between an individual or an organisation and the public relations may include an organisation or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The aim of public relations by a company often is to persuade the public, investors, partners, employees and other stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, products or of political decisions. Common activities include speaking at conferences, winning industry awards, working with the press and employee communication.

And as for this class, we were asked to make a sketch to highlight about Public Relation as a job. So, my 
team-mates and I had this crazy idea about making our little 'drama' featuring a scandalous artist having a relationship with an infamous lead guitarist from a band called Avenged Sevenfold, Synyster Gates (Brian Elwin Haner Jr.).

My team-mates, Geogy as the E-News caster, Min as the journalist, Faza as the Public Relation and I, myself as the scandalous artist who had the affair. The situation was pictured like this:

• Geogy was at the studio, announcing about the latest news involving the scandalous artist.
• In the news; the artist had to go to the press conference and was walking through a sea of media coverage. And then she got mad and cursed at one of the journalist, which was Min.
• During the press conference, the PR, which was Faza, was advising the artist to apologise and she herself, apologised for the artist's behalf.
• After the whole thing, everything went well as usual.

So, the whole class was supportive, and we had fun. I even received a compliment from the madam herself as the best actor for acting out as the scandalous artist. She said, "The character looked alive!"

Thank You madam! =]