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! =]

Tense, Tense, Tense

Tense, Tense, Tense...

Tenses. If I said tenses, there's one word that popped out in your head. GRAMMAR, right?

Frankly speaking, I ABHOR grammar. Idon't like grammar. Why? Because it has too many rules. No this, and no that. Despite my hatred towards grammar, I am a grammar nadzi. When I hear people using incorrect grammar, I feel that my ears are tingling and the urge to correct the sentence is too much. Because when the sound doesn't seem right to me, it feels that you are insulting the English language. And I happened to love the English language.

This time around, Madam Baiti fell sick and she had to shorten the class. From three hours, became one. And truth to be told, we didn't do any interesting activity like the 'Project Runway'; instead we just learned about tenses.

I know, you have learned tenses  from pre-school. But when I look around my surroundings, they are still people who don't use the correct grammar. And that saddens me. English is not just about getting A in class. English is a language, and you have to practicalise it. If you only know how to write, and not to speak, you are at loss. It is a knowledge, not something that you hold on to get an A. I know pointers or grades are important, but not as important as you carry the knowledge and implying it in your life. So, please. Practice English and with god's will, you will be more successful. =]

LG

LG.

I know, you probably think of it as the Korean brand handphone; LG (Life's Good), right? But it's not. It's actually the name of our team for our presentation in our third class - actually, MY third official class.

Okay. LG means Lanamifa Gywa. It indicates our own team members names; which are Laila, Nana, Min, Faza, Geogy and Wawa. Yup! We formed our own Girls Generation team!! Hahahaha!

Anyway, the class was about Project Runway by Madam Baiti, which she was the Heidi Klum in the situation. Fun, right? Yeah, we had a blast!
The challenge that we were getting was to design a new school uniform for secondary school students in Malaysia. So, we came up with the design below. Which, I myself who drew and designed the female's uniform of course. Hahaha!

In the presentation, we ought to give the whys and the whats of the design. My design was all about elegance, and professionalism. The design I made was inspired by the movie 'She's Out of My League'. The idea was transpired when I thought of a corporate fashion. When Madam Baiti said for secondary school students, I thought maybe adding a little "Grown Up" features in the school uniform won't be so bad. And in there, lied the simple yet elegant look; also some convinience in the fabric. We thought of cotton for the girls, and dri-fit for the boys because boys are rough and extreme, and easy to sweat.

So, there you go. The new school uniform for the secondary school students. =]

The Wall

The Wall. What is meant by The Wall?

The Wall is a tittle of a poem by Abdul Ghaffar Ibrahim. We learned that in our second class.
Basically the poem is about the walls in our lives. All the barriers and restrictions that stop us from getting what we want.

Everyone must have their walls surrounding them, right? Like me, I have tons of walls in my life; mainly my parents. Why? Because they are your parents of course! Every parents must be protective of their own children, and they always concern about you. Tell me, which one of you don't have parents as your Walls? No, right? I figured...

But as protective as they can be, they are the love of my life. Okay, I admit. It is a bit annoying if sometimes they restrict you from doing what you want, but it is more hurtful if they don't try at all. It means that they probably don't care about you at all. From my understanding, it is the way of them showing their love towards their children. I would too if I have kids on my own someday. =]

Love you, Mummy and Abah!!

Name Tag....

Ok, this is my official first class...

Remember I told you that I didn't attend my first class? Yeah...it turned out it was just an introduction to whatever the subject Proficiency English II was about. More like....an ice breaking of some sort...

Anyway...the first official class is all about NAME TAG. Not 'Price Tag' like the song by Jessie J yeah...it's 'Name Tag'. Hahahaha!!! I know, it sounds a bit classy when you read the name like that. The name tag was not an ordinary name tag. We were told to design our own tag using an A4 paper or a test pad paper and draw three things to describe ourselves.

The first one that I drew was an anime character. It's because I love anime so much that I, myself can speak a little Japanese! Konichiwa!! =] Hahaha!!!
Eventhough I am a hard-die-fan of them, but I am not an OTAKU! Do you know what is otaku? An otaku is a name given to those who ADORE anime until they tend to do anything that they can to just get into 'it'. Get it? Like they would buy expensive anime stuff, or any collectible items at any price or anywhere that they can get. They would literally DIE just to collect those stuff. And I'm not that.

The second thing that I drew was myself as a cheerful person. A happy-go-lucky girl! It's because I'm always happy no matter what kind of circumstances that struck me. Because I always believe in this phrase:

"There are always silver linings behind dark clouds."

And truly, they are! I don't understand why those people out there who always see life as a bag of dirt. Just because you have a problem, you decided to end your life right away. Life is more enchanting than we know. You just have to dig it out. We are who we are. And god has created us for some reason. If you think your life sucks, try to see others who are way more unfortunate than we are. You should be grateful.

The last thing that I drew was a guitar. It symbolises on my passion towards music. I love listening to music as I am towards learning it. I had learned guitar with my brother, but he said my hands are too small so I cannot get the chords right. He recommended that I use Ukulele. If you don't know what a ukulele is, it is a small music instrument that represents a guitar but it's not a guitar. The notes are different as the song that it can play. So, I will learn ukulele and maybe be a big performer in music industry one day. =] 

Modals??

I bet you would think about the skinny top models on the television, magazines and all the printed media as soon as you read the tittle of this Blog today; right? I did too. But you know what? It's not. Disappointed? Don't be. It's actually something in English that we use everyday but we don't exactly know what it is until today. I can't lie to you. I too, was surprised at first.

The modals are exactly something that you say to describe the agility, possibility or probability, capability  and certainty. It is something solid that you use to describe the things that you would do or should do or might do.

See? Told you you would be surprised. We might think that if we are fluent or even elequent in the language that we speak, we know everything about it, right? Well, someone had said this phrase a long time ago. The phrase goes like this:

                 "The more we learn, the stupider we become."

Relevant? Of course it does!! =]

First Class??

What shall I say? Hmmm….ok.

We; the students of Proficiency English II have been given an assignment to write a blog. So, that is why I am here. Obviously to write this blog. And, we have to write about every single thing that we do every week. It’s somehow like a report that we ought to write. Fun right? Yeah, I know…

So, here goes:

On the 28^th of August …– wait.

I’m not going to lie. I didn’t attend the first class because I had a terrible fever. So, instead of telling about the class, I’m going to tell you about my day. How I had the fever? Here’s how.

Hari Raya Aidilfitri was on the 19^th of August. And as you all know, the food is awesome on that particular day. And like everyone else, I ate EVERYTHING. And there came the diarrhoea and the bug of the fever. At first it was just the sour throat. But day after day it became worse, and I had to go to the clinic. I received antibiotic which the size of a Mentos. And the worst of it all, it got stuck in my throat and my stomach suddenly retreated all the things that I ate that day. How worse it can be right?

When my friends returned home and told me about all their stories of the day, I sat still and listened to them whilst I had my ‘fun’ in the room. So, that’s pretty much what happened on the day of the first English class I didn’t attend.

A Little Piece Of Heaven

Avenged Sevenfold

Now, in case all of you are wondering; the name stated above is a name of an American band. I know, some of you may not be familiarised by that name, but for your information, they are quite famous. At first I didn't even know the band existed. Heck, I didn't even like rock and roll! But something caught my attention though. It drove me into loving this band; and still I am the number one fan. It was a SONG.

Before I knew this band fully, my brother had introduced me to this song called 'A Little Piece Of Heaven'. I wasn't very fond of it when I first heard it, I thought that it was too horrifying because it sounded like something you play on people's funeral. But when he showed the video of the song, my eyes sprang opened because it was so awesome! The song had literally took my breath away! Well, not LITERALLY because if it did, I wouldn't live to write on this Blog, now would I? (^_^)

Anyway, the song had a story. And eventhough it was a scary song, but at the same time it moved your soul; because it is actually a romantic story between a man and a woman.

The story goes on like this:
     Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman who were having a dinner. And then, the guy suddenly got up from his chair and kneeled in front of the girl to ask for her hand in marriage. But the girl showed a negative feedback, and laughed her lungs out from the proposal. She thought it was funny because the guy was making a fool out of himself.
      But then, the guy got angry and he abruptly pulled her in and he shoved her on the ground, roughly. He then took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her heart 50 times because he wanted her to feel how much she had hurt him. And after that, he took her heart out and ate it.
      It had been a few days after the situation occured, and during the time, he had been preserving her body and did a lot of wrong things only god knows what. And when he was watching TV, the corpse of the girl suddenly woke up and became a zombie. He was shocked, and ran off from his apartment. The girl followed him, obviously wanted revenge.
      The guy then ran and ran; and finally got caught up in a graveyard where he got nowhere else to go. The corpse showed a devilish smile as she came closer and closer towards him. The guy was shivering of cold and fear; kneeling on his knees begging her to spare him but the girl wasn't soft hearted. He had done so much towards her that nothing could forgive him. NOTHING.
      So, as the girl came approaching him, his eyes became wide and all of a sudden, everything went black. The girl had finally got her revenge on him by taking his heart back. LITERALLY! The guy then got his punishment as he went to hell and got tormented.
     After he got released - it is a cartoon, he begged the girl again for her forgiveness but she was still persistent. But he didn't give up. He tried and tried until there came a point where she really got softened by it. So, she decided to forgive him but reminded him that if he ever does something like that again; he will know the distance between the sky and the ground.
     After that, they exchanged their vows - as a zombie and lived happily ever after.

THE END

So, the story touched me in every different angle because it is rare and creative and no one has ever done something like this. Although the story might seem a bit....'disturbed', at least it got a few sense of humour in it! Hahahaha!

I LOVE YOU A7X!! FOREVER!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VurhzANQ_B0

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro. Many of you know that Rio de Janeiro is a capital of Brazil, or a holiday destination to spend time with your families or lovers. But to me, Rio de Janeiro is a fat seven kilograms furry orange and white spots creature who stays at my house, and acts like a King. He does whatever, and whenever he wants. It all started when my mother had a lunch at a restaurant. I'd like to call it a destiny, but some may call it coincidence.

She was having a lunch break which was not too far from the office, enjoying every bite of her meal when suddenly, this cute little furry creature came into view. His pattern was like a cow, only instead of black, they are orange spots. He was so friendly, and then he swiftly went stroking his head on my mother's feet as soon as he made eye contact with her; as if he understood what she was implying. My mother once told me, cats can be a very good company because they somehow see what we see, and feel what we feel; although sometimes they can be very selfish and stubborn.

My mother then finished her lunch and went back to her office, leaving the poor creature alone. Although he looked really sad - I think, but he knows his boundaries. And as my mother got off work and went towards her CLK (Cute Little Kancil), the cute furry creature follwed her. And more surprisingly, he went inside the car! My mother was shocked, but exited at the same time and decided to take him home. And from there, there lied little Rio de Janeiro, the laziest bump you can find on the planet.

Oh, before I forgot, at first we thought he was a SHE! We found out he was a boy when we took him to PAWS (Paws Animal Welfare Society) and the facilitator said the 'she' was actually a 'he'! (*Laughing termendously*). He said that Rio hadn't grown on his balls yet because he was too small! That put all of us in an unbelivable, yet hillarious position. And in the end, we all laughed about it. Until now!

RIO DE JANEIRO