He is the Man- Nelson Mandela!

I had been hearing and listening to adults talking and chattering about a person named “Nelson Mandela” since my high school days. I still remembered that at that time, I was only in my Form 2 and rarely read the newspaper. Therefore, this person- Nelson Mandela was still an unknown to me (although I have heard of his name daily) as I did not read the newspaper and he is still not in the history yet as I could not find his name in the history textbook when I was in Form 2 nor Form 3. But I did know something about this person-that he is some sort of a politician and is fighting for something for his people in his country. But I wasn’t sure what he was fighting for. I just knew that he could be someone with power and of high authority, if not he would not have been in the newspaper. Nelson Mandela remained to be a mysterious person to me, for many years, perhaps, for 8 years until recently, when Dr Edwin assigned all of us to read the autobiography of “The Long Walk of Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela” in the hand book. Only now, I knew who Nelson Mandela was and what he was fighting for years ago.
Through his autobiography, I know Nelson Mandela is an African and yes, I am right, he is a politician and he is fighting for something for his people- he is fighting for the rights of his people. Not only that, his autobiography tells me that he was held as a prisoner before in his movement of fighting for the rights of his people and all the pains and hardship that he had gone through years ago. It is also mentioned in the autobiography that “they”, the African prisoners were treated as children as they were only given shorts and slippers to put on instead of trousers and shoes as the authority wanted them to feel small and as “a boy”. This is one of the scenarios where apartheid had taken place in the past in Africa. I salute Nelson Mandela for his courage and bravery in fighting for the rights and freedom for his people, for his strength and spirit to go through all the sufferings and hardship and lastly for the sacrifices that he had made for his people- his people and not for himself when he stated that “But before putting them on I checked to see if my comrades had been issued trousers as well”. Nelson Mandela is indeed a man of courage and honor.

Submitting the first draft of the research paper.

Today I have submitted the first draft of my research paper to Fifi, the librarian who are working at the Pusat Sumber as Dr Jayakaran had already informed us to submit our first draft to him on the last day of week 7. After the first meeting with Dr Jayakaran, I have been working on the first draft of my research paper for about 2 weeks. Yet, I still could not find sufficient information to be included in my first draft. Basically, I have found enough information for the story “Paul’s Case” but I could not find sufficient information to support the title of my research paper for the story “The Drover’s Wife”. Both stories that I have chosen are short stories and I find it hard to find information for the story “The Drover’s Wife”. I wrote and included as many information and my own ideas as I can, hoping that all the points that I have included could support the area of research that I am working on. Altogether I have submitted 10 pages of my first draft to Dr Jayakaran, hoping that all the points I have submitted in my first draft could support my field of research.

What has happened to Lulu, mother? What has happened to Lu?

“What has happened to Lulu, mother? What has happened to Lu?” These two sentences are so fresh in my mind and remind me of the wonderful time we had with the two beautiful poets from the British Council. Dr Edwin had invited two beautiful ladies from the British Council to the class to carry out some interesting activities with us- the TESL 7 and Cohort 4. The very first thought on having 2 poets to the class, at first, was very discouraging as all of us thought that the class would be boring as we expect the poets will just give us a talk on how to write poems and solely telling us their very own experiences in writing poems. But this was not what it actually turned out to be! We had lots of fun with the 2 beautiful ladies in the class. “Lulu” was the poem that we had worked on in the class with the 2 ladies. “Lulu” was a simple poem but they created several activities that were so fun from the poem. We had a lot of fun indulging ourselves in the activities. We wrote a poem as a group as the reply to the poem “Lulu” and we managed to come out with cheeky yet funny versions of poems. It was fun listening to all the different kinds of replies to the poem “Lulu”. Only through this activity, I realize that we can very creative when the grammar or the language items are not taken into consideration. We are not afraid of making any grammatical mistake in our poem as the lady told us that it is okay to have mistake as long as we come out with our very own version of poem as the reply to the poem “Lulu”. Never before I felt so enjoyable and fun indulging myself in group work when comes to working on poem. Normally, when we are doing group work on poem, we usually need to understand in depth the meaning of the poem and everything about the poem will be very serious and no play at all. But in this class, all of us had so much fun and it made us love the process of learning and writing poems. I, personally love the two great ladies from the British Council very much. They were so charming. I really hope that Dr Edwin will invite them to come to our class again in the future as I am really looking forward to spend some fun time with both the beautiful ladies!

Presentation on My Position Paper

Today I have presented my position paper “Dissatisfaction of life and the desire to live an idle life lead Paul to a disastrous end” in FPP 219A at 12.20 pm. I was the third to present my position for this first session of Position Paper Presentation. I presented my thesis statement to the class and I supported my thesis statement with around 9 supporting details. First and foremost, I gave supporting details that show Paul dissatisfy with his present life and then I gave supporting details on why Paul’s dissatisfaction with his present life and Paul’s desire to live an idle life can lead to such a tragic death. Mr Omid was observing from behind of the class while I presented my position paper using Power Point Presentation in front of the class. In my opinion, my presentation was clear and precise as I included all the main points in the Power Point Presentation. I had also elaborated on each of my points on my own without reading the elaboration from the Power Point Presentation as I did not included the elaborations of points in my Power Point Presentation as I only wanted to emphasize on the main points in my slides. After my presentation, Mr Omid did not comment or say anything regarding my presentation and I am just keeping my fingers crossed, hoping that my presentation can earn me a high score and a good grade!

Andy Warhol- The Great Artist !

Today, Dr Edwin assigned us to watch a video clip on Andy Warhol. All of us were not sure who Andy Warhol is before we watch the video clip but after spending some time watching the video clip, at last, we knew that Andy Warhol is a great artist that had drawn a lot of great paintings such as the portrait of Marilyn Monroe, The Campbell’s Soup’s label, The portrait of Elvis Presley and even the painting of “The Last Supper”. The video clip is basically about the biography of Andy Warhol on what he had drawn when he was alive back then 1969. Most of the visuals or illustrations shown in the video clip were his paintings from year to year according to chronological order. Much were the paintings of The Campbell’s Soup’s label on different flavors of Campbell’s soup. The video clip on the biography on Andy Warhol was okay as it was in colour and not so dull as in black and white but it was not really that interesting as it only show pictures of Andy Warhol’s painting from year to year. Not much elaborations or moving pictures. But his paintings were very beautiful and impressive and through this video clip I learnt that Andy Warhol is one of the great artist in those days

First meeting with my supervisor, Dr Jayakaran

This afternoon, at 4 pm, we had our meeting with our first meeting with our research paper’s supervisor, Dr Jayakaran, at the FPP’s Pusat Sumber. All the eight of us, arrived early at the Pusat Sumber and waited for Dr Jayakaran. Soon, Dr Jayakaran arrived and we started our first meeting regarding our research paper. We wrote down our names on a sheet of paper as the proof of attendance and each one of us took turns to tell Dr Jayakaran the title for each of our research paper. Through this meeting, I knew that Dr Jayakaran wanted us to write and tap on something that is more direct and simple compared to writing something which is complicated and broad. Several course mates’ topic of research paper need to be revised as Dr Jayakaran commented that their topics are too complicated and broad. I showed and told Dr Jayakaran the title of my research paper and Dr Jayakaran approved my title for my research paper but he asked me to be more specific in my title. My meeting ended at around 5 pm and I went straight home to revised the title for my research paper so that my title for the research paper can be more focused and specific.