Vivacity

Of Short Stories and (Not Quite So) Critical Thinking

2010-01-28T16:50:39Z

One is One and All Alone by Nicholas Fisk is about a girl named Trish, who is the only child on a spaceship to Trion, with the setting took place in 2045. She is a lonely, 11-years-old girl, and in need of a friend her age before arriving at their destination in 2047. Her father is an important figure working on the spaceship, and her mother is working on Trion. Her only companion is VP, her VoicePrinter which acts as her diary, teacher and instructor, as well as a 'friend'.

This story is about her and her discovery on having a secret friend, aka making a clone of herself.

Sounds interesting, isn't it? This story is one of two short stories for the new Literature Component for English Language (Form 1 -3), aside from Flipping Fantastic by Jane Langford.

While the story itself sound interesting, and very... well, futuristic, what with the high-tech stuff going on with cloning as its theme, I definitely would not be stupid enough to actually suggest it to my 13-15 years old secondary students for leisure reading (let alone compulsory reading texts), no matter how easy it is to digest the language and what is actually going on in the story. Unless I really sure that they are able to think critically for themselves and not just taking anything for granted.

( What is the best way to teach your students that yes, it is alright to kill your other self? )

I prefer to teach the stupidly sweet and cheesy, full of family values Flipping Fantastic rather than this story. Anytime.

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I Want to Throw Some Stuff But I Can't

2009-08-20T04:56:00Z

Namely anything about Linguist 307. Really, I'm tempted. That bastard of an assignment did nothing but misery in my life. Not only it was difficult to do, it was also 10-12 pages of report on our speech analysis which only have two line of instructions, which was this:

"Read Part B of your textbook and write a 10-12 page description of your own speech. Try to be as detailed as you can."

WTF?? It's not even one line when I posted it here. And each time someone asked what should we do for this assignment, the lecturer would say, "It's all up to you."

Oh well, it's over now. I don't care what happened now. I've submitted it, and that's it. No more.

*off to do something else*

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Why So Lazy La You??!!

2009-08-13T11:58:11Z

Errr.... By no means, I'm not feeling sick. It's just that after Linguist 307 lecture yesterday, adlina and I were reminded by how most Malaysians speak English. We even talked that way until we reached home. We probably got more than just a few stares, too. LOL. XD

Now, to the serious stuff.

I'm starting to think that I hate Linguist 307. At first, it looked kind of interesting. But after four weeks and still failing to see the purpose of us being in this course, I started to give up trying to keep interest. It does not help the fact that our lectures have nothing to do with our first assignment. I mean, what are the connections between learning different English Englishes with analysing our own speech? And learning the differences between Nothern Irish English and Southern Irish English does not have anything to do with our future teaching career.

Although the fact that I can understand 16th and 18th centuries' English better than 19th century's English astounded me. Go me.

Done with the serious stuff.

I have a new writing community here at DW. I got tired of LJ's random advertisements destroying my page. So I made a new one. I'm not yet sure if I ever want to delete aidokuhibi, but then again, I have no real attachment to that place *gets shot*. Here's to my new writing community, betweenrealities. The name was taken from one of my earlier MAR fics, In Between Realities.

Talking about fanfictions, adlina made a website about fanfiction theft. She got annoyed by how some people plagiarised other people's fanworks. Hers got palgiarised more than a few times, and some got translated to other languages without her permission.

If you're a fanfic writer and think that fanfiction theft still counts as something that must be stop, do support by putting the codes at your profile pagesat DW, LJ, FF.net or other places that you think is suitable.

Here I thought this account is going to be free of fandom stuff. Guess I was wrong.

See you later?

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This Place is Still Alive.

2009-08-13T03:01:57Z

I haven't been updating any of my blogs and as of now, this journal has been the most abandoned (Not counting my Vox journal).

I'll try to update soon, so please be patient.

Wait... is anyone even reading this thing?

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Of Sickness and Rest

2009-07-03T09:20:11Z

I am not the type to get sick easily. I can actually count how many times I went to a doctor on one hand for the last few years. But that's not mean I'm invincible either. I guess I'm somewhere in between. Headaches usually come and go just like that, without me needing to take a medicine and extra rest.

But, once I do get sick, it was such a pain. I don't know how other people when they are sick, but when I'm sick, that means total bed rest. I can't do anything, think of anything, care about anything. And when I'm sick, they all came at the same time: flu, cough and occasionally fever.

It always starts with sore throat, and it starts as random as when I woke up in the morning. By the time night comes, I usually will have a flu as well. Among all three, flu is the one sickness I hate the most. It comes early, and always leave the last. I hate running and blocked nose. It makes me feel stupid (with all the sniffing), hard to breathe and unable to eat and drink without choking (Well, when you have a blocked nose, you will have to breathe through your mouth, so, yeah.)

Fever sometimes comes, and sometimes not. I somehow think it depends on how my body was feeling at the moment. Amazingly, with all the coughing-and-flu incidents that I have in my 21 years of living, fever seldom get in the way.

The last time I got a high fever when only a couple of years ago. It was during the one-month holiday of my first year in IPBA. It took me three days to actually get out of bed, with me drifting in and out of consciousness and throwing up everything that I have eaten. I was really helpless at the time, and my parents had to be there for me all the time. And let's not mention about the next two weeks of flu and sore throat. My break was actually wasted with sickness.

That's why I don't understand people who like to get sick. When I told a few friends that I won't be going to the practicum because I was sick, one of them was like, 'Wow, nice!' What's so nice about feeling sick? It is because I got an MC and I don't have to go to school?

Well, I just prefer to think that they don't suffer as much as I do when they're feeling sick.

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Mixed Feelings on So Many Things

2009-06-14T01:07:50Z

So, basically, I flunked my 2nd assignment for EDUC 316. 19/40, to be exact. Had adlina to check out what's wrong with my essay, and it turned out that I left some essential points that I need. Amazing enough, it was her who was really infuriated... with me, with the essay, with the questions, or with the lecturer? I don't know for sure. And now I'm worried if I will even pass this paper. The in-class test turned out to be so damn hard, unlike Langtchg 303, which turned out not to be so hard after all the commotion the lecturers and the students created.

Thanks to this, I can't even enjoy my Winter Break happily.

My one week practicum at Onehunga High School ended peacefully. Nothing much to say, actually, since there were 19 pre-service teachers at the school at the time, and unlike us, who only spent 10 days there, they spent 6 continuous weeks there. Of course, they will be missed more than us. So, nothing was lost there.

The next five weeks will probably be spent reading the oh-so-many books I have in the house right now. The moment the allowance came in sometime last week, I was already planning to buy some books, and the word 'some' does not even give justice to how much money I spent on books just yesterday. But I'm really happy with the books I bought, so no matter. XP

*off to read the Art Thief on bed* The cheapest book I've bought since coming to NZ, and it is good.

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If they hated me before, now I loathed them.

2009-06-08T06:12:34Z

At approximately 7.35 am, at Symond's St S1 bus stop, in the correct order:

It's not my fault that the number on the bus keep blinking weirdly.
It's not my fault that I can't see the number clearly.
It's not my fault that I have to wait until the bus comes closer.
It's not my fault that it was the bus I have to ride.
It's not my fault that the bus was not on the bus lane when I waved it.
It's not my fault that when I waved, the bus was less than one meter from the bus stop.
It's not my fault when the bus had to stop two meters from its original bus stop.

So, of course it was not my fault when the bus driver told me, "Don't wave the bus to stop when it's already passed the bus stop."

Right??

And then when I thought the Maxx buses can not hate me anymore, turned out it was dead wrong.

Akmar and I was supposed to submit our assignment before 5 pm. We were planning to stop at S6, Opposite Symond's St, so that we can stop by the library for me to print my assignment and Akmar to photostat some of her stuff. Before the bus reached the bus stop, someone had already pressed the bell, so we just waited for it to stop.

But the stupid damn bus did not stop~!! In fact, it did not stop for the next three stops until we reached Britomart~!! DX Luckily, we managed to get a Free Bus that stopped directly in front of the Uni Library, or else we would be running up the Queen's Strret. >.<

Well, that's it for now. I'm going to eat, shower and then hit the bed. I haven't slept for more than 30 hours. And I need my sleep, like really need it.

Bye.

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Morons in My Life: Lots of Them and One Gender Only.

2009-06-02T07:40:04Z

No, I'm not a sexist.

When talking about the men in my life and how they acted around me,

adlina : Why are all the men in your life seemed to be such... morons?
me: ... Now you know why I never have a boyfriend before.

Not including my Dad and the respected ones (not that I'm saying they're perfect; they are humans after all), yes, apparently almost all the men in my life are... mentally disabled. One way or another. Cousins, siblings, friends, close friends, you name it, there must be something wrong with them in the head.

But, don't worry, I'm quite sure I'm not a lesbian. My fangirling over Johnny's boys and non-existent anime characters proved that.

*sighs* Guys are too weird to understand.

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When a Friend Doesn't Seem to Know the Word 'Shameless'...

2009-05-27T03:21:06Z

Not for the first time in my life, I wonder why people even bother wasting money on apartment rent when they are not even staying there.

A friend of mine has been house-hopping for the last few months. Our apartment, a friend's room, another friend's house and of course, we must not forget, her boyfriend's house. When asked about her house, she would just answer, "Oh, I just go there to shower, sleep and change clothes." And I could not help but ask myself, 'She pays NZD 175 per week just for that? What a total waste of valuable money!' And she doesn't even call it home!

She also complains a lot about her apartment doesn't provide internet. So that gives her reasons to house-hopping? How nice! *insert sarcasm here* Doesn't she knows that our apartment also doesn't provide us with internet and we have this contract with Whoosh since last year? Of course she doesn't know, she never bother to ASK. The only thing she ever bother to know is that when she's at your house, give her internet she needs to feed on!

( Being obliviously stupid does not make you cute! )
In a way, I'm in luck for her not being able to read this for the next few months, unless she get a continuous internet with her and decides to be a busybody here at DW as well.

ps. I just could not resist it; I got Paid account! Thanks to adlina for paying first.! *hugs*

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Everyone loves dreams, but do I...?

2009-05-25T22:42:48Z

Dreams are always seem... frustrating for me. No, not dreams as in hopes, wishes, etc,etc. Dreams that we sometimes have when we sleep. You know what I mean.

I'm one of those people who rarely remember their dreams. It's good for me, since all the dreams that I remembered only frustrated me. Yes, they're good dreams, but don't taunt me for something I don't have! Like, last night, I dreamed of buying something that I wanted to have for so long. While I was giggling happily, I woke up and could not help but said, "Huh, where am I? Don't tell me that's a dream. D<". Then reality checks in; I don't have the money, so how the hell I managed to buy that thing in the first place? *headdesks*

A friend said to me dreams are good for us, for that shows us that we want something (I think it's one of my old friends), but I was like, "Uh huh... only to frustrate you, because you don't actually have it in real life." She was like, blinked at me. Was it that weird to dislike having dreams?

Another kind of dreams that I usually remembered are nightmares. Got into accidents, parents got killed, strangled by someone, family abandoned me, you name it. It's either I don't remember it or when I did, it freaked me out to no ends. It happened once when I was back home. A stranger got into the house and killed everyone in it except me. Imagine how I feel when I woke up? It was the very same house, at night and I was sleeping alone; parents in their room and my siblings shared a room. I cried myself to sleep that night.

And a few nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night having aches all over my body. Apparently my body remembered something that my mind didn't; my dream.

People said dream is the place you go to when you run away from reality, but if this is the case, I will definitely prefer solid ground where I know everything is real, thanks.

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Silent before the storm, and online class is just not for some of us.

2009-05-24T23:51:05Z

This week is one of those weeks that I don't actually have to be rushing around to send in assignments. Except for EDUC 384 that we have to submit this Saturday midnight, we will basically be free this whole week.

Of course, humans hate each other and will do anything to make other people suffer. Meaning, lecturers to their own students.

While we are free this week, we have THREE in-class tests next week. EDUC 316 on Tuesday, LANGTCHG 303 and EDUC 384 on Friday. The latter is an online paper, so we have to be sure to do it before Friday midnight. Through internet. People are talking about what if their internet die while doing the test, so what will happen? No one knows.

Anyway, while the paper was fun and interesting to do, it was well messed up. Since we can't actually contact the lecturer or coordinators, things were hard when we need to ask questions and have nowhere to go but the forum, which was not actually helpful. The communication with the lecturer sucks as well.

Take, for example, the first assignment we have to submit. Our lecturer (whom we knew close enough) told us to post our first article by replying to his post in the forum. The problem is, we just can't see the reply button, when he kept insisting 'It's there!'. Until, after the due date, he noticed that only he (and a few others) who can see it, since he was the administrator. Then he gave us the extension to submit the article. But really, who was crazy enough to wait for his instructions after the due date? NO ONE.

Nothing to say much about the second assignment, except for some of us who misunderstood the instructions and almost submitted it late. (LOL!)

Third assignment was, in a way, worse than the first. Instructions for the assignment supposed to come in two weeks before the due date. We were supposed to submit the third assignment last week, but we got extension to this week as we only got the instructions a week ago. No one knows what happen that made the lecturer post it late. The problem when he was always on the go.

Basically, online class sucks for me (it's the first time for most of us), and I really hope that we don't have to do this very same thing next semester or anytime in the future.

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