the final entry

this is going to be the last entry for this forum... let see, my opinion for blogging? personally, i dont think that i'll do it in future out of my own will. for me, blogging is troublesome, and i hate to put myself in one. why do i said so. right now, living in K12, with terrible USPOT coverage, not just them, even maxis/celcom or any other broadband ISP's coverage here is terrible. wonder just how long it'll takes to open a page. it's troublesome. the idea of becoming trendy in teaching is innovative, and supposedly to be interesting, but the infrastructure here did not helps in creating a conducive atmosphere for blogging.

This course... is hard, of course, because if it's easy, then no learning will take place. the hardship to understands the old plays 'oedipus' and 'lear' tested my patience to the limit (take notes that i never like plays at the 1st place).
anyway i made it through(I DO HOPES SO!).

Finally, to Dr Edwin, thank you for teaching me this semester and previous semester. Sorry for late to your class or not coming at all. at first i think that you just being mean, but after reflected on my own actions, i can see that you try to make us to be punctual :)

simulated teaching pt.2

For pre-reading stage, I started with giving some input on the definition of character, character classes and their functions and also the definition of character personality traits. I did that so the students will not get confuse on what the lesson will be. The activity for pre-reading activity was to identify in what categories the characters in the play belongs to, either as major characters or minor characters. The worksheet is provided for the students to write down the answers. Later they are to present their answers to the class and compared with others answers. I believe in doing so will help them to think critically to defend their answers if other classmates have the other answers. In literature, the answer is correct if we can provide with evidence(s) from the text. As for the while-reading stage, I prepared a worksheet for them. The activity was for them to match.
Back in school days, what I experience was quite the same, except there was never be a set-induction stage. I think, the teacher came to class and straight teaching the content. Later they will give lots of exercises. I don’t think it was good or bad experiences because all they did were to prepare students with the examination, as the way education in Malaysia is examination-oriented. The strength in my simulated teaching is the set induction because the class starts to concentrate to the lesson from the set induction level. They were asking questions and responded to my questions and other classmates’ answers. In order to maintain the strength, the following stages’ activities must me interesting and interactive. I gave them the opportunities to express their thought. What I discovered about my weakness in the teaching was my own language proficiency. I sometimes stopped for a while to think for words to say and I do have interferences from the first language. In future, I have to become more proficient in English so the lesson will not be interrupted. For now, I think I have to slow down the pace when I talk. When I talk on fast pace, I’ll run out of words before I could comes up with more. If I slow down, I can buy some times to comes up with more what I should say, plus, students will not feel the pressure to catch what I’m trying to convey.

simulated teaching pt.1

Simulated teaching is the scariest moment in the whole program that I’ve experienced so far. First of all, it is because we are being evaluated and GRADED. Yes, Grading made it so scary. We are so tensed to do our best and not to screwed up because we don’t want our carried mark low. Apart from that, simulated teaching will test our confidence and how we perform in front of other people. I, as a person who is not good in standing in front of people and talk, do feel the pressures, every bit of it. The uneasiness will make me forget everything that I had planned beforehand.

Anyway, for this course’s simulated teaching, I chose “The Ring Doesn’t Fit” by Tan Kee Aun as the topic of teaching. The set induction is very important in a lesson because it is where teacher should attract students’ interest to the lesson. I showed a song clip that related to the theme of the story, wedding. Later I asked few question related to wedding itself. Although the song was in Japanese, it comes together with English subtitle. I do think it is appropriate to show the clip to the class because the students still able to understand what the song about when they read the subtitle. Reading subtitle in our daily life is normal because when watching TV or go to cinema, subtitles are provided. Before I ended the set induction, I told the class that I’ll teach a play that related to the clip that I showed earlier.

Kee Thuan Chye was at UPM....recently

The conference with KeeThuan Chye was a great experience. I like the way he think of current issues of the country. He believe that the government is forcing their truth and value into us, to make us think the way they wanted us to be, closing the opportunities for us to develop to be someone different, with different way of thinking. The media is being controlled by the government, the content also being controlled for their favor. It was beautifully illustrated in his work “ The Swordfish. Then the Concubine”. Iskandar representing the current government making use of awang(representing the idol) in calming the crowd(citizens) in time that a riot is almost broke out (show political instability).
Another thing about him is, the way he thinks about us Malaysian right now. We are not united as people of a nation, because of the prejudice towards other races. It is true. Even though Malaysia has reached independence for a long time, we did not yet make it to live peacefully with one another. How we live right now is not the true “peace” with one another. There is still the “social contract” thing in the constitution. So the real fact is, the only thing that holds back the races from starting a war with one another is the “social contract”. If we have truly reached the real “peace”, there is no need for the “social contract” to be implemented.

Macbeth movie.... again.....

At first, I thought it will be the same Macbeth that I watched back in the foundation course, but it was not the same movie that I watched. It was a movie with the same title, but it was a different version that what I watched. The war and fighting scenes was an EPIC FAILURE. The scene was not alive, people are standing like statue at the background. What was in the head of the producer, cant he/she think better? A fighting/war scenes should have lots of movement, event on the background we should see people killing each other. For me, the character expression was not convincing, that just disappoint me even more. The witches….. Where the hell the beach comes from? It was not on the beach as I’m remembered, and yeah, I’m pretty sure the scene was not on the beach. What I can say about the Macbeth movie is, it was a ‘let down’ production, and it will disappoint the audience who watched the movie. Personally I think that it might be better read the text rather than watching the movie.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

The movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age is a movie plotted in the history of England. In my opinion the movie is constructed on the Brechtian based plot. I think Elizabeth do have similarity with Oedipus, that is “Pride before falls”. In the end of the story, Elizabeth recovers her strength and makes a ‘comeback’ against Spanish invaders. Her character is interesting because she seemed like have been protected by the pride, indirectly. Another trait of her that interest me is, although she had been very proud of her position, she treated everyone well, except when she lost her temper. She was a brave queen because joining the battle against the Spanish. I think she did that in order to raise the soldiers’ morale. The language of the movie was the old British spoken language and also Spanish (when the Spanish talks to one another). The language used was confusing because of the reversed structure, but it is still and interesting movie to watch.

Haunted by FATE

Oedipus Rex is a play in Teaching the Language of Drama course syllable. the text was written long time ago, so the way the language used in the text is different than how we use it nowadays. and for that same reason too, it is hard to actually understand what the writer wanted to tell us, so by only reading the text, it is impossible for me to understand the text. what i did was to find in depth summary/ analysis of the story and reading the newer version of the text that were written in modern english. in the story, oedipus heard about the prophecy of him marrying his own mother and being the person who murder his own father. he dont want the prophecy to come true, so he depart for a journey. during his journey, he had fought with a group of man and killed them, without knowing he murdered his owh biological father.(the royal family that raised him is not his real family). later in his journey, he has become the king of Thebes and married to Queen of Thebes; Jocaste (without knowing that she is her biological mother). later in the play, a plague breakout and to solve it, he have to find the previous king's murderer.Oedipus seeked Teiresias help in revealing the mystery but he do not want to listen to what Teiresias told him. when he accepted what Teiresias told him, he realizes that all the prophecy about him has come true and he cannot undone all the events that has happened.

what a misfortune Oedipus has

blind prophet; Teiresias

there are many myths related to teiresias. teiresias was a prophet of zeus, he was blind, and the cause of his blindness are differ from one version of myth to another.the most direct being is he was blinded because of revealing the secret of gods.

according to pherecydes teiresias was blinded by Athen after he stumbled onto her bathing naked. his mother begged Athena to undo the cursed, but unfortunately Athena can't do it. thus she granted Pherecydes ears to understand birdsongs.

these are only 2 of the variation of the myths. other version of the myth also have teiresias turn to a woman.

the myths of teiresias actually is interesting because the variation of myths regarding Teiresias will made us think, which one is the best/accurate myth about him

Scriptwriter; As a

In this course was the 1st time ever i wrote a script. i used to think that writing a script is a very easy task, i used to think that as long as u write, the task will be done, but when the 1st script was rejected, i was confused why it happened. i actually have to put effort on making a script. we have to consider the storyline, the flow of the story, the exposition and etc. when i was redo my script, i did tried to think and put the thoughts in the script. yes , IT IS DAMN HARD!. i now realized just how hard it is to produce a quality script.

Zapin

Zapin was the only traditional dance that i ever experienced in my whole life. For dummies, zapin is a popular traditional dance in johore, believed originated from Arab by muslim missionaries sometime around the 14th century. in the old days, zapin only being performed by male dancers but nowadays, even female dancers are allowed to perform it. back in mktb, it was the only traditional dance that i was involved in. it was for the state level independent day celebration. the dance somehow look easy, but frankly, IT IS NOT! the training is hard and troublesome because of the restrictions and routines that we MUST follow. it is way different than what we younger generations were exposed to. the musics that we listen and dances that we watch, thus becomng the art that we appreciate, is different than what older people appreciate. i believe that we younger people are appreciating high beat musics and less restricting routines dance.

impression

the 1st thing that pops up in my head when going to Dr.Edwin's EDU3217 class for the 1st time this semester, i was not interested because it is DRAMA. in my head, it's all going to be acting out on stage, infront of audience, which i'm never been good at. Fortunately, he told the class that, there will be no drama to perform. instead, study the language in drama. The class started with the history of Drama???; never thought that drama has such a complicated history to it. it is also suprised me that the ideology that we have about drama is not the same like the old-days. drama was supposed to be something like street performance, a form of entertainment to all groups of people, whether they are the masses or nobles. Now, things has changed, drama performance(stage performance), has becomes entertainment for the riches; like the one in Genting, the best seats will cost the fortune :(