Time is Running Out

I have not been blogging for a while. My network connection in my new office room in Putrajaya has not been connected. So slow is my finishing of that final piece of assignment, that research paper, so is this connectivity. Here I am taking the opportunity while everybody is out on this long lunch Friday break, getting myself connected to the world after a long 2 weeks break, using somebody else computer.

Never mind. After all I am not the type who like to go out during lunch break, I don't like the heat actually. If it rains, I would love to stay in then. I like the view when it rains from this tenth floor of mine. And the rays from the sun, ha ha ha...save the electricity! That is my answer when everyone asks why am I switching off the light. Hey, the natural light is beautiful from where I am. Why do I need the human-made light when I can get such beautiful rays of the sun that give my room such radiance.

Okay, what about my research paper? It is not moving at the speed I am used to be doing when completing my assignments. I guess I am just being too exhausted. I haven't got my proper beautiful rest lately and my mind is too...well, need some servicing I guess, like my car. Even my car got its servicing last weekend but not my mind, not even me, the owner. Ha, ha, ha... What a life!

Anyway, I am way too long in completing this research paper. I will try to finalise "Rhinoceros" and "RUR" by this weekend. Or else my meeting in Penang will be additionally worried by this never ending story of not completing this research paper. I have three weeks of working outstation in Penang, Penang and Penang. Hmmmmm, why all the sudden is everybody having meetings in Penang?

And I need to get that wedding cake I've promised my niece...and my research completed before I can really enjoy that wedding cake. Please, be completed by this weekend!

As Pain Subsides

Ainul and me was practising the scene of our play Aaron Shepard's "Mouse Deer and Tiger", Ainul as Tiger was stung by wasps, I was the human sound of wasps buzzing all over Tiger.

It was a painful moment throughout my life as a TESL student at this matured age, even greater pain than being stung by wasps (Really? I meant physical pain actually). Producing the play is one thing, performing in it is another. But as the the play ended and we heard a loud clap from Puan Juridah, it was a joyous moment that all pain was immediately gone!

This is to say also, one of my favourite photographs... the pain has subside.. will be gone when I am through with writing up the research paper this coming Sunday (hopefully). Until then, I need to rest for a while to make way for the preparation of final examination, 1 - 3 April 2005. Then, light out! Phew!

A Cup of Tea, Anyone?

What is other better way to unwind than to enjoy a play being performed, later sipping a freshly brewed cup of tea? Uma's group performing a 1902 William Butler Yeats' "Cathleen ni Houlihan".

Wow! How nice to be doing nothing and at the end of the day rest for a while. I can hardly wait to really complete my research paper and sleep all day.

The Smiles of Success

Puan Juridah Md Rashid, our lecturer for the course EDU 3202 Theatre in TESL, her smile, acknowledging our successness in producing and performing our first ever theatre. The accomplishment of this task last 12 March 2005 indeed brings huge relief to me for then only am I able to fully give my heart and soul in writing up my position and research papers. Though I have done a lot of researching and reading for my position and research papers but well I guess I worry too much of having to produce a play and worse even to act in it.

Anyway, that is the very reason I have Kathleen Norris at the upper right hand of my blog:
"Life is easier to take than you'd think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable and bear the intolerable".

Oh, this pink batik blouse I am wearing is temporarily my Saturday official batik dress to make way for the green effect forest of the green batik. Ha, ha, ha, I was only joking.

Stage Manager: Being Experienced

Che Rosli, the officer in charge of the Lecture Rooms commented our stage is too bared to give a forestry effect especially with Tiger in it. My husband, my son and me overnight we became very experienced “forest” scavengers, bringing the "dead" to "live" 12 hours before the performance. Even the ants came along with us through the journey from where we stay in Bandar Tun Hussien Onn, Cheras to the Lecture Room No. 2.9.

Stage Manager: Helping Hand Experience

The stage looked better as Yatinma brought in some of her plants all the way from her house in Serdang to the Lecture Room No. 2.9 in her loyal Kancil. How true the saying is, two heads are better than one, especially of great mind. Ha, ha, ha, never mind a praise to yourself is not a praise at all, it boost our self-esteem.

By the way, notice the green batik cloth? That is supposed to be sewn as my official batik dress which is compulsory to be worn every working Saturday, a government ruling. I have not got one just yet.

Stage Manager: 1st Experience

This is what our stage looked like at our first hand experience as Stage Manager towards the performance of Aaron Shepard's "Mouse Deer and Tiger".

The Amateur Theatre-Goers

Gabriel of "Little Violet and The Angel" smiling with Yatinma, Ainul and me sharing our triumph at being first ever theatre-goers (second for me actually, after "Rhinoceros"). I gained a lot of skills and knowledge in understanding the work of playwrights through these experiences of viewing life performances.

"SPS", "R' and "R": Writing For Its Own Sake

There are three types of thesis statements that I know in which one should decide on before proceeding to express one’s main ideas before writing on; analytical thesis statements, expository thesis statements and argumentative thesis statements. The kind of thesis statements that one’s paper will have will depend on the purpose of one’s writing. For position paper then I am supposed to be applying the argumentative thesis statements and for research paper the analytical thesis statements. I have chosen “Sir Patrick Spence” for my position paper, which I have completed (quite late) while “Rhinoceros” and “RUR” for my research paper, which is still under construction. Hopefully I will be able to submit my research paper the latest next Tuesday.

“Sir Patrick Spence” by Anonymous was one of the poems being questioned in the final examination of paper EDU 3216 Teaching the Language of Poetry. Walking back memory lane, I remembered very well as we came out from the examination hall many of us were sighing of the questions set for this particular poem. Somehow or rather this poem managed to win my heart prior to the examination and it was a great relief for me that day.

I guess I am more of expository organisation when I wrote my position paper which I titled it “Sir Patrick Spence as a Tragic Hero”. It is based on my reading and analysing the character of Sir Patrick Spence a well-known sailor who was sent to sea at a very dangerous time of the year by his King. Anyway as argumentative thesis statement, I had made my claim very clear with reasons and evidences supporting it and carefully organised it in the order suitable to present my reasons and evidences.

Excluding BB1 2417 Public Speaking’s assignments (I numbered them assignment 16, 17, 18 and 19, which is on speech presentations and debate on 9 April 2005) the research paper will be the final assignment (assignment 15 of 19 assignments) I need to complete within this weekend. Anyway you can only predict things after they have happened. And at this point of moment anything can happen to my research paper for things can be unpredictable at times. Who knows I might be writing entirely different work of literature. Then I have every reason for the extensive reading, capitalising at a timely nudge.

Taking the advice of the experts:

As for my writing process, I generally follow the advice I give newer writers - try not to polish up front. You have worked yourself to death. Keep going, keep going. If it's poorly written, too bad. Keep going. When you have an end, you've got something whole. Then rewrite, rewrite. Polished incomplete things wear you out. -- Alice Childress

I enjoyed the time I was writing. It was a fun, creative time. No one expected anything from me. I wasn't being strategic in any way. I wasn't trying to set up myself as a writer. I wasn't trying to leverage into a new career. I just wanted to write for its own sake. -- Margaret Edson

Truthfulness in Life

It is very typical of me to be reading exhaustively as well as making myself in full understanding before I can really begin to station myself to be pouring out my words, emerging on the screen as I typed them. It is so like of me as in one of the quotes that I have posted in this blog “Quotes That Ease Me”, Edward Albee’s, “I have just to feel like writing. I’m not one of these people who go to the desk every single day and writes. I wait until my head gets filled with stuff and I have to get it out of my head.” For that matter, I really am not the type who will be blinking, looking at each other, of the screen, with nothing to say on it. It will then be a real waste of time. I would rather be in a thinking mode so comfortable to my physical and mental tiredness (of having to complete 19 assignments) rather than be up straight straining my vertebrate.

And it took a timely nudge, skills and knowledge for me to be creative and critical in my writing. I wrote about Aristotle tragic hero in my blog “Man is Born to Live” which elaborates the essential qualities of the tragic hero; “goodness”, “appropriateness”, “lifelike” and “consistency”. I was inspired by Zaini to include a poem for this particular course EDU 3234 Reading and Project Work for Teaching Literature in ESL Contexts when I was trapped in an unexpected situation of having “Rhinoceros” to be presented both in my position and research papers, which is not allowed. As time is really not in my favour, pouring my heart out of my anxiety to Zaini gave me a better composure in overcoming my trying moment. The famous medieval ballad “Sir Patrick Spence” by Anonymous to me is very rich in becoming a source in the Teaching Literature in ESL classroom particularly in highlighting the essence of obedience to authority regardless of the nature of obedient. Hence I choose to portray the character of Sir Patrick Spence as Aristotle tragic hero with the four essential qualities above.

I am the reader of this ballad, I response based on my schemata, participating the convention of literature readers thus effectively bringing myself to another level of understanding critically. Whether then I am right or wrong, for the better or poor marks, it has now become immaterial. The most important part, as I submitted the assignment this morning, though quite late, I knew I have gain new skill, new knowledge, and new ways of looking at a literature work. I am breathing a fresh air of confidence about literature now. I know I am true to myself. I am indeed satisfied of my position paper taking the style of expository organisation in my writing.

Reaching The End of Road and Road Not Taken

This semester has been a very demanding semester in terms of the assignments that need to be completed by the end of this March, which is two weeks away. All in there are 19 assignments that each and everyone have to work on, of which 7 are group assignments. Frankly speaking I dreaded group assignment for reasons that time management would not come easy and it can be emotionally daunting. As human I can handle the mental and physical stress but not very well in handling my emotion when come to accomplishing the group work.

And for those reasons of this semester’s assignments for the first time, I enjoy very much of the literature courses that I am taking particularly this one EDU 3234 Reading and Project Work for Teaching Literature in ESL Contexts. I am autonomous of my researching with ease of communication of my findings, discussing them via telephone or sms with my friends, the way I like it done- self paced, self-directed, self-learning. I can do a lot of reading as time suits me which I always enjoy very much, getting myself very good understanding of what I should know and learn.

Since last Sunday after I managed to accomplish assignments 10 and 11 then submitting them to PPL, I began mentally planning to write on my position and research papers. I realised quite late that I am not supposed to write of the same work for position and research papers. I was planning to write on “Rhinoceros” for my position paper. And I knew very well I enjoyed racing my mind between “Rhinoceros” and “RUR” as I read “RUR” last week.

Speaking to Zaini over the phone yesterday however inspired me in a very motivating manner. Zaini is one very hardworking friend I have ever known throughout my life. Here I am going through poems that I enjoyed reading for the course EDU 3216 Teaching the Language of Poetry; “Sir Patrick Spein” (I love this poem), Robert Frost’s “Mending Walls”, “Desert Places”, “The Road Not Taken”, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” to name a few.

Well, to finalise I might be writing my research paper on “Rhinoceros” and “RUR” while my position paper on one of the poems that I have already analysed of the previous Semester.

Rhino Stampede, Robots Rebel

As I read “RUR” the other night the magic of my mind visualized the play as if life on stage as I had viewed “Rhinoceros”. I remembered very well the sound of rhinoceros played to mark the existence of rhinoceros stampeding all over the stage. This time around the robots revolutionise against their human creator, the ratio of human to robot being 1:1000!

I could agree no better than Berenger for not wanting to conform and becomes a rhinoceros for human is superior than animal as proof in “RUR” when robots become so intelligent that they rebel against human, be so human that they eradicate the human from the face of the earth.

In “Rhinoceros” the human defy the super force that created them and become so inhuman, whilst in “RUR” the robots defy the human creator and become so human.

Fancy that, stumbling into something that I would never dream of researching had it not been for this assignment. And just as I am into the momentum of finalising this research I have to stop for the massive packing, moving office to Putrajaya next week, drenched my energy towards the end of the day.

It's Never Too Late

I have just finished reading "RUR" that stayed me awake till the wee hour of the morning. Helena and Domin resemblance the couple Berenger and Daisy in "Rhinoceros". Both couples are facing conflict of human transformation, in "RUR" robots into human while in "Rhinoceros" human into rhinoceros.

Distance Learning...At the End of Journey?

Five years ago, the strong message that surfaced from the sessions that made up the three-day 7th SEAMEO INNOTECH International Conference that I attended from 6 to 8 December 2000 in Manila, Philippines had me scouting for places to further my study immediately as I came back. This was my first ever-international conference that I was given the opportunity to attend by my division, Malaysian Examination Syndicates where I am currently attached.

Dubbed “Knowledge Networking in the World of Learning,” the conference brought together some 400 educators from 18 countries to share experiences and insights on the interplay of knowledge and technology where education is pervaded by the new and changing tools of information and communication.

I was very impressed as well as highly motivated during the opening ceremony when Philippine Senate Education Committee Chairperson Teresa Aquino Oreta in her keynote address spoke of her plans to modernize basic education through a series of information technology projects in Philippines. Senator Oreta sponsored the raining of school officials on instructional leadership and educational applications of technology.

The clearest focus of a majority of conference presentations was electronic learning in its various forms. Among others are Michael Churton, Director of Distance Learning, of the University of South Florida, focusing on the implications for human resource development of new distance learning technologies, Sean Loiselle of Lotus Asia discussing how knowledge management is changing the way we find and share knowledge, learn from it and apply it in everyday lives and John Mulhern of the University of South Carolina laying down standards for continuing teacher education which cover context, process, content and evaluation.

Today, with those educational applications of technology I am able at the comfort of my office when time permits me out of my official duty to browse the Internet in continuing my education, searching in a never-ending story in the borderless world of knowledge. At the end of the day, as said by Mahatma Gandhi, quoted by Amalina the girl who scored 17 A1’s in her SPM result, satisfaction is not in the achievement but the process towards achieving it. That is the beautiful part of my life as a distance learning student, a life long learning that I heard first time from Michael Churton. It is not the marks that mattered me the most now but the process of forever acquiring new knowledge, new skills, experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly throughout.

And the last three days for the last 36 hours, at the tips of my fingers I searched the world not only for the course EDU 3234 Reading and Project Work for Teaching Literature in ESL Contexts but also for BB1 2417 Public Speaking and EDU 3230 Content-Based Second Language Instruction.

Where do I begin this journey? And will there be an end to a journey of educating oneself?

From Human to Rhino and Now Robot Wants Its Soul

So much I have read and experience of “Rhinoceros” for the last few weeks, the beautiful part was the greatest opportunity of viewing the play last 8 December 2005. Here I am can’t be getting enough of my time exploring deeper and deeper into “RUR”.

It surprised me that this Czech playwright Karel Capek from the Czech word for “forced labor” or “serf” coined the term robot. Capek used the word Robot in “RUR” which opened in Prague in January 1921, which was exactly 40 years before I was even born. “RUR” is a play in which robots are mass-produced by an Englishman, Rossum. The robots in the very beginning are meant to make a better life for human beings but finally rebel and wipe out humanity and start a new race of intelligent life for them.

The evidence in similarity between “Rhinoceros” and “RUR” is that both are transformation into another entity of the origin they exist, from human to beast in “Rhinoceros” and from machine to human in “RUR”.

This is quite an achievement for me considering the fact it was only yesterday I stumbled into “RUR” and for the last few hours researching further on it. And as for “The Adding Machine”, I am still trying to figure out how best I can map the three great work of literature together, one of absurdism, the other expressionistic and this one a sci-fiction.

Adding On to "RUR".

Though yesterday I made a point not to look further for information on “RUR” or “Bury the Dead” but curiosity gets much of its way over me today. Lo behold “RUR: Rossum’s Universal Robots” is much too interesting to be ignored, to be compared to “The Adding Machine” and I can leave “Rhinoceros” to its original reason, coming out with the position paper. The author name is not Katel Capel as written in Brandeis Adult Learning Institute’s Course Descriptions, its Karel Capek, the most important Czech writer of the first half of the 20th century, the co-inventor of the word robot, a novelist, playwright, journalist and translator.

I guess I am getting my flow now, my optimal experience as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Flow Theory”, a Russian psychologist who won the Thinker of the Year Award in 2000. He is chiefly renowned as the architect of the notion of flow in creativity whereby people enter a flow state when they are fully absorbed in activity during which they lose their sense of time and have feelings of great satisfaction. Mr. Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.” On the rare occassions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like.

By the way, I was introduced to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi by my former Assistant Director Head of the unit where I work, Mr Shahril bin Mohd Kharib who is now one of the Director at Special Education Department, Ministry of Education.

I Found Not Only Merton...

I spent the entire morning searching for Thomas Merton and it was very interesting activities of skimming and scanning plus hyper speed-reading of him and his work. I kind of enjoy myself to the fullest in such limit ness of time, reading through his work and getting to know him. Such complexity in gaining the ability to see God, Merton an Englishmen became a Communist, then a Catholic, later a Trappist monk and finally A Zen Buddhist before he died.

There is four other literary works that I can compare “Rhinoceros” with namely Elmer Rice’s “The Adding Machine”, Katel Capek’s “RUR”, Archibald Macleish’s “JB” and Irwin Shaw’s “Bury the Dead”. “JB” is too serious for me but I like “The Adding Machine”. I haven’t explore “RUR” and “Bury the Dead”. May be I would not due to the time constraint.

A Course Descriptions for Timeless Issues in Drama of Brandeis University’s Brandeis Adult Learning Institute Bali selected five plays to be studied that shared a common theme: societal changes or pressures that impact on humanity.

“The Adding Machine” deals with the replacement of an employee by a machine.

“RUR” introduces robots that take over the men who created them.

“Rhinoceros” reflects the “herd instinct”.

“JB” based on the story of Job raises the issues of evil forces beyond the control of righteous man.

“Bury the Dead’ an anti-war play, concerns soldiers who refuse to be buried.

This is quite a load for me to begin with after “Rhinoceros”. I need to get a copy of “The Adding Machine”. And more caffeine…

Catching up with Time

What a great relief as we sang the song “I’m quick and smart as I can be, Try and try but you can’t catch me” that marked the end of the theatre performance for the assignment EDU 3202 Theatre in TESL, evaluated by Puan Juridah Md Rashid last Saturday on 12 March 2005. "Mouse Deer and Tiger" adapted from Aaron Shepard’s Reader's Theatre "The Adventures of Mouse Deer" was a great success for the four of us considering the limited time we had to produce the play as it should be produced in the real theatre convention. At the end of the performance I was glad that all the research done not only for EDU 3202 Theatre in TESL but also for Dr Edwin’s EDU 3234 Research and Project Work for Teaching Literature in ESL Context has been very useful towards the production of the one act play we had performed.

Yesterday I re-embarked on Dr Edwin’s assigned tasks of which I had chosen “Rhinoceros” by Eugene Ionesco. I guess the position paper would be easier in compared to the research paper by the fact that I have yet to research another work of literature to compare “Rhiconeros” with. As I went through all the information I had compiled for the past few months I came across Thomas Merton who wrote “The Rain” inspired by “Rhinoceros”. Well, that would be a good beginning for me this week, to research on Thomas Merton. Who is he?

"It Is The Tragedy..."

Joyce Cary, a British author who was born in 1888 and died in 1957 said “It is the tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn’t know – and the less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything.”

And how true is Joyce Cary…

At the first glimpse of the instruction “…1 section and 1 question…” I knew without having to look into the question, it would be going to be a long dreaded two hours of my life in the examination hall. There I was, regretting every moment of not reading seriously of the essay by George Orwell before the examination, merely scanning through. I was so focused on understanding the literary criticism and it did not occur to me how important to not only read all the essays in the module but to know at least at a very minimal level the background of the authors. Oh my God, I was panicking and who is George Orwell? And I seriously read E.M Forster “Two Cheers for Democracy”.

Well I was left with no choice but to give the best shot I could in my own ways. As a consolation, to begin with, before I started reading the essay I told myself, I knew the basis of criticism: Deconstruction, Reader-Response, Archetype, Feminism, Psychoanalytical, and Marxist. I should be focusing myself to one of those criticisms in writing my thesis statement and thus my writing through out.

Once decided, all that I wanted to write was the instability in thinking between the character and his judgements on having to shoot the elephant. I would love to explore the mind of the character between his repressed memory and the racial memory of the collective unconscious. The setback was I did not read the essay before the examination and wasted too much time reading and mentally responding to the essay during the examination instead of writing my answer. My own repressed memories were way too much for me to handle within that time limitation.

Well, since I could not get what I would like to write within those 2 hours, then I would have to like what I will be getting from Dr Edwin of my answer to his question.

"Rhinoceros": Stepping Out of the Box

It was very interesting to be reading Jeff Snyder’s “Good Men Make Good Rhinoceros” considering the fact that he is an attorney working in New York. Snyder is also the author of Nation of Cowards - Essays on the Ethics of Gun Control. The first thing that struck me when I read the first few paragraphs of his writing was how this great play of absurdity, “Rhinoceros” by Eugene Ionesco was even the interest of a lawyer in practice. Relating the September 11 tragedy in New York, Afghanistan war, Iraqi war and the presidential of Bush pertaining to war, Snyder felt it is worth to revisit this play with the idea of “coercive conformity of behaviour and opinion that is required to mobilize society and its resources for war”.

Synder’s writing gave me an understanding about the idea of conformity in a philosophical perspective. Concluding his writing “…how well “Rhinoceros” potrays the human condition or sheds light upon current events is best left to the reader” indeed is stimulating especially to such inexperience reader of great literary work like me.

Quotes That Ease Me

I think it is probably better to be awake, sober, and drug-free. I suspect those three conditions are probably helpful. But beyond that, I just have to feel like writing. I'm not one of these people who go to the desk every single day and writes. I wait until my head gets filled with stuff and I have to get it out of my head. -- Edward Albee

And I have become less productive… for now.

As for my writing process, I generally follow the advice I give newer writers - try not to polish up front. You have worked yourself to death. Keep going, keep going. If it's poorly written, too bad. Keep going. When you have an end, you've got something whole. Then rewrite, rewrite. Polished incomplete things wear you out. -- Alice Childress

But I have yet to arrive to my thesis statement...

I enjoyed the time I was writing. It was a fun, creative time. No one expected anything from me. I wasn't being strategic in any way. I wasn't trying to set up myself as a writer. I wasn't trying to leverage into a new career. I just wanted to write for its own sake. -- Margaret Edson

Or else what will I be doing if not for this task?

Writing is a tough job. Consider me. With my background, I can't get a play produced. I couldn't get Tea and Sympathy, I Never Sang for My Father, and You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running - my three most successful plays - produced. -- Robert Anderson

Then that explains my difficulty...

It was a great struggle to get people to accept anything but kitchen-sink drama. My play didn't fit any categories. -- Arthur Miller on why his first play, The Man Who Had All the Luck failed in 1944.

Thank God!

Big Ideas and The Idea of Conformity

It was a great opportunity to be attending the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (asTTle); a professional development meeting organized by collaboration of my department, Malaysian Examinations Syndicate (MES) with University of Auckland, New Zealand. The meeting took place in Crown Princess Hotel, Kuala Lumpur from 23 to 26 January 2005 and entirely conducted by the four educational specialists flown in from University of Auckland.

Throughout the three days, Professor John Hattie, Dr Gavin Brown, Mr. Mark Burgess and Miss Andrea Mackay shared their knowledge, experiences and expertise in designing, developing and implementing the project asTTle- Solving the Problem of National Testing with the funding from New Zealand Ministry of Education.

After a very detailed overview and exposure of asTTle, explanations, sharing knowledge, experiences and so on, we are to come out with the “Big Ideas” based on what we are teaching in our schooling systems. Everybody is group together according to their subjects taught in schools, group members being the combination of MES officers and teachers that were invited. Definitely I grouped myself (and three colleagues) with the eight English language teachers and one of them began to lead the group discussion. As the discussion became heated and the group was really way out of focus, I recalled the sessions I had with Dr Fauziah, Dr Edwin, Puan Juridah, to name a few. How glad I was that I am one of their students for I became very confident to put forward my view that was very contradicting from all the eight teachers plus one of my colleagues.

What interest me was suddenly there I was, “Berenger”, the protagonist in Rhinoceros, the one who does not want to conform to the others and become a rhinoceros. As reviewed by Sarah E. Grant in “Look! It’s “Rhinoceros”- A Stampede of the Absurd”, “Rhinoceros’ examines the element of the ridiculous found in an array of characters reacting to one another as they, one by one, turn into rhinoceros. It does not surprised me when one by one, every body agrees the “Big Ideas” as proposed by few of us with the stubborn exception of me. I was very sure that the biggest idea of teaching English to our children is entirely meant for them to be able to communicate effectively as that is language meant for and not filling in the blanks, notes expansion, writing composition etc. Well, I did not fight further for I was the only one with a different view but proposed our differing views to be put forward to the expert to be resolved.

At this point, I can fully understand the difficulty of Berenger who does not want to conform and becomes a rhinoceros for he thinks being human is superior to being an animal. I did not conform for I know and I know well, and I have broadened my knowledge in various areas of ESL in Malaysian context the day I became a TESL student in UPM. I need not conform though the majority shared the same view. It is okay to be one lonely person, maintaining my “Big Ideas” to agreeing with the wrong ideas. After all, it’s a discussion and some one has to make the correct decision! I will not want to be the one who ignore the rhinoceros running the schools.

Again, I want to thank all my lecturers for through them I became more confident personally and professionally. To me, the lessons of Rhinoceros can be interpreted in various successful ways, as the way I see the “Big Ideas” during the asTTle meeting.

Not that I want to be bold but one should have faith in what one belief rather than become a blind or ignorance follower.

Hmmmmm, my thesis is coming, I guess... faith, belief, blind, ignorance, follower... Life is an experiment...

Forget Now and Smile Later

Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad- Christina Rosetti, British Poet (1830-1874)

Ha ha ha... Finally I managed to have this photo published in my blog. At the very beginning of creating this blog (a very big applaud for Dr Edwin and thank you very much for introducing this blog thing), I have been trying to get my photo published but was never succeed.

All the while I have been telling myself to really have my photos published every time I log in. Well, here it is my first smile... I can now "forget and smile" at the time of difficulty, trying to get my photo posted and published.

Thank you to Hello and Picasa, softwares that enable people like me who are not that IT savvy, to send and publish pictures to my blog thus sharing them with other blog readers.

Mind you, at this point of moment, of course, I am very thrill to send more- putting to benefit my new acquired skill.

The Tough Gets Going

Yesterday, there I was attending the tutorial after quite some time "excusing" myself from being present and of course I have to admit, for a specific reason. I have to get the dates for both the group as well as the individual presentations that require evaluation by the tutor, Puan Nora. Failing to do this I will be contributing to my own failure in getting the attributed marks.

Now that I have got the dates scheduled, I set my mind to prioritise in accomplishing my tasks (completing the assignments) just as I did when I was in previous semester. I guess the previous semester was the best in terms of achievement throughout my study. Well, the grades I got prior to that semester did frightened me off. Unfortunately, I am very uptight throughout this semester for this is the busiest time of my work schedule.

Alas, today, I was very handicapped to work further on my assignments for my PC was infected with virus. I spent half of my day attending to it but to no avail, finally seeking help from my colleagues to rectify the problem. We were left with no choice but to format the PC which means I need to secure all my data beforehand especially those important documents including the ones that I downloaded for my research papers.

Well, with the PC down, at the very least I managed to seriously go through all the assignments given, once and for all. All information pertaining to assignments due date and requirements, examinations etc are carefully organised and marked on the calendar for easy references.

There is the saying, you win some, and you lose some. I was not able to work on my PC, but at least I managed to get myself totally organised for this final semester. By the way, my friend Zaini, one phrase to explain her spirit in terms of having her blog regularly maintained, "when the going gets tough, the tough gets going".. She is one tough lady...

How Curious Can One Be?

I am going to use brainstorming, one of the five useful pre-writing strategies in my attempt to generate and clarify my ideas on the drama Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco.

I began with listing out the famous quotes by Eugene Ionesco, a Romanian-born French playwright, taken from http://www.allgreatquotes.com/.

Life is an abnormal business
Jean, in The Rhinoceros

There are more dead people than living. And their numbers are increasing. The living are getting rarer.
The Rhinoceros

You can only predict things after they have happened.
The Rhinoceros.

I have watched Rhinoceros on stage, Eugene Ionesco’s great play about conformity. Jeff Snyder in his writing “Good Men Make Good Rhinoceroses” relates the theme of Rhinoceros with the September 11 tragedy as well as the Iraq war. He also explains Ionesco’s Rhinoceros was prompted by Ionesco’s reflections on the German people’s transformation into Nazis.

I remember I came across one assignments (from the Internet) requesting students to relate something about Nazi with this great play. It was not clear to me why one should be studying about Nazi in relation to Rhinoceros. Now, it makes sense to me after reading Jeff Snyder’s writing.

What began by the experience of going into theatre for the first time, stumbling into one great play (very lucky of me, indeed!), curiosity gets the mind working further, here I am, can’t get enough of my time to read all I can about Rhinoceros.

Phew! I wish I have all the time in the world!

Begin from the Beginning

I am required to write an analytic research paper on my preference literary text with the first of the guidelines given by Dr Edwin is to develop a thesis statement. The writing of thesis statements is in actuality nothing new for it has been introduced right from the very first semester through the course Expository Writing. Exploring further, to write an analytic research paper demands varieties of task that I need to follow through such as formulating the thesis, gathering, evaluating and using sources to support the ideas (which I have not given much thought yet), as well as the tedious work of documenting them.

Begin from the beginning, I think I am quite ready to work out with this first assignment, especially getting myself in place in terms of availability of time, between my personal life as a mother of six children and of course a wife and my career (we are currently in the process of packing and unpacking, moving to our new office in Putrajaya).

Well, when I said begin from the beginning; what I really meant is doing first thing first for I am training myself to write this analytic paper in a professional way. What I have to do first is to analyze the assignment to ascertain myself. Dr Edwin has established some guidelines to be followed and that my analysis is restricted to a single focus of an issue in a literary text of my choice. Taking off from this understanding, I will have to prepare a prewriting exercise like brainstorming or clustering.

Then I will proceed on developing a draft of my thesis which of course when formulating my thesis for this literature paper I will have to follow a certain guidelines. One of the writing guides I came across from a website (http://writing.coloctate.edu/) clearly spelled out four cautions when formulating a thesis statement:
· A Thesis Should Not State the Obvious
· Use Literary Terms in Thesis with Care
· A Thesis Should be Balanced
· A Thesis Can Be a Blueprint

At this point of moment, I have decided to give myself a try on an absurd drama, Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco. My preference of this “Theatre of the Absurd” mainly because it was the first live performance I seriously went to view with only the synopsis to guide me throughout my first taste of the theatre. Later, I gave a try to get myself a copy of the e-text of the play but only succeeding in getting the first and second act of it. Well, I am not dampened by the lack ness of the whole text of the play, thus began my search of as much information I can get about Rhinoceros and Eugene Ionesco as possible.

I have yet to formulate my thesis though I have managed to gather as much information about Rhinoceros and Eugene Ionesco. The opportunity to view the play last December has triggered an interest in me to explore further the term “Theatre of the Absurd”. The “Theatre of the Absurd” is a term coined by Martin Esslin who wrote two of the most influential books dealing with the post-war theatre, Brecht: A Choice of Evils (1959) and Theatre of the Absurd (1962). In “Introduction to "Absurd Drama"” (Penguin Books, 1965) Esslin probed, “What then is the convention of drama that has now acquired the label of the Theatre of the Absurd?”

Well, I guess I have to go. I have yet to read further the article Absurd Drama by Martin Esslin and what better time to read than now?