Viva Presentation : battle of the presenter!

The last project of the semester for this subject, was Viva Presentation. In this last presentation, all the student need to sit in groups and present article of their choosing to two groups of panel. The article which the presenter choose come from the first assignment. This is one of the best presentation I’ve ever join.

During the session, the presenter need to present about their article then answer few question from the panels. My group was the second group to present and we all did a really a good job. The best part in the presentation is to be the presenter where you can answered the question by the panels. During that time, the presenter can denied and choose whose question they are going to answer. The power that comes during that short amount of time was precious.

Most of the presenter did a good job while some really excel. I still believed that mu group was the best presenter during The Viva Presentation. To my group members, I am proud of you guys. It was fun and good experience. Credit to the lecturer for coming out with such great idea.

Islamophobia.

The last topic that in learnt in this class was about Islamophobia. The first time I learnt about this was last year in French because of the case of women wearing hijjab. The topic frustrated my mind since I am a muslim and it is related to my brothers and sisters.

After watching the videos of Islamophobia, the video turn out to be a video that condemning the non-muslims which critique the building of mosque at ground zero or the site of 9/11. The news caster, Jon Stewart trying to make fun of the non-muslim politician and he make a really good point where there’s actually a mosque there for more than 40 years. Jon Stewart is actually trying to prove that the act of those politician only to make more and more Americans to hate the muslims. The fact that Jon Stewart is actually a Jew really shock me. From that two videos regarding Islamophobia, I can learn that, truth never lies in fact, it shows stupidity of others.

Euphemism versus Honest & Direct language.

Have you heard about euphemistic language? Probably you do, it just you did not realize it. Nowadays, euphemistic language is widely use because of its soft meaning and its practicality in hiding truth.

Recently, I learnt about it the CL lecture class. Other than euphemism, there also other way to communicate which is by honest and direct language. Well, most people think that honest and direct language is a bit harsh and inappropriate way to communicate since it easily hurt other people feelings and give bad impression about people who used it. During the class, my lecturer showed a video clip about euphemism by late George Carlin. He was a comedian during his life and he likes to make jokes using euphemistic language especially on the American way of living. He also said that being honest is a good way to accept reality rather than lying to their own self. One of his favourite jokes that I liked is when he said that the CIA does not kill people nowadays, they neutral the people.

From my opinion, honest and direct language is much better way of doing communication, but in reality, there are things we should said and things we should not. It is not the matter of being a coward or a chicken, but being a smarter person.

Animal Farm ; reality check!!!

In the previous class, my lecturer showed the class about the movie Animal Farm. To tell the truth, it is disgusting to watch those pigs talking and acting like human. Everybody make faces when he showed about the movie.

End of the day, I surf the net for some info about Animal Farm. It surprises me that the movie actually refers to us the human, specifically the politicians. The funny things is everybody in the class don’t really like the pigs and they can stop mentioning Napoleon in the class room.

The massage that George Orwell want to showed us all is that with power comes big responsibilities to lead or help others whose are in need of assistance. In the movie, the pigs kill their own kind for power is the resemblance to humans who are greedy and self centred. Then, started to change the rule little by little for their own benefits. After that, others will realized about the mistake their make and started to blame others. Trustiness is the most important factor in choosing the leader.

Human being can see the resemblance of the story even in our own country, where there are people want to become politician to for personal benefit, not for the citizen. This is sad, but it is the truth that must be realized by people so that we will not make any mistakes in the future.

So long Old Friend; Tribute to the smokers.

The first time I heard about the article “ so long Old Friend”, was last semester from the mouth of my friends. They talked about it like it is very good and i know it is about an experience of a smoker.

Then, it was my turn to learn about it. The so-called famous article by my lecturer the one who taught me this very subject of Critical Literacy. When i got the article, i just keep reading it like nothing else matters. The rumours which I heard about it, was true. It is decent. I really like the article. I can’t stop laughing during reading the article cause the choice of words used by the writer makes me laugh every time I read it.

The thing that I learn from the article “So Long Old Friend” is that, not everything that you like will be good and suitable for you especially if the thing you like cause deep hole in your pocket. The truth, I really enjoy reading the article cause I never thought that my lecturer can wrote such a good article.

Julius Ceasar, what a man he was...

In the Critical Literacy class, I learnt about many things. Recently, Mr. Mark chooses the article about Julius Caesar. He was one of the great-loving and passionate war leader for the Romans.

In the class, my lecturer gave an article for me and my classmate to read about. It was a speech by Mark Anthony, a good friend of Julius Caesar during his life. The speech given by Mark Anthony during the burying of Julius Caesar. The main intention of Mark to gave the speech was to change the bad thinking of the Roman people during that time since Marcus Brutus have poisoned their mind. The speech delivered by Mark Anthony make some sense in the head of the Romans. Thus, the aims of Mark Anthony succeeded and he managed to save his life as well.

The main and important value can be learn by this speech is if you’re an honourable man, you must be careful with your life since there are a lot of jealous, narrow-minded people who afraid of working hard and as long you are just in everything you do, you will get good results even though you’re dead.

Assignment o' assignment.

When the first time hearing about Critical Literacy, the only thing pop-up in my head was it will be hard since I’ve watch my friends struggle to the end to finish it. Well, after I officially received the assignment, the first thing to do was to read it, and my lecturer said I need to read it a couple of times to get what the article is all about.

The first article was an excerpt from the writings of 4^th Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahadir Mohammad. His article entitled, “ The Influence of Heredity on the Malay Race”. He wrote the article during his young days. This article is a part of his famous book, “The Malay Dilemma” which specifically published for the Malays to think for their future. To condemned the article is quite hard since it will critique my beloved Malay society, but later on when I have fully aware of the problems raised by him, it was that hard anymore.

The second article was by the famous German military leader, Adolf Hitler. He wrote about the Jews that he hated so much. The article entitled, “The Jews and their deceits”. The most interesting info that gained while doing this article was that, many historians claimed that, Hitler is a Jew. While processing that particular info, so may thought have come to my mind. The article clearly shown Hitler’s opinion about the Jews he hated so much his entire life.

Next, on the third article, the writer Paul Robinson wrote about the value of television. Paul Robinson is a lecturer and a historian. In his winning article, he mentioned about the sole purpose of television was only to entertain people and it cannot make people any smarter. This article is really fun to read since it also critique “bad tv” which is know very popular. In the process of finishing this article, lot of thing appear to make some sense to me and what the writer trying to expose is not totally true. The most simple reason is even “bad tv” make people good. It shows clearly my opinion on whether television can educate or not.

Lastly, I’ve to do article on Steve Job, the billionaire founder of Apple. The article written by Kumi Naidoo based on his interpretation on Steve’s speech at Stanford. He, Kumi said that Steve have different meaning or the real intention behind his speech. Without reading this article, my mind would still think that Steve is a good man. These two man have been fighting each other since because Steve lack of awareness on his policy on using hazardous material in his product. Now, I’ve different opinion about Steve after reading Kumi’s writing.

As for the conclusion, these articles give a lot of think to thought about choosing my road to walk in the future. Credit to my lecturer for choosing such good article.