Tuesday 23 April 2013

Poetry - Yay or Nay?

Wow.... I've stopped blogging for MUCH longer than I thought. Well, so much for my bold anticipation of regularly blogging. It seems that whenever I have free time, I completely forget about writing and decide to experiment with an iPad or some sort of other gadget instead. That's not good.

Anyways, now that I'm blogging after some time, I think that I should write about something relating to English, literature, the 'essence of English' and things like that. So today I've decided to write about poetry. Specifically, my thoughts on the new poetry unit that we're starting in English class. We started the unit just yesterday, and it seems already that we're more knowledgeable about the new topic. Honestly, though, we should be. Most of us who were educated in some sort of an international school should have been studying poetry since 5th grade! I mean, schools these days really seem to love the topic. It almost seems as though they want to foster an entire school of Shakespeares! That's not to say, however, that I don't like the topic. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I love poetry, though I'm not great at it. Yesterday, when we had our first discussion in class, we tried to get down to the essence of what poetry is and what makes poetry, um.. poetry. It turned out that this was a lot more difficult than what I thought it would be, for myself as well. We had to really get down to the differences between structured writing, known as prose and poetry. Really, the main idea, or 'enduring understanding' as they say at my school, that I took away from yesterday's talk was that poetry is writing almost without structure, a piece of writing that it trying to hint ideas at you rather than directly stating it. 

Now, on to my thoughts on poetry. Well, I personally love reading poetry, because I can't help but admire the amazing use of language in poetry, even if it is coming from an amateurish writer. Poetry is like that. No matter how good or bad you are at English, it almost makes no difference to your writing. In poetry, you convey emotions and scenes in seemingly never ending stanzas, so you can just write and write and write. You can hint ideas or thoughts with emotions and other writing tools. It can also be said that reading poetry makes you feel more relaxed and sometimes in better spirits, even if the poem is about something dark or horrifying. Poetry can be appreciated from all angles. Yet, I sometimes find it tedious to write poetry. Often this is so when I'm given a topic and have to write about it. To me, poetry is meant to be free, it is meant to express yourself as you feel at that moment. Your poem will have more impact if you write with the natural emotions that you are feeling at the moment. So, basically, I'm quite excited about the poetry unit, but I hope we won't have to write too many poems based on topics given to us by the teachers.

In today's English lesson, we basically learnt about the parts of a poem and what 'economy of verse' meant. Although it sounds fancy, 'economy of verse' is simply the careful use of language in order to convey a message. That being said, economy of verse does get a bit complicated once you go deeper into it. You can have good economy of verse but lack detail, have bad economy of verse but good detail, etc. One of the activities we did today involved reconstructing a deconstructed poem. This was a pretty interesting exercise because it really showed us how we viewed poetry, and how the different components of a poem came together. Most of all, it showed us what we perceived poetry to be. 

So, before I finish this post, I think it would be a good idea if I show something poetic, you know, to give this post a good effect. 

'The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.''

Okay, so I'm not quite sure what it means yet, but I'll figure it out soon. This one's from William Wordsworth, so that explains a few things.



Monday 25 February 2013

After a Long Time.......and about Reading "What is the What?"

Wow......... I have finally realised how long I haven't been blogging. It's been a few months since my last post. I should really begin "practicing what I preach" as they put it. In class and in my earlier blog post I talked about how important it is for people to blog and why it is a useful resource to learning both in and out of english class. Well, it looks like I haven't really taken those tips on board. Anyway, I hope that with this post comes a newer and hopefully more positive start to blogging.

Now to the point. Over the past few weeks in English class we've been reading a novel written by Dave Eggers titled "What is the What?". I view it as a fascinating novel about an ongoing conflict which resulted in the losses of thousands of lives as countless homes and jobs. Actually, it's an autobiography of a man named Valentino Achak Deng, a "Lost Boy" from southern Sudan who was caught in the violent conflict between north and south Sudan. The reason that it's been titled as a novel is because of it's structure and the fact that the events recounted by Deng had happened 17 years before. Hence, with some of the conversation between characters in the story, there is an element of fiction. Personally, I feel that this story is an inspiring one already, even though I've only read half of the story up until now. However, the I feel that this story could have been edited much more, as there are too many details included in the story about Deng's life and it tends to get boring in some places because of this. 



I also want to mention that the story is broken up into two parts: the first one being a series of events in the present day when Valentino is being mugged and robbed by some criminals and is later taken to hospital. The second part of the story is when Valentino's telepathic conversations with the characters in the present day- there are many such conversations- lead to Valentino recounting his childhood and the story of his survival. I think this is a personal preference, but I enjoy reading the parts where Valentino recounts his survival through the conflict and his childhood, compared to the present day events. I find those a bit boring to read, because some of his telepathic conversations are too long and the same discussion points are repeated frequently. Also, in some cases, I feel that the author's transitions from present day events to the past within the same chapter are quite abrupt and it takes time for me to get used to the situation being described. Coming to the positives, there are also many to talk about. But for the sake of not rambling, I'll only talk about a few. I feel that the author's portrayal of every scene and moment in the story is fantastic, undoubtedly one of the best I've read. As soon as I start reading the book, within a few seconds I'm completely immersed in it. It feels as though I'm an observer of the events; that I am right beside Valentino and watching everything he is doing, but he isn't affected by my presence. Also, there are some great lines in the story- at least one per chapter- which Eggers adds to the story which really bring out characters' emotions, summarise the paragraph, or even imply certain points. In many ways, I feel that reading a novel such as this one is much better than reading through a news article about Sudan because it really shows more emotion and tells the reader about many small events and happenings during the character's journey; these make a huge difference to the reader's overall view of the topic but are rarely found in news articles. 

Monday 4 February 2013

Blogging: Is it Important?

Blogging is a vital part of the English classroom and should be given higher importance. Today, most educated teenagers with access to a computer with internet are actively involved in social networking. However, for many, blogging does not place itself very high in their list of priorities. This is mainly due to two reasons. The first is that many 8th grade students do not find an interest in writing and sharing their opinions/perspectives in an eloquent and well written style. Such people prefer writing about such topics on social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, where it is easier for them to connect with their friends and post any sort of media they like to (photo, video, music, etc.). Another possible reason for blogging being "unpopular", in a way, would be that teens cannot make time for it. School takes up most of the week, running from morning until mid-afternoon. On somedays, these students even have extra-curricular activities and other classes after school. But we still ask the same question: "If teens can make time for social networking, then why can't they make time for blogging?". Blogging is essential because people can express their views in well-written text. Especially for English class, blogging helps teachers to understand how students write. This is turn enables the teachers to help the students improve their writing so that they can articulate their thoughts better. In order to be successful in life, people must be able to articulate thoughts clearly and effectively so that people understand the message. When writing university exams, having knowledge about a subject is not enough; people must be able to articulate their thoughts clearly onto paper/online. We can thus come to the conclusion that blogging is an integral part of the English curriculum, and that it should be given equal importance to social networking.


Friday 23 November 2012

Exposing Oneself to Vulnerability

Less than two weeks ago I was in English class, when my teacher brought up the topic of vulnerability. Vulnerability is defined by the dictionary as "being susceptible to physical or emotional or harm". Frankly, I think that this definition is quite harsh. I would define 'Vulnerability' as the feeling of being exposed. Yes, people may feel physically or emotionally harmed as a result of their actions and exposing themselves, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes, there are good results that come out of being exposed, for example, if you are a student who loves physics and have just created a bio-fuel cell (scientific stuff), showing your creation at a science fair is exposing yourself to vulnerability. Your are exposing yourself to the world just to stand up for what you believe in. And to top it off, say you win the competition. That would be a positive outcome of being vulnerable.

There are different ways people can approach the "challenge" of vulnerability. The first way, and in my opinion the most common in our society today, is to avoid it. Many people are afraid of being exposed, probably because they only think about the negative consequences of their actions. I still do not understand why they do not take into account the positive consequences. Even if they do, they still remain afraid of what others will say to them. Everyone knows that the human society is not perfect, and that there will always be people who will try to put others down so that they feel a sense of superiority. Now, people should not shy away from exposing themselves because they are afraid of these people. I believe that they should do quite the opposite - they should stand up for themselves (or they could ignore the bad consequences of being vulnerable and carry on with their lives).


Now that brings me to my next point- the second way someone can approach vulnerability. I was watching another TED Talk during this English class about vulnerability (video above). The speaker was Brene Brown, a research professor (PhD) at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She described vulnerability as "A sense of worthiness and belonging. People who have a strong sense of belonging feel more worthy of connection and will thus expose themselves more to vulnerability". People are afraid of vulnerability because they feel that they will lose their connection with society as a result, because people will believe that they don't belong. I believe that people who let go of who they think they should be and fully embrace vulnerability will be more successful and happier as human beings. They will feel happy with who they are, they will feel "I am enough". These people will not numb vulnerability and will feel eager to share their thoughts with the rest of the world and expose themselves. No matter what people say negatively about these people, they will stand by their thoughts. I feel that this is the way that people should embrace vulnerability.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Agatha Christie's "Mystery of the Blue Train"

Today I began a new novel that was of a much higher level compared to a novel I would normally read.  Most bookworms and eager readers would recognise Agatha Christie as one of the greatest authors of murder mysteries of all-time. My parents and their siblings had read her novels during their childhood and now it is my turn. Today it still seems to be a favourite among teenage-adult readers, as I only found one out of the six copies on the shelf in the secondary library. I started to read "The Mystery of the Blue Train". Now, so far I have only read 5 chapters of the story and the plot is just being revealed, but already I am hooked in by the book and can't put it down. It does not have a slow start and the characters are introduced into the story from the first sentence. The author also uses many writing techniques which further enhance the content of the story, such as metaphors, similes and a lot of detail, which helps the reader to get a much clearer picture of what is going on in each scene. The main elements of each scene (characters, setting, sense of time) are also well-balanced.



The first chapter describes a scene in which a man is being followed by two hired killers for the possession of a huge ruby. One can tell just from reading the first chapter that the book will be a good read. My favourite character up to this point would be an American millionaire named Rufus Van Aldin because of his contrasting personalities in the story. Christie introduces him in the first 2 chapters as a brash, bulky and ruthless man who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. I originally thought he was a criminal. However, in the 3rd and 4th chapters, he turns into a loving father who has a soft spot for his only daughter. Anything that makes her unhappy will be taken care of by him. The daughter, named Ruth, aged 28, is married unhappily to a man named Derek Kettering who married her for her money and is planning to divorce with him. I have not read further, but I predict that the divorce will not turn out as planned. I think that Derek Kettering may react violently to Ruth's decision and may possibly kill her as a result. I believe that this may be the murder around which the story is based.