Education is COOL!

(Left to right: joo keng, me and novia)

We started learning about viewing things through a different lens. To experiment with this, I chose a popular online game from Singapore to conclude the results. The game “AuditionSea” is a multiplayer dance-battle game originated from Korea and now widely played by Singaporeans (http://www.auditionsea.com/). Anyone from all around the world enjoys this game no matter what gender, class, race and environmentalism it is. That is why I’m going to use what I experienced throughout the game to explain the differences through a different lens.

Boys, like me enjoy this game due to competition against each other. By this, we have fun and obtain some feeling of accomplishment (though it’s not really much to accomplish). Usually Singaporeans who play are Chinese, and Chinese are so-called having pride, so that’s why we hate losing and we flame about small incidents. Since there is not much to relate to environmentalism, I’ll talk about class instead. The game requires you to earn up in-game currency to buy items inside the game. Some who are lazy to do that can rather buy credit using real currency to acquire in-game items. Adding on to that, those credits are high on prices. As I don’t exist from a loaded family (which I have no complaints about whatsoever) have no possibility to afford such credits, furthermore, I strongly consider that is worthless. Environmentalism affects the game on how smoothly the game runs. Malaysia isn’t really caring about the environment; they care about sophisticated technology and hope it would reach their goal in 2020. Therefore, high quality computers were created and people used it here to play the game.

On the other hand, gender wise, girls are more likely to play to socialize, getting to know new friends and maybe, flirting.� As I said before, people scattered all around the globe likes to have fun in this game, therefore, confusion may arise when we speak in communicate differently. For example, I have encountered a few Spanish speakers and Vietnamese speakers; slowly, we apart from each other. Most players in “AuditionSea” suspects Vietnamese players are hackers (a group of people that violates the law of the game to gain what they want in-game). Time zones are different in each area too, so we have to compromise with each other. As for class, some are riches and some are poor. Some the riches don’t play with the poor because they think they’re not fun to play with since they obviously have different opinions about things. They see if a certain player uses credit to determine their class. These players are sometimes considered jerks and brats as they tend to release they’re rage on others when they’re mad. To preserve the environment, countries develop less sophisticated computers to ensure the existence of a good environment. By doing that, those who use lower grade computers to play the game will encounter lags and game resets. When this happens, it affects all the gamers playing with them.

�

 The 3^rd quarter has left the building, gone without a trace, and it’s time to go over my progress and results. Using our favorable ESLRs to relate and identify our outcome is the major fraction of this journal. During the 3^rd quarter poetry unit, we have planted our brains and focused our minds on poetry, which branches out to our own hand-made poetry book, the 2^nd annual “Poetry Night”, and the Teen Life Project. To aggravate matters, our time was limited because the Teen Life Project was something new and required a lot of patience.

First of all, it has been a wonderful quarter as I wouldn’t have even thought that poetry could be so exciting and so heart-touching. “Poetry Night” was an event that revolves around poetry, so we need poems. So back to square one, we were fed with facts and knowledge about these mysterious lines that forms “poetry” by our English teacher, Mr. R. He did an amazing job teaching us how to write these magical “messages”, but overall, he said we would have to find poetry ourselves as it is everywhere. This has made me been a Self-directed Learner to discover poetry in our everyday life. Soon enough, we were able to write poetry without any doubt in mind, as Mr. R said “there’s no right or wrong in poetry, anything can mean anything.” Then everything came to me, I felt as if I understood everything and I could control it to write poems. Alas, he said that a poem is never completed; even the shortest poems have been edited for years to be published, and is yet still believed that it’s not 100% perfect. Regardless, I know that this is something I enjoy, and I might as well do the best I can at it by reading and more reading. I’ve shown skills of an Academic Achiever by acquiring in depth knowledge and developing understanding across a broad and balanced range of disciplines. Furthermore, as I said, this poetry unit is heart-touching and emotional. In classes, we spent most of the time writing, reading and understanding to gather up some hints and ideas on forming these metaphoric lines. Whenever we started writing poems, we mostly about a photo given to us; we are usually supposed to be writing sensory poems. As the clock ticks and the time dies, our poems should extend to a reasonable length. Adding on, we were taught how to, write haikus. Haikus are formed of 3 lines, the first and third line must have 5 syllables meanwhile the second line contains 7 syllables. As the time pass and the “Poetry Night” was around the corner, pens, pencils, paper and materials were grasped in our hands; rushing yet carefully and elegantly, we tried to compose together all our poems into a creative self-made book. Now after all this, I wished I could turn back the clock and tried out making a rap instead of a 3Rs poem (Rhyme, Repetition & Rhythm). So I’m pretty sure to myself that I haven’t been much of a successful Critical Thinker. Later on, we shared it in front of the class. Knowing that this is a painful yet embarrassing process, its purpose is to get us ready for the poetry night where we had to read out our poems in front of a huge crowd compared to the wee class. While presenting, as a class, we respected the presenter and his/her poem; by doing this, we, as a whole class has demonstrated the ability of an Involved Citizen by show empathy, compassion and respect towards the needs and feelings to him/her.

Meanwhile, our school started to communicate with other schools from around the globe. As global issues rise, we agreed that we started discussing about each issue that dragged our attention. As a team of five to six, we distributed ideas and information. All these information was all kept in a wiki (a website that stores information and can be changed and accessed by authorized people only). They were trying to compose a project about those issues, while we focused on poetry. The information and data were “spices” for us to create a “lesson poem”. It was fun and challenging working with people all around the world, especially since they are all 1 year below of us (7^th Grade). We had to deal with slackers; on the other hand, we had some responsible bee workers. It was natural and we had to adapt to it. We exchanged e-mails, communicated through chat rooms as an Effective Communicator (Incorporating/Utilizing technology as a tool for communication). This part of the poetry unit made me realize how important working as a team can be. Without being united, it’s near impossible to have things work out; on the other hand, working together is the key for success.

Imagine yourself stepping into a huge but cozy room, and a dull yellow lights gives the whole place a moody yet interesting view. Peace and silence fills the room, while depending on a spread of yellow-lighted candles to give readers some light. While relaxing, you could just grab a book filled with magnificent poems and feast on some savory and sweet food; and when the clock strikes 8, young yet spirited ‘poets’ share their deep, mysterious poems at the stand. All that above was everything I experienced during the “Poetry Night”, it was simply magical. I’ve learned a few things that night, everyone has their own writing styles and are all based on their emotions; this is yet another sign of being a Critical Thinker. It was crucial that we treated the visitors with proper attitude and charm, giving advices and serving them required patience. My friends and I helped out at the poetry booths, helping the parents in teaching them how to write poems and haikus, therefore being an Effective Communicator. Overall, it was a magical night experience in school. The room was filled with candle lights, music, food, people, commotion and the poetic feeling. The last student left the stand and time was eating its way through, the room was soon abandoned at 10 o’ clock and everything was over. When I pulled the switch and tucked into bed, I became conscious of the people around me, they are all different, and that’s how the poems were different; for good or bad, everyone is unique that deep down inside, it makes all of us special.

This was a truly awesome quarter. I felt as if I changed over the poetry unit, I began viewing things at a different angle. As Mr. R said, there are 2 ways at looking at the same object, and it can be totally different; just like taking a snapshot compared to slowly editing the image to create something new and makes people want to think of it. The 3^rd quarter has left the building, gone without a trace, and it’s time to go over my progress and results. Using our favorable ESLRs to relate and identify our outcome is the major fraction of this journal. During the 3^rd quarter poetry unit, we have planted our brains and focused our minds on poetry, which branches out to our own hand-made poetry book, the 2^nd annual “Poetry Night”, and the Teen Life Project. To aggravate matters, our time was limited because the Teen Life Project was something new and required a lot of patience.

First of all, it has been a wonderful quarter as I wouldn’t have even thought that poetry could be so exciting and so heart-touching. “Poetry Night” was an event that revolves around poetry, so we need poems. So back to square one, we were fed with facts and knowledge about these mysterious lines that forms “poetry” by our English teacher, Mr. R. He did an amazing job teaching us how to write these magical “messages”, but overall, he said we would have to find poetry ourselves as it is everywhere. This has made me been a Self-directed Learner to discover poetry in our everyday life. Soon enough, we were able to write poetry without any doubt in mind, as Mr. R said “there’s no right or wrong in poetry, anything can mean anything.” Then everything came to me, I felt as if I understood everything and I could control it to write poems. Alas, he said that a poem is never completed; even the shortest poems have been edited for years to be published, and is yet still believed that it’s not 100% perfect. Regardless, I know that this is something I enjoy, and I might as well do the best I can at it by reading and more reading. I’ve shown skills of an Academic Achiever by acquiring in depth knowledge and developing understanding across a broad and balanced range of disciplines. Furthermore, as I said, this poetry unit is heart-touching and emotional. In classes, we spent most of the time writing, reading and understanding to gather up some hints and ideas on forming these metaphoric lines. Whenever we started writing poems, we mostly about a photo given to us; we are usually supposed to be writing sensory poems. As the clock ticks and the time dies, our poems should extend to a reasonable length. Adding on, we were taught how to, write haikus. Haikus are formed of 3 lines, the first and third line must have 5 syllables meanwhile the second line contains 7 syllables. As the time pass and the “Poetry Night” was around the corner, pens, pencils, paper and materials were grasped in our hands; rushing yet carefully and elegantly, we tried to compose together all our poems into a creative self-made book. Now after all this, I wished I could turn back the clock and tried out making a rap instead of a 3Rs poem (Rhyme, Repetition & Rhythm). So I’m pretty sure to myself that I haven’t been much of a successful Critical Thinker. Later on, we shared it in front of the class. Knowing that this is a painful yet embarrassing process, its purpose is to get us ready for the poetry night where we had to read out our poems in front of a huge crowd compared to the wee class. While presenting, as a class, we respected the presenter and his/her poem; by doing this, we, as a whole class has demonstrated the ability of an Involved Citizen by show empathy, compassion and respect towards the needs and feelings to him/her.

Meanwhile, our school started to communicate with other schools from around the globe. As global issues rise, we agreed that we started discussing about each issue that dragged our attention. As a team of five to six, we distributed ideas and information. All these information was all kept in a wiki (a website that stores information and can be changed and accessed by authorized people only). They were trying to compose a project about those issues, while we focused on poetry. The information and data were “spices” for us to create a “lesson poem”. It was fun and challenging working with people all around the world, especially since they are all 1 year below of us (7^th Grade). We had to deal with slackers; on the other hand, we had some responsible bee workers. It was natural and we had to adapt to it. We exchanged e-mails, communicated through chat rooms as an Effective Communicator (Incorporating/Utilizing technology as a tool for communication). This part of the poetry unit made me realize how important working as a team can be. Without being united, it’s near impossible to have things work out; on the other hand, working together is the key for success.

Imagine yourself stepping into a huge but cozy room, and a dull yellow lights gives the whole place a moody yet interesting view. Peace and silence fills the room, while depending on a spread of yellow-lighted candles to give readers some light. While relaxing, you could just grab a book filled with magnificent poems and feast on some savory and sweet food; and when the clock strikes 8, young yet spirited ‘poets’ share their deep, mysterious poems at the stand. All that above was everything I experienced during the “Poetry Night”, it was simply magical. I’ve learned a few things that night, everyone has their own writing styles and are all based on their emotions; this is yet another sign of being a Critical Thinker. It was crucial that we treated the visitors with proper attitude and charm, giving advices and serving them required patience. My friends and I helped out at the poetry booths, helping the parents in teaching them how to write poems and haikus, therefore being an Effective Communicator. Overall, it was a magical night experience in school. The room was filled with candle lights, music, food, people, commotion and the poetic feeling. The last student left the stand and time was eating its way through, the room was soon abandoned at 10 o’ clock and everything was over. When I pulled the switch and tucked into bed, I became conscious of the people around me, they are all different, and that’s how the poems were different; for good or bad, everyone is unique that deep down inside, it makes all of us special.

This was a truly awesome quarter. I felt as if I changed over the poetry unit, I began viewing things at a different angle. As Mr. R said, there are 2 ways at looking at the same object, and it can be totally different; just like taking a snapshot compared to slowly editing the image to create something new and makes people want to think of it.

The following lines were the phrases I couldn’t dechiper-

Line 486- The fringed curtains of thine eye advance

Line 544- I must uneasy make, lest to light winning

Line 545- Make the prize light.

The following lines were phrases I tried and managed to understood-

Line 308- Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot

Line 317- For mischief manifold, and sorceries terrible

Line 333- And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans

Donald Revell was born in the
Bronx, in the year of 1954. He now lives with his wife, Claudia Keelan, who is also a poet, and his son, Benjamin. They all live in
Las Vegas, Nevada. He graduated of SUNY-Binghamton and SUNY-Buffalo. He taught at a university before approaching his poetry career. Since year 1994, he serves as an English professor at the

University of
Utah, where he is now a Director of Creative Writing. Six years before that he has been the Editor of Denver Quarterly and a poetry editor for Colorado Review since 1996. He is the author of eight collections of poetry- My Mojave (Alice James, 2003);
Arcady (Wesleyan, 2002); There Are Three (Wesleyan, 1998); Beautiful Shirt (Wesleyan, 1994); Erasures (Wesleyan, 1992); New Dark Ages (Wesleyan, 1990); The
Gaza of Winter (University of Georgia Press, 1988); and From the Abandoned Cities (Harper & Row, 1983).

Donald Revell says:

Sha-

Dow,

As of

A meteor

At mid-

Day: it goes

From there.

 A perfect circle falls

Onto white imperfections.

(Consider the black road,

How it seems white the entire

Length of a sunshine day.)

 Or I could say

Shadows and mirage

Compensate the world, 

Completing its changes

With no change.

 In the morning after a storm,

We used brooms. Out front,

There was broken glass to collect.

In the backyard, the sand

Was covered with transparent wings. 

The insects could not use them in the wind

And so abandoned them. Why

Hadn’t the wings scattered? Why

Did they lie so stilly where they’d dropped?

It can only be the wind passed through them.

 Jealous lover,

Your desire

Passes the same way.

 And jealous earth,

There is a shadow you cannot keep

To yourself alone.

At midday,

My soul wants only to go

The black road which is the white road.

I’m not needed 

Like wings in a storm, 

And God is the storm. 

I liked this poem because it compared two very different things effectively. It uses a simile in the whole poem to compare the morning after the storm and a jealous lover. I didn’t really like the bracketed phrase in the beginning and yet still don’t know why it is there.

Hey all, my name is
Eugene and I’ll be writing about my life so I hope you all would sit back and enjoy, although it may be quite dull. First of all, I just turn 14 last December and I’m Chinese-Malaysian. I’ve spent half of my childhood in
New Zealand since I was born there in
Auckland 1992, December 15^th. I’m not quite sure why it was such a pain in the neck to fly all the way but I’m guessing it’s because my parents had jobs they much prefer there. I can’t really remember anything because everything was so blur since my parents were still having their life before serious parenting. All I recall is that I have a few good friends there but sadly I forgotten their names. The only thing I remember clearly is the one thing that haunts me for the rest of my childhood. I was five, on that one stormy night; I lurked through my uncle’s house in Epsom,
Auckland. I discovered his office room; I always wanted to enter that wide space of opening. I decided to sneak into for a quick peek. Some how, I was attracted to a huge shiny wood carved table desk. It had a cover which opens to a small capacity to store stationeries and such. Suddenly, something shimmering caught my eye; it was a silver hook to support the table cover. Curiosity got the better of me and I touched it. BANG! The support broke the cover came smashing down my finger. Deep red blood trickled down my ring finger; I wasn’t in much pain but seeing blood was not a good thing at my age. I was admitted to the hospital and needed a bandage to stop my bleeding. Me and my bandage flew to
Malaysia and stayed there for few months. During the year 1999, which was the year my sister, Eileen (who is 8 years old now) came in. Somehow we had to return to NZ and my mom given birth to her. After all that, we settled down in MS and I started schooling at the age of 6. Frankly, I’m actually doing quite well in my studies. About my hobbies, I’ll tell you mine. It’s simply the same among any boys, having fun outside, playing video games and stuff. Recently, I have also developed a passion for c-walking, although I’m not really good at it but it’s enjoyable and somewhat entertaining. Like other kids, I enjoy music like rock and heavy metal and as a fact, it’s what kept me energize or just calmed.

As I’m growing and experiencing the real world bit by bit, I have some concerns about technology, educations and natural disasters. I’m quite sad about the fact that
Malaysia’s technology isn’t as advanced as
Japan. It seems to me that MS lacks of more advanced technology in daily life. Take their phones for example, MS’s handphones are not as durable and flexible as
Japan’s handphones.

Have you ever wondered how our lives are going to be like if we lack of education, but not profession education or subjects we learn in schools, but financial education? I’ve been thinking quite a lot on this topic, and even searched through books and websites explaining this subject. I’m so used to being told, ‘study hard, go overseas, get a PHD, shine your future” that I’m sick of it. By some means, has it ever occurred to you that financial education is as important to us as education we get in school? To me, I don’t want to grow up working for money, I don’t want to be a slave to it. So the only way I can avoid it is by controlling it. And that’s where financial skills come in handy.

To those who aren’t living in MS, Johor is the south state of the
Malaysia peninsular. Lately, there have been extremely terrible floods there going up to 15 feet. Estimated 140 million ringgit (39million
US) worth of property was destroyed by the floods. It has been a very sad case and severely affected the economy. That goes to every region all over the world, we should do our best to prevent these disasters from destroying properties and taking lives away.

Well, that’s all I have to say about myself and I hope you enjoyed it too.

My school has five ESLRs, which are self-directed learners, academic achiever, critical thinker, involved citizen and effective communicator.  I started to make connections of the ESLRs with the experience I had in English class especially discussing and reading the novel Lord of the Flies.        

            I considered myself a self-directed learner at the beginning of reading the novel. I identified my needs and applied appropriate learning strategies. When I found excerpts of the story that were meaningful and interesting, I jotted them down onto post-it notes and stuck them into the book to bookmark for future use. Besides the tiny summaries, I wrote down predictions of what could have happened if there was absence of the important objects. While I was doing my project, I discovered many uses of the notes. It was easy and efficient for me to complete the “objects and symbols” project. The day I started reading this novel, I proved competency in goal setting, time management, and organizational skills by having a timetable drawn up. It was compulsory for me to read at least 2 to 3 pages a day, soon it became a habit. I would add on notes in my folder describing the changes of the characters in the novel and the importance of its appearance since Mr. R told us this hint. The objects and characters in the book all symbolize certain behaviors of the society. For example, Piggy’s glasses symbolize intellect and the sign of ideas and improvement. This helps in a way for me to understand the connection of the novel with the real world. As I was very curious of the various consequences of the novel, I carved down many ‘what ifs?’ question into my folder. For example, conch symbolizes control and order, “what if there was no conch, would there still be any law or order?” I have gone beyond what seems to be a normal book reading routine to a whole new level. I treated this as an experiment; I used resources from the library and the net. I researched this book and applied more learning strategies towards this story. 

            After we completed the novel, it was time to start on the projects. While I was doing my project, although I tried my best to assess, evaluate and adjust my work repeatedly to maintain high standards, the grades were not really satisfying. I did my work more than once to find out what’s missing and how to change it if things were out of order. It was my first project and I spent countless hours and put much effort into it. I not only used information of the novel, I also surfed the net to obtain more resources, reader’s notes and comments of the novel. This changed my whole view about the book, the comments and notes were additional knowledge to guess the possible modified version of Lord of the Flies. Illustrations make up an essential part of the grade, which was why I looked up for the pictures of the objects which had the properties described in the novel. Unexpectedly, the grade of the project was very disappointing to me. Finally, I accepted the fact that I was hard-headed and was unwilling to accept advice given; but at least I’ve gotten the picture of what a good project should be. This showed that I was not much of an academic achiever. Next time, I will put in more effort and try to achieve better grades.

I have shown the ability and skills of a critical thinker. Besides that, we have had regular meetings about the story line and the appearance of each important symbol. During discussions, I listed down everything that came in handy, I ranked each items by its value and the times it appeared. The new knowledge was then combined with the old information and data to conclude a final idea of the meanings. This indicates the ability of building meaning and understanding using prior knowledge and new information. As I am a student who does research, I have shown the ability to identify, evaluate and use resources effectively for the purpose of problem solving.

            Whenever good complicated questions where shot out during our regular class discussions, the whole group would think of suggestions and solutions. This activity was important because it helped us identified the significance of the book. I found out that we had shown care and concern of the boys’ environment and situations they were facing in the Lord of the Flies, which of course, demonstrated that we have the characteristics of an involved citizen. During negotiations, I listened respectfully to others when they spoke, and demonstrated awareness and respect for the right of others. For example, while someone talks, I’ll look at him/her and write down notes or nod my head whenever what is said makes sense. I noticed that some of my classmates should be more concerned of the environment. What I really wished would happen was that others would try to listen to my suggestions and don’t interrupt my speech.

           The last ESLR, was being an effective communicator. This was a challenge for me as I said I wasn’t able to be heard. There was a boy in the book, named Simon; he was also not much of an effective communicator. He had the intuition and right view to lead, what was missing was that he just wasn’t able to express it. This is the thing I want to improve on. In addition to discussions, Mr. R gave us a class activity before we started the book. We walked in the class. It was dark. We heard noises of birds screeching, the sounds of waves washing to the shore, “Swoosh!” There by the corner, was a ‘ghost’. Mr. R, stood with a pen held in his hand. The activity was for us to have a first impression of what the book is like; instructions were showed on the board. The activity was fun, although we had not enough time to finish, the experience was entertaining. If only we had enough time working and not goofing around, we would be able to complete the task on time. This showed that we were lack of effective collaboration skill. After we completed the book, he gave us the similar activity to do again. This was more serious because we had to separate ourselves into groups regarding our personality test result to have a better outcome on our jobs. This personality test, known as Meyer’s Brigg’s test, is testing yourself whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, uses sense or intuition; prefer thinking or feeling and judging or perception. Too bad almost all of my group members were extroverts. We weren’t able to cooperate really well. There were several arguments, but at last my group got together and we collaborated with each other in appropriate learning situations to achieve a group goal.

Ideas

For this journal assignment, I used the ESLRs to make connections with everything I’ve experienced from the start of the school year, throughout the class, and activities I’ve done as a team and individually.

Organization  

I arranged my journal in six paragraphs, each containing one ESLR except the first paragraph which is the introduction.

Voice

For voice, I made changes to some of my sentences to make it sound more interesting to the readers.

Eg.

(i)                  Whenever good and complicated questions where shot out during our regular class discussions, the whole group would think of suggestions and solutions.

(ii)                There by the corner, was a ‘ghost’, known as Mr. R, stood a pen held in his hand.

Word Choice

Initially when I was writing my journal, I had never realize how many repetitions of certain words I made. Eventually I made some changes to it.

Eg.       Discovered- proven, found out

            Demonstrated- shown  

            Discussions- meetings

            Besides- in addition     

            Ideas- views

            Importance- value

            Important- essential

            Comments- explanation

            Notes- remarks

            Bad- worse

Sentence Fluency      

I wrote down a few sentences which weren’t very fluent at all. That is to say that I made corrections to which I have down wrong.

Eg. 

Before

I have not only uses information of the book, I surfed the net to obtain more resources, reader’s notes and comments of the book. This changed my whole view about the book, the comments and notes were additional knowledge to guess the possible modified version of Lord of the Flies.

After

I treated this as an ‘experiment’; I used resources from the library and the net. I researched this book and applied more learning strategies towards this story.

Conventions              

I looked up and fixed all the errors I could find in my journal. I read the whole journal more than once to search for grammar mistakes and spellchecked it. I tried my best to make sure my ideas were clearly presented to the audience.