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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Update Shmupdate

"You always steal the show," Nothin' On You by B.o.B feat. Bruno Mars.

Post-SUKMA now, and I was looking forward to just chillin' at my crib before the start of a new semester. Let me brief you about what the aforementioned chillin' brought me these few days.

Realisation.
While chillin', I realized that even though I'm one of the taller people anywhere I go at the moment, I will be of below average height once I get to Australia. And we're still not talking about the rugby people over there. They must be HUGE! So I'll be a midget in the team, reducing my chances of being able to play over there.

Now I could just go find a corner and cry (boohoo), but I have decided that I am going to do something about it to be counted in a team over there. I wouldn't mind playing scrum-half, just as long as I get to play, so I'll work on myself to become not-so-small.

Paper-marking.
I was asked to help mark a few English essay papers, 3 classes totaling up to almost a hundred papers. Easy right? Wrong! I got a taste of actually influencing the numbers that will end up on the persons' report cards. I felt an immense amount of responsibility on my shoulders and tried my very best to give fair scores to everybody, even if I knew that the end score will ultimately be determined by the person I was helping, a real professional.

I got my first taste of reading school-goers' essays, and I have to say, a fair few of them can't write in English. Most were writing using Malay grammar. If you translated the sentences into Malay word for word, they would make perfect Malay sentences. And these were city kids which are well-exposed to English. I can't imagine the challenge that we'll face teaching and marking the papers of those who lack English exposure. I need to prepare myself, mentally especially, for that.

Finding out that I have work (super late)
While I was happily browsing my Facebook homepage, I encountered a status from one of my chalkies asking if anybody has done their Linguistics portfolio yet. I sat up and said a little too loudly, "What Linguistics portfolio??" Luckily, no one was around. I decided to ignore it, thinking of it as a prank (even though the person who posted the status wasn't known to make jokes about Linguistics). Then a few facebook minutes later (2 hours in the real world), another chalkie asked me directly if I'd done anything on the Linguistics portfolio. I asked him what he was talking about. Then he said that while I was away on SUKMA training, a lecturer (won't say who) gave some work to be done during the holidays.

Great. I get to know about this 4 days before opening day while everybody else has known for at least 3 weeks. Now I need to know what to do, since each person got different assignments. I'm currently in the process of acquiring that piece of knowledge. I'm hoping it's not too heavy.

________________________________

Now to restock my song collection. Any suggestions for albums to download?

Cheers!

11 comments:

mahpuzah said...

i can still remember mira(dhira's sister)when we came back from scotland she was in year 6. her malay was hopeless..haha...she translated the english to malay word for word. poor her.lama2 ok. now dia ada kat sydney. you will be a good english teacher...insyaAllah. good luck with the assignments.

anak pak man said...

Auntie Mahpuzah,
Hehe, sounds like me when I came back from NZ, except a lot worse.. haha
She's studying in Sydney? I'm going there next year..
Thanks auntie! :))

troriq said...

1st of all, how is your phonetics and phonemics, diphthongs, triphthongs? do u have any tips or extra notes for me? 2ndly, u can do the assignment, i have faith on you! (good luck anyway) lastly, dah dengar hellogoodbye? sorry aku lambat skit :)

the unknown said...

lol bro, what does linguistics portfolio entail?

portfolio
= highlights of previous work

linguistics
= study of language

linguistics portfolio
= highlight on how u've been speaking ie communicating in this language all this while?

mahpuzah :
translating english words to malay is kinda acceptable when it's not phrasal or exocentric by nature.

anak pak man said...

troriq,
Firstly, err, I don't think I can pass any tips thru this blog.. malas.. hehe
Secondly, thanks! :)
Finally, dah dengaq.. bes gak.. boy yg bg dengaq..

troriq said...

ehh boleh pass laah before u nk flyy!

anak pak man said...

troriq,
Awat dok i u ngan aku neh? u laaa.. hehe
ha, sblum aku fly mai lah umah, tengok nota pa yg aku bleh pas kat hg..

troriq said...

haha. ok. bila x taw hang fly? bila maw buat kenduri?

anak pak man said...

troriq,
Aku fly next year, bulan Feb, so bila2 rasa nak mai tu mai ah..
Kenduri apa ini?

troriq said...

kenduri kesukuran lee. maw fly. haha. flyhalf

anak pak man said...

troriq,
ya saya fly half..
kenduri xtaw bila.. ada ka x pon tataw lg.. huhu.. sila tanya encik Azman..