Term 3 Blog Post 4 - Book Review

Emperor: The Gates of Rome by Conn Iggulden

The Gates of Rome is the first volume of the series, Emperor, which has four volumes in total.

"In a city of grandeur and decadence, beauty and bloodshed, two boys, best friends, dream of glory in service of the mightiest empire the world has ever known. One is the son of a senator. The other is a bastard child. As young Gaius and Marcus grow to manhood, they are trained in the art of combat - under the tutelage of one of Rome's most fearsome gladiators. For Marcus, a bloody campaign in Greece will become a young soldier's proving ground. For Gaius, the equally deadly infighting of the Roman Senate will be the battlefield where he hones his courage and skill. And for both, the love of an extraodinary slave girl will be an honor each will covet but only one will win. But as Rome is thrust into the grip of bitter conflict, as every Roman prepares to take sides in the coming battle, Gaius and Marcus's friendship will be put to the ultimate test."

I have always been curious about my roman history and mythology. It all started with a game, which instantly captured my liking for the interesting battles and politics that surrounded Rome. Ironically, when I was in China for a vacation, I stumbled upon this book, which I have never regretted buying. In fact, I found this book so interesting, that I would looked forward to reading it everytime, even during school.

Emperor: The Gates of Rome is a stunning combination of bloody action, heroic bravery, and a brilliant story brought to life for a modern readership. Conn Iggulden goes about using his own imagination to describe the life of Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus when they were little children, as there were very little accounts on the childhood of Caesar. In almost every single moment that I spend with this book, I could really imagine myself in the scene, as if I have just travelled way back in time.

The story though, takes many twists along the real history. Iggulden explains this in every volume with a historical note at the back, which in my opinion, is very useful for people who do not know the actual story of Julius Caesar. Iggulden has also turned the story of Julius Caesar into a tale of high adventure, a blood-soaked, sword-swinging epic that brings a number of vivid characters to life, which just kept me flipping the pages one after another non-stop. One example is in the book, where Marcus watches in awe as a gladiator's arm is sawed off and the reader can almost taste the blood in the air.

There is something I would like to mention though, is that the entire series consists of volumes that were written for adults. In other words, there is a lot of mature content in it; from violence, to language, to some sexual references. Nevertheless, this is must read for all historical fiction lovers. Well at least for me, as I had to place an order overseas from a store just to get the last three volumes, which cost me quite a sum for the shipping!

Term 3 Blog Post 3 - Improvements

I would certainly say LA lessons have become more meaningful to me as compared to primary school. Well, there is a reason after all, why it is called Language Arts now, and English in primary schools. So the first thing that I would want to say that I learnt and found valuable, is that my appreciation for Literature has increased. This is actually something that has been increasing ever since term 1. In term 3 however, I am able to appreciate Poetry more, or should I say, the first time.

I have always been a person who loved mucic and songs. If I'm not wrong, most song lyrics could be considered as poetry too. Well I only realised that while learning poetry this year in class! Truth be told though, I was very bored in class when we continuously analysed poems in class. Even still, I knew I had to listen and picked up quite a number of infomation, such as metaphors, personification, similes, onomatopoeia, assonance etc. I am very glad that I did, as I can now easier analyse the meanings of some of my favourite songs. Also, using all the very, very useful notes that Mr Lundberg gave us, such as the one with the ten steps to analysing a poem, I know that I am well prepared for the coming test.

The second thing that I think is valuable that I have learnt is a great improvement in summary writing and comprehension, though mostly summary writing. If I could say, when I was primary 6, I met a teacher that greatly improved both my english writing and speaking skills. I still remembered that I spoke such bad english that my teacher could not even understand what I was saying (Yes it was that bad, I'm not exaggerating), so she decided to drill me on both skills. I would say I really appreciated her help. This year was as if another big step to improvement in this subject. For comprehension, I think the biggest thing I learn was the SEE writing style format. It has helped me ensure that I have covered every area that I needed to in a test. In summary writing, the steps on how to write a summary; from finding the points to rephrasing, was also a great improvement I learnt.

Lastly, of course, my overall English Language vocabulary improved! So to end of this blog post, I would like to give a suggestion: Maybe if we had some extra time in class, perhaps we could analyse the lyrics of some of the favourite songs, to allow us students to be able to be more interested in poetry, and overall learning more?

Term 3 Blog post 2 - Poem Analysis

Firstly, I would like to say, THANK YOU MR. LUNDBERG, for providing us students with such a detailed step-by-step basis note on how to analyse a poem. And of course all the other notes and that toolkit that would REALLY help in my preparation for the examination.

I decided that I should type out the poem first so that any of you viewers out that get a better understanding and can easily relate to it here with the answers:

In Snapshotland everyone is happy all the time.
It is the promised land where people sit with flasks of tea
on smooth sand by a flat sea and smile and smile and smile.

The sun shines all day long and everyday in Kodachrome
or sepia on sandboys and sandgirls who never
stop smiling from the time they first appear, with buckets,
in crisp, gingham pinafores and bonnets on the sea-shore.

Lovers stay in love forever, married couples never
grow tired of each other; everything is always just right.
The dolphines know exactly when to leap into the air
and stay there for the permanent delight of passengers
aboard the pleasure-boat which never passes out of sight.

Nobody in Snapshotland grows old unless they want to,
judging by the way they go on smiling so, in deck-chairs,
on the beach, or in old-fashioned gardens with lavender
and grandchildren here and there-and no one dies, ever.

Even if they don't appear later, the people are still
always there, smiling through the lavender and dolphines
and the buckets full of pebbles on the same sea-shore.

So here are my answers for the poem, Snapshotland:

Step 1 - Really all I needed to do here was to erase any expectations I have of the poem, piece of cake.

Step 2 - Thoughts of the title:
a)A land of cameras.
b)A surreal land that was photoshopped.
c)A land where photography is a very respected skill.
d)A land where everybody carries a gun.
e)A dream Island; like a paradise.
f)A land made up of photographs.

Step 3 - Read fast, Read slow, Read slow again and again.

Step 4 - Things that caught my attention:
a)The sun shines all day long and every day in Kodachrome.
b)"stay there for the permanent delight of passengers".
c)Nobody in Snapshotland grows old unless they want to.
d)Pleasure-boat which never passes out of sight.
e)never stop smiling.
f)stay in love forever.
g)no one dies, ever.

Step 5- Features of Language:
a)"It is the promised land" - Metaphor
b)"smooth sand by a flat sea and smile and smile and smile" - Alliteration
c)"sepia on sandboys and sandgirls" - Alliteration

Step 6 - Thematic Boxes:
a) "Happy, Smile, Delight, Pleasure" - Joy
b) "Sea, Buckets, Bonnets, Sandboys, Sandgirls, Deck-chairs, Pebbles" - Beach
c) "Forever, Permanent, Ever" - Eternity

Step 7 - Patterns:
The most obvious pattern about this poem is that everything in it is describing something positive, something perfect. It goes about saying that good things last forever and the bad things never existed; everybody's happy, not a single one is upset, even the dolphins.

Step 8 - What the poem might mean:
I truly feel, that when the poet wrote this poem, he was in high spirits. The only other possibility is that the poet was describing a place where he longed to be. So with that, this poem probably is describing about pictures, where people would pose and smile, and stay that way forever. And that pictures are always happy.

Step 9 - Questions:
a) Unidentified Speaker
b)To the pubic in general
c)Optimistic
d)Optimistic
e)It is arranged in such a way that the audience can feel the flawless place - Snapshotland.
f)I have managed to understand the poem better and to read between the lines of the poem.

Step 10 - Critical Appreciation:
I think what the poet is trying to bring out in this poem is to show how photographs and pictures always seem to be perfect; where everybody is happy and everything else stays the same. It is as if he has managed to assemble all the photographs in the world and put them together to form an island, Snapshotland. He has described impossible things that happen in Snapshotland that would never have happened in real life and made fantasy seem like it was actually true. He managed to capture the small little details like "where people sit with flaks of tea" and also managed to contain the bigger issues, like "Lovers stay in love forever, married couples never grow tired of each other," and " no one dies, ever." This poem is just like a compilation of life's pleasures and things to be happy about, but in fact, it is all just memories.

Term 3 Blog Post 1 - Extended Life Metaphors

Time really flies, doesn't it? Once again I begin another chapter in my blog for this term. So After reading some examples given to us in a worksheet, I decided to pick the fourth phrase as my starting of my extended life metaphor:

Life is a gift certificate,
Our presence, God's advocate.
Die when you lose it,
a pity, if you never had it.

"Each day's a gift and not a given right,"
I must stress with all my might.
For every second you have, treasured or not,
just like your body, certificates rot.

So now I will just explain the above two stanzas, as usual. The main point of this entire extended metaphor is that life is something that is very fragile, as easy as it was presented as a gift to you, it can be lost anytime. What I mean in the first half is that this gift, our life - our presence, is God allowing us to live and if you mess up your life - "you lose it", and you die. What I also mean by "a pity, if you never had it", is that life is a wonderful thing and if you have been deprived of that opportunity of experiencing it, it is a very sad thing. (Abortions etc.)

The second half is really quite simple, do not take life for granted. Everyone was given a chance, its all up to that person to decide to treasure it, or not.

E-Learning, May 25, 2010 (con't)

LESSON 2

In lesson 2 we had to post some comments on the facebook group discussion board. Apart from that we also had to compose our own poem on our primary school days. So here is the poem I composed:

The teacher walks in,
and looks at the bin.
What is all this trash?
Somebody better clear this mess!

Her marker is like an arrow,
which flies just like a sparrow.
Oh! She has a lot,
So don't ever drift off into a deep slumber
or you definitely would be shot.

Do not speak a word of English during Chinese lessons,,
the consequence is divine.
Well I replid my teacher, "Alright!",
and I definitely paid the fine.

I had no money for recess,
but surely my friends had some excess.
"Don't mind me I'm just staying for a chat,"
slowly I stuck my hand in their pockets,
trust me they never smelt a rat.

Okay so now I shall explain my poem.

---

The teacher walks in,
and looks at the bin.
What is all this trash?
Somebody better clear this mess!

---

So what this stanza means is that when the class starts and the teacher looks at the rubbish bin, she would be very angry because everybody would just throw their rubbish in their but nobody bothered to clear it, making it overflow. This happened EVERYDAY in my primary school.

---

Her marker is like an arrow,
which flies just like a sparrow.
Oh! She has a lot,
So don't ever drift off into a deep slumber
or you definitely would be shot.

---

This talks about a few of my friends last time, when they would fall asleep in class and the teacher would throw the marker at them to wake them up. Well, it didn't really hurt from what I heard.

---

Do not speak a word of English during Chinese lessons,,
the consequence is divine.
Well I replied my teacher, "Alright!",
and I definitely paid the fine.

---

This is perhaps one of the most memorable things in my primary school. We had this system that during Chinese lessons, we are not allowed to speak a single word of english or anything other languages, unless the teacher specified to allow it for explaning purposes. If we did, we would have to pay 50cents and all the money when to this class fund, which at the end of the year would be used to buy something for the entire class. For my class we managed to afford two pizzas! Just imagine how many times we were caught. The teacher would sometimes also trick us to see if we are alert, for example the stanza in my poem where I answered the teacher with "Alright!" and got caught! The real killer actually lies when students are explaining. This is because they tend to use the word "then". I think that took up 80percent of the fines. Nevertheless, that has allowed me to totally switch to Chinese and English when I want too, which is something I feel I learnt and very valuable to my future.

---

I had no money for recess,
but surely my friends had some excess.
"Don't mind me I'm just staying for a chat,"
slowly I stuck my hand in their pockets,
trust me they never smelt a rat.

---

This doesn't really speak about me, but I was more of referring to the other people who were like that. They had very little pocket money and so they would just steal. Yes, a very horrible thing in my school is stealing. Although this is not a right thing to do, pickpockets would find some way to make it back up to us, for example when they win a prize and have some money they would treat us to a meal. So basically they would steal from us, tell us about it, and return it to us. Weird isn't it?

E-Learning, May 25, 2010

It's that time of the term that we have E-Learning again! So basically for Language Arts we had two lessons. For the first we had to watch a video on figurative language and then go to this website with tons and tons of famous poems and select the poem we like best. After doing all that, here is the poem I selected:

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

All Similes are coloured in RED.
All Metaphors are coloured in YELLOW.
All Hyperboles are coloured in PURPLE.

I am most likely wrong, but I do not think I found any Symbolism or Personification. I do actually see a pattern, that at the starting of the poem, there are a lot of similes and some hyperboles but then it gradually became more of metaphors. Well I think at the starting, so many similes are used to show the different extents of the authors emotions. Things like, "like dust", "like moons and like suns" and "like teardrops", are actually exaggerations, but allow the reader to connect with the author about how deep or serious is an emotion. Similes are much like Hyperboles, except that similes are more often used with words like "as" or "like" etc.

Apart from the similes and hyperboles, there are also a lot of metaphors. I think the reason Maya Angelou did this was because she wanted to show how much an extent something is to another thing. Just like "You may shoot me with your words","You may cut me with your eyes" and "You may kill me with your hatefulness" . In actual fact words cannot shoot, eyes cannot cut and hatefulness does not kill. But when someone insults you and hurts your feelings, in a way you are being shot by his words.

Now there are many reasons why I chose this problem. Firstly, I like the fact that there are a lot of similes and metaphors used. These are actually two of the examples of figurative language that I use most often when I write my scripts or compositions. My favourite part is really the part about shooting with words. I think that would have much impact on many readers, as we all have experienced it. I also like the flow of the poem. It seems as though one paragraph, there is an ending on her title, Still I Rise. Then she moves on to describe her emotions. After which she will always link back to her title. This allows the author to be constantly reminded about what emotions she is trying to relate to the readers. Lastly, at the end of the poem, she repeated the phrase "I rise" thrice. This is actually a very good way to sumarise your entire poem and also increase the impact of the entire poem. If I were to read this poem out loud, I would read the part on "I rise" three times, becoming softer each time. So it goes like I rise, I rise, I rise. This is the end of lesson 1 then and I shall be proceeding to lesson 2 now!

The Preparation, The Exam, The Results.

Before I start writing this blog post, I would like to quote one of the authors during the panel discussion that said, "Inspiration...is everywhere!". As I was on my way home from the MRT station today, I drifted off into deep thought and suddenly had and idea on what to do for my final blog post for term 2. So what I will be doing on today will really be on our tests and the different aspects of getting an A1for Language Arts, or in some examples, every other subject.

So to excel in any exam, there is no doubt that one has to prepare for it. This is one of those factors that allow one to use hard work as an advantage over other people that might be smarter than him. To me, this is one of the most important stages in every examination. Being not very smart all the way from young, I still remember what spurred me to constantly improve myself. When I was in primary 3 and I saw that my grades were really falling and I was failing a lot of my subjects, I decided to do something about it. I would actually say that was a turning point in my life. I started looking up books, internet and advice from older people on study and preparation tips and it has really helped me even till today!

Firstly, I realised that the reason why some people remember things easier while other students struggle just with a simple mathematical formula, is really due to the way they think. When many people cannot understand certain parts about their studies, they start to memorise. This is really, really bad. You see, our brain does not work like how computers do, with a string of binary numbers computing data as easy as just following it. Our brain is made up of neurons, and neurons work by connecting different ideas together! I guess this is also a reason why mind maps help us a lot. Even if we have to memorise sometimes though, we can connect them to other things which really makes the job efficient. It also helps to know what type of learner you are! If you are an auditory learner, maybe you could record yourself reading a passage instead of just reading it straight from the paper to help yourself understand it better. Or if you are a person whose highest intelligence is visual, you could try drawing pictures of scenes in a composition to help you better relate to where and how the scene might look like.

Next, comes the stage where whatever you pen down on the paper determines your marks. In my opinion, this is the stage where its importance is only superficial. First, we have to ask ourselves this question, why are there examinations? Well the main purpose is to gauge how much you know a certain subject, and not how well you have studied the textbook. There is a difference between these two, but clearly most examinations just require you to memorise the text from certain sources and then you just have to paste everything there during the examination. What I feel that is more important than really just doing the examination for the sake of marks, is whether you have truly understood the subject, if you have truly learnt. The marks are just digits there, but what valuable information that you store in your head for future use, will be the one to help you in your future.

Finally, comes the stage of irony. The stage where people who did not prepare start to get nervous, the stage where those that studied very hard for it get excited and the stage where hopes are crushed and given at the same time. There ill be people who think that they did not do well, but still do in the end. On the other hand, there will be the opposite and vice versa. I find that if you have done well, congratulations and keep up the good work. The important thing is if you have not, what would you do now? I say we pick ourselves up again to do well in the next examination because we cannot turn back time. There is no point in trying to bargain with the teacher for more marks and stating that some questions are marked too strictly. What we should want ourselves to do, is to REALLY improve. This ability to fall down and pick yourself up is so great, that people don't look for candidates with a straight perfect score, but people who have improved after a failure. Frankly speaking, it all boils down to the human mind. The way we look at things, the way we interpret them and the way we deal with them. People say failures are inevitable, but I say that they actually are! If you take single time you fall as a opportunity to improve yourself, then there will never be such a thing called failures, only stepping stones to success!