A prayer for everyone...

          Bieber fever is everywhere. It is amazing to see a 17 year old boy rocked the world through his single hit “Baby”. He has become an inspiration for the whole world, let it be teenagers or adults, everybody want to be Justin Bieber. Among his best hits, one that made the whole world turn to him is the song “Pray”. This song is written by Justin Bieber with Adam Messenger,Nasri and Omar Martinez. It is also an inspiration from Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” song.

            What we can see in the music video are the victims of devastating earthquake in Haiti which happened 2010. Many people were affected because of this and they were featured in this music video. There are also victims of Katrina hurricane of New Orleans, soldiers being reunited with their family members and those who are homeless also featured in this music video. It is more like a short documentary of how all these people were given another reason that life still has to go on.

            The lines from this song highlight the difficulties and sufferings of people around us. There are issues of poverty, how innocent lives are being affected, sacrifices made by soldiers fighting for their country, living behind their loved ones. There is a way for us to change all these, we have to pray. We must believe in the power of believing and have faith in GOD. The purpose of Bieber singing this song is to instill hope on those who are giving up in life. We can see this from his visit to the hospitals, homes and soldier camps. We can also evidence it through the lines from the song; “Cause I know there's sunshine behind that rain, I know there's good times behind that pain”, “I close my eyes and pray”.

This song can be used in the classroom to create awareness among the students of how lucky they are. Most of us are not appreciating what we have. We often waste food, water and other necessities. We do not appreciate the love of our parents and we do not appreciate the beauty of nature around us. On the other hand, less fortunate people are craving for everything that we have been wasting. So, through this song, we can show the students how people are suffering, how happy they are when they get something that they really wish for. The students are also given a chance to use their critical thinking skills. They are given a chance to imagine something that they hve never experienced before. This will make them realize how lucky they are to live a happy life.

Pray for others happiness, you will be happy in your life.

Justin Bieber: Pray Lyrics

Verse 1:
(And i pray)
I just can't sleep tonight,
knowing that things ain't right.
It's in the papers, it's on the TV,
it's everywhere that i go.
Children are crying, soldiers are dying,
some people don't have a home.

Pre Chorus:
But i know there's sunshine behind that rain,
I know there's good times behind that pain (hey)
Can you tell me how i can make a change?

Chorus:
I close my eyes, and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and pray.
I close my eyes and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and pray.

Verse 2:
I lose my appetite, knowing kids starve tonight
Am I a sinner? Cause half my dinner,
Is still there on my plate.
Ooh i got a vision, to make a difference,
and it's starting today.

Pre Chorus:
Cause i know there's sunshine beyond that rain,
I know there's good times beyond that pain

[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/pray-lyrics-justin-bieber.html ]

Heaven tell me i can make a change.

Chorus:
I close my eyes, and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and pray. (yeee)
I close my eyes and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and

Bridge:
I pray for the broken-hearted,
I pray for the life not started.
I pray for all the ones not breathing,
I pray for all the souls that need a break,
Can you give em one today?

Pre Chorus:
I just can't sleep tonight,
Can someone tell me how to make a change?

End Chorus:
I close my eyes, and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and pray, (Ooh)
I close my eyes and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and i pray, (ooh)
I pray, I pray
I close my eyes and pray.

The power of speech...

Power is what all wanted in political journey. The speech power of a leader can change everything in a few minutes. For that, a leader must have good persuasive and rhetoric skills. The two best leaders that we can associate with this is Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill. Their speech is one of the well know speeches in the world and people are still amazed by it. It is worthy to note that the political situation that both leaders were in is the same. They both delivered the speech during the world war two.

         

   Firtsy, Winston Churchill is the most prominent figure in Britain at that era. He was the prime minister. The nation had to fight in order to protect their country from invasion; therefore entering the war was not a personal choice that Churchill made. Churchill did not persuade the nation that it was a’ just war’ he had to persuade the country to continue fighting and remain positive. Throughout the speech, choices are made by the speaker in terms of personal pronouns and this pronoun represents someone. When addressing the nation and the House of Commons each leader uses the first person pronoun ‘I’ on a number of occasions. ‘I’ appears to be used by both leaders much more frequently when addressing the House of Commons. I would be inclined to suggest that the reason for this is because each Prime Minister is solely persuading the Government; therefore the beliefs he is expressing are his personal ones. ‘We’ is used more often when addressing the nation as it can refer to the Prime Minister and the Government who are in support of each other. In his address to the nation Churchill uses inclusive ‘we’ a number of times to refer to himself and the people of Britain and thus encourage solidarity.

            In today’s society people often express disbelief that somebody like Hitler could gain and maintain the support of a nation.  It is a credit to his skills of rhetoric and persuasive that he was able to maintain an image of such righteousness person. In the speech of May 4, Hitler spends much of the beginning of the speech condemning the enemy and assuring the people of his own purity and good desires. In this speech he does not miss any opportunity to elevate other’s opinions of himself.  In fact, he never once speaks about himself without directly or more often indirectly attaching some positive attribute to himself. Then, he attempts to create negative emotions when he talks about Winston Churchill. He frequently used “we” to show that he is one the person among them.

In a nutshell, both speakers’ greatest skills lay in exploiting the emotions of their listeners to provoke them to action. The skills are important to be a great leader. 

pigs?? human?? who are we??

Many writers receive their inspiration on writing their literary works from the outside sources. The idea or theme for their story may come from family, personal experiences, history, latest issues, or even their own creativity. Many authors choose to write based on the historical events that happening around them. The inspiration to write on historical events might come from the personal or particular view point towards the event that they want to write on in their works. Most of the literary works by George Orwell touched on the forms of governments, especially democracy and dictatorship.

The story Animal Farm takes place on a farm in England. The short novel starts when the old pig in the farm, old Major, calls out all the animals in the farm for a secret meeting. He enlightens them with his dream of a revolution against the owner of the farm, Mr. Jones. Three days later the old Major dies but his inspiring final speech gives a new outlook on life for some of the more intelligent animals. The pigs take charge on the other animals as they are the intelligent ones in the farm.

Till this point of the story, all the animals treated equally.  They are living equal, as comrades. Here, Orwell showed the democracy that worked well among the animals in the farm. But it does not last for long, for Orwell knows that true socialism never last for very long. The power corrupts those who have it.

The theme of this story is good will can be a prey to selfishness, ambition and hypocrisy. In Animal Farm, the two main characters are the pigs, Snowball and Napoleon. They are the mastermind or the smartest that gathered all the animals in the farm and enlighten them to fight against the owner of the farm. Eventually the power was used in a different manner by abusing the power that they have. Gradually the pigs gain more power than the others and it leads them hard to resist the temptation. They did all the things that against Old Major’s wish by move into Jones house, drink alcohol and trade between other farms.

In Animal Farm, Orwell shows how propaganda and brainwashing works in a dictatorship government, by showing that the pigs make the other animals believe on whatever they saying. The pigs ate most of the apples and drink most of the milk, but they justify it convincing the other animals by telling that leadership is a heavy responsibility and the animals must thankful and allow them to eat more then them. Orwell presents that the control over the other animals mind make them believing, “Napoleon is always right”.

Communism and dictatorship had various flaws that might ruin the happiness and stability of the country. Communism ensures that all in an equal class and will get the same benefits. However, in reality everything was against the theory. The leaders fight for their place to be the supreme leader, people was not treated equally, and only selfishness is seen in the leadership. A communist government can change into a dictatorship that is full with lies, greed and selfishness.

Is she smiling?

The film Monalisa Smile is refreshingly contrasted to our relaxed manner of life. The film’s best intention is to present themes of feminine independence. It's an excellent message for young women that should be embraced.

Monalisa Smile stars Julia Roberts as Katherine Watson, a new teacher who has accepted a position to teach art history at Wellesley - the all women college in Massachusetts. Professor Watson is unprepared for her first day of class, as she faces a class of young women who exceed the course requirements. Watson stumbles on some decent lesson plans—she explains that paint-by-numbers is unoriginal—but she spends most of her time at Wellesley treating men like dirt, berating students for wanting to get married and being an emotionally wrecked busybody.

            In this movie, the women are brought up in a conservative manner. They were taught to be a good house wife rather be the working woman. Professor Watson changed the mind set of her students to be independence and against the actual thought of the society about the women.

Women must have the courage to fight for their rights and be independent. This is the message that delivered clearly in this movie. But, is Monalisa in the real painting smilling? Or is she a male or female? This is the million dollar question that even till now hasn’t got the answer. 

Do we need this kind of Principal?

Its snack hour.. Yes, it’s movie time once again. Lean On Me is a touching movie indeed. This movie is about a Principal(Morgan Freeman) makes changes to his school because the school is at risk of being taken over by the New Jersey state government unless students improve their test scores. Morgan was a teacher in that school but let it because different in idea between him and school authorities.

            The first “changes” he does was by chasing out all the “bad” boys from the school, especially who sells drugs and in gangs. The teachers have no control over the students. The teachers were beaten up by the students. The teachers scared of the students. If I am posted for this kind of schools, what should I do? This is what came to my mind when watching this movie. Would I quit or keep trying?

            Morgan portrays himself as a strict principal, whereby he sacked all the teachers who against his ideas. We may think that he is too arrogant and bossy type of principal but for an immediate change in that school he has to come up with this kind of rules. People must know who is in charge in that school.

            As a future teacher, what I want is that students respect me as a figure of trust just like the ending of the story. This movie showed me that being a teacher is not an easy job, but it is a heavy work to mold the students as there are many types of challenges. Principals need to ‘move’ the school higher each year so that the parents will trust the school and send their children to gain education. The future generation is out responsibility. 

DOWRY: A Detiriorated Custom

Dowry system is one of the popular issues among the Indian community.  The dowry system plays the most important role among the social evils that prevails and plagues Indian society. The dowry system was initiated with the intention of providing security for a girl in case of unexpected circumstances after marriage. The parents gave whatever they could for their daughter. After some period of time, the dowry system has grown into a greedy monster which deteriorated the custom. The dowry system is mistreated by others in the Indian community as in the short story, “Everything Arranged” and “Question of Dowry”. This both story shows how a girl’s life can be affected because of this dowry system.

                Firstly, in “Everything Arranged”, the dowry system is clearly treated in a wrong way. Devanayaki was stopped from studying at university once her parents thought she is in love with Chinese boy, Johny. But, the bridegroom’s family wants an educated girl in their family, so they promised the bridegroom’s family that she will be a undergraduate. Once they stopped her from university, they cover up the story by willing to pay extra 20,000 as the dowry. This shows that for her parents, Devanayaki is a saleable ‘thing’. Thins is extremely unacceptable in this era.

                Meanwhile, in “Question of Dowry”, Sivasothie is treated as a toy by her family and the bridegroom’s family. For the bride, the necklace is more important than Sivasothie. He just wanted the money and property rather than her. Until the end, they only bother about their own stuff’s but failed to consider Sivasothie’s feelings. They just wanted her to accept whatever decided by them.

                From both of the stories, we can clearly see that the dowry system is not treated fairly. The original custom is not followed but they deteriorated it. The awareness should begin from the schools and colleges in which the student community should be properly educated against the evils of dowry system. 

SAY NO TO ABORTION!!

Last week tutorial was fun. We had to come with a stand by comparing two short stories, The Marry Main and Great Injustice. My group consists of Gogi, Mohan, Saw, Zahri and myself. Our stand was abortion is not the way to help children out of wedlock. We compare the action of the protagonist of both stories Lakshmi and Ah Nya. In Great Injustice, Ah Nya aborts her baby because of the society pressure. At the end of the story, she mentions that society made her make that decision not her. While, Lakshmi in The Marry Maid, kept her new born baby at Johan’s house doorstep so that he can adopt the baby. Lakshmi is a person that will want to make others happy and wouldn’t want to snatch it away from them. It is being selfless. For example, Lakshmi being portrayed as the "Goddess of Wealth" in the hinduism. The wealth here is not only the money but also the care and love towards our own child.

In this both stories, we can clearly see that there are many ways to help children out of wedlock. Abortion is not the only way or only solution for it. They can hand over the babies to adoption centre around the country and now government even come out with a new programme , that is “Bank Bayi”. Many groups come out with their own stands. It was interesting. It was like a debate when all of us give us our own opinion towards the topic.

Next was the biggest heart attack for us. Miss Alicia assigned us the supervisors that we will be working with for our project paper. I was given Dr. Jaya whom I am very familiar with. I am very lucky to get him as my supervisor. On week six I need to meet him and discuss about my topic. Talking about topic, I don’t have any topic in my mind! This subject has no exams yet it has many assignments! At first I thought this course is to make us relax but I yet to see it.

Now we are in Chinese New Year mood. Happy holidays guys.. To my chinese friends Gong Xi Fa Cai.. May the year of the Rabbit brings prosperity to your homes.. =)

Bee?? Will it sting??

Scared of bees? No,  im not talking about bee but spelling bee. We watched first movie for this subject entitled “Akeelah and the Bee”. This is an inspirational movie.  Akeelah and the Bee is the story of Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer), a precocious eleven-year-old girl from south Los Angeles with a gift for words. Akeelah has the capability to spell many difficult words. Akeelah’s father has passed away and the mother is the only person who works to provide for the family. Akeelah has two brothers, one is a air force officer and amother one always give trouble for the family as he hates the white people.

The main message in this movie is where a will is there is a way. Determination is important to be success in anything that we wanted to do. Akeelah’s headmaster, Mr.Welch(Curtis Armstrong), forced her to sign up for the Crenshaw Schoolwide Spelling Bee and she wins it easily. Dr. Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), a professor, came to the school for a visit. there he saw Akeelah and her potential to reach the final stage of National Spelling Bee Competition. Akeelah is not interested in joining this competition because she is afraid she will be laughed at if she can’t spell it correctly. But, she decides to join the competition because of her determination and her father’s wish.

Dr.Larabee coached her and helped her to remember all the words. Sometimes, she feel hard to continue with his coaching and her determination was low. Dr. Larabee plans to give up coaching her because she reminds him too much of his deceased daughter Denise. Instead, he gave her five thousand flash cards and told her she will have thousands of coaches. At first, Akeelah’s mother object her from entering the competition but after a fine talk with her mother, she changed her mind and helped Akeelah in training new words. As Dr. Larabee told her, she had thousands of coaches, including her family members, classmates, friends, and neighbours. At the end, Akeelah won the competition wil her full determination.

As a teacher to be, this movie inspired me a lot. ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.’ This quote form the movie inspired me. It reflects our self to face any obstacles with full determination and achieve it successfully.

The Gingerbread Man (Tutorial 1)

            Children love to hear stories, especially bedtime stories. It was my favourite time where my dad will tell me many different stories, from Indian classical stories till world war stories. Most of the times I will be snoring before my dad end the story. When I was in primary school my teacher forced me to read English story books. This is how I learnt English and attracted to story books.

            My favourite story of all time is “The Gingerbread Man”... I was actually forced to read this story as I need to memorize it and compete in a story telling competition. I was 10 at that time. My English teacher, Madam Seetha gives me a tiny book (it was too big at that time for me) and asks me to read it. I manage to memorize it and performed well in the competition. I manage to get third place in that competition. From the day, this story becomes my most favourite story ever.

“The Gingerbread Man” is a classical English story. This classic story is about an old man and an old woman who make a gingerbread cookie in the shape of a man. The gingerbread man comes to life and runs out of the house yelling "Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." The old man, the old woman, a cow and a cat cannot catch him. He then meets a sly fox along the way and the fox convinces him to jump on his back so he can cross the river. The fox tells the gingerbread man to jump on his head so he does not get wet. The fox opens his mouth and eats the gingerbread man in one bite.

The reason why I choose this story is simple because it is funny!!! The illustration of the book was really interesting and eye catching. If the young readers could not manage to understand the story line is a particular page, they can look at the illustrations and easily guess the story. So, the illustration plays an important part in this funny story. There are also a short song, "Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man", repeated many time in the story. It is fun to sing along with all my friends in class and do actions like gingerbread man.

There are many characters portrayed in this story – the gingerbread man, old woman, old lady, a cow, a cat and a sly fox. The gingerbread man is the main character in this story and the sly fox can be said as the villain in this story.

This story is really suitable for young children as it is funny and they can learn many new words. There rhyming sentences also can make the kids to sing along with their friend and it was repeated again and again in the story. This can attract the kid’s attention to read it till the end. The message in this story is also another highlight that should be noted. We should not be boastful and proud of our self. Moreover, this story also develops imagination, and imaginative children almost always have the ability to relay the most boring situations in exciting ways.

The gingerbread man – fun alias funny!!!

Children's World

Recently, I have been asking myself, ‘What makes a good children’s story book?’ Quite simply, is it fun to read? Is the plot well constructed with a good beginning, middle and end? Are the characters engaging and realistic? My lecturer gave me a simple answer for it. He mentions that children’s story must be funny, engaging and slightly ‘naughty’ – which children love.

One of the good example of children story would be the story of “Edwina the Emu” by Sheena Knowles. This story is about a two emus – the female emu, Edwina and the male emu, Edward. In this story, the female emu went out of her nest for work to support her family and new ten emus that going to born from the eggs. Edwina went to find a suitable work for her, while her husband, Edward takes care of the eggs. First she become a ballerina, but was rejected due to her physical appearance as an emu. Then, she thought she can be chimney sweeper, but again she was rejected because she is an emu. Lastly, she tried to be waiter. There a customer said that he could eat ten eggs for his breakfast. At this time, Edwina realized that she best suits become a mother rather than work. She runs away to her nest and was relieved to see her ten eggs save and ready to hatch.

I think this story is suitable for young kids and adults as well. It contains the important elements such as hard work, independent, motivate and not forgetting, the love towards children. The illustration of the book is another attraction towards it. The colorful content will make the children to read the book more enthusiastically. The message from this story is beneficial as it reminding us the lesson that we gain in the past. Edwina is best suits as the mother and raise up her kids. The writer comes up with rhyming sentences to make it easier and simple to read.

Another story is The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldsonis. This story is about a smart mouse that uses his tricks to escape from other animals from eating him. The tiny mouse met a few animals such as fox, owl and snake when it was searching for food. He describe about Gruffalo to threaten the other animals from not eating him. But, at last he met with his imaginative creature at the end. To escape from the Gruffalo the mouse said everyone is the jungle afraid of him. Finally, the mouse escapes from the Gruffalo using its intelligence.

The story contains some attractive elements to gain children attention towards it. It shows how the mouse uses its imaginative skills to overcome the problems and survive in the jungle that full with many harmful animals. The mouse uses its intelligence to overcome the problems. Moreover, the illustrator has done a great job by giving colourful pictures for the children to refer.