Start of term 08-09

A new semester started for me yesterday. I’m now officially a year four student, in my Honours year. The three classes I have attended so far have been interesting. Before I go on, here is a list of the modules I am doing this semester:

1. EL4200 Research Workshop
2. EL3252 Language Planning and Policy
3. EL4205 Discourse of Argumentation
4. EL4254 Language, Ideology and Power
5. GEK1500 Inside Your Personal Computer

Today I admitted in class, to my professors and 8 other fellow honours student that I must be somewhat masochistic to want to take Research Workshop. It all started because the professor said that there’s been some rumour going about in the department that this module is harder than hard, so unless we’re all masochists, there must be other reasons to why we are taking the class. But the truth is, I am taking this module because people say it’s hard. I’m probably the sort of character that can’t turn down a challenge of this sort. I think it is large due to my enlarged ego, that if I escape from this class unscathed, I must be smarter than those who claim that it was difficult, right? (Then again, only a crazy person like me will think in such a profoundly convoluted manner.)

Anyway, having attended the first lecture of GEK1500, I think it’s a much easier course than GEK1511 (Introduction to IT). It barely skims what a computer is made up of, at least from what I gathered from the course introduction. Better for me then, I suppose.

Many of my fellow honours students are already decided whether they will be writing a thesis or ISM (shorter version of a thesis). I am just about to climb the fence to sit on it. Truth be told, I don’t have a topic. The only one I marginally have belongs to the Chinese linguistics department. Hurrah. Even though I’m sure ONE of the professors in EL will be interested to guide me in the topic, I’m not sure the department will approve. Maybe I’ll just try my luck then. That is IF I am intending to write anything at all. I can’t think of one good reason to write a thesis or ISM, besides what a classmate said about having your thesis placed in the library and hence have your name in the library database. I’m not sure why so many of them are keen to write a thesis, especially when most of them are not going to pursue graduate courses, or even going to work in a related industry. So is it really that having-something-to-your-name thing? Oh, maybe I forgot something important - they are all trying for First Class! Ok, I have to say this here, I’m not mocking anyone, just being curious at how people make decisions.

So, yeah, 2 days into the new term and I am vexed over such matters. Sheesh.

More (sober) thoughts

I admit this; the field report draft was typed as the competition proceeded, so it was coherent. By the time i got home yesterday, I haven’t slept for 36 hours, and so was incapable of coherent thought, and so did not blog more in detail of what else had transpired at the competition.

Let me start by mentioning that the Game Master was none other than Dr. Robin Loon. So what happened was that M (as mentioned previously) and I were walking to get more tea, Dr. Seet met us and called us over to talk to him. He actually remembered my name, down to my surname. (I guess, then, the Happy Teachers’ Day and Happy Chinese New Year cards have not gone to waste.) So he asked me what I was doing, and upon knowing I’m going onto Year 4 in EL, he mentioned that he never sees me in the department. Like … I’m supposed to hang out in the department doing … ?

Anyway then Dr. Loon came over and he introduced us to Dr. Loon and the first thing Dr. Loon asked me was, “why not major [in Theatre Studies]?” I said I don’t know. Frankly speaking, I know quite very well why I didn’t. I hate group projects enough already, let alone having to put up a full-scale final year stage production. I might not have mentioned this, but I did get A- for my level 1 theatre module. My best grade that semester. I did struggle a bit deciding between English and Theatre. I liked both, but somehow English won me over. I decided to do English despite getting a B for my level 1, taking that step into the unknown. So looking at my grades now, I’d have to think I’m pretty lucky.

Then Dr. Loon asked me to take Dr. Seet’s other modules because it’s all fun. I took a couple, Theatre level 1 and that module about Singapore English Language Theatre. And then they said there’s still Marketing Theatre and the Arts. I promptly asked if there was group project, because that is just one thing that stops me from doing modules (except schedule clashes, of course.) He said there is, and I said I hate them.

But the bottomline of me recounting this is that I am very delighted and happy that they are such nice people. I don’t know, I’ve always felt that they are quite distant from students because they are too smart. You know, there are certain professors out that who cannot get close to students because not only that they are on a different wavelength, they are just so smart they have no choice but to treat us like babies when trying to teach us? Yes, that feeling. So now I know I can say Hi to two more lecturers when I hang out in the department. Maybe that’s one incentive for me to even want to step into the EL honours room.

Commencement

(Firstly, why is graduation called commencement? To mark the start of working life? Or LIFE in general, since some of us have no life while in college?)

Anyway, some of my peers in my faculty graduated today. Mortar board, gown, the whole shebang. Somehow, I’ve heard two people connecting the graduation gown to Harry Potter. See how pop culture is infiltrating surreptitiously into our lives.

If all things go well, this time next year it’d be me onstage. It’s quite surreal how four years of hard(ish) work culminates to only that 15 seconds it takes to walk across the stage, and that piece of paper rolled up in a scroll. A stray thought, but I just realized you get more money’s worth if your name is longer - they take longer to read out your name, and hence you have a greater presence. But I guess that doesn’t matter. Graduation is ritualistic, a ceremony to mark a certain official point in time where you stop being an undergraduate, and become a graduate.

Now, where does these all go from here then? Some whom I know have already started working, some are taking courses to improve themselves… what would I do one year from now? No one knows. I talk about doing my Masters, but who knows, I might have other plans when time comes. I guess I’m always caught in a dilemma of having a long-term plan, yet remaining spontaneous. I don’t know, I guess there’s nothing too bad in taking one step at a time. Except that, perhaps, this society prefers people to be go-getters, and to make long-term plans like as though they are certain of the future being unchanging.

Exam Results (Sem 2 07/08)

Didn’t exactly escape the exams unscathed, but I guess I’ll have to bite the bullet and get over it.

CL2102 Chinese Phonetics - A
EL3251 Language Society and Identity - A-
EL3880a Semantics in Generative Grammar - B
EL3206 Psycholinguistics - B+
EL4204 Pragmatics - A
GEK1036 Cross Cultural Communication - B+

CAP: 4.23

On average I did a LITTLE better than last semester (discounting the effects of S/U), so my CAP rose by 0.01. Yet this also means I will not be able to get a First Class Honours. It is technically and logically impossible, not even if I get straight As for the next two semester. Well, sod it. I’m happy with 2nd Upper.

Anyway, I am severely under-performing for my core modules, with a B in Generative Grammar and B+ for Psycholinguistics. Well, I guess for Psycholinguistics it’s because the class is too big (i.e. curve), and we did badly for our project, so there. For Generative Grammar, let’s just say since everyone performs superbly for the weekly CA (since it’s based on assignments that are open to mutual copying), and since I only spent 1 hour or so revising for the paper the day before exams, I deserve it. Given my love-hate relationship with Cross Cultural Communication, this B+ is neither mediocre or satisfactory.

What is interesting is that I got A for Chinese Phonetics. The exam which I finished in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Also, I can’t fathom how I can score A for Chinese Phonetics and only B+ for English Phonetics.  I guess it’s more of a case of practice makes perfect. I didn’t expect the A- for LSI either; I thought I would get at most a B+, seeing how I had abysmal midterm results. I gather it was the group project that pulled my marks up, and possibly the final exam. For Pragmatics, well, I guess there’s not too much to comment considering it’s an Honours module and there isn’t any curves plotted, and I did get 24/30 for my term essay, and 17/20 for a mid-term test.

Oh well. But anyway, I get to buy my shoes, and that’s good news.

For the love of shoes

I am a fervent believer and advocate of retail therapy. There’s nothing better in life, that you can do in public, that gives that rush of spending money on something pretty.

I’ve always been in love with shoes, especially pumps and heels. They say the clothe maketh the Man. I’d say, both the clothe and the footwear. For me, there is a symbiotic relationship between clothes and shoes. We need pretty clothes to go with our pretty shoes, and we need pretty shoes to go with our pretty clothes. It’s a need, not a want. Such complementary relations are motivated by aesthetics, not irrational shoppers’ decision.

Anyway, I’m getting my exam results tomorrow and I just really need therapy to tide me over. Last semester I bought myself a pair of shoes because I promised myself I’d buy myself something if I actually got B+ or better for a certain module. This semester, I’m going to buy myself a pair of shoes if

(1) I get 2 As or more
(2) I get B+ or better for LSI
(3) I wind up with shitty results

Ah-ha. So I’ll end up buying a pair of shoes no matter if my results are good or bad. It’s going to be either a reward for myself, or something to cheer me up. And I do sound like I already know which pair I want, right? Perhaps. If budget allows, I would like one of the following:

#1 Guess by Marciano Carrie8 in Black Poppy. (Photo taken from Zappos.com)

#2 Aldo Prishtine in Orange (photo taken from Aldoshoes.com)

#3 Nine West Medillin in Tribe Natural (photo taken from Zappos.com)

Pretty heels that I can’t wear to go shopping (unless they are so good as to not cause blisters. Which is impossible.) But pretty heels nonetheless that tug on my heart strings. Especially the Guess pair; each time I pass by the Guess store they’re practically going down on their knees begging me to buy them. And did I mention it comes with a matching bag?

Almost over

My exams are almost over. I am left with only 1 last paper on Wednesday; Semantics in Generative Grammar. The “lightest” exam I have taken, for it accounts for only 20% of the final grades. Which explains why I haven’t revised it AT ALL, and am still watching Bones off Tudou (well, to be exact, I *listen* to Bones, and play Cooking Mama on my NDS Lite at the same time; this is called multi-tasking, an extremely important skill to be acquired if you wish to be a seasoned procrastinator.) Anyway, I still have 30 hours before the paper (it’s at 5 fricking PM) to draw up a cheat sheet, and plus revise say, 6 chapters worth of Chomskyean grammar. Oh well.

Anyway, I bought a box of DIY hair dye today! Sure, I said I want back to black after the exams, but I couldn’t resist and got myself a box in “Deep Purple”. It looks iffy, will probably turn out iffy, but I don’t care. It’s one of those things you should do at least once in your life - dye your hair pink or purple (or both, but I can’t find DIY pink dye, so I’ll make do with purple). (Another thing everyone should attempt to do in their life is to turn up early, for ANYTHING. I reckon for many people I know, that is harder than dyeing their hair purple.) I should dye my hair tomorrow just for the fun of it. If it turns out bad, I will simply cut my hair and get the professionals to turn in back to black or something. We’ll see.

And so, another semester gone. Next semester, I’ll be a Year 4 senior. Sounds terribly terribly old and uncool. Someone asked if I will be writing a thesis, and still my answer is, “I don’t know.” There’s a few ideas floating in my head, but nothing concrete. Oh well, we’ll take a step at a time. Maybe I’d do so badly for exams this semester I won’t be allowed to write a thesis.

1 down, 4 more to go

So I finished my pragmatics paper today.
I guess we’d all agree that the exam should be 3 hours, not 2. We hardly have time to finish writing, so what sort of quality answers can be expected anyway?

Anyway, it’s over, so into the cupboard goes the 2 inches of notes. Whee~
And 4 more papers spread over the remain of this week, and till Wednesday next week.

And something non-exam related; I received my first birthday present today before I left for my exam! A small little package from Sulz. I will blog a detail post tomorrow (read: with pictures). Yay thanks!!!

You can put 4 inches into me any day now

4 inches of … readings of course. (Whatever were you thinking? *wink*)

I have to devour these 4 inches. Unlike the other time when I had to do 5 inches, I certainly have to read these cover to cover. Well, at least some 2 inches of it are open book. I can just imagine the invigilator’s looks when we start lugging in 2 kgs worth of notes into the exam hall.

Exams start (for me) 29th April to 7th May, and yes, a very nice birthday present for me at 9am on the 3rd of May. Should be fun I guess. Let’s hope there’s such a thing called birthday luck.

And by the way, I’ll be working for a professor from 15th May. So that leaves me 7 days of post-exam partying. Woot.

In English, please.

That day I was in Semantics in Generative Grammar tutorial, and one group was presenting their answers to the class, and a girl blurted out, “sorry, I can’t read this in English.” Which was quite funny considering we were analyzing an English sentence. However that comment made me feel like Charles Eppes from Numb3rs, how the FBI will always asking to explain himself in plain English. If you knew what Semantics in GG is all about, I guess you’d feel the same way too. It’s tough and incomprehensible to laymen, which makes me feel a sense of achievement.

And during sociolinguistics class I was momentarily stumped when people started talking about Kress and Van-something, from Critical Discourse Analysis. Which I didn’t take, and neither have I taken Cinematic Discourse. So I couldn’t understand what they were trying to do with those theories (which don’t make a lot of sense to me) and I asked my friend, what have I been doing in linguistics for the past 3 years? It seemed that most of the class knew what was going on apart from me. So I really wonder what I’ve spent my time on for the past 3 years in college. It felt like I was missing out on something. But then again, it’s not like I’m interested in that side of sociolinguistics - to try to make sense of things based on an arbitrary framework that fails half the time. It feels too much like literature to me; trying to find intention from pieces which may not even encode that kind of intention in the first place, and reading them in ways that the theory and framework dictates. It just isn’t in me to do such things I guess. Maybe I just like to stay at the word and sentential level of things - morphology, syntax, semantics, and even phonology. Or maybe I just don’t like to study human behaviour that much. (That’s why I’m not in sociology.)

Week 8 is the calm before the storm

For most EL majors, I suppose.

Most of us year 3s have this vacuum in week 8 with nothing going on, for most mid-term exams are over in week 7 (this week), and week 9 is obviously hell week for most of us with projects due and presentations and random pieces of work to be handed up.  So yeah, week 8 is the calm before the storm, where we can still play dumb and be in denial (a bit bit). Where I actually can pull out some time to go catch a movie with my friends, before I start slogging for my projects and term papers and whatnots.

Woe to be us.