Comment on the Viva Presentation

Viva presentation give me a new experience on how to standing in front of the crowd. Previously, I never feel very nervous to speak in front of my classmate, however during my Viva Presentation I feel scared enough and loss all my spirit to talk because I don’t have any idea what to say during the presentation. Nevertheless, thank to God because everything went smoothly even I Am not really prepared for that presentation. I would like to comment on Group 5 and Group 8 presentation. For Group 5, I think Zaidi managed to do his work perfectly as he can deliver his presentation without read the text just like what the others did and he give an example which I observe it is not come from the article but come from his own idea. But I just want to say that he should work on his voice projection as his voice not really clear and quite slow.

For Group 8, Mia was present her work successfully. As I can see she was very talented in giving speech because she has a good voice projector and good communication skills. She managed to attract my attention by giving an interesting example for his article which is about TV. From the example given, I notice Mia did follow the current issue especially about entertainment.

Islamophobia

At the first time hearing this words, in my mind I was think of Muslim who is phobia about being discriminated by other religion, and Mr Mark was prove it to me that I was going wrong about this. Hehee=) It does not related with the Muslim phobia at all, but it is about other religion who is going prejudice and fear of Muslims and Islam as they think that we, as a Muslim is a terrorist, extremist, and all the other bad reputation are belongs to Muslim. Once I heard for Mr. mark explanation, my mouth automatically pronounce Ah-Ha...Ooo..Then, I was in Ah-Ha moment because for me it is sound irrational why other religious should be afraid of Muslim. As I know and realized, we as a Muslim who is frequently being discriminated by other, and not the one who do it to other people. The term Islamophobia started to be used when the incident of 9/11 happen. This has give Americans especially, and other races has bad perception towards Muslim. I see this as unfair because , the Jews was so long discriminate our relatives which is Palestinian but they were never being labeled as terrorist, extremist, or secularist, but once the Muslim bombed the PWTC, people all over the world accused Muslim as the most ruthless people in the world. For this learning purpose, Mr. Mark was shows to us a video about Islamophobia which talks about the Ground Zero Mosque. We can hear much perspective from the Jews, and Christian about the mosque. Some of their opinion sounds rational and some are quite funny for me. What I had observe from the video is Muslim seems don’t have place and freedom to practices our religion like the other religious do which is totally unfair. They kept using the incident of 9/11 as the reason why the Muslim should be treat badly by other religious.

Euphemistic Language

Euphemistic language is less offensive a word which is not too directed, harsh, unpleasant, and offensive used in daily conversation to avoid other people get offended by us. There are many opinions about euphemistic language from different people.

1.

Noam Chomsky stated that euphemistic language words have negative and positive connotation, some words are for formal content while some are for informal content. He also said the words is changed but the meaning may still stay the same so there is no meaning to use euphemistic language. Noam Chomsky believes that in today’s uncertain world you cannot reveal too much or yourself or they will crucify you.

.

Michel Foucalt have different perspective from Noam Chomsky, he said that euphemistic language is honest and direct language. There are is no such thing as positive and negative words. He believe that the appropriateness is depends on the content.

These two people have different perspectives towards euphemistic language. For me, euphemistic language can be good to used as it is sound more polite and not offended others. In my opinion, Malay has applying euphemistic language since long time ago. As I notice, Malay race used to talk politely and avoid saying their opinion out loud in public. But, sometimes it is no good because when we talk at the back it might affected our relationship with others if they heard we talk bad about them. So, just remind ourselves to watch our words before say something or we might offended others and perhaps put ourselves in trouble. However, there are many interesting words from used as euphemistic language which for it is rational to use although it is sound funny. There are some examples of euphemistic language that I have learned from Critical Literacy class and also from George Carlin Show:

1. Negative cash flow position= no money

2. Johns/washroom/ladies room= toilet

3. Appearance disorder= ugly

4. Arguing sperm= rape victim

5. Flight deck=cockpit

6. Lady in the evening= transvestite

7. Personal belonging= stuff which you take along with

8. Low cost housing=cemetery

9. Wrongdoers=criminal

10. Chubby/Obesiti/Overweight=fat

This is my own syllogism for circumstances of Julius Caesar death:

According to Brutus, an honourable man

Caesar was ambitious

Ambitious man would love to be a King

Caesar refuses it thrice

Thus, Caesar was not ambitious

Therefore Brutus is an honourable man

Language Perspective and Ideology

Learning about these things is just about using the skills that I have learnt in thematic words and phrases, elementary process, and also discourse analysis because it is repeating the same thing which are about the perspective, ideology, and thematic words. For this class Mr. Mark was bring to us some opinion from Barack Obama, Nietzsche, and some other famous name which is talk about the Ground Zero Mosque. Like I said before, it is the same thing which we have to look at the person perspective to know his or her ideology towards something and again it is important for us to be knowledgeable and to have skill in order to reveal others opinion. To be skillfully in this particular field, it is crucial for us to read a lot to gain more knowledge about every single thing that has happen in this world.

Discourse Analysis

Whenever you look into a language of the particular article by look at the point of view and ideology, it is called discourse analysis. To learn about discourse analysis, my respected lecture, Mr. Mark was given us an essay title “So Long Old Friend!” which he write it on his own. This essay is about smoking habit and cigarettes. From this article there are also some of euphemistic language used like Pak Mansor (Prime Minister), mischievious (naughty), johns (toilet), blue capos (prefect), euphoria (weird) and many more. Frankly speaking, I never thought that the essay was written by a student’s age of nineteen if I was not mistaken. That was so incredible because the essay look like it was written by professional author. I am so impressive by his works. Credit to my lecture=) For learning this kind of process, we need to have a table to divide the article to the thematic words and phrases, point of view, and ideology which is will help us to analysis the article easily. From Mr. Mark’s essay, we have tried to do discourse analysis and below is the result:

Thematic Words & Phrases	Point of View	Ideology
~“Stay the hell away” ~Long lecture ~Rascals ~Mischievious	~Concerned parents about the dangers of smoking towards their children	~ Smoking is a dangerous habit. ~Smoking can influence people especially the youth to negative actions.
~Boys will be boys ~Bad guy ~Tender age ~Machismo ~Flocking around ~Wise guy ~James dean ~Steve Mcqueen	~Immature teenager ~ Impressionable youth	~Smoking is an exciting way to gain social acceptance from peers and the opposite sex.

“SILLOGISTIC READING”

Silly reading, syllogistic reading, or syllogism is all about the same thing. At the first time heard Mr .Mark pronounce about Silly Reading, I thought it is about reading could make me become stupid or silly, at last I realize that I am totally wrong=) It is actually shows the connection between the premises which are related to each other at the conclusion. It is just like a mathematics formula. Many ways can be used to get the same answer. Same goes to syllogism which requires people to use their logic sense to think of the real meaning at the concluding. Syllogistic reading helps us to voice out our opinion without telling it in obvious way. For instance, Marc Anthony used syllogism method to defend Julies Caesar death in his speech without condemning Marcus Brutus obviously because during that century, the Roman citizen did agree with Marcus even the man was killed his own God Father. However, because of the syllogism Marc Anthony was successful to open the Roman citizen eyes until they realized about the real thing of Julius Caesar death. From my point of view, Antony’s speech is very interesting and he was successful to attract my attention

towards Julies Caesar story and the moment after we learn about his story, the whole class kept using the words like O Judgement, Ettu Brute and many more. We really enjoy learning about Julius Caesar death=)

Elementary Process

Elementary process is the process where we have to take others person perspective into the consideration in order to avoid bias about the person opinion. To consider others perspective we should have our own premises towards the thing that is related with the person opinion, so that we do have our own opinion and not just rely on the same premises which show that we have knowledge about the thing. If we cannot find any premises related with the opinion, therefore, what the person said might be true or perhaps we do not have enough knowledge about the things. Nowadays, it is important for us not to believe others opinion or talks without take it into consideration first because today worlds are full with rumors and liars. Especially the news from TV, newspaper, internet, or magazine because the reporters are skillfully enough to manipulate public people minds only from the piece of their report. Bear in mind, we are product of the environment but remember we have freedom to choose as we have mind to think. Live is about choice. Think first before you decide something.

“Thematic Words and Phrases”

Thematic words and phrases are part of discourse analysis process. From the words used by the speakers, or writers, we can expect what is the writer’s perspective and ideology. In the previous CL class, I had learned many things regarding thematic words and process. I have observed about perspective Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucalt,, Adolf Hitler, Dr Mahathir and many more. Thematic words and phrases require us to learn and understand about particular person perspective. The words and language used by a person shows that who he or she really are. For instance, Karl Marx who is revolutionary and social scientist state that “The bourgeoisie owns the means of production, such as factories and machinery; and that while attempting to maximize profit; the bourgeoisie exploits workers, who must exchange their labor for subsistence wages.” This is a point of view from unconcern social theorist about lower class people. We assume that his ideology towards social stratification is inequality and oppression as inherent in capitalism. This is based from my own understanding about thematic words and phrases. There are many other languages used to show someone identity whether a person is a ruthless person, responsible, concern, greedy and many more. It is depends on how we reveal the thematic words and language used by someone’s into the perspective and ideology.

Film Review (Animal Farm By George Orwell)

This movie is about the animal rebellion in order to fell free from become human slavery. In this story the animal life are so misery as it has to do many work during the day and did not get enough food and always feel hungry. The most interesting part of this story is that the animal can talking and communicate with each others just like human beings. Pig such as Napoleon, Squealers, Snowball, and Old Major were play an important roles in this story. Their leadership was help the other animal a lots to fight human and live freely at the farm without any human. But the happy time did not last forever because Napoleon has break the rules which they has agreed on. At last, the animal have to become human slavery once again and stay hungry like previous time. This story is actually symbolize the human corrupt leadership which always happen in a political world in many countries. It is all about the politics and power. When people has got power in politics, sometimes they can turn to evil and even discriminate their own races, people, and family. This movie also gives an idea that human may become blind because of money. They will kill each other and do many other bad thing just because of money. It is important to remember that to have a blissful country every members need to co-operate within each other and cannot stabbed others back. As for the politicians they have to remember that they hold a big responsibility to lead the country not to destroy it.

Comment on the 1st Assignment

After finish learning about the rules of 10 and having much better understanding about the perspective and positioning which for me are the most difficult part, our fabulous lecturer Mr. Mark was assigned us to do the first assignment. The assignment includes of 4 different article from different writers. By doing this assignment, I manage to explore many interesting thing which I do not even know before. Starting from the first assignment also, I slowly can see the world from many different perspectives rather than just being sceptical towards something.

• The Jews and their Deceits by Adolf Hitler

This is the first article of the first assignment. Frankly speaking, this article was drives me crazy. Even this article is the first page, I prefer to read it last because at the first time scanning and scheming the content I really don't have any idea what the article is all about. Yes, I know it talked about the bad side of Jewish people, but still don't have clear idea about it. After I kept read it a few times, actually more than 20, I have a clear picture

about the author idea. Nevertheless, when it comes to choose which side should I agree with, my head going dizzy once again as I know both of them are evil.

At last, I prefer to choose to disagree with Adolf which means I supporting the Jews. After watching the documentary about the Jews people I think they is more nice than Adolf. This

article teaches me that sometimes people doing something bad or try to become deviance because they have no choices. Meaning that they have to do it in order to survive. For us who did'nt in their shoes, we cant' assume that a person who did a bad thing is a bad person as they might have a good reason why they behaved so. For instance, the Jews they become evil because they are so desperate to have a motherland and live freely in the world like other races in the world. For Adolf Hitler, it is easy for him to manipulate others mind by condemning and destroy other races as he got a huge power to make sure he will always win no matter in what situation. Hence, it is not easy to fight with an evil person who got power and everything in his life.

• The Influence of heredity on the Malay Race by Mahathir Mohamed

This is my favorite article and perhaps the writers too. I think this is the most critical article for me to decide weather to agree with or not with the writers opinion. Because if I do agree with Dr. Mahathir, it means that I condemning my own races but if not I am not applying the rules of 10 which thought me to be fair in judging something or someone by looking at both (-) and (+) effects. So that, I choose to agree with the writers. Why? Because for me all the writer"s statement about Malay race is almost true because me myself as Malays experience it. It is normal when we can't accept people criticizing us although the things is true. However, criticizing actually help us become better. Even we feel mad when people talk bad about ourself, but we will slowly change the bad behavior as we don't want many more people will hates us. I remember what my Ustaz told me during my schooldays, he said that we should thank to our enemy because they has helped us a lot to change by telling us the truth about ourselves.=)

• The Value of Television by Paul Robinson

I totally agree with the author as for me TV did'nt give any benefits for audience. Me,myself rarely watching TV. In a week I just spent about 2 hours for watching TV. I only spent my time to watch Spongebob cartoon and sometimes Berita Utama TV3. That is. For me watching TV is just wasting my time and only help to increase my glasses power. Even there are an educational program like Academi Al-Quran, Jejak Rasul, and many others for me TV cant help to educate people because the educational program only shown less hours compared to non educational program. PLus, the audience for the values program just an adult. Teenagers specially did'nt really interested with such a program. From my P.O.V, most of the Malaysia TV program don't really educate the audience as many of the program are ineffective for example Malay Drama and Malay evening cartoon Slots at TV9. For me, reading a book are much better tham watching TV.

• What Steve Jobs really means to say...by Kumi Naidoo

At the earliest of CL class, we do learn about the Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford. The speech really help me to gain my spirit to success in my future time like Steve Jobs even I am Just studying at the common college like KPM. However, after read Kumi Naidoo argumentative article about Steve Jobs , suddenly I realize that yes, sometimes people may used his past experienced to sell something like Steve Jobs. I am not suppose to supporting him as it will give him many benefits especially in terms of business profit and the profits did'nt helping Muslims at all. In addition, Steve Jobs is non Muslims, so why should I make him as my idol to success in life. I should proud of Muhammad (May God bless upon The Messenger) because he also come from poor family and has go through many obstacle to spread the da'wa.

The Myth of the Cave

The Allegory of the cave, The Myth of the Cave, Metaphore of the Cave, The cave analogy, Plato’s Cave, or the Parable of the Cave is a parable written by Plato which explains about the world as a human is like a dark cave. He used metaphore and analogy to relates human life with other things like fire and light. For instance, human will sit around the fire, staring into the light. The human cannot see one another, don’t know the nature of reality, or the heavens with any great of understanding in such a dark and cloistered environment. In addition, Plato also point out that any individual who dwells in real life can have some feeling to use the metaphore by separating the gesture of goodness in the name of physical action alone from actual. It means that, gesture of either selfless love that does not demand a reward or enact a real or physical result in the world than simply obey a social code. This metaphore is a positive and active approach for human philosophy because it is suggest that a complete form of understanding is possible despite the pain it may cause. From this thing, I have discovered about using a parable to deliver a story and represent it by using a symbol which is related with it. I tried to use Plato’s parable to deliver a story about Palestinian war with Israel which I have found out some symbols that can represent the Palestinian, their spirits, and the soul.

Fire: Palestinian spirit to survive in their live and win the war.

An Old Man: The people who are fight for Palestine right.

The prisoners: The Palestinian

The puppets: Palestine Prime Minister (Salam Fayyad)

Documentaries about the Jewish people

The Reasons Why I Hates Jewish People

Perspective 1:

• The Jewish people had killed millions of Palestinians Muslim.

Positioning 1:

• However, their motives is want to regain their motherland from Palestinians.

Perspective 2:

• Jewish people think that they are the chosen person.

Positioning 2:

• In spite of all the challengers that they have face before, they still manage to control the worlds affairs.

Perspective 3:

• They blame to Muslim for their mistake.

Positioning 3:

• The Jewish people need to shift worlds attention from their community to Muslim community.
• The Jewish people blame all their mistake on the Muslim in order to change the negative perception towards them.

Perspective 4:

• Jewish people were very proud of themselves as Jewish and they think that they do not need to listen for others opinion.

Positioning 4:

• The Jewish do not have to listen to the world opinion because they believe that God has promise them Jerusalem as their homes.

Perspective 5:

• The jewish people are only good in financial matters.

Positioning 5:

• In order to defend themselves from racism in a particular country, they have use financial knowledge as a way to defend themselves from being discriminate.

Conclusion: In my opinion, the war between Muslim especially among Palestinians and the Jewish people will not end forever because Jewish people do have vast power to control the world. Besides that, they also got support from a big name country such as United States.

A Brief about Steve Jobs

Topic : Love and Loss

Outcome :

• Love whatever you do because it might be the successful moment in your life.

Preposition 1:

• Steve Jobs starts produce Macintosh when he was 20 years old in his parents garage. Starting from that moment he manage to build computer company which is known as Apple Inc.

Premise 1:

• Steve hired someone who is very talented person to run the company together, but then he got fired because the Board of director sided with the talented.

Sub Argument 1:

• Steve was devastating after being fired from his own company because his effort during his entire adult life was gone.

• Steve do apologize to Bob Noyce and David Packard because he had screwing up their company.

Preposition 2:

• Because of his loves towards the thing he did before, Steve started doing thing back from zero where he enter the most creative moment of his life.

Premise 2:

• After five years put an effort on doing thing back, Steve managed to create new company known as PIXAR and NeXT.

Sub Argument 2:

• PIXAR went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story.
• Apple was bought NeXT and Steve become the CEO of Apple company again.

Preposition 3:

• Find what you love to do in your life and and then do love it because it will drive you to become successful person in the future.

Premise 3:

• Become true for work as it is for your lovers.

Sub Argument 3:

• Work is going to be a large part of our life.
• The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.

The Rules of 10

1. Topic
2. Content
3. Source
4. Audience
5. Rhetorical Function
6. Purpose
7. Perspective
8. Positioning
9. Impact
10. Visual

This is my own mnemonic to remember The Rules of 10:

1. Tok (Topic)
2. Chot (Content)
3. Suke (Source)
4. Anak (Audience)
5. Rambut (Rhetorical Fuction)
6. Pusing (Purpose)
7. Pusing (Perspective)
8. Pastu (Positioning)
9. Itam (Impact)
10. Version (Visual)

A piece of writing example by using Rules of 10:

1. Topic:

~Superstition is the best way to teach young generation to be well behave.

2. Content:

~It is believe that a maiden who sings at the kitchen while cooking will soon get married with an

old man.

3. Source:

~A consensus accepted by all mothers everywhere

~The elders from Peninsular Malaysia

~Legend story

4. Audience:

~Society at large

~Parents

~Mother

~Maiden

5. Rhetorical Function:

~Warning

6. Purpose:

~The purpose of this belief is to warn society at large, parents, mother, and maiden from

behaving badly.

7. Perspective:

~Superstition can make the individual in a society afraid in embracing change.

8. Positioning:

~Nevertheless, superstition helps the individual in a society to focus more in their work in the

name of progress.

9. Impact:

~ Society at large will concentrate more on their work progress.

~ Helps parents to control their children behavior.

~ Helps the mother to teach young children to well behave and create a good attitude in their

self.

~ Maiden will not harm themselves during cooking at the kitchen.

WHAT IS SUPERSTITIONS??

Most of the culture, races, and people in the world do believe in superstitious. Some of them rely on superstitious to go through their daily life. What is superstitious means? From my point of view, superstitious can be defined as folktale story or myth which have been trusted and applied since an ancient time until today. It is not a facts. it is just a fake beliefs. It can be someone's declaration and then being applied because the declaration towards something is really happen at that time.

For instance, in Malay culture girls are forbidden to sing while they are cooking or doing something at the kitchen because soon they will married with an old man. This is one of the superstitions example. In my opinion, this superstitions cannot be trusted at all. Perhaps, during past time there was a girl who like to sing while she cooking and then she really get married with an old man. Maybe it is just a twist of fate, but people believe in it because they might be afraid that the things will happen in their life soon. So that, they make it as a norms in their life.

Definitely,as a Muslim we cannot believe in superstitions because it is clearly against our religion. In addition, we need to trust in God and not anything else. Every single thing that happened in our life is in the God hands. Only him knows why is it something happen. By the way, I do believe there is must be a reason why some of us nowadays still believe in superstitious and still applied it even we are in the present century. But, it is absolutely not because of the fake reason as stated above. Maybe girl are prohibited to sing during cooking because afraid of the food will getting destroy by fire. Who knows??

Examples of Superstitious

APPLE

Think of five or six names of boys or girls you might marry, as you twist the stem of an apple, recite the names until the stem comes off. You will marry the person whose name you were saying when the stem fell off.

AN APPLE A DAY

Keeps the doctor away. If you cut an apple in half and count how many seeds are inside, you will also know how many children you will have.

BABY

To predict the sex of a baby: Suspend a wedding band held by a piece of thread over the palm of the pregnant girl. If the ring swings in an oval or circular motion the baby will be a girl. If the ring swings in a straight line the baby will be a boy.

BASEBALL BAT

Spit on a new bat before using it for the first time to make it lucky.

BED

It's bad luck to put a hat on a bed. If you make a bedspread, or a quilt, be sure to finish it or marriage will never come to you placing a bed facing north and south brings misfortune. You must get out of bed on the same side that you get in or you will have bad luck. When making the bed, don't interrupt your work, or you will spend a restless night in it.

BEE

If a bee enters your home, it's a sign that you will soon have a visitor. If you kill the bee, you will have bad luck, or the visitor will be unpleasant. A swarm of bees settling on a roof is an omen that the house will burn down.

References:

http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/scary.html

Socrates

Have you ever read or heard about Socrates? Do you know who is this man? Socrates is a Classical Greek philosopher or also known as western philosopher. He was a small and ugly man with a big nose. But, he do proud of his nose because he said that having a big nose help him to breathe more than others does. During his time, Socrates was not accepted by his society. He was label as an evil, foolish, and also a dangerous men because he was bringing a new thought to his society. Socrates also teaching the young man of Athens about the spiritual concepts and believe in strange divine being. It is right concept but cannot be accepted at that time, so he was label as crazy old man that might harm the society.

However, the truth is Socrates is actually a very clever person. He has an intelligent and creative brain. He is a critical thinker person. Socrates can reveal something that the society during that time cannot see or thought. In addition, because of him many Athens teenagers or so called his listeners become intelligence man. For example, Plato and Xenophon.

Most of the Socrates concepts such as Socratic irony and the Socratic Method, or elenchus are universally being used in series of discussion in western country. Socrates also contributed into epistemology and logic fields. In addition, Socrates ideas are being used to provide basis in a number of western philosophy. However, Socrates has put to death in a very pathetic way. He was asked to drink a poison as a punishment for him for bringing wrong believe in his society.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates
http://cummingsstudyguides.net/Socrates.html