:::movies+coursemates=happy...!!:::

I love this subject especially the part when we have our movie watching session..hehehehe..during the tutorial class with Miss Amelia and Miss Alicia, we have watched so many great and interesting movies and all the movies were related to our future career. The movies are

**Mona Lisa Smile**
**Ron Clark Story**
**Lean On Me**
**Finding Forrester**
**Chalk**
**Akeelah and The Bee**
**Precious**

All those movies are related with the experienced of the real life teachers and by watching these movies, i can say that i've got so many inspirations in order to become a great teacher for my students. Al these movies make me think, what kind of teacher that i'm going to be..and also they provide some moral values and messages. I've learnt that as a teacher, we have to deeply know our students and not judging them easily.

As a conclusion, i love all those movies and if I had a chance, without no doubt, i'll watch them again. =)... Very good movies and thanks to my lecturer and tutor for your effort.

::: Idea....Topic...Idea :::

Fuuuhhh..~~ i really don't know what to do right now.. I still can't think any topics for my position paper...oh God..please help me..=( I still don't know which story that i will work on..either 'A Great Injustice' or 'The Merry Maid'...but yess..!! i have to find a very interesting topic for this position paper. Time is running out for me now but still, i have to stay calm and manage my time wisely. I know I can do this task and find the suitable topic immediately. I know that I will survive....!! =)

By the way, congrats to some of my friends who managed to come out with very interesting topic for their position paper. Good luck and do your best.

::: Surprised..!! He's here :::

Mr. Vahid is in the house...!! hehehehe..
all of my classmates seem very excited when Mr.Vahid came to our 1hour class. and i think i know what is the exact why they are all look very excited and surprised. It's because we haven't see Mr.Vahid for a quite long time but today, he's here with 2 boxes of KFC and drinks. Whoaaa..!! what's that supposed to be? a party? 'Open house'? or Eid celebration?? hahahaha...

well..all of that free meal is not actually 'free'. For that day, Mr.Vahid was proudly invited by Dr.Jaya in order to give us some tips and useful guide in writing our position paper. Mr Vaheed gave a lecture on Effective Argumentation writing because as i said before, to write a position paper, we should know how to stand with our opinions and argue when it would be debated. To make it ours, we needed to stand and fight for it.

::: Yes...I am PRECIOUS :::

Claireece Precious Jones endures unimaginable hardships in her young life. Abused by her mother, raped by her father, she grows up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed.

Inspired by her new teacher, Blu Rain , Precious begins learning to read. Precious meets sporadically with a social worker named Miss Weiss , who learns about incest in the household when Precious unwittingly conveys it to her. Precious may sometimes be down, but she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school.

Precious doesn’t know the meaning of “alternative,” but her instincts tell her this is the chance she has been waiting for. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain, Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self—determination.

The longest journey begins with a single step.. =)

::: Chalk :::

This is actually a documentary of teachers' life. It shows how the teachers survive in teaching field. From the documentary, one of the teachers has a lot troubles with his students that take away his presence as a teacher in the class. It means he is unable to control his class. This is not good thing in teaching if the teacher cannot manage the students.

Peek into Mr. Lowrey's History class and you'll see that he's struggling to even call himself a teacher. Woefully inept due to a complete lack of experience and social skills, he earnestly stutters his way through class. The only interaction his students offer him is when they steal his chalk.


Hahaha…and now I’m think it’s not easy to be a teacher especially a good teacher. Can I handle my students in the right way? Can I? can I??? Yes..I can..with some efforts… and passion…. =)

W..W...Writing position paper????

Still remember about the topic “arranged marriage” that I posted below? Actually it was a discussion on how to write a position paper. Yup.. we have to write a position paper on any literature works. That’s not easy task for me since I was having so many problems in coming out with sentences about the topic given.

One thing I realized that in position paper, we should learn how to stand with our opinions and argue when it would be debated. To make it ours, we needed to stand and fight for it. Ughh..!! good luck Mira..;)

::: Finding Forrester:::

I would not be exaggerating if I claimed that "Finding Forrester" is one of the top films in my list, if not the best.

Not surprisingly, the most engaging aspects of "Finding Forrester" are the interactions between these two protagonists. Together, as their characters navigate the art and craft of the creative process, Rob Brown and Sean Connery share an uncommon rapport of clashing styles: Brown's earnest and low-key style versus Connery's temperamental and cynical manner.

The relationship between Jamal and Forrester is the centerpiece of the film, and the shared learning they experience in each other's company is what drives the emotional beats of the story. On the one hand, Jamal is an extremely intelligent boy who needs direction and focus, which Forrester provides by helping Jamal realize his true potential. On the other hand, Forrester is a man who has long given up on the world and his ability to write, preferring to live out his days within the confines of his apartment. Through his relationship with Jamal, Forrester is able to rediscover his passion for the written word, and the simple pleasures of the outside world that he has denied himself for so long.

~ Research Paper ~

Research paper is kind of a nightmare to me. Having to meet Dr Fauziah, my supervisor for this research paper, I became extremely nervous as I had no idea what to expect from her. My supervisor wants something new and original for my research paper. At first, I decided to work on the short stories with the theme ‘Abortion’. For this theme, I would like to use 2 different short stories which are ‘A Great Injustice’ and ‘ Hills Like White Elephant’. I will compare those 2 texts since there are differences in the author’s background but unfortunately, my supervisor does not allow me to work on text that we have learned in class.

So now, I have to choose another text that we haven’t learnt before until I decided to change my genre for this research paper. I want to analyze the poems by Emily Dickinson. I give my supervisor the first draft and she approved it..i guess.. but she asked me to give more explanation and evidence from all the poems that I worked on. ;)

::: Go Akeelah Go =) :::

Eleven year old African-American Akeelah Anderson comes from a working class family living in South Los Angeles. Akeelah is a bright girl, especially when it comes to words, but finds life at poor Crenshaw Middle School boring and unchallenging, so she doesn't try. Her life is not easy as her father is dead, her mom ignores her, her brother runs with the local gangbangers. She's smart, but her environment threatens to strangle her aspirations. But her natural aptitude for words spurs the school administrators, led by Principal Welch, to convince her to try out for the process of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Akeelah, already feeling isolated from many in her school because of being perceived as a "brainiac", feels that participating in such will make her feel even more isolated. But her joy in learning new words at least gets her started in the process. After easily winning the school's spelling bee, she meets and befriends Javier Mendez, a competitor at the Los Angeles district bee where most of the competitors come from primarily white middle class to wealthy families. There, she learns about the nature of spelling bee life in all its good and bad, the latter which includes the cutthroat world of competitor parents.

Akeelah learns she needs a coach, hers to be in the form of former spelling bee competitor and UCLA English Department Chair Dr. Joshua Larabee, who teaches Akeelah not only the rote memorization of typical spelling bee words, but how to use English in all its glorious facets. Akeelah progresses further and further into spelling bee life without telling her widowed mother Tanya, who sees the bees as impinging into time in her other school work.

So, as a teacher, we have to understand our students better. They have different learning styles and it is our job to figure out what is the best for them or we need to study how our students learn instead of asking them why they cannot cope or fail in certain subjects.

Happy :: Happy :: Happy...!!

Let’s get married..yiipiii…!! yeah..but with who? I still don’t have my significant other yet. Can I just pick any guys out there and marry to him? Hahahaha..for sure my mom will get angry and throw me out from the family XD. I’ve been discussed about this thing with some of my friends, but unfortunately all of them are not single anymore..hmm.. I mean..they already have someone special.

Not having a significant others, some of my family members sigh and worry on how am I suppose to get married. Now I am 23 years old and they think it is the perfect time to start your own family. Should I choose my husband by myself or just let my mom or the other family members settle it for me? Hahahaha..yes..!! it’s ARRANGED MARRIAGE and we’ve discussed about this during our class with Dr.Jaya.

Well, I don’t really agree with arranged marriage. For me, it is my life, so no one should control my life and I have my right to choose my own path and the most important thing, I don't want a creepy guy as my spouse. =)

::: Lean On Me:::

…..An extraordinary situation calls for an extraordinary solution….

When a school in Paterson, New Jersey, has less-than-average basic skills test scores, it faces the possibility of being taken over by the state. So the mayor asks the school superintendent for help, and he suggests that they appoint the controversial Joe Clark as the school principal. Clark begrudgingly agrees. And when he arrives, he shakes things up by reassigning teachers and calling all of them incompetent. And it isn't long before a lot of people want him out, but at the same time, he gains the respect of some of the teachers and the students.

With a bullhorn in one hand and a baseball bat in the other, he slammed the door on losers at Eastside. Brought in as a last resort to stop the state government from taking control of the school, Clark chained the doors shut to keep troublemakers OUT and achievers IN. Parents fought him. Teachers resented him. Even his own boss doubted him. But lots of kids loved him.


This is actually a nice movie where it portrays to us how a newly appointed principle tries to take control of the school which is having a lot of disciplinary problem and sometimes tough love is needed especially in a violent environment. Joe clark’s love, passion, and courage in re-revolutionizing the school won the hearts and admiration of his students in the end. Now this is what I call effective leadership in times of trouble.

Let the mind speaks....=)

I enjoyed every tutorial class with Miss Amelia and Miss Alicia but I think the most memorable day is when we were asked to make our own fable. Yes..!! we have to draw our own fable. I can’t draw but it’s ok for me because one of my teammates very good at it..so, I can count on her…hahaha..

Actually we’ve got our idea or storyline during our lunch at McDonalds. At first, it’s only a joke when we start talking about pig but then all of us agreed that it can be use for our fable.

At first, doing fables that is modern is a bit challenging for us. At that moment, we were very happy that we’ve decided about the characters of the fable and the step next step is deciding on the plot of our story...with known fact that fable is supposedly teaching moral values, we struggle to find important and alarming issues for youngsters nowadays. In fact, I believed that fable was a very good material that could be used to teach language in class. The script or dialogue was simple and the visual would help the students to the story line. All fable carried its own values that could be inculcated in the lesson. By using fable, students would enjoy it and the lesson would be relevant and effective.

The Ron Clark Story... =)

The Ron Clark Story tells the real-life saga of a North Carolina grade school teacher with an amazing record of success with students; his unique teaching style brings out the best in even the worst students and he tests his mettle in one of the toughest classrooms in America. Having achieved great success with students in his local school system, Ron believes that he can do much more good outside of his small home town, so he moves to New York City, hoping to teach underprivileged kids in the inner city.

Here Clark exhibits one of his strongest traits: he never gives up, not on his students and not on getting hired. He knows he can make a difference if given the chance. Destiny intervenes one day when he observes a teacher getting rough with a student who is trying to leave campus. The teacher fights with the school's principal and quits, giving Clark the opportunity to let his availability be known. At first he is ignored but finally the principal decides to give him a chance. He is given a class that includes what everyone considers to be the "losers," the worst students in the school. But Ron Clark sees potential in every child and will not give up on them

The steps he takes, the approaches he makes, the energy he extends and the devotion he shows produce a wonderful outcome. He reaches the children that everyone, including their parents, had written off. He successfully brings out their strengths: the artist, the scientist, the math wiz.

This is a very enjoyable movie, you have this good feeling at the end of the movie.

...Mona Lisa Smile...

Mona Lisa 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. Much to her dismay, the progressive thinking taught in California is not embraced by the stiff administrators at Wellesley, and prompts comments like, “You didn’t come to Wellesley to help people find their way, you came to help people find your way.”

It’s not just the faculty that finds Katherine’s methods unacceptable. At first, her students refuse to go along with Watson’s free thinking ideas because they have already read the course textbook and syllabus, and think that the textbook contains everything they need to know. Once the students have finished the textbook, they think they should spend their time outside of class smoking, drinking and planning their weddings. When one of Katherine’s students, Betty (Kirsten Dunst) gets married, it suddenly becomes clear to Katherine that her pupils see their education a way to pass their time until they are married. Katherine is amazed by the girls’ ingrained notions that a woman’s first duty is to her husband and family.

This enrages Katherine, and against the wishes of her superiors, she challenges her students to reject the norm, and follow a path of their own choosing. It takes some time, but Katherine’s persistence does eventually reach the girls.

I really wanted to like Mona Lisa Smile for the way it encourages women to think for themselves, and make the choices that only they feel are best. And maybe with a stronger lead character, that message would have resonated louder. =)

unique songs..

Music or song should be so beautiful and any good music can be a motivation or innovation to someone...Like BONO has said before, music can change the world because it also can change people.. So, that is why i really love to hear any music or song..Fortunately, my lecturer also has the same thought with me..and he started our first class with 2 unique and interesting songs which are 'Alejandro' by Lady Gaga and also a song by Saaein Zahoor.

Hmm..Lady Gaga...she's one of my favourite singer and I love to listen to her musics. She always come out with fresh and interesting songs. The first time i listen to 'Alejandro', i thought that the song is about Alejandro, who still has feelings for a woman whom he was once with, but who feels nothing for him anymore, and has rather moved on. Alejandro never meant anything to the woman, to the point where she doesn't even remember his name. He was someone insignificant. He tries to reach her because he still has feelings for her, but she rejects him. I feel like this is what Lady Gaga meant, but the song's meaning varies based on out perceptions..hehehe...

And about the other song..it also was very interesting and universal..I think it was a hindi song but still very unique and contains a lot of messages. Frankly speaking, i don't understand the song at all but the way the singer sang it helped me to be in the mood of the song..

Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music. Enjoyyyy..!!