Sweet Memories August 18, 2008

So here we are on the last day about to leave the college for one last bit of shopping. Buying all the presents for the people we forgot. Two weeks have come and gone so fast, and we’re already missing the weather and the fun that we’ve had in this past two weeks. Back to the mundane sai gang life of school then. I don’t think everyone has finished their homework, and most certainly most of us havent touched PW (shh..)

We’re missing Singapore and home cooked food now. Can’t say much about the breakfast here, except that it got pretty repetitive after awhile. Last night’s casino night was awesome, kudos to our top gambler Tim, who together with Josh managed to get into the lucky draw at the end and win prizes. We’ll miss this college and everything that it has had to put up with for the past two weeks. The sprawling lawns and the fresh pluckable apple trees. The squirrels and the rabbits, the basketball court. Notably the meteor showers four nights ago. That was one of the major highlights. Now we really understand why REACH cambridge is really such a privilege to attend and why there’s so much enthusiasm about getting into it.

I’ve to put something in for Lit now. Hah. Yesterday we went punting, and it was really unfortunate nobody fell in, cause we were kuind of hoping someone would. For the record, the girls in Lit punt much better than the guys, which is me actually (but shh.. don’t tell them it was because we were heading downstream so they weren’t doing anything at all ) anyway, punting was fantastic fun, our boat nearly lost the punting stick twice and we got stuck in the riverside trees almost all the time, with Anna, our tutor, getting the most of it since she sat in front. The worst part though, was that we had to do our a lit practical analysis of a poem on the boat, which of course everybody forgot as we punted and balanced and punted and laughed and punted at looked for eye candy and punted and took random camera shots and punted, and grew muscles. V got quite a good exercise so she says and J nearly fell into the water save for her kneeling down at the right moment. aww.. haha.

Eating at Cafe Uno was the best meal of the entire trip i must say, thanks Tim for recommending it. We had pasta and bruschetta and pizza and tuscan bean soup (heavenly) and the best part of it all was the dessert. Lime sorbet or waffles with raspberry syrup and vanilla ice-cream. I know your salivating now, don’t, you’ll wet your keyboard.

Unfortunately, the cliched phrase arises again that all good things must come to an end. Bye for now, the taxi’s here and we’re going shopping now.

a parenthesis of time August 15, 2008

We’re at SHAKESPERE’S GLOBE THEATRE!! August 14, 2008

OTHELLO,MODERNISM and US August 12, 2008

Wooooohooooooo everyone! its the 10th of august today and we started on our first lesson of Othello in the morn and did some work on modernism in the afternoon.

Lessons were really coooooooooool. Firstly, we got a new funky tutor named ANNA. For Othello, we discussed what constituted a tragedy and compared the difference between a mordern tragedy and a shakespearean tragedy and got the chance to spin up a tragedy of our own.  In the Mordernism class, we studied characteristics of that era and analysed a mordernist text with the other colleges. Also, we discussed techniques those mordernist writers used. Really, it was more fun than it sounds here.hohoho.

Wee people here are quite excited bout watching Othello play tomorrow and heading down to the Globe theater on wed (though we are quite concerned bout standing for 3hrs in the cold ).

Personally, I am thankful for the exposure to the stuff beyond what we learn in the text. Literature has aquired a new relevance to me like i’ve never seen before. All classes and school back at CJC now seem to have taken on a new meaning of intellectual discovery instead of the mere routine of ‘study’. As evidence to our renewed passion, ive bought myself 7 books so far..i heard jess got herself 15 books!teehehe

VIVA LA LITERATURE

Sherrie here signing off!

P.S thank you Ms Yao for your comment.

Nature/Nurture? August 12, 2008

Hey everyone, Ee Ling here, blogging about our group’s activities on Saturday, 09/08/08. Today, we had another fruitful day living and breathing Literature. Apologies though, for not blogging earlier, due to unforeseen circumstances. (really!)

Morning Session (Tutorial), Brave New World

Our morning session started off with a movie screening of a brilliant film called ‘Gattaca’. For most of us, it was our first time watching the movie. The purpose of the movie was to illustrate the different parellels between the sci-fi realm of Gattaca and Brave New World.

Gattaca, produced in 1997, features a dystopian world where technological advancement is at its peak. Essentially, this film is about an invalid, Vincent Freeman (a.k.a. the dashing Ethan Hawke) wanting to fulfill his lifelong aspiration of working in a company of elites who will embark on a mission to orbit around Titan, a moon of Saturn. The prequisite to be chosen is that one has to be genetically perfect. However, Vincent is an invalid, as he suffers from several disabilities. Hence, he begins his journey to achieve the impossible, by assuming the identity of Jerome Morrow, a swimming star (a.k.a. equally dashing Jude Law), unknown to his colleague, Irene (a.k.a. Uma Thurman). In Gattaca, Vincent is considered a god-child or an invalid because he was born by the natural way instead of being genetically engineered like the others. His younger brother had his sex and physical features predetermined beforehand by their parents and is thus considered to be superior to him.

Afternoon Session (Tutorial), Discussion

Our afternoon session revolved around a discussion between the various worlds of BNW & Gattaca. One of the issues that we pointed out was that in Gattaca, parents had the liberty to choose if they would like a perfectly genetically engineered child. Similarly, in BNW, infants are not born but decanted, through the Bokanovsky Process. The process of dehumanization is further highlighted in Gattaca.  For example, there would be blood tests being carried out every single day to ascertain if you are an employee in the company. Additionally, we also debated if Gattaca would be a more humane world than BNW, and our stand was that Gattaca would indeed be a more liveable world of empathy. In Gattaca, there is room for options and change, including relationships as well, as testament to the relationship between Vincent & Irene.  Overall, the movie ‘Gattaca’ was a real eye-opener for all of us as it presented a dystopian world which is relevant to the ‘Imagining Other Worlds’ section of our Paper 4.

After the discussion, we engaged in another discussion on feminist criticism. There, under John’s guidance, we talked about the expectations of a female, as Simone Beauvoir puts it, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”. We decided that the nurturing process is indeed paramount to how one develops in society in the later stages of his/her life and discussed about the gender equality/inequality in BNW & Gattaca as well.

Saturday’s session was our last with John, as the next week would be on Othello with a different teacher. We greatly appreciated him as our wonderful tutor was key to our learning process by adopting various experiential purposes.  It was quite sad to change our tutor because we really got to know him better as well!

Out in NDay colours, with John!

Nevertheless, for dinner, we had a National Day Celebration held in Old Hall, where CJ bhanga-ed their way! The celebrations were co-hosted by Jessica, and another compere from Anderson JC. Everybody was decked out in red and white for the entire day!

Alright, that was our Saturday, and I will post the pictures up really soon! (Or you could go to the pictures section here in our wordpress!) ;D

“A gramme is better than a damn” August 9, 2008

Hello everyone! (well, to whoever’s reading this)

Vanessa here blogging on the behalf of the literature group

 

 

We began our literature tutorial session as usual at 9am after breakfast. Our Spanglish (half English and half Spanish) tutor is one cool dude by the name of John. A self-professed lover of 20th century literature, he is currently doing his PHD on modernism in literature. Cool eh? :p Our morning sessions take place in a quaint classroom (A31 to be specific There aren’t any powerpoint slides or whiteboards like in Singapore. John simply relies on his many pieces of handwritten notes and facilitates discussions by raising up issues in Brave New World (BNW). He asks thought-provoking questions which somewhat coerces us to think at a deeper level. With only the 7 of us and John, almost all inhibitions are let loose and a platform is created for us to voice our thoughts. Personally, i think this style of conducting lessons is far more effective than those back home.

Morning Session: BNW

The topic of discussion today was propaganda. In BNW, the prevalence of propaganda in the brainwashing of the citizens proves relevant in our society today in the form of advertisements. We discussed the recent advertisments that we see today as well as the methods deployed to persuade the public. John was telling about us about this Coca-Cola advertisment he saw recently. It read “No preservatives, no artificial flavourings”. John was expressing his utter disbelief at the illogical words of the advertisment in his cool British accent, saying “there’s no such thing as a coca-cola tree! Coca-cola is not at all natural!” The exciting part came when we had to do our own advertisments for ‘soma’ (a drug used by citizens in the novel to induce  a state of happiness). Split into 2 groups, with Francis, Jessica, Sherrie and Victoria in one group and Ee Ling, Annabelle and Vanessa in the other, 2 different advertisments were created. The former group came up with a scene depicting Francis as a boy going on his way on an ordinary with a tube of soma in his hand. He’s whistling a tune when Jessica, a big meanie, comes along and kicks him for no apparent reason. He falls down but pops a soma pill in his mouth and everything is fine again. On the other hand, the latter group came up with a skit depicting 2 miserable friends in their lowest moments of life and complaining to each other about their problems like pet goldfishes dying and being kicked out of the house! Ee Ling comes along and introduces soma to Annabelle and Vanessa who pop some in their mouths. Immediately, the soma takes effect and liberated from reality, Annabelle and Vanessa are no longer the pathetic souls they were once before

i know some of you are probably just scanning this post through and not reading every line but if you want to check out the recorded versions of our ‘brilliant’ (as quoted from John) work, i think the videos will be either up on youtube or be shown to all when we return

7 of us with John!

 

For lunch, the 7 of us and the Bio people walked to The Co-operative (co-op for short!) where they sold sandwiches, deserts, microwave meals and the likes at reasonable prices. Jessica and I were escatic at our find of sheperd’s pie and beef lasagne (you know those microwave meal things?) going at £4. Excitedly we stuck it in the microwave oven in the pantry back in the college, feeling rather pleased with ourselves at the what we thought was a brilliant find! Unfortunately, the cheese on the lasagne turned out slushy instead of it being semi-molten. Sheesh.

Ee Ling and Annabelle walking hand in hand to the Co-op

ANYWAY. After lunch, a workshop in Othello commenced in the Old Hall which was a common gathering point. Draped with long patterned curtains, decorated with portraits of past head mistresses, with light coloured wood flooring, the Old Hall is one cool place despite its name which suggests otherwise! Toby from the Royal Shakespeare Company conducted the workshop. We played ‘zip zap’ which is one of those games that drama plays for warm-ups. We read excerpts from Othello out aloud to get a feel of the dramatic intonations made when speaking them and re-enacted certain scenes from Othello in groups of about 5 or 6. This was done across all the schools present, well, the lit people from other schools like MJC, RJC, AJC and Cathedral School from Mumbai.

It was a novel experience for me as i’m unaccustomed to speaking on stage in front of an audience, not to mention reciting Shakespeare while doing so. I played the part of Emilia, Sherrie as Cassio, Francis as Gratiano (uncle of Desdemona), Victoria as Lodovico and Jessica as the director. In spite of the nervousness, it was truly an enriching experience as we had to really get into character and convey the meaning of whatever we were reciting through our stage directions, body language and intonations :D Some snapshots of our acting will be posted up real soon!

soaking up the sun on Girton College's glorious lawn

That’s all for now, we’ll keep ya’ll posted

Random Jumping Fun August 8, 2008

 

jumping fun, outside the Porter’s Lodge

                                                        

sherrie can't jump, so she surfs

Random Bits of Excitement August 8, 2008

Harow everyone!

It sure is chilly here at Cambridge..haha to think we’re enjoying summer here.well, lit lessons will never be the same again..our lessons go way beyond the text (BNW) into disscusssions about power,cloning and much much more!!! haha we did advertisments for soma today and had a lively courtroom scene yesterday debating on cloning and its moral implications.

The coolest thing is that the staging of an Othello play is currently going on in the field outside our hostel so we get a really good view of the play.haha!but it gets quite noisy at night tho. Our peers from mumbai too are proving really fun o hang out with.hehe. we’re having casino night tonight! but the catching up with sch wrk at night is not so fun tho..yeah man,im sure you can all tell..we’re really getting something out of this :] smiles,sherrie

 

CJC lit is on the roll! August 8, 2008

Hello everyone in singapore (:

Annabelle here, blogging for lit.

Lessons here are interactive as our literature tutorial class has only 7 of us, giving us more time and room for the voicing of our own personal opinions.

The morning session required us to do a presentation of different speeches to convince and persuade everyone to support our view on the topic of Cloning, whereby we were given different roles such as a stock holder in the company that sells cloning related products, a politician, a scientist, a mother who cannot give birth, a man in the military, a religious leader and a terminally ill patient. This presentation was responded to with peals of laughter from the literature group, as we had to present our speech in the appropriate tone in correspondence to our role.

After which, we had a court scene in which the accused was Dr Bell (me), who cloned Cloey (Ee Ling) and Zoey (Victoria) . Jessica and Sherrie were the defense and prosecution lawyers respectively, and Vanessa and Francis were the witnesses . We had a heated debate, with questioning of the accused, accounts of both the witnesses and clones and the assertions from both the lawyers with regard to the question on whether cloning should be legalised. It was really fun!

The afternoon session was on romanticism, where we were required to individually paraphrase a 70 line poem on the Wind and present it, as well as answer questions such as the difference between the poetry and prose form, and to which we preferred. Although the prospect of paraphrasing and analyzing such a long poem is daunting, it was a new and beneficial experience for us 7 lit-ters.

The lit people had a wonderful time between our breaks hanging out on the grass and snapping pictures. And yes, we are trying to (hopefully) keep up with our lessons as well.

I am definitely enjoying lessons at Cambridge <3

Cheers to that !