As deadlines draw near....

I feel like Macbeth as the Great Birnam wood creeps up to high Dunsinane hill... all is undone!!!
The exams are nigh and the work is never ending. Ahhh that I had not taken up this toil but had lived but a simple man. But enough of this! Tis the end it seems. But one more semester and you'll be rid of this... Lay on MacDuff!! I'll flay thee yet.

Back to the pencil.... ahh the pencil... poor Zahid! do you not pity him... I do. He is a classic case of how criminals are made...or so they say.
It begins with a bright boy, sitting in the class. He's a small chap, but eager to please as little kids do. Alas and alack he it seems is too small. The teacher never seems to notice him. He knows the answers but they never call on him so he can show his prowess.
Walking past a shop he sees an extra long pencil. Bright red in colour. Convinced that this is what will draw the teacher's attention to him he is determined to buy it.
Then tragedy! the pencil is lost!!!! Stolen!!! Worse still the thief accuses him of stealing it...The INJUSTICE of it all. To cap matters...the teacher believes the thief and punishes him.
The way Zahid takes the punishment is a portent of what is to come..... read on my friends... tis a tale to good to continue... read on and savour it.

Position Paper

Seems like identifying the Position paper proved to be much easier than I thought. The crunch now however is putting the nose to the grindstone and belting out the actual position paper. I thought of working on the Doll's house. The whole situation was a game. Everyone was playing a game. Torvald it seemed constantly pretends that Nora is a child while Nora on the other hand plays along while manipulating her husband into doing things her way. It was a truly childish relationship and it is the awakening into truth that drives Nora out of the home. However I remember thinking when I first started teaching the Literature Component for form 1 and came across Ali Majod's strange story..."This is a tale for teachers!" It seemed to me that while the whole story was about a boy and his pencil...or so we were led to believe. In actuality I felt the central character in the piece, the focus of the whole story was Mr. Jamal. If Mr. Jamal had noticed Zahid in the begining...if, if, if... and so it goes on. Thus I suppose this would be a much better paper to write about...And so it begins.

langston hughes and others

The whole day has been about poetry! Hillary Tham - she wasn't so bad...but Erica Jong well she's another kettle of fish. She reminds me of Pantoun for Chinese Women by Shirley Geok-lin Lim. Though Shirley was more demure perhaps, Dina Zaman's The Fat Woman was more vulgar but about the same theme I feel. Well anyway they have much to agitate about, seeing that it was not until the 20th Century that women were given some sort of freedom. The picture here perhaps speaks more about what women have achieved in this century. A normal scene you would say...except those are women not men. Kudos!
Langston on the other hand...is well Langston. A little snide, very sarcastic sardonic even, especially in the Cross. Well he speaks well, as the youngsters today will say "been there, done that" seeing as I'm a Serani, I know what he is talking about. Yes, we don't have the kind of stigma that he talks about but it still stings to be called a "chap cheng Kia" or Scion of ten fathers.

Poetry

Having read Langston Hughes I'm tempted to think he was talking about other minorities. Not just American Negroes in his time. Looking at A Dream Repressed I am lead to reflect on the Indian community that lives around my school. The word Ghetto would be most aptly describe the surrounding area. There are very clearly delineated areas for Malay and Indian people. There are the gangs that "protect" their kind and "turf" It really smacks of all the stories of Inner City ghettos in the U.S. only it's here in Malaysia. They are truly like an over ripe raisin festering and rotting in the sun giving off a sickly sweet smell. The smell of decay that cloys the senses and makes you sick. There are small explosions, they are much like Hughes explosions, fights break out, noses are bent, pride is hurt...then the authorities clamp down. Where is the dream? Where is the good life?! they ask...

Arthurian legend

The Arthurian legend like most legends renders the hero a larger than life feel. There might have been a king who was a great figure in Europe, but things start getting fantastic towards the 5th and 6th book where the romans invade Arthur's kingdom. This reminds me of a passage of the Hikayat Hang Tuah in which Tuah did battle with another warrior and he changed mid-battle into a tiger to maul the warrior then into several different creatures. All this shape shifting is the stuff of legends and not viable... so to I find the Arthurian legend riddled with magic. It is entertaining reading and perhaps at a time when these tales were sung it would have been entertaining indeed.

Le Mort D'Arthur

It befell in the days of yore that the great Scholar decreed that the scholars in her charge should search and seek counsel of all that pertaineth to Great King Arthur be laid bare. And so it came to pass that the great scribe Sir Thomas Mallory hath made great pains to put to pen such doings and great events he beheld and heard tell of the Great knights and mighty deeds. The scholars didst open and behold such as there was to behold. 21 great books had Sir Thomas contrived to record and thus and so were the scholars hard put to decipher and make meaning of the ancient texts. After much labour this scholar hath understood what is to be understood and stood in awe at the writing of the English Sholar Sir Thomas. Truly this was a great work and long in the recording.

Turtle Spirit

Now there's a cad if ever there was one. Just imagine deflowering an innocent girl then knocking her up. Don't quite blame the father! Ah! but true love (obviously she loved him) waxes strong I guess! Even though he did what he did and left her with a bastard son, she brings him up to honour the memory of him. I wonder if this is just an Asian trait or a feminine trait?