Waiting to be registered

Yesterday, I was to be at CGS to officially register for my fourth semester. But the weather and being tired, slept the day off. After much haggling, mom managed to get me out to bring her to Tesco.

So what happened is I whipped out a book which I got ages ago: The Jewel of Covent Garden. I found out that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are the most often resurrected characters in fiction. Many novels and short stories were written of them. I actually like this novel.

It goes to show that reading is very educational.

I miss reading

I have miss reading so much that at times I feel like being a traitor. But I have promised to myself that I will put my heart and soul to my masters. Now that I have started attending the seminars for this semester, I have my hands full on writing two more assignments. One of them is on media economics - and from what I understand from the facilitator, OUM is the only institution that is offering this subject. And fortunately for me, it has nothing to do with the ECONOMICS as we know of.

I was very much delighted to receive news about a book that I had sent it to continue with its journey. The journalist had the same thought that the book was actually written for www.BookCrossing.com. You can read of its journey here.

I can't wait for exams to finish and I have some respite to read a few books I have in mind.

My paper today

I am drained - my second paper this morning really caught me by surprise. The paper is for Writing for Science and Technology.

There was not much (the module was so thin) and it was practically learning about the English grammar, writing in clear and concrete style. I mean who does not know how to write in good English (well a lot but the people I know has powerful English). Plus the last seminar, the facilitor gave us great tips on using MicroSoft Words (which most I already know, what a bummer).

We had to answer all the questions. The first question is quite theoritical - explain in detail global revising and secondary research. The next three questions - correct the passage and one of them is a letter. In the first few readings, I was trying to understand head and tail of the passage.

I felt good about my answers. The lowest score that I should get is an A- (am I being very presumptious? But I did enter the course aiming high).

What really get to me is that I could not find any mistakes in this sentence. I answered as 'NO corrections made'. The others were surprised I answered this way. Can someone tell me if I'm right? Here is the question: Neither the engineers nor the technicians were hurt in the blaze.

Classifying Knowledge

In my review for tomorrow's exam, Writing for Science and Technology I came across a very interesting fact - how people categorize knowledge.

Here is an exert from The Straight Dope site:

Many librarians thought it would be useful to organize books by subject matter. The problem was, what does "subject matter" mean? Francis Bacon, in the 1600s, said there were three branches of knowledge: history (deriving from memory), poetry (from imagination), and philosophy (from reason.).. That formed the basic classification system of the few libraries that bothered with such things. The Vatican library, for example, used only two classifications: sacred and profane.

Am pondering, how can the church be so narrow minded. Well, after reading THE NAME OF THE ROSE (Eco Umberto), THE MEMOIR OF A GNOSTIC DWARF (David Madsen), and THE DA VINCCI CODE (Dan Brown) it shows that the church are narrow-minded. Their main purpose is to eradicate all teachings that goes against the Church. It is to the expense of hiding away literatures from the world.

Is that a way to produce new knowledge, facts. Well according the postivist, true knowledge is in the scientific or the physical world. Knowledge is not gained from the divinity.

Learning as a journey

Quoted from one of my text book Communication Theories Perspectives, processes, and contexts by Katherine Miller (2005). It is a spotlight on John Greene, a communication theorist:

..., he advises that neophyte scholars read widely in many fields. He suggests that students should go where your interests lead you, regardless of how many disciplinary boundaries you have to cross. Greene believes that such a journey will be both fascinating and rewarding.

Spiral of Silence theory

Most of you will not know what the heck I'm refering to in my previous post. The agenda setting theory is very straight forward - so no need for explanation.

The spiral of theory deals more of the fear of isolation. Let me first take from the Wikepedia the definition which is as compact as can be:

The spiral of silence is a political science and mass communication theory propounded by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. The theory asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority (Anderson 1996: 214; Miller 2005: 277).

What I want to stress is that the general public will simply forward the SMS received so they have the feeling that "I have this information!" (which makes him powerful) and at the same time joining the majority that knows this news. They will not consider if this message is true or just lies.

Another tenet to the theory is that people will generally not raise an opinion which is different from the popular view. I'm not sure how I'm going to fit that in but roughly this is what the paper will be like.

Still having some issues with my group assignment - regarding the SMS thingy. I want to discuss more on WHY Malaysians like to spread SMS that can create unrest among the people. (Not refering to Amir's article in the previous blog). The most recent which I'm planning to focus on is regarding a group of Malay being baptized. Have you seen the follow-up: it was actually a group of Indians??

It is close to what Taty had to say about the facets of Malaysians. How the people look like a Malay but is actually a born Christian (meaning no Muslim parents).

Back to my dilemma, we have not decided how to proceed. She just YMed me regarding our individual assignment. That is a toughie because the textbook is so complicated (not the subject matter but the language). Gave her same advice and she took it. But I did not raise it up - twice written it out but did not click 'send'. It looks I'm gloating because I am way ahead of them on all my assignments.

Two solutions that I can see. She compromise and follow my way. Or we go separate ways. I already have what to write so should not be an issue for me. Two hard headed people to come up with one thing. But I seriously cannot accept her way of thinking. She says that this phenomena is using the agenda setting theory. Meaning that using the SMS we set an agenda. What agenda? To create a 'social riot' as per Taty's post.

Anyway, she raised it up and saw my point. We are following my thoughts - so now how to divide the work.

For one of my assignments for Communication Theory, we have to choose one phenomena and use one of the theories we learn to explain it.

A few weeks ago, there was this SMS spreading where a group of Malay (Muslims) being baptized. Today I found another interesting article but from a different angle. Where the authorities want to award him/her for his ingenuity. The article is pasted below.

Why I chose this phenomena is it is interesting why people like to spread rumours/news over the SMS. Is this a spawning from emailing.

I may make it for my project paper for my last semester. So far I have not found a good theory to explain it. Maybe one day you will see my name attached to a new communication theory to describe this phenomena. *wink*

Space, the final frontier for our teh tarik

One of the tasks in store for Malaysia’s first astronaut.

THE lucky bloke who is chosen to become Malaysia’s first astronaut will have several daunting tasks ahead of him. He will not just be shooting the non-existent breeze in zero gravity, he will have to make teh tarik and play batu Seremban in space.

Most segments of society have hailed this move as a great advertisement for Malaysian technology, not to mention the beverage and leisure game industries. This is in line with the popular SMS doing the rounds, which says "An American in space is called astronaut, a Russian in space is called cosmonaut, but a Malaysian in space will be called can-or-not?"

The identity of the SMS sender has not yet been detected. The search is on for this person as the authorities want to give an award for coming up with such an ingenious term.

However, one segment of society has failed to be convinced. This segment can be found entirely in the person of veteran commentator G. Pundeet.

"Is this really the image of Malaysia that we want to project to the world?" he muses over a vegetarian set lunch. "After spending so much to buy Russian military aircraft to enable this space mission, do we have nothing better to do than to play children’s games and make drinks in space?"

However, everyone else in the country disagrees with him, "G. Pundeet’s objections are examples of the sort of negative thinking that we can do without. We are a scientific, progressive society and we only believe in things that can be proven empirically," sneered a pensioner while clutching some newly-purchased feng shui crystals. "So there!"

Metatheory - a theory about theories

What if you discovered that you have to study methods of creating theories? Do you have to create your own theory as part of your masters program. I nearly went beserk - I wanted to concentrate on telecommunication (the technical aspect that is) and ended up with metatheories.

Do you know that there is a field call Communication Theory? The fundamental you get to know some basic theories, how communication is categorized (interpersonal, small group, organization) and some key scientist (I still call them scientist of the social world). The advanced stage, we need to know the theories itself - how do we evaluate them, the different aspect (ontology, epistemology, axiology), the different perspectives (post-positivism, interpretive, critical).

Now that I have finally grasp the essence of the course (by doing the discussion questions in the text book and Wikipedia), I am happy to say that I should not have any problem in writing the 5 to 10 pages assignment.

Having said that, this weekend will be my second seminar for all the three subjects - 8 to 7 Sat, till noon Sun. In addition tomorrow night, there will be wedding reception. Since I'll be dead tired, I will be on leave on Monday. So office - don't come knocking on the door.

As part of my course for Information and Communication Policy Development, I have to write a report on the roles of civil society in creating a chosen country's policy. I have chosen Australia and my main topic is on the Indigenous people.

As part of my research, I have come across a very interesting quote:

"Loss of purpose emerges when people become confused and do not have enough information about the world around them to take control of their own lives and develop their own future. Without good communication, clear purpose is but a faint distant hope".
"Without clear purpose, human endeavour stops".

Richard Trudgen
Author of Why Warriors Lie Down and Die

Back to a student life

Finally after long thoughts registered myself for a masters program (well in May actually) at OUM (that also because I got a good discount during dad's tenure in OUM). First registered myself for the MIT but during the briefing found a much better and more to my liking the MMC (Multimedia Communication) program. NO programming, NO Java. YES to telecommunication, YES to writing for science and technology.

Well anyway, got the result for my May semester and here it is:

• CMCF5103, FUNDAMENTALS OF ICT, A-
• CMFC5103, FUNDAMENTALS OF COMMUNICATION, A
• CMMT6103, MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY, A-

I actually expected for some A+ after all the headache of doing the group work. In truth, the A is Excellent - the highest you can get. LOL

Lesson learned - if possible, do all your assignments as if its an individual assignment. Those assignments will help you in answering your exams.

I registered myself for the new semester when my section went on their 'team building'. It took me the whole day riding the komuter and Putra - should have driven but worried about getting to work from CGS and the traffic. Then a few days later, added another elective since the two cores is on Saturday AND Sunday. It was suppose to be on the same day - S I G H.

Have started on the text book for Advanced Communication and it is HEAVY. But almost reaching the middle, I understand the structure.

In a way can't wait to start class so I can get the assignments and start writing, and surfing the net. But all that will have to happen after Oct. 15 when the first classes are over and the house will be sort of arranged.

My own library/study

My parents have finally done their renovation which they have been talking about for ages. This include the library/study room at the balcony. Is that so cool - our own study. Have already made plans on how to arrange it - with my new Ikea writing desk, coming soon wall-to-wall bookshelves.

Some of the major renovations in the other parts of the house includes:

• kitchen and dining room has been touched up and widened
• living room, hall and dining room given new plaster ceiling and cornish
• the driveway been retiled
• all bathrooms' tiles and fixtures replaced