recollection of this semester

The semester is almost over, and I am so happy.This semester was another challenging one for me because I took two unrelated courses with my major: the Films of Akira Kurosawa, and Blogs:New Independent Media.

To conclude, these courses were beneficial for me. Though challenging a new field needs some courage for me, it gives me self-confidence and sense of accomplishment when I complete it.

Among three courses that I have taken through this semester, the most hard but impressive one was "the Films of Akira Kurosawa". During the first eight weeks of this semester, (because this is a eight-week long course) I saw 16 movies, read three books and ten articles, and wrote three reviews a week (total 24 reviews) and two research papers. They were over 18,000 words writing totally. This course needed a really hard working.

Other difficulties of this course were its inconveinence of getting the movies that the professor listed. I bought most of listed movies through the Internet, but sometimes late delivery problem happened and made me nervous. Similar unconveinet thing happened when I rent a movie in the video shops,too. They did not have some movies that I needed because the movies were so classic. In short, it was a course that needed a very intensive hardworking, and left a lot of DVDs as a memento of a course. It was hard but I'll never forget it!!

This blog course was interesting for me. I come to have lots of knowledge about "blogs" and learned issues related to blogs or the Internet. I had many opportunities to read others' opinions as well and made my English blog and web sites. What an interesting exprience!

The last one is one of my major courses: Teaching reading to English Language Learners.

I finished a big project of this course recently. It is a kind of field exprience project. It includes choosing a student whom I teach, toturing the student at least eight times, and writing tutor logs. It also involves developing various kinds of teaching materials, games, and resources to teach the student. It was a forty page long assignment. Today I presented this project in the class and finished this course!!

By the way, I got a scholorship certificate in the Nigh Center today. It is for international students and the title of the scholarship is "international honor scholarship". I am sooooo happy to get it.

The Chocolate War

I sometimes read any books, without any purpose, just for killing time. Because this book, “The Chocolate War” (by Robert Cormier), has occupied my small, shabby bookcase for a long time, it was no wonder that I picked up the book one day. Anyway, it was not a thick book at all, and even didn’t look difficult to read. Besides, the word “chocolate” in the title enticed me (becuause I like chocolate), though the following word “war” was somewhat skeptical to me. In the end, it turned out that this “chocolate” was nothing to do with some kind of “sweet” things that I had imagined. :) However, this book seems to be an interesting book in the genre of young adult literature. This book won many awards, such as An ALA Best Book for Young Adults, A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year. And the movie version was made in the 1980s. Isn’t it enough reason to read?

Here’s the story.
Jerry Renault is a freshman at Trinity High School. In this school, there are the Vigils, a secret school society who keep the other students under control by giving cruel assignments. Brother Leon is an assistant headmaster and he wants the students to sell twice as many boxes of chocolates during their annual chocolate sale. The Vigils give Jerry an assignment to refuse to sell chocolate during the first ten days of the sale. But, after ten days, he still refuses to sell chocolate and this makes Brother Leon and the Vigils and all of the students in the school furious. The Vigils threaten him mentally using phone calls and make him feel fear. Archie, the assigner of the Vigils, manipulates the situation to make Jerry an outcast in the school. He uses Zanza, who is a bully and animal-like boy, to make Jerry a victim of harassment and violence. In the end, the Vigils make Jerry participate in a boxing match. In the boxing match, Jerry is beaten and severely injured. That’s it.

Obviously, this is a book to make me think a lot. As a challenging book, it makes me ask a lot of questions about symbolic meanings that the story contains. For example, Jerry’s poster presents the theme of the book in a simple way. The chocolates become a symbol of defiance and nonconformity, not just for Jerry, but for the entire school. However, the whole story makes me feel uncomfortable in dismay. The realistic description about the truth of the universe where we live makes me disgusted in some way. The result of the confrontation between Jerry and the Vigils that symbolize the order/rule of the society is so miserable and makes me frustrated. It is true that this is a good book in that there are many controversial ideas in it. However, it depicts psychological and physical violence too directly and vividly, and I felt nausea in the cruel ending.
Personally, I don’t like this kind of story, because I don’t have guts to endure the misery of innocent people. Consequently, this book made me depressed and gloomy.

An article about free reading

I recently read an interesting article about "free voluntary reading" written by Krashen. He is a really famous scholar in the field of "TESL" and his article gave me insights into the importance of a "fun reading."

The author suggests “free voluntary reading”, or reading because you want to, which is often called sustained silent reading (or SSR) in schools, as an efficient method for students to have higher levels of literacy. He points out the significance of the pleasure in reading and maintains that SSR helps students develop richer vocabularies, understand complex oral and written language, and become proficient writers and reasonably accurate spellers.

Krashen reviews some negative researches, such as the National Reading Panel (NRP) report, and reputes the results of NRP. He shows the evidences of their flaws, and indicates that NRP overlooked many studies of effective, long-term SSR programs as well as the importance of recreational reading for students in English as a Second Language classes. He also presents some excellent researches, which were conducted by Warwick Elley, or Fay Shin’s 2001 examination, in order to support his claim that free voluntary reading or an SSR program is a much more pleasant approach than regular skill-building instruction, and benefits the students.

To achieve the desired effect from free voluntary reading, Krashen focuses on the importance of easy accessibility of books for children, indicating that many studies, such as a study by Jeff McQuillan, confirms the “more access > more reading > better reading” relationship. Studies show that there is a strong correlation between an individual state’s average NEAP score and its students’ access to books. For children of poverty, libraries are their only chance. We need to make investments and improve libraries for children who need them the most, children of poverty. Krashen concludes that encouraging students to read for pleasure and providing them with interesting reading materials are necessary steps for the students to become highly literate readers.

Jazzercise

I started a new exercise last week. I don't like to exercise much, but this exercise, which is called "Jazzercise," is really interesting.

I've never heard "Jazzercise" workout before my friend introduced and took me to the center. After free experience for one day, I enrolled the class and got a membership card.

The fee is only 25 dollars per month due to student discount.

From Sunday to Saturday, I can go anytime and anyday and even go twice a day. But, it is so intense work that it's impossible for me to go twice a day. In fact, it seems to be hard to go once a day.

Anyway, "Jazzercise" means simply "Jazz" + "exercise." Is it too simple? :)

Jazzercise is a fitness program that combines elements of jazz dance into aerobic exercise.

It includes cardio, strength, and stretch for one hour. During first thirty minutes, intense cardio exercising provides, and then strengthing with weights and stretching are followed for the rest of the time.

You will be really sweaty for the first thirty minutes.

For first four days, I was really aching all over, but finally I overcame my ache and my body got used to it.

Now, I am totally getting my energy through this new exercise.

Surprisingly,I feel that my body is improving everyday!!!!!!!!

Friends

I finally bought all DVDs of "Friends" a few days ago. It is almost ten years ago that I first started to watch this extremely amusing TV sitcom. At first, I just began to watch it with the purpose of learning English. It is definitely helpful for listening and learning English expressions and idioms, and there are many people who use this TV show as an English learning tool in Korea.

I don't know when and how I became a huge fan of this TV show, but I have watched it repeatedly and habitually. After three or four times of repeating from first season to tenth, I feel that those six friends are my own friends. I know it is rediculous and silly, but I feel like that way.

Anyway, these days I watch this becuase I enjoy it, not becuase I have to learn English. As I'm getting older, I tend to enjoy funny things, not serious things. It means that when I choose TV shows or movies, the most important criterion is whether it can make me laugh and happy. Though "Friends" is a kind of old-fashioned TV show and is totally insensitive to a real life or social problems in those days, I like their humor and characteristics of six protagonists in this respect.

I always like the story of dealing with growth. Watching the growth of six friends is another aspect of amusement and that's why I never get tired of "Friends," even though I am watching same episodes again and again.

I'll keep these DVDs as my first collections of American TV show and a memento of living in the U.S.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2187677044893009241#

The Last Song

The Last Song is a book written by a famous writer, Nicholas Sparks who wrote Dear John, Nights in Rodanthe, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, and The Notebook. Most of his works were made into movies, and The Last Song is coming out soon.

The story focuses on the rebellious girl, Ronnie who is sent to spend the summer with her father, who abandoned his family in the past. Her father was a music teacher and pianist, and used to go concert tours. He used to teach her to play the piano, and Ronnie has great talent in playing the piano. She has an experience to perform in Carnegie Hall at the age of 13. She, however, quitted the music after her father had left the family without explaining.


Ronnie refuses to talk to her father for three years, though her father wants to contact with her. She and her 10-year-old brother Jonah spend summer staying his father's house in North Carolina. Ronnie hates her father and hangs around with a bad girl Blaze and her notorious friends all day at first. While hanging around with friends, she is forced into a corner by Blaze who manipulates the situation and makes Ronnie a shoplifter. Meanwhile, Ronnie gets close to Will who becomes her boyfriend. Ronnie opens her mind to her father gradually after the shoplifting incident, because her father believes her truly and shows his unconditional love to her.

Yet, her father Scott has a secret. He has a stomach cancer and leads a time-limited life. He wants to live his beloved children and watch his children's growth for summer. (What a sad story!!! ) The reason he left his family is not because his love affiar with other woman or irresponsibility, but because he just found his wife's cheating by accident. Ronnie has misunderstood her father, thinking that he cheated and left the family. Scott loves his children so much and always has wanted to have a good relationship with them.

Peaceful time has passed and finally Ronnie and her brother becomes to know their father's termial illness and are shocked. Ronnie repents her act to her father bitterly, and decides not to go back to New York. She wants to stay with her father and spends her time taking care of her father who doesn't have much remaining time. She finishes the composition which her father doesn't complete. She plays their music, "The Last Song," for her father who is near death.

The process of approaching her father's death and Ronnie's devoted love for her father was so impressive for me. This story is not that serious literature thing, but just touches me quietly yet so deeply. The story contains love, life, death, and God, and makes me think of my parents, or the people whom I love. I cannot but shed tears while reading. I look forward to the movie now.

This is my favorite parts in the book.
"It's Galatians 5:22," he said, pressing the Bible flat in his lap. He cleared his throat before he started. "But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Dreams (1991)

Akira Kurosawa's dream is one of the most visionary, deeply personal works in the 60-year-old career of the master behind Rashomon, The Seven Samurai and Ran. Comprised of eight episodes rich in imagery and insight (and featuring "Scorsese" as "Vincent Van Gogh"), it explores the costs of war, the perils of nuclear power and especially humankind's need t harmonize with nature.

To me, the most interesting sequence in the film is “Crows.” It is the most magical realism and surreal, the most dream-like. One of the reasons I’m attracted by this segment is the idea to walk through the paintings. It is very imaginative and distinctive. As a person who is a huge fan of Vincent Van Gogh, I became to plunge into his imagination or dream easily. When the young Kurosawa (as an artist) walks through the sketches, I can follow him with my own eyes as if I were with him. When he slides along the heavy brush strokes of the painting, I feel as if I were in the picture.

Other reason that this episode is interesting to me is “music.” I think music plays a vital role in this episode. Chopin's Prelude No. 15 D-flat major is played explosively as background music when Van Gogh explains his passion for painting, saying “I drive myself like a locomotive.” I think music and the scene are well-matched at the moment.

Another impressive point in this sequence is that I can see the vivid color from every single scene. It seems that the visual brilliance is one of the special features of Akira Kurosawa. He reproduced Van Gogh’s works perfectly as if it were a reality. The scene he talks with the women near the drawbridges in Arles and the last scene that crows are flying over the screen are really creative. And I noticed that Akira Kurosawa had a great passion for arts, reminding me that he used to be an art student when he was young. I believe it is an outstanding way to express his admiration for Vincent Van Gogh.