Is this the end? Not quite...

    This week, a series of fortunate events have turned what ought to be a hectic an dreadful week into another chance for me tyo complete the tasks given to me in English 2. The previous week, Ma'am Lynnie had announced that the deadline for our term paper draft was this Friday. This would have easily accomplished were it not for a computer malfunction which compelled me to venture to my aunt's house to use their computer. But thankfully, Ma'am Lynnie moved the deadline so good news for me!

   The next event was when Ma'am Lynnie announced that she would be inspecting our outlines. Hopefully, she could give her comments about the skeleton about my term paper about it's flow or coherence and emphasis.

      But aside from the two events, Ma'am Lynnie had announced that our blogging assignments would end by February 28 which is today! Though it pains me to leave this site, I have to move on to continue my studies and concentrate on my term paper. But I hope that when I am free again I will be able to blog again. I may come back to this site someday or I may even move to another blogging site...hopefully it will happen soon!

The week before the main event

      This week, was mostly about pair activities. Last Tuesday, Ma'am Lynnie announced that she was going to postpone our note-taking activity to next week. She also announced that the deadline for our outline was moved to next Tuesday. So today, we began discussing a little more about note-taking. We also talked about quoting and paraphrasing which I assume I am going to use in my term paper.
     Last Thursday, Ma'am Lynnie was not around because she was going to a convention at Cagayan de Oro City. But, she had already assigned pair activities for us to do today. Me and my pair's assignment was about paraphrasing and outlining. I admit that we had fun that day and we learned a little more about outlining.
   But that's not the main event. The main event was when ma'am Lynnie announced that we had to submit our draft by next Friday. Finally, we are about to do what we have been preparing all the time this semester....writing our term paper. So that's I'm currently doing as of now. Hopefully, I will have finished writing the draft before Friday so wish me luck!

Writing using critical thinking

     This week in English 2 was all about good old-fashioned teamwork and critical thinking.  The week before, we were grouped into four and each group was given a topic and was tasked to create a specific topic, specific claim and a thesis statement from that topic. 

     Our group, group 4, was assigned the topic "sophisticated new technology." Needless to say, it took us a long time to think of a specific topic and to formulate a thesis statement. But finally, we chose the specific topic "sophisticated new technology in the field of surgery." I guess you could say that our topic is very hard to swallow, but it was the only thing that came into our minds. Because we knew that it would be hard if our thesis statement was expository, we decided to make it argumentative by stating that the government should provide these sophisticated technology in public hospitals. Fortunately, the only thing Ma'am Lynnie criticized about it was that we needed to expand the statement by stating the ways on how the government should provide these technologies.

     But our activity didn't stop there! From our thesis statement, we were tasked to come up with an outline. We really had difficulty making the outline, and a lot of our subtopics were made on-the-spot. Then, we were asked to critic on the other group's outline (hmmm...a very good time to put on our thinking caps). But thankfully, our outline was said to be okay and just needed a proper introduction and conclusion. Whew! Close call...

     As implied from my previous statements, this week was not very easy for me. But fortunately, I was able to pull it off and learn a few things like creating and an outline and most importantly, about using critical thinking.

I Can Feel the Pressure

    On our first meeting in English 2 this week, we had a fun activity about the APA citation system. We were all divided into four competing groups. The object of the activity was to gather bibliography information from a given book, write the correct APA format of the bibliography on a manila paper and post the manila paper on our respective walls. There were two rounds for the activity. In each round, four books or journals were given. Since there were 7 of us in our group, we decided that four members would do the information gathering process while the other three write the correct APA format in the manila paper. The activity was fun yet very exhausting. We were given only 2 minutes to gather information from one book and 5 minutes to write it all on the manila paper. Fortunately, our group was able to do all of that and we got 29 points out of 40 points, which is not bad. 

   On our second meeting, Ma'am Lynnie interviewed each of us concerning our topic and thesis statement. She wanted to make sure that our term paper was worth writing and can have applied to people who are not related to our field. She was right by saying that a common mistake made by students is writing a term paper that can only be useful to the writer's field. But fortunately, my thesis statement was accepted since it is argumentative and can be helpful to different people.

   And so I hope that there are more interesting things in store for us in our English 2. Until next time...

This Week's Scoop: January 24 - 30, 2010

     This week, nothing much happened in our English 2 class. Ma'am Lynnie did not come to our class last Tuesday. Maybe because she did not know that the ROTC tactical inspection was moved to a much later date.

   On Thursday, we began discussing the APA citation system that we were going to use when writing our term paper's bibliography. Ma'am Lynnie also discussed the common mistakes students do during the bibliography writing process. I already copied the APA citation system from Ma'am Lynnie's blog a few weeks back so I have an idea on how the APA system format.I hope that it will come in handy someday.

   But even though I had lot of things to do this week, I still found time to participate in the regional convention of our society, the Junior Philippine Institute of Accountants. Since MSU-IIT was the host of the event, all of us were required to attend the said convention. Since I was an usher, I had a lot of things to do. We were in charge of greeting the different participating schools, faculty, judges and guest speakers, maintaining order between the different schools and awarding the trophies to the winning schools. Let's just say that I was awake for more that 24 hours. Plus, I had to wear formal clothes even to Timoga, where the night program was held. But even though I was exhausted, it was all worth it because I got to meet different people from Region X and CARAGA and I also got close to the elder accountancy students.

Reaction Essay: A Mother's Love: Is it Sometimes too much?

      On January 18, 2010, Jason Aguilar-Ivler was, the suspected murderer of Renato Ebarle Jr., was hunted down in his mother's house by the NBI. In the confrontation that ensued, Ivler was pinned down and badly injured. While he is recovering in the hospital, the media now turned its attention to Ivler's mother, Marlene Aguilar-Pollard. Her comments about her son and his arrest seem to depict herself as a confused woman who is desperately trying to save her son.

     One of her comments after her son's capture was that her son has done nothing wrong. I want to believe her because everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but Jason's actions during the NBI raid can surely make me question his innocence.
     In another interview, she accused the NBI of violating Jason's human rights while they where arresting him. But, I think that it was her son who violated human rights. Isn't murder already a violation of human rights? For me, the police were only somewhat brutal to Jason because they regarded him as highly dangerous because of his experience as a former US marine.
     In her latest statement, she appealed to the United States embassy for help. It's a legitimate appeal, but I don't think there is anything the United States can do about it. Jason Ivler, has committed murder and caused injury to Philippine NBI operatives. It is therefore only logical that the Philippine government has the right to judge jason and even imprison him if he is found guilty of the charges pressed against him.
     These three are just a few of Marlene's comments when being interviewed by the media, and there may be more to come. But they do teach us one thing: We should not let our emotions cloud our judgment towards others. A mother disciplines her children when they lie, cheat or exhibit bad behavior. Will she not also discipline her children when they commit something more nefarious such as murder?

      

This Week's Scoop

     Last Tuesday, we began discussing on how to write an essay. Our discussion included the basic essay structure, the kinds of paragraphs in an essay and how to expand a paragraph into a longer composition. As part of our discussion, we were tasked to write a reaction paper on an issue. I'm not exactly good when it comes to reaction papers but I will try to do my best. Also, it could be useful when we are going to write our term paper.

     On our next meeting, ma'am was not present because she had to go to Marawi, so she assigned some psychology students to collect our assignments and she also let them conduct their survey which was all about online gaming. I don't play online games that much so I was not required to take the survey. Plus, I don't belong to any game guild, sorority or society, so I wouldn't have the slightest clue what the survey will be talking about.