December 13

EE Reflective Conversation 3

Analysing Innocent’s advertising, I realised how persuasive language always targets an audience, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I used to judge Innocent’s advertisements for being cheesy, but only because I’m not being targetted. Through my EE writing process, I learnt to appreciate Innocent’s humor (sometimes only after researching, sadly) to the extent that it became a distraction. If I had to write my EE again, I would rephrase my search terms to search for linguistic techniques related to advertising – as the field of linguistics is quite wide, much of my initial research wasn’t applicable to the advertisements. I could also have spent more time engaging (watching/ thinking about/ making notes on) with the advertisements as opposed to immediately searching online for definite answers – this would have let me consolidate my ideas better before writing. However, I found my strategy of free-writing quite effective at getting me started with the daunting task of writing 4000 words. While I had to edit these badly articulated ideas, getting them into words helped me consolidate my understanding of the text. Writing my EE helped me learn to structure my thoughts coherently; it was also entertaining and relevant to my interests in advertising.

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October 13

[HW] English – Intertextuality

  • How does intertextuality contribute to meaning within texts? 

Through allusions or references, the meaning of one text could be transferred to another. As writers write based on the contexts of their own lives, it is only natural for them to incorporate elements of other writings they have seen into their own works (whether intentionally or unintentionally) to better convey their messages. By understanding the sources of an intertextual reference, a text could gain meaning. For instance, the in-class example of Vogue’s “shape issue” depicting a man and a woman, and a propaganda poster depicting a gorilla and a woman makes it such that the magazine cover alludes to the poster, making it racially degrading as the similarities between the man and gorilla suggest the man is as animalistic and violent as the gorilla. Other examples we saw in class include a variety of movies and advertisements that bring in elements from popular culture (ie. the car advertisement with the kid pretending to be Darth Vadar) – these were all intentionally used to create humour.

 

  • What is gained and lost through the use of intertextuality?

Intertextuality allows the writer/speaker/producer to remind the audience of their shared frame of reference, and gain a sense of covert prestige. (ie the references local locations and vernacular in the speech we watched about… it was Manchester right?) However, it also makes the text less accessible – I was completely alienated watching that speech, although I could understand the sense of hope and pride through the speaker’s tone of voice. Perhaps, intertextual references have a similar effect to adopting a group’s sociolect – to some extent, meaning could be squeezed out and understood by outsiders, but without first making them feel alienated. (note that went off-topic: Suddenly understands why despite speaking English for my whole life I still do not feel fluent when it comes to understanding my peers speak – Gabyyyy why do you have to pepper your speech with popular culture referencessssss… seriously it took me until this July to realise why you said something you did in grade 9. Also, Mr. Watson seems to really enjoy the advertisements and movie clips he plays in class. I wonder if I would learn better if I actually understood the references. Oh well, those who do get it would just get to experience the warm fuzzy feeling of being included while I get to be more familiar with the alternative. Watching that music video with the man in what looked like sweatpants personifying America, I felt like I was looking into someone’s daydreams – completely confused but acknowledging there is a meaningful point. I think I might have begun to develop the ability to tell apart linguistically rich texts and more vacuous ones – the first is trying to convey a message while the latter perhaps just tries to attract attention. Anyways, I hope that one day I can go somewhere where advertisements refer to things I know – that would mean that the general public likes the same things as I do.) Yet again, the US president speeches (with the religious allusions and references) weren’t that bad at all – perhaps religion is so integrated into our society it has became a norm.

 

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September 2

IFP Peace Day 2019 reflection

Yesterday I participated in organising IFP’s peace day 2019 – well actually we were organising it for like half a year but we ran it yesterday.

 

(LO 3 Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience)

I think it went well enough – waking up was hard and not to diss anyone but this event made me realise how important it is to be organised (I have no right to say given that I have forgot the date for my EE meeting ) as I was worried we would forget something crucial and unforeseen. Thankfully it all ran smoothly. In fact, I was worried we would be missing something / not have detailed enough plans or slideshows/ not be able to get enough content together for most of our planning sessions. Perhaps it was good that I worried because that motivated me to do things. Another good thing may be that Dr Allen had the cards/materials with her, so us students didn’t have the opportunity to forget. I regret doubting my teammates in the earlier stages of planning when we seemed to get nothing done because they were all quite good at public presenting and did their parts. Basically, I didn’t need to feel panicky because turns out they are very reliable people. I admire Aaliya’s voice projection skills. (LO 5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively) In other activities, I’ve worked with people who do not seem to want to do work. (Once, I’ve asked someone minded helping with a task, they accepted it and agreed they understood how to do it. Then they did nothing for the rest of the time.) I guess now I’ll be able to tell the difference and not misjudge people.

 

As for the activity my group was in charge of running, (“Are we creating intolerance by being overly tolerant?”) the first session went surprisingly well, discussions and debates sprang up and never went down for this group as there were vocal people with polarised views – I think listening to their discussion about how freedom of speech to express intolerant views is important for society versus how we should not accept having some people verbally opressing others. All groups managed to come up with our ‘big question’ (to varying extents) by themselves, but it was only in the group that people explored the idea of free speech versus protection so much when it comes to tolerance. The participants also helped me realise how important context is when it comes to saying things, or how something is phrased. (*flashbacks to English lang lit class*) Walking around to sop up group discussions during the activities, all the groups touched on the idea of how the way something is said makes it more or less acceptable. While I thought the first session was the most successful, some of my group members thought the debate was too wild and exclusive.

For the second group, we made it more clear to them that the person who remains at their card arrangement can rearrange the cards during the gallery walk – before the gallery walk, groups had different arrangements, but afterwards, most of them became the same. Hmmm… accidental induction of confirmation bias? Its scary how real it is.

The latter two groups needed more guidance with their discussions – I think we could have provided this guidance better. One of the questions that worked well in the first session was “did any of the arrangements offend you?” – they had lots of opinions to share. But for the third session, nobody said anything. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used a word as strong as “offend”. And then theres the group of people in the third session, who ranked the statement “God doesn’t exist” as very tolerant – even though every other group disagreed, nobody presented the idea of ‘sometimes words can hurt people/dominate the culture of a community’. When the conversation lulled, I brought up the idea and the discussion continued. Then, something that really annoyed me was that some people in the “God doesn’t exist” group went on their phones as others spoke. I tried to talk to them later but then it was hard to talk to the whole group because they were filling in the feedback survey. Ughhh technology.

Actually, in every session, someone goes on their phone at some point – usually, when the conversation is interesting, they don’t do that. Is it our fault for failing to capture their attention/being unable to direct the conversation to be engaging? It probably is, to some extent. Then again, people may be on phones as they are too tired to interact and the phone is their only escape. Discussing these heavy topics drains energy. I should have put more thought on this. I find that as presenters, we are usually too busy engaging with a more vocal part of the crowd. Some people are left on the fringe, and they cluster into these confused groups. One such group I integrated into (sat down with) had trouble understanding what it means to arrange things by “tolerance” and asked me to “rephrase” the task – I first tried to explain it as “something a tolerant person would say”, or something that would “come from a tolerant community” and then something that is “acceptable”, before remembering our group’s decision to not “define tolerance” for the participant. Oops. To be honest, I got confused as well in that moment, (previously, I had suggested we change the word “tolerant” in the instructions to something else, but people disagreed and I went with the flow) writing this reflection, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with my rephrasing. So now I can think of two reasons why the group remained confused. 1. I tried to hard to explain, and my own confusion came through as I was constantly trying to correct myself. 2. There is some language glitch for the phrase “most tolerant” for people bilingual in Chinese and English, which is for them as well as me, (they were at least proficient in English if not fluent, we have discussed the idea of tolerance and shown them the definition) because perhaps they find it just as hard to comprehend that phrase. This should not be the case, because English has taken over my mind some time ago and I can understand other ideological concepts only in English. Or perhaps it is the meaning of “tolerant” itself – does tolerant refer to the stereotypical open-minded progressive person (ie people who may not tolerate homophobia) or the relativist who accepts all ideas? That should be up to the participant to decide. Some people just don’t like ambiguity. The kahoot was also confusing for some people – in one session I paired up with a  new student who doesn’t seem to speak English so well; when you are wondering what a clown is, it gets even more confusing that the only “correct” opinion is finding them “s e x y”. For us and other people who get it, it is hilarious. Perhaps we could have included pictures. I wonder how well the overseas people tackled it – On project week, Angus said his group (I think Saskia was in it as well) spent a lot of time ironing out details.

Anyways, now let me read the feedback survey responses and see if my understanding of what happened is accurate… its a bit disappointing only 18 people replied (but we weren’t trying to enforce the survey) So right after I had a business class about corporate social responsibility and not disclosing customer information in market research, I’m going to post some of my favourite responses here. All of these are anonymous – I didn’t bother to check who said them, and they are too beautiful (even the first one) not to share.

Q: “Define tolerance in 2 sentences”

“when u tolerate things”

“Acceptance is wholeheartedly agreeing with a statement, and rejection is downright saying no. Tolerance is asking questions which will lead to meaningful conversations.”

“Tolerance is putting up with someone else’s belief even if you don’t agree with it. This includes not becoming agressive if they don’t agree with you”

“Ability to live with people who have different opinions from yours”

 

Oh goodness someone selected “no” for “do you want to join IFP” – I should have turned off collect email addresses!

 

 

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June 6

Project Week Reflection 3: Action, the trip

[LO 2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process]

One challenge we faced on a daily basis was navigating between the hostel and the MRT. When Angus lead us on the first day, to the hostel, I pointed out we were going in the wrong direction. Another day when I was leading, we veered off track and someone else had to correct me. Homey was located in an obscure place, thankfully,  we were able to support each other. There is quite some pressure being the person that holds the map and directs everyone, and it was helpful that other people kept an eye on where we were heading. Through this experience, I learnt to no be afraid to ask for help when I am in the position of having to guide the group, and also to speak up when I think we are on the wrong path, because it is better to be wrong than to have to walk an extra distance. Exercise isn’t exactly one of my strengths.

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End of CAS reflection and beginning of trip details for my own memory

day 1: On the first day, we arrived in Taipei. First we went to the city to drop our bags off at Meander hostle. I realised that our guides were more fluent in Mandarin than English. I learnt they are locals who live in a nearby city/area, there may be deers on our trail, and the flowers on the mountain are very beautiful. 我们吃了台铁饭盒，里边有猪排，卤蛋，咸鱼（我把鱼给了Maia）还有菜 – 好像是酸菜还是芥蓝，现在不记得了。While eating, we sat through a air attack drill or something, they say it happens every 2 years.

They say that the area around snow mountain has many peaks

took a car to the trailhead in Wuling Farm. It was a 4 hour car ride, I fell asleep in the city and woke up surrounded by mist, forest, and steep hills. It was slightly scary, but I’m glad I was not awake for most of the time the car made nauseous turns uphill. By the time we arrived, it was cold,  (around 9 ˚) drizzling, and getting dark. We trekked up some stairs to get to Qika cabin. Maia kept on swooning over the frogs on the side of the road (I was scared I was going to impale them with my hiking sticks) and my headtorch kept on attracting too many moths.  (LO 4 Show commitment to and perseverance in your CAS experiences) We got there eventually. My first reaction was the joy that we had the whole place to ourselves – no other travelers! We ate a late dinner in the light of head torches. The food was really good. The chef there is nicknamed 红牛, after the beer. We settled down and slept. At around midnight, other people stormed in, they stomped around loudly, kept on opening and closing velcro/zips, and rustled plastics bags.

day 2: I was unnecessarily excited to hike. The weather was rainy again, but I knew we would reach the east peak that day and I looked forward to it. It was already drizzling when we left, and the rain got worse. We passed a drowned helipad before hiking up east peak. When we got to east peak, my excitement wore off, and I was so sick of the rain that I hid underneath a signage – it was the only shelter on the hilltop. (LO 4 Show commitment to and perseverance in your CAS experiences) After reaching east peak, my energy wore out, but we still had a long way to trek.  Jen told us a saying where guys should climb all the peaks we are looking at before getting a wife.

The ‘eco toilets’ were the first place I rushed into once reaching 369 cabins – We were told to keep hydrated, after all. It was actually kind of disappointing – looking down into the toilet hole, I had expected the human excretion to be more clumpy and gruesome, but all I saw was a mud-like mush. We were also told on briefing day that there would be a wheel to mix any solid waste to prevent it from freezing – I had expected the wheel to have higher resistance, and perhaps the substance we are stirring to have a higher consistency so it would create suction sounds when turned. No such luck. It was anticlimactic. Unfortunately, the smell did not fail to meet my expectations.  I do understand why the person who dropped their phone in there (anecdote Ms Joanne told us on briefing day) didn’t manage to bribe anyone into picking it up for them though. After using the bathroom, the tap to wash with was also annoyingly far away – It was the only tap in the whole compound, and the water was freezing. They told us to conserve water.

This was also the day I discovered my Annapurna snowboots aren’t as invincibly waterproof as I thought they would be. This time Maia’s boots stayed dry why my socks were soaked through. Her shoes were newly bought from decathlon on briefing day, after all. I managed to body-heat dry the shoes by wearing them around without socks. We warmed ourselves up with ginger tea (also had other herbs, too sweet but good) which we scooped rather unhygienically from an open bowl on a burning stove. The atmosphere in the kitchen was cosy – even my groupmates who couldn’t understand mandarin thought so. Upon Jen telling the locals I could understand mandarin, they joked they would switch to 原住民話 to talk about me. We also had to repeatedly tell people to close the kitchen door, which let in cold wind.

I think it was here that I asked Jen about the difference between mist and clouds – Mist is water vapour, clouds are frozen. I found out Jen is a university student, and also asked her why she calls Mr. Yen teacher – she said something along the lines of wanting to follow in his footsteps of knowing the mountains so well, that he knows the mountains well. I remember she tried to explain in English, and she used the word ‘wisdom’. I cringed, it seems as though I understand what she is talking about, the role model you respect and look up to is a common (cultural?) trope; having it explained and sketched out, especially in English… perhaps I though that set of words seem insufficient to describe it. Looking up the dictionary definition, wisdom is indeed the correct word. Our guides struggled with English. What scares me is my automatic cringe reaction in this conversation. I always try to be precise in my language, (No The Giver influence here) even though I speak two languages and a dialect, I always find my speech vague and I hate it. I think it impedes on my ability to express myself to others. Writing for myself, I could draw on the most obscure metaphors and would likely still be able to understand the text in a few years, as some words have emotional connotations for me, but this system doesn’t work when talking with others. I should not be overly picky with other’s language, but listening to Jen, did Maia truly understand the type of mentor-mentee relationship she was describing? Did I understand it correctly? {Going off tangent, precise language is difficult to achieve, ie Jean has such a wide vocabulary, but when I was lucky enough to read her creative writing pieces, they only vaguely made sense after she explains every analogy and reference… ugh maybe this is why I have such a distaste for poetry}

 Day 3:

We woke up super early in the morning, before the sun was up. We were greeted by winding stairs after leaving the lodge. It was reminiscent of the trek up Poon hill (which I did not make) in grrae 9. But this time my bags felt lighterm and the stairs less steep. Walking behind Mr. Yen helps me keep pace, but I would let Anushka take the spot. It was the most annoying staircase, it went left and right and ledt and right so it felt that no progress was made. In the black forest, while breaking, Anushka insisted that she sees a face on a tree. Her ambivalent tone of voice made our surroundings more onvious than they were. It was a magnificent part of nature but with our head torches, horror movies could be filmed here. Oh right, Anushka also said that she once had a dream of this place – right where we were breaking, she clained to have dreamt that a monster ran out and attacked her. I don’t know if I brought it up to counter-intuitively lighten the mood or someone else did, but somehow we mentioned slenderman. Jen gave us very delicious sweets on the breaks though. I am thankful. Then the sky started to lighten, I started worrying we wont be able to see the sunrise, but I also knew ther group had no way of moving fast enough to get to the hilltop on time. The forest became brighter, the trees greener. At a break, Anushka found that one of the segments on one of her hiking sticks broke off. Jen exchanged her set of sticks with Anushka’s single one. Later on, I gave a stick to Maia and later on, she would have both. We crossed a field/valley of flowers once exiting the forest, the view was wonderous bit istn’t it always. Then we walked up a ricky hill – it was literally rockes piles one on another with small rocks everywhere – or it looked like it – and I was scared it would avalaunche. I could feel the air thinning as I had to take more breaths. I now badly needed the breaks.

 

What everyone will remember is that I stayed back with Maia – Anushka picked up her pace and I feel proud for her. Now let me exploit my friend so I can make this post more CAS-LO orientated. (LO 5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively, LO 7 Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions) At that time I wondered if it was really right to prompt her to continue. Mr Yen 还是 Jen 说他是‘肺水肿’，which nobody was able to accurately translate to explain in accurate medical terms. You can’t say ‘your lungs are filled with water!’ as I would have if I was talking to myself because that is untrue.In Annapurna I loathed the teacher who pushed me to take one step after another on the trek, even as I was dying, but I was glad I reached base camp. I find it hard to believe Maia didn’t at least snap at me when I gave her the same instructions. (I would have if I was her, and I decided I don’t want to reach the top) My logic was that we came so far, it would be a pity not to reach the peak If I were her, I would want her to encourage me. However, there have also been cases where I would have prefered not to be so optimistically pushed into things I do not want to do – but then she didn’t get hyper irritated at me as it would have been if she truly didn’t want to do the climb. Yet with Maia saying she was unwell and couldn’t make it, should I really be telling her to continue? Her mountain sickness could have got worse… But then Jen would have realised… right? 

 

While we started out separate, Anushka, Maia and I ended up more clustered together as we walked. We lost speed as we reaches the stairs – again, they were the annoying winding type where you would end up with no horizontal displacement. By them my knees felt like those of a old person. I wondered if they would be damaged in to long term, and I walked backwards as it seemed less painful. We were wet. We looked out for the distance markers and felt joy as we saw the distance decrease from 1 km to 400 meters. It decreased too slowly, only after two turns in stairs would we travel 100. Mr Yen made sure to remind us when we got close to ~200 meters.

As the sky began to darken, just a little, we reached trailhead. I think Anushka ran ahead but I was too out of energy. The mud path faded into wooden panels and I lifted my trekking sticks. There was a water feature next to us and I immediately thought of bathing. The trailhead lodge was familiar. In only 3 days I went to the peak and back down. Someone handed me a plastic bag containing my clean nice long sleeves shirt. Didnt bother to change as my pants were dirtier from climbing over branches/sitting on the ground. I remember feeling gratitude to Jen for the food. Mr Yen 还是Jen 跟司机开玩笑说他对我们不离不弃。I overheard Jen say she will be returning to university, and I wondered where Mr Yen would go. I felt a little sad we will probably never see each other again.

We really should have just arranged with ACE to stay at Meander for the entire trip, because the lodging we moved to on day 4 felt claustrophobic, or rather, it gave an impression of bad ventilation and insufficiency of air. I hanged up stuff up. Maia placed the dehumidifier under her stuff. I regret choosing the top bunk in the back – it seemed the safest from break-ins but seemed to have the least oxygen. Despite the stench (My deo came in handy for the first time) and the closed-in-ness of the place, it was great for surfing Taobao. During breakfast, there was the same stuff as Meander, not as many bread spread or space to eat though. At least I didn’t see people pouring sugar syrup into congee again.

Too tired to continue writing – I still have a physics IA to check over, an EE + university essay stuff to write – photos will help me remember in the future.

 

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May 9

EE Day Exit Ticket

One thing I’ve learned: I learned the difference between ‘quoting’ and ‘citing’. Citing refers to crediting others for their helpful ideas/theories that I’ve built my argument upon. Quoting, on the other hand, refers to repeating another person’s words, which may not necessarily mean I have relied on them for the development of my ideas. I can quote anyone to present their opinions, but I should only cite people who are credible.

What I’m proud of: I’m most proud of my time management today. I managed to stay on track when I am supposed to while not ending up being that workaholic person that ditches their friends. I completed a decent amount of research, consolidated my understanding of what I need to do, and also enjoyed the snacks we received to power us through EE day. (The hot chocolate is really good)

What I’ll be doing next: I will need to type up another 700 words for our first deadline and find a collection of Innocent (smoothies) advertisements for my analysis. I could also take a look at adverts by Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to compare and contrast with Innocent advertisements since Ben & Jerry’s is also selling food promoted as a good and natural option.

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April 29

GC: Milk Tea

Thanks to Anumita and Jean, who isn’t in the GC, for helping with the GC milk tea test making!

I bought all the ingredients over the weekend, and I did feel tempted to make it myself – luckily, I didn’t do that as it would have just wasted a bunch of tea leaves. As it turns out, milk + tea doesn’t = milk tea, as Jean’s suggestion during the test make showed.

LO 5 Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively

LO 2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process : I learnt to make milk tea!!! Never thought it would be difficult to make it drinkable!

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