Medea

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THIRD EPISODE

Examine Medea’s behaviour with Creon: what strategies does she use to manipulate him?

How does Medea’s speech after Creon’s exit give us further insight into her character?

Creon has made up his mind that he is going to put Medea into exile after the rebellious actions she committed. He suspects that she might be plotting against them to take revenge as she said, “ your words are gentle, but my blood runs cold to think what plots you might be nursing within your heart. Creon kept on insisting that whatever Medea tries to say she will never change his mind about banishing her and that she has to leave Corinth immediately. With her manipulative skills, Medea plays Creon’s emotions reminding him that as he is a parent, he should have some compassion for a mother trying to provide safety for her children. For instance she said to him, “ show some pity, you are a father too,  you should feel kindly towards them. For myself exile is nothing. I weep for them. Their fate is very hard.” Moreover, Medea constantly clings to him to get him to create some kind of emotional appeal and get him to sympathise with her. Creon is very clear about his terms of Medea’s banishment, but through this manipulation, Creon grants Medea one day to remain in Corinth.

Medea

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  • What is the significance of the information the Nurse gives the audience?
  • How does it influence our impressions of Medea’s character before we see her?

The inclusion of the nurse creates a platform for the audience to feel sympathy for Medea in her times of suffering and grief. The nurse illustrates background events that have been the catalyst for Medea’s torment. This evokes sympathy for Medea, foreshadowing events and belittles Jason. The nurse creates emotional appeal to the audience awakening a response for the “woman scorned” by her “ spinelessness husband”. The nurse’s lament expresses an impossible desire to undo the past “oh if I had never gone to the land of Colchis” with a man that “now treats me with contempt”. The extent of Medea’s torture is evident as she cries out for an end to her misery by death

“oh, if only I could die”, contemplating suicide. Medea mentioning suicide enables the audience to sympathise with her and establish a negative attitude to Jason’s betrayal. This gives the impression that Medea is a proud, self-possessed, and powerful woman who is capable of moving from her suicidal despair to committing revenge. Her having been angry at the fact that Jason abandoned him for Creon’s daughter and constantly blaming Jason for the wrong he has done to her disclose that she is aggressive and very creepy.

Saxophone – Final Reflection

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#LO 3: Planning and initiating activities

While at the same time taking my saxophone lessons, I did a lot of individual practice. I mostly played pop songs but sometimes Jazz songs. I found playing these songs very fun and relaxing especially since I am in grade 12 and there is just so much on my plate. As always my greatest setback to this was time. There was barely enough time to rehearse which changed a lot of things. It meant I had to practice for a few minutes and then go back to doing my school work immediately. To solve this, I just practiced everyday but for less than 30 minutes instead of the 1 hour that I used to practice. The following are some of the recordings for songs I used to play.

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Running club – Final Reflection

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#LO5: Working together to achieve an outcome

Although I was part of the school running club and I had to train with the school team, I mostly trained with running club called Singapore Shufflers. A few of the members of the school running team are part of this club too so we trained and collaborated with each other most of the time. During days that we did not have training at the club, we would run with the school team in the mornings so that we do not fall behind in training. It was really easy to work together because we were all from the same school and training with the same club so we had a common goal to meet. Collaboration or teamwork in this sport was more like a motivation for me. Just training with a bunch of people who had similar passions as me and worked towards achieving the same goal pushed me and lifted my confidence in running which I believe made my performance incredible.

The following is the link to one of the Running competitions I attended

Singapore Shufflers Time trial

Saxophone – Initial Reflection

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#L0 1 : Increased awareness of strengths and areas for personal growth

Having put in as much effort as possible into overcoming the squeak that I normally made when playing the saxophone, I finally got through it. However, not fully. There are still instances when I make the squeak but it only happens rarely. All I did was practice all the drills that my saxophone teacher taught me e.g breathing, fingering techniques and just learning more music theory . The squeak helped me to realize that I really need to improve my fingering when playing the saxophone. Eliminating this squeak was not an easy thing to do since I was not really sure what caused it.

As such I practiced a lot and worked towards perfecting my techniques which turned out effective in the end. This practicing did not just minimize the squeak but also improved the quality of sound in overall. The major struggle I came across was the lack of time which forced me to employ effective time management strategies. But even so, there was still a lot of school work to do so this meant I practiced less than I usually did as I had to prioritise.

Running club – Initial Reflection

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#LO 1 : Increased awareness of strengths and areas for growth

Running has always been a crucial part of my daily routine. Thus I was super excited to be joining the high school running club as this meant I got to run together with other people. I enjoy long distance running and this club happens to be based on that so I believed that would just make things super easy for me. I have improved considerably in terms of the stamina I need to run long distances since I had been running a lot recently. I also run with another running club outside school so this put me in a very strong position. The reason I have struggled in some areas was because o injuries. The injuries were certainly not as bad or frequent as they used to be but at some point I had to suspend training so I gave myself time to recover and go back to form.

Reflection

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LO 6: Engaging with issues of global importance

It is unfortunate that we were not able to achieve the missions of our service because of the coronavirus but besides, there is actually a lot that I learned from ‘memoirs of the pioneer generation’. Most importantly I learned to accept other people’s differences. This is an issue of utmost importance looking at the fact that we are living in a world where no two people are the same. I absolutely understand that in my service, we dealt specifically with seniors and assisted them in making their lives sound more meaningful but even so that gave me the platform to relate to other people’s differences, including myself. For instance, our clients were seniors and I am a teenager, they are Singaporeans and I am Tswana, they are disabled whereas I am not. These are some of the things that I took time to sit down and start thinking about them because I felt that they are very relevant to everyday life. Being able to recognize those differences and accept other people made me realize how great and amazing it is to understand each other and live together peacefully. It made me wonder and start imagining how amazing the world be if everyone cared about others and accepted their unique differences.

 

 

 

Reflection

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LO 2: Undertaken new challenges and developed new skills

I came across a really huge obstacle to playing the saxophone being the squeaking sound. Yes! every time I play the saxophone I have to produce a squeaking sound and this frustrates me at times. I started getting that squeaking sound after changing my mouthpiece but I am not completely sure if that was the major reason behind it. To remedy that squeaking sound, I started being careful and studied why my saxophone squeaked. I considered my embouchure, mouthpiece, reed, and even the saxophone itself as the reason could be mechanical. After inspecting all of those and starting to become more conscious of how I play the saxophone, I still did not figure out what the problem might be. The squeaking sound is something I am currently working diligently on now because I noticed I would not get anywhere with music if I continued to produce it. Having explored the possible reasons as to why I made a squeaking sound gave me the opportunity to develop my critical and analytical skills and transformed me into a more meticulous person. I will be able to use skills like these in other areas of my life that will require problem-solving. The more I played the saxophone, the closer I got to spot the source of the squeaking sound. For example, I squeaked a lot in the beginning but with constant practice, it got better and better so hopefully, in no time I will be able to solve this problem. My saxophone teacher kept motivating me to work hard while being patient with myself at the same time and also gave me a little bit of comfort when he told me that he also used to make the squeaking sound and even worse than that and that it will get better with time.

 

The following are pictures of some practice sound exercises I employed in my battle against the squeaking sound.

 

Reflection 2

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Lo:4 showing perseverance, resilience

The current coronavirus pandemic changed the way that I did my training in that we were not allowed to go to sports clubs. Despite that, I still continued running and made sure that I was fit at all times because the truth is that I was not just training for track and field but also for cross country and to remain fit. I always tried to remain patient and positive at all times that the pandemic would soon calm down and this made me keep going with my training. My major motivation was cross country. Just how much like cross country enabled me to continue training, taking into account also the fact that I want to become one of the best athletes out there. All those goals and dreams kept me focussed and undisturbed in my physical lifestyle. We did not have any competitions in track and field because of COVID 19 but I would like to say that having been resilient and persevering took me to another level of athletic improvement. That is a whole change in my athletic mindset and recognizing new values that I never really knew I possessed before. I helped others to stay committed to this activity by encouraging them to continue training and maintaining an active lifestyle despite COVID ’19.

Some of the activities I did were; long-distance runs, cycling, yoga, leg and ab workouts, etc

The video clip below shows how I have been running around the campus as a way to keep fit and compensate for track and field.