Editing Wikipedia

To be honest, if this is not part of the course, I wont be bothered to edit Wikipedia. But, after editing one of the pages, I felt a sense of satisfaction which is very surprising for me. It feels as if I've accomplish something great. Me, an ordinary person, responsible for the knowledge of the public. As we all probably know, knowledge is power. As Spiderman would say, with power, comes great responsibility. So, this is what it must feel like for millions of people who have edited Wikipedia. This kind of satisfaction has the potential to be addictive. No wonder some people can edit thousands of pages. I always thought that they have too much spare time.

Now, I can no longer look at Wikipedia the same again. I find myself always looking for errors to be corrected every time I go to Wikipedia. Till then, Happy Editing!

Renewed Motivation

In one of my course called Communication in Advertising, we were asked to choose between 3 projects, either a banner, corporate video or a brochure. Me and my group decided to do a Brochure. So, yesterday (Saturday) was our pitch to the lecturers. We were destroyed and failed miserably. Somehow, our group did not feel any pain. Probably because it's still early in the semester, and we know that what we presented was not our best. We were too busy with other courses. Or perhaps we didn't really understand what "pitch" means. Not that I'm trying to give excuses, it's just that somehow it feels like we choose to fail on that one.

On the good side, however, we get extra support from our supervisors. We have become more organized, more focus and clear what needs to be done. For me, we needed to be destroyed in order to grow. Our motivation is now clear. New goals have been set. Its time to give our best.

Interpretations.

Image taken from Google.

All this time I had interpreted the "Bahasa Melayu" in the above sign as Standard Malay. I just realized during a lecture that this is not entirely the case. What does the sign mean by "Bahasa Melayu"? Bahasa Melayu can be considered a broad term. Thus, there are many interpretations of it as well. For example, Brunei Malay falls under Bahasa Melayu. So, as you can see, Brunei Malay is still Malay. What about the other languages of the other Brunei Malay races ( Kedayan, Tutong, Dusun, Belait, Murut dan Bisaya)? They are considered as the Malay race in the constitution. So, doesn't that make their language Malay as well, if they are considered the 'Malay people'? The point of asking these questions is to make us aware of such interpretations. However, I do still think "Bahasa Melayu" in the above sign meant Standard Malay, because "Bahasa Melayu" is considered a generic term for Standard Malay. After all, only Standard Malay has a written status concerning official matters.

Second week

The second week is ending. I am still in the process of deciding which courses that I will take for the semester. I've been attending all of the classes until now. As you can imagine, it is very tiring. In total, 6 classes (double that if you count tutorials, well some classes doesn't have tutorials yet). So far I have only decided to drop Language and Gender, and Communication and Culture amongst the options. Only one option is confirmed, which is Communication in Advertising. So, the dilemma is to choose one more.

As of now, I'm lacking 1 unit to graduate. At the moment, I'm taking Japanese to fill that 1 unit. Our options that was originally offered were all 3 units. Now, we are offered a Gennext course which is 4 units. So, If I decided to take the Gennext course, I will be able to drop Japanese. 

Here are the 3 courses left to choose from: Bilingualism and Multilingual Societies (3 units), Phonetics and Phonological Analysis (3 units) and Language Issues in Brunei (4 units). If I take any of the 3 units course, I'll have to keep Japanese. If I take the 4 units, I'll be able to drop Japanese. 

The thing is, I originally wanted to take Phonetics and Phonological Analysis, but now the 4 units is so tempting.

The question is, does less courses equal to less workload? One week left to decide...

First post

Hello. This is my first time blogging. It's not really something new to me because I do read blogs when I feel like it (If you check my profile, it says I've been on Blogger since February 2009). I have given some thoughts about starting up a blog awhile back, but I'm never really sure what to blog about. I don't think my life is that interesting to be shared to the Internet. Even on Facebook, I barely update my status even though I check my Facebook everyday (at least 4 times a day). Talking about Facebook, it has been such an important part of our lives, because most of us rely on it for our daily communication, especially work related. Trust me, work is the only reason (a large part, if not the only one) I stay on Facebook. Some of us who didn't have an account before had to make one due to the same reason.

Anyway, this blog is part of our continuous assessment in a course called "Academic and Professional Electronic Communication" which requires us to set up a blog (good enough reason to start one). So, this is an academic blog which will reflect the experiences of my current study in UBD.

The first week of study has ended. Courses are yet to be decided. Good luck to everyone.

Here is something that I want to share to my friends which is related to what we did in the computer lab last Thursday: Google tips

p/s: posted this since last Thursday. But it seems too short. I edited and reposted it again (Sunday and Today, Monday).