english as first language.
Monday, November 27, 2006

do you feel it's difficult to communicate in English, especially for the people who just came directly from Indonesia especially from national school which implement Bahasa Indonesia as their primary language?

I do. When I first came to Singapore, my english was terrible (although it's still terrible till this time, LoL). I couldn't understand the lecture and couldn't make effective conversation with the Singaporeans at worse. moreover, the singlish accent added with some mandarin words language give me a confusion what they're trying to communicate with me.

Therefore, I tend to make a conversation with the Indonesians. But I realize it won't improve my english skill. I tried to make some friends with Hongkong, Phillippine, and Thailand people whose English skill is better than mine, assuming that I will develop my 'good' english by making friends with them. Some Indonesian people graduated from International school such as JIS (Jakarta International School) and SIS (Surabaya International School) have american accent English (it's nice to have an english with american accent while you are in Singapore). Their English skills are absolutely much better than mine.

However, I'm neither blaming my school nor my country for the inferiority of my english skill. Rather, I regret that I 'underestimated' the art of communicating with english. When I got 1800+ for my SAT, I thought that my English is 'good enough', but unfortunately, it is not. SAT is just a 'formality' test. You just need to a lot of exercises and you will be able to master it. Nevertheless, when I first took ELW (English language workshop), a workshop which is especially for foreigners whose native language is not english, the instructor told us not to write paper with SAT Composition style. Composition in SAT is only 25 minutes but university research paper takes more than that.

I remembered he said: "Don't write 'In conclusion', 'To conclude' or any other similar phrase to conclude your essay, the readers are smart enough to know that you are writing conclusion in the end of your essay". (since we usually write it in the conclusion paragraph of SAT essay)

The math section of SAT does help us to understand mathematics language in english. The spotting error part is only a matter of practising. The critical reading part? no comment.. I took 3 tests and the result for crit reading are 510, 500, 490 out of 800. Yeah, it's degrading, LOL!

I should have read more article in English and ultimately speak English with other people. But, could I? haha.. *dasar malas*

posted by edgar @ 11:26 PM, ,


*pondering*
Saturday, November 25, 2006

I've just realized.. Life is never fair. It is unfair in many ways.

I wanna talk about its unfairness from 1 side.

Some people have everything; they have financial support as well as potential in themselves. Some have either one, but not both. however, unfortunately the rest have neither.

while people who have either one should have been grateful of their condition, I am still not satisfied. One of humans' characteristics states that we innately have a desire to gain more; we are never satisfied with what we have. We never look down.

Okay, enough with the unfairness stuff.

I can change the unfair to be fair. I will put much effort to gain the either one which I haven't had, then I get everything I want. And, that's all. Is this the end of my life journey? No, I will put more effort to myself, and gain more. gain, gain and gain. It's endless, until we die.

So, when I think of that way, there seems to be no purpose in my life. I mug hard for the exams, get good grades, proud of myself, show-off to others, then, what? get a good job, bring a good performance for the company, started my own business and make it as renowned as Zara (hopefully), retired, enjoying the rest of your life healthily (hopefully with the advancement of technology), and then?

*feel that life is insipid (do i use the proper vocab?)these days*

posted by edgar @ 1:16 AM, ,


writing without direction.
Friday, November 17, 2006

tonight I suddenly want to write my feeling about things going on in my life for last few months. I've been just 4 months in this neighbor country but I've learned loads of important things for my life. Anyway, from now on, I would try to write my thoughts in English for the sake of my friends who do not understand bahasa and for my english improvement as well! So, pardon my inferior written english :).

This night, I just passed the my apartment's security post, saying 'Hi' to the security.
He then said "Good Evening".
Wew, surprised a little bit, I replied him "Good night or evening?".
"Good evening, you say good night when you wanna go to sleep."
"Oh okay, good evening then *smiling*"
I just knew that you greet a person with 'good evening' when it is still 9 pm. lol.. I usually greet people with "Good night" since it is 7 pm. *feel somehow ashamed*

I just realized that I am able to make friends with many type of people. I'm a 'nice' person. Yeah, it's good to be a nice person though being it has a flip side. Being a 'nice' person is not easy, you have to appreciate, or agree, to most of that person's argument although you have opposing argument against theirs. and as a result, I didn't develop my arguing skill well (I regret not joining CEF, Canisius English Forum, when I was in high school). However, the question arises:"are being a nice person and an argumentative person mutually exclusive?"

I feel fortunate (or it's destiny maybe) to have such a course called Analytical skills, which teaches me how to perceive and solve the problems with a different way, with a skillful instructor and Communication (im taking it next term), an imperative course for me since my english skill is below average for SMU students. furthermore, I learned a lot from my friend. He's a debater from Raffles JC (The best Junior College in Singapore. From him, I learned that debating skill is crucial in your life. I feel that I'm a different Edgar now, although I still can improve a lot, in perceiving the problem and other's arguments.

In SMU, there's a class participation which encourages the student to talk in the class. At first I was very timid to participate due to my inferior spoken english skill. Later, I encouraged myself to talk even though my english is poor and my content of speaking is rubbish. WILLING to participate is prioritized bro! nyahaha..

I realized that my friend, the debater, is good enough in debating because of his perpetual effort in exercising his skill. He was like me too, a poor debater, but after he had experienced a lot of debate events, then he could be like this. He said that he does not always win the debate, however, sometime when your argument is attacked with a 'checkmate' situation, then you learned why is your argument is vulnerable and how to modify it. The same thing happens for the SMU number 1 pool player. He put a lot of effort and time to practice his pool skill and as a result he became a good pool player. I was amazed with these 2 guys.. They are committed to one skill and ace it. I should learn that too!!

I'm thinking about making article about "why there's such a good business school while most people in Indonesia assume that engineering is the preferable major to take?"

dunno when to start writing this article haha.

posted by edgar @ 9:18 PM, ,