This playlist consists of songs that I have composed over a period of time and figured that it would be appropriate to use for this particular assignment, as I believe that they best represent me.
Reflections Off a Mirror
Just another Media Factory site
Month: March 2016 (page 2 of 2)
I figured that this 6 pictures would pretty sum up almost everything that I enjoy doing during my free time. 6 pictures isn’t a lot, but I guess this is a good indication of my interests and maybe just a bit of my personality.
Although some might be pretty straight forward, others might be a little hard to guess. However, I believe that you shouldn’t let someone know a little too much about yourself before you actually get to know that individual with the aid of time.
We live in a time where we are able to make friends without even having to see each other in person. Internet bridges people from across the world, connecting individuals with common interests and then starting a friendship or a bond that might be built virtually.
During our second lectorial of the semester, a topic was raised. Are the friends we meet through social media platforms considered friends, like the ones we see on our day to day basis? Has social media break down walls between us or has it fortified and confined us into work spaces and our bedrooms?
In my opinion, it just boils down to how the end user deals with it. There is no hard and fast rule on making friends. From our early childhood when we were sent to kindergarten, we have developed social skills to interact with one another and establish friendship organically. However, social media websites such as Facebook, or Instagram can be used as tools to aid making friends and allow maintain contact in a very convenient way. Having said that, it also allows people to meet new individuals that might share a common interest or a certain liking. Some people might request to be friends with others as they realise they have similar interests and would like to get to know one another from there. But are those friends considered “real”? I would say, if they started meeting up to interact with one another face to face in a non-virtual environment, then sure. That friendship might be more then just Facebook buddies, as they have gone beyond the restrictions and boundaries of social media and going back to the conventional way of meeting up over a cup of coffee to converse and get to know one another. Facebook enables that, but again, it leads back to how the end user chooses how they want to make friends and what they consider as “real” or “virtual” friends.
Real or not, we all need friends at certain point in our lives to talk about certain issues or share an experience or just a listening ear. We can’t go by a day without socialising or interacting with someone, be it in person or through a social network. Therefore, as the saying goes, “You can never have too many friends”. And yes, I’d vouch for that.
What is an Accent? Perhaps an identity? Or the way you were raised?
Being in Melbourne for just under a fortnight, I have heard a broad variety of accents all around the city. From the local Aussie accents, to Chinese, to Singaporean/Malaysian, Thai, Italian, French, German and many, many more.
To me, every time I hear a Singaporean/Malaysian accent, (reason for classifying Singaporean and Malaysian accent as one is, both sound similar to each other, unless you really pay attention to it.) I think of home, and hearing those accents feels just bit comforting, being in a foreign land. Having so many accents in such a small area, shows how diverse the city is and proves that there must be something attracting all these people from all corners of the world to come here to study, do business, or just for a holiday. Obviously something is working for the city of Melbourne. And more so, communication has got to be a key role in bringing all this people here.
I believe accents deliver more than just words or conversations, they reveal where we are from and also gives us a sense of belonging when we meet each other with the same accent in a foreign land, without even having to show any form of identity card or passport. Of course all these also goes with your command of language in English, but in general, it just helps us identify and learn about one another a little better.
Do you have a favourite accent?
Tennis fans in Australia were thrilled to see their local tennis stars play at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club here in Melbourne! The tennis club hosted to the Aussie and US tie over the weekend with top players from the respective nations coming down to play at this historic venue where it ones was the location for the Australian Open back in the 70’s and the 80’s.
I, however, was contemplating if I should go have my first experience participating as part of the Davis Cup crowd and atmosphere. There were much to be settled over this weekend and watching live tennis, as big as the event may be, wasn’t really much of a priority for me at the moment. Having just moved in to my apartment only on Friday afternoon from a serviced apartment, bids just having more to do on my list. Therefore, decided to drop the idea of going for the event and probably catching it live on TV.
There’s just something very different from watching a sports event or any event, for that matter, live or through the television. Be it your favourite rock band playing at Wembley Stadium or the tennis mens’ singles finals at Wimbledon. There is always going to be that difference in atmosphere and environment. Having to go through huge masses of people just to get to the venue, queuing up to get tickets and entering the venue, queuing up to get food and beverages, and if the event is held outdoors, having to deal with the weather conditions (rain or shine), all these compared to sitting on your couch with a bottle of chilled cola in your hand and a bag of chips in the other, just can’t outweigh the perks of actually being there at the stadium, cheering your favourite player or team, shouting the lyrics to your favourite song or just being part of the atmosphere.
From a production point of view, a downside for watching from your TV is, you only watch what the producer wants you to watch, and you only hear what the microphones pick up at the venue. You don’t really have a panoramic view of the venue and not having the freedom to see what you want to see. As a spectator of a tennis match, usually the best seats would be behind the player at the end of the court, this allows you have the view of the entire court and the ball, without having to turn your head left and right while the players are in a rally. You can’t get that at home, however the production team would try to achieve that view, but nothing beats being there in person.
Getting on to the deep attention and hyper attention wagon, being part of a crowd at an event would generally mean having deep attention in order for you to achieve the full experience of being at the event and soaking up the atmosphere. It wouldn’t be so much of just going to the venue to watch a live spectacle, but immersing yourself in the sights and sounds of the whole exhibit. Whereas catching it on TV would sometimes mean you have the tendency of going off to do something else while leaving the TV on, such as checking your email, engaging in social media, or making a sandwich. There’s only so much time one can spend on just watching TV without doing something else, with the addition of commercial breaks in between, just adds on to nudging an individual to do something else.
Anyway, back to Davis Cup action, unfortunately, US moves on to the next round while Australia’s dreams of winning the Davis Cup has to be postponed for at least another year.
During this week’s practical we were asked to run down to the streets of Melbourne to capture what we would think best describes or signifies a “Melbourne Moment”. 10 minutes were all that we were given to leave the room, get out of the building, hunt for a significant moment, snap a picture, and head on back to class. At the end of it all, we had to email the picture to our tutor and she would make a collage or a photo gallery of it on her blog.
Just as I was leaving the room and into the lift, my mind started brainstorming ideas of what best represents Melbourne. Being such a diverse and metropolitan city, so many things can signify that special “Melbourne Moment”, but would it be unique to Melbourne? A few thoughts that came to mind were the trams in the city, bicycles and the dedicated cycling lanes, people just relaxing on the grass patch just outside the state library, or even (being the tennis fan that I am) capturing Melbourne Park, the home of Rod Laver Arena where many great tennis matches were held and also many more great live events took place.
In the end, I decided to go with the bicycles for simple reasons. One being how many cyclists I see on the road everyday. People cycling for various reasons, cross training, commuting, exercising, or just for the fun of it. Being an avid cyclist myself back home, most people either fall in separate categories, either you cycle or you don’t. However here, people do it to get to work, to go to school, to train for their next cycling event. Adding to that, the roads, weather and maybe people, makes it so conducive for doing so. I simply admire just the vast number of people choosing cycling as their mode of transport daily. Just makes me feel like getting on a bike to join them.
As the saying goes “A picture paints a thousand words”, however for this instance, unfortunately the picture I took on my phone, does not justify how much cyclists and their bicycles has been so intricately woven into being that “Melbourne Moment”.
So this week’s been pretty up and down for me with moving to a new environment, starting school in RMIT and pretty much just settling down. It’s never easy leaving almost everything behind at home and living in a new place (somewhere that I have never set foot on before), what’s more, starting on a new education journey having been on a hiatus for the past 3 years due to serving National Service back home on sunny island Singapore. What’s having class on a Monday morning, 9.30am, compared to something on a different scale of settling student admin matters, adapting to a new environment, meeting new people, and at the same time thinking about home?
An article was issued in class on Monday during the very first lectorial for Media 1. It was a lengthy one, and to be honest, I’m not that much of a reader, therefore didn’t really paid much attention to reading it, just skimmed my way through. Until the class started getting more in depth about it, questions were raised during the “post-reading discussion”, I realised how much people do read into the article, analysing, breaking down information, fact checking, all within the short period of 10 – 15 minutes. And how comfortable they are, in expressing their views. Kind of shocked at first, but I guess that’s normal here? From where I’m from, students usually do the listening and lecturers would do most of the talking and there isn’t many questions during the lecture. Even when the lecturer asks for any opinions, answers, or questions, majority of the students would just shy away and just keep their queries to the end of lecture. Personally, I find it a little intimidating with everyone’s confidence in expressing their thoughts and feelings towards a certain matter, and that’s probably where I might have to improve on myself to present and speak up when needed.
Hyper Attention or Deep Attention? I guess there is no definite “side” to choose. I believe that it really depends on the situation that you are in and the environment that cultivates the behaviour of an individual. For example, in the 4 stages of competence where it illustrates a learning curve. Everybody starts off at unconscious incompetence, where I would assume requires more of deep attention in order to focus on the new skill that you might have picked up and develop a certain kind of muscle memory or flow and rhythm. Slowly moving up the stages, achieving unconscious competence where it becomes almost second nature and that’s hyper attention kicks in, hence being able to multitask. A good example would be learning to drive, initially we feel nervous, anxious and uncertain at first, paying full attention to so many things at once (especially if you’re driving a manual transmission). However, as we get more experience, we tend to get more confident being in the driver’s seat and start doing other things outside of just driving from point A to B. We engage in conversations with our passengers, listening to music, eating, and more.
To put all that I have mentioned into context, I’m pretty much at the stage of “unconscious incompetence” from the start of my trip to Melbourne and starting school at RMIT. Too many worrying uncertainties, too many “what ifs”, basically just trying to keep my head above the water. I just can’t wait to shift into overdrive to achieve unconscious competence, where I can just find my place to fit in and proceed to doing many other things all at once.
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