Song Selection ( Group Work)

What a Wonderful World

I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom for me and you And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white The bright blessed day, the dark sacred(dog say good) night And I think to myself what a wonderful world. The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky are also on the faces of people going by (I also want to face the) I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do They're really saying I love you. I hear babies crying, I watch them grow They'll learn much more than I'll never know And I think to myself what a wonderful world Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world. For this tutorial, we were asked to find a song that has a message in it. After a long discussion, we decided to choose the song entitled What a Wonderful World” that was sing by the late Louis Armstrong The singer real name was Louis Daniel Armstrong and he was born August 4, 1901New Orleans, in Louisiana, U.S. He died at the age of 69 years old in July 1971 at Corona, Queens, New York City. During his life, he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by "other white folks' nationalities. Louis Armstrong was the grandson of a slave during the time of segregation.

The reason we choose the song because Louis Armstrong sang it with a lot of hidden message in it. If you look closely on the video, you can see that Louis Armstrong sang the song with funny facial expression. This is to mock the white society who have being oppressed the black people during that time. He also changed the lyric from “Dark sacred night” to “dog say good night”. This is because during those days, the balck people had curfew meaning that black people have to stay at home during the night. The “Dog” in the lyric refers to policemen who always patrolling the neighborhoods of the black people.

As a conclusion, we should never look down at other people. All people should be treated as equal despite the color of their skin. There are only one world for us to live for, if all people start hating each other, there will be no place for us to live peacefully

The Gruffalo

The Gruffalo is a children's book by writer and playwright Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, that tells the story of a mouse's walk in the woods. My former teacher said his children loved the book and, once I'd read it, I could see why. It's a beautifully illustrated tale, demonstrating how brain can overcome brawn, as a small mouse escapes the clutches of various, dangerous woodland animals by threatening them with a huge, hideous and apparently imaginary creature called the Gruffalo, only to then be met by the huge, hideous creature himself (perhaps another moral here i.e. be careful what you wish for, you may get it). So he is then required to exercise his ingenuity once more to escape becoming a tasty Gruffalo dinner. The rhyming verse appealed to the poet in me and, in my opinion, makes the story an ideal one to be read out loud to young children and aquaint them with new vocabulary.

Animal Farm

This TV movie is pretty good. I've read the book as well.

The story is about a group of farm animals trying to take back what was theirs. And manage to take over their own farm. Like a civilians taking down the dictator. They're living a more free life except, when the pigs argue who should take charge. And eventually the Farm starts to have more restriction and less freedom of choice.

It's a fictional version of how communist countries are formed.

The book has a different direction in some parts but it does follow the plot similar. It has great visuals of the animals and some good voice acting.

It's very interesting to read if you have the original novel.

Monalisa Smile

Mona Lisa Smile is about how important education is. It shows how dedicated a teacher can be and as a result it also show how dedicated the student became. In this movie, we can see that learning new ways hadn’t been easy, and everyone had to work a great deal to accomplish new things. This movie is great if you want to see what life was like in the 1950's. Tradition told women they would be wives. A teacher, Miss Watson, taught them how to be women not just wives. She came to an all girls private school to start a new life for herself, and to teach in one of the best schools. She found the girls were very smart, but were only attending school until they found someone and then got married. Miss Watson wanted to teach them how important education was. She wanted to show them that they could compromise their lifestyle with marriage and going to college to have a career. The girls didn’t believe that was possible and that marriage was the only option. As a teacher, Miss Watson had to worked hard to proved to her students that they could be better than ordinary housewives.

Another great and inspirational movie foe any woman who is trying to better herself. There are alos a few funny part in it. A nice worth watching movie espescially to those aspiring to be teacher like me.

Lean On Me

This story has many inspiring moments for teacher to be like me. It is a story about a teacher who need to reform a problematic school. This school has lots of violent cases and drug dealing. The teacher use his own way to clean this things up. Students respond to his efforts, but his overbearing manner with fellow teachers is often humiliating. A crisis with the law and community leaders coincides with the release of test scores that vindicate Clark's radical methods.

I found this movie is very inspiring and moving. This film shows the importance of having strong leadership at the top. It is a remarkable movie worth seeing by both adults and children.

'A Great Injustice' and 'The Merry Maid'

Every living being on this world will feel the universal feeling of love. It is not just a characteristic of human being only, plants and animals also acquainted with the unique emotions. Love is characterized by a sense of attachment and affection towards somebody or something. The answer for those who are still wondering why is love so important in our lives; love satisfies the emotional needs of human beings. The feeling of love is responsible for the survival and preservation of the civilization. When a baby is born, parents stop thinking about about their hunger, sleep, as they are so much in love with their child. The sweet delight of love enables the man to achieve tasks that would not have been possible without its powers. This mysterious emotion exceeds all limitations and has great potential of shifting lives of the people. “The Merry Maid” by Jayakaran Mukundan and “A Great Injustice” by Heah Chwee Sian will be my focus of discussion for this topic.

First of all, if a man really loves his partner, he will ready to take responsibility not only towards his partner, but also what happens around them. Just because they are not married doesn't mean that they are not invested in this relationship. Human love at best are like fireworks of good intention displayed over dark skies, but unfortunately they are not able to retain their light. All that remains from the falling ashes are some good memories and albums. Relationships need the oil of constant love to properly operate. In the story A great Injustice we can see that Steven had left Ah Nya because he don’t want to be responsible towards the baby. If Steven really loves Ah Nya, he won’t left Ah Nya and ready to be in charge to take care of the baby.

Secondly, parent’s love towards their children is very noble. When a child commits a crime and goes to jail, the parents would not say, "Thank God he went there," but shed tears, forgive him and love him. That is the love of the parents. In the story A Great Injustice, we can see that Ah Nya’s mother defend her after she speaks of the truth, ”Shut up! ordered Ah Soh, hugging her daughter. Everyone makes mistakes. What’s done is done. You men always say that you should have sexual experience before marriage but who are your mates? They are also someone else’s daughters. It is just unfortunate that Ah Nya has become the victim of a man’s lust.”. Not only that, Ah Nya’s mother is willing to accept and take care of her child. This can be seen by the lines,”I’ll look after you and the baby, said her mother”. Love between a man and a woman changes, but when we think why love centering on children, who are the result of the love between a man and a woman, does not change, it happens because this relationship is composed of a certain flow of vertical origin. We are sure of that.

My other point is when parents love their children, they do not love them in a certain, permanent form, asserting themselves, and saying, "parents must be like this," but they do not love children from the authority situation. They love their children even to a privileged position, from a place that forgets the authority of parents. We can say they truly are parents with such a love, standing before their children. If parents own love, they do not have it for themselves, but for the children. That love of parents does not exist only for the parents, but for the object of parents. It is the same with children. In The Merry Maid, Lakshmi love towards her daughter, Sakinah is presented greatly. At the end of this story, Lakshmi decides not to fighther right as the biological mother of Sakinah as she knows Sakinah can live in a better condition at Datin’s place. “Yes, often. She is now with her Godmother. I had planned to take her away but I now consider that that is the most selfish thing a mother could do. I have been taught that wonderful lesson.” We can see that from the extract the word love is not composed when centering on ourselves, but when we respect the object partner more than ourselves. So that is why when we say we were born for love, it has the same meaning with saying we were born for an object partner.

Besides that, we love our children because they are our children, we care for them and teach them and help them grow. Whether we birth them or not they are our children and the love we feel for them rests upon that condition. It is possible to love an adopted child as much as a biological one. The reality is that loving anyone without conditions is impossible. People assume that they unconditionally love their children, or their parents, or their lovers because of how much love they feel for them. The fact is though, the conditions that qualify that individual for your love in the first place should be paid tribute. They earned your love, they deserve your love, that's a wonderful thing. In The Merry Maid, The Datin treats Sakinah as her own daughter without being prejudice although Sakinah is not her own daughter. Plus, Sakinah also not a Malay. Sakinah is an Indian girl being adopted and raised up in a Malay family. “Yes,”said the Datin, “I don’t know how to handle this. Please help us. Sakinah is my daughter, no matter what,” she managed to say as she again broke into deep sobs. So, it is possible to love someone that is not in your biological family so much it feels like they are your family. Family is a word, it does not mean blood so much as it means bond.

The magnificence of the feeling is such that it allows humans to care for each other with gentleness and kindness. It might be any relation binding us together; love is everywhere in different forms. A passionate lover’s kiss, a loving mother’s touch, a fatherly concern or a brotherly, sisterly fondness, everything expresses love.

Everything's Arranged & A Question of Dowry

"Everything's Arranged" and "A Question of Dowry" are two short stories about cultures and traditions of Indian in Malaysia.It is about arranged marriages practised and the traditions of dowry by the Indian communities.

Indian's people basically follow the arranged marriage traditions, and they consider it as something honored and great. Dating is prohibited by most families in their community. In "Everything 's Arranged" by Siew Yue Killingley, the main character is Rukumani, has fallen in love with a guy named Devanayagam. According to her parent, falling in love with guy is a big problem to them and can be considered as ruining the family's dignity. So goes this story and tells us how the poor Rukumani suffers to hide her love from her parents, how she suffers to get away from the arranged marriage her parents are planning for her, how she suffers without seeing her lover Devanayagam and worst of all what happens when she finally tells her parents about her love.

Dowry is the payment in cash or kind by the bride's family to the bridegroom' s family along with the giving away of the bride in Indian marriage. This is an important part of Hindu marital rites. Though prohibited by law in 1961, the extraction of dowry from the bride's family prior to marriage still occurs.

‘A Question of Dowry’ is about an Indian girl named Sivasothie was going to be engaged and married to a young man named Thiruchelvam that choose by the family. In the beginning, Sivasothie’s parents were preparing dowry, whereby a sum of twenty thousand and a necklace as to give it to the bridegroom’s family, when they wanted to give away theirs daughter to get married. Then, the problem arises when Sivasothie’s father Mr. Ramachandran told his wife that they cannot afford to give the dowry they agreed to give because of the disvalued of his wife’s piece of land to sell, which given as dowry when she got married to Mr. Ramachandran. After that, the future son in -law came to their house when Mr. Ramachandran telephoned him to come. As Thiruchelvam come, Mr. Ramachandran told him the truth about the dowry matters. Then, it ended up Thiruchelvam reject the marriages with his daughter because couldn’t give the dowry promised. Sivasothie feel sad and hurt because she has to forget him to become her husband after while she liked him so much.

For both cases, these traditions have been part of the Indian culture since the fourth century. In my opinion, dowry may cause the poor families suffer. They may not be able to afford dowries. In case of arranged marriage, I also do not agree with this tradition because maybe children will feel they are being forced to marry someone that they don't even know the name.