X-mas time...
To all my Friends and all the visitors to my blog
Monday, December 25, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Some professional babble...
Well, it looks like the project on aptitude is about to gain some momentum - finally. The part I am particulary involved in - language analysis (close to PLAB 4- an existing implementation of an aptitude test) is ready for piloting. The process of validation and all the posoperacionalization steps are due in January. I must say I'm quite happy to participate in such research, both for gaining experience in the field of applied linguistics and in research metodology itself. The only thing that may partly bother my fragile mind is the amount of DS (descriptive statistics) i encounter at the moment. Ok... Not to produce any dissertation (cause' I'm not a brain box) I give my best regards to all of you my mates:) or dudes :) OMG what IFA does to a human;)
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Worth recommending?....
Literature! Can't get rid of it, can't live without it... British, American, now came Canadian
Yeap, it's just my luck . But hey , it ain't so bad and I (to my astonishment) can even recomend something woth reading - G. Elliott's 'The Kissing Man' - a set of 11 stories put in a cycle representing Canadian magic realism. It's simply a nice read. Here is a part of an essay by Gerald Lynch (SCL/ÉLC, Volume 22.1:1997) concening the book:
"Thus the eleven stories of The Kissing Man present a vision of Canadian small-town life at mid-century that is stroboscopic and fragmentary in its perception of what is passing and lost, a vision that is uncompromising in its perception of life's pain and tragedy. But the book as a whole, employing to masterful advantage the recursive dynamics of the story cycle, insists fictionally on the reality of a spiritual dimension, a numinous [End Page 90] realm that, when acknowledged and experienced, bestows a sense of continuity and a shared community of pain and evanescent joy."
Here is the whole essay (in case you would... neee you wouldn't ;p)
"To Keep What was Good and Pass it on"
Yeap, it's just my luck . But hey , it ain't so bad and I (to my astonishment) can even recomend something woth reading - G. Elliott's 'The Kissing Man' - a set of 11 stories put in a cycle representing Canadian magic realism. It's simply a nice read. Here is a part of an essay by Gerald Lynch (SCL/ÉLC, Volume 22.1:1997) concening the book:
"Thus the eleven stories of The Kissing Man present a vision of Canadian small-town life at mid-century that is stroboscopic and fragmentary in its perception of what is passing and lost, a vision that is uncompromising in its perception of life's pain and tragedy. But the book as a whole, employing to masterful advantage the recursive dynamics of the story cycle, insists fictionally on the reality of a spiritual dimension, a numinous [End Page 90] realm that, when acknowledged and experienced, bestows a sense of continuity and a shared community of pain and evanescent joy."
Here is the whole essay (in case you would... neee you wouldn't ;p)
Friday, December 01, 2006
Something 'bout something...
It's been a long time since I had written something constructive and meaningful.
Writing essays has never been my srong side - I've never been content with the formal academic style, never satisfied with the informality of the other sort. Now that I am 'made' to write academic essays whether it be expository or argumentative, my creativity is being trialed hard.
The first pieces of legible babble I came up with was concerning the teaching business and the stresses connected to it. I made a humongous effort to argue sensibly and make my transitions from one paragraph to another as logical as possible. "Experiencing humongous amounts of stress", "being verbally insulted", "finding himself between the hammer and the anvil", "masochistic practice of dwelling a disilusion of life"... I merely passed this essay. 'Crap' one might have said, but the effort was worth exercising my brain cells.
Next training session involved the mastery of pouring water about decriminalization of drugs. And here, I had 1,5 H for an over 300W piece of 'crap'. In this one I smehow got free from the imposed restrictions on the abuse of metaphorical discourse elements and freed my 'tongue' How it worked out I have no idea - I shall see.
Damn - again nothing constuct-effective!
Whatever;)
Writing essays has never been my srong side - I've never been content with the formal academic style, never satisfied with the informality of the other sort. Now that I am 'made' to write academic essays whether it be expository or argumentative, my creativity is being trialed hard.
The first pieces of legible babble I came up with was concerning the teaching business and the stresses connected to it. I made a humongous effort to argue sensibly and make my transitions from one paragraph to another as logical as possible. "Experiencing humongous amounts of stress", "being verbally insulted", "finding himself between the hammer and the anvil", "masochistic practice of dwelling a disilusion of life"... I merely passed this essay. 'Crap' one might have said, but the effort was worth exercising my brain cells.
Next training session involved the mastery of pouring water about decriminalization of drugs. And here, I had 1,5 H for an over 300W piece of 'crap'. In this one I smehow got free from the imposed restrictions on the abuse of metaphorical discourse elements and freed my 'tongue' How it worked out I have no idea - I shall see.
Damn - again nothing constuct-effective!
Whatever;)
