Visitors' Choice Award for the Best Banner

The banner with the most number of votes will be given a special award. Cast you votes through this site:

Which do you think is the best banner?

Collegian

Goal Buster

Cool Thugs

Fragments

LiterAddicts

Innovate!

Explorers of the English World

Let us make wave for the team who is bravely taking a voyage in a world of language and literature -- the Explorers!

Gothic Rules!

In pursuit to motivate our class to have some fun while learning the English language, an Olympics is launched.

The first event was banner making contest.

Hurray for the Gothic team, the first group of language athletes who sent their banner’s picture.

We are the so-called goths of the new generation. We've got a gothic language. We've got a gothic style. Like the old goths who overpowered the the Roman Empire in the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D., we will overun our enemies. We're no easy. We're always game. We're here to play fair. Remember us for we'll be on top! We're goths... And we are called The Gothics. Gothics for all!

Study Tip 1: Magnanimous Loser

What a title… What do you think do I really know about self-improvement?

Never mind though.

Before I proceed, I want to make a disclaimer first — that when it comes to giving self-improvement advice, I’m neither a professional nor an expert. In short, follow this tip at your own risk. There is something I am certain though, that I’m a trying hard who is persistently adding usefulness to my blog entries because of their continuous sheer lack of it.

But wait! Have I not named my blog Kwaderno, the Filipino term for notebook? Well, that’s because I want to take down as much lessons and notes as I can while taking this journey I’m temporarily calling K-O TRAVEL.

So, this is more of a for-me-tip than for-you-tip.

Improve Your Vocabulary

Through the course of my initial voyage, I met two excellent writers. The first one was my Editor-In-Chief in a publication and the other one was a former colleague in a not so humane company. They had something in common, an attitude that I think was directly proportional to their verbal skills and rhetoric. They were calling their USP, laptop, and mugs with names — as if these were pets with birth certificates. Weird, don’t you think so? Perhaps yes, unusually bizarre. Admirable, nonetheless.

I told myself, “That is just so cool. Why should I not do the same for my things, too?”

I began with my pen. “From now on, I’m calling you magnanimous loser,” I once said while raising my new Pilot pen, recently bought from a supermarket near my boarding house.

Magnanimous was a term I encountered while reading an article. I couldn’t easily remember and use it inspite of my great efforts to repeatedly commit it to my long-term memory. Hence, to awaken my hippocampus and temporal lobes, I had attached magnanimous to my ball pen. In the absence, however, of another noun for magnanimous to correctly describe, I remained uncomfortable, if not totally incapable of, using it in my writings. I therefore added to it the word loser, the term magnanimous objectively illustrated in the same article it was written. That was how magnanimous loser pen came to existence.

I felt an overwhelming sense of happiness: little smile, forceful shout — which were already awesomely intense for a sick writer like me.

“Whoo! Whee! I could now be great, be an emperor like Julius Caesar, be a founding father like Abraham Lincoln, or be a national hero like Jose Rizal. I named a pen of my own, a weapon sharper and mightier than a double-edged sword.”

Not long after, magnanimous loser ran out of ink. That was even before I could conquer the whole of Europe, establish a super power country in the West, or receive a heroic recognition from my peers. I didn’t get so sad though, but still, I delivered a eulogy.

During the burial, I was the only one present. No one could hear my melodramatic speech, because everything was just in my head: “Ei, magnanimous, you might have lasted only for a month, but you left me important lessons in life. First, that losers can still be noble. Second, that I could be one word richer than before by attaching new vocabulary to my personal belongings. I shall never forget these values. Goodbye.”

Then, I threw it into the trash can.

The following day, I bought a pair of shoes. “Hello guys! You, left footwear, I’m calling you ‘ennui’, and you, right footwear, I’m calling you ‘boredom’. You’re twins – synonymous — always remember that. Don’t fight, be together at all times. Bring me to nice places where words are happiness and vocabularies are temporary refuge from sadness.”

Would you like to take a guess of where they’ve brought me so far?#

Interesting Find 1: English in high cchool

I found this interesting article about the recent update on English teaching in high school.

--

English in high school

by Isagani Cruz

Starting June 2010, the approach to the teaching of English in high school will be very different from what it is now. This is an attempt by the Department of Education to make the teaching of the English language more effective.

Right now, literature is usually taught only once a week in English classes. The rest of the week, English is taught as a language, with hardly any reference to literature. What English teachers use now are texts written by non-literary writers. Non-literary writers, needless to say, do not win Nobels, Bookers, Pulitzers, nor National Book Awards for the correctness and elegance of their writing. Students right now are not exposed to the best writing done in the English language, since the best writing is done by literary writers. They do not really have an accurate idea of what good English looks like.

(Full Article Here)

Eiga Sai 2009

We have learned that films are great mediums for learning. Just be sure of the "right choice and treatment." Last month, we had French Film Festival. This month, its Japanese's turn to entertain and teach us through their great films. And like the previous festival sponsored by the French Embassy, Eiga Sai 2009 will be providing screenings to us for free. And what could be greater than free passes in a nice film theater? None, right? So, what are we waiting for.

Click this site for the screening schedules or this site for more details about the event. Find some time to watch!

Effective Study Habits

As the saying goes, nothing in life is easy these days. Such is aptly true about the academic life: It is difficult and harsh. Students have to wake up early in the morning, write long essays, and research topics for class reports. Because of these academic tasks, some students reach the point of giving up and, eventually, failing to achieve their graduation dreams. However, instead of looking at all these works as a problem, students should see them as a challenge, an opportunity to excel and learn in preparation for a better future. They should never lose heart and must be optimistic about the great things ahead.

School life may indeed be challenging, demandingly draining mentally and physically at times. It is not, however, something that cannot be overcome. For if there are hindrances, there certainly are ways to conquer them through the right set of values and attitudes. It is for this reason that students should first, before anything else, master the habits of effective studying. For only through these values can students prevail over the challenges at school and achieve their goals – good grades, academic recognition, and course level promotion.

Learning effective study habits (ESH) seems to be so trivial, almost like on the tip of the students’ fingers. But the truth is, saying it might be easy, but doing it requires greater efforts. EHS is consist of two big words – effective and habits – that can be acquired only through discipline and commitment. When we say effective, we do not just mean any other kinds of methods or tools, but something that is efficient, capable of producing and leading us to our desired effect. Meanwhile, habit is a recurrent behavioral pattern that is acquired through frequent repetition.

In the question “What is the definition of study habits?” posted on answers.yahoo.com, a respondent had this reply:

“A HABIT is something that is done on a scheduled, regular and planned basis that is not relegated to a second place or optional place in one's life. It is simply DONE . . . no reservations, no excuses, no exceptions.

To STUDY is to buy out the time and dedicate self to the application and the task of study which is to become engrossed in a process of learning, practice, enlightenment - education of one's self.

Therefore . . . STUDY HABITS can be derived from the above as buying out a dedicated scheduled and un-interrupted time to apply one's self to the task of learning. Without it, one does not grow and becomes self-limiting in life.

You only go as far in life as your STUDY HABITS (learning/education) will take you - how far do you want to go, how much do you want to earn, how manual is the labor you choose - YOU decide by your study habits, throughout life."

This is the first biggest challenge students are facing in their freshman year: "How to acquire effective study habits?" They should have the will, motivation, and strength to learn them, for only through them can they achieve happiness and success.

Linked are some of the tools, which may be of great help to all of us: Developing Effective Study Habits and Tips for Effective Study Habits.

References:

Effective. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved July 02, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/effective

Habit. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved July 02, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/habit