9:36 PM
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Hello there!
For this week issue, I have to share about any topic related to tourism and transport. Accidentally, Puan Fatimah, our coordinator and also my english lecturer..asked us to do an essay about the main cities that we like to go for a vacation..so, as I did my research and thinking about the main city that I want to go..eventually, I choose Venice, the sinking city in Italy!!!
First of all, I would like to share what is Venice is all about...Venice, or Venezia as it is known in
Italian, is an architectural delight, an entire city built on an artificial island in the middle of a lagoon. With palaces, churches and ordinary houses which have not changed since the 16th century, Venice wallows in the past, remembering a time when it was the richest city in the world, bearing the title 'The Most Serene Republic of Venice'.
Nowadays, much of the city is falling down, which enhances the charm or detracts from it, depending on your point of view. Many people hate the place, finding it dirty, smelly and crowded with tourists. But for others, it is the ultimate destination. Everybody knows the clichés about Venice, with canals and gondolas. You will be surprised to find that it really is like that, only more so.
Things to Do in Venice
- Go for a Gondola ride. It's clichéd and touristy, but you won't forget it. Gondolas are expensive so pool resources and go as a group.
- If you just have to go on a gondola but can't afford the price, there is a cheap alternative - there are public gondolas known as traghetti (ferries) that cross the Grand Canal at certain points between the bridges.
- Eat a pizza. The Italians still make the best pizzas in the world. There's an excellent and extremely cheap shop that sells wonderful pizza by the slice; it's on the Calle Mondo Nuovo, just off the Campo di Santa Maria Formosa. That's north of the Piazza San Marco - you won't find it without a map, but it's well worth it!
- Drink an espresso early in the morning, standing up at a bar. It's half price if you don't occupy a seat. For many Italians, this is breakfast.
- Buy a painting from one of the many street artists. These are everywhere, but particularly at the Molo beside St Mark's Square. There's everything from views of the city to portraits of you or your loved ones, done on the spot.
- Take a ride on a vaporetto (water bus) along the whole length of the Grand Canal.
Shopping in Venice
Souvenir Shopping
Central Venice is well supplied with souvenir shops, particularly on and around the Rialto Bridge. They tend to specialise in Murano glass ornaments and ashtrays, and carnival masks - and very nice they are too. If you're concerned about buying a genuine souvenir, always ask 'E fatto a Venezia?' if it doesn't have a 'Made In Venice' sticker on it - Murano-style glass made in Asia is quite common these days. It's also probably fair to say you'll get a better deal the further away from Rialto you are. The best deals for Murano glass, naturally, can be found on Murano itself direct from the manufacturers - where you can often see it being made.
Food Shopping
For the traveller on a budget, there's a small supermarket (a midget by usual standards, but far and away the largest in Venice) called Billa - it's the cheapest place to buy picnic food if you're looking to save a few euros. It's about halfway along the Strada Nova, by one of the many bridges. Another small supermarket is in the Dorsoduro area, just off Campo Santa Margherita, at the corner of Rio Tera Canal. There's a similarly-sized Co-op supermarket on Murano - which features a jumbo-sized lift to take you and your trolley up to the first floor. There are also some stalls in the middle of the Strada Nova selling fruit and veg - usually fresh and cheap, the produce is often grown on the nearby island of Sant'Erasmo.
Shopping in General
A few of the multinational chains (such as Benetton and Foot Locker, for example) have branches in Venice, but if you fancy some more normal shopping Italian-style, you're generally better off taking a train to the mainland and going round the shopping district in Mestre, where you'll find everything you need in the area north of the train station. The one exception worth going out of your way to find in Venice is the department store Coin5 on the corner of the Campo San Luca, north-west of San Marco. It's something like an upmarket equivalent of Marks & Spencer, and specialises in Italian clothes, housewares and the like.
In conclusion, I hope one day..I can have the chance to go to Venice one day, the city was so nice, unique and romantic place! Don't you think so???
12:02 AM
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For this week issue, I have been asked to figure out something that related to communications and stuff like that. So, as I was reading the Academic Study Skill Text Book ( preparing for the Mid-Term Test next week )..suddenly, I found one article that I can share and post it to my blog. The article is " Six Steps to Successful Speaking."
As my friends and I will be taking IELTS which consists to 4 parts including speaking..the most crucial part I think..besides writing..so, I hope this article can help!
Much of what we have written about writing also applies to speaking in public. The major differenc,e, of course, is that you not only have to write..you also have to present your thoughts to others. Successful speaking involves six fundamental steps:
Step 1 : Clarify your objective
>>>Begin by identifying what you want to accomplish.
Step 2 : Analyze your audience
>>>You need to understand the people you'll be talking to and you have to ask yourself some questions that helps you to understand and analyze the data perfectly.
Step 3 : Collect and organize your information.
>>>Now comes the critical part of the process:building your presentation by selecting and arranging blocks of information. One useful analogy is to think of yourself as guiding through the maze of ideas they already have to the new knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs you would like them to have.
Step 4 : Choose your visual aids.
>>>When visual aids are added to presentations, listeners can absorb 35% more information-and over time they can recall 55% more. You may choose to prepare a chart, show a video clip, write on the board, or distribute handouts. You may also use your computer to prepare overhead transparencies or dynamic PowerPoint presentations.
Step 5 : Prepare your notes.
>>>The best speaking aid is a minimal outline, carefully prepared, from which you can speak extemporaneously. You will rehearse thoroughly in advance. But because you are speaking from brief notes, your choice of words will be slightly different each time you give your presentation, causing you to sound prepared but natural. You may wish to use note cards, because they are unobtrusive. After you become more experienced, you may want to let your visual serve as notes. A handout or PowerPoint slide listing key points may also serve as your basic outline. Eventually, you may find you no longer need notes.
Step 6 : Practice your delivery.
>>>As you rehearse, form a mental image of success rather than failure.Practice your presentation aloud several times beforehand to harness that energy-producing anxiety.Practice before an audience-your roommate, a friend, your dog, even the mirror.Talking to something or someone helps simulate the distractions listeners cause.If you ask your practice audience to critique you, you'll have some idea of what changes you might make.
So, thats all for now..nice to see you soon in the next upcoming issue!!!
10:45 PM
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First of all, I would like to beg for an apologies because I dont have time to update my blog for the early September...I have a Physic test which was extraordinary-damn-hard..huhu, I had put my best effort into it since I avoid everything including updating my blog..so, I hope my preseverance and my commitment will pays in the end. Big apologies..hope I am not too late to talk about last week issue..'Education and Learning'.So, on this issue..I would like to highlight a topic under the Education and Learning..the topic is CRITICAL THINKING. Why I choose this topic? It is because..I am so interested to learn how am I going to critical in thinking..and so on. Eventually, I have some reading that I think can help on writing my blog. Critical thinking is at the core of a liberal education. A liberal education provides the foundation to define and pursue goals. In a liberal education, students are taught to investigate all sides of a question and all possible sollutions to a problem before reaching a conclusion or planning a course of action.The word liberal as used here has no political connotation, but is a direct reference to the ability of education to free your mind. The word itself comes from the Latin, a verb meaning "to free". The goal of a liberal education is to free you from the biases, superstitions,prejudices, and lack of knowledge that may have characterized you before you came to college. Next time you wonder why you are required to take courses outside your major, remember how important they can be.4 Aspects Of CRITICAL thingking,Critical thinking cannot be learned overnight. Yet as interpreted by William T.Daly, teacher of political science at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, the critical thinking process can be divided into four basic steps. Practicing these basic ideas can help you become more effective thinker.- Abstract Thinking : Using details to discover some bigger idea.
Ask yourself what larger concepts the details suggest. For example, you read an article that describes how many people are using the Internet now, how much consumer information it provides, what kinds of goods you can buy cheaply over the Internet, and also that many low-income families are still without computers. Think carefully about these facts, and you might arrive at several different important generalizations.
- Creative Thinking : Seeking connections, Finding new possibilities, Rejecting nothing.
The creative phase of thinking can lead in many directions. It might involve searching for ways to make the Internet more available to low-income households. Or it might involve searching out more detailed information on how much interest big companies really have in marketing various goods to low-income families. In essence, the creative thinking stage involves extending the general idea-finding new ways to apply it or identifying other ideas it might suggest.
- Systemic Thinking : Organizing the Possibilities, Tossing out the rubbish.
Systematic thinking involves looking at the outcome of the secong phase in a more demanding, critical way. If you are looking to the solutions to a problem, which ones really seem most promising after you have conducted an exhausive search for materials.
- Precise Communication : Being prepared to present your ideas convincingly to others.
Intelligent conclusions aren't very useful if you cannot share them with others. Consider what your audience will need to know to follow your reasoning and be pursuaded. Remember to have 'facts in hand' as you attempt to convince others of the truth of your argument. Don't be defensive, instead, just be logical.Source : Academic Study Skill Text Book " Strategies For Success"
10:34 AM
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Hello there,We meet again..so, this week..I have to talk about environmental problems..Actually, my full theme was..Water Resources and Environmental Problems but on the week 6th August-12th August, I have explained about the water resources and stuff..so, I have chosen the environmental problems as this week issue..And guess what, the lucky issue was..ACID RAIN and GLOBAL WARMING!!!For your information,the growing global demand for energy - especially energy from fossil fuels - has major environmental impacts. Two examples are the problem of acid rain, and the (much more serious) problem of global warming.
Acid rain is rain that has a higher than normal acid level (that is, a low pH). Acid rain may contain weak solutions of sulphuric, carbonic and nitric acids. Where it falls over a prolonged period it can cause damage to the environment.
Natural sources of these chemicals include volcanoes. However it is likely that human activity also leads to acid rain. Scientists believe that the main culprits are vehicle exhausts and the gases given off by power stations. Power stations that burn fossil fuels with a high concentration of sulphur - such as some untreated types of coal - are particularly responsible.
Without any further, I would like to list some important effects of acid
rain. Some of the problems attributed to acid rain include:
- Trees lose some of the protection in their leaves, leaving them more at risk from frost and diseases.
- Tree roots may also become stunted, so they can't take up as many nutrients.
- Soils lose some of their nutrients.
- Increasing acid levels may cause problems for aquatic animals and plants.
- Some fish may have trouble breathing for example. Acid rain may dissolve the stonework and mortar of buildings causing structural problems of buildings.
How the greenhouse effect worksIt's thought that the build-up of greenhouse gases impacts on global temperature in two ways:1. The gases allow more of the sun's rays to enter the atmosphere. Some solar radiation is still reflected back into space by the outer parts of the atmosphere, but it's believed the amount reflected back is gradually reducing.2. At the same time, the greenhouse gases absorb more of the solar radiation that is reflected back from the earth's surface - trapping heat and keeping it in the atmosphere. Of course the ability of the atmosphere to capture the sun's warmth is essential for life on earth. But if significantly MORE warmth is being captured, this is bad news for the planet.Another group of greenhouse gases includes the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs for short). CFCs have been responsible for depleting the ozone layer as they attack and destroy ozone molecules..- The ozone layer is a high level layer of gas in the stratosphere.
- The ozone helps to keep out harmful ultra-violet rays which cause sun-burn on human skin and damage plants.
- CFCs have been used in aerosols, such as hairspray cans, fridges and in making foam plastics.
- The resulting ozone holes let harmful ultra-violet radiation in and adding to the problems of the Greenhouse effect and global warming.
- CFCs were banned in many countries in the mid-1990s after it was found that they were breaking up the earth's ozone.
- Scientists say the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica could disappear within 50 years
While, the implication of the global warming is very serious..such as,
- Global warming could melt the world's ice caps and glaciers, leading to an increase in sea levels. Some scientists estimate that over the next hundred years sea levels could rise by between 10cm and 90cm - making many coastal areas around the world uninhabitable.
- Global warming could also affect the weather patterns, leading to more droughts, flooding and extreme weather, such as hurricanes.
- In Britain we are largely unaffected by the dangerous weather of the tropics, such as hurricanes or severe droughts. But some climatologists argue that the UK climate is changing as a result of global warming - with the possibility of more frequent floods, water shortages, and extreme weather conditions.
Energy efficiency
With energy consumption rising, it is important that industry, transportation and consumers in their homes use of energy more efficiently, so less is wasted.
- We can all help by making changes to our lifestyles and our houses - for example by
walking, cycling, or using public transport rather than fossil-fuel powered cars - Reducing the number of aircraft journeys taken (especially short-haul flights)
using smaller more energy-efficient cars - Switching off lights, power sockets, phone chargers and TVs when not in use
recycling and reusing plastics and oil-based products - Using energy-efficient light-bulbs and rechargeable batteries
- insulating house rooves, blocking drafts, and using double-glazing and more efficient heating systems
- Considering introducing solar panels, or switching to an electricity supplier that supplies green electricity
Okay then, I think that's all for now..hope to see you in the next theme which is, Eduction and Learning. Regards.
9:54 AM
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What Is Culture?
It is commonplace to identify "culture" with refined taste or "high culture" like the fine arts and humanities. In this vein, Matthew Arnold spoke of culture as "the best that has been known and said in the world" and "the history of the human spirit." However, culture as a modern anthropological concept and as treated in this paper refers to the entire integrated pattern of human behavior and is immeasurably broader than its highest expressions. (4) Beyond what is purely instinctive and unlearned, culture governs everything about us and even molds our instinctive actions and natural inclinations. It is culture that makes us truly human, separating people from animals, which frequently exhibit learned behavior but lack our capacity for the creation and adaptation of new cultural form.
Culture weaves together the fabric of everything we value and need to know--beliefs, morality, expectations, skills, and knowledge--giving them functional expression by integrating them into effectual customary patterns. Culture is rooted in the world of expression, language, and symbol. But it relates also to the most routine facets of our activities--like dress and cooking--and extends far beyond the mundane into religion, spirituality, and the deepest dimensions of our psyches. Culture includes societal fundamentals like the production of food and distribution of goods and services, the manner in which we manage business, banking, and commerce; the cultivation of science and technology; and all branches of learning, knowledge, and thought. Family life and customs surrounding birth, marriage, and death immediately come to mind as obvious cultural elements, but so too are gender relations, social habits, skills for coping with life's circumstances, toleration and cooperation or the lack of them, and even societal superstructures like political organization. A working democracy, for example, is as much the fruit of particular cultural values and civic habits as it is the outgrowth of constitutions or administrative bodies. In our mosques, schools, and homes, many day-to-day aggravations are patent examples of cultural discord and confusion. Often, they have little to do with Islam per se but everything to do with the clash of old world attitudes and expectations--often authoritarian and patriarchal--with the very different human complexities, realities, and needs of our society.
Respecting Other Cultures: A Supreme Prophetic Sunna
The Prophet Muhammad and his Companions were not at war with the world's cultures and ethnicities but entertained an honest, accommodating, and generally positive view of the broad social endowments of other peoples and places. The Prophet and his Companions did not look upon human culture in terms of black and white, nor did they drastically divide human societies into spheres of absolute good and absolute evil. Islam did not impose itself--neither among Arabs or non-Arabs--as an alien, culturally predatory worldview. Rather, the Prophetic message was, from the outset, based on the distinction between what was good, beneficial, and authentically human in other cultures, while seeking to alter only what was clearly detrimental. Prophetic law did not burn and obliterate what was distinctive about other peoples but sought instead to prune, nurture, and nourish, creating a positive Islamic synthesis.
Much of what became the Prophet's sunna (Prophetic model) was made up of acceptable pre--Islamic Arab cultural norms, and the principle of tolerating and accommodating such practices--among Arabs and non-Arabs alike in all their diversity--may be termed a supreme, overriding Prophetic sunna. In this vein, the noted early jurist, Abu Yusuf, understood the recognition of good, local cultural norms as falling under the rubric of the sunna. The fifteenth-century Granadan jurisprudent Ibn al-Mawaq articulated a similar outlook and stressed, for example, that it was not the purpose of Prophetic dress codes to impinge upon the cultural integrity of non-Arab Muslims, who were at liberty to develop or maintain their own distinctive dress within the broad parameters of the sacred law. (6)
The Qur'an enjoined the Prophet Muhammad to adhere to people's sound customs and usages and take them as a fundamental reference in legislation: "Accept [from people] what comes naturally [for them]. Command what is customarily [good]. And turn away from the ignorant [without responding in kind]." (7) Ibn Attiyya, a renowned early Andalusian jurist and Qur'anic commentator, asserted that the verse not only upheld the sanctity of indigenous culture but granted sweeping validity to everything the human heart regards as sound and beneficial, as long as it is not clearly repudiated in the revealed law. For classical Islamic jurists in general, the verse was often cited as a major proof-text for the affirmation of sound cultural usage, and it was noted that what people generally deem as proper tends to be compatible with their nature and environment, serving essential needs and valid aspirations.
The Cultural Imperative in Classical Islamic Jurisprudence Classical
Islamic law did not speak of culture per se, since it is a modern behavioral concept. Instead, the law focused on what we may call culture's most tangible and important components: custom (al-'urf) and usage (al-'ada), which all legal schools recognized as essential to the proper application of the law, although differing on definitions and their measure of authority. (10) In Islamic jurisprudence, al-'urf and al-'ada connote those aspects of local culture which are generally recognized as good, beneficial, or merely harmless. In no school did respect for culture amount to blanket acceptance. (11) Local culture had to be appraised in terms of the transcendent norms of Islamic law, which meant the rejection of abhorrent practices like the ancient Mediterranean custom of "honor killings"--now reasserting itself in the context of contemporary cultural breakdown--or, at the other extreme, the sexual promiscuity prevalent in modern culture.
One of Islamic law's five universal maxims declared: "Cultural usage shall have the weight of law." (12) To reject sound custom and usage was not only counterproductive, it brought excessive difficulty and unwarranted harm to people. Another well-known principle of Islamic jurisprudence emphasized this fact and advised: "Cultural usage is second nature," by which it implied that it is as difficult for people to go against their established customs as it is for them to defy their instinctive natures. Consequently, wise application of the law required broad accommodation of local norms, which should be altered or obstructed only when absolutely necessary. Being attentive to local norms implies meeting people halfway and leads necessarily to broad cultural resemblance. In this regard, Islamic jurisprudence distinguished between subservient imitation of others (tashabbuh), which reflects a problematic sense of one's own identity and was generally regarded as forbidden or reprehensible, and the mere fact of outward resemblance (mushabaha), which was required, recommendable, or simply neutral as the case may be. (13)
I admit, certainly..I copied and paste this informative article from the website that I searched, but it does not mean I did not read and take this topic seriously..I just dont have time to write it back..
Personally, I found this article quite interesting and I chose the best paraghraph that suits to this blog..Last but not least, enjoy reading!
12:01 AM
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Assalamualaikum wbt..
Special good evening I wish to everyone.
Today, I, Nurfarahin Binti Baharul'ulum, would like to give a speech about my dreams and my resolutions to the becoming 5o years MERDEKA celebration.
I have a dream for my people to be able to depend on their own...
I have a dream for my people to never let the other people overtake our specialities and chances..
I have a dream for my people that everybody is well-educated and beeing empowered by their ownself leading to a great globalisation towards the positive progress developement.
I have those dreams!
As for my resolutions for the becoming Merdeka Day 50 years celebration, I hope my country will become such a respective developement country. Together we united, let us together building the Human Capital as we all have the responsibilty to fulfill the vission and mission 2020.
Last but not least, I would like to share a quote which is,
"We are still masters of our fate,
We are still captains of our goals"
So, there's nothing impossible! Together we united towards excellent!!!
