Language and Gender, or How to Philosophize with the Hammer

Before anything, I hereby acknowledged the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche, a title derived from his book Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert.

Victory.Intolerance.Warfare.

Throughout ages, men have always been the leader in a lot of things. However, let's face it, men are less intelligent than women but that does not mean men are entirely stupid. To put it bluntly, men do hell a lot more stupid things than women thus ended up getting themselves killed beginning from their adolescent years. Action and men often get  into conflict with women and their emotions. While we guys are known for our egoistic predisposition, ladies are willing to receive assistance from people around them.

Going into the realms of language and gender, how can this shackle of expectation be broken? We see the rise of post modern feminists out there speaking ever loudly against the abuses and objectification that men have made them to be. Groups advocating women's rights have been quite successful in combating our testosteronic rampage for the past decades. Education is women's greatest advantage because they have higher thinking capacity than us men. Just look around you; girls are everywhere in our campus whereas the boys are pretty much scattered in small numbers. We are easily overwhelmed for God's sake.

Taken from some random blog

What are some of the words commonly associated with men and women? Let's start with the most common elements at our disposal. A guy sleeps with hundreds of women and it is still okay. Imagine if a woman does the same. What kind of treatment would she receive by the society? Women of that sort will be called slut, bitch, cunt, whore; the list just goes on and on. A man who does exactly the same thing to the opposite sex would probably be called a playboy. Sounds less abrasive if you ask me.

Click for larger image

Language proficiency is arguably high among women. Taken from Talbot (1998), girls are less likely to experience speech - related problems since they have advanced language learning capacity as compared to boys. Apart from that, the reading also suggests that environmental factors may have a significant role in determining human language acquisition at an early stage.

In Regno Sapientiæ

Words of internet censorship have been buzzing around the internet for sometimes. For people who are not familiar with One World Government conspiracy, SOPA and PIPA are just the beginning. The crooks behind this massive covert organisation tend to employ compartmentalization; a practice that "limits to information to persons who directly need to know certain such information in order to perform certain tasks". That means, we only have to know what they need us to know. Who are they? They are the very same people who control our global media industries, toying around with our currency, mowing down innocent lives with artillery shells and gunfire in pretense of keeping the world peace; Illuminati. No introduction is needed.

People called me paranoid.

So what does this have to do with compartmentalization and internet censorship? Our lives revolve around the internet. Whatever information that we received through such a means will definitely shape the way we think based on our worldview, which by now may have expanded greatly due to the latter. Censoring internet will surely have detrimental effects to community as a whole. People connect easily with each other through social networking site such as Facebook and Twitter. What happened during the Arab Spring taught many global superpowers a valuable lesson, that people will not stop from keeping in touch with each other as long as internet is accessible. Therefore, the rogue authorities have attempted to resurrect SOPA and PIPA in order to limit the flow of information to people around the world. This is scary because about four to five years ago, there have been rumors that internet will be taken down by the US government. Alex Jones has mentioned this on one of his talk shows. And that was about a few before this whole thing started to occur.

In essence, the US government do not like you gaining insights on your own; they want you to accept their version of politically correct information. That is so painfully obvious. People who stand for nothing, will fall for anything. Having said that, it will be very easy for the players to toggle the joystick and push the buttons whenever they want and however they want. Do you honestly think that we are all free enough to live in this world? No. The chip embedded on our identity card and passport say it all. We have all been fooled from the start. We have now become too attached to money and money, makes the world go round. Gold worth hell a lot more than paper currency. That is fact. That is why the bandits at Wall Street keep on printing paper. We cannot live without it no matter how much we try to deny it. We just can't. We have plastic. We shop and we shop until we drop. By the end of the month, headaches starts to kick in as unpaid bills come crashing onto your heads. The rich becomes richer, and the poor stays in the gutter. Loan and interest; the greatest nemesis of many Bruneians so far. One cannot survive without loans.

To supplement our growing needs to survive, education is imperative. Since it is free here in Brunei (we students are even paid for to study), this opportunity should never go to waste. There are people who born with silver spoon on the mouth, but others may be less fortunate yet are still able to feed themselves. Somehow there are those who have everything they need but refused to be schooled for whatever reasons. Forever they will be perpetuated in wretched ignorance unless they push themselves to stop fooling around and start studying.

From internet censorship to conspiracy theories, to money and education. See something in common? The difference is knowing what you know while restraining yourself from dismissing things that lurk behind the shadow. Fact or fiction, there are truth and lies in between and lies, are the most convincingly hidden between two truths. Life is all about learning new things and honing the already existing skills we have at our disposal. Connect the dot and you will see the spot, where it was once dark and the light was not.

Can you imagine a world without internet while you keep telling yourself that money is good? Can't help but ask; are we slaves?

Between English and Bruneians / Embrace the Thorns

It's 2012 now. A year that has long been predicted by Mayans to be the end of human civilisations on Earth. Whether this is true or not, us Muslims refused to accept such widely hysterical phenomenon. The truth lies in those who see. Who knows better than He does.

History

Now, detaching away from all this apocalyptic thingy, I am here to discuss my opinion on Bruneians (some) attitude toward English. A kingdom divided it seems, this issue has been my favorite ever since I first learned to love the language in question many years ago (after ultimately failing at mathematics time and time again!). Personally, learning English has given me some, if not all, opportunity in trying to move freely between the layers of today's society. It is as important as Arabic to Muslims worldwide. One of the first things I have noticed in the past is that people, especially students, are tend to be more ambivalent with English language. This so happened when I was still in secondary school. I'll have to be honest, some of the Kedayan - born children appeared to have been brought up to loathe foreign language (i.e. English). Teachers who taught English at school (the one I went to) are subjected to ridicule and mockery. In their minds, English is not the national language as opposed to Bahasa Melayu, Brunei Malay or Kedayan so why bother learning it at all. In the end, a lot of my past colleagues do not make it to high school, let alone university. During my stint in UBD, my female friend (who by now has given me cold feet; call it disconnected if you like) and I are the only two students from the class of 06 (out of 30 plus students) who have managed to set foot on this campus, with she pursuing major in Bahasa Melayu dan Linguistik. Others have either worked and married, while two or three colleagues decided to continue on studying backed by parents' funding. This however should not be taken at face value; some of my former classmates are quite good in English and they even taught me a few things, especially the grammar. Looking back I realised that their Achilles heel is vocabulary. Ironically, the latter is my forte since it is very interesting to know the meaning of many English words. Once dubbed a 'living dictionary' by Ms. Farida, who are often torn between scolding me for being lazy and praising my ability in helping her to translate certain sentences to friends of mine who do not get what she has just said. Second comes Mr. Ravi (forever known amongst class of 06 as Mr. Vivid), a Mauritian import personality with whom we are nevertheless attached to due to his patience in keeping up with our slothful and combative attitude. He was, and still is one of the best teachers who taught us English with passion and dedication. It is sad that a lot of my classmates in the past treated him for granted, ignoring his every word as if he does not exist at all.

Transient period during high school years is fortunately free from language issues and rivalry. At least that is how I see it. By then everybody has realised its significance both in academic settings or informal, outdoor environment. It is this time where I began to actually 'learn' English, giving my full attention to it as I have now completely abandoned disheartening frivolousness and superficiality that once plagued my performance. This fact is supported by a totally trivial and unrelated reason; my interest in black and death. Both played a significant role during the early development stage of my English learning capability. Such extreme genres employed vastly rich vocabularies, some of which are not entirely made available in English (a lot are Norwegian, Swedish, Latin, Hungarian and Portuguese). Songs like No Jesus, No Beast, Behead the Prophet (No Lord Shall Live), and I Cum Blood are some of the most profane lyrics I have ever read. The complicated vocabularies and non - standard grammar usage have forced me to open up my dictionary, with grammatical consultations provided by my high school tutor who at first was quite reluctant to do the explanation, as the tracks are completely offensive and Satanic. This, coupled with my fascination over science fiction and horror films have done me a great favor in leading me onto the next steps. With the advent of internet technology, knowledge is simply one click away.

Notable Issues

Things do not just happen without reasons. This universe exists with a chain of reasoning. It is up to us humans to apply the knowledge and logic to what people see throughout their lives on this planet. Similarly, positivity cannot exist without the opposing forces of negativity in what can be called as symbiotic relationship between the two. One can actually begin to comprehend the analogy here; what drives people to hate English while at the same times it is highly regarded among academicians and students alike. Theoretically, this issue is culture specific in a sense that the pinnacle of this discussion is not a problem to begin with; yes, as you may have it all figured out, people are the problem.

Now, this is rather a controversial analysis of some of the issues that are currently rampant in Brunei's society. First, education begins from home. Any disjointed misconceptions about the real world may have been permeated by generations - long indoctrination, which is to remain hostile to anything considered alien to the existing culture. Theoretically speaking, one can assume that enmity towards English stems from conservative thinking. As such, inability to accept or learn something that is perceived by fellow community members as 'different' will be subjected to defamation. There is also this subconsciously embedded fear towards English that, coupled with stereotypes, have [sic] actually forced people to believe that whoever speaks well in such a language will have lower proficiency in Malay related issues, culture included. Domestic situation and a person upbringing do play a significant role in early stages of development towards hating English in general. This is perhaps the basest of all misfortune, the one that grows with age and it will not stop unless the person does something to mitigate any misconception regarding his or her conviction on English language.

It just did not stop at that. Some locals even go as far as to accuse non - native English speaking bunch as being stripped of their Islamic beliefs that they are too Western to even be called Malays anymore. I have no further comment on this except that I am quite disappointed with how negative some Bruneians can be with something beneficial as English.

Solutions

There are no real solutions as of now. As long as people do not change their attitude, things will stay the same.

Entry Wounds Number 2

As sagacious as I was on the first post, with blasphemous rants trickling slowly from my slashed wrists, this blog of mine is meant to be created for academic purposes.

I am running two blogs simultaneously, this and the other which is solely dedicated to file sharing purposes where people can download music in popular audio containers such as .mp3 and .flac. My interest in electronic media has led me to do independent research (sort of; free of charge and funded by none. Ha!) about how each format works and how far can a single song be compressed without sacrificing the playback quality. For those who are yet to understand the reasons behind my motivation, you can go on to read about audiophile. If you want to learn how to rip your favorite CDs securely and accurately into lossless audio format, I strongly suggest you visit this blog. There is a couple of things you need to do before getting a headstart, all of which has been explained on the blog itself.

Enough with the pot hobby! Now let's get down to business. So far the greatest challenge comes in a form of phonetics and phonology. Every time. I mean every time. Allophones, phoneme and IPA symbols are some elements that made up the entire fun. To master at this particular field, constant practice is required. Being a fourth year undergrad with noticeable aversion towards phonetics, I might as well take this challenge head on. It's a shame if I graduate out of UBD with insignificant achievement under my belt; a fact that even the filthiest of students dread of. Now, several new assignments have arrived onto our desk. I take no chances. Like life itself; one can only prolong it but death is certainly inevitable.

Will it then be worth it to live in inescapable agony? I leave you all with this (in memory of Jon Andreas Nödtveidt June 28 1975 - August 13 2006. May thy soul rest in Chaos!)

Learning My Lessons

Often referred to as the Lone Gunman, the Devil from the pits of Hades, I am now a fourth year undergrad studying at local university; University Brunei Darussalam. Currently studying my major in English Language Studies with Sociology-Anthropology as my minor. Being in this university close to four years now, all that I gained is [sic] a maelstrom of bittersweet learning experience, most of which are nonetheless beneficial to me in the long run as a student, a person and a human man.

So far, I have learned quite a few substantial lessons that are useful for survival as an undergrad. Learning from different lecturers also meant that I get to understand how each person differs in their methods of teaching. This is of course not limited to them tutors and teaching staffs, but us as students as well. With this, I slowly began to grasp the importance of teamwork and cooperation. Slacking off is not an option when you are in a team. Despite the fact I've always preferred to work on my own in the past (especially during high school years, where misanthropy permeated me the most), being actually involved with people's thoughts and differing opinions are something that excited me nonetheless. At first I tend to say opinions are like a**hole; everybody has one but after spending sometimes at this seemingly colorful institution, I might as well disagree.

I beg to differ but my interest has always been revolved around arts (especially music, paintings as well as performing arts; acting). I once joined Fonemik Club for two semesters in my first year but it did not benefit me so much. My passion for drums and extreme music was [sic] not very well received among the locals here in the campus, let alone the Bruneian community as a whole. Most of them lot are poseur and untrue. They have the talent but lacking in esoteric understanding and passion. Therefore, I decided to quit the said music club and continue to focus on English as my major, learning all sorts of things that are both interesting and excruciating at the same time. I often see myself as an average student who are good at certain things and worst on others. How do I maintain this equilibrium of irony I do not know, neither do I intend to find out any sooner. Letting things go the way they are seems to be a good idea. Certainly I have difficulties when it comes to phonetics and phonology. Nevertheless, media - related studies are something that I truly enjoyed for most of the times.

The leaves are falling to the ground, withered and dying. Soon, they will all be swept away by the wind, being carried far across the void of our memories. This is what happened to our campus; new buildings springing up along with the money that flows beneath the caverns below but the existing facilities are sadly neglected. There has been rumors about a girl student got raped by two men at The Core (like an apple; always rotten at the core!) but until now, people said campus admin covered it up so as to keep up with UBD's seemingly good reputation. Last year we got thieves stealing projectors, some iPad and a few laptops. Who were the perpetrators? Some dudes working with Setia Protective Security Guard and ABMS janitors (exact number of bandits are still not clear; could be a few of them). Plus, an encounter with two rude UNIBRIDGE bastards by the name Mohamad Safrizan bin Morsidi (01-035904) and Izzul bin Haji Zakaria (studying BA in Politics and International Relations) respectively. Elitist attitude and rivalry between T.E.S.L. and ELS students, scandalous student and tutor; all this added some more pages in my diary as an undergrad at UBD. Not to mention some paranormal encounter during the last few days during revision week.

...till then...