Mid Semester Task

Learning Experiences

Octber 5, 2013

By : Elza Netri

          “Experience is the best teacher.” This old adage is suitable for me. I got many useful experiences during learned writing 2 this semester. So far, I have made 3 essays (Experience and Hopes, Narrative Text, and Discussion Text) as assignments that were given by Mrs. Leni Marlina, my writing lecturer. I had many problems in writing before I joined this class. After I joined this class, I thought my ability was a little bit improved than before. It was because of my experience in writing 2. In this essay, I will tell you about my learning experience and the process of writing essay during learned writing 2.

            I got many experiences by learning writing 2 with Mrs. Leni Marlina. By learning writing 2, I realized that writing essay needs creativities, imaginations, ideas and patience. Besides, I also knew how to make a good outline and a good essay. Mrs. Lina taught me how to make a sentence coherence with another sentence and how to make a paragraph coherence with another paragraph. She taught me how to make a good introductory paragraph and concluding paragraph. Even though she is pregnant, she taught us about how to write an essay hardly. She gave us many assignments, but I knew she did it to improve our writing ability. I have tried to do the best even though the result was not satisfying enough.

            According to me, the best writing project that I have done is “Narrative Text” whose title is “Got Lost”. I thought, to make this narrative text was not as complicated as the other projects. When I made that story, I was inspired by my own experience six years ago. I thought it could be an interesting story, so I began to elaborate my ideas on a piece of paper. It was not too hard for me to think about what I would write down on my paper because I only needed to tell my experience and then developed it. It was not 100 percent as same as what exactly happened. The real one was too flat, so I put some extra occurrences as the seasoning to make it had more sense.

              There were several steps that I did to make my narrative text. In this case, I chose free writing as the first step to make the story. The next step on making this narrative text was I asked my friends to check the mistakes on my written. There were many mistakes on my writing, but because of my friends’ help, I was able to know where the mistakes were and then repaired them. They gave me many suggestions to make it better. Next, I gave it to my lecturer. After I got her approval, I could publish it in my blog. In sum, those all were the steps that I did to make my narrative text.

                 In conclusion, I have learned many things about writing essays during third semester with Mrs. Lina. I got many experiences that useful for me and helped me to improve my writing ability. As the result, I am able to write some essays such as narrative essay which was the best project that I have done. To make this essay, I used several steps from the free writing until I could publish it in my blog. In short, writing 2 gave me many experiences for increasing my writing ability.

Book Review

Introduction to Linguistics

“Introduction to Linguistics” is a book that was written by Rusdi Noor Rosa, S.S., M.Hum., who was born in Medan on August 18, 1977. He has been lecturing in Universitas Negeri Padang since December 1, 2003. His research focuses on Macro Linguistics. “Introduction to Linguistic”, adequately encapsulates the message of the book, is a nonfiction book which is intended to college students. The main purpose of this book is to give assistance for everybody who wants to know more about the basic of linguistics. This book provides basic understanding of linguistic knowledge that introduces linguistics as a science discussing the essence of language. This book provides revealing information about the book in the preface and this book is arranged with chapters’ mode. The book jackets do not have any picture on it, but its title is written with purple and blue color and white as background’s color.

·         Publisher and Location          : Penerbit Sukabina Press, Padang 2013

·         Number of Pages                   : 253 pages + 17 Roman numerals

·         Arranged by                          : Rusdi Noor Rosa, S.S., M.Hum.

·         Layout by                              : Sari Jumiatti

·         Cover design by                    : Marzal Ardhika

This book provides basic understanding of linguistic knowledge in general. It provides the students with basic and general concept, terms, theories, and fields of linguistics. This book consists of 10 chapters; Animal communication and human language, Linguistics as the scientific study of language, Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, and Psycholinguistics. It also has 17 Roman numerals pages (XVII), containing preface, acknowledgements, table of contents, list of tables and list of figures. At the end of each chapter, it includes exercises there.

This book tells about the differentiations between animal communication and human language. Then, this book explains about history of linguistics which was first used in England in 1837. Classification of linguistics is divided into 2 parts; Microlinguistics and Macrolinguistics. Then, this book explains how phonetics and phonology are differed.  Phonetics focus on how sounds are produced while phonology focuses on how sounds are organized and how their function in language. Next, this book explains about morphology and syntax. Morphology is the study of word formation & structure, and syntax is the study of phrase & sentence structure. After that, this book explains about semantics and pragmatics. Semantics was introduced into English at the end of the 19th century. It is a branch of linguistics that study about the meaning of words, phrases, or sentence in the language. Pragmatics is another branch of linguistics that is concerned with meaning, but its focus is on a person’s ability to drive meanings from specific kinds of speech situation. Last, this book explains about the differentiation between sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. Sociolinguistics is focus in relation to the society while psycholinguistics focuses in relation to its psychological process. To sum up, those all are the contents of this book.

This book has several weaknesses. The first one is the cover of this book is too stiff. The font color of the title is blue and purple with white color as background. I think it will be better if the cover of this book has more colors. Besides, the cover does not have any picture on it. I think it will be better if the cover has picture. However, I am sure that the readers will be more interested if the cover has more color and picture. Next, there are many high level vocabularies here. The other weakness of this book is the paper of the book. The paper of this book is easy let-off from the book. As the result, the readers lost some pages from the book.

Actually, it is a good book because it contains much important information that is needed by college students, especially the beginner of English students who want to learn about linguistics. This book explained about the branch of linguistics shortly without eliminating important elements. This book gives a lot of information that are supported by some expert, so the contents in this book absolutely could be justified. Besides, this book also has exercises that can be used to test readers understanding about the items. Those all are the excesses of this book.

Overall, I like this book. Even though it has several weaknesses, the weaknesses could be covered by the excesses of this book. The contents of this book are important to linguistics learners. I think this book is properly to be read by the beginner of English learners who want to know and understand about the basic understanding of linguistics.

Movie Review

127 HOURS

Octber 6, 2013

By : Elza Netri

127 Hours is a 2010 biographical survival drama film, presented by Fox Searchlight pictures and Pathe. It is a Danny Boyle film which was made in association with Dune Entertainment, and also produced in association with DOWN PRODUCTIONS and BIG SCREEN PRODUCTION. The film tells about Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) who is trapped by a boulder in slot canyon in Blue John Canyon, southeastern Utah, in April 25, 2003. He is trapped there during 127 hours. He is forced to amputate his own right arm to save himself. The film based on Ralston's memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

Duration         : 90 minutes

Editor              : Jon Harris

Characters     :

·         James Franco as Aron Ralston

·         Amber Tamblyn as Megan McBride

·         Kate Mara as Kristi Moore

·         Lizzy Caplan as Sonja Ralston, Aron's sister

·         Kate Burton as Donna Ralston, Aron's mother

·         Treat Williams as Larry Ralston, Aron's father

The story is begun with Aron Ralston prepares everything he needs for doing rock climbing in Utah's Canyon lands National Park on Friday night, April 25, 2003. Ralston passes a narrow passage where boulders are suspended between the walls of rock. Accidentally, one boulder is jarred loose. The boulder falls after Ralston to the bottom of the canyon and rolling on his right arm against the canyon wall and trapping him. He tries to push the boulder and yells for help. Because of the extreme isolation of the location, nobody hears his scream. He begins recording a video about his trapped there on his camera. He also uses the blade on his pocket to attempt to chip away at the boulder. Besides, he also begins rationing and economizing his water and food.

Because of his efforts to chip away the boulder are useless, he gives up to do that again. He begins to attempt to amputate his arm, but his knife is too blunt to break his skin. He finds himself out of water and forced to drink his own urine. Ralston is trapped there for five days. He discovers that by using his knowledge, he can break his bones. After that, he amputates his arm by dull knife. Aron frees himself by the trap of boulder with full of blood. He then finds the way out of the canyon. He walks several miles, exhausted and covered in blood. He finally runs into a family. The family sends for help and a helicopter comes to evacuate Ralston.

The end of this film shows Ralston from his life after that bad occurrence. Then, it shows the real Aron Ralston with his wife, Jessica, whom he met three years later, and their son, Leo, born in 2010. Aron continues to be a climber and canyoneer. He always leaves a note to say where he has gone.

In short, this film tells about a real experience from Arons Ralston, who is doing rock climbing in Utah's Canyon lands National Park. He is forced to amputate his right arm to save himself from boulder’s trapped. He is trapped there for 127 hours which is made as the title of this film. This film based on Ralston's memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

I think this movie is excellent. I really enjoyed this movie. Characterizations in the film are pretty good.  The acting of the actors and actress are also very good and look naturally. According to me, actually the story of this film is simple, but the way this film explain the story is interesting. I did not find any boredom here. I think the best part of this film is when Aron Ralston amputates his right arm because it really seems like reality. This scene made me felt tense.  

There are some moral values that we can get from this movie. We can take many lessons for our life. The first one is we have to struggle to save our life. Second, do not let our bad experience make us falling down. Next, we should realize that limitation is not a problem if we want to move on. Finally, we have to know that family is very important in our life.

Overall, I really like this film because I think it is an interesting film. This film can attract my attention from the beginning until the ending of the film. I think this film is properly to be watched with family and friends because this film has many moral values that we can make as our life lessons. Therefore, I recommend you to watch this film.