Assignment 1 for CHN11 finally came back. I reckon 85% is a bloody good mark.

I’ve organised the lovely librarian at Hawthorn to be my invigilator for the Chinese exam. Assignment 2 is now under way, along with other assessable items for my other study units. It’s starting to get a bit hectic!

So if you asked me right now, How’re things going? zěnmeyàng?
I’d have two words to reply with, Very busy hěn máng

wǒ huì yìdiǎnr zhōngwén.

References

How to put Pinyin with tone marks on Web pages.

After a long delay, finally I’ve completed my short essay for NET12. From our 2 questions, I chose The Internet is a product of the U.S. military. Discuss. I’m praying our tutor will accept this and at least pass my essay. It’s worth 20 marks and about 1000 words.

I haven’t written an essay since high school! I found http://citationmachine.net a useful website for getting my citations and reference list in the proper format.

DARPA Challenger – One Motorcycle

I’ve enjoyed the essay writing experience, but the deadline really killed me. I must admit, it felt a little bizarre to listen to my own memories of what I’ve been teaching to my academic English students. Topic sentences, thesis statements, support your arguments, cohesion, summarise, paraphrase, quote, etcetera…

As an afterthought, I checked out the website for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Google revealed the change of name to DARPA, and the history of that change becomes interesting around 1993 with President Bill Clinton restoring the non-military acronym, putting an economic twist on it. Technology for America’s Economic Growth, A New Direction to Build Economic Strength. Although that was soon reverted in February 1996 well before the November presidential election, in which Clinton was re-elected.

While DARPA haven’t got Luke Skywalker’s arm nor the bat-mobile on their plans, a Google image search reveals some other cool/scary stuff in the works.

The next title for the Maundy Thursday Book Club is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It costs $25 at the Camberwell shops.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to the post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

Thankfully, no-one has read this title. It came out of the publishing house just a year ago. Amy and I are looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meeting, 7pm on the 25th July.

If you’re keen to hear about the author’s previous title, The Kite Runner, check out the latest episodes of the BBC World Service’s podcast World Book Club.

WBC: Khaled Hosseini

Bestselling writer Khaled Hosseini discusses The Kite Runner, his first novel set in Afghanistan, which has sold 15 million copies.
Duration: 27mins | File Size: 13MB |

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