6 Haziran 2012 Çarşamba

A Poem From My Heart

How can I resist this loneleness of mine
Which weakens my esteem
And shorthens my time.
It is like living in nowhere
With a terrifying nightmare.

This curse will long be gone
With the kisses of my beautiful love.
She will bring salvation to me
That will shatter the damnation on me.

I can now freely speak of truth
Which was kept in the chest of my youth.
I am now able to dispell the outrage of the brute
By showing the love harmony of my mood.

I feel the very love in my veins
Which fills my heart with the joy of life
This seems like eternality
Only when the presence of your smile is near me.



Bertan Noyan Öztürk




20 Mayıs 2012 Pazar

Assignment No.4 (Reflection on Blogging)

Greetings,

The purpose of this assignment is all about writing my feedback about using a blog in EFL 126 course (Advanced Reading and Writing) and what & how blogging improves my learning. Though I am not very used to use blogging to improve my linguistic skills, I found it very useful and can monitor my improvement after I have used it so far. In this assignment, I shall reveal my feedback by answering some questions which are formed by Mr. Neufeld (The instructor of the course EFL 126) to create a good feedback.

- "What did I learn from the blogging tasks? How has this experience contributed to my own understanding of myself, my peers and the course content? "

I think blogging is one of best way of improving our skills and broadening our knowledge. To learn something comprehensively, we need to research a lot and keep our researches in somewhere safe to use them whenever we need them again. Nevertheless, blogging is a good example of keeping our works in safe where we can easily access whenever we want. I totally appreciate that we have used blogging in EFL 126 course. I appreciate becase I have learned how I publish my works and share wisdom among my peers. Sharing wisdom and works has doubled my current knowledge and actually has improved my linguistic skills as well. Moreover, by having a blog on my own, I can always check the course content at any time and see what was and is in our course content. It is very useful to have a blog to improve oneself.



- " What exactly did I get out of this? Have I questioned or changed my thinking as a result of this activity? "

Having a blog on my own has improved my thinking and has granted me a new perspective. I can now monitor my works and receive help from other blogs whenever I am in need of. Thanks to blog, I can now make a systematic progress which is more professional and beneficial. It also changed my point of view of learning and made me do less mistake.


-  “ How does this relate to my own learning in the context the EFL126 course? “


      In the EFL 126 context, we are supposed to improve our reading and writing into advanced position. Creating a blog and using it in this course is a good approach on teaching this course to its students. It is not only relevant but also logical to use. By containing a huge amount of knowledge on blogs, students can improve their skills via their blogs without the help of their teacher/instructor. We have been given lots of quizzes and some research tasks in this course which we were asked to publish most of our homework on our blogs. I think that publishing our works on our blogs gave us the advantage of monitoring our progress and correcting our mistakes which are related to this course and actually have strengthened our writing skill.

-  “ Have I been able to draw connections from past experiences, other METU NCC courses, or personal goals.”
           
So far, I have learned many things from EFL 126 with the help of my instructor Mr. Neufeld. I have learned lots of new academic words in means of improving my vocabulary. Moreover, I have learned new useful internet sites to improve my grammar and to make a good summary of written works. Yet there are lots of things to learn if we want to say that we are educated.  However, I am a first year student in METU NCC and have 3 more years to compare what is and was what.

- “ What could I do next time to make this experience better? ”

I think that paying more attention on classroom hours will be better. To me, attendance and participation are the two major things in classroom hours and students learn better with their instructor, it doesn’t matter how many times they deny it, in class. In addition, students solve more examples and can make a group work in class. To sum up, students are better with their teacher/instructor and class.

14 Mayıs 2012 Pazartesi

Is The Nucleer Power Beneficial or Not?

     

The Nucleer Power is the most debatable subject today. Lots of people give so many ideas about its benefits and danger. According to the some scientists, nucleer power is an enormous power source and provides a great deal of energy to countries. On the other hand, it possesses a great danger and causes a massive harm to its environment just like in the Chernobyle disaster. In the video above, some of the ideas about this issue is revealed.

3 Nisan 2012 Salı

Assignment No.3

Greetings,


      Today, the current education system in most of the big countries is considered as a failure. Many people that are interested and specialised in education think that communities don't give the needed attention to their children and therefore it will lead to a bigger crysis than we have already had.

      As Sir Ken Robinson spoke out about the failure that the current education system possesses, today's education system leaves no option to students to choose their own profession on their own. Despite what the potential technology offers, the education system kills the creativity that children have. For example, let's say a child has a talent for dancing and wants to be a dancer in the future. But he is brutally asked to study maths, physics and the other areas that are not relevant to dance. The child has to study physics and maths because his/her parents want him/her to do so. As the child starts to study, his enthusiasm towards dancing slowly dies as well. In the end, the child would most probably find himself/herself in the middle of a situation in where he/she wouldn't want to live.

      As a university student, I feel that I am more free to do whatever I want to do. I feel free because I chose my department and I don't feel any heavy  burden on my shoulders to struggle with. However, I wasn't free when I was a student in high school. I was forced to study to pass the university entrance examination and that was an enormous burden that keeps me away from what I wanted to do. Moreover, I am not the only one who find this system unpleasant. Most of the secondary school students hate this system and want another system which gives more personal interests to their profession.

      As the very root of our civilisation, you, as parents, should let your children to choose whatever they want  and like. In my opinion, after doing some talent tests, these are the tests that are aimed to find the talent in which our children possess the most, to our children, you should lead them to their best with the support of their will. With this stimulation, you can actually save your children as well as the future.

20 Mart 2012 Salı

Assignment No.2

Greetings,

As you know I mentioned about an assigment that was given to me to find a research question and then I was asked to tell the reason why I had chosen it. Currently, my instructor ,Mr. Neufeld who is giving lectures in both English and computer departments at Metu NCC, has given me an assignment that is about writing our reflections and feedbacks on the process that we have learned in the class.

Firstly, we had a vocabulary quiz that includes 1.000 to 14.000 words. After the quiz, our instructor started to teach us how to use some useful internet sites. The aim of using these sites is to make a brief summary of writings, to highlight the prominent keywords in texts, and to test yourself with good variety of well prepared quizzes. These are all we have done so far.

In my opinion, a well prepared vocabulary quiz is a good way of monitoring students. As an English department instructor, Mr. Neufeld did a good work by starting with giving us vocabulary quizzes. But to be honest, I am not very fond of learning useful internet sites in this course (Advanced Reading and Writing). It may be because I am not very familiar with reading the academic texts on computer but more used to read hand-outs and papers or it may be basically because of having the lack of good wireless connection that has slowed our works in the class down. However, Mr. Neufeld has made a good progress at teaching the materials and overcome the internet problems that we have been facing during the class hours.

To sum up, we were given a good vocabulary quiz and tought useful internet sites by Mr. Neufeld. According to my feedback, I have found them both useful and deficient. Nevertheless, due to the problems that occured during the class hours, Mr. Neufeld managed to overcome them well.

11 Mart 2012 Pazar

Yalnız Bulut Parçaları


                Hepimiz yalnız birer bulut parçasıyız sonsuz fezada. Kimimiz yağar yeryüzünde filizlenir, kimimiz ise  öfkeyle göğü yarar ve hiddetiyle denizde ve karada kapanmaz yarıklar oluşturur. Kimimiz ise de rüzgarın büyüsüne kapılıp, oradan oraya sürüklenir de hayatın enginliği içersinde zamanla paramparça oluverir. Bilhassadır, varlığım bu büyük varoluşta, sadece sadeliğini korumak isteyen bir savaşçıdır. Bir elinde gerçeklik mızrağı, diğerinde ise şeref kalkanı. Göğsünde parlayan haysiyet zırhı bir an için görevini aksatmayadururken, mataramda biriken yalnızlık gözyaşları bedenimi günden güne paslandırmaktadır. O artık bendim, o zırh artık benim şahsımdı. Terkedemezdim, bırakamazdım ve unutamazdım. Çünkü bu bir onurdu ve zırhımın üzerindeki diğer demir parçaları gibi artık ince ince işlenmişti. Terkedemezdim şerefimi. Bir an için dahi olsa indiremezdim kalkanımı. Tüm melezleşen zihniyetlerin bakışlarıyla mütemadiyen kırbaçlansam dahi, zırhım güneşte parladığı sürece ben, o zaman bendim.

                Öyle çok önemli birisi miyimdir? Hayır. Tüm sahip olduğum biraz mutluluk ve biraz neşe. Bencil birisi de değilimdir hani, hatta bazen korkarım; paylaşa paylaşa bana kalmayacak diye. Yine de bu korkumla şakalaşır, ciddiye almamaya da gayret gösteririm. İnsanlar pekala umursamıyor olabilirler, bencilce o olgunlaştıramadıkları ergen duygularıyla yaşıyor olabilirler. Fakat bu onları yine de masumiyet sınırının dışına çıkarmıyor. Her ne zaman dilleri ateşzeban olup, gözleri hin bakıp ve  kalpleri şerle dolarsa, o zaman benim mücadelem başlamaktadır. Çünkü bu, bir savaş ilanıdır ve şerefi ve haysiyeti olan herhangi bir varlık, bu çağrıyı reddetmeyecektir.

Beni hüzne ve acıya büründüren gerçek ise bu insanların sayısının, nasıl olurda bu kadar çok miktarda olabilir olmasıdır. Zatlerine biçilen kısa  ömürlerinde sonsuz ilim ve felsefeyle ödüllendirilen bu insanların, sebep oldukları bu keder ve vahşeti aklım bir türlü almıyor. Çoğu zaman reddediyorum. Reddetmeye mi zorluyorum kendimi bilemiyorum ama bir histir içimde filizleneduruyor isyan edercesine. Henüz bir çocuğum, büyümemeyi kendine tembih etmiş bir çocuk. Yaşam, kollarımdan ve bacaklarımdan beni çekiştirse de “büyü artık” dercesine, karanlığına kardelenler ekiyorum bir çocuksu tebessümle. Olmaz diyor bana. Bir fiske vurup haddimi bildirmeye çalışıyor. Ama bilmiyor ki ben, daha nice fiskeler tadacağım da uslanmayacağım. Ellerim kırılacak da durulmayacağım. Dilime penseler, düşlerime perdeler ve gönlüme prangalar vurulacak da ben hâlâ susmayacağım. Belki katre katre tükeneceğim. Bu fenalık, beni için için yokedecek ve lopçun hırsında boğacak. Belki bir yudum suyu, susamış ümitlerimden esirgeyecek de ben yine de ayağa kalkacağım. Kalkacağım çünkü ben, ölümünü ölümsüzüne adamış bir meczup yazarım. Ne kadar gölgelendirilirse gölgelendirilirsin, tuvallerime nefret fırçalarıyla vurulacak olan katran nefisler, şefkatle gökkuşağı parelerine boğulacaklar. Fakat gerçekten çok üzülüyorum ki bunu, ne bir ölümlü beden yapabilir ne de bu, ölümlü bir beden için yapılabilir. Ben, hicran çöllerini ne kadar boyasam da yeşile, ne kadar eksem de aşk tohumlarını cansız kumlara, gökten düşen damlalar aşk olmadıkça filizlenmeyecek kardelenler. Cennet bahçelerine bir merdiven de inşaa etsem, çıkacak bir ahbap olmadıkça çabuk yorulacak bu umarsız bedenler. Sevgiyi ve aşkı tanımlayamamış zihinler, bir bir sökülecekler topraktan ki aman Allah’ım onlar daha filizlenmemiş kardelenler! Güneşe meydan okuyan bu hayaller, mütemadiyen kaybolacak ve hatırlanmayacak çizimi olmayan bu tuvaller.

Biliyorum, bir ses duyamacağım rüzgardan başka. Ama henüz parçalayamadı beni bu mahi rüzgar. Ben hâlâ bir bulut parçasıyım ve belki filizlendireceğim bir kardeleni beni parçalayacak olan hicran gözyaşlarımla.
Bertan Noyan Öztürk
08.03.2012
Sabah 03.40