Thursday, May 19, 2011

Day Leaders

Day 1 Fang Yi and Charissa: Lake District
Day 2 Cherie and Anne: Lakes/Brontes
Day 3 Bernice and Boon Hui: Perse/Cambs
Day 4 Dorothy and Kaishi: Fitzwilliam Cambs
Day 5 Ang Jie and Gao Ge: Somerville, Oxf
Day 6 Zhi Ping and Dominique: St Anne’s Oxf
Day 7 Shu Hui and Tracy: Stratford
Day 8 Phoebe and Annette: DIY Stratford
Day 9 So Phia and Jia Jing: London: British
Museum & National Gallery
Day 10 Sara and Li Sha:
London: British Library , RJC, Globe
Day 11 Jamie: Jacob,Regent's,depart

Rooming

GROUP 1

1 CHERIE TAN

2 PHOEBE TAN

3 ONG JIA JING

GROUP 2

4 JAMIE SEAH

5 BERNICE GOH

6 NEO BOON HUI

GROUP 3

7 CHARISSA YEE

8 SO PHIA ONG

9 SARA NG

GROUP 4

10 WU KAI SHI

11 DOROTHY SO

12 CHAN SHU HUI

GROUP 5

13 ANG JIE

14 GAO GE

15 FANG YI

GROUP 6

16 DOMINIQUE YONG

17 LIM LI-SHA

18 ANNETTE WONG

GROUP 7

19 TEO ZHI PING

20 ANNE HWARNG

21 TRACY SAW

Names in bold = Room I/C
Lake District:

The Lake District is a low mountainous region in North West England. The Lake District National Park is the central area and is one of the fifteen national parks in the United Kingdom and the largest national park in England. The highest peak is the Scafell Pike which stands at 978m. The area is home to a plethora of wildlife, including sundews and butterwort, two carnivorous plants native to Britain. England's only nesting pair of Golden Eagles can be found in the Lake District. As the name suggests, Lake District consist of numerous lakes, 14 to be precise. The lakes are: Bassenthwaite Lake, Brothers Water, Buttermere, Coniston Water, Crummock Water, Derwent Water, Ennerdale Water, Haweswater, Loweswater, Red Tarn, Thirlmere, Ullswater, Wast Water and Windermere.

Lake Windermere:

Windermere is England’s largest natural, ribbon lake (meaning that it is long, narrow and finger-like) with an elevation of around 39m above sea level and a length of around 17km. The word “Windermere” is commonly believed to have come from the Old Norse name “Vinandr”, and the Old English word “mere” which means lake. The lake has always been an important waterway for movement of heavy materials. This lake has 18 islands. Formation of the lake occurred 13,000 years ago during the last major ice age due to the melting of two glaciers.



Dove Cottage and Radal Mount (William Wordsworth’s homes):

Dove Cottage resides on the edge of the lovely village of Grasmere in Lake District. It is most well-known as the home of the famous poet Williams Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordsworth during the time period between 1799 and 1808, where he wrote many of his famous poems which we remember him for today. It is widely believed that the Dove Cottage was probably built as a public house known as the “Dove and Olive Branch” and remained so until it closed down in 1793 and became a residential area. Wordsworth did, actually, refer to the history of the cottage in his 1806 poem, "The Waggoner", in which the protagonist passes by "Where once the Dove and Olive-bough offered a greeting of good ale to all who entered Grasmere Vale". The place has now been converted into a tourist attraction and a museum dedicated to Wordsworth and his works has been built adjacent to the cottage as an addition to serve educational and tourism purposes.

Rydal Mount is the other of William Wordsworth’s two homes where he moved to after he moved out of Dove Cottage in search of a larger residence to accommodate his expanding family. This is where he lived from then on till his death in 1850. Both the Grasmere and Windermere lakes can be seen from the hillside grounds of Rydal Mount. Wordsworth had a “Writing Hut” built at near the house where it overlooked the lakes and spent most of his time here completing his works. Though this place still remains in the ownership of Wordsworth’s descendents, it has been open to the public since the 1970s. Apart from the educational and cultural values it offers, this Rydal Mount also overlooks two of the largest lakes in the region, and it is no wonder why many tourists are attracted to this place.

Romantic Poets:

Romanticism largely began as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day. Inevitably, the characterization of a broad range of contemporaneous poets and poetry under the single unifying name can be viewed more as an exercise in historical compartmentalization than an attempt to capture the essence of the actual ‘movement’. Indeed, the term “Romanticism” did not arise until the Victorian period. Nonetheless, poets such as William Wordsworth were actively engaged in trying to create a new kind of poetry that emphasized intuition over reason and the pastoral over the urban, often eschewing modern forms and language in an effort to use ‘new’ language. An early exponent was Robert Burns, who is generally classified as a proto-Romantic poet and influenced Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Burns's Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was published in April 1786 and included "The Two Dogs," "Address to the Deil," "To a Mountain Daisy," and the widely anthologized "To a Mouse."

Wordsworth himself in the Preface to his and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads defined good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” though in the same sentence he goes on to clarify this statement by asserting that nonetheless any poem of value must still be composed by a man “possessed of more than usual organic sensibility [who has] also thought long and deeply”. Thus, though many people seize unfairly upon the notion of spontaneity in Romantic Poetry, one must realize that the movement was still greatly concerned with the pain of composition, of translating these emotive responses into the form of Poetry. Indeed, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, another prominent Romantic poet and critic in his On Poesy or Art sees art as “the mediatress between, and reconciler of nature and man”. Such an attitude reflects what might be called the dominant theme of Romantic Poetry: the filtering of natural emotion through the human mind in order to create art, coupled with an awareness of the duality created by such a process.

William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads.

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semiautobiographical poem of his early years which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind is an autobiographical, "philosophical" poem in blank verse by the English poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth wrote the first version of the poem when he was 28, and worked over the rest of it for his long life without publishing it. He never gave it a title; he called it the "Poem (title not yet fixed upon) to Coleridge" and in his letters to Dorothy Wordsworth referred to it as "the poem on the growth of my own mind." The poem was unknown to the general public until published three months after Wordsworth's death in 1850, its final name given to it by his wife Mary.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as for his major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. He coined many familiar words and phrases, including the celebrated suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence, via Emerson, on American transcendentalism.

Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from crippling bouts of anxiety and depression (neuralgia); it has been speculated that Coleridge suffered from bipolar disorder, a mental disorder which was unknown during his life. Coleridge chose to treat these episodes with opium, becoming an addict in the process.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere) is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss. Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it was a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.

'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' relates the events experienced by a mariner who has returned from a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding ceremony and begins to recite a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience and fear to fascination as the Mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style: for example, Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create either a sense of danger, of the supernatural or of serenity, depending on the mood of each of the different parts of the poem.

The Mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south off course by a storm and eventually reaches Antarctica. An albatross (compared as Christian soul) appears and leads them out of the Antarctic, but, even as the albatross is praised by the ship's crew, the Mariner shoots the bird ("with my cross-bow / I shot the albatross"). The crew is angry with the Mariner, believing the albatross brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears ("'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay / that bring the fog and mist"). The crime arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land of mist and snow"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

Here, however, the sailors change their minds again and blame the Mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the Mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret ("Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the albatross / About my neck was hung"). Eventually, in an eerie passage, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the "Night-mare Life-in-Death" (a deathly-pale woman), who are playing dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the Mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross.


A statue of the Ancient Mariner, with the albatross around his neck, at Watchet, Somerset. The statue was unveiled in September 2003 as a tribute to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks
Had I from old and young !
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

One by one, all of the crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as "slimy things" earlier in the poem ("Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / upon the slimy sea"), he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them ("a spring of love gush'd from my heart and I bless'd them unaware"); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship and had come to meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a boat. This hermit may have been a priest who took a vow of isolation. When they pull him from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil, and says, "The Devil knows how to row." As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets:

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
After relating the story, the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest returns home, and wakes the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man".

Bibliography:
Thurgood, J., (Unknown). Windermere Lake. [Online]. Available: http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/winderm.htm (Accessed 13th May 2010)
Wikipedia, (2010). Windermere Lake. [Online] Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windermere_(lake)#cite_note-ldgov-4 (Accessed 13th May 2010)
Wikipedia, (2010). Lake District. [Online] Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_District
(Accessed 13th May 2010)
Wikipedia, (2010). Rydal Mount. [Online] Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rydal_Mount (Accessed 15th May 2010)
Wordsworth Trust, (2007). Dove Cottage. [Online] Available: http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/ (Accessed 15th May 2010)
WilliamWordsworth, (2008). Dove Cottage. [Online] Available: www.thelakedistrict.eu/william-wordsworth.php (Accessed 15th May 2010)
Romantic poetry. (2010, May 15). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:12, May 17, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Romantic_poetry&oldid=362291417
William Wordsworth. (2010, May 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:12, May 17, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Wordsworth&oldid=362111763
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (2010, May 12). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:13, May 17, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge&oldid=361770519
The Prelude. (2010, April 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:16, May 17, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Prelude&oldid=356381856
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. (2010, May 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:18, May 17, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner&oldid=359971421
OXBRIDGE

Oxford

One of the oldest surviving universities in the English-speaking world, and among one of the highest renowned universities in the world.

University Colours: Oxford Blue
Motto: Dominus Illuminatio Mea (The Lord is my Light)

Oxford student population of over twenty thousand comprises of students from 140 countries and territories, a third of which are from outside of UK.

The academic year runs from October to June, and is divided into 3 eight
week terms: Michaelmas (autumn), Hilary (Spring) and Trinity (summer).

Major events include: The Boat Race, Varsity Football Match,Varsity Rugby Match, Encaenia (when the University awards honorary degrees and commemorates its benefactors) and Degree Days (takes place throughout the year, when students graduate).

The Collegiate System

Oxford University comprises of 38 independent, self-governing colleges.
"All Colleges invest heavily in facilities for extensive library and IT provision, accommodation and welfare support, and sports and social events. The relatively small number of students at each college allows for close and supportive personal attention to be given to the induction, academic development and welfare of individuals.

Each college has its own Governing Body, comprising the Head of House and a number of Fellows, most of whom also hold University posts. There are also six Permanent Private Halls, which were founded by various Christian denominations and still retain their religious character."

History: Key Events
1096: Some form of teaching known to have existed in Oxford
1167: This developed rapidly when Henry II banned students from attending the University of Paris
1190: Arrival of first overseas student, Emo of Friesland (haha, what a name.)
1355: Edward III paid tribute to the university for its unsurpassable education and the services rendered to the state by alumni
1833: From this year, Oxford sought to revitalise the Catholic aspects of the Angelican Church
1860: Historical debate between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilderforce takes place in University Museum
1878: Academic halls establish for women
1974: All colleges changed their statutes to admit both men and women


Applications to Colleges:

•Apply around September-October in your J2 year, results are out usually in December-January
• UCAS forms (Common Application) allows you to fill in five UK schools of your choice
• You can only choose either Oxford or Cambridge to apply for, you cannot choose both
• When applying, you can choose colleges in Oxbridge of your choice; alternatively you submit an open application, which means if accepted you would be placed in colleges which have vacancies
• Some colleges look more at your academic performance as compared to your extra-curricular activities

Notable Alumni:
26 British Prime Ministers, including Margeret Thatcher, Tony Blair and most recently, David Cameron.
Bill Clinton, 42nd Prime Minister of the United States
Authors like C.S Lewis, author of the Narnia Chronicles; J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy; Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22; Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, and many others.
Poets like Percy Shelley, T.S. Elliot, A.E. Housman and John Donne.
Actors like Hugh Grant and Kate Beckinsale.
The world renowned composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is also affiliated to Oxford University.

Cambridge University

Said to have formed when disputes between the townsfolk and students in Oxford started to arise, thus leading to the students fleeing to Cambridge.

University Colours: Cambridge Blue

Motto: Hinc lucem et pocula sacra (From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge)

Cambridge comprises 31 Colleges and over 150 departments, faculties, schools and other institutions. Of these 31 colleges, 3 are exclusively for females. Her core values are freedom of thought and expression, and freedom from discrimination.
Cambridge University Press publishes over 2500 titles and 200 journals each year, since its first print in 1584. Its published works include academic and educational writing from around the world

Cambridge Assessment is Europe’s largest assessment agency and plays a highly influential role in the research and development of school examinations in the UK and around the world. Through its three examination boards it delivers mainstream qualifications to over 8 million candidates a year.

Notable Alumni:
Sir Isaac Newton, Physicist
William Wordsworth, Poet
Virginia Wolfe, Author
Sylvia Plath, Poet
Stephen Fry, Actor and comedian and a brilliant man
John Cleese, Actor and comedian


Bibliography
1) http://www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/introducing_oxford/an_oxford_education/studying/
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Cambridge
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oxford
The Brontë Sisters

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë were English writers during the 19th century. They were predominantly influenced by Gothic Fiction, an extension of the Romantic Movement, and have inspired many studies due to their talents for writing. This is usually attributed to the environment that all three of them grew up in, at Haworth Parsonage.

Their father kept a well-stocked library that included the Bible, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Scott, and many others, and examined articles from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Fraser's Magazine, and The Edinburgh Review. In addition, they read history, geography and biographies. As children, the sisters (together with their brother, Branwell) created imaginary kingdoms of their own and chronicled the lives and struggles of the imaginary inhabitants. These juvenile creations served as the apprenticeship of their later literary talents.

The sisters’ very first published book was a joint venture by the three of them, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (1846). They used pseudonyms so as to avoid any prejudice against female writers. While the book received rather favourable reviews, it only sold two copies and was a failure. Despite this, all three sisters went on to write the classics that they are known and loved for today.

Charlotte Brontë was born 21 April 1816 in Thornton, Yorkshire and was the eldest of the Brontë sisters. She wrote four novels: Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Villete (1853) and The Professor (1857, post-humously), the first of which was undoubtedly her most famous work. She married Arthur Bell Nicholas in 1854, and became pregnant soon after. However her health rapidly declined during this period, and on 31 March 1955 she passed away at the young age of 38.

Jane Eyre is written in first-person narrative from the title character’s point of view, and chronicles Jane’s experiences. She starts out in her aunt’s home, where she is physically and emotionally abused by her cousins and aunt, and forced to go to a repressive boarding school. After she graduates, she becomes the governess at Thornfield Manor, where she falls in love with her employer Mr. Rochester. Their romance goes through several trials, including Mr. Rochester’s deranged wife, but they are eventually reunited and married. The book is lauded for its sharp social criticism, and for its strong sense of morality.

Emily Brontë was born 30 July 1818 in Thornton, Yorkshire and was the second eldest of the Brontë sisters. She only published one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), which received harsh criticism at first but has come to be accepted as an English literary classic. Her health suffered from the harsh local climate at home and at school, and she caught a cold that led to tuberculosis. She stubbornly refused medical help until it was too late, and she died on 19 December 1948.

Wuthering Heights centers around the intense relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine, which is undermined by the social norms of that era. The story is told through the eyes of the newcomer Mr. Lockwood, who meets his eccentric landlord and neighbour Heathcliff, owner of Wuthering Heights. Through the housekeeper Nelly, he (and the reader) gradually learns more about Heathcliff and Catherine’s tragic romance. The past and present narratives are intertwined, with the repercussions of the previous generation obvious in the next. Emily Brontë demonstrates great skill in her portrayal of flawed, selfish and human characters, making them sympathetic even though they are no means moral or upright.

Anne Brontë was born 17 January 1820 in Thornton, Yorkshire and was the youngest of the three sisters. She is also the least known of the three and has been described as ‘less talented’, perhaps because her writing style was less dramatic than either of her sister’s and her novels thus less sensational. She is most known for her novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), and also published Agnes Grey (1847) together with her sister’s Wuthering Heights. Emily’s death deeply affected her and grief worsened her health. In an attempt to recover, she visited Scarborough with her sister, but her health declined and she died away from home on 28 May 1849.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tells the story of a woman who escapes with her son from her alcoholic, possessive and unfaithful husband. She meets Gilbert Markham, a prosperous farmer, and after trials the two are married. Anne Brontë’s depiction of alcoholism and debauchery was disturbingly accurate, but it is really known for challenging the legal and social structures of that time, which gave little support for independent women.

(414 2010)

"Daffodils" (1804)
I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they


Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie


In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

_______________________________

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
by William Wordsworth






Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!