Questions

I've been in touch with Star Trek series for a couple of years now. Reading Global Science, the relativity theory, time and light speed are not unfamiliar topics for me. And while reading fiction is the most favourite thing for me as a hobby, I specially liked the notion of science fiction. After release of Star Trek 2009, I developed a great interest in these movies and tv series. In 2010 I had seen all 6 episodes of Star Trek TV Series. But that was not satisfactory for me, I wanted more. Now in mid 2011 I found Start Trek Next Generation Series. And I am spending my weekends watching this series.
It is great to see how advance we can become in next centuries, our next generations would get benefit out of it. But the assumptions on which these science fictions are created raise lots of questions.
The characters of STTNG think the notion of God as something primitive, would we leave the religions behind at such a peak of progress? Personally my belief gets stronger every time when I think about how vast the Universe is, with how much care it is created and being maintained. There is certainly someone behind it.
If someone is behind it, does this mean he is beyond space and time? He should be, otherwise how he can manage such a grand creation. The questions of space and time make me puzzled and confused. I am unable to determine what would happen to us when we'll pass the barrier of light speed. Would it truly be the beginning of an era? Would we ever be able to get light speed even? If yes what would happen to the system of communication which is based on light speed radio waves. How such ships would be able to communicate with each other?
All these things are presented in STTNG in a very simple way, but things are not so simple as the writers assume at the time of writing. There are lots of questions, lots of queries, looks like my grand sons and great grand sons might be able to get the answers of these questions, when they'll encounter such realities. For me currently, this current world is self sufficient in a hell of problems which can engage us for next several centuries, if we could make through these centuries.

On The Internship

Finally I am out of the university after the final exam of 4th semester. After the finals my intent was to have some rest and then get admission in M Phil. But nor rest neither M Phil looks near to me. I was called just after a few days by the department for internship at Little Angles School System. And due to thesis yet to submit, I may not be able to get admission in M Phil this year. So I am on the job actually with a little less than 10000 rupees are paid to me.

The school has three branches in the city and I am in the main branch on Canal Road. It is well built and having an organized structure. Because this is the first time for me to get a chance to be a teacher, it is exciting for me to learn and observe how things are done practically regarding language teaching. My bookish knowledge regarding teaching language will be converted to a more practical one. Currently I am just observing and learning as 7th class, to whom I would be teaching has still to come after summer vacation. This observation is giving me much as well I am trying to analyse the situation critically.

The school offers Cambridge O Levels and A Levels as well as local Matric and Intermediate courses for students. Cambridge students are obviously considered superior on others. The course of this university is good for English. But what I got from this, is that it focuses on reading and writing very much. Listening is also there but lesser, and there is no component of spoken part. The students have to learn reading comprehension, writing narratives and summaries and understand and then write after listening. All this, in my opinion, very much revolves around teaching writing, although this writing is superior than that of local English teaching system which utilizes translation method to teach English.

Another thing is the use of foreign materials. What I am going to teach is printed in Singapore, having all the contexts and pictures from that country. There is a lack of local touch in language teaching. Perhaps they think that foreign materials are more trust worthy to teach English. Although this is true that local materials are not available for these levels, or if available are not of that much standard. Even the books created by provincial text book boards are thin and make only one third or one forth of their Cambridge counter part.

These were some initial thoughts about my new activity, going to be a language teacher. I'll be writing more on this topic. 

Indian Rupee Gets Symbol Like Dollar, Pound

India is making its international presence more stronger and influential day by day. Their economy, like of China, is one of the biggest economies of the world. Their currency is getting attention due to high investments by multi nationals. Now the Indian Rupee has got a symbol.

And where is Pakistan?
چھڈو جی

Prezi: Presentations with Zooming

EFL 2.0 posted a presentation on the use of technology in language teaching. The thing I liked about it is the idea of creating a zoom able presentation. Prezi is a nice way to create innovative presentations. The website structure tells that it uses Adobe Flash for presentation creating, another Flash product.

Technology and Teaching Languages on Prezi

Mr. Zardari with His Family on An Offical Visit?

Can someone tell me who'll pay for his family members on an official visit in China?

Selecting Range of Filled Columns and Rows in Calc

In Microsoft Excel you have to select End Mode by pressing End button on Keyboard. Then Shift + Arrow keys let you towards the end of the series of rows or columns which are filled with data. I was looking for same solution for OOo Calc and it was pretty straightforward. In Calc you just have to press Shift key which will tell it that you are going to select every thing and then press Ctrl + Arrow keys, the range of cells which is filled would be selected. :-)

Regular Expressions: Facility, Ability and Haste

Regular Expression or regex is a powerful tool for text processing. People like me who encounter with text processing on daily basis know the ease and power they provide. Regex are full fledged language actually, a mini language with its own rules and very systematic and organized structure. Regex as they are known today are mostly borrowed from early days of Perl, that's why they are mostly called Perl Compatible Regular Expressions. No high level language can ever miss this most demanding feature in today's circumstances, and even the parent of many new languages C++ will have regex library in its new C++0x version/standard.
I came to know about regex 3 years ago when I was working with my teachers on their corpus research work. I was unable to grasp the meaning of regex initially and the power they had behind them. But after some time I got books and article on the topic and started learning them. The book most helpful for me was Friedl - Mastering Regular Expressions 3e (O'Reilly, 2006). I completed only 2 chapters of this book but it made me speedy panther in text processing from a lame lamb. Being a linguistics student and a corpus linguist I am always seeking ways to get text patterns automatically with least possible time. And regex provide me this facility. Along with regex I use C# 2005 which gives me a powerful capability to do everything I want with the texts.

Regex are good but they are like knife in your hand which can be used to cut your own hand also. You should be very well aware of the pros and cons of using regex. The very first thing you should consider as a corpus linguist is to search the regularities in the text. These regularities or patterns will help you find the perfect regex for the purpose. The best strategy is to analyse the data manually e.g. by inspecting concordance lines in search of the required constructions. After you have inspected and found the ways in which the construction is occurring, you can create a good and regex. But remember cross check, double check and recheck your regular expression to verify does it doing the maximum? Does the loss is minimum? And finally does it affordable? Affordable here I mean if it is hasty to add every construction and thus increasing your work. Regex give power and flexibility but they should be carefully used. They should be constructed with great care and also verified with manual analysis. And the most important thing, use regex to get concordance lines which you will inspect manually thus you can reduce your work as well as quality would be maintained.