SkillsFuture + anything related to upskilling/learning something new!

[sharonkhoo]

@thebottomsupblog said in SkillsFuture + anything related to upskilling/learning something new!:

Popping in to share that I just finished my first paper for my current course (a specialist diploma in career counselling).

We had to do APA-style referencing — not something we’d like to relive, that’s for sure. But thankfully there’s AI to the rescue these days!

It’s quite a brain workout to read academic papers again, I must say. In my previous specialist diploma, I did business analytics, which was more about using tools and setting up a workstream to analyse big data — we didn’t have to care so much about how we phrased things, and there was hardly any need to reference.

I’m doing the reverse - in that I’m having to “retrain” myself to craft carousels to post on IG! My usual style is not so suited for that (as those who’ve read a lot of posts here will know). I’m using AI (Copilot) to edit my drafts to make them more contemporary in style!

I’m fine with preparing bibliographies (any style) - I used to be a librarian!

[sharonkhoo]

@thebottomsupblog I’m about a third of the way through a course entitled “Masterpieces of World Literature”. Quite interesting, but there’s a quiz (20 MCQs) at the end of every work presented. I do a section when I have time.

[thebottomsupblog]

@sharonkhoo Oh nice!!! What are some of the books that you have to read?

NLB has this series called A Bridge to the Classics:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/100069047889702/948198266803290/

I think this month, they’ll be talking about Dostoevsky (can never spell his name without checking!)

[rinsider]

@thebottomsupblog

I’m sad. No follow up on my “successful registration of interest” for the dog grooming course. I guess I have to smell her Fritos toes for eternity.

[sharonkhoo]

@thebottomsupblog said in SkillsFuture + anything related to upskilling/learning something new!:

@sharonkhoo Oh nice!!! What are some of the books that you have to read?

NLB has this series called A Bridge to the Classics:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/100069047889702/948198266803290/

I think this month, they’ll be talking about Dostoevsky (can never spell his name without checking!)

Confession: I’m lazy! I don’t read the actual books! Maybe the Wikipedia summaries… I’m using the course as a shortcut - just to get an idea of the books as I don’t think I’ll ever get round to reading them! The only one in the list that I’ve read is the Odyssey (about 40+ years ago!). I have heard of some of the others, but most are completely new to me.

Texts/authors considered in the course:

Section 1:Goethe and the Birth of World Literature
Section 2: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Section 3: Homer, The Odyssey
Section 4: The 1001 Nights
Section 5: Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
Section 6: The Lusiads
Section 7: Voltaire, Candide
Section 8:Lu Xun and Eileen Chang
Section 9: Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones
Section 10:Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman
Section 11:Salman Rushdie and Jhumpa Lahiri
Section 12: Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

[thebottomsupblog]

@sharonkhoo Wow you’ve read the Odyssey!!! What are some tips that you have for reading (and appreciating) the classics? I find it hard to want to reach for those. I have Moby Dick unfinished, on my list.

Thanks for sharing the list

I read Salman Rushdie’s Knife, after I heard him on an NYT podcast. I’ve never read Satanic Verses. Knife was a good read — it included an imaginary conversation with his attacker, and he also addressed a question that’s been put to him many times during his recovery, “do you believe in God now?” I won’t spoil it, but I was struck by his answer!

[sharonkhoo]

@thebottomsupblog said in SkillsFuture + anything related to upskilling/learning something new!:

@sharonkhoo Wow you’ve read the Odyssey!!! What are some tips that you have for reading (and appreciating) the classics? I find it hard to want to reach for those. I have Moby Dick unfinished, on my list.

I don’t have any tips! As an adult, I find that my time is too precious to read things that don’t interest me, or if I don’t appreciate the style of writing. (That’s part of the reason why I refused an offer to study Eng Lit at university level!) But I am curious enough to want to know about things that are not immediately in my sphere, including something about what others consider “great literature”. If I feel that the book has made great contributions in some way, or is very famous for some reason, I might look up the wiki summaries!

When I was still in sec school/JC and had more time on my hands, I made an effort to read some of the recommended books that I kept hearing about, including the Odyssey (in translation, of course!). But they were mostly novels of later periods (18th century onwards) and random things I came across in libraries. When I was younger, I was more prepared to be impressed by what others considered “great” even if I didn’t really like the style!

Now, I read mostly fiction in the mystery genre (NLB reports that I read over 200 such books in Jan-Nov last year!). So this course is really my lazy way of finding out more about these “important” texts, some of which I have never even heard of before.

[thebottomsupblog]

@sharonkhoo 200 books!!! Impressive!

I took Eng Lit at NUS. I had dropped lit in sec school (laziness) and was a triple-science kid, but it was not a good fit for me, and the MA was to “make up” for that period.

I actually had a really good experience at NUS; I did modules like “Women & Mythology” and authors that we had to read included Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre) and Louise Erdrich (The Antelope Wife). But I struggled for the renaissance lit module hahahaha (Paradise Lost… shudder!).

I like what you said about going with your interests! My aim is to read more books this year, especially the ones lying around at home untouched.

[thebottomsupblog]

@rinsider Are there other providers offering dog grooming classes?

But one thing is that the SkillsFuture site is super messy and hard to browse!

[sharonkhoo]

@thebottomsupblog said in SkillsFuture + anything related to upskilling/learning something new!:

But one thing is that the SkillsFuture site is super messy and hard to browse!

I agree! They should some librarians from NLB to help improve the search features. I found (being a librarian) that IT people like to think the full text searching of an unstructured database is always better than using controlled index terms to search a well-indexed database. They loved to tell me, “see, you get 1000 hits!” (mostly irrelevant) as if that would be more useful to a searcher than 30 relevant hits.