First assignment: TED Video

a)My general impression on this speaker was that her speech was pretty clear. What I mean with clear here is that the pace of her speech was appropriate, not too fast nor too slow, she made it easy for listeners to know what are the important points by putting emphasis on and the effective use of visual media such as showing photos of tuna to describe how beautiful they are.

b)She is capable of showing the audience how much she understands about the field she is specialized in. I can see she is confident and all the things she say are firmly in her head not from memorization of some document, which I think is quite important to make the speech persuasive and convincing.

c)Maybe she could present the name of certain places or buildings on screen or say them more slowly. Some places sound pretty interesting and will be good to visit but she goes past it swiftly and I did not have much chance to catch the word like ".........Aquarium, here over fifty........". This is not really related to her presentation skill but I must say that I did not like how she mentioned Japan. I know I'm supposed to list the weakness of the presentation. at least more than two of it, but I do not come up with any more for now...

YAY I got a much better score than the last one for the second essay!!! getting comments and pointed out of the mistakes and stuff is really worthwhile for the next essay:)

Last Class with Rab... and my plan for the project

Since I maybe am supposed to be talking about the class I'm gonna start off by commenting on the lecture... Well we watched a video in which students from two high schools are trying to get their government to make the bill on weapon trade limitation more strict. there were several funny and shocking parts like the sh*t throwing machine which could kill people as the Israeli guy said 'you stand there I kill you' or something like that. well it was real shocking and very funy:DD
There is one idea of what im going to do for the project in the next semester is something like get some restaurants or hotels that presently are for only Japanese to change there policy into being open to foreigners as well. or at least trying to find a way and put it into action during the winter semester when we will have some extra time for not having ELP. I am not sure yet of course but it is something that ELP teachers will be interested and that should be done to be prepared for the more rapid decrease in population. ELP course taught me that it is an argent issue that we must do something about. I already talked about this with Yuga and she is in a way interested in different thing but in another way we are heading in the same direction so we might be doing this together. If any of you are interested please let me know:)))


For me, and most likely for the other CB students, Rab has been such a great teacher including even the times he tricked us and made us feel stupid more or less. Thank you so much. You taught us literary how to think. The way we are supposed to do to be a critical thinker. On the way, though, I sometimes thought that I do not want to be critical because then I would start to see so many dirty things and keep thinking and thinking so endlessly and have no time to breathe or to become doubtful to everything and trust nothing, which sound to my ears so pathetic. That was my honest feeling at some stage. But facing so many facts and truth, I know it was just a small portion of what is really going on, I start to feel that being ignorant is a kind of crime if I live in a country like Japan. You get stuff for such a cheap price and the facts that many people are forced to work for nearly nothing are not to be seen under words like 'economic crisis'. In the country you would not say 'I do not think one committed a crime if the person does not realize that he/she did it'. But what we are doing outside the country maybe in Africa or South America is about the same. In Tokyo it is illegal to hire people for under 791 yen but in countries in regions like listed earlier people are hired and paid little, if any, so that we get stuff so cheap. Does that make sense???? Don't tell me yes.
Thank you Rab again for opening my eyes. I was almost blind and now I see a little more and as I keep on in ELP I see more and more!:)) hopefully

Oh and I dig my new background picture:)

11 June

In class we watched short movies. The first one was about how stuff are produced, sold, and wasted. (well there are a lot more processes) It turned out that if the entire population lived the way like I do now we need more than 4 planets. Looks like I am one of the most honest person in CB, neh? The second (i do not remember the order for sure though) was about how people prevented a Chinese man from being executed under the control of government. Then we move on to the third one in which a pig, a chicken, and a cow are the main characters and fight against manufactured farming. Other ones were so hilarious and surely the editors have good skill and sense of humor, creation, and motivation but something was missing. That is , a strong impact. In that sense, I would say the second movie that called on people for breaking some small laws is really well-done. I would say yes to it depending on how much risk I will have to endure. After all, I'm self-centred and I believe most people are naturally so to some extent.

I was pretty much feeling embarrassed because those who made the videos are so motivated to protect other species whereas I did not even have a slight idea that breastfeeding is the harmful thing for infant the most and that I had never even tried to know stuff like that.

Earthling

I've just watched Earthling. Yes it is heavy and not easy to watch through it all. I strongly, however, recommend that you should watch this if you eat meat. Sorry to say this. I do respect the voice of those who say they do not want to watch it because it's too harsh, gross, and cruel but it is the truth. If you say you do not know the truth of what is truly going on because the media and government control the information and all that, here is one that shows some elements of hidden factor of our everyday life. I dare not say the movie was completely fair and unbiased. It certainly is one-sided for the movement of protecting animals or nature. Isn't it safe enough, though, to say that if the scientists want to know how human body will react to a particular medicine and chemical they must use human body rather than innocent animals who are not even seeking to know what humans do.


This movie gave me an opportunity to think about how we take too many things for granted without acknowledgment.

June 9

I'm sure at least half of the CB students know that my next essay will be based on my own experience in South Africa as an exchange student. I found it much better and easier to do than the previous one because I have better understanding and more motivation toward the current topic, culture. It includes especially cross-cultural communication and language but I'm not too sure yet.

In the discussion those who were in the same group gave me some hint and the weak point of my supporting statements for the claim. Thank you again;) I must work hard on the essay this coming weekend but when it's over,,,,, IT'S OVER!!! yesis I can do this:)))) But it's really kak that Rab won't be teaching us the next semester.;(((((

Anyways, is there any way that we know if the test is gonna be taken place tomorrow or not???lol

On the day before yesterday's class (7 June)

My interpretation of The Old Man and the Sea is that the whole book is about Hemingway himself's wish. I came up with this idea when Rab told us that Hemingway sort of made up an unrealistic story which is quite unusual of him being famous as a realist writer.

Some people say that Hemingway represents Jesus but it does not seem to be accurate to my eyes. He thinks to himself that no one except for himself is worthy of eating the big fish. If you think about it how such a person who said that could be regarded as Jesus ,who was willing always and actually did sacrifice himself for people. Wouldn't Jesus give away the fish he caught with all his effort to those who are capable of doing so or to those who cannot afford any food and all that?

Writing the book, Hemingway wishes he had good relationships with his own son like the old man did with the boy who cares about and are concerned about the old man.




About the cover of the last year's edition. I thought the current one that we have on our book better suits the atmosphere and the mood of the story. That is, the previous one looks like a cover for a story of a strong man and his great enemy and about an accomplished victory or something like that. In fact, however, the story is rather flat and sometimes even miserable. Visualize in your head the situation given by the story. There is only one feeble man on a small skiff searching for a fish, getting one, and having it completely ruined except the head and the tail and talking to and even cheering himself constantly.

Here you might want to say that this story then can not be about his wish. But if you think about it it actually can since he kills all the sharks. The sharks could be anything that Hemingway regarded as his opponent, concern, burden, or any kind of trouble. He defeat every single one and manage to get home where the boy was waiting.

Those things are just part of my interpretation of the book and I know I need more and deeper understanding of it to be really prepared for the test...but ..........

筋肉痛で死にそうな青木さんです

Eish I had a awful muscle pain the whole day and I still do. It's literary killing me and forced me walk like a dying old person with no stick trembling at each step. Ah I got this from yesterday's volleyball games we made it to the semifinal and won the 3rd place. Saori was originally in the team which consisted of 3 boys and 3 girls who were at some stage in volleyball teams. Unfortunately one of the guys got injured and they needed another. Since they could not find any guy to replace they got me in place. It was so much fun and we promised we definitely would take a revenge. Aha it looks like this is my personal everyday type of blog:PPPP

By the way, the topic discussed today in class was a bit harsh and heavy. I ended up thinking that we should not do such a thing as killing animals to keep the ecosystem. In the case of the enormous reproduction of deers at some island that Rab introduced to us, some say that it was justified that people hunted the deers because deers eat almost all green and were pretty much close to driving other species into extinction. Their argument sounds almost right but I think that they should not have introduced deers to the land at the first stage. And if killing animal at the purpose of avoiding rapid increase of the number of some particular animal is justified why not killing people because there are too many. What if people started to say that Japanese should be swept away from the Earth because we have such a gigantic factories and industries that cause a great deal of pollution?

This is not an opinion I've been holding but just came up to my mind in today's class...

Class at Baka-yama!

After taking photos for yearbook we had class at Baka-yama because it was such a wonderful day:) We mainly talked about the Old Man And the Sea. I'd done the 3Bs' but all I found was just his biography not any of background. The background is more like historical situation political policy then and so on. When I'm finished PWT I can start working properly on this book and can do 3Bs in further detail.

good luck everyone for PWT

June 1

today's lecture started off with a bad news which is that we have a test on the Old Man and the Sea. well actually it is not too bad to do it but it took me by surprise. I was always happy that we would be finished with any test on this coming Friday. Luckily this is not the first time that I'm doing literature I feel a little saved. I read To Kill A Mockingbird and Crucible to get O level literature during my exchange year. Anyways we got the result of the previous PWT. There are many major mistakes but I will just make sure that I would not make the same mistakes. It went the same way for the last essay as well. Learning lessons is valuable in any cases. Maybe I'm just making excuse though!!! haha you never know=)

still Criterion does not want to get me through....

Anyways, the last Friday class was flooded with all the links to websites where you can get a little less biased information. I wondered why I did not know a single of their sorts. Sentenceworks was quite interesting and I personally found it useful though it makes some funny mistakes. It still gave me good suggestions for correction and better vocabulary choices.

ahhhh I actually confused myself typing the previous post..... Does what I'm saying make sense?

Chapter 7

I think Nisbett should not state that East Asian education especially in areas like mathmatics and science is better than those in the West. He does not consider other aspects of possible reasons for such gaps but only cultural matter or difference of perception. In China the government presents the literacy rate as 90%. This apparent figure seems to be no problem when comparing Chinese students and Europeans where the literacy rate is about a bit higher. But the Chinese literacy rate excludes those who are not even able to place themselves as Chinese because of the one-child policy, which means they can not go to school to get enough education. If those people were to be counted as Chinese citizens it is said that the literacy rates would fall to 75-80%. So the students who get higher education in China are the smaller portion of the whole than that of Europe.

The most obvious fact or belief should be examined

When the argument is about what my interest is engaged in I hold my position firmly and at the same time I try to remain flexible. I could even challenge my teacher if his opinion contradicts mine and could alter my belief if teacher's opinion is found correct and reasonable, for I try my hardest to look at things from various aspects. You might think I have not acted so but it's simply because I have not encountered such situation in which my position is opposed to teacher's or because no topic that stimulates me has come up in class yet. And that is the skill a student is required in college; have open mind, examine one's belief, and know an argument is not conflict.


I do not really understand why students say I'm the best student in CB. But since Rab wanted me to consider it myself, I uncertainly squeezed the statement described above.









psh

New essay

I 'carefully' decided my essay topic and its gonna be about culture, roughly. What I mainly am going to be discuss is the characteristic of Japanese way of communication which might be considered to be vague and confusing by foreigners who are not familiar with it. I still have to figure out how I put it as an academic and argumentative issue. But at least it will be easier this time to find books on this type of topic than the previous one!

The chapter 6 was pretty interesting because it had many examples that made it easy to understand the context. The weird thing, however, is that we, or at least I, never learned categorizing animals or any objects in terms of relationships at school. Textbooks instead showed if an animal is mammal, amphibian, or reptile. That is the rule-based categorization. Moreover, I myself categorized cow and chicken together unlike most of participants in Nisbett's research.

In the last Friday class we wandered around the stereograms. My eyes are still tired from it. Anyways, it was one example that one thing could look different depending on the way you see it. That was my conclusion.... At the end of the class we quickly look through some paper for our essay. I can not believe how quickly we must work. We just finished the previous essay last week!!!!!!!! It's even funny how my college years and most of my friends' college years can differ. I prefer mine though:PPP psh

NO, he's never met a nice South African and it's not bloodhy surprising man!

It was made sure in today's class that Rab would get me a heart attack someday.

The psychological test we did today looked very familiar to me. Then I remembered doing the same thing in the selection test of Rotary Exchange Student. We were ordered to draw house, greens, the sun, human beings, path, and so on. Now I have some idea what they wanted to know from it. That is, the independency, maturity, flexibility, and things like that. We took a look at all the other students and had a good laugh. Some people had one huge house in the centre of the paper. Some had the massive sun taking half the paper, and.....snake. Ey no mention on that.

Language was one of the biggest problem I had when being abroad, especially jokes. Sometimes, or most of the times actually, it was not even funny to me when people say things like that I will not live so long in South Africa because Japan has the great number of people who commit suicide.

Whenever I speak a ward of English it was responded with a pouring rain of laugh because I kept swapping the pronunciation of R and L, which I cannot help due to the absence of R sound in the Japanese. I did not dare say that I bet they can never pronounce biyoin and byoin correctly apart when they cannot even pronounce my name. Instead they called me Saki, Sahyka, or Sake. They thought Sake （酒）represents Japan so well. That is much better than being called Sushi so I did not complain.

More, they do not talk,or like to talk, about blood types but racism. Just like some people do not understand why not many Japanese have valid religious belief, I do not understand why they always describe people in colour. Let's say I told a friend of mine 'I met this one girl who talks a lot and is loud' she/he would reply 'Is she black?'. Once there was a time my host brother asked me 'which group of people will you be with, black or white' then I said 'Why must I choose just one side?' he looked shocked while I was pretty much shocked with his question.

It might be the inheritance of Apartheid. It is still fresh in people's memory that there was distinctive ditch among races in South Africa. They used to make jokes on other races that they thought were really funny at that time but that is not considered so at present.

I was even scared to speak English at least the first 6 months so I would list language as one biggest issue I encountered during my exchange year.

this is terrible.......my essay just ended up being not so impressive after all!


ppshhhhh

Ah-huh!!!!!!!! I just have got way too better idea!!!! I'm so excited except for that my tummy is sick because I ate real hot spicy meal for dinner. Wait for me!! It's one of those どんでん返し.

The psychological test we had in class today was very interesting. My test results are:

1. How I really wanna be; relaxing, soothing, emotional, beautiful, clear.....which is already done,
2. Quality I am looking for in my partner; free, open, friendly, quiet, neutral, gentle, tender....which is even scarily accurate,
3. What I think about sex and love; enjoyable, relaxing, sleepy, free, kind, natural.....good laugh,
4. What I think about death; empty, lonely, relaxing, safe, nervous, weak, helpless, weird, strange....so true.

It was a fun class but it made it sure that I lack a great deal of vocabulary, and that I need to work quite hard to fix this problem myself after finishing essay. The essay....is the greatest trouble I have at the time. I'm actually thinking about giving up on this after fixing the obvious issues because as Rab pointed out I found myself not too into this topic. It was interesting at the first stage but afterwards I realized that this topic can not possibly be put as an academic matter. May someone could but I can not. Oh by the essay is about 'notebook and loose-leaf'. I am really looking forward to constructing an essay on cultural issue since I to some extent am proud of the experience that I had in South Africa with people from all over the world with such a wide range of backgrounds. So for this essay I'm just going to do my best to fix technological and vocabulary problems.

Sorry Rab I know I'm disappointing you.

Chapter4

sorry for the delay of my post on Nisbett. I'm actually almost done with chapter6....

This chapter 4 reminded me the art class I had in South Africa. In the class we were told to choose one object from things placed at random order such as table, clothes on it, sawing machine on them, scissors next to it, and so on. Let's say the teacher picked scissors for us to draw. So we start. But soon after starting I realized I was not doing it as I was told. I drew things around scissors unintentionally. Other students, on the other hand, drew exactly one object out of some others and there was nothing else but the chosen object on the paper. It was a huge problem I faced. However many times I tried I could not help but drawing an object 'from outside'. To be specific, I drew the outline of the scissors by drawing the shadow appeared around it and the table that the shadow appeared on. One thing's outline can be seen because there are other objects around it. Troubled look came out on my and the teacher's face. He knew I was serious and not trying to make fool of him or anything.

I must say, however, that the connection between this experience of mine and the statement Nisbett makes, such that Asians see the world of continuous masses of matter and that Westerners of unconnected things since I was the only Japanese or Asian in that class and Nisbett does not talk about originally European people living in Africa. But as I said at the top, this chapter really reminded me this peculiar event.

12 May

*cough* well, it's not that i was too lazy to post on my blog yesterday i was too busy studying for the test i had today and then....eventually.....forgot about this.

we had an easy class today addressing assumptions in various statements. it was actually fun. I did not get many right so i still need more practice myself. maybe i will do the same paper when all my memories are gone, which might be coming soon since I'm super forgetful.


about today's class. it seems that there are so many things that we should memorize for the coming exam. I'm not that bad with memorizing in JAPANESE but English.....is a different story. I'm pretty much amazed that we were supposed to pay attentions to so many things as we read like assumptions and evidence and things like that. I never thought i was a bad reader but now i am afraid i am to some extent. if i care...? Ek weet nie!!


I really do not know what possibly i should do. at least i can do some interview on students in ICU. I am not against Rab's plan of essay due, like making it earlier than it actually is at the first stage and have some break and so on... but personally this time, if i had known that that due was the next monday i would have changed my topic. eish i'm tired...;((((

みょんみょんみょん

I must apologize first that I will not be even trying to make good comment on today's class because I'm having really awful headache and sick stomach.

Assumptions are not necessarily always hard to find but the problem is whether the ones found are significant and core of the point the writer makes. Today in class I only managed to spot ones that were too obvious or that did not meet the core. It is a sort of imagination you use not guessing right and you must analyze your answer. It can be too obvious and merely a fact.

Little Brown Handbook is quite useful when writing essays or reviewing them. It provides me with good logical points except for that it is not either little or brown.

Sorry I'm making really little poor mention on LBH but the headache terribly is piercing right through my head.... I'll try my hardest not to be late for the ELP after E.P. class since we will be welcoming some guests tomorrow....

The Seattle Protest at the end of November, 1999 was numerous and had great impact through the whole world. Protests broke out in big cities like London and Geneva but not in Japan.

When I was walking down the street in Ginza last week I came across a demonstration on American base in Okinawa. They were marching slowly in straight line. It was quite easy to note that few people were looking confident and determined with the rest reluctant and tired. Only those who were leading the mass in front was exclaiming aloud against the base through amplifiers. But then I feel something weird about what I'm seeing. It's not about an old man talking on the phone laughing in the demo nor the right wings yelling at the poor feeble protesters 'Get out of Japan you betrayers!!!!'. It is that, I eventually figure out, there is not a single young man.

Do young people in Japan not protest because the major medias hide the true factor of things and we do not know anything about it? I do not think so because in many countries governments control information but people still go and get under-covered stories and protest if needed. Not having information for the control of the media is not always directly related to ignorance. Suppose the case in South Korea in 2008 when president Lee, newly elected, declared his policy concerning the free trade agreement, privatization, and the ownership of Dok-do. People including mothers with children, students and their friends, and old people started none-violence protest with candle light. It was responded by government with violence and by media with distortion of the truth. Only those who were actually in the protest know that the protesters were physically assaulted and there were 50,000 of them instead of 500. In spite of the distortion and concealment of the fact, voices of people spread and more and more people gathered in the protest. This indicates that media control can be defeated if we try ourselves to get to know what really is happening around us. Then what is the difference?

I remembered the words I frequently hear 'I'll do if you do.' People wait for someone to start it but do not be the one who starts. Even when someone starts something they will watch it from distance if many people are gathering around it. There was a TV program questioning why young people can not eat lunch by themselves. The answer from students from some university was that they do not want to be regarded to be a lonely person or not to have friends. They do not want to be alone not because they themselves do not like it but because they are too sensitive to people's eyes that might not even be looking at them. I call this kind of attitude passive attitude.

With this attitude how can a protest of 50,000 be possible but only one of old people marching in long but narrow line? The main difference is the attitude of people, especially the young ones, caring what seemingly other people do and not caring what seemingly other people do not.

commit

When thinking about why Japanese people do not protest or demonstrate, I came up with some ideas, that many Japanese

• do not have a clear idea of what is really needed for the country,
  
• so that are not sure who should be the one to control and govern,
• or simply too shy
• or do not act when they are not sure if their action will benefit them or it's gonna be successful

There actually are more in my mind but it is quite hard for me to explain everything here especially in English.

People say Hatoyama and his Cabinet members are not doing their duty or that their policy did not come out effective and trustworthy. I do not think they are wrong or right but I do when they come to chose ones to blame. It is not only Hatoyama or the Cabinet. It's those who voted for them because people take part in the governance through votes. If the representatives end up with undesirable consequences, the responsibility for the failure is brought down to them and to the voters. In my point of view the reason why people do not think feel so alarmed and motivated for a protest or demos is that they, unintended or not, neglect to consider 'what I want the government to do' or 'what should be done to make Japan a better place to live in' but instead read what is written on manifests. I see people on TV asked what they think about the crisis Japan is encountering and answer 'Hatoyama should leave and be replaced' but no mention to why and what they expect from the one replacing the position. This reflects the way the Japanese deal with the government and its policy. That is, they vote, see what happens, and when the result is to be seen, they either complain or feel content. The actual commitment is not about looking at policies on the list but deciding what kind of policies are in need.

back on the right way.....

So Rab asked us if we will be demonstrating if the government were to change the Article Nine. I said yes. But I must admit I'm greatly biased on this issue, which I cannot really help. He also said that this article is already broken. This, I could not agree or disagree with because I do not have much information about this to start with and I felt embarrassed about it. Here I recalled the sentence in "Geography of Thoughts" that says the ancient Chinese lacked the sense of curiosity and interest....

Chapter 3

I do not agree with the author's idea of East Asians not thanking people for doing obligations like Americans do. Top of all he should not generalize just one person's comment. And, in fact, I quite frequently hear customers thanking waiters at restaurant in Japan for the good service such as bringing food, which obviously is their obligation.

On the other hand there is something that I do agree with in his statement. That is, Japanese people tend to anticipate people's feelings, and to pick up what's meant behind the conversations rather than just accepting right away what the speaker says. To enforce this idea let me tell you about a lecture I took at one open campus event. The professor doing research on cultural differences amongst countries or races showed an example of American using verbal method when arguing something and, in contrast, of Japanese adopting anticipation and implication at such situations. First she played on a screen 'Shall we dance?' of Hollywood version and then of Japanese. At one part of the movie a man, the main character, and his wife has a serious dispute over his going to dance lesson secretly from his wife. In American version the wife gets mad and starts shouting at him and the husband argues back. In Japanese one the wife keeps quiet and successfully express her disappointment and sadness through atmosphere.

In my own life when I was still in South Africa I often felt amazed with people's attitude and even the way they talk which sometimes sounded too demanding and pushy, more or less and got me somewhat frightened. When people described me those words like 'polite', 'hard-working', 'modest' or something like that. I achieved this compliment merely by being quiet and I was so due to the lack of ability of speaking English.

You can see in these comparison how Americans and Japanese, of course not always, think and express their feelings and how his argument makes sense.

28/4/2010

We worked on paper of various sorts of practices for grammar like composing topic sentences and conclusions and putting paragraphs in correct order. The class after that was taken place in ILC 104 with Rab showing us more useful and advanced stuff on Google. Using wonder wheel really got my attention but i did not find much thing that i would need it when searching, so far. Now I better get started doing my essay....

I had the tutorial with Rab for the first time today. Since my topic is not in any of Rab's field our main concern was on the constructions and how to organize my ideas and all that. He said my 'heeeehhhhh' was really typical of Japanese and it's better when I say 'woooooowww'. Sorry but I cannot really help it:P I'm still striving to keep up with the other students and get all the homework done, which I do not always fulfill. The test. Hmm....I wonder why I'm feeling a little stressed about it though I was never one who feels that way and minds not doing anything to prepare for it. Rab gave us the paper of questions that some of them will be in the practice test and some of the rest will be on the actual test paper. We discussed the answers. Well I'll keep it in my mind that they are not testing me on ability of memorizing but analyzing and critical thinking.

Chapter 2: The Social Origins of Mind

The statement "there HAS NEVER been a strong interest in knowledge for its own sake in China. Eve n modern Chinese philosophers have ALWAYS been far more interested in the pragmatic application of knowledge than with abstract theorizing for its own sake." really made me go "????". What is this based on. And his claim saying that Chinese lacked curiosity, does not make sense to me because seeking for knowledge to achieve or attain something like higher level of occupation does not lead to such a conclusion. Curiosity is curiosity no matter what one would want from it eventually.

Geography of Thought, Chapter 1: The Syllogism and the Tao

I searched him on the Internet before starting to read this book but I did not find much of useful info about him such as his religion and background and all that. I started off reading anyways. First thing that stopped me to think was the part ''But among the greatest civilizations.....it is possible to imagine only the Greeks feeling free enough, being confident enough in their ability to control their own lives, to on a long journey for the sole purpose of aesthetic enjoyment'' I wondered what supportive statement he would bring and kept on reading with some uncomfortable feeling. If this is a book about his view on history, I do not really have to be concerned with this because then he can simply argue his own understanding in that area. But considering the fact that he is going to be talking about other things on the basis of historical factor, he need provide reasonable evidence that the base certainly is correct and accurate. There are some more parts I felt the same way. Otherwise he describes his point pretty clearly. He put emphasis on the word 'individual' as Greek's distinctive attribute whereas on 'harmony' he does as Chinese's. It's a widespread idea and, no matter if I agree with it or not, did not surprise me much. He also take note on Greeks categorizing objects. Unfortunately I am not really sure what he means with it so if time allows I will go back there and, hopefully, get better comprehension of it.

list of words used for comparison (just so that i can look at this later)

Greek-China

• individual, agency-harmony, collective agency
  
• attendance at plays and poetry-visit with friends and family
• happiness is a free exercise of distinctive talent-is the satisfaction of a plain country life within a harmonious social network
• battles, athletic contents, bacchanalian parties in vases- family activities , rural pleasures on porcelains
• polyphonic music-monophonic music.....etc

23/4/2010

Computers and technologies are really driving me mad. Too many things that we can do to remember. Zotero certainly is one of those. If I could take my computer or phone to the exams I would dig it, though. Certainly it is good to store everything online and you can see it wherever you are as long as you have Internet connection. I even can find the books that I found on the internet online instead of writing all the titles down on my little notebook since i would not be able to remember them myself. So if someone invent little tiny clear chip which you can put in your eyes just like contact lens and which is connected to your brain and reads your mind and bring down what you wanna see. A feeble old granny will not need it, though...

What mainly did in the class was how to get your ideas across efficiently and effectively. First, the title must be impressive and grab readers' attention. Another thing about titles is that it does not necessarily follow the general grammar rules or appropriateness of the choice of words. A title has two part divided by ':'. The left side gives the slight basic idea of what the essay will be talking about and the right briefly explains a little more of it. Then move on to the next part, introduction. This part could be really important depending on the topic you chose. If your topic is rather specialized and that not many readers from out of that specific academic area might not understand what you mean, you are expected to give them some information and knowledge about the topic. You want this section to attract readers' attention as well by using humor, shocking facts, famous/interesting quotes otherwise they will presume your essay be boring and not worth reading. If you succeed, the readers will go on to reading the body parts of your essay. Whether the readers find themselves convinced you are making sense and that they can agree with you is hugely up to formation and emphasis it takes. The point here is you must be sneaky in attempt of trying to handle people's psychological nature. At last you get to the conclusion. It can be said that this is a work of paraphrasing the thesis statement you made at the top, making it a little more detailed or conclusive. I'm sure these basic principles of essays ' going to help me a lot when working on it.
My essay topic hardly have anything to do with anybody elses'. I thought of what I do not know much and want to know and of what is not too technical nor serious then I will be able to deal with it.

16 April, 2010

The first thing we did in class was to switch on the Mac pc. Even such a simple action gave me some trouble, which made me feel useless. But please note that I'm forgetful. Rule of three, Rab taught us, stands for that you need three evidences that support your argument in favor to make it convincing. Two or less evidences are not enough to make your claim firmly supported and more than four could be too much that readers get tired of them. That was 'Rule of Three'. What pained me the most was the part when we video-recorded ourselves and put the movies on our blogs. It was such a weird feeling watching my self in a screen speaking English with funny accent and continua pauses. At the same time, it gave me an opportunity to realize how my English should be improved.

Two videos gave me an idea of what happens when bringing different things together and make them into one product, depending on how you do it. One video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tprMEs-zfQA&playnext_from=TL&videos=m2rgYIVNmH0) taught me a good and well-organized combination makes a harmony. The other (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjY3UvQ2n98&playnext_from=TL&videos=y2i5x5pavdc) was the example of bad arrangement. What they did was simply putting videos together of people singing the same song and playing it at different level of quality, which makes the whole messy. This can be applied to when you want to make your claim convincing and reliable.