Internship Talks

What stuck me the most was that one of the persons internships the person who was in charge of the student read papers instead of talking or showing the student what to do.  I am looking of an interactive, engineering based internship.  The talk that painted the best picture for me was the one by Shaylin about the chair that she had to sit in every day and do her work in.  This painted the best picture for me because it was simple and it was a single inanimate object so that way she was able to provide a lot of details about one thing.

Part II

Suheir's Def Poetry piece and Marjane in Persepolis defines revolution as a large time of change and rebellion.  They think that the out come is good but while people are protesting they think it is stupid how the government or who ever they are fighting against kill them using free speech, even if the country has no law that garenties free speech it doesn't mean that you have to kill them.  The define revolutionaries as hero's.  They have made some of the biggest differences in countries around the world today and more a coming out and helping start a revolution in freeing countries that have a dictator or even just a bad government.  They also think that war is pointless and is not needed to have peace in a country.  Since in the end the people will win and the government is just delaying the inevitable. 

Suheir Hammad & Marjane Satrapi on War

The first line that struck me was when she said, "Life is a right, not collateral or casual," it made me think of how now a days people will kidnap others and use them as bargaining chips in return for collateral such as money.  Also of how some people in third world countries will pay with child labor some other form of human life.  The other quote that struck me was when she said, "I will not lend my name nor my rhythm to your beat."  It seems that this could be interpreted in several different ways but the way that made the most sense to me was that she will not become a puppet following all of your rules and doing everything that they commanded.


Some connections I found between Suheir's ideas and Marjane's were that they both fought against oppression whether figuratively or literally.  Although I am not sure what Suheir was referring to when she said she would not do what they wanted but either way they both fought for what they wanted and what they believed in.


What struck me about Marjane was that no matter how much trouble she could have gotten in she always spoke her mind.  Even when she did get in trouble such as getting kicked out of school she still spoke her mind.  And Suheir decided not to do what they said and to live her own way.  

Islam

The laws on Muslim food are very similar to those of Judaism.  The name for food Muslims can’t eat is Haram, food they can eat is called Halal.  Foods that people are not sure about are called Mashbooh.  Some foods that they can’t eat are pig, dog, donkey, carnivores, monkeys, cats, lions, frogs, crocodiles, turtles, worms, flies, cockroaches, owls, and eagles. This includes meat that was not slaughtered correctly, in the name of Allah.  Tea, alcohol, coffee and drugs are also not allowed.  Halal food that has been in contact with foods that are not allowed are then also not allowed.

Asia current event

Bhutan is a small country with only 649,847 people.  The country is only 38,394 square kilometer large and all of it it land no water.  It is a landlocked country, no oceans around it, surrounded by China and India.  To give you more perspective it is roughly half the size of India.


One current event is that it is in a turf war with China.  The dispute has gone on since between the early and mid 1900's.  China has settled most of its territorial disputes  except for with Bhutan and India.  In 2009 the first batch of 25,000 refugees left camps in seven United Nations-supervised camps in eastern Nepal, and the vast majority of the 86,000 remaining have signed up for resettlement in the West, most of them headed for the United States.  Many people thought that Bhutan was and still may be headed for extinction if they didn't do anything to stop the demographic pressure.