Chinese Cultural Revolution Photos

This picture of a man handing out flyers to a crowd of people relates to Red Scarf Girl.  It relates to Red Scarf Girl because it shows the propaganda used by Mao and his supporters to brain wash the people into believing what he wants them to.  This is how they made them believe that it was time for revolution and that is was time to destroy and rewrite the four olds.

The people believed it because they heard it from a person in the government.  On these papers where instructions on how to change to the new ways.  One thing that they where instructed to do was to make da-zi-bao about the people who didnt adapt.

GPA College Blog 2

I discovered that my GPA was much lower than I thought.  And so I was disappointed in what it was.  I thought I had a higher GPA at least a 3.0. So now I need to try harder and get better grades so that I can get a better GPA.  


What I learned about the school that I attend is that it is difficult to get good grades if you do not put in all the effort you can.


My next step is to meet with my teachers and get all the missing assignments and blank grade turned in so that I can get the credit to get better grades.  As well as to make sure I do all the assignments assigned in order to get credit.

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.

Street Art

Some qualities that I noticed and can transfer into my own art are that they are not super fancy or super well drawn, most are just sort of out lines or sketches.  Also that most only use one or two colors not a hole array of them.  They were also very strange and unique like something you normally wouldn't think about doing or drawing.  They were very simple but eye catching,  they made you look and look again and want to take picture because of how strange and unique they were.


Some of the things that most amazed me were how much of a risk they took, the size of them and how a lot of people thought that they were vandals and bad people.  They tried to arrest them when they should be applauding them, they are opening our eyes up to a new style of art that may be considered vandalism when it is art that actually contributes something to the world.  Also the simplicity of it but it conveyed such a much bigger message than other more complex paintings.


The artists used their craft to convey their message by making it strange and eye catching.  In doing this they make you think about it and see the real meaning.  They also make it very large and prominent so you always see it.  They even go to great lengths such as climbing on steep roof tops and climbing up on bill boards so they can get it in a point were it is harder to take away their picture.

Harrison Bergeron

My cartoon is showing how Diana Moon thinks everyone should be.  The pill bottle is a prescription for SAME.  This show that she is trying to make everyone the same as everyone else.  Also she herself is different than everyone else because she thinks that she is better than everyone else and does not need a handicap.

The Metamorphosis Chapter 3

I think that Kafka turned the protagonist, Gregor, into a beetle/roach because he wanted to show that things didn't aways fallow a pattern.  He seems like the kind of person who would try to change the thought process to make people think out of the box.  He was probably trying to bend how we think and make us admit that not everything makes sense.  As in one day you could be a traveling sales man and the next day you could wake up a beetle/roach and your whole life would change including how you view reality. 


His writing is really dark and satanical not like a fairy tale with a princess so it wouldn't make sense to put a frog in a story that is completely demented.  Also because people would associate the frog with a fairy tale that ends happily forever ever after not were the main character who transformed dies at the end.  Also I've never seen a writer like him he is dark and people say that this was one of the stories he was most proud of.  Another reason could be simply the time he was in or that he may not have heard many stories that had the protagonist become a frog.  No matter what it was I still think that he is an interesting writer.

The Metamorphosis Chapter 2

The Samsa family benefit and harm each other in many ways.  One way that they benefit each other is that they look out for each other and keep each other from making bad decisions.  Such as when Gregor's father and sister kept his mom from coming in and seeing him as a cockroach in this scene, "In any event, his mother comparatively soon wanted to visit Gregor, but his father and sister restrained her, at first with reasons which Gregor listened to very attentively and which he completely endorsed."  I think in most peoples opinions it was a good thing that they restrained her because if she had rushed in like she intended to she probably would have fainted again and things would have gotten worse from there.  An example of when they can harm each other is at the beginning of the book when they where all bothering and interrogating him on why he wasn't at work and wasn't up.  They weren't even letting him even respond to one of their questions or remarks before they asked another one.  " 'Gregor,' a voice called - it was mother! - 'It's quarter to seven.  Don't you want to be on your way?' ... his father was knocking on one side door, weakly but with a fist.  'Gregor, Gregor,' he called out, 'what's going on?' And, after a while, he urged him on again in a deeper voice, 'Gregor, Gregor.'  At the other side door however, his sister knocked lightly. 'Gregor? Are you alright? Do you need anything?' "  And that was only the first part of the conversation.

1. Respect each others boundaries, personal space.
2. Don't crowed each other.
3. Don't ask so many questions that you practically interrogate the person. 
4. Say out of each others personal things.
5. Don't move each others things without asking them first.

The Samsa family in my book get a C.  I thought the Samsa family deserved a C because they crowded, interrogated, broke Gregor's boundaries, and moved his things without asking.  The only reason they passed was because everything the daughter did she did because she thought she was being kind and helping Gregor live more comfortably.

The Metamorphosis Chapter 1

What circumstances in Gregor's life might have caused him to feel dehumanized even before the metamorphosis took place?

      Some circumstances that may have made him feel dehumanized before the transformation of how he was treated at work.  One thing at work that may make him feel dehumanized was the fact that his boss talked down to him like he was better than him and like he was a worthless vermin.  Also his coworkers treat him the same way.  I don't fully understand why he is working their other than that he is paying off a debt for his parents.  And even though he hasn't missed a day of work in over five years as soon as he is late for work the company sends a man to his house to see why he isn't at work.

      Other things that may have made him feel dehumanized before his metamorphosis is the fact that since he was so punctual whenever he would slip up he would be immediately questioned about it.  Also he may have thought that he was being used by his parents since the only reason he was working at his job was to pay off his parents debt.