“Do you remember, “he said, “the thrush that sang to us that first day at the edge of the wood?”
“He wasn’t singing to us,” said Julia. ”He was just singing. He was singing to please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.”
MEANING: This was a conversation between Winston and Julia. They were looking at why the man was singing to himself. They were looking at why the man was singing and they found that he was because he could. He was doing it because he had the ability to do so. He had the freedom to sing even if it was against the law; he still has the freedom to sing even if it was against the law; he still has the freedom to do whatever he wants on a human standpoint. And it’s saying he doesn’t need any rational or irrational reason to sing—he’s just doing it. I believe this quote is when Winston and Julia realize that as humans they have the ability or freedom to do whatever they want but as a member of society/the party their freedoms are limited.
APPLIES TO MODERN WORLD: This quote applies to our modern world and society because in our country’s society today our freedom is limited but still as humans we can do anything we want. In our modern world people do things sometimes without rational; they do things for no reason like singing or going for a drive or talking with people. They do things because they can; they have the ability to. In 1984 when the society was singing the man was breaking the law, but it didn’t matter; he didn’t care; he just did it. Him singing for no reason in is like someone killing for no reason in our society.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Jin Jingzhi Interview Response
Dear Jin Jingzhi
You lived in a very historical time and had experienced many hardships in your life. I praise you for sharing the life you lived and the powers that made made it difficult at times. You and your family were constantly being challenged by the government yet you stayed strong and did what you needed to do. Its very hard for me to imagine life as hard as yours. Were you loyal to the communists because you feared them or because you believed in their ideas? Did you ever have thoughts of joining the rebels because of the constant accusations on your families wealth? Did you ever fear that with out your husbands financial assistance that you would have to change your lifestyle?
Before the communists took over you and your husband were doing pretty well off but that started to change once they had complete control over the country. They owned your husbands company and you were a representative for congress. Then the red guards came and stripped your home apart and accused you of hiding money. Your husband was thrown in prison for being an opposer of the communists. Two of your children were taken away to the peasant villages to work and you were still strong. You've lived an amazing life and you have seen and experienced mass amounts of emotional strain. I praise you for living your life like a warrior.
You lived in a very historical time and had experienced many hardships in your life. I praise you for sharing the life you lived and the powers that made made it difficult at times. You and your family were constantly being challenged by the government yet you stayed strong and did what you needed to do. Its very hard for me to imagine life as hard as yours. Were you loyal to the communists because you feared them or because you believed in their ideas? Did you ever have thoughts of joining the rebels because of the constant accusations on your families wealth? Did you ever fear that with out your husbands financial assistance that you would have to change your lifestyle?
Before the communists took over you and your husband were doing pretty well off but that started to change once they had complete control over the country. They owned your husbands company and you were a representative for congress. Then the red guards came and stripped your home apart and accused you of hiding money. Your husband was thrown in prison for being an opposer of the communists. Two of your children were taken away to the peasant villages to work and you were still strong. You've lived an amazing life and you have seen and experienced mass amounts of emotional strain. I praise you for living your life like a warrior.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
MUN Reflection
Model United Nations was a great expeirience for me and i beleive that i gained many new skills during the conference. I did very well acheiving a best delagete award in the WHO commitee. I tryed to speak a lot during the conference to inform people of what India is all about and their views on the topics and to promote my resolutions so countries would support it and vote for it.
Some skills that i gained during the conference were being able to have a gruop come to a consenseus on a topic and to agree with my views. I would take my resolustion that i made previously and i would present Indias views to a group during a caucus. Once I had a group of countries together that agreed with me then i would rewrite some parts of the resolution so that the countries policies would agree with the details of it. When it would come down to voting for a resolution they would vote for the one that their country would choose and that would be mine that was changed a bit.
MUN was at first kind of scary and I was a bit nervious but once the conversations in the caucuses started i gained a beter understanding of the groups views and i felt as though i new my stuff so i had a boost of confidence that I used for my speaches and for making coments. When I spoke during the conference I sounded smart and strong like I new what i was talking about so the others followed me believing in what I was saying and voting for my resolutions. Once my confidence was boosted i felt like i was bigger, stronger and smarter than the other countries delagetes so as I started to believe that as did others that followed me and believed me.
Some skills that i gained during the conference were being able to have a gruop come to a consenseus on a topic and to agree with my views. I would take my resolustion that i made previously and i would present Indias views to a group during a caucus. Once I had a group of countries together that agreed with me then i would rewrite some parts of the resolution so that the countries policies would agree with the details of it. When it would come down to voting for a resolution they would vote for the one that their country would choose and that would be mine that was changed a bit.
MUN was at first kind of scary and I was a bit nervious but once the conversations in the caucuses started i gained a beter understanding of the groups views and i felt as though i new my stuff so i had a boost of confidence that I used for my speaches and for making coments. When I spoke during the conference I sounded smart and strong like I new what i was talking about so the others followed me believing in what I was saying and voting for my resolutions. Once my confidence was boosted i felt like i was bigger, stronger and smarter than the other countries delagetes so as I started to believe that as did others that followed me and believed me.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Chinese timeline review
China began as a small group of hunters and gatherers that settled around the Yellow River which over the course of thousands of years grew into one of the world’s greatest powers. As the first dynasties were created after Neolithic China, people began to gain reliable food sources and could start focusing on governments, emperors, exploration and land. The people began creating new things such as tools and other inventions that made life easier for them to live.
China’s early dynasties developed religions and philosophies such as Confucianism and Buddhism. Dynasties of China started having wars with the Nomads and Mongols in the north because their society and culture was developing and coming out with new things that they wanted. In the Third Dynasty they used iron and bronze metals for the first time. They started to create weapons made of metal that no one else in the world knew how to make. That gave them a powerful army, and with their strong army they began to expand their borders west, discovering new kingdoms and people. That brought about the creation of the Silk Roads which stretched from East China to the Middle East. The Silk Roads were a trade route which the Chinese people traveled on to obtain exotic spices and other goods that they did not have in their region. China was trading with the Western World (Europe), as well, through the Silk Roads and many cultures, religions and inventions were being mixed together.
China’s history reaches back thousands of years, which has given them a lot of time to evolve and expand their knowledge of the world to become one of the most economically advanced cultures of our modern world.
China’s early dynasties developed religions and philosophies such as Confucianism and Buddhism. Dynasties of China started having wars with the Nomads and Mongols in the north because their society and culture was developing and coming out with new things that they wanted. In the Third Dynasty they used iron and bronze metals for the first time. They started to create weapons made of metal that no one else in the world knew how to make. That gave them a powerful army, and with their strong army they began to expand their borders west, discovering new kingdoms and people. That brought about the creation of the Silk Roads which stretched from East China to the Middle East. The Silk Roads were a trade route which the Chinese people traveled on to obtain exotic spices and other goods that they did not have in their region. China was trading with the Western World (Europe), as well, through the Silk Roads and many cultures, religions and inventions were being mixed together.
China’s history reaches back thousands of years, which has given them a lot of time to evolve and expand their knowledge of the world to become one of the most economically advanced cultures of our modern world.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Six Siddartha quotes
Quotation: “What is concentration? What is the ability to leave ones body? What is fasting? What is retention of breath? It is a flight from the self, it’s a breif escape from the torment of being, it is a breif numbing of mind to counter pain and the senselessness of life.”
Meaning: What he means by this is that by doing meditation you can really think of the things in your life that matter and that you can study the things that always make you wonder or the questions o life that you want to answer.
Applies to my life:This concept relates to my life because I expeirience it. When I go runing its like my meditation except my body is not relaxed and my mind is bein presured to se what it can withstand and think of. The moments of my meditation when I run faster is when my mind is enlightend and believes I can kep going.
Quotation: “When someone reads a piece of writing and wants to find out what it means, he doesn’t feel contempt for the writing sighns and letters, he reads them studies them and loves them. But I have held the sighns in contempt for the sake of interpretation.”
Meaning: He’s trying to say that he looks at life in a diferent way than most others. By not looking at what things are said to mean but what he thinks they mean.
Applies to my life: In school teachers tell us thingsand teach us but I lok at them and think about what I think they mean rather what the society thinks or what are teachers think.
Quotation: “You know how to talk wisely my friend, be aware of too much wiseness.”
Meaning: I believe that this quote is saying do not over think things and seach for a way to prove something wronge but to understand that things don’t always have a rational explanation. Be wiling to listen and learn rather than you thinking you understand everything. Don’t disect the way someone says something but what they are saying.
Applies to my life:This applies to my life because I am constantly taught something in school, for instance how to make a velocity time graph. I tend to spend a lot more time questioning what the teacher is saying and the examples she gives us rather than focusing on how to do it and memorizing it in my head to see if can understand it on my own.
Quotation: “I do not want to kill or disect myself any longer to find the secret behind the ruins. Nor Yoga Veda or the ascetics will teach me anymore, nor any kind of teachings. I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, I want to learn the secret of Siddartha.”
Meaning: I believe this quote is saying that once you reach a certain point in your life you feel that you don’t want or need any one else telling you how to live your life and that number one person to teach you things is you. You feel like you’ve absorbed enoughf and learned enoughf that its time to explore yourself. Time to disect your life to see how you live it and how you want to live it.
Applies to my life: I don’t believe this major event has taken place yet in my life because I am still learning things and listening to others and still being affected by their influence. Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to nessasarly listen anymore but most of that is just my ignorence which many kids expeirience.
Quotation: “a buitiful river I love it more than anything. Often I have listened to it and often I have looked into its eyes, and always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a river.”
Meaning: I believe what the fairy driver is saying is that the simplest natural things in life can tell you so much if you think about them. You can make these encounters with things as simple or complex as you like. And its saying that if you listen to the simple things of life you gain more than if you just rush through your day doing the things that you usually do. You appreciate more in life if you just slow down and take it all in.
Applies to my life: This applies to my life because I at times listen to nature or something simple when I don’t have anything to do and I’m bored in a way. I’m in a state of relaxeness and I don’t need to do anything. I’ll just listen to sounds like the leaves of the trees in the wind or I’ll stare up at the sky at clouds and just observe them and I’ll think about why there shaped like they are or why there up there. I end up becoming relaxed and appriciative of the clouds.
Quotation: “He always seems to be playing out buissiness afairs, they never fully become a part of him, they never rule over him, he is never afraid of falure, he is never upset ny loss.”
Meaning: I believe this explains the ideal way to work. Many people get so worried and depressed about what they do they forget who they are and loose themselves to something like their job. If you are never afraid of falure and you never loose you to your job then you can put more energy into your job and yourself to become a happier person.
Applies to my life: This applies to my life because I never let school work and little jobs take me over so all I do is work because then I’m missing out on the point of school, learning and I believe life. The point is to learn and to understand who you are. I never want to do something so much that I loose my ability to have fun and to expeirience life.
Meaning: What he means by this is that by doing meditation you can really think of the things in your life that matter and that you can study the things that always make you wonder or the questions o life that you want to answer.
Applies to my life:This concept relates to my life because I expeirience it. When I go runing its like my meditation except my body is not relaxed and my mind is bein presured to se what it can withstand and think of. The moments of my meditation when I run faster is when my mind is enlightend and believes I can kep going.
Quotation: “When someone reads a piece of writing and wants to find out what it means, he doesn’t feel contempt for the writing sighns and letters, he reads them studies them and loves them. But I have held the sighns in contempt for the sake of interpretation.”
Meaning: He’s trying to say that he looks at life in a diferent way than most others. By not looking at what things are said to mean but what he thinks they mean.
Applies to my life: In school teachers tell us thingsand teach us but I lok at them and think about what I think they mean rather what the society thinks or what are teachers think.
Quotation: “You know how to talk wisely my friend, be aware of too much wiseness.”
Meaning: I believe that this quote is saying do not over think things and seach for a way to prove something wronge but to understand that things don’t always have a rational explanation. Be wiling to listen and learn rather than you thinking you understand everything. Don’t disect the way someone says something but what they are saying.
Applies to my life:This applies to my life because I am constantly taught something in school, for instance how to make a velocity time graph. I tend to spend a lot more time questioning what the teacher is saying and the examples she gives us rather than focusing on how to do it and memorizing it in my head to see if can understand it on my own.
Quotation: “I do not want to kill or disect myself any longer to find the secret behind the ruins. Nor Yoga Veda or the ascetics will teach me anymore, nor any kind of teachings. I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, I want to learn the secret of Siddartha.”
Meaning: I believe this quote is saying that once you reach a certain point in your life you feel that you don’t want or need any one else telling you how to live your life and that number one person to teach you things is you. You feel like you’ve absorbed enoughf and learned enoughf that its time to explore yourself. Time to disect your life to see how you live it and how you want to live it.
Applies to my life: I don’t believe this major event has taken place yet in my life because I am still learning things and listening to others and still being affected by their influence. Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to nessasarly listen anymore but most of that is just my ignorence which many kids expeirience.
Quotation: “a buitiful river I love it more than anything. Often I have listened to it and often I have looked into its eyes, and always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a river.”
Meaning: I believe what the fairy driver is saying is that the simplest natural things in life can tell you so much if you think about them. You can make these encounters with things as simple or complex as you like. And its saying that if you listen to the simple things of life you gain more than if you just rush through your day doing the things that you usually do. You appreciate more in life if you just slow down and take it all in.
Applies to my life: This applies to my life because I at times listen to nature or something simple when I don’t have anything to do and I’m bored in a way. I’m in a state of relaxeness and I don’t need to do anything. I’ll just listen to sounds like the leaves of the trees in the wind or I’ll stare up at the sky at clouds and just observe them and I’ll think about why there shaped like they are or why there up there. I end up becoming relaxed and appriciative of the clouds.
Quotation: “He always seems to be playing out buissiness afairs, they never fully become a part of him, they never rule over him, he is never afraid of falure, he is never upset ny loss.”
Meaning: I believe this explains the ideal way to work. Many people get so worried and depressed about what they do they forget who they are and loose themselves to something like their job. If you are never afraid of falure and you never loose you to your job then you can put more energy into your job and yourself to become a happier person.
Applies to my life: This applies to my life because I never let school work and little jobs take me over so all I do is work because then I’m missing out on the point of school, learning and I believe life. The point is to learn and to understand who you are. I never want to do something so much that I loose my ability to have fun and to expeirience life.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Socratic Seminar Reflection
Hunter Holthaus
The seminar today was full of different ideas and opinions on chapter forty eight of the Tao Te Ching. I believe that we all did a great job on discussing the topics and creating a great Socratic seminar environment that people could easily put their input in and build off each others ideas to gain a better understanding of the text. For the most part people were able to talk when they wanted and the discussion was not too heated that participants would be intimidated to speak. Something that I thought I did well on was getting the points that I wanted to make out on the table so others could think about them. I thought that I could have brought more to the discussion but I didn’t want to dominate it so when I thought that I had a good idea I waited for a place to politely put it in and I did. I enjoyed the Socratic seminar today and I believe that I gained a much greater understanding of the Tao Te Ching.
The Tao Te Ching connects to everyone’s lives and the entire world in some kind of way. It’s a book full of philosophy and principals that help people to live a better life. We all follow Tao Te Ching because we are all human and it talks about human nature and how it works and what humans should do to become in harmony with the world. In chapter forty eight the Tao Te Ching states that the world is ruled by letting things take their course, it cannot be ruled by interfering. I think what the Tao Te Ching is saying here is that you cannot control the world and that the world and all living things in it will do what they do naturally. You are never going to be able to have complete control of everything in the world so do not try, just live you’re life
The seminar today was full of different ideas and opinions on chapter forty eight of the Tao Te Ching. I believe that we all did a great job on discussing the topics and creating a great Socratic seminar environment that people could easily put their input in and build off each others ideas to gain a better understanding of the text. For the most part people were able to talk when they wanted and the discussion was not too heated that participants would be intimidated to speak. Something that I thought I did well on was getting the points that I wanted to make out on the table so others could think about them. I thought that I could have brought more to the discussion but I didn’t want to dominate it so when I thought that I had a good idea I waited for a place to politely put it in and I did. I enjoyed the Socratic seminar today and I believe that I gained a much greater understanding of the Tao Te Ching.
The Tao Te Ching connects to everyone’s lives and the entire world in some kind of way. It’s a book full of philosophy and principals that help people to live a better life. We all follow Tao Te Ching because we are all human and it talks about human nature and how it works and what humans should do to become in harmony with the world. In chapter forty eight the Tao Te Ching states that the world is ruled by letting things take their course, it cannot be ruled by interfering. I think what the Tao Te Ching is saying here is that you cannot control the world and that the world and all living things in it will do what they do naturally. You are never going to be able to have complete control of everything in the world so do not try, just live you’re life
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
My Ki Gong Expierience
The Ki Gong class that we took was amazing. It had felt incredibly weird when I felt the energy in my hands; it was a throbbing, tingling sensation. It made me feel like I was pushing two oppositely charged magnets together when I was pushing the palms of my hands together. Everything in my body felt heavy as I focused on my breathing and not moving. It was some kind of trance I was in that allowed me to feel everything in my body. Once I was in this state of focus and being incredibly relaxed it was hard for me to come back to what was going on out side of my body. I didn’t want to leave that place or feeling that I was in but I did and realized what had just gone on and was amazed. I felt my Ki.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Food Farms-Vocab Quiz
Food Farms-Vocab Quiz
Imagine walking through a city and staring up thirty stories in the sky and seeing lush green farms at the tops of buildings. Dr. Dickson Despommier has a new idea that could make this fantasy a reality; he calls it a vertical farm. His idea is to create thirty story towers in Manhattan with farms on the roofs of them that can provide produce to fifty thousand people in the city. Some believe that this idea is not very realistic; the determinant being that in the city businesses might pay more for the high rise space than farmers. His idea is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make the thirty story farm.
Even though the costs of transportation of food are going up I believe that it would be almost impossible for vertical farms to make a profit even if their crops remain fertile. There planning on spending a hundred million dollars on constructing this farm but how are they planning on making all that back when all the farm space they have to cultivate fits on the roof of a New York City skyscraper. They simply can not compete with the major deity of the farming industry who has acres upon acres of farm land. Sometimes the primitive idea works best.
I believe that these vertical farms are very cool and flashy, and that people like to believe that crazy ideas like this can be successful spite the financial reality of it. Crazy ideas like this stay ideas for one main reason, money. Investors don’t like the idea of domesticating food on the roofs of buildings because it’s a dangerous new concept that doesn’t seem like it would make any profit, to them it seems silly. Before Dr. Dickson Despommier went out pitching his dream I think it would have been wise of him to make a visit to an economic advisor to see how he could codify his ideas in a way that it would make it look like what he has planned is profitable in some kind of way. In the end for this whole operation to work, its not going to be what Dr. Despommier believes is successful but what the corporate investors that are sedentary in some boardroom believe.
Imagine walking through a city and staring up thirty stories in the sky and seeing lush green farms at the tops of buildings. Dr. Dickson Despommier has a new idea that could make this fantasy a reality; he calls it a vertical farm. His idea is to create thirty story towers in Manhattan with farms on the roofs of them that can provide produce to fifty thousand people in the city. Some believe that this idea is not very realistic; the determinant being that in the city businesses might pay more for the high rise space than farmers. His idea is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make the thirty story farm.
Even though the costs of transportation of food are going up I believe that it would be almost impossible for vertical farms to make a profit even if their crops remain fertile. There planning on spending a hundred million dollars on constructing this farm but how are they planning on making all that back when all the farm space they have to cultivate fits on the roof of a New York City skyscraper. They simply can not compete with the major deity of the farming industry who has acres upon acres of farm land. Sometimes the primitive idea works best.
I believe that these vertical farms are very cool and flashy, and that people like to believe that crazy ideas like this can be successful spite the financial reality of it. Crazy ideas like this stay ideas for one main reason, money. Investors don’t like the idea of domesticating food on the roofs of buildings because it’s a dangerous new concept that doesn’t seem like it would make any profit, to them it seems silly. Before Dr. Dickson Despommier went out pitching his dream I think it would have been wise of him to make a visit to an economic advisor to see how he could codify his ideas in a way that it would make it look like what he has planned is profitable in some kind of way. In the end for this whole operation to work, its not going to be what Dr. Despommier believes is successful but what the corporate investors that are sedentary in some boardroom believe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
