Disaster

At first I decided to write about friendship, but then the idea seemed to carry less significance when I thought about the professor’s hint; “Why is it so important to talk about it now?” So, when I was browsing through the keyword in my mind, suddenly I remember the calls from my mom. She talks about the earthquakes that have been happening throughout the year in Indonesia. And the keyword “disaster” suddenly pops into my mind. The word “disaster” always has a bad connotation when I think about it. According to the OED, “disaster” is “Anything that happens without foresight or expectation; an unusual event, which proceeds from some unknown cause, or is an unusual effect of a known cause.” It implies that all things that relates to danger and is accompanied by casualties. According to Wikipedia, the root of the word “disaster” implies that when the positions of the stars are bad, then bad things will happen. Over the centuries, the meaning of “disaster” has changed. The past, most people think that “disaster” is associated with unnatural occurrence with the nature such as earthquake, landslide or volcanic eruption. But as of today, people tend to think that disasters mostly come from technological aspects. The outcome of disasters driven from technology has gone haywire. Imagine the long term effects of nuclear bomb that can still cause death from the radiation for many years. And also the psychological attack from 9/11 that is keeping us in constant fear from the same incident that might occur again in the future. Moreover, the movie “Terminator” has similar effects about apocalyptic disasters when it comes to technology. In this movie, the machine is portrayed as a “disaster” when they were planning to take over humans. So “disaster” has evolved into a broader context; human disasters.

What else that makes “disaster” interesting to talk about? Even though a lot of people are skeptical about the good outcome from “disaster,” I don’t think they are going to deny that there is at least one good thing from “disaster.” Take a look at the Asian-Tsunami incident in 2004. That incident took the lives of millions of people including the aftershocks. After the incident, many countries, especially in Asia had already taken many precautions concerning natural disasters. Also many people have participated in helping the victims through various charitable donations. From these two examples, we can observe that “disaster” throughout history has changed the way we act, and makes us cautious and careful to what might happen in the future.

So, why does “disaster” is so important to talk about in these days? Well, since the Tsunami incident, there have been lots and lots of natural disasters occurring in the Asian countries, especially in Indonesia, Japan, and China. Furthermore, bombing threats from terrorist keep coming. I think “disaster” is a constant check to us all human because it keeps reminding us that there are some forces in this world that even the most powerful human can’t control. We need to know that our lives are at stake here. The least we can do is to not to be ignorant in today’s disasters and put some effort to make this world be a better place. But here’s a counter argument: if the world is coming to an end, why bother to care for this world?

Privacy

This post is a respond to Justin’s blog about stalking people. I totally agree that lots of people, including myself had taken privacy for granted. Due to the advances of technology, now we have sophisticated cell phones with built-in camera. For stalkers, there are lots of opportunity to stalk or to watch people from afar and discrete. In Justin’s blog, look how easy it is to take a picture without anyone noticing, Justin wasn’t using a silencer for the phone because all the students were packing and ready to leave.

From this point, he had shown how vulnerable we are when it comes to privacy. Another example from the internet is the global social network like Facebook, or Myspace. But I’ll discuss more of the example from Facebook since I don’t use Myspace. In Facebook, there are lots of students who post their crucial information such as cell phone numbers, home address, and other private data. Global network is a land mind that could strike one of its users. Furthermore, just as Colleen had said from class discussions about Facebook, it is true that we don’t have boundaries when it comes to internet privacy. From her example, when she registered into Facebook, she doesn’t have any friends in there, but soon, there were lots of people wanted to befriend her, including Bill Gates. Now we know for sure that he is not the “real” Bill Gates, but why does most of us do accept strangers’ friend invitation in Facebook? Does our mind subconsciously translate lots of friends into coolness? This is something that we need to trace back and think.

Furthermore, the costs and consequences of today’s technology-life coexist as I have mentioned on my Connectivity post. But because of the convenience of today’s technology, people have become blinded by the fact that the cost is our privacy. Think about the camera in convenient store, ATM’s machine, traffic light, and Satellite. It is true that all of these are designed for our safety purposes. But when we look and analyze deeper, some computer genius might misused it for other purposes.

Concluding for this response, how do we protect ourselves from stalkers when technology knows no boundaries? Well, I think we can come up with some level of cautiousness in terms of privacy. For example, don’t let your private information leaked out loud on the internet, because some people do like the attention. Because why bother to post in on Facebook if the people in your network could just ask you directly? Technically, they are your friends. Hopefully, this post conveys the message of how important privacy is.

Best English Class (Revised)

And I mean it!!!! This is by far the most fun, exciting, and brain stimulating English class that I have taken throughout my college life. I didn’t mean to degrade my previous English classes, but there are lots of points that I like from this class such as writing blogs, online discussions, and most importantly, the teacher. Just like everybody else, I assumed that this class was probably a typical writing class. Pages and pages of essays due every class meeting. And this is the best time to say “Never judge a book by its cover.” Well in this case, never judge a class based on its title. This class turned out to be very stimulating. The professor has taken this class into a whole new level by ‘blogging.’ On my first day of class, the professor had told us that this class was going to be another experimental class and we were going to write blogs instead of an essay. I thought that this might not work because blogs aren’t the same thing as essays. Essays are supposed to be formal and critical, while blogs are just the other way around; informal, casual….and not serious. But after the second day of class, the professor changed my mind. The topics that we discussed are serious and deep. Blogging is just another method of writing; the important thing is the context. And I would like to thank the professor because he explains that this class is supposed to take a ‘keyword’ and then play around with its context, meaning, ambiguities, and other aspects that contribute to the meaning of the ‘keyword.’

Speaking about the professor, he is funny, intelligent, and a chatty person. I remembered that I paused a little bit when he said “FU*&”, or “SH$T.” Because I don’t think I have ever heard any of my previous instructor said it and I wondered “Wow…is that even legal?” But because of that, I noticed that lots of students are braver to comment about each other’s comments in the class discussion and the blog and we became more open about the ‘keyword.’ I also like the professor’s way of dragging the class into discussion by telling stories about his life or experience and then connects them to the ‘keyword’ that we were discussing. It certainly makes a connection with the students that has the same feeling or same experience.

Furthermore, in the class discussion, we talked about stereotypes, mobility, image, history, etc. The class had a very hot discussion about stereotypes. I realized that I haven’t really participated on that subject in the class. But just by hearing people’s thoughts about it, made me think about different aspects of stereotypes that I hadn’t explored yet because each of the students talked about their experiences on stereotypes and in a sense, I think I can imagine the stereotypical images through their eyes. And this is one of the reasons why this class successfully stimulated us for deeper critical thinking.

About the blog itself, I totally recommend using blogs as a source of an exercise of critical thinking for the audience that read this post. For this class, it totally works because instead of writing an essay to the instructor, now, each student can read and comment to each other’s blog because the audience is not only the instructor, but also the students. Certainly, the instructor can also leave comments that could help the students to write more efficiently.

Of course using blogs also have its drawbacks. I think that even though blogging is fun, it kinda slacks us of with the style of writing. I don’t know why but most people refer the style of writing to be casual and not serious. My best bet is because a blog is defined as a journal about personal thoughts, where as an essay is an analytical composition. But doesn’t everything have its drawbacks?

All and all, I really enjoyed this class and I’m kind of disappointed because I didn’t get a chance to speak my opinion out loud. Oh well, what can I say, I’m a very shy person. But for closing, let me remind the audience of this post about the professor’s basic idea that really helped me to write any blog or essay; any topic is boring if we only write about its definition. What really counts is our ability to go through the back door, and check and explore its ambiguity or problems concerning the topic. Because by doing that, we implicitly already cover most of the things that needs to be written about the topic.

history in relationships (Revised)

This is a post responding to Calvin’s blog about how history repeats itself in relationships. From the moment we were born and throughout our entire lives, we form relationships with our families and friends. Relationships are very important in our lives because with relationships, we are not isolated and we can embrace our existence in this world. I do agree that when it comes to relationships, we should take this matter seriously and carefully because I think relationships are one of the integral parts in our lives. There are many questions and obstacles about relationships that we need to take into consideration very seriously. Although Calvin didn’t mention some of the problems relating to compatibility, there are tons of examples that I am going to mention. For example, should a Christian date a non-Christian? Should an Asian date a non-Asian? Should a girl date a guy who is younger than her? These are some of the factors that might trigger the issue about history repeating itself.

Fortunately, I agree in that history doesn’t repeat itself in relationships because the experience in every relationship is different from one and another.

From my personal observations, history from previous relationships is very important. We all have a relationship history; it was made from our decisions in the process and we learned from them. These kinds of history are big influences in our decision making for future relationships. Learning from our previous mistakes can help us to choose better partners and thus, not repeat the same mistakes.

As this moment, I still have a very close relationship with my girlfriend (thank God). From my previous relationship, I have three effective tips that I wish to tell so that we all can create a positive history in our relationship. First, remember carefully what does and doesn’t work from previous one. Next, take action when something goes wrong. Don’t just stand there and assume that this one is the perfect relationship. If you think that way, WRONG!!! Most people just assume that even though they are in a relationship with a totally different person, they could not have the same consequences on their action. Yes, it is true that every person is unique; every person will have different reactions for every action that we make, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that they could have the same reaction. And the last one, keep in mind that you are trying to change and improve your relationship, so do it right!

Lastly, there are other unknown forces that contribute to the issue of history repeats itself. No matter how hard or how long we try to make a relationship work, somehow it doesn’t. Somehow it seems inevitable that we keep repeating the same mistakes. My best bet is that it is probably our personality and the way we look into things does change over time. And possibly deep down unconsciously, we realize that this relationship will never work; we just chose not to take it into account and just ignore it. So for closing, how does one decide or choose the right person for his or her better ‘half?’

Images (Revised)

I decided to analyze this picture for this week’s assignment because when I was browsing through my picture album, it looked so innocent, happy, and peaceful. To give a little bit of description, the little boy in the picture is my nephew, Dylan Kwok and the person right beside him is me. The picture was taken on July 6^th 2007 in his house. As you all can perfectly guess, this picture was taken on his birthday. Like my father said, a picture can capture the essence of the moment and we can always remember the moment. From this picture, we can see a lot of happiness going on because of the expressions, the brightness, and the items from the picture.

I remember how hard it was to get a picture with Dylan since he was 3 years old at that time that he couldn’t really stay in one spot for a minute and he ran around the house. Luckily, I bought him a gift and told him that I would give it to him if he took a picture with me (Children are so easy to be bribed…). It was a set of Legos that we could assemble into a big ship.

Furthermore, as you can see from the picture, it was his 3^rd birthday. We can see it from the cake. It was filled with many cute toppings and a big number “Three.” A lot of friends and families came and celebrated with us, and so we needed to dress appropriately. Dylan wore a nice blue T-shirt with Mickey surfing on it and matching blue jeans, while I wore a casual red shirt.

So what can we tell about the atmosphere and feeling from this picture? Well, I could tell one thing about the feeling when I first saw this picture: happiness. When we look at the birthday cake, the feeling that comes to mind is something that is definitely positive because birthdays are something that we generally celebrate every year. The atmosphere from the picture has a hint of pureness. There is a crystal white desk, bright yellow chairs next to it with lily flower on top, and white wallpaper. All and all, the colors from this picture contribute happy moods and created a positive interpretation.

In conclusion, I think this picture captured the heart and meaning of happiness because this picture is happiness from expression to the atmosphere.

Connectivity (Revised)

After reading Sam’s blog about the T-mobile sidekick, I am very intrigued about the issue of connectivity. The first problem that I would like to address is the idea of cell phones symbolizing connectivity. Several years ago I started to notice parents giving cell phones to their children, especially to their daughters. Lots of parents had been concerned about their children’s safety and worried that it’s hard to reach their children without a cell phone. With a cell phone, parents can locate their children just by calling or texting them. So, the question that I would like to ask is “Does a child need a cell phone?”

In today’s 21^st century, young children are evolving into a new lifestyle that is based on cell phones and they are too dependent on them. Cell phones are losing their basic purpose; connectivity and it becomes clear that cell phones are becoming more of an “obsession” instead of connecting people. Nowadays, children can chat, play games, listen to music, and browse the internet with their cell phones. For some parents, this could be problematic because children are spending more time with their cell phones texting and calling their friends instead of talking to their parents at home. The ironic part about it is that cell phones are designed to connect people and yet, cell phones are distancing children and their parents.

For the second issue, I agreed with Sam’s opinion that by using cell phones, we are losing our sense of seclusion from the outside world because it’s almost the same as using computers that we known as “Cyber Worlds.” When we are “talking” using cell phones or computers, there are certain degrees of human expression that are limited. For example, we wouldn’t know who is texting or chatting with us; it might not be who we expected it to be.

Furthermore, critiquing the technological side from cell phones, our computer technology develops at a breakneck rate. According to Moore's law, computing power doubles every 2 years or so. Take the Iphone for example. It pretty much covers anything a normal person can dream of. It has internet capability, and with google almost the entire information known to man is accessible within our pockets. It also has mapping and GPS, and we will never be lost again so long as we get a reception from the satellite. It plays MP3s, hours if not days of music to our ears. Above all, it's one sexy device with its touch screen capabilities. But here's the problem with cell phones: battery life. All that power needs battery power, and that's where the technology is stuck in time. The battery technology for cell phones hasn't changed at all since we discovered the first battery.

Overall, critiquing the connection between the connective and recreational aspects of cell phones, I think that people need to embrace the consequences of cell phones technology current state. Sure there are lots of issues that I haven’t mentioned here, but just like Truman had said from his comment, they will always coexist in our everyday life.

Children and Stereotypes (Revised)

One of the things that are interesting from the video is that we as a society have been taught to be discriminative when we are still children. The video is about opinions from children about other races such as Arabian, Chinese, and Black. I was quite surprised of the reaction from the children when they are to compare between an Arabian and an Asian. They said that the Asian guy is more kind than the Arabian. ‘Weird, mean, and scary’ contributes to Arabian and black races, while ‘nice and smile’ contributes to Asian and White races. This shows that even though the children have not been exposed by the tragedy in this world such as ‘911’, the children is exposed implicitly by our society. The children managed to discriminate by the differences in skin colors, and also face expressions. This video follows up the discussion from class about something that our ancestors did in our past and we are the ones who live with the “karma.” Imagine if children were exposed to the tragedy of ‘911.’ I think they would stereotype Arabians even more. The only thing that crosses into my mind about this behavior is that the brown and black has negative or a conflict theme, while white color represents and symbolizes purity, cleanliness, and innocence. I think the children saw the parallel connection between the races and explicitly convert it to two sides, the good and the bad ones.

My own stereotypes have definitely comes from the part of the society that I have been exposed to since childhood. Basically, it all came from my own parents. They always have told me not to talk to strangers, which mean that I already discriminated people when I didn’t know them. In Indonesia, we have not been exposed to different races not as much as Americans are. So, we tend to show more discrimination. I think that we can’t get rid of our discrimination as long as we still have differences in this world. When a person is from different societies, people will have different opinions and thoughts about that particular person and that behavior shows discrimination. That is why we can’t truly get rid of our stereotypes.