Senior Project - Inquiry Question

My inquiry question for my senior project, for now, is "do culture affects the designs people wear?"

When it comes to choosing what to wear, we often lead to the topic of "fashion". What is fashion and what exactly creates the "fashion"? Some says it's just the luck of a designer. The designer probably just drew his ideas out and got the majority's attention. Some other people believe fashion is all caused by the media; the majority tend to think that whatever is on TV, is the correct answer. I agree with both of these answers. However, one thing I doubt about is, can the same design be as popular as when it is overseas? I am now begin to try think about whether there's any impact from the culture that influences the "fashion" of that region.

The Skype Interview

This Monday, September 15th, in social sculpture course, we got to use Skype to interview a fashion designer,Soule Goldin , whom Sheilah knows.

She began with what she does and what she had done in the past. Then we got to ask her questions about how she did a certain thing and why she started it. Parts of it was pretty interesting, I must say, because not everyone really has the chance of seeing somebody else's portfolio and process of creating art. It was also cool to get to see her way of putting her resources together as a reference; She pasted all of the picture references together as a collage. It was also nice that we not only learned about her art life, but also her college life.

However, I'm not sure if it's just me, I thought the interview went a bit too long. Maybe it was also because we weren't well prepared for it? I felt that there were parts when both side did not know what to say or do next... But anyway, it was still a pretty cool experience!

"The Silence of Silicon Lambs" Reflection

Hsinchu Science Park has always been the pride of Hsinchu City ever since it was built. When one describes what Taiwan is good at, she or he is most likely be talking about its high tech, which leads to Hsinchu Science Park’s merits. Nobody in Taiwan would know anything about Hsinchu City if there were no Science Park.
For the ones that have visited the place, should be surprised at how clean and tidy it is, comparing with the other parts of Taiwan. However, after reading the article “The Silence of Silicon Lambs”, I found the dark side of it.
One thing particularly shocked me was some parts of its working condition. “ We don’t touch toxic materials directly. Only engineers, who take care of the machines, have to take the risk. In this sense, we are safer. But who knows? Many high-tech employees found difficulties in fertility.” says Ma-li, from the article. From an outsider’s point of view, it really looks like all the employees from Hsinchu Science Park work in a very safe and decent condition. Beside, we never heard anyone complained about it. Science Park has always seem to be the place where people can work safely, peacefully, and earn a lot of money.
Not only the working condition, the article also points out how much toxic wastes the Science Park have produces.
One and only thing I still wonder now is that how come we never heard any of these negative sides of the Science Park? I mean, the Science Park has been around for years, and we still haven’t heard anything until now?

The End of Cat's Cradle

As I was reading toward the end of the book, I was mainly focusing on how the story ties into its title, "Cat's Cradle" According to what I have read from the book I can tell that the book is definitely a very insightful book. In that case, the title is very unlikely to be something not insightful.

One thing I found weird about, was the fact that Bokonon survived after the invasion of Ice-Nine. The book did not leave any explanation for that, however, I hope it wasn't because he was the prophet, therefore, he had some super power.

Anyway, the book ended with the invasion of Ice-Nine and nearly everyone died. It was almost like the scenes from the movie, I Am Legend, by Will Smith. Except that I Am Legend wasn't covered by ice.

Two of the very few survivors were Newt and Jonah. While they were driving in the middle of no life, Jonah spotted Bokonon sitting on a rock. Bokonon then told them that if he were a young man, he would write a book of the history of humans' stupidity, then commit suicide by Ice-Nine while thumbing his nose to the God.

I didn't understand what "thumbing nose" means. For some reason I thought it would be a clue to what the author, Kurt Vonnegut, hid. I'm assuming it is an act of teasing the God, though. The ending left me a bunch of question marks. Just like what a cat's cradle is; a bunch of messy lines. "No damn cat, and no damn cradle."

picture from: http://www.rmichelson.com/Artist_Pages/Kuch/Relationship.htm

One News Article

China not only had a terrible earthquake, but also an up coming disastrous flood. The New York Times has provided a news article about the possible flood in China, Shanghai. The earthquake occurred in May 12th, 2007, Sitchuan. It was shacking so hard that even parts of Taiwan was a little bit effected. It caused about 67,000 death in main land China, and about 20,000 are still missing. Beside, if you look at the bigger picture, that is not it. There is still a possibility of having a horrible flood coming up. Since the earth quake had caused some damaged to the dam, which is in Tangjiashan, and it had been raining during the beginning of May. It raised up the water level while the dam is already in danger. So now the Chinese also need to dig sluiceways to slowly transfer the water out of the dam.

An 8th Grader's Perspective (THE STORY)

I'm still reading my flashcards, I made last night, in the school bus. I wish Justin and Eugene could shut up because it's really hard for me to concentrate. Better yet, I hope the bus would break down again like last week, so I could possibly skip today's all-school gathering. The best thing about going to school by bus is that no one can blame you when you get to school late. Anyway...shoot, I think we are almost there. Why does Mr. Perkins like to have us presenting during all-school gathering so badly? He probably enjoys seeing us embarrass ourselves. I never really know what I was talking about, when I was up there. It might be a whole different story if I could use Chinese to present... No, wait, actually, I don't know. You might think, "heh, it's only about fifty-sixty people starring at you," but, no, it's not that easy. I'd rather present to a thousand people that I don't know. I hate it when all the ones I know looked at me while I am speaking. Especially that most of them would come and talk to me about my presentation. Sometimes even when they say things like, "you got a nice presentation there," it somehow still sound so sarcastic. Alright, we just arrived, and, no, we are not late at all. In fact, I think I still have about three minutes. I don't know. The clock on the top of the school building is never correct.

When I got upstairs, I don't see any of the other eighth graders were still looking through their flashcards or whatever that they needed for their presentation. I wonder if it were that they all gave up. Daniel got up first. He always had that kind of luck. I couldn't hear him well due to both his breathing into the microphone and my anxiety. After Daniel, just when I was saying to myself, "not me, not me..." I hear Mr. Perkins asked, "you want to go up next? Okay you go up next." There I go, standing in front of sixty or so people, all the ones that I know... And the next thing I remember was the moment I woke up in Ms. Chen's office.

Bann Cell Phones??

I always thought that it is unnecessary to use cell phones at school. There is no need for any student to make any phone call while at school, whatsoever. Even if a student needs to make a phone call, she or he can always borrow a phone from the school. However, the news report from Tech Learning shows how cell phones can be a necessary tool for education. The way the schools use cell phones is pretty similar to how we use computers in learning. Though, I still don't think it's necessary. Why is it OK to use computers but not cell phones? Because cell phones are not easy to type things out. I sometimes use my cell phone to text message my friends, and it always takes about ten minutes just to have a few sentence down. Beside, I mainly use informal language, or the MSN language, in those messages, so I can't imagine how long it will take when it comes to serious school work. Another thing that cell phones would not work as good as computers do is that you can not use cell phones to do research. Unless your cell phone is really high tech.
Comparing the use of cell phones and computers for education, the only things cell phones would be better are simply that cell phones are cheaper and easier to carry. But they are way harder to "communicate" I would rather hand write my 10 pages of research paper than typing a paragraph of a reflection with my tiny cell phone. In the conclusion, the idea of using cell phones in education is cleaver, but it's not so practical. Even if all the students follow the rules and not chatting by their phones in class, it is still hard for them to do school work. So, no, I still believe cell phones should not be used during school time.


Picture from http://tw.info.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Ftw.info.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dno%2Bcell%2Bphones%26ei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3Dyfp%26x%3Dwrt&w=150&h=200&imgurl=www.sonofthesouth.net%2Funcle-sam%2Fimages%2Fno-cell-phone-sign_small.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lipsticking.com%2F2007%2F01%2Flena_unplugged.html&size=10.6kB&name=no-cell-phone-sign_small.jpg&p=no+cell+phones&type=jpeg&no=4&tt=13,130&oid=984221998186c01c&ei=UTF-8