the last but not the least

This would be my last blog post for this semester... sad :`( Well... if I want or have time, I will keep going! From this class, the Ishmael: Saving the World...I learned quite a lot. Although I did not take much notes as other classes,  many different ideas and thoughts were stuck on my brain, and also I am still thinking what would be the best solution for me to solve problems that we discussed in class. On the first day of class, I remembered two things that we are going to save the world and we are a team! At that time, I thought okay... well... how about grade! However, as we read interesting books, had guest speakers, shared opinions, discussed problems, and tried to find solutions, I could learn real stuffs or life lessons, such as wise old man's story, how to live, captivity ... lots of new knowledge. For the grades, we wrote three papers, but these papers took more effort and time than I expected. This was because of my lack of creativity! I was used to follow rubrics that instructor gave and not used to write something without any references .... These papers had topics but not many rules. At the same time, I thought that these papers contained what I actually wanted to write because there was no limitation. My first paper was a bundle of different Taker problems and presented as a collage, and the second paper, parable, was kind of fun to make a story for kids...I could add some my illustrations. The third paper was writing a grant essay or an alternate essay, so I wrote an essay for a general UAA scholarships. The information about scholarships and grants were very useful to know, and I would prepare and apply for them before I graduate! During the last two or three classes, we did  the Talking Circle, which new and fun to me. I felt that each one of us had different stories, backgrounds, ideas, feelings, moods, and others, there were some commonalities I could feel in a same way and agree with.  Thanks for everyone! I appreciate your honesty and brilliant ideas! Thanks for Don to make a great fun class! The class was kind of new styles but I think it works very well.

Things Fall Apart

               When I read the short book, The Way of the Human Being, the theme of the story reminds me Things Fall Apart by Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart well describes about lgbo, one of Nitgerian tribes, and has interesting plots. One of big conflicts in the book begins when European people come and scatter the tribe's culture and tradition. The protagonist, Okonkwo, who is a strong man and never shows weakness. He and his tribal leaders try to hold their land and fight against white men by destroying a local church. However, in return, the leaders of white government take the tribal leaders prisoner with humiliating and insulting. With anger, Oknokwo advocates his people for war against white people, but his people do not try to protect themselves because they know that they cannot win.  

                Takers came to Leaver and took everything away from Leavers. Leavers were left behind with nothing but pain and confusion. Leavers were forced to adapt a whole new system, which was opposite to their tradition and culture. Both books are based on true stories and contain a huge conflict, which white people take over native people forcefully. Before I read these books, I did not really know about the reality of native people who went and currently go through all kinds of terrible situations. I could understand these people, and I also imagined what if I am in those situations....

Would I have hope for my life?

How I can define my identity?

Could I stand up and endure all kinds of pain?  

(book picture retrived from http://myuniversitynotes.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/things-fall-apart-chinua-achebe/)

Nighthawk

Nighthawk by Edward Hopper in 1942

This painting is one of the most famous American paintings. When I first looked the painting, I liked the painting's colors and spaces that attract viewers and deliver some messages, which I think isolation and captivity. The setting is at night in a city, but the city is empty, quiet, and lonely. The focus is on people who are in a cheap, simple restaurant because of manmade light in the restaurant. People in the restaurant do not look joyful but they seem like silent and some distances between them. A worker is standing behind a round table, which separates from the people.  Another building has several of square windows, which show no human but just black spaces. This painting is unique because it does not depict the bright, fanciful side of a city, but it shows the dark, mundane side of a city.

Together

Last few weeks, we had great guest speakers and shared their stories. First person was a wise old man, Larry, and the second person was an ambitious young man, Victor. Both of them told about problems that they recognized in the world, the Taker world. I learned various valuable lessons.

One common problems that both of them mentioned was although people knew that there was a problem, they were not willing to work together. Larry's example was when scientists from different fields came to solve a big problem, they collected data and studied. However, because they focused on their parts, not shared data and forgot the purpose of the project, solving the problem. Victor's example was that he wanted to gather several non-profit organizations to solve a problem. However, uniting these organizations was not an easy task, but they had their reasons to explain why they could not work together.

People are busy with their works and think about them and their things. It is not easy to bring people together. This can relate to the beginning part of Ishmael. One of quotes we talked  in class was that five different fingers could not make one hand. Although most people knew the problems in the world, they were not looking for the solutions. They wanted an easy way. Something takes not much time and effort, and often this could cover the problems or lessen the problems. However, the problems remain. We did not need the "program" but the "vision."   

Books...Children's Books!

The library day was interesting...I was lost for a while and read questions again. Then,  I was wandering around and looking all different kinds of books about Alaska. There were also many documents, CD, magazines, new papers, and including children's books! I picked several children's books. First, I was attracted to all colorful, cute, pretty drawings, and began to read these books.

                Because the children books were fictions, I could not strongly disprove our culture's contemporary view of the indigenous lifestyles as "wonderfully horrific" and difficult. However, the books were based on the real life of Alaskan Natives and gave well descriptions of their lifestyles through good stories and beautiful pictures. When I was reading the books, I saw some hardships, such as hunting and fishing for food, but I felt that their life was happy.

                 These Alaska native children's books had nature as an important element to people. Native people were fishing in seas and hunting in forests, observed nature and felt happiness, and believed that they were belong to nature. I loved that the writers used various adjectives and details to tell about nature, and I could clearly visualized what they were saying about. These Alaskan children's books also highlighted relationships between people. Some stories were about their families and people in communities. People cared each other and shared things they had. Their relationships were tight and showed true love. There were no anger, jealousy, hate, and envy between people. I felt that people were thankful to little things, such as thankful for catching a whale and thankful for being with family. Their thankful mind made their life happier, and I thought that this could be one of "certain knowledge about how to live."

 Arctic Son:
"The stars were enormous bonfires in the sky. Then, silently and slowly, yellow, rose, and green lights fountained up and filled the sky."
"You and I live where the lights are born."

Whale Snow:
"Momma, I feel happy inside. Inside is like a giant smile."
"... the spirit of the whale goes after... the people leaves." "Whale happiness is the gift the whale leaves."

An easy life

I was thinking  that changing from Takers to Leavers is not easy or even impossible. Takers would have hard time to let their things to go and convert to Leavers. Technology would be one of things Takers would want to hold.  Technology made our life easier, faster, and more convenient. However, I also believe that technology easily makes people to think less and sometimes degrades our intellectual ability. I would like to relate to an article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicolas Carr. First thing I noticed was the title and I was questioning why Google makes us stupid, because I used Google to search various information in all fields. Carr's main idea was that information flows over media and that even though we could access to information easily, media affects negatively on people by consistently distracting us and making us to lose focus on long pieces of reading. I could agree with him, and this reminded me of when I was taking AP Literature class in my high school. I skipped through many books and accessed online and found all various information about books, such as character analysis, settings, and others. Although the sites helped me to do well on my assignments and tests, I did not directly get connections from authors through the books and missed several important concepts.  I also no longer used a paper dictionary, instead I searched on websites, which was very fast and easy. However, When I used an online dictionary, I found that the definition did not really stuck on my head as much as when I looked up a paper dictionary and highlighted the words. I agreed with Carr's statement, "we turning into 'pancake people'-spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of button."  

I also wanted to mention Quinn's idea, "The Leaver life-style isn't about hunting and gathering, it's about letting the rest of the community live... The Leaver life is not an antiquated thing that is 'back there' somewhere. Your task is not to reach back but to reach forward" (p.250).
Does this mean that we do not have to give up technology?

Ishmael is done but the ideas are continued!

Waste Land

I just want to share one of things my art history class talked about.

WASTE LAND by Vik Muniz

The subjects of his art is the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and “catadores," who are self-designated pickers of recyclable materials.  Muniz’s first objective was to paint the catadores with garbage, but he changed his mind that he recreated photographic images of themselves out of garbage and used garbage as tools/mediums to create great art pieces.

visit http://www.wastelandmovie.com/ all about Waste Land;)
Death of Marat by J-L David

3 thoughts after looking pictures:
1. Vik Muniz is creative!
2. I would like to make some crazy art pieces!
3. People made, have made, make, and will make lots of wastes...

Leaver Baby

Try not to forget or delay my blog posting :P

I want to talk about myself and nature! I have wrote about this for our fast write and my paper, but  I want to expand the topic little more.

I have naturally absorbed into the Takers' culture from a baby to now and feel that nature is not really my close friend. I was born and grew up in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. Seoul is considered as one of biggest and busiest cities in the world. There are so many tall buildings and apartments that look like almost touching sky, so many different people on the streets that are covered with neon signs, and so many cars on roads and highways that connect everywhere in Korea.  When I go to rural sides of Korea, there are green mountains and blue beaches. I feel like I am in another country, and it is interesting to see how the country with small lands has diverse geography views. Even though I moved to several places, a small city, Bournemouth, with a beautiful beach in England and a small or medium sized city, Anchorage, with lots of mountains and wild weather in Alaska, I could not easily connect myself to nature.

I would like to imagine that if I am "a Leaver baby," which was one of our fast writes. If I am a baby who lives in a Leaver society, nature would be my playground and home. I will be going out every day to reach a deep deep part of forest, chasing butterflies and bothering other animals, climbing up to trees and eating various fruits, swimming and fishing in rivers, and having naps on bouncy grass. These activities seem so different from my childhood activities, which I played with my brother , watched cartoons on TV, and draw random pictures, and more fun that playing with nature is limitless. However, even though I know that nature could provide children good, exciting activities, would I let my children to run and play around nature wildly? I might say no... which is a sad answer. I would bring them to  parks or playgrounds to let them play crazily but not forest ... may be just to walk with them together. This is because I know there would be some dangers and try to avoid injuries or deaths of my loved children...like other Taker mothers think and do. I am not sure what would be best solution for children, but for sure I want to them to see beautiful, amazing nature out in the world for them to experience and learn from nature something that could not find in books, internet, and TV. Is the idea of Leaver baby  possible in the Taker society?

Pictures from:

Seoul:http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lbYvIqH_XEE/TDDsS83I1cI/AAAAAAAAACs/qphV44mFACc/S760/seoul.png
Bournemouth: http://www.travelguideengland.net/bournemouth-sightseeings-united-kingdom.html
Anchorage: http://www.mushinn.com/

Quote Quote

Expanding our class discussion...
7 quotes about morality from influential people:

1.    A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a throughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
Socrates

2. A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.
John F. Kennedy

3. Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.
Mark Twain

4. The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mahatma Gandhi

5. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality.
C.S. Lewis

6. About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

7.  Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
Thomas Jefferson

Some quotes are similar ideas that people said about morality in the class. Whose idea is the one you like the most or can you agree with?
After we discussed in the class, and I look up these quotes, I think morality is not easy topic to make people to agree with one idea but interesting to hear what other think about how they determine right or wrong.




-Idea and action have consequence-

Captivity

I think I am going to backward that my post will be from the first chapter. I have planned to put it together for few days, but I just delay posting...

I got one of these quotations as the first chapter class active, and at that time, I was not really thinking about it and just passed it; but later, I read it and its page again. I think these quotations made me to review myself and would be worthy to post on the blogJ

All of these quotations are from page 25.

“‘You’re captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live.’”

“‘So. You are captives--and you have made a captive of the world itself. That’s what’s at stake, isn’t it? – your captivity and the captivity of the world.’”

“‘And you yourself are a captive in a personal way, are you not?’”

“‘… They [young people of this country] made an ingenuous and disorganize effort to escape from captivity but ultimately failed, because they were unable to find the bars of the cage. If you can’t discover what’s keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual.’”

I found the definition of captivity from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captivity).
Captivity: Imprisonment or hostage, the state of being confined to a space from which it is difficult or impossible to escape

When I first read the page, I agreed with the student that how many people would think they are the “captive” of the world’s civilizational system or in their personal way. However, if I think deeper about myself and my life, I might be a captive in various ways. Even though there are no “bars of the cage,” I am in some cages or frames that I could not escape easily.

First one is captivity of educational system. Education is necessary for all people that most countries in the world provide free public education to kids till middle or high school years.  However, I think education sometimes make kids to be unified and force to learn them things without interest or desire. Education becomes very important because people want to get better, high paying jobs, not because they want to learn and expand their studies. This could relate to the video we watch in the class in this week that as students get higher education, they lose their divergent thinking processes and their creativities.

Second one would be captivity of what other people thinking. Everyone wants to be unique and individualized, but at the same time she or he cares how other view and think about himself or herself. Sometimes one person chooses a right thing, but because the majority of a group chooses wrong things, he or she follows them with peer pressure.

Last one is captivity of money. Today, many people would say that I will do anything to earn a lot of money. It is true that people need money to pay things like food, cloth, and education. However, people want money more than they actually need.  People work and work without enjoying their life or do things they should not do to make money.  Money becomes one of the crucial factors that make people happy; if you have money, you can do anything you want.  I like what Benjamin Franklin said about money: “Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants” (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/money.html#ixzz1m1ZrwZBV).

Think hard about in what other ways people are captives... and who or what are the captors...

This cute picture is by Andy Kennedy from http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2011/sep/30/weekend-readers-pictures-captive#/?picture=379642664&index=0.  

Silent or peaceful captivity? 

The Uncontacted People

This would be my first post on this blog!

On Wednesday, we had choices to write about why we should protect the uncontacted people or what we will do if we encounter them. In our class, we discussed about protecting them or not. The topic was interesting, and it was not easy to think why we have to protect them. One reason I came up with was protecting not only the uncontacted people as keeping cultural diversity in the world but also the natural resources that belong to them. These uncontacted people know how to use as well as preserve the nature around them. Without protections for these people, there would be some “takers,” who want to steal the resources more than harm the uncontacted people and destroy their culture. As the takers have consumed more and more their natural resources, they believe that they need to get more from somewhere and someone before they spend all and have nothing left. Therefore, the takers will eye on the “leavers” and plan to take over the resources. When this happens, the takers will kill the uncontacted people as a process to get the resources. The protection is needed as the control the takers and their greedy mind.   \
   
However, I wrote the other topic and thought about it more after the class. In my fast-writing, I said that if I have a chance to visit a village with uncontacted people, first I would greet and show respect to them. If I also can speak their language, I am going to explain why I am there and get a permission to experience their life and culture. I hope that they would welcome me like Arawak people, the native Indians introduced in Howard Znn’s “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Process”. Yet, as we have seen in the videos of the uncontacted people, they are no longer to be nice to foreigners, people with high technology. When civilized people have videotaped the uncontacted people, the uncontacted people look and try to threaten the foreigners by pointing their arrows on the video camera. This made me think why the uncontacted people’s attitudes toward strangers have changed. In the past, the uncontacted people welcomed them and tried to give their things to the strangers; but today, these people try to be isolated themselves from others and express hostility. These people might have experienced threatening in the past directly or indirectly by hearing from their ancestors. Therefore, the takers are the one who have made the leavers to hate the takers. In the history, if takers did not look their own benefits when they met the leavers and helped the leavers to keep their culture and resources, how the leavers’ attitudes and reactions toward the takers would be different?  

The link below has some more information about the uncontacted people. I think we watched video about them in the class. I think it is interesting to look! :)       

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095978/Guess-I-saw-holiday-Tourist-captures-incredible-images-previously-unrecorded-South-American-tribe-including-curious-boy-bushes.html?ito=feeds-newsxml