Democracy now

1. Synopsis: what is this interview about?
The interview is about Eve Ensler's book and the hardships about women around the world.

2. How is Eve Ensler being a global citizen? What is she doing to make a difference in the world (give examples)?
She helps people around the world, she raises awareness on how girls are treated around the world

3. Give one example of how girls can end up in harmful situations because of societal pressures "to please" others.
They want to starve themselves to look skinny and pretty

4. What do you think are the connections between The Story of Stuff and Eve Ensler's story about the girl in the factory making Barbie doll heads?
she had no choice cause she has no money so she went there to earn some money

Shop til you drop

In our class today, we had an activity where we would pretend to be rich/poor by drawing amounts of money out of a bag. There were three ranges, the rich that had 2500$, the medium with 1000$, and lastly the poor with only 200$. Having to have picked only 200$, I could only afford the cheapest things and could barely afford an education up to grade 5. My daily food was beans and rice, which I had only once a day. For heat, fuel, and water, I had to collect my own. I had to hack lumber from a nearby forest. I had to collect unfiltered water from a nearby stream for my water supply.

How did it feel to have more or less money than other people in the class?
It felt bad because I had only 200 dollars. I felt poor (not that I'm not already), and you will obviously feel better if you had more money, because you can buy whatever you want with enough money.

How did it feel to see what you could and could not afford at the Global Mall?
I could only buy the cheapest things and not have any luxury items. Two of the five things I got were free and still I didn't have any money left afterward.

How many of you could not afford education? What would your lives be like if you could not go to school?
I could afford cheap education if I didn't buy a luxury item, If I could not go to school, I would've probably tried to get a job, but I suspect that no one would hire me because they wouldn't want a person that was illiterate except the jobs that require strength, even so, they won't hire me because I'm not all that strong. They would rather have someone with better efficiency when the costs are the same.

How would it feel to have to choose between food and health care?
It felt rather awful because it was either better food or better health care and neither of them are that good. They were both cheap and cost more than half of my entire "bank account". I would rather have better food because if you had better food, you wouldn't have such low immunity to viruses because you will be more healthy and it would be less likely to get sick.

How many of you have ever been very sick or gone to a hospital or had friends and family who have? What would your life be like now if you had been unable to get medical care?
My grandma once fell down the stairs. She almost died and the fall affected her eyesight a lot. Now she is half blind and can barely see. If there had been no medical care at the time, I wouldn't ever see my grandma again. Even though she now has bad eyesight, it is good that she's still alive. My life would be very different from now, because usually when I go home, there is only my grandma, because my mother is in Taipei with my brothers and my dad is usually at work.The reason that my grandma had gotten medical care in time was because that my dad was a doctor so he had special privileges.

What were the impacts caused by people with fewer Global Mall Dollars, and what were the impacts caused by people with more Global Mall Dollars?
The impacts caused by the people with fewer money was much smaller than the impacts caused by the rich people. That is because when most rich people demand something of high quality, then the ingredients will have to be made of obtained and to obtain those ingredients, people who are in need of money, will apply for jobs to obtain the ingredients. That is one of the impacts rich people cause. I am not saying that poor people don't do any impact at all, the poor people also caused some impacts, for without them, the rich people would just be normal people with a lot of green paper, which is useless, because there would be no one to obtain the ingredients of an item and there would be no one to put the ingredients together to make the products.

Discuss the fact that roughly one-fifth of all people worldwide survive on less than $1 (U.S.) a day – how does this limit their choices, and what are the environmental, social, and global security implications of this?
They don't have money to buy a lot of food or clothing. They can't pay their house rent and they might live in a bad environment which is unhealthy for them.

When you were choosing what to buy, did you think about the environmental impact? For those of you in the lowest income range, did you have a choice about the environmental impact you produced? If not, how did it feel to not have a choice?
I didn't think of the environmental impact at the time, because I was already poor so I couldn't have gotten anything else if I wanted to live. I felt like I didn't have a choice about the environment impact because those were the minimal requirements for me to survive. It was either buy it or die. So of course I bought it.

(This is all hypothetical)

Letter to Mr.Bernard

I learned about a lot of things in Kiribati. I learned that everyone is good at swimming. When people in Kiribati are lost, they drank shark blood to replace water. They would wait for sharks to circle and then when the sharks come in for the kill, the people make them turn and when the sharks swim by, they slice the belly in half. What I learned most and probably won't forget is that they have no fresh water to drink because the salt water is seeping into their wells. I felt very sorry for the people in Kiribati, because they have to suffer the consequences of other people's faults. If I had money or power, I would tell the people of my country to stop using cars and change to electric powered cars.

Avatar

Today in Citizenship class we watched the movie Avatar.

Jake's colleagues wanted to destroy the tree that the Navi people lived in because they wanted the "cheese" that laid under the tree. The "cheese" was a type of mineral that is called unobtanium. Jake's colleagues knew that they were about to destroy the Navi's habitat but they didn't care. All they wanted was the unobtanium. The geologists there told the marines about the tree being the Navi's habitat but they chose to ignore it.

It was also the same in America, when the Europeans came and conquered everything.

Today, the war in Iraq is also the same.

Final Project

A citizen is a person that is part of a community. A good citizen obeys the law. He respects other people. He should do his responsibility. When they are speaking. He does his homework. He would not run around in class. Good citizens of a community should not have prejudice against anyone. A prejudice is an opinion, it can be positive but usually, it is used in a negative way. Citizens should not have stereotypes which is a generalization that allows no one to be different. A person can be a citizen of a state, country, or the entire world, but to be a good citizen, the minimum would be to treat people equally, to obey the law, and to respect others.

Mike Hartoonian says that a subject is a consumer and a citizen is the producer. What it means is that a subject receives what a citizen gives hum, meaning that the citizen is the one in control.. Or that the subject is the follower while the citizen is the leader. In a different community, a citizen has different responsibilities but have the same rights. The citizen of a country is in charge of the government, because the citizens vote who they want, and when they are not happy they protest. THis happens in most countries but in some countries, their government has a different system and in some systems, the citizens are not allowed to vote. Citizens are in poser and the subjects are people under the law. Citizens have the right to protest institutions decisions, they have the right to rebel, protest.

Haiti

Haiti is a small country in Central America. It is South of the US in the Caribbean Sea. Haiti speaks French because it was conquered by the French before. Haiti is one of the few countries that fought against slavery and actually succeeded. Taiwan's relation to Haiti is that Haiti is one of the few countries that agrees that Taiwan is independent from China, also called a sovereign country.

Ceramic Field Trip

We went to the Snake Kiln in Miaoli last week. It was originally called the dragon kiln but it was not allowed to be called the dragon because it was not allowed to be called the same as the king's. At first they told us about a small kiln that was used for making roof tiles. The smoke inside the kiln made the tiles gray. They then told us about how the snake kiln was usually made to bake vases. The vases made wine taste better because it had better clay. They also had stamps on the vases to tell what the wine was and where it came from.

The guide took us inside to show us the snake kiln. When we entered, we saw a long kiln with a door for throwing in wood, and a long funnel. At the front of the kiln, there was two holes that was called the snake's eyes. It was used for checking how much the clay has baked because in the olden days, there were no timers and they could only look in to see how the clay was doing.

We were given small blocks of clay to make whatever we wanted. Our hands had to be wet to keep the clay from cooling. I made a cup and Calvin ruined his and he ended up with blocks of clay that he called "abstract".

Renaissance Test

Renaissance Test: Friday, January 22, 2010

1. What historical event (the fall of a civilization) took place in 395 AD to usher in the middle ages?

Fall of Rome

2. What was society and culture generally like in the middle ages?

Nobody knows how to read and write. Most people are either very very poor or very rich.

3. Renaissance means rebirth.

4. What was being brought back during this time?

Greek and Roman Ideals

Define:

5. Contraposto

Counter-pose uneven distribution of weight

6. Chiaroscuro

Light and Dark, shadows

7. The painter of the Mona Lisa was Leonardo Da Vinci

8. The man who sculpted the Pieta and the Sistine Chapel was Michelangelo

9. What is different about Renaissance painting compared to painting during the Dark Ages?

No contraposto, no chiaroscuro

10. What is meant by the concept of "Humanism?"

People are perfect

NY Times Article

What is this story about?

A person who sees someone having a baby but there is no oil left in the car. 8 people came and helped them push the car to the hospital.

What is important to them about the story they picked?

I think the 8 men are really nice, it is important to me because the men had such sympathy on the husband and wife, that they will help them push the car.

What does this story have to do with what is happening in Haiti now?

The people in Haiti are poor and have no money for food or water, just like in this story. In the story, they didn’t have money to buy oil, just like in Haiti.

Why should we care about what is happening in Haiti?

We are all humans, we have to care for each other, or it wouldn’t be humanity. We also have to get them on our side, make some more allies.

What does this have to do with global citizenship?

Helping others of the world is being a good global citizenship.