In the end, Suburbia Ends.

We live in a convenient world today. We have the ability to get to places within minutes when olden day people might take days, the ability to transport things from other countries and even the ability to mass-produce things. All of these technology made our life much more convenient then before. But have you ever woke up in the morning with a sudden realization that these could all end? I know I haven’t. And I know millions of other people are still stuck with the mind set that everything is going to be the same year and year after. Unfortunately, we are as Al Gore said, in the age of consequence.

3 years ago, I live in Australia. As we all know, Australia is the biggest island in the world. However, its vast boundless land and the nation’s population are completely out of ratio. In result, many people have to travel longer distance to get milk or household appliances. In a country like that, cars are essential. Without car, they are just like paralyzed people. So Australians reply a lot on cars. But lets NOT forget the fact that cars run on gasoline. And gasoline is a non-renewable resource. But what end up happening is, we are so addicted to gasoline, we can’t live without it. So instead of seeing fewer cars, we see more pumpjacks and oilrigs in the countryside and ocean.

3 years later, I came back to Taiwan. Now, Taiwan and Australia are two totally different countries. Both have similar population, but Australia is much much much bigger then Taiwan. In result, Taiwan becomes a very compacted place. Instead of having a huge 1 floor shopping plaza, we have a huge 5 floor shopping centre. Instead of having to drive 30 min to get milks, we only talk 5 min. This should be clear; a more compacted city is more convenient. And this will, in result save more gasoline.

Now, analysts and scientist found out that the gas production has reached its climax point. Similar to a parabola, it is now dropping. No matter how much more pumpjacks or oilrigs we build, gas wont be as much before.

Other then the gas problem, we also have food problems. Related to what I mentioned earlier, we depend on transportation too much. With these planes and ships, we started dreaming about food from abroad. Westerners started craving for Eastern food while the East is craving for the West as well. And both Australia and Taiwan are guilty for this. In Taiwan, many rich people get imported foods from pricier supermarkets. They would have cheese from France, Steak from Australia and fruits from Japan when all of these are produced locally. In Australia, there are not as many food imports. But there are still a lot of other imports (clothing, appliances…etc). In result, food started going across countries. Of course all these conveying rely on gasoline.

What do you think will happen next? In the end, we will lose to Mother Nature. We failed to play the game as Mother Nature asked us to. We didn’t think about sustainability, we definitely have no idea how to utilize our will power, and we exploited the world. Just remember, we are in an age of consequences. Our actions harm only us, and the next generation. So, use more local products, and drive less. This mission is hard, and dull. So be strong, and may the force be with you.

100% Organic with a little pest-inside

Throughout our human history, people manipulate words to trick others into believing ideas or buying products. This is not something new, and we are all completely aware of this. When we hear or read something, we always ask ourselves whether this is believable or not. So, lets look at one of the most recent trend, organic products. A lot of the foods in supermarket have a special label on it indicating that it is organic. Now, like I said earlier, these labels could be phony. If a label indicates that it is free range, it might mean one thing, but if I didn’t tell you that, what does it mean?

First, Organic products make people think of lovely country side farms with vase boundless lands with animals running free and vegetables planted next to colorful flowers. Well, there are farms like that, and the meats from there have label that says free range. These animals run around the farm freely and eat non-pesticide grass. But these farms are not highly productive, and there are not many of those farms. Most of these farms are industrialized. The farmers are forced to work along side with chain markets so they could survive. And since they have to work with them, these farms are forced to give more products. In result, the animals are locked back into small tin blocks with less then an hour of sunlight’s every week. The only thing that is organic about these animals is the food they consume and their drug-free body. These meats only have organic label on it, no free range, but do you know that when you buy it? No, they hid the truth from you.

If you connect that with Enron, you can clearly see the connection. The industrialization of the organic industry is like Mark to Market accounting system. They both made up unreal images for their consumers/stockholders. Enron lies about their real income, and these farms hid the real image of these terrible farms.

To be honest, I feel very sorry for those farmers who are forced to industrialize their farms. They are just another victim of this capitalized world. For example, Earthbound, started off with 2 hard workingmen, and what happened. It is industrialized due to our culture. However, this doesn’t have connection to Enron. Enron is a business that is just way to greedy. They started small, but it is not their environment that forced them to expand, it is they. They forced themselves to expand. In the documentary film, Skillings said to his employees that what they achieved today is not enough. He said we could never get enough…

The Smartest man, The biggest Lie

Around a week ago, our global ethics class watched a very didactic documentary file called Enron: The smartest man in the room. Basically, it is talking about an corporation called Enron, and NOT to run business like them. Even though we all know that the philosophies of corporations are all just profits, Enron brought this to another level. But before all that, I’m going to briefly tell you what Enron is. According to little researches online, I found out that Enron is an energy company. In fact, Enron is one of the world’s largest energy companies. However, Enron’s greed took away it’s glory.

The CEO of Enron, Jeff Skilling is an extremely smart, and greedy man. He brought Enron to its climax with a special accounting called Mark to Market. Basically, it gave the owners the ability to hinder the company’s budgets and rewrite those values in anyways the company feels like it. Of cause Mark to Market is not as simple as this, but this is the most I can explain. So basically, Enron is lying to its stockholders about their investments and the profits they are getting. Basically, they are telling the world they are making millions off a project that haven’t even started. Some of their projects are even huge failures. Like when they went abroad to India, that project failed miserably. The power plane is left unfinished, all the money in that project is lost, but no one knows. Enron lied about that project, and people thought they did a great job in India. In respond to that, their stock went higher. For many people, even stockbrokers, they thought the price of a company’s stock represents how well the company is functioning. However Enron is actually loosing money this whole time. Their stock go rocket high while the business itself is falling day by day. If I would to use a metaphor for this, Enron will be like Taipei 101 without interiors. Enron is destined to collapse.

Enron is even connected to politics. Ken Lay, another key player in this corporation is very tightly connected to Bush Jr. I’m not entirely sure about the kind of connections they have, but from what the movie said, bush used a lot of helps from Ken, and in return, Enron is able to free themselves from some troubles. With these connections, Enron moved its target on California. They decided to run the state’s energy, and steal the energy from them. Basically, they shut off the state’s electricity so they can boost the stock price for them. A very complicated process, but they manage to pull it off.

Well, their lies didn’t last forever. After awhile, people started finding holes in their lies, and started fighting against them. Their Stock along with the company gone bankrupt in 24 days. All 20,000 of their employees went unemployed in a day. And of cause, all the leading heads, peoples like Jeff Skilling are sentenced to different times in jail. Even one of them committed suicide.

Jeff Skilling: Sentenced to 24 years and 4 month in Jail. Fined 45 million USD. Current status: Serving time!
Ken Lay: Died of heart attack before being sentenced to anything. Technically, he is not guilty of anything. Died on 5th of July 2006. 64 years old.

So, does any of that relate to my global ethics experience in my junior year? Yes. Referring back to a book we read, Ishmael, Enron is just like what the book is describing, a falling aircraft. The way Enron is trying to get rich is like how the aircraft is trying to accelerate while ignoring the law of aerodynamic and the direction they are going. The results of this falling aircraft is a sudden boom, and compare this with Enron, it is actually very similar.

…
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I’m thinking of a cool way to end this entry, like a sentence that will make the readers think a bit more, but I’m experiencing a serious brain dead at the moment. So, if you did took the time to read this blog entry, give me a sentence that I should use to end this entry.
My Blog Needs YOUR HELP *finger pointing at your face*

Hawken and McDonough

This is a little reflection after I watched Hawken and McDonough's book and TED talk. First of all, both of them are professionals on their topics. And in the end, there are a lot of informations which I cannot absorb in just a few days. But I will present my views and some of the connections they have in this blog.

First, both of them are talking about the scarcity of resources. Even though they are on the same topic, the way they present their idea is totally different. Ignoring the fact that one of them wrote a book, and the other just had a speech, their content are quite different. Hawken is more...realistic. He pointed out the fact that no matter how much we save in our daily life, is it still not enough. Unless the corporations started working for the environment, there will never be a sustainable life. McDonough, in the other hand is more optimistic, and unreal in a way. He gave his audience "Hope". He educates us ways to save energy. For example, he talked about the green roof, which is something I'm highly interested in. He suggested the idea of planting vegetables on our roof, and from doing that, we are also giving our house one of the best installation ever. The topic of green roof really fascinates me. Since the beginning of last year, I started researching on green roof, and found many interesting facts on it. However, I don’t want to digress this topic, so I am not going to talk about my research on green roof.

Hawken also talked about something that I thought is very…interesting. He talked about how we should redesign some of the systems in our everyday life. By that, I mean hospital system. He said, during the process of going to the hospital, getting medicine…etc are using much more resources then we needed. I strongly agree with him. For example, I feel that all the paper advertisements are a form of waste resources. Why are we still reading paper advertisements when we have internet? Is it necessary to cut down that many acres of forest? Do you even read those advertisements? I guess it is very clear to you now; some of the “system” in our world is not really resource efficient.

I want to end my blog by one of the quote from Hawken. Sustainable businesses create objects of durability and long-term utility whose ultimate use or disposition will not be harmful to future generations. This will be my rule when I made it to the architecture business. I want to contribute to the world, do you?

Waste Not! Senior Projec!

After reading the 3rd chapter of the book “Natural Capitalism”, Waste Not, I feel the urge to tell you more about my passion in green architecture. This will later lead to my senior project and possibly my future job, but before that, let me first talk about this chapter.

Waste Not is basically a whole chapter talking about waste. It started with shocking facts about the amount of waste that is produced by Americans each year. After these shocking, disturbing and distasteful facts, the focus of the chapter slowly moved toward the economy side. It reminded me about my last year’s global environmental issue class. This class is also talking about waste and ecological footprints. I found out that the tremendous waste from any production can be reduced dramatically if the parts of the product is made locally. Without all the pollutions during the process of conveying the products, our earth will surely be a greener place. But for profit, companies decided to exploit this earth. In other words, these peoples are all capitalists. Extreme selfish capitalist.

Unexpectedly, this chapter started talked about the waste of “people”, which I thought was interesting. It talks about how many labors are wasting their talent just because they don’t have opportunities. It mentioned about drugs and other more complicated issues, but I think that will be digressive if the main point of this blog is the connection to my Senior project.

So! Senior project! First of all, I always get excited when I talk about this, so excuse me for adding too much exclamation marks! Well, even though I still don’t have a clear idea of what my senior project is going to be, I know it is going to be about Green architecture. And after a trip to the Lille forum, I’ve learned about how wasteful, and harmful a building can be. This is similar to what the chapter is about, the waste! Also, the combination of the shocking facts I found during my trip to France made me more aware of the production of buildings. It also made me more devoted into the study of green architecture. So, What is my senior project going to be? Green architecture and the design of a more sustainable life~!

Inquiry questions for my Senior Project.

Everyone have different senior project, and everyone have different inquiry questions. We've all put down a lot of thoughts and we all have good inquiry question. Now, I'm putting mine on this blog so people can give me suggestions. Please feel free to criticize it if you think it's crap.

Inquiry questions #1.
Can the design of a furniture change a person's personality?

I came up with this questions because I've realized that the world today is surrounded by designs. Weather it's creative designs or just simple designs, it's all designs. Sooner, a person's personality could be changed by the designs around them. For example, an outback person's personality would change if he move to big city. He's life tempo would be expected to faster, and he's living style would be expected to change as well. So I asked myself, does furniture also have a power to shape a person's personality?

Inquiry question#2
Why aren't people adapting green technologies?

Green technologies are known for saving money and planet in the same time. A energy efficient light bulb might cost more then a normal one, but in a longterm, it saves more money. But how come a lot of people still get normal light bulb? Is it because people don't know it? Is it because people are more interested in their short term income? Is it because people hate the idea of green technology?

This two are my inquiry question. As you can see, it's not fully developed. I will still make changes to it. But so far, this is what I've got. I will answer these questions while working on my senior project, which I don't know yet.

So~if you have anything you think you should add, please feel free to comment on my blog.

Kuso! anyone?

What is kuso? There are a lot of explanations for kuso. To be honest, I don't there is an absolute answer for kuso, and that is the kuso spirit. I personally think, kuso is the kind of stuff that turns everyday stuff into funny things. It is funny because it's something you see everyday, or something that everyone know or heard of. It's the type of things that make you go "Damn! Why didn't I think of that..."
But kuso also serve other purposes. Some kuso works also reflects the reality. The artist might use an ordinary object to talk about a serious problem in today's world. sarcasm is one of the many things you can find in a kuso work.
Now, enough with the explanation, I have a few examples of kuso for you viewers.

Warning! Some of these pictures are not appropriate for immature viewers. Please leave if you are immature!

Kuso T-shirts:
This one is a good example of using a famous scene and change it into something else. Have you ever thought of this scenario? Just after the bikers float into the air, flying over polices and forest...the main character fall. I guess E.T. don't need him anymore....







Once again, it uses everyday stuff, but with an interesting phrase. For this shirt, I see some sarcastic in it. It says "United we Stand" but a lot of the pieces are missing. Id the artist trying to something about the government? Is trying to say the inside of the whole system is corrupted?








This one is very obvious. This shirt serve two purpose in the same time. First, the owner of this shirt is HOT! Second, the reminder of Global Warming.










This one is more interesting. Other then the fact that there is swear word on it, it actually reflects the society. Life could be just like tetris. Everything might work out perfectly fine if you are receiving all the pieces you wanted, but one false move could blow it all up.








These are all shirt from the following website
http://www.bustedtees.com
some of the shirts might be offensive, but if you deep enough, they might serve other purposes.

The Darkside of the Science Park

This article blew me away. Before I read this article, I thought Science Park is a clean industry with good technology and good paid. But after this article, my view towards the science park totally changed. Right now, Science Park is just like another coldblooded multinational corporation. Without the strict regulations on land use and waste disposal, Science Parks are able to expand without limit. When I saw the statistics on the amount of pollutions dumped by the companies, I’m just completely shocked. I never knew about the enormous power the science park have.
These companies are also compressing their employees. When this article talks about how the workers in the science park are forced to sign contracts and keep everything in the park as secrets, I literally got stung. I always thought Taiwan is a free country, until I read this disturbing article. It feels like the employees are forced to live against their will.
Lastly, I’m ashamed when I see how the governments are letting these companies skip pass regulations. This seems like a huge scandal and a huge lie. If the government don’t care about our health, who does? The final feeling I have towards this article is depression. I just hope, this situation can change with the new government.

An unusual Ending

Today, I finally finished the book "Cat's Cradle". This is a book I've been reading for over 2~3 months. Let me first briefly talk about this book. This book is full of satire. It is exaggerating today's society, religious and our life style. This book talk about the selfness of scientists, poverty and lies in religious for the most part. The main character, John is in a island, a third world country with ridicules rules and religion. He is with a bunch of other characters and they are experiencing a major change in that country. The president of the country is very sick, and he is about to die. However, the man he chose to rule the country doesn't want to take the job. He is called frank, a scientist who caries the most powerful weapon in the world, ice-nine. Eventually, John got the job because he wanted power and a woman which he love. After taking the job, he become more arrogant. After taking the job, the old president took a little drip of ice-nine and killed himself. The effect of this deadly weapon shocked him and made him nervous. This is when the author tried to explain what science is doing to our world and how easily an individual could change his/her personality from power.
Eventually, an accident happened, and the ice-nine got into the ocean and freezed the world. Storm started occurring all around the world. Fortunately, John and her beautiful wife survived by hiding in a underground shelter until the storm dies off. During those time, he and his wife had a lot of furious sexual orgy. I believe the author is trying to predict how the judgment day would be like, sexual orgy.
Afterward, John found out what have he done making this world into this huge disaster, and started regretting. He started learning from the natural. While he is trying to survive, he met another major character in the book, Bokonon. He was the creator of the country's religion. The religion is based on one thing and one thing only, LIE. Bokonon figured that the world is full of lies and there will never be an utopia. And when John met him, Bokonon was writing the last sentence for his book, his religious book. It was "If I were a younger man, I would write a history human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of th blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who"
This is very power sentence. It described the main theme of the story, human stupidity. It says if someone is able to record all the stupid things that human did, the pages will pile all the way up and be as tall as mountains. However, I don't quite get the "grinning horribly" part. It could mean the regret from human or the curse to God. What ever it is, it is always going to be an enigma, and there will never be a real answer for that rhetorical question.

Wx5

Who-What-When-Where-Why These are common questions that NEWS reporters ask themselves. And, after reading this article on "Fearing Floods, Chinese Order Evacuations in Quake Area". This is an article on Sichuan earthquake. Basically, its about the possible threats from the aftershocks which might cause serious floodings.

Who: I believe its the citizens, especially the refugees and the armies. It mentioned the refugees because they are the ones that might suffer from the after shock. It also mentioned the technical difficulties for the soldiers who are trying to appease the situation.

What: The earthquake reshaped the geography of Sichuan and some mudslides from the mountains blocked rivers. These rivers normally have villages around it. If there is another aftershock, it is possible for the mudslide block to collapse which allows all the water to rush down into those small villages. So, the authorities are trying to evacuate as many citizens as they can. Right now, they are targeting on 150 thousand peoples. But due to the mudslides in other places which locked the roads for refugees, this operation is getting harder.

When: This is a post on May 28, 2008. It didn't say when the authorities stated evacuating the refugees, so I could give a date.

Where: It is mainly talking about the villages near southwest Sichuan. The main river which is causing a lot of problems, Tangjiashan, is also located there.

Why: I'm not so sure about this one. It is similar to What, but this might be asking for more specific details. So, why? It is because of the threat of the river to flood and kill more refugees. The mudslide is not going to hold the river forever, and once the river gets to a level, its is going to start washing away the mudslide. Eventually, flood. So, the authorities are trying to evacuate as many refugees are possible.

Above is m first attempt of being an news reporter. If you are a real reporter, please correct me.

I Know how you feel

I'm dead. Totally.
When I heard I have to present my ideas in front of the school, I nearly had a mental breakdown. I never enjoy the feeling of standing in front of everyone else, especially to talk about my ideas. Last night, I practiced the presentation but it went out bad. I totally forget what I'm suppose to say, and I mumble nearly all of the words. I'm dead.

After 7 hours of nightmare, I woke up to face my deepest fear. I ate my breakfast and asked my mom for advise. A fruitless attempt. She started talking about her childhood memories and, I'm not so sure, but she started talking about how she and dad met.

About 20 minutes later, we arrived. She gave me a kiss on the forehead and wished me luck. That was unusually encouraging. I nearly cried. But I must hold my together, I must be strong.

It's assembly time now. Every students in our school sat in a huge circle. The circle of death.

My palms and my forehead is sweaty. I have sweats rolling down my cheek into my shirt. I hold tight to my index cards as if they are my life line.

The seniors just finished telling their weekend story to the school. How did they do that?! They are so calm. How come they are so brave? John just finished telling how he helped an old lady to cross the road. He was the oldest student in our school, also the funniest. Everyone was laughing, except me. I can't let anything come into me, I can't. If I blow this one, I might turn into the biggest joke in our school.

Its principle's time now. He is talking about our new school rule, the dress code. But I didn't hear a thing. I was lost in my nervousness. What I do notice was, he totally brought the atmosphere down. His deep voice always indicates that he is serious.

Great, the happy atmosphere which the seniors built is gone. The circle looks like a disease infested swamp due to everyone's angry faces.

About 3 or 4 minutes later, my adviser started speaking. He introduced Jessica and me to the whole school. We are going to be the joker for today. He explained our presentation, and the hard times we are going through now. Yes, finally someone know how I feel. But after taking a quick glance at the crowd, I found out that no one really cares. A bunch of ignorance peoples! This will definitely lead to serious criticisms.

First up is Jessica, yes! Her english is worse then me, I hope she mess her speech up, so that I would look better than her. She told me she didn't even practice the speech, or make any index cards.

Her speech was poorly done. She didn't clearly get her ideas across, but the crowds loved it. She made the crowd laugh. The way she did her speech was terrible, but its was funny, and plus, shes more popular. After accepting the warm cheers and claps, Jessica left the stage. It's me, all by myself, fighting against the whole world with my 3 pages index cards.

A sudden silent came, everyone is staring at me. I totally lost my speech. But looking at my index cards, I realized I had the wrong index card. This is the one I had for my english class's presentation. Damn!

Suddenly, my adviser stood up. He asked everyone to give me a round of applause. So they did, but it made me more nervous. I just want to hind in the corner forever.

After another minute of silence, I decided to just give it a try. I started my presentation. I was mumbling in the beginning. I don't even understand myself, but about 5 minutes later, I started enjoying the presentation. I remember everything I have to say, and I made the audiences laugh a few time. After my presentation, I received lots of compliments. The teachers shacked my hand with a warm smile. The seniors were saying how brave I was. Jessica was mad, I'm more popular now, but I don't care how she feels. All i care is, I made it. I'm a winner.

Cell phone?

Cell phone usage is a HUGE problem in many schools. It annoys the teacher in class and distract the students. But is it really bad?

In HIS (Hsinchu International School), phones are forbidden. It students get distracted easily, and we can not denial it. BUT, we never think of the possible good it could bring to us. Phones are first, one of the fastest way to get to another person. For example, in a huge school, there is no way you can contact another person within a few minutes. You always have to run around asking other peoples. But, if phones are allowed, these kind of things would never happen. Also, using phone is just a good habit in this technology century. We must get use to it, and not be outcast in this world of technology. Messages for example. We must get use to the concept of messaging other peoples, especially when its cheaper. It is going to help greatly even when you enter the business world.

So, I think we should allow phones in school.

An accident trip to the beach

It happened when I was thirteen years old, just hit puberty. I can still remember that day, Sunday. It was the hottest Summer I’ve ever felt. Everything would have been the same is Frank didn’t accidentally broke the air condition. He was playing indoor baseball. With our only air condition broken, all the children went into the car and uses the car’s air condition. Just when Angela was about to get into another fight with Frank for breaking the air condition, Dad came in the car. Without saying a word, he started the car and drove down the street. No one knew where he is going, and no one asked. We knew he won’t apply, he never does. Dad seems calm, driving without haste. Then, we saw a huge open sea. It was then we know where he is heading. The road leads only to the beach, nowhere else. Angela and I started smiling at each other; we know there is joy ahead of us. Yet, Frank started to react in an anxious way. He nearly drowned when he was in elementary. From that day on, he never went near ponds, lakes, rivers and of cause, seas.

After a few minutes, dad found a parking lot which is covered by a huge palm tree’s shadow. He parked there, and walked straight out onto the beach. Then I jumped outside. It was still pretty hot, especially on pavement. The road was a little sticky, and I didn’t know why until my 11^th grade teacher, Mr. Pavekin told me that pavement melts in extreme heat. Anyway, just when I’m about to go onto the beach, I heard my sister scream. She dragged my unconscious brother outside the car and under the shade. He must have faint from the heat and the water. Angela was trying to wake Frank up by spraying her water bottle’s water on his face, but nothing works. I’m very sure dad wasn’t around during that time, because I didn’t remember seeing him when Frank fainted. Angela was very nervous, she asked me to go get dad, but I don’t even know where he went. He never tell us where he is going and when he is going to be back. So I have to choose a direction, right or left. One thing I didn’t mention before was, that beach wasn’t really crowded. It wasn’t a famous beach and I guess that’s why dad went there. However, there is still a large crowd on my right. A street performer was playing violin there. This tells me, dad definitely went left. He doesn’t like crowded place. So I started walking toward left.

For some reason, I wasn’t in haste, or worried about my brother. I was actually enjoying my way to find dad. I closed my eyes to enjoy the gentle brush of the cool wind. It was a peaceful moment. About 10 minutes later, I found dad. He was sitting on a rock under another palm tree’s shadow. I slowly walk up to him and told he what happened to Frank. I said it in a very calm tone. Yet, dad didn’t do anything. He sat perfectly still looking toward the sea. I guess he didn’t hear me, so I said it again. This time, I mentioned that Angela was very anxious. He reacted this time. Without saying a word, he slowly walked toward to sea. I was very confused. What kind of father walks toward the sea when his son fainted? But I didn’t stop him; I sat on the rock he was sitting on 1 minute ago looking at him. About half way to the sea, dad started running. He ran so fast, it only took him a few second till he reached the water. He ran straight into the sea until the water is up to his waist. Then he stopped. During that short 1 and a half minutes, I saw a totally different person. I’ve never seen my dad running, never. And running into the sea with his cloth on was also unbelievable. He stayed there for a very long time.

Then, I saw my sister in a distance running toward this direction. When she reached me, she slapped me as hard as she could. It was clear that she was crying a few minutes ago, her eyes were still watery. Then, before she even ask me anything, she saw dad.
“Dad!” Screamed Angela. “What are you doing out there?!”
Then dad replied, “Enjoying the outdoor.”
For some reason, I don’t think he is enjoying the outdoor. He didn’t reply with any expression. It looks like he said that without moving any of his facial muscles. Then he walked out of the water and started walking toward the car. Angela and I were totally shocked by his responds. I know dad never play any games, but I never knew he enjoy standing halfway in the water.

It’s still burning hot. The sun is still heartlessly cooking our body. I’m pretty sure I’ll faint from dehydration if I stay there any longer, so I started following. And so did Angela. When we get back, dad is already in the car, with Frank. Somehow dad waked Frank up. I’m not so sure what he did, but I’m pretty sure Frank was wetter then I left to find dad. Dad is also wet, very wet. Yet, he doesn’t mind sitting on the driver seat with totally wet paints. So everyone went into the car. I immediately turn the air condition to the strongest. That cooled everyone down.

The way back home was very quiet. No one said a word, not even Frank. It was one of the strangest outings I’ve ever been with dad. Till now, I can still picture dad standing half way in the water when I go to the beach.

The First Step Toward My Dream

Being an architect was a dream for me. I love to design buildings, both exterior and interior. It's been my dream since grade 7 or 8. I was first inspired my my father. He was an architect, a pretty successful architect. I'm very proud to say that he brought many new ideas into Taiwan's building industry. He is one of the first few architects in Taiwan to build green buildings. Also, he amazed me with the ability of turning a building into a piece of art. When I saw a waste land turn into an artful townhouse with beautiful gardens and fancy buildings, I said to myself, "One day, I'm going to be an architect. And I'm not going to be a normal architect, no. I'm going to be an architect like my dad which other peoples look up to."

I was very lucky to be studying in Hsinchu International School. Our school allows me to design the student lounge. This was the first time I thought I could temporarily be an architect, which was was my dream. So I started designing. Although I don't have any experiences and don't really know where to start, I worked really hard and came up with this design in approximately a whole month.

It was made by a program called "Google SketchUp". It is a program that makes the 3D buildings in Google Earth. When I'm making this design, I was actually pretty depressed. I wish I could do this design in Auto CAD, but I'm still an amateur architect. Well...I guess I couldn't even call myself amateur architect yet, I'm no where at that level.

So, back to my design. I was actually very proud at how I designed my roof for the lounge. I made a huge 26 that sticks right into the roof. It represents how old the school was when the lounge is built. Also, all the darker curves are made with precise measurements. I didn't randomly draw circles.

(I made all the unnecessary parts of the building transparent. )

Lastly, I must talk about the table looking block thats sitting in the middle of the lounge. It's actually movable. The extra part of the block should be able to fit right into the slot. Having it fit into different slots will have different results. It could be for the purpose of fitting more students, or to make it more comfortable for lesser students.

However, this design is too costly. After the carpenter checked my design out, he gave a cost thats way over our school's budget. That's when I nearly collapsed. I thought the school is going to use other student's design because mine is too expansive. But after meeting with the teachers and the school board, they agreed to use my design, but only if I can get the extra moneys. So right now, I'm calling big companies and organizations to ask for their support. Even though this process is very difficult, and my pocket is still empty, I believe that I can make this student lounge come to live. I will do everything to fulfill my dream!

Cat's Cradle (1~31)

In our english class, we started reading a fiction novel, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut. This novel was around 300 pages, not too thick. The formate of this novel was very interesting. Some of it's chapters are very short, or, extremely short, while other chapters might be 3~4 pages. After reading the first 31 pages, 14 chapters of this novel, I'm pretty sure what the writer's writing style is like. Mr. Vonnegut uses a lot of conversations on this book. It made it easier to read because the conversations are pretty straightforward. Yet, the overall of this novel is pretty hard to understand. I believe he purposely digress in some chapters. I know they all lead to some kind of conflict later, but it is very ambiguous for the readers in the beginning. This novel is also full of black humors. Not dark enough to be depressing, but definitely not a bright book.

In this book, theres a very interesting character which I must bring up, Dr. Felix Hoenikker. He was the inventor of the nuclear bomb that ended World War II. Dr. Hoenikker was an apathetic. I think he doesn't even have feelings. Or, theres another possibility. He could be a misanthropist. The character was still ambiguous to the readers, but it already caught my attention. I'm looking forward to read more about Dr. Felix Hoenikker and find out what is the reason for his apathy.

Tibet and Olimpic

I'm pretty confidence that everyone is already familiar with the topic on Tibet. The riot is spreading so fast and violently, it becomes threatening to everyone. I read a blog entry on Tibetan attacking Chinese Olimpic torch carriers in Paris. The attacker dressed as an Chinese supporter in the first place. But when the torch carrier arrived, he attacked her. The carrier was a woman on a wheelchair. For some, this might be nothing at all. Well, at least it is still "calm". The attacker didn't brutely attack the flame carrier and no one really got injured. Yet, this is just the tip of an iceberg. We can already see protests around the global. While the Tibetans are trying to gain their right, the Chinese authorities are trying to convince the world that the Tibetan protesters are just "terrorists". With this kind of tension building up every single day, there's no guarantee when the riot will become deadly. It is already clear that the Tibetan will not end their protest until they get what they want. After all, it is their families that are being abused, violated and eventually, tortured. If this situation doesn't appease, more violent attacks will happen. This not only threatens the Chinese immigrants in foreign countries, this also threats other races. This must END!

Individual's Power

For many peoples, changing is very fearful. They never know what the result will be after they changed and they don't know how to change anything. These peoples live under other peoples' hand. They react and think the same way the society would think. Yet, that isn't what our Global Ethics class promote. We are learning how to change the world! This sounds crazy, I know. But we know everyone have the potential and is capable of changing the world. Know, I'm going to share with you how I think I can change the world.

When I heard the topic, I immediately think of architecture. Being an architect is my dream, and I believe if I want to be interested in what I'm doing, I should include my interest in it. So, how can architecture change the world? Well, after researching on it, I found out that architects can design green building with out using technologies. They study the movements of air flows and materials that can help trap heats. They design houses that can automatically cool down in summer and heat up in winter. These kind of green buildings doesn't need a lot of moneys but it could be as effective as other green buildings.

So, I'm going to be studying these kind of architectures when I grow up. I know there are still millions of ways to design green houses with little cost, so I'll research on it when I grow up. Also, I want to promote it widely. There are still many families that uses a lot of air conditions and heater when it is unnecessary. So..that's how I'm going to change the world.

Voice~Pretty fun

Try to guess who is speaking and what is he speaking about.
btw...Try to pronounce the words because thats how it should sound like~

Ay bolo, come! Look what I ave, lap top. Cool aye~. And…Sole, chu don’t know how to use a cumputar? Solei, let me taught chu. Step one, you need to open the lid. Yea, the lid. Not the case bolo, the lid. Dan chu need to turn it on. Bress the turn on button. It looks like a circle with a stick goin up. Yea, horizontal! Up! Dan it is very complicated. Chu see, theres a button that looks like a broken donut. NO! Not a real donut! Dan chu look for the internet icon. Err…it should look like a lowercase e. Lowercase e!! Bolo! Do chu know chur alphabets? Don’t worry man…I give up…

Answer: Samoan

The Grizzly Man

In the film “Grizzly Man”, I found something that I’ve never seen before. Timothy Treadwell, an amateur bear expert spent his life protecting these grizzly bears from poachers, hunters and most of all, the societies. Every summer, he moves to Alaskan wildlife refuge on Kodiak Island and stayed there for about two months. For him, grizzly bears are more than animals, they are families. Timothy wishes that one day, the grizzlies can accept him as one of their own. The love from Timothy is no less than the love that’s project from a mother to her newborn. For many peoples, this documentary is about a man trying to be a bear. Yet, for me, I think Timothy was always a bear. He is above the level of obsess. He deserved to be called grizzly bear for what he had done for those bears. Even though the majority of the society refuses to give him the esteem he deserved, he still did a very good job at showing the world the truth side of grizzlies.

I think Timothy is very similar to Steve Irwin. I know they have a totally different lifestyle and I’m totally aware of that, but for some reason, I see a similarity between the two. They both have extreme ways to educate the society without losing their attention. Timothy always goes to elementary and teaches little kids about grizzly bears. This is similar to Steve when he educates the whole world from footages on his own adventures into the wild. They both risk their life for the same reason, the better future of those animals.

I think Timothy has an amazing personality. He is so emotional, and candid in the same time. He openly shared his feeling to the society which surprised me. In the society today, it is very unusual to find such candidness. This is another reason why I respect Timothy.

For me, Timothy’s death is definitely a new beginning. With the expand of his company, the grizzly peoples, I’m very hopeful about the futures of these bears. There might be poachers still and I believe Timothy’s death means nothing to them, but I know that one day, the society will have a sudden awakens and realize the sacrifice Timothy Treadwell had done. Timothy’s death will definitely help change the future of the grizzlies.

Number

What do numbers mean to you? Is it math? Cash? Or, it could be lottery numbers. Numbers have different meaning to everyone and I’m going to share a very interesting story about “Numbers”. Yet, instead of reviewing this story, I want to point out interesting voice that’s projected by its author.

This story is obviously about numbers, but interestingly, this story doesn’t make numbers equal to cash, math or lottery numbers. The story is about a fatalist called Frederick Ronald Fulton. Freddie had a misery life when he reached adolescent from anticipating his own death. He knew that his life will end on a certain date and as he grew older, he become more nervous about the arrival of this day. The anxiousness made him scan all kind of papers for clues.

In the past, Freddie had a few attempt suicides, yet all of them failed. He tried to hang himself on a loose rope and leaped in front of a train which he is later rescued from beneath the mighty train engine. The hope of resting for eternity never came.

Until one day, he is brought into the police station because two constables found him saying the same word over and over again, “Today”. The police must have thought Freddie is going to suicide again, so they brought him back. The constables later found out that Freddie is holding onto something, tightly. They took the paper and found out that it’s a lottery ticket which was 251987. After checking the newsletter, they found out that Freddie was the luckiest winner. The police ran and told their sergeant the wonderful truth. However, the sergeant immediately realized that the numbers were same as the date, the 2^nd of May, 1987. With the shocking discovery, they ran back and found Freddie sitting there with both eyes open. Yet, not breathing.

I think from reading this story, I can see the voice this author might sound like. The story is obviously about black humors. Its rich use of adjective made this story more gripping and I think this project the author’s personality. The way this story is planned also showed me that the author must be a very organized and funny in the same time. Obviously, he is very creative and coherent. He is definitely someone that I want to meet with.

2nd Expedition Question

Do we have an ethical responsibility toward animals?

Yes, we should. First, we humans are animals too. We shouldn’t exempt ourselves from the animals because we evolved faster than them. And throughout history, animals never treat others cruelly. They compete but they don’t exterminate. If we humans accept them truth that we are animals too, we should definitely follow the rule of the mother natural.

Do animals have emotion? Give example is possible.

I strongly believe that “some” animals have emotions. For example, dogs. I think dogs are very emotional. They had been human’s friend for millions of years. They makes sounds and movements to show their emotions. Another example is elephant. I once read from an article that elephants have incredible memory. And the article is talking about a little boy bullied and infant elephant in a national park. And when the boy grew up, he went back to the same national park. And when he got there, he is attacked by an adult elephant. Later, he found out that it’s the infant elephant he once bullied. This elephant showed its hatred toward the man because it’s bullied by him before.

Arctic Tale

Today, the whole grade 11 watched a movie called Arctic tale. This is a documentary film made by the National Geography in 2007. The film itself took fifteen years to make because everything is live footage and it is talking about the cycle of two animals, polar bears and walruses. It is so well filmed; many people couldn’t believe that it’s a documentary. The main idea for this film is to show the lifestyle of polar bear and walrus, and also to show the devastating effect global warming are having to the north pole.

This film clearly showed the reality of both polar bears and walrus’s lifestyle. I learnt that male polar bear might attack female of youth bears for unknown reasons. The fact that baby walrus can memorize the whiskers on the elder walruses is incredibly amazing. I’m also shocked that polar bear can smell through 3 feet of ice and then break open the ice by stamping their front feet on it.

During this movie, there are many peaceful and funny moments which I would love to share with you, but I don’t want to lost track of the main reason of this movie. I believe this movie is really trying to get two ideas across. First, they want to use footages to show that animals DO have feelings. This a very big problem in our society right now. Many scientists refuse to agree that animals have feeling and cruelly perform vivisection on animals. Anthropomorphism becomes something that scientist refuse to get close to and this idea disseminated and influenced most of the young scientist. To proof the scientist wrong, the narrator used a very extreme method. Throughout the whole movie, Queen Latifah anthropomorphized everything and I have to admit that she did a terrific job. I don’t know if animals have feeling or not, and I don’t want this post to be controversy.

I think, the main idea for this movie is to show the devastating effect global warming has to the North Pole. The movie shows how many animals are forced to face a totally different environment and many died because they couldn’t adapt to this new environment fast enough. In the footages, it shows how dangerous it is for both polar bears and walruses because their environment changed so much. Polar bears are having difficult times crossing the ice because it is too thin for them and walrus are forced to find lands that are hard enough for them for the same reason. It is like watching the last 20min of Titanic because many walruses are forced to stay underwater because there are no ices that could support them.

When I saw the whole fleet of walruses fled into the open sea to find a harder land, I felt extremely shameful. These walruses are at risk because of me. My convenient life results in their death and I’m very shameful for that.

At last, I strongly recommend everyone to watch this movie. It gives positive influence to little kids because it not only improves their knowledge on the animals, but they could also be more aware of the reality. This could also help teenagers and adults. I know that everyone knows global warming very well, but not everyone know the effect it has on the environment. There for, I believe this movie should be watched by everyone.