The Old Man and The Rat

One morning, an old man was strolling along a river, deep within his own thoughts, when he heard loud squeaking and splashing coming from the river. He walked over to the edge and saw a rat holding onto a branch that has been caught in the water by some rocks. He quickly bent down and stretched himself out, trying to keep balance with one hand gripping the grass on the bank, with his other hand swaying dangerously above the rushing water. He reached out to try and rescue the drowning rat. The moment he touched the rat, it bit him. The old man withdrew his hand instinctively, after he regained his balance, he tried again. Again, the rat bit him. This time, the rat bit him so hard, the tip of his index finger started to bleed. He tried once more, and his middle finger started bleeding too. 

Another man was just passing the river, he noticed the old man's actions. He called out to him:"Hey, old man, what are you doing? No one would risk his life for a life of an evil creature. Come back here and protect your own life!"

The old man turned towards the other person. Looking calmly into his eyes, the old man said:"Just because it is the rat's nature to defend itself, that doesn't change my nature to save."

INSTINCT

This movie was astounding and breathtaking, I have never been so moved by a movie in my life before. I found the movie more touching and much more powerful than the book Ishmael, though I think you have to read the book first to understand the movie. 

Humans live in this world of rules, which are all set by themselves. Humans restrain themselves from the world outside, never knowing what the most important issues are. In the end of the movie, it was the last day of (something) for the aspiring psychologist Dr. Theo Calder. He thought that he had no hope of getting the renowned anthropologist Dr. Ethan Powell out of the (SOMEthing) Bay Prison. 

(Still Editing) 

Ishmael Chapter 10

In this chapter, Ishmael and the narrator talked about how the Takers are destroying everything, how the Takers don't seem to care about the world, the animals, or anything at all. From what I see, culture is good for an individual specie, but it's bad for the whole world. Why is it good for an individual specie? It's because when a specie has culture, then it needs to have a certain amount of intelligence, it's fascinating to see all the things humans have recovered from the past, and to see how we think at times. But then, it's really bad for the natural world, because when some species have cultures, they will learn the mistakes of the past, they will know how to do things more efficiently, and when they learn that, they will invent more things, and think of more way to be even more efficient. Then they will turn out like the humans, destroying everything, even themselves. It's just so unfair for the Leavers, they have done nothing, but then, they are the first who pays for everything.

Robert Mugabe: only believing

Basically, Mugabe has been the only Zimbabwe president for 28 years, he has created terrors in the country. No one seems to really care, because Zimbabwe doesn't have enough natural resources  for other people to go in and help. Mugabe has and still is using violence to gain what he wants, such as winning the election, taking the people's land, and much more. I think at first, Mugabe really believed what he was doing is right, people around him praised him, that's why he did all the things he did. Robert Mugabe's nephew even calls him their own "Moses". But now, I'm sure he now realizes the stuff he has done is wrong, but he can't just step down and say I'm sorry to everyone. So, that's why Zimbabwe is still in such a mess.

Dance Reflection

These are two reflection questions on the video shoot the Dance and Art class did together.

How did the site of DongMen alter the choreography that you created in the classroom?

The original plan of our group was for Tyler and I to crawl slowly on the floor, and then to slowly rise up, sort of like zombies. After seeing the place however, we decided not to, the floor was filthy and covered in who knows what. Our group had other problems as well, since our group's choreography includes a lot of stuff on the floor, so we put clothes on the floor to make it "bearable". 

Now that you know this site better; if you were to go back to DongMen, what would you add or subtract from your choreography to make it stronger?

Our theme was the people we usually don't look at, so i would decide to shoot it when it's darker, though I think you can adjust the lighting on a computer, so that doesn't really matter, though it might make the actors and actresses better. 

Saving Life on Earth

I find this talk simply amazing. Edward O. Wilson opened my mind more than anyone has ever done, the talk about how bacteria is the ruler of the world. I know nature's law: the survival of the fittest, and lots of times, when the world is going chaos, the fittest often are the most simple organisms, rather than the fierce animals we see. 

Humans think that humans are the fittest, they can do anything they want, they think they can use the technology and knowledge they have to control the world. They think they know everything, they think they know everything that's been going on, and how to solve it. But, the fact is that we don't know everything, there are thousands and even millions of things they haven't found out yet, and there will always be stuff they will never know. There are lots of incredible things yet to be discovered, and humans still think they are superior to everything. I think it's Mother Culture speaking to them, telling them: Look at all your achievements, you done great things, and even greater things are yet to come, keep going, and everything will be fine. Just like what Ishmael said our Mother Culture said to us.

Bacteria, the true ancestor of every living creature, is really the true master of the world. They cover everything, and they are everywhere. "IF" humans really did get rid of all the bacteria, then humans will die very soon, because humans need them to live, just as humans need everything else, it just haven't affected us directly yet. It's like Ishmael said, nature is balance, and if we don't keep that balance, we will die out. It's like the As, Bs, and the Cs, they kept the balance, and didn't think it was any law at all, they followed it, and they still have nature. 

Humans just need to find the balance, and they will be saved!!

Are there laws for Everything?

Ishmael said to his student that there are laws for everything, even a way of living, it's just we don't know it's out there. From that chapter of the book, I'm thinking that does everything really have a law applied to it? Is it really like gravity, no matter where you are on Earth, you will somehow be affected by it? I think humans would say that there aren't laws for everything, for example, the way of living. Humans might think that there's no certain way of living, it's just different cultures have different ways to live. If there are laws out there, then why don't we even have a single clue about it? But then, Ishmael said that before we knew anything about flying, we all have different ways of flying, well we thought we did. But then, after we knew the laws of areodynamics, all our ways of flying became the same, we all say now that this is how it's suppose to be done! I still think it's unlikely to have a way of living, because we are already living, it's not like flying, not all of them made it in the air. They didn't get the aircraft in the air with all the different ways, so that doesn't count as a way. But we have been living for quite some time now, so I think there are no certain way of living. I have a feeling that I'm going to be surprised.

I think it's genius that Ishmael said that the road to extinction is like falling down at 9.8 meters per second, accelerating faster and faster, it will be when we least expect it, it will come to us so suddenly, we will be so shocked as to why we have never thought of it before. Maybe it's Mother Culture speaking to us, she's telling us that everything will be all right or she just doesn't want us to face the fact that we are dying faster and faster by each second. I totally agree with Ishmael on the part. We don't know when to give up, we are blinded by something we never bother with.

The World Revolves Around "Us"

I am simply a complex Dog. A house Dog, who wants a comfy life living indoors. The world revolves around us, everything was made for us, even humans. I am much more kind than the others that roam outside of houses, I decided to own a few humans, and all of them came from the same family! I would never do anything to separate them. Whenever one of my humans decides to go for a walk, I always have to go with them, to protect them, in case they get into trouble. Sometimes there are "free" Dogs (the ones who are living outside houses and has no responsibilities) who try to scare my human, I have to scare them away first. When I'm resting in the house, they sometimes come annoy me. Being the superior species, I had to be patient, humans are shallow animals, they annoy me and one another for fun, I guess it's the only thing they can do. When the humans leave in the morning to "work" to make this world more convenient for us. When my humans come home, I have to sniff and see if they went anywhere inappropriate. We use humans to control the world, it seems that they are controlling, but it's really us that makes the decisions. We influence when they are young, and then, when they have control over other animals, we give orders. Dog is goD spelled the other way around, we are in disguise as harmless Dogs sitting at home. We live among humans now, watching over them in secret, always protecting. Always here.

Ethical and Social Rules

There was once no rules at all, before this world had cities or cars. Then small tribes began to appear, and from that day on, social rules appeared, the tribes that first found out that waste from our humans should be at an appropriate distance from where they live survived and populated. Natrually, there were leaders who took charge and prevented mayhem. As time went on, the ethical and social rules doubled and tripled, there was more to follow, more to learn.

How do we become conscious of the ethical and social rules in our societies?

There are so many ethical and social rules that we can never learn them all in a lifetime. We learn many of the most basic ones at home, from parents or guardians, who wants to best for you. After we have a vague idea of how we should behave in this world, we are starting school, and school takes us to another level or learning. At home, we learn about things, at school we can actaully experience some of them, and with the help of health class, we learn more about life. As we grow older and wiser, we understand why some things are wrong, and the punishment was not as simple as we thought it to be. All this talk about learning doesn't seem to say anything at all. So, in conclusion: We learn the ethical and social rules from everyone, doesn't matter who they are, we learn how to treat each other by knowing more people and listening to what they have to say.

New Perspective

Apple computer, plasma TV, cell phones, satellites, the Internet, and much much more! What a great civilization, this must be the best situation humans can live in, right? Actually no, humans have lived in this "modern" society for all our lives, people are used to live this way, if you take a single thing away, our lives will be disastrous. There are many ways to live life, and this is only one of them. There are other ways like living in the mountains at a few thousand feet, living in your own world, seperated from the other humans, and live a non-polluting life, you can go and achieve enlightenment, there are many ways to live. But they don't get to do anything, right? Again, no. Our cities, cars, and all the other objects that humans have created seems all good and great now, but it's only temporary. The groups of people who seperates themselves from all these stuff are the ones that do things that help in the long run, and anthropologist Wade Davis said that "If you took all the genius that allowed us to put a man on the moon, and applied it to the understanding of the ocean, you will get polynesia." We don't know more things than the people that lives in the polynesia, we just know different things. The people who live in the polynesia has a great civilization as well, same with the people in Tibet, they think in a way we don't know how, they can go inside the dark for their life long retreat for 55 years, and when the person comes out, you don't see a crazy person, but a person more clear than a pool of water in a mountain stream. No matter what we know or believe in, biologists have proven that we are all the same, we are all humans.

There are many unique cultures and languages in the world, but we are losing them each passing day. There are roughly 6000 languages in the world, but there are only half of the languages are being taught to the children, and the children are unable to pass it on. Every two weeks, there will be a person with a language which no one else can speak pass away, bringing the culture and the language with them. Another reason is because of the "modern" people, they think they are superior because they know how to program a computer system, they think they are better because they drive cars and use cell phones. They don't think much about other people elsewhere, the people who are doing nothing to pollute the planet we all live on. They assume that the world should just have a few of the most spoken languages because the rest aren't important. Most of the people don't really care or know about the dying cultures and languages. The disappearing languages and cultures are still actually very important.

We shouldn't just ignore the minorities, we should help them and try to get the languages and the cultures to go on, every culture and language is just as important as the other. There are things the people who lives in the polynesia can do, and we can't even imagine it. These are people that even today can name 250 stars in the night sky. These are people who can sense the distance of an island beyond the visible horizon, simply by watching the waves of the sea. Their knowledge of the sea is simply incredible. There are people in the amazon who went monkey hunting, and Phil Borges who was with them at the time said that the people can see things he couldn't see, smell things he couldn't smell, and hear things he couldn't hear. To us, it may seem like they are just randomly shooting darts in the air, but they are actaully shooting them at the monkeys. There are Tibetian buddists that are trying to understand the nature of existence. Buddaism is the imperial observation of the mind. The Tibetian buddaists have four nobel truths: 1. All life is suffering. 2. The cause of suffering is ignorance. 3. Ignorance can be over come. 4. The deniniation of a contemplative practice that not only had the possibility of a transformation of the human heart but had 25,000 years of empirical evidence that such a transformation was a certainty. The first one doesn't mean that life is negative, it just means that things happen. The second one means that the Budda meant that clinging to the illusion of life as static and predictable. These are things we should all learn, it's like a different way of seeing life, it must be very good truths, the people who believes it knows how to face life in reality. There are much more incredible things that these people can do, so it's very important to keep them here.

I would be willing to exchange places for a while, I don't think I can stay forever, because I am polluted by the society today, all the technology in everyday life. We should not forget these dying cultures and languages, we should try to protect them. The cultures and languages will never come back once it's gone, it has come, and we have to protect it. After all, no matter what, we all all brothers and sisters, we all share the same intellectual acuity, we are all humans.

What aspects of human life over the past several thousand years could be likened to a gorilla going from a forest to a zoo?

Mankind has bounded themselves for a long time before they even start noticing it, humans are not limited by cages and bars, they are limited by the absract things they created themselves: the law, so called civilization, and small rules humans have in everyday life. Mankind if bounded by the law because there are actions mankind has agreed on not to do, for example killing someone or stealing something. If one does and commit the crime, then they will be punished for what they have done, people have rights because the law says so, everyone agrees that we should have rights to do what they want, as long as they don't interfree with other people's freedom. Humans are also limited by civilization, it's not against the law to sneeze in someone's face, it's not against the law to fart in public, and it's not against the law to just swear (not directly at someone), there are more things that are what people consider uncivilized behavior, but not against the law. People don't usually do rude things if they can help it, we will control ourselves not to pick our nose in public even if it's itching a lot, humans are bound physically this way. People are limited mentally by civilization as well, for example: getting angry is natural, but it's not welcomed in this so called civilized world, we calm ourselves down when we get angry, we practice not getting angry, this is an action against nature, it is not normal to not get angry, it's welcomed in the so called civilized world. Humans are not bounded by cages like the gorillas they put behind bars, gorillas who never did anything wrong, who didn't do this to themselves. Humans on the otherhand limit and create an invisible line around themselves and force themselves to adapt to it, and for those who can't, they get outcasted. This is how humans are in the same situation with gorillas, they both are limited, both of them can't do what they want to do.

The Choices We Made

The current global situation is good for mankind, but it's devastating for mother nature. Mankind has always created and invented for their own benefits. The impact we have made before used to be small and ignorable, but about a few decades ago, the impact stared to influence mankind. The weather is getting more and more unpredictable, the strongest storms we know have all happened recently, the droughts are becoming longer and deadlier, and much more disasters are created because mankind has fought against nature and has crossed the line. We chose to go against nature and construct cities and civilization without knowing at first that we are destroying the only world we can live in. We have only started to acknowledge that we are polluting the Earth and should stop attacking nature. But we have lived this lifestyle for years, and changing it will be a blow for everyone, so the result was that mankind are selfish and decided to just help the world a tiny bit and recycle once in a while, but still keep on polluting.

Inspiring?? Hmm...

This is the story about Rashad Williams, he is a track star of Bay Area. He heard of the tragic shooting thing at Columbine High School, and he felt really sad, because it was track season, and Williams though that if it was him, then that would be a disaster, that's why Williams decided to help this Lance Kirklin, who was one of the two dozen people wounded during the accident. Williams raised money by competing in some track races, and told other people to do so as well, not to run races, but to donate money to help this person, and people helped him. He thought he was doing well when he got 300 dollars, but the mayor found out and loads of people started to donate money to it! In two months, Williams raised 18000 dollars, and even more are donated straight to the Kirklin family.

This inspires me because, I would never ever do something so good. But lots of people do good things, and even great things, why did I choose him? It's because he is also an athlete, I can just feel the feeling he's feeling more than someone who is a doctor, I just never been in a doctor's shoes, I don't know the feeling of it. That's why I chose it. But even if I can feel it I would never do something like that, people get killed everyday, every hour, every minute, how are we going to decide who to help, and how to do it? One more thing is do I have the ability to help anyone? 

What is "PEace"

Peace means everything is in harmony with everything else. But that's quite impossible, so peace for us is just living in a non-violent world, where we get to sleep at night without the fear of getting stabbed in the night.

What I got minutes after the science movie

I kind of know that quantum mechanics is talking about that everything is possible, it's just that the chance is large or small. I don't really get what string theory is, and I don't understand what relativity is either. I feel pretty amazed that people can even think of things like this, but I feel pretty dumb not to be able to understand it.

Science Project: Centripetal

It was organized pretty good, it started from the basic and to the difficult ones. What I didn't like about it was because we forgot to look at the rubric when we were practicing our presentation. I still like it when the teacher teaches, because, then individually, we can spend time on the part we think is most difficult, but if we are learning this way, even if we know our topic clearly, but then I don't know the stuff other people were presenting. Presentation is good, but I think everyone should learn everything.

黃石任務(The Children of Huang-Shi)

On April the 15th, our whole class (tenth graders) went out to watch a movie named The Children of Huang-Shi or Escape from Huang-Shi with Mr. Ruskovich. Before I watched the movie, I knew that it was based on a true story that happened during the Nanking Massacre, so I though it was a boring documentary or something similar to it, I expected that it would drone on and on about what happened during that time in Nanking. After watching 3 minutes of the movie, I realized that it was based on a true story of a british journalist who sneaked into Nanking to get the true facts about it. After getting caught and saved just before he was about to get slaughtered, he went to an orphanage in the mountains, he simply hated the place, not just because he got beaten up by the children there. But then, he just had this sudden passion of helping the children who lived there to live a better life, for example: by pasting papers onto the windows, which will block the wind out, powering up a machine that gave light to them in the dark, and planted a garden to help them have enough food to make them strong and healthy. During this time, the main character (Hogg, I should have mentioned this) made friends and earned most of the children's respect and they helped with the garden and worked together. It's amazing how someone who seems can do nothing, and i really mean nothing, first he did not speak Chinese, second he's in a foreign country, third everyone despised him at first. He saved about 60 children's lives by taking them far away from Huang-Shi, by taking the silk road. It is a very touching movie, it made me realized that even the craziest things could happen, we just have to keep trying.

Blog entry on my first ever imovie project

This is my first ever imovie project, also my first ever movie! It was a wonderful experience, but I don't like it one bit. The main reason I don't like it is because, first: I have never used imovie before, second: I expected the program to be a lot better than it turned out to be, third: I figured that finding a whole lot of pictures you think you will never use will come in handy. I think the part that takes up the most time is putting the pictures so it matches the music, I spend a long time making it all fit together. I got really angry and impatient during the time making the video, because I'm new to imovie, so it took me about 20 minutes to actually know what I am doing, and then at one point, I wanted to cut the music and put on another one, I spend another 15 minutes looking for how to do it, because it's one of the most basic things, the programs must have it. After all the hard work, I think my movie turned out to be not bad, different from what I expected, but it was okay.

Reflection on Vilayanur Ramachandra's speech

I hate Mac, I wrote more than three thousand words for this, and it quits by itself, how nice!! it's just a blog for me, what about other people?!?!?!? some people types stuff for a whole day and it's due that day, or he gets fired, and now Mac got him fired...how nice

Evaluating myself for science class

I would rate myself 1.5 for community contributor, because I would help people some times, but then other times I would think that it's school, we come here to be stumped, so I let them solve their work. I always get to class on time, and I never disturb the class in any way. In this experiment, I helped Jesse with the speed sensor thing when Justin wasn't there, and I helped him with some calculations too.

For the person of high character, I think I would rate 1.5, I think I'm an average student, I try to be a good student. I help people  if they need help, I wouldn't make fun of people, and I won't disturb the class or anyone else. But then I think I only deserved a 1.5 because for a few times, I forget to do my homework, that's why.

For the critical thinker and problem solver, I still think I deserve a 1.5, because most of the time, when I have problems with the questions or something the teacher just said, I would ask someone or try to figure out myself. But then, sometimes when I'm stuck on a question, I want to try to solve it, but then, sometimes I just can't focus and think of something else instead of doing the work I'm suppose to be doing.

For the effective communicator part, I think I get a 1.5, because I have a lot of thoughts, and I always try hard to present what I think, because I still struggle sometimes to let people understand what I am really trying to say, I just can't find the words. But then, most of the times, I don't have to struggle so much and the person I'm trying to explain stuff will understand pretty quickly, that's why I think I get a 1.5.

For the active learner part, I would give myself a 1.5, because I mostly always want to learn, just that sometimes, I can't concentrate, so I think I get a 1.5.

Frog Leonidas: The Invulnerable Frog

I experienced something I never could have imagined: a frog that had been punched on the head for more than 10 times by Mr. Truchon, Jack V, and me, strangled, it's brain stirred up into mush, it's body cut open, the intestines pulled out. So, mainly it's just skin and some muscle left, and the legs still seem to be alive!! It's still kicking as if it was still alive!!!! It was kicking every five minutes!!! Without a brain!!! Without a heart!!! Without anything left inside it's body!!! IT'S ALIVE!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! I found out later that the individual organs still functions even though it's cut off from the rest, it operates until it runs out of oxygen or because it didn't receive the things it needed to work. That's why the leg still jumps and we can still tickle it:D It's extremely fascinating, but I don't know how to research on it, anyone know what to type on google or yahoo to find this type of information? I would be a big help! Thanks!!:)

What I Know about Newton so far

He is famous for finding the three laws of movement: The first law is that an object that is still will be still, and an object that is moving will stay moving, unless some force effects the object. The second law is F=ma thing>< forgot. Anyway, the third law is like jumping, when you jump, the force you push into the ground, the same power of the force before will push you back. He is a scientist in the 天才世紀:D That's all I can think of so far.

UN ad: Stop Land Mines

It's great that the UN is trying to get us aware of how dangerous and horrifying land mines are, but they are making up a lame and fake story to tell us that, and it didn't get their point through me, all I thought was that: "I thought the UN could do way better than that". Maybe they are trying to make us feel that land mines could be anywhere, some people in Columbia just stepped ten feet from their front door and was blasted into pieces, examples like that would make it a whole lot effect. But a land mine in the middle of a carefully pruned soccer field!?!? If anyone should step on a land mine there, then it should be the person who took good care of the grass. I think the other reason why the UN decided to shot the scene like this is because some people who are living in places safe from land mines won't care about it( Well, people like me anyway ). Then after the UN get this idea into people's mind, then some people will start to help out, by donating money or some other ways. Anyway, land mines are a serious subject for those countries that have them scattered everywhere, most victims are kids, you can't blame them for picking up something shiny in the ground! Anybody would do so! People should think about cause and effect before they actually do anything, they have to know clearly about whether it would be a threat to anyone in the future or such. We should learn about where these land mine incidents are actually happening, and with the knowledge, we can help them by a lot of ways, or just getting people aware of such thing. We take too much things for granted, some people just want to live, and they are happy just because they have their family beside them, and these people are being blown apart, their family will never be the same again......so sad><

Describe your ideal society that is free from gun violence

My ideal society that is free from gun violence would mean that everyone in that country will have to abide to certain rules and regulations. But, just making laws and rules and nothing else will not help, people who wants the guns or the weapons will still use underground trading and other illegal ways to get them. We need people to know that violence is hurtful and that we should by all means try to prevent it. It's easy to say, but it's a lot harder then it sounds, I know people who has problems with using violence to solve their problems, people like me. I think we need everyone to help, not most, everyone. I think it would be nice to have a society that would take care of each other, and won't use violence against each other.

First Science Entry!!

Science is very fascinating, just that I don't understand it><