Jez's Blog

1. What do you think about Atyal’s facial tattoo? Do you have tattoo culture in your country? If yes, what are those differences between two cultures.
I think Atyal's facial tattoo is really symbolic to their culture. Although it is painful and inerasable, it's still one of the most marvelous thing that strongly symbolizes the Atyal culture. However, most of the Atyal people don't get their traditional facial tattoo anymore, but I belief that the elders of the Atyal will still hold fast to this tradition as long as possible, until the end of their life. Yes, there is tattoo culture in my country, Taiwan. In fact, Atyal is the aboriginal tribe in Taiwan which has tattoo culture. Other than that, some people in Taiwan also get tattoos, but it is not a tradition nor part of the culture, it's only for fun and fashion(?).

2. Saisiyat people choose their surnames from plants, animals and natural phenomena. In your country, do you think a person’s surname has special meaning which can reflect your own culture and why?
Again, Saisiyat is one of the aboriginal tribes in my country, Taiwan. Other than Saisiyat people, I don't think people in Taiwan, in general, chose their surnames from plants, animals and natural phenomena. The surnames of general people in Taiwan are mostly passed down from their ancestors, mostly from the main land China I suppose. However, I know that people do chose certain words in their first name. For instance, the word '麗' represents 'beautiful', therefore you might see this word in a girl's first name, blessing the girl to grow into a beautiful woman.

3. Lily is a symbol of RuKai. In your country, what’s your national flower and what it means.
Plum Blossom is the national flower of Taiwan. Plum Blossoms bloom in the winter, which represents that Taiwanese people are as strong as Plum Blossoms, we stay strong in harsh external conditions, and the worse the external conditions are, the strong we become, like Plum Blossoms, the cooler the weather is, more beautiful the flowers of plum Blossoms will be.

4. On Beian’s traditional weddings, you can see a prospective bride climbing a giant swing. And tribesmen swing her until the swing sails like kites. In your country, do you have any special ceremonies that are held on weddings? Please explain it.
In a traditional wedding of my country, people celebrate it by giving a meal to friends and relatives. The bride and the groom will drink in honer to each table of guests. Then these guests will give the bride and the groom red envelopes with money in them. Also, if the wedding is really really traditional, the bride and the groom would pray 3 times before they become husband and wife. The first pray is to the universe (god), second is to their parents, and the third is to each other.

After watching the video Spirits of Orchid Island, here are some following questions with their answers, based on what the video was about:


(1) Please indicate the importance of the ocean to Tao.
The ocean seems to be a really important role in Tao's life. Tao lives on a island, which obviously is surrounded by the ocean. Therefore, the very first thing that Tao people have to learn, is how to get along with the ocean, especially for Tao men, they've already been playing in the ocean as if it's their playground since they were little. The ocean provides food resources, in which it basically provides sea foods, for Tao people.

(2) It takes a lot of time for Tao people to build a boat. How do Tao people make a boat? Do you think it is worthy or it wastes time? Why?
Tao people make their boats with woods on the island. First, they chopped down the tree that they think has the most suitable wood for their boat. And then they gradually shape and smoothed each piece of the boat with an axe. Finally, they combine all the pieces of the boat together. By only looking at the steps of making a Tao boat might seem quite easy, but it actually takes a lot of effort. And by the way, one thing about making one of these boats has quite impressed me, which is that all the pieces of the boat are joined together with wooden needles, the boat is actually made up with absolutely no metal needles in it!
I think it's a definitely worthy for Tao people to make these Tao boats because this is one of the most symbolic thing that represents the Tao culture.

(3) Explain the boat launching ceremony.
According to the Tao tradition, before a boat launches, a boat launching ceremony will be held. In the ceremony, Tao men toss the new boat, with its sailor, into the air, to symbolize how the new boat will break out the waves as it sails on the ocean. Also, all the Tao males, including little Tao boys, will dance around the new boat, acting as if they are in great anger, in order to drive the evil spirit away from the new boat(?).

(4) Explain the flying fish calling ceremony.
The flying fish calling ceremony is the biggest event that the Tao held in once a year. Tao people belief that the flying fish is the fish from the heaven, its God's fish. During this ceremony, Tao people will kill a piglet, then each person stain their finger with the blood of the piglet, and then everyone dip their fingers, with blood, into the sea water on the sea shore. By doing this, the flying fish will smell the blood and come nearer to the shore, and so its easier for the Tao fishermen to fish them. The Tao fishermen also use fire to lure flying fish. Some flying fish that are caught, were used to be the bait for fishing bigger fish. However, the rest of flying fish that are caught, have to be all eaten by the next day.

(5) How do Tao people live in harmony with the natural environment?
Tao people are not just living in the nature, they are also protecting it. For instance, they may have been chopping down trees to make their boats and houses..etc, but they were also planting trees in the forests. They also have this rule of not cutting too many trees from a certain place, in order to remain the forest. Moreover, Tao people do not normally kill other animals, not even snakes.

(6) The houses Tao people build are so special. Please compare their houses to those houses in your own country.
The reason why the houses that Tao people build are so special, is because that they are located on a island where there's not much natural barriers to block strong typhoons. Therefore, their house were built underground, to avoid the damage from strong typhoons. On the other hand, the buildings in the country where I'm from, Taiwan, is totally different then the Tao buildings. Although strong typhoons invade us sometimes as well, but because of the natural barrier of Central Mountain Region, we do not have to build our buildings under ground. And also, there is variety of materials to build the buildings in Taiwan, which most of them are quite preventable for typhoons.

(7) Tao people view eating a seasnake as a taboo because it lowers social status. In your own culture, do you have any eating taboos? Do you believe in it? Why?
I don't think there's really an eating taboos in my own culture. Perhaps eating dogs? Well, if eating dogs is really an eating taboo because it lowers our social status, I think I'll belief it because dogs are just like our friends, and high class people do not eat their friends!!

(8) So far only one big handmade boat is kept in Tao tribe because of modernization. Thus, some Tao people try to preserve their art culture. Please describe a vanishing art culture in your country that you would like to preserve.
Paper umbrella is a vanishing artifact in Taiwanese culture. Young people do not usually appreciate the beauty of these paper umbrellas, they might think they are meretricious. However, I think young people should learn more about these paper umbrellas, in order to appreciate them and actually wanting to preserve them.



- http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/20tourism.html
[Picture of Tao hand made boats. Copied by Jez. 26th of Nov. 2008]

I belief that everyone in the world knows about drinking is harmful for one's health. I've read this article called Children 'risking liver disease'. It has basically mentioned the fact that the amount of children in the UK who drinks is rising. Not only that doctors are seeing younger people with alcohol-related conditions, according to the new figure, 49 people died from alcohol-related conditions in their age of 20s in the year of 2006.

'We are sadly seeing young people in their 20s coming in with jaundice, with swollen bellies because their liver won;t process liquids.' Said Professor Ian Gilmour, of the Royal College of Physicians. 'These people didn't make a conscious decision to kill themselves.'

According to Ian's words, apparently that jaundice is one of the alcohol-related conditions, which may actually kill you when it becomes really serious. The other deadly alcohol-related conditions that are also mentioned in this article are liver disease, liver cancer, kidney failure and stomach rotting.

Stacey has passed away in her age of 24. Before she died, since she was 18, she drinkings every night, probably 5 liters, until she became totally drunk. The doctor had found most of the deadly alcohol-related conditions that I've mention previously, in her body. Stacey had liver diseases, kidney failure, and a hole in her stomach where the alcohol had rotten her stomach. These conditions, unfortunately, were all seriously enough to kill a 24-year-old young women like Stacey, and yet the doctor couldn't do anything about it.

I don't think there is any opinions in this article. This article is more like a reminder to people which reminds them to stop ignoring younger people having the issue of excessive drinking, in order to prevent death in younger ages.


- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7743265.stm
[Picture of drunk woman. Copied by Jez. 22nd of Nov. 2008]

Comparing the food culture in Taiwan and America, I think the main affection to both of their food cultures was the people of each country. In Taiwan, people seem to have more rules in its food culture. Such as the arrangement of seating on a dinning table, which has to be arranged along the importance of each person. For example, if there's a guest visiting, he or she will be sitting facing the door, as the most important person, and the hosts will be sitting with his or her back facing the door, as the least important person.

Also, Taiwanese dishes are very concerned about the look, taste, and smell. Therefore, Taiwanese cooking requires loads of different cuisines, such as boiling, stewing in soy sauce, and frying...etc, and these cuisines are all requiring a many complicated techniques. Moreover, here is a very obvious difference between Taiwanese food culture and the American food culture, which is that Taiwanese people eat with chopsticks, but the Americans eat with knifes and forks.

However, I don't really know a lot about the American food culture, but I think there aren't as many rules or concerning of either the seating on a dinning table, the look, taste, and smell of the dishes, and the techniques of different cuisines. I guess its because that Taiwanese people are more conservative than the Americans. We keep our traditions and believes in our food culture.


- http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/worldroutes/festivals.cfm?festival_id=20
[Picture of Taiwanese noodle. Copied by Jez. 19th of Nov. 2008]
- http://www.topnews.in/health/regions/united-kingdom
[Picture of fast food. Copied by Jez. 19th of Nov. 2008]

As most of the people in the world have known that Barack Obama has won the USA presidential election of 2008. Yet, he became the first African American president in the history of the United State of America. I've heard from many sources, talking about how grateful it is to have Obama being elected as the president of the United State of America. I've also seen his victory speech, and sure it was extraordinary and touching. However, while some people are celebrating for Obama's victory of the election, talking about all the goods about such result, someone else are talking about different things..

Racism 'would block a British Obama', is an article that I've read, which is basically saying that people are surprised that Obama had broken through the 'institutionally racist,' and successfully became the first African American president of the United State of America.

'If Barack Obama had lived here I would be very surprised if even somebody as brilliant as him would have been able to break through the institutional stranglehold that there is on power within the Labour Party,' said Phillips, referring to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's governing party.

Thus, according to Phillips' words, people are judging their politicians by the colour of their skins instead of their politics? Don't worry, it's not true. 'I work with very talented, very able black politicians and I know from talking to constituents around the country, that our constituents are very sophisticated and we judge our politicians by their policies, not by the colour of their skin,' Khan told BBC.

This article has definitely shown different opinions. I personally agree with Khan's opinion, which is that people should judge their politicians by their politics and not the colour of their skins. Also, I personally think that judging politicians, or even other people by the colour of their skins, referring to the Labor's system, which Phillips has mentioned in the article, is a kind of bias.


- http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Barack-Obama-prime-minister-political-system-press-conference/photo//081108/photos_wl_uk_afp/8940b2452efa063c201755d7d4e0462b//s:/afp/20081108/wl_uk_afp/uspoliticsbritainracism/im:/081108/photos_ts_afp/be71f024b8cdf498ea9d496c8aaf1dac/#photoViewer=/081108/photos_ts_afp/be71f024b8cdf498ea9d496c8aaf1dac
[Picture of Obama in a meeting with the Transition Economic Advisory Board in Chicago. Copied by Jez Lee. 8th of Nov.]

Global 20/20.. what is Global 20/20??

Today we had the very first meeting of Global 20/20. In the meeting, we were talking about what is Global 20/20 about, and what we will be focusing on in this event. From the meeting, I've gotten some basic ideas about Global 20/20, which were knowing that Global 20/20 is basically an event of helping to solve global issues, and in our cases, we will be focusing on the issue of global education. However, no one was sure about the specific things that we would be doing in Global 20/20 yet, because we will be deciding what we are going to do.

Ms.Smith has told us that we will be working with the students from a school in the U.S. I think it's going to be a great opportunity to get a closer view of the world. But since we are to help solving global issues, we had to learn about the issue that we are to solve before we took any steps further, including to work with the students from the U.S. Therefore, the other thing that we did during the meeting was reading the 'Education for All' section of High Noon. This section of the book was basically talking about why is global education a global issue.

I found some of the information from 'Education for All' were quite shocking. I've never noticed that there are actually loads of people that are illiterate around the world. I kind of feel sad for these illiterate people, but why should I? Why should I even care about these people? I belief that there are definitely plenty of reasons for these questions, and the reasons are going to be related to economies, human rights, and governments...etc. Although we've already been discussing about this in the end of today's meeting, I still think that it will be continued in the next meeting. Hopefully, we can soon figure the answer and find the best way to solve such global issue.


- http://www.nais.org/conferences/index.cfm?ItemNumber=147262&sn.ItemNumber=148035
[Picture of an earth on a hand. Copied by Jez Lee. 4th of Nov. 2008]

Today was a SMASH Day. Our challenge was to build a tower out of 5 pieces of A4 paper and 2 meters of tape. The tower had to be as tall as possible, and it also had to able to hold 15g on top of it.

Our group, Savanna and I, won the challenge. Our tower was 83cm tall, and it was the only one that has successfully hold 15g on top of it. In this challenge, I think the most important skill that we'd used was balancing. At the very beginning of the task, both Savanna and I were only thinking about how to make the base of the tower. It's because that both of us knew that the base of the tower is the most important part of keeping the entire tower steady and balanced.


The tower that we made sort of looked like a plunger. It's base was much wider than the other parts of the tower. The reason why we made the base so wide was because that the larger the area of the base was touching the surface of the table, the more steady and balanced the tower would be.












However, there were also other skills that we've used during the task, which was the 'combining skills'. You might ask: What did you mean by 'combining skills'?? Well.. what I meant was basically the skills of combining different parts of the tower. These skills were also very important because different combining skills could prevent the disconnection of different parts of the tower. For instance, instead of only using tapes to tape every parts of the tower together, we cut a hole and stuck the cylinder of the tower into its base so that they were better connected with each other.

As a result, balancing was certainly important in this challenge. You'd have to keep every parts of the tower balanced, including its base, its body, and its top plane where you put the weights on at the end. Also, the combining skills were anther important thing to consider. You'll need different combining skills to make the tower even more steady while it's balanced.


- http://www.3dnuts.com/tutorials/modeling_plunger.shtml
[Picture of plunger. Copied by Jez Lee. 4th of Nov. 2008]

After watching the videos in Taiwan Culture class, I realized that some of the foods in Taiwan could be quite ordinary or even disgusting. It seemed a lot of traditional foods in Taiwan are animal organs or bloods, like all kinds of things that most of the western people do not eat. For example, pig blood jello, chicken testicles, goose tongue and head..etc. I think I prefer western food, it's just looks and tastes better sometimes. For instance, there's not a lot of black foods from the west, but in Taiwan, there's like black soup, black chicken, and black chicken testicles. Even though these black foods might not taste bad at all, people will still feel a bit wired for eating them. However, some of the traditional Taiwanese foods are still really tasty, like those fried un-laid chicken legs. Yummy!! :]

Why do things sink when everything else is floated? Well, I think it's because that somethings are heaver, or denser than the other things. Things that are heaver or denser will sink, and on the other hand, things that are lighter or less dense will float.

I wonder if 'heaver' can be the other word for 'denser' because from the experiment that we've done in science class, I found out that the pink liquid is actually lighter or less dense than the clear liquid, but the clear liquid is on the layer above the pink liquid, with the yellow liquid in the middle. However, I didn't test if the yellow liquid mattered on keeping the clear liquid on the upper layer, in which I think it does matter. I'd only tested that if there's a larger amount of clear liquid on top of the pink liquid, would it kind of like pressing down the pink liquid and keep it at the bottom, and it does, the clear liquid did keep the pink liquid at the bottom of the graduated cylinder. And what I've been thinking is that when the object has a larger amount than the other object, its density will be more than such object, in which also means heaver?

Anyways, the other part of the experiment that we've done in science class was putting different object into the graduated cylinder with the colour liquids in it (like the picture above), and see what happened. The result was that some objects floated while some other objects sank, and some objects even floated in the middle of the liquids. I think this appearance is due to the density of the liquids and the objects that were thrown into the liquids. I think the reason why certain objects floated to the top of the liquids was because those objects were less dens than the liquids, and for those object that sank directly to the bottom of the liquids were the ones that were denser than the liquids, and moreover, for those objects that floated in the middle of the objects, were the ones that have about the same density with the liquids.

Do I think the mixed liquid will be separated on Monday? Yes, I think it will be separated on Monday. The liquids with less dense will float towards the surface while the denser liquids sink towards the bottom of the graduated cylinder.

Rock is matter, water is matter, steam is matter.. Even you and I are matters as well! But what is matter?

Matter, is something that has volume (takes up space) and mass. Matter can be in 3 kinds of statements, which are solid, liquid and gas. There are loads of things that are considered as matters.. And now that you know how to manage whether or not a thing is matter, here's the question, IS AIR MATTER?

Air is in a state of gas, and according to the experiment Mrs.Smith has done during the class, which was blowing a balloon in a bottle with and with out a whole on the bottle. We proved that air does have volume (take up spaces). The balloon has gone bigger only when there was a whole on the bottle. Which means that the space in the bottle has already been taken by the air in the bottle, therefore, the balloon wasn't able to expend if there's no whole on the bottle to let the air in the bottle float out.


Okay, now that air has already fit in with 2 out of the 3 conditions of matter. The last condition is mass, does air has mass? According to the experiment, The balloon that is fulled with air is heaver than the balloon that is not fulled with air. Which has proven that air do have mass.









Therefore, as the result, is air matter?
The answer is, YES IT IS.


- http://wow.osu.edu/experiments/gases/airhasmass.html
[Picture of the experiment. Copied by Jez Lee. 23th of Sep. 2008]

The movie Schindler's List is basically about how Schindler's factory kept the Jews employed, or alive during WWII. While the Nazis invaded the Jewish culture in Germany.
Schindler was a German, he frequently used his wealthiness to build relationships between the others and himself. He usually behaved like he was an important person, a person who had a higher position in the society.

He started this new factories of making pots. And the workers that he had hired were all Jews. Well in the beginning, he opened this factory was just for his own profit. But then, the Germen started to take the Jews into concentration camp, which turned out to be a 'death camp'. And the only way to keep those Jews alive, was to keep them employed, in 'Schindler's place (factory)'.

Jews were saying that 'Schindler's place is an haven!' And also been saying that Schindler was a good person. But by listening to these 'compliment' from the Jews, Schindler somehow felt pressured. It's because that he knew it's dangerous for him to be this 'good person' during the time.

However, after loads of encorigement from his account, which was a incredibly smart person who helped Schindler to held his factory, and also trying to safe as many of Jews as he could. He was trying to safe the Jews from the concentration camp by persuading Schindler to hire them to work in his factory. And although Schindler wasn't really agree with him at the first. But then, the good inside of him has gradually come out.

I think this movie is quite meaningful because it sends the message of the reality of how people have changed their behaviors in such extremed situations. For example, because of the strong prejudice between Germen and the Jews, there was a little German girl yelling 'good-bye Jews' when the Jews were forced out off their houses. And for some of the Jews, they've given up the thought of standing up for themselves. And instead of taking this risk, they decided to just follow the orders. No matter how depressing they were.

The movie is really quite depressing. Watching people got killed for no reason? It was just so sad.. Couldn't belief the Germen were being so cruel to the Jews. Doesn't it just showed how deadly powerful is prejudice?


-http://www.schindlerslist.com/buy-schindlers-list.html
[Picture for Schindler's List. 30th of May. 2008, copied by Jez]

Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea. Kim Hong-il got his leadership from his father, Kim Il-sung. Who was the Prime Minister od North Korea from 1948 to 1972, and the President of North Korea from 1972 to his death.
Kim Joung-il is a cleaver leader, he has been working on being a leader carefully. And by the way, he was known as 'Dear Leader'. He has a very secretive way of governing. But however, he still goes onto live TV shows, prestigious public works projects or large scale ceremonies. <Link>

-http://www.finfacts.ie/finfactsblog/2006/10/kim-jong-il-awaits-to-hear-whether-big.html
[Picture for Kim Jong-il, The Leader of North Korea. 22nd of May. 2008, copied by Jez]

The government in Burma is in a form of 'military-dictatorship'. Which means that the military also takes parts in Burma government. The government doesn't really care about human rights. And in facts, in order to keep itself in power. It has been using rape and torture, forced labour and violent national oppressions. Also, I think the other way for it to keep itself in power is to limit incoming informations from the outside of the country. And for doing this, the Burma government may had forbidden several TV shows, such as news that are saying Burma is a very poor country. And blocked several international websites, such as YouTube, because there might be a video about being against to dictatorships. And therefore, the government is afraid of people start to follow these outside informations, and then eventually, they might rebel, and overthrow it. <Link>

-http://www.karmacino.com/story.php?title=Burma_satire_cartoon_collection
[Picture for Burma Dictatorship. 22nd of May. 2008, copied by Jez]

According to the BBC news post: Aid for Burma 'must be monitored'. The cyclone aids that are sent from the other countries may be seized by the military regime. Burma's media has now risen the official death toll to 43,318, with 27,838 missing. The affected area from the cyclone is still completely disconnected with the outside world. And yet, the regime is stopping the foreign aid workers from getting into the affected area.

When I finished reading this post, I feel quite bad for the citizens in Burma. Maybe it's just because that I don't understand why the regime were there, blocking the helps from the foreign workers. Is it because of pride? But people are suffering and dying in this situation!

'The state media New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the people "will not rely too much on international assistance and will reconstruct the nation on a self-reliance basis".'

The quote above is from the post, which made me thought of that the reason for the regime, doing such thing, was because of it wanted to keep its pride. It wanted to let its people think that they are strong enough to not rely on international assistances. But however, the facts is that.. the people were tricked by the regime. Of course they'll need international assistances. Well.. although not always, but at least now, in such situation.

The massive earthquake in China is one of the most followed current event in the world. It happened in Sichuan province, China. The rank of the earthquake was 7.9-magnitude. Millions of buildings and houses have collapsed or sustained damaged from the earthquake.

According to the CNN news post: China quake death toll could reach 50,000. The death toll in Southern China has now topped to 19,500; more than 4.3 million of homes have now collapsed or sustained damaged; 400 mostly small dams have also been effected by the earthquake; at least 201 students of the Muyu Middle School were killed when the school campus collapsed; and more than 30.000 people are missing or out of reach.
After I read this post, I was shocked. Shocked by how much damages have this earthquake actually cause. Loads of people were dying from trapped under collapsed buildings. People lost their home and families. I is terrible!
However, the government is trying it's best to rescue these trapped people. It had ordered 110 helicopters, dropping food and other supplies to the quake-hit area. And also, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Vietnam and Poland are among the countries providing assistance, according to Xinhua.

Vido1. Hitler's Speech to Youth:
In this video, Hitler was having a speech to groups of young Germany girls and boys. It seemed like a ceremony to me, which gathered every Germany children, for Hitler to give them his speech. In Hitler's speech, I think he was telling the children that the future of German depends on them. And so he wanted them to be strong and not soft. And while Hitler was having the speech, he was very agitated. Which might be the reason for why he could convince 'his little boys and girls'. Well.. although the children might be easier to convince than the adults. However, also because that the children were easier to convince, it was easier for Hitler to 'brain-wash' them. As part of the progress of turning these children into his faithful followers when they grew up.

Video2. Stalin:
In this video of Stalin, it only showed his painted pictures.
These pictures were all looked quite 'positive'. And what I mean by 'positive' is that these pictures have made Stalin looked good. A lot of them were drawn of people looking up at him, or giving him flowers. And in these pictures, Stalin was always standing strait. Anyways, my point is that for me, I don't really know the biography of Stalin. And by justing learning about him from these pictures in the video, I'd think that he's a good ruler. And probably not as cruel Hitler(which many of us had defined that Hitler is a terribly cruel man).
However, thinking of the purpose of having these pictures, were they real? Or were there to 'lie' to people, and make them trust him, to worship him?

In my Why Dictatorship WebQuest Progression, My topic is The End of WWI. I'd typed down all the questions that I'm going to answer on my Mindmeister mind-map. And I'd also classified these questions into groups of 'Economics', 'History', 'Government', and 'Anthropology'. These questions included the ones that were asked by Mr.Carpenter and the ones that were asked by myself. However, now, I've been researching information, in order to answer the questions that I've already had on my mind-map, I was also thinking of new questions along with the researchings. But for now, basically I've only answered some of the questions on my mind-map, and I'm still working on the researchings in order to answer all the other questions.

Burma, as known as Myanmar, is also one of the few countries that are ruled under dictatorships. And by the way, the military has also controlled Burma since 1962. Although it has been blamed for wide-spread human rights abuses and violent crackdowns on pro-democracy activists.

News1. Cyclone kills 350 in Burma; dissidents call for aid
'Local reports in Myanmar say a cyclone killed more than 350 people and ripped apart thousands of homes, but tensions between the country and the West may make its military government reluctant to ask for international aid.'
'The Forum for Democracy in Burma and other dissident groups have called for the military government to allow aid groups to operate freely.'
- CTV.ca News Staff

News2. Canada to make Burma's dissident leader an honorary citizen
'Canada will grant honorary citizenship to Burma's detained dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday in recognition of her tireless struggle for human rights and democracy in the Southeast Asian country.'
- CBC News

In my discovery from these 2 newses, it seems that Burma gains quite a lot of aids from the foreign nations. But for some reasons, the government of Burma refused these aids itself. I wonder why it wanted to refuse these aids from the foreign nations. Maybe the government didn't want to let it's citizens to realize that they are poor and perhaps, not quite progressed. Otherwise, it might cause the citizens to start revolting the government.

North Korea is one of the few countries that are still be ruled under dictatorships. Which means that the leader of North Korea takes all the power of controlling the country.

News1. North Korea Heading Towards Famine: Report
[By Reuters. 30th, Apr. 2008]
The soaring global food prise and the reluctant donors are pushing North Korea back towards famine. The leader of North Korea were focusing on developing nuclear weapons, which costs a lot of money. Therefore, the economic support for the other needs of the citizens has been terminated. Which included the economic support of the foods. In which is causing the citizens to die from hunger.

News2. Bush Says Syria Nuclear Disclosure Intended to Prod North Korea and Iran
[By Steven Lee Myers. 30th Apr. 2008]
North Korea is still developing nuclear weapons, secretively. However, there are not only North Korea that is having nuclear weapon developments. Syria and Iran are also being involved.

According to the 2 newses about North Korea, I found out that as an result, the citizens are suffering because the leader, or you can say the dictator, keeps focusing on developing the nuclear weapons. Even though the development is not allowed, and the U.N. had also negotiated with North Korea that if it (North Korea) quits the development of nuclear weapons, it (U.N.) will fully support the needs within the country (North Korea). And in which tells us that the leader in dictatorships might not be concentrating a lot on the needs of the citizens. And instead, they mostly concentrate on what they want.

Today in class, just as usual, we shared the current events that we'd found. And then, we continued to work on the researching for our individual topics. My topic was 'The End of WWI', I didn't think that it was a hard topic because the information about it as actually quite to find. However, for doing this assignment, there is still a part that was quite hard, which was to think of a question about the topic. I found it's hard was because that I still need to earn a lot of things about my topic first. I had to learn about the history of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles..etc. And although I'd already read some of the informations from the textbook, I still have a lot to learn. And by the way, as a active learner, I was also seeing that if I could learn something else from the website.

Do animals have rights? If so, what're their rights applying to foods? Do we have the right to kill animals to eat?

I agree that animals have rights, especially the right of living. But when they are in the case of producing meat or other products for food, then well.. I think it depends..

It depends on how they were treated when they are producing these productions because there surely are more than just one way of producing animal productions.

Think about farming, farms are the most common source of animal productions. But there are also difference between these farms. The size of the farms, the processes of farming, and the animal cares...etc. And to compare a big farm with good animal cares and good farming process, with a small farm that lacks of animal care and with vise farming process, I'd say that obviously, the animals in the big farm has more rights than the animals in the small farm. And on the other hand, it seems that the animals in the small farm are not having any rights at all! So the products which are made from the animals that are having more rights, may be more expensive. And by the way, it make since also, because animals aren't living for producing animal products for humans. Therefore, we, as the humans, should respect their lives!!

And moreover, think about hunting, the other source of animal products. What right do the animals have during hunting?
Well, I'll say that they have a lot more rights than the animals in the farms. Instead of just the right of living, eating, and being somehow protected, they actually have the right to protect themselves by hiding, running or even attack the hunters. However, the hunters have the right to hunt for food, though they'll have to pay more effort for it.

Click HERE to see the TRUTH of the animal productions that we are using..

After I went to this Bloom's Taxonomy website, here is a list of examples, of my learning that fits each following thinking levels.

Creating:
Using different elements to create a project. For example, the Greece Researching iMovie.

Evaluating:
Checking the rubric for the Greece Researching iMovie and tried to follow it while I was making the iMovie.

Analyzing:
Mind mapping on Mindmeister. Using the mind maps to break down a certain unit of Ancient Greece into different topics. And then penetrate deeply into each of these topics.

Applying:
Using my notes and the informations either from the textbook or the other sources to answer my own questions about the unit.

Understanding:
Summrize the informations that I've learned from the WWII movie into notes.

Remembering:
Reading facts on textbooks, websites, and other information sources.

What is a right?
Well, a right is something that you deserved and allowed to, which means that you don't 'earn' a right. However, you can still somehow loose your right. For example, if you are a murderer, you may loose your right of freedom, or even your right of living because when you murdered a person, you'd just taken it's right of living. But different beings has different rights, for example, a mosquito has the right of sucking our bloods, and on the other hand, we also has the right of defending, which would usually be killing them. But in this case, we won't loose our right of living just because we'd killed them.

And now, for my animal anatomy, there are 2 following questions:
1. What animals would we have the right to dissect? Why?
2. Which animals don't we have the right to dissect? Why?

For question 1, what animals would we have the right to dissect, and why..?
Basically, I think the animal that we would have the right to dissect are the animals that has less rights, well.. at least in our point of view. I'm also wondering how can you define ones' right? I mean.. it seemed like the 'right' is already there, people define other beings' rights by their own point of views. For example, I love dogs, so I think that dogs has more rights than certain other animals, but for someone who eats dog, they might think that dogs has no rights because they've already define dogs as a kind foods.
Anyways, since we couldn't really define the actual rights for different animals, I'll say that the animal that we would have the right to dissect would be the ones that are defiantly not one of the endanger species, and perhaps, the ones that has already been 'used' for dissections, normally.

For question 2, which animals don't we have the right to dissect are defiantly the ones that are one of the endanger species, and ya.. basically, they are the ones that we think that has more rights.

When I was watching the movie, I was quite shocked although I've already expected that we were about to see something 'fearful'.

In the movie, I saw different ways of how dictators take up their powers in each dictatorships of different countries. For example, the Nazis in Germany, led by Hitler. When I saw the mass parades of the Nazis, the education for the youth from the Nazis, and the way of people showing that they worhip Hitler, which was to rise up your right hand with fingers closed.

I wondered why would these people join the Nazis? It doesn't seem to make their life better anyway, and in fact, it has seemed to make people's life harder and meaningless! Because everyone in the Nazis were just following Hitler's orders. But however, on the other hand, the people that disobeyed the Nazis may somehow be killed. Because under Hitler's power, there were secret polices everywhere and anywhere, the scariest part is that they could be anyone! Which means that it could also be your best friend! And these secret polices would report to Hitler about whoever were insulting him or his dictatorship.

Today in class ,we were watching a movie about World War II for most of the time in class period. And then in the end of the class, Mr. Carpenter showed Jordan's and mine Greece researching video. I think I've been demonstrating as a person of high character because I prepared for the class by fixing my Greece reaching video, and for finding a way to fix it, I even went to Mr. Truchon for installing iMovie 08, the iMovie that I've been using before, which I'm more familiar with. But.. during this process, it didn't went through very smoothly. First of all, Mr. Truchon was in a meeting, when he lent me his iPod flash drive for installing the file. But the file loaded so slow so I was afraid that even the bus was leaving, it wouldn't be done either. Therefore, I quited the installing and returned the iPod flash drive to Mr. Truchon. After that, I sent an email to him to tell him that I quited it before it finished installing. And then, I couldn't find another time to meet him again because there was a field trip to the Taipei Zoo. However, as an critical thinker and problem solver, I used my flash drive and copied iMovie 08 from Lydia(my roommate at the time)'s laptop, and installed it into mine. Then, I used iMovie 08 to redo my video.
During movie in class, I was demonstrating as a person of high character because I was being quiet all the time, I only spoke when I was answering questions or giving my ideas in the discussions. And also, as an active learner, I was taking notes while Mr. Carpenter was brain storming the video.

Wang's two-hitter leads Yankees to win over Red Sox
12th, Apr. 2008 1:06am

Looking at the pictures of this current event, I saw Wang was having a 'good job' hand-shade with his teammate, Jose Molina, in the first picture. And for the second picture, Wang was celebrating with his teammates, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, and Jose Molina after defeating the Boston Red Sox. Therefore, befoe I read the article of this current event. I sort of had this foreshadow from the pictueres, which told me that this event is going to be a good news about the Yankees. And especially about Wang.


'He was as good as I've seen him,' Yankees manager told the reporteres.
'I think this is my best game so far,' said Wang.
Wang Chien-ming pitched a two-hit complete game to lead the New York Yankees to a 4-1 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Friday in the first meeting this season between the heated American League rivals.

[Writing by Gene Cherry in Salvo, North Carolina; Editing by Greg Stutchbury]

Today in class, we were working on our iMovie for our project. I'd say that I was an active learner because I the iMovie that I was using was in a different version with the one that I've been using before my laptop was broken. And so, when I was using it to do my project, I was also learning to use this version of iMovie, by myself. I would have asked questions if I had any problems, but I didn't seemed to have a lot of problems. However, the only question that I've had was 'how to record my voice by this version of iMovie?' But Mr. Carpenter taught me before I asked him, so I didn't really ask him anything during class. Bascally, I was just working on everything on my own during the class. :p

Look at myself as a parent one day who has runs a democratic form of 'family government'.
My family will be ruled by democracy. My husband and I will basically take the leadership in my family together. My kids, as the 'citizens' will have the right to vote for that do they want, and of course, my husband and I will definitely listen to their voices and come up with a fair decision. The positives for this kind of 'governing', I think is that everyone in the family will be involved for everything that's going on within the family. They can share their voices and opinions to the 'leaderships', and enjoy the life in the 'society' of the family. However, the problem that may occur is that there might be too many different opinions from each members of the family, and so, it could be really hard for the leaders to make a certain decision without being disagreed by the ons that are having a different opinions.

For the Greece researching project, I've chosen my topics, which are Trading and The Athenian Revolution. For the topic-Trading, I've asked 3 questions about it. 1. How did they trade? 2. What did they trade? and 3. Who did they trade with. And for the other topic- The Athenian Revolution, I've only asked 2 questions about it. 1. Why did it happen? and 2. How did it end up?
So far, I've done my researching on all these 5 questions and I've put the answers as notes on my mind map os Greece researching. I've also finished the researching of images that fits my answers. And so, the next thing that I'm going to do, probably in class, is to work on my iMovie for the final presentation of this project. I'll put the images that I'd found into the iMovie, record my voice of answering the question and perhaps, introducing the images.

Active learner
In Progress-Demonstrate.

When there's an assignment that contains researching, I do the researches on my own. I've been learning things from the websites, books and even from answers of people that I'd asked for help. I've also been asking questions during class, though it's not very often. And moreover, I started to read about current events from news websites and also been listening to them from the radio in the morning, on my mum's car during the ride to school.

Today in humanities class, we were doing the reaches for answering the questions that we've asked about ancient Greece.
As a person of high character, I did what I suppose to do during class. And I said this as a demonstration of a person of high character because we were doing the researches on the internet, which is very easy to distract people from their reaching. And also, as a person of high character, I asked permission from Mr. Carpenter for listening to musics during the researching. And of course I wore my earphones. Therefore, I wouldn't disturb the other students.

This is the comment that I'd left for a post called 'Where do we draw the line?' at Students 2.0.


I wonder if the line should be drawn at all..

Without a doubt, I think that teenagers and adults are able to have good conversations. As long as they respects each other. However, some of the teenagers might have found strangeness for communicating with adults. I think that’s actually quite normal. But it doesn’t necessarily means that there should be a line between because the line would be stepped across by these teenagers eventually.(hopefully)

The following list is a list that shows a several rules for blogging. These rules were voted by us, the 8th graders. There were many of them, but these are the only ones that we all agree with:


- No personal informations (no last name or contact information)

- Write in ENGLISH

- Don't write inappropriate stuff in your blog

- Don't insult others. Be constructive in your commenting

- Don't plagiarize other peoples' ideas

- Cite your sources for images and ideas

Today in class, we continued watching the movie about the ancient Greece. The purpose of watching this movie was to learn more about the ancient Greece, for us(the students) to find some interesting topics from it, ask questions, and be answering the questions eventually. As an active learner today, I took notes during watching the movie, and listen carefully to what the movie was talking about. And by the way, I was a critical thinker and problem solver when I took the notes because I know that I'm not a a fast-typer, so instead of typing down my notes on the computer, I wrote my notes with pencil on a piece of paper. And so I could be able to catch up the movie easier. I've written down quite a lot of topics, notes, and questions. Therefore I have more option of topics to choose and work on the answers later on. Then, the class ended before we finish the movie, so we are probably going to keep it continued in the next class.

About Me
Jez

Hello! My name is Jenny, but I prefer people call me Jez. Therefore, everyone in this school calls me Jez. I’m the only child in my family. I live with my parents, 2 dogs and 2 cats. I like doing sports and other active activities. I also like musics, I can play guitar and piano. I like to eat fruits, Italian foods, and yogurts. I have a lot of good friends, and I love to hangout with them.

The reason why I prefer people calling me Jez is because that I think Jenny is quite a common name. There’re a lot of people called Jenny. My nick name, Jez, was named by my English teacher from the other school, Hsinchu American School, which is known as HAS. He gave everyone in the 7th grade a nick name, and used the nick names on a sheet of paper which shows everyone's grade. Since I'd mentioned about another school, just so you know, I’ve also been studying at Ivy Collegiate Academy, known as ICA, in Taichung. Anyways, my real name is Jenny, but I prefer people to call me Jez. And by the way, it’s spelled as ‘Jez’ not ‘Jess’ nor ‘Jezz’.

I live with my mum Sandra, and my dad Maple. I'm the only child in my family which means that I don’t have any brothers or sisters. My mum used to ask me if I want a younger brother or sister when I was in elementary school, and I said I don't because I assumed that having younger brother and sisters will be quite annoying because I'll have to babysit them, especially if we have a big age difference. Only if I really could chose, I'd like to have a older brother, but unfortunately, I didn't have the choice. However, I might be the only child in my family, but I got a lot of cousins from my mother’s family. Most of my cousins are older than me. Some of them even already had children. Therefore, I become someone’s aunt for some situations. And it makes me feels wired every time because some of my nephews are older than me. I also have pets to accompany me so I won’t be lonely. I have 2 cats and 2 dogs. I love my pets, even moreover, they are just like my brother and sisters.

Both of my parents has a lot of expectations for me. I think it’s because that I’m their only child. Although all those expectations may be quite annoying and stressing sometimes, I’ll still try my best to reach them. They always tell me that 'there are always people that are better, and skies that are higher.' Which they may meant that there's many 'competitors' outside that I have yet to meet. These 'competitors' might be my schoolmates, co-workers, or even my friends or other strangers. So I must be prepared to 'compete' with them in the future.

My interests are doing sports or other active activities. But I also like to do things that are relaxing, like listening to musics, playing with instruments and drawing...etc, without being forced to. For playing instruments, I can play piano and guitar, though my skills are not very good.Basically, I like to do anything without being forced to. I don’t like to be forced to do things because if I’m forced to do something, I could feel the pressures from it. For example, if I’m forced to dance, I won’t have and fun from doing it. But if I’m in a dancing party, where I would be dancing without being forced to, I could have lots of fun from it!

One very important part of my life, is my friends! I have many friends and I love my friends! I love hanging out with them! With my friends, sometimes we chat online, chat in the phone, or even go out to watch movies, shopping, or have lunch together. They've affected me as who I became. They let me realized that socializing is not just about oneself, you have to think more about 'we' and not just 'I'. For example, I have these really close friends since I was only in kindergarten. At the time, I was a spoiled brat. I cried a lot, and I loved to complain. However, being with these friends has changed me a lot because whenever I started to act spoiled, they reminded me to watch out my attitude. And if I didn't, they may just ignore me, as a 'punishment'. Until now, although we didn't get to hang out as often as before, I still remember their reminding. And still thanking them for changing me so much. That even when we got to meet each other lately, they ere shocked by my 'none-spoiled' attitude.

Other than friends, another important thing in my life is my educations of course. In fact, my mum always tells me that as long as I'm doing good in the school, and by 'school', she means 'grades', she won't care about any other things that I want to do. However, even if my mum doesn't care about my grades, I will. Because I wish that I could get into a good college in the future, and become a useful person! :]

My life is going well so far. My family has been supporting me a lot, my mum drives me to school all the way from Joungli to Hsinchu every morning, and picks me up after school every evening. Both of my mum and dad have been focusing on the works of his business, making money so that I could afford my tuition fee. School is quite busy, but still, I've been enjoying the all the flashy breaks for me to take a rest from the school works. However, the best part of my life is that I got most of my friends by my side, especially in school. Which has made my 8th grade school life better than other school years I'd been through before.

Today in humanities class, first, we've been sharing some interesting current events(news) in class. Then, we briefly read through the textbook just for reviewing the things that we'd read as a homework assignment. I was a person of high character in this case, because I'd finished my homework assignments before class. We've also had a discussion about the 2 questions from the text book. And as a community contributor, I shared my answers to the class, and by the way, when I was explaining my answers, I was demonstrating the ability of an effective communicator because instead just read the answer that I'd typed down in my google document, I've been answering with 'every-day language', and I think this way, it might be easer for people to understand me. Because as you all know that sometimes, writing and speaking are not quite the same. Which means that sometimes, something that you've typed or written down, could possibly be unable for you to just read them out loud, because people might not be able to understand you if you did. Then, after the discussion, we were working on our bloggers. I was an active leaner because mostly, we were working on our individual blogs, and for me, I looked through all the functions and trying around the them and see what happened. However, I was being quite careful when I was trying on these functions, because I knew if I accidentally deleted something, and never going to undo it, then it wouldn't be something good that has happened.

1. Having a blog allows you to share your experiences with people that you might not even know. However, those people might can give you some comments to comfort you.

2. It's like a place for you to express your feelings by typing them down, roughly, without checking your spellings or grammars. It's fine as long as people know what you are talking about.

3. You may look at other people's post and learn their experiences from it.

4. You might get new friends from the connections of comments from strangers.