Project 366: Dancing for a Guest when there Wasn’t Much other than Lunch Time Shenanigans, a Job Interview, and a Hat.

On Monday, there was dancing. 

Because she lost a bet. So she performed some highland dance for us in Biology class. It was pretty fantastic.

 

On Tuesday, there was a guest. 

His name is Gwynne Dyer. He talked to us about Arab Spring and then extended his talk to non-violent revolutions in general.

 

On Wednesday, there wasn’t much. 

So this is a fun photo of our Biology powerpoint presentation. The caption in the top right hand corner says, “Don’t forget to put a shirt on when cooking (no one cares about your six pack)”.

On Thursday, there was lunch time shenanigans. 

Here is Andrew getting slapped by Lisa. And Cynthia wearing a mustache. Would you believe me if I told you both of these things were for cancer awareness?

 

On Friday, there was a job interview.

Cross my fingers, I think I did well. All I need now is my criminal record check and references. I’m cautiously optimistic.

 

On Saturday, there was a hat. 

A magnificent hat. HOLD YOUR CAULFIELDS, EVERYONE, I’VE FINALLY FOUND IT. It’s the hunting cap that I’ve been hunting since September. The infamous, the symbolic, the red, it’s Holden Caulfield’s hat from Catcher in the Rye.

Some reflection on the week. 

It’s been painful trying to get back into the Project 366. It really isn’t that difficult to take a photo a day and upload it, but in my mind it became this monumental task that was insurmountable. I really had to force myself this week to take a photo a day. I literally put it on my To-Do List every single day so I wouldn’t forget it. I would like to think that this shows some perseverance, but I don’t think I can really say that until I’ve started to do this on the regular again. This is why I’m going to continue the Project into the new year, until I’ve reached the 366 photo mark. I know it’s cheating, but my focus is now on finishing, not on following the rules.

 

Theory of Knowledge: Where is the line between Art and “Profanity”?

With the recent release of the book 50 Shades of Grey and the subsequent books in the series, I have to wonder, does erotica count as art?

I want to argue that any form of self expression is art, but then I have to stop and think. It is art to someone, erotica novels, but just because it may not be “taken seriously” does it make it not art? What about the “good”ness aspect of it? I will tell you that Twilight is a terrible book and the series doesn’t get any better, but my assignment of goodness/badness doesn’t make it a universal consensus. Is Twilight a piece of art? Is any piece of popular fiction art?

I think it’s rather pretentious to dismiss popular forms of work as not being art, however, I will not disagree with you if you said half of the books that are best sellers aren’t great. But then, I’m also judging them without seeing them.

I digressed a little bit.

There was a painting of Stephen Harper naked. Is that art?

Is it the fact that it has a political message making it different from 50 Shades of Grey? I would say that gratuitous sex is not worth publishing, but some people really enjoy reading those. What makes it different from porn videos on the internet? Is it the fact that it has been published and put into print?

Do any of those things deserve censorship then?

I still haven’t wrapped my head around all of those questions to be able to think of an answer.

Theory of Knowledge: Is there an End to Scientific Knowledge?

Erin was in my group for the Natural Sciences presentation, she presented the questions “Is there an end to scientific knowledge?”

I thought the first question was a particularly difficult one to answer simply because we don’t have the ability to predict the future as she mentioned in her presentation. Even if we had come to an end to scientific knowledge, we would not know. Or we may think it’s come to end, but there might still be room for growth. I think what makes it particularly difficult is the creation of new fields that didn’t exist fifty years ago.

It’s also difficult to predict what will result from new technology. For example if a new machine allowed the synthesis of a stronger and more durable metal. Or in the case of evolution because of the nature of changing species, if we’ve ever studied all the animals to ever be studied, just wait a bit for them to evolve.

The other thing she addressed was that there was no real way for scientific knowledge to shrink as every time something is disproven, we are also adding to our knowledge. Or if for example knowledge is lost before it can be publish, it wouldn’t really make our knowledge base shrink, at least perceptively because we don’t actually know that that knowledge was lost.

Theory of Knowledge: If I were rich…

I would eat organic and buy fair trade.

It’s callous and selfish to say that I am going to continue supporting child labour and global warming, but it doesn’t make sense to my economic situation. It’s great if you have the money for you to buy more expensive food. For my family, it doesn’t matter how much we care about the environment or human rights, we’re just not able to spend more money on each item. It might be a couple of cents per item, but it adds up.

That isn’t apathy, we just like having food on our table and clothes on our backs.

My family can afford food and clothes and electricity and electronics. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have struggles. They’re just not as bad as say, in Nigeria, or in Northern India.

It never made sense to me that we have to pay more for companies to put less chemicals into our food.

and I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m a product of the consumer society. I like having my stuff, my gadgets, my cheap clothes and food.

So yes, when the day comes and I’m making my own financial decision and in a comfortable financial situation, I will opt to buy fair trade and local, but until that time, I won’ be feeling that guilty about buying cheap.

Maybe it isn’t ethical, maybe it’s immoral, but it makes economic sense.

 

Theory of Knowledge: Censoring Yourself

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people censor themselves.

What I mean is:

“What the f***?!”

or

“That b***h.”

etc.

Words only hold whatever power you give them.

“Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.” – Albus Dumbledore.

Yes, I just pulled out a Harry Potter quote.

Many swearwords stem from normal words, look at many Quebecois French swearwords, a lot of them are religious. This might have something to do with the stronghold the Catholic church had in Quebec for so long.

What I think is that if you choose to use a swearwords, use it like any other word. If you feel the need to censor yourself when you swear, then don’t even use that word. There are plenty of other words that hold the same meaning without the same “force” assigned to them.

I am writing about this because I read someone’s short story on the internet and in the story she used the word, “b*tch”. It was written exactly like that.

Literature is a form of art. Art is a form of self expression.

When you censor your own work, it feel to me like you are shying away from conveying your thought and opinions because it might offend someone. In my opinion, there’s no point of writing that piece. There’s always going to be someone who hates the work, there’s always going to be someone who is offended. What is the point of trying to please everyone when you can’t?

By censoring a word, it’s implying that something should be hidden about it, that there is some power there.

Also, censoring a word like that doesn’t actually make a difference.

I know exactly what she’s talking about even with that letter taken out.

What was I suppose to thing that * stood for?

“She was a real batch.”

“She was a real betch.”

“She was a real butch.”

Why not just avoid the word altogether.

“She was a real meanie.”

Theory of Knowledge: Scientists and Their Moral Responsibility

I’m currently working on a TOK presentation on Natural Sciences, one of the questions that I will be addressing is, “Are scientists morally responsible for the application of their discoveries?”

The most common example of this issue is the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Should the scientists have known better than to have worked on the creation of this bomb? The short story, “The Weapon” written by Frederic Brown in 1951 addresses this question. It ends with the line, “Only a madman would give a loaded gun to an idiot.”

Is what Brown proposing correct? Should scientist be on a higher ground than people and be the ones to foresee the terrible results of the atomic bomb?

The scientists were not ignorant to the fact that the atomic bomb would be the ultimate weapon, and they did test runs withe atomic bomb. They had every opportunity to “blow the whistle” on this project.

Or are scientist responsible in so far as the atomic bombs working and not for what comes after? It was not a scientist that gave the order to drop the bomb, it was US president Harry Truman who gave that order. It was not a scientist that dropped the bomb, it was a bombardier aboard the Enola Gay who dropped the actual bomb.

In my opinion, I believe that it is the scientist’s moral responsibility if the risk and the outcome is foreseeable. We learned about the Precautionary Principle in relation to climate change earlier this semester: essentially, an action must be shown to be harmless beyond reasonable doubt before the action could be take. It’s of my opinion that scientists should be able to foresee possible outcomes and if they decide to accept the risk of something to go wrong, they should also accept moral responsibility for the outcomes.

Essentially I believe that if a scientist knows the possible applications of their discoveries, such as being use to kill thousands of people, they should be prepared to take responsibility for it. An accident or a miscalculation is different than knowing the possibility of something to go wrong and allowing it happen anyway.

Project 366: Longest week of my life

(I’m going to try a new format of presenting the pictures…)

This last week just seemed to drag on. I’m ready for Spring Break, frankly. This whole week I’ve been just watching the time, waiting for the weekend. Nothing really bad really, it just seemed to drag.

I’m very excited for my Extended Essay however, I’ve chosen my two books and I’ve actually got a very good feeling about them.

(Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012)

I’ve chosen The Little Prince  and The Catcher in the Rye to study for it. The Little Prince is one of my favourite books and I am very passionate about it, so I think it would make for good motivation, seeing as I’m going to be spending the next 9 months of my life with it. Of course, in choosing this I abandoned my original topic of Taiwan’s Economic Miracle – I plan on doing that for my History Internal Assessment next year.

I think I should start utilizing my off block more. So far I’ve only done any work during it if I did not do the History homework, I would scramble to finish it during my free block, but I think I would do well to use it to actually do my work everyday.

Usually, I just sit around and chat with my friends. This is one of them who share the free block with me, Manal.

(Friday, Feb. 24, 2012)

They are making bracelets for a CAS project that they are doing. I really like her smile so I thought it would be a really great photo to have.

Speaking of smiling. Before the Biology test, the teacher told us about a study that tested whether or not a (forced) genuine smile really made you happier. Putting a pencil between your teeth actually pulls your facial muscles back in the same fashion that a genuine smile does, and the study found that doing that really did make you happier. (The point she was trying to make was that your brain can be tricked, so if we tell ourselves that we know all of the information that was on the test, we would do better than if we told ourselves that we would fail. – I know this firsthand because I spent the whole way up to my commentary telling myself that I was going to fail and when it actually came time, I drew a complete blank and I actually did fail.)

Of course, after she told us about this pencil thing, we obviously had to test it (For science!).

(Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2012)

I said earlier that I needed to utilize my time more, so I’ve been spending a lot of time in the library recently. I was planning on going up to SFU library today, but it had been snowing this morning so I didn’t want to take the chance and get trapped up there. I did go to Terry Fox Library yesterday however.

So the highlight of my weekend was smuggling food into the Terry Fox Library – which to be honest didn’t take any effort at all. I just walked in…

(Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012)

I really do waste a lot of time though. During History class when we were suppose to be working on our postcards, we spent the whole time joking around and talking. Then Nick’s hair started to be poked – what popular hair… really…

(Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012)

There was a Canucks game at a really weird time today, it started at noon. So clearly, I needed to have some coffee with me or else I might have slept through it. I put my coffee in my Canucks mug – fitting 🙂

(Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012)

I really need to go to Chapters again, Blood Wedding, which I ordered a while ago, has finally arrived… a week after I went to pick up the other book that I ordered at the same time.

When I went to pick up that book, there was a bunch of notebooks and journals on sale, so I bought one, which I’m writing in regularly now. I also saw this amazing book, which contained the answer to LIFE.

(Monday, Feb. 20, 2012)

Theory of Knowledge: Golden Mean

I didn’t know what it was called but I’ve always striving to live in the middle. In terms of emotions, at least. Although I think at times my attempts at neutrality may appear apathetic. I don’t like the feeling of being so invested in something emotionally that I am not in complete control. I don’t like doing things by accident; I only like to do things purposefully.

I often judge people harshly when they show any sign of being out of control because even when I feel like things are out of control I like to stay calm – this is, of course, the aim, not always the reality. To me, when you’re unhappy with something, you should not start screaming because you appear completely irrational. To me, when you hit, when you break things, you don’t seem passionate, you seem out of control. I feel like many people have not learned to choose their battles, arguing pointless things to death.

Fight for what you believe in; believe in what you fight for. But never in the extremes. It’s takes more control to stay calm and argue a point properly than it takes to give in and start yelling and screaming.

 

Theory of Knowledge: How does the effect of being observed influence “reality television”?

The effect that I can see as a result of having cameras around you so often is that on these shows there are plenty of other people with a limited amount of air time. I believe this will result in people acting “above and beyond” in order to get more screen time and exposure. Also, some people just like the camera. Just like we’re conditioned to smile or make faces when cameras come out, would it not be the same when you are being filmed all the time. Wouldn’t you just feel naturally like you need to act more flamboyant and different than you normally would?

But most of these reality TV shows cast big personalities on purpose. It’s good for ratings if they are clashing. Being forced to be around people that you don’t necessarily like and can’t get away from while being watch all the time all seem like contributing factors to people snapping. Editing is also a big part of these shows though, it might not have been as bad as the editing made it seem.

Theory of Knowledge: Existence Precedes the Essence

“One is not born a woman: one becomes one.” – Existential writer, Simone de Beauvoir

This quote is basically saying that groups of people are conditioned by stereotypes and the more dominant group defining them until they actually “fit” into that definition by others. I heard about a study actually where they got a group of African-Americans from an Ivy League university and did a test of intelligence. In one group, they were told that it was a test of intelligence, the other was told nothing at all. The group not told anything performed better than the group that were told it was an intelligence test. Perhaps in this case, they had been conditioned by the society to think that they were not intelligent and thus were affected when they knew the test was of their intelligence, even though these were Ivy League students.

I think personally I had tried to fit into stereotypes in the past, and I found that it was… just a dumb thing to do. I did not like the kind of arrogance that came with the stereotypes of “Asians are smart”. I wanted to be smart, but not smart because I’m Asian. I’ve never fit in to any group any ways. I’m annoyed at people who separate the “regulars” and the “IB’s”. You were not born into these groups, why do you become them?