Dead Week/Finals

My old school had a dead week before finals, so I am somewhat familiar with the concept and the hectic studying that goes on during it. However, I feel that dead week here at Purdue is going to be a lot more challenging. This is probably because in high school most of my classes were fairly easy, whereas the classes in college are somewhat tougher, especially math. Math is absolutely murdering me right now, and I have no idea how I am going to pass the final. I suppose I will have to put in over 5 hours of studying every day! It's no surprise to me that dead week is going to be rough. In my freshman year of high school, I made the mistake of not doing any review before dead week, so I was in a mad rush to study everything before finals week. Four years on, I am in the same boat in my freshman year of college. The only difference is that I knew I should have studied before dead week, but with all the homework and projects in all my classes (especially ENGR131) I have had no time to study anything but what is taught in class on the day.

However, I am not totally unprepared for the madness of dead week. I have several strategies to maximize my efficiency and ensure that I am well-prepared for finals. First of all, I temporarily deleted all the games from my laptop and deactivated my Facebook account. Games and Facebook are my biggest two distractions from studying and sometimes hinder my productivity. Second, I have drawn up a timetable for all my studying. This way, I have spread out my studying over the entire week, organized every day into studying and non-studying blocks, accounted for homework that I still have to do, and focused on topics that I know I have trouble with. In my experience, this is probably the best way to go about studying during dead week, because otherwise you will feel overwhelmed by all the chapters you have to study.

Despite all the madness of dead week, there are two good things about it for me. One is that I only have to study for two finals - math and chemistry. The second is that, two days after dead week, I will be flying back home to New Jersey to enjoy a long Christmas break completely devoid of studying.

ENGRO103 Final Thoughts

My semester in ENGR103 has been a great experience. I have learned many things about cultures that I didn't know, such as the fact that engineers in different countries have different philosophies, strategies and mindsets. For example, when we learned about the Chunnel project, I was intrigued by the conflict in engineering styles between the French, who were more theoretical and liked to plan ahead, and the British, who improvised more and solved each problem as it came to them. I also learned about the many opportunities for study abroad that Purdue offers, and how they could be beneficial to my career as an engineer. Taking this class has made me want to pursue things in my career that I had not thought about before. In high school, I did not think much about studying abroad. I knew a transfer student from England who went to my school, and judging from how he felt I came to the conclusion that, while studying abroad would be a nice thing to experience once in my life, I would probably feel too out of place in a new country. However, since taking ENGR103, I have changed my mind and decided that I want to study abroad at least once in my college career, preferably in a country where the predominant language is not English. Overall, ENGR103 has been a great eye-opening experience for me in terms of both my engineering career and my personal thoughts and interests.

final week

This month is the end of the semester and the end of a year. I always surprised how fast the time passes. Next week is dead week, but it likes the beginning of the semester. I still remember what happened on the first classes. In the first ENGR team meeting, we said we don't like this class and hope we can survive from it. Now we finished our project and we did good job in the final presentation and team exam. Next week is time to say goodbye, since there will be many people who are in my classes right now that I won't see once the semester ends. At the same time, I must work hard in the last week to do the review because I almost forget what I learnt in the first lecture. It's too bad. I have three final exams, but I just begin to review chemistry. It's a long way to go. I hope I can good grades in the final so that I can get A.

Most people will go home and spend the break with families. Unfortunately, I have to stay in the dorm during the winter break. It's a good news for me that Purdue Village won't closed during the winter break. This is the first time I can't stay with my family when the New Year is coming. I'm sure I will miss them. There are some friends won't go home too. We can hold a party to celebrate the New Year. I hope we can have a wonderful party. We (me and my friends) plan to visit Chicago and New York. We can stay with other friends in New York and they can be our tourist guides. The trip makes the boring winter break seemed better. I can't wait for it!

This Weekend

Today I went to Scotty’s Brewhouse. This is a very big deal because it had been so long since I had a real burger. My roommate’s mom was in town and thought it would be good idea if we had dinner somewhere off campus and I could not have agreed more. The “back-yard bar-bq” burger was one of the most delicious burgers I have ever had. But that was just one highlight of the weekend. This past week, I started my weekend on Thursday. After having a chemistry and math exam, an early weekend was called for. Thursday I had a sleepover with some friends which probably was not one my best ideas because there was the 131 practical the next morning. But anyways, the rest of the weekend was super interesting. I’m just going to jump straight to the highlights…

Highlights From the Weekend: In Order
-made a new friend who has been to Tanzania!
-witnessed an arrest!
-last home game (probably one of the sloppiest games ever)
-saw “Breaking Dawn,” the new “Twilight” movie
-watched “Harry Potter 7: Part 2”
-went to the Silver Dipper, way too many ice cream flavors to choose from
-the cashier told us his friend got arrested the other day…SAME girl my friends and I saw! #SmallWorld
-got to drive! I have not driven a car since September and I was a little scared especially since it was not my car

To make it better, I woke up slow this morning. As in, no alarm, no noises in the hall to wake me; just chill waking up. It was very Jack Johnson. Overall, it’s been a good weekend. I have been trying to finish all homework early because as soon as I get home, I will most likely not be opening Connect, Webassign and Blackboard. Just two more days until home!

The weather here

Before I came to West Lafayette, friends told me the weather here is like that of Beijing, but the winter is much colder. My friends said their schools in Atlanta and New York always suspend classes due to the snow. The temperature here is not as low as I thought, but it always keeps changing. Every time when I go back to the dorm to add clothes, it becomes warm and stops raining. There are also a lot of rainy days. To be more exactly, it always drizzles. I am not used to walk in the rain although my roommate thinks that is pretty cool! I’m shocked when I saw many people still wear short-sleeved T-shirts and slippers when the temperature was close to zero. I think this is because of the popularity of gyms. Sometimes I leave the gym at 12:00am and many students are still there. I also see people running every day. It’s time for me to do more sports.

There was a Tornado warning this Tuesday. In fact, I’m curious about the Tornado. I think many people have the same feeling. I only heard about the enormous destructive of tornado from newspaper. Due to the special geographical, there are around 1000 times tornados in U.S every year. I remembered the alarm rang at 3:05p.m. But I just thought it was the fire alarm and I left the dorm and went to the class. After the chemistry exam, my friend told me the tornado alarm was ringing and RA told them to stay in the basement for 40 minutes. I was shocked. Fortunately, the tornado didn’t pass Purdue. I don’t want to image what would happen if the tornado passes Purdue when I leave the dorm. Maybe it can send me back to home and I don’t need to buy the airline ticket.

Africa

Africa has abundant natural resources. The gold and diamond reserves in Southern Africa are the highest in the world and the oil output takes about 12% of the world. Although Africa has so much wealth, such as mineral ores, petroleum, arable land, the governments didn’t utilize those resources. I think the harsh geographical environment increases the difficulties of exploration. Another reason should be the lack of technology and the shortage of the government’s finance. Due to the historical reason and geographical environment, many places in Africa have many problems including poverty, starvation, and lack of water. African countries rely on the help of other countries to solve those problems. The exploration need large amount of expenditure. I think it’s hard for the government to deal with all those problems together and spend lots of money on improving technology and investing the exploration. In order to explore the resources, they need to cooperate with other countries or get support from other countries.

Anticipation...

So every now and then, it hits me that I’m in college. Just earlier this year, we were all still in high school and college seemed so far away. Now it’s Week 13 and we are almost done with our first semester as college kids! By now, we most likely don’t a map to figure out where classes are, have planned out the perfect weekly meal plan and know when to do laundry. Going home for Thanksgiving will to be so exciting. I have not been back since September and I’m very much looking forward to it. Showers without flip flops, controlling the remote, FREE washer and dryers, home cooked meals and being able to drive anywhere! Oh yes, I am very eager. Also seeing my family and friends is going fun. Growing up, I always said how I was not going to miss my brothers very much when I left for college. But I find myself texting them every day. Somehow my being gone has brought my siblings and closer together. What I’m not looking forward to is the storm of questions. Sure I don’t mind answering questions about college and sharing stories of all my Purdue adventures, but I can only do it for so long. I can already see all the relatives shooting questions by the dozens. I just have to remember that they all mean well and are just excited for me. Seeing my high school friends is going to nuts! My group of six close friends went to five different colleges so story-telling time is going to chaotic. I have not seen half of them since August and the others I haven’t seen since September. My time back home will be divided between my friends and family at home.

Highlights From this Weekend:

-11:11 on 11/11/11…Epic wish!
-Purdue/OSU football game…rushing the field? No big deal
-Sunday Brunch…probably my favorite meal all week

GELC and I

Before I arrived at Purdue, I was apprehensive about being in this Global Engineering Learning Community. I didn't know exactly what to expect, mostly because no one could tell me what I might experience. Over the last 12 weeks however, I have grown to enjoy my time in the classroom and out of it with GELC. 

The community has provided me the opportunity to be informed about the engineering cultures and practices of many regions of the world and has shown me that I don't know nearly enough about any one of them. i enjoyed the presentations on the European and Middle Eastern regions the most. European because I aspire to visit Germany and Italy some day to study, or for a project or just for tourism and it gave me an idea of what I might expect. Middle Eastern because although that's not where I'm from, it is a region where I have lived for most of my life and it was interesting to see what other people had to say about the region.

Over the course of this semester I'm sure I have retained countless other lessons from GELC that will help me in a major way with the rest of my engineering education.

Going Abroad

Throughout the course, the message that has been re-iterated the most is the concept of being a global engineer. Since the world is becoming more and more connected, it is important to understand cultures and how other people think. I would love to have the opportunity to travel and study abroad. I have a list of places I want to visit that I would not know how to decide! When I do travel, I want to go to an area different from my African and American cultures. Tokyo, Malaysia and Italy are at the top of my list. I would spend at least a year in all of these places. I would study Tokyo’s technology, Malaysia’s blend of cultures and Italy’s history. From what I have seen, engineering in Tokyo and Malaysia is modern and futuristic. Tokyo is fashion forward and it is one of the three “command centers” of the world; meaning it can be compared to New York City, a city I enjoy visiting. Malaysia includes many beaches and hosts the Petronas Towers, architecture I want to see up close. Italy is full of so much history and it is neat to see how the 21^st century is combined with older buildings. Also visiting the museums, historical sites and shopping districts will be both interesting and fun. Getting to these places is hard to imagine but with study abroad opportunities, it won’t be too difficult.

International opportunity

f I have the chance to study abroad or do the internship, I’d like to go to Spain, Germany, and Britain. The first reason is European countries attract me since I was a kid. Since the Industrial Revolution, many historical events took place here and the culture influenced the modern society. I think the culture of Europe is completely different with Chinese culture. I’m curious about the castles, chivalry, and legends about vampires. Different with the history which I am familiar with, European history is kind of complicated. I’d like to spend months to visit the museums, galleries and old cities in Europe. Another reason is the engineering in Europe is in the leading position. Maybe it is not as creative as the American engineering, but we can learn something from the tradition. It’s good to explore the original modern engineering. I want to stay there for three months doing my summer internship or exchange study. It will be awesome if I can go there in 2012 because of the London Olympic Games.

College life

I read many people’s articles about the Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break. It seems that many of them will go back to home and have a great time with their family. I can’t wait for the break too, but the reason is I will go to Chicago and spend several days there to visit the museums and shopping. Chicago is not far from Purdue. It’s weird I didn’t go to Chicago in the past three months. Before I came to U.S, I searched lots of information about Chicago and I believed Chicago is a wonderful place for traveling. It’s good to have some friends can go with me and I hope we can have a great Thanksgiving break. Some of my friends will go home during the winter break. They can’t wait for the final exams because after the exams they can go back home and spend three weeks with their families. I think this is the first time of most of us that live far from the home alone for three months. But I must say, that the college helps us transition to life on our own. Without parents around me, I must learn to take care of myself. I need to cook by myself and clean the apartment. Also, I need to deal with study problems and learn to deal with the problems between friends. Most of the time, my parents can't understand what is happening around me. I must be independence. Before I came here, I knew almost nothing about cooking. My mum always worried about me. Now, I can cook and friends around me told me I am good at cooking now. Many friends have the same experience. Although sometimes I hope my parents can be around me, the college life does teach me a lot of things except studying.

New Technology in Rural Areas

In the present time many people believe that the introduction of new technology is a regular occurance and shouldn't be much of a challenge. But the fact remains that in rural areas it is an exponentially more difficult task and takes longer because of the variety of factors that need to be taken into account.

The first and most important is the mindset of the people in the target area, their financial status and their cultural  habits. In technologically backward area the primary roadblock for new technology is old tradition. Also, people in these rural areas tend to be very distant from the rest of the world and they are in some sense not even directly under the control of the government and therefore may have a different, even contradictory set of goals for the development of their community.

Another is that the technology that gets delivered to these areas is generally on one of the two extremes: experimental or outdated. The may be beneficial, but often end up being harmful to the community.

These are a small portion of the challenges that introduction of new technology in backward areas.

Nanotechnology in Latin America

Today in class a lot of challenges were discussed about bringing technology in rural areas of Latin America, specifically areas in Columbia. An important piece to keep in mind about introducing new ideas into rural areas is the people. Questions to consider include; do they want this new technology introduced? If not, how come? If so, what do they need? With this, one has to know the people. This can come from living in the area, learning the language or even having a translator to communicate. Another thing to consider about the people is their culture. Referring to the article from last week, the indigenous people Australia lost a part of their society because of the introduction of the axe. Although, the people had already had the axe, having it by large numbers changed its value. This is almost like a foreshadow of what would happen if a whole new invention was brought into an area. Besides people of an region, it is also key to examine the area’s needs and how the engineers native to the place think.

I Miss the 90s

You know the weird moment when you have to think about what year it is? That happened the other day. After remembering it was 2011 and not 2010 I laughed at myself. It’s November and I had to think about the year! It’s only been 2011 for over ten months now; you’d think I would not have to think about it. After, I realized that a decade ago, wasn’t the 90s! This realization brought made me feel old… My last year of being a teenager is about to be half way done! My youngest brother can soon say he has a sister who’s 20 years old. Back in the day, anyone with a sibling who was over 15 years old was looked at in awe. Mindboggling.

I then started thinking about the 90s and early 2000s; especially the TV shows and music. My younger cousins have never heard of Doug Funny or Helga’s love for Arnold or how Lizzie McGuire has a cartoon conscious. The 90s was a great time to be a kid. Saturday morning cartoons were still awesome; roller blading was the “thing” to do; and the Backstreet Boys, N’SYNC, Smash Mouth and other boy bands were on top of their game.

Also, was the food a little bit stranger back in the day? Remember colored ketchups? I think Heinz came up with the idea to make purple and green ketchup. I never gave these ketchups a chance; the idea of eating green goo just didn’t attract me. Or when Skippy Peanut Butter made peanut butter in go-gurt form…too much peanut butter.

Highlights From the Past 48 Hours:
-I had a dream I hung out with LMFAO (I’m thinking I have an obsession)
-My roommate and I did laundry from 2-4 in the morning; Prime Time!
-I had strawberry popsicle #iMissSummer

*Now Playing: “Every Morning” by Sugar Ray

Native American Heritage Month

Last Tuesday, we (me and my partner) participated in the Native American Heritage Month Opening Celebration which was hold by NAECC as the beginning of Native American Heritage Month. This event was celebrated with a Native American community drum circle.

At first, I thought this event wastes me time and I must take part in it because of the ENGR 131 class. But with the development, I found the activity was interesting and gave me useful information about the native America Culture. At the beginning of the celebration, the speaker showed his drum to us and introduced native America culture around the drum. The basic rhythm is the heart beat. The lecturer told us this is the first sound we heard, the heart beat of our mothers. Their drums have different sizes and convey different massages by different rhythm. Tony, the speaker, said he used the drum to pray. He prays for the deity in native America culture and prays for animals and his families. One of his statements is expressive. He believes that people can communicate with animals and plants. I found this statement is similar with the fairies in China. In Chinese culture, many animals and plants can live thousands of years and they absorb the essence of the nature. After thousands of years, those animals and plants become Jing, a kind of evil spirit. They can change their bodies and become human. Those animals and plants have emotion. Many ancient novels image the love stories between human being and Jing. But there are many differences between native America culture and Chinese culture. Native Americans pray for the nature. They hope the animals and plants can live well. In china, people don’t pray for Jing. Most of the time, people believe that human can’t have contact with Jing, because they think Jing are kind of devil. I think that the Native American's view of the world is very interesting. They are very in touch with it and it plays a big role in their lives and their religion.

Week 12 Rural Latin America

I think the economic inequalities between urban and rural area are existing in most countries. “Rural regions also display less access to public services, such as lack of clean water, sanitation, health services, education, and particularly electricity supply.” All of those highlight the gravity of the rural poverty problem. If the government wants to improve the technology of rural region, the government has to ready to the substantial upfront costs and long-term financial investments. The government’s financial income must support the huge cost without influence the development of other parts of the country. In addition, rural areas in Latin America are also hard to exploit, such as the rainforest and peatlands. The harsh natural environment blocks the implementing of technology. Another problem is the population, more and more young people were attracted by the modern cities and left the rural regions. Most of the time, young people lead the innovation of technology. Without the huge demand of technology, the government needs to pay more effort on the implementing technology.

Understanding Cultures

The most important of factors when working with or among people with backgrounds different from one's own is the necessity of an open mind. It is vital that the person be permanently ready to learn and respect new insights into a people's or person's cultural rules, traditions, behaviors and beliefs. These things should not be learned through force but through desire. Additionally, one should be ready to act upon these insights. Whether that is by wishing locals during one of their festivals or participating in the festivities.

Along with understanding the social side of things, to work competently one must also acknowledge the different engineering ideas and be able to analyze them with respect to the various cultural factors and form links between the two. This may very well affect the ease with which a person is able to work in a culturally different environment with confidence.

My guitar (because I couldn't think of anything else)

Alright since I don't really care for Halloween and can't think of anything else to write about, I decided to write a review of my electric guitar. There's a lot of technical information in here that no one will really care about, I'm just writing because I can't think of anything else.

My guitar is an ESP LTD MH-401 QM. It has a "superstrat" style archtop mahogany body with a red quilted-maple top finish. The neck is a maple neck with a set-through neck joint, 24 XJ frets, a rosewood fingerboard and a thin u-neck contour. The bridge is a Floyd Rose Special, which is a licensed version of the original Floyd Rose bridge made by Schaller. Tuners are made by Grover. The hardware is black nickel, with a master volume knob, master tone knob, and a 3 way pickup selector. The pickups themselves are active EMGs, with an EMG81 in the bridge and an EMG85 in the neck.

What I really like about this guitar is the playability. I shopped around for a long time for a guitar and was not really comfortable with many of the guitars I had played, until I laid my hands on the MH401. It is an absolute pleasure to play this guitar. The U neck contour fits my hand perfectly, and the fretboard feels like butter under my hand. The weight is balanced perfectly, so it is very comfortable both standing up and sitting down. The archtop also somehow contours to my hand perfectly, adding an extra level of comfort. However, the set-thru neck joint is what really sets it apart from other guitars in its price range. Normally with a bolt on neck the neck joint gets in the way when soloing on the higher frets, but with the set-thru joint the neck is essentially one with the body, and the joint fits the curvature of your hand perfectly.

I'm also a fan of the aesthetics of this guitar. The red quilted maple finish is absolutely stunning - it looks like the bottom of a lake, and at certain angles it almost seem to shimmer. I have gotten compliments on the finish of this guitar at almost every show I have played.

The one thing that I don't like about my guitar is the Floyd Rose bridge. It makes changing the strings a lot more complicated and time consuming, and doesn't let me change tunings without doing a lot of setup. I like to change tunings a lot, and right now getting a Floyd Rose doesn't really seem like a very wise decision. I am also not a very big fan of the EMG pickups, even though I used to like

Overall, I am very happy with my guitar, it was well worth the money I paid for it.

Encountering Other Cultures

The three cases from Development Anthropology looks at examples of global competence, how another region makes decisions and discusses how technology connects different cultures. Global competence is important especially in today’s society. Projects are now done by people from diverse backgrounds and being able to understand others cultures is key. The first case illustrates this. One doesn’t have to automatically know a country’s language, but rather be able to know distinguish characteristics before arriving. Knowing that in Arabic, Tunisia is both the same word for the country and the city of Tunis would have been helpful for the travelers. Learning about how other cultures base their decisions on is essential for engineers because it shows what that culture values. With this, we can see why engineers in other parts tackle a problem. Lastly, as technology continues to grow, the world becomes smaller. Technology is making the sharing of ideas easier and is connecting cultures in a behind the scenes way.

The steel axe

The document we read showed us how seemingly small, insignificant object, rituals or discrepancies in a culture can actually play a big role in said culture, and can be crucial aspects for newcomers to know. For example, in the case of the Yir Yoront, an Aboriginal group residing on the west coast of Australia, the introduction of a single technology, the steel axe, completely disrupted their entire social fabric, structure, and hierarchy. The stone axe, which was the axe the Yir Yoront used before the steel axe, was a symbol of power, responsibility, and manlihood. Axes were crucial in the trading links with other societies; axes had myths and stories attributed to them. Their entire society was built around the stone axe. However, when foreign missionaries introduced the steel axe, all of it came undone. Since steel axes came from missionaries, the Aborigines formed closer, unorthodox relationships with the "white man" that did not sit well with their traditional trade relationships. Steel axes were also easily available to both men and women, and thus stone axes began to lose their value as a symbol of manlihood. Steel axes had no myths or legends attributed to them, and thus the axe began to lose its value as a cultural symbol. The result of this was a complete crumbling of the Yir Yoront's social system. The missionaries' purpose with bringing the steel axe was not to cause harm to the Yir Yoront, but to help them, to give them better tools to help better achieve goals they had set for the Yir Yoront. However, they had no idea that replacing the stone axe would have such a devastating effect.

Looking at this from a modern day perspective, given the increasing globalization of the planet it seems unlikely that the introduction of a single object could bring down an entire culture. However, as global engineers, we still need to be aware of such cultural objects when working with different cultures.

Halloweekend

This week was another stressful week at Purdue. Exams and projects and meetings and thinking ahead and sometimes I just need more hours in a day! But on the brightside, Halloweekend is finally here!! Thursday night, I went to Theta Chi’s Haunt the Acres and it was actually scary. My friends and I did not think it would be scary. Why? Because it was just in a house; how freaky can they make it, right? WRONG! It was modeled after an asylum and the boys of Theta Chi and girls of Delta Zeta outdid themselves. People were jumping out of nowhere, masked men were following you, someone with a chainsaw made an appearance and there was even a girl pretending to be the girl from “The Exorcism of Emily Rose!” Add fog machines, creepy background music and flashing lights and my friends and I were doing our best to get through the house as fast as possible!

But anyways…

I have decided Saturday mid-mornings will now be productive. Usually I reserve all school related work for Sundays but I’m turning over a new leaf. So this morning after slowly waking up (Friday night was a late night), I walked over to Subway for breakfast with some friends and watched the football game. At first, I was torn. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to root for my state or my school. Every time Michigan scored I sang the fight song but every time Purdue had a nice play, I did the whole “Boiler Up fist pump” motion. But, towards the end of the game, I just gave up and watched the game. Now I get to do homework and look forward to Halloween parties and costumes. Yay Halloweekend!

Highlights From the Past 48 Hours:

-witnessed a hawk attack a squirrel not even 7 feet from me

-rode the Nightrider Friday night after a costume party (the scene looked like something from an LMFAO/Katy Perry/ Ke$ha/Lady Gaga music video

-got a package from home

Halloween

Halloween is coming on this weekend and I am looking forward to it. I saw many posters about the parties on Friday and the activities seem awesome. In my mind, Halloween likes a pumpkin party. I saw many scenes in the movies and animations. There are some famous tradition, such as Trick-or-Treating, jack-o’-lanterns and costume parties. I don’t the origins of Halloween and those traditions, but this holiday seems great! Wal-Mart began to sell the pumpkins few weeks ago and I saw many students buy it. I hope I could see some of the jack-o’-lanterns around my dorm on the weekend. To be honest, I think the “face” on pumpkin is weird. It looks like a ghost is laughing to you. The pumpkin becomes stranger when the night comes. There are candles in the pumpkins and the orange lights make the faces seem stranger. I can image what will happen if I encounter a people with jack-o’-lantern in the night. I must scream and that guy might be scared by the scream. I made a jack-o’-lantern with my friends last weekend. We tried our best to make the face looked funny. It’s not as easy as we thought before. One of us cut his finger, but the pumpkins are pretty.

Another thing attracts me is the costume parties. When I watched the Gossip Girl, I thought the parties are crazy and amazing. We didn’t have any costume party, and it seems strange if someone walking on the street wears strange clothes. The situation is completely different here. I saw many interesting clothes on the street. I remembered a guy wearing the dress of lady dancer and his female partner wearing the clothes of superman. The Halloween costume parties impressed me because many people choose to dress up as witches and ghosts. I guess the party is awesome. I’m looking forward to the Halloween night!

Week 11 holism

The article talks about the holism and there are three mini-cases about different cultures and the connection. I agreed with the statement that “technology in any society is intimately connected at many points with other cultural subsystems” and the connections are always there even in a different societies. As I learnt on the history class, the development of technology leads the changing of the social structure. And change in other field, such as social status, economy and lifestyle, will be followed. The situation is the same in the world. I think it is a good idea to use holism. Although the cultures are diverse, people can find the connections between them. Another thing is before people try to study a particular factor of a culture, they need to know more about other background. Otherwise, the study will be extremely difficult. Like people read a novel written by a foreign author. Although readers can understand the words, sometimes they can’t understand the meaning of the story because of lacking the knowledge of culture background.

Identity

The two chapters from Intercultural Competence brought a flashback of my psychology and sociology classes in high school; two of my favorite classes. The area I find most interesting was under the topic of Identity Inclusivity where it discusses in-groups and out-groups. It looks at how people have the tendency to automatically categorize themselves and others as "us" and "them." Dividing others into groups is the early stage of forming stereotypes; assumptions about the individuals within the groups are made. With this, the question of identity starts. Identity is such a vague subject to talk about that it has many branches. I believe the best way to describe identity is by using the terms multicultural identity and hybrid identity. Multicultural identity refers to a person’s mindset of not committing or being committed a single culture. Hybrid identity is when a person’s identity is a combination of past and current cultures experienced. To me, identity is a person’s personality. Identity encompasses a person’s beliefs, experiences and sometimes genetics. No two people can have the same personality so no two people can have the same identity.

exams month

Many friends around me talk about the coming exam weeks and every time they talk about the exams with me I will tell them that I’m preparing for my exam month. I have one exam every week since last Monday and the exams won’t stop until the week before Thanksgiving. The worst thing is I need to do the review every weekend! I prefer to have all the exams in the same week so that I could have more free time to do my own things. But now my friends have exams on different days with me. We have few time to spend together even during the week. Another homework bothers me is the project of ENGR 131. It takes lots of time and my team always spends 2 to 3 hours on it. As the professor saying, I hope I can get lots of experience when I finish it.

One of the exciting things this week is the project in English class. We are working on the community project in English class this week. This assignment is attractive. I never thought one day I need to create a video and design a website on English class. This is the first time I tried Movie Maker. It’s much easier than I thought. I saw some of my friends making videos before and those videos were always used on the graduate party. I couldn’t remember how many times I cried because of those videos. When I collected the pictures used for the videos, these pictures remained me of the days the classmates stayed together. Each picture has a story. Most of the photos were taken during the travels and parties. The oldest one was taken almost 8 years ago. Compared with the latest photo, everyone changed a lot. The hairstyles at that time were funny. I can’t stop laughing. Thanks to this assignment, I have a great chance to recollect the memories.

Stereotype

I found that the statement about stereotypes is interesting. I agree with the argument that “Each of us is exposed to stereotypes starting at an early age.” and “stereotypical thinking tends to be very rigid and difficult to change.” I have realized how rigid the stereotypes are by my own experience. There are some Chinese characters that I can’t write them correctly even if I tried hard to remember. One of these characters is “嫩” which has a “攵” on its right side. I once wrote “负” instead of “攵” when I was only around 6 years old and without any reason after that time I always write this character wrongly. Even now I need to think carefully before I write this character and most of the time I make the same mistake although I know the character I wrote seems strange.

Community Multimedia Project - NOBE

A community is essentially a group of people acknowledging a certain commonality between them. Additionally, the members of a community tend to communicate with each other and occasionally meet each other for official or social events. One of the key factors that makes a community is a central leadership which is responsible for managing the functionality of the group.

The community I chose to address for the purpose of this project is an on-campus organization at Purdue that I am deeply involved with: The National Organization for Business and Engineering. It is an organization devoted to giving engineering students a background in and an idea of management and entrepreneurship. It also works to give students in the Krannert School of Business at Purdue an idea of the engineer’s mindset and thought process. It does this by helping members communicate with one another through various community-organized events. On a more professional level the society organizes talks, infosessions, seminars and case-studies for members with various large organizations including DOW Chemicals, General Electric and Arcelor-Mittal. At the same time we have social get-togethers with other like-minded organizations on campus.

Over the course of this project I intend to use the brochure and public service announcement to divulge this information as efficiently as possible to current and perspective members of the Purdue chapter of NOBE. Along with expanding membership on a local level we are also trying hard to increase the ‘national’ aspect of this community by getting more schools to join the initiative by either converting existing local organizations in their institutions or by encouraging them to create new student-run organizations of this form. I hope to also include that information in the PSA I create.

Being an engineering student coming from a family with a strong business and commerce background, I find it in my nature to see business and engineering as one. And as an active executive board member of this community I also feel that it is my responsibility to spread the message that this organization is attempting to propagate.

An Update on my Community Multimedia Project essay

The community I chose for my project is my floor's flag football team. So far, the first part of the project (the essay) is coming along nicely. For brainstorming, I did what I was most comfortable with and just wrote down everything I could think of about my community, and went back and noted down/highlighted the things that I thought would be useful for my essay. I noticed that one of the problems of my community was that there is no easy way for the whole team to communicate with each other - we mostly use sheets of paper taped on the wall next to our RA's room, as well as a whiteboard. I felt that a website would be very useful as a solution to this problem, and I plan to use the website I will make for this project as the actual website for my flag football team to communicate more easily. I also noticed another problem with the community, which is that after the regular season is over, we might not get to play again together next year. So far my challenge has been choosing between the two problems I have noticed, and I will look to address this challenge in my draft.

Medieval Siege Engines

The article talks mainly about medieval siege engines and the advancements in siege engine technology. The discussion of siege engines focuses mainly on the advantages of the counterpoise engine, which uses gravity and a counterweight to launch projectiles, and how its structure is superior to the more ancient torsion siege engine. For example, a counterweight engine has a smooth projectile arm action, which is a lot more effective and less damaging to the engine than the jerky, inconsistent action of the torsion engine. The article also briefly discusses how the improvements in siege engines spurred improvements in the strength and durability of castles and castle structures. This is one of the reasons medieval age castles still stand today - because they were built to withstand projectiles launched at high speed by the most advanced siege engines of the time.

community

I think community is a great of people stay together because of something in common. There are many different targets of community, such as learning, gaming, basketball team and so on. Now, the community online is very popular. I can get information from those communities and chat with people. The community I like most is QQ group. This is a function of QQ. The QQ users can create several group. The founder takes charge of inviting friends into the group and he/she has the right to force the members to leave the group if they don't obey the rules of the group. There will be two or three administrators in a group and they have the same response as the founder. When people want to enter this group, they need to send a requisition to the founder or the administrators and they will decide whether to invite them into the group or not. The group is like a chatting room. Members chat with each other . They can share resources by uploading and everyone in the team can download the resources. There is a common blog for the group. Everyone can use it to write something. In addition, there is a common album, members can post pictures or videos. Most time, the blogs and pictures are about group activities. On the upper right corner of the dialog, there is a small frame used for posting the schedule of activities or some information. Group members can see this frame immediately when they get online.

I am used to create a QQ group when I am in a new community. No matter it is in real world or online. It can help me to keep contact with those people and it's convenient for us to chat with each other and share experiences.

Week 9 Great structure in the Middle East

 In my mind, the most famous ancient structures in the Middle East are the Pyramids in Egypt. The first thought of the pyramid is old and mysterious. The pyramids are on the west bank of Nile because Egyptians believes the West is to enter another world. Their graves are precisely the junction of two worlds. Built 4,000 years ago, the three great pyramids, in the Egyptian desert remain the greatest buildings ever constructed. The pyramids were built under the orders of the Egyptian leaders. The Egyptians started constructing them after 2700B.C. and were built as tombs for the pharaohs. The most well known and the largest pyramids of Egypt is at Giza which is said to be the largest ever built. It is hard to believe ancient builders can build these massive structures without modern machines. I think this why we can identify the pyramids as an early monument of human greatness.

How Weapons Have Affected Structures

The pages from "Five Machines that Changed the World" discussed trebuchets. A trebuchet is a siege engine that was used as a weapon. With it, heavy objects could hit structures from thrown at far ranges. As time went on, weapons became more and more powerful. Because of this, buildings began being made sturdier. This building practice has thrived in the culture, making buildings in the Middle East some of the structured in the world. Engineers in the area have learned how to build structures that are strong and can withstand almost anything. Also, natural disasters of the Syria and surrounding areas have had a role in infrastructure. Dust storms, sandstorms and soil erosion have forced civil engineers to analyze the ground work of buildings with extra care. Thinking of ancient structures such as the Great Wall, the Pyramids of Egypt and the ruins in South America, we see how remarkable the early engineers were.

Week 7: Asia

My impression on Asians is a people focused on structure. From what I have read and experienced, Asians value family and put them on a high pillar. To me, this must be because of their belief of how all relationships are interconnected and a person’s first relationship is family. With these relationships come responsibility; giving me the impression that Asians are very accountable. I think Asians believe Americans to be a self-centered culture. The United States has an image for “make it or break it” place. Some cultures believe that Americans have it easy and not too many people work hard. As for engineering, Asia is a developing quickly, bringing in new ideas. The idea of feng shui makes me think of it as an early form engineering. The article written by Richard E. Nisbett, states that a feng shui master “takes account of a seemingly limitless number of factors such as altitude, prevailing wind, orientation toward the compass, proximity to various bodies of water, and gives advice on where to locate the structure.” Engineers today look at structures surrounding areas before building, being modern day feng shui artists.

Game week

Last week, I spent the whole weekend on downloading the game The Legend of Sword and Fairy and learning how to operate it. As a beginner, I know nothing about role playing game. Before I started, I was thinking that how could a game adapted to series.

The Legend of Sword and Fairy is based on the martial arts story. As a theme, martial arts and Kung Fu are very popular in China. There are tons of novels, movies, series, paintings and songs about martial arts every year and some of those are popular in the world. Because of the popularity of martial arts, most Chinese teenagers have dreams about Kung Fu. This game satisfies the players' imagination of martial arts world and connects closely with real life, because players can collect antique and open stores in the game. Compared with the previous, the new version is more realistic. The views in the game were created by traditional Chinese watercolor painting making the visual effects much closer to the imagination of fairyland.

The background of the story is in a fictional world where normal people still live in the normal way but there are monsters and human with magic power. The main characters in the game are this kind of people. They got their power by several methods. Players need to improve their abilities and learn new skills by fighting and exploring. The fictional world can expand itself through the progression of discovery. There are hundreds of mazes. Every time the players pass a maze, this one becomes a part of the world. The most special part of this game is players can choose the ending, such as a happy ending or a tragedy.

Although I just on the third step of the game, I found many useful strategies in fighting and cooperate. Every time I was noticed that the character upgraded, the sense of achievement is strong. It's not good to spend too much time on game, but it will be great to try some simple games.

Week 7

The cultures in Asia are diverse. Some of the cultures have lasted for thousands of years, such as the cultures of India and China. I have stayed in U.S for a month and I found that many people are very interested in the cultures of Asia. Many friends asked me about the chinese characters and buildings. My roommate said chinese characters look like painting and she can't understand why sometimes I can write chinese in vertical line instead of the normal form. To me, I think Asia is a land full of mystery. On the other hand, Asia is not as developed as Europe and America in technology field, although many Asia countries develop very fast in recent years. Because most Asian countries are still developing countries, engineers have both high social status and political status in many Asian countries. If someone wants to work in Asia, I think that will be a great experience.

Oiligarchy - Gameplay Report

Oiligarchy is a modification of the word ‘monarchy’. It implies that the player is a totalitarian ruler of all the oil in the world.

The game is set in the post WWII era. The primary objective being that as the CEO of an oil company the player has to explore the ground, drill into oil deposits and make money. The player starts out with $4000 and has to manage his budget while expanding his empire to meet global demands for oil. The player can drill in locations around the world, each with its pros and cons and can also bribe the government (oil the government) to get certain laws passed. If the player is generous enough, he bribes the president and gains access to a secret room under the White House from where he can create global chaos and basically call the shots.

There exists on the lower right corner an oil demand bar. When the consumption is below the demand, the in-game oil prices rise. Price rise results in increase of dissent (people who will defect their vote in the next election) and environmentalism (turn more undecided representatives green).

The game has 5 major options and some area-selective options available to the player in any of the locations displayed on the map except Washington D. C.:

ACTION	COST($)	DESCRIPTION
Select pointer	Nil
Explore	100	Shows presence of oil in selected area
Explore Sea (places with sea)	300	“
Deploy small well	500	Yield = 25bbl/yr
Deploy normal well	2000	Yield = 100 bbl/yr
Deploy Platform (places with sea)	4000	Oil well at sea Yield: 100 bbl/yr
Deploy Mercenaries (Only Iraq)	100/Mercenary	To protect oil well from attacks
Demolish	300	Demolish selected structure

Below are the descriptions of the various places on the in-game map at the beginning of the game (1946):

PLACE	DESCRIPTION
Washington DC	Home of the government, environmentalists and dissenters.
Texas	Available for drilling.
Venezuela	Available for drilling. Small tribe will be displaced. Later government missions will make it peaceful drilling
Nigeria	Available for drilling. Corrupt Nigerian govt. helps for small sums of money.
Alaska	Unavailable for digging due to wildlife reserves but a well oiled government will allow it
Iraq	Unavailable for drilling. Elaborate set of government missions before drilling can begin.

For the purpose of this report, I will detail one experience I have playing the game. I will explain new phenomena that haven’t been addressed so far when they occur during the game.

ATTEMPT 1:

YEAR	EVENT
1946	Begin exploration and drilling. Oil starts at $10/bl.
1952	Another well put in place (big).Big wells make lesser noise than small wells in-game.
1959	Production<Demand. Prices rise. Shareholders upset. (On this attempt I didn’t get very far, but after a certain year, the shareholders don’t mind the disparity in production and demand that leads to a price hike. It shows how profit becomes more important than public welfare in the oil industry around the early 21st Century.)
1961	Oiled the government. More oil friendly acts get passed (such acts increase oil addiction leading to increased demand and hence increased prices in the long run.) [List of Oil-friendly and Oil-unfriendly acts given later on] Underground Chamber missions available. Mission 1: Enemy of the Enemy: Finance Shi’a opposition for regime change in Iraq
1962	Mission 2: Messing Iraq Economy: Use ally Kuwait to damage Iraq economy. Provoke conflict, provide justification for intervention.
1969	News: Iraq Invades Kuwait (The game periodically gives news updates based on the events taking place in the game.)
1970	Mission 3: Operation Desert Storm: Defend Kuwait, Attack  Iraq.
1971	Didn’t oil government. Oil-unfriendly acts begin passing.
1972	Warning 6/8 board members are unhappy. (The board reserves the right to fire the CEO if they are unhappy with his performance. If they fire you, game over.)
1977	Texas oil production peaked
1979	Search in Venezuela. Displaced animals and locals. Set up oil wells, deforestation.
1981	Oiled govt. (Multiple mission choices based on which area you want to focus on) Mission 4: AIDing Democracy:  Form right wing opposition parties in Venezuela to obstruct social reforms.
1894	Mission 5: A New Way Forward: Send troops to Iraq. (Can send more every year by repeating mission)
1985	First Water Search.
1986	News: Global Warming
1991	Didn’t oil govt. on purpose (Oil addiction falls. Helps keep prices constant and reduces need for investment)
2001	Oiled govt. Set up sea drilling station. New missions available include: ‘Create a Monster’ and ‘Anthrax Everywhere’ both of which are intended to scare the population of the USA to reduce dissent and internal unrest.
2003	News: 9/11
2010	Searching in Nigeria
2011	Not oiled. (To sustain prices)
2021	Tribes occupying oil wells. Pay Nigerian govt. to raid tribe
2026	Tribes demonstrating. Pay Nigerian govt. to conduct public execution
GAME OVER	SUSTAINABLE WORLD ACHIEVED. ALL OIL-UNFRIENDLY ACTS GOT PASSED BECAUSE I DIDN’T OIL THE GOVT. ENOUGH EARNINGS: $117,306 OIL PRICE: $27

Below is the aforementioned list of some acts:

OIL-FRIENDLY	OIL-UNFRIENDLY
Greasing the Breaks	Big Cars Special Tax
Heil Highway	Clean Cars Act
Drill Baby Drill	Livable Cities Act
SUV Craze	Mass Transit Act

I noticed a mild amount of audio rhetoric in the game:

·         The title track is catchy and has very interesting lyrics.

·         The rhythm that the oil wells produce is fun to listen to.

·         Dissenters and environmentalists make annoying noises.

There are several alternate endings to the game and I will have to play it quite a few more times before I can completely understand the important rhetorics of the game.