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.

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.

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.