Photography Day 5 – Workshop

On Day 5, we stayed in ISB, and three performances happened around the design area. The first performance is a Chinese opera, and it has a tremendous and variety of history that. How opera was created is that on the emperor’s birthday, all of the opera teams came from the whole country gathered together and sing for the empire. The second performance is 舞狮， is two lions playing together. There are two types of lions, 南狮, and 北狮. 北狮 is more extensive, the feather is more extended, heavier, contrary, 南狮 is slightly smaller and lighter, but they are still heavy. The third performance is a mix of classical guitar and poetry. The lady who is playing guitar was fantastic, skilled. And the gentleman was reciting poetry, and I was enjoyed it; it is innovative and exciting, which is a lot different than the way we learn poetry at school.

(Picture from Jack)

Photography Day 4 – Happy Vally

On Day 4, we went to Happy Vally. This is the most unforgettable day of my entire life. I have not gone on a rollercoaster for five years, and my friend just dragged me on a rollercoaster that your body will tilt 90 degrees, your whole body face to the group; it’s like a superman. The feeling of weightlessness was not fun! But it was pretty cool. And the second rollercoaster we went on is one of the longest and fastest ones. Our group of four and Duanmu Lao Shi went on together. During that process of climbing to the top of the track, Jack was afraid that the height is too high, and he feels a bit uncomfortable. When we reached the top and immediately sprinted down, that was too fast! Jack next to me was yelling and ***. It was a new experience. It was pretty good that I recommend the people who love rollercoasters and the people like me who are scared of the rollercoaster to give a shot.

\

Photography Day 3 – Vivian Maier Art Exhibition

On Day 3, we went to Vivian Maier’s photo exhibition during her lifetime. Before, Vivian Maier’s pictures weren’t appreciated, and she kept these pictures as treasures and never let people look at them. However, after she has been past away, people found her pictures in several boxes, and they were fantastic. People think Vivian Maier is weird because no one will carry a camera shooting random people on the street during that period. Vivian Maier’s style is quite realistic; pictures are explicit and implying specific meanings. For example, in picture 1, she took a picture of her shadow; in my opinion, Vivian Maier is trying to express that she exists in this world, trying to prove her existence. Also, I took some street photos and a picture of my lunch.

(Vivian Maier)

(Random people’s portrait)


Photography Day 2 – Liu Li Chang

On Day 2 photography, we went to a street called “Liu Li Chang,” one of the stores called “Rong Bao Zhai” that sells calligraphy brush, calligraphy paper, inkstone, and ink block. We call it “笔墨纸砚” or “文房四宝.” It is an incredible experience that a gentleman told us how brush, calligraphy paper, inkstone, ink block were made, the origin of the name, and how they have been used in the past. I recommend the people who are interested in Chinese calligraphy and who love arts. The staff that told us about the story of “文房四宝”.

“The Old Man and the Sea” – Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea, written by Ernest Hemingway, tells a story of an old Cuban fisherman’s life on the sea and boat. The old man Santiago, who has gone eighty-four days without a catch. People say the Old Man and his boat have some bad luck and misfortune. He has a single friend, a boy named Manolin, who helped him during the first forty days of his dry spell. After forty days, there is still no result. Thus, Manolin’s parents decide the old man was unlucky and ordered their son to join another boat. Although Santiago keeps catching fish with no harvest, his spirit and encouragement make him unstoppable and unbroken to face the challenge and be resilient.

“His house is a very simple shack with a bed, table, and chair on a dirt floor. There are also religious pictures and a tinted photograph on the wall, relics of his wife. The picture that used to hang on the wall of Santiago’s wife had been taken down since it made him too lonely to look at it”,  suggests that Santiago is lonely, he lives with himself, and he missed his wife every day, looking at that photograph when they are young. Lonely makes a person weak, but missing someone makes a person strong, making that person motivated.

Reading

  • What did you read over the holiday?

Over the holiday, I read two books, one Chinese book, and one English book. The Chinese book is called 《简明大历史》which is called “A Brief History”. This book is extremely fascinating; it talks about how vast it the universe was,  how life was born, how civilization was created by humans. This book shocks me and gives me a new sense of understanding of the world.

Another English book is called  “In Search of Memory” by Eric R. Kandel, a Nobel laureate neuroscientist. This book talks about a part of our brain called the hippocampus, where it stores our memories, and millions of neurons work with the hippocampus; it’s so esoteric.

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon

Current pages: 250

“The curious incident of the dog in the night-time” is based on an autistic child Christopher, who found a dead dog on his neighbor’s lawn, and he decides to found out the murder. However, the main point of this story is not the dog; it is Christopher’s perspective. It tells about how autistic people think, behave, and react to interruptions, such as noise or touches. There are a few people who are autistic in our lives, and some people are not helping them or caring them. Thinking they are mental disorders, and they are useless people. If it is me, I would kind to autistic people and give them space because most autistic people do not like people to know their privacy or talk too much to strangers. 

The book is almost done; at the end, Christopher found the murder who killed the dog Wellington, and actually, the book was a diary from Christopher. So, if you want to read any books about teenagers, read this! 

 

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon

Current pages: 127.

Christopher Boon is a boy from the UK who has autism. He loves to read detective books such as Sherlock Holmes, love dogs, but he hates people laughing at him and touching him; he hates yellow and brown and won’t talk to anyone if he/she is not familiar to him.

“The curious incident of the dog in the night-time” is a fantastic book for teenagers, about 13-16. “The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs.Shears’s house.” It was at night, Christopher saw a poodle dog lying on the ground on his neighbor Mrs.Shear’s lawn. And Christopher decides to find out who killed that dog.

Personally, I won’t abandon this novel because it was so intense. This book is from the first-person perspectives, which are from Christopher’s perspective. I love the way it writes because all the conversations between people and people are so natural; the way it describes people’s mood and people’s feeling is so profound. There are some metaphors such as “A white lie,” which means you don’t have to talk the whole truth. So far, Christopher found some new clues about dogs and found that his mom wasn’t dead from a heart attack.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when Christopher found her mom and relates Mrs.Shears’s family and the dog.

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” Reflection (59 pages)

“All your friends. All the bullies. And their mothers and fathers have given up, too. And their grandparents gave up and their grandparents before them. And me and every other teacher here, We’re all defeated.” Mr.P was crying.

Junior(the main character) was born with various medical problems; he is picked on by everyone but his best friends. But the only special thing about Junior is, he never gives up; he will never say NO to failure. He knows his future, and he wants to work hard for that. His parents are a common example to all the people in Rez (reservation school). His mom wants to be a teacher, and his dad wants to be a musician. But because their family is poor, they can’t even pay for food, and also no one pays attention to their dreams than they just give up themself and become a worker with minimum pay. But one day, Mr.P – Junior’s Math Alexie-The-Absolutely-True-Diary-of-a-Part-Time-Indian-e15… | Flickrteacher told Junior.

“You’ve been fighting since you were born, you fought off that brain surgery, You fought off those seizures. You fought off all the drunks and drug addicts. You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.”

Later, Junior decided to leave this hopeless place and to receive a better school where is all wealthy white people’s school.

Even Junior works hard on his life, and he has a variety of mental illnesses. So what reason do we have to find excuses not to study hard?