Chinese Pension System

WAYMTL

9 February

This is first music video we learned in this class. Dave Matthew’s “Satellite” is a great example of art of interpretation, connotation, denotation and the concept that writing well requires reading critically. Different people have variable understanding of this song. And people will change their first thought after they get deeper and closer to the lyrics. Moreover, the music video will enhance the understanding of the song. At first, in our group discussion, we thought this is a love song which talks about how much he misses her and how he tried to track he. But he has to accept the truth that he is no longer a part of her world. “Who’s the king of your satellite castle?” means she has found a new boyfriend. As we get deeper into this song, we realized that Dave is implicit the relationship between the technology and human being. So all the lyrics doesn’t make sense to us based on the previous theory become clear to us. As it can be seen, beautiful connation are used by Dave to stimulate our thought. We also practiced the critical thinking in this writing class. This is good start and I’m expected to the following skills we are going to get.

11 February

Our long life consists of numerous moments. Some of those moments are so meaningful to our whole life because it can totally change the further track of our life. We talk in two and work on a special moment from our memory. Doctor asked us to write it down and describe it with art method. I come up with the moment when I was waiting for my grade for Chinese College Entrance Test. It was only a few seconds but it feels like took a century for me. All the anxious, worries, helplessness filled those second. And I was exhausted because I felt I used up all my spirits. This moment cannot be understood unless you get hang of Chinese education background. As a foreigner, I’d love to share this important moment with my classmate. Thanks to my partner Lauren, this moment can be more vivid for the presentation.

16 February

Today is our “Explore the Moment” presentation day and we’re ready for this. We worked on google Docs together for those two days. Compared to other’s presentation, we didn’t add some motion to this presentation. But I think we did a good job on wording. This is a real and impressive moment in my life that I can ever forget. As it was expected, this moment did draw classmates’ attention. For them, they are surprised for how tough it can be. For me, it still make me nervous like it just happened yesterday. What I learned from this class is that inspiration comes from real life and is picture by art.

• Interstitial: Crystallography. An imperfection in a crystal caused by the presence of an extra atom in an otherwise complete lattice.
• Interstice: a small or narrow space or interval between things or parts, especially when one of a series of alternating uniform spaces and parts.
• Interleave: 1. to provide blank leaves in (a book) for notes or written comments.

1. to insert blank leaves between (the regular printed leaves).
2. to insert something alternately and regularly between the pages or parts of.
3. to insert (material) alternately and regularly between the pages or parts of something else.

18 February

Today is still the presentation day for “Explode the Moment”. Classmates did a good job on their impressive moments. Some of those are funny and some of those are serious. This is my first time to get hang of the “Meta-texts” concept. As it was defined by Dr. Deanna Turner, “A meta-text is an explanation of your intentions in writing the piece, how far you succeeded in your goals, and specific areas you would like your professor, classmates, and/or workshop partner(s) to comment. In my opinion, this “meta-text” is like the trailer of an upcoming movie and the preview of a article or a book. This incentive concept can improve audience’s understanding and save much more time to get hang of the main idea than the normal articles. I like it.

23 February

We watched Lauryn Hill’s “Everything Is Everything”. At first, I didn’t get it but I know it has so much deep meanings. Critical thinking is needed in this music video. Then I found out the main idea of this song is anti-discrimination, including age, gender, race, and religion. This is what come up in my mind after watched the music video a few times: without everything being how it is, nothing would be as it is. Everything affects everything and ultimately making everything everything. This is such a philosophical song.

• Chiaroscuro: an effect of contrasted light and shadow created by light falling unevenly or from a particular direction on something
• Liberation theology
• Subversive: tending or intending to subvert or overthrow, destroy, or undermine an established or existing system, especially a legally constituted government or a set of beliefs
• Predestination: an act of predestinating or predestining. The state of being predestinated or predestined. Fate; destiny. Theology: a. the action of God in foreordaining from eternity whatever comes to pass. b. the decree of God by which certain souls are foreordained to salvation.

25 February

We meet in Haas to visit the arts. Professor give us an hour to choose one art we’re interested and write one page interpretation. I chose the sculpture named silence: The struggle for innocent. At first, I was attracted by these cute stuffed animals.  But I felt the tension this sculpture trying to express. Sometimes you may have to do something you don’t think right. But it’s alright, we all have to survive. It doesn’t mean you lost yourself. Both the tension and balance are from your heart and the only standard for your life it’s also in your heart. And the only way to evaluate it is there is no regrets when you are old. In this class, we learned to appreciate art and connect those art with real life to interpret it.

1 March

We watched video of Coldplay’s “The Scientist”. We noticed that this is a flashback music video at the first time we watch it. Moreover, there are so many circles in the video. In my opinion, this is not a just simple drug addicted song but philosophical song talking about reason and emotion.

3 March

Working on summaries includes the register and paragraphing. For different types of audience, we need to apply different tone. For instance, academic paper should use serious and official tone. But for email and text, we need to be more casual and friendly. In addition, we talked about the paragraphing bridge to avoid “jump out of bridge”. To make the paragraphs more coherent, the connections between two paragraphs are needed.