Research Proposal

I think I want to do my project on something in my career field of interest which is engineering. I'm not sure exactly how I want to narrow that down yet but it will probably have to do with mechanical engineering. I have already had some contact with people that work at the electric engineering firm in town but that is less relevant to what I'm interested in. Mr. Miller has a degree in engineering and I could use him as a primary source. Also I could talk to Ms. Walcher, who has a degree in physics which goes along with mechanical engineering. I can talk to either of them during an endeavor or I have TA blocks with Ms. Walcher. It's hard to give an extensive background on the topic, basically it is the making and maintaining of mechanical systems. There is so much I can do with it and I don't know what I'm doing, but this is a start. I can get good background on the topic using the databases and my primary sources. This is personally meaningful because it is what I want to do with my life.

Multi-Genre Reflection

It seems like you can do anything with these projects. They can be serious or just entertaining. Out of all the one I read through I think Happy Ever After in the Media and Living Thin: One Girls Fight for a FULL Life were the most interesting. Happy Ever After in the Media talked about how fairy tales and Disney set up young girls to have unrealistic expectations. In my opinion I think it is unrealistic to think that when a girl got older that she wouldn't realize that these stories are not what you should expect from life, but it was an interesting topic and well put together. I liked the quiz component in the project to find out what princess you are, it was a little silly but it made it more than just a paper.

Living Thin: One Girls Fight for a FULL Life was about a girl and her experience dealing with an eating disorder. I liked this project because it had a very deep personal connection. It takes a lot to be able to admit you had or have a problem like bulimia, and it isn't really a topic people want to talk about. The written components were done very well and I think that is partly due to how it connects to the writer. I still have no idea what I’m interested in doing but I want to find a topic I enjoy learning about. I think this could be a very good learning experience for me because I can choose to research anything that matters to me. I don’t want to do anything super serious, but looking at these projects gave me a lot better idea of what I will need to be able to do with my topic. 

Article 3 Response

Hunger and poverty is a problem everywhere in the world. There are people that have no homes and don’t eat full meals or any meal at all. No matter where you go there is someone that is without the basics, food and shelter. In the world now there are 870 million people going without food. That is one out of every eight people. The United Nations goal is to achieve full employment for all, halve the number of people that have an income of less than $1 a day, and halve the number of people suffering from hunger. They have a goal of not just giving people what they need, but setting up them up to make the money they need to live without poverty and hunger.

One of main ideas is the start with the youth. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN agencies have paired with the Government of Spain to provide career counseling for unemployed youth. Just in the first 14 months they have managed to provide skills training to more than 6,800 young people. By giving the youth the skills they need they can go out and be successful.

I connected  to this topic because I strongly believe no one should not be given the opportunity to make the money they need to provide food for their family. Small children shouldn’t be going without food because their parents don’t make enough money or any money at all, and young adults in bad situations should be able to go out and find work to provide for themselves. I am so thankful for having the ability to go to the store, get what I need, then come home to my warm house, and cook a full meal. I know that I take these things for granted sometimes, but it is hard to know what you have until you have to go without. I would probably think I was dying if I had to go a day without food and there are people going days without food. I wouldn’t want to lose what I have so I believe I should do what I can to help others get what they need.

Start Something That Matters

If I didn't have to worry about money I would cook and eat all the time. I would travel to new places and learn about cooking and different cuisines all around the world. I love to cook for other people. Everyone enjoys good food and cooking is a service I could provide to those in need. I could do any kind of work to help those who need delicious, healthy meals. I also enjoy the gardening side of food. So I would be perfectly happy planting vegetables and cooking for those in need.

The Hungry Planet Farms project is a new way of growing plants indoors. The company focuses on vertical farming. It is small scale farming for those in need of disaster relief or areas that have a lot of malnutrition. Brittany Ferguson’s inspiration is “The world is hungry. Our need for food will never go away and too many people in the world are surviving on very little every day.” I think this is a good idea because it is inexpensive and condensed to it doesn’t take up a lot of space. The system working at its best can feed a family of 4 on $3 a day, and I think that is amazing. This connects to my interest in gardening and science. I would enjoy working on a project like this, figuring out the best way to grow plants in less than ideal conditions.

Half 4 the Hungry is an idea that helps the hungry through restaurants. People can get half portions for full price and the extra money goes to the hungry. It eliminates wasted leftovers and helps Americans consume less food. I think it is a very clever idea because America has an obesity problem and this way people without food benefit from us eating less. This ties in with my interest in food and helping the hungry. I also feel strongly about the obesity problem in the US, so this idea kills two birds with one stone.

Higher Ground Farming is the idea of farming on rooftops in bigger cities that don’t have the space. It provides fresh produce right in the area and helps with climate control. I think this is a pretty cool idea because it is a way to take advantage of a space that hasn’t been used. It also can have an impact on the health of people in the area by making it easier to eat healthy. This again relates to me and my interest in food and farming. I also approve of anything that will help the environment and by having the gardens on the roof it lowers the energy useage of the building. They will also retain rain water which has multiple up sides. This idea is future forward, using what we have to provide something good for the community.   

Article 1 Response

I liked the way the article was broken up into the different types of grammar problems people have. It was easy to read and understand. I made a connection with me, myself, and I . My aunt always used to correct me when I would say me and so and so, instead of so and so and I. The article talked about how "... most of us have said it ourselves; for some reason, it comes trippingly off the tongue. We also (most of us) know not to use it in a piece of writing meant to be published." I don't do it anymore since I have been corrected so much. Something I still have problems with is parallelism and the article didn't help very much. It was one of the smallest sections. Something I think I am starting to master is semicolons. You use it to separate two complete clauses or to separate a list of items that already contains punctuation. This article is a good, small look at some common grammar problems people have. I think it was both helpful and a little too simple. Things weren't explain as well as they could be for all sections, I had some confusion with the smaller sections. In class I would like to discuss the quote "Moreover, grammar is one of the least pressing problems when it comes to the poor state of writing today." I think that is interesting because if the problems aren't things like what is talked about in the article then what are they. I believe if you have the learned skills like grammar, then you can be at least some what successful in writing. 

PechaKucha

I watched Lessons in Falling. It was about how Alain Parizeau found himself with the help of Graphic Design. Things fell into place in his life and he found a way to use Graphic Design to creatively solve problems and help people feel good. All his slides where good, the pictures fit well together and were good sizes. He had lots of examples of things he had created, which I liked. So the presentation itself was good, but his speaking was an example of things not to do. He said things like umm and uhh a lot, and took very long pauses in talking. This took away from his presentation because it was easy to lose track of what he was talking about and get off focus. It also made it less clear what he was talking about. I could tell he was less comfortable talking and not rehearsed. I like this form of presentations, because I like pictures and would prefer not to read slides, but I am concerned about my talking going smoothly. Knowing what not to do can help just as much as knowing what to do. I just will be more aware of not using words such as: umm, uhh, like, and okay. Those extra words we don't need and add because we lose our train of thought or run out of things to say.

The Bitter, Sweet, and Aftertaste

In one of the letters I received from China the girl, Danlei, told me about the ancient city of Dali, located in northwestern Yunnan, where she grew up. She told me that if I were ever to visit that I needed to try the three courses of tea by the Bai nationality (Huang.)  I thought this was interesting, I’ve heard of multiple courses of meals, but never thought about having multiple course of a drink. She described each course and what really stood out to me is that one of the courses had cheese in it. I couldn’t imagine having a type of tea with cheese in it, so I had to look into these teas.

 

The Three Course Tea of Bai today is a kind of welcoming ceremony for treating guests and friends of the Bai people. It was originally a ceremony held by the senior members of the family to express good wishes for younger generations leaving home for school, work or when they are married. But now it has become one of the ways the Bai people show their value of friendship  (Three-course Tea Of Bai, Three-Course Tea of Bai Ethnic Minority.)


The courses are the "bitter, sweet and aftertaste". The first course is the Bitter Tea. This tea is made from baking a local green tea in a pottery jar till they have a “scorched” smell and they turn yellow, then the boiling water s added to make the tea. You get half a cup, it is described as bitter and strong, but still refreshing. The second, the Sweet Tea, is made by diluting the bitter tea with more boiling water, and adding brown sugar, cinnamon, and Ru Shan, which is the cheese like food. It is just a daily product made from goat cheese. This course is “chewed” and is sweet and nourishing. The last is the Aftertaste. Honey, ginger, Chinese pepper, and semen juglandis, which are type of walnut kernel, are added to this tea. Danlei described how in all three courses you taste the five flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty. The Bai people think of it as your life- bitter, sweet and full of aftertaste (Three-course Tea Of Bai, Three-Course Tea of Bai Ethnic Minority.)

 

I think this is a very fascinating tradition. The Bai people found a way to get all of these different tastes just from only three teas. Danlei said it was an unforgettable taste for her, and I would love to try it one day if I get the opportunity, even though I am not a big fan of tea. I also think it is a good connection with life. The more I’ve thought about it life is exactly that: bitter, sweet, and full of aftertaste.

 

 

Secondary Sources

 

"Three-course Tea Of Bai." -Yunnan Tourism Website. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2014.

 

"Three-Course Tea of Bai Ethnic Minority,China Guide,Great Wall Travel." Three-Course Tea of Bai Ethnic Minority,China Guide,Great Wall Travel. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2014.

Primary Source

 

Huang, Daniela. "Good days in Dali." Letter to Mary Books. 21 Oct. 2014. MS. Qingdao, China.