From 2 weeks ago, we started to discuss about Passion project. Passion project is basically picked up one thing, which you are really interested and you have a lot of passion on it. Then, we needed to make it as a project to perform or show to audience, which could be students, teachers and parents. So it mean that we need to work on what is our passion and how can I connect with passion project that I can perform it well.

My passions are computer science, especially computer programing, playing game, airplanes and sports. However, since I already did sport last year, I liked to do airplanes, computer programing and games. For game, I want to create a simple and also dynamic game that people can enjoy it. For computer programing, I want to create a new app that makes our lives easier. For airplanes, I want to create a wooden plant that using propeller for energy and take a video of flying. Each of idea has a strong point and weak point. I need to compare them that which one is best fit for me; also which one is better to perform well to audience.

I will have more discussion with teachers and myself for better choice. I will put more effort to find my passion.

Last Friday, my classmates and I present what did we do about power and leadership. I basically focus on differences between power and leadership.
For my presentation, I collected some information from books and movies. Biggest difference between power and leadership is the use of the power. When a leader or leaders got a power, they choose that power becomes their own power or use their power to other people as a leadership.
In my presentation, the book called “Waves” shows the bad uses of the power. The teacher created a community for students and students join into that community. Students who join into the community, they become a leader and owned the power. They used their power for themselves and disregard other students. It seems like same as Nazi party in 1945.
Movie “Gladiator” and “Brave Heart” and the biography of Che Guevara shows that the leader have a huge power and they used it for the followers, even leaders can use for themselves.
During the time that working for my project, I noticed that these powers could be shown as different perspectives. For example, In “Waves”, students’ power was a bad power for me, but it can be a good power to other people who have different identities.
In my conclusion, power is from human’s greed, hubris, jealous and rapacity. Leadership is the public goal of people to accomplish and the leader lead those people to accomplish the public goal.

Last few weeks ago, grade 9 and 10 students went to the school trip to Hei Shui. Hei Shui is the one part of origin for Tibetan Buddhism. I was very interested in history, so I prepared lots of thing for this trip. First day, we went to the Wenchan earthquake museum. At the entrance of museum, there are graves for heroes who died to rescue other people. We should be careful, quite and polite to respect those people. In the museum, it described the destruction that made by the earthquake. That earthquake made a huge financial loss and casualties. Also, the museum taught us what should we do when earthquake happen. It wrote in Chinese, but we still could watch pictures. After the museum, we went to the school, which was destroyed by the earthquake and it was horrible. It gave me a plaintive feeling. After visiting that school, we moved to the traditional Qiang’s village. We went up to the small mountain and we could see the beautiful view of mountains and the village. At there, the type of rocks was different. Mr. Brian told us that it happened because of earthquake. Each step of mountain’s rock shows the age of rocks and it happened by earthquake and sea level. We went back to the village and grade 10 students went to the Qiang person’s house. It was based on two trees and they just built up by surrounding those trees. Their house built for protection because they had a lot of wars and they need to protect themselves.
Next day, we went to the Tibetan Buddhism monastery. It was built on the high mountain. Before we got into the monastery, we need to take off our shoes because it meant being polite in front of Buddha. When we got into the monastery, we need to pray 3 times in a raw to be calm down and being polite without any anger. In the monastery, there were more than 100 of statues of the Buddha’s image and there were bowl what filled in clean water in front of each statue. Those water bowls were for praying to Buddha with clear mind. By putting money to the Buddha statues, we can pray for luck. The main part of monastery was the 3 big Buddha statues. The biggest statue was the Indian prince who created the Buddhism and it stayed at the middle. Left side Buddha has a lot of meanings. It contained jealous, sexual problems, hubris, complicated, which are humans had on their mind. Right side Buddha was for trying and missionary. I put some money into the small box to wish for good luck and no more problems in my life. In second flour of monastery, there were lots of old books about Buddhism at one side. They saved those books to teach other young Buddhists. In other side, there were the powders of dead Buddhists because they burned their body when they died and there were only for the high levels of Buddhists. After visiting the monastery, we came back to the hotel and had a free time. During the free time, we went to the area for basketball courts. Many people were playing basketball. So I noticed that after they finished their works, they came to the basketball courts to enjoy their free time together. I think that is one of their cultures.
Next day, we went to the glacier. Before I went up to the glacier, I thought there would be a lot of snow at there. However, there was less snow that I expect because of the global warming. At the glacier, the sunshine was burning my skins because I was on the high mountain, so the sunshine was very strong. However, the weather of the top of mountain was windy, which was very cold. I felt that this place could not be the living place for people. After we got back to the city, we went to the traditional Tibetan food restaurant. At there, we could enjoy their traditional foods. They had a different kitchen system and it was quite good system for cooking and rising the temperature for rooms. At nighttime, we went to the park and we saw people who were dancing at there. It was very different as Chinese culture because it had few big circles with dancing. We joined them to enjoy feeling of dancing. It was a different experience as a watching the show.
It was very nice trip for me and I enjoyed a lot. I hope I can go a school trip again next year.

Power and Leadership

After a few weeks later, I finished to read a book called “Waves” and biography of Che Guevara. Waves is kind of Nazi party in school, which is very different as the biography of Che Guevara.
In Waves, the teacher makes a club called Waves and students started to join Waves. The students in Waves start to use power in a bad way for other students and become a leader in the School.
In the biography of Che Guevara, he used his power for poor people and fight with victim for Cuba’s independence. After Cuba got independence, Che Guevara tried to use his power for Cuban to have better life.
However, by reading both books, I notice that power can be shown to people in a different way. For example, in Waves, some students like the Waves, even a few of them want to join the Waves because they think that the Waves can be helpful for students and school, which is not shown a bad group to them. It is same for the biography of Che Guevara. Che Guevara used his power to make Cuba become a communism country. It was quite good choice for Cuba. However, some people disagrees with him because they did not want to be opposite with America. From those examples, I notice that there isn’t any power that they can be good every time.
I am interest with justice and power. So, I want to make research question about this. I almost get my research question, but I still think that I need more research information. I hope that I can get the best research question for my essay.

This week, I am working on my Language Arts project about society’s expectations and Frankenstein. I am going to write about the process of my project.

I am making a PowerPoint presentation for my project. Actually, I wanted to use Powtoon or Keynote, which are very good for presenting. However, I need to pay money for Keynote and Powtoon is not working on my computer. Therefore, I am using PowerPoint unfortunately.

This is my process:

• I research some information about my inquiries and I can find some useful and interesting information.
• I open Google and search information about society’s expectation. It was hard to find information because society expectation was quite a hard topic and unknown to people. I also need to find academic sources because personal reflection was not really helpful for me. I had a long time to research.
• After I finish my researching. I think about the PowerPoint to write. It was hard work because presentation should be basic on my opinion.
• I make a PowerPoint and put a lot of effort into it because PowerPoint is a common presentation program, so it might not be an enjoyable presentation. I am trying to make it enjoyable.

I will keep working on my PowerPoint to make it look better.

In Language Art class, We learned about the scientific fiction book called “Frankenstein”. In Frankenstein, Frankenstein make a new creature, which is fitting society’s expectation. We are doing the project of pushing the boundaries that it related to Frankenstein.

Our essential questions are Can we – and should we – change to fit society’s expectations?, What spurs people to explore the unknown?, What are the ethical consideration in creation and re-creation of human beings?.

My research question is “Why and how do people change to fit society’s expectation?” that it depends on Can we – and should we – change to fit society’s expectations?.

My inquiries that based on research question are “What are the society’s exception and how does it affect people”,
“what are the behaviors of these people” and “Why did they try to change their characteristic to fit society’s expectation”