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October 2022

Topic 2: Plant communities and communication

For my second topic, I am going to stick in a similar vein with where I was on topic 1, looking at plants. I think I will dig into the communities these plants form, and look into how those communities are structured, what analogs to communication they have, and consider plant “expression.” Not sure exactly where this will go, but that’s my jumping off point.

Daily Practice – Day 4 (2022-10-22)

For today’s daily practice, I wanted to push myself to do something less digital. Something that has always perplexed and frustrated me about sunscreen is how imperfect it is. I have a family history of skin cancer, and have struggled with skin damage myself. It’s discouraging to drench myself in sunscreen and still get burned, so I was playing with that idea. In the last painting, I’m poking fun at that a bit by envisioning that the whole world of the character is covered in sunscreen, and they still get burned. How do we enjoy the outdoors without risking our health?

I’m also including a photo of myself at the beach this past summer because I find it amusing, and it was partially my inspiration for today’s practice. Completely covered by several layers of sunscreen, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, a towel, just to enjoy being outside.

Daily Practice – Day 4 Chiptune

Daily Practice:

Try to play 水调歌头(Prelude to Water Melody)  with ~6 different instruments.

Prelude to Water Melody is an ancient Chinese poem. It has been set to music, and the song is popular in different generations of China

The wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuidiao_Getou

Day 4: Chiptune

Chiptune, also known as chip music or 8-bit music, is a style of synthesized electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video game consoles.

The Record:

Audio Player

Daily Practice – Day 4

Today’s odor: Mandarin Orange. More specifically, the peel.

I have a small habit: squeezing mandarin orange peel to smell the odor. The smell is refreshing.

Daily Practice – Day 1

Daily Practice:

Try to visualize time zone with daily info collection and research

 

Day 1:

Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) is a coordinated time scale, maintained by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM).

Assignment 2 – Topic Development

(Updated on Oct 28)

  • Topic: Parenting – Psychology –  Chinese parents’ anxiety about education
  • Stakeholders: parents, students, teachers, Education Bureau
  • Critical analysis:
    1. What causes or increases Chinese parents’ anxiety about education?
    2. What’s the negative impact on kids?
    3. As parents, how to cope with the anxiety?
    4. How government and Education Bureau can help reduce the anxiety?
  • Expected outcome:
    1. Convey the idea that how parents’ anxiety negatively impact kids’ growth
    2. Provide some solutions to help reduce anxiety
    3. Reflection on public anxiety

 

—-

  • Topic:

Time Zone: Connection and Barrier

  • Target Audience:

Kids and people who has interest in time zone

  • Critical Questions:
    • How Time Zone identified?
    • How different countries with a large territory deal with time zone?
    • In this digital world, can technology help people in different time zone communicate better?
    • How to set up some policies or principles (similar to standard time zone), which can reduce communication barrier in different regions and cultures?

 

Daily Practice – Day1 migration map of migratory birds

My research topic is: Residence
Every move is a hassle for me. Once I was dragging four or five trolley suitcases on the way to move house, and I happened to see free birds flying in the sky. I suddenly feel very envious, they can go wherever and whenever they want, without being restricted by houses and luggage. I was thinking, human beings used to be very, very free. Why has this freedom been lost with the development of human civilization? I occasionally wonder when human beings can return to this freedom. So I hope to study the possible way of human habitation in the future
On the first day, I studied the migration map of migratory birds. The life of them flying freely around the world makes me yearn very much

 

Daily Practice – 2

This is the second game I designed to stress education problems. The rule is simple, players role a dice to determine how to move on the map. Different points on the dice represent different kind of movements and activities. The first image shows the rules and the second image shows the map. The starting point ins marked green and the end goal is marked red.

Looking at the map, the goal is very simple and obvious, you will win this game by taking a simple step to the front. But if you follow the rules of the dice points, you will find this goal hard or even impossible to reach.

I want to use this game to represent the conflict between complex and maybe useless rules with simple solution in education. I also want to use English teaching in China as an example. Teachers spared a lot of effort on teaching grammar. There are many complicated rules, and students do tones of exercises to become experts in grammar. But this couldn’t make them good English speakers. Sometimes, focusing to much on rules and regulations might lead you further from your real goal.