We talk, We share, We interact
After three weeks of practicing of singing, I think I can sing “ok” on the song. Besides of singing, I also have a pretty solid understanding of the language as well. In today’s blog, I am going to perform the song that I have been practicing for the last three weeks.
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1iu5SGwHfqX6be8fKzV8aofv8Wu0FLGOD
One billion people, over 15% of the world population are experiencing some form of disabilities. The fact that there are between 110 million to 190 million people in the world are experiencing significant level of disabilities.
However, I always thought people that has disabilities is a very minor group of people. Growing up with Tourettes was not something easy, but I made it looked very easy to a lot of people. Of course there are bunch of different kinds of disabilities, but most of them are going to have a certain level or a form of difficulties towards learning.
The picture on the left is probably one of the pictures that I wanted to print on my face. It is just too true, but most people in China thinks you have to be sitting on a wheel-cheer to receive respects from other people, and all other kinds of disabilities are excuses or even being recognized as fooling around. I have attended at a very famous local elementary school in Beijing. Teachers barely understands what Tourettes is, and it really gave me a huge amount of pressure during class. Unfortunately, I transferred to an International school in Beijing after Grade 4, and that is the time that I began to realize the differences between cultures.
All private international schools in China have something like the disability center, that you can seek help for academic success, and there will be one on one faculty to figure out the best plan for specific disability that you are having. About 5.9 percentage of high-school students dropped out of school, and about 18 percentage of students dropped out of school due to certain levels of disability. Most students that dropped out from school experienced a low income job, and high pressure of life. Eventually, some of them decided to suicide.
As a wrap, I felt like more public schools needs to understand the importance of taking care of students with disabilities. The amount of tuition should not be related to these kind of services, because it is something that should be VERY necessary to include, because we do not want to make anyone feel uncomfortable in school. School is somewhere that should give students education, but also preparing them for a brighter future.
We watched two videos in class today, that each talked about celebrities teasing or trolling a “guy”. The other video talked about a couple of boys doing unacceptable actions, and eventually is reported all-around the internet. I personally think the internet and the social media is over exaggerating a lot of information that is not that big of a deal.
Can you please question yourself if you are reading this blog right now, “Do you think there will be another social media fight if a celebrity posted something like ‘Fuck social media’?” If it a celebrity that has lots of haters, the answer will be “yes”. However, take some time and really think about why does some people get so much hate by saying something that is said by millions of people every day on the social media? First of all, they are famous. Second of all, most of the hate is generated from the social media. Third of all, the beauty of internet is connecting all the users togethers like joints.
The reason why there are so much “BullSh*t” is because websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media apps created a huge platform for people to talk freely with each other. Moreover, we need to understand that the publishing earns more money when they create a bigger chaos on the social media platform. We have to admit that this a selfish world, people all care about themselves as the first priority. If they needs to create and spread rumors to make money, they will.
There are people who published something about Kanye West does not want Kim Kardashian to get any thinner”. A crazy simple thing that is being said from Kanye’s month became a topic that millions of people’s argument topic. It is very unfair that celebrities does not even have the freedom to stay away from the internet, which made their life busy and being under pressure the whole time.
As I stepped into the second week of learning how to sing Cantonese songs. I did some research on the tones and pronunciation of Cantonese, and I watched a Youtube video that really helped me eventually.
This video gave me the understanding of the six major Cantonese tones, even though there are 9 tones in Cantonese, but there are six tones that are majorly used. There are only four tones in Mandarin, therefore I find it very hard for me to remember the six major Cantonese tones. In this video, the instructor also said learning a new language through singing is a very good way to memorize it deeply. In the video, the instructor have broken down each word and phrase, and gone though the pronunciation very detailed with the audience. It really helped me on reading the PinYin of Cantonese words.
The purpose of the master project is to learn something new through technology and social media. It should also be something fun to learn, or learning through a fun way. I love to sing, but the main purpose of learning Cantonese songs is to learn the language. This video gave me a very good understanding on the differences between Mandarin and Cantonese. I suggest all the new Cantonese learners watch this vide, and I am sure you will receive a very good understanding of the two language. I never really learn anything from Youtube, but throughout this course, I have realized the importance of taking the advantage of the internet and the social media network to full-fill your potential of learning.
This is the final attempt of the week after spending about 3 hours of practicing. It is about 400 points higher than my score last week. I scored more “Perfect” on specific lines when I am singing. These scores can tell that I am making a good progress on the learning of the song. I am looking forward to produce a good piece of singing by the end of next week, and I will be posting my final recorded video on my blog!
Are you ready?!?
Your social media account exposes YOU more than you thought
I remember in the beginning of this course, we talked about many colleges now will hire people to scroll through every candidate’s social media accounts to learn more about the person. I think this is a very good and smart way to know people better, because everyones’ common app is always “Perfect”.
If you say in your college application that you played Varsity Basketball, and you were named the “Most Valuable Player” two times during high school. However, when people checks your Instagram, and you do not even follow any basketball content. I am pretty sure you are going to get rejected no matter how outstanding your grades are, because none of the selective colleges will like to accept someone who lies on their college application. There are too many examples of applicants being pulled out of the enrollment due to negativity on social media.
Harvard University is known as the best university in the world. With one of the lowest acceptance rate, only the smartest people who works extremely hard gets selected. But what happened in the year of 2017 was quickly spread on the internet. More than 10 students’ offer was taken away, because the admission office have found students spreading sexual pictures online, and eventually got them into serious trouble.
There are also examples of Yahoo employees getting checked on their Instagram, and being declined due to inappropriate content on their page. More and more companies are including a social media check in the background check, so it is important to beware of it, because it can effect your future.
I woke up on a Sunday morning last week and really questioned myself, “Is there something that I want to learn in the upcoming weeks. I thought about cooking, guitar, drawing. But eventually I decide to learn how to sing Cantonese songs in the next three weeks. I thought about learning Cantonese.
I had an internship in Hong Kong last summer, and language was a big problem during the time I was in Hong Kong. Therefore, I decide to start learning Cantonese by singing and understanding lyrics first. My dad went to Hong Kong 20 years ago, and he had the same issue that I have today. What he did was watching TV-Shows and live in an environment that is all “Cantonese”. As time goes on, there is a day that he found out he understood what other people were saying, and he have realized the art of learning a new language is to learn it the way you want.
Singing is one of my hobby already, and I will go to KTV to sing with friends once every two weeks. I also want to learn Cantonese since Grade 9, because having another language is always a plus. Being fluent in multiple language is a very big strength that some people does not even realize. Especially China and United States are the two largest in the economy, plus Hong Kong is the Manhattan in China.
I chose to learn the song “真的爱你” , because it is a song that kids will sing to their parents. The direct translation of the name of the song is “I really love you”. I appreciate what they gave me in the past 19 years, and they deserve the first Cantonese song that I will learn in the term of January.
So I wen to KTV on January 12th with my girl friend and some of my friends, and I sang that song, even though it was really bad. I went back home, and downloaded “全民K歌”, which is an app to sing and share, and I will use this app to practice my singing over the next three weeks.
So this is what it shows inside the app. Even I do not know how to pronounce those words, there are pin-yin to guide me through, and I have listened to it a plenty of times before I sing it. I will say it is pretty bad, and I am a very confident person. I got an A, and scored 3,237 points based on the tone and pronunciation. I am going to work on this song for the next few days, and hopefully can get one or two more songs in for my final product.
I just felt like choosing to learn a new language through singing is a thing that I can enjoy in a daily basis, and I am looking forward to get a bit better every single day,
Is technology in school improving the learning quality for students?
I feel like this is a very debatable topic today as more schools are involving the usage of technology during lessons. Teachers gives out lectures on the smart board, and students just take notes on their computer is becoming the “casual” style of teaching now days. However, websites like Moodle, Managebac, my-homework and etc platforms are heavily used in school today. But more and more problems are exposing in the social media as time goes on.
Now days, plagiarism became “popular” when almost all assignments are due online. No matter if it is intentional or unintentional, we have to admit that the numbers are increasing after more electronic tools are involved in teaching. I personally think the involvement of more technology is making teachers’ job easier and making students’ job harder. Many teachers relies too heavy on videos from other sources, which decrease the value of a teacher. The root of bad teaching is coming from the improvements of technology.
The reason why I say technology is making students’ life harder is because students can make mistake unintentional. Especially when there is a research paper assigned, not citing the sources correctly or missed source anything will automatically result a “0” in that specific paper, and might cause even more serious consequences.
A lot of big universities or even prep-schools have offered online classes for students to learn by themselves, on their own pace, and at the best time of their daily schedule. The chance of cheating is even higher during online classes, and the chance of making a mistake of not citing the source correctly is even higher.
Social Media have became a big part of our life now days, more and more functions are launched in these apps on a daily base in the society today. Some individual’s life i getting better with the improvement of technology, but is the society getting better as a whole throughout the years of improvements in technology?
More and more couples will be starring at their phone, rather talking and enjoy their Friday night on a date. It is important to live in the moment, instead of paying so much attention on others’ life. Imagine if you are spending hundreds of dollars at a very fancy restaurant, but both on the social media.
“Disconnection” does not only exist between couples, it also exist between families. When both mom ad dad are not working on a Saturday afternoon, but everyone in the family are sitting there with their phone. There are less communication going on now days, it is destroying the human nature. Grandparents are usually sad when they see this kind of situation, and they felt like they are being forgotten in the current society. Ask your self a question; “Do you still go visit your grandparents as often as before?” We can not leave “The improvements of technology” outside of the talk right here. Social Media and all kinds of new technology have made people forget or avoid to treat elders and other people the right way, and this is something the next generation should really be aware of.
More automatic self-driving concept cars have launched in the globe, and the improvements of technology is making more people in danger in the daily life.
This is only one of the examples of self-driving vehicle causing deadly crash. I believe this kind of self-driving technology will be officially launched in someday in the future. But it is unfair to risk other peoples’ life to test of the new technology. People care about money too much now days, instead of the society as general. More and more natural resources are wasted or over usage on developing new technologies. People only care about the final product, but not what it takes to get there. All the effort and scarification are always ignored or forgotten by people.
China for being the second largest economy in the world, there are more than 300 million of drivers. The improvement for technology is for the rich people, the society did not really cared about what the 300 million of drivers are going to do after they lose their job. The society and government have never figured out a way to fill in the huge gap of unemployment..
