Blog 5: Waste

The metaphor that he used ‘Intolerable Beauty’ is ironic, and it might be the right expression that represents our lives. And I was appalled by the video that we watched in the class. Honestly, the U.S. spreads out their garbage to other countries, especially, the developing countries. To make matters worse, the U.S, doesn’t feel guilty because they give money for them. What would the U.S do, if American children played with garbage and lethal materials?

I don’t know where I start for this time, however, I engage two ideas that he wrote. ‘The question in my mind is whether we are all responsible in some degree’, well.. I think this is what we have to consider. We never know that we are The Contributor to make the earth worse. We never realize how much garbage we produce in a day. Now, we have to think about what we can give to the earth as The Earth Citizen.

The other statement that I agree is ‘Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences’. I have seen many people who just throw out their garbage such as cigarettes, plastic bottles, and so on. They don’t care what they are doing. You know what I have in my head? I think we have to institute the law like The Environmental Law so that everybody follows the law to protect the earth, or governments should control this problem seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXQDpdUpQgA

This is a link that you can see what happen in the U.S. with cell phones. It says that “1 day worth of retired cell phone in the U.S.: 426,000 retired handsets”. Can you believe that?

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats.html

This is another video link presented by Chris Jordan. You can see much more than you expected. This is what’s happening in the U.S. now.

Can you guess the orange-colored wall? They are uniforms for prisoners. Each uniform piles up, and it becomes the wall finally. According to Chris Jordan, one out of four the United States citizen is a prisoner. Isn't that surprise?

Blog 4: The Story of Stuff

I chose the third question for blog 4 because I think this question is fitting my reality and good for sharing.
The time that I spend for watching TV is less than one hour in a week. Basically, I do not like watching TV. When TV shows sports like baseball, soccer, or big event like 2008 Beijing Olympic and World Cup, then I spend more than one hour to watch these games. Other than that, I do not watch TV, thus I gave my TV to my friend.

Shopping? I think this for women, not for men. If you ask about shopping to men, I think most of men don’t like it. Therefore, I spend for shopping,,,,I guess less than one hour in a month. Frankly, I didn't go shopping last month at all.

How about using internet? I do a lot. Two or three hours in a day. Checking e-mails, searching information, build up my relationships with friends and watching movies by internet. However, I don’t think that surfing internet is anti-social because I do mostly get along with my friend by internet. Additionally, checking news, gathering information that I want to know, and contacting my parents in my countries is sociable. Meanwhile, it is true that I do not invest my time to read books pretty much.

The most joy in my present life is praise God. This is my main duty that God gave to me. Having meditation with bible is also my pleasure. Recently, I started to learn playing a guitar. This is too my delightful new habit. Besides, do jumping rope on the roof of my apartment is pretty fun.

Certainly, these leisure times are my priorities. By God’s point of view, I always try to let him satisfy by my behavior. This is why I was born, this is what I have to do. At the same time, I try to study hard to achieve my ultimate goal.

Lastly, what I really want to do is that I want to finish studying as soon as possible to glorify God, to spread Gospel for other people.

The way I'm walking...

It is hard to find the reason why I came to the U.S. exactly; I believe that I came here by someone’s leading. As a religious person, I think God leads me because it was not easy to come to the U.S. by myself.

I have been here for three years, and I learned and experienced many things that I could not have in my country. My point to see my life and the world has changed, and it keeps changing which I’ve never had before. Obviously, my life goal has changed.

I wanted to be an engineer who develops tourism areas, builds resorts, and facilities. However, coming to the U.S. was my turning point. Now I am pursuing to be a dentist. Why do I want to be a dentist? Main reason is to go other countries for helping poor people and let them know God. Just like a religious missionary, I want to go see people who never meet God. I really want my medical skill to help to lighten them because it could be a great merit to get people’s attention, and many of them are incapable of seeing doctors. Proverbs in the bible says that “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps”.

Another reason is that there is a limit for me, who am an international student. The U.S. government does not give lots of opportunities to aliens. Aliens are hard to get higher level of American society.

I am in the last semester in LaGuardia, and going to Hunter next semester to major in Biology. Honestly, I have not put my entire endeavor in LaGuardia. However, I know that I have to study hard more than ever before when I transfer to Hunter. I do not want to miss this which might be the last chance. Later, I would like to go Stony Brook to complete general dentistry after two years in Hunter College.

I do believe that God leads my way. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I won’t fear because God is with me, and he comforts me. He will make a way for me.

Blog3: Mini-research Assignment

We confront the problems because of global warming. As we realized, these are to solve by ours, and all countries. We discussed about the problems in our class, and I think the scarcity of food is the worst problem now.

By media, I can hear the news that many countries are suffering from food crisis almost everyday. More than 80% of people in Africa are suffering from lack of food, among them; about 65% of people are dying because of starvation. North Korea could not be worse. When I heard that North Koran ate human fresh, I was stunned.

http://www.crs.org/emergency/global-food-crisis.cfm?utm_source=google-grant&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=food-crisis
This link is from Catholic Relief Service, and you can see a video which tells you how serious the food crisis in the world is.

Obviously, the food crisis comes from global warming. Therefore, we are able to infer to some solution to avoid a panic by food crisis. The United Nations and other countries are aiding food for poor countries, this is not ultimate solution. I would like to suggest some solutions to get over the food crisis. First, we have to stop wasting food. We are not feeling that we do not have food enough because we can get food easily abundantly. We spend lots of money to get rid of food remains. Save food! Save money, and send them to other countries. Second, if we fertilize deserts, or other barren lands, we are able to plant, and cultivate them to grow plants, and other crops. In addition, government’s policy would help to solve this problem. Many farmers are leaving to urban areas to get better lives. Therefore, government should support farmers financially, legally, and politically so that famers can put their all efforts to increase food productivity.

However, my pin point is that we have to realize this. More than half countries in the world will confront the food crisis soon. I am sure that if a small changing puts together, it would lead a big changing. It is just like a line which needs many small pots to complete a line. It is time to start to change by us.
http://www.projectconcern.org/site/PageServer?pagename=World_Food_Crisis&JServSessionIdr009=yaokkm9281.app14a