Author Archives: Ruixiang Wu

Digital Essay: Speak and Be heard

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Speak and Be Heard

Inspired by Audre Lorde’s “A Woman Speaks”

The digital essay is about the same topic that I address in my thesis, namely “Speak and Be Heard.” The video clips are about the Occupy CUNY Protest happened on November 28. I divided the video into three parts. The first part focuses on the passers-by, who surround the protesters. But they don’t express their opinions, they are just watchers. This portion of people is the one that I want them to speak. The second part of the video is about the protestors. They are trying hard to make their voice heard. But they failed as the trustees approved the tuition hike. This raises the question that how we can make their voices heard which I discussed in the second part of my essay. The ending of the digital essay is the U.S. Flag in front of Baruch College, which is the symbol of democracy. The flag droops, meaning that if we don’t solve the “Speak and Be heard” problem, there will be no democracy. The soft music can get people into thinking about the issue and pay attention to it.

Both of my essay and the digital project are influenced by Audre Lorde’s “A Woman Speaks.” The poem is about a woman expressing her own thoughts, most importantly, at the end of the poem, it says “I am a woman/ and/not white.” I am impressed by the courage of Lorde to express her identity, which was life threatening. Then I look at the situation right now, I find out that people are safe enough but they do remain silent. I want to use Audre Lorde as an example to encourage them to talk. Once I go further, I find out there are reasons why people don’t talk. It’s about the system itself. We need to improve the system to receive and react on the voices. That’s how my essay comes into being.

Digital Essay Proposal

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The poem that I’ve chosen is “A Woman Speaks” by Audre Lorde. The reason why I chose this one is because of the last sentence which is “I am woman and not white.” We have read “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” in class and it really impressed me of how Audre Lorde had made her own voice heard. When I think of the Occupy CUNY protest recently happened at Baruch and will happen again tomorrow, I suddenly realized that most of us still remain silent on most of the issues that are related to ourselves. Or maybe we could say we are afraid to speak our own voices. There are always things that preventing us from speaking out. However, I think we can break the silence through our efforts.

Therefore in my digital project, I want to focus on the Occupy CUNY protest, mainly happened at Baruch and try to express how we can make our voices heard. In order to achieve this goal, I am going to observe the protest which will happen on November 28 at Baruch and capture or maybe record the protest and hear what the protests say about their voices.

I plan to divide the video into three parts. At the first part, I am going to make the video in black and white since I want to relate it back to the black history when black people have no rights to express their own opinions. Then at the second part, I will make it in colors as our freedom of speech progresses. At the third part I will relate it to the Occupy CUNY or Occupy Wall Street protest and express the message that Audre Lorde tried to convey “Silence will not protest you!”

I will continue to update my progress.

 

Gertrude Stein Is Gertrude Stein

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If she told me would I get it. Would I get it if she told me. Would I get it would Lady Gaga would Lady Gaga would would I get it. If Lady Gaga if she told me if she told me if Lady Gaga. Would I get it if she if she told me. If she told me if Lady Gaga if Lady Gaga if she told me. If she told me would I get it would I get it if she told me.

The reading experience of Gertrude Stein is quite dramatic, even though it’s beyond my knowledge. But through our class discussion, it seems I am not alone. I don’t really think “If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso” is a poem. I would rather consider it as an art form. It makes more sense when it is performed since I find it more and more interesting when listening to the audio then just reading the words. I remember Prof. Kaufman mentioned in last class, Gertrude Stein didn’t think grammar is important, therefore, if we try to understand from the words themselves, it’s supposed to be hard to understand. However, if we take out the key words which are repeated several times, there’s whole picture in our minds. This is the most interesting thing I’ve found when reading such a combination of random but related words. The symbols that are being used in the poem itself are quite common but there’s seems to be a story hidden behind the poem. Sometimes it also sounds like a conflict in one’s mind. It is like a dialogue. Most of the time, we are confined by our imagination but if we read Stein’s poems, we have to broaden our visions in order to portrait our own images. Again, it is so amazing and dramatic.

“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” (Stein, Sacred Emily)

Gertrude Stein is Gertrude Stein.

Gadgets

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I was really excited when the Kindle Fire was announced at the end of October. I am a Geek and I love electronics. I spend a fair amount of time reading Tech News, watching reviews or even do my own every day. Smartphones, ereaders, tablets… they are always in my mind.

Gadgets are becoming more and more important in our daily. I would say in the near future, as many visionaries have indicated, many things like paper books, would be replaced by gadgets. That’s to say, gadgets have a profound market. Therefore, to develop a phenomenal gadget is very likely to earn you some sweet money. However, the fact is that, I couldn’t find a gadget, whatever they are smartphones, ereaders or tablet that satisfy me.

I especially want to talk about the Kindle Fire today as it finally starts to ship and got its review on engadget.com. I’ve done a research about the Kindle Fire in my business class and I should be considered as an expert about this topic.

In terms of marketing practice, the Fire has done a really good job for the company itself. As far as the contents are concerned, its well-developed ecosystem has given the Fire the competence even to the high-end market like the Ipad 2. In addition, it completely rules the low end tablet market. It wouldn’t be the Ipad killer soon but it is going to be the low-end tablets killer with no doubt. Its market influence is huge.

However, from a view as a Geek and an end user, the Fire really disappoints me. I am a big fan of Android and the reason is that I can rule the system by myself. It is more productive even than the IOS, which is not open source. Even though the Fire is running Android, but it is locked like the IOS. I can understand from the company’s aspect but not from an end user. Being locked means you can’t install the apps from third parties unless you jailbreak it. There’s no doubt that the jailbreak is coming soon, hopefully immediately after the developer receive it, but jailbreaking is a pain.

Apple or Android fans, what do you think?

 

Contact Lenses (Response Paper #5)

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Ever since I had the traditional pair of glasses

I always wanted to try something else

It was good

But it was old

 

Then you appeared

Something that excited me

And new

I left it at the corner

And put you on

 

The world had changed

The pain on my nose had disappeared

The weight on my ears had gone

And I could still see the world

Clearly

 

I completely forgot the old one

Completely

 

But only after just a few days

My eyes hurt

They were infectious

I had to take you off

And threw into the trash

 

I picked up the old one at the corner

It still worked

Like always

And never left

 

 

Curiosity and Me

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The last two weeks were pretty hard time for me. I am taking 6 courses this semester and all the midterms and paper assignment showed up in the last two weeks. Even we had 2 long weekends but I didn’t fool around. I just spent every day doing the assignments and preparing for my midterms. I shouldn’t be struggling if I take less than 6 courses and of course I have the choice to take less. Is taking 6 courses a wrong thing? I can’t help asking myself this question.

However, it takes no time for me to figure out the answer. The answer is no. Even though I am so stressful but I am happy. I am happy because I can learn the things that I want to learn. I am curious about the things that I don’t know: Logic, American history, Spanish, Law, marketing and of course this class. They are all new to me and I am so eager and aggressive to learn all of them. I even have the plan to learn Japanese, Italian and French which are not requirement for a BBA degree.

People say “Curiosity killed the cat.” It is true that curiosity is killing me now but I will survive. It is very unlikely that you will mess up the things that you really want to do and have spent time on. For me, it is good to have curiosity instead of being ignorant. I feel so strongly that I am right and that’s why I write down “Happiness is the pursuit of truth” as my thesis in the paper. At first I don’t know why “truth” seems broad for so many people, but as I am writing this free post, I think I get it now. I have to use my own words to describe my feelings instead of just summarizing others’ points, even though they are fantastic.

Pleasure V. Reality – Our Growing Pains

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After reading the excerpt from Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” I feel quite upset. It’s not because the reading is difficult though. The reason I feel upset is that the excerpt really deals with those emotional problems which I have but don’t know how to express. Maybe someone would ask me, “Shouldn’t you feel happy?” I would definitely say no since I may not sleep well for the next few days because I have to solve those things out.

So what are those things that make me upset? The two key words that I wrote down were “pleasure” and “reality.” More exactly, they were “Pleasure Principle” and “Reality Principle.” Pleasure principle says people tend to pursue pleasure and avoid “pain,” but reality principle postpones people’s will. Under the reality principle, people suffer pain in order to get pleasure. As I grow up, I feel like the reality principle has occupied my life. When I was a kid, I could feel pleasant so much easier. At that time, playing with friends, eating a dirt cheap ice cream or just sitting in the front of the TV would make me feel happy. However, things had changed dramatically after entering middle school. When I was in China, I had to worry about the High School Entrance Examination and had to go to school every day. I am not saying that I don’t like going to school, but if you go to school every day, it is a pain. People who live in the U.S definitely have no idea what I am talking about. I am saying that I used to go to school every day from Monday to Sunday and study from 7:00 am till 9:30 pm. It was mandatory so no one can skip the class. Remember, I was only a middle school student at that time. When I was at high school, it was almost the same thing but the only difference was that you had to stay longer there. I worked hard, I made lots of friends and I feel really happy to be accepted by the school I desired to go to, however, happiness seems no longer to be that simple. In order to get it, you have to suffer so much pain. Now I am in college, I have to worry about the getting a job already. Life is not easy, so is happiness.

We all grow up and we all suffer.

Here are two TV series that I want to share with you. The first one is “Growing Pains,” which is about how the American kids grow up. It is a little old but I really enjoy it.

The second one is “家有儿女,” which is more like a Chinese version of the “Growing Pains.” They are all very funny and you will certainly enjoy them.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/0S2EpH5sFyk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/3ujlicqssyw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Response to “Allegory of the Cave”

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Plato started Book VII with an allegory, which has been known as the “allegory of the cave.” In the allegory, there is a group of men who have been confined since their childhood. They are compelled to sit still, keep their heads facing the cavern in front of them and unmoved. A bright fire is burning behind them and some people carrying statues walk by the fire occasionally. As the people walk by, shadows will be generated on the cavern and the prisoners will have their own impressions and understandings on the objectives moving around based on the shadows they have seen. The allegory goes on with one of the prisoners being released and was forced to see the outside world. His vision has changed dramatically as he got more and more exposed to the light and the sun. The allegory ends with the man who has been released was forced to go back to the cave again and the discussions about what would happen to the man after that.

As far as I am concerned, the reason why Plato would begin with the desire to “compare our natural condition, so far as education and ignorance are concerned, to a state of things like the following” is that he wanted to use the allegory as the metaphor of ourselves to persuade us to believe in the importance of education. Without education, the majority of us act just like the group of prisoners in the cave. We perceive objectives based on what we have seen and may not be able to tell the reality from the surface. However, with education, we can get closer to the reality and not only form our understanding based on what we have seen. It is of great importance since what we see is just like the shadow that is projected on the cavern, it doesn’t necessarily represent the truth at all. Using this hook, which is the allegory, Plato really gets us into thinking about the importance of education.

It reminds me of the Disney animation, Tarzon. As the main character, Tarzon who is a human but has been brought up by the gorilla troop, he basically has no understanding about human beings. Therefore, when he saw the human explorers point the guns at him, he had no idea what they are going to do because a gun is simply a gun and means nothing in his mind. It’s just like the shadows on the cavern; the prisoners would judge them based on what they have seen, but if they have not previous impression, they may not recognize it at all. Suppose Tarzan has been educated before, he may be able to tell that the gun could be harmful and he should protect himself if someone points a gun at him.

In conclusion, according to Plato and my understanding, the human society is just like the group of prisoners in the cavern, if there’s no education in human society, ignorance will occupy the whole society. The allegory emphasizes the importance of education and gets us to think about it.

Tarzan Fight Scene