Best of Week: Born Into Brothels

What seemed to a documentary of the prostitutes that live in the Red Light District turned out to be a film about hope. Hope, that of the children of the prostitutes, is conveyed throughout this film as the children are proved an opportunity to learn and gaining that knowledge out of what they've learned to progress forwards. Zana Briski has captured the beauty of knowledge, for it is one of the most powerful and compelling things that a person can gain.

Although these children and their families impecunious, I truly believe education is one of the most beautiful things one person can give to another because to me, it portrays the meaning of how humanity can nurture those who are less fortunate. Briski truly believed these children could achieve higher beyond their beliefs, and with that insight, she teaches these children about the basics of photography. As shown in the film, they pick up photography very well, and some of them are later exhibited in art galleries. The only valid reason someone would want to educate someone else is because they care, and Briski did what she did with these children because she envisioned the hope of leaving the brothels and building brighter futures.

Briski, after seeing the life that revolves around prostitution, is concerned for these children and she does almost everything she has in her power to get these children what they need. She tries admitting them into schools, traveling abroad to show them foreign lands, and teaching them everything she can about photography so these children can carry it on into the future. It touches me that so many people are victims of prostitution, human trafficking, and of abuse, and that someone like Briski would that the time to lighten up the lives of these children of prostitutes. I truly believe this is how humanity should be like sometimes.

Countless times I see people get into accidents, and the traffic behind it just steer their way through it. It's sad how only a very little percent of people would get out and aid the ailing driver to at least help one another in this microscopic world we live in. I would gladly do so, and if someone does help that person who's in the accident, others will. Sadly, that's not the case for many. It's either because they're busy and don't want to bother helping, or they'd seem like the only person that would. Whatever the reason is, this is what our humanity has come to.

As a conclusion to watching Born Into Brothels and more closely observing our humanity, it made me more aware of what goes around in this world, who tries to help and who takes advantage of what the consensus thinks. I think it's safe to say after watching the film, I am inspired to help those who are in need and to care about the people who live on this rotating sphere, known as earth.

Image's origin - http://www.generalpatton.org/images/when_humanity_fails.jpg

Metacognition: QE Essay

What are the obstacles to creativity, and how can they be overcome? Well, let's start off with this question. Before you question why I put the question I used in my QE Essay as the first sentence of my blog, this question is special to me. I struggled with it, questioned it, lived with it, and many times wanted to omit it. However, it was my decision to pick it hence followed through with it. I came to discover what this question was saying to me; to answer more than a question but to be its answer. It's weird that I say this but to actually answer the question, I found myself in a position where I had to explore the depth of the question, besides observing the word order in the question itself. I had to live with this question until the day this godforsaken essay was due. And so to properly answer, explain, and explore the question, I had to take it seriously and treat it as a fragile child to get to know it. Unfortunately, I had to in a sense "like it" to go on with answering it.

In the process of writing the QE Essay, I went back to the meaning of the assignment while writing my Section 1, 2, and 3 parts of the QE Essay - Question and exploration. Giving yourself a question to think about, you are able to explore newer, better, quirkier, ridiculous ideas that come to mind. Well isn't every essay the same because we're answering the question for the assignment we're given? Well you can think of it like that but to me, you're not just answering an essay like just any other 5 paragraph essay where you have to use evidence to support it, a book for example. Here, the evidence of is your creativity, and that's why this QE Essay is so different from any other. You're answering the question uniquely because you are able to pour out more of your ideas than a question answering why you think Tim O'Brien used such and such images in "The Things They Carried." I honestly believe by working on this essay, we've assessed ourselves to freely come across new ideas and to incorporate it with what we've learned in class. Our mind can be said to be a person blowing a dandelion and our ideas are like the dandelion pedals that are flying around everywhere. All we have to do is catch as many as we can.

Sadly, there more than just catching the pedals, there's sorting it out as well. There's connecting them as well to the sources. This is where my mind gets tangled up. As I write to connect, apply, and justify, I come to a point where I over think the question and become very, very lost. Let's say I connected obstacles of creativity to Philo Farnsworth's thinking, then I start thinking and say, "well he used the field to start his idea and then Sarnoff steals it." And for some reason, I just couldn't connect it all together. Sarnoff stealing his idea didn't show how Farnsworth made his idea brighter, instead had very little to do with answering my beloved question. At this point, I'm thinking Sarnoff has something to do with the obstacles to creativity, but there just wasn't. So basically, there were many times where I lost myself into thinking what I was thinking of was correct. And so I go back to thinking of Question and Exploration and then I carry on being dumbfounded.
At the end of all of this, I came to realize the more I write to allow people to understand what I'm saying, the more I understand and exert new ideas upon my own thinking. Thusly, this essay could've went on for ages, but of course the due date got me back on track.

And so to conclude this Metacognition blog, I want to say it was fun and got me to definitely question and explore the question, however I disliked having to explore the question itself. Well why don't you choose another one then? Because after looking through all the questions, it's obvious that answering any of them wouldn't be very easy, and so I chose the question I've chose because I've chose to allow my essay to move and to be completed, which I've chose to do. Now after I'm done, I think it's safe to say, once again, I disliked my question because I had to struggle thinking about certain ideas and connecting them, which was again time consuming and frustrating, but fun overall.

Image's origin - http://renewaldynamics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/child-blowing-dandelion.jpg

Blogging Around

Nolan Henrickson
Connection: Philo T. Farnsworth and Robert Kearns

In Nolan's blog, he connects how both Philo Farnsworth and Robert Kearns had their ideas stolen by major corporations. As a result of this, both inventors received mental aid and lost their zeal in doing what they did best as inventors, galvanizing new, retro ideas. Although both inventors lost their inventions, they've also lost the most important thing of all, their pride and joy.

Comment - Nolan, I did the same exact connection and how the major corporations attempted to steal the creativity of these inventors. I absolutely agree with you on how these corporations lowered both Farnworths' and Kearns' self-esteem, which caused them to loose faith in themselves. The quote is a genuine application to the connection, however both inventors regain their pride and joy from working their way up to confronting the major corporation with lawsuits and a claim that reads that the inventions were made by them. Once again, I know where you're coming from when you mention how they had their dignities stolen along with their inventions, although I also think that it's powerful how they regain their dignities, which I mentioned in my connection.

Mimi Dybczak
Best of Week: Autism

In Mimi's blog, she explained how she felt scared because she didn't "really know what it was all about or how it worked at all." She shared in her blog entry that after she watched the Temple Grandin clip in class, her whole perspective on autistic people changed. This was because she learned that although she was different, she was unique because she could view things in a certain way that normal people couldn't. Thus, she had developed respect and admiration for autistic people, leaving her fears in the past.

Comment - Mimi! I found it interesting that Temple Grandin changed the way you view the autistic. I totally get you because even the most eccentric or different people have the ability to comprehend things that we cannot. Regardless of the way Temple talked or acted, the video really showed the class that you don't have to be "normal" to do things that normal people do. In fact, they can transcend from the viewpoints of "normal people" and expand their minds farther upon our limits. The word that fits Temple best is unique, not weird, not bizarre. Because she could see pictures in ways others couldn't, others misunderstood her. However, the truth of the matter is that we couldn't stoop up to her level of knowledge, hence failed to see her vision.