calm
natural
tender
soft
Cat
smart
capricious
soft
flexible
mysterious
Rain
natural
rhythmical
silent
calm
rough
Room
clean
silent
bright
plain
stainless
2010年9月17日金曜日
ELP journal
On last wednesday, we discussed about ethics in our class. We learned about 6 ethical theories. I've had heared of some of these theories in a NHK TV program called "Harverd 白熱教室"(Harvard's Heated Discussion Classroom). This program shows a class of Justice, which is thought by professor Michael Sandel, at Harvard. I like topics such as philosophy, ethics and moral, so I was happy to get a chance to learn about the subject in class. An activity we did was to read a story and examine what ethical theory you use when making decisions. The story is about a diamond mine which open up for public once a year. One day, while couple of visitors are inside the mine, an earthquake occures and they become trapped inside the mine. The only way to save the visitors is to pull them up by using a rope. After reading the story, we were given all descriptions about all 13 visitors, from their age to their personal relationships. Based on these information, we were asked to decide who to put the visitors in numbers in the order of priorities of saving them. It was amazing how we thought differently and in my group, although we had discussed for about 20 minuts, we couldn't reach to a single agreement.
I would like to know if there are specific reasons to determine one's ethical theory.
I would like to know if there are specific reasons to determine one's ethical theory.
2010年9月14日火曜日
ELP journal
Today we learned how to do well on presentation.
I thought the class was really for me because I've never been good at presentation. When I stand infront of people it makes me feel so nervous and even panic. I sometimes struggle with words that I can normaly pronounce well and I make many gramatical mistakes.
Then Rab tought us the ways to look professional and confident. He also thought us gestures to be avoided during presentation, such as looking up/down, repeating certain words, and reading from text. Then we actually presented ourselves to the class, and when following all these instructions, people really looked confident.
I believe that I'm going to be doing many presentations at ICU and also outside of the univerity... and I do not want to make people fall asleep while I'm talking.
I think I am lucky to have many occasions to do presentation here at ICU because if I screw up my presentation at work, it can really hurts you in many ways.
I'm going to apply what I learned today on my presentation that we are going to have in our class.
I thought the class was really for me because I've never been good at presentation. When I stand infront of people it makes me feel so nervous and even panic. I sometimes struggle with words that I can normaly pronounce well and I make many gramatical mistakes.
Then Rab tought us the ways to look professional and confident. He also thought us gestures to be avoided during presentation, such as looking up/down, repeating certain words, and reading from text. Then we actually presented ourselves to the class, and when following all these instructions, people really looked confident.
I believe that I'm going to be doing many presentations at ICU and also outside of the univerity... and I do not want to make people fall asleep while I'm talking.
I think I am lucky to have many occasions to do presentation here at ICU because if I screw up my presentation at work, it can really hurts you in many ways.
I'm going to apply what I learned today on my presentation that we are going to have in our class.
2010年9月13日月曜日
ELP journal
In today's class, we had our first P&D. I was not comfotable with doing P&D this time because I was not sure if I've got the main idea of my book right. The book I read is "Dogs and Demons - The fall of modern Japan" by Alex Kerr. I chose this book because I'm interested in politics, especially the politics of my own country. I also think that I should learn about it because although I am Japanese I do not know much about Japan. It is partly because I went to high school in Canada but I do not want to use it as an excuse.
After presenting my book to others, I felt that I need to quickly go through the book again because I realized that I've already forgot a large part of the book.
My group members presented two books, "Things fall apart" and "The sky train". They both sounded interesting to me, but especially the latter. The issue between Tibet and China has been one of my interests and I actually attended to a lecture by the Dalai Lama last June. Not only the issue of Tibet, but I am also interested in the ethical issue as a whole. At ICU, I'm participating in Japan Israel Palestine Student Conference and as you know, there is a big ethnic issue between Israelis, Arabs, and Israeli-Arabs. I wonder if we are going to look at any ethnic issues in class.
Overall, I really enjoy sharing our thoughts about what we read because there is always something that you can not find out by yourself. And as my self being a bookworm, I just love talking about books and I wish we can have more of this kind of occasions in this term.
After presenting my book to others, I felt that I need to quickly go through the book again because I realized that I've already forgot a large part of the book.
My group members presented two books, "Things fall apart" and "The sky train". They both sounded interesting to me, but especially the latter. The issue between Tibet and China has been one of my interests and I actually attended to a lecture by the Dalai Lama last June. Not only the issue of Tibet, but I am also interested in the ethical issue as a whole. At ICU, I'm participating in Japan Israel Palestine Student Conference and as you know, there is a big ethnic issue between Israelis, Arabs, and Israeli-Arabs. I wonder if we are going to look at any ethnic issues in class.
Overall, I really enjoy sharing our thoughts about what we read because there is always something that you can not find out by yourself. And as my self being a bookworm, I just love talking about books and I wish we can have more of this kind of occasions in this term.
2010年9月12日日曜日
ELP Journal
Day before yesterday, for the ELP class, we spent two hours at a computer lab. at the ILC building. I was excited to attend to that class because Rab told us that on every friday we will be using those cool Apple desktop and doing something exciting, something fun.
First off, we were thought how to use Gmail effectively. I learned many things that we can do with it and I found that it will be a very helpful tool for our studies. I sometimes tend to avoid using technology and go with a old fashioned ways. For example, writing my research papers with a pencile in my hand. But considering the amout of work I have to do at university, there is no way not to use technology. After that Rab showed us two music videos on youtube, which the contrasst of the two videos was a great analogy of two kinds of papers. One is a paper whichs' ideas are from various sources and are well connected and the other paper which is made of similar sorts of ideas and is not so well organized. I thought this analogy was great because by watching these videos, the difference was so obvious. Not just the importance of writing papers with different ideas, but I also learned the effectiveness of images and sounds. I would like to learn the ways of using visual and audio tools for our studies such as presentation.
We then looked at some stereograms on the internet. I was not able to find some of the patterns and images hidden in pictures but many of my class mates were excited to find them. I was surprised of how decieving some things that we see can be and how difficult it is for us to find out that we are tricked. This experience reminds of me the biased information that we find in our everyday lives. These information often look trustworthy because we tend to believe that if they are on TV, or written in a book, they can be trusted. But as we have been learning here at ICU, we sould not just trust what we hear and what we see. Instead, one must have a critical mind and think wthether something infront of you can be trusted or not.
Overall, I found the class very fun and useful and I'm looking forward to take the next class on this coming friday.
First off, we were thought how to use Gmail effectively. I learned many things that we can do with it and I found that it will be a very helpful tool for our studies. I sometimes tend to avoid using technology and go with a old fashioned ways. For example, writing my research papers with a pencile in my hand. But considering the amout of work I have to do at university, there is no way not to use technology. After that Rab showed us two music videos on youtube, which the contrasst of the two videos was a great analogy of two kinds of papers. One is a paper whichs' ideas are from various sources and are well connected and the other paper which is made of similar sorts of ideas and is not so well organized. I thought this analogy was great because by watching these videos, the difference was so obvious. Not just the importance of writing papers with different ideas, but I also learned the effectiveness of images and sounds. I would like to learn the ways of using visual and audio tools for our studies such as presentation.
We then looked at some stereograms on the internet. I was not able to find some of the patterns and images hidden in pictures but many of my class mates were excited to find them. I was surprised of how decieving some things that we see can be and how difficult it is for us to find out that we are tricked. This experience reminds of me the biased information that we find in our everyday lives. These information often look trustworthy because we tend to believe that if they are on TV, or written in a book, they can be trusted. But as we have been learning here at ICU, we sould not just trust what we hear and what we see. Instead, one must have a critical mind and think wthether something infront of you can be trusted or not.
Overall, I found the class very fun and useful and I'm looking forward to take the next class on this coming friday.
2010年9月10日金曜日
"Radical Evolution" Book journal 1
Prologue: The Future of Human Nature/Chapter Two: Be All You Can Be
Before start reading this book, I was not sure if I could have much interest in this book. It is because I knew that this book is about science and I do know well that I am not a scientific person. In fact, I like TV programs and stories related to science, but most of the time, I cannot truely understand them. I also felt that those newly invented scientific technologies are things that are not really related to our lives and even if they have possibilities of becoming usuful to our daily lives, it will take somewhat 20 or 30 years to be popular.
This is why I was so amazed when I read the first two chapters of this book. First, I did not know how various the topics of the field of science is. There are scientists working for scientific development in medicine, military, biology, sports, etc. Almost every aspects of our lives are being analyzed by scientific research. Not just things in our lives, but scientists are also trying to develop mankind itself. There are various possibilities that scientists are trying their best to make possible. When I read about these possibilities I thought that they are like things in science fiction movies and books or TV games. For example, human becoming able to regrow it's own body parts, to work 24/7, and to gain strength of Olympics athelete. However, as I read that there are actually many organizations in the world, such as Defence Advanced Research Project Agency in the U.S. , which are doing scientific research by goernment funding and the ways they function, I realized that these are not the things only in movies and books, but they are becoming reality.
At this point, I am not sure which one of the three scenario human being is following. But I am eager to get an idea about it by reading this book.
About the book in general, I liked the way author writes. He seems to be always neutral and he does not give his own opinion about scientific research or development that he introduces in the book.
Before start reading this book, I was not sure if I could have much interest in this book. It is because I knew that this book is about science and I do know well that I am not a scientific person. In fact, I like TV programs and stories related to science, but most of the time, I cannot truely understand them. I also felt that those newly invented scientific technologies are things that are not really related to our lives and even if they have possibilities of becoming usuful to our daily lives, it will take somewhat 20 or 30 years to be popular.
This is why I was so amazed when I read the first two chapters of this book. First, I did not know how various the topics of the field of science is. There are scientists working for scientific development in medicine, military, biology, sports, etc. Almost every aspects of our lives are being analyzed by scientific research. Not just things in our lives, but scientists are also trying to develop mankind itself. There are various possibilities that scientists are trying their best to make possible. When I read about these possibilities I thought that they are like things in science fiction movies and books or TV games. For example, human becoming able to regrow it's own body parts, to work 24/7, and to gain strength of Olympics athelete. However, as I read that there are actually many organizations in the world, such as Defence Advanced Research Project Agency in the U.S. , which are doing scientific research by goernment funding and the ways they function, I realized that these are not the things only in movies and books, but they are becoming reality.
At this point, I am not sure which one of the three scenario human being is following. But I am eager to get an idea about it by reading this book.
About the book in general, I liked the way author writes. He seems to be always neutral and he does not give his own opinion about scientific research or development that he introduces in the book.
2010年9月8日水曜日
ELP journal
Today was the first day of ELP class. It was nice to see familiar faces in class.
Everyone seemed to be excited about the new semester and so was I.
Our new teacher Rab talked about the syllabus of this semester and what he expects from us. It seemed to me that this semester will be a bit harder than the last semester, because there are more group working and essay writings. But I also understand that all of these works are designed for us to acquire the skill of critical thinking, which is very essential for our academic studies but also for our lives. I have to admit that during the last semester, I didn't put my best effort into my studies and my final report reflected that exactly. Today, I thought of the reason why I came to ICU and the purpose of being in this ELP class. Now I'm determined to try to perform best as I can.
Everyone seemed to be excited about the new semester and so was I.
Our new teacher Rab talked about the syllabus of this semester and what he expects from us. It seemed to me that this semester will be a bit harder than the last semester, because there are more group working and essay writings. But I also understand that all of these works are designed for us to acquire the skill of critical thinking, which is very essential for our academic studies but also for our lives. I have to admit that during the last semester, I didn't put my best effort into my studies and my final report reflected that exactly. Today, I thought of the reason why I came to ICU and the purpose of being in this ELP class. Now I'm determined to try to perform best as I can.
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