education will open doors where none seem to exist

I agree with the statement. “Education will open doors where none seem to exist”.

Education is a form of development.  Some may say that even without education one may learn from various different everyday lifestyles and by observing many things and interacting with people. Everyday, people probably learn something from their lives. I will not disagree with this because I know that not only education is the way to develop. People who don’t have education still have as great minds as educated people. This is because there have been learning from experiences. There are social ways to develop as well. Some people who don’t have education might even be smarter than who had education. However I think that education will help you expand on things more and understand about things more. Education is something that helps your mind go. Education at every stage open doors to knowledge. Our world that we live in develops every single day. Without education we will stop developing, because we do not learn anything new and so we live in the same lifestyle everyday. Education will help us learn more about the world.

Censorship

I agree with mathabane’s thought that he does not want people to censor his work because he wrote it to reflect reality, to show the world the inhumanity of the apartheid system. To make the book more realistic and draw people into the book. This meant a lot to him, because without this people will not fully understand what was going on.  However If he does not want the book to be censored he should rate the book maybe above a certain age. Because some people might be too young to be exposed to such things in the book.  I think that censorship is a very important and necessary thing. Mostly censorship is used for educational purposes.  The most common censorship I think is media. Although I understand that people have the right to speak what they wish to and have the freedom to do so. Some inappropriate things are always on some sort of media. And the world we live in today is full of media. This means children are exposed to media everyday. Media is something that greatly affects peoples minds and how one thinks. This does not only apply to children but also to adults; people in general.  For instance if a child is always watching TV shows about fighting and killing, they can start to get interested at their age without knowing that it is wrong and start committing murder.  There are some stupid shows that have over cursing for nothing which should be censored. Although I think that not everything should be censored because there might be a reason for that, and if you censor that you might not fully understand. However I think there should be a limitation of this.

Thoughts about Tour 3

 The Truth Project lesson three was about Anthropology: Who is Man?  I guess this lesson was interesting and less confusing compared to the previous lesson that we watched.  When I heard who is man? I thought I knew the answer because it is quite obvious.　However it wasn't as simple as I thought it would be.  The Bible teaches that man consists of both Body and Spirit and is created in the image of God. The Bible also says that man has rebelled against God and fallen from his original state of innocence.  He mentioned two types of MAN by two perspectives. One from the Biblical view which is His essence – made in the image of God; dualistic: both flesh and spirit. His moral state – a fallen nature. His need – redemption. And another one is from the evolution theory which was No free will. No life after death. No ultimate meaning in life. The evolutionary theory of man sounds sad. No meaning in life is quite depressing.       One of the first things that were mentioned in this tour was EVIL. What is evil? When I hear evil I think it is anything morally bad or wrong. It is maybe something unjust. Some obvious examples might be murder, stealing, lying, and cheating.  And if this is the definition of evil then it is happening every single day in the world.  In the Bible I guess evil is defined as sin and sin is evil.  Hg everyday however a question that comes up is if evil is sin and it is happening every day in the world. Why doesn’t he stop it? I know he has the power to. Does this come to freewill where he gave us the freedom to think for your self and act for what each think is right? Or do we not sin by choice because we were born sinful with a sin nature?

complex images of the ghost

Usually in Asia when we hear the word Ghost. We think of someone who is dead that is still surrounding in this world either not being happy in this world or had something left to do in the world. Lena's mother describes her as if ghost's disappear, which I think it sounds like she is dead and does not exist anymore, but still surround the world. However I think ghosts in this book symbolizes a more complex image rather than just meaning a dead being. People would often refer to someone as a ghost when they are not accepted as a family member. When they are forbidden to talk about that certain person. For example in the story of Scar, Popo the grandmother hated An-Mei for becoming a concubine and marrying another man after her husband died and leaving the house and the children behind. The grandmother hated her so much So she always called her a ghost and never let her grandchildren talk about "the ghost". The whole point was to make them forget their mother easily. 

An-Mei Hsu

AnMei Hsu's vertues are that she is very strong. She has a very strong faith in her. She has the ability to make things right and learned to have faith in herself, and to stand up for herself from her mother. She believes that motherdaughter relationship is very important, because she has learned so much from her mum and her grandmother. She still respects her mother even though people don't like to talk about her mother. She has a very strong personality trait in which once she has a goal she tries to accomplish it no matter how hard. 

The weakness about her is that she feels like she is influenced easily by other people. 

She is very open to other people's opinions and consider them. Her weakness in a way would be her mother. Her mother left for another man and became a concubine after her husband died. She was forbidden to talk about her mother in her family, and people talk about her mother badly. When she thinks that her mother is not a type of person that should be hated by others.  

The Joy Luck Club

So far We have read four chapters of the book Joy Luck Club and all of these four chapters are written by four different people. They are all written by women, one daughter and 3 wives. Jing-mei Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St.Clair. All these 4 different women talk about different situations and stories of what they have gone through, they all talk about true life stories. They all talk in first perspective. Their stories are connected in a sense that they all talk about relationships between people, especially about mother and daughter relationships. They all come from China which makes them have a connection to the story. The stories are about their childhood in China to where they are now in America. An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying all tell of how they learned of the expectation that they would sacrifice themselves for their husbands. The stories they tell are usually very sad and emotional because they are stories something to do with something that they didn't want to do. Like leaving the country, leaving their family/kids back e.t.c. They also all talk about how hard their life is with strict rules and hardships. They had a connection in where they talk about women's role in social life in their culture and how respect came before anything. All four women who wrote this were very strong emotionally, even after they went trough a lot, they never gave up and lived very strong.

The house thats left alone

The house sits empty. No body's home

Quiet, with no laughter

But flowers still bloom and birds sing

It was once filled with love and laughter

Now no one is left but the house 

Looking dark and gloomy 

The roof now leaks as if its crying.

People move on yet the house stays getting older and older.

Why do people always want new things?

philosophy and ethics

After watching tour two today. I was left with confusion, because I seriously did not really understand what he was trying to explain or what he was saying. It was much harder than tour one and was less interesting for me.Tour two was covering philosophy and ethics. The part where he said something about no basis for ethical standards or ethical language in a world view. I think he meant like there is no need for a universal standard of ethics. I think I agree with this statement, because I don't see the point in the need for a universal standard of things like what is right and what is wrong. I don't think there is a big need of determination. About philosophy I remember him saying that philosophy can not answer the most basic facts about behaviour and morals. However I think that scientific discovery to reality will help our understanding of God's meaning more which can be like biblical morals.... Although I don't really remember the details about the world view. I found the world view vs. Personal world view interesting. It made me notice that even though one thinks what they believe is real, a world view is something much deeper than your personality or how you make things work. I think he tried to say that the world view defines something more about beliefs about reality and how you look at life....If that even makes sense. However honestly, this thing about philosophy and ethics, was really confusing It feels like I was understanding wrong things from what the real message was or what he wanted people to understand. It was hard for me to concentrate listening to the whole video, because I was lost about what he was talking about and what he was trying to explain. 

The Truth

After watching the truth project, it made me think about things differently. The first question he asked was why did Jesus come to the world. I thought this was an easy question because it felt like I have learnt this in bible classes so many times but my answer was completely different from what it actually was. I always thought Jesus came to earth to save us from all the sins we have committed, but that was wrong. He came to earth to testify the truth. It made me think a bit because I have never thought or heard of that. I liked the way he taught, because I usually get bored or I fall asleep during the lecture. He taught while asking questions with made me want to know the answer, so that was a good way. When he asked what truth meant, it made me think a little because I know that truth is the real fact but to think about it things might be the truth to me while that may not be the truth to someone else. So It made me wonder if what I believe is true is the truth or the reality. I liked how he had video's of people around the world about what truth is. Everyone had different opinion's about truth although truth is meant to mean one thing. Over all I liked the way he gave the lecture about truth it was really interesting and dragged me into it. I enjoyed the unique way of him teaching, it wasn't just him talking, he involved the class that he was teaching and we got to hear their opinions which was something I could relate to more. 

Blindness

I saw this story quite a while ago in a documentary kind of like a reality show in Japan. It was a very shocking story that i still remember it. It was about a young man who lived in an apartment alone. Next door there lived 2 small children and a single mother. The mother looked very kind and was social as well. However this young man heard kids screaming unusually at night and even sometimes during the day, but he did nothing about it thinking that it is not a big deal. The mother works out at night and comes back home in the mornings and was rarely home even when her kids came back from kindergarden. One day when he saw the 2 children with blue and red marks on their faces he knew that they are physically abused by their mum. However he was too scared to report. He kept on hearing the kids scream everyday. One day he noticed he hasn't seen his mum nor the kids, so he thought they went for a trip, but when he saw the mum at the convenience store,he asked her where she was and her kids but she answered awkwardly. So he knew their was something wrong but again he did nothing. Then a week later he saw police coming into his neighbours room and 2 dead bodies were found. Which was the 2 kids. They were locked in a room with nothing. I think this man could have acted and reported something to the child care service or even just a police near by but he left it alone. This was obviously a bad choice. Not just big events like this but small conflicts around you, you should open your eyes and try and act rather than making your self blind. 

How to deal with anxiety and conflicts

To deal with anxiety is hard at times depending on what the situation is. First of all looking inside what is causing the anxiety is important, because sometimes it is not that obvious to tell what is causing you to be anxious. I think talking to a friend about it can help you calm down. Depending on people i think exercise, journaling or even prayer might help them calm from anxiousness. Personally listening to music and trying not to think about it too much helps me calm down. When I have a conflict with someone else, it is hard to calm my self and I become very self centred, because I don't think rationally when I am in an emotional situation such as conflicts. Giving it time and space will help me think in a rational way. Then when I am calm and coolI usually talk to that person and not only talk about my view of point or what I think but also listen carefully to what they say and try to understand what they are trying to say. I think making your self calm down is the best way to resolve situations like having conflicts with friends or even just when you are anxious about something. 

Thoughts about the ending of Oedipus the king

After reading the ending of the book, it shocked me how much Oedipus changed in person. Oedipus changed in many ways an obvious one is that he can no longer see with his eyes anymore. After hearing and noticing all the things that he has done and did wrong, he could not bear to look at his mess that he makes in his life and not only him but others involved anymore so he blinded himself. He then decides to leave everything behind and leaves the city. This is shocking because it is hard to loose all your loyalty and position in the high society and suddenly go to a place that he doesn't even know and live there. I think his personality kind of changed toward the end compared to the beginning, where he always lost his temper and was always arguing with people, where as now he is taking everything calmly and listens and pays attention to what people say not like before. I found it interesting how the blind prophet:tiresias told his future. Almost near the beginning of the play when he was arguing with tiresias and making fun of his blindness and all, tiresias implied that he will be the blind and even said he him self is the murderer. I think the ending is really interesting how the book was foreshadowing the end of the book through what characters said.

Fable

Once there was this fat fat frog that lived alone in the sewage because he was always made fun of from others because of his appearence. He was lonely and always wanted to make friends. One day a group of cool rats were surfing in the sewage near him. The frog really wanted to join them and have fun. So he made up a lie and went up to them and said he can surf while the toilet is being flushed... Everyone suddenly became curious and asked him to show them. The frog didn't want to disappoint them and really wanted to become their friends, so he gave it a try and when he did it he drowned and was never found again.

Freedom

In my opinion I think freedom is the right for a person. For people to do what they want, without concerning about what others think or say. Just to have equal opportunities in life. Everyone wants freedom, however in my opinion it is really hard to have freedom completely, I doubt we will ever be truly free, because we are limited by law, rules and the society we live in. Also we are limited from what we morally think However some countries or people have less freedom than some of us have. For example some women in certain religions or certain countries are not allowed to wear what they want, or even some men in certain countries are forced to enter the army and serve for the country. There are many types of political freedom as well, ex:freedom of speech-people being able to say what they want. Freedom of religion- being able to worship or practice religion in front of people or public. Freedom of bear arms- freedom for a person to be able to carry guns for their own safety.e.t.c. These are limited freedom that the government or the country gives people at some places. These political freedoms are only free when the government or law allows, so this wouldn't really be freedom from your choice. I think freedom is getting less and less in the world, compared to when slavery was going on in the world, we might not notice, but we have so much freedom in our lives, we talk, we say what we want, we eat what we want.e.t.c. However only to an extent, it is just morally impossible for a person or the world to have complete freedom.