To do List for medium presentation

1. get sources - set the meetings and record the conversations of the people that you think will be helpful (embassies, museum employees, organization representatives and employees).
2. outline narration and detail responses to each question
3. select images and/or music which you will elaborate on in the podcast
4. determine how to word each specific piece of information
5. Write the podcast
6. Choose how to convey each concept and information effectively with voice.
7. Narrate podcast
8. Add images/music clips appropriately

Potential Resources for Research

A good part of my research will be focused on the comparison of cultures. Generally speaking, I will compare the culture of first world/ third world, as well as that of happy/sad countries.
-National Gallery of Art
-cultural tourism DC - a non-profit organization that could definitely have a potential primary source to talk to. They additionally will put on shows and have plenty of information to offer on international cullture.
-Various embassies in DC
-National museum of the american indian
-American History exhibit at the smithsonian: people, information and technology

project web

Ideas Concerning Project 2

I’m going to try to answer the question “Does quality of life affect happiness?” I think are several things that are very important that are part of determining the answer to my question. I want to analyze how people from different countries, incomes, and cultures react to adversity, how important relativity is in determining the potential for people to be happy; that is, how well off they are relative to people in their community or to the lives they know exist elsewhere. I’m most interested in studying how quality of life affects the formation of culture, and how much culture impacts happiness as a whole. I plan on looking into talking people who focus on cultural studies as well people who have an extensive knowledge of the mental health of both Americans, whom I am fairly familiar with by this point, and people of other countries and cultures.

What sparked my question was the constant barrage of information claiming that Americans are some the least happy people in the world. However, I rarely hear statistics about whether not people in developing countries are struggling to be happy. I wondered whether or not this is because its hard to gather information on this, or is they are in fact happier than many people who live in the first world despite having worse living conditions. I decided that perhaps culture has a big deal to do with the answer, and because culture is greatly affected by living conditions, I concluded this would be an important part of formulating an answer.

I think to gather information I need to specifically look into meeting with someone who works for the non-profit organizations Cultural Tourism DC to hear what they have to say on how living conditions have affected the development of culture. Additionally, because I’m living in Washington, I’ll probably try to speak to embassy workers to hear their opinions on how culture affects the happiness of people. It helps to have a diverse teaching staff at GW, where many professors (and students as well) are international. I’m unsure how to go about the psychology portion of this. I’m sure I’ll find some more good primary sources over times, but less come to the head than when I think of culturally rich people I could potentially talk to.

I’m definitely having trouble deciding what I’m going to do for the project. I’m either going to write a musical composition for guitar, write a short story, or narrate a podcast.  I've narrated projects in the past and had a lot of fun doing it, so I’m probably leaning towards that. My voice can be deep and convey information and ideas coherently and effectively. This way I could also include a great deal of factual information. However, because my topic of interest is culture, I may end up writing a composition that I would record on guitar or finale, or write a short story. Both of these more artistic formats would allow me to use different styles of writing and music to represent aspects of different cultures and their emotional power. The good news is that I feel comfortable with doing any of the above, and I can decide which to use once I get the general idea of how the answer to my question would best be displayed.

Response to Graham

I was overjoyed by the fact that someone shared my feelings for the overuse of literature based essays in high school. I always that we spent too much time analyzing literature and not enough time on real world problems and doing formal research. I understand that it is necessary to read and analyze the greatest works of all time, but that should never the exclusive topic of student’s essays.

I agreed with Graham in his thinking that most essays in high school and college are based too much on whether or not the paper argues well versus whether or not they are right. This is because of the origin of the modern essay stemming from legal documents created by lawyers. The biggest difference between the essays we write today and the way essays are supposed to be written, according to Graham, is that modern essays are written to another reader to convince them of something, whereas a true essay is written for the sake of oneself, in an effort to answer a question. The reason that a person would write an essay rather than simply think about their ideas is because ideas are formulated by writing. Writing forces a person to sit down and think about how to logically express ideas, and that is how one comes about the answer to a question.

I’m excited to put this concept into practice in my next work. I want to find a question that I really don’t know the answer to, and try to discover the answer by writing rather than using clever writing to convince a reader that my opinion is the correct one.

Response to Group Annotated Bibliography

The first source I read was a poem by Alice Walker named Calling All Grand Mothers. The poem attempts to empower grand mothers and tries to inspire them to become leaders and think differently about life and change their thoughts on the world. I thought the main reason that Walker wrote the poem is because she recognized the connections that the elders in a society have a lot to say about whether or not the people younger than them accept changes to their lives and thoughts. This is primarily because if someone is old and has lived their entire life with a set of social norms and ideas than they are less likely to change how they think than a young person. However, if they do, than it shows that anyone is capable of change, especially those who are younger than them.

The second source I analyzed was a TedTalk with Martin Rees from March of this year. Rees describes how with the way things are currently going, humankind is doomed for good, in much thanks to the misuse of biotechnology. A big point Rees makes is that the mentality of someone who helps is a huge deciding factor as to whether or not someone helps, and achieving this mentality is simple; one simply needs to decide they will help. I think this kind of logic can be applied to anything. In order to continue learning at an increasing rate after high school, one just needs to decide to go to college. Once they’re here, they become absorbed with their education and are forced into doing work due to grades and a competitive environment, where they may or may not have done this by trying to read and use online resources in their own time at home. I think the same logic applies for people who join international development organizations.

The third source was a photocollage by László Sós and Éva Kémeny made in 1982. The photocollage displays American commercialism well, while drawing a disappointing connection between the contrasts of lifestyles of those in the developed and undeveloped world. Unfortunately, donations to third-world countries from large corporations in the United States are usually used to control the American market for a product by building the corporation's image.

The last source I used was a narrative of a member of the USAID. The man basically dedicates his entire life to helping people for a cause he believed in. Even through post-traumatic stress disorder and the constant disapproval of several governments, he refused to stop fighting for what he belived in. While this a good example of someone going against what others say to fight for their cause, many times this sort of action can be malicious. It’s important if you're someone who is hellbent on their goals like the man above to look at both sides of the argument at hand and make sure you are doing the right thing.

Works Cited

Staff, Harriet. "Alice Walker, Health, Happiness, and Sanity." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

Rees, Martin. "Can We Prevent the End of the World?" Martin Rees:. TedTalks, Mar. 2014. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

Sós, László, and Éva Kémeny. "László Sós, Éva Kémeny. Fido Pâtée Pour Chats (1982)." MoMA.org. N.p., 1982. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

Johnson, Kirk W. "The List." Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics. N.p., 15 Aug. 2013. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

Reflection of Group Collaboration

Piece 1: From Victoria: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/10/alice-walker-health-happiness-and-sanity/

Piece 2: From Ashley Grund:  http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_rees_can_we_prevent_the_end_of_the_world

Piece 3: From Emily Green: http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=8212

Piece 4: From Jake Mikesell: https://www.guernicamag.com/features/the-list/?src=longreads

   Academic articles and data-based reports are limited in many areas related to this course's content. Their most glaringly problem is their inability to describe how important it is to have a diverse culture in the world. Academic articles are good at proving points with data, but the different things that make up culture such as language, music, social norms and customs usually cannot be represented well with numbers/facts. The true value of culture can only be understood by experiencing it first-hand, whether it be through traveling to a country and taking part in its people's everyday life, or looking at artwork and listening to music from another culture.
   If I were to create an artistic response to this course, it would probably be a music video compilation of different countries and their various customs. During the video would be a song that was written to sound like the different styles of music from the cultures that are being represented on the screen. Video footage would be a combination of both modern and past clips, and would be centered around peace making moments in history or just interesting foreign customs. While much of what we have learned in this class via our own research so far is fairly dark, I think videos like this one are more effective at getting people in combination with legitimate research on the world's problems to remind us what we're helping to preserve in this world.

Summaries for Group Bibliography

UW Group Annotated Bibliography Summaries

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/27511af8-23b3-11e2-a46b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2BAeKWbvW?src=longreads

This article is about how Brazil is one of the B.R.I.C. nations (along with Russia, India, and China) that will make an enormous economic impact in the 21st century. However, whether or not the make the transition into an efficient, respectable democratic country depends greatly on whether or not they can support large ventures such as the holding of the world cup this year as well as the olympics in 2016, while additionally improving the situation of the favelas across the country and specifically in the large city of Rio de Janeiro.

The favelas outside of Rio were formed out of complete neglect by the government. While this is the way that most impoverished areas in developing countries are formed, Rio stands out in a sense in that it is directly outside of the city, where as usually these neighborhoods are several miles away, or in completely remote locations. Additionally, Rio de Janeiro is home to several of the richest people in the world, and had many or the wealthiest subdivisions of any city in the world. Right now, the government is making efforts to clean up the favelas in time for the 2016 olympics. Whether or not Brazil is able to keep drug lords from running the city in time will decide their fate as a major economic player in the next century.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/article/239458

This is a link to some prose written by Etienne Ndayishimiye. It’s very thought provoking writing regarding how his home tribe in East Africa valued poetry. Ndayishimiye escaped his village by running away to the Democratic Republic of Congo. He faced difficulties when returning his tribe because it was unacceptable to be enrolled in school to many of these people who believed that they should be living in the forest without receiving a proper education.

Ndayishimiye cherishes the idea that poetry can be extremely effective in expressing the problems and needs for struggling countries and tribes like his own.

http://www.ted.com/talks/iqbal_quadir_says_mobiles_fight_poverty#t-164986

This TedTalk is about how simply giving aid to developing countries has actually decreased the amount of power that civilians have and increased the amount of power that authorities have in developing countries due to little regulation of the allocation and use of the funds they receive.

Smartphones/cell phones are an effective way to increase foreign development because it allows people to network, and in turn, create business by the people and for the people. This is a better way to improve the conditions of the inaction of people than by simply giving money to the unorganized governments of developing countries.

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A27802&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1

This is a photo of an XO laptop, which is the outcome of the One Laptop per Child program. The photo shows the products innovative and efficient design. The laptop shows that it needs to be durable, cheap to produce, and multi-functional to be effective as a vehicle for learning in third-world countries.

Clearly access to technology is extremely important to the developing countries because without good public education systems, computer and smartphone software and internet resources can provide education across the globe without a physical teacher.

Response to Bateson

Response to Bateson

Bateson begins by introducing his disagreements with the Memorandum written by a Committee of the Social Sciences research Council regarding their strategies for creating categories of culture, and the interactions between cultures. Bateson first points out that the efforts to create categories for culture are a somewhat irrelevant because there was no clear problem to be solved using the categories. This supposedly made the argument for the categories they created weak because they weren't necessary. He insists that it is first necessary to formulate a better idea of the problems for the categories first.

    To state it simply, the council is looking for ways to get groups of people to adapt aspects of another culture. Of the main problems with the original categorical scheme was that its based on the economic profit, willingness to accept foreign values, and ethical and religious practices of the country which is to be accepting culture. However, the only things impact the development of culture is the mechanism of satisfying sexual needs, enforcing social norms, or to supply individuals with food. The former are simply abstractions which are used to describe cultures in words.

    When two cultures are in significant contact with each other, they must either completely fuse communities, persist among one another is dynamic equilibrium, or one or both groups must be entirely eliminated. Bateson describes in detail how aspects of culture contribute to the drastic outcomes of culture contact.

    I thought this writing was very well crafted. It's accessible and driven by, for the most part, 

reasonable logic. He connects his writing to social issues that are relevant in both the 1930's and 

to a lesser extent, today. There are definitely plenty of controversial ideas, but looking at this 

excerpt from an author's standpoint, it's very well written and supported.

Reflection on Writing the Research Paper

1. To begin my research process, I googled a bunch of articles on my topic to make sure It wasn't going to bore me enough that I would be tempted to switch topics. Sure enough, it seemed as though it was moderately interesting, and I decided I would have enough information to support my stance on the topic. I then used databases to try to get away from the sensationalism and often unsupported bias of major news websites.

2. I chose a somewhat difficult argument for my paper because knowing people who were affected by the problems I was elaborating on, I absolutely had some personal bias in the issue. My bias was actually against the side I was arguing for. I usually argue against my first impression for scholastic papers because not only do I feel that I can support any argument successfully, but I also feel my counter-argument is strengthened through this process.

3. I wrote the majority of the paper the night before it was due. I wouldn't attribute this to being lazy, but rather to the time constraints I had for getting my research done. I spent probably about 10 hours glued to my computer writing it, only leaving my seat to go to the bathroom or to buy more coke. Coke is a great cram-session drink because it has a lot of caffeine and sugar, and it helps to remind me that I''m still a young even though I'm tackling such important issues in the world (ha). I tried to make my paper become more and more fact-oriented overtime, starting with the manifesto and ending with the research pages. Overall I was fairly happy with the result of the composition of my paper for a first draft, but my vocabulary needs work and I lacked enthusiasm that would've helped me be more efficient while writing.

4. There were many spelling mistakes in my paper. I did a horrendous job proof-reading. I realized that more factual evidence would have the initial parts of my research paper feel less dull and discursive. Probably most important was the addition of citations to my paper. It was a long strenuous task that was one of the least enjoyable things I've had to do over the course of my entire educational history. Most of my revisions to the body of my paper was better phrasing of statements and facts, and being more formal.

5. I messed up a multitude of times, but nothing compares to my disorganized gathering of information. While this had relatively no outcome on the draft of my paper, when I had to create in-text citations for the final draft, it was extremely bothersome. I needed to re-read all of my documents to find where I got the information from, and spent a great deal of time formatting the citations correctly. My research could have been better; it was extremely difficult to find many exact numbers on the amount of children who are trafficked due to international adoption. However, even a few reliable estimates would have made a huge difference for my argument's credibility.

6. I want to retain the general skill of arguing more effectively. I don't even like arguing, but arguing successfully is necessary across all disciplines of life, unfortunately. I don't know too many specific skills that I used for this project, but I want to retain the insight to organize my facts better for my future papers to my research more accessible to myself.