Category Archives: Language and Literature

Where Innovation and Modern Technology Collide… What Else is More Important?

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This collaborative project is where innovation and modern technology come together. James and I worked together in this movie project along with John and Izaiah from BMSA at Ohio, United States. Where our tasks are to create a screenplay based on our chosen book and a storyboard that follows. While the screenplay and storyboard are created for our BMSA partners, they will take our ideas and combine their skills to create a visual movie trailer. What is a screenplay? A screenplay basically covers everything that actors follow to act out a screenplay—text, action, setting, props, emotion(?), etc…. A storyboard conveys the factors in the screenplay into a more visual and reliable tool for the filmer, approaches for a better product.

Group vs. Individual

Personally, I prefer working within a group more than individual work; however, some people might be vice versa and it’s reasonable! A thought advances me in the characteristic to collaborate better with others than to communicate within myself in an individual work—a skill I would develop so the same ability protrudes for the better when working independently. The same characteristic is actually easy to improvise into working individually. By thinking that in group work, the amount of work is usually divided upon the group, and assuming that the group is receiving independent grades for each, how will you feel if your work is delayed by others and that contributes to affect your grade? Well, I was able to hold that thought throughout group working, not allowing myself to fail others because they don’t deserve whatever the negative outcomes I poured on them. Now that I have analyzed why I have higher efficiency in group working, which I prefer, I conclude the reason that I was allowing myself to delay myself, resulting in lower efficiency, valuing others more than myself, and teaching myself to accept the decision I made. And how does it encourage me to apply this skill while working individually? Simple! but hard: conquer the indulgence.

Communication over 12,000+ Km… Wasn’t Too Bad!

Before writing our screenplay, James and I brainstormed and pictured ideas for their benefits and made sure what we expected them to film is achievable. Unfortunately, we didn’t exchange other social media(s) for more convenient communication. However, we still managed to sent emails back and forth to whatever questions holding us back.

After a few days over our BMSA partners’ due date—feedback for both screenplay and storyboard received nothing… yet, just to make sure our partners have previewed it and acknowledged that they could and should give us feedback, I sent an email to check in. And they’ve responded! replied that they didn’t find anything that they would like us to change.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse


“Siddhartha”
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse via Amazon

Why this book? Well, James chose this book and I agreed after actually read half of the book online, finding the story content to possibly blend in a screenplay really well. Here’s a short summary of the book we’ve chosen, which we also have sent to our BMSA partners to give them a short heads up(!):

Hesse uses religious characters to construct the story structure of Siddhartha, which we easily broke down and wrote the screenplay into (5) acts. Siddhartha, more than a book title, appears to be the main character that would appear in every scene. Luckily we have 2 partners from BMSA, having one partner to play the role of Siddhartha and the other in the play of different characters that he would also play in every act. While formatting the screenplay, I researched some examples in both English and Mandarin, where I saw behind many movie scenes. After research, we decided to simply format our screenplay, but made everything very clear at the same time (partners’ feedback) with good use of screenplay terminologies. Here’s our screenplay:

Already have the skills and experience of creating a storyboard, I directly followed up created a storyboard using Canva‘s template. For each act (from our screenplay), I included 4~6 shots from a camera angles shot list that I’ve archived in the past, as well as movements, expressions, and scene transitions. Although my opinion on my storyboard is pretty boring… repetitive angle shots are used, I have to say it is much more beautiful than my hand drawn. Moreover, it would be much easier for my partners to understand. The storyboard is available below.

Even though I personally think it is unnecessary for our partners to create an independent shot list document because it basically replicates the storyboard. However, in another point of view, it enhances their understanding while spending more time paying attention to details. Here is the shot list, created by our partners:

Challenges I Found… and Faced

“Which direction are you going?”
Raindrops by NeeZhom Photomalaya via Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

When good ideas start going in different directions, they would never end up making sense. As different ideas know their main direction, they could have a wider range of messages and end up in one piece.

Who says that miscommunication could only occur between us and BMSA? During the process of writing the screenplay, I realized some factors that contributed to confusing the audience. First, I would like to point out the different abilities we have: work efficiency, habits, and point of view. While both of us were working on the screenplay, there would be some concepts that are misleading to each other, such as emotions and messages one is trying to convey. By work efficiency, James would misplace my point of view and to his and complete the rest of the screenplay before I have time to check again. This would end up being confusing to the audience, where two points of views are displayed in one. Despite the problem, we immediately have plans to the issue by communicating, which we discussed the main direction of where each act is going before any of us starts writing. By the end of completing act 5, I feel like our ideas and perspective blends smoothly together no matter who starts the writing.

Conclusion

The last time I had this kind of experience was in 3rd grade when we were assigned pen pals from the US. Since then, I’ve always wanted another opportunity to have a connection with other students from the US during our school days. This time, this opportunity was even better, being able to collaborate creativity and process into making a product.

I’ve gained a lot of experiences and thoughts throughout this collaborative project. Being a communicator is so much more important than being all out productive, a communicator can revise, revise, revise… while being only productive could cause inconvenience to the other side. Being initiative when a problem occurs, ask them, send an email! waiting doesn’t get the problem solved, according to my current experience discussed above. Starting from the decision of our book, creating the screenplay, and finally the storyboard, communication lies in between all. Without communication, I am 90% sure that I’m not receiving the final video, the remaining 10% is that it’ll probably be nonsense. Overall, communication would anyway remain a great experience regardless of the outcome of the final product, whether I get it or not. Finally, shoutout to John and Izaiah and all the students from BMSA for giving us such a wonderful experience!

                             
“Bio-Med Academy” ……………                               .  “Kaohsiung American School”
Bio-Med Academy by BMSA via Twitter                 Kaohsiung American School by KAS via kas.tw

3 Systems of Sports Explained

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Transfer Infer

“If I’d had a gun, I would’ve shot him” (Gregory, 1998). The most memorable transfer quotes in football history, like it or hate it. Transferring star players can be heartbreaking, but is it love or hate former teammates show? Some fans show great respect in players transferring, but some call players a “money grabber” or a “snake” for acknowledging the player transfer in reason of the money paid. Neymar Jr., a Brazilian football player was signed by the French football club Paris Saint-Germain with the doubled world record fee, €222! Many said that Neymar was attracted by money, and himself gave clear explanations, going further without Lionel Messi being the boss.

 

“The €222 Transfer”

Neymar in PSG by Antonie Dellenbach via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

LeBron James, a former NBA Cleveland Cavaliers team transferred to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018 after the defeat in the championship game. In 2010 Cavaliers fans burn his jersey to show hate, to him transferring to Heat. LeBron won titles back in Cleveland, numerous of them, after the unveiling of transfer to Lakers, people start burning LeBron’s jerseys again. This time, it was a symbol of respect for his decision, a “let him go” symbolism.

“King James”

Lebron by Rated R Superstar! via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Winning Bid

Perseverance, effort despite difficulty or challenge that stand upon players. Adversity, when the team strikes rock-bottom, and have no idea how to make a return. Triumph, winning an award in the achievement of yourself as one, or for the whole team. Defeat, here’s the thing, “If you can accept losing, you can’t win” (Lombardi). TAKE it home, don’t bring it, I’m not trying to motivate you, encourage you, I’m telling you to DO it. Take what you did, take what you earn, take your defeat “by the way.” You bid, you take, you bid for the winning, you put full effort into the game. Take anything after that, victory? defeat? it doesn’t matter anymore, the matter is, do you take it or not? Everything or nothing? take the nothing because it is something, take it so you don’t take “nothing” again next time.

“Decision Making”

Contract by Dan Macy via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

It is one thing to score, and another to win, players decide for themselves to score themselves or pass the ball to let their teammates score, it’s the step to take pride in one’s own dignity or the step to prejudice the team to lose of the goal that could be scored on easily with your teammate. “It doesn’t matter who scores the ball because we are on the same team” (Messi).

Co-ownership Ends

Co-ownership is a system that two clubs each purchase 50% of the rights of a player’s contract they are bidding for, and by the end of the year, the auction of the highest bid wins. In May 2014, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) brought back Serie A in line with the other European leagues and ended co-ownership, “The transfer system fails 99% of players around the world, it fails football as an industry and it fails the world’s most beloved game” (Piat, FIFPro President). Is it right to end co-ownership? In my opinion, it is not right to have co-ownership because it will be clubs choosing players with money which is unloyal to players who wants to stay but couldn’t. However, this system can be improved in another way of making the football association better with respect.

How about you create a system that could benefit players, clubs, and fans?

Academic Honesty

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Academic dishonesty or academic misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise. However, there are many rules you should follow, but there might be different ones in different occasions.

Plagiarism → A work represent another person’s idea without citing
Cheating → Students attempts to misrepresent academic skills or knowledge through use of unauthorized materials on exams /assignments
Fabrication → Misrepresentation or invention of any work, intentional
Duplication → Copy and Paste of original work into your own work
Collusion → Aid and abet another student to be dishonest

Into the 3 student handbook I’ve researched about, including Kaohsiung American School as one, it is based on Transparency, Appropriateness, Formal Submission
Consequences: Academic Probation (no after school and extracurricular activities and referral to Student Services Team), Formal Conference with parents, 0 credit for course or marked incomplete, report to a university (affect your college application after graduation), withdrawal from KAS, or other consequences at superintendent’s decision.

In Basis Charter School, comparing to KAS, it is less severe consequences than KAS, its consequences are 0 credit for assignment or quiz only. Collusion, fabrication, and duplication not included. Adding to more, no other consequences applied, it is withdrawal for other disciplinary violations.

The Lawrenceville School is pretty much similar with the student handbook of KAS, and the violations are taken very seriously. A violation can be put on a student’s permanent record or transcript and can impact on how their college application will succeed or not.

Presentation made by: Eric, Yujinia, and author

Perspectives in Education between Chinese and American

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Different people have different perspectives, especially when people don’t understand the other when they are in different places. They could hear rumors, or misunderstood something, and have false understanding among idea(s).

In Individuals and Societies class, I learned and brainstormed about different perspective of how students from two big countries view each other. The given might be true, from perspectives, or rather false opinions. Dividing the two sections into facts and opinions, facts are the big differences we see from attending both educations having experiences, opinions are what students in American that live there and never been to Chinese education anywhere think about the Chinese students just from… anywhere. And the other way around to Chinese students having thoughts about American education too.

Working with Attributions

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Fear Inside Fear
Screamfest by Roberto Rachado Cabello via Pinterest

Mask Under a Mask
The Joker by Stark via Pinterest

Illusion
The Shining by Huffpost via Pinterest

Same things acting in opposite ways is a great illusion to your mind. When scary characters see themselves, looking back on what they’ve done and the way they make others feel, they make themselves feel the same way too. When you take off the mask of someone else, it could be another mask under it, as if The Joker hid himself under a joker mask to make himself untargetted and the most unique. Illusion, one might not make a difference, but two would make a huge impact, as if they are the fear of you, the illusion is.

They say a image is worth a thousand words, what you write for the picture is what you think it is, and it could be infinite ways of doing that. When I cited the images using hyperlink, it is very efficient by putting in 3 parts, the picture URL itself, the author URL, and the company publicating the image. A reflection doesn’t say what you learn but what you did, what you accomplished. The three images I chose really did show great compare in the text I caption them into, in one to five words, can simply describe the thousand words pictures into a million.

Digital Presence & Citizenship

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Digital citizenship refers to using technology online to engage in society, politics, and government, how one chose to use the internet regularly and effectively. Digital footprint means what you leave behind after doing something digitally online when you search something, share something, what you did in the past. Once you put something on the internet, there are still tracks left behind even if you take it back or delete it. After you read this article, you should be able to understand the point that if something will be left forever, why do things that you want to clean up afterward? Cleaning up your digital footprint should be the same meaning as not doing something on the web.

Before posting something, think, is this going to harm anyone? Is this necessary? How are people going to feel? Is this dangerous? To harm anyone means to change another person in the bad. To be necessary means you have to, not wanting to. Keep in mind how others are going to feel after you post something, think in their perspective, and is it dangerous, for yourself, and to the public, because you posted this, and what you posted come from you, and if people can find you, whatever may happen are the consequences.

When people discuss something online, they don’t have to know each other, but once you talk about a certain name, mentioning a person, it changes the fact about sharing opinions because you would be judging that person. This connects to being necessary or not, replying, or not. If it’s not necessary to reply on a post or posting something, don’t. It’ll just create more possibility of trouble and it’ll be harder to handle after then.

When you show presence to the public, dangerous people might target you, hack on you. It’s based on the dangerous people’s opinion, they want you to be in trouble or not. The way to keep you 100% out of trouble is to not take a step, which means not to have any footprint, and you don’t have to erase anything because you didn’t do anything. But when it is necessary to take a step, such as schoolwork, family, friends, work, just refer back to the points for you to think before you post, think ahead for yourself, the consequences?

In fact, college/university applies for checking your digital presence, the way you use media and might change their way of letting you in. They will check your facebook, mail, Instagram, they can find these because you leave digital footprints behind, but if you show digital footprint in a good way that you care about others, you don’t have to be afraid.

Some articles I looked at are:

Online Guidelines for Student Blogging, Commenting, and Personal Safety

 

3 Student Handbooks

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The student handbook is a collection of conduct standards, policies, and procedures that outline so that students are aware of expectations from the school. However, handbooks from different schools can be similar and/or dissimilar in context.

The KAS high school handbook defines each class course possible to take in the entire high school years, credits, and expectations of class courses from school, and for applying for colleges. Basically, it is telling you what we need and the big picture of high school into college because that is the final main point we go to KAS for. Despite KAS, TAS mentioned all the advantages of high school in there, how easy it will be, but not much more after college, so TAS only covers till students graduate from there. MAK stated mostly AP course which is easy for students to know what college they want and what they prefer, it is kind of helping you to get in college but not that much.

Grading systems in different schools would be different, KAS uses MYP nowadays, but TAS and MAK still use averaging, GPA is used in all three schools but the points are given differently for A+ in KAS and MAK, 4.33 and 4 is a difference student can distinguish between in.

Rules are more detailed in the KAS handbook, every rule is given and it is hard to not find one or break one. Consequences are like a cause and effect, what you do wrong deserves a reasonable punishment, TAS uses the same technique as KAS giving chances up to 4 or 5 times and each time the consequences gets higher. MAK clearly uses the bible to cover the rules, but it only covers up the main concepts on being a good human being, not everything of a student.

School handbook keeps students in order, in one, together. It is written text that students in the school follows and apply to all. When a student chooses to follow the policies, it makes it easy and normal in school, when a student decides to break the policies, consequences will apply, these are the main part of keeping students following the handbook.