HOUSTON!!!

Houston was AMAZING. The art, the play, everything. The city reminded me of a very watered down New York. (yeah, sort of an exaggeration) Anyways, we visited an art museum which I provided pictures for some of my favorite pieces. We also watched a play titled Intelligence Slave. This play depicts a different story of what occurred during the Holocaust. Instead of being centered around death of millions, the play displayed a deeper view of what the Holocaust effected. This aspect is what I enjoyed the most because of the different experience. It showed what was underneath all the death and exposed the emotion behind it.

Overall, I was really glad I was able to visit Houston in the way that I did. I had never seen the artsy district of Houston and I was glad to be able to see that in my lifetime. It seems that since I have come here, I have learned so much not only from the people around me but from the new surrounding. Being placed in an environment that I did not know really forced me to learn about new things. It excites me and it's bittersweet at the same time because we only have one week left and I don't want it to be over. I can't wait to see what the next week holds. :)

Rules of interpretation

Before we leave for the Houston trip that is very art-driven, Dr. Carpenter gave us three questions we must ask when looking at art.

• What do you see?
• What does it mean?
• How do you know?

These questions are very important because they really work when looking at a very unusual object. Even though interpretation is subjective, these three questions can guide you to a make a good one. I look forward to putting these questions into action tomorrow in Houston.

Food Inc.

In ethics today, we talked about a film titled Food Inc. The film talks about the wrongdoings of the food industry and how it can be detrimental to humans. A case that was shown in the film explained how a simple hamburger killed a 2 year old child. This film is trying to highlight just that in regard to wrongdoing. This film is trying to show light to the negativity the food industry holds. The tagline for the film is "You'll never look at dinner in the same way." This tagline is perfect as many of us who watched the film were disgusted. The way they treated the animals and what they do just to simply have a chicken finger at dinner is disgusting. We have a couple vegetarians and they expressed how videos like this inclined them to go vegetarian.

In regard to ethics, we had to discover and question if the way the meat companies are treating the animals is ethical. To me, it is very unethical to treat animals just for the sake of eating meat that probably isn't safe anyway. We discussed in class alternatives to produce meat that would ultimately help us out and diminish this problem. Overall, I have enjoyed this class and what it offers.

Multicultural Reflection

Today, we discussed first impressions. Ms. Rose presented us with slides of four different people. Each of a different race. This was shocking as our ideals of each race differed from what was actually real. I really enjoyed this activity because of what it represents to us. We all look at the color of the skin but not at the character. We judge people based on their race and not what they present beyond the color. This activity opened my eyes to see in a different perspective. We all discussed after the activity why we thought the way we did. We all had something different to say and it was all really well thought out. From what I have experienced, we are all very interested in the subject of multicultural studies and what it entails. We all thirst for the different perspective and we all enjoy what we have to say. This class is so much fun and I can't wait for more!

Visual Culture - 6.14.10

Today, in visual culture we learned about a street artist named Banksy. Now, I don't want to say too much about him because I feel that his work needs to be interpreted on your own terms. Every work has a different meaning to every individual. What do you think?

AUSTIN!!!

Woooooohooooooo! I've never been to Austin and it was exciting to go. It felt so weird - Austin doesn't seem like it belongs to Texas. The environment seemed fun and playful and still down to earth. After the two hour drive, we met up with Dr. Slattery's daughter, Michelle Slattery. Michele talked to us about her experience as an urban architect and what exactly she does. I found it really interesting because she turns areas that are really slow and sad into an area of excitement. In a way, she is doing a service to the community by providing a place to go and have fun. That aspect of her job excited me the most because she seemed really passionate about what she did. Michelle genuinely wanted to help her city through her architectural talent. This really helped me see architectural side of urban leadership. Architects can be urban leaders in their environments by creating good.

After a visit to the Blanton Museum where they had AMAZING art, we had our own private concert outside of a restaurant. This concert was awesome! Everybody was totally into it and enjoying their time there. This really made me happy because I felt that there was a type of unity among us all. Even though we all came from different parts of Texas we could all join together and have fun at a concert. People were dancing and all the fun was recorded! This is one of the memories that will really stick out when remembering the Governor's School.

Ethics Water Video

This video was shown in our Ethics class today. I think it has important message behind it and I believe it's a problem I can fix in my own surrounding. It really brings ethics into play when first attempting to fix the problem. What is an ethical way to conserve water? This issue is important and it really left an important influence on me. We discussed alternatives and how we think water is such a small problem in our world when in reality, as shown in the video, water conservation is huge.