The Power of Images

An image can have a huge impact of us. Our emotions, thoughts, beliefs, can be altered or unchanged. 

The following images are taken from National Geographic website photography page. While viewing them ask yourself...

How does this make me feel?

What is the story here?

What is the context or background?

Do I like this image?

Did this image have an impact on me?

With all this in mind it makes the photograph even more timeless and enjoyable.

Dance Practice, Australia

Friends for over 40 years, ballroom dancers Mary Hall, 85, and Gerald Kavanagh, 80, practice on a warm spring evening in Bendigo, Australia.

Cow and Shepard, India

A young bovine finds safety and solace with her shepherd father. She was very nervous and tentative when I was taking pictures of the surroundings nearby, and sensing my presence she gradually moved toward the comfort of the shepherd.

Orangutan, London Zoo

A London Zoo favorite is Mr. Jiggs, a six-year-old orangutan capable of mopping his own quarters.

Polar Bear and Cubs, Svalbard, Norway

In a far north without ice, a mother bear could be stranded a long way from good hunting, struggling to feed herself and her cubs. This snow-free scene near Kapp Fanshawe (Cape Fanshawe) offers a glimpse of what may be the Arctic's rockier future. 

Carousel, Wales

In the middle of a long journey in the U.K. while walking at Cardiff Bay in Wales, I was distracted by children screaming in happiness on a carousel. I could hardly remember the last time I was on one of those but could clearly remember the joy.

Enjoy!

"The Power of Image"

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/swan-lake-ballerina/ 

Choosing an thought provoking photo doesn't always mean a tragedy, or something depressing, it can be little things, that people wouldn't expect to see a photograph of. The image above isn't a tragedy, and it doesn't tell a depressing story, it is a simple yet beautiful story. 

The goal of a photographer isn't to get what the audience see's, or necessarily wants to see, but what isn't shown to the audience. For example with this photo, this stunning ballet dancer just got of stage after preforming a solo of swan lake. The audience saw what she did on stage, but not what is or was going on back stage. This image has all the grace and beauty that the ballerina would express on stage, yet she is coming off stage in her own world with that same grace and beauty. 

In this moment, the ballerina is a glowing silhouette of awash shades of blue. Her silhouette shows her form and body beautifully, everything that a ballerina should be, thin, hourglass body, and elegance. The slight profile of her face adds to her beauty and gracefulness, as well as making it a mystery who she is. Many dancer's aren't famously known for their faces, but what they can do with their bodies and their gracefulness. The fact that we can't see her face, emphasizes that it doesn't matter who she is, but what she can do. 

Her soft light blue tutu contrasts against, the cold, hard stage floor, which adds a graceful karma to her. The background light it streaking blue on the stage, as well as a flood of blue light from the top, making the stage look like ice. 

Her delicate tutu has the shadow of her face on it. The "v" from her torso points towards that shadow, allowing the viewer to focus on it more than if the "v" wasn't there. 

The out-of-focus figures at the end of the stage, are perfectly placed between the tall curtains and just above the ballerina's arm, make them a focal point of the photo. The space between the ballerina's arm and the figures is essential, creating a frame for the other figures. 

She completely fills the foreground, allowing the background to be lit up, creating a tremendous contrast between the dancer and her stage. Her arms are in a position as if she might just take off, flying out of the theater. She is the white swan, free and happy. 

In my opinion this image also shows how ballet is a lifestyle. She was taught to be graceful in class, but to fully become a ballerina and embody a delicate, flowing, beautiful human being, is not easy. A lot of sacrifices have to be made to get that one chance of being in the spotlight, and working your way up their isn't easy, but the joy of perfectly finishing a performance must be unreal. Nothing is more beautiful than seeing a ballerina dancing to perfection, owning the stage with her allure.

The Conclusion to my Weekend

On this Sunday night, as a source of inspiration I have decided to write about a poor civet cat stuck on the top of our flagpole in front of our house (the U.S. Ambassador Residence). Now, you are probably thinking: What the heck, this sounds pretty wack, so here goes the story.

I have a nine-year-old, still-fiesty dog named Pucci, who is a blonde labradoodle. He looks something like this.

Pucci is 75% poodle, hence labradoodle (kind of sounds like poodle). As part of his poodle genetics, he loves to chase and ultimately murder furry animals and rodents. He lives to kill cats. Over the years, he has killed approximately 4 cats, and still counting, (thank goodness none of his victims have had a name or belonged to anyone).

Now, for the past hour, this poor civet cat has been balancing himself on the decorative ball at the top of the 30-foot high flag pole. I really feel for that poor critter, he was just roaming around our garden minding his own business when all of a sudden, my murderer of a dog galloped over to him and started chasing him and barking his head off. This poor cat sprinted as fast as his legs could take up to the highest thing he could find, the flagpole.

Just a little side fact:  this incident took place during our dinner. Our peaceful conversation on the screened on porch was interrupted by intense barking and screeching.  We figured Pucci was chasing something but we did not know what. My dad left the table to check it out and came back with the report.

After we ate the last bites of our homemade cheery ice cream,  my dad decided to talk to our local guards to see if they could help get this helpless critter down. They surprisingly knew quite a bit about civet cats, but that did not surprise me considering the fact that they were able to get a huge (five-foot long) monitor lizard our of our staff bathroom, but that is another story for another day.

The guards told my father, "no problem sir, we will get him down." They grabbed their flashlights, walked over to the base of the flagpole, and flashed the light right at the critter. My dad, thinking that wasn't the best way to get a cat down, told the guards so. One of the guards had an idea and went back to the guard hut. A few seconds later he returned with a whistle type thing, and blew it a couple of times. The cat perked up his ears and surely enough started to ease his way down, head first. Once he hit ground he sprinted off, and hopefully will never come back, unless he is willing to test the whole cats have nine lives motto.

I really do have sympathy for all the animals that have had encounters with my dog, it must be terrifying for them!

So the conclusion to my busy weekend as I am writing this, after finishing my last bits of homework is chilling with my brother's hedgehog sleeping in my lap, and Pucci drooling all over hoping to one day get a taste of him. Hopefully that will never happen.

Persuasive Essay: What if school started at 9am or even 10am?

One of the hardest things as a teenager is waking up at basically dawn to be ready for school at 8am. I mean let alone the stress that school brings, you have to decide what to wear as well! Does this dress make me look fat? How should I tie up my hair? Should I bring a sweater? Do I wear sneakers or sandals? OMG! My shoes don't match my outfit! With all this in mind, you would have to wake up even earlier to make sure these "wardrobe malfunctions" don't occur (mostly for girls, but for some guys I guess as well). I mean come on people we generally are at school to learn not make a fashion statement. Even taking all this into consideration, call me crazy but I think that school should start no later than 8am. 

Now at this point, many people would disagree with me, everyone wants more sleep, but will starting school later really give students more sleep? Yes, it is scientifically proven that teenagers especially, need a ton of sleep (8-9 hours at least), to help our growth, and brain development, and blah blah blah, but going to sleep later, and waking up later, won't change that, if anything it will stay the same as if you were to wake up earlier. Many students think oh I can wake up later, thinking oh that means I can go to bed later to, which would in fact put you right back to where you started, just at later hours during the night and day. Generally we associate waking up later with "more time" in the morning to get ready, and "more time" to eat breakfast, but what we also must take into consideration is will students think that they can stay up even later now because they have "more time" to sleep? If so, there is absolutely no point is starting school later. 

Another little bonus point is waking up early during the week makes the weekend more of a treat, getting to sleep in late! Even though my mom won't let me sleep in past 10am because she thinks I am wasting the day, ugh parents.

Not only would school start later, but it would also end later, starting earlier means ending earlier. Starting school at 8am allows us to finish school at 3pm, now starting school at let's say 9am or 10am would mean finishing school at around 4pm or 5pm, which would practically leave no time for sports or any extra-ciricular activities. With school ending at 3pm it gives us as students better time management, to focus on school work, and participate in sports, or if sports aren't your thing, time to do  some other activity.

 Time management is one of the key's to life. Managing your time is a very hard skill to learn, but once you have it, you will never loose it, kind of like riding a bike. This skill will not be one of those things that you only learn in school, and think when will I ever have to use this in real life, like finding the cosine function of a graph, I don't think many people will end up doing that for a living. This prepares us as students for work situations in the real world, where time management will be essential. 

Students staying up late, and not giving themselves a fair amount of sleep, bring it upon themselves that they are so groggy in the morning. Sleep is essential if you want to live, but making school start later is NOT the answer to more sleep. I have never heard anyone dying of exhaustion from school, but there is a first for everything. 

http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-topics/school-start-time-and-sleep 

http://debatewise.org/debates/1364-schools-should-start-later/

My Reflection on "On Compassion" by Barbara Lazear Ascher

"On Compassion", an essay explaining and examining the role that compassion plays in our life today states that "Compassion is not a character trait like a sunny disposition. It must be learned...". I completely agree with this statement. Being a third-culture kid, and basically growing up in Asia, I have had my fair share of witnessing poverty. It's not easy coming across people leading such simple lives, just to barley get by when you have more than enough, but I can defiantly say it has opened by eyes to a whole new world. 

As a kid I was unaware of why a man dressed in rags would be the asking for money, or sleeping in an isolated corner. As I started growing up, it was becoming clearer. Growing up is something everyone goes through whether we like it or not. As you start to grow up you begin thinking for yourself, coming up with ideas and theories, that might not even make sense, but hey it's a start. 

Another factor of growing up is deciding what kind of person you want to be, someone who is passive and takes only what they are offered, or someone that is active, desperate to make a change, and will fight for what they want. I learned to be an active compassionate person, I care about others and want and try to help those in need. I have given food as well as dropping money in the torn styrofoam cup, with barley anything in it, hearing only a faint clink from a previous coin as it hits the bottom. Hearing that faint clink, lights up the unfortunate man or women's face, and they say thank you. Walking away, I turn around and see people pass this poor person, and the only thing that comes to mind is Why don't they put some change in his cup, brighten his day, hoping to make the clink louder and louder? Now I guess it isn't in my place to go up to some random stranger and tell them to put their change in a homeless man or woman's cup, that would be kind of creepy. As long as I give something, I feel like I have made a difference, and made someone smile, which to me is one of the best feelings in the world. 

Compassion is an extremely powerful emotion, and can motivate us to do incredible things. In this essay with the example of compassion, such as giving money, or a free steaming cup of coffee and a pastry for breakfast, shows that people do care, and want to help, most of the time. 

What struck me, which is what I notice on the streets when people pass a homeless person, is "The others on the corner, five men and women waiting for the crosstown bus, look away." People don't want to see pain, poverty, or sorrow, which is why many people ignore a less fortunate person begging for money. In my opinion instead of looking away, and pretending not to notice, accept the fact that there are people struggling to get a decent nutritious meal, or a clean pair of clothes, and help them, even if it is only your spare change.

My step-grandpa Bob, is a news anchor, for religion and ethics channel in Washington D.C. He drove a navy blue dodge caravan, that a mouse lived in (ewww!), until my grandma made him sell it. During the period where he did in fact own his beloved van, he met a homeless man one day. 

Bob, being the very compassionate person that he is, saw a homeless man on the street as he was driving and decided to pull over to give him some money. Bob introduced himself, as he was pulling out a $50 bill, so the homeless man decided to introduce himself as well, his name was Poppy. As Bob was about to give him the bill, Poppy said he didn't want his money, Bob, confused then asked him what he did want, he responded with "A mattress would be nice so that I don't have to sleep on this hard pavement all night." As it turns out Bob, did in fact have a spare mattress and agreed to bring it to him later that night in his van (the mattress fit perfectly in the back by the way). As Bob was about to leave the mattress with Poppy, Poppy said that Bob would have to come at dawn to pick it up again so that the police didn't think that he had stolen it. Bob with enthusiasm agreed and early the next morning went to pick up the mattress. 

This routine prolonged for about a month. Bob gave Poppy his card incase he needed anything else, and Poppy started calling my Grandma's house, using a local pay phone, asking to speak to Bob, claiming Bob was his savior, my Grandma totally confused and being an over reactor as always, demanded to know who Poppy was. Bob explained and for some reason (which I am completely clueless too) it upset my Grandma, so Bob stopped interacting with Poppy. The next winter, Bob got a phone call from the local hospital informing him that he was Poppy's emergency contact number, and that Poppy had died of phenomena. There was nothing more Bob could do, he carried on with his life, and continues to give money to the homeless. 

Below is an article that I found really interesting on a homeless man who wins the lottery, click below to find out what he does with $50,000. 

Click here :)

My reflection on Failing to Learn Japanese in only Five Minutes

My childhood consisted of princess dresses, magic wands, barbie dolls, glitter shoes, ballet lessons, jazz and dancing, but most importantly, the color pink. My bedroom was pink. The sheets, pillows, towels, bath mat were all the shade of Pepto Bismol. My wardrobe was pink. From dresses to tutus, all neatly hung in my closet. Pink ballet slippers, pink bags, pink belts, hairbands, scrunchies, ribbons, nail polish. Pink, pink, pink!

Now, maybe that's why I can't stand to wear that color today. My mom still loves it, which is fine as long as she does not impose it on me. The only pink I own is underwear because it does not show. As a matter of fact, I think my mom bought that underwear without me that day.

When I was five years old my best friend was a chubby, pink-loving, blonde, big-blue eyed, girl named Hannah. She has the bluest eyes I've ever seen. They were like her mother's. We used to put on our pink tutus and dance all over the house, Angelina Ballerina style. We'd play dress-up all the time. Once we even dressed up my little brother in velvet pink, and oddly he didn't seem to mind.

Hannah's mother was a Christian and her dad was Jewish, and you're probably wondering why on earth this is important.  The reason is one Christmas we decided to have a joint celebration of decorating the tree at my house.

Hannah's family celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas, so she got double the amount of presents, which always made me jealous. Anyway, so here we were listening to Mickey Mouse or Chipmunk christmas songs, having a great time. Hannah and I were dressed in.. yep, you guessed it pink tutus with sparkly shoes.  We were dancing, which was more like running and screaming around and nibbling on animal crackers, because I mean, come on who doesn't love animal crackers. My mom brought out all her ornaments. Here is a little info on my mom: she collects ornaments from around the world, expensive, antique-y glass one, not the ones on sale at Walmart, I mean seriously our tree is like a world map.

After our attempt to decorate the tree the adults basically re-did the whole thing, I'm not talking about one or two ornaments I mean literally the whole tree. After their redecorating preparing dinner and setting the table began, which at that time we were too young to do.

As we were dancing, out of nowhere Hannah decided she didn't like where the tree was located, so she  began to move it. We didn't even know how a pine tree was related to Christmas, or even the story behind Christmas for that matter, all we cared about were the presents... hopefully wrapped in pink paper! Hannah always got her way, she was the most persuasive, motivated five year old I have ever known, and next thing I know all by herself, she is dragging the tree from one corner of the room to the other.  Lucky enough my mom walked in just as she had finished dragging it, to tell us dinner was ready, but when she saw Hannah moving the tree, and her expensive ornaments teasing the floor she kind of freaked out. I mean I don't go to her house and start lighting her menorah. I think her dad might have never let me come over again.

Now there isn't much punishment you can give a five year old for moving a Christmas tree (I don't think she got any punishment at all). I mean she didn't break anything, which was a huge relief. So that Christmas we had the tree on the opposite side of the living room.

Hannah and I have been separated by miles, but whenever we see each other, which isn't very often anymore, all we do is laugh, remembering all the crazy things we did, especially the time she moved our christmas tree. Nowadays the only time I enjoy seeing pink under the Christmas tree is a Victoria Secret bag, hopefully filled with perfume and clothes.

After all these years, I have yet to go to her house and move their menorah.