Presentations 6/17

I really liked Yusuke's presentation, his talking was very uptempo making it easy to follow. I could see the influences of stand up comedy in his talking, the way that he talks is absolutely hilarious. Anyway, his message that in history, there are no good guys and bad guys, only humans was something he always says in his blogs. It is obvious that he has a lot of passion for history and he showed in the presentation. He lent me a comic book by Howard Zinn which illustrates the contradictions of American history. I am looking forward to making the information inside a part of myself.

Izumi's presentation on photojournalism was interesting also. I never knew that she was a photographer, but moreover I never had considered the ethical sides of photography. I can't imagine how much pressure the photographers take on when taking photos in areas where ethical problems are brought up. Something new to consider when taking photos.

The Corporation 4~6

I honestly think that if you've watched the movie, there is no point in reading the book. The movie illustrates the topics the book covers and it is much easier to understand than the book. Anyway, it was quite obvious for me that corporations work for profit, and not humanitarianism. It is quite obvious that many corporations and celebrities give money to charity just to boost their public image. A friend of mine from the states taught me this concept when he was SEVEN years old. He used to watch the history channel and discovery channel all the time, and he had very intellectual parents, which was probably the reason he always so realistic, telling me on Christmas that Santa didn't exist etc.

I am interested in the fairly new kind of business, social business, which Koji pointed out in his presentation. There is actually another girl who is a friend of mine that is looking to shoot a documentary in Bangladesh about street children, and how there needs to be a way to start these social businesses in these areas. In ICU, there are many students who are aware of what corporations can accomplish to help educate and expand the economy in the less developed countries.

Corporations have so many negative effects on various aspects of our lives, and becoming a part of one seems like the norm especially in Japan but I really do not want to. First off, salarymen in Japan have the terrible quality of life. They work long unproductive hours and their life revolves around work. Stress levels are obviously high and although there are many merits of working in a company, I just think that it does not align with my value system. Secondly, what do salarymen actually do? I'm assuming that you do what your boss tells you to do which diminishes your creativity. Lastly, there are more interesting things one can do other than joining a company. If joining a company can accomplish your goals, then I think that is fine, but just joining one because everyone is joining one seems like a path for boredom in the future. Just my opinion though.

6/14 Presentations

The first presenter today was Koji, and I felt that his presentation was very impressing. His use of effects on keynote were fantastic, and the entire flow was great. I read his essay and thought that his perspective on what corporations could possible accomplish concerning poorer countries was interesting..

I also had read Narumi's essay after the presentation because I found the topic to be interesting. Psychopaths a.e depicted in movies such as Hannibal, and the I assume the characters were accurate in their characteristics. I wonder what motivated Narumi to select this topic, and if she likes movies like Hannibal.

Kenta's topic about blood type was entertaining because I've always thought the Japanese' obsession with blood type categorization was absurd. Obviously, there were no connections between blood type and personality. I guess it is just another form of fortune telling where the fortune teller says things that can apply to anyone.

Overall, I think everyone's presentations were informing and I had a great time listening to them!

6/12 Presentations

The topics of the presentations today were particulary of my interest because they were about food and creative arts in education. I used to have a great interest in food when I was studying sports nutrition and training. The problems America, Australia, England, and other western countries face is enormous; the food quality is rubbish. The culprit in the increase in obesity rates is sugar, not fat. The government in the U.S. in, I think it was the 1970s, sent out a message saying that fat was evil when in fact sugar was the culprit of people getting bigger. I really think that a lot of things are messed up and corrupted in America, and food is one of the issues that has turned into a major problem that cannot be fixed easily.

The quote from Picasso goes as follows: "All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up." I agree with this quote and I think that modern education kills creativity, as Ken Robinson said in his TED speech a few years back. The implementation of the arts in education is definetly a great thing, but in Japan I don't think it would be as effective as in other western countries. Japan has cultural aspects which would not correspond well with arts in education. First, Japanese value grades from standardized testing, but creative things cannot be measured by numbers. If they are, I feel that creativeness is lost in the process. Second, Japanese people tend not to express their feelings. This goes against the self expression that is supposed to happen when creating art. If it is in the form of drawing, perhaps students would be able to better express themselves because those forms of arts are not directly seen by peers. However, forms of art like dance are direct shapes of their body, therfore one can predict that Japanese students will become uncomfortable. I think it is extremely difficult to implement creative arts effectively in the education system in Japan (or in any country actually.) The only way for this to happen is for the paradigm to change, which will not happen easily. In the future there may become a time when the people realize that modern education is ineffective in embracing creativity and real knowledge and skills, not just undigested crammed information.

Some interesting videos

Here are some interesting videos somewhat relating to my presentation, about the salaryman lifestyle:

The Corporation Chapter 1-3

I think that this book gives strong points on how the corporation is morally harmful. The corporation is a psychopath, according to this book, when compared to human traits of a psychopath. I agree to this, and it was a new way of looking at things. It was very convincing and made me look at it from a new perspective.

On the other hand, people like Koji disagree with this, and say that not all corporations are evil and some strive to do good in society. I haven't done any research on this topic, but I have a bias that corporations only do good for society in order to raise the company`s image. Corporation`s role to increase profit, not to necessarily do good in society. That is why volunteer groups, NPOs, and groups like those exist and have meaning in society. According to the book, there is even a law stating that the corporation's main purpose must be to make profit. This lead to a contradiction, as mentioned in the book, that doing good for society and sacrificing profit for it is immoral. However, maybe there can be a compromise between profit and doing good for society.

I don't think it is meaningful to complain again and again about how horrible and evil corporations are, because that is quite obvious and it doesn't lead to any solutions. The problem is, the corporations own almost everything, so there is no way to fight against this, and no way to get out of this cycle of destruction. Also, the people that are in the corporations are not particulary evil, they are just doing their jobs. Which leads me to think that it is impossible to solve this problem because people would not feel bad at all for the negative effects of their corporations, because they are just doing their job well. The system is the problem, but fixing this problem is impossible. I am looking forward to Koji's presentation as he might offer some creative solutions about this topic.

6/11 Presentation Feedback

It was amazing receiving feedback from a specialist in presentations. Rab emphasized the design of the slides, and he repeated the mistakes over and over so we got it in our heads. Following the CRAP principles were key in making the slides. The points Rab made were clear, and I learned a lot today about the design aspect of presentations. The size and alignment of the photos were emphasized as well as the repetition of font style. These were all part of the CRAP principles, and I missed some of them in my slides.

I am looking forward to watching myself present, and figuring out what kind of unnecessary movements I have in my presentation. I want to take Rab`s presentation class in the winter semester because I am sure that it will help in the future when trying to share new ideas to people.