Humanity in Globalization ended on a high note in all regards. The final I felt I did quite well on, having used the entire two hours to compose two solid essays. There is one service here at HKU where you can pull up old examinations from previous terms, but being that the first time this class was taught, this particular resource became more approximate than anything else. For part of the course content, our professor said to look up exams from a different class, Human Security, to get a good idea of what that will look like. Some questions were almost exactly, if not entirely, word for word the same.
To study, I went over all the readings (again) as well as my class notes. Being that most of the lectures were guest speakers, my notes were kind of sparse and largely irrelevant. However, for the optional review session, the professor gave us a thorough outline of the class with which we could structure our studying better.
Besides the final examination, there were also the term research paper, which I did on language rights and language evolution in the wake of globalization, as well as participation grades in lectures (based mostly on attendance) and tutorials.
For the last two tutorials, we did a role-playing exercise called Zanda. Zanda is a multinational state with a president who bombs tribal people to get them off their well-endowed mining lands, which the government has leased to a multinational corporation. Yanda is a neighboring country that has national security on its mind with the instability of Zanda yet supplies rebel armies with weapons. Wanda also borders Zanda and has had an influx of tribal people coming in as refugees. Queensland is the ex-colonial government that owned Zanda up until recently.
We got roles from tutor, ranging from nurse with multiplex relationships to heads of state and United Nations officials, along with NGO leaders, journalists, and the head of that multinational mining company. I was given the role of President of Wanda.
The whole exercise was quite amusing, with us debating for our interests and attempting to reach solutions. The problem was that we had no idea if we were allowed to reach solutions, meaning that we had no idea how much action we could take or if we were just talking.
The funny thing is that we were told that we were allowed to bring up Zanda as an example for our final examination. I thought it was funny to use such a frivolous activity as evidence for such an examination. Needless to say, I didn’t use it at all. Instead I referred to readings and guest speakers. Anyways, Zanda was mainly done to show how much work it is to reach consensus and get action done on such levels. I think that most of us already understood this concept though, seeing that not much gets done on the macro level on a day-to-day basis in the world.
The class ended on a positive note in all regards because my little dispute with Globalpost.com has been resolved. To refresh, they republished this blog by automated means consistently and without permission. To make things more irksome, they in no way acknowledged the fact that they did not own my content, claiming copyright over absolutely everything on their site. And on the monetary side of things, they were ostensibly making money off of my original work. After persistently emailing their blog coordinator for about a month, informing them of my position, they finally got back to me.
They apologized profusely, saying that they thought they got permission from all the authors of the blogs they copied onto their website to do so and that mine just fell through the cracks. They also said that if I would like, they would keep my posts on their website, praising my writing, lol. Maybe if they had said it the other way around, that they would like to publish my posts on their website for whatever reason, I would have gotten off my high horse and granted it.
One more final to go now!
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Class Roundup: Chinese Society
Traditional Chinese Society ended yesterday, with my first final during finals week(s) and my fourth final overall. Being my first one during finals it was officiated in an authoritarian manner that I’m only used to for standardized tests. The professor had the exams on our desks when we came in then read verbatim off of an instruction sheet provided to him by the university. I know that it was provided to him because he laughed when he read aloud that you are allowed to have calculators out (since the only number we dealt with was the number of souls that a person has).
Out our class of twelve, I was given seat number twelve. For the large classroom, we were all squished onto the left side rather than spread out over the room, as would have been sensible from an administrator’s standpoint.
After we were read out loud the directions, the professor, who already had us down by name, seeing that he taught all the tutorials and the class was really small, had to verify all of our identities by means of our student identification cards.
I didn’t think the final examination was too hard. To study, I did all the readings again and went over our class discussions of the topics—both those online and those in the classroom. He specifically said not to stress specific details—so I didn’t.
We were given seven questions based on various topics that we covered in class and we had two hours to answer two of those questions in an extended in-class essay format. And I feel I answered those two questions well and completely, despite the fact that I was the first to finish. (I usually finish somewhere in the middle, though the fact that I finished first may be because I was the only native English speaker in the class.) We’ll see how I did.
Other assessments for this class included the weekly journal, online discussions, and project.
The weekly journal entries only had to be two hundred words long each, and I usually went past that. Many of my classmates, realizing that you can’t really say much in two hundred words went well over four times that. This blog has already added up to over one hundred thousand words, so I’ll attest to the fact that you can’t say much in two hundred words. We were to write on the topic of traditional Chinese society that we were covering that week. Whereas other classmates treated the entries as anthropological research assignments, I did less of that and instead had personal reflections on the topics. Often, I would through in the line or two about how I feel we’re exoticizing the subject too much, but I’ve talked about that a lot already.
The online discussions I contributed to more often than not. Some people had contributions several times a week. It was also apparent that some people had not contributed once to the discussions. I always tried to interact with other students on these online discussions rather than only summarizing articles as was prevalent at the beginning of the semester.
I can’t remember if I talked about the term project, but it consisted of a two thousand-word (field) research paper accompanied by a presentation to be made during tutorial. On the syllabus, it said that it was due week seven. To that effect, I got it done before the week seven tutorial, ready to present. I was the only one in the tutorial that had anything to show, not that the professor was expecting it. That week he decided to schedule in everybody’s presentations, and when it came to me, I asked if I could do it that day, since it was already done. He (reluctantly) said yes and I got it over with—meaning that I unintentionally lectured for forty minutes.
My topic was on the (Christian) religious beliefs of HKU students. My sample size was small, as he only required about ten interviews. Overall, my results fell in line with Hong Kong SAR statistics. I noted that I didn’t encounter as many self-described Christians as I imagined. My professor made the note (that I didn’t see) that the number of self-described Buddhists was higher at HKU than in Hong Kong SAR statistics. I felt that my report was well-researched and well-written.
On a different note about the same class, I’m planning on petitioning to have this course qualify for my minor in the Study of Religion for my degree back at UCSD. The undergraduate advisor told me I couldn’t because nothing in the syllabus mentioned directly “religion,” so I had to rebut by saying that religion in the modern, scholarly sense ultimately refers to one’s overall view on the world and what things are significant and how those things are significant. In addition, there is a class called “Chinese Society” at UCSD that has the same course description as the course I was about to take, and it happens to fulfill the requirement without petition. She then forwarded my request for preapproval to the director or the program, who decided that I did have a case and that I did receive preapproval. So hopefully everything falls in line.
Out our class of twelve, I was given seat number twelve. For the large classroom, we were all squished onto the left side rather than spread out over the room, as would have been sensible from an administrator’s standpoint.
After we were read out loud the directions, the professor, who already had us down by name, seeing that he taught all the tutorials and the class was really small, had to verify all of our identities by means of our student identification cards.
I didn’t think the final examination was too hard. To study, I did all the readings again and went over our class discussions of the topics—both those online and those in the classroom. He specifically said not to stress specific details—so I didn’t.
We were given seven questions based on various topics that we covered in class and we had two hours to answer two of those questions in an extended in-class essay format. And I feel I answered those two questions well and completely, despite the fact that I was the first to finish. (I usually finish somewhere in the middle, though the fact that I finished first may be because I was the only native English speaker in the class.) We’ll see how I did.
Other assessments for this class included the weekly journal, online discussions, and project.
The weekly journal entries only had to be two hundred words long each, and I usually went past that. Many of my classmates, realizing that you can’t really say much in two hundred words went well over four times that. This blog has already added up to over one hundred thousand words, so I’ll attest to the fact that you can’t say much in two hundred words. We were to write on the topic of traditional Chinese society that we were covering that week. Whereas other classmates treated the entries as anthropological research assignments, I did less of that and instead had personal reflections on the topics. Often, I would through in the line or two about how I feel we’re exoticizing the subject too much, but I’ve talked about that a lot already.
The online discussions I contributed to more often than not. Some people had contributions several times a week. It was also apparent that some people had not contributed once to the discussions. I always tried to interact with other students on these online discussions rather than only summarizing articles as was prevalent at the beginning of the semester.
I can’t remember if I talked about the term project, but it consisted of a two thousand-word (field) research paper accompanied by a presentation to be made during tutorial. On the syllabus, it said that it was due week seven. To that effect, I got it done before the week seven tutorial, ready to present. I was the only one in the tutorial that had anything to show, not that the professor was expecting it. That week he decided to schedule in everybody’s presentations, and when it came to me, I asked if I could do it that day, since it was already done. He (reluctantly) said yes and I got it over with—meaning that I unintentionally lectured for forty minutes.
My topic was on the (Christian) religious beliefs of HKU students. My sample size was small, as he only required about ten interviews. Overall, my results fell in line with Hong Kong SAR statistics. I noted that I didn’t encounter as many self-described Christians as I imagined. My professor made the note (that I didn’t see) that the number of self-described Buddhists was higher at HKU than in Hong Kong SAR statistics. I felt that my report was well-researched and well-written.
On a different note about the same class, I’m planning on petitioning to have this course qualify for my minor in the Study of Religion for my degree back at UCSD. The undergraduate advisor told me I couldn’t because nothing in the syllabus mentioned directly “religion,” so I had to rebut by saying that religion in the modern, scholarly sense ultimately refers to one’s overall view on the world and what things are significant and how those things are significant. In addition, there is a class called “Chinese Society” at UCSD that has the same course description as the course I was about to take, and it happens to fulfill the requirement without petition. She then forwarded my request for preapproval to the director or the program, who decided that I did have a case and that I did receive preapproval. So hopefully everything falls in line.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
One Hundred
This is my one hundredth post—ninety-two published, including seven unpublished posts, so I thought I would make something out of it by going over what I’ve done.
If I do say so myself, I am proud of my perseverance in writing and updating this blog. When I started, I reminded myself of how my mother would always make sure that I could finish something before I started because many of my interests were short-lived, mostly because there were so many of them. One in particular was the piano—in which I had become rather good at playing, though I lacked in still lacked in theory. When I was little, she taught me some of the basics of how to play and a few songs before my span could reach across an octave, and years later, a couple months at a time of review gave me some aptitude and a repertoire of songs that I could hammer out if need be. Never have I really become great at playing the piano.
I knew all to well before I began this long process of writing this blog that I very well may not finish. I’ve never kept a diary or a journal in my life, and until just recently, I’ve found reading most boring with writing coming in at lack of interest number two.
I guess there’s a couple of reasons I’ve really put myself into this blog and why, after almost eight months, I continue to contribute and why now, I’m writing something of around two posts a day. First off, I’ve found that I’ve fallen back into writing. Before departing for Hong Kong, I started a lengthy piece of fiction currently at thirty thousand words that I hope to continue when my travels slow down back in California. I’ve also found an interest in reading that has surprised my parents as well as myself. To this effect, I read twelve books over the summer (a personal record), as well as five books in my free time since coming to Hong Kong.
First and foremost thought was the fact that I wanted to write to record why I am here in Hong Kong and how I interact with Hong Kong during my few months here. I hope that I have succeeded and will continue to succeed. I have fallen in love with this place and I feel so indebted to everyone (as previously mentioned) for having been afforded the opportunity to come here and the resulting experience.
I hope that what I’ve been writing has been of interest, and thanks for sticking with me.
Right now, the temperature’s just taken a downturn. It’s gotten chilly and it’s been raining on and off for the past few days. There was plenty of strong wind accompanying it. Because of the rain is falling and due to its partial visibility, my Scottish friend dubbed it smeary rain. All I know is that if I ever move to somewhere cold, I’m going to have to learn to layer clothes better.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
If I do say so myself, I am proud of my perseverance in writing and updating this blog. When I started, I reminded myself of how my mother would always make sure that I could finish something before I started because many of my interests were short-lived, mostly because there were so many of them. One in particular was the piano—in which I had become rather good at playing, though I lacked in still lacked in theory. When I was little, she taught me some of the basics of how to play and a few songs before my span could reach across an octave, and years later, a couple months at a time of review gave me some aptitude and a repertoire of songs that I could hammer out if need be. Never have I really become great at playing the piano.
I knew all to well before I began this long process of writing this blog that I very well may not finish. I’ve never kept a diary or a journal in my life, and until just recently, I’ve found reading most boring with writing coming in at lack of interest number two.
I guess there’s a couple of reasons I’ve really put myself into this blog and why, after almost eight months, I continue to contribute and why now, I’m writing something of around two posts a day. First off, I’ve found that I’ve fallen back into writing. Before departing for Hong Kong, I started a lengthy piece of fiction currently at thirty thousand words that I hope to continue when my travels slow down back in California. I’ve also found an interest in reading that has surprised my parents as well as myself. To this effect, I read twelve books over the summer (a personal record), as well as five books in my free time since coming to Hong Kong.
First and foremost thought was the fact that I wanted to write to record why I am here in Hong Kong and how I interact with Hong Kong during my few months here. I hope that I have succeeded and will continue to succeed. I have fallen in love with this place and I feel so indebted to everyone (as previously mentioned) for having been afforded the opportunity to come here and the resulting experience.
I hope that what I’ve been writing has been of interest, and thanks for sticking with me.
Right now, the temperature’s just taken a downturn. It’s gotten chilly and it’s been raining on and off for the past few days. There was plenty of strong wind accompanying it. Because of the rain is falling and due to its partial visibility, my Scottish friend dubbed it smeary rain. All I know is that if I ever move to somewhere cold, I’m going to have to learn to layer clothes better.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Seventy-eight, Part 2
An upper or a downer? I thought at first that it was an upper like most of my classmates, that that means that we as a world are coming closer together and being more open, but now, I’m conflicted.
In Humanity in Globalization, the professor brought in Tom Crampton as a guest speaker. He actually turned out to be the first guest speaker of the class to be more of a guest lecture. Whereas Professor Reyes would usually sit the guest down and ask questions to solicit information and discussion, he then opens it up to the class as a forum. Tom Crampton came with his own PowerPoint and lecture and it was frankly surprising.
This last week’s topic was about social media, in which almost all of you (blog readers) participate. I can hardly think of a friend not on Facebook; Everyone had facebook before; I myself just joined Twitter, silly as it is, about a month ago. I have my blog, which to my surprise has popped up in some funny places. One person stumbled across my blog while searching for Hong Kong bus routes. More friends than I expected now read it. A lot of people I did not think read for pleasure (debatable, I know) I found read this blog. One was the most surprising; one was the most disappointing.
In lecture, Tom Crampton was being introduced by Professor Reyes. He was described as being a (former) journalist who is now a consultant for businesses looking to make inroads into the social media world (in which spamming is a failure). Professor Reyes introduced the topic—social media. He briefly defined it. He proceeded:
“So who in this class has a Facebook?” All hands went up.
“So who in this class has a blog?” Hardly a soul’s hands went up. Mine didn’t, and many people who I knew were serial bloggers didn’t raise their hands either. It was not because I’m ashamed of what I do in my spare time at all. It’s not because of what I put in my blog either. It’s just that I didn’t really want the attention—and since no other bloggers were raising their hands, I wasn’t about to either. Cool.
When no one’s hands went up, the professor took a quick glance around the room and centered on the center of the lecture hall. I happened to be sitting in the dead center of the lecture hall that time around.
He pointed at me and said, “I know you have a blog!”
Needless to say, I was dumbfounded. I looked behind me to see if he was pointing directly behind me. There was no one behind me. He was pointing at me.
“Yeah, you!” he said, as I quizzically pointed my finger towards me and my beating heart. What was I to do? I’d never been pointed out of a lecture hall of students before.
“Yeah, I guess I do blog,” was the only thing that would come out of my mouth. Casual.
“Yeah, you talk about this class on your blog, don’t you?” he pressed on. I was silent. “It’s really not that hard to find this stuff,” he concluded in stride.
People in my row, most of whom friends of mine glanced over at me. While it was surprising and moderately frightening, I appreciated him doing that. First off, let me say as I’ve said to many of my friends in that class, that I feel that even though I do not write the most positive opinions, I always try to back up and substantiate my claims. And as you can see, his distinguishing me in such a light had no effect of slowing down my writing.
In that lecture, we went on about how print media faces some serious challenges now and though the foreseeable future, how the Internet as a medium has allowed online individuals and companies to proliferate news and other information in a manner much faster than even the next day as the presses can only do. Whereas at first these newspapers published their news online, charging a fee, in addition to in print, they’ve found that they can’t really charge money because the news will just be spread by online companies with smaller payrolls, supported by earning ad revenue. News can also be spread and reported more easily by bloggers (like me, though I claim not to be a journalist in this regard).
And speaking about blogging, I decided to search for my blog online. I typed in my full name and the first results were related to my blog. The first was the link that UCSD posted on its website for my blog. The second was my blog itself. The third was a website called globalpost.com that had my full name and the full title of one of my blog posts.
I clicked on this third one, and to my alarm, I found that all of my recent posts are being reproduced in their entirety onto their website. The fact that my entire text in such a manner is only partly mitigate by the fact that they cite me and link to my blog. The thing is though that in the fine print, globalpost.com claims copyright over everything on their website, including my blog. Equally annoying is that they are potentially earning money in ad revenue from my work.
Copyright of the entirety of my original text is mine by virtue of my having created it, and as such it is illegal for them to reproduce my blog, even in part, without appropriate permission. Though arrogant as it may seem, the principle of the matter requires me to push through. The company still has not responded to any of my emails (they do not list an address or give a phone number).
So why don’t you decide? Was that day an upper or a downer?
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
In Humanity in Globalization, the professor brought in Tom Crampton as a guest speaker. He actually turned out to be the first guest speaker of the class to be more of a guest lecture. Whereas Professor Reyes would usually sit the guest down and ask questions to solicit information and discussion, he then opens it up to the class as a forum. Tom Crampton came with his own PowerPoint and lecture and it was frankly surprising.
This last week’s topic was about social media, in which almost all of you (blog readers) participate. I can hardly think of a friend not on Facebook; Everyone had facebook before; I myself just joined Twitter, silly as it is, about a month ago. I have my blog, which to my surprise has popped up in some funny places. One person stumbled across my blog while searching for Hong Kong bus routes. More friends than I expected now read it. A lot of people I did not think read for pleasure (debatable, I know) I found read this blog. One was the most surprising; one was the most disappointing.
In lecture, Tom Crampton was being introduced by Professor Reyes. He was described as being a (former) journalist who is now a consultant for businesses looking to make inroads into the social media world (in which spamming is a failure). Professor Reyes introduced the topic—social media. He briefly defined it. He proceeded:
“So who in this class has a Facebook?” All hands went up.
“So who in this class has a blog?” Hardly a soul’s hands went up. Mine didn’t, and many people who I knew were serial bloggers didn’t raise their hands either. It was not because I’m ashamed of what I do in my spare time at all. It’s not because of what I put in my blog either. It’s just that I didn’t really want the attention—and since no other bloggers were raising their hands, I wasn’t about to either. Cool.
When no one’s hands went up, the professor took a quick glance around the room and centered on the center of the lecture hall. I happened to be sitting in the dead center of the lecture hall that time around.
He pointed at me and said, “I know you have a blog!”
Needless to say, I was dumbfounded. I looked behind me to see if he was pointing directly behind me. There was no one behind me. He was pointing at me.
“Yeah, you!” he said, as I quizzically pointed my finger towards me and my beating heart. What was I to do? I’d never been pointed out of a lecture hall of students before.
“Yeah, I guess I do blog,” was the only thing that would come out of my mouth. Casual.
“Yeah, you talk about this class on your blog, don’t you?” he pressed on. I was silent. “It’s really not that hard to find this stuff,” he concluded in stride.
People in my row, most of whom friends of mine glanced over at me. While it was surprising and moderately frightening, I appreciated him doing that. First off, let me say as I’ve said to many of my friends in that class, that I feel that even though I do not write the most positive opinions, I always try to back up and substantiate my claims. And as you can see, his distinguishing me in such a light had no effect of slowing down my writing.
In that lecture, we went on about how print media faces some serious challenges now and though the foreseeable future, how the Internet as a medium has allowed online individuals and companies to proliferate news and other information in a manner much faster than even the next day as the presses can only do. Whereas at first these newspapers published their news online, charging a fee, in addition to in print, they’ve found that they can’t really charge money because the news will just be spread by online companies with smaller payrolls, supported by earning ad revenue. News can also be spread and reported more easily by bloggers (like me, though I claim not to be a journalist in this regard).
And speaking about blogging, I decided to search for my blog online. I typed in my full name and the first results were related to my blog. The first was the link that UCSD posted on its website for my blog. The second was my blog itself. The third was a website called globalpost.com that had my full name and the full title of one of my blog posts.
I clicked on this third one, and to my alarm, I found that all of my recent posts are being reproduced in their entirety onto their website. The fact that my entire text in such a manner is only partly mitigate by the fact that they cite me and link to my blog. The thing is though that in the fine print, globalpost.com claims copyright over everything on their website, including my blog. Equally annoying is that they are potentially earning money in ad revenue from my work.
Copyright of the entirety of my original text is mine by virtue of my having created it, and as such it is illegal for them to reproduce my blog, even in part, without appropriate permission. Though arrogant as it may seem, the principle of the matter requires me to push through. The company still has not responded to any of my emails (they do not list an address or give a phone number).
So why don’t you decide? Was that day an upper or a downer?
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
