EB HL (Wendy K) by Wendy K

absurd

MrH3nderson — 2020-09-08 02:58:34 UTC

i would agree about his sense of the absurd- it is central to his comedic character as well- evident in the way he explore the incident with his mother and the observations of the world around him where there is a disparity between sense and reality.

Source one: What African Nations Are Teaching the West About Fighting the Coronavirus

wendy29282726 — 2020-09-09 14:36:24 UTC

My first source was an article in The New Yorker, titled “What African Nations Are Teaching the West About Fighting the Coronavirus”, and written by Jina Moore. From the title, it’s obvious that the article approaches the situation from a western perspective. More interesting is its almost oxymoronic sense: the author anticipates (successfully) that readers would be intrigued by African nations being role models for the western world; it’s meant to be intriguing the way Marquez or Salinger’s subject matter of “children teaching parents” is intriguing. This reveals something about our (at least my) way of thinking. Namely, that African people are relatively inferior especially in their medical knowledge. This may’ve partly spawned from our knowledge of the African history of Ebola. Ironically, though, Africa’s current hyper-consciousness and caution about the corona situation arises precisely from this history. This, according to the article, has taught the nation as well it people, the severity of unmonitored situations. This make me realize, sometimes the stereotypical pictures we paint are problematic in their singularity in time—we consider faraway cultures as inert and unchanging, of how one ancient cultural artifact, for example, would accurately represent its present picture. That’s what happens when one story is being told. Naturally, then, the same wouldn’t be said for the cultures with great economic and social resources, who could paint updated images of themselves through pop culture productions.

Source two: African multiculturalism

wendy29282726 — 2020-09-14 23:58:00 UTC

My second source comes from the renowned Lonely Planets traveling series; specifically, an article that explores the current status of West African culture. I used to consider African communities as greatly centralized, adopting the same, or similar, sets of (traditional) cultural norms. While this is true for a traditional West African society that homes are arranged according to the family unit and life revolves around communal affairs, the article explains that a considerable proportion of the West African population have been incorporating multiculturalism in their lifestyles for long.

The article goes on to explain how this may’ve resulted from its history of colonialism as well as a recent surge of urbanization. I realized that though I knew much about the former for its strong connection with the European-centric narrative, I knew very little about the latter, perhaps similarly significant event in West African history. I’ve come to understand that I’ve perhaps been understanding Africa from the eyes of a historical European man, despite abundant narratives told by modern Africans.

Source three: LGBTQ communities in South Africa

wendy29282726 — 2020-09-15 00:15:44 UTC

The third source I’ve found surrounds the living conditions of LGBTQ groups in South Africa. I’ve previously considered South Africa to be unforgiving for LGBTQ groups, given its apartheid history; I also thought that as male dominance is predominant in South Africa, it may worsen the ramifications of this historical remnant. However, the article informs that “South Africa's post-apartheid constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and South Africa was the fifth country in the world to legali[z]e same-sex marriage." When I look just at the legislatures, it’s quite shocking how my understanding was the polar opposite, and it would perhaps be inductive to wholly refraining from forming predispositions judging by a region’s history. But I read on to find the problems I’ve presumed indeed happening on societal levels, where lesbian women are frequent victims of beating and rape, for they are perceived a threat to traditional male authority. I think stereotypes are not wrong because they contain no grain of truth, but because they are single stories disregarding reasons behind cultural phenomenon or their inherent nuances.

Source four: African millennials

wendy29282726 — 2020-09-15 03:59:58 UTC

The final source I have examined is the “Myths, Reality” section of statistics-based article on African millennials. I’ve previously thought that African millennials are the majority of population, given how I know that mortality rates are relatively high in Africa, making it a young nation in terms of age composition. The article, however, points out that millennials are neither not the majority of Africa, and are in addition not young, being namely around 38 years old. More than half of the continent’s population is actually Gen-Z, which is between 15-20 years. I think that though I’ve imagined Africa as a young continent, I’m thinking about “young” from my own cultural experiences, namely with a population that is relatively old(er). It’s therefore difficult for me to picture half of the continent as people around my age. I think this would be an area that demands caution when we look at other cultures. Certain aboriginal cultural practices, for example, are easily women-discriminating from our perspective, but when you interpret it in their (completely different) world view, it may reveal itself to be the polar opposite. It’s something easy to forget when one is constantly immersed in the predominant cultural mindset, lingo, etc., and would even lead to the paranoia that other languages are problematic for having vocabulary sounding like derogatory terms in your own.

Understanding of Apartheid

wendy29282726 — 2020-09-17 03:21:13 UTC

I didn't understand the nuances of apartheid before. My main understanding of apartheid was that, one, it was strict beyond reason, brutally and effectively separating people of different skin color; and two, that its end, though slow, was gradual and indeed bloodless.
Through the text, however, I've come to correct both such perceptions. First, apartheid wasn't black solidarity, it was manipulating the conflicts between sub-communities--same in the color of skin and different in ancestries. Also, apartheid was not without loopholes, and wasn't met without abundant rebellion. And secondly, that apartheid was not bloodless in its end, and had never really been bloodless.

Cats

wendy29282726 — 2020-09-23 01:42:45 UTC

At Orlando Pirates soccer, when a cat got into the stadium, a black security guard killed it on national television. This caused much outrage by the white community. He eventually was found guilty of animal abuse and must pay a fine.
so what? The differences between core values of different cultural communities begin to surface here. Black people are not trying to be mean. They're doing what they think is right. White people are not trying to be offended. What the black man did was completely wrong in their values. So the security guard wasn't a bad person according to the standards of the black community, but according to modern Western standards he is irrefutably immoral.
Certainly we (the Western + modern ethics) think it's wrong to torture animals; it should be self-evident, and couldn't possibly begin to grasp the abomination. The problem is, however, that there's a similar definite inability of comprehension in the black community.
The subject matter is communication. Communication is not necessarily difficult when there're different arguments; it's difficult when the grounds of building bricks of argument--logic, implied values--are different. The frustration faced by the modern world of converting other communities to the modern, western, and sometimes irrefutably more reasonable values is encapsulated into the name-calling of primitivism, of being crude.
This is problematic. What "primitive" implies is that cultures like that of South African could be understood along the lines of Western values: it's a western society, just very bad, and much, much less refined. This is a western-centric and reductionistic way of seeing things. And if we insist on seeing things this way, the solution we come up with would be arbitrary. Essentially, what we would be trying to do, would be to squeeze the process of hundreds of years of Western industrialization and modernization and apply it to a community that is bred by histories and geographies that are a world apart.
That is not to say, however, that we should cease communication. Logically, some of the modern ways are more reasonable ways to live. They'd prevent death, reduce affliction, and lead to better standards of living (especially for marginalized subcommunities within those groups). But we should develop appropriate ways of communication. To empathize with people not by imagining us in their shoes, but to see them as them in their shoes.

MrH3nderson — 2020-09-24 01:27:31 UTC

you analysis explores the inherent challenges to be found in the process of forming assumptions about something ''other'' using our own values. It begs the question, how has this understanding informed of influenced your own interactions?

I don’t like Amy Tan.

wendy29282726 — 2020-10-21 02:06:20 UTC

In this New York Times’ book review on “The Thing Around Your Neck,” her stories were cited, in a way that echoes with the deep places of my heart, as one of the foreign stories that “exhaust themselves too soon; they collapse under the weight of all that can’t be said in the terse, monochromatic sentences of the conventional Anglo-American short story”. The writer of the review says that “The Thing Around Your Neck” collection fell flat in the same way in several places and I’m a little dissuaded. When I read Amy Tan, I dislike how her stories bent under the things wrought into the American language that she uses, making the unique culture elements in her stories often a mere façade, a vehicle for the same modes of thinking prevalent in modern Anglo-American literature; in the case of “The Thing Around Your Neck”, that “Adichie is delivering the ‘news’ the West wants to hear about Africa”.
Nevertheless, the reviewer quickly goes to say that she eventually escapes from these tropes, and “calmly eviscerates the pretensions of Westerners whose interest in Africa masks an acquisitive, self-flattering venality” (great words). I’m thrilled to read her works, and be as inspired by them as I has by her speech.

Expectations

wendy29282726 — 2020-10-22 03:09:55 UTC

What can we expect to come away from this book thinking?
Perhaps something different, much deeper and more profound, about the experience of the community which her characters pertains to: the female, the middle-class, the South African in America (from what I understand for now). Her narratives would transform this group of people from "the observed" to the observer and speaker, gouging an opening in my (probably largely frequent and taken for granted) misconceptions.
What emotions or reactions does it intend to inspire?
The book intends to tell alternative narratives to the typical story in its genre, and I'd expect to start the book first feeling provoked, a little surprised, and then gradually immersing within it and emerging out of it considering my previous perceptions very differently (and critically, too).
What about ourselves does this novel seek to question?
The novel seeks to question the level of singularity in our diversities: namely, whether struggles in different places are so immensely different that they couldn't possibly be fathomed by someone from somewhere else; and whether we should even begin to try and fathom them, to try and go through the effort of trying to see things through eyes so different they'd confuse us.

Tracy, as a vehicle for disenchantment

wendy29282726 — 2020-11-18 02:11:28 UTC

Quotes
a) She moved forward now, closer to Kamara, too close, her face against Kamara’s. “You will take your clothes for me,” she said.

b) It looked like haphazard splashes of bright paint to her.

c) Kamara imagined Tracy saying that again, this time in her ear, in a whisper. Kamara, Kamara, Kamara, she would say while their bodies swayed to the music of the name.

d) “Have you ever been an artist’s model?” “Oh ... no ...” More giggles.

“You should think about it,” Tracy said.

She raised the apple to her lips and took a slow bite, her gaze never wavering from Maren’s face...and Kamara looked away. She sat down next to Josh and took a cookie from his plate.

These four quotes outline the development of relationship ("up-down-up-down") between Kamara and Tracy, which seems to implicitly parallel the theme of the disillusionment of American dream:
- first, a fascination from distant observation (Kamara to Tracy);
- ⬆️second, a feeling of being an exceptional case, the favored, the chosen one (quote a; the demand both charged with sexual appeal and certainty-"you will");
- ⬇️third, confusion that arise from unbridgeable gaps between modes of values and aesthetics (quote b);
- ⬆️fourth, glorified imagination (quote c);
- ⬇️ and finally, disenchantment with the realisation that she (Kamara) is not special, and Tracy (or the glamor of a dream-and-possibility sphere) provokes and titillates wants and desires, alluding to exciting future prospects that will possibly not be fulfilled, for everyone indiscriminately.

Mock IO

wendy29282726 — 2020-11-19 03:21:57 UTC

cultural artifact: (TED talk)

Asia's rise - how and when

textual evidence: The World Bank is eliminating the term “developing country” from its data vocabulary
points:
- isolating stats and individuals
- regional generalization
- statistical stereotypes
- "developing" and "developed" countries
- terminology
- academic discrimination
- relationship to Ngozi
- inherent differences
- homogeneity vs heterogeneity
- the gazer & the gazed

Imitation

wendy29282726 — 2020-11-25 01:22:34 UTC

"Her hair is short and curly—you know, those small tight curls. Not a relaxer. A texturizer, I think. I hear young people like texturizers now. "

Nkem imagines the proud young men, muscled, brown skin gleaming with palm kernel oil, graceful loincloths on their waists. She imagines—and this she imagines herself because Obiora did not suggest it happened that way—the proud young men wishing they did not have to behead strangers to bury their king, wishing they could use the masks to protect themselves, too, wishing they had a say.

- Adichie: position of womanhood under cultural context
- womanhood: intra & inter
- cultural authenticity
- immigration and identity
- imitation
- history and subjectivity
- lovers
- protection
- agent of self

IO prep materials

wendy29282726 — 2020-11-26 03:27:00 UTC

IB themes: social organisation, experience, identity, sharing the planet, ingenuity

mock io partner notes

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-02 00:25:45 UTC

Robert
theme: persistent influence after laws diminished
thoughts on apartheid
characterization

IO note-keeping

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-02 00:56:09 UTC

"These people had been so fucked by their own construct of race that they could not see that the white person they were looking for was sitting right in front of them."

notes on born a crime

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-03 02:38:10 UTC

Apartheid
- Symmetrical lack of education

- Proclaim white supremacy and insult blackness

- South African society remains sharply divided after apartheid

Ability to communicate
-bridging differences between blackness, whiteness, colored-ness through specifically chosen languages

The Feminine Mystique

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-17 01:57:55 UTC

- problem with no name: cultural belief (feminine mystique) conflicts with personal identity and intellect
- rejects the Freudian "penis envy"; not trying to acquire masculinity
- should cultivate their true identity through employment
- second wave feminism
- Betty Friedan

Boys who wear their hair long

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-17 02:09:50 UTC

- New man: Boys wearing their hair long, tender, sensitive, compassionate, "strong enough to be gentle", <-->dominance, big muscles, kill bears, crew cut, sear of hostility which dehumanizes sex and alienates
- true human sexual liberalization

Research

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-17 02:28:40 UTC

1. There is a famous case in law in the US that shapes debate relating to abortion- what is it?
The Roe v. Wade case, in which “Jane Roe” (Norma McCorvey) instituted federal action against Henry Wade (district attorney of Dallas county, Texas), on the case of aborting her third child. Though the court overruled her claim that a pregnant woman can "in any way and at any time and attempted to balance a woman’s right of privacy with a state’s interest in regulating abortion", stating that only a “compelling state interest” justifies regulations limiting “fundamental rights”, it then declared that a state’s compelling interest in the pregnant woman’s health would allow it to regulate abortion “at approximately the end of the first trimester” of pregnancy. (s: wiki, britannia)

2. Define Second wave feminism in 50-100 words.
The Second wave feminism is a wave of feminism that identified women’s cultural as interrelated to political inequalities, and encouraged women to understand how their personal lives reflected sexist power structures. (s: ohiohumanities)

3. Find ‘4 Big Problems With The Feminine Mystique’ and summarise them 150-200 words
Ashely Fetters pointed out four problems in The Feminist Mystique at the book's anniversary: that it is not inclusive (in terms of class and race), that the author conveniently assumed a housewife alter-identity, that several building bricks of the book's logistics are the false, and that it is homophobic.
4. What is this myth? 50-100 words
This myth centers the assumptions that women would be fulfilled as a housewife and a mother from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children, and that the core trait of being feminine, should be that women do not have wanted to work, get an education, or have political opinions. (s: wiki)

5. Find a quote from the second sex and explain what it means to you personally. 50-100 words
“When she does not find love, she may find poetry. Because she does not act, she observes, she feels, she records; a color, a smile awakens profound echoes within her; her destiny is outside her, scattered in cities already built, on the faces of men already marked by life, she makes contact, she relishes with passion and yet in a manner more detached, more free, than that of a young man. Being poorly integrated in the universe of humanity and hardly able to adapt herself therein, she, like the child, is able to see it objectively; instead of being interested solely in her grasp on things, she looks for their significance; she catches their special outlines, their unexpected metamorphoses. She rarely feels a bold creativeness, and usually she lacks the technique of self-expression; but in her conversation, her letters, her literary essays, her sketches, she manifests an original sensitivity. The young girl throws herself into things with ardor, because she is not yet deprived of her transcendence; and the fact that she accomplishes nothing, that she is nothing, will make her impulses only the more passionate. Empty and unlimited, she seeks from within her nothingness to attain All.”
This reminds me of the Nietszchean ideal that it is through creativity that human pinnacle is pinpointed (and, as it happens, referred to also as transcendence, both of them following the Greeks in this regard). Beauvoir was referring to a similar self actualization that would be achieved through creativity, and explored how the feminine creativity, though the consciousness of the creative process is hindered, is made hypersensitive, and carried out with a thorough ardor in life, if not in particular creations as men do. She's regretful--rightfully, I think--in the implied comparison of women's creative spirit with their conditions that im- and explicitly rob them of opportunities to create, when it is clear that creativity is what defines the individuality of existence.

6. DO you agree with this statement? 50-100 words.
"Some called her retrograde for insisting that women could, and should, live in collaborative partnership with men."
It's a stance often assumed by earlier feminists that women are only independent by not marrying (and some go beyond to say not loving, too). Time has proved them, as least in so far as we see the world today, as not a universal truth. We are after all decentralizing into different spots on a winding spectrum, and there is in most cases no such universal truth to speak of.
The same is true for Friedan, I think, who assumed an opposite position. The "could" part is alright, but the "should" lacks considerations in representation. But then again, it would take foresight unfathomable to be considerate of representation, in a time where the representation of women was just first brought on the table.

Research

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-22 01:08:00 UTC

1. The Harmattan is a season in West Africa, which occurs between the end of November and the middle of March. It is characterized by the dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind, of the same name, which blows from the Sahara Desert over West Africa into the Gulf of Guinea. (wiki)
2. Sani Abacha; 20 September 1943 – 8 June 1998) was a Nigerian military general who served as the military head of state of Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998.

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-22 01:08:43 UTC

Immigrant vs. Asylum Seeker

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-23 01:31:21 UTC

immigrant:
investment, apply in advance
asylum:
refugee camps, dehumanized-processing, apply on arrival

Testimonial: After six years we leave Manus Island to go to 'nowhere': an asylum seeker's story

wendy29282726 — 2020-12-23 01:43:43 UTC

It was the day I'd desperately been awaiting for six years: the day I would leave Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, never to return.

On Thursday, it happened. I was among 35 men, most of the remaining asylum seekers on Manus Island, moved by plane to Port Moresby. Fifteen men are left behind on Manus.

But those of us who have left, still do not know what our future holds. We have left Manus to go to ... nowhere.

The Australian government and PNG Immigration and Citizenship Authority had sent us a "refugee notification", offering the transfer to Port Moresby. It said "relocation is not permanent settlement" in PNG. It reassured us we will not be subject to detention by the ICA.

For now we have been taken to a Port Moresby hotel, Granville, but we don't know where we will go next.

It was in 2013 that I was taken from Christmas Island, Australia, to Manus Island, PNG. I was detained indefinitely because the Australian government thinks that coming by sea and seeking asylum is a serious crime.

When I was in the middle of the sea I had thought the people of Australia and their government would welcome us with open arms. We survived our journey and after three days we arrived on Australian shores.

Instead of a welcome, we were humiliated and detained by Australian authorities on Christmas Island. Authorities told us to our faces we were "illegal boat arrivals" or "illegal economic migrants".

Border authorities had the power to judge and detain us as soon as we arrived – before Australia even assessed the circumstances that forced us to leave our countries and seek asylum.

This judgment in itself is illegal under international law because Australia has an obligation to assess asylum claims legally before determining our immigration status.

The Australian government loudly preaches religious values but fails to practise what it preaches or to follow basic international law, designed to keep states accountable for crimes against humanity.

And so I believe – and I feel many Australians do too – that it is the Australian government’s own conduct towards people seeking asylum that is "illegal" and immoral.

Six years of my young life have been lost on Manus Island. I never knew from minute to minute, month to month, year to year, what would happen to me.

I never left the island in those six years. Having gone through unbearable pain and suffering, now I am transferred again. Still I do not know what is my future. Still I am left behind in PNG.

I need to live somewhere I am welcome, and have opportunities to be useful and live in peace. I don’t want to spend years being a transitory person in Port Moresby. PNG people don’t want us here. It is not safe.

People seeking asylum and refugees have been punished for seeking protection in Australia. Our bodies are being used to serve ambitious politicians and their ideological commitments.

Men, women and children are being used as a human barrier to "protect" Australian borders. They tell fairytales of "stopping boats", while in fact boats arrive secretly, and the news is used at the right time for the government as a weapon against our freedom, humanity and safety.

We are being used to manipulate Australian people.

The Australian government wants to detain and control us for as long as it can by transferring us from place to place, on and on.

I am very worried and afraid of what will happen to me and my friends.

And I hope that I can resettle in a safe country that wants a young, useful person like me.

(S: NYT)

Text type conventions

wendy29282726 — 2021-02-25 03:03:54 UTC

- adopt a semi-formal register, direct address to intended audience
main heading/promotional slogan
- multiple section
- identified by sub-headings, bullet points, etc.
- present lucid overall structure of argument
- background information, e.g Contact us, phone number/email

Leaflet v Brochure

wendy29282726 — 2021-02-25 03:05:17 UTC

leaflet: advertisement, one-sided, imagery/color/overall design; purpose-to persuade and to sell; evocative language
brochure: information, multiple pages, more conventional designs, purpose-to inform, to sell