Making People Feel Like Human Beings

There are several basic rules that should go along with this idea. Easiest rule, don't do anything insulting, like call them a bad word, gossip about them, or mock them in any way. Next, try to give some empathy, or look at your actions from their perspective, if you wouldn't like it, then they probably wouldn't (Golden Rule!). Then, give them respect, be generous, be kind, just anything that you'd do to one of your family or friends.

What can I do?

First of all, one big thing I can do is volunteer service. And while maybe not SOCO, because I really don't know how to contact or volunteer with them, there's always things like soup kitchens or cleanup services that could indirectly influence those in cage-dwellings. However, overall service to the community is a good thing anyway while not directed to these people and is a viable option. Second, there's the possibility of getting to know one of these people and establishing a friendly relationship with them, since friendship would probably be a positive thing for people in cage-housing, but this would be extremely challenging because it's first of all a little difficult to befriend strangers and I don't know a single word of Cantonese. Therefore, I think the best option is just volunteer work, as it gives a more organized sense of assistance to those in need.

Cage Housing Research

My partner(David) and I discovered only one organization, SOCO. However, while noble a cause, I find the organization a little bit sketchy. First of all, the website has horrid design which, while not necessarily a main reason to be suspicious, tends to be common among scam sites or ad-based sites. Secondly, the site provides no insight into what they're actually. All that's stated on the sight is that they are "helping" those in cage-dwellings but we don't know how they do it. While I do appreciate what these guys are trying to do, this to me, appears to be an "awareness" sight which in reality doesn't take much action but I guess if try to look into this I can figure out what they really do.

Letter to Someone

Dear ____,

Hi, I know you’re not Christian, but I’m going to show why Jesus can be trusted. First of all, he’s fulfilled every type of prophecy said about himself. He road into Jerusalem on a donkey, he was resurrected within 3 days of his death, he would be pierced with a spear on the cross, and many, many more. While there is always the extremely miniscule chance of this all being coincidence, this is, like I said, overwhelmingly small and can be excluded. Secondly, he had great authority through his miracles. Through his healing and other miracles, Jesus persuaded so many to his cause. One could say though, that he was simply a magician of some sort, but coming back from the dead? I heavily doubt any magician in all of history could replicate that. Finally, he was an overall great person. He taught to serve others, to be humble, and treat others as ourselves. If he believed this, then he couldn’t be corrupt or lie, however I understand that this may take some faith to accept, which is key to trusting Jesus. In all, I hope that you may read this letter and place your trust in Jesus Christ.

From,

Trevor

Gandhi's Quote

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
-Gandhi

Quite the obviously, the quote tells us that if we see a problem, we should take action ourselves. I for one love this quote and wholeheartedly agree to it. We should absolutely fix problems that we see or else we are only contributing to the dilemma. However, there are exceptions, we can't all become the president and solve the recession and we can't really go to the middle east and kill every terrorist leader. These actions though, are only small exceptions and are ridiculous and therefore, don't really tamper with the quote's main message. There is another exception too, raising awareness and inspiring others. Things like encouragement, while helpful in a way, feels slightly hypocritical in my opinion, but I feel that it can be okay if you do some service, but nothing is better than taking direct actions with others and being the change you want.

Camp Experience

My camp experience consisted of many ups and downs. First of all, the capture the flag and zombie apocalypse games were a blast, and the free time let me do anything I wanted, which was air hockey. However, during zombie apocalypse, as I was being chased by a zombie, I tripped and twisted my ankle so now I have to limp around everywhere. Another bad thing was that as we left the bowling alley, my tribe and two others were left without a bus to return, so we had to take the MTR and arrived to camp to be able to eat whatever was left from dinner. As a whole, I'd say this camp was pretty negative for me considering my injury, and without I'd probably still prefer going to school over going to camp.

Iphone 5s

What do you think of those who line up a day before for an Iphone?

I honestly have no negative nor positive feelings. If you want to line up, go ahead, the iphone is a pretty nice device and I'd love to have one but I myself wouldn't line up for it. Not to mention, I have an iphone 4 already so there's not an absolute need for a new one. However, I do think you need a little bit of weird devotion if you are going to do it, but if you really want one, line up. Just a word of advice though, I seriously think that ordering online is way easier than waiting in line days for an iphone.

Guardrails #3

In what ways do you "walk with the wise"?

First off, ICS is a rather safe and sheltered community so in a way, I walk with the wise through this. In school I also sometimes hang out with some of the smartest people in the school who are also some of the nicer people so I literally walk with the wise through this. Finally, while not really applicable to the concept of guardrails, I find that I walk with the wise around my family. This being because, they really taught me so much around behavior and how to treat others, such as being fine with people of different religion, political views, or sexual orientation, which I find is extremely important. Not to mention, my parents have kept me fairly safe in my life and have good guardrails regarding my actions in my opinion.

Guardrails #2

What is the most important part of your life where you need guardrails the most?

To me it's in self control like I mentioned earlier, and specifically money. Just like in the earlier post I made that small amount of money could make a pretty big difference for me today and I'm pretty sure that a guardrail will be essential for my future when I get into college.

Guardrails #1

What was a time where you didn't have guardrails but wished you did?

The biggest aspect I could think of was any time I was given some money. Normally, I would just blow it all off on video games and not the one-purchase type games, but arcade games so I really didn't get much out of spending the money. Thinking back about my 5-year old self, just a little bit of self-control (the guardrail) could've saved me so much money in the long run, but I think most little kids are like that.

Character

Character is who you are when no one is watching.
- Bill Hybels

Regarding this quote, I have a partial agreement in this. I think it's more likely that someone will show their true character when they're alone since the pressures from others aren't present, but it is still possible for someone to do the same in public or in front of others. To me it is not as likely as said before, but their are many situations in which someone is called to show their character in public like various health emergencies or any dangerous situations.

Presentation Reflection

Following the presentation there are 3 points I want to reflect on.

1. The Work Load
In my opinion all the members of my group did equally. We split up our topics, worked quite effectively, and finished our assignment on time with fine quality.

2. What to do differently next time
The major thing I feel like I need to do is create a script for myself. While I don't need a word for word script, a good outline is important and a lot of my presentations are improvised so I think it could be beneficial if I made a script.

3. What I learned
I've never known any of the religion types presented except for a extremely tiny understanding of theism so, for me, everything presented was new for me including my own presentation so it's safe to say I learned a lot.

Conscience

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking. – HL Mencken

I for one do not agree with this quote. To me conscience is the voice which helps one discern what's right and wrong in moral grounds, not something that raises awareness towards peer pressure. However, this quote definitely has something to say about our society. Often times, we want to do something good, but the fear of being mocked for such actions from others stops many actions from happening. This idea though, does not come from one's conscience and in my opinion, is created from pressures in society, which is normally a sense of conformity for everyone.

Ethics and Morals

"Are ethics and morals interconnected?"

First of all, yes they definitely are, and to be more specific, I believe that ethics is a part of morals. I don't know the exact definitions so I could be wrong, but my idea is that when someone states the stance of an action, they say morally "right" or "wrong", implying that the word is neutral and just related to right and wrong. However, when using the word "ethical", one normally says just "ethical" for positive and "unethical" for negative, which says that the word "ethical" is a word for morally right. Therefore, ethics is only a more specific section in morals.

First Post Ever

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” 
- Aristotle

In my opinion, education towards morals and aspects like this are important to an education, but it absolutely does not make an education useless. While not as effective a society built of those who are educated in books but not heart is by far better than a society of illiterate people who aren't educated at all since the latter at least has some form of learning and has a greater ability to do something more productive.