Lunar New Year

Ah yes, it's that time of the year again. The time when you go out to an area surrounded by Asian markets, and you hear the almost ear deafening sound of firecrackers, accompanied by the smell of smoke right afterwards. And the drums. And the cymbals. Then come the lions. Ah yes, what type of Lunar New Year celebration would it be without the lion dances?

Lion Dance Costumes.

Have you ever wondered where this all started? Why 1/6th of the world's populations celebrates two new years instead of one? Well you've come to the right place, my friend.

The Ancient Chinese Calender dates back all the way to 14th century B.C., way before the western calender was adopted in 1912. It was based off of many concepts, the lunar positions, yin and yang, the 12 zodiac animals, the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. The order of the animals are ranked in the order that they each arrived in a "race" between the 12 of them.

During the New Year, which was celebrated on the last day of the lunar calender and the first day of the new year, businesses halted, and family gatherings were strongly encouraged. Festivals were held here and there, houses were cleaned to rid of "evil spirits" of the past year. Firecrackers were lit and Lion Dances were performed to also frighten evil spirits away, and for some, the most important part of all, the red envelopes were given out.

Example of some Red Envelopes with some familiar faces on them.

The color red in Asian Culture is generally regarded as the color of good luck. Back in the day, elders would give their grandchildren money with a red string tied around it, to represent money scaring away the bad spirits. As time went on and more inventions were made, the red string tied around the money evolved into a red envelope, hongbao, or li xi, with money stuffed inside. The amount of money inside varies from family to family. Usually its a few dollars, or if you're lucky, it could be a twenty dollar bill. But it actuality, it's not really what's inside the envelope that matters. It's really the respect you give towards your elders and family members, and the togetherness that really matters during this time of the year. 

A happy family eating dinner together for the New Year.

Source

Procrastination extreme?

You know that magical word. You know that magical feeling. The feeling of putting a homework assignment, feeding the cat, studying, changing the light bulb, cleaning your room, anything, to the side in exchange for doing something much more satisfying. You tell yourself "Eh, I'll do it later." Later comes. "Hm, maybe in a bit." Time passes. "Oh look, a much more interesting activity that seems interesting. Looks like I'll have do put aside doing _______". Except feeding your cat. Don't put aside feeding your cat.You know how grumpy Mr. Whiskers can get if he doesn't get his food.

But why do we do this? Why do we cause ourselves the pain of staying up until the wee hours of the morning, most likely scrambling to do homework that we could have done, ages ago?

It is just in the human nature to put more interesting tasks in front of the less interesting ones. In fact, procrastination has existed longer than the word "procrastination" was created. I guess even  someone put off making a word for it until the 17th century.

Some people can control their urges, however, and manage to stay on task, most of the time. Others, not so much.

Though does procrastinating affect the outcome of the task? It really depends on the person. On one hand, you have the last minute-shove everything onto a piece of paper and slap my name onto it so I can get a decent amount of sleep- procrastinators. On the other hand, you have the- stays up until 4:00 AM to finish everything and make it look like I didn't do this the night before it was due- type of procrastinators. No matter which type you are, it doesn't change the fact that you could have done the task much sooner.

But why do it so soon when you can do it later?

The Origins of the Shabadoodle

Those of you who know me know that my dear friend Teresa and I have created a thing. A thing called a shabadoodle. Now on this very earth is a shabadoodle, you may ask? Sit down friend, for there is no need for you to fret. I will explain to you how these very creatures came to life. 

A shabadoodle.

It all started one lovely morning at Challenger Middle School, in 2011. Teresa and I were sitting in Mr. Foster's third period orchestra class, bored to death as he went around tuning everyone's violins. We turned to each other and started to talk about piffles, another imaginary creature that we had created sometime in 5th grade. Somehow the conversation turned to canned wontons and tofu. Do not question how. 

We continued on our strange talks, until it happened. We came up with a creature, the shabadoodle. Now note, shabadoodles did not have any shape or form, until another day in 2012. 

I was sitting in my math class, once again bored, and decided to doodle. Since we were learning about shapes at the time, I toyed around with different shapes until it happened.

I had drawn the very first shabadoodle known to man. I quickly ran over to Teresa as soon as the lunch bell rang, and shared my revelations with her. 

A representation of the first shabadoodle

Shabadoodles are a combination between canned wontons, tofu, and piffles. I know this sounds like complete whack, but we were bored, and this was sixth grade. They are a cylindrical shape, with a rounded head, and have fangs. Shabadoodles also have a laser belt for levitating things, as they have no hands or legs.

Fast forward a year, and Teresa and I now have an entire sketchbook full of shabadoodles. 

An introduction to some Shabadoodles will have to be saved for another time. As of now, we are currently on an indefinite hiatus regarding the continuation of the creation of more shabadoodles, but we hope to continue drawing them in the near future.

A sideways picure of the evolution of the Shabadoodles. 

The Art of Arting

Art is a universal way of taking one's ideas and expressing it through creative means. Usually when a person thinks of the term "art", they think of drawings or paintings, but there's much more to art than those two. 

Sculpturing is a process where the artist utilizes raw materials such as clay and morphs it into a three dimensional object. The art of sculpturing has existed since the prehistoric ages, and has evolved since then. Some of the most famous sculptors include Donatello, Michelangelo, and Auguste Rodin, who have all made a significant impact in the art world, specifically during the Renaissance Period.

Architecture is the process of planning, designing, and constructing buildings or structures. Architecture is everywhere, and has existed ever since mankind realized that we need shelters. All of the buildings we know today are the works of architects, who help design these buildings.

You don't have to be good at drawing in order to love art. Crafting is the art of using one's handiwork skills to work by creating objects from materials such as paper,felts, cardboard, and other mediums. Crafting has been a part of the art world since the Middle Ages, where the apprentice system would be used between artisans and their students in order to learn a specific craft, such as smiting or pottery.

Photography is the art of capturing a specific moment in time, and it isn't just about simply clicking a button on a camera. Photographers go through processes in which they adjust everything that is in the frame in the best way possible.  Ever since Cameras were introduced in 1800's, they have changed the way society works. In today's society, with the help of social media and advanced technology, everyone can start learning the basics of photography.

Everything that we own today has been designed by someone for a specific purpose. Designing is the art of creating a plan/idea of what something is going to look like. All of our clothes, desks, chairs, window blinds, everything was all at one point an initial idea, that became a reality. 

Graphic Design is the art of creating a visual image to communicate and express an idea for a purpose by combining texts and pictures.  Examples of Graphic Design are seen in advertisements, magazines, or books.

Art is part of our daily lives, but everyone has different views and opinions on it. Some people who are interested in it prefer one type of art, others prefer another. What's important is that we enjoy our own personal preference,and never give up no matter which type you enjoy.

Community Post Number 1 Response

In the Article "Exposing Hidden Bias at Google" written by Farhad Manjoo, Manjoo talks about how Google is trying to hire people of different genders and ethnicities to increase the diversity between its ranks. According to the article, "Men make up 83 percent of Google's Engineering employees", leaving only 17 percent of Google's Engineering employees to be women. For such a large and well known company in the modern world to have such unbalanced gender ratios is not acceptable. In today's society, gender should not play a role in job selection, but rather a person's ability to perform the task, regardless of their gender. No matter what gender a Google employee, or any employee of that matter, may be, they all are capable of producing results of the same quality. A man can produce the same results as a woman, and a woman can produce the same results as a man. 

As we speak, Google has taken notice about its diversity between workers, and has taken out the effort to help improve the statistics. As stated in this article written by  Drake Baer, after Google tackled issues concerning unconscious bias, there was a significant increase in statistics."For instance, Google's IO conference was 20% women this year, as opposed to 8% last year."Compared to other companies, who might not even bat an eye about this issue, I would like to acknowledge Google for taking note about this issue, and attempting to at least do something about it, but I believe it will take more than just simple workshops to fix the unconsciously biased opinion the tech industry has towards gender what it comes to job selection.  

The New York Times article also stated that "Google, like many tech companies, is a man’s world." This signifies that women that wish to work in big tech industries such as Google itself, have less opportunities of getting in, because of the belief that it is an industry primarily suited for men. Even after all these years, we humans still hold the belief that just because a person is a certain gender, they are not capable of doing things. Being a top notch name in the market today, Google needs to fix its ways, and start valuing its employees based on their abilities, not on their gender. Hopefully, the effort that Google is making to rid of unconscious bias will have an affect on all of the companies out there, and the future.