#journal4

Why?

Well, a lot has happened. Didn't really have time.

But you're a boy now so uh, maybe get on that easier stuff!?

Easier stuff?

Uh, like how we were supposed to be real life supervillains?! Did you forget?

Trust me, we are living in a dystopian movie right now and we are not the bad guys for once. I could go for mundane.

What about the comic book? Did we make that yet?

We start one or two but never finish em.

And then you remember your silly dreams. That you'd travel the world and save animals. Become the next Steve Erwin! Get so good at piano and trumpet and all the other instruments to outclass Beethoven, Mozart, and all the other stuffy pricks! (Because, at the time, you didn't know that Beethoven was just depressed and that Mozart resembled your daddy issues a bit too closely.) To be remembered as the next Van Gogh. You always idolized that man because his life was so sad but he made such pretty things that were in his head. You can do that too! But, back then you didn't really think about the how so much, only about the result. Then, you learn. And you stopped wondering about those dreams, too, when the how got a little too tough. Didn't you?

One day, me 20 years in the future's gonna reblog this and I wanna ask a few things. Actually, I wanna say a few things.

Dude if you still did not start that fUCKing comic after 20 clownass years...

Also, if you're having a midlife crisis, fucken COME BACK! These stupid dreams are what make life worth living! Remember!!! You are the conduit with which the universe lives. So is everyone who perceives it! Don't you see? The greats didn't know where they were going and neither do I. It's a 1 in a million shot (obviously a lot more, there's like a few BILLION PEOPLE on the planet right now.) We're all one in a million. It just so happens that I'm also one in that million.

Why not try?

Observation One of the goals of TRAIN law was to reduce income tax and allow more individuals with less income to be exempted from it. It aims to give a more equal opportunity to all by giving more income to the poorer individual by lowering their income tax but rather increase the tax on some products to compensate. After the law was passed back in 2018, a noticeable price hike to numerous products specifically related but not limited to sugar-sweetened beverages, cars, and fuel. People that got more income from lesser tax, now experienced a higher monthly bill or living expenses due to the increase in price.

Insight Like every other reform, there are pros and cons. Depending on the status of people affected by this law, some people especially those employees that has lower income had benefited increasing their take home pay. On the other hand, there are individuals who do not get a monthly income like small time vendors who is also directly affected by this law. These people don’t receive a monthly income, yet they still suffer from the price increase of their regularly consumed products like instant coffee, fuel, sugar, etc.

By: Luis Emmanuel G. Fleta

Sometimes I think that us regular citizens are just mere sheep being led into place by government sheepdogs, and we’re not allowed to go astray or deviate.

While this analogy could go either way and that discipline and control is usually a good thing, it doesn’t mean that citizens should not have a voice and limited stake in issues that really matter.

As we all know, the 2019 South East Asian Games is ongoing (as of this writing). And this is one of the moments I realized just how much power citizens hold as a collective. Collectively, our combined opinions and the overall public sentiment can put so much pressure to the organizers and officials which eventually resulted to better output with regards to our hosting of the SEA Games.

However, that’s collectively. Individually? It’s a different story.

One of the best ways to have a hand in public decision-making is to have enough credibility. Sadly, credibility is oftentimes synonymous with wealth or more specifically, influence bought by money. In these times, government infrastructure projects and contracts get easily handed out to powerful and well-connected people. Ordinary people like those affected by Right-of-Way Acquisitions and Informal Settler Families - these are the people whose voices should be heard.

  The fourth journal entry will be about the topic sex.  Yes that is a scary idea for most.  I will just keep to my feelings on this subject so this doesn’t take up to much of your time.  In my opinion sex is being used as any ordinary person would play X-Box or the Play-station four. It is a joke and a cruel one at that.  Women and men everywhere have found a cynical way to ruin sex for everyone.  When I was younger the theory was that a man and women would share their first time on the night they got married.  What a load of crap!  I did not even have sex on my wedding night!  I jumped in the Jacuzzi with my pregnant wife naked and after all that heat and alcohol I just looked at her and asked “You really want to do this tonight, c’mom were married now?” She smiled and said “Good cause I am tired.”  So when did sex lose its significant distinction of being special?  Again, in my opinion is when people started tossing around orgasms like they were candy.  Honestly, it is not really fair for the people that actually value relationships.  The people who want to get to know someone find out their likes and there dislikes before they jump into bed with them.  Sex is many things it is something you see on TV, a game, very rarely is it real.  When it is hold on to it!

Response for Project

02/18/2018                                

A written reflection about your process, the work you have produced and the conversation we had in class about it during your critique session.

- Type

Digital image

- Techniques

PS - Collage

- Theme

On the way

     My project relates to travel, it is an archive that includes all travel places where I have been from freshmen year until now. First reason I want to do this topic, because the first word emerged in my mind was “travel”, when I first viewed the image from the envelope. Another reason I want to do this topic, because it is the last semester for my undergraduate year. So, I want to record/conclude which places I have traveled in these years, because there are a lot of precious memory during each travel.

    My project totally has four parts, and each part includes three partial images of the image I received in the envelope. These partial images were used as tag card to write some words to record each travel. I wrote the time, the location, the partners who traveled with me in there, and I also wrote one or two words that can represent my feeling toward each location. After joining fours images together, the full image from envelope will be shown in the center.

   Why I separate full image to four parts, the first reason is that I want to make a connection between the image I received and the images were shot by myself. The second reason is that I feel when I try to recall bygones, I always put different parts of my memory together so that a complete thing can be presented again. Separating image to four parts can represent memory pieces, and putting them together represents the process of recall. Editing the image from the envelope to be black and white represents the past.

First Part

   This part includes four locations which are Orlando, Miami, Lijiang, and Puerto Rico. My first travel experience in university was to go Orlando and Miami. During that travel, I was familiar with Maya and Fred, and we became very good friends until now. The first summer holiday in university, I went to Lijiang with Jiajun, we knew each other from middle school. This travel was very precious, because after graduated from high school, we had less time to meet each other.

Second Part

  This part includes three locations which are Guangzhou, New York, and DC. In the summer vacation of the sophomore year, I took a summer school in Guangzhou and live together with my sister. My sister has given me so much help during my stay there, and it was the first time having company of family member, during I studied in a strange city. So I use word “ warm” to describe Guangzhou.

Third Part

   This part includes three locations which are Beijing, Toronto, and San Francisco. This winter break was my last winter break in university. I decided to stay in the united states and to travel some places I always wanted to go but never been before. So, from the end of December of 2017 to the January of 2018, I traveled to San Francisco, LA, SD, and Boston.

Fourth Part

   Locations included in this part are Los Angeles, San Diego, and Boston.

Take way from critique

    I received a lot of valuable suggestion from critique. I think that a good art work not only has the function to express creator’s idea, but also can strike a chord from audience.