Good Luck!

       My cousin is going to take the “senior high school entrance examination” in China this weekend. It's an exam middle school students need to take in order to get into high school. About a month before the exam, students would have to fill out a form indicate which school is your first choice, second choice and third choice. Once the form is send out, there is nothing you can do to change it. The exam is usually hold on June, 27th and 28th every year. The system would randomly put a student in another school for the exam. Unlike the SAT, you can only take this exam once and your final score determines which high school you can go to. Personally I really hate this system. When I was in middle school, I have a friend who is a really nice person and studied very hard at school didn't get into her first choice because she was so nervous and didn't do well in the exam. I think the system is just unfair for many people. The best high school in my hometown requires almost full score on the exam. Just like San Marino High School here, many people believe that if they can put their kid there, they would have better chance to get into the best universities. 

       My aunt is even more nervous than my cousin now. That's what most parents are like in China now. She told me that she does not want to make my cousin feels the pressure so she need to act normal at home, but she is actually freaking out now. I just wish the best for my cousin! 

Money and art

   

        In the first chapter "The poetics of money", John Bloom talks about artwork and artists from the Renaissance to contemporary and people's attitudes toward money. It's interesting to see how he relates art to the different financial stages that people went through during that period of time. In my previous art history class, we talked about how various artists express their anger and disappointment toward the society through their artworks. When we went over different artworks from a same period, we can always found similarities between each work since people usually struggle with similar things during that time and they tend to express the frustration through their artworks. 

     

Japan!

      

This is the Omotesando Hill shopping center. 

Comme des Garcons store. Cool architecture design!

Kiddy Land! Always crowded.

Chanel boutique and MoMa store in Omotesando.

     One of my favorite places on earth is Tokyo. The most recent trip was in March. I went to Tokyo and Osaka with two friends. We stayed in Tokyo for 4 days and one day in Osaka. My friend went to a language school in Tokyo for one year so she knows basic Japanese which helped us a lot since not all the restaurant there have English Menu. I still remember when I went to Tokyo last year, I went to a Yakitori place. The waiter told us that they don't have English menu but we thought they usually have pictures on the menu so it would be just fine. However, there was nothing but Japanese on the menu and nobody there understood English. Since  it was already late night and we were tired of going to another restaurant, we decided to give it a try. We tried to translate English to Japanese in Google. First we translated "chicken" but the Japanese characters showed on Google was not on menu. We then tried beef... still NO! We were so disappointed of Google after that. Well, we just pointed whatever on the Yakitori list and hope they would be something delicious. One of the order turned out to be chicken heart but none of us eat it. Others are good! After that experience, we never went to any place without English menu. 

     I also love to shop in Japan. They not only have the latest fashion brand but also cute toys stores everywhere. I love plush toys and my favourite character is Rilakkuma which means "relax bear". There is a 5 story toy store called "Kiddy Land" in Omotesando that have every Japanese comic/cartoon product you can think of. There also have disney products which are much more cute than what we have in the U.S. I feel the disney product we have are more classic, where Japanese version are always cute and have more variations. Omotesando is like Beverlyhills in Tokyo. There are luxury brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and also high-end Japanese brand like Comme Des Garcons. And you can always spot  Ferrari and Lamborghini on the street. 

     I really want to go to Japan again now :(

How much food do you really need?

    

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Polland talks about the fact that the size of packaged food is getting bigger in America now. More young people are overweight than ever before. When we walk into the super market, everything is in larger sizes. People buy what's on the shelf but never thought about how much food do we actually need. I had a global marketing class last year, which talked about the package sizes among different countries. We learned that undeveloped and developing countries usually offers smaller sizes goods than developed countries. One reason is that most people in those countries don't have the money to buy foods in large quantities. Here in the U.S, most people have the ability to afford their groceries and they like to buy "family pack" and large size goods. Companies make more money when they sell things in large quantities even though the consumers feel they get great deals. How much do we really need? Another fact is that most snacks in the U.S have a higher amount of sugar than other countries. When I first came to the U.S six years ago, I was shocked by how sweet the cake frosting were. It was like eating sugar from the box. After read Pollan's book, I think I would think about how much food do I actually need when I go to the supermarket later. For some reason, I feel it's also the food companies' fault that result in the large numbers of overweight people here in the U.S. Most of those foods with fancy packaging, such as cereals target toward children. I think most children would choose the sweet chocolate puffs with the Frozen character on the box over the plain oat and granola. 

30 facts about Turbo the corgi.

1. He is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi
2. He is 1.5 years old.
3. He was born in a farm in Caliente.
4. He has 9 littermates.
5. Both his father and grandfather are champions. (I feel like he has better genes than me.)
6. His AKC name is Pistol Pete. That's what his breeder call him.
7. When he was small, he would chew up pee pad and furnitures if  I left him at home.
8. He has no tail.
9. He is 28.6 pounds now.
10. He loves sweet potato, carrot, watermelon... or anything edible.
11. He never turned down a meal even when he was sick.
12. His best friend is Kaka, which is a pug.
13. His dog food is "human grade". (I did more research on his food than my own)
14. He loves fetch. (Once we played at the park for 3 hours. He still brought the ball to me when we got home.)
15. He has more instagram followers than me.
16. He will play dead under the sofa when he doesn't want to go out.
17. He hates taking bath.
18. He loves to play with bigger dogs but he also get scared everytime.
19. He never lay on the ground when we go outside even he is really tired.
20. He will play dead if I ask him to get of the bed.
21. I wash his feet every night.
22. He once ate half quesadilla on the street.
23. He loves the beach.
24. We went to "Corgi beach day" twice. There were over 500 corgis this year!
25. No, he doesn't have a brother called Super-charged. (People always ask this question.)
26. He hates sit at the back seat in the car.
27. He loves females more than male. And he prefers long hair.
28. I make a lot of friends because of him!
29. He can get scared easily (strange sound, half-opened door, vacuuming...)
30. He ate poop when he was a puppy...

Follow Turbo.thecorgi on instagram!!!

Thank you, corn.

"Corn is in the coffee whitener and Cheez Whiz, the frozen yogurt and TV dinner, the canned fruit and ketchup and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and gravy and frozen waffles, the syrups and hot sauces, the mayonnaise and mustard, the hot dogs and the bologna, the margarine and shortening, the salad dressing and the relishes and even the vitamins."

                               -Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan

I never thought that potentially every food is made of corn. I was on a high protein diet for 2 months before. All I had during the weekdays were chicken breast, eggs, fish or shrimps. I need to avoid any carbohydrates during that time. It's funny that according to Michael Pollan, everything I had back then can be broken down to corn, which is mainly carbs. Not only foods, almost every processed product contains corn. After I read the chapter on corn, I begun to look closely to the stuff around me. The keyboard, the mug, the water bottle, the makeup brush, the paper towel and the sleepy dog... and wonder if I can trace everything back to corn. Thank you, corn for giving us a wonderful world. 

Newspaper graphic designer

      How often do you read newspaper? Most people like to get their daily news from either television or internet now but newspaper used to be an important information source. I interned at a newspaper as graphic designer in China during summer 2014. I worked in the automobile news department for 2 month. The automobile news only publish twice a week so the workload is not as much as other department. The pages usually covers new car information, company interviews, advertisement, auto show news and other related informations.

     As a graphic designer, we use visual to communicate and solve problems. In order to create clear message through visuals, we need to combine different methods such as images, words and colors. There are various types of graphic design. For example, some designers are specialize in typography, branding, website design or publications. Each specific design area requires different skills and has its own rules. There was a team of graphic designers that worked in different part of the design. My job was to create layout and choose images for the content. Since newspaper is very time consuming, we need to finish the work as soon as possible and leave enough time for editing. A newspaper needs to go through several steps before published. I will describe the graphic design process of a newspaper based on my work experience.

A newspaper page usually go through three graphic design process:

• Edit the content
• Create images and layout
• Get approval from editor in chief   

Edit the content

• Communicate with the editor
• Shorten the draft
• design the layout
• design the color and visuals for the page

The first thing I need to do is to work with the editor and shorten the news draft. The reporters’ drafts are usually very long and detailed. The editor will decide how much space does the particular news need and gives the summary to me. Then I will design the layout for the page and put the paragraphs in with images if necessary. Each category usually has a color theme for that day. The images and colors of headings need to match the overall color theme. The layout for automobile news is more flexible than other category such as politics and education. Our department has more control over the design, where other department usually have to follow the strict traditional format.

Choose images

• Go over the images
• Choose the ones that can represent the content
• Photoshop the image (If necessary)

The automobile news always comes with lots of images. I need to choose the pictures that can best illustrate the content. Sometimes I also need to find clipart online to create more visual effect for the page. I will use photoshop to correct the colors of the images since the printed resolution is different than the version we see on the screen. Sometimes I also need to crop certain image from the background. Then, I will decide if the page should have more visuals or words. Some news such as auto shows requires more pictures than words. After insert the images, I will edit the layout again.

Get approval from editor in chief

• Print the finished pages
• Send the hard copy to editor in chief
• Editing
• Send the final version to the print center

After I finish the layout, I will print out the pages and show them to the editor in chief. If there is no mistake and he approves the design, then I can send the final electronic version to the print center. If not, I will edit the pages again. The editor in chief usually gives suggestions on the design and layout. Sometimes, he will ask me to shorten the content if its necessary. If so, I will talk to the editor again to fix the problem. The most important thing is to meet the deadline. The deadline for our department is 4 p.m. We usually send out the final electronic version around 3:30 to avoid any technical problem.