Reflecting and Researching

I could not believe that it is the time of the year we need to go over all of the past blog posts and write reflection on them. Also, it is incredible to see I made a great progress by keeping write this blog. There are lists of major things that I learned about researching and my major in accounting.

Three things I learned about myself as a researcher:

1. Having one sort of group as target audience, and then focus on the statement and thesis that I made.

2. Always remember to cite the sources, especially when I use secondary sources, I need to quote and cite anyway.

3. Be organize. Giving examples for all my statement so that my audience can understand the meaning, make it convincible and powerful.

Three things I learned about my chosen field:

    1. I learned that accounting is not just dealing with number and money; it also includes jobs like auditing.

2. There are still many requirements I need to apply in order to get into business board.

3. There are many related information online about accounting I can look for, like personal blogs, scholars, and news.

Questions I have about my field:

1. How many certification and examination I need to take before internship?

2. Is China and the United States have the same accounting system so that I can work for cross-country companies?

Practicing Knowledge: Continuing My Interview Experience

From my open blog “My First Time Interview” wrote on April 17, I wrote my experience about having my first job interview in my life. I think this hand-on experience taught me a great lesson about building leadership and communication. These two skills are the ones that I cannot learned from written sources.

In detail, both sources in having actual experience and writing progress can build my confidence in doing things. Also, I can be more detail and organized by either working in the workplace or writing. However, there are differences between hand-on experience and written sources. As I mentioned in the introduction, the main differences between those two sources are building leadership. Having actual experience like interview, volunteer, work, are things that we can do it step by step, and also, we get power by trying to convince someone and therefore get the sense of leading someone into some situation. To contrast, written source cannot give people the sense of independent. I have to admit that writing is a personal thing that we normally write our own ideas, however, there is not much idea of leadership.

Moreover, when we write papers, we normally learn things by searching and using all kinds of secondary sources. However, in hand-on experience, we learn things when we work with it. Take my interview as one example, I learned that sharing ideas with others are really important, and each one of us can learn from each other. However, in writing, we would not have sort of ideas from everyone.

To conclude, there are many differences shows that hand-on experience are really important for our daily life. We need this sort of experience in any situation like working, volunteering, and living.

My First Time Interview

Like you see the title for this blog post, I recently had my first interview in my life. I had to admit that I was excited but panic along with it. This is a job interview held by school OISS (Office of International Students and Scholars) about hiring orientation leaders for the upcoming international freshmen. Not surprised, I had the time filled out all the applications and resume, and luckily, I was passed on the first step of hiring process. New challenge is here: having interview.

I firstly made an appointment for the interview, and then wait for the day came. Still remember, I dressed up formal, and had all my confidence about taking this interview. Even though it is not the formal interview as I thought, but still I did all the preparations. When I walk into the room, there was one other girl sitting next to me. We were both passed the first step of orientation leader, and were both having interview at the same time. Clearly, the interviewer was just like having a daily conversation with us, and kept asking question about why we decided to be a leader for the orientation, and what can this opportunity help us in the future. However, I have to say that the girl sitting next to me is really good at leadership and communication too. Because next year will be her senior year, and she has the previous experience for doing this job. Thus, I was a bit stressed by having this competitor who sitting next to me.

However,I personally think I did a great job during the interview. I answered all the questions asked by interviewer, and I can saw he agreed with my ideas all the time. Therefore, I think I have a great chance to be hired for this job opportunity. Also, if I am successfully being the leader for the orientation, it will build my working experience and the leaderships, I am looking forward it.(:

Faith and Taboo

(Related link:http://bookballoon.com/index.php/component/content/article/28-dhes-of-yuggoth/45-thoughts-on-the-village)

I recently watched the movie called “The Village”. At the beginning of watching this movie, I truly believed that there was such a monster in the forest near the village and the color red seems terrible for every resident. And the terror of these people is originated from the “special resident” living around them and the thought formed in a long-long time. In my opinion, the reason why some the senior people, like Ivy’s father who holds the top power of the village, made the mysterious story of the monster is trying to keep the village existing and safe. It is a kind of the normal residents’ mental desire. What I mean is the myth is a white lie, but becomes the trammels of the whole village. Is it similar to Jesus in Christian? However, the committee in the village did not create a god or a Jesus, but horrible monster. Who creates Jesus or god in order to make people respect him and follow him; but who creates monster in order to make people feel fear and do nothing over the rules.

Moreover, the best part of the whole movie I think is the appearance of the Forest Border Patrol. That young guy is full of kindness and sympathy. And his role in the movie implies the positive of the real society--- outside of the village and the woods. Although the monster mystery is working for those residents, I believe the structure of the village is not stable. And what equality and justice mean should be announced times more in this small peaceful place.

"The Help"-Truth and Reconciliation

The movie "The Help" is based on a novel written by Kathryn Stockett in year of 2009. It is mainly about stories among some women in Mississippi State to the south of the United States at 1960s, especially those black maids who is working for mid class white women. During that period of time, the famous event was The Civil Rights Movement leaded by Martin Luther King. I think it is a very typical theme of that age and the movie shows the conflict between white host and black maids.

Fortunately, I just watched a film called "Crash" which implies a close meaning about unequal of people's rights in that time of America. But in my perspective, "The Help" is obviously different from many like "Crash". In terms of the poster, bright yellow as background color, actresses are suited in fancy clothes while two standing black maids wearing grey dresses. 

I think the light spot of the whole movie is when Aibileen said to a white kid: You is kind, you is smart, you is important. All the pain and hate she suffered was so real while her kindness was so shining. No matter how other people treat her, she regarded the kid as her own and loved her so much. I was totally moved by Aibileen's pure heart. In fact, this movie "The Help" did not utilize any topic such as "racism", "civil rights" or "equality" to touch everyone while discussing about the inequality of the society. Telling this whole story in those black maids' eyes rather than making Skeeter to state some boring opinions is the best way the author chooses to make it unforgettable and legendary. As the story goes on, maid was becoming the midpoint of white and black people in this movie. For the white girl Skeeter, as one of those well-educated and independent female also became a very important key between normal white people and lower-class black people.

In addition, the name "Help" implied a lot. All of those characteristics were helping each other dominantly or recessively, which leaded to a successful big society. Black maids not only helped their hosts, but rising that whole generation. Those black and white people at that time were helping each other to fight for black people's rights. This positive power is women's power. I've learned from a survey in my economy class that said women are more unwilling to give up while in trouble than men. I believe this is why in the "suffering southern America", women are the cores of every family.

Reading of "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan

(The picture link: http://2centsynopsis.blogspot.com/2012/08/amy-tans-mother-tongue-reading-response.html)

These days, I found an article called "Mother Tongue" written by Amy Tan, she clearly defined how her language is used and affected by her mother. As we can see from the introduction, she was born in California, the United States, and later on years, she and her mother settled in several places. Besides, Tan attended five colleges during seven years, and this is the turning point in which she decided to challenge herself to take English literature as major.

In the main body paragraphs, Tan wrote several stories to show how her mother uses broken English, and how it made changes in her life. On the other side, because of her mother’s “fractured” English, people usually treat her mother differently and did not take her seriously. Thus, when Tan was fifteen, she started pretend her mother talk on phone calls and kept handle several business errands. Besides, “Some say they understand none of it (the way her mother speaks English)…. to me, my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural.”(Para 7) Therefore, the way her mother speaks had some effects on her writing style. In another words, Tan decided to envision her mother as a reader through her writing, in order to capture the passion and imagination through her words.

Consequently, Tan succeed on her writing career, and one most representative work she wrote is The Joy Luck Club, and now I have start reading one of her another book called The Bonesetter's daughter.Through her words, she complaint about her mother’s broken English, but still, it is her mother, impressed her and gives passion on her writing.

New things learned from The Curious Researcher

As we all knows, researching is one most essential parts in writing, for many papers, we need to find resources and facts to make supports in the arguments. Moreover, how to make outlines and quotes are also important. By reading the chapters from two to four from the book The Curious Researcher, it mainly talks about how you should prepare for the essay outline, set up quotations and how to write the first draft correctly. 

To start a research paper, the first thing is to state your thesis of the topic, and then by doing brainstorming, questioning yourself to come up with several points. Moreover, the second step is to do the research like interview, survey, Note-taking from books. However, there are some issues about how to avoid plagiarism. Firstly, copy words directly from the source to be part of your own work is the most seriously trouble in the college. You should always write work citation when you finish your paper. Also, there are two different methods that you can use for quotation marks: direct quotations and indirect quotations. Direct quotations means to involve other person’s exact words into your own writing. For indirect quotations, you should paraphrase or summarize the words from the source. In this case, it is not necessary to use quotation marks. However, both quotations need to include the proper citation. Moreover, when writing the body paragraphs, provide examples is the most beneficial way to state and prove the thesis. 

To sum up, people should always avoid the plagiarism, learn how to use the direct quotations and indirect quotation. Also, we should make sure we have in-text citation and bibliography when we write a formal research paper. Be sure to provide examples to briefly explain the paper, so that the paper have enough evidences to make it professional.