Week 4- Lucky we live HAWAI'I

This week in class was very interesting and entertaining. Ramsey, a guest speaker spoke to us about Hawaii and how we the people, environment, and places are all connected. No matter where we are from, what culture, nationality we are. We are all connected somehow. I have been raised and living in Hawaii all my life and I am sad to say that I never knew the meaning of the word Hawaii till now. I have learned that HA means life giving breath, WAI means water, and I is the relationship between places and people. I find it neat how each part of the word has a unique meaning and how it relates to our environment. I also learned that the vowels A, E, I, O, U and consonants have meanings to them. A signifies fire, E is air, I is water, O is the land, earth, anything that has a base, and U is the spirit of men. He also spoke to us about adapting the old ways to help the economy. I think we've taken advantage of technology and totally forgot how everything originated from. We should all stop what were doing and really think about the future, how to fix the ongoing problems now and move on. However, it won't be easy. It'll take everyone's cooperation and willingness to help.

Week 3- Creativity

I just had to blog about that one video on sheep art. I thought it was really cool. Those people had so much time on their hands to create pictures, moving games, art,  and even fireworks with the sheeps. It must have been really difficult working with the sheeps and getting them to run in certain directions. Just thinking about it makes me wonder how much time and hard work they had to put in. Especially when it isn't easy working with any animal. However, most of the sheep seemed to be cooperative and didn't mind having christmas lights wrapped around their body and posing for the camera. My favorite part of the video was the video game. It was sort of like air-hockey. The sound effects and score made it more entertaining. I give props to these men who thought of this idea and made it a success.

Week 2- Change for the better

This week in class was very interesting. Two guest speakers, Kevin Vacarello and Routh Bolomet came in and shared about our environment, their personal experiences, and how we adapt to the environment and how the role of the environment in making cultural change. I think that both the environment and individual plays a equal role. As individuals, we may decide to change the environment or ourselves. It could even be both. After listening to Kevin and Routh, it has made think about making changes and going organic. Buying organic foods and recycling without having to think about it. It would be difficult for me to adapt to these changes because organic food is expensive and I hate eating brown rice. It is healthier than white rice but I dislike the taste. However, I think that we all can do it. We just need to make positive choices and really want changes to happen.

First day of class

I have had professor Cruz before and I really enjoyed her class. This semester I look forward to learning more about culture, religion, and the environment. First day of anthro class was pretty interesting. I learned about Pono, which means to correct, do the right thing, balance, right action. As much as we want to be pono, it is difficult to do. In class, we also did an activity where everyone was assigned a number and no one else could know about it. We were all blind folded and together we had to line ourselves up in a line from 1 to 26 without speaking. So to figure out other's number we used hand signals. It was a fun but difficult task to do. Numbers 1 to 11 were correctly lined up and the rest were mixed up. The point of the activity was to experience how its like to do something new without having any knowledge of it. We weren't able to speak or see, but to use our physical features instead. Aside from what was done in class, I am excited to attend the field trips to Mokauea Island and Makua Valley :)