Final Reaction looking back on ARW

Through this one year, I learned how to read and write academically, rather than English. It is true that we learned and improve our English skills so much, but I think it was also important to implement "Academic Readind and Writing". Through ARW classes, I managed to understand how to confront with academic articles. That was precious experience for my future.

Even after ending ELP classes, I may encounter many academic articles which should be examined and criticized. When I meet such situation, I try to remember how to read those articles learned in ARW classes. In some day, I want to take TOEIC or TOEFL tests in order to facilitate my job hunting in the future. In order to achieve, I also try not to forget how to learn English skills learned in whole ELP classes. This is brief plan for improving my English skills.

Thank you for teaching. I feel glad if we can see on campus.

WP

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AdLT5eSVKQDtZGNnY3g0aGhfMzFodHBmdDVmYg&hl=en

These are my slides for my Winter Project. Introduced by my ELP ARW Teacher, Mark, we try to use use 20*20 Pecha Kucha for presentation. That was somewhat easy and somewhat difficult for me.

At first, the topic of my presentation was about surrogacy. Though I know it was so curious and controversial topic, I felt it didn't stimulate my intellectual curiosity. Then, I realized the new topic which made me felt very interesting. After that, I tried to make new presentation just before on air. When I have presentation in the class, I feel very confident because the content of my presentation was good. However, since I had not practiced so much, I broke the time limit. That was the very failure of my presentation.

There are things I learned from WP. First, I understood that it is difficult to make good presentation unless the topic is not so interesting for me. In fact, I was able to prepare more easily after discovering new topic. Second, it is necessary to discover topic more earlier. This time, it was so late to find good topic for my presentation. Therefore, I was not able to prepare and practice so much, and my presentation was failed in keeping time.

That was my reaction for my Winter Project presentation.

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

James Oliver was cook, and he found that American food quality is in crisis. Statistically, according to CNN, the majority of American people died because of carelessness about their diets, and the number of those death is much more than the case of homicide, such as murder or suicide. He argued that today American children can live shorter than adults, because they are used to eat much junk foods such as hamburgers and winnies, and they are not inclined to eat enough vegetables. There are three factors for American landscape of food, and those three are relatedveach other. One factor is in children's home. They are not able to get adequate nutrients from their parents. Another factor is in their schools. Many schoold don't educate students about food or healthy meal . The third factor is in the whole society. He argues that the big food brands have influenced on citizens' meals. James hope to improve such situations.

The contents of his arugumentation was so impressive, and he showed many impulsive information to listeners.

Cloning

Cloning reproduction cannot be legalized because no beneficial consequences are estimated. There are some reasons for this.

Let’s take a look at the sheep Dolly’s case. Dolly had become the most famous sheep because she was the first mammal which was born by cloning technology. However, two troubles were included in Dolly’s clone case, and those troubles should not be same as human’s case. First, almost 270 animals were failed to be cloned before Dolly was successfully cloned. Second, nearly 30 percent of all cloned animals have crucial abnormalities. Human don’t want to try such technology because it seems less possibilities to success.

There is another trouble for cloning reproduction. If cloning reproduction will be legalized, some people may try to utilize it to meet same person who have deceased. In other words, they attempt to make new human which has same body posture, characteristics as another person. However, cloning reproduction is just able to duplicate one person’s genes. Even if appearance is same or similar as former person, each characteristic cannot be copied. Therefore, cloning technology can’t make completely same people. That may make other people feel unwilling because the former person they know and the cloned person are not exactly the same.

As you see, cloning technology can’t make any advantages for people. Rather, some of them may feel negative impression for cloning. Therefore, cloning reproduction should not be legitimized.

Reaction for Fukuyama's artivle

a) In Fukuyama’s opinion, though three controversial issues for genetic solution, there are solutions for that each.

The first problem is the complexity and the amount of genes. It seems impossible to analyze all combinations of genes because they are so perplexed and those genes are numerous in one human’s body. Moreover, some genes may be able to make multiple effects on one human’s characteristics or body postures and functions by each oneself. Therefore, even if it is possible, it may take very long time to decode all genes completely. However, the progress of Human Genome Project was so more rapid than geneticists expected. The reason was that new technology was invented, and that makes a shortcut to the goal. For that reason, it will be able to solve all genetic questions faster than we assume. However, there are three obstacles.

The second one has to do with ethical matter. Some people have negative feelings against human experimentation. However, Fukuyama argues that human experimentation was held actually because it is expected for beneficial consequences.

The third issue is related to the population. When we will be able to make artificial humans by arranging combination of genes, it will come to be possible to change the ratio of population. For example, Negro will be more than Caucasoid. However, there were some countries where change of population occurred such as China, Korea, and India, though genetic movement was not involved.

Those are solutions for three obstacles of HGP

b) Related to population, Fukuyama takes countries as examples which tried to make influence on national population. However, what those countries do was just inhibiting children’s birth. If the genetic engineering is advanced, government can encourage women to bear babies as much as possible. That may increase the number of children. A population explosion may occur, then. Is there any possibility to happen such matter?

If so, does genetic engineering enable Japanese society to increase the number of children who are less than 15 years old?

Best 5 memories in 2010

Time runs faster than we realize. There are only two days left for 2010. I want to remember and tell you what I did in this year, before we see the New Year 2011 in. Though there were lots of events I had a good time, it is a little bit troublesome to explain all. Therefore, I’ll choose five most interesting and exciting events of those all.

1. I went to Nagano for Retreat. Retreat is the only official event in ICU, and all freshmen can or should join it. Since the number of freshmen in this year is so huge that one hotel was reserved entirely.

There are two purposes for this event. One purpose is to make students understand more what ICU is. The other one is to help students have better and deeper contact with their ICU friends who they met before Retreat, and make more friends during Retreat.

In discussion with teachers and other students, I have to be discussion leader. Though I make effort to make the discussion more enjoyable, I can't do it. At least, I was able to continue the dialogue until it was ended. In the explanation of majors, I heard about "International Relations" and "History". After that, I met with section mates to talk or to eat some snacks. At midnight on 5/15, because the date was birthday for Koji, we send mail to him to celebrate being 19 years old. Finally, we continue this section companion until about 3 a.m. It was too tired to act on 2nd day, but I tried to have a good time.

After Retreat, all students look so enjoyable and it was so relieved for me because I was one member of Retreat committee. Since the theme of Retreat was "Can you make friends at least 100?" I hope that every student can have more friends.

Retreat is the first time and the last time for us to go on a school trip in ICU. Also, it is the last time for us to do so in our whole life.

2. I always feel glad to enter ICU festival committee. Until I joined the club, I felt some lonely because there were few friends in ICU. When an entrance ceremony was held in the first day in ICU, I was alone. There was no friend from my junior or senior high school. However, I got great number of friends by entering ICU festival committee. Of course, there are also many acquaintances that don’t belong in the committee. But, it was the first time to manage to make much more ICU friends. And now, there are almost hundred ICU friends.

3. I participated in Nojiri lake Camp at the beginning of the summer vacation. During this camp, we don’t have to pay attention to time, ages, but just have a good camp. There are many interesting and exciting rules in this camp. Those rules looked rigid at the first time, but as much as we enjoyed the camp, we became to recognize those obligations were necessary. I’ll introduce you one typical rule. It is about our names. In this camp, we called each other as their Nojiri names. We don’t try to know campers’ real name, or show our real names. We can make a false name. Well, real names were revealed in the last day, but we always call them as Nojiri names even after we come back from Nojiri lake. There are many other interesting rules in the camp. I want to join this camp again next year.

4. There was another camp during my summer vacation. It was ICU Festival Committee’s camp. We tried hard to consider and decide what we are going to do for ICU Festival 2010. This was the main purpose of the camp. However, during this camp, we managed to recognize almost completely who joins this committee, and we made good contact with them. We had a good time for work and leisure. I hope the camp will be held in 2011

5. ICU Festival was the best event in this year. It was my first festival in ICU, and the festival was made by us ICU festival committee. I felt very happy when many participants, such as customers, performers, or buyers, had enjoyed the festival. When I consider and realize the reason why those people were able to have fun in the festival, I feel very glad and proud of belonging ICU Festival Committee. We made great effort to consider and make interesting and exciting festival, and we made it! That is the reason. I want to continue to join ICU Festival Committee, and try to make much better festival next year.

Those five memories are most interesting and exciting experiences in 2010. I hope there are much more interesting events in next year. I wish you Happy New Year!! よいお年を！！

Organ Donation

Last year, it was legitimized by Japanese government that organs or tissues from lower than fifteen-year-old children's body cannot be donated to other people until their parents recognize it. However, the government wasn't able to decide whether the rest of the people should be asked to transplant their organs after their brains died, or not. In my opinion, the decision should be left to their autonomy. If they refuse to donate, they should not be, but if accept it, it is possible for doctor to take their organs out no matter what their relations feel. In general, the more people grow, the more considerate or deliberate when they think something important. In other words, people become able to decide what they should or can do on their own. Thus, we should be recognized their autonomy. Morioka tells the fact that Japanese citizens complain that patients have right to determine what they should be treated by doctor. In that case, when patients want to donate their organs to other people who need them, there should be no room for other people, even their parents, to oppose patients’ decision. Shannon argues that “autonomy can isolate one from the community, from one’s family, from one’s friends” (Shannon 4). For me, I decide to gift my organs to people who want them. Though my parents may feel sad, I don’t care. Rather, I feel kind of proud because I could help someone even after my death. When it comes to my children in the future, I may accuse doctor if they take organs from my children with no agreement. However, when children determine to give their organs to someone, I may allow it because I want to support or realize any their will. This is my opinion for organ donation.