Sunday we were at Crossroads, a modern equipped church. Today, we went do a mosque.
Crossroads was more an entertainment temple than a church: everywhere free Wi Fi, in the Auditorium was a stage with band, on the side you could found two big screens. It seams that this church wants to catch younger people and offers them more than the typical old fashioned church feeling.
In contrast to Crossroads is the style of the Cincinnati Mosque by tend more traditional. I saw Arabic quotes from the Quran on walls and everywhere oriental decorations.
As I mentioned, the Crossroads church obviously tries to reach help seeking people (called "Seekers") with modern technology, while the Mosque probably attracts more the traditional Muslims.
Both the church and the mosque want from their believer that they regularly take part on the events. For this action they provide a location for this, and beyond this point, they also offer groups with different topics for every part of the life.
In my opinion help both institutions to cluster their religious people and help them to find like-minded people.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Friday: Healthcare in America
Today we were at a high-tech genetics laboratory and Walgreens pharmacy.
In the genetics labroratory they are able able to analyse and scan some samples to look for genetic defects like trisomie 21. In Walgreens, a "self serve hospital", you an find lots of medical aid for and against many gouts like headache or flu.
One test in the laboratory can easiliy cost more than tousand dollar, but they can only analyse and give advises, and cannot cure you directly. The pharmacy had a lot of products in the price from two till 15 or more dollar.
Ethically, the genetic check has more potential to disclose a secret than the discount-drugstores. Just with a watch on the chromosomes experts are able to find out if you have some anomalies in your cells, if your parents were close realatives, or if your dad is really your biological dad. This method can otherwise deliver informations about what is wrong and shows maybe ways to reduce the severty of symptoms.
A danger of the pharmacys is, that health people take some chemicals, because he read something about somethingin the internet.
[conclusion is following]
In the genetics labroratory they are able able to analyse and scan some samples to look for genetic defects like trisomie 21. In Walgreens, a "self serve hospital", you an find lots of medical aid for and against many gouts like headache or flu.
One test in the laboratory can easiliy cost more than tousand dollar, but they can only analyse and give advises, and cannot cure you directly. The pharmacy had a lot of products in the price from two till 15 or more dollar.
Ethically, the genetic check has more potential to disclose a secret than the discount-drugstores. Just with a watch on the chromosomes experts are able to find out if you have some anomalies in your cells, if your parents were close realatives, or if your dad is really your biological dad. This method can otherwise deliver informations about what is wrong and shows maybe ways to reduce the severty of symptoms.
A danger of the pharmacys is, that health people take some chemicals, because he read something about somethingin the internet.
[conclusion is following]
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Wednesday: Columbus
[tbc]
Today, we were on tour on the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
We saw two nice exhibits about the Berliner wall.
The first show different places, each place with two pics. One pic shows the location shortly after the fall of the wall, and one over ten years later.
The second section showed the results of a project from Paderborn students, who tried to find traces of the wall over 10 years it fell.
Actually, I have not learned something new about the wall. Interesting was the background information about the famous picture with the soldier jumping over barbed wire. But all in all, I have refreshed some infos, but added not really new stuff in my brain.
As far as I know deal the German exhibits in Germany just with the time till the fall of the wall. This exhibit in Columbus went further (?) and wanted to find out, which changes really happened.
Today, we were on tour on the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
We saw two nice exhibits about the Berliner wall.
The first show different places, each place with two pics. One pic shows the location shortly after the fall of the wall, and one over ten years later.
The second section showed the results of a project from Paderborn students, who tried to find traces of the wall over 10 years it fell.
Actually, I have not learned something new about the wall. Interesting was the background information about the famous picture with the soldier jumping over barbed wire. But all in all, I have refreshed some infos, but added not really new stuff in my brain.
As far as I know deal the German exhibits in Germany just with the time till the fall of the wall. This exhibit in Columbus went further (?) and wanted to find out, which changes really happened.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Tuesday: How Children Play and Learn
Today we were at the Children's Museum in Cincinnati.
It varys from other museums. I think in this museum is the fun for the kids higher rated than in other museums. There are several sections like a water section or a ball section.
There are a lot of activities children can do. They can save a little town near a river when they remove the water wall and the water level decrease. In another part they can balls do fly with a fan.
One exhibit I want to descripe more is the "Dinner section". It is built like a little 1950s restaurant. There are glasses, dishes, a cashbox with a real calculator inside, a mircrowave, and little pieces of plasic food. On the wall, you can find a poster with the title "eat more, eat light" and some tips how kids can eat more healthy stuff. next to the poster is a soap dispenser to clean the hands.
I think the kids should learn what healthy food is, how stressful a job as waiter/waitress can be, and that the kids allways clean their hands.
The topic with healthy food is in my opinion actually not so present how it should be. There exists more unhealthy plasic food like hamburger, sandwiches, and french fries than vegetables and friuts. in this case they should invest more time to correct is.
It varys from other museums. I think in this museum is the fun for the kids higher rated than in other museums. There are several sections like a water section or a ball section.
There are a lot of activities children can do. They can save a little town near a river when they remove the water wall and the water level decrease. In another part they can balls do fly with a fan.
One exhibit I want to descripe more is the "Dinner section". It is built like a little 1950s restaurant. There are glasses, dishes, a cashbox with a real calculator inside, a mircrowave, and little pieces of plasic food. On the wall, you can find a poster with the title "eat more, eat light" and some tips how kids can eat more healthy stuff. next to the poster is a soap dispenser to clean the hands.
I think the kids should learn what healthy food is, how stressful a job as waiter/waitress can be, and that the kids allways clean their hands.
The topic with healthy food is in my opinion actually not so present how it should be. There exists more unhealthy plasic food like hamburger, sandwiches, and french fries than vegetables and friuts. in this case they should invest more time to correct is.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday: the language around us
[not finished]
We all had a nice trip to Chicago from last friday till sunday. Now, I am over 7 days in the United States and it is time for a first little analyse of the language used around us.
I found out, that it is harder to follow a native speaker in shops and on the street than in the course. Our teacher speak clear and slow, the others not. We are also getting into trouble if someone mumbles.
As an foreigner, I see that we Germans use more our hands than the native speaker.
[...]
Different to Germany is it is not normal to shake hands when you meet someone new. But everybody ask you "How are you." As kids in Germany, we have learned, that you have to answer every question. After a few days, I learned, that it is OK to answer this question NOT :) In Germany you do not say or offer something, that you do not want to offer.
One different between Chicago and Cincinnati I found out: everytime in Chicago, when you stay and look confused, someone comes to you and ask to help. I like this. I think, there are more tourists in Chicago than in Cincinnati, so for Chigaco citizens it is normal to see irritated tourists.
My conclusion is, that Germans have to know, that they do not take the phrases which are spoken too literally. And they have to be good "small talk skills".
We all had a nice trip to Chicago from last friday till sunday. Now, I am over 7 days in the United States and it is time for a first little analyse of the language used around us.
I found out, that it is harder to follow a native speaker in shops and on the street than in the course. Our teacher speak clear and slow, the others not. We are also getting into trouble if someone mumbles.
As an foreigner, I see that we Germans use more our hands than the native speaker.
[...]
Different to Germany is it is not normal to shake hands when you meet someone new. But everybody ask you "How are you." As kids in Germany, we have learned, that you have to answer every question. After a few days, I learned, that it is OK to answer this question NOT :) In Germany you do not say or offer something, that you do not want to offer.
One different between Chicago and Cincinnati I found out: everytime in Chicago, when you stay and look confused, someone comes to you and ask to help. I like this. I think, there are more tourists in Chicago than in Cincinnati, so for Chigaco citizens it is normal to see irritated tourists.
My conclusion is, that Germans have to know, that they do not take the phrases which are spoken too literally. And they have to be good "small talk skills".
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Day 4: Thursday - The Culture of Food
Today we were at the Pipkins, a farmer market, and in JungleJims, an highly entertaining foodstore. Days before, we also went to Krugers
(a) Krugers: it's a mainstream grocery store. Same looking racks and no extra decoration stuff.
Pipkins: look like an vegetable market in a village with a roof on in. It has fresh food in boxes, less racks and black tables. The inventory remembered me
JungleJims: a lot of different theme-sections with an own map for the store.
(b) Krugers is for these people, who just want/need to have something fast and directly. My expierience is that the time you stay in the shop is short.
In Pipkins, you can talk to the service-people there and feel like going on a market. Everything is calm. You have a great choice of fruits from USA.
JungleJims is amazing. It makes a shopping trip to an event for the whole family. And, of course, these people who are happy are buying more.
(c) In Krugers, I saw a lot of families.
To Pipkins goes people, who want to eat something healthy. But the prizes here are a little expensive, so you cannot find the poorest citizens here.
JungleJims is like Disneyland for food. There are many eyecatcher, decoration, samples on every corner. So I think, this is a good store for families with young children. The problem with young children is often, that when they are getting bored, they start to cry and so on. I think, with the special stuff in the shop, families can stay longer there and buy more.
There were also country-typical sections in there. I saw for example some vietnamese guys, who want to buy a big bag of rice, which you cannot find in other mainstream-stores like Kruegers. So it is very good for people with immigration-background, who do not want to abstain from their food from home.
The special combination of mainstream-foodstuff and special sections mixed with entertainmaint while shopping makes JungleJim so attractive.
(a) Krugers: it's a mainstream grocery store. Same looking racks and no extra decoration stuff.
Pipkins: look like an vegetable market in a village with a roof on in. It has fresh food in boxes, less racks and black tables. The inventory remembered me
JungleJims: a lot of different theme-sections with an own map for the store.
(b) Krugers is for these people, who just want/need to have something fast and directly. My expierience is that the time you stay in the shop is short.
In Pipkins, you can talk to the service-people there and feel like going on a market. Everything is calm. You have a great choice of fruits from USA.
JungleJims is amazing. It makes a shopping trip to an event for the whole family. And, of course, these people who are happy are buying more.
(c) In Krugers, I saw a lot of families.
To Pipkins goes people, who want to eat something healthy. But the prizes here are a little expensive, so you cannot find the poorest citizens here.
JungleJims is like Disneyland for food. There are many eyecatcher, decoration, samples on every corner. So I think, this is a good store for families with young children. The problem with young children is often, that when they are getting bored, they start to cry and so on. I think, with the special stuff in the shop, families can stay longer there and buy more.
There were also country-typical sections in there. I saw for example some vietnamese guys, who want to buy a big bag of rice, which you cannot find in other mainstream-stores like Kruegers. So it is very good for people with immigration-background, who do not want to abstain from their food from home.
The special combination of mainstream-foodstuff and special sections mixed with entertainmaint while shopping makes JungleJim so attractive.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Wednesday at Freedom Center
[working doc]
[ i cannot finished it, because our new logins doesn't work in the Langsam-Library (state of the information: 08/19/09 10:00 pm)]
Today we visit the "Underground Railway Freedom Center". It is a museum, where are a lots of different sections which describe different aspects of the slavery in the United States.
The "Brother of the Borderland"-section really impresses me. The section was about the hard part of journeys of slaves who want to be free: the situation around the crossing of the Ohio River.
There exists 2 different rooms. In the first room introduce Ophra Winfrey in the major topic. This dark room with less light had [sitzpolster] and 4 flatscreens. After this short movie with an short description of the [flcuht]-story, we had to leave room one and go through a door. After the door, there was a long dark tunnel with noises of a night like [raschelndes Laub] or [grashuepfer]. After the tunnel, there comes an another big screen with a view from one [ufer] of the ohio river to the other. Then the story from the first room continued and we see, how hard it was to cross the river and [fliehen] from the slave-hunter.
(b) Circa 10 yaers ago, I went to the "KZ Buchenwald". Unfortunetly I cannot remember details of this visit.
The general problem is, that it is a little bit difficult to compare the holocaust with the slavery.
[...]
You are able to name the holocaust places, but it is hard to find the central places of slavery, because this happened ofer many years in an big area of America.
As far as I can remember, in Buchenwald was not as much as different media sources than here in the Freedom Center [...].
(c) In my opinion it is essentially to kkep the memorys of the [greultaten] of the [vorfahren] alive. The more [leute ansprechen] the better. This should prevent, that such things happen in the future again.
Conclusion:
All in all, I think the whole Freedom Center has reach their target: they inform about the slavery years ago, about actual slavery in the world and motivate to engage to do something. Compared to my [erinnerungen] to Buchenwald, I found the play with different media types here better than in germany.
I think, to attract enough people and leave a footprint in their head, a museum-designer have to use the possibilities of the today to keep the emotions and memories of yesterday alive.
[ i cannot finished it, because our new logins doesn't work in the Langsam-Library (state of the information: 08/19/09 10:00 pm)]
Today we visit the "Underground Railway Freedom Center". It is a museum, where are a lots of different sections which describe different aspects of the slavery in the United States.
The "Brother of the Borderland"-section really impresses me. The section was about the hard part of journeys of slaves who want to be free: the situation around the crossing of the Ohio River.
There exists 2 different rooms. In the first room introduce Ophra Winfrey in the major topic. This dark room with less light had [sitzpolster] and 4 flatscreens. After this short movie with an short description of the [flcuht]-story, we had to leave room one and go through a door. After the door, there was a long dark tunnel with noises of a night like [raschelndes Laub] or [grashuepfer]. After the tunnel, there comes an another big screen with a view from one [ufer] of the ohio river to the other. Then the story from the first room continued and we see, how hard it was to cross the river and [fliehen] from the slave-hunter.
(b) Circa 10 yaers ago, I went to the "KZ Buchenwald". Unfortunetly I cannot remember details of this visit.
The general problem is, that it is a little bit difficult to compare the holocaust with the slavery.
[...]
You are able to name the holocaust places, but it is hard to find the central places of slavery, because this happened ofer many years in an big area of America.
As far as I can remember, in Buchenwald was not as much as different media sources than here in the Freedom Center [...].
(c) In my opinion it is essentially to kkep the memorys of the [greultaten] of the [vorfahren] alive. The more [leute ansprechen] the better. This should prevent, that such things happen in the future again.
Conclusion:
All in all, I think the whole Freedom Center has reach their target: they inform about the slavery years ago, about actual slavery in the world and motivate to engage to do something. Compared to my [erinnerungen] to Buchenwald, I found the play with different media types here better than in germany.
I think, to attract enough people and leave a footprint in their head, a museum-designer have to use the possibilities of the today to keep the emotions and memories of yesterday alive.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Tuesday Children books
[not the finished document]
Excelent! Second task is to analyse children books.
-- Task a --
At first we were at a public library. There are clearly separateable sections: one section for the younger reader and one for the adult ones. The rack are smaller, the furniture is tiny and there are enough toys to play. It is great for the kids to read a book, after that play a little bit, and then continue with reading. In the other section for adult-literature you can find higher racks and of course no corner with toys.
-- Task b --
To the books: at first, I've took "Paul Bunyan" from Eric Blair. It's about a giant man who went out in the big world, but at the end he have found back to home. The hole book is about how the guy handle his handicap, like "Paul grew so large that his mom had to sew his pants from blankets". The main character is Paul. He is shown as a good, friendly and helpful giant. Everywhere he come, he helps the people there, for example as lumberjack he "could cut down 10 trees with one swing of his huge ax". In the second part of the book, there appears an ox called "Babe" . Paul saved it, and they become best friends for ever.
The second book was named as "Anansi does the impossible". The start: Anansi was a little spider, and the sky god had owned all folktales. Anansi wanted to bring they back and had to solve three tricky tasks. Of course, she could solve the problems with using her brain.
These books are typical books I also would had read in Germany. They are short, have around two sentences on one side and great illustrations for better understanding of the texts. But one thing attracts attention: it seems that these books are written just for "white-colored" kids. In Paul Bunyan and other children books choosen by other students there were no black-colored people.
All in all, I found a lots of values transportet in the storys. In the first book, there is Paul, a giant who use is power to help other and do not harm them. After a long journey, he returned to his roots and come back home. In the second book I found the classical plot, that one tiny individuum go out and fight against the big evil (David vs. Goliath [correct written?]). And this individuum do not win with the use of power, it wins with the use of the brain.
See you tomorrow!
Excelent! Second task is to analyse children books.
-- Task a --
At first we were at a public library. There are clearly separateable sections: one section for the younger reader and one for the adult ones. The rack are smaller, the furniture is tiny and there are enough toys to play. It is great for the kids to read a book, after that play a little bit, and then continue with reading. In the other section for adult-literature you can find higher racks and of course no corner with toys.
-- Task b --
To the books: at first, I've took "Paul Bunyan" from Eric Blair. It's about a giant man who went out in the big world, but at the end he have found back to home. The hole book is about how the guy handle his handicap, like "Paul grew so large that his mom had to sew his pants from blankets". The main character is Paul. He is shown as a good, friendly and helpful giant. Everywhere he come, he helps the people there, for example as lumberjack he "could cut down 10 trees with one swing of his huge ax". In the second part of the book, there appears an ox called "Babe" . Paul saved it, and they become best friends for ever.
The second book was named as "Anansi does the impossible". The start: Anansi was a little spider, and the sky god had owned all folktales. Anansi wanted to bring they back and had to solve three tricky tasks. Of course, she could solve the problems with using her brain.
These books are typical books I also would had read in Germany. They are short, have around two sentences on one side and great illustrations for better understanding of the texts. But one thing attracts attention: it seems that these books are written just for "white-colored" kids. In Paul Bunyan and other children books choosen by other students there were no black-colored people.
All in all, I found a lots of values transportet in the storys. In the first book, there is Paul, a giant who use is power to help other and do not harm them. After a long journey, he returned to his roots and come back home. In the second book I found the classical plot, that one tiny individuum go out and fight against the big evil (David vs. Goliath [correct written?]). And this individuum do not win with the use of power, it wins with the use of the brain.
See you tomorrow!
Monday, August 17, 2009
First post and first challange
Yeah! Everything new: new city, new culture, new blog, new post, new challenge:
My challenge for today is: Write about buildings and landscape
Although there are little hills here in Cincinnati, I miss some mountains like in the Thuringia Forest, where I study since 3 years.
I live in a hostel for students, right in the main area of the University of Cincinnati. It's a nice little skyscraper which look like some which I have seen in the "Dallas"-series.
The inventory inside let me remember the time, where I was a little child and went to the "school youth hostels". Their inventory were from a seventies or eighties GDR-time.
But everything seems to work.
but one thing I don't like: the permanent air movement created by the air cons in every room. But we have blankings for that!
So that was my first post, see you tomorrow with the topic: cultural values in children's text.
Bye
My challenge for today is: Write about buildings and landscape
Although there are little hills here in Cincinnati, I miss some mountains like in the Thuringia Forest, where I study since 3 years.
I live in a hostel for students, right in the main area of the University of Cincinnati. It's a nice little skyscraper which look like some which I have seen in the "Dallas"-series.
The inventory inside let me remember the time, where I was a little child and went to the "school youth hostels". Their inventory were from a seventies or eighties GDR-time.
But everything seems to work.
but one thing I don't like: the permanent air movement created by the air cons in every room. But we have blankings for that!
So that was my first post, see you tomorrow with the topic: cultural values in children's text.
Bye
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