HU300-01 Arts and Humanities Final Project – Time Capsule Final Project – Time Capsule Since the creation of time, man has been inventing creations to enhance and abet the living experience of human beings with hopes of making daily tasks (domestic or work) more manageable while exerting less physical effort or for safety measures. This time capsule has been written to share with future generations some of the creations that were made near the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of 21st, to afford a propitious soul with a better understanding how life was 100 years prior to what it might be when this letter can be read.
As you read this, I will illustrate my personal daily tasks as they exist now, discuss current morale and decision-making, my definition of happiness, Langston Hughes’ Mother to Son, the architect – Aguas de Barcelona, Human by Brandy, the movie John Q, and the significance of airbags in automobiles. Concluding this time capsule, you will have learned more on how we lived in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries and possibly how some of our inventions may help to inspire some future inventions. Due to the recent economic crisis, America is experiencing a recession that is slow to recover.
Because of the recession, the jobless rate has reached a 10. 1 percent high (Chandra, 2011). I unfortunately am one of those workers whom were laid off. Therefore, I am taking this time now to focus on attending school full-time and getting a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. I currently receive unemployment which means that my income has been reduced almost to half as when I was working. With my faith and trust in God I have been able to sustain my lifestyle with some minor adjustments to my spending habits.
Now that I am on a more restricted income, my daily tasks include only things I need to do in order to control spending costs. On a weekday daily basis my schedule consists of going to the gym. That is pretty much the only time I leave the house. While I’m out, I get many other chores done which often includes shopping. I attend school online and therefore I study late nights because that is when it is the most quiet allowing me to really focus. Once I am done with my B. S. I plan on furthering my education in receiving an MBA and possibly PhD in the future.
Because I am introvert, it doesn’t bother me to spend a lot of time by myself. However, because I am human to keep my sanity, on the weekends I often spend time with friends and attend church on Sundays. Hanging with friends on Saturdays and attending church on Sundays helps give me a sense of balance and understanding in my life, weigh out morality and decision making skills. In the current political times, many business leaders and executives are faced with challenging decisions that may require them to base their work ethics and decisions based on what is morally right.
More times than naught, many have failed this task resulting in thousands of job losses across the United States of America. One example of this would be the Enron Corporation scandal which involved accountants from the Arthur Andersen accounting firm. “Enron lied about its profits and stands accused of a range of shady dealings, including concealing debts so they didn’t show up in the company’s accounts. As the depth of the deception unfolded, investors and creditors retreated, forcing the firm into Chapter 11 bankruptcy (BBC News, 2002).
Concluding this demise, 21,000 jobs were lost as a result of abominable decision-making from top ranking executives which often times engrossed self-greed. The bulwark of the Enron scandal began the start of the country’s downward spiral of poor ethical and decision-making strategies. In this life, we cannot become overwhelmed with the things that happened in the past because we cannot change them. Because we cannot change them, it’s best that we move forward pursuing happiness as best we can. For some pursuing happiness can be a challenge in its own. I define happiness as being the opposite of sadness.
It is anything that makes a person feel a sense of joy, jovial or jocular mood or spirit. It is a sense self-fulfillment not found with external measures or turpitude. I hear people say that they look for their potential domestic partner to “make” them happy. My take on that is that no other individual can “make” another happy. Someone else can add to your happiness, but if you’re not happy within yourself first no one else can “make” you happy. Moving on to my next topic, Langston Hughes’ Mother to Son will examine happiness in the reverence of perseverance. Langston Hughes By: Warren Goodson
Langston Hughes By: Warren Goodson “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up… So boy, don’t you turn back. ” This poem deserves the merit of being included in this time capsule because a 100 years from now its contents can be relayed to future generations’ parents-to-child the same as now encouraging them not to give up when they may become discouraged. The message here apprises children that everything in life is not going to be easy. You will be faced with some challenges. When life does exude challenges, giving up is not an option.
Speaking of challenges, architect Ateliers Jean Nouvel has faced a huge challenge with his design 21st Century building for the Aguas de Barcelena. The Aguas de Barcelona (Agbar) is the building that houses the municipal water company for Barcelona. This unique building has a 21st Century design like none other. The Aguas de Barcelona was not designed with the traditional columns as in most designs for buildings, towers, or sky-scrapers. Instead, it was built with a “forced-concrete structure, crowned by a glass and steel dome, it has a multi-colored facade of aluminum panels, behind glass louvers, in 25 different colors.
There are 4,400 windows and 56,619 transparent and translucent glass plates. The louvers are tilted at different angles calculated to deflect the direct sun light. Elliptical in plan the 31 floors are without internal columns, the perimetric structure and the central concrete core, containing the services and emergency stairwells, are the important elements of the building. Six lift shafts rise up inside the outer walls” (Kiser, 2011). This building is worth preserving because I believe it will be the blueprint design of buildings to come.
I ranked it over other possibilities because there currently is no other building of its kind or magnitude. Transitioning from a-one-of kind building to a one-of-a kind music artist, Brandy Norwood (aka Brandy or Branu’) who sings about love and things that happen in our daily lives regardless of who we are. Brandy Norwood is an accomplished Grammy Award winning R;B artist whom has also starred in many leading movie roles as well as having her own television sitcom and several reality television shows. In 2006, Brandy was involved in a car accident that killed another motorist.
From the accident, the California Highway Patrol and the victim’s family began to pursue legal action against Brandy. After a couple of years passed, a settlement was made. Shortly after the settlement was made, Brandy released her latest album, Human. Although this was not the single release from the album, it was a song titled on the album (Associated Press, 2007). Because I am a rapacious fan of Brandy, I listened to the entire cd. When I listened to the song Human it reminded me how we are all human and we make mistakes (or accidents happen) and should be forgiven for them.
That’s why I’ve chosen this song over any other any why it needs to be included in this time capsule. Forgiveness is a key to life as it is another key to happiness. Another great aspect to life concerns our health as having great health appointments coverage is essential. For this fragment in my time capsule I am will discuss the 2002 movie John Q starring Denzel Washington. The 2002 movie is about “A down-on-his luck father, whose insurance won’t cover his son’s heart transplant, takes the hospital’s emergency room hostage until the doctors agree to perform the operation” (IMDb, 2011).
I ranked this movie above any other because it exhibits the rising concerns this country faces concerning the necessity to provide adequate health care coverage for all that’s affordable. This movie is worth placement in the time capsule so hopefully in the future you will be able to look back on how things used to be and see what we had to endure to make coverage better for all in the future. The last item that I will include in this time capsule is another object used to preserve life and prevent serious bodily trauma and injury – the airbag.
Dated back early as the 1950s, airbags have been in existence just not widely used because the technique of design wasn’t quite mastered. Ford and GM attempted to used airbags in several of their early model vehicles without much avail, it wasn’t until “1988 when Chrysler became the first company to offer air bag restraint systems as standard equipment” (Bellis, 2011). Airbags alone don’t provide the necessary protection needed to save lives. Manufacturers and the Department of Transportation suggest wearing your seatbelts will further increase your chances of coming out of an accident with minimal injuries.
I have chosen airbags over all other gadgets or fads because they save lives and often times we don’t pay close attention to those things that help us opposed to things that appease us. Airbags are worth preserving because they too can be used as blueprint for inventing better safety restraint systems in the future. The 20th and 21st Centuries were times in which this country has undergone many challenges to get where it will be in 100 years. In preserving life, we must learn things from our past with hopes of not making the same mistakes in the future.
We should know that our decision-making choices affect not only ourselves personally, but could affect thousands of lives within a near or far reaching community. Those decisions could ultimately lead to our demise or contribute to our happiness, life lessons, the building of our community structures, forgiveness for one another, our health and safety. References Aguas de Barcelna (n. d. ). Photo. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www. conocerbarcelona. com Arthur Andersen Logo (2011). Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www. corporateconflicts. com Associated Press (2007).
Police want to charge Brandy for accident. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www. today. msnbc. msn. com/id/16873126/ns/today-entertainment/ Bellis, M. (2011). The history of airbags. Retrieved April 6, 2011 from http://inventors. about. com/od/astartinventions/a/air_bags. htm BBC News (2002). Enron scandal at a glance. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/business/1780075. stm Chandra, S. (2011). Recession in U. S. was even worse than estimated, revisions show. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www. bloomberg. com Enron Logo (2011). Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www. nsidesocal. com Goodson, W. (n. d. ). Portrait of Langston Hughes. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www. fiineartamerica. com Hughes, L. (n. d. ). Mother to son. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from http://www. tnellen. com/cybereng/matoson. html IMDb (1990-2011). John Q. Retrieved April 6, 2011 from http://www. imdb. com/title/tt0251160/ John Q (2002). Movie. Retrieved April 6, 2011 from http://www. imdb. com/title/tt0251160/ Kiser, K. (1999-2011). Aguas de Barcelona. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www. arcspace. com Norwood, B. (n. d. ). Photo. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www. foreverbrandy. com
