Free writing: value on arts

Today's class brought up a really interesting case: should museum report the value of arts in their financial reports. This topic raised a lot of discussion about how to place value in nonprofit sector and arts. 

Some said from the artist's perspective, it is inappropriate to give a price to a piece of arts because they represented the historical, artistic and sometimes humanistic value that were hardly can expressed in monetary unit. Also, thinking about the artists who put their thoughts, time and efforts in one piece of arts, it would be irrespecutful to have a price for it.

Some said in practical it was hard to appraise the value of arts. In most cases, those arts who were auctioned always went with higher and higher prices. As special goods, the more time a piece of arts stays, the more expensive it will be.

On the other hand, some argued that asking museum to report how much value of their arts was responsible for the public and increased the transparence of the organization. It prevented some organizations who had a lot of arts donations to report a low value in their financial documents.

Some also believed appraise arts before hand will be a good way to claim for compensation if the piece of arts were stolen or damaged. An official appraisal will give the museum the proof of the monetary value of the arts to have a clear clue how much to claim when a theft or damage happened.

Anyway, this controversial topic is on going. There is no certain answer for it.

Pic from http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2013/06/one-small-step-for-detroit-one-giant.html

Free Writing: Hiking to South Mountain

Hiking in South Mountain is definitely a must-to-do in Phoenix. Actually I have been to South Mountain once and my friends and I drove up to the top during the daytime. Therefore, this time we decided to do something really different: hiking up at night, right after the sunset.

What surprised me was that so many people were still coming to South Mountain at night no matter they were driving or hiking. Thinking about this beautiful weather and temperature, no wonder everyone wants to go outsides and do something fun. Though the park was closed, the gate and facilities were still working. We could see clearly where the trail was.

For the first time hiking in South Mountain, I was excited and nervous because I did not know any trails. Luckily, my friend hiked here once sometime ago and he still had a sliver of memory where the trail was. When we started hiking, I found that the trail was a little bit different from what I thought. I thought the trail might go into the mountain but in fact it went all the way along the driving road. Remember to bring a flashlight with you, cause there were a lot of small rocks on the trail that might make you fall. It was funny that in the dark I sometimes thought the shadow of saguaros was a person standing there. Creepy!

The South Mountain oversees Phoenix, and it was especially awesome when I could see the lights of the whole city! What a pity that my iphone cannot take the beauty of the city.

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Free Writing-Trip to Las Vegas

Las Vegas looks the way you'd imagine heaven must look at night.   ~Chuck Palahniuk

This is how I think about Las Vegas before I went there. Though I have been there once last winter, my Las Vegas experience started this time.

There is my favorite cuisine in this heaven. It has super authentic and delicious Japanese food. Though it may feel strange to have Asian food in a American city, Las Vegas is famous for its diverse and all kinds of possibilities. Japan and everything about Japan interest me, so Japanese food is on the top of my to-do list in Vegas. We found a Japanese restaurant called Sushi House Goyemon. It has Sushi buffet so we can have all kinds of sushi and ogiri. 

Delicious Japanese food I had

In this heaven, lights make the night bright! I have to admit that Las Vegas makes every sense when people call it "Sleepless City". My friend and I walked along the Strip to see all those famous casinos and see how people enjoy themselves even without gambling. The city brought the world with it. Even it was midnight, still a lot of people went in and out of the casino and malls. The night never come and the day never ends. 

“Eillfel Tower” in Vegas

In this heaven, people love shopping. It is interesting to see every casino has a big shopping mall. Even though most of the shops are the same, it does not make people feel less like to shopping. When I walked around the Strip with the Victoria's Secret's bag in my hand, more than 4 girls asked me where they could find this shop.

Many people asked me where this shop was

In Vegas, I like to guess where this people might come from and think about why this city attract so many people to come just just for fun! Still seek for the answer.

Leadership Thinking

Leadership has been a topic as long as human beings began to talk and write. Many thoughts about it appear in literature. Though I am not sure how to organize my words to give a definition of leadership, a leader first should definitely be a person leading by his own action.

There are has been too many people who talk more than doing things but act like a leader. When I was in my freshmen year, I joined a committee of a student government. The committee director was a 'leader' because of his status but he failed to do what a leader should accomplish. He was always assigning all the tasks to every committee members while he was doing his own stuff without participating in the work. At last, he failed in the next selection because no one thought he did a good job in his term.

Second, leadership also means influence others by spirit not power. Leaders motive others by spirit while managers get people by power. I will be very glad to follow a leader out of my hear because I believe what he/ she believes. I may get things done because of work and power, which does not mean I enjoy or like it. This is a huge difference between leadership and management.


A famous quote from Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher living about 2600 years ago, explains leadership that I like most:

          “To lead people, walk beside them ...
           As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.
           The next best, the people honor and praise.
           The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ...
           When the best leader's work is done the people say,
           We did it ourselves!”

                                              ― Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu

Interview with my supervisor!

Though my internship is remote at home, I met and talked with my supervisor, Janet, at the beginning of my internship. We made our meeting at a Starbucks by Tempe campus, so the whole meeting was casual and informal, feeling like chatting with a new friend.

Of course, our conversation began with introducing ourselves. Janet have been working for this company for 4 years remotely as a marketing analyst. She really loves this job because she could move from east coast to Arizona without losing her job! I think it is amazing to see how telecommunication techniques help people working regardless of geographic distance and gaining more freedom, rather than bonding to on location for several years and losing a desired job if he or she wants to move. As she came from east coast, I have to say that she talked really fast and sometimes I had problems catching her. Yet, she was nice enough to slow down her talking for me.

Besides, she talked a lot about the work and internship. Since she has been working in the marketing industry for years, she told me this work asked for people who was able to look into details and handle numbers. Most of the times working with analysis and research required one to find problems and rules out of a welter of numbers. If someone cannot be patient and calming down, it would be really boring to do this job. This is also why I enjoyed this internship, as I like the feeling to find order out of disorder.

Also, we talked about my background. She was interested in why I came all the way from China to USA for education. I told her it was because USA had more experience in nonprofit management so I could bring what I learnt here back to China some day. She said she would love to visiting Asian countries in the future and it would be a very different and rewarding experience.

It is always nice to communicate with my supervisor about internship and other topics, no matter it is in person, over the phone or emails. I can learn a lot from her I believe!