Category: 2017-2018

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Learning Third Language: 1. Khmer 2. English 3. KOREAN

Independent Discovery: Korean Language, Hangul

Student(s): Venghour Than and Rika Chan

Progress in percentage: 50%

Round: 4 and 5

Overall time (including personal time): Approximately 8-9 hours

Lessons:

  1. Alphabets (consonants and vowels)
  2. Vowels (double vowels) Consonants (double consonants)
  3. Vocabulary (noun, adjective, and verb)
  4. Numbers (simplified numbers and traditional numbers)
  5. Grammar (articles, ending phrases, plurals vs. singular, etc.)
  6. Pronunciation
  7. Time (for example, today, tomorrow, year, day, hour, minute, etc.)
  8. Typing (learning how to type in Korean on the computer keyboard)

Over the courses of round four and five, we are the beginners of learning the Korean language, Hangul. It is our goal to be fluent in this language right after our mother tongue (Khmer) and second language (English). The main reason for starting this personal learning is that we are sharing the same personal interest in Korean culture, specifically, K-pop−a very trending music industry in South-Korea.  

At the beginning, we started to gather all the resources that are accessible to our study. We were searching for available books, online courses, websites, and videos. As a result, we came up with a list of resources that are including:

  1. Korean 101 – Learning Korean online with Podcasts
  2. Duolingo – the world’s most popular way to learn languages. Their platforms exist in website and app. Furthermore, we also use Duolingo to learn other languages, for example, learning Spanish with Cara.
  3. Ewha Korean textbook – a series of textbooks for Korean young learners.

These are the main three resources we were mostly used for the study. These resources cover up all the lessons that are listed above. Both of us already knew the basics before we started this Independent discovery: alphabets, pronunciation, and some vocabulary. But we were still struggling with them. Right at the start, we had organized our system of learning by starting with the books, Ewha. We learned everything from the book, page by page, and simultaneously, having notebooks to jot down some notes. We had learned many new words and grammar from Ewha. We usually jotted down the rules of the grammar and new vocabulary. Here is an example:
 

 

 

(list of words at the left side)

(grammar rules at the right side)

Learning from Korean 101 is another alternative way to enhance our Hangul. This is an online course consists of many helpful lessons and activities. It mainly helps us with our diction. Korean 101 provides us “word of the day” that is very beneficial for daily living. In addition, it does not only provide words, it provides us with many example sentences by using the word of the day. Furthermore, it has many videos with pronunciation.

Last, we did use Duolingo to learn how to type, new basic grammar, and vocabulary. It was extremely difficult to learn how to type. It is actually the same as having a hard time, learning how to type Khmer for the first time. Duolingo is the perfect platform for learning Korean because it is very organized with its system of setting all the basics for the beginner. It gives us time to review all the basics including the alphabets, pronunciation of the letters, and of course, some spellings.

Here are some of the things we learned from Duolingo.

  1. 는, 가 = without consonant/은, 이 = with consonant
  2. 사과가 음식입니다. = An apple is a food.
  3. Noun (들) = plural
  4. 과, 와, or 하고 = and

Having only an hour each work was not enough to be fluent in Hangul, therefore, we were finding our own personal time to study. We did not limit ourselves to only these three main resources. We even further researched through many videos on Youtube. Listening to Korean songs and watching all the Korean dramas are not a bad idea at all. Personally, I actually can hear and able to define some words and phrases from the lyrics.

Besides watching movies and listening to music, I even have a Korean novel on my bookshelf. Of course, I do not understand everything, but sometimes, I just went through page by page to know if I see any familiar words or sentences.

Overall, learning Hangul is very similar to learning Khmer. It is just the difference in grammar. I discover that learning Hangul is also extremely challenging. By not having a native Korean speaker to communicate with, our progress is slow. Most of all, we could say that we are mastered in all the basics: alphabets (vowels and consonants), some words & phrases, and pronunciation. We know how to write and read; we actually on our way to master in speaking. We can have a basics conversation, but we are trying the complex conversation.

To demonstrate I have learned something in Korean, I will introduce myself in Korean by typing down on this document.

안녕하세요! 저는 뷔앵후어해요. 내가 열 다섯 살. 나는 라이거 리더십 아카데미에서 공부한다.

“Hello! My name is Venghour. I am 15 years old. I study at the Liger Leadership Academy.”

 

 

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My Changing Cambodia of 2018

My fifteen-year-old heart was pounding against my chest rapidly and uncontrollably. With those high-frequent heartbeats, I felt like I was running the marathon across the arid Saharan desert. My blood, sweat, and tears were merged perfectly, transforming into an unknown emotion. I was standing there crying while investigating the enigmatic eyes from all facets of the room. First, I felt compressed within my heart; then, I felt released. At that moment, my new self was truly born, and it believes that “it is okay to be your own skin.” Now, I courageously sense where I live for more than five years is now home, the Liger Leadership Academy.

Since I was a little, naive boy, I used to tell myself that I will live a normal-boy life like others. With no doubt, I defined a “normal boy” as a person who is straight and masculine. Over the past few years—it was about two to three years ago—I experienced an unusual phenomenon. There was no clue of when did it infected me; it was genuinely unexpected. I started to sense the chemistry in my head altering its bonds intensely. The chemistry manipulated my whole spirit until everything was unmanageable. After experiencing an unsatisfied feeling, the essence of me had changed.

I attracted to a person who is a boy, but it was happening the same with the girl.

Confusion, depression, and loneliness were invading my life, and all I was feeling was dark. At that time, my heart, mind, and soul were like a roller coaster. I felt strange until I could no longer act “normal” around everybody. Being lonely and not having any support were the setbacks to my positivity and optimism. For many days, I was indecisive on whether I should tell my enigmatic truth to a friend, but I was lackadaisical; I thought I was like a dead leaf. I discovered it was extremely difficult to talk to someone who I could relate to.

I must say this was my rite of passage, and I admit that it is still now a worthy experience. This brings me back to a specific and very special day and time; it was in August, the 31st at evening about 3:30. My tears were flowing freely from the pitch-black prison. My fifteen-year-old heart was pounding against my chest rapidly… What can I say about that day? It was indescribable. “Change Agent” becomes the new me and it is my designated role. The 31st of August was my “coming out” day. I had been a skeleton in the closet for a long duration, and it was the time to unlock the closet.

“I AM BISEXUAL!” I said.

I continued, “There is nothing wrong with being different; I am still Venghour that you wish to see and friend with every day.”

“You are all my beloved people, and I am so happy to have you warm-hearted people in my life.” I ended.

The blood, sweat, and tears were then released; I can see everybody’s eyes filled with tears. They felt very proud by giving a rapturous applause.

My journey does not end here. I was pushing myself further to reach out for the bigger picture. I want to change something in my country after experiencing the plight of me dealing with my sexuality and identity. In December 2017, I was a part of the Gender Equity exploration. It was a seven-week project under the mission of “raising awareness about global gender issues with a focus on Cambodian society. In order to affect positive change, we must examine the past to transform the future.” By participating in this extraordinary project, I was gaining many aspects of gender. Throughout the exploration, much strife and plights were introduced; solutions were implemented; hope is empowered. We generated the summit and invited many teenagers from a variety of schools to have a family discussion about the Gender Equity.

There were cryings from the people during the summit. There was also silence. The person who cries is the person who has a strong power to express them self. Furthermore, it takes voice to appreciate silence. The moments of crying and silence are actually the beacons of lights to fight.

In addition to the Gender Equity project, it had continued to be the lesson for literacy class. To reflect on all the love, ideas, and morals, I have gathered from the lesson both from literacy and exploration, I wrote an article called, “A Human or A Robot.” It is an article about my confession of defining myself as an effeminate boy, distributing the love and courage to other effeminate boys and men to confront the scars of criticisms, and being comfortable with their own skin. “And most of all, it is 100% okay to cry.”

Confession or coming out to the public about your true identity is very challenging and pressured. I explicitly understand that it has been like a teeter-totter; it is vacillating between voice and silence. I believe there are people who have the voice to speak and manifest themselves, but there are other people who are living in the silent, unilluminated, and hopeless world. They feel imprisoned by the world; in fact, they believe that they are having an endless journey of walking through an unrealistic world.

Therefore, it has to “change.” It is now 2018, and we are the inhabitants of this modernized civilization. It is now time for me to be the “real” change agent to change my country and the world. I wanted to be the advocate, the role model, and the support to other people who are conflicting with their identity. By sharing my personal story right from the beginning, I give others the permission to share theirs. There should not be any invasions of insecurity in our skin. Last, but not least, “Our true identity is to love without fear and insecurity. Our higher potential finds us when we set our course in that direction. The power of love and compassion transforms insecurity.” Doc Childre stated.

 

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Khmer Modeling United Nations – The first one

On Wednesday, May 23rd, 2018, Our school, Liger Leadership Academy, hosted a conference called, “Khmer Modeling United Nations.” This event has been organizing by all the Seniors learning in Khmer Literacy essential. Across the globe, Modeling United Nations conference (MUN) had been conducted in English. Therefore, Liger had conducted the first MUN conference in Khmer language−as far as I know−with all the participation from the seniors.

The plenary session is when all the delegates gathered.

  The whole conference was divided into two different assemblies with two different topics each. The topics were about biological weapons, internet privacy, the growing billions, and air pollution control. Conducting the conference in Khmer was extremely challenging. There were many requirements for preparing and practicing. I was one of the four chairs who was responsible to the lead the debate in the assembly. I partnered with my friends, and we were responsible for leading the debates and discussion in our assembly.

Our Khmer facilitator, Sokha, the Secretary-General
My partner and I (chairs) of the second assembly.

Speaking in Khmer for the whole conference was a worthy experience. It was very similar to English since they are using fancy and very technical words. It was the same for Khmer! We had to use many technical and difficult Khmer words to communicate during the conference. Before the event was approaching, we, the chairs, were already translating the chair scripts, printing out placards of distinguished countries, guiding and helping our friends who were new to the conference through research. All of these activities we did in class before were actually enhancing many of our literary skills including writing, speaking, listening, and reading. We learned to write an open speech in Khmer standard forms, research in different Khmer resources, and write a resolution of solving the problems.

I was assisting the delegate through the event.

On the actual event, everything was in place. Everyone was dressed up professionally and ready to debate and have a fruitful discussion. Each delegate was on their role and filled with information that was standing the position of their country. During the debate, many delegates were bravely engaged with formal manner. There were difficult questions (points of information) being raised up by delegates. There were many delegates who were serious during the conference, for example, the delegate of America. He was submitting many amendments, asking questions, and even speaking for his country position. Overall, the conference was a blessing and hopefully, we are going to do it again next year.  

Here is a short video of the whole event, and I hope you enjoy it!

 

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The Last Trip of 2018 – May 24th-28th

LMRT was back on the island! We were ready to rock and roll! First of all, let me take a moment here that the first we were on the island, it was actually my birthday! Now, so far I ended my first three sentences with exclamation points; what’s good! Another one! Another one! Another one…..

I was so blessed to actually having LMRT trip on my birthday, I mean, what could have been better. My friends and I were so excited getting back into the water and checking our blocks! However, we could not do any of those things. Due to the illegal fishing, the visibility of the water was extremely bad, causing the sediments to stir up. Zero dive, but that did not mean zero productiveness. We already keep ourselves busy because that is LMRT.

We helped with and did many activities:

Continuation of cluster creation

 

 

My friends and I were splicing the ropes. 

 

 

Instead of splicing the rope, we braided each others’ hair. 

 

 

 

Dolphin Survey and Plastic Survey

 

My friend, Somphors, joined us this trip.

 

 

 

 

 

Nina, our plastic survey data collector, explained us the structure of the survey. 

 

 

Dolphin Survey.  

 

 

 

 

The MCC volunteers and LMRT were participating in the dolphin survey activities. 

 

Fun dives (forget the visibility)

 

 

I was blowing the octopus to check my buddy’s air system. Buddy checked!

 

Art project with rubbish we collected around the island.

 

Making the basket out of drinking straws and the fan frame. 

 

 

Preparation of presentation and poster for the upcoming conference we will attend: The 5th International Marine Conservation Congress in Kuching, Malaysia. Unexpectedly, we are the youngest attendee there!

Staring at the sunset (very pleasant)

 

A footage of sunset taken by one of us. 

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“What Do Blind People See?” – Color Optical Illusions

Have you ever wondered how a blind person see? Do they live in a different kind of universe? What do they “actually” see? Well, we have an answer now. It is not an “actual” answer, but it is an explanatory answer which it could explain how a blind person sees.  We read two different articles that explain about blind people and the optical illusions of colors. Right down below are the two questions I answered in physics class of my comprehension from the article

 

  • What do blind people actually see?

 

Blind people actually do see the thing that is indescribable. It is this nothingness that they see. A “normal” human cannot explain this nothingness because nothingness that could be explained is “how it “looks” behind your head.” Nowadays, blind people can live their normal lives like us; it is just that fact that they do not have that one sense of vision. Mr. Wächter is the subject of the experiment of the article. He is a blind man who has put on a belt whose ability can release out the vibration, which it can tell Mr. Wächter any direction. But when the experiment was over, without the belt, Mr. Wächter can still feel some vibration known as, but he was lost. “He was experiencing the same thing you do when you try to look at what’s behind your head.”

 

  • Why colors can trick us?

 

Colors can trick us when our brain tries to perceive or figure out what is the object’s color. According to Wired’s explanation, when you are concentrating on the figuration of the object’s color, our brain will neglect the background colors and light around it. Colors are also tricky when it comes to your eyes need to subtract the lighting or background colors because it is not happening rapidly. As a well-known example, some people might see the dress in white and gold while others see it as blue and black. For the people who perceive the color in white and gold, you cannot just tell your eyes or brain to neglect the right background colors and lighting. Consequently, all of these theories or ideas have become an inspiration for many artists to create the art of optical illusions. Humans know what is the optical illusion, but it takes to make us realize that it is a trick from colors.

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The Physics Behind Marvel’s Superhero: Wolverine

Wolverine

Real Name: James Howlett

Byname: Logan

Place of Birth: Alberta, Canada

Citizenship: Canadian

Life Span: About 200 Years

Weight: 195 Lbs (Without Adamantium  skeleton), 300 Lbs (with Adamantium skeleton)

You must be the exotic one if you have not heard, seen, or read the “Marvel comics” or the “Marvel movies.” It was created in the United States of America since 1939 with its first release of a comic book called, “Timley’s Publication.” Throughout the time, Marvel entertainment published abundance of new and adventurous comic books including many distinguished characters especially the superheroes. Those superheroes were illustrated and put into the stories whose astonishing superpowers possibly could be explained by our modern physics whether it is practicable or impractical.

As mentioned, in the entire Marvel history, there are a lot of established fictional characters who significantly play her or his roles in the comics or movies of their mind-blowing superpowers. Moreover, you must be wondering who is the man above. Generally and as written above, his name is James Howlett  and also known as “Wolverine.” He is actually one of the top Marvel superheroes: Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Black Widow, Daredevil, and Captain America. His first appearance in Marvel comics was in the “Incredible Hulk” since 1974.

Who is Wolverine?

Wolverine is a mutant (meaning his DNA is changed) with many incredible powers who has the “ability to regenerate ability to regenerate damaged or destroyed areas of his cellular structure at a rate far greater than that of an ordinary human.” People have deemed him as a “subspecies of humans (Homo sapiens superior). Furthermore, he has the powers of withstanding all types of poisons, resisting aging, and having an acute sense of seeing far distance. So you can say that he is immortal; in fact, he is mortal. He could be dead if there are potential accidents that he got injuries at the “vital organs” and loss of physical form.

Despite his superpowers, he does have abilities like other humans. He did train at many tasks as a C.I.A operative, a soldier, a Samurai, a spy, a member of X-men, and hand to hand fighter known as the “combatant.” In addition, Wolverine is also an expert in many types weapons, vehicles, computer system, explosive, and assassination techniques.  If you are a truly a supporter of Wolverine, you might notice that he could speak in multiple languages such as Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Spanish.

Regeneration

As a matter of fact, you may experience regeneration at some points while playing your video games. The best example is Minecraft. There is a portion that you can drink to regenerate the player at a fast speed and limited duration. But for Wolverine, his ability to regenerate is overwhelmingly impressive. Regeneration is a permanent ability he has; it is inherently working when he got cuts or even in an intense situation of someone poking him with a sword.

When a normal human received a wound or cuts, it takes times to heal or regenerate which depends on the wound condition. And by means of regeneration, it is the “process by which some organisms replace or restore lost or amputated body parts,” or biologically, it is the “reactivation of development in later life to restore missing tissues.” In reality, there are actually some organisms who can regenerate itself when it lost its limbs or some other parts of their body. For instance, the salamanders, axolotls, starfish, spiders, and other types of lizards have the ability of regeneration.

Wolverine’s regeneration in the fictional comics or movies is actually a complicated one. The first explanation that can crack this enigma is related to Wolverine’s last name, Howlett; it is surprisingly a protein. According to the paper was submitted to the Journal of Superhero Mutational Science by graduate students from the University of British Columbia, stated that “Wolverine’s healing abilities have striking similarities to that seen in axolotl, an amphibian with the capacity to regenerate amputated limbs.” The Howlett protein within Wolverine is characterized similarly to the protein within the axolotls, called “Amblox.”

                                                                                 (scq.ubc.ca)

However, it clearly shows that it definitely takes sometimes for the axolotl to heal when it takes a second for Wolverine to heal.

 

How does that work? Howlett protein is everywhere in Wolverine’s body and to answer the question, it is all about an activity of Howlett within his cell. “Wolverine has a significantly elevated amount of Howlett per cell than the axolotl by a factor of 100,” but that does not explain the reason why the rate of Wolverine’s regeneration is rapid. Therefore, the students set up a simulation of observing “the rate of product formation by Howlett” compares to the rate of product formation by Amblox. As a result, it expressly demonstrates that Howlett protein has a greater rate of healing Wolverine rather than the axolotl’s protein.

Besides Howlett, there is another key protein that contributes to the regeneration; it is called, “Lin28a.” As an American digital media company, Inverse stated that “In embryonic cells where the protein is fully activated, Lin28a becomes more and more dormant as the organism ages.” This could possibly apply to one of the reasons of how does Wolverine’s regeneration works. It further explained that there is a simulation when the researchers changed a mouse genetically by injecting the substance to keep the mouse produces the Lin28a protein. It turns out that it is working. When the mouse got cut off one of its toes, it grew back with a fast speed back to a normal toe.  

Conclusion

As stated, Wolverine is one of the incredible characters in the Marvel history. His phenomenal power, regeneration, clearly surprises all the Marvel supporters; however, there is a lack of explanation of how it is actually working. It is very complex to comprehend expressly about Wolverine’s power since it is all going down to the system of his protein within the cell. The explanation of all the introduced proteins including Amblox and Lin28a are existing in this real world.

Furthermore, it seems realistic that human can be healed close to the speed of Wolverine’s regeneration by following the procedure of injecting the Lin28a protein. However, this is not reasonable since researchers, or us do not know what are the consequences. Not only the Lin28a injection seems to be unrealistic, but also the Howlett protein. After all, Howlett protein is literally a fictional protein which the author characterized it similarly to the Amblox. But for most of the parts from the explanation, it still could be possible and durable with our modernized technology and knowledge that we can have the power of regeneration as Wolverine.

 

Works Cited

Forbes, Forbes Magazine, www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2016/02/29/deadpool-science/&refURL=&referrer=.

“8 Regenerative Animals Changing the Face of Medicine.” DermeffaceFX7 Info, 18 Feb. 2016, www.dermeffacefx7.com/info/8-regenerative-animals-changing-the-face-of-medicine/.

Cronin, Brian. “What Was the First Marvel Comic Book?” CBR, 3 Apr. 2018, www.cbr.com/marvel-comics-first-comic/.

Dvorsky, George. “A Remarkably Detailed Fake Study of Wolverine’s Regeneration Abilities.” io9, io9.Gizmodo.com, 24 Sept. 2013, io9.gizmodo.com/a-remarkably-detailed-fake-study-of-wolverine-s-regener-1377381586.

Gilbert, Scott F. “Regeneration.” Developmental Biology. 6th Edition., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Jan. 1970, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9971/.

Goss, Richard Johnson. “Regeneration.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Aug. 2016, www.britannica.com/science/regeneration-biology.

Holmes, Adam. “The Truth About Wolverine’s Healing Factor In Logan.” CINEMABLEND, CINEMABLEND, 26 May 2017, www.cinemablend.com/news/1575799/the-truth-about-wolverines-healing-factor-in-logan.’

Sloat, Sarah. “Humans, Too, Possess the Regenerative Abilities of X-23 and Wolverine.” Inverse, www.inverse.com/article/26640-logan-laura-x23-wolverine-regenerative-power-healing.

“Top Marvel Heroes.” Marvel.com: The Official Site, marvel.com/characters/list/994/top_marvel_heroes.

“Wolverine.” Characters | Marvel.com, marvel.com/characters/66/wolverine.

http://www.scq.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/HOWLETT-PAPER-09182013.pdf

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Bats & Echolocation

This was a small research we did during our “sound waves” study in physics class. Our facilitator, Samantha, assigned us many different topics to research on with the purpose of dot-connecting our lessons to the world information. 

BATS AND ECHOLOCATION

BY: VENGHOUR THAN & SAMNANG HOR

What is Bat?

Bats are found all around the world and there are hundreds of different species of bat. These bats are living in caves and forest, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere. Bats are mammals that have fur or hair covered their bodies and are warm-blooded. Bats are the only mammals that can fly, it’s wing has a very similar bones to our human hand and arm, connect the skin that stretched between long finger bones and the body to form the wing membrane. This mammals hunt at night by using their exceptional sight to pick out their preys. Bats prey such as insects, frogs, and small rodents. Bats have a slight sixth sense known as echolocation to locate prey by the sounds that are reflected back to them.                                                  

What is Echolocation?

The use of sound waves combining with echoes is called “echolocation.” It is to determine the location of the objects are in space mostly at night. Bats are the most standout mammals that use echolocation to navigate and find their food since they are blind. Bats’ uses of echolocation are the same as humans’ uses of eyes to see. Its process of using sound waves and echoes to survive every day is very complicating. But do not get it wrong here, there are others animals having the ability to use echolocation for the same reasons of navigation and food searching including dolphins, whales, other birds and even humans.

The Process of Bat’s echolocation

(the sonogram of the bat – ASU)

In order to echolocate, the bat is required to have three essential things: voice, ears, and echoes. Echo is “a sound or sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener.” Down here is the picture of bat’s ear. First of all, the bat will let a chirp (ultrasonic sound); as the sound waves reach the targeted object, it will bounce back as echoes reaching back the bat’s ear. Now, the echoes will pass the ear cartilage into the ear canal. Then, it continues its way to the eardrum where it starts to vibrate, and that vibration will pursue its way to cochlea until the basilar membrane. In brief explanation, the vibration from the ear canal cannot be transported to the basilar members; it had to go through a conversion. It is all happened in the “cochlea.” If you look at the diagram down below, it is explaining how the cochlea works. When the vibration approaches the cochlea, it instantly converts into nerve impulses. Nerve impulses are the smooth flows of vibration. Then, those impulses transport to the brain for interpretation. Since bat does not live in the space with one object, it had its owns technique of knowing multiple of objects at the same time. To do so, the bat had to chirp for several times with distinguished frequencies in a different location. Therefore, when the echoes reach back its ears with different frequencies, it can figure the destination, sizes, and shapes.

Conclusion

Bat is a very special kind of animal among the others with the ability of echolocating. The object’s location, size, and shape can be figured out by its chirp. In addition, by letting a chirp, the bat can produce and hear the sound at the frequencies over 100,000 waves every second. With its complex and amazing life survival skill, it is actually the birth of many modern sonar technologies.

Resource:

http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/all_about_bats.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laeE4icRYp4

https://askabiologist.asu.edu/echolocation

https://www.google.com.kh/search?q=what+is+echo&rlz=1C1AVUC_enKH772KH772&oq=what+is+echo&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3146j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on

 

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Collection of Arts

Summary: Basically, or this Round two of my Collection of Art, the main focus is on the “power of women.” I spent many hours just to find a fierce looking photograph of a female celebrity online. My initial goal was at least getting one drawing done with my professional drawing skills. Finally, I chose the photo of Jessie J’s album cover titled, “Who You Are.” The title was perfect with my focus on women’s power. Therefore, I decided to stick with the photo and began my drawing adventure.

Extra Research: Early before the drawing, I searched up for many techniques and other resources. With the first glance at Jessie’s photo, it was a shock. With honesty, I regarded Jessie’s photo the most difficult portrait to draw. Basically, I began to research many things: human features, face, and expression.

Not just pictures, I also did research for videos to find tips on shading especially with Jessie’s eyes. Furthermore, finding other inspiration from other artists who have experience with celebrity draw. 

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P186ToO-jkY – eye shadowing
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd-8rRJwbso – Ariana Grande portrait
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNlD naltOo – Selena Gomez portrait

Final Product: Obviously, this drawing of Jessie J was a time-consuming project; simultaneously, it was extremely challenging. But here is my drawing! I hope you will criticize and comment on it for further development. Overall, I am proud and grateful the ten hours of working on this difficult art piece.