Contributions to the Project 1. Joined the discussion of brainstorm, and gave my suggestions about the questions for the interviews. 2. Provided a methodology—the X Model for our group to design the interviews. 3. Bought the thanks card for the participants of the interviews. 4. Took notes of soundtracks of the interviews, and wrote down some quotes from soundtracks.

Reflection There were two aspects of our project turned out well: first, we had a specific focus on women with disabilities in the beauty industry rather than talked about the concept of disability and beauty in a general sense. second, we had a clear structure for our project, which means we had an introduction, three examples, and a conclusion. I contributed to these by came up with a thesis statement and engaged in finding examples. The aspects that our project did not turn out as I might have hoped are the layouts and colors. There were several slides of our project look like made by different people, which I think should be uniformed in some way because we were a group. In addition, I chose the colors which may distract the audiences to focus on the pictures and texts. The value I gain from working as a group is that we should make a clear distribution for each group member. At first, our group did not have clear distribution, even though everyone participated and discussed their ideas, I felt very confused about what we were going to do. For the design of the creative group project assignment, I believe that instead of assigning everyone into groups in advance, it could allow students to submit their three top interests and then assign them to groups based on their interests.

Research Model We chose this model because we wanted to listen to the voices of sex workers, who have more knowledge about the sex industry than us, which provide opportunities for us to know the first-hand stories and stand from the perspectives of sex workers.

A paragraph In the contemporary society, the growth of consumer culture and fashion industry lead people to pay more attention to the appearance of the body than the previous time. The mass consumption society emphasizes healthy/beautiful bodies. Under this condition, people attach much importance to the aesthetic property of the body, which makes the body become a basic feature of interests and distinctions. For example, people from different social classes have different body figures. For people with disabilities, their bodies are separated from sexuality partly due to their “defect" bodies. I used to talk about this topic with my grandmother, who lives with hearing and leg impairments since she was very young, she held an opinion which was impose on her by the society she lives that people with disabilities should not demand too much, especially in a marriage and a sexual relationship, because their “defect” bodies makes them need to rely on their partners, while any extra demands are “burden” for their partner. I thought the reasons why she held this view may be is that the mainstream culture seldom portrays people with disabilities as independent people who have their own thoughts and interest, instead, “disability” seems become their primary and even the only identity other people could see from the media attempt to portray people with disabilities. Under this condition, it is important to “incorporate disabled people's experiences into all sex education programs to counter assumptions that people with disabilities are inherently inadequate or incapable lovers”(Erickson 46).

Introducing a Photographer -A photographer who lives with retinitis pigmentosa. -Her works are creative— they are combinations of several photos, which are inspired by her memories. -She just needs her guide dog, her auto-focus camera, and human helpers to keep her spatially lined up on the goal her inner eye points toward. -She said: “the photograph starts in your brain.” For photographers with visual impairments, the normal standard of visual beauty does not exist, therefore their works are less restricted and less influenced by the beauty norms made by sighted people. They create mental images before they take photos. They also can capture many small details in their lives by their auditory sense, tactile sense, and olfactory sense, which provide new ways of expressing beauty.

A Reflection of an Article The reading of this week reminds me of one of the adults I met in my life. She always like tries something new, asks questions, and learn from others. She had these habits when she was in schools, and last for a long time until now. In her students days, either she was the most hard-working one or the smartest, but she enjoyed her school days because she enjoyed learning itself. Her motivation is not related to good grades or praises from others, just learning something she did not know made her happy. As Schoen mentioned in the article, for some professional practitioner, “uncertainty is a threat; its admission is a sign of weakness”(69). This means that they may category anything out of their knowledge into their existing knowledge scheme, which may lead them can not make further progress in their professional area. In my opinion, this kind of attitude toward uncertainty reflects their motivations, which may highly influence by others— such as afraid of making embarrassing mistakes in front of others. However, the motivation of the adult I knew is always driven by learning itself. Even after she left schools and formed her own family, she still keeps those learning habits. As I observed, those learning habits make her become more concentrated on the learning, and because she enjoys the process of learning, she seldom influenced by the outcome. Therefore, this case may relate to teaching method because if a teacher could enjoy the learning itself without obstructed by external factors, then s/he would not only progress quickly but also can gain a deeper understanding about s/he subject.

Education I totally agree with the idea of Palmer that "Good teaching cannot be reduced to techniques; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher"(260). In my opinion, a good teaching technique such as role playing can be an "embellish" rather than the ultimate pursuit of teachers. The ultimate pursuit for me is to set oneself as an example to his/her students. If the goal of education is to teach students to discover their true selfs, find their interests, and become good human beings, then no matter how ingenious the techniques are, their influences could not exceed the behaviors of teachers themselves. In addition, I think this idea about education can be applied in everywhere, no matter in family education, school education, or in different interpersonal relationships. This reminds me of the reasons why I chose this course although I am not planning to become a teacher. One of the reasons is, I think education is everywhere and is very powerful and sometimes is invisible. Like the idea of identity and integrity, education should not only be the "surface", like some teaching techniques but should be more deeply and widespread.

What's the meaning of this sentence? "fairy dust of irony really strips burlesque of any political dubiousness" It seems that I know the meaning of each word but don't understand them as a whole.That will be very helpful If someone could explain the meaning. Thanks!

an email Thank you for your kindness in agreeing to write a letter of recommendation to accompany my application. Writing from the perspectives of attendance and performance is enough. I do not require a letter until mid-July, so I am willing to come to your office when you are available.