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...

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). Therefore, I am taking this time now to focus on attending school full-time and getting a Bachelor's degree in Healthcare Administration. I also work part-time as a school bus driver. I am a single mother of three and I need a solid promising future so I can provide for my family comfortably. My daily schedule consists of getting up at five in the morning and getting my kidfs off to daycare and then heading to work. I get off at 10:00 am and I take a nap for two hours nd then clean the house and get dinner prepared so that later on in the day I do not have to do anything but pop dinner in the oven. I go back to work at 1:00 pm until 5:00 pm. I then help my kids with their homework, give them baths, and feed them. After that I spend a couple of hours focusing on my school work and then I watch about an hour of television before I go to bed at night. Weekends usually consist of me spending time with my kids outside, and focusing on school. I also clean and take care of household duties on the weekends. I do not have the most exciting life at this time, but I am focused on moving a head in life and completing future goals. Lately, it has been all business and no fun for me. This is not a problem though, becvause it takes hard work, being focused and determination to get ahead in life. 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 mi 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 by Warren Goodson 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 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Int2juEMQoI) 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 insurance coverage is essential.
For this fragment in my time capsule I am will discuss the 2002 movie John Q (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251160/) 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

Arthur Andersen Logo (2011). Retrieved May 18, 2013 from www.corporateconflicts.com
Associated Press. (2007). Police want to charge Brandy for accident. Retrieved May 18, 2013 from www.today.msnbc.msn.com/id/16873126/ns/today-entertainment/
Bellis, M. (2011). The history of airbags. Retrieved May 18, 2013 from http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/air_bags.htm BBC News. (2002). Enron scandal at a glance. Retrieved May 18, 2013 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 May 18, 2013 from www.bloomberg.com
Enron Logo (2011). Retrieved April 5, 2011 from www.insidesocal.com
IMDB. (1990-2011). John Q. Retrieved May 18, 2013 from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251160/
John Q (2002). Movie. Retrieved May 18, 2013 from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251160/
Kiser, K. (1999-2011). Aguas de Barcelona. Retrieved May 18, 2013 from www.arcspace.com

ear People of the future,

My name is Susan Steichen and I live in the year 2012. Just wanted to let you know a little bit about me and what the past consists of through my point of view. My day usually consists of getting up at 3:30 am to get ready for work; I have to be to work at 5 am. I work in the accounting department at Wal-Mart, so I have to be there early to process the previous day’s transactions. I count all the monies and checks that get process throughout the day. I find the shortages and hold people accountable for their transactions. I usually leave for work around 2pm, I like that schedule as it gives me my afternoons free. I go home and spend some quiet time by myself until the rest of my family starts to come home around 3pm. I play with my granddaughter Trinity; she is the light of my life! We just re-elected the 54th President of the United States Barack Obama. What I hope to see in the future is a greener planet. I would like a better place to live for my future generations. I am hoping the human race had not been taken over with robots doing the work of man.
I would say the biggest decision of morality would be this past election on November 6, 2012. The opposing candidate was named Mitt Romney. He was pro-life; to me this is a big moral issue. He denied the emergency contraception bill, stating that life begins at contraception. I take that as being a woman/girl gets raped by a stranger or a family member, they would have no right to end this pregnancy. It also means that maybe this rapist wants to see his child? They victim would have to bear looking into the eyes of the rapist to exchange the offspring of a violent act. No woman should have to face the rapist to appease someone’s moral issue. As I don’t believe in abortion as a form of birth control who am I to decide what a woman should or shouldn’t do with their bodies. My hope for the future would be no more issues on abortion, which unfortunately it is going to happen, just give the woman the support they need through this trying time.
My idea of happiness is family! Growing up we had a small family, my mom and my 5 brother and sisters. There was no dad, grandparents, aunts, or uncles to speak of. There was an 8 year age gap from the oldest to the youngest kid. When my mom had to work to support us, we raised each other. We depended on each other for various things, my sister Flora was the cook, my sister Annette was the cleaner, and my brother Kenneth was the oldest boy so he was the protector, which made my younger brother Michael the protector’s helper. I was the nurturer so I had the responsibility to take of my baby sister Tammy. It was a hard life going out to play when my mother had a rare day off was a luxury. Since then we all grew up got married and have had families of our own. Something my kids had that I never had dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, and cousins. We started out a small close family and always thought I was missing something; through the years we have become one big close family and to me that is happiness.
I am including in this time capsule several items that will hopefully be around for you to enjoy. The first thing I am going to include is a novel. The book I chose to tell you about is The Wizard of Oz it was written by L. Frank Baum and was published in the year 1900. This book is one I remember from my childhood, it gave me some great joy reading it. This book is one of a very few shared experiences that unite Americans as a culture, transcending barriers of age, locale, politics, religion, and so on. We all seen it when we were young, and it leaves a mark on our imaginations. I can hardly imagine not knowing it. It ranks among my earliest and most defining experiences of wonder and of fear, of fairy-tale joys and terrors, of the lure of the exotic and the comfort of home. This book has everything from an evil witch, cowardly lion, a tin man, and your favorite dog.
This novel explores a child’s imagination. I think this novel would be good in the future as would show you how the world back then found this story as entertaining. As things are going in my time, everything is electronic. My kids have electronic readers where they read their book on a tablet. I would really like to send a hard copy of this book, to know that the book has not all gone electronic.
The next example of something I would like to discuss is a piece of architecture. Is the Statue of Liberty! According to the Nation park service,
“The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, designated as a National Monument in 1924 and restored for her centennial on July 4, 1986”.
This National Monument stands in New York harbor and she is a symbol to the American people of freedom. I would like it to still be around in the future for everything it symbolizes. On Lady Liberty pedestal there are these words "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." I hope for the future that this statue and it words would remain with the same meaning. That no one would be ever turned away.
The next thing I would like to include is some music, I am hopeful that there are still music writers and the music is composed and not digitally made. The song I chose is a Brian Adams song (Everything I Do) I do it for you. This song has so much meaning to me. I gave a child up for adoption, and this song is my anthem to him. He will know that there were some choices I had to make and there were sacrifices just so he had a life.
I am hopeful that this song would remain a classic as it helped me. During a difficult time in my life it gave me strength. This song could help other people during their trying times. It would give someone else the strength they need.
I would also like to include a film from 2012. This film would be Hunger Games; this movie is about the future after the last war. The country had divided into Districts and there are 12 districts. Each year every district has to send two tributes one boy and one girl from the ages of thirteen to eighteen they are put into an arena and fight to the death. Until one victor remains and that person will be taken care of for life. The reasoning behind this is so there would be no more war to lose a huge amount of young ones.
I would hope this film would still be around as a reminder of what the world could come to. I am hoping that there would be world peace and war would be a thing of our past. But as humans are human I don’t think that would ever happen. Another reason why I would want this movie to remain is that it is also a love story. That through all this bad there still can be love.
The last thing I am going to include is something fun from our time. It’s the latest fad! It’s a dance called Gangnum Style. It’s a fun dance that you can be silly to. It’s sung by a South Korean his name is PSY. The song is about an un-attractive man that has money is surrounded by attractive woman who does this dance. You wouldn’t see this happen every day, and Psy sings.
I would love for this song or a song like this as its silly. There are times in life where you just need to let go and be silly and laugh at yourselves. If this song or any songs like this are still around there would still be hope for the future.
References
Retrieved 11/05/2012 http://lightomega.org/worldwatch/StatueofLiberty.html
Retrieved 11/05/2012 http://read.gov/books/oz.html
Retrieved 11/10/2012 http://www.aboutmittromney.com/abortion.htm
Retrieved 11/11/2012http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/
Retrieved 11/11/2012 http://www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm
Retrieved 11/07/2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0