Wellesley College Screening Recap

Following the screening at the Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association, we got a ride from Phoebe and Shaw over to Wellesley College. It was late when we arrived, but a key was waiting for us at the front desk. We were pretty tired after the screening in Newton, so Rae and I called it an early night. In the morning, I woke up before Rae to walk around Lake Waban. Armed with my EVDO modem, I got caught up with some work while overlooking the beautiful lake. We were really fortunate to have such great weather on this trip. We were joking to people that we brought California’s weather to the East Coast, and that the typical cold weather was on the other side of the country!

After checking out of the hotel at 11:00, we strolled around the campus for a little bit, taking various photos of each other with the iPad. Yes, I really think this device is going to change the way how many people around the world are going to use computers. The first computer that I recall using was the Apple ][ back in the early 80's. For children growing up today, I can easily see the iPad becoming their first computer. I marvel at how quickly children can pick up an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and within minutes know how to interact with the device. It sure beats typing "catalog" to get a directory listing in ProDOS!

Coming out of high school, I really wanted to go to college on the East Coast. Fate had it that I went to Stanford instead, but I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out had I went back east. I have always loved the architecture of the East Coast campuses like Princeton and Harvard. The ivy covered buildings and cobblestone walkways make me feel smarter just by walking around! At Wellesley there were a mix of old and new buildings. For instance, the Lulu Chow Wang Student Center was a built just a few years ago. The modern style of the building contrasted with the older brick and stone buildings on campus -- which reminded both of us of the Lego castle sets we played with growing up. Inside, I really liked the asymmetrical walls, how the light came in from everywhere and the funky chairs and sofas. Rae and I got a snack to eat, took some more iPad photos and even mailed some clothes and documents back to our home in the Bay Area!

After lunch, we headed over to the office of History Professor Pat Giersch in Founders Hall. He and Professor William Joseph from the Political Science Department were the organizers for the screening. Professor Giersch took us around the part of campus we had not yet toured, showing us the Science Center, which is a modern building that was constructed around an older, brick building. He dropped us off to meet with Professor Joseph and the three of us went to the Margaret Clapp Library to set up.

I mentioned that in our previous stop, I had wanted to use the iPad to screen the film and run the Keynote presentation. The AV setup in Clapp was better suited for this task, so Rae and I decided to go for it! I found it interesting that when the VGA dock connector is attached to the iPad running Keynote, the current slide isn't shown on the device. Instead, only buttons for going to the next/previous slide are shown. Similarly with the Videos application, the video is not seen playing on the device while it's being outputted through VGA. I'm guessing that they either (1) did this to conserve battery life or (2) ran out of time during the development cycle. Perhaps a future version of the Videos and Keynote application will bring these features, as they seem to be pretty important when running a presentation (so you don't have to keep looking from the iPad to the projector and back). Despite these niggling observations, the iPad performed perfectly with flying colors! I feel very comfortable using the device as my primary presentation system. The days of lugging around two laptops will soon be a thing of the past for us!

Seeing that Wellesley is a women's college, we expected to get a different set of questions than at our other screenings. Many of them concerned Qiu Jin's struggle to bring feminism and nationalism together, and the dilemmas she faced being a female revolutionary. As Professor Lingzhen Wang says in our film, she died in men's dress, but Qiu Jin emphasized that she died for women's cause.

Following the screening at Wellesley College, Professor Joseph drove us to the train station near campus. Our journey was only just beginning, as we had to get to New Jersey by noon for our screening at Kean University!

WP-SmugMug Plugin: http://tow.com/projects/wordpress/*[[](/batch.download.php?aid=7349574)The Wellesley College Club Hotel where we stayed for the evening.](http://photos.tow.com/831958172BKqTF-L.jpg) *Lake Waban. *I got some work done in the morning while sitting on this bench overlooking Lake Waban at Wellesley. *Rae on the shores of Lake Waban. *Rae at Wellesley College. *Rae holds up the iPad. *Adam is getting used to the iPad. *Rae reads the iPad on a bench near Lake Waban at Wellesley College. *Nature and iPad. *Wellesley College. *Rae overlooing Lake Waban. *Boating around Lake Waban must be fun! I did this when Lake Lagunita had water back at Stanford. *Rae looks out over Lake Waban. *The new Student Center at Wellesley. *Rae walks to the Wang Student Center at Wellesley. *We experienced great weather on this trip. *Adam relaxes with the iPad on a sofa inside the Wellesley College Student Center. *Does Saruman live up there? *Rae with cherry blossoms in the background. *It’s like a Lego Castle set! *Asian-American poster/flyers. *Asian-American poster/flyers. *Rae looks up papers written by Wellesley’s professors. *Klapp Library, where we held out screening of Autumn Gem. *Professor Giesrch holds open the door to the screening room. *Before the screening. *Professor Giersch talks with Rae. *Getting a tour around Wellesley’s campus. *It was a beautiful day in Wellesley. *The new Science Center. *The Science Center was built around an old building. Inside, you can see the walls of the original building. *Interesting to find this here! *Nature’s architecture. *Autumn Gem presentation and video running off of the iPad. *Students get some food before the screening. *Rae and I ran the entire presentation and video of Autumn Gem off the new Apple iPad! *2010-04-051642-582136.jpg *Rae gives her presentation. Here she talks about the women’s movement in China. *Students listen during the presentation before the screening. *Professor Joseph listens during Rae’s presentation. *Questions and answers following the Autumn Gem screening. *Rae answers questions after the film screening. *Students in Professor Joseph and Giersch’s classes learned much from Autumn Gem. *2010-04-051829-040281.jpg