¿Es mi familia importante?

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¿Es mi familia importante?

Hoy martes, 8 de septiembre de 2020

Por: Paula Hsiao

¡Hola! Me llamo Paula y soy taiwanesa. Tengo dieciséis años y hoy voy a escribir acerca de mi familia porque quiero presentar a los miembros de mi familia para ti. Creo que mi familia es muy importante para mí porque por supuesto los amo.

Esos son los miembros de mi familia. Primero, mi familia es mediana porque hay cuatro personas en total. Mi madre, mi padre, mi hermano mayor, y yo. Ese es mi padre, lleva una suéter azul. Se llama Andrew y él es el más cómico en la familia. Esa mujer es mi madre, lleva una camisa rosa. Se llama Clara y ella es muy diferente a mi padre porque ella es un poco seria e introvertida. También, tengo un hermano mayor. Ese es mi hermano, lleva una camisa verde. Mi hermano mayor es la persona más inteligente que conozco. En la imagen, parece que es mi hermano menor porque es muy bajito, pero en realidad, él es mi hermano mayor y es muy alto. En conclusión las características de los miembros de mi familia son todos únicos y aprecio ambos mis miembros y sus personalidades.

Tengo que ir a otro clase ahora. ¡Adiós!

Paula

Microcosm of the Self

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I think essentially at the core of my being, I’m a curious person, but I don’t have the motivation or desire to explore any of my interests (or at least, for a long period of time). Since I was a kid, I’ve never really quite had a hobby, but instead, just molding myself to expectations of what I should like or what I happened to be interested at the time. Although it was natural for kids not to know what they want to do in the future, I felt overwhelmed by the possibilities of everything I wanted to do, but couldn’t. I say “couldn’t” as if it was impossible which, I guess it physically wasn’t, but it mentally was. The desire to to learn something that I saw and thought was “cool” didn’t overpower my lack of motivation to master the technicalities of a new craft. However, that proved to be a problem as I seemed to have an affinity for challenging myself and seeing if I could do everything (which almost became a competition for myself to see how many things I could learn), but as soon as I reached the first signs of hitting an obstacle or a challenge I couldn’t easily overcome, I would just give up. It was easy for me to give up because I had no real obligation to continue learning that I could just stop at anytime. 

That’s why I’m hoping for the CAS program to be a motivator for me to pursue interests, hobbies, and everything I’ve ever wanted to learn, but either was too unmotivated to do so, or was inhibited by a fear of failure. 

To be honest, I don’t really know what my passions are or what exactly even constitutes as having passion for something. I do have a few things that I do, though. I would say that the most creative of my interests is playing instruments and music in general. The first instrument I ever learned to play was the piano. Ah yes, the stereotypical “Asian kid” instrument that everyone learns to play when they’re a kid. Of course being young, I didn’t have much say in whether I wanted to learn it or even what the significance of learning an instrument meant for my life, but my mother still sent me to lessons along with my older brother. A year or two after, I began to learn the violin later as well, but then briefly stopped lessons as I moved to the US, before picking it back up eventually. Despite the accumulated (roughly calculated) eleven years and six years of experience however, I am severely lacking in the technical skills expected of someone who has been learning so long. I would mostly attribute this to my initial lack of enthusiasm for the instruments themselves. Firstly, as I ended up understanding later, I dislike being told to do things as well as being watched when I do things, which is why I think I barely practiced outside of lesson time from elementary all the way until even now. Also, I believe that because I had no initial desire to learn the instrument, my lack of passion made it hard to be good at it. I then learned guitar in middle school after I had watched a cover of Redbone and saw the emotions that were being conveyed through their playing. I found an old guitar in my uncle’s basement and taught myself to play, a little bit at a time. Eventually I was able to play songs, however, I still cannot finger-pick, unfortunately. I also learned a little bit of the flute from my piano teacher because I was interested in trying out a wind instrument since I had never learned before and I wanted to challenge myself to a different kind of musical expression since the sounds produced give off different emotions. My experience with music has been a contributor to my thoughts on learning in general in that it’s hard to be good at things you’re not interested in because you won’t be as motivated to practice. However, those thoughts could possibly be a negative factor in why I didn’t practice many hobbies I had throughout my life, believing that since I did not have enough passion, I would never be good.

I’ve played sports since the first grade when my mom sent me to the club soccer teams that all my same-aged friends were all going to. Well, technically since six, when my parents sent me to a swimming center and I was plunged into the water and forced to learn how to swim, but I wouldn’t really count that if I were you. Since no one wanted to be the goalkeeper, naturally I “volunteered” because I really had no opinions on positions or strategy. I just kind of wanted to go home. Then in third grade, I switched over to playing basketball because the dad of my friend was coaching. I would say I enjoyed it more than soccer because I had more dexterity in my hands than my feet, so being better at a sport gave me more confidence and motivation to play it. When I moved to Taiwan, I picked up volleyball and softball while continuing basketball and soccer. There is a certain satisfaction in getting better at activities and the camaraderie that comes along with being on a team. Although physically and mentally challenging, being there and collaborating with teammates often made practices worth it.

Service experiences are somewhat hard for me to accomplish given my lack of fluency in Chinese. Living in Taiwan, that poses some problems. The biggest acts of service I’ve accomplished are mostly related to reduced inequalities and life below water, in terms of the UN global goals. I’ve been partaking in activities regarding the state of marine life since middle school through mostly advocacy: making websites, entering the Global Goals GSL competition, and beach clean ups. My most sustained effort in service are my trips to Heng Chun where I visit the local Christian Hospital and help out with their visitations of elderly and impoverished people to bring food, fix amenities, and to bring some temporary joy to those people who are largely forgotten.

I’m looking forward to challenging myself to persevere with my interests and to be able to further develop them as I have failed to do in the past. As well as using this as an opportunity to explore all the different interests that I’ve always had but didn’t have the time to or the will to. Through CAS, I hope that I can work through my hesitance to try new things because of a fear of failure as well as be able to work on improving myself. I’m hoping that from my experiences, I will be able to nurture my curiosity as an inquirer and to learn more about my strengths and weaknesses as a reflector.

That’s who I am currently. Hopefully I grow.

goodbye (but romantically).

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Goodbye. Something you don’t expect fairytales to end with – especially for fictitious romances that are supposed to be a whirlwind and last forever. In this unit, we analyzed the cinematic elements (music, lighting, framing, etc) of two films and compared how they utilized them to further their plot. Both my films, La La Land and Edward Scissorhands, were romance films, but they don’t end with a happily ever after. Instead, elements such as lighting and music were purposefully contrasted to foreshadow the inevitable separation of both relationships.

In this unit, I was grateful to learn the importance of music (or the lack thereof) can influence the atmosphere of a scene. Music is usually thought of as being one-dimensional, such that if there is sad music, the scene is sad; if there is happy music, the scene is happy. However, throughout this unit, I was able to learn that music in films isn’t as clear cut as day and night. first off, there is both non diegetic and diegetic sounds, which can also play at the same time, lead into each other, overlay, etc. Also to factor in, the volume of these sounds and how even silence can be utilized to invoke a message. Repetitions and variations of the songs exist as well and can change the mood of a scene despite having been played before. All these factors of music/sounds contribute to the atmosphere of the scene, but it is rarely thought about when being discussed.

Fundamentally Human

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Who we are and our identities are deeply rooted in what we believe. For if we are stripped of everything else that physically defines us, we still hold on to our beliefs. They govern all that we do, think, and say. They develop as we grow and learn from our environment and experiences. However, beliefs are very personal as they’re built on faith, not being necessarily true or false, but instead, something you accept. To explore what makes us fundamentally ourselves and what makes the people around us, we were asked to explore about a belief we hold and how we came to it. This was accomplished by writing numerous drafts, an essay, editing, and eventually, creating a video.

This I Believe Video

 

This I Believe Essay

Unit Reflection

Live Forever, Or Die Trying

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Summary

This unit analyzes The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and how the historical context enabled for mistreatment and discrimination to occur to the Lacks family. Using the insight of patient privacy that we have now, it is easy to see what injustice the family suffered, however, at the time, it was debatable as to whether consent was required. We presented our knowledge in a variety of ways: fishbowl discussions, TIEAs, blog posts, verbal analysis, and reflections.

In this, you’ll find how a woman who died so young, was able to live forever.

Discussion

TIEA

Blogs on ILOHL

Discrimination Blog Post: Culture Shock

Privacy Blog Post: Money Grows on People

Verbal Analysis

Unit Reflection

 

Culture Shock

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;Fear of racial discrimination acts as a barrier to human connection.

As a young asian kid who just moved to sunny California, you’re not taught much about culture. All I knew was that I had to leave my childhood home, boarded on a plane with my teddy, and all of a sudden, I found myself in a new continent, in the middle of the brightly colored cereal aisle, white lights glaring off the reflection of the floor. I jumped in the shopping cart excitedly, whoops and cheers as the promises of my brother to push me around the store was blurred by the wind rushing past my ears.

Thanks to the emptiness of the aisle, we were able to dash down to the end before we were met by our mom’s glare. Not quite sure what exactly we were doing wrong, just assuming we were just not supposed to roughhouse in the store, the smiles dropped from our faces and we became serious once again, pretending to discuss the intricacies of Frosted Flakes vs Coco Puffs.

She reprimanded us for being loud and disturbing other shoppers, and we behaved for the rest of the trip; all the way from the cold freezers of milk to the pyramids of apples to the hot rush of air that spilled out from the heated car. Once we settled in the seats, she explained that we had to be careful with how we behaved, not only for the sake of how we were perceived, but also for the sake of how asians were perceived.

The underlying fear of being racially stereotyped or discriminated against is magnified by Henrietta’s family. After a history of doctors experimenting on blacks and being taken advantage of because of lack of education regarding cells, they were justifiably weary of Skloot.

“He warned her not to talk to white people about her story. She panicked and called her brother Lawrence, who told her the man was right.” (250).

They’ve had a bad time with reporters and doctors previously, so when Skloot, a white reporter, wanted to interview them, the family was against the idea. They’ve developed a skepticism to white people in fear of being stripped of their rights because of their race.  

Since black oral history has been filled with tales of ‘night doctors’ who kidnapped black people for research” (165).  

It wasn’t just the Lackses, the black community was afraid of being used by doctors because of the extensive use of black bodies in experiments.

Recently, due to coronavirus, the asian community has similarly begun to fear racial stereotyping. People are afraid of being discriminated or made fun of because they happen to be asian.

 

Quote Citation: Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway Books, 2010. Print.

Image Citation: Rothstein, Arthur. “A man is tested for syphilis in 1935.” History Collection. Corbis. https://historycollection.co/20-photos-tuskegee-syphilis-study/

Money Grows on…People

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In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the idea of ignoring someone’s privacy for personal benefit becomes a big issue as her cells were cultured without her consent, then sold and mass produced, making big pharmaceuticals a lot of money. On the contrary, Henrietta’s family still remains poor, not being able to afford health care. 

Today, we will explore how the American people are exploited by corrupt systems that violates the people’s privacy for personal benefit, both in the medical field, and the law.

Henrietta Lacks

“Henrietta’s cells helped launch the fledgling field of virology…researchers around the world made several important scientific advances in quick succession (98).”

Through HeLa cells, doctors were able to conduct research they had never done before and advance further in science in just a few short years. However, this all happened without the family or Henrietta’s knowledge.

“Like many doctors of his era, TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment.”
(30).

Back then, consent was not always required. Although there were standard practices that suggested the consent of patients before treatment, no one enforced it because the ethics of patients’ rights were of big concern. This rang especially true in places like Baltimore, where Henrietta lived, because black people being used by doctors was nothing new. Decades of non-consensual research near the Hopkins area that killed and violated the black population had brought on the idea that any research stemming from the use of the black people was only fair for the treatment that they got in return.

Police Brutality

In the song Love It If We Made It by the 1975, the band uses the phrase,

“Start with misdemeanours and we’ll make a business out of them.”

This is believed to be talking about the wrongful, racially motivated incarceration of black people in America.Stop Killing Black People by Alexandra Jones via Flickr/ CC BY-NC 2.0

In the US, 34% of the incarcerated population is African Americans, many of those arrested for nonviolent drug charges but still given sentences that deal time more than that for a typical misdemeanor sentence. Due to high rates of incarceration, the U.S. prison system is allowed to rake in billions of dollars in revenue every year, by using prisoners as free labor. They benefit and profit off of minor crimes committed by black people because often there is stigma and pre-determined bias surrounding the African American community. They ARE more likely to be stopped by police when they aren’t doing anything unlawful just because they are black. This can result in the officer violating their privacy in efforts to arrest them, ex: killing unarmed black people.

End Police Brutality by Jamelle Bouie via Flickr/CC by 2.0

Why? Personal benefit

Both in Henrietta Lacks and Love It If We Made It, there is clear exploitation of corrupt systems by using the bodies of the people for personal benefit. They are being taken advantage of by the same systems that were supposed to take care of them and protect them. This is where personal benefit supersedes a person’s right to privacy.

Citations:

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway Books, 2010. Print.

Daniel, George., Healy, Matthew. “Love it if we made it.” Genius Lyrics. 2019. https://genius.com/The-1975-love-it-if-we-made-it-lyrics.

Personally speaking…

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Who are we? What do we want to express? How can we show that?

This poetry unit was centered around self expression and methods to help us convey our thoughts to the audience. Whether it was through discussion of author’s intent to reading our memories out loud. Through reading, writing, and listening to poems, we got to feel the all emotions of the poets. The joy of going to a basketball game, the grief of losing someone, every heartbreak. Poetry is powerful in that it helps people connect.

Dramatic Reading – “Ants” from Poet X

TIEA – Compare and Contrast

Poem Performance

Poem Annotation – “For Teenage Girls With Wild Ambition and Trembling Hearts” by Clementine von Radics

Innocent Until Proven Guilty…

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Overview of Unit

During this unit, we learned about the Salem Witch Trials through reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller. We annotated the text and analyzed it in a multiple of ways including TIEA, blog posts, dramatic readings, sketchnotes, post its, and book snaps. The historical significance of this book was brought back to life through the characters and imagining of what their lives were like. By reading this book, we learned about how people’s morality were judged by people in charge who abused their power and took advantage of their position in order to benefit themselves.

Dramatic Reading

 

TIEA

Blog Post – To Do What’s Best

Unit Reflection

To Do What’s Best…

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Introduction

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Danforth’s rigid beliefs in the proceeding trials highlights Hale’s conflict to reach eventual altruism.

Foils

Hale starts off being confident and certain in his work and what he teaches people. He follows the Bible completely and is sure that his life’s work is to identify and bring to trial witches. He forces Tituba into confessing she’s a witch and accuses many others. However, as Proctor makes Hale question the integrity of Abigail and the girls,

HALE: …I dare not take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it (92).

Hale starts to doubt in his abilities and everything he knows to be true. At the end, he comes to the conclusion that living is more important that anything, so he has to save the condemned by convincing them to lie about partaking in witchcraft.

HALE: You know, do you not, that I have no connection with the court…I would save your husband’s life, for if he is taken I count myself his murderer (122).

Hale goes from emphatically convicting those of witchcraft due to naivety to wanting to prevent those accused from being hung. After Hale thinks over the trials, he realizes and doubts the righteousness of the court. It leads to him losing confidence in the fact that he is doing good work. He then counsels those condemned to lie in order to save lives. He loses faith that the law and those in charge are doing things for the good of the people. Having changed his mind, he tries to be altruistic, going against his religious beliefs in order to save the condemned.

“Blindfold Justice” by Shutterstock on Pixabay

In the trial, Danforth considers himself to be the righteous and neutral. However, due to his belief that he is not biased, he fails to see both perspectives as he is not open minded. As Hale doubts the validity of the trials, Danforth refuses to listen to his worries, thinking that he is right.

HALE: …and I dare not take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it.

DANFORTH: Mr. Hale, you surely do not doubt my justice.

Danforth’s rigid belief in the girls makes it all the more obvious of Hale’s change from overconfidence to being humbled. Danforth thinks of himself as fair-minded and refuses to fathom that the court is unjust. This results in him taking on an authoritarian role who can’t see the other perspective due to his own beliefs that the court is altruistic and has the people’s best interest at heart. Meanwhile, Hale has opened up from being confident in his abilities, to going against his own beliefs that he is correct in order to save people.

In the show The Politician, River helps Payton to realize his own altruistic nature by helping him find strength in vulnerability/wanting to help people. Although Payton is a political man, manipulating and deceiving to get what he wants, his motivations are altruistic. He manipulates in order to be able to do what is best for the people.

via GIPHY

Citation

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: A Play In Four Acts. New York : Penguin Books, 1976. Print.