A Cats Tale/Tail 𓃠

Hi, welcome to Civic Term! If you’re wondering what that is, then I’ll explain. It is a three-week-long term in which students have the choice to continue working at GCE and take one of the many different classes or they simply leave for three weeks to take an internship elsewhere. I decided to take a class at GCE. The class that I took is called A Show of Hands. In this class, we study various types of puppetry such as hand, sock, rod, object, etc.

Growing up, I was never too fond of puppets since they are related to clowns - HATE THOSE - but surprisingly, it is harmless for the most part, it all depends on the puppeteer’s act and how they’re feeling.

Almost every week, we watched different kinds of puppet shows just to get a feel for what our project would be. We even had guests such as Claire Saxe from Rough House Theater and Sarah Fornace from Manuel Cinema explain to us the importance of the connection between the puppeteer and the puppet itself. For example, the same movements you make while breathing are the same movements that need to be transferred into your puppet.

At this point, you've probably guessed that the Action Project for this class was to create our very own puppet show. I decided to base my puppet show on a dream that I had not too long ago. It’s about being lonely and helping out along the lines of rod/shadow puppetry. I’m not sure if my video truly conveys that, but that is my intended message of the show as a whole.

In the first scene, the music in the child’s video is soft and casual and allows her to pay attention to nature and what’s around her. But the city scene with the adult has loud bustling, hustling music with horns beeping, trains and cars speeding. This is a comparison of how in a calm country setting people are more connected to nature and less likely to ignore things are around them. Meanwhile, city folks tend who are often distracted or wrapped up in the chaos of the city and so they ignore when things are people or pets are in need.

In conclusion, I really hope people feel the need to be more kind, not only to other people but to mankind as well, especially during times like these. Everybody and everything needs some love in their life. As you can see, in the “dream version” of this event, I actually helped the mouse get some shelter, and I didn’t care if people were watching. But in the “real-life version” of my dream, I was worried about other people and what they would think.

Moral of the story: be kind no matter what you come across and what it looks like.

Chapter Eight: Afforable and Clean Energy

Welcome back to Economics! Previously, we shared our thoughts on whether college was worth our time and money while using the principles we learned in class. But, as of right now, we just finished a book that goes by the name of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist by Kate Raworth. It mostly explained the history of economics and how it has changed over time. At first, we read the first three chapters by ourselves, but about a week later, we did an activity where we divided into four different groups, each read a chapter, and presented our take-aways with the class. But once our Action Project was announced, we were asked to write an additional eighth chapter to Raworth’s book while following our guiding question, “how do we view the economic world?”

Noun Project, Work From Home Outline, Nikita Kozin (2020)

The additional chapter to Raworth’s book would be about affordable and clean energy. In Raworth's book, she explained that “EARTH, which is life giving—so respect its boundaries Far from floating against a white background, the economy exists within the biosphere—that delicate living zone of Earth’s land, waters, and atmosphere. And it continually draws in energy and matter from Earth’s materials and living systems, while expelling waste heat and matter back out into it. Everything that is produced—from clay bricks to Lego blocks, websites to construction sites, liver pâté to patio furniture, single cream to double glazing—depends upon this throughflow of energy and matter, from biomass and fossil fuels to metal ores and minerals.” In other words, affordable and clean energy is something that should be sustainable but reliable, not for the rich or the poor, it is well-deserved for everyone. According to UNEP, "three billion people rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating." So, when we use those types of fuels such as charcoal, for cooking, it increases indoor air pollution, which is responsible for killing four million people every year.

Reflecting on my research, I came to the conclusion that renewable energy sources are powerful and that it is very important for the future generations of the world. And if we continue to invest in renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and thermal power, then by 2030, there will be universal access to reliable energy services. 

-

Works cited:

“Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy,” United Nations Development Programme, 2020. https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-7-affordable-and-clean-energy.html

“Icons And Photos For Everything,” Noun Project, 2020. https://thenounproject.com/search/?q=energy+saving&i=929080

“Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist,” Kate Raworth, 2017. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YbD2-9_jhNHhRInxmcHJFdTXWZhPSYaa/view

"Mom, I'm chatbot-ing!"

What's up?! Welcome back to Computer Science! Previously, we discussed the basics of Python using the specifics of print and input functions and did an Action Project that revolved around that. But as of right now, we are digging a bit deeper into that and mainly focusing on the if statements which are when you only want specific things to happen when coding.

So, the mission of this Action Project is to create a chatbot about a topic of our choosing. If you're wondering what a chatbot is, it's a computer program that is designed to imitate a human conversation. Anyways, we are supposed to make one using “if” statements, user input, and randomness to create a chatbot.

 

In conclusion, this project was cool and efficient. It didn't take me long to complete it, but I believe I did fine on it. If I could change anything, I would change the "simple" questions that I asked, but at the time, I wanted to play it safe. I guess that's not a terrible thing, but I would still change it if I could.

What is the meaning of life?

Hi! Welcome back to Journalism! Recently, we have been discussing the importance of photography and how every photo that is taken can be worth one thousand words. We've studied many different photographs from the earlier years including Windblown Jackie (by Ron Gallela), Migrant Mother (by Dorthea Lange), and V-J Day in Time Square (by Alfred Eisenstaedt). Last week, we each uploaded photos that we have taken to observe how much aperture and focus we had in them. So, the mission for our Action Project is to find or take a photo of something/someone and interview them to get a little insight into what they think the meaning of life is while also following our guided questions:

"What are the essential skills, values, and concepts of photojournalism?"

"How do you lend voice and eyes to your interviewee?"

S.S., Original Photograph (2020)

S.S., Black & White Filtered Photograph (2020)

My photos are more subjective than objective because they were based on my own observations and interests. I captured this moment between my Mom and my Pap-Pap, in front of his house, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I took this picture on a chilly October night, from the front seat of the car. We had already said our goodbyes and were headed back to our hotel when I noticed I left my AirPods in my Pap-Pap’s house. I was exhausted so, my Mom went back upstairs to retrieve them, while I waited in the car. My Pap-Pap always greets us at the door with a smile so even though we had just said goodbye he came back out and hugged my Mom again. The combination of the lighting on Pap-Pap’s porch and the night sky made me want to take a picture so I pulled out my phone to capture the moment. I tried to take the picture of them hugging, but my camera was too late, and this image was the end result. Having missed the hug I almost deleted the picture but kept it because I thought it was cute and sweet. 

I took the picture with my iPhone 11 the camera works very well especially, at night. However, I was surprised by how well the picture came out because it was really dark outside. I was sure that the lights from Pap-Pap’s living room and porch would have created a glare, but it did not. Instead, the light allowed the photo to have a smaller aperture because very little light came through the darkness. I admit that the lights are what immediately catches folk’s attention, but I was focused on my Mom and Pap-Pap and their moment together. More specifically, my Mom was my focus because she rarely takes pictures and I wanted to capture that moment for her. 

"What is the meaning of life? And why do you believe that?"

My Mom is a live-in-the-present type of person, so I was not sure how she would answer this question. She answered, "to me the meaning of life is to live. So every day I aim to live lovingly, vulnerably, empathetically, and listen intently. A younger version of myself spent too much time searching for meaning. Today I choose not to search for meaning and simply acknowledge and appreciate the people, feelings, things, and places that are meaningful to me. I’ve learned that assigning value to things and/or attaching meaning to people drains me. So, I live a life that drives me and I believe it is working in my favor because I’ve never felt closer to myself than I do today." 

I was not surprised by my Mom’s answer because she says variations of this to me all the time. However, seeing her words in print really resonated with me because I really understood what my Mom meant. When I was younger, I was always searching for something to make me feel whole; a friend, social acceptance, or the meaning of something profound like life. But as I got older and a little more mature, I noticed that I was the one assigning meaning to things, people, and places. My Mom is right because when I was constantly searching but never finding what I was looking for, I felt drained and lost. So, I am going to take a page out of my Mom’s book and live in the moment and expand my thinking about the meaning of my life. 

After the mini interview with my Mom, I started to think about what is meaningful to me. Capturing moments and expressing myself through images is so important to me because pictures say things that words cannot express. I’m so moved by photos and would love for my passion to be my career, but I’m learning that being a photojournalist is hard. 

Last week, our instructor told us the story about photographer Kevin Carter. Carter’s photo titled, Starving Child and Vulture depicted a vulture staring at an emaciated Sudanese child. Once the photo was published, it created such controversy. Carter received a lot of hatred and threats because the public was angry that he did not help the child. Carter became so distraught that he committed suicide. However, the public did not know that, due to the rampant disease, Carter was not allowed to touch the child. Prior to learning about Kevin Carter, I was ignorant about the consequences of a photo. Carter’s story revealed to me the unknown challenges that photojournalists can encounter. 

In conclusion, this unit has also given me a lot of insight into how to make my photos better by using important things like aperture/shutter-time and focus. I plan to learn more about photography and eventually turn my passion into a career. I am not sure if I’ll become a photojournalist because a career in journalism requires me to take non-biased objective photos. And this unit taught me that I prefer subjective photography, like the picture of my Mom and Pap-Pap over objective photos. Overall this AP was really cool because I gained a new perspective on life, learned more about perspective in photography, and feel very confident about a career in photography. 

Is College Seriously Worth It???

Thank you so much for watching!

So, the mission for this Action Project was to share our thoughts and research on whether college is really worth our time and money investments using the principles we picked up from class. 

Please take a look at the slideshow below to see the details and calculations.

 

Overall, this project was difficult but cool. I am not always too keen on talking about my future, especially since college is involved at this point. But this project gave me the opportunity to dig a bit deeper into my interests and the colleges that have them. Oh! And I've also found a few college choices that I may apply for!

The Coding/Python Affect

Hi there! Welcome to Unit 2 of Computer Science! You may be wondering what happened in our first unit, right? Well, I'm explaining it anyway! So, in the first unit, we were introduced to the concept of Computer Science which is where we learned the basics of how computers worked and where they came from. After that was discussed, we had a mini-project where we created something called pseudocode! And if you're wondering what that is, pseudocode is a specific, detailed way of explaining something. For example, how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or how to play checkers. That's basically all of Unit 1, now moving on to Unit 2!

In this new unit, we moved on to something more complicated: coding. But once we've established the basics of coding, we moved on to a more difficult, advanced version of coding which is called Python. So, for this project, we were instructed to create something called an Advanced Calculator where you use some sort of STEAM equation and ask a user for a number, plug them in, and print their final answer.

Here is an example of that :)

a.

b.

This second part of the project instructed us to make a form letter to a politician/representative but in the form of Python.

Overall, this project was pretty cool, but also difficult since I am not too familiar with coding, I only knew a bit about before this. But I overcame that difficulty by looking at my resources. At the same time, this experience helped me understand what computers really are, and that's probably the coolest part.

Our America: "Homeless - In Their Shoes"

NDTV, Salvation Army Director hugs homeless Alvin Henry, 2019.

Welcome to the first unit of Journalism! During this first unit of this course, we read a book called Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago. It's a story that takes place in the 90s, and it's about two young teenagers, LeAlan Jones, and Lloyd Newman, living in the ghetto. Last week, we even had an FE with Mr. Jones! It was really cool since each of us had the chance to ask any questions regarding his journey and how his life has changed after publishing this award-winning book. That Fe helped with the AP since it gave us an insight into what we were actually doing.

For our first AP, we were asked to interview three people who live or lived in our neighborhood about what they like about it and what they are concerned about. And when we are done interviewing those people, we were instructed to compare their responses with one another and see what each interviewee talked about the most and write an article about that topic. 

-

I live in Downtown Chicago. And as of right now, the population is 37,647, but if you live in Chicago or even visited, you probably know that there is a big problem with the number of homeless people living there as well.

I interviewed all three of my people, and they all seemed to be concerned about that same topic. The homeless population has increased in the area and it is alarming to see so many people out there on the streets, especially when COVID-19 is far from being over and the weather is gradually getting worse.

The three people that I interviewed were my mother, friend, and cousin. Not only because they are close to me and I enjoy talking to me, but these are some of the most opinionated people I know and I just knew they would have valid responses.

I was right! Please read what my interviewees had to say and my response to it, thanks :)

Interviewee 1

Tommorrow Snyder, Stand For Children, 2019.

Name: Tommorrow Snyder

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Relation: Mother

"There are a lot of homeless folks on the street and sidewalks which brings to life the wealth disparities in our country." 

I agree with this statement, without a doubt. Not only did she bring the country into her response but it is the truth! Like every other place, Downtown Chicago has a problem with disparities, not just racial disparities, but in terms of those who are homeless. People in Downtown Chicago are living in condos, paying $2,000-$5,000 a month, with their new iPhones, and Gucci shoes, but can't even give a homeless person a dollar. Instead, they walk right past. I have to admit, I use to be scared to give them money since you never know what they would do with it, but if you look at the joy on their faces when you give them a little something can lift a giant weight off of your shoulders that you probably didn't even know was there.

Interviewee 2

Jazmin Monroy, Instagram, 2019.

Name: Jazmin Monroy

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Relation: Friend

"It can very alarming to see homeless people trying to find shelter as the weather gets colder."

I agree with Jazmin's response. I actually used what she said in the intro since it is true. The weather is slowly getting worse and it can be really scary since we don't want to be in the cold, but imagine homeless people have to go through to get through the winter. Last year, it was so cold that a homeless man named Marshall passed away while wrapped in a blanket, he lived right outside of a pizza place called Rosati's which happens to be right around the corner from my home, and we found out from another homeless man that also lives around the area.

Last, but not least: Interviewee 3

Samar Carmack, Instagram, 2020.

Name: Samar Carmack

Pronouns: he/him/his

Relation: Cousin

"The population is getting bigger ever since the pandemic started and I worry seeing them out there since some of them have children."

I agree with Samar's response as well. I said this in my intro as well. The pandemic is getting much worse. Major cities such as Chicago, Las Angeles, and Chicago have especially been hit the hardest in the beginning. But anyway, many people have lost their jobs and homes due to COVID-19. You can see many people and their children holding up the cardboard with it saying lost my job, no house, please help us, or I am just hungry. It is truly heartbreaking and when you see a child on the street along with the parent, it is even more heart-wrenching because the children need a proper meal, a proper education, a stable house to sleep in.

I got the information from the following two paragraphs from here.

"I would have to go the bathroom at maybe 3 o'clock in the morning to do my homework because I still wanted to be that student I knew I could be," Kaleyah says. Kaleyah's mother lost her house, it was devastating, but she gained support from others in the shelter they were living in. She says that "they became like a second family because we embraced each other's struggles."

There is an estimate of 40,000 homeless people living in the city including thousands of public school students in shelters, tents, parks, etc. In 2014, there were over 22,000 students who were homeless, 2,500 students growing up in a house with no adults and raising their siblings, but still went to school. Since 2003, Chicago donated $5 million towards homeless shelters, but Chicago's Department of Family, Support services, or Rahm Emmanuel would speak about it.

Next time you see a homeless person, my task for you is to at least give them a dollar, get them food, or something simple like starting a conversation with them. They are human beings just like us and that is all they want you to treat them as. Think of how you would feel if you were in their shoes.

Thank you for reading this blog, I hope you enjoyed it, if you would like to learn more about Downtown Chicago and my interviews, please click this slideshow :)