1. Giraffes 2024

 F ear. Anxiety. Stress.  These were the emotions I felt right before my team’s performance at Dil Se, a dance production that took place in Irvington High School on January 20th. Getting ready to perform, my team and I got into our starting position behind the thick red fabric, which separated us from the hundreds of people that had come to watch.  The curtains opened. The lights blinded my vision. I couldn’t see the audience, but I could hear them. Applause and cheers filled the room, all meant for us.   Just knowing that we had infinite support from the audience, I could feel an enormous shift in attitude and spirit. And as the music started, it hit me. I was performing at Dil Se, one of the biggest high school dance events in the Bay Area, surrounded by extremely talented dancers. It was an exhilarating feeling. The stage had come to life through my team’s energy and I felt myself running on pure adrenaline. The nerves had drifted away. I was in my element, ...

Image credit A few weeks ago, I read a book called Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes . This book takes place in the 1950s and details the story of a 32-year-old man named Charlie Gordon, who was born with phenylketonuria , a rare disorder that can cause intellectual disabilities and other detrimental health effects. Due to his disability, Charlie has an IQ of 68, which is well below the IQ of a person of average intelligence , and makes his living sweeping floors at a bakery owned by his uncle. Everything changes when he is selected to be the first human recipient of a novel medical operation that has proven to vastly improve the intelligence of a mouse named Algernon without any side effects. The narrator, Charlie, undergoes the surgery—he wants to learn so that he can be smart and feel normal, as he thinks these qualities would bring him dozens of friends. As anticipated, the change in Charlie’s IQ is exponential, as is his perception of the world, himself, and the people around ...

We live in a world governed almost solely by new and old circulating trends. One thing is unpopular or unheard of one day and by the next morning, it's all anyone can talk about. Things that you were teased for in middle school are suddenly everyone's new favorite thing. This continues until everyone is following the same trends like a religion and before you know it everyone around you is the same person and you realize that somewhere along the way you became that person too. Hobbies are one of the only things that separate people from each other.  Everyone wants to jump on board the viral new trend because it's the only way to stay relevant in an ever-changing environment. It's terrifying and confusing and oftentimes too fast to keep up with. So with everyone doing the same thing and trying to be the same person our hobbies are the only thing that let us keep our sense of individuality.  At the same time, hobbies have the power to join communities of people with simil...

Language and cultural barriers make multilingual communication difficult. When directly translated, idioms and expressions might cause confusion. An example of this is when you try to translate "I lost my keys" word for word in Chinese you get "I lost my keys" lost as in to loose a competition. Or think of the expression "kick the bucket." It means "to die" in English, although a direct translation into another language could lead to misunderstandings.  Idioms are difficult to translate accurately . The cultural context in which they arise has a profound impact on their meanings. It thus becomes a delicate balance, with nuances and subtleties easily lost in the verbal interaction, to attempt to transmit the core of an idiomatic word in another language. Idioms can convey humor, common experiences, and cultural wisdom in a few short words. As an example, the English expression "spill the beans" implies disclosing a secret. Nevertheless, ...

          Recently I have noticed the amount of power my best friend holds. One day while my best friend and I were walking home, she was telling me about this one person. She told me her thoughts and opinions on that friend and I didn't think much of it when I got home. The next day I subconsciously started to distance myself from that certain friend. Whenever that friend started to become close with my best friend, I got in the way or I just didn't like the fact they were close (physically). When I realized this, I became curious about why I was starting to avoid the person. I was pretty close with the person, but I have only known them starting this year, while I have known my best friend for more than 3 years. Why was I acting like this? Was it the unwavering trust I placed in my best friend's judgment? Was it because, since I have known her for so long I unconsciously follow her? Does her influence have that much power over me to change ...

    Language is a crucial aspect to think about when discussing power and work.   Power and work can refer to very different things, and it is essential to differentiate between the two. Work can be thought of as the amount of energy needed in a force to move an object across a certain distance. Power, on the other hand, refers to the rate at which the work is being done and the "the energy per unit time transferred to the object" ( Raymond ).The two words hold a lot of power in architecture and buildings. The contrasting meanings also lead to different equations being used to calculate power and work.   Confusing these two words and equations can lead to serious problems. One possible issue is the possibility of an inefficient structure that has a safety hazard. Clearly, educating engineers about the difference between power and work will help prevent disasters in real life.        In addition, power and work can have very different con...

Mahesh - Week 10: Moral Dislocation Literature and works of art are often associated with a visual interpretation of abstract ideas in the application of the real world. One such work is Maus by Art Spiegelman, which is a true rendition of the experiences that the author’s father underwent in the course of the Holocaust. The side conversations that the author has with his father develop the events of the Holocaust as a narrative. The book is a comprehensive outlook into the implications of morality in times of power imbalance. Characters in this novel have been known to use powerful language to exemplify their moral beliefs that were influenced by the power struggles of the time. One such character was Tosha, who had to make a difficult decision and ultimately chose the most drastic of decisions: “Always Tosha carried around her neck some poison…she killed not only herself, but also the 3 children” (Spiegelman 111; Panel 7). Spiegelman presents the diminishing of moral values in the l...

     English is often referred to as the most used language with "a ll 100 of the world’s most influential science journals publish in English" according to an article written from Amy Chua from the New York Times . But what led to this rise of influence  and use of English globe wide ?      During the era of European colonialism, British colonization spread the language to various parts of the world. For example, India once colonized by Britain, many people worked with the British  in civil sources which rose the dependence on English during   day-to-day  life, and  by the time India became independent, English  was seen as a viable language.      English has become a language of academic standard  and international communication in  research and education. For example, much of the human body anatomy stems from Latin  and derived into English , Moreover, programing languages are done in English in...

  Power is highly perspective. An idea that dictates the lives of many people whether it be directly or indirectly. The most common form of power is usually seen in the form of legitimate power or government rule. Power can be gained through many ways. You can earn power from working through positions such as in a workplace. You can also inherit power from someone in your family or have it bestowed upon you. Each type of power has its own dynamic, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The following image shows the different types of power.   ( Power Dynamics ) These dynamics can be used to achieve an end goal, to negotiate status, and to make a hierarchy in an environment. This power can easily be abused though. When given power with no restriction, many will begin to use their power to either help themselves or to help others. The first option is the most likely to happen however. An unhealthy environment is often caused by an abuse of power. The abuse of power ca...

Image credit Humans are arguably the most powerful creatures on the planet. As we’ve learned in school, humans have evolved and have been set aside from our primitive animal ancestors. Our rich history of civilizations, languages, and cultures has changed our world from a wilderness to a metropolis of humanity. However, with all of our progress, have we given these beings the care they deserve? Psychologist Harry Harlow is a prominent example of a human who carelessly mistreated animals. Harlow is known for his experiments using rhesus macaques, a type of monkey, and one such experiment involved a device that Harlow named the “pit of despair.” In this experiment, Harlow, alongside research assistant Stephen Suomi, was testing whether there could be an animal model of depression to improve their understanding of the condition and maybe even look for possible treatments . The pit of despair was a vertical chamber that was built to replicate the human emotions felt by people with severe...

  Power is necessary for society. People need someone to look up to, someone to reinforce rules, someone to maintain order. But what happens when an individual gets too much power?  During the winter break, I watched The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes , the prequel to the Hunger Games Trilogy. It shows the young life and the origin story of the main villain in the trilogy, Coriolanus Snow.  In the beginning of the movie, he lived a humble life as a hardworking student in school. As a final assignment, the students were given a tribute to mentor during the games. From as far as the audience could see, he was a good person. He kept his tribute, Lucy Gray, alive by respecting her and even bending the rules for her. He almost sacrificed his life to save his best friend, Sejanus. He gave up his comfortable life in the Capital to live with Lucy Gray in District 12.  However, this humble and humane individual slowly shifted as he killed a tribute in the arena to save Seja...

I recently read "The Poppy War" by R.F Kuang which is a fantasy book loosely based on the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Opium Wars.  The book starts off with a girl named Runin (Rin) who takes a test that will determine whether she is able to go to this prestigious war college to become a soldier, then it follows her story as she faces the scrutiny of her teachers and students at the college for being poor and for having dark skin. She is bullied by the richer students whose families play influential roles in their society. Rin envies her classmates who were born into power and take advantage of it.  Throughout the book, as she trains and joins the war you can see her craving for power grow until it practically consumes her and becomes all she can think about. Kuang portrays power in the book using shamanism and the ability to summon gods.  Rin trains to summon the Phoenix God which Kuang depicts as the physical manifestation of power which Rin is desperately chasing a...

       When I first read the topic for this week's blog, my first thought was superpowers. When you first hear the word "power", you think of superpowers, you think of the impossible, you think of characters like Spiderman or Superman. You think of the ability to run fast, become invisible or invincible, to be able to read minds and to do the unthinkable. Now that I think about superpowers, I wonder, how come humans don't have any superpowers like that? Or do we?     Everyone knows the common term, mom power. Whenever you lose something, you go to your mom and complain to her "Mom, I can't find my ___". Then she says "Just open your eyes, if I go into your room and find it-" "You won't, I have looked for hours and everywhere". Once she steps into your room she instantly spots it. Everyone has had this situation happen to them before, and I have always wondered how in the world does my mom do it? Same with cooking, the fridge could...

Language is becoming more crucial in determining whether news is fake or not. In the past ten years, the use of social media has caused an increase in the spread of fake news. This is because social media makes it easy for false rumors to circulate.  Spreading false information has a lot of negative effects. One of these consequences is the presidential elections. In 2016, a survey found that, “during the campaign voters were exposed to higher number of pro-Trump than pro-Clinton articles” ( Bondielli ). During elections, publicity and advertising is one of the most important factors to changing voters who are undecided. The distribution of media articles being more pro-Trump suggests that more people who regularly use the Internet were inclined to voting for Trump instead of Clinton. Language has a major role in news because, most of the time, supposedly unbiased articles can end up being biased.  Another form of bias in news articles is the specific selection of evidence. So...

Mahesh - Week 9: Mental Readiness Power is a concept often attributed to the ignorance of the mind and the vacancies that may exist in the perception of considering obedience to authority and the process of conformity to a greater power of authority in general. This process is best exemplified by the Solomon Asch experiment in which members of American society were subjected to an examination of whether they would conform to the expectations of the majority. Language plays a big part in the evaluation that each individual projects upon the whole of the test group. By influencing one another to pick the most popular choice in a “vision test,” the organizers of the experiment were able to prove that others’ influence through a persuasive and vivid attitude can supersede the logical reasoning that may prove to be obvious. There are concrete statistics espousing the validity of this experiment in evaluating the extent to which individuals may conform to the greater majority; the social nor...