Month: June 2020

Madi Hammod discussed the issues of advanced technology, and how it impacts today’s youth. In her Ted Talk, she talked about the upsides and downsides to the easily accessible internet, and how our generation responds to common tragedies.

Our generation is able to obtain information easily through the internet unlike any generation before us. If we want to find a definition to a hard word, or maybe we want to find out about the ancient Aztecs, we can just search it up on our devices. Even though we can use the internet to obtain knowledge, the internet also has some negative assets. Madi spoke on how people are able to, for example, find out how to kill someone or maybe even shoot up a school. Furthermore, Gen Z is exposed to so much disturbing stories in the media, like how kids in Africa are dying, or how an innocent man was killed because he was black.

Madi talked about how when she was younger, she would come home crying as she heard something dark and sad on the news. As the next year went on, she got used to the horrible things on the news, and became numb to them. Our generation has to see things the adults only have, and we are taught to not show emotion and to be tough. This is why, as Madi explained, people need to use what is going on in the world for positive change. For example, the Parkland activists had a shooting at their school, so they organized the “March for our lives”. In conclusion, we cannot do anything about being exposed to the negative media, but we can use to change for the better.

Victor is a character that wants to use “impressing” to express his feelings toward Theresa.

For example during french class, “Mr. Bueller asked if anyone knew French. Victor raised his hand, wanting to impress Theresa. The teacher beamed and said, “Tres bien. Parlez vous francais?”.

Here he raises his hand for a second probably only dreaming about how impressed Theresa’s going to be, not thinking about what the consequence would be. In this case feeling shameful, embarrassed, and scared.

I think that thinking only about what you’re going to do without thinking about the result is a bad habit because sometimes, just one word or action can change the entire situation, like maybe one word can get you fired from your job or maybe because of one action you’ll get grounded, there’s a lot of things that can happen because of something not done or said properly. These are just a few examples of what might happen if you don’t think about your doings.

Finally, from the entire story, I think that Victor is a person who only thinks about the action he’s going to perform not thinking about what might happen after the action is done, because when it’s done, it’s done, and you can’t change it.

Isolating from friends or relatives for long periods of time may either cause one to long for meeting someone or to desire staying alone. After 24 hours of social isolation, dopamine neurons in the brain were activated when mice sought social interaction.  Studies have also shown after only ten hours of social isolation– and despite people knowing exactly when their deprivation would end– researchers reported more social desires, loneliness, discomfort, dislike of isolation, and decreased happiness than they did before. Similarly, the identical findings were seen after ten hours of not eating. The researchers also found similar midbrain activity in response to food indications after fasting, and social signs after isolation. Those who expressed more social craving after the social isolation period showed a larger brain response to the stimuli.

Isolation from anything is usually uncomfortable at first, but one will slowly get used to it. In my opinion, getting used to being isolated affects one tremendously, especially if one is isolated for longer than a week. I think if one is alone for a long time, they may be afraid or fearful of another if they go out in the public again. Also when they stop isolating, they may long for isolation again and ignore people. Adversely, one may also feel very excited or happy to meet their friends and family again after not seeing them physically for so long.

The short story, “Seventh Grade,” by Gary Soto is about a young boy named Victor who is going into seventh grade. He has a crush on this girl named Teresa. After finding out he is in the same class as her, he tries really hard to impress her and wants her to think he knows French.

In the beginning he just pretends that he knows French but doesn’t actually know how to speak it, but when Teresa asks him for help, he goes to the library to go check out three French books to learn. I think the theme of this story is to never give up. Even though it was very embarrassing for Victor, he pushed through. He is able to do anything to make Teresa like him.

You can see that there were many times that when Victor could have given up, but decided to not. For example, Victor could have give up when he was embarrassed and he could have not loan the books from the library and not help Teresa with her French. These are the reasons why I believe that the theme of the story is to not give up.

In the article, it states that people crave social interaction like you might crave food. Is this true? Well, during the current COVID-19 situation, this study is completely relevant, as most people are social distancing inside their homes, so you can feel whether you crave human interaction or not.

For me, this is absolutely correct. Stuck in my house, not being able to see my friends, means I crave talking to them face-to-face more than usual. While I normally talk to my friends on an almost daily basis, it isn’t really that important to me. I love hanging out with them, but I usually have other things on my mind that go before seeing them.

Now during quarantine though, I feel a need to talk to them. It is almost number one on my mind, having conversations and seeing them. And yet, despite everything, I still do things to make up for my alone time, different activities. I might even forget about my friends while I’m doing this, then go back to thinking about them later.

Although I can still video-call them and text, it is not the same as seeing them in person. I find myself incredibly bored throughout the day, until those few glorious hours of talking to them. I do crave talking with them as I crave food, but when I crave, say, chocolate, I can possibly just grab a piece of chocolate and eat. But I can’t do that with talking to my friends, hoping they’ll pick up, waiting for what seems like eternity while listening to the phone ring.

In conclusion, social isolation does create a sort of craving of interaction for me, and I believe that when the pandemic is over I will be extremely excited when I can see people again, much more than if I see them several times a week.

The short story, “Seventh Grade” by Gary Soto, is an amazing story about a person in seventh grade who likes a girl like every other people. I think people like this story because of the themes, about school, and the people inside the story.

Victor, a character in the story, carries a torch for a girl named Teresa. Teresa is in the same grade, the same French class, and the same English class as Victor, the protagonist. In English class, they were learning what nouns were and the teacher asked Victor what was an example of a noun and he said, Teresa. The teacher asked Victor what was an example of a place noun and he said Teresa’s house.

After the period, they were on break. Victor looked around to see if Teresa was around, but unfortunately, she was not. He kept looking around until he finally saw her and sat close to where she was. The break was over and after the bell rang, Teresa and Victor were going in the same direction, to French class.

During French class, their french teacher, Mr. Bueller, said hello in french as soon as everyone walked in they said it right back. Victor spoke up, trying to impress Teresa, but was very embarrassed because he did not know french and tried speaking in french with a french accent. At the end of class, Teresa spoke to him saying that she did not know that Victor could speak french. Victor was very proud and felt like seventh grade wasn’t going to be a bad year.

All of the themes in this story are fantastic and the one I like the most was be yourself, not anyone else. Being yourself will be the best way to show others what you are like. If you act like someone you are not, then once others find out, they might not like you.

The story, “Seventh Grade,” is about a boy named Victor who is on his first day of school. He met his friend, Michael, who had learned to scowl during the summer. He thinks that it makes girls notice him. Victor wants to impress his crush, Teresa, so he tries scowling too. He also signs up for French class because he wants to go to France someday, and also because Teresa signed up for it too.

The theme for the story is to not fake something to try to impress someone. In his French class, the teacher asked who knew how to speak French, and he raised his hand. What they didn’t know is that he does not know anything about French. He only wanted to impress Teresa. Then, the teacher asked him a question in French, and he did not know how to reply. He just made random sounds that he thought sounded like French, and he was very embarrassed.

After class, Teresa thought that he actually knew French, and told him that it was good. The teacher didn’t tell her that it was actually random sounds because it reminded him of his past. Then, he still tried to impress her by saying he got it by watching movies and reading books. Next, she asked him if he can help her in French sometime. He agreed, and then he actually went to the library. He learned his lesson in the end and checked out three French textbooks so next time in class, he can actually understand the teacher.

When coping with grief or other kinds of distress in their lives, people will find ways to cope. Plenty will find a healthy way to get themselves through the day, be it art, sports, reading, or just talking their feelings out and maybe having a good, cathartic cry on the bad days. For some people though, these things don’t work. They can’t find something, anything, that will help with the pain and let them recover, so they turn to unhealthy, damaging habits to just keep themselves going, and from there spiral down until their way to cope has become another monster in its own entirety. An example of this is the landlady from Roald Dahl’s short story “The Landlady”, who has seemingly turned to murder and taxidermy to keep herself afloat.

Billy Weaver, a young businessman, is looking for a place to stay in London, and rents a room at the landlady’s place. His first impression of her is very kind, and then “slightly dotty” when she says that “it isn’t very often I have the pleasure of taking a visitor into my little nest”. Strange as it may seem that the owner of a bed-and-breakfast in a big city rarely has customers, what really makes her start seeming creepy is what she says next: that “it is such a pleasure, my dear, such a very great pleasure when now and again I open the door and I see someone standing there who is just exactly right… like you”. She then proceeds to look Billy up and down, very slowly, as if inspecting a specimen to be dissected under a microscope.

What really begins to prove her murderous tendencies, though, is her uncanny knowledge of the physical properties of two “tall, handsome young men”- just like Billy- who had stayed there years prior. Of one, she says that his teeth were white, but not as white as Billy’s; of the other, she says that “there wasn’t a blemish on his body”. Body, not face. The landlady would have had no reason or opportunity to see that young man undressed, so how would she know? In addition, she tells Billy that those two young men have never left, and when she forgets their names then she “come[s] down here and look[s] it up”. That, combined with the fact that she has quite a few “little pets” that she keeps taxidermied and displayed in life-realistic positions in the living room, would indicate that these two young men have been murdered- and then “stuffed”, as her pets are- and kept upstairs on the fourth floor.

Another detail to consider is that the tea the landlady serves Billy “tasted faintly of bitter almonds”. Bitter almonds is a taste associated with cyanide, a highly toxic substance, seemingly fairly little of which is required to kill a person. It would be very easy to dissolve in a hot cup of tea and disguise with milk and sugar, both of which Billy takes with his tea. If Billy drank it- which he does- it can be assumed that he dies quietly, bloodlessly, making it very easy for the landlady to stuff him and add him to her collection.

These murders and stuffings can be seen as a damaging habit the lady developed to cope with a loss during the war that took place several years prior to the story- perhaps, as Billy suggested, the loss of a son. It would explain why she collects young men who are “just right” and keeps them: to take the place of someone irreplaceable, someone she will never have back.

Curtis Zhang

6/8/20

Landlady

The short story “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl revolves around a 17-year old boy named Billy who goes to a town named Bath for a business venture and goes to a small house to stay at, which he then meets the landlady. He decides to live in the house since the price is super cheap.  Later, he also finds out that the landlady is a taxidermist while they are drinking tea together. Then the story ends somewhat cryptically, with Billy asking if there were any other guests in the last 2-3 years and the Landlady answers “No, my dear, only you.” Though this ends the story without giving you an ending, you can piece together what is happening throughout the story. 

First, you can tell something is amiss when Billy is somehow drawn into the house by just the sign alone, telling you that the Landlady must’ve set it up specifically that way to draw people in. It is also shown that this is weird because one of the reasons why he decided to come into the house in the first place is the fact that there were animals “Animals were usually a good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself,” and the animals were fake themselves. 

Second, you can tell that the Lady is not whom she appears to be since she knew that the previous resident of the house was a man named Gregory Temple had not a single blemish on his body, which is a very odd thing to know. Billy also remembered that Gregory Temple and the other previous resident were on the front lines of the newspaper, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

Third, you can tell that the Lady is not who she appears to be because her tea that the Landlady gave Billy tasted faintly of Bitter Almonds, which is the taste of cyanide in his tea, which is showing that she is trying to poison him, and presumably taxidermy him like she did with the previous 2 residents. This would explain why the Landlady knew Mr. Temple didn;t have any blemishes on his body, and why the sign was so enticing to Billy. 

The Landlady is a very interesting story which does not reveal the actual meaning unless you search for it. The Landlady is most likely a psychopath and wants to kill Billy and turn him into a work of taxidermy.

Some of the benefits of launching these internet satellites into space is so everyone in the world can have access to stable internet. Some may say that everyone already has internet, but Musk was specifically targeting places that weren’t so fortunate like the rest of the world. Chadwick states,”’ The goal of Starlink is to create a network that will help provide internet services to those who are not yet connected, and to provide reliable and affordable internet across the globe.” This will insure that everyone can have internet and won’t be living under a rock while the rest of the world is evolving.
Launching satellites into space is an effective way of distributing internet across the world, but is it? Scientists say that these satellites acting like stars are effecting their research. It is giving them a difficult time to see the actual stars and obstructing their radios on land. The text says,”However, scientists and stargazers have voiced frustrations that the devices are hindering their ability to see the night sky. The orbiting satellites can also interfere with the workings of ground-based radio telescopes that experts use to see more distant phenomena.” This is definitely a huge downside for the scientists and stargazers. This is giving them an artificial taste of the sky compared to before, when there was no satellite in space. Also scientist are handed more obstacles when exploring space.