Author: SandeeL

Would you let your lover perish at the claws of a vicious tiger, or let him be married to your sworn enemy? The Lady, or the Tiger?, by Frank R. Stockton is about a princess who had to make the decision for her forbidden lover. The question is, was it the lady or the tiger?

This story takes place in a semi-barbaric kingdom, where someone accused of a crime will be able to choose between two doors; one opens to a savage tiger while the other opens to a beautiful maiden whom you will marry immediately. This trial determines if one is guilty or innocent by chance, unlike modern times. This happened to the princess’s lover and he let her decide his fate as she knew what each door held. At the end of the story, we know that the princess pointed to the door on the right, but we don’t know what was behind it.

Before this event, the princess “had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event and the various subjects connected with it.” Let’s say that the princess chose the one with the tiger. It’s stated that she loved her lover a lot, so why would she lead him to his death? However, the maiden behind one of the doors is one that the princess hates a lot, as the princess suspects she to steal her lover. Even if she doesn’t want him to die, he’ll marry another lady and they’ll still be separated from each other.

I believe that the princess chose the door with the tiger in it. Both of the doors would lead to her not being able to be with him again. If she chose the one with the maiden, she would still need to bear the pain of having her lover marry someone else. However, if she chose the one with the tiger, she’ll still grieve a lot but they will eventually be reunited in the afterlife. This kingdom is also “half-barbaric” so even though they aren’t as heartless, they still accept killing.

The content of the door on the right was never revealed so it is up to the readers to decide what the princess chose. Was it the lady … or the tiger?

Hearts and Hands by O. Henry is a story of two gentlemen whose hands and hearts were bound together. O. Henry or William Sydney Porter is famous for having a surprising twist at the end of his stories. How can this simple, plain story have an unexpected ending?

Mr. Easton and the marshal are on a train and are talking to a young lady named Ms. Fairchild. Their hands are bound together by handcuffs, as police do that to prevent the criminal from running away. Their hearts are bound together, figuratively, because of the marshal’s generosity to Mr. Easton. He notices that the lady is friends with the criminal and Mr. Easton doesn’t want her to know that he broke the law. To prevent that, he “switches roles” with him to prevent embarrassment.

With an unexpected ending, there are examples of foreshadowing displayed in the story. The first one is when Mr. Easton first displays uneasiness when he first saw Ms. Fairchild. Normally, people wouldn’t feel embarrassed when they see a friend, except that we know that he was hiding something after reading the story. Another example is when the marshal explained the situation to the lady very calmly. This is when he first introduces his little plan to the criminal. Usually, if you’re the criminal, you wouldn’t have a normal, easygoing, conversation with someone else whilst in the presence of the police. This foreshadows that maybe he isn’t who he says he is.

There are other instances in the story where it’s hard to understand without reading the full thing. Ms. Fairchild mentioned once, “…But people always misunderstand things and remain stupid–” (Henry) At first, you might not think much of this sentence, but after reading the ending, this becomes an example of irony. She is talking about people who don’t understand and she is technically talking about herself as she never noticed the truth that her friend was the criminal.

Many stories are more difficult to understand than others because of surprise endings, not just ones by O. Henry. Reading deeper into the story or rereading it reveals hidden meanings that you may have passed before in the story.

Obama was injured and possibly killed in an explosion!!! This is an example of fake news that happens on social media. It could be stopped in the future by new technologies such as AIs or monitoring social media platforms more. However, what exactly is real and what is fake?

How about we design AIs to separate false news from real news? Scientists have experimented on new technologies, one of which is called generative adversarial networks. There is a generator and a discriminator in this machine. The generator creates synthetic information and sees if the discriminator can separate them for testing. As foolproof as this sounds, AIs can’t get everything right so we can’t 100% depend on them.

What if we give the job of separating truth and lie to the government? For example, the government can be our main source of news and they’ll give us the information we need and want with supposedly no false news. This can be faulty though, as you might’ve heard of stories about the government trying to control the citizens and limit their freedom.

If the government can’t be responsible for this job, what if we just monitor or create an algorithm for all social media platforms to make sure no fake news is being shared? People want to have their privacy so monitoring the things they’re doing on the internet won’t be possible and algorithms created for this won’t be perfect either.

If it’s using technology, trusting the government, or monitoring social media, whether news is true or false isn’t something that can be distinct from each other easily. In the absence of a solution, it’s up to you to decide what news you want to believe in. Was the latest piece of news you read real…..or fake?

You’ve probably felt defensive many times in your life. This happens when you’re trying to cover up your fears of the event that is happening. However, being defensive means that it is much harder for you to make the right decision. To get out of a situation where you’re starting to be defensive, you need to acknowledge, slow down, check negative talk, take action step, and start over.

The first thing to stop defensiveness is acknowledging or knowing that you are. You could be breathing faster, confused, thinking obsessively, and many other things. For example, pretend that you are doing a project with your classmates but then you suddenly disagree on something. You argue until you start to notice that you are talking non stop because you want to think you’re right. That is a sign that you’re starting to be defensive, and acknowledging that is very important. Second thing you can do to not be defensive is to slow down. Many times, you are thinking a lot and you just need to take a breather. Step outside, take a deep breath. Third, check negative talk. Make sure that you’re not just talking about bad things. Try making it more positive. Fourth, which is one of the more important ones, take action step. You need to figure out something to stop yourself from being defensive. Lastly, you should.going over the situation again but in the right way

Stopping yourself from being defensive, in my opinion, is very important. This can stop me from being really angry and messing up something badly.

Doing negative things because you enjoy it is a normal action that humans do. However, what is the most effective way to change someone’s behavior? Many adults may think instilling fear in children/teenagers work the best but studies show that it isn’t successful a lot of the time. Instead, there are 3 main points that contribute in changing someone’s behavior. We will be using procrastination on homework as an example.

The first element to this is social incentives. By seeing what other people are doing, you would want to do the same thing they’re doing, if not better. Many students procrastinate a lot normally, and having social incentives might mean having friends that tell you that they started on their homework or finished.

The second principle is getting immediate rewards. If you change your behavior, you will eventually get a long term reward, in this case, having better grades or understanding subjects more. Despite that, studies show that people would rather have an immediate reward instead of a bigger one in the future, as that one is still uncertain. To solve this, you could do homework efficiently for 1 or 2 hours and have a 10-minute break of doing the things you would do when you procrastinate.

The final detail is to have progress monitoring. Your brain is better at processing positive information than negative. So, by focusing on the good things that have happened, it’ll help you more in changing your behavior. If you begin to stop procrastinating, you can see how you have more extra time which you can use to sleep more, do more things you enjoy, etc.

By having social incentives, immediate rewards, and progress monitoring, changing your behavior will be less challenging. This could mean eating healthier, quit smoking, exercise normally, and a lot of others. You’ll be able to have healthier behaviors that will benefit you greatly in the future.

Having pandemics is a normal thing the world goes through. For example, SARS-CoV is a coronavirus that infected many people in 2003. Now, SARS-CoV-2, another type of coronavirus, is causing a lot of deaths in the year 2020. With all of these pandemics happening, what is used to prevent this, and is it possible to defeat a future virus?

One way that we can do to prepare for the next pandemic is to have the supplies we need ready. Right now, there is a big shortage of masks, hospital gowns, and basic hygiene things. We could stock up on these things in the next few years so that there won’t be a shortage next time.

Another thing that is is being investigated right now is having robots to clean and disinfect places so that it’s safe for humans. There is already a robot called Stevie who helps elderly people feel less lonely in retirement homes or other places. Having an infection is one of the biggest threat to older people so scientists thought about putting a UV light device on Stevie. UV light can basically cut up things at a molecular level that kills bacteria. However, it didn’t work so they put it on a different robot called Violet.

This can be investigated more in the future so that these robots can help sterilize hospitals, caretaker homes, etc. By doing this, a virus could be controlled and pandemics can end faster.

If you’re someone who was born from 1996 – 2015, that means you’re in Generation Z. This generation is one of the newest, the one who has the most experience with technology and also has a “depressing sense of humor”, according to Madi Hammond.

With more access to technology, we also have more access to darker things on the internet or the bad things that are happening in the world. With more knowledge of these negative things, the way people think also changes. For example, students could get scared by balloons popping as it sounds like gunshots and they know about the shooting in schools. After hearing all of this news, we also think and react less to it.

However, we need to look at the more positive side. Being vulnerable to the negative media cannot change, as bad news won’t just stop. but there are also so many good things going on in the world. There are many young people who are achieving amazing things despite their age. As a member of Generation Z, I understand this and I realize that I didn’t acknowledge it before. I was always aware of the bad news but never really reacted to it. None of it actually happened to me so I just didn’t think about it. I think the key to this is to understand what is happening; the good and the bad.

The short story Landlady by Roald Dahl is about a man named Billy Weaver who made a big mistake by going in a hotel called Bed and Breakfast. This was his first time in the town named Bath and he was first advised to go to a hotel called The Bell and Dragon. However, on his way there, he saw the Bed and Breakfast sign and it lured him in. Inside was a lady who was very nice to him so Billy failed to notice the danger. There are many signs that foreshadowed what she was planning to do with him. When he was first peering into the hotel, he noticed a dachshund and a parrot. He thought it was a good sign but it turns out that they were stuffed and dead the whole time. When he rang the doorbell, the lady appeared immediately to open to door which is very strange. She also observed Billy a lot which seems a little creepy. ” … her blue eyes traveled slowly all the way down the length of Billy’s body, to his feet, and then up again.” (Dahl) While signing the guest book, he also noticed two names, Christopher and Gregory. He remembered these names vaguely as they were newsworthy at one point for disappearing. She also said some things that a “normal” person wouldn’t say which is suspicious. She said that 17 is the “perfect age” and also how Mr. Mulholland was a little shorter with less whiter teeth. In the end, Billy tasted a little bitter almond in the tea which hints of a poison. It ends in a slight cliffhanger but Billy will probably die from the poison and get stuffed, like what might’ve happened to her other two guests.

By now, you probably know about the coronavirus that is going around the world. However, you might not know what a coronavirus exactly is. The current pandemic is caused by SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19. This is a type of coronavirus, same as SARS and many others. There have been more than 150 types of coronaviruses found in the world but only some of these are deadly. Zoonotic pathogens are the diseases spread between animal and humans. It has caused many diseases in the past too. Many viruses were found by testing the saliva and droppings of bats. Scientists find many diseases from bats and even though it’s a dangerous job, it’s important as it could prevent a future pandemic. In a cave that researchers studied, they tested 464 bats with 759 samples. In them, they found 6 new coronaviruses which isn’t as surprising because of the amount that already exists. One thing that worries scientists is humans passing the virus to bats. They fly around so more places could get infected with that virus. Coronaviruses are also involved with respiratory and gastrointestinal infections so cover your mouths and nose to protect yourself from the current pandemic.

Imagine you’re going through a very hard time in your life. You thought your life was perfect and on track but suddenly, something tragic happens. This is what happens to Amy Morin in her Ted Talk about “The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong”. When she was 23, she had an amazing life with a husband and a good job. However, her mother dies. This was already hard for her but years later, her husband dies too. After she fell in love again, her father-in-law also passed away. This devastated her and she was thinking about why she has to be unlucky, why her loved ones are all leaving. This is where she says how to get through something difficult, you can’t just go around it and avoid it, you need to go through it. To be mentally strong, you should also break your unhealthy habits. Having self-pity is one way that is bad for your mental health. You keep thinking about your bad luck instead of finding a solution to it. Another is having unhealthy beliefs of others. By thinking other people have control over you, you’re giving away your power. The third harmful belief is having unhealthy beliefs in the world. You think that the world owes you something because you work very hard but it doesn’t always mean that. Breaking your unhealthy habits may be hard but being strong and healthy mentally is the key to being successful, recovering from pain, and many other things.