Category: Others

In the short story “Seventh Grade” by Gary Soto, Victor, the protagonist, has a major crush on a girl called Teresa. Just so he could be in the same class as her, he signs up for French class, even though he already knows Spanish.

It is the first day of school and he looks for her in the hallways to try and catch her attention. His friend Micheal told him that scowling will make him handsome and therefore catch the attention of girls. He tries it out and keeps on practicing once he sees a girl looking at him.

He is also constantly daydreaming about Teresa. Once, when his English teacher calls on him to give an example of a noun, he immediately says Teresa!

During lunch, he fakes reading a math textbook and looks for Teresa. When he spots her, he moves to a table next her and daydreams about taking her to the movies. After lunch, he follows Teresa to her next class, French class.

During French class, he even lies that he knows French, when he really doesn’t, to try and impress her. Fortunately for him, Victor’s French teacher had once used up all of his money borrowing cars in order to drive a different one each day to make a girl think he was rich. Because of that similar experience, Victor’s teacher did not reveal that Victor did not know French. Teresa actually believed that Victor knew French and wanted him to help her with French. He is so happy to get the chance and studies French textbooks so he could help her later on.

According to Madi Hammond, many of the Gen Z (1996-2015) population lives in fear every day since the internet is always talking about the bad events that happen in life. In addition, the mood of these young people is usually depressing, and phrases like, “I wanna die,” are commonly said. For example, she showed a news site, and more than half of the articles were about shootings or people losing money. However, she believes that we can use these depressing stories and turn them into a positive change. She gives several examples of young Gen Z people who are creating an amazing change in the world, like Malala Yousafzai, who fought for women’s education and Greta Thunberg, an activist for global warming. 

I completely agree with Madi Hammond as I have definitely heard the words, “I wanna die,” come from several Gen Z people, but I think that once all this information is used in a positive direction, it can make a much better life. Because Greta Thunberg was faced with all the upsetting facts about how global warming is ruining our world, she decided she was going to do something about it. She was able to set up the largest strike for climate-change and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She could have easily just looked at the news and ignored what was going in the world, but she decided to speak up, and it was a beneficial choice. The other activist Madi Hammond talked about was Malala Yousafzai. Even though she was shot by people who disagreed with her, she continued to fight for education for girls. She was the youngest person ever to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. Although this information may only matter to Gen Z’s, everyone who cares about the future of our economy and world should look more into this topic. 

This ted talk about generation z has made me become aware of the things that are happening and it has shed light on many ways technology is bad for people. Generation Z, also known as gen z is the age group of people born within 1995 and 2015. I am a gen z and this video has really related to me and my life within the realm of technology. I had never really thought about how bad technology was for me, I have only thought about the positive side. I always thought of technology as a blessing, something to help me learn new things and expand my knowledge, however after watching this ted talk; the amount of negative impacts from technology seemed to compound every time I think about it.

The first point she talked about was memes on the internet that only gen z seems to find amusing. There were memes of death, which seems to be a subject talked about repeatedly in my classes. My peers talk about how they would rather die than complete this one homework assignment, which isn’t even that hard. It must have been so hard to take in for my teachers, as one of my friends have told our human skills teacher that she even considered suicide once. The look on my human skills teachers face was ghastly; and for me to think about it now is extremely hard. Since I know how hard it is and was for many people to get food on the table and survive, it’s extraordinary that people in gen z are thinking about taking their lives.

The main reason why death and suicide is such a common thing in the gen z community is because of the stories, horrifying things we hear and see on the news, social media apps, and google. The ted talk brought up many examples, one of them was a screenshot of the news on a normal day, however the negative stories were circled in red. How many red circles there were was a paradox. I couldn’t believe my eyes, more than half were stress-causing stories, wars in Iran, why Trump’s tariffs were causing bad things, a school shooting, an interminable list. However, this is not the only negative affect of technology, the internet is replete with stories similar to the ones I listed above, and those aren’t even the worst.

The ted talk speaker gave a personal anecdote, in 2016, there were stories about these killer clowns who would kill you if they found you. A very photo of these clowns would give you nightmares for months. For the speaker, she was afraid to even leave her house, afraid to even speak or write the word clown! You can see that technology can have such a immense impact on your lives, the speaker was even afraid saying a common word like clowns. It may not have been true, but whoever put the story out must have been in a state of inebriation to have even thought about ruining a child’s life like that.

The main lesson from the ted talk was instead of focusing on the negative affects of technology, turn the technology into place full of positive and helpful things. There are people in the gen z like Malala who have already accomplished so much, and they have been helping the world through many ways and means, from singing songs, to creating non-profitable organizations, to even just educating the public about the current situation and the dangers of technology. The main takeaway for me personally is to change the negative things into a place where anyone can educate themselves, read about people’s amazing journeys, and other positive things that can brighten ones life.

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.