Sunny Youth Journal

Everyday use is about a family of African American people and about their daily life.

In the past, the main characters Dee, Maggie and “mama” had their house burn down for a unknown reason. Dee didn’t help Maggie or mama to get the fire down because Dee didn’t like the house, thinking it was too old.

The main thing in this story is when Dee wanted a quilt that was owned by Grandma saying that it was a valuable memory. The quilt was originally supposed to be given to Maggie, but Dee said that Maggie already knew how to make a quilt. Ironically Dee’s reason that Maggie already knew how to quilt just proves the fact that she thinks its just a quilt, meanwhile earlier, she said that the quilt is special and cannot be REPLACED. Furthermore, Dee came to their house in a fancy dress and jewelry, and after the encounter, Dee was a completely different person from who they knew.

I know its short but this is all i can think of.

Sometimes people say mice are bad because they cause infestations, sometimes people say mice are good because humans can study them and get more information. On May 7th, 2020, scientists who study neuroscience published an image of a mouse’s brain at Brain Science, an institute. Well, it’s not just a normal image taken randomly, what makes it so special is that it’s the most detailed image of a mouse’s brain.

There are many reasons why we study animals’ bodies. One reason is that people are trying to get information by studying the images taken on animals’ bodies. They do this because animals’ body structure, their brain, or their abilities are all similar to humans. “In the old days, people would define different regions of the brain by eye. As we get more and more data, that manual curation doesn’t scale anymore,” Lydia Ng, an Allen Institute researcher.

Another reason is that doing this will bring neuroscience to a new level. What I mean is that, the reason for taking this extremely detailed picture, it’s not just for humans to study. By taking this picture we can learn this skill on other things too. 

Compared to the image taken in the 90’s, this is a whole new change and upgrade of our studies of neuroscience.

Taking this picture helps us get information on animals’ bodies so we can learn ours, and the other thing is to get our study of science, either biology, chemistry, or physics to a whole new level.

In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, a mother and daughter argue about whether they should use a quilt or hang it up on the wall. The quilt is made up of relics from the civil war. For example, it has a piece of a soldier’s uniform. The mother says that they should use the quilt as it was intended to be used, but the daughter thinks they should treat it as a relic of their African American past and culture. Another conflict in the story is one regarding embracing the past. The daughter is named Dee, but she later changes it to an African name. She thinks that black people in America should not use the culture of their oppressors, and stick to their African roots instead.

On the issue of the quilt, the daughter’s proposal is more reasonable. With so much history in it, it holds much more value as an heirloom. If it is simply used as bedding, it can only be seen by the person who uses it. But if it is put on display, guests can view an amazing piece of history. Besides, a quilt from over one hundred years ago would probably not function well anyway.

However, the daughter changing her name to be more African is disagreeable. It is established that their family has lived in America since at least the Civil War, possibly farther back. After years of slavery and assimilation, any African culture in their family is completely gone. It is obvious that the daughter is an American, so by changing her name she is assigning her self to a culture that she knows nothing about. Ignoring the skin color similarities, her and an African have nothing in common. In conclusion, the daughter has varying levels of disagreeably.

Researchers have been studying neuroscience on mice and have finally mapped out how their brain looks like. Normally, researchers would map the brain out by using tissues at a time. The way how the Allen Institute broke up the brain was by using 3-D pixels. After using the pixels, they connected them together and got the idea of how the brain of a mouse looks like.

The research team used an average of 1,675 mice to reassure that the diagram was accurate. You might be wondering, if it was easy to diagram how the brain of a mouse looks like. In fact, it is! The structure of the mouse’s brain is similar to the human brain. They can also be trained and breed easily.

The Allen Institute also compared their results to the 1900s era to sequence other animal’s DNA for the first time. This can help bring the understanding of neuroscience to a new easier level. In the future more generations in front of Gen. Z would figure out easier.

In the story, Everyday Use by Alice Walker, there are two different perspectives on how one can acknowledge their heritage. The two sisters, Maggie and Dee are shown to see their African roots differently. Maggie understands her heritage as something that keeps her close and attached to her ancestors. Dee on the other hand, views her heritage as merely materialistic. She see it as an aesthetic to be hung on the wall and shown off.

Alice Walker symbolizes their “culture” in the story with a quilt. The quilt was a very important family heirloom, that had been passed down from generation to generation. When Dee requests to keep the quilts for decoration, the mother says no, as she already promised them to Maggie. Dee responds by saying that Maggie would only ruin the quilts by putting them to everyday use. This shows that Dee only values the quilt as an accessory and an aesthetic. When Maggie gives up the quilts to Dee, she says, ” I can remember Grandma Dee with the quilts.” This shows that she values the quilts for everyday use, to keep her connected to her ancestors.

I personally think that Dee does not understand the true meaning of her heritage, because she thinks of the quilt as only a family heirloom. Unlike Dee, I think Maggie understands her culture, since she appreciates the quilt as something to connect her to her loved ones. In conclusion, heritage is not just a heirloom or an accessory, but a connection your past.

Many people all over the world have bad habits that they want to change about themselves, but the most of them are doing it the wrong way. The majority of people threaten themselves with results that could happen if they did not change their bad habits. Although it may not seem like it, warnings have little to no impact one’s behavior. These things can actually cause a person to lose motivation. The main reason that threats and warnings do not work, is all because of the way our mind is. When a normal human being encounters something negative or dangerous, they tend to become scared. Their initial response is to freeze, run, or give up. Humans almost never try to fight back the negativity or danger. There are many other positive ways to change a person’s bad behavior without having to use negative and discouraging methods.

A great way for a person to change is to constantly give themselves rewards. If most humans do not get a reward after hard work at trying to change, they will feel as if they can not change. This can cause lack of motivation and turn into lack of energy. Sometimes, the reward could actually be the result of all the hard work that someone put into changing. However, everyone is different, and some take ages to see results. This is where other types of rewards come in. For example, if someone who wants to lose weight exercises very well one day, they can reward themselves to an extra drink. Yes, maybe that method of rewarding could cancel out the hard work, but our brains need that motivation. Rewards are motivating and assuring for someone who wants to change.

When working towards a goal, monitoring one’s progress is very important. People love seeing results in their hard work, and it can cause someone to become more motivated. The best way to effectively monitor a person’s progress is to put some sort of daily reminder of how well they are doing. For example, they can try putting a paper up on their mirror, so everyday when that person goes to use the mirror, they are reminded that they are progressing. This method seems very good, but there are some downsides to it. Some people progress slower than others, and will become less and less motivated. When seeing little to no results, that person will naturally think that they have failed. This is why people should change the way they think.

Though it might not be easy to change a one’s thought process, there are many ways to do it. For example, instead of focusing on far someone is from their goal, that person should focus on how much closer they are getting. However, if the goal is truly too far and unachievable, they should consider coming up with a more realistic goal. Also, people should not be afraid of failure. Yes, failure can be very dangerous, and can cause someone to lose motivation and hope very quick, but it is a very good way of informing the person of what not to do when achieving a certain goal. Changing one’s thought process can easily influence they way they do things, for the better.

Change is not an easy process. There are methods to changing one’s behavior, and negativity should not be one of them. People need to know that using threats and warnings about the future only causes them to become less and less motivated. Instead, using positive things like reminders of progress and rewards are some very good ways to effectively change. Changing, although it may not seem like it, is all in one’s thought process. Keeping a positive thought process could be the one thing that changes everything. There are many way of changing, people just need to use the right method.

People always have ideas on what the right way to change one’s behavior was, but what has been proven was how humans don’t respond well to negative feedback about the future. However, Tali Sharot has found that there is a better way to change behavior. This way is through positive feedback, as in giving immediate rewards for doing something that would benefit them in the future. This however, can lead to some problems.

The first problem is that if this really becomes widespread, people will start taking shortcuts and rewarding themselves for it. This would be a problem because this wont actually lead to any real change, but just more people feeling good about themselves. Rewarding oneself for good behavior is a good idea, however, people will still come up with ways to exploit the situation.

Another concern is privacy. One good example of this is the example of seeing who is most efficient in using their energy. This might help lead to people being more efficient with their energy, but it will also lead to data privacy issues, as this data is being shown to everybody in the neighborhood. Data privacy is an important issue for people, and if this idea of competition becomes big, some people will start opting out of the idea of this, which will lead to them not changing their behavior.

This is not to say that the idea of encouraging good behavior through instantaneous feedback is a bad idea, but just to point out minor issues associated with it.

When I read this article, it showed me many things that I didn’t even think were possible yet. It surprised me with all the cool things that science and biology can do when combined.

The article begun by showing a strange, glittery, skull-like object. It was explained to be a 3D model of over 1,600 mice neuron networks combined into one map. It was comprised of small tissue samples that are images and mapped them with little 3D pixels. Over years of work, they created a huge map constructed with the average neuron connections of a thousand mice.

This was a breakthrough in biology. Scientists can now map the brain activity of creatures. This could be the start of mapping out other creatures’ brains, and we could have a better understanding of how neurons interact in their brains.

Curtis Zhang

6/11/20

Motivation

People who want to be motivated usually tell themselves about what bad will happen if they do something bad, but that is not the best course of action. Research has shown that giving positive motivation, having social incentives, and having immediate rewards help the most with getting people motivated. 

When you give positive motivation, it has been shown that people are better at understanding it than if you give them negative motivation. For example, if you tell a kid smoking “Your lungs will die if you smoke,” he will be less likely to react than if you told him “If you stop smoking, then you will get better at playing your instrument.” I think that giving yourself positive motivation will work very well because when I give myself negative motivation, I usually give up after a while because I run out of motivation very quickly within half a day or less(I am a very lazy person), but if I have some positive motivation, I usually are able to last a day or 2. 

When you have social incentives you have more incentive to work harder to change or do whatever you are doing because humans are very social beings, and we want to be accepted, so we do that by looking good in front of everyone else. This has also been proven by research, but personally, I do not need the research to prove it because I think that I usually try harder at things when there are other people around than if I am by myself. For example, I have never run a personal best for the mile while with myself and family, (besides the first mile I have ever run) and all my records were either set at school or at a track meet.

When you have immediate rewards, it has been proven through tests that you are more motivated when you have immediate rewards because you usually don’t think about the future as much, so when you come to a choice to an uncertain future or a certain now, you will most likely choose the certain now, but by giving you immediate rewards to get you to point towards the uncertain future, you are more likely to work towards the uncertain future. I think that this is also better because if you decide to give yourself a reward later, you might associate the reward with something else, or just now associate it with the thing you just did. If you however, reward yourself immediately, then you will think that because you did that, then you will get the reward.

The next time you are trying to complete a project or get motivated to do something, you can remember to give yourself positive motivation, social incentives, and immediate rewards to make sure that you are well motivated, as well as help you be able to build better habits for the future.