Sunny Youth Journal

As COVID-19 gets worse and worse, we constantly think about vaccinations and other things to stop COVID-19. There was a vaccination being tested in January, and since then, there are no antidotes to this novel disease. There are, however, steps to improving upon the vaccines.

Now, do vaccines really work for COVID-19? Can we use something else? “A common saying in robotics is that robots are best suited for jobs too dirty, dull, or dangerous for humans.” This has brought scientists to try to use robots to solve this situation. Robots are very powerful tools: “’Instead of manual disinfection, which requires workforce mobilization and increases exposure risk to cleaning personnel, autonomous or remote-controlled disinfection robots could lead to cost-effective, fast, and effective disinfection,’ the researchers wrote. ‘New generations of robots, from macro- to microscale, could be developed to navigate high-risk areas and continually work to sterilize all high-touch surfaces.”

The first robot was Stevie. However, this idea didn’t work: “The Stevie robot already had sensors allowing it to navigate independently and stop when it detects the presence of a person. A directed light source that automatically shut down when it detected motion nearby could be a useful feature. Akara toyed with the idea of putting a disinfectant UV-C feature on Stevie, but eventually dropped it when they couldn’t find a satisfactory way to integrate it into the robot’s design.” There needs to be an improvement: “The team began drawing up plans for a new robot that would combine the navigational features they’d designed for Stevie with a UV-C light. The robot wouldn’t have any anthropomorphic [or having human characteristics] features, but would be designed to work alongside humans. They would call this one Violet.”

“Akara has focused on making Violet portable and compact enough to be able to operate in tight, crowded spaces that are otherwise hard to clean: bathrooms, waiting areas, the nooks and crannies of public transit. It also has a protective shield around the back of the light, and motion-detecting sensors so that people don’t have to vacate the area while it’s at work.” This is a very big improvement. Since Violet covered all the mistakes that Stevie had and it also had the features of Stevie, it should be successful.

In conclusion, I think scientists are too slow on inventing. Maybe the schools don’t allow students to have a lot of creativity, but that is another subject to talk about. I still think that they should be much faster at thinking of how to resolve it. At the time of the article, COVID-19 is almost half a year old (about 5-6 months)!

“Seventh Grade,” by Gary Soto tells a story about how Victor, a young boy who wishes to make Teresa his girl, tries to impress her. He is encouraged when he finds that he and Teresa share several classes including English and French.  In French class, he decides to pretend that he knows how to speak the language, trying to impress Teresa.  While he does not fool the teacher, Teresa was impressed and approaches him after class asking that he tutor her.  The teacher, Mr. Bueller, wisely remembers his own youthful foolishness and does not give away Victor’s secret.  Because of the teacher’s kindness, Victor decides to go to the library and check out extra books on learning to speak French. 

One possible reason the author wrote this story was to bring adults nostalgia. As everyone these days are stressed about work and taxes, this story helps show them what their school lives were like, and compare it to their own. Victor always made a fool of himself trying to impress Teresa, probably what a lot of people have also done. If they had put themselves in Victor’s shoes, would they have done the same thing? Mr. Bueller also had a moment of nostalgia when thinking about his old girlfriend, and how he had impressed her by pretending to be rich. Overall, the story was a pretty interesting one.

Curtis Zhang

6/9/20

Generation Z thingy

People in Generation Z, or Gen Z are doing very incredible things right now in the world, but they are also being exposed to negative things and are, as a result, acting very negative. Generation Z is acting this way because of the News, the Internet, and the pressure from outside. 

News nowadays pumps out enormous amounts of news on sad things that are happening around the world which Gen Z read about and become so accustomed to it, they stop reacting to bad news about horrible things happening, and start to joke about it. This may seem harmless, but if you keep that habit until adulthood, you might end up deciding to kill themselves or harm others. 

The Internet is also contributing to the negativity of Generation Z because generation Z has something called the Internet which can give you nearly anything you can ask it in under a second, while previous generations never had anything like this. This will make their patience a lot lower, which will make Generation Z act more annoyed all the time that real life things not in the Internet are not as fast as the Internet, which will make the Generation Z people feel annoyed, making them harder to deal with and more negative in some cases. 

The pressure that The Generation Z experience to get good grades in grade school and college is very great, and they sometimes will have a mental breakdown or worse, suicide because they have failed a test or gotten a bad grade. This is also true due to the fact that they are always joking about death and bad things that they hear about in the news, so they might suicide when they get a bad grade or fail a test. 

Generation Z is a very negative group of people because of the Internet, the News, and the Pressure to get good grades. Generation Z should probably try to act less negative by not reading too much news, not using the Internet as much, and trying not to stress getting good grades as much as we do today. 

From this ted talk I learned that people are in different generations and this is a thing. I’m a Gen Z which is if you’re born from 1996 to 2015. Gen X is if you’re born from 1965 to 1976. You’re a baby boomer if you’re born from 1946 to 1964. Know we grow up with technology and Ipads.

In this short story, the main character really likes this girl in his class, and he tries to impress and be friends with her by going to the same French class as her.

He is constantly thinking about the girl, Teresa, and when the teacher asked him to say a proper noun, he said Teresa. He constantly tries to impress her and during French class, he tries to impress Teresa by saying “French”, even though it was complete gibberish. At the end of the class Teresa was impressed and started to talk to him and asked if he wanted to study with her. The boy was obviously excited and said yes, but this was still at the end of French class. Even though the teacher knew that the boy was faking it, the teacher didn’t interfere, having sympathy for him.

The moral of this story is that we shouldn’t fake who we are, if we do, in the end it would be us that will get a hard hit. Fake it until you make it.

THIS IS THE MIDDLE OF A MOMENT OF SOCIAL ISOLATION. We are stuck in our homes, forced to stay, no further contact with other people excluding online connecting, of course. Coronavirus (COVID-19) has approached and taken much from us. Life will never be the same. (That is to say, we’ll all be more careful with washing our hands and personal hygiene. The pandemic will end, sooner or later, we won’t stay in our houses forever.)

A recent study shows that long terms of social separation can lead to feelings similar to famine. Why is that though? Why do we feel a craving feeling just near identical to hunger?

Primarily, being cut from interacting with friends and neighbors have similar attributes to the deprivation of food. Everyday we go to school or work, we are open to interact with all kinds of people. Whether if it’s your neighbors, your classmates and colleagues, your peers and friends, or your fellow workers, we all interrelate on a daily basis. This is the same when it comes to food. Everyday we wake up to find a delicious, scrumptious scent of, I don’t know, maple-syrup-dripping pancakes, as the aroma dances up your nose. Eventually we’ll get accustomed to the feeling of having quotidian food. Now hear this, what happens if I take away all your food? Most people would start worrying slightly, then (after a while) freak out, say: “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I can’t starve to death right now! I just want a perfectly normal life!” (slight exaggeration) But that is just the outside feeling. When you are lacked of food for a long time, your stomach starts to growl. Your tummy feels empty, and soon perhaps in the time of 1 day, your stomach will start writhing in pain. I too, had gruesome experiences feeling that feeling. One time I just ate breakfast for the day, and for the rest, I didn’t eat, because I was bored. The next day, I woke up, feeling dizzy and throbbing in the stomach. Imagine that feeling for many days, weeks, or even months. That’s what it is like to be restrained and prevented to go out and interact. (at least similarly)

When you are trapped in your home, the urge of your inner conscience to go outside and interconnect with other people just grows greater and greater. Especially since we all expect to meet other people. Sure, interacting with people EVERY day might seem monotonous as time passes, and you just might want a break, to stay at home for a while, but won’t it be same scenario when you are at home as well? At least interacting with people is better then being bored. The feeling of being bored of interacting with no one is far greater then the feeling of boredom of interacting with people too much. And I don’t think many people will become bored because of interactions. Well, every day all you do interact, whether it’s at school or at work, et cetera. What happens if your presumptions are taken away? You have a sudden change in life. Sooner or later, the urge of interacting with people will pop right back, and this is like hunger and thirst.

Ultimately, social isolation is similar to hunger because hunger is a deprivation of food and energy and social isolation is a deprivation of interrelations and interactions. If we take away your friends, it’ll be like taking away your food. When hunger happens, your stomach growls. When social isolation happens, extreme boredom and pain happens. This is the symmetry of two different things.

After watching the TED talk video, I learned that I am also a Gen Z, who was born in this network information age. We can know everything that happens during the world in any second, which makes us much closer to the world but we are also accepting some negative news or thoughts that affected us. We can not live without social media because we need to connect to people and the world, so how can we not be affected by those negative media? There are some ways that can help us.

First, I think we need to read much more news so that we can know how the world work and what is happening in the world. Second, we need to create our subjective judgment. We can not believe what the negative news or articles said because the writers usually write them a little bit exaggeratedly to attract readers’ attention. For example, I know there were some parades around my neighborhood because of the death of the African American. Some shooting cases also happened. I was very scared for the first time I heard about that news. But I remember my father always tells me: “When you still are a child, the most important thing you should do is to make sure you are safe and then work hard on your academic things.” Since I lived in this neighborhood for almost one year, there was nothing scared happened and it was very safe to live here so I didn’t feel nervous any longer. The only thing I need to do is protect myself and keep me safe.

All in all, we should be appreciated that we were born in this information developed age so that we can connect to the world closely. As we are accepting this much information from the world, we should have rational thinking and subjective assessment. We also can do something to make social media better and make it benefit humans.

Generation Z is the term defining anyone born from 1997 and 2012. Gen Z is very different from the generations before that came before. Although very young, they are such a powerful generation. Those a part of Gen Z have most likely been exposed to the internet for almost their whole life. Using the internet, this young generation can do so many things to make the world a better place.

The internet could be a very good or bad place. The positive effects of the internet are that there is information that someone may need. Yes, the internet is a very reliable source of information, but there are downsides to having such free access to the internet. On the deeper, darker side of the internet, young children can find very sensitive information, such as how to kill, kidnap, or rob someone. Also, the news can be alarming and cause panic and unrest among citizens. Most of the time, the headlines for the news reads something bad, like murders, robberies, diseases and more. News reports like these can actually be good in some ways. The younger generation use their platform to raise awareness about certain causes and hopefully make a difference. In fact, Gen Z has already started making long lasting changes to the world.

For example, a group of young people called the Parkland shooting activists. After a shooting occurred at Parkland High School, the survivors decided to make a change. A group of survivors got together, and organized the March For Our Lives. They gave many speeches, pushed for gun reform, and registered many people to be able to vote. These activists were so young, most of them couldn’t even vote. This shows that age doesn’t matter when making a change.

Another example of Generation Z fighting and changing the world, was with a man named George Floyd. He was a a 46-year-old black man, who was killed in Minneapolis. After the video of the murder was released, and many generations were furious, especially Generation Z. Thousands of young used the internet and social media to raised awareness of this crime. This generation, although very young, knows their rights, and were willing to fight for them. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of young teenagers and young adults helped protest and raise awareness about the mistreatment of black lives, and they really made a lasting impact on the police and the world.

These are only a few ways our young generation can and will change the world. As you can see, Gen Z has much potential to make the world a better place. It has happened already, many times, and I believe that it will continue to happen. The youngest of Gen Z are only 5 years old, how many more will step up in the years to come. Generation Z may be young, but they go through so much. Generation Z is the start of a new and better world.

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 theme of a story is similar to the main idea, and it is what the author is trying to tell the audience. The theme of a story can also be used in real life to understand. The short story Seventh Grade is about Victor’s first day of 7th grade, where he notices his crush, called Teresa, is in many of his classes. He tries to impress her in many ways, but fails. At the end, the Victor impresses Teresa, who does not know French, in French class by speaking random nonsense which sounds French. The teacher has flashbacks to his own past trying to falsely impress other girls in his childhood, so he does not say Victor is not speaking French. Two of the main themes which were presented in this short story are how the situation of an event can suddenly change, and how nostalgia is extremely powerful.

The first theme presented in the story is how the situation of a certain event can suddenly change. In the beginning of the story, Victor is excited for his first day at school. After Victor fails to impress his crush, he starts to become embarrassed and disappointed. At the end of the story, he impresses Teresa and he becomes happy once again. This demonstrates how fast something can change. This theme can also be used in the real world to benefit people. Winning in sports competitions is an example of how this theme comes into action. In matches, one team thinks they will win for sure, and start celebrating, forgetting that their opponent has not lost yet. This action results in their opponent sneaking around them and winning. This theme is also shared in the children’s book The tortoise and the Hare. In this book, the hare and the tortoise are having a race. The hare’s overconfidence of winning tells him to take a nap. While the hare is sleeping, the tortoise passes the hare and wins the race. Additionally, something which Andrew Wang TM said is to not count count your chickens before they hatch. This saying means that one should not assume that all the eggs will hatch and become chickens. Once when I was in 6th grade, I was playing hockey in P.E., and we were losing by a lot. The other team started to become careless and not try much because they thought they would win, but we ended up having a comeback and winning. In other words, all of these events and themes teach one to not celebrate too early, and to only celebrate once the entire event/activity is over.

The second main theme presented in the story was nostalgia. When Victor spoke ‘French’ to impress Teresa, the teacher, called Mr. Bueller, did not correct him because he had a flashback to his past when he tried impressing girls by renting a different car to every day to look rich. Mr. Bueller ended up with no money because of this. By remembering how much he cared about his crush, he decided to let Victor go. This clearly demonstrates that nostalgia is extremely powerful, and it can even make teachers not correct their students. Terrence Malick, an American film director once said, “Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything.” Nostalgia is powerful because it can induce emotions such as love and regret. A few weeks ago I read a play called Twelve Angry Men, which is about 12 jurors who decide the fate of a young 18 year old man because he is accused of murdering his father. This story is ‘real’ because it is something that has a high possibility of happening in real life. At the end of the book, 11 of the jurors believe the boy is not guilty, but one juror still thinks he’s is guilty. When he looks at a picture of him and his lost son and remember how bad things went with him, nostalgia takes place, and he changes his vote to not guilty, which completing changing the life of the young man. About two weeks ago, our family was looking at old pictures of when I was still little, which reminded me of all the good memories and the nostalgia hit me hard. Nostalgia is one of the most powerful feelings known to mankind.

In conclusion, the two major themes are, the situation of something can change suddenly, and, nostalgia is a powerful feeling. These themes are used in many works of literature, and they can be seen in the lives of everyone.