Sunny Youth Journal

Why i think this is because he want to be the best he can be and always want to Impress people like Teresa. How i know this is because when the french teacher asked “does anyone know some french?” I think it is because when the teacher asked that only Victor said me i know, and when the teacher asked him some questions he really did’t know how to answer them answer he was saying gibberish. Another way is at the end of the story he went to the library and started to check out french book so than he can get better at friend and impress Teresa in his skills or french. He was also acting very sheepishly whenever he talked to teresa

Another reason is because obviously you all know that victor “likes” Teresa and just want to impress her. Well he want to be handsome and look good. So he started acting different and must more “cooler”. There are many types of people in the world but not everyone is the same in there personalities.

So from this story i am pretty sure now that Victor is someone that likes to impress people. and also like just like what is done is done and you can’t go back and do the things that are done.

This is just a normal life lesson and not to make yourself what you want to be and make yourself what you right now this very second.

In my opinion, middle school reading material really sucks. I don’t like it because one, they are chock-full of hard vocabulary, two, no matter where you are, in school, at home, in camp, you are expected to write an essay about it, and three, I strongly dislike most of the content in those stories.

First of all, I don’t like the fact that I have to take the time to search up so many words that I don’t understand. I think my vocabulary is pretty decent one day and then suddenly I read something on a middle school level, and boom–my self esteem drops by a ton. It takes too much time and energy to flip open a computer (hardly anybody uses dictionaries anymore now that we have Google), type in the word, and somehow try to comprehend what comes up. When I can’t understand even the meaning of the word, I look at the synonyms and then scold myself because I feel dumb. And–look at the time! It’s been three minutes. And because the stories I’m reading are so full of these kinds of words, a block of text that should’ve taken me only twelve minutes to read ends up being around thirty.

Second of all, we are expected to write something about every single story that we read. In school, we have opinion essays, graded essays, timed essays, long essays, short essays… I dislike that we have to write so much about whatever we read. I would like to just read a book in class for the fun of it instead of in preparation for some writing assignment to come later in the year. At home, (Well, I don’t know for you, but for me) I get asked to do this random thing and then the next second I get asked to do that random thing and–who knows what you’re going to be asked next! I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to do some other sort of writing assignment later. My mom signed me up for this camp so I guess this could count as assigned essays, because the whole point of this is so that my writing and reading can improve.

Third of all, I don’t like what I’ve read so far with middle school content. If it’s not kidnapping, shooting, poisoning, or other forms of killing, then it’s probably stuff like what I read today about Victor and the french scowling. And I’m not a big fan of either, if you get what I mean. During my years at the lower school, I quickly grew fond of series like Harry Potter, The Mysterious Benedict Society, or even Wings of Fire. These stories revolved around things like magic, mysteries or riddles, or adventure instead of just poisoning, and they weren’t even that realistic. It’s much creepier reading a realistic story of kidnapping and then asking for ransom from a rich guy than reading a book about mythical color-changing dragons who sleep and bask in the sun twenty-four seven, lazily eating fruit, and occasionally rolling their eyes because some queen from 100 miles away died.

But then again, that’s just my opinion on things like the vocabulary, the amount of work associated with the reading, and the content of middle school stories.

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.