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air-in-words · 4 years ago

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My Sorting Hat Chats Journey

So, hi! I'm back!

I've been doing fun stuff off in the real world, but I decided to talk a little bit about my own Sorting Hat Chats sorting journey, and how it says a lot about self-acceptance, and how understanding who you really are can sometimes only come from being an active participant in life. Here we goooo...

The Beginning

So, my initial sorting was a Burnt Badger/Bird. This had struck me, because I'd never considered myself a Badger in ANY media. I was seen by my friends as a borderline loner, someone who didn't need anyone else. And yet, all the signs were there.

Looking back on my life, I've always migrated in groups, always looked for a nesting ground, and truly that's all I want. A place to nest, a place to rest, where I can feel safe and surrounded by people who love me. But, after a childhood filled with bullying, I found myself embarrassed of my bold face need for friends, and, for some reason, decided getting too close to people for too long was unwise, so I could probably never have a permanent home. And yet, I always found myself in these little "groups," little packs of people that all travel together.

I've always had these friend groups, where everyone knows each other, we all hang out together, and yet it always manages to eventually fall apart. I asked one of my friends how this keeps happening, and who keeps setting up these groups. She blinked sort of vaguely and said, "uh, you do." It was such a strange realization to look back and see myself as the "shepherd" I was, always creating a flock wherever I went. I had always been the spoke of my friend wheels, the only one that was friends with everyone, or actively tried to be friends with everyone. And I would attempt to hold it together, but it would always ultimately shatter, and I'd leave to find and form another. Family is important to me, and it isn't enough for me to bond with one person. I like for all my friends to be friends with each other, for us all to hang out together and enjoy each other's company.

So, although I still struggle, Burnt Badger came out on top, and I believe is still at the top to this day. I still search for belonging. I still search for family. And, yet, my heart seems to have no intention of unburning. Until recently, I had no idea why.

On the other hand, the secondary I received, Bird, seemed to fit like a glove, and was very obvious to me. I've been called the Encyclopedia before, I was made fun of for being caught reading the dictionary like it was a book, and I always seem to have a "fun fact" for every occasion. And all of this seemed to flow directly into me trying to use these facts and this knowledge to win people over, to get to see me as someone that could be their friend, or that I could be reliable as a member of their "group." So, Burnt Badger/Bird simply made sense. The reasons for me avoiding unburning my primary were irrelevant.

The Now

I'd been gone from this side of Tumblr for a bit, and decided to return on a whim. Saw @wisteria-lodge still posting as much as ever, and saw a lot of my posts had been passed around in the meantime (thank ya by the way) and decided to dive back in, because since then, so much of my life has changed. I've had certain people out of my life for a while that were a hindrance on my self-acceptance, I've moved out of my childhood home, and left a job I've had for the past 5 years. I've been forced to constantly LIVE, to make choices, actual choices, and have been offered the chance to be who I truly am, unapologetically.

So, I took the quiz again, curious if I would come up any different.

I got Burnt Badger/Burnt Snake.

This time, I was almost insulted. A flush of memories, of past feelings came to me, most of all the need to push back, to insist in exasperation I'M NOT A LIAR, as though I was tired of defending myself. As hard as I tried, I somehow couldn't seem to get Bird secondary to reappear.... at all. Which was so crazy, because before, that was pretty much all I could get.

So, I went to the experts, the aforementioned wisteria-lodge and @sortinghatchats .

I looked through the Snake secondary tags and found myself lost in memories I had pushed down, so far down even I couldn't find them, wracked with shame and a need to hide this side of myself, something I'd hidden so well I'd pretty much convinced myself it had never existed.

Being a Bird had always been a choice for me. I decided that was what people must want, becoming intelligent, knowing all of these things, showing off, that would make people like me. But, although I can devour books like nobody's business, and I tend to worry and whinge before every major decision, feeling unprepared, I would always find myself falling short of my own expectations. The amount of times I'd promised myself and others to create a plan and study hard, ultimately fail to do so, and then lie to everyone about it was astounding. My public image continued to be "air-in-words the smart girl" but my private image was still LIAR and FAKE.

I would still somehow get all A's. I was very good at remembering facts and excellent at taking tests. I always thought of them like little tricks themselves, meant to trip you up, but if you paid attention, you could figure out the patterns and be able to bluster your way through stuff you might not even fully understand. You can figure out certain words through context clues, and I was always very comfortable trusting my memory with little preparation beforehand. And yet, I still lied and told everyone I'd studied, at least as a child, before high school.

Math was what eventually messed me up, and sent my self-image whirling into the ground. My grades suddenly went from straight A's to D's and F's. My parents were aghast, what had happened??? I was so intelligent, so smart, such a good student. What had gone wrong?? And, although I never admitted it outloud to them, I knew the answer. With math, you can't trick your way out. You either know how to do it and give the right answer, or you don't. And I had never studied a day in my life, never practiced, never worked hard at all. It was my horrible little secret and math had outed me. It continues to out me, because rather than actually work at it and get better, I managed to keep my grades through high school afloat by leaning on my other grades and taking remedial math courses with a teacher who loved me very much and would let me off easy. To this day, honestly, I can barely count. I might actually have some form of dyscalculia, but I know that if I were willing to try a little harder I could get better. But, why would I do that, when this way works just fine? Just coasting through? But, again, no one could know. Not even myself.

Through high school, I began letting people in on my secret Snake, because being a "slacker" was suddenly cool. I still couldn't let my parents know, or the teachers, but coming clean about not being a keener was what earned me new friend groups. I wasn't some weirdo who actually studied all the time: I was a kid who maybe did 60-70% of my homework and slid by on my good memory and general interest in learning. And my reputation. My reputation was key to my success.

College would be the thing that completely threw me to the ground. There were simply too many sirens singing at me, distractions pulling me away from my work. I'd never looked less like a Bird than in college. I was always skipping class, always not studying, and in fact, would openly fail most of my courses. And I just didn't seem to care. I slid into what I guess must have been a sort of neutral zone, but I wasn't happy. The mask was slipping off and I needed out. I couldn't keep up this charade anymore. It was stifling, trying to be a Bird, going to college for a very Bird degree, surrounded by actual Birds, it was all very much what I didn't want. I wanted something less "academic," less, well, boring. Maybe more Snake like.

And, so, here we are. Currently dropped out of college, living in an apartment with my friend, away from my parents' prying eyes, and with a new job that I chose for myself. On the brink of finally understanding myself, and maybe accepting myself as I am.

My Badger primary is burned because of my Snake secondary. Because I thought I was a sham, a liar, a con, and I didn't feel like I deserved to have people close to me. Those traits are bad, and I was a bad person. No one should be tricked by me.

But, after reading some of the stories from the experts and other Snake secondaries, I found this crazy thought, that perhaps being this way isn't a bad thing. Maybe I'm not a bad person. Maybe it's okay to be who I am. Maybe I can use these "powers" for good, and they aren't inherently evil.

So, at least for now, I'm choosing to identify as Burnt Badger/Burnt Snake with Bird Model. Seeing how it feels to accept myself and not try and force myself to be who I think I should be, or who others want me to be (which is a Snake secondary thing in the first place. Lol!)

For Fun, Here's Some Crazy Actual Snake Secondary Things I've Done That I'm Trying to Be Less Ashamed of Now

When I was little, I used to make up crazy stories about things I'd done to seem more interesting. The one that makes me cringe the most is that my uncle has a statue in his backyard that comes to life and goes on adventures with me. My uncle DID have a statue in his backyard that I really loved but no, it didn't (and still hasn't) come to life.

Some of these, I can't explain, like this one, where I somehow had more than one teacher convinced I'd handed in every piece of homework before the one I was giving them the sob story about that day. I literally had a teacher look me in the face, tell me I'd been handing in my homework really well thus far and knew I was trustworthy, so they'd let me slide with no mark against me. Meanwhile, I had missed the homework for the past THREE WEEKS IN A ROW. I just smiled and let it go. Variations of this situation happened throughout high school and college. And, no, I had no good reason not to do the homework. I just didn't want to do it. Lol.

I usually live in the "neutral state" around my close friends, since I think it's disrespectful not to be straight with them, but I have had to turn it on to help them occasionally. One of my friends was having issues with an ex of hers, she was thinking that maybe she should go back out with the guh, and I had been my blunt, neutral self the whole time, telling her flat out that that was a bad idea. But, it wasn't working. "Neutral state" isn't like a Lion's forceful natural state, I guess. So, I decided I would have to push her in a certain direction to help her get through it. I told her she should go back out with him, and although she did sort of call me out for lying, knowing I didn't actually want that, I told her she should if she really think she should. The dude didn't last one date without showing his ass again, and she thanked me for making her do that. Lol.

Finally, at least for this list, my most prized shameful memory, is when I was taking an acting class in college. We were supposed to create a wordless scene as our final, and I hadn't prepared anything, so I just skipped the day we were supposed to do them. But, I decided to show up for the last day to see if I could still somehow pass. She's going through the grades, and looks up and asks me, "I don't have anything written down for you, I can't remember, did you give a performance or not?" I knew I hadn't then, but decided to give one now. I told her yes I had done one, don't you remember came up with a name on the fly. The same friend from the last story was staring at me like she was about to burst. She thought for a moment, then exclaimed, "ah, of course! Yes, I think I remember. I remember you'd done pretty well. What grade did I give you?" I hedged my bets and said A-. Lol. I had never been filled with more pride shame in my life.

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cotncandyboifics · 4 years ago

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1989 [High School AU]: Chapter 6

AO3 Link

Masterpost

Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ Chapter 7 ~ Chapter 8 ~ Chapter 9 ~

Pairings: slight Logince, eventual Prinxiety & Logicality

Word count: 1,987

Story summary: Roman Prince is your stereotypical Jock, with everyone swooning after him. Every day a crowd of people follow him around, only to disperse at his personal whim. In reality, he's lucky to have such good acting skills that help him cover up the disdain he has for his life. He only wishes he could use his skills properly.

Patton Whitelock's always there to lend a helping hand, no matter who you are. If you need a favor or just need someone to talk to, go to him. In reality, he's been taught from a young age that kindness should be held above all else. No one suspects that he took it the wrong way.

Logan Montgomery is the smartest boy in the Senior class. He's stern, and most people are too intimidated to speak to him. In reality, he despises most all of his fellow students. He sticks to his studies and doesn't stray, for fear of being stuck in his father's shadow his whole life.

Virgil Black is the most emo kid in school, let alone 12th grade; everyone knows to leave him be. In reality, he's very fortunate. He has two parents who love him dearly. But everything beyond his life, everything within his mind, is utter chaos and turmoil.

what will happen when they're assigned a biology project together?

General CW: food, swearing, implied s-lf h-rm, non-graphic descriptions of s-lf h-rm scars, graphic and non-graphic descriptions of anxiety attacks and panic attacks, drug abuse, minor character intoxicated on heroin, non-graphic drug overdose description, sickness/description of sickness, blood, non-graphic descriptions of needles, (will be added to as I write more)

Chapter CW: food, (let me know if i missed anything please!)

Author notes: I hated writing this chapter because I love Logince and I'm intentionally writing this story so that Logince doesn't work and I just- my heart and my creativity have a conflict of interests here :')

...

Roman was left alone in his room, staring at the door where Virgil had slipped out silently a few minutes ago. He'd turned off his music, and was sitting up, staring, thinking.

What was even the point of asking Logan out? I didn't have any interest in him before, he was just a nerd who i never bothered, and he never bothered me... perhaps for the challenge? when I saw him in class today something just sparked, and i felt the need to pursue him. I didn't think he'd entertain it, especially so quickly. And what of Virgil?

What of Virgil?

Roman shook his head and stood, leaving his room to see what his parents were doing, and if he could help with dinner. He needed a distraction, and he knew homework wasn't going to do it.

...

The next few days at school were strange, to say the least.

Patton was the same, as far as the others could see. He tried figuring out some of the routes Logan took to different classes, just a few so as not to seem suspicious, but Roman was more often than not already there and bombarding Logan with his charms. Patton still caught him alone sometimes though, and did his best to make conversation about little things, just wanting to get to know Logan. They had an engaging conversation about Logan's surprisingly extensive knowledge about drug abuse, and Patton was thankful for the bits of advice he could get. They'd also run through proper methods for caring for various species of turtles.

Logan continued to hound himself about why he had accepted Roman's courting after such a short time knowing him, let alone that they were very... different people, to say the least. He'd told his father that one of his friends had requested an outing to a cafe to study for an upcoming calculus quiz. His father was reluctant but upon Logan's presentation of evidence of such atmospheres increasing the effectiveness of studying and concentration, his father granted him permission to go. Logan knew his father would never permit any,, frivolous activities, when Logan had so much academic potential. And Logan made himself feel the same way, acquiring knowledge and more importantly incredible accolades was all that mattered until he was out of school. And yet, here he was, about to go on a date behind his parents' back with a jock, very stereotypical of a teen and yet very atypical for him. He couldn't explain to himself why he'd allowed himself to get into this situation, but it wasn't causing any immediate problems, so he decided to try and let the topic rest.

Virgil was acting stranger than ever, at least from Roman's perspective. He seemed even more cold and distant, except on occasion he'd strike up a conversation. Sometimes they got rather lively, debating about which were the best Disney movies, even if they had very... differing perspectives on what messages they portrayed. Roman was baffled, Because he didn't think someone who was previously unconcerned with Roman for the most part could become so black-and-white, switching between completely ignoring and/or glaring at him, and coming into a room and immediately proposing a topic of conversation.

Roman had his hands full with courting his new love interest, and trying to figure out what was going on with Virgil. Virgil himself was very conflicted. Any time he saw Roman, his feelings became intense and he never knew how to act.

The group's dynamic had shifted accordingly whenever they were in class together. In Biology, Logan was usually hard at work on their report, Patton doing his best to help. Roman often attempting to fluster Logan in any possible way he could, and Virgil, ever unpredictable.

...

Finally Thursday came, and Roman got into his mustang to pick up his date. He drove quietly up to a large white house, with a very systematic garden laid out in the front. He got out and leaned against the closed passenger door, and messaged Logan, letting him know he was there to pick him up.

Logan had hoped Roman would have the sense to pick him up around the block, but upon exiting his house and seeing him directly in front of the house leaning against his red mustang with a single red rose in his hand, Logan brought his hand to the bridge of his nose and massaged it, trying to keep from getting aggravated before their date even began. He walked over slowly, trying to keep an open mind instead of letting his logical self shut everything about Roman's love language down.

Roman had to keep himself from staring. Logan was dressed... well, typically his own style, but... he had gelled his hair back so it became one big dark tuft instead of it's usual gentle messiness, and he had on a silk navy button up and a black bowtie instead of his trademark necktie. He had on Black corduroy pants that accentuated his slender legs, and white and blue converse that complemented his shirt and pale skin. Roman was impressed at the attention to detail yet the simplicity of his date's outfit, and was indeed that much more attracted to him.

"Well hello there," Roman said as Logan neared, looking him up and down, "don't you look ravishing."

Logan's cheeks glazed a bit. "As do you," was all he could think to reply. Roman had on a dark red v neck and a black and gold baseball jacket, dark grey ripped skinny jeans with a silver chain, and red checkered vans. Logan realized he'd let his eyes linger on Roman's exposed collarbone a moment too long. God, why am i acting like this?

Roman just smirked and stood aside, opening the passenger door he'd been leaning on and making way for Logan. Logan sat, his knees nearly touching the dash. Roman got on one knee and dramatically presented Logan with the flower. Logan smiled gently and took it, examining it. Roman shut the door and made his way around to the driver's side and got in.

"Will you relay the whereabouts of our destination or will it remain a mystery to me?" Logan asked as Roman opened his door, not looking up from the flower.

Roman smiled with a glint in his eyes. "Well it would be no fun if i were to spoil the surprise, now would it?" He put the key in the ignition and started the car, and the engine hummed smoothly to life. "Completely unrelated to said surprise, but have you had dinner?" Roman rolled down his window and rested his forearm on it.

"Yes, unfortunately I follow a strict meal plan." He adjusted his glasses.

"Well, i wont question that, but that works for me." Roman left it at that and pulled out his phone.

"Would you happen to have a music preference?" Roman asked as Logan smelled the rose, and finally set it down in his lap.

After a moment of thought, Logan replied, "Well I suppose not. I don't listen to much music other than classical on occasion, and at this point i find it rather..."

"Boring?" Roman mused.

"Insufferable," Logan smiled.

"Alright, I'll enlighten you to something other than Beethoven and Bach," Roman reached for the aux chord, plugged his phone into it, and picked a particular song he felt was... fitting for the moment. The song intro began, and Roman pulled the e-break down and shifted into first gear, pulling out onto the road.

he said "let's get out of this town,

Drive out of the city, away from the crowds..."

I thought "heaven can't help me now,"

Nothing lasts forever...

Logan watched things pass on the road, absentmindedly tapping his ankle to the beat. He didn't recognize the area of town they were heading to, but he didn't expect Roman to kidnap him or anything, so he just observed.

But this is gonna take me down

He's so tall, and handsome as hell

He's so bad, but he does it so well.

I can see the end as it begins

My one condition is

Logan looked straight ahead at the road now, wondering if Roman had selected this specific song for any reason.

Say youll remember me,

Standing in a nice dress

Staring at the sunset babe

Red lips and rosy cheeks

Say you'll see me again

Even if it's just in your

Wildest dreams, ah, hah...

They were driving up a hill now, and the road was getting steeper. Logan was beginning to wonder if he should have just rejected Roman from the beginning.

Roman sensed his unease, and turned the music down so that it was just background noise. "I promise I'm not about to murder you in the woods," he said with a small laugh, "There's just a nice spot up here to... observe," he assured vaguely, glancing at Logan.

He nodded with a small smile from the passenger seat, returning to looking around as they passed sloping driveways and mossy-trunked trees.

Just moments later, they emerged into something of a clearing, with a cul-de-sac and a large meadow. There were clusters of small flowers and clovers all over, and the trees cleared perfectly to display the sun was crawling toward the horizon.

They parked and Logan got out, and turned to realize Roman was still in the car, seemingly reaching behind his seat awkwardly and rummaging around. He emerged with a plastic bag and a rolled up plaid blanket. Roman locked the car and led them to the meadow, where he dramatically unrolled the blanket and laid it out, after ruffling it in the wind. Logan sat cross-legged facing what would soon become the sunset, the bottom of the sun's visible sphere nearly dipping itself below the horizon.

Roman sat as well, beginning to dig through the mystery bag, Logan now paying him attention. Roman pulled out two large paper cups, with plastic tops and straws in them. He handed Logan one of the cups, and Logan began inspecting it. It appeared to be a milkshake, likely chocolate flavored due to the brown hue... It looked rather delightful. Logan took a sip and was not disappointed; he'd never actually had a milkshake, at least not since he was very young, so he had to attempt to hide his enjoyment.

"That is quite tasteful," He looked back to Roman, who was tasting his own milkshake.

"Yeah, you struck me as a chocolate type," he leaned back on one hand. "Hope you like the view. I thought it would be nice as a first date to watch the sunset and talk."

Logan gazed out at the sky that faded from blue to purple to red to orange and a bit of yellow, clouds peppered around and absorbing the hues. He certainly did appreciate the view.

"Alright, let's talk then."

...

A few hours later, it had gotten dark and stars were spattered across the sky. Logan was laying with his hands behind his head, watching the sky, and Roman was laid next to him, leaning up on his side and watching Logan's eyes. They'd talked about anything, from childhood memories to opinions and briefly about their home lives. Roman felt very... usual. Everything was going perfectly, and he could feel that fact slamming against his chest. Do I actually like him or is this all just a game to me? Am i being fake, or completely real?

Soon Logan checked his wristwatch and informed Roman it was time he be heading home. They stood, and Logan shivered as Roman collected the blanket. He sighed upon seeing Logan's arms loosely held around himself, trying to keep warm.

Roman rustled his baseball jacket off and draped it over Logan's shoulders.

They made their way back to the car, and as Roman drove them, all Logan could do was lean his head on the window and stare up at the hazy white moon.

Roman dropped him off, walking him up to his door. Logan thanked him for the evening, and tried to return Roman's jacket, but Roman insisted he hold onto it. They shared a small kiss on the doorstep, and bid each other goodnight. Roman drove off into the night, pondering heavily.

#ts logan #logan sanders #virgil sanders #ts virgil #ts roman #roman sanders #patton sanders #ts patton #sanders sides #thomas sanders #sanders sides fanfiction #high school au #slow burn #prinxiety #logicality #patton x logan #roman x virgil

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wendysanderson · 5 years ago

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WENDY SANDERSON ( YARA SHAHIDI ) is a 17 year old JUNIOR student at Broadripple Academy. SHE is originally from JAMAICA PLAIN, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS but moved to Broadripple 1 YEAR ago. SHE is EXCITABLE and EMPATHETIC but can also be CLINGY and IMPATIENT.

BASICS

Name: Wendy Sanderson

Age: 17

Grade: Junior

House: Keough

Cabin Room: Room 1

How long have they been at Broadripple: Started her sophomore year

Where are they from originally: Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts

Extra curricular: Chamber Choir, Women of Broadripple, Yearbook (writer), and Broadripple Unsolved

CHARACTER AESTHETICS

Half-eaten bowls of Lucky Charms, colorful jackets from the local Goodwill, a heavily annotated copy of Mary Oliver’s Devotions, chipped nail polish, a varied collection of sunglasses, the ‘Are You Still Watching?’ Netflix screen, the Arnold Arboretum in bloom in the springtime, a hot cup of fruit tea, snack-based rewards systems, bottles of coconut oil, the communal groan of frustration on the decrepit Orange Line, $2 face masks, and late night Wikipedia deep dives.

TRAITS

Positive Personality Traits: Excitable, empathetic, imaginative, outgoing, affectionate, and generous

Neutral Personality Traits: Talkative, noncommittal, inquisitive, literary, and perceptive

Negative Personality Traits: Clingy, impatient, unreliable, scattered, blabbermouth, and moody

FACTS

About two years ago, Wendy’s family came into a solid chunk of change. Wendy’s mother Bahar is a nurse and caretaker. Over the past decade, she had been taking care of a wealthy elderly man in the Back Bay. When he passed, he unexpectedly left her some money in his will. Wendy’s parents almost immediately decided it would be invested in Wendy’s education. Her dad’s parents wanted her to receive a Catholic one, and her dad wanted Wendy to practice some independence, and so Broadripple came up in their research and she was off. Wendy’s hand in the decision-making process was decidedly minimal.

Wendy enjoys Broadripple in that it’s fun to romanticize a bunch of old buildings. She enjoys creating narratives about and daydreaming of students of the past among the hallowed halls more than she does doing group projects. The school itself is too far-removed from society for her to find it particularly scintillating, but she’s making do! She’s a pretty positive person, though undoubtedly impatient. But she’ll admit it has its other draws. Their reputation is near-flawless—disregarding all that spooky shit, which she personally finds cool and intriguing, since the endless forest has some real The Witch vibes—and it bolsters a lot of interesting clubs and classes she can be a part of. The longer she attends, the more uncomfortable she is with the wealth of her peers, as well as impatient with those she deems rude and snobbish. She also has a habit of falling in love/developing crushes easily, often, and recklessly, and Broadripple certainly doesn’t have a shortage of attractive people. It’s a real gold mine, there.

Wendy’s favorite subject is Literature Analysis. She enjoys it because it is something of a creative outlet; she firmly believes there’s a lot of leeway in how things can be interpreted and she enjoys interpreting things ad nauseam. She particularly likes when they cover poets, but none of that boring classical white guy stuff. She’s more of a Toni Morrison-Mary Oliver-Anne Sexton-Jeanette Winterson-Gwendolyn Brooks type.

HEADCANONS

Wendy misses home a lot. She’s a very sentimental, clingy person. It’s hard for her to be away from the people she loves. Every once in awhile she’ll take a Greyhound back home for the weekend.

Queen of having a wardrobe primarily composed of statement pieces!

Spent nearly the entirety of middle school writing elaborate Jane Austen fanfictions. She is absolutely loyal to Mr. Knightley’s ass! 🙅 Mr. Darcy do not interact. 🙅

[Let’s_Hear_It_For_The_Boy.mp3 on repeat]

Falls in love 5 times a day, yunno.

Writes a lot of poetry that may or may not be good but the poems sure are in abundance!

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RETREAT

What do they think about The Retreat? Stuck in the middle of the woods in a creaky, old cabin is less than what she hoped for. Born and raised in the city, staying in the actual dorms at BA took a major adjustment period already (the tree frogs and crickets alone heard distantly through her open window on a hot night already kept her up). It’s fun to poke around scary places on campus on the weekend with the BAU, but then it’s also nice to go back to the safe dormitories afterward. All in all, she’s not super psyched to be here but she will try and romanticize tf out of it for as long as she can! And tag along with BAU shenanigans, of course.

Do they have any previous experience with camping or other outdoors? Absolutely none. <3

What does their cabin bunk look like? How will they decorate their space? Wendy is a proponent of the opposite of minimalism, which is Clutterbitch. She has various knick knacks and pictures and posters, as well as plenty of bins and storage to keep all her products, books, snacks, etc. There is no surface left untouched, let’s say that, and most likely a string of fairy lights somewhere. She also has a couple half-dead plants and a collection of postcards from her sister who travels around the country with the nonprofit she works for.

Do they believe in the supernatural? To what degree? This answer is gonna be a little repetitive irt the first answer above but at this moment in time, yes! And I say “at this moment in time” because she, at the moment, she wants to believe in it. When she was in the school dorms, it seemed like a fun thing to entertain. She’s a curious person and she has a lot of flights of fancy (as dubbed by her parents), so when it came to her attention that there was an unofficial club that explored the spooky past of the school? She was like, sounds fun! :) I wanna be included! :) So I’ll say she genuinely believes in spooky stuff, but not cryptid stuff.

Are they easily spooked? On the whole, surprisingly, no. But again, this environment is very unfamiliar to Wendy. All of her outdoors-y knowledge stems from the time she spends at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston and in/around Jamaica Pond. She grew up in a city and has very little experience outside of it. Unfamiliarity can brew paranoia, but her spooks are more animal (bears, bobcats, fishercats) related than supernatural.

AND FINALLY,

A very dumb but (hopefully) fun quiz made by your admins, please share what result you got

in which no one is surprised <3

#again.... reusing a graphic? i am the most innovative mind of my generation #retreat:intro #retreat:task1

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ashleyenst1000 · 4 years ago

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Intro ENST Midterm Exam

Ashley Morales

Sustainable Resource Use: Problems and Potential Solutions

Blog post: 9/1/20

This week’s readings showed that humans are overusing the earth's resources, and that our way of life is not sustainable in the long run. Currently, we deplete resources with no concern for the future, and engage in practices such as deforestation and overfishing. And that use is not distributed equally across the population. As mentioned in the textbook, the highest percentage of resources are used by the small fraction of people who live in developed countries, due to extravagant lifestyles and increased consumption (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). Additional causes of environmental problems are population, poverty, the omission of environmental costs in the prices of goods and services, and increasing isolation from nature. If we continue on this way, we are essentially digging our own graves. Protecting the environment and limiting our consumption of resources is integral to the preservation of humanity, because Earth does not need us as much as we need it.

According to the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity we were experiencing ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, and an overuse of water resources in 1992 (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992). These issues are backed up by tireless scientific research, and unfortunately, many of these issues have been intensified in the years since the warning was issued. In terms of population growth, we were straining the limits of what the earth can sustain at 5 billion. We are approaching 8 billion people, which puts a massive strain on natural resources. This is important because it shows that the problems that we now face were outlined years ago, and little was resolved. However, the scientific community proposed solutions to the aforementioned issues, and the most important solution is to limit ourselves. We must put a limit on our consumption and our waste in order to allow nature to sustain us.

Social issues also contribute to the environmental crisis we face. Poverty is a source of environmental stress, because when a group or society lives in poverty, they cannot afford to make sweeping lifestyle changes to care for the environment because they are worried about immediate survival. The warning to humanity also cited the insurance of sexual equality and reproductive rights as a potential solution to environmental issues. Access to family planning resources and birth control can vastly slow population growth, as can education.

The warning mentions the necessity for society to adopt a “new ethic” (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992). In order to address environmental issues, we need to create change on a large scale, and address and change common perceptions. According to the textbook, there are six principles that will allow us to live more sustainably: Switching our main energy resource to solar power, encouraging and maintaining biodiversity, allowing chemical cycling to occur, implementing full cost pricing, implementing policies that allow us to help the most people while still keeping the environment in mind (“win-win”), and staying responsible for future generations. Keeping these in mind, especially during the formation of policy, will improve our relationship with the environment. Especially recognizing our responsibility to future generations. We have gotten to this point by making short-sighted decisions and not thinking critically about the future ramifications of processes such as deforestation, but thinking towards the future will help change the view that instant gain is not as important as long-term success. Having a lot of wood products now is not as important as having a supply of wood that lasts forever if we allow it time to regenerate between uses.

These environmental issues are often caused by competing worldviews, especially among figures in government and influential heads of business. Not only have policy makers not planned for the future, but some also hold a human-centric worldview, and believe that the purpose of nature is to support humans, creating a hierarchy of importance at which humans are the peak. This view also claims that we are the managers of nature, and if there is an issue, our advanced technology can save the day. However, a different worldview is the earth-centered worldview. The idea behind this is that we as humans are part of the ecosystem, rather than above it, and that we are dependent on nature. This view also claims that natural capital exists for all species, and that we do not automatically have more of a right to it than any other plant or animal. Adoption of the earth-centric worldview would help us redirect our ways of thinking as a society to be more mindful of the ways in which we interact with the world around us.

We all have work to do to reduce our resource consumption, on a country-wide scale as well as on an individual scale. I recently took the ecological footprint quiz, and my results stated that if everyone lived like me, we would need 3.2 Earths to sustain us all. My personal Earth Overshoot Day was April 21st, meaning I used my equal share of yearly resources almost four months ago. My ecological footprint is 5.5 global hectares. I was a little disappointed to receive these results, because I previously thought I lived sensibly and used my resources wisely. However, it is important to consider that there are factors out of the control of some individuals, such as the type of house one’s family lives in, or the type of food they have access to. Even so, I was proud that my ecological footprint was less than my country’s average, although I was also scared that my country’s average was so high. The average ecological footprint per person in the United States is 8.1 global hectares. Meanwhile, the biocapacity per person is 3.6 global hectares. This means that the majority of people are 4.5 global hectares over their biocapacity. I myself am 1.9 global hectares over my biocapacity.

The warning mentioned that sustainable resource use is “enlightened self interest”, because it allows us to think about what is best now, and what will also help us improve in the future. Similarly the book mentioned that the Earth is not the one that needs saving. Environmental movements usually market themselves as “saving the Earth”, but in reality, we are just helping it. We need to be more sustainable and implement changes to our behavior in order to save ourselves. This point reminded me of a documentary that my fifth grade teacher showed my class, which was called Aftermath: Population Zero. It asked the question: what if all humans just disappeared right now? The film showed that the immediate aftermath would be apocalyptic, but eventually, the planet would stabilize. Trees would grow on the land where homes once stood, and environmental biodiversity would increase, because we are not there to destroy habitats. It was honestly a jarring movie to watch as a 10 year old, because in watching it, I had to acknowledge that Earth does not need us. Earth’s purpose is not to provide for humanity. The earth has been around for billions of years, and will continue on after humans as a species have died. The changes are so we can acknowledge our dependence on the environment and do the least harm to it while we’re here, hopefully prolonging our existence in doing so.

Word count: 1203

Question: How can we incentivize a large scale reduction of resource consumption?

Bibliography:

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

Union of Concerned Scientists. 1992. 1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity.

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Science: Our Knowledge of the World

Ashley Morales

9/9/20

This week’s textbook chapters broke down science as a whole, from the practice of it to the basic aspects that we understand about our world. Science is the basis for our understanding of the physical world around us. Science as a field of study assumes that measurable patterns exist in nature, and they can be understood through observation, measurement, and experimentation (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). This understanding is gained through the scientific method, which is the testing of a hypothesis and the gathering of data. All scientific experimentation must undergo review by peer scientists before it can become reliable. This is relevant because it solidifies our knowledge about natural processes of the world, and when it is deemed reliable, we can build on the knowledge from there. It is important for people to have an understanding of basic chemistry and biology so that they can understand the delicate balance in which the world works. However, even with this knowledge that we have amassed about the world, we continue to act in ways that directly contradict that knowledge in terms of environmental damage.

Flow chart depicting the scientific method. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Starting at the beginning, we have deduced that the world is made up of matter, which is anything that has mass and takes up space, and is controlled by energy, which is the ability to do work. These interactions occur within systems, or sets of components that regularly function and interact. Matter, energy, and information flow through the systems from the environment and then back into the environment. Systems can be affected by feedback loops, or changes that cause other effects on the environment. A positive feedback loop causes further change in the same direction, while a negative feedback loop cancels itself out. An example of a positive feedback loop is northern ice ice: as the white ice melts, more dark land or water is exposed underneath. The ice has a high albedo, which would normally reflect the radiation energy and keep the temperature relatively stable. However, since the ice has started to melt, the land or water underneath absorbs the radiation energy rather than reflecting it, making it even warmer and melting even more ice. This is a positive feedback loop because the system keeps intensifying the initial effect.

The natural world lives in a delicate balance and relies on a few key factors to keep life going. The three factors that sustain life on earth are sunlight, nutrient cycling, and gravity. All of life is reliant on energy from the sun because the sun supports plant growth, which is integral to food chains, as well as the production of oxygen and the absorption of carbon dioxide. Sunlight also keeps us warm by working with the particles in the air through the greenhouse effect. Life relies on nutrient cycling because there are limited materials on this planet, so elements like phosphorus and nitrogen move through ecosystems so that it does not run out. All processes are also reliant on gravity because the basic principle allows the processes of nutrient cycling and the atmosphere itself to exist.

Ecosystems on the earth rely on the above factors, and ecosystems themselves are systems of living and nonliving components. They are home to different plant and animal species depending on where they are in the world. An ecosystem relies on biodiversity, which is essentially the variety of life on earth, and can be present in a few different ways. Species diversity can mean species richness, which is the number of different species, or species evenness, which is the abundance or ratios of species. Genetic diversity is the variety of genes within a species that can affect the outcome or even induce evolution. Ecosystem diversity is the variety of the Earth’s ecosystems themselves such as deserts, grasslands, forests, and more. Finally, functional diversity is the variety of natural processes such as the flow of energy and the cycling of matter that occur within ecosystems. The diversity in an ecosystem works together to create complex webs of interspecies relationships and dependencies on each other and the surrounding environment.

Some of the species within these ecosystems are native, and some are nonnative and invasive. A native species is one that normally lives and thrives in the area, whereas a nonnative species was introduced to an area either purposefully or by accident. Most of the time nonnative species don’t do much harm, but sometimes they can overthrow an ecosystem and fill the niches, or purposes, of native species. An example of an invasive nonnative species is the cane toad in Australia. The cane toad was introduced as a natural way to keep the cane beetle in check and prevent them from destroying crops. However, the cane toad did not do its intended job, and fed on the crops as well as other species in the ecosystem, and due to their ability to quickly breed they became a menace to the ecosystem. By the 1980s, Australia had a cane toad problem (Lewis, 1988).

Some species are indicator species, which will show early on if there is an issue within the ecosystem. Birds tend to be indicator species, so when there is a large scale environmental issue there will sometimes be a mass bird die-off. Even now there are much fewer birds than there were 100 years ago. Some species are keystone species, which have large scale effects on the ecosystems, sometimes even helping their existence and survival. An example of a keystone species is the wolf, because when it disappears, the ecosystem falls into chaos.

In the Yellowstone National Park, wolves were removed from the ecosystem. During that time, deer overpopulated because their predators were gone. Unchecked, the deer began to deplete the vegetation, which contributed to erosion, fewer small consumers, and a more meandering river due to the instability of the land. However, when the wolves were reintroduced, the ecosystem re-stabilized. The wolves ate excess deer, but even without being eaten, the deer began to avoid certain areas where the wolves would hunt, allowing vegetation to return. When the plants returned, the land stabilized and the river wandered less and remained more consistent. The increased plant life allowed smaller animals to return, which then allowed their predators to return as well. The return of the wolf as a keystone species brought genetic diversity to the ecosystem, and changed the physical landscape of the area for the better as well (Sustainable Human, 2014). This case study demonstrates the interconnectedness of ecosystems, and how changing one factor can throw everything out of balance, even abiotic factors such as river formation and erosion.

We have amassed all this knowledge about our natural world through scientific discovery, and yet humans have only been on this earth for a miniscule portion of Earth’s existence. If the history of the world was condensed into a 24 hour day, humans only exist for two minutes, and all of recorded history only spans a few seconds (AsapSCIENCE, 2012). And yet we have had such a profound impact on the world in such a short time. With all of this knowledge, we continue to contradict it in our actions. We continue to stress ecosystems and destroy habitats and diminish biodiversity, even though we know that all of these factors are integral. Science can help us understand but we need other incentives to change.

Word count: 1228

Blog Question: Knowing all that we know about earth’s natural balance, ecosystems, and important processes, why do we as humans continue to interrupt ecosystems, destroy habitats and overstep our niche, affecting most aspects of earth’s function?

Bibliography:

AsapSCIENCE. “The Evolution of Live on Earth.” Youtube Video, 2:19. November 28, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_6cqa2cP4

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. “Flow chart depicting the scientific method.” Photo. 2012.

Lewis, Mark, dir. Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. 1988; Australia: 2015. Youtube.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

Sustainable Human. “How Wolves Change Rivers.” Youtube Video, 4:33. February 13, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

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Environmental History

Ashley Morales

9/16/20

This week’s readings examined environmental preservation from a global scale, and examined history from a geologic time scale from the big bang. Big history is a way to observe time from the big bang, and functions as an overview. It is not as human-centric as traditional history, and instead of separating humanity by civilizations, it observes society’s overall scope. Big history studies large trends over time, such as periods of extinction or periods of prosperity for life. It is an interdisciplinary approach to history, including some life science (“Big History”). However, it does still spend quite a bit of time studying humanity due to our profound effect on the earth in such little time. Part of the cause of our environmental impact is modernization, and from the industrial revolution to the present, environmental preservation has been an uphill battle. And if our modern lifestyles don’t keep the planet in mind, is it really a “progress”?

The anthropocene is a proposed epoch of geologic time that would mark the impact of humanity on the earth and would include anthropogenic climate change. Geologic epochs are a way to divide such large spans of time, such as the Paleocene epoch, whose beginning was marked by the asteroid impact that killed off seventy-five percent of Earth’s species. We are currently undergoing a large extinction event, which typically marks geologic periods of time. Scientists and historians debate over when to start this anthropocene, because some believe it should start at the beginning of human manipulation of the earth when we began farming as opposed to hunting and gathering. Others feel that it should start when we detonated the first nuclear bombs, because that shows a profound shift in our impact and a shift in the environment, with ecosystems still reeling from the event. It will take nature years to recover from the levels of radiation released from the detonations (“Anthropocene”).

I believe the anthropocene should begin around the industrial revolution, because that shows a marked shift in our use of resources, advances in technology, and societal changes in environmental views. The industrial revolution was when we started to severely alter the environment by mining for coal on a large scale, building railroads across huge stretches of land, and manufacturing products in factories. It is the beginning of the modern lifestyle of overconsumption and destruction, which has defined our epoch.

Additionally, this time period in America was also when people started to worry about our resource use and our effect on our surrounding environment. Early conservationists from the mid-1800s such as Henry David Thoreau and George Perkins Marsh. Thoreau noticed native species around him dwindling, so he moved to a cabin in the woods and wrote about his experience through an environmental lens. Marsh raised the question if natural resources truly were inexhaustible, so with studies he showed that the rise and fall of civilizations of the past had been determined by their resource use, and that many past societies fell due to reckless consumption of natural resources or inefficient resource use. However, conservation of the environment became more popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, the foundation of the Sierra Club, and the environmental protection policies of Theodore Roosevelt.

The aforementioned policies just outline the early stages of American environmentalism. Modern environmentalism took off with Rachel Carson’s A Silent Spring. The book outlined the effect that the pesticide DDT had on the soil, air, and water, and was a milestone in the protection of the quality of our natural resources.This also influenced a number of environmental laws and policies in the 1960s-1970s. Congress banned the use of DDT in 1972, and environmentalists hoped that the government would continue to fight for environmental rights. During the Nixon presidency, America saw an unprecedented rise in the number of environmental protection laws. The Clean Air Act of 1970, The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency were all championed by President Nixon during a high point in American environmental advocacy. (Miller and Spoolman, 2007)

“Trends in total DDT concentrations in whole fish sampled by the National Contaminant Biomonitoring Program from 1969 to 1986. Data are from U.S. Geological Survey, 1992. For the 90th (or 50th) percentile concentration, 90 (or 50) percent of samples were below the concentration shown.”

In recent years, fossil fuel corporations and organizations have taken a stance against environmental protection that has been heavily supported financially, and has created a problem for the environmentalism movement by blocking and rolling back environmental protection policies. The corporate stance has been supported by many politicians. In fact, we have not had a president since Richard Nixon who prioritized environmentalism in their campaign or time in office. Our rapid growth and consumption is going mostly unchecked in the US, and seeing as the US is a major contributor to worldwide pollution and a major consumer of world resources, the consequences of this could be disastrous. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is a book by Jared Diamond detailing the collapses of past civilizations, as well as the factors that we face that could lead to ours. Some modem problems discussed include deforestation, overpopulation, and anthropogenic climate change, with the root of our issues being overpopulation relative to carrying capacity. It is reasonable to worry that without change, these issues will doom modern society. We tend to value progress or growth as arbitrary measures of societal success, but these are the ugly side effects to our lack of restraint in our quest for so-called progress (“Collapse: How Societies…”).

Humanity has not always lived beyond its environmental means. During the “tribal” era of environmental history, humans lived sustainably on the land with minimal environmental impact. However, European settlement changed that, clearing forests for settlement and displacing those who had lived there and cared for the land for so long. European settlement was the beginning of an incredibly damaging time for the North American environment. Settlers/colonies had little idea of the impact of their actions, and just saw land as something to own and conquer rather than an environment that we as humans exist within and rely on. (Miller and Spoolman, 2007)

In the view of geologic historical timelines, humans have not been around for long at all. Yet in courses on big history, the study of humanity still takes up around a third of the material. This is due to our profound impact and innovation. However, was it “better” during the tribal era? Modernity has solved a lot of problems in terms of humanity’s quality of life, but the complications that come with modern societies also seem to impede efforts to protect the planet we call home. Capitalist interest has seeped into every part of life, to the point where the Environmental Protection Agency is barely even protecting the environment anymore, and instead allowing drilling in nature preserves for example. It is clear that the sentiment of the seventies was wrong, and the government will not put policies in place to help environmental problems without extreme public pressure.

Word count: 1129

Blog Question: Is the increasing separation from nature in modern life affecting our view of the environment? Is “modernity” really working in our favor? Is it possible to care for the environment and live sustainably without completely uprooting society, or is the uprooting of society necessary?

Bibliography:

Miller, G. T., & Spoolman, S. (2007). Living in the environment. Cengage Learning.

Pesticides in Stream Sediment and Aquatic Biota. USGS. https://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/pnsp/pubs/fs09200/.

Wikipedia contributors, "Anthropocene," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthropocene&oldid=983363396 (accessed September 16, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, "Big History," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_History&oldid=982722857 (accessed September 16, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed&oldid=981990777 (accessed September 16, 2020).

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Environmental Ethics

Ashley Morales

9/23/20

This week’s readings focused on environmental ethics, justice, and our relationships with nature. The textbook chapter discusses environmental worldviews, education, and sustainability. Environmental worldviews diverge into two major branches: human centered and earth centered. Human centered focuses on humans as either dominant creatures that can exact our will, or as dominant protectors of the environment. Either way, according to this view, our needs come first, and the environment serves us. The earth centered worldviews (or life centered worldviews as they are sometimes called) claim that all forms of life have value, even if that value is not particularly useful to humans, and that they deserve to exist just as much as we do. How we view ourselves in relation to the environment is important in determining our actions to either benefit or harm it. The overlap between environmental worldviews, environmental justice and our relationship with nature begs the question: how can we improve? Education and exposure to nature could help reduce environmental impact and injustice.

Another major tenet of our readings was the idea of environmental justice. Environmental justice is the intersection between social justice and environmentalism. It realizes that there is inequality in environmental quality and environmental benefits/burdens between communities, and that those inequalities are influenced by race and socioeconomic status. For example, toxic waste sites and landfills tend to be placed in lower income and/or minority neighborhoods and can have harmful effects on residents. Once the issue is identified, if local government even listens to community concerns at all, response time is embarrassingly poor: there are “dramatic differences between white communities and people of color communities in the time it took to mitigate hazardous sites; there were also marked disparities in compensation measures, the penal-ties against polluters and violators of pollution-law, and the stringency of cleanup solutions” (Figueroa, 2009). There is little sense of urgency for the wellbeing of these communities based on response time to hazard, as if these people are seen as disposable. Additionally, these neighborhoods have less representation in decision making processes and less total political power than richer whiter neighborhoods, and thus have to receive the consequences of decisions they had no say in. Education and awareness of these issues are integral to resolving them, as many people outside the problem, as well as even those experiencing it are not educated on what is happening to them, and how they are victims of environmental injustice. Education could potentially lead to activism and reform.

As a society, we can barely acknowledge and protect the rights of our fellow citizens now. But an interesting philosophical/ethical dilemma is our responsibility to future generations. This idea interrogates one main question: does the present generation have an obligation to forfeit some convenience now for the security of generations in the future? This brings up a few issues. First, if these theoretical people do not exist yet, how can we negotiate what is best for them and us. They also cannot reward or punish us for our actions because when they are around and feel the effects of our actions, we will be gone. But it would have been very helpful for our current environmental situation if our parents’ and grandparents’ generations had taken us into account when making decisions about energy, pollution, and resource use. Additionally, sustainable consumption would be better for our immediate wellbeing as well as establishing better-functioning systems for the future. In terms of systematic change, it is good to frame these issues in person-person terms, even if it slightly devalues nature. This is because it sells reform and change better, especially in politics.

It seems to be easy to devalue and reject nature, especially since we are moving more towards urban living and distancing ourselves from the natural environment. We could take an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. However, we do rely on nature, not only for resources, but for our own happiness due to our evolutionary relationship with nature. Biophilia is an “innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms” and has two main components. The innate aspect means that this is part of human genes and evolution, while the emotional aspect means that it can be pleasing and/or motivate action driven by an emotional response. We also physically benefit from time outside: “In addition to the emotional and physiological benefits from nature contact, there is some evidence of a linkage to cognitive functioning” (Heerwagen, 2009). It really makes very little sense that we continue to pollute and devalue nature, even though it has been proven to be a lifeline for us, not only in its usefulness for our lifestyles, but in its benefits for us internally. A lack of contact with nature is referred to as “nature-deficit disorder” and can point to a variety of issues such as anxiety or attention-deficit disorders (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). This is why urban areas are desperately in need of greenspace such as parks and trees and gardens. Not only would it benefit us physically, but it would help us feel more empathy for the environment because we’d be surrounded by it, and maybe would help some disparities in environmental quality between communities.

Being around nature and being educated both about it and by it can help solve a lot of our current environmental issues. We actively threaten our own species existence with our action, and part of it stems from the fact that not enough people are educated about the environment, or how it works. Those who make policy allowing oil drilling for example would benefit from formal environmental education in order to see the issues with that decision. Additionally, many people could benefit from the aforementioned contact with the environment. A lack of intimate connection with the environment can reduce our perceived responsibility to the environment and to others (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). The best way to approach and solve issues is with education. This can be seen within the current Black Lives Matter movement, where many non-black allies are educating themselves in order to better address and combat racism within themselves and their own communities. Being open to learning, especially in the issues of racism and the environment, where the facts seem to be clear, is the first step towards change. Issues of racism and ignorance can stem from bigotry, and it is possible to change. Environmental injustices towards people of color does not need to be part of our reality. It exists because of systemic injustices based on prejudices that can be unlearned. What is harder to change is self interest. After learning about racial discrimination in environmental hazards, will people who are unaffected by these issues be willing to take on some of the burden to soften the blow for the oppressed? After learning about the benefits of nature, or even experiencing them, will fossil fuel companies change their tactics and values for the common good of society?

Word count: 1154

Blog Question:

Why is it so hard for humans to give up convenience for the wellbeing of others? We see this now during coronavirus with mask-wearing, and with the arguments against intergenerational responsibility and even just in the presence of environmental injustice. It’s a very “why should I care about them mentality”. How can we evolve from that, especially on a large scale?

Bibliography:

Courtney Cameron, “5 Health Benefits of Spending Time in Nature,” Natural Wellness Academy, October 7, 2019,

https://www.naturalwellnessacademy.org/2019/10/07/5-health-benefits-of-spending-time-in-nature/

Figueroa, Robert Melchior. 2009. “Environmental Justice.” In Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott, 341-348.

Heerwagen, Judith. 2009. “Biophilia.” In Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott, 109-113.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

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Environmental Economics and Capitalism

Ashley Morales

9/30/20

This week’s readings interrogated the value of ecosystem services, sustainable business, our place as consumers and citizens, and the role of environmental law and policy. Ecosystem services are the benefits that we reap from the environmental functions, such as nutrient cycling or pollination. We greatly undervalue them economically, not including the price of harming them in the total price of the good or service we use them for. We also undervalue our natural capital itself, such as our forests or lakes and rivers. If we actually used the full-cost pricing of goods and services, which would include the externalities of the ecosystem services and natural capital often left out, we could actually use our resources more sustainably because we as producers and consumers would understand the true cost (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). “If ecosystem services were actually paid for, in terms of their value contribution to the global economy, the global price system would be very different from what it is today. The price of commodities using ecosystem services directly or indirectly would be much greater” (Costanza, et al., 1997), and knowing that producers try to make everything as low cost to produce and consumers try to buy the lowest cost option, we would produce and buy less as a direct result.

Diagram of ecosystem services.

The textbook chapter twenty three also explained subsidies, and this shows that the government has more control over the economy than a lot of people think. The government can intervene to prevent market failure, and the only reason fossil fuels are the price that they are is because the government subsidizes coal and oil companies. These are “perverse subsidies, [which] lead to environmental damage and harmful health effects. Examples include depletion subsidies and tax breaks for extracting minerals and fossil fuels, cutting timber on public lands, and irrigating with low-cost water. These subsidies and tax breaks distort the economic playing field and create a huge economic incentive for unsustainable resource waste, depletion, and environmental degradation” (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). They could very easily subsidize renewable energy companies instead, but they choose not to. Glorification of coal and oil by the government has leached into society and has become an example of how salesmanship has permeated culture and forced us into the role of willing consumer. Coal and oil were sold as agents of progress and economic growth, and so we buy cars and complain when gasoline prices rise, even though gas is not nearly as expensive as it would be if it was not subsidized by the government.

Capitalism does not only compel us to use up resources, but it preaches productivity and consumerism as a way to add meaning to your life. Within our capitalist society, people themselves are seen as numbers and only valued by our productivity. We are even sold political candidates through capitalist methods. This is the main argument of the article “Consumer or Citizen” on The Online Gadfly. According to the article, “the distinction between the consumer and the citizen is crucial to an understanding of the causes of the degradation of our political institutions. That distinction might also point the way toward a restoration of our democracy” (Partridge, 2002). This is an important issue, because if a small group of salespeople can advertise their candidate to us well enough, that can affect our culture and our future. The article claims that we are sold candidates through a series of images and buzzwords, and that because of this we have begun to care more about a candidate's image, air, and “likeability” as opposed to actual arguments and stances on important issues. An example is the Al Gore vs Bush election, because during the debates Gore clearly showed masterful command of language, argument, and fact, but Bush won the election because his team pushed him as more “likeable”. Politics now uses the same advertisement tools as corporations, and we are just cogs in the machine. Politics is sold to us through entertainment as a distraction from real issues, similarly to the “bread and circuses” of ancient Rome, when the Roman government made sure to feed and entertain the population to keep them calm and ignorant of real issues.

We are evolving into consumers in our everyday lives because we are being treated as consumers at every turn with ads and media telling us we need things. Even our emotional responses are commodified as tools for political campaigns, that then try and sell our feelings back to us in exchange for a vote. We are used as focus groups, with our emotions recorded and manipulated. This can be applied to environmental issues because people still seem to ignore obvious facts, both in electoral debate and environmental discourse. This is because climate change deniers sell their side well, playing to people's innate emotional desire for comfort and stability, so they say that nothing is wrong and people believe it.

Reading this article honestly felt like the plot description of a Black Mirror episode, especially when the author discussed the oligarchical structure of the government, and that the ideal citizen is an efficient worker who consumes and wastes without a second thought, and is well trained but not too educated in order to avoid uprising, and instead is obedient while the oligarchs control their life. “Success” is really just a social construct based on how much you can afford to consume and waste, and without knowing, we are just pawns of these larger systems of power. This reminds me of the song “The Fine Print'' by The Stupendium, which satirizes American capitalism by setting it on a space colony.

However, there is still opportunity and room for change. We can break the cycle of thoughtless consumption and waste, and we can evolve into more than what the aforementioned “oligarchs” want us to be. New visions of law, policy, and business are popping up and developing to be more environmentally friendly. Sustainable businesses, sometimes also referred to as green businesses, abide by certain practices that reduce waste and environmental impact, and actually try to have a positive effect on the surrounding environment or community (“Sustainable business”). They also attempt to incorporate “progressive environmental and human rights policies” (“Sustainable business”). If more businesses abided by these ideals, we would consume and waste less. Additionally beneficial to our society would be a lean towards environmental law and policy that protects nature and incorporates principles of environmental justice, protecting those who are unjust victims of environmental hazards. It is evident that change needs to happen soon, and we need to restructure business to reduce waste, restructure laws to increase sustainability and address issues such as environmental racism, and restructure our economy to take into account the external environmental costs of goods and services. It is an intimidating task, but the government holds a lot of power in this matter, and if they subsidized and sold sustainability to us like they do fossil fuel companies and political candidates, we might stand a chance.

Blog Question: Is there ethical consumption under capitalism? Does capitalism even make sense as a modern economic system? Is “green capitalism” a viable option for the future?

Word Count: 1192

Bibliography:

Costanza, Robert, Ralph d’Arge, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farberk, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, Shahid Naeem, Robert V. O’Neill, Jose Paruelo, Robert G. Raskin, Paul Suttonkk & Marjan van den Belt. “The Value of the World’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital.” May, 1977.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RRERLVGVvV2dZSWM/view

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

Partridge, Earnest. “Consumer or Citizen.” The Online Gadfly. April, 2002. http://gadfly.igc.org/politics/left/consumer.htm

“What are Ecosystem Services?”. CEEWeb for Biodiversity.

http://www.ceeweb.org/work-areas/priority-areas/ecosystem-services/what-are-ecosystem-services/ (accessed September 29, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, "Sustainable business," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sustainable_business&oldid=970836002 (accessed September 29, 2020).

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Population Growth and Employment

Ashley Morales

10/7/20

This week’s materials have to do with population growth and its relationship to ecological damage and quality of life. To start, there are almost 8 billion people on this planet according to the world population clock, and the number is growing steadily (“Current World Population”). According to the US population clock, there is a birth about every 8 seconds and a death about every 12 seconds. That coupled with a new international migrant every 47 seconds leads to a net gain of one person every 18 seconds. Even though the US population numbers are not growing quite as fast as the world population clock, whose numbers are flying, the US population is still growing quite steadily, and a gain of one person every 18 seconds is important for the third most populated country in the world (“US and World Population Clock”).

Is Earth able to support all of these people? The world’s carrying capacity, or the number of people it can support is a hotly debated topic among scientists and scholars, with some questioning if it even exists, and arguing that the technological progress we have made so far and further innovation will nullify the idea that there is a limit to the amount of people that the earth’s resources can sustain. We bypassed this limit through the genetic engineering of food, so technically we could further bypass it as technology evolves.

Population growth in more and less developed countries

Source: United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision, medium variant (2011).

Is population growth a problem? Currently yes, because of the way that we are growing. Most of the population growth occurs in the world’s less developed countries, with only 4% of the new population being added to more developed countries in 2018. So the real question to consider is the quality of life of those being born. This refers to cultural carrying capacity, or “the maximum number of people who could live in reasonable freedom and comfort indefinitely, without decreasing the ability of the earth to sustain future generations” (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). The current issues are that most babies are born into extreme poverty, and, as those countries develop, their resource use will increase intensely. While the Earth may not have a distinct limit in terms of the resources that can sustain us, it does have a limit as to how many people can live here comfortably and happily in the long term.

How can it be fixed? Many of the issues that stem from overpopulation have relatively simple solutions. The issue is implementation. For example, fertility rate could be lowered through an increase in educational and employment opportunities for women. Additionally, access to family planning resources and birth control would further reduce population growth, and lessen strain on families and the environment. But for those solutions to be implemented, one would have to contend with the religious societal values of the countries that need it most. Many of the countries with the most rapidly growing populations have cultural values to prevent the education of women or the use of birth control (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). Therefore, this relatively simple solution becomes more complex, because a solution that would be accepted by the country would be one that does not conflict with societal values, even though those values are sexist.

To reduce consumption, especially in more developed countries, we could employ more people per position and have every individual employee work fewer hours. People having more free time would encourage creativity and do-it-yourself projects, and actually reduce the mindless consumption of products that we are taught is beneficial for the economy, but is actually incredibly harmful to the environment (New Dream, 2011). However, in order to implement these changes we would have to subvert the American expectation of working at 100% all the time, and the ideas that having more money or stuff is a measure of success and happiness. And as is evident by the fact that we still deal with these issues even though we know how to solve them, changing the culture of a society, even for the benefit of its own residents, is very difficult.

However, aspects of these solutions are already being implemented. The New York sustainability plan, also known as PlaNYC, was a plan proposed by mayor Bloomberg in 2007 to help reduce resource consumption and prepare for new residents sustainably (“PlaNYC”). Transition towns have also been attempted and community funded to combat the effects of climate change and economic instability through increased self-sufficiency (“Transition town”).

What are some other benefits of this reformed society? Other benefits of this reformed society would be an overall higher quality of life. Working less would not only reduce consumption, it would reduce unemployment and therefore lessen poverty rates. Additionally, it would reduce stress on the individual employees. People would be able to pick up hobbies or cook healthier food or just relax. The parable of the businessman and the fisherman really sticks with me when I consider this potential future. Basically, a businessman goes on vacation and sees a fisherman, and asks about his life. The fisherman goes out in the morning to catch fish, plays with his children, then in the afternoon he teaches children how to fish and in the evening he goes into town with his wife and friends. The businessman then gives him (unsolicited) advice as to how he can increase his productivity, wealth, and potentially grow an empire. When the fisherman asks what he would do with the wealth, the businessman replies that he would pack up and settle down somewhere, fish in the morning, play with his children… and essentially live the life he already has (Koehler, 2008). Why do we as a society over complicate life so much? Why do so many people work jobs they don’t like day in and day out just to hopefully someday retire, relax, and get to enjoy their time? If jobs just employed more people for fewer hours each, there would be less unemployment, and more people would have both greater financial stability and greater free time. People would get to enjoy life while they are living it instead of spending all their time slaving away for corporate America just to get maybe two days off at the end of the week.

What's stopping us from creating this utopia? Mainly that it does not benefit the heads of large corporations who essentially own the government. If companies hire more workers, that means they have to pay more salaries, slightly decreasing their profit. If people have more time off, consume less, and create more, then they are not the mindless consuming employees that corporations want. Corporations benefit off of the culture of working yourself to the bone until that magical age when you can retire. A more stable economy and less resource consumption are sold as stagnation because it does not represent constant growth. But is constant growth really beneficial? If the majority of the people contributing to the economy can’t enjoy their lives due to stress or unemployment, who is said “economic growth” truly benefitting?

Blog Question: Why don’t more people realize that we can in fact change society? Society can be restructured, the current system is not the only way of doing things. So why are people so complicit in the lackluster quality of their lives instead of actively looking for ways to restructure?

Word Count: 1236

Bibliography:

Berrett Koehler, “More Than Money - What Is "The Good Life" Parable,” YouTube video, 3:05, August 8, 208, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7JlI959slY

“Current World Population.” Worldometer. Accessed October 6, 2020. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

New Dream, “Visualizing a Plenitude Economy,” YouTube video, 4:51, September 15, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HR-YrD_KB0M

United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision, medium variant (2011).

“U.S. and World Population Clock.” Population Clock. United States Census Bureau. Accessed October 6, 2020. https://www.census.gov/popclock/.

Wikipedia contributors, "PlaNYC," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PlaNYC&oldid=952681772 (accessed October 6, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, "Transition town," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transition_town&oldid=980641800 (accessed October 6, 2020).

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cals-desk · 5 years ago

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things I’ve learned in a college prep program;

I’ve been in the Cambridge/AICE (advanced international certificate of education) program since the 5th grade but in 7th grade there was a major difference from the previous years of the program and I think some of this information could be helpful for anyone.

1) explain everything

- many people I know don’t like open ended questions because they feel more comfortable in their ability to guess from some given choices, but when you are faced with these questions explain everything. If you don’t know the answer explain what you do know and you might get some points because 5 points is still better than 0

2) be overly specific

- this one relates to #1 in a way, but it’s a little different. When taking an exam or writing an essay you can not assume the grader will assume you know anything. It might seem silly but specifically putting salty ocean water on a question that is obviously about the ocean will secure your points. [Ex: on many marine science tests I got points off because the mark scheme was overly specific and since I wrote a general answer (water instead of salty ocean water) it was technically wrong]

3) read every question first

- when you’re given a timed test read all of the questions first because you may be able to answer some questions easier than others. It’s better to answer questions out of order than spending 10 minutes on a 3 point question you aren’t sure about when there are many other questions you will know the answer to.

4) don’t be scared to ask for help

- sometimes it’s very intimidating to ask your teacher to explain something again when the rest of the class gets it because you don’t want to seem dumb, but trust me no one is judging and things can never be explained enough. It’s better to feel embarrassed for a few minutes than to be lost the whole unit because you didn’t know how to do something.

5) study old material too

- many times I have been caught up in studying current material and when it came time for practice exams I had already forgotten the information since I stopped reviewing it. This seems hard but even reviewing old flash cards helps.

6) make fake “cheat sheets”

- while studying ask yourself “what would i write on a cheat sheet if I was allowed to use one”, write down any formulas or information that is hard to remember and study that small sheet extra so when the test comes around you have memorized your “cheat sheet” and will feel more comfortable taking the test. (I feel like I shouldn’t have to clarify but you never know tbh, I am NOT suggesting you cheat on a test the “cheat sheet” is just for studying and should be used as a study guide)

7) if it’s easy enough to “do it later” do it NOW

- there have been many times where I planned on doing an assignment later since I thought it was easy and it wouldn’t take too much time, but it’s better to get it out of the way because sometimes you may forget or it may be harder than you expected

8) study with friends

- sometimes people study better in groups but are too scared to ask someone to study with them, but it can be as simple as just asking someone to review flash cards or quiz you on a study guide. Last year when we had free time at school sometimes we would all go through flash cards as a group and see who could get the most right and it didn’t seem like we were actually studying but we were hearing the information again so it did help and we were motivating each other to study since we wanted to get the most cards

I hope this helped even if it was just a little bit<3

This is all I can think of atm and if I come up with anything else I will add it or I could make a part 2. If anyone has any questions I could also include that in a part 2. Also some of these things might be common knowledge but I’ve never been to a “normal” middle school or high school so I don’t really know if these are things that people usually do.

#calsdesk #studyblr #emmastudies #studyquill #tbhstudying #studywithme #study #studygram #studyspo #study tips #studying #cambridge program #aice program

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littleladymab · 5 years ago

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i got tagged by @justakidfromabadan and then I promptly forgot and wandered off for two hours here’s a little about me thing

1. Do you make your bed? nOPE not even after thinking “wow my blankets are all askance ah well”

2. What’s your favorite number? it varies on my mood

3. What’s your job? Technically it’s "Finance Analyst” since we’ve moved to the centralized accounting but for all intents and purposes I’m “Accounts Receivable Supervisor” at a hotel

4. If you could go back to school, would you? I want to go back to school but with none of the "i must prove my knowledge via a quiz or test”. Papers I don’t mind so much buT I DON’T WANT TO BE GRADED ON THEM. There are just things I can’t get access to if I do it on my own (jstor!!!!!!!)

5. Can you parallel park? I’ve gotten loads better, but I learned how to drive in a ‘97 Buick Le Sabre so even in my smaller cars I think there is So Much More Car

6. A job you had that would surprise people? hmm.... all my jobs are pretty mundane office jobs or extremely indicative of who I am as a person (or not surprising for my area)

7. Do you think aliens are real? Yes!

8. Can you drive a manual car? Nope

9. What’s your guilty pleasure? Uhh, I can’t think of any

10. Tattoos? None, but there’s a few I want who wants to take me for my birthday

11. Favorite color? I love jewel tones and metallics! Specifically, I love that rich mustard yellow, bordeaux red, and a rich deep teal, and bronze/coppers

12. Favorite type of music? Depends on what I’m doing, tbh anything I can loop and zone out to, i guess

13. Things people do that drive you crazy? Not learning how to do their jobs and then relying on other people to fix their mistakes!!! Also, I’m not your google!!

14. Do you love doing puzzles? SOME PUZZLES I am super bad at puzzles that rely on spatial awareness! 3D puzzles fuck me up bad because I cannot conceive of how they would rotate in space

15. Any phobias? I’m looking at you, Peter Lukas

16. Favorite childhood sport? I was a soccer child

17. Do you talk to yourself? oh my god yeah, I’ll also just talk out loud or to inanimate objects (or my cat, as a substitute for myself)

18. What movie do you adore? ONLY ONE????? shit. Well I’ve got Promare on the brain so let’s go with that.

19. Coffee or tea? Yes please (as a general preference, though, tea)

20. First thing you wanted to be growing up? I’m that kid that always wanted to be a writer 😔

No tags, do it if you’d like!

#about me

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smithshawn24 · 5 years ago

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A Beautiful Journey

How has each course contributed to your personal and professional development as an instructional designer?

Each course has contributed to my personal and professional development by dispelling some of the things I thought I knew about instructional design. For one I believed that instructional design was just a manual that is read or seen on screen. These past twelve months have demonstrated me how wrong I was in assuming that notion.

1. Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership impressed upon me to recognize my weaknesses and discover my Grit. Personally, in doing so I expanded my mind to self-discovery and inviting mentors into my life to support me along the way. Professionally it encouraged me to forge relationships with more experienced people in this field to build my talent.

2. Strategies for Learner Engagement has convinced me to comprehend the fact that not every learner learns in the same way. Professionally I am in a more prominent position to develop more creative ways to deliver training materials that suit various learners but still yield the same intended outcomes. Personally, I will demonstrate more diverse ways of thinking when it comes to the learning needs of others who do not fall into the same generic categories.

3. Visual and Verbal Communication in Instructional Design has revealed to me the time and consideration it takes to develop extremely effective communications in those two areas. Professionally I will develop a style that is my own while staying consistent within the rules of visual and verbal communication. Personally, I am gaining more sensitivity towards other cultures and how they may perceive certain colors and phrases so as not to outrage them personally.

4. Corporate Training and Motivational Development directed me on how to always consider the customer's needs, which may expand more considerably than pre-written company provided materials. Professionally I am capable of developing an effective Training Needs Analysis based on interactions with company individuals. Personally, I can establish an emotional trust with the company because they will know I maintain their most beneficial interest in mind.

5. Instructional Design and Evaluation really got to the essence of why I undertook this journey. It encouraged me to comprehend the very fundamentals of instructional design, which include things like choosing a design model and selecting the target audience. Professionally I am currently capable to develop a training plan using the ADDIE approach proficiently. Personally, I am experienced to comprehend which approach is best to implement based on my evaluation of the target audience’s state of mind.

6. Digital Media and Learning Applications directed me on how to utilize digital media as an effective learning tool. Furthermore, implementing various learning styles that will contribute to the desired outcomes as well. Professionally I can currently develop summative and formative assessments to measure learning outcomes. Personally, I can appreciate the value or lack of in most digital media I consume on a daily basis. Therefore providing me with the choice in what I learn.

7. Music and Audio for Instructional Design introduced the concept of how audio can remain an effective tool for learning. Curtis Carter’s article really shone some light on the concept with his four design principles. Professionally, I am capable of delivering audio instructions and storytelling in a compelling and entertaining way. Personally, I have found a storytelling style that I feel comfortable offering to other projects.

8. Filmmaking Principles for Instructional Design demonstrated to me the power of storytelling when making instructional videos. Moreover the skill it requires to write a compelling story to narrate. Professionally I am capable of writing and storytelling with provided assets. Additionally, I am capable of writing, storyboarding and narrating a fully self-produced video. Personally, I retain the value of lighting and camera positions to compose unique shots.

9. Game Strategies and Motivation introduced robust creative ways of learning through gamification and game-based learning. This class was extremely enjoyable because it related to how much of modern society learns today through video games and social media. Professionally I am capable of developing rapid prototypes to demonstrate how the game functions. I am equally capable of developing game-based learning tools based on specific learning needs. Personally, I will be experienced to identify the target audience’s learning needs by having fun when designing these learning games.

10. Learning Management Systems and Organization presents itself as the most significant phase of instructional designs. This is when the instructional designer gets to decide how the curriculum gets distributed to the learners. Professionally I am prepared to identify and select from the various choices LMS’s have to offer. Furthermore, I can identify the benefits and concerns each has to offer. Personally, I will utilize my graphic design and coding experience to customize the LMS.

11. Media Asset Creation helped causes the other entire elements like the quizzes and role-playing games together in the Capstone project. They, in addition, presented it with a polished look along with a direct connection to the theme. Professionally I am currently capable of producing and editing instructional videos that include narration and music. In addition to creating a storyboard, script and shot list of the videos. Personally, I learned how to stay self-motivated by experimenting with contrasting filming styles and concepts. Last, staying on task each week with my improved time-management skills.

12. Final Instructional Design & Technology has demonstrated to me the importance of representing my work visually with a quality demo reel. Equally adopting all the techniques, I have learned and made the demo reel entertaining enough to inspire people to visit my website to view my portfolio in detail.

How well were you able to utilize the concepts and techniques you learned from the program (theories, systems design, interface styling, and the creation of multimedia content) as you designed, developed, and implemented your Capstone Project?

All of the concepts and techniques provided to us were definitely used by myself for the Capstone Project. The four design principles in audio instruction were instrumental to me in reliably delivering my character narrations. Especially the first design principle called Selecting a Narrative Format. It was this one that made my narrations shine because I discovered how to deliver my narrations through dramatic and personal narratives.

The creation of my multimedia content revealed my retention of creating storyboards and writing scripts that considered the learning styles of the target audience as well as teaching them. The more feedback I favorably received for my videos, the more creative ideas flowed naturally into my creative processes. One of the most valuable techniques was properly utilizing the three-second rule in the videos. I consciously made sure to not focus on static images or specific camera angles for no longer than three seconds. Personally, the Capstone Project represents a tremendous experience when it arrived time to develop the demo reel.

Last, learning how to create interactive quizzes utilizing web coding helped design a more customized look. The techniques displayed in the Digital Media and Learning Applications course were foundational in creating quizzes that adhered to the key theme. By going back and revisiting some of these courses, it will help solidify my comprehension of these techniques. Moving forward I will lean on this training periodically and its methods to cement my understanding of instructional design.

Describe your most outstanding personal triumph in each course.

I found personal triumph in each course not because of the grade but because of life lessons I walk away with. This journey has gone from a financial endeavor to an academic achievement to a personal investment. Each one has its rewards and more importantly each has affected me personally.

1. Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership's biggest triumph came from reading Robert Greene’s Mastery. In many ways, it has disciplined me about this journey and myself and how less evolved minds lead to complacency and conformity.

2. Strategies for Learner Engagement's biggest triumph came from comprehending how I must relate to individual learners as much as entire groups. Understanding the emotional value between the audience and I can offer a much stronger trust and engagement.

3. Visual and Verbal Communication in Instructional Design's biggest triumph comes from being able to correctly perform research and designing credible infographics. Research has not always been my strong suit, but I persevered and learned to do it the correct way. Not to mention showcase my graphic design skills.

4. Corporate Training and Motivational Development's biggest triumph come from being able to design my first training tool. To witness it from conception to functional made me very proud of myself. Furthermore, see a future for me as an instructional designer. It also was the first time I used Adobe XD.

5. Instructional Design and Evaluation's biggest triumph comes from composing a Training Needs Analysis. I was having trouble comprehending this method in the course earlier but stayed inquisitive and determined. At the end of week four, my comprehension grew and was able to write a professional Training Needs Analysis.

6. Digital Media and Learning Applications biggest triumph come from being able to aid my peers in completing the interactive quiz assignments. With my knowledge of code writing, I was experienced in determining the cause of their issues and provide solutions. It was the first time I was effective in utilizing instructional training in real-time.

7. Music and Audio for Instructional Design's biggest triumph come from my finding out about talent I did not know I had in performing character voices. The result was some of my most competent work during these 12 months. Moreover, I have discovered a tool that I can incorporate into my design style and offer clients.

8. Filmmaking Principles for Instructional Design's biggest triumph comes of being able to set up lighting to film a professional instructional video. This skill will be invaluable as I can offer my video production skills as one of my instructional design services.

9. Game Strategies and Motivation's biggest triumph come from being able to highlight a current problem in society. Next, demonstrate a way to confront the issue in an entertaining fashion. The game-based tool utilized is informative and motivational to the intended target audience.

10. Learning Management Systems and Organization's biggest triumph comes from learning how to input and customize Canvas LMS. I was a little fearful of tackling this program because I have solely dealt with one LMS before. The materials provided in the course were enormously valuable and in the end, I currently know how to handle two LMS’s.

11. Media Asset Creation's biggest triumph was fulfilling my Design Brief schedule. My media assets contained three lengthy instructional videos that required storyboards, scripts, and narrations. Leaning on the first eleven months of learning, I was capable of employing every technique and method I knew and delivered quality work on time. I am enormously satisfied with the exhausting work I offered in this course.

12. Final Instructional Design & Technology biggest triumph comes from creating a demo reel that my instructor found entertaining and of excellent quality. This was the biggest boost I could have received in the last month of this journey.

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skammovistarplus · 6 years ago

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Culture and Translation - S01 E10

After the cut, lots of thoughts of bullying and betrayals. Also, me trying to get through these quick before season 2 starts dropping.

CLIP 1: And now, for a lot of thoughts on bullying

¿Con las clases empezadas? (“Mid-term?”): Nora asks Eva something like, “with school having started?” I reworked it as it sounds awkward.

Es que no me entra nada (“I have no appetite”): Eva says something like, “I can’t get anything inside.” Again, no one says this in English.

Okay, so when this clip dropped, there were some discussions on twitter. Firstly, as someone who has attended high school in the US and Spain, I don’t believe Nora would be nicknamed Joan of Arc at an American high school. I don’t think Joan of Arc is that well-known of a figure that side of the Atlantic. Joan of Arc is a fairly recognizable figure in Spain because she is a Roman Catholic saint, and Spanish culture is highly influenced by Catholicism. In my opinion, a person like Nora, living in Wisconsin, would be called a SJW or a snowflake or something along those lines. The issue is, Spanish people don’t understand what those nicknames would mean. They would, however, understand the nuances of getting called Joan of Arc.

Then there is another issue. Nora says, “I swear that, in the US, being a freak is a lot worse than here.” That raises some questions, because the kind of bullying Eva is victim to, is actually really serious. I believe she has it the worst out of all the Evas. To recap: She has been abandoned by all her friends except for Nora. People are talking about her and pointing at her. People throw notes at her, and she is the victim of 24/7 cyberbullying, which involves a picture of the Eva/Cristian kiss and defacing the pictures posted to her ig. This has been going on for around a week. Tyler Clementi, to name a notable victim of cyberbullying, suffered under similar circumstances.

So, since Nora is speaking from personal experience, how severe was the bullying she suffered in Madison, the bullying that makes her say that, “in the US, being a freak, is a lot worse” than what Eva is experiencing. Some viewers felt that Nora was minimizing the bullying Eva was going through, as Nora only mentions namecalling, being nicknamed Joan of Arc. Spanish teen viewers (the target audience) felt that Nora was exaggerating what “being a freak” is like at an American high school. That is because Spanish teens’ knowledge of American high school comes from, you guessed it, TV shows and movies. In particular, a movie that was brought up in the comments to the clip was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. When this movie was dubbed for Spaniards, the title was translated as “Las ventajas de ser un marginado” (Perks of being marginalized). Now, you will agree that being marginalized is a lot stronger than being a wallflower, and so that led to the impression from certain viewers that being bullied in the US is a glamorous affair where your best friends are Ezra Miller and Emma Watson, you eat cannabis brownies, drive through tunnels for the aesthetics and go to school dances.

In short, this clip attempted to broach the topic of bullying in the US as compared to bullying in Spain, to an audience who has no real references of what American high school culture is like, outside of American popular culture. And to do so, they gave an unrealistic example (American students using Joan of Arc as a demeaning nickname), failed to explain why Nora would feel that bullying at US schools is “a lot worse” than what Eva is experiencing (which barely holds up as an argument, as what Eva is going through has led students in the US to grievous harm), and led more educated viewers to wonder about the extent of the bullying Nora went through. And while bullying at American high schools is an important topic, should that be a topic that Skam ESPAÑA deals with? Is it relevant to the average Spanish teen’s experience? Personally, I feel like the writers may have bitten off more than the show can possibly chew, with this narrative choice, which informs Nora’s character as it is her backstory.

On a lighter note, Nora compares Eva to a dog, which should imply her stance on dogs isn’t so hard-line. The word she uses, “galletitas,” can mean a number of different things in Spanish. Generally speaking, “galletas” are cookies, but they may also be biscuits, salty crackers, or yes, dog food. I went with “kibble” to keep to the dog-related teasing.

Again, the characters suggest that Eva talks to her mom, but she doesn’t. As I mentioned, this is generally true of Spanish teens (we aren’t a hivemind after all), and more specifically, of bullying victims. One of the biggest issues about bullying in Spain is that victims take up to a year to tell their parents.

CLIP 2: Learn English with Skam España

Okay, so this is definitely more about the effects on bullying than culture or translation anymore. Is everyone in that library talking about Eva? At this point, it no longer matters for either Eva or the viewer. The bullying she has gone through so far has made it so that both Eva and the viewer now feel paranoid that everyone is talking shit about Eva while Eva is present. Maybe those guys are just checking 9gag! But since they took out their phones at the same time Eva got an IG notification, it feels like they are definitely mocking Eva. I thought Eva’s actress was great through the entire bullying arc, and I liked that Skam España expanded on the bullying sl from the og, so that we could get a fuller portrait of the effects of bullying on their victims.

¿Con qué estás? (“What are you studying?”): The literal translation would be, “What are you with?” I.e. What subject are you working on right now.

When did Amira take that Bio test? She’s supposed to be in Eva’s group (we saw her in the third clip and she’s also on the Science track), but of course, that test was all about Eva and Lucas’ friendship angst.

Phrasal verbs are the bane of every ESL student’s existence, Cris included.

No seas plasta (“don’t be a pain in the ass”): “Plasta” is a synonym of “pesado/pesada,” which I already covered in an earlier post. It literally means “flattened mass.”

Me cago en la puta (“shit on a whore”): More pooping! Now we’re pooping right on top of prostitutes! But yeah, that’s the literal translation and, you know, sometimes you want to find the closer English equivalent, and other times, you just want to make sure people understand who or what we’re pooping on this time. Cris is really frustrated with her English skills, so she uses one of the stronger pooping variations.

This was one of the clips that were most fun to translate, for the challenge of translating an English quiz to English.

CLIP 3: Mess

Es que ya hay que tener mala hostia (“You really gotta be a fucking asshole”): “Tener mala hostia” is the stronger versión of “tener mala leche” (literally, to have bad milk). A person with “mala leche” is someone who acts in bad faith, a malicious or a bad-tempered person. The idiom comes from the idea that a mother’s breastfeeding milk can have an impact on her person’s temper or personality. “Hostia,” as we’ve covered, is the sacramental bread used for the ritual of the Eucharist, but it’s used more commonly to mean a smack across the face.

Cris makes a point of singling out the person who first uploaded the pic to instagram. When I link Skam España to people, I point out that they should also follow the social media posts, and here’s the reason. If you follow the social media posts, you already know who first uploaded the picture to instagram. It was Inés. The hate ig took it from her stories, cropped it, and posted the first meme. The sequence of events is clear if you followed the show in real time. However, if you bingewatch the episodes and don’t follow social media, you get the impression that, at this point, how the Eva/Cristian picture made it to the hate ig is a mystery. And also, that whoever uploaded it first (who we know to be Inés) is the one with beef against Eva. And, well, there’s beef of the level of “I uploaded a compromising pic to my stories to be a dick” and beef on the level of “I’ve vandalized all your pictures, turned you into a meme and covertly filmed you at school.”

This confrontation is so odd when you consider that, unlike the og girl squad who didn’t know about the letter written in period blood, the Spanish girl squad suspects the second years of being behind the hate ig. In fact, they know the girls have pulled similar shit before. And, best of all, Cris actually hooked up with one of them, so you’d think Cris’ presence might help matters?

The second year girls have a different Maths teacher. This one is a guy. The girl squad’s Maths teacher is a woman.

I find it funny that Rubén was suspended for three days for fighting with ALEJANDRO, but ALEJANDRO was not punished himself.

I just noticed that there should be an “into” in the sentence, “People are huge assholes and anything can turn INTO a joke to laugh your ass off.” Oops.

CLIP 4: Failing grade in Biology and in Friendship

As noted in the subs, in Spain we’re graded on a 0-10 scale. 5 is the passing grade. Lucas got an 8, which is considered a “notable” grade, but not “outstanding” (those are grades over 9). Eva got a 3, which is well below 5. Much like Isak, Lucas is good enough in Biology that he does well in surprise exams. He seems to be resentful of what this grade might do to his GPA though, lol.

Lucas says that his mom was hysterical after his dad left, but the language he uses doesn’t make it explicit that his mom is mentally ill. The writers may or may not keep this part of Isak’s background. Thought I’d mention that since we know at this point that they have no issues giving the Skam España characters entirely different backgrounds. So far, it’s clear that Lucas’ parents fight a lot and that his home life is massively impacting Lucas’ mood and life, but we don’t know what the fights are about.

¿Para esto vienes de buenas a hablar conmigo? (“Is this why you talked to me like nothing happened?”): “de buenas” is kind of tricky to translate. You can come at someone “de buenas” (good) or “de malas” (bad). If you come at someone “de malas,” it means you’re already on a bad mood when you start a conversation, or you’re angling for a fight. On the other hand, if you come at someone “de buenas,” it means you’re in a conciliatory mood, or trying to avoid a fight.

CLIP 5: Hi privileges

Comiéndoos la boca (“Sucking face”): Inés actually says that Jorge and Eva were eating each other’s mouths. This is a common Spanish idiom, by the way!

El insta es muy jodido (“Insta is a mindfuck”): Eva says that Insta is “really fucked up,” as in, it does a number on one’s mental health. I went with “mindfuck” to get to the point of what Eva means, but keeping the swear word.

Eva asks Inés why she stayed friends with Jorge, but not her. I saw some commentary to the tune of, “why did they add that bit of dialogue? It adds nothing to the conversation, we already know this.” Personally, I think it’s good that they added it, because it’s a good starting point for a discussion, and particularly when it comes to the s2 storyline. Skam has gotten massive kudos for promoting sorority and friendship between girls. However, the s2 storyline is about Noora being forced to choose between her friend and a boyfriend. Vilde never dated William, but the storyline shares some of the same elements: Eva is torn between a guy she likes who likes her back, and her friend who is in love with that guy. So is Noora. Skam offers two outcomes to that scenario. Eva’s decision results in her expulsion from her friend group, while ultimately the girl squad friendship is stronger after Noora’s season.

Inés says she assumed that boyfriends come and go, but that she thought she’d stay friends with Eva forever. Was Eva Mohn right in choosing a boyfriend over her best friend? Was Eva Vázquez (since, thanks to the bonus clip, we know more of how Eva and Jorge got together)? Was Inés right to hold a grudge against Eva? And if she was right to do so, was she right to not hold a grudge against Jorge? Is it ever okay to choose a boyfriend over your friends?

Again, if you haven’t kept up with the social media, Inés’ apology may seem confusing. It seems like she admits to being the person behind the hate ig, but then why would she not take credit for the meme? The first profile to make a meme out of the Eva/Cristian pic was eva_la_z0rra (or eva_the_s1ut). That’s because Inés is not behind the hate ig. She just uploaded the pic to her stories. I have noticed that people who didn’t keep up with the social media posts assume Inés took responsibility for the hate ig, which is interesting. You could watch og Skam without the social media posts and the story would be exactly the same than if you’d watched it with the social media posts. Social media added characterization details. When it comes to Skam España, you come away with two very different conclusions as to who ran the hate ig, depending on your level of investment (reading and watching everything vs just watching the episodes).

Retirar el saludo (“to snub someone”): This idiom doesn’t come up in the clip itself, but it gives cultural context to Eva and Inés’ conversation. In the course of a day, we say hi to everyone we know that we come across. We don’t necessarily stop and have a conversation, but we acknowledge them with a “hi” or a “how are you doing.” In Spain, we have a specific idiom for when someone’s fucked up and has lost their “hi” privileges. This is “retirar el saludo” (literally, “to remove the greeting”). Through the conversation, Eva seeks to get her “hi” privileges back, and eventually Inés agrees she will say “hi” to Eva when they see each other at school/around the neighborhood/at parties or botellones. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll stop to talk and catch up, but Eva now gets to be told “hi.”

Social media:

Cris turned 16 this week! I love that the writers specifically picked her birthdate so that it would fall on a day where the girl squad was still broken up. Needless to say, people were very salty in the comments, heh.

I’ve liked the way Skam España has referenced the og with similar social media pics, Kose Club, and song choices. Referencing songs from the og on insta is actually clever as it helps them circumvent music license issues, lol. That said, I think naming the Spanish girl squad after the og girl squad name Las Losers would be far too much. I hope they leave it at that, just a reference on a text update.

#culture and translation #skam españa #skam spain #skames #skamesp

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