It is finally that time of the year (and my life). As a senior, I will graduate in less than 10 days and leave behind a place I called home for a new adventure. As I get ready to leave this place, I can’t help but reflect on all that has occurred in the walls of my high school these past 4 years. Through friendships and stress and tests and sad nights, I’ve gotten to be who and where I am today; I wouldn’t change any of it. When I think about all that I’ve learned here, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to study what I want but also learn things I wouldn’t ordinarily choose. Like this blog.

When I learned I would have to keep this blog all year, I was not too thrilled. I didn’t think I would enjoy writing every week for my English class. But, the more I wrote about my life and things that I liked, the more I enjoyed the creative writing of it all. My favorite posts have been my podcast reviews of Switched on Pop, especially the 7 Rings one. I also loved writing Why I Love Netflix and my review of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. Writing these posts opened me up to new mediums of creativity that I know I’ll continue to look at.

This fall I will be attending George Washington University. Maybe I’ll keep up with the blog. Or maybe it will be just a fond memory. Whatever happens, I’m glad it’s here.

What’s up folks? For the last few weeks I read Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut with my Honors Modern Fiction class. While I was reading and analyzing, I realized many similarities between this novel and Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien, which I read last year with my Honors Humanities class. So, naturally, for this post I decided to highlight some major similarities and differences between these two famous war novels.

I guess I should start off by warning about I am about to spill some major spoilers and that would really stink if you haven’t read these novels. (I seriously loved Going After Cacciato so please don’t read ahead if you haven’t yet! Or do but don’t say I didn’t warn you).

Some major similarities between the book would be through themes of fantasy and other worlds, nonlinear plot structure, and a questionable narrator. In both novels, protagonists Paul Berlin and Billy Pilgrim fashion alternate realities in order to cope with the dangers of war.

In Going After Cacciato, Berlin and his squadron make the ultimate decision to kill their Lieutenant Sydney Martin, as his plans for searching tunnels had already killed 2 of their men, and the rest reasoned that they would be safer without him. Cacciato, apart of this group, does not agree on killing Martin, yet Berlin forces his hand and they kill Martin anyways. Cacciato then deserts the war and plans to walk to Paris in order to get justice for Lieutenant Martin. The rest of the group goes after him to try and stop him. Along the way, the group finds Cacciato and Berlin shoots him down. “He wanted to be liked. He wanted them to understand, all of them, that he felt no hate. It was all a sad accident, he would have told them…He had no stake in the was beyond simple survival…He was no tyrant, no pig, no Yankee killer. He was innocent Yes, he was. He was innocent” (O’Brien 263). Throughout the novel, Berlin faces many more atrocities of war and struggles to separate fantasy from reality. He fabricates his own journey on the Road to Paris in an attempt to make sense of what went wrong. Although the story is fabricated, the characters and actions stem from real experiences.

One aspect of Berlin’s journey that is fabricated is his travel companion, Sarkin, a supposed Vietnamese refugee. While traveling, Berlin and his squad are met with a small group of villagers. Sarkin, a young girl, ends up riding with them as she had always wanted to go to Paris. While she is present for most of their journey, it is plausible that Sarkin was just a figment of Berlin’s imagination. “Did the kids like him? A little girl with gold hoops in her ears and ugly scabs on her brow–did she feel, as he did, goodness and warmth? … He wanted health for her, and happiness. Did she know this? Did she sense his compassion?” (O’Brien 262). Instead of being a real woman traveling with the group, Berlin had seen a young girl on the side of the road and bonded to her sad eyes. She left an impression on him that forced him to evaluate the morality of what he had seen. Berlin didn’t choose to be in the war, but he was there anyways and saw and did some bad things. The only way for him to cop ewith it was to pretend he was in a different reality.

Similarly, in Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is a soldier in the Second World War. His journey goes through the results of being a soldier in the allied forces and being captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war. It is not until after the war and when Billy become more grown does he start to mentally deteriorate. In order to cope with some of the horrid things he had seen, Billy imagines himself being abducted by aliens which he calls Tralfamadorians. “Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun” (Vonnegut 23). These Tralfamadorians are toilet plunger shaped with a hand as a head. Inside the hand, an all seeing eye. Though the novel is fantasy, we know that elements of the novel are consistent with that of reality. But, even within the confines of the pages of the novel, it is said that Billy imagines the entire scenario of the Tralfamadorians. “Billy Pilgrim was having a delightful hallucination” (Vonnegut 49). These aliens are said to abduct Billy on the night of his daughter’s wedding and inform Billy about their philosophy, the key reason why Billy formulated their species.

In Tralfamadorian philosophy, there is no free will. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Because of this, Tralfamadorians know that the humans are inferior. Humans are also incapable of seeing in the 4th dimension. The 4th dimension allows the Tralfamadorians to understand complex topics, such as knowing there are actually 7 genders. Lastly, the Tralfamadorians know time is not linear. Nothing happens in chronological order and nothing happens just once. “All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist” (Vonnegut 27). This philosophy of fate and destiny allows Billy to give up control of his life. By accepting the Tralfamadorian policy of there’s nothing you can do to stop what is going to happen, Billy is able to make it through the war and the PTSD it leaves him with.

Both of these novels face themes of war, PTSD, and healthy coping mechanisms. There is, however, a major difference between Berlin and Billy. While Billy’s fantasies stem from wanting to escape the fear of fighting in war and having to make sense of all the death he is faced with, Berlin was unable to control his fear and gave into trigger-happy nature by killing Cacciato and struggled to cope with the aftermath. These novels speak volumes on the effect war has on the mind and spread the message that there really is nothing good to say about a war.

Works Cited

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-five, Or, the Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. 1969. Dell Publishing.

O’Brien, Tim. Going after Cacciato: a novel. 1978. New York, Delacorte Press/S. Lawrence.

Going After Cacciato Image

Slaughterhouse-Five Image

1. Find a book.

Your mom takes you to Books-A-Million at the mall. The kids section calls to you with its colorful carpet and cute illustrations. Pick up Pinkalicious. Read it over and over. Over and over. Pick up If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Read it over and over. Over and over.

Get older. Pick up Susane Colasanti books. Read it over and over. Over and over. Read The Selection Series. Read Matched. Get older. Read more and more. Over and over.

2. Love to read.

Your backpack is so heavy. It’s full of library books. You learn the librarians names. You read romance to fiction to dystopian to mystery. You read in your room. You read in your car. You read the backs of cereal boxes and you read your brother a book. All of this reading makes you dizzy. Dizzy with excitement.

3. Get a nook.

Go to sleep-a-way camp. You can’t fall asleep. You can’t bring your bookshelf with you, so your mom gets you a nook. It seems like every single book is at your fingertips. You read and read and read and read. You don’t like to go-cart, so you bring your nook. It’s too cold for the pool; you read with your toes dipped in. Oh no.

4. Break your nook. And your heart.

Summer’s almost over. Your mom says you’ll be given books at school, you don’t need a new nook. You say okay, still defeated. You’re only 13. School is getting harder. More classes, more work. You never used to have this much homework. You’re too tired to reach during the day. You start to fall behind. Maybe reading on the weekends will give you more time during the week. It does. But it’s not the same.

5. Get assigned reading.

You’re first assigned reading book. It’s a fairy tale unit. Can’t be much different than what you’ve always enjoyed to read. But now you have to read at the pace of others. You have to stop and analyze and think. It’s not fun. It’s not the same as it used to be.

6. Replace every book you love with a book you don’t love for a grade.

Freshman year. Get assigned The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Hate to read it. Get assigned Great Expectations. Hate that too.

Sophomore year. You love Great Gatsby. But you hate taking notes. There’s no magic to reading anymore. Read The Scarlet Letter. Watch “Easy A.” Books aren’t fun when you’re being evaluated on skills.

It’s been so long since you read a book for yourself. There’s no time on the weekends. You push yourself to ready only over the summer. But summer is short and goes by quickly. You realize you can’t read as fast as you used to. You haven’t read a book for fun in months.

7. Sparknotes and Shmoop become your tutor.

Now you’re reading Bel Canto. But you’re also studying for math tests, working on a 10 page biology lab, and putting together your AP Studio Art portfolio. You have no time to read. You realize there are websites that will tell you the plot of your assigned book as well as stand out quotes. Sparknotes and Shmoop. It’s like a weight has been lifted off your shoulder.  But another, heavier one takes its toll.

8. Realize that something you used to love has become something you never thought you could hate.

When was the last time you read a book? Does that history article count? Or maybe that website that explained cellular respiration for your biology test? You get assigned another book. You feel the dred of having to block off hours a night dedicated to reading. Can’t you just Sparknote the summaries to get by in class? It’s easy enough these days.

No. When was the last time I read and enjoyed a book? Going After Cacciato seems interesting, and you really like action movies. Plus, you learned about the War in history so maybe it won’t be too hard to understand. Page 1…

9. Get assigned a creative writing assignment.

How I Fell Out of Love With… Something. Pizza? Ice Cream? Never. Basketball? Board Games? Sure. School? Reading? Reading. Huh.

10. Know exactly what you fell out of love with. Wish you could still love it.

How I Fell Out of Love With Reading. Sure to make English teachers everywhere cry. Why do you not enjoy reading, teachers may ask. Why do so you use other sources to get their assignments done? Why can’t you just read?

To say it as it is, you don’t enjoy reading because you’ve learned to resent school. Knowledge and skills forced down your throats from a young age. Sit and learn. Sit and read. Read and become smarter. Become smarter, do better, and be better. What a concept.

As a kid, you loved to read. You loved the picture books and the chance to become a part of a fairy tale land. You liked to read because you became more creative. Reading opened your eyes to other worlds and new concepts. You felt so educated when you believed in princesses and aliens and super powers. You had a better outlook on the world when you could see the fun and adventure in it. But now, all you see is analysis and syntax and diction. All of the whys and hows took over bliss of childhood. Is there any going back?

 

Thank you to Avery Erwin for the inspiration for this post. If you would like to read his article about growing up in the era of technology, here is the link: How I Fell Out of Love with the Internet.

What’s up everyone. How have you been? I’m back with another podcast review. As you are aware, I really have been enjoying the podcast Switched on Pop. Speakers like musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding are experts on music and make me wish I had a better understanding of the entire song making process. I love the way that they bounce off one another on each topic and build upon each others analysis. For today’s review I’ll be looking at one of their latest episodes: Country at the Crossroads.

In this podcast, Nate and Charlie discuss the current number 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100 Old Town Road by Lil Nas X. When this country song first came out, it was everywhere. Bolstered by TikTok, the song has reached incredible fame. Though it is number 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, it is not number 1 on country charts. This comes as a shocking move and poses listeners to question what really makes a country song. Nate and Sloan deconstruct the song as well as country music as a whole to try and answer this question.

It is worth mentioning before an analysis starts to tell  how this song was made. There is a website called BeatStars where artists all around the world can upload the beats they create and sell them to other artists who make songs from it. Lil Nas X found the beat of Old Town Road on the site from an artist from the Netherlands, Young Kio, and paid about 30 dollars for the track. From there, he recorded his vocals and Old Town Road thrived.

In order to tackle this complicated topic of what makes a music genre, Nate and Charlie go through the country charts and deconstruct the ‘countries’ of the songs based on the statement by Billboard of why they released Old Town Road from the chart. Billboards statement said, “Determining which chart a song lives on is an ongoing process which depends on many factors most notably musical composition, but also how the song is marketed and promoted, musical history of the artist, airplay the song receives, and how the song is platformed on streaming services.” (20:50) Using Billboards definition of country, which is fairly vague, Nate and Charlie looked at Meant to Be by Bebe Rexha feat. Florida Georgia Line, Miss You More by Kelsea Ballerini, and Speakers by Sam Hunt. Each of these songs had layers of typical country songs — banjo’s, acoustic guitar, vocals relating to southern towns, etc. Nate and Charlie concluded that though each of these songs had outside influences from more hip hop, pop, and EDM undertones, they deserved to stay on the country charts. They determined that Old Town Road should have stayed on as well, which I definitely agree with.

Before this podcast, I never paid attention to music at its fundamental level. What I look for in music is how it moves me. Having a deeper understanding of songs and artists and genres gives me a better appreciation for the music I love and artists that make it. When it comes to genre, I’ve always had the stereotypical view of what each genre was. Pop was also those catchy melodies on the radio. Country is all about red pickup trucks and love. Hip hop is for gangsters. And I never even heard of indie. Now, I feel like I understand that songs don’t always fit into one definition of a song. As Nate says, “what is and what isn’t country is not just a matter of abstract musical quality but a constantly changing, constantly influx discourse about what we collectively decide country is and is not.” (29:50) When I first heard Old Town Road, I didn’t really think of it as stereotypically country. It has very hip hop beats and fits into the r&b genre more heavily than country in my opinion. Compared to a Luke Bryan or Old Dominion song when these two artists are so much more of the stereotypical country music, Old Town Road does not sound country. But with so many different ways to make music and so many different ways to experiment with sounds, labeling one song as more country than another is pointless.

This issue does not just exist in country charts. When it comes to an artist that has been around of a long time, it is normal for their style to change. The most significant example of this would have to be Taylor Swift. When she started on American Idol, she was a country singer. Her beginning albums, Taylor Swift, Speak Now, and Fearless were heavily country focused albums. When Taylor came out with Red, her music started to become extremely bubblegum pop, a shift from her country roots. Following Red was 1989, her most pop album of all. Lastly, she released Reputation. It became a dark and edgy twist on her older music. This progression is typical for an artist, as music reflects relevant changes in an artist’s life. To assume that genres of music can;t change in the same way would be ignorance.

I hope you all enjoyed this post and actually do look into the podcast Switched on Pop. I’ve come to love it and appreciate all that I’ve learned from it.

Sources:

Switched On Pop

Old Town Road Image

First off, I should probably apologize for such a late post. But, this week was spring break and a vacation was necessary. Now that school is starting again and there’s only a little left to go, I figured better late than never for this assignment. For this blog post, I’m going to keep it laid back and leave you all with a Netflix recommendation: Friends.

Honestly, if you haven’t seen this show by now, I seriously feel sorry for you. (And people say the same thing to me when I say I haven’t seen The Office, but come on, it’s Friends). From it’s catchy theme song to quotes you can integrate into any conversation for a quick laugh, this tv show is timeless. It’s survived for over twenty years. Just last year when it was rumored to be taken of Netflix, people everywhere boycotted to get the show to stay on a contract worth 100 million dollars. If that’s not reason enough to start the show, take a look at this character breakdown to see which Friend you relate to the most.

Rachel Green is the stereotypical rich girl who has never worked for anything in her life. She gets a major reality check when she runs away from her wedding and gets cut off from her family. She may be spoiled but she is very courageous and learns what is really important in life through the help of her friends. She and Monica have been best friends since high school.

Monica Geller is a chef and was formerly obese, which ends up being the punch line of many jokes involving her. She is an obsessive neat freak and always needs to control what’s going on. She is very competitive and loves challenges. She has never had the best luck in her love life until she sees what she’s always wanted was closer than she thought.

Phoebe Buffay is the designated weirdo of the group. Some of her childhood stories are too bizarre to be taken seriously. She is very floopy and works as a freelance massage artist. Though, her real passion is her music. She is known for her song ‘Smelly Cat’ and always sings about her friends. She may be strange, but she has a kind soul. She used to be roommates with Monica.

Ross Geller is a paleontologist and has a PhD, often having people call him Doctor Geller, though he is not actually a medical doctor. He works as a professor and is often made fun of for his love of dinosaurs. He has a son named Ben (who was played by Cole Sprouse back in the day). He is a hopeless romantic and extremely emotional. He is Monica’s brother.

Chandler Bing is a textbook pessimist. He often complains that his life is going nowhere and he is stuck in a boring, dead end job. His parents divorced young ruining Thanksgiving for him. He has a dry sense of humor and sarcasm makes life bearable. He is quick to crack and joke and a total goofball. He and Ross were college roommates.

Joey Tribbiani is an Italian hunk. He is a struggling actor known for taking any role that pays and he dreams of becoming Al Pacino. He is a womanizer and jokes about him always revolve around his sex life or his lack of intelligence. He loves food but his favorite is pizza. He and Chandler are roommates.

 

Image Source

Friends 1

Friends 2

Hey All. Let me tell you all a story. Yesterday, my Honors Modern Fiction class and I took a field trip to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and later saw the Broadway show, Dear Evan Hansen. Surrounded by the most entertaining classmates, we set out for and extreme roller coaster of a day.

To start, the bus ride in felt like an eternity and was probably about an hour and a half. Once we arrived at the museum, we got separated into your groups and given a tour guide. Unfortunately I don’t remember our tour guides name, however it was something you don’t hear every day. He began by asking our group what we thought modern art was. Now, being that I was an extensive background in critiquing art and have learned quite a lot about modern/postmodernism in my English class, I felt prepared enough to answer his question. I did so in a sophisticated manner. HOWEVER, when I said my piece, he told I shouldn’t talk anymore. I understand that he wanted to hear from the rest of the group to hear their opinions as they have no background to base their assumptions and most times these opinions give the freshest ideas. With this being said, art is my passion. I’d been looking forward to this trip just so I could be at the museum and talk about art, especially modern art! I find my art style is incredibly contemporary and roaming through the MoMA is a special gift. But with that one comment, I was kind of crushed.

 

I told myself to keep pushing through, and as we moved through the museum he started to call on me more but I could tell I was bothering him. To be honest, he was too pretentious for his own good, though. By the end, I gave up trying to talk and just took in the art around me. That is what brings me joy: art. Being surrounded by it, even pieces like the Object, inspires me. When we left the museum I felt great and appreciative for all the art and culture in one place.

On to the rest of our day, my group and I got to travel to our own restaurant in the city for lunch. We ended up at a tiny grilled cheese place, the Melt Shop, and it was incredible. The perfect amount of melted cheese in thick slices of white bread, perfectly coated with butter and grilled. After that, we made our way to a theater and stumbled on a gelato shop. They made their cones in the shape of a rose and even put a macaron on top. Oh, lunch was heavenly.

Finally, the time had come. Arriving at the doors to see Dear Evan Hansen was almost unreal. We had been talking about this field trip for months and we were finally there. As soon as we got inside and sat down I was beyond excited. My only knowledge of the show consisted of the chorus of Waving Through a Window and a misleading plot line (I thought it was a story of a boy with social anxiety). It came as a shock to me when SPOILERS SPOILERS DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE SHOW READ AT YOUR OWN RISK I’M STILL WARNING YOU OKAY CARRY ON it turned out to be a story based off of suicide.

The build up of the show made me proud and hopeful but also nervous and afraid. The balance of these emotions through each scene and song is what kept me on the edge of my seat the entire show. As soon as something seemingly good happened for Evan, I feared for when all his lies would catch up to him. I sympathized with the Evan’s single mom struggling to understand the changes going on in her son as well as with the Murphy’s instability and grief. Before the play, I didn’t think I would like a song more than Waving Through a Window. When I read, Requiem, the chills came after every note and tears pooled in my eyes continuously. Zoe struggled to mourn the loss of her brother. She only thought she knew him as the monster he portrayed himself as, and not the good kid Evan pretended he knew him as. Unfortunately, it’s not for us to know who Connor really was. I hope he did have some good parts to him within his own head. If there was one thing I could change about the play, it would be the ending. In my opinion, and it should be known that I have zero knowledge on play writing or Broadway or songwriting, the show could have expanded more on the fallout of Evan;s lie. As soon as his secret comes out, the only person he resolves his issue with is his mom and a year later, Zoe. I wish we could have seen what went on in at least the following day or week for the Murphy’s. Maybe the story is better off with this mystery, as Words Fail and So Big / So Small were paired together incredibly. And yes, these were also the parts where I cried.

Overall, the show was incredible. It was a touching story that teaches us to speak out about how we’re feeling. It reminds that we really are never alone. In times like these, it is hard for us teens to see past the bad and hope for good in the future. Speaking from personal experience, there is light at the end of the tunnel. For the Highlanders, if you’re reading this, it’s okay to not be okay. I am grateful to have gone on this whirlwind field trip; I’ll be able to look back on it as one of my favorite high school memories. This was a nice story time; many more to come.

 

Image Sources

MoMA

Dear Evan Hansen

Dear Fellow Highlanders,

The college application scandal has been a major bombshell to our lives. For us seniors who are finally finished with the application process and finalizing our decisions on what school to attend, we feel cheated by this misconduct. For the juniors in the midst of taking standardized tests and studying for those final APs, you feel let down, like your hard work has been for nothing. And for the freshmen and sophomores filled with eagerness and anxiety over entering the process, you must feel confused and scared of what is to come.

The college admissions scandal will go down in history. Celebrities and the wealthy alike took part in a scheme that rigged the entire application process so their kid could get into prestigious universities like Georgetown, Yale, Stanford, University of Southern California, and more. These celebrities bribed ACT and SAT proctors to change their kids scores in order to improve them as well as faked athletic achievements in order to receive athletic scholarships to the schools. Thinking about the mess this has created and the holes in the system make me sick.

This process was grueling and brought me many sleepless nights and unnecessary stress. Studying for hours on end for a test that could make or break my chances of getting into certain schools and contemplating what to write my essay about will forever be ingrained in my head. From my own experience, I know how tricky the system is. At some points, it’s less about what you say and more about who you’re writing to in an application. It’s not just about your achievements or your personal story, it’s about numbers and connections.

When I was applying to colleges, I was advised to make it seem like every school I applied to was a first choice. It wasn’t about whether I truly wanted to go or not, it was about convincing someone else I needed the spot in the class. At some points during the process, it felt icky to write supplements in the way you have to in order to get the admissions office to notice you. Overall, the process is like a spiderweb. You’re on one end and your future is on the other. Try not to get caught in the web of lies you have to construct in order for an institution to like you. It’s harder than it seems.

Some may say that attending Highlands gives us our own leg up in the game. Yes, most of us have private tutors to learn how to ace the SAT and ACT. And sure, we also work with people to better our essay and make our resumes stand out. But what else are we supposed to do? College is a natural next step for most of us and after working as hard as we do to succeed at Highlands, we want that hard work to be reflected in the next 4 years of our lives.

As I am still receiving decisions and am still unsure of where I will be attending fall of 2019, I get more and more nervous for what the future brings. Is this system rigged? Is there a better way to determine if an applicant is right for a university? So much is up in the air when it comes to secondary education and only time will tell what is to come of the college cheating scandal.

May the odds be ever in your favor,

Kendall Shirvan

 

 

Image Source:

Common App

Loughlin’s

Hello again! I’m going to try my best with these fun introductions because I have no other idea on how to start these posts! To get down to business, my English class has been reading the dystopian novel 1984 by George Orwell. Let me start by saying, in contemporary terms, I’m shook. As a book written in 1950 about the future in 1984, I was completely freaked out about its similarities to today’s technological world of 2019. One similarity that my partner, Kyle (check out his blog here! https://kylevitalesblog.wordpress.com/), and I noticed was between thought-crimes and predictive policing.

Predictive policing is how police departments decide on where to station patrol cars in order to prevent crime. In order to do so, they rely on information of where past crimes have taken place, the neighborhood, how close an area is to bars, public transportation, and more (Predictive Policing Software). According to “The Future of Policing Using Pre-Crime Technology” by Forbes, cities like Hartford have taken this predictive policing to the next level to include 24/7 surveillance. “While the stable cameras are used for constant surveillance, software also analyzes the footage in real time to determine patterns. Foot traffic, for example, at a particular house could indicate a location for drug deals. Drones can pursue stolen vehicles or track suspects. Hartford’s system does not include facial recognition technology yet, but it’s equipment could incorporate this in the future. Hartford also does not store information for outside entities.” (Forbes) This basically means that cities are recording its citizens every step of the way. Wherever you go, a camera follows. Though this data is being used for good use, it is unsettling to think that you are being recorded without knowing. Lets face it, how many of us pay attention to security cameras when we walk into a store? Or red light cameras? We are always being recorded and while most of us have nothing to worry about, it is entirely unsettling. Don’t get me wrong, I find both of these sources reliable in their facts. Forbes is a well known business magazine often featuring technological advances across the country. And, The Verge is a technology news network that features news items, has a podcast, and does product reviews. It is also and owned by Vox Media, a digital media company. The information from these sources is reputable, which is what stirs the worry in my stomach. As much as I think predictive policing is successful in stopping crime before it happens, it worries me to think of what could happen if the technology got into the wrong hands.

After explaining the topic, we asked the class some questions on what they thought. While I was more worried of this technology becoming too big for its users, other students seemed more concerned on if it is fair to every citizen—can it discriminate? Michael Nodini (of https://dinithoughts.wordpress.com/) said, “it could turn to one of those things where a certain area has more crime than others. The social implications could be harmful to minorities in one area of high crime than any other area in a city.” Evan Delorenzo (of https://evandelorenzo.home.blog) said, “you can’t put full faith into the system. You might miss a crime in a different area if you’re focused on another. Even though it’s based on statistical data,  there are always going to be outliers.” Both of these points of view prompt many questions on predictive policing. Overall, the system has been helpful in responding and preventing crime. However, no system is perfect.

When Kyle and I presented this topic to the class, we wanted to get the class involved and get them to understand how predictive policing works. So, we ran an activity. We anonymously assigned 4 students to be criminals, 4 to be police officers, and the rest as innocents. Then, we had the police officers being by randomly choosing suspect criminals. Next, we gave them clues to where in the room the criminals might be. After going through the clues, they were able to successfully pick out the criminals in the room. Predictive policing works in the same sense: it pools data of where crime is likely to happen to narrow down where police should monitor an area. The class was able to learn in a fun way about a topic, and probably had the most fun calling their fellow classmates criminals (they are all innocent, though, don’t worry!).

This post ended up being much longer than anticipated but was even more interesting to reflect on after the fact. If you enjoyed this blog post, please leave comments and spread the word! Also be sure to visit my friends blogs mentioned throughout this article. They’re pretty funny (the blogs and my friends).

 

Works Cited

Coats, Kenneth. “The Future Of Policing Using Pre-Crime Technology.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 Aug. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/08/14/the-future-of-policing-using-pre-crime-technology/#5c82765c64a1.

“How Predictive Policing Software Works.” The Verge, 3 Feb. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxvyeaL7NEM.

Quotes from students Michael Nodini and Evan Delorenzo

Image Sources

1984

Predictive Policing

Times Square, New York, New York. The most extravagant street of the city. The color slogans on every corner of the street stimulate the fast pace movement of its visitors. Advertisements for TV shows, music releases, Broadway plays, restaurants, as well as news headlines reach across every screen. While most see this kaleidoscope of color as a wonder of New York, a slim few recognize the intention of the strategically placed colorful ads.

When businesses brand themselves, they must take into consideration the products they are selling as well as who they are selling to. In my digital arts class, we are in the process of designing logos for small businesses in the area. Not only do businesses strive to come up with a recognizable logo design, they also apply color psychology to their brand. For example, Barbie is a famous doll company whose audience is young girls. Barbie’s logo is a swirly script in hot pink, The cursive free-hand writing is very feminine for its soft lines and curly letters. The hot pink color scheme is a feminine color and over exaggerates its mission. Businesses spend thousands of dollars on this kind of research to ensure that their product is being sold in a way that will result in the best sales.

Every color has common emotions tied to them. Red is bold and aggressive. It is used in many fast food restaurants logos because it grabs the consumers attention and raises blood pressure to make people hungry. Green is a color associated with the environment. Why would an oil company, such as BP, use green in their logo? It’s a marketing strategy to divert a consumer from the crudeness of oil. It makes consumers more trusting of the brand. These are only two examples out of the entire color wheel, the entire color spectrum for that matter.

When designers are faced with the challenge of designing a new logo, they must rely on past successes and cultural movements to figure out the best possible composition and color palette for that specific business. It amazes me that so much research goes into something as simple as color, yet has to biggest impact on all our lives.

Image Sources

Times Square

Barbie

BP logo

Oh, winter. The time for ice skating, hot chocolate, and the flu. Unfortunately for me, I’ve come down with the worst flu I think known to man. Sparing the gory details of surviving the flu, I’ve had a lot of down time. Being quarantined in your room allows you to do things you never would have had the time for otherwise, like read a good book. Though every chapter made me more and more dizzy, I somehow have read through to the second book of Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy. Just to give you some perspective, that’s 455 pages in 3 days. As miserable as I am getting sick and stressing over missed school work (that snow day was extremely appreciated!) reading this book warmed me up inside.

The trilogy is a blend of hopeful summer love and realistic experiences for the main character, Belly, who has spent every summer in the small beach town of Cousins with her family and family friends, the Fishers. As the novel relays the events of the summer that ultimately changed Belly’s life it also reflects on the summers that shaped her thus far.  The adventures of Belly and the Fisher boys, Conrad and Jeremiah, are ones for the ages and will leave a lasting impression. Though the story itself seems like a totally typical teen fiction novel, the emotions Belly goes through in every situation are completely candid and relatable to its audience. I’ve loved this book because it is a feel good read as well as a tragic one.

What I love about reading books like these is feeling entirely consumed by a novel. All I want to do is find out what happens. When I was a kid I was the kind of person that read the last page of every book. It was way too tempting for the answers to all my question be only a few pages away! Over time, I read less and less of what I’ve wanted to and more of what was assigned to me. As much as I enjoy reading and taking notes for a class book, sometimes a quick teen romance is all I need to put a smile on my face

 

Image Source:

Winter Reading

The Summer I Turned Pretty Trilogy