April 2015 archive

Love, Family, Rescues Advocacy Project!

 

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If you love looking at cute pictures of dogs and cats, check out and follow our Instagram page,  @LoveFamilyRescues !  You will learn more about the benefits of rescuing and adopting pets, and read real stories from people who gave their pets a second chance at life! 

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Many people argue that pets are actually family members, and are treated better than human family members most of the time.  Would you intentionally abuse or abandon a family member?  I don’t think so, and the same should not be done to pets.  Unfortunately it is and animal shelters are overflowing with loving animals looking for a second chance to become someone’s new family member.  In our advocacy project, we wanted people to know that you can get the same loving pets from an animal shelter and know you are saving a life, rather than spending hundreds of dollars on animals that are bred simply for the money.

 

We reached out to family, friends, and strangers looking for people who gratefully adopted a shelter animal instead of buying a fancy, expensive pet.  We wanted to share these honest stories and pictures to show others that just because you don’t have the hottest, most expensive breed of dog, you can still have a loving pet that is happy with a second chance at life.  There are several very popular social media platforms that we could have used to display our project, but we chose to use Instagram as our main site.

 

I think that Instagram was a great choice for our advocacy project because it enabled us to reach people all around the world, just by posting a picture.  Since our main goal was to have a picture of a rescued or adopted pet with their owner and a short story about them, Instagram was the best option.  It is a platform known for photo-sharing, commenting, and hashtags.  We made our account public so anyone who stumbled upon our page could see all of our pictures.  We also incorporated hashtags with our photos so people from literally anywhere in the world could see our pictures.  The use of hashtags was a major part of our project.  By using certain hashtags, such as #DogsOfInstagram, any person who searched that hashtag came across our pictures and account.  We had many people liking our photos and even following the account.  One of my favorite aspects of Instagram is the use of hashtags to connect people and pictures together.

 

There are many positives to using Instagram as our main platform for advocacy.  Obviously we are able to connect with people in many different countries, not just our family and local community.  Also, many people already follow animal accounts on Instagram because seeing a cute animal can brighten anyone’s day!  It was created to share photos, and that is what we wanted to do.  One of the limitations is not everyone has an Instagram account.  Many people could’ve wanted to help with our project and see the pictures, but were unable to if they didn’t have an account.

 

Animals are very dear to my heart.  I love dogs and cats and I am very against any type of animal cruelty.  I rescued both of my cats and gave them the chance to have a loving home and caring owners.  When I started this project, I hoped to achieve a greater appreciation for shelter pets and to reach anyone who was thinking of getting a pet to know they could get a great pet at their local animal shelter.  I do not want to completely condemn buying a dog from a breeder or a pet store because many of my friends have the cutest dogs from those places, but I really wanted people to realize there are already pets that are facing euthanasia who are looking for an owner.  I also hoped to have many people wanting to share their stories with us, because usually people love talking about their pet (just like they’re a member of the family!).  While we did receive about 15 submissions, I was hoping for more.  The ones we did receive were very touching and I’m glad those people wanted to help.

 

Overall, I am very pleased with this advocacy project.  When I put my accomplishments into perspective, I gained many followers and received a decent amount of stories in only a one month time period.  The most rewarding part of this project was having people reaching out to me and wanting to help in any way they could.  I also loved seeing the many people who loved their pets so much, and didn’t treat them any differently or like them any less just because they are from an animal shelter.  We also got such positive feedback from our classmates, so it is great that many people share the passion for fair treatment of all animals.  One of the challenges of this project was the lack of submissions from people.  When I started this project, I may have had too high of hopes because I was aiming to have about 20-30 submissions and have more followers on our Instagram page.  But, I am very happy with the submissions we received.  I know we worked very hard on this project and I couldn’t be more proud to advocate for animals that do not have a voice to advocate for themselves.

 

If I had to do another advocacy project in the future, I would definitely use a different approach.  Many people that wanted to help me with the project wanted to know if there was an actual event that went along with our Instagram page, and others didn’t have any pets but still wanted to do their part to help.  In the future, I think it would be great to have an adoption day at a local shelter to raise awareness for the adoption of animals.  This way, people could help with the event, the public could learn about adopting animals, and would hopefully even adopt an animal that day!  I would also want to do some type of fundraiser to support the animals already in local shelters.  Hopefully someday I will be able to make this adoption day idea into a reality!

Civic Engagement Public Speaking Contest

Tonight, April 28, I attended the Civic Engagement Public Speaking contest.  I probably would not have attended if it wasn’t for the extra credit, but I found it very interesting and thought provoking.  Each of the student’s speeches was so well prepared, stimulating, and professional.  You could tell that these students put quality time into their research topics and their speeches.  They all seemed very comfortable and knew exactly what they wanted to say.  I found it a bit boring at times because the speeches seemed too memorized or rehearsed, but I guess that is just the nature of these types of speech.

One of my favorite speakers was the first one, Natalie Walden, and her speech about feminism.  I am not very familiar with the topic, nor does it really spark my interest, but I thought she did a great job explaining the issue and implementing a way to change that.  She was very comfortable speaking, and it was clear she was passionate about the topic.  She also added some humor which made the speech more enjoyable to listen to.

My two favorite speeches were that of Craig Saupe and Lynsey Mickolas.  Being a criminology major, both of their topics regarding the death penalty and innocent prisoners were very close to my interests.  I think both of these subjects are very important, especially Lynsey’s.  I’ve actually written a research paper on the exoneration of innocent people who were sentenced to many long years in prison.  Although our criminal justice system is not perfect, we need to bring awareness to the thousands of people being imprisoned, or even receiving the death penalty, from the misinterpretation of a victim.  I also thought her proposed way to fix this issue is something that is cost affective and able to implemented in police stations around the country.

Should College Athletes Be Paid?

I am not an athlete, so I did not have much background knowledge on the subject at Ross’s deliberation.  With the few facts I did know, my personal opinion, and the exposure to collegiate athletics here at Penn State, I had a good idea about what approach I agreed with the most.  I do not believe that college athletes should be paid.  I believe that you are coming to college for an education, not a free ride to play a sport.  Most collegiate athletes, especially football and basketball players, are already getting many benefits from playing, such as free apparel, transportation, iPads, and in most cases free tuition.  They already get great perks and have the chance to be paid after college if they join the NBA, NFL, etc.  Why should they get paid for doing their “job” when some students put just as much time into their studies while still paying full tuition and not getting any free things?

Even though I feel very strongly about my opinion, it was great to hear the many different viewpoints and opinions from the guests at the deliberation.  I am glad that there were many people in attendance who wanted to speak their mind.  I am not one to usually speak up and voice my opinion, but I enjoy hearing what others have to say.  I liked the one point a student brought up saying that college athletes could have some form of payment through endorsements from companies.  While I still feel college athletes shouldn’t be paid, this was a great point.  There are always a few situations where students are on a full ride to a school for sports, but still do not have enough money to feed themselves.  I think there should be a separate system put in place for these special circumstances so all athletes have a fair chance at playing the sport they love.

Little Talks

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Hello Penn Staters!  I seriously cannot wrap my head around the fact that this is my last blog post for this class, which means our freshman year is basically over!  I can still remember moving in like it was yesterday, and now we have a full year of college under our belts!  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my blog throughout the year and hopefully discovered some new music and meanings!  For my last blog entry, I will be analyzing the song “Little Talks” by Of Monsters and Men.

“Little Talks” was released in December of 2011 by the Icelandic indie folk/pop band Of Monsters and Men.  A Philadelphia radio station is credited with being the first station to play the song, thus pushing this song and band to great popularity in the United States.  As of 2013 the song sold over 2 million copies in the U.S., and received an RIAA certification of 3x Platinum.

In an interview with Interview Magazine, Nanna, one of the lead singers, describes the meaning behind this song:

 “How we usually make our lyrics is, Raggi and I, sometimes we come up with stories or situations. That one is about a relationship. Sometimes we haven’t wanted to give too much away. We like people to read their own things in the lyrics. I guess I could share it. It’s about a couple and the husband passed away and it’s from the conversation between the two of them. We don’t know if she’s going crazy or if someone’s actually there. We’ve kind of been inspired by people that lived in my house. This old couple that lived there for 30 years. The woman passed away, so it was kind of different.”

            The main stylistic element that I never realized in the song, and the one that gives the lyrics the most meaning, is the use of the male and female singer’s voices doing a call and respond type singing.  This gives the song the feel that there is actually a conversation going on between the wife and her deceased husband.

In the opening lines, we hear “I don’t like walking around this old and empty house // So hold my hand, I’ll walk with you, my dear.”  The first line is sung by Nanna, and Raggi sings the next line, as if the husband is responding to her by saying he will hold her hand.  The next lines are: “The stairs creak as I sleep, it’s keeping me awake // It’s the house telling you to close your eyes.”  Again, we hear the use of a female voice expressing her sorrows, and a male voice acting as her husband trying to comfort her.

One of the lines that is repeated throughout the song is “Though the truth may vary // This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.”  These lines are sung by both the male and female singer, which gives these lines a sense of unity.  They may have had their differences in the past, but they realize that their love is stronger, and someday they will be together again.

I encourage you to listen to this song, even if you’ve heard it before, and try to pick up on the conversation between the ‘husband and wife.’  As always here is the link if you want to check out the song! à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghb6eDopW8I  Again, I want to thank everyone who took the time to read my blog this semester!  Hopefully you guys enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

 

 

 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Talks

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ofmonstersandmen/littletalks.html

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/discovery-of-monsters-and-men/

Faking Your Race for Affirmative Action?

In my first Civic Issues blog, I talked about Affirmative Action, both the good and bad sides of the plan.  For my last Civic Issues blog, I will be coming full circle and closing with the topic of Affirmative Action, with a slight twist.  Hopefully this topic comes as a surprise to you, as I was shocked, but not completely surprised, when I first stumbled upon the story.

I found an article on CNN that described a man named Vijay Chokal-Ingam faking his racial identity to get into medical school.  At first I was shocked that someone would take advantage of a program put in place to help people, not to be used under false pretenses to help yourself achieve something that you couldn’t do.  Now if the name Vijay Chokal-Ingam doesn’t sound familiar, maybe the name Mindy Kaling does.  Mindy Kaling is a celebrity known for her role on “The Office” and her current show “The Mindy Project” and is also Vijay’s sister.  I definitely feel if Vijay was not related to a well-known celebrity, his story would not be all over the Internet.  But, let’s get into the details of his situation.

Vijay described himself as a “hard-partying college frat boy” with a GPA that definitely would not give him acceptance into med school as an Indian-American.  He came up with his plan in 1998 to pose as an African American student.  According to Vijay’s personal website, he says: “I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied to medical school as a black man.  My change in appearance was so startling that my own fraternity brothers didn’t recognize me at first.”  He also joined a Black student organization at his undergrad university and used his middle name “JoJo” on his med school applications.

Even though he received a mediocre score of a 31 on the MCAT and a college GPA of 3.1, Vijay says he was wooed by several top medical schools in the United States.  He posted several documents to his website supporting this claim, including “an enthusiastic letter from a dean at the Emory University School of Medicine congratulating him on his “excellent scores” on the MCAT.”  Now the highest score you can receive on the MCAT is a 45, so a 31 isn’t terrible, but if I were a patient, I would want a more qualified doctor.

Vijay applied to 22 medical schools and got interviews with 11 of those schools.  Ultimately, he was wait-listed at 4 schools and only got into 1 medical school.  He attended that school, the Saint Louis University Medical School, for two years before dropping out.  But, there is little evidence to suggest that posing as a Black applicant helped Vijay get into any of these med schools.  There is no point of comparison because he never applied to these medical schools as an Indian-American.

According to Vijay, he says “His story shows how affirmative action ‘destroys the dreams of millions of Indian-American, Asian American, and white applicants for employment and higher education’.  It also creates negative stereotypes about the academic abilities and professional skills of African-American and Hispanic professionals, who don’t need special assistance in order to compete with other minority groups.”  A spokeswoman from Saint Louis University, Nancy Solomon, disputed this claim, saying that race never played a role in the admission of Vijay.

During Vijay’s so-called “social experiment” into the Affirmative Action system, he experienced some hardships while posing as an African-American man. Vijay stated: “Cops harassed me. Store clerks accused me of shoplifting. Women were either scared of me or couldn’t keep their hands off me.  What started as a devious ploy to gain admission to medical school turned into a twisted social experiment.”  It is sad to think that just because of your looks, people can still single you out based on race and stereotypes of that group.  At least this event opened Vijay’s eyes to racial profiling and gave him insight into his “experiment.”

A writer from Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams, states “Whatever you feel about affirmative action, let’s consider that one person’s experience over a decade and a half ago — an experience that ultimately didn’t yield any deluge in acceptance letters anyway — is not really indicative of the current state of college admissions… Instead, Chokal-Ingam’s story is one of a successful woman’s brother liberally using her name to drum up attention and controversy.”  I really think this is a great statement that draws upon the fact that we cannot form opinions on a certain matter through one story that occurred almost 20 years ago.

For the record, Vijay’s sister, Mindy Kaling, strongly disagrees with his decision to write a book about Affirmative Action.  She is not happy with him and says that it will bring shame to their family.

Here is the link to Vijay’s personal website if you want to read more, or see his before and after picture.    http://almostblack.com/

 

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/living/feat-mindy-kaling-brother-affirmative-action/

Love Song

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Hello Penn State!  I can’t believe this is already the second to last blog post I have to write for my passion blog!  It seems like it was yesterday when we started blogging and now it’s almost the end of our freshman year!  This week I will be writing about the song “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles.

This song was released in June of 2007, so it’s about 8 years old, but still popular enough to hear it on the radio from time to time.  I remember this song being a favorite song to act out and sing along to at sleepovers in 6th grade.  But just this past summer on my senior trip to Myrtle Beach, it was still popular.  We heard the song several times on the radio driving down to the beach and throughout the week, so it became “our song” for the vacation (along with the song “Fancy” by Iggy and Charli XCX, but we won’t get into that!).  Anyway, “Love Song” was Sara Bareilles’ biggest hit, remaining on the Billboard Top 100 for 41 weeks, and has an RIAA certification of 4 times platinum!  This song was also nominated for 2 Grammy Awards in 2009, Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

There is a long and surprising story behind “Love Song.”  Through an interview with MTV, Bareilles said that after struggling to write a song for many years, this song just kind of wrote itself.  Here is the true meaning behind “Love Song,” as explained by Sara herself:

“[The record label] had encouraged me to keep writing, and I just wasn’t having any luck, and I was turning in the beginnings of ideas and snippets of moments of a song, and I was just getting a really sort of blasé reaction to everything.  I started to get really insecure about it, and then I got really pissed off at myself for caring what anybody thought. … I went to a rehearsal space one day. I sat down and wrote something for me. And ‘Love Song’ basically wrote itself. It’s totally honest, and I’m very lucky the label liked it as well.”

            The opening lyrics of the song are “Head under water // And they tell me to breathe easy for a while // The breathing gets harder, even I know that.”  These lyrics describe Sara’s feeling of not being able to write a perfect song for her record label.  Even though they keep encouraging her, she is feeling more frustration and pressure to produce a great song.

The chorus of the song is self-explanatory, now that you know the meaning behind the song, with lyrics like: “I’m not gonna write you a love song // ’cause you asked for it // ’cause you need one, … ’cause you tell me it’s make or break in this, … If all you have is leaving I’ma need a better reason to write you a love song today.”  Sara has finally realized that she wants to write music that makes her happy, not to please everyone else.  She also hints at the fact that she doesn’t see leaving the record label as a big deal if they don’t comply with her person decisions.

“Love Song” basically came from Sara’s personal frustration with trying to please everyone else with her music when she should have been focused on what makes her happy.  As always, here is a link if you want to check out the song!  à  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi7Yh16dA0w

 

Sources:

http://genius.com/Sara-bareilles-love-song-lyrics/

http://www.mtv.com/news/1583067/sara-bareilles-love-song-basically-wrote-itself-after-she-struggled-for-years/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Song_(Sara_Bareilles_song)