Diversity and integration of cultures have always been something that was apparent to me. I was born in Brooklyn, New York where different races, cultures, languages, and religions were all celebrated. However, one thing that I never fully got to experience was the luxury of learning different languages so that I could speak to people with different cultures than mine. My father was born in Brazil, and therefore is a native Portuguese speaker. But although my father is fluent, speaking Portuguese was never something that was prioritized in my household as a young child, and that was okay with me because I never truly saw the value of learning a new language. However, coming to a college as big and diverse as Penn State has opened my eyes to how valuable it truly is to be able to speak multiple languages.

Therefore, I believe that as a country, we should be making stronger efforts to integrate the teaching of new languages into schools. Most school districts don’t begin to teach new languages until middle school or even as late as high school. According to a 2018 MIT News article, it is extremely difficult to acquire proficiency in a language “similar to that of a native speaker” without beginning the language learning process “by the age of 10” (Trafton). This is a serious problem as the “critical period” for children to learn a new language often ends around the age “17 or 18” (Trafton). Therefore, it’s no secret that beginning to teach languages in middle school or even as late as high school isn’t as effective as if they were taught in elementary school. Furthermore, I believe that languages should be taught earlier so children can grow up with the ability to communicate with those of different cultures and better understand the diverse world around them.

Sources:

https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501

For my Passion blog, I intend on sticking with the same topic as last semester which was weekly restaurant reviews in State College. I am not from State College, so I am still very fascinated with all of the cute restaurants and cafes around the downtown. I also LOVE food if you couldn’t already tell LOL!

For my  Civic Issues blog, I intend to delve into the topic of public schooling. I want to discuss accessibility and affordability to all students because I believe that there are many serious issues with the school system in America.

The notion that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is one that commonly gets thrown around. It’s one of those sayings that when you hear it, you nod your head and think “yeah that’s great” without truly believing it or making the effort to implement it into your daily life. At least that’s how it felt to me… that is until my world got flipped upside down.

It was the night before my senior semi-formal. My nails were done, my hair was freshly washed, and all arrangements for the next day were made. I was excited for the coming day just as any high school girl would be. However, all of a sudden I heard a scream coming from my mother’s room, so I ran in to see what had happened. I found her on the floor crying because her stomach was in extreme pain, so she called the ambulance, and the paramedics came shortly after. I felt so many emotions. I felt confusion, sadness, and rage. “What could be wrong with my mother,” I wondered as I essentially cried myself to sleep that night.

The next morning, I woke up to the news that my mother had stage 3 uterine cancer and that she would be in the hospital for weeks on end. This information rocked my world. Just a few hours prior, all I had to worry about was how to do my hair and where the semi-formal afterparty would be held. Suddenly, I had an entirely new world of worries to consider. Not only is she my mother, but she is my best friend. I will additionally note that I have no siblings, no father, and no grandparents. My mother and I live alone together, so if I lost her, I’m not exactly sure what my seventeen-year-old self would do. Where would I live? How would I support myself?

Essentially semi turned out to be a disaster. The whole night, I was moping around and all I wanted to do was sit at my table alone. My date asked me to dance, but I rejected him and told him that I “just wasn’t feeling it,” which probably wasn’t the right thing to say. Nevertheless, I drove myself home early because all I could think about was my mother.

The next few months after that was particularly rough. My mom was in and out of the hospital, and she was rarely ever home with me. I was essentially living at home alone during this time. I worked at Dunkin Donuts which was only about a 10-minute walk from my house, so although I didn’t have my license yet, I was still able to walk to work. During this time, I was essentially fully financially supporting myself. I was taking care of myself and my dog on my own, while still taking the bus to school every day. This wasn’t an ideal situation but it simply had to be done. My priority was no longer having a great high school experience, but rather my priorities were surviving, working, and praying to God every day to help me get out of the depression I was in.

With all of that being said, I am now the happiest I’ve ever been, living the life I never thought I would get to live. My mom was completely cured of her cancer. I ended up getting my license. I was able to save up some money from working so hard. I made new friends. I went to my senior prom. I was crowned homecoming princess. I fell in love with a boy that I have been with for almost two years now. I am at my dream college. I am dorming with my best friend. I was cured of my depression. And the way I see it… I have my whole future ahead of me.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t see a depressed, beaten down, insecure, fearful girl. I see a strong, independent, self-sufficient, powerful woman. I see a woman who can overcome life’s challenges with the help of God. I see a woman who is confident and knows how to become independent and self-sufficient when the going gets tough. I see a woman who knows how to properly adapt to any curveball life throws at her.

I believe that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” because trauma forces you to grow as a person. The woman I am today is much stronger than the girl I was then.

For my “This I Believe” podcast:

I’m a bit stuck and still very unsure of what I want my belief to be. I’m still not totally sure if I want my belief to be deep, personal, and emotional or if I want to be something quirky and funny. I took a look at the podcast examples from the Penn State RCL website, and I saw a really cute and quirky one titled “Put your Milk Before your Cereal.” I thought this was a really funny idea, as the milk/ cereal debate has been going on since what feels like the beginning of time…so perhaps I might do something quirky like this.

On the other hand, though, I love the idea of picking a deeper topic such as Jennifer Heppner’s, “I Believe In Taking One More Breath.” During my junior year of high school, I found out that my mom had stage 3 uterine cancer and it totally rocked my world. I spiraled into depression at the thought of losing her, since she is not just my mom but also my best friend. In that year of depression, I gained a lot of knowledge and experience regarding the art of “pushing through.” I feel that I formulate a deep yet also inspirational podcast regarding pushing through the hard times in life. I know from experience that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

For my passion blog, I intend to keep my same “Dining with Nichole” blog from last semester because I still have soo many restaurants in State College that I want to try! However, if I were to write my blog on something else, I would probably do music album reviews!

For my civic issues blogs, a few categories that I find interesting are as follows:

• The role of public education: regarding its affordability, issues with standardized testing, and its accessibility to all students
• College sports on campus: regarding whether or not college athletes should receive additional financial assistance and how American athletic culture has shaped the school system

Since the dawn of COVID-19, I think it’s safe to say that civic engagement has been at an all-time high. The COVID-19 pandemic was something that affected just about every American to one extent or another, and because of it, Americans, in general, have begun to participate more and more in politics and civic engagement.

I for one, have gotten more involved in civic engagement after I realized the magnitude of voting. I quickly learned that every vote truly does count and that just my one vote could totally change the outcome of an election. These days, the results of all sorts of elections tend to come so close between the two candidates. And although close elections create a lot of anticipation and make them pretty suspenseful, I think it’s great to see Americans of all ages participate in politics. For the first time in a long time, teens my age and even children younger than me are getting involved in politics and in the world around them.

Another form of civic engagement that I’ve noticed has really blossomed since the COVID-19 pandemic is not only voting but encouraging others to vote. Never in my 18 years of living have I ever seen such a high amount of not only adults but children too, advocating for voting. I believe that social media has highly assisted this. During COVID times, I remember logging onto Instagram for just 5 to 10 minutes, and I would already see about 10 different forms of voting advocation,..whether that be easily accessible links to register to vote, celebrities reminding their fans to vote, or ads created by the advertisement teams of each party to promote their candidate. Social media has made voting so easily accessible especially to people my age.

Another form of civic engagement that I’ve noticed has flourished since the pandemic is the outpouring of encouragement to get the COVID vaccine. Similar to the encouragement to vote, the motivation to get the vaccine has been greatly influenced by social media. Just about everywhere there is a celebrity, or some sort of influential figure, flaunting their vaccine cards and encouraging others to get the vaccine. It became a trend on Instagram to post a selfie the day you got vaccinated and show off the vaccine stickers. I remember some of the stickers said “I got vaccinated” or “I got my COVID-19 vaccine!” Nevertheless, making a trend out of getting vaccinated actually, in my opinion, encouraged younger people my age to get vaccinated. As silly and as shallow as it seems, those cheesy little stickers actually served a great purpose LOL.

Overall, I must say that since the COVID-19 pandemic, civic engagement in the form of voting, advocating for voting, and advocating for getting vaccinated has never been higher. I believe that because the pandemic devasted so many Americans, many of us felt a sense of responsibility and duty to become involved in politics and in our community. For as much bad that the pandemic caused, it actually caused a lot of good. In this scenario, I think the good is the increase of civic engagement in our country!

Below are my TED Talk slides!

After I watched my TED talk a few times over, one of the first comments I will make is that I seem a lot more relaxed than I did in my first voicethread speech from the last unit. For this TED talk, I decided to do my speech standing up rather than sitting down. I think this was a good choice because standing up forced me to have good posture and use my hands to make effective gestures.

However, one critique I do have for myself is the fact that, at times, I sounded a bit monotonous as I was reading my outline off of my screen. This would happen for brief periods from time to time when I lost my train of thought or forgot what I wanted to say, so I had no choice but to briefly refer back to my outline. To prevent this in the future, I need to begin memorizing and reviewing my speech earlier in advance. Simply put, I need to prepare myself more. However, overall, I think I did a good job and I’m proud of the content of my speech. I included a good amount of sources, slides, and images which I think enhanced my speech!

As for the History of a Public Controversy Project, I was thinking that a good idea could be something that deals with the history of Penn State, especially since Penn State is something that is so relevant to all of us. I’m not sure exactly what I mean by this, but it’s just a broad idea that I think would be interesting. I would like to do the project on something that is relevant to everyone… maybe even something about drugs or alcohol…or perhaps something to do sororities/fraternities… Let me know what you think in the comments.

Below is an image of my redistricting map!

Link to my redistricting map!

One TED Talk that I found to be particularly interesting was Mona Chalabi’s “How Long Does it Take to Get Over a Breakup?”

She noted that after researching for an answer of a set amount of time that it should take someone to get over a breakup, she found that there really is no set answer. She discovered that methods such as finding distractions are somewhat effective. Although finding distractions won’t actually help you detach from your ex or lose love for them, it will bring you short-term gratification and help you feel more pleasant. Another thing that she discovered to help get over a breakup is what she calls the reappraisal strategy: reminding yourself of all of the bad things your ex did and said during your relationship.

Overall, her research suggested that although distraction can bring short-term happiness and the reappraisal strategy can help you detach, there really is no correct answer as to how long it takes to get over a breakup. I found her TED talk particularly interesting as I’ve been through enough rough breakups myself to know that she is totally correct. There is no set amount of time that it will take you to get over a breakup. This is because every breakup is different.

As for my paradigm shift paper, I was thinking of perhaps focusing on fitness. I was inspired by our class discussion on how fitness has changed over the years. I would discuss something along the lines of how we now have the ability to do workouts to focus on specific body parts that we would like to target, rather than just doing basic cardio. I was also inspired by our brief discussion on the emergence of athleisure… especially since COVID struck. I could also go along the lines of how fitness has become more easily accessible because of electronics.

Overall, I have quite a bit of ideas and directions I could take my paper in and I’m not totally sold on what I should do. If anyone has suggestions please comment and let me know! 🙂