Posts

Acknowledgements

-
  Starting off, Schnoodles [Kian], I cannot begin to express my deepest gratitude for your valuable inputs in class. With the diversity that you bring to the class and the unique (somewhat) advice you give in order to improve my essays, I can guarantee that my essay average went from an 80 to a strong 82. Partner writes with you have always been fun since you bring unique analysis into our writing. Dhruv, where do I even begin, your constant reminders to put my cellular device away has really saved me from a lot of trouble. For all the times you helped me through my assignments when I didn’t know what was going on, for all the times that you decided to be my partner knowing that you were getting yourself into a mess, thank you. Collaborating with you has always been a learning experience for me. Mithun, I really have to thank you for making me laugh almost every day at the sheer stupidity of your comments. Granted you still have those moments where you shine through and show your intel
7 comments
Read more

Violence and its effects

-
Image
    This week we analyzed Videotape by Don DeLillo. Reading this piece made me realize how much violence we see every day, especially through social media apps like Instagram, and what its effects really are.     Instagram is arguably one of the most addictive and popular social media platforms. It is through this app that we see so many events being played out, events ranging from sports to death of individuals (like in the Videotape). Me personally, I see at least 5 car crashes daily. In fact, I see something like this so often that it feels weird to go a couple of days without seeing an Insta reel where someone is dying.      Looking at this, we see that violence is becoming an increasingly common thing to be witnessed in our daily lives. The effect of this is not people becoming scared, but rather them underestimating the precariousness of life. It is human nature that when you see something every day, you consider it to be normal and not of significant importance. This is exactly
3 comments
Read more

Rewilding and Food

-
Image
    This week we wrote a synthesis essay on urban rewilding. As much as I dislike writing essays, I have to admit that this topic was somewhat interesting to write about. Mainly because this got me thinking about food. How is urban rewilding related to the food industry?      Urban rewilding is the process of bringing back and introducing nature into urban environments. In the increasingly progressive world that we are living in right now, bringing back nature into our environment is extremely important. Common arguments against this are the lack of space or the high maintenance, which do make sense. But the benefits here simply outweigh basically all the cons. Singapore is a big example of the effects of urban rewilding. As an urban city, Singapore at one time was suffering with extreme biodiversity loss. With rewilding, not only was the biodiversity improved in Singapore, but it also enhanced ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, water filtration, and resulting in more rec
1 comment
Read more

Why do we do things that are bad for us?

-
Image
      The average adult makes around 34,000 decisions a day. Each decision carries some consequence, be it good or bad. Majority of these decisions are actually very simple things such as choosing what to eat, which don't really cause too much harm. But some decisions we make have negative effects, and the ironic thing is, we know that these choices are going to bring us problems in the near future. So why do we make these detrimental decisions?     To analyze this, let's take a pretty commonly seen example of a "bad decision" - procrastination. Procrastination is a pretty habitual trait for many people, especially students. It has become so "popular" that it became a part of our lifestyle. In fact, people who do not procrastinate and get their work done on time are seen as the weird ones. Everyone knows that procrastination will most definitely cause them to feel overwhelmed with stress, anger, and a bunch of not-so-good emotions later on. But why do we sti
2 comments
Read more

Hedonistic Calculus

-
Image
     Hedonism is a derived from the Greek word hedone (meaning pleasure). Hedonism is the philosophical theory that the pursuit of pleasure and achieving it is the best goal one should strive for in life. Now how does this tie into calculus? I didn't know either, and to be honest, I still don't completely understand it.      Hedonistic Calculus was developed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 1780s. Bentham created this based on Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the theory that an action is morally correct only if it results in the most amount of pleasure or positive effects. There are 7 factors mentioned by Bentham in undertaking an activity, these are Intensity (I), Duration (D), Certainty (C), Propinquity (P), Fecundity (F), Purity (P), and Extent (E).      Let's break each one of these factors down briefly.     1. Intensity: Bentham believed this value had a range from 0 to infinity. This range measures the value of pleasure and pain.     2. Duration: This is pretty self-exp
4 comments
Read more

Language and It's Effects

-
Image
      This week we read a couple of pieces that focused on language and how it affects peoples' lives.  This really interested me because I myself have seen and experienced how much language can impact someone's life.     Language and English in general is by far my favorite class!! (no sarcasm whatsoever). I just love walking into a classroom and seeing an inner circle and outer circle of desks. But I have to admit, English did teach me the importance of language in everyday life. This made me research more on language and its effects on people.      Firstly, what are the possible downsides in not having good literacy skills? Well biologically speaking, literacy skills are directly related to a various number of skills such as visual memory, visuomotor skills, visuospatial skills, and etc. So, the downside of not trying to develop literacy skills? All these parts of the brain not being activated. I used to just "like" writing because I wanted a good grade. But the mo
4 comments
Read more

Onion Blog

-
Image
    For this week, we needed to do a blog on a satire article from The Onion. I chose the article on Norway hiding its standard of living from other countries.      This article talks about Norway downplaying its standard of living in order to make the other nations to not feel too bad. The amount of irony this article has is absolutely insane. It starts of by saying "Norway did not wish to rub it in" while proceeding to give a completely rundown on why it's better than every single country. But to be honest, this does reflect many countries, mainly the US. While yes, it is true that US has a pretty developed economy compared to probably every other country, that does not necessarily make it THE BEST country. But guess how the media portrays America? As the utopia of everyone's dreams. It has become so prevalent that statistics show hundreds of thousands of people immigrating to this country in hopes for a better life. This is pretty much what the article is trying to
4 comments
Read more