Human Trafficking

    My topic for the multi-genre research project is going to be human trafficking.  Human trafficking is the illegal act of trading humans either for labor or for sex. Human trafficking effects every nation across the globe and someone becomes a victim to modern-day slavery every 30 seconds. This topic is something that I am personally interested in because I find it crazy that there are more slaves today than in any other point in history and yet we hardly ever discuss the topic about modern-day slavery.
    I have a close family friend who is graduating with a degree in psychology and her main goal is to eventually open up a safe house for sex trafficking victims. She has also attended A21 campaigns, which is an organization dedicated to human trafficking. I will talk to her over the phone this week to gather information and ask her some questions. My other source is the vice president of Convoy of Hope and this company helps spread awareness and prevent human trafficking. I will be communicating with him through email to ask questions and gain information. One of my other sources will be the A21 Campaign website.

Multi-Genre Papers: Crumbled Creativity

    I scanned through the majority of the papers, but the one I kept coming back to was Crumbled Creativity, by Katie Shinkle. It caught my attention because even though it was talking about how in school we aren't pushed to be unique and use our imaginations, we are suppose to follow all the rules and regulations no matter what, the paper itself was very creative in the style of writing and the topic itself. In the poem it says, "I do what the teacher says, to get and A. I'm just like all the other kids, same grades, same life. We aren't different. You cant be unique here." I feel like a lot of the time this is true. Sometimes teachers see us as an object or a goal that they have to overcome in order to feel like they have done their job. I feel like sometimes they forget that we all have different problems and different personalities. After reading Crumbled Creativity I think that I would like to look more into school systems and see if there are more students who feel the same way.

Millennium Goals: Reduce Child Mortality

     The goal to Reduce Child Mortality can relate to our own state because Missouri's annual death rate last year for children was 1,100. The Reduction of Child Mortality's target goal is to reduce the mortality rate of children by two thirds from 1990 to 2015. They want to help save the lives of children who are dying from things that can be prevented from a vaccine. From 1990-2000, 10 million lives were saved just from taking the measles vaccine. In just 2012 6.6 million children under five died and most of these deaths could have been prevented if illnesses were treated or prevented. I am personally interested in this goal because my personal goal is to become a pediatric nurse and I'd like to think that I could help in saving children's lives someday.

Start Something that Matters: Reading Response #2

    The three stories that I chose were Good Travel, TechMama South Sedan, and Half 4 the Hungry. Good Travel is all about giving back to the people in the places that you travel to help support service providers that are a positive contribution to their community This is unique because it will change how travelers see the world and help the people that are in the communities they are traveling to. TechMama South Sedan's goal is to provide used cell phones to traditional birth attendants or TBA's because 90% of women in South Sedan give birth at home and if they were to have an emergency during child birth it would be extremely difficult for someone to call for help. This is a unique idea because it could help save the lives of mothers and children. Half 4 the Hungry wants to be able to help the 17 million domestic children that are starving be able to get food. Restaurants today serve twice the size of a normal proportion. Their idea is to have restaurants serve normally proportioned food, but have customers pay normal price. By doing this the restaurant will donate a certain amount of money to a charity, of their choice, that serves starving children. This is a unique idea because it helps solve multiple problems: hungry children, obese Americans, and wastes less food.
    These three winners correlate to my passion of helping others. All of the stories that caught my attention had goals where they wanted to: help starving children, help decrease the amount of mothers that die while giving birth, or help make a positive environment in the places that you travel. If I did not have to worry about money and the cost of travel I would love to do missionary work one day and serve others that are in need.
    The picture below shows a little boy who seems to be dirty and hungry. I chose this picture because it corresponds to the three story winners that I picked.

   

Artiicle 1 Response

   

    In the article, 7 grammar rules you should really pay attention to, it goes over the basic things that you should consider when writing. These include subjunctives, parallelism, verb problems, pronoun problems, a 'dangling' conversation, semicolons, and words. The author, Ben Yagoda, takes you through what to do or not to do and it was very helpful in my opinion.
    The picture to the right describes my reaction when I discovered that,"Honey, I shrunk the kids.", should actually be, "Honey, I shrank the kids." Yagoda states that this example is, "a persistent trouble maker you should be aware of.". I feel like this is a common mistake for a lot of people, including myself, so it is a good thing to be aware of when writing.

PechaKucha: Superior Skydiving

I read the PechaKucha about skydiving. The narrator, Lyn Langlais, was explaining why her passion is skydiving and the trials she went through to achieve her dream.

Polish: The narrator paused a lot and used the words "uh" and "um" throughout her presentation. This showed me that she was having a hard time coming up with what to say next. The presentation could have flowed more smoothly.

Praise: The narrator did keep my interest and I found what she was talking about fascinating. She described what she was talking about in a way that I could understand and I enjoyed hearing about her experiences.

Overall I enjoyed the PechaKucha and am excited to finish my own to see how it turns out; Although, I am nervous to see if I will have enough to talk about on each slide!

What are the in's and out's of Reincarnation?

    While reading the autobiography written by Daisy, my correspondent, she said something that caught my eye and piqued my interest. She was talking about her close relationship with her best friend when she said,  "In my opinion, it is possible that we had met each other in our last life." I have heard the word reincarnation thrown around a lot, but never thought to research it and dive into what it is really about.

    Reincarnation is the religious or philosophical concept that the soul or spirit, after biological death, begins a new life in a new body. The 'Spirit World' is said to be the real home of the soul and earth is just the place the soul visits for a period of time to gain spiritual training. On average the soul reincarnates once every 300-400 years. When a soul reincarnates on earth it looses all memories, so it is able to acquire a new personality that is not persuaded by a past life. People that were unkind/selfish on earth and die will then go to hell to for self-reflection.

    Souls are only reincarnated from heaven because they can not be born from hell. If spirits were able to be born from hell then the earth would turn into hell because it would be filled with hell spirits. Every one that does live on Earth was reincarnated from Heaven.  Hell spirits will only be able to be reincarnated after they have reflected on their sins.

    Even after reading all about reincarnation I personally do not believe in it. It goes against my personal religious beliefs, but that does not mean that I didn't have fun researching and learning more about reincarnation and how the spirit world works. I kept my mind open while researching this topic and found that it is truly fascinating and I can definitely see the allure in believing that once you die you can start over again and that you have multiple chances to change your life.

 

My Sources:

"Eternal Life and Reincarnation." Happy Science North America. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.

 

      Daisy (Zhao). "Daily Life". Letter to Katy Melton. October 27, 2014. Qingdao, China.