The sound of gunshots and distant explosions disrupted my sleep. It was already a week that the started happening. The people were not happy, the government had recently passed a tax reform that as always benefited the rich and cruelly taxed the less advantaged, and riots erupted throughout the main street and center of […]
Was I starving for attention? An emotional catharsis? A sustainable way to maintain my new lifestyle of complete and utter hunger? By the age of thirteen, I was no stranger to the feeling of emptiness that preceded the pure euphoria of starving myself. Of course, by the age of fourteen, I was no stranger to […]
I had never felt more disconnected. It was my first day of class as a Junior at my new school. I hadn’t been in a brick-and-mortar school for 6 months. Everyone was required to sit 6 feet apart. All assignments were switched from lectures and activities to watching videos online with headphones. Everyone was wearing […]
Genre Remix Artifact It is a fact that, in this country, crisis is constant and overwhelming. Each day, it seems, the news is announcing a new crisis facing the country: a mental health crisis, a drug epidemic, public health crisis, gun violence, etc. What many of the larger issues facing America often have in common, […]
Among many health-related and developmental challenges that orphans and abandoned children (OAC) face is insecure attachment, which serves as the biopsychosocial trigger for mental health disorders, neurological deficiencies and abnormalities, delinquency and criminal behavior, suicidal ideation, and unhealthy dependencies upon their romantic partners and peers. It has even been discovered that orphans are […]
Getting into bed, I turn on my favorite sitcom to listen to as I fall asleep. This is something a lot of people tend to do, turning on their favorite comfort show. Whether its Friends, That 70s Show, or The King of Queens, many love a good mindless show with a laugh track that will […]
Following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model, generative artificial intelligence has exploded in popularity and many institutions have been integrating the technology into their products and processes. As explained by Nvidia, a world leader in artificial intelligence, large language models (LLMs) are a form of deep learning algorithm – a type of artificial […]
Today, over 150 million children are orphans, millions of whom suffer from malnutrition, abuse, and a lack of education. Some of these children are adopted in the first 2 years of their lives by caregivers who live several hundred miles away from their home, and some orphans live in residential facilities such as orphanages or […]
On September 12th, 2023, stockholders checked their portfolios and consumers prepared their wallets as the much-anticipated annual Apple keynote unfolded. Titled “Wonderlust,” the presentation transpired as most viewers expected, with the uniquely elegant and exciting Apple style. Apple has been hailed as the gold standard of marketing and presenting products for decades. USA TODAY described […]
From one of YouTube’s most beloved to most hated in two weeks, Colleen Ballinger’s fall from grace started with strokes on a keyboard and ended with the strokes of ukulele strings. When accusations of inappropriate behavior with minors threatened her career, Ballinger shocked us all with one of the worst apologies in internet history: […]
The country where I spent my childhood was lively, filled with pockets of joy hidden within nature: hot, sunny days spent walking to the beach; calypso beats echoing in my ears and through my limbs; sand in between my toes; the sticky residue of saltwater and mangoes still on my lips hours after leaving. The […]
It is dark. A smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol creeps along the walls to the young boy’s room. He lays there trying to sleep, but the knife-like pain from his empty stomach keeps him awake. He wraps himself further in the musty comforter; the warmth from it collides with the coldness of his tears. […]
The year is 1955. Jim Henson creates The Muppets, a group of silly, musically inclined puppets led by a perhaps the silliest puppet of them all: a green, talking frog named Kermit. They are a hit. After numerous TV appearances on Sesame Street, the Muppets get their own show, and the rest is history. They […]
“And this, this right here, is Morning Glory. See the purple around the leaf?” Ed questioned with a gruff voice. I nodded as I saw it – the way one vine had a purplish tinge around its petioles while the other did not. So together, Ed and I pruned back the invasive Morning Glory to […]
I used to have a designated stool to stand on in the kitchen for the sole purpose of watching my mother cook, eyeing every movement, every gesture, every ingredient. At first I would merely watch, my eyes devouring every action and scanning each recipe with eagerness, before I could even identify the words guiding each […]
What makes the written word come alive? One can review rules on clarity and concision, on sentence pacing and variety. But sometimes we just need to experience good prose. Below, I offer two versions of a statement laying out some essential rules for good writing. Both include identical information. But where the first version pays […]
The current US system, better referred to as a health insurance system rather than a health care system, does not produce quality outcomes nor does it serve all people equally. According to West Health- Gallup 2021 Healthcare in America Report, nearly one-third of Americans reported not seeking treatment for a health problem in the prior […]
Remix – AAPI History Lesson Plan The purpose of my Remix is to provide a tangible template for teaching AAPI history to older students while the purpose of the DIAC is to explain the context behind and implications of the Model Minority myth. However, both have a similar undercurrent: education (how we are taught to […]
In December of 2011, Ségolène Bergeon Langle and Jean-Pierre Cuzin, two of France’s leading art experts, resigned from the Louvre’s advisory committee supervising the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin and Child With Saint Anne. In an interview with The New York Times, Bergeon Langle stated that she provided detailed reports to the Louvre and […]
On Friday, June 24, 2022, American women lost their rights. Re-read that date again. Not 1822, but 2022. On this day, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, allowing states to determine if abortion shall be legal. Women lost their supposed “right to privacy,” right to basic human regards and decency, and right […]