#blog two

[closeure-eyes]

REM Sleep

Let’s talk about REM sleep. Specifically, dreaming. I’m still not over this sleep thing. I haven’t slept because of it.

REM sleep is the only stage of sleep we dream in. We’re in REM sleep around 90 minutes after we first fall asleep. On average, we cycle through about six REM sleeps each night. Our heart rates increase, our blood pressure increases, we breathe faster, shallower, and more irregular. It’s also very difficult to wake someone up from REM sleep.

We can dream 4 to 6 times each night. I usually only remember one dream each night and it’s usually the weird ones. One time I dreamt of Mike Babcock (he coaches the NHL team Toronto Maple Leafs) naked. He just stood up out of a bathtub and looked like a wrinkly grape. A raisin. Like the way your fingers look after being in the water for too long, but it was all over his body. I can’t look at him without thinking of that dream. And now you can’t either. HA!

Muscle paralysis is common in REM sleep, too. It’s a protective measure to keep us from acting out our dreams. Can you imagine if you were running away from something in a dream and then actually getting out bed and running into a wall, full-speed ahead? Ouch, talk about a headache. And then there are people who experience sleep paralysis, which is when a person temporarily can’t move when waking up or falling asleep. Remember Nell in The Haunting of Hill House? Spooky.

That’s REM sleep. Thanks for reading. Like and subscribe. Follow. Retweet. Good night!!!

[persistent-anxiety]

AGORAPHOBIA!!!

AGORAPHOBIA!!! A lot of people have been asking me to expand on my agoraphobia, how it affects me, what it is, how my job interview went with my agoraphobia. So I will answer all these pressing questions in this blog called AGORAPHOBIA!!!

What is agoraphobia? How does it affect you?

Agoraphobia is the fear of being in a situation the person (me) can’t escape. A person (me) may avoid going out to public spaces or even avoid leaving their homes (which is definitely me). For me, agoraphobia first came out in high school (Read here about my high school experience). My parents took me out of public school and enrolled me in online classes. I have since graduated high school, but I have not moved out of my parents’ house. It took me such a long time to even be able to think about getting a job, let alone leave my house for a job interview. I went through lots of therapy, both through video chat and in-person sessions.

How was your job interview?

Um, it sucked? I think I answered all of their questions the way they wanted me to, but I was so nervous I think I spoke too fast and I think I was a little standoff-ish. I definitely wasn’t as friendly as I wanted to be. I wish I could do it over again, but at least now I know for future references to be more kind to myself instead of the way I was talking to myself the entire interview. It definitely played a huge part in my answers.  

  What are some techniques you use to help calm you down during an anxiety attack?

I do my best to take deep breaths, which is very hard to do when you feel like you can’t breathe. Hyperventilating absolutely does not help. It sucks so much. I tell myself over and over that you can breathe, you’re not dying, slow down. Doesn’t always help. Doesn’t work for everyone, either. Counting breaths, too, that helps. Just don’t touch me.

That’s it, thanks for reading. If you have any more questions, just ask.  My inbox is always open.

[inspiredbyharriet-blog]

August 23, 2015 to September 7, 2015

It felt strange packing the largest suitcase that I owned to travel from East New York, Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Upper West Side, Manhattan to meet the students and faculty who I’d be sharing space with for the next three months. It was the launch of my human rights study abroad program and we were meeting at Jazz on the Park Hostel, the hostel that would be my home for two weeks and it was situated right across the street from Central Park. Both my mother and my brother, Omari came to drop me off and, of course, to survey the students and faculty who I’d be spending so much of my time with. Everyone seemed nice and a bit reserved but I attribute that to it being the first day. We totaled 27 students in all, one travelling Professor and one Trustee Fellow. The group is majority women, with only five male students. The group is majority White women with a minority of women of color. I am the only Black student on the program. I shared a room with four other girls, all from different parts of the United States and varying colleges with different personal experiences and positionalities. I felt excited, but also nervous—happy and disappointed—annoyed and unfamiliar. I was home, in New York City, but I was in a space that wasn’t my home, one with no Black people, no fierce activists, no childhood friends, no college friends, no artists, and no community that I had spent so much time, and light, and love building up this summer. Yet, I knew that the opportunity to travel to three countries that I had never been to was one that I could not give up. It would truly be an experience of a lifetime, and for that I felt gratefulness eating away at all of my other emotions.

During the first and second week of the program we met with representatives from various national and international NGOs and grassroot organizations. In addition we had lectures and workshops led by travelling faculty members as well as human-rights esque guest lecturers. Some notable lectures/presentations were by The Movement for Black Lives, Caracol (a language justice collaborative), and The Red Umbrella Project (an org dedicated to caring for and supporting sex workers). I also really enjoyed our visit to The Brooklyn Movement Center and The War Resistors League and Democracy Now.  In our courses we learned the history of human rights discourse as originating in the West and orienting all non-hegemonic nations and discourses. I learned of the early relationship between (and conflicts between) Black activists and Eleanor Roosevelt in terms of positioning the discrimination of Black people as a universal human rights issue. I learned that in the end the “enemy” of the United States was positioned as Russia, in response to the Cold War and the Western fear of the spread of communism. Rather than focus on internal justice, as W.E.B. DuBois proposed, on December 4, 1947, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights rejected his proposal, and the United Nations took no action on the petition that W.E.B.  Dubois proposed to address the structural and systemic discrimination of Black People in America. The lecture on this topic, presented by a Black male representative of the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, introduced me to the presenting of American anti-Blackness to an international audience; furthermore the presenting of anti-Blackness as a discourse that is universal and transnational—one that has the ability to be dealt with by a non-Western audience because it exists not only in the West.

[mindovermocha-blog]

Blog 2: Microaggresion and Fake Allies

Last Wednesday, October 7th, 2015, I attended a reading by Claudia Rankine. The pieces she read were originally published in her book, “Citizen,” a book I now feel the need to desperately get my hands on. On the cover of “Citizen,” against a stark white background, was a picture of a black hood, a simple image that alludes to the death of Trayvon Martin; some say a picture is worth a thousand words and in this case there is no truer phrase. 

A lot of Claudia’s work was focused on the microaggressions against black people today. Claudia said that to get inspiration for writing, she asked some of her friends and associates to recall a situation in which they were doing something ordinary and then suddenly, racism entered the picture. Of all the stories they told her, Claudia said that she was only shocked by one, and that one involved a therapist.

I can wholly understand her shock in this instance. Therapist are painted in society as people who are unbiased and here to help, but in reality, therapists are people too. They can be sexists, prejudiced, bigoted, and certainly they can be racist. They have to put on a face and pretend to care about your problems to get paid, but at the end of the day, some of them might still judge your situation based on your class, color, and creed.

It’s because of this story about the therapist who recoiled like a hurt dog at the sight of a Black person on her property that I reiterate that we must be careful with whom we choose as our allies. Being that being politically correct and fair and following the collective opinion of the liberal in-crowd is becoming the standard thing in this era, it’s easy to see how people could put on a face without even realizing that they’re speaking for something they don’t truly believe. Some allies are allies for publicity. Some allies are allies to appear as saviors. Some “allies” (and I say this with Rachel Dolezal in mind) are allies for their own personal gain. With people like this hidden in masses amongst the social justice scene, it’s hard to establish trust with allies who don’t face the same trials that POC do.

Perhaps this is just word vomit and there isn’t a clear connection between the points I’m trying to make. And perhaps I’m speaking the truth from my perspective and these are all interrelated concepts. Overall, I guess I’m just trying to explain how exhibiting microaggression and declaring yourself as an ally, while seemingly paradoxical, are common occurrences our world and that we have to watch out for those who don’t mean what they chant.

The same ones who reblog “Black Lives Matter” posts on Tumblr could very easily be the same ones with confederate flags hanging above their fireplace in their living room.

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[absoluteombre]

I added a song to this post because I have decided to share a ‘song of the week’ in my blog posts. Take a listen while you read!

After thinking about what we went through in class with characteristics of writing and what our blogs can be about, I decided to review games I play and discuss new ones I discover. Video games are a huge part of my life and I have played just about every console, but I mainly play PC now. PC was a huge part of my life when I was little, alongside Nintendo 64. I do have to say that my favorite console, however, was GameCube.

Have you ever heard of ARK: Survival Evolved? It’s all right if you haven’t, because not many people have. It is still in Alpha, meaning it is released for people to test out, but it is not finished. Now, whenever I mention how ARK is a “survival” game, people automatically say, “Oh yeah! Like ‘The Last of Us,” the survival horror game, right?” No, not exactly... This isn’t a game where you have an objective and try not to die while getting there while following a story. A TRUE survival game is where you have to pay close attention to your health, thirst, and hunger meters while going against the elements.

ARK places you on an island infested with DINOSAURS! There are herbivores, which will not attack you on sight, and the big bad carnivores, which will eat you if you get too close. You can tame them, too! Each dinosaur is unique. Some herbivores are better at getting berries while others can harvest wood. Some carnivores are slow yet powerful, and some carnivores are extremely quick on their feet, but can’t take a hit well. I believe the scariest part of the game is the other people. If you are a very low level, most people will kill you on sight. There are some that will help you sometimes, though. Pretty much as soon as you join a server, you need to level up and build a shelter as fast as possible. Here is a video of me playing the game so you can get a better idea of what I’m talking about even though I’m playing solo.

This is my favorite game of all time, as of now. Let me know if you play it!

[jamieteaches]

Designing Curriculum

The "Understanding By Design" model is kind of a no-brainer when you think about how students should learn, but as a student who has little to no practice in creating lesson plans from scratch, it's a big challenge. Of course, design matters to the goals of the class. The "traditional" way gets all the standards met on the surface, but nothing is said about how or why the lessons matter. The biggest thing I took away from the UBD book was that you want to be specific when telling students what they are expected to do/know in the class, but you need to present the information in a way that shows it's importance to matters outside of the classroom. The "Big Picture" questions are really lofty to think about, but that's the point. They aren't supposed to be "answered with brief finality". Instead, they are meant to make students really think about how the question pertains to their lives as well as the lessons. It's kind of hard to think of how a big question can be made into a unit or multiple units. And even harder to find goals that can be worked with my focused area.

I'm thinking of doing a unit on "The New Classics", and it's easy to think of some stories that can be read/discussed, and types of things that students are expected to learn from them. I'm having trouble coming up with the "so what" aspect. I've thought of a few sort of ideas that need to be fleshed out a lot more.

- how do the "tropes" being used in a story effect societal views of gender/minorities/etc. today, compared to when it was originally published, and what can we learn from the "morals/lessons" presented? - what is the influence/relevance of classic stories in present day? (ie: Romeo and Juliet -> Warm Bodies, a zombie-fied futuristic movie about the romance between "R" and Julie.) - how does the author/director's choices in presentations affect our perception of the story and what we think is important? (Or how does a different format or version of the story compare to it's original and how does that change what you take away from it?)

I'm trying to steer this towards an idea of "I want my students to understand how classic literature, with or without the modernizations, have a impact on how parts of society are viewed, how concepts are still relevant, and how we can see these ideas from literature being evoked on today.

I'm not sure where to go with this. I've got concepts but I'd love any feedback on how to make this work or make it more specific. 

I'm thinking about using "Pride and Prejudice", "Romeo And Juliet", "The Jungle Book", and another story I have yet to decide on.

[afpchrisgraham]

Blog: Two dads and second parent adoption

Blog: Two dads and second parent adoption

By Brandon Cline-Taskey

We both love both of our children and would do anything for either of them; regardless of what Virginia has to say about it. Sadly, even though we are both parents to our two children, what Virginiahas to say about it is that I only have a son and my partner only has a daughter. We are a loving family with two dads and two kids, but our legal protections are less than…

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