1) what is one unexpected thing you learned /experienced?

2) How did wl1 work toward

What's your meaning of life?

Welcome to the second unit of the senior humanities class "Journalism." In this unit, called "photography." we explored the photographic side of journalism. We spent a lot of time looking at influential photographs. We discussed how these photos influenced the public and how we take photos today. One of my favorite assignments was when we picked one photograph from each decade of the 20th century. I really enjoyed looking through photographs of the past century. It was interesting to see the historical events captured in influential photographs. For this unit's field experience, we went to Columbia College to sit in on an introductory journalism class. We were able to learn more about journalism while getting to see what a college class looks like and feels like. We also participated in Chicago Ideas Week. For this action project, we had to interview someone about what they thought the meaning of life is. I had some trouble trying to figure out who I should interview, but the simplicity of asking the person I spend my time with made the most sense insightful.

Day Dreaming a Meaning

GA, "run", 2019

"We gaze in what seems to be important at that moment, what passes through your life is a choice of what you practice.” In response to my lingering questioning of life Gabori Partee had curiously sparked several more questions through our conversation as we sat on a stoop staring at the trees. I had asked Gabori what specifically seems to be holding meaning in a moment as I was curious as to what is it the dictates substance in his life. I saw the frustration in his speech as he ironically concludes by saying how It becomes increasingly too difficult to come up with life’s ultimate lesson because it depends on how that lesson reveals suitable to your life at that moment. The lesson that we might think applies to our life varies because of all the different challenges that we have currently and the ones that are upcoming in life. It then became clear to me that Gabori is one to hold true through thinking that living in the present is what sets a person's future. As I continued to question I had asked what is it that dictates one's “ultimate lesson” in which he responded by saying it's like a mental game of patience and acceptance. I then paused by taking in on what he said as I felt like it deeply resided in my life as well. As the sun began to set we headed towards the river where he then questioned, “ Would one want to look back on their life and think that they did not accomplish all the things that he or she had hoped or wish that things had turned out differently? This just means that you have not fulfilled all the tremendous things life brings.” As he took a moment to recollect his thoughts I proceeded to ask if he is one to hold regrets. Very confidently he remarked on regrets not being existent as it is what builds your life to construct on everlasting change and practice by the moments. He had then brought up how “patience is underrated as it is easier to overcome for a human than acceptance of one’s situation or state. Therefore, having a meaningful life establishes life’s greatest lesson.” It was evident Gabori had sensed in what a life with meaning looks like so I had questioned him on how a life without meaning looks like. He voiced that, ”such as death, fear, and aging, which are all elements to having a meaningful life. So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning." Gabori’s answer unclouded the conclusion of what it means to have meaning, it was clear to him that in order to find life looking in would never be the solution to that never-ending question of life as it is important to see yourself in others and your surroundings in order to see what grounds you. He frustratingly points out, “ If people could apply this approach to their own life, things would be better for all of us but some people are too devoted to themselves that they cannot find their purpose in life.” As the scene began to get dark our conversation took a turn of its own as we discussed how death plays a big part in it too. Gabori explains how preparation and acceptance illustrate the importance of dealing with the fact that we all are going to die at some point. “Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If people accepted that they are going to die, people would do things much differently. Knowing that you could die at any time forces one to really appreciate life and the people in their life.” As it becomes obscure into a paradox of how one thinks life is meant he ended our conversation with, “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” Taking in moments of silence I then felt as if I was ready to capture the image. I had taken my image with my DSLR camera so that I will be able to have the most control over the aperture, shutter speed, and the overall composition. As I noticed outside had gotten darker I immediately knew I needed to change my settings so that I will be able to capture him with as much light as I can manipulate. I set my settings to 800 on exposure so that I can overall brighten up the frame without using to much grain, the shutter speed had been set to 200 frames per second so I can capture a cleaner motion picture, and lastly the aperture was set to f 2.8 so that I can have as much light come in as well. Now that I was ready to capture my shot I had asked Gabori in the count of 3 to run pass me so that I can capture a moving image. Luckily on the first try, I was able to obtain the image we had both wanted. Overall I was more than happy as to how my image and my interview had gone and felt as if was a great way for me to combine something I love into my learning.

Greening the Screen

This is the second and last unit in my senior STEAM course Economics. In this unit, we looked more in-depth about thinking like an economist. What led us to our internal portion of our investigation was a book by Kate Raworth titled, "Doughnut Economics- 7 ways to think like a 21st-century economist". In order to tackle the 7 parts of this book we paired in two and prepared a mini-lesson presentation for our peers. The importance of this was to understand the book's proposals in bettering the economy while saving the eco-system. For the external portion of our course, we visited We Work where we then met up with Rheaply. We had the opportunity to talk to the CEO and team members of this company where we learned how their business is innovating a circular economy by sharing professionals resources inside their industry. With the knowledge a
nd experience we gathered up we then took action into our learning by thinking how do we view the economic world. I decided to have my focus be the sustainability in film production. By taking Raworths lesson of a closed-loop economic system I am proposing for this model to be imposed in the film industry.

Greening The Screen

GA, "sustainable filmmaking", 2019

   As we imagine ourselves creating a story in action our mind immediately goes to wanting the best location, costume design, storyboard, equipment, etc. Although in pre-production, production, and post-production is meticulous in thinking about whom and where our sponsors and resources are coming from, we still tend to lose our focus in the waste that gets made behind the glamour. Sustainable film production isn't a new topic thankfully but nevertheless is it enforced or talked among our culture. One of Raworth's passage speaks on a circular economy. A circular economy works in eliminating waste and the production of it by ways of sharing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling in the results of having a decrease in pollution and carbon emissions and an overall balanced community. Although this isn't an idea that raises surprised heads it still raises questions as to how this can be infiltrated in a working society. This is the same question Raworth asks us as she states, "the job of today's economist is to figure out what kind of finance systems, regulations, and government support is needed to make that happen because the design will already do it but the finances, government, and business need to realign with redesign meaning that an economist job is to figure out how do you design the institutions to make this possible." This exact idea of thinking the solutions are already set for us but placing ways we can have this be a requirement in our growth as individuals, business owners, and community builders is what influenced me to think of this in a field of film. Filmmaking becomes scary when data shows that the making of a big-budget blockbuster can generate 3000 tonnes of C02 and one hour of tv production generates 9 tonnes of C02. This data puts you at a halt when you closely look at the quick changes that can be practiced within these film studios. My model focuses on the benefit of sustainable production. The amount of money that can be saved by reducing set construction by 20 percent and then reusing 25 percent of the material could save about $20,500. This being just one form of the bigger solution comes from turning accessibility to credibility. On our FE we spoke to Rheaply where we discussed how they use a circular economy module in working with the businesses. This led to the relationship between film studios and how much more of a closed net it can become if transparency was set in a way that was accessible for them. One of the team members that we spoke to at Rheaply spoke on how creating a platform that allows businesses to be part of the process allows Rheaply to gain credibility and allows the business to reduce waste through partnerships in their community. Although America is not confined to this type of model... yet, this is when we have organizations like the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to learn from. The BAFTA encourages sustainable production through a selection of 12 of the U.K.’s largest production companies. Consequently, the Academy has its own carbon calculator and a nonprofit organization named Media Greenhouse that promotes sustainable production practices in the industry. This form of placing value in waste reducement is what sets us up to want to meet the standards. Fortunately, when thinking of cinematography as a worldwide language we have a grand hope that America will to learn from studios like the UK and become a closed net community.

Cited Works
- “News.” Sustainability Could Play Leading Role in the Film Industry – Green Production Guide, https://www.greenproductionguide.com/sustainability-could-play-leading-role-in-the-film-industry/.

Voice of the Century

The third and last unit of my Senior Humanities course News coverage. In this unit, Sound, we learn all around sound news coverage. We tuned in to diverse podcasts and inquired about the voices of the century. This was an task where we had to choose a voice from each decade of the 20th century that speaks to what happened in that time period. We did comparative assignments. I truly preferred this task. It was a cool way to encounter sound from history. For our Field Encounter this unit, we went to Roosevelt College to see a photography display around worker detainment centers. This FE would have lined up superior with our photography unit, but there was sound within the show. For this action project, we had to form a podcast profiling and famous or influential voice. I had a difficult time considering of who to profile, but when I thought of powerful voices I knew I had to do Michael Jackson.

Tune In:




Read Along:

TIME	WHO	WHAT
0:00 0:50 1:15 1:37 2:33	GA Erin GA Father GA	“When we think of Michael Jackson, we think of his high-pitched shrieks, twirls, moonwalks, and impactful songs that changed music forever. His mark on the industry alone is enough to make him a legend — but that’s not all people remember him for. One of the most significant ways Michael Jackson influenced the world was through global culture. The music legend wasn’t just famous in the United States. He was famous all over the world, Through his influence, he was able to bring a sense of connection — He envisioned the world coming together in peace and harmony and created music that unified.Jackson's music took root in R&B, pop and soul. His play on different mediums and pop culture had gravitated all kinds of people to take a listen and tune in. These are some voices captured by the love of Michael Jackson” “There are so many songs out there that I feel like are inspirational but one of them I would say Man in the Mirror because that one really represents wanting to make a change and that change has to start with yourself before letting that out towards everybody else. I listened to him a lot when I was younger but one of the songs I remember listening with my brother was leave me alone, we used to always re-watch that video over and over again. I don’t really know why but I just always remember him being someone I listen to to this day.” “ Just like the youth gets impacted by the voice of Michael Jackson lets not forget about the old soul who grew up listening to Michael Jackson” “My favorite song is Billie Jean, I like the music of that song. My first time when I listened to was when I was in high school. Now that I am older and in my early 50’s and sometimes when i feel tired in the job I listen to that song and I get more energy because of the music makes me remember my young age and gives me so much energy to finish my job” As it seems to be Michael Jackson gave life to many people and that is why he is one of the most influential voices of the century.”

Investing Time

This is the first action project for Economics: Risking Value course. On our first unit we had learned the basics of how economics can help you make decisions, in order to understand the substance of the question we had analyzed the balance between supply and demand, human behavior in react to personal beneficial incentives and tested out the math behind simple and compound interest. As we dipped our toes deeper into this unit the next question we had to ask ourselves is what does the decision making looks like and play out in real-world scenarios. By doing so we learned how markets in different goods affect each other on an economic scale and how does that affects the decision making the process. Now that we grasped the logic between decision making we then transitioned into answering our action project guiding question: What will you do after high school? as much as this question had built a lot of scared faces and mid-life crisis thoughts our collected analyzations had prepared us to take action in calculating decision making.

Preaching the Chicago Streets

For our very first Action Project as seniors in our Humanities journalism class we explored the news values. News values is what dictates any news source whether it be an impact, proximity, immediacy, or conflict. As we looked at several newspapers from different times we were able to get a wide range of perspectives on how much of an impact it has. In order for us to understand what it takes to write story like so we had to learn how to spot fake news and certain vocabulary words that intel if the newspaper is  biased based or opinion based. For this action project we were given the freedom to choose a story of our choice and write about it. I chose to write a news article using impact as my news values. I had researched and interviewed one of Chicago's icons to let Chicagoans and myself no more about the man we see preaching on State Street. I hope you enjoy!

THE NEW WORLD

On our last unit "Flow" we are wrapping up our course Urban Planning and our junior year! in our internal investigation, we discussed the make-up of a neighborhood as we look at industrial, commercial, and residential neighborhoods. As we dove in deeper as to how Chicago fits into the equation of Urban planning we had brought up issues like white flight, N.I.M.B.Y, redlining, and blighted communities. This had been a conversation that brought a lot of curiosity as to what policies and historical events had occurred to get where we are now. We then listened to individuals who had strong opinions on what our cities had become, some saying our cities are lazy, un-resourceful and non-eco-friendly followed by statements and ideas that can improve these issues such as public places, local living, and the ban of cars. We seamlessly dove into the external portion of this unit where we start to visualize these cities and take a look at urban planning worldwide. We had gathered a lot of inspiration from people all around the world and what they are doing to better the sense of community. This made me realize how urban planning is a talk everyone should be engaging in as it affects everyone and can be changed by anyone. At a time crunch of 3 days, we buckled our seat belts to dive into our action project where we pick a neighborhood of our choice to look deeper into and place improvements where we see fit.

Location: Pulaski Road and 51st Street on the Southwest Side of Chicago, Illinois

GA, "3D Area", 2019

GA, "Pulaski train station", 2019

BENEFICIAL HELP

Shared Bike Lanes: My neighborhood is ran by two main streets  Pulaski and Archer. With no divvy stations located near the train station and the numerous amounts of bikes parked by the side of the street I felt as it was needed to accommodate a space where they can feel secured to progressively push forth more people on bikes and less people in vehicles. what I found surprising from my personal inductive analyses is there are more people riding bikes that are around the age of 30 to 50 years old than young adults who go to school right around the corner. This to me felt as a even bigger reason as to why we need to build our streets by the way our constituents use them.

Smart Street Lights: Getting off the train stop late at night is already a burden and a risk to most. As a student who goes to school in downtown there are several times I had came home around sundown and had felt unsafe from not having the ability to look at my surroundings. Smart Street lights would be beneficial in our overall safety as a passenger and a pedestrian. Light is a overall basic need that shouldn't be taken from lower income neighborhoods.

Public Space: The empty lot highlighted by the green dot has been in the same conditions since I was born. After years of walking past a gated dry land I had thought this would be a great location ti implement a public space as it benefits the commercial area headed down south of Pulaski and the High school that is right across the street from the train.

Public Art: Archer heights used to be a industrial neighborhood that carried a lot of the main railroads yards and warehouse facilities . Now that we have generations of families building a life in this community our neighborhood should equally represent that.  By doing so public art has the ability to uplift the representation of the culture by creating a space that allows you to enjoy yourself in the same space you work.

Garden Fence: At a certain point dead weaves and uncared for grass stops being in the category of plant life. My neighborhood can benefit positively from encouraging more plant life near the south Pulaski commercial area. This will create a natural system of healthy nutrients.

INSPIRATION

My idea for the new infrastructure came from the base camps that are placed in Tijuana for the current Caravan. The people in these camps started having a connection one a another and its been continuously flourishing by the connection of art they share as they fix holes with broken glass by turning them into beautiful Mosaics. This was one of my biggest influences because many people put money as the reason why certain things don't change, this goes to prove how change can be made a drastic way without the involvement of loans. I was also inspired by an article that talked about light pollution and how Chicago is the worlds most light polluted city. This made me think of how we need to look forward into efficient options rather than faster on demand options.

GA, "Great Migration" 2019

GA, "Tijuana Camps", 2019

Ga, "Beautification", 2019

GA, "Public Art", 2019

THINK GLOBALLY

This local design can further impact globally by hitting these specific SDG targets.

11.2: By 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons

- My segment purposely benefits the aspects of taking transportation. By adding streetlights towards the platform we can assure ourselves from our surroundings.

11.7: By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities 

- A portion of the space will include a public space that is meant for people to relax and enjoy the greenery. The infrastructure is currently chaotic in a sense that its surrounded by busy streets and factories not allowing pedestrians to enjoy a walk.

Building Principles

2: Create mixed-use and mixed income neighborhood

-  The fluidity of a commercial based space is a great way to welcome diversity and that's exactly what's being implemented.


4: Prioritize bicycle networks and auto-free streets

- Placing divvy stations next to the CTA will decrease the use of vehicles and allow people from work and school to resort to biking. As more and more people start to use bikes we can then change the roads to include bike lanes.

7: Match density and mix to transit capacity

-  With the reliability of transportation it'll be possible to obtain a higher rate of people suing these options knowing safety will be less of a problem.

 UP TO SCALE

GA, "Calculate", 2019

Neighborly Help
In order to form ideas that will benefit the space as a whole I wanted to get a primary source from a person who is an constituent of the neighborhood.

GA, "Jesus", 2019

Q: What can be placed to lower the crime rate?

A: By implementing cameras around the streets at night would be an idea, I don't really see cameras in high crime rate neighborhoods.

3-D Design