A Picture to Describe 2020

I chose this image as the image that represents 2020 the most for me. It is the logo of a video-telephone software programme called Zoom. 2020 was the year that the Covid-19 virus took over the whole world, killing more than 2 million people and infecting much more in a short amount of time. As a vaccine for the virus hasn't been made, lockdowns are imposed nearly everywhere to avoid more people getting infected. Zoom has suddenly become very crucial in everybody’s life. Teachers use them to teach students; businessmen use them for meetings; and housewives use them for cooking lessons. I'm sure that if you ask any random person if they knew this program, I'm 99% sure they'll say yes. 

If historians or archaeologists 100 or 1000 years from now study the visual culture of 2020 and 2021, I think that they'll mark 2020 as the year when everything went online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWvSJqB3Q3Y

Sesame Street's Newest Muppets for Rohingya Children

The Rohingya is a stateless ethnic group from Myanmar. They are persecuted by the Myanmar Government as the government considers them to be illegal foreigners from Bangladesh. However, Rohingya claimed to be descendants of Arab traders who had settled in Rakhine in around 7th century. The conflict grew worse in 2019 and around 750 000 Rohingya fled from Myanmar to other ASEAN countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia; more than half are children. These children suffered emotional trauma and led a very impoverished life in the refugee camp. Sesame Street attempts to help these children with some new initiatives, but more assistance from international organization will be needed to ensure that these children will have a future.  

Working together with several other charity foundations, Sesame Street, an educational TV series from the US, created a special TV program with two new Rohingya muppets, Noor and Aziz, for the Rohingya children. Noor and Aziz are twins and share many similarities with the Rohingya children, allowing the children to identify themselves with and thus learning from the muppets. They have similar features, speak Rohingya’s native language and share similar backgrounds with them. For example, Aziz is steeped in the Rohingya tradition of storytelling and Noor is afraid of loud noises as they reminded her of gunfire, much like many Rohingya children. The cartoon shows how Noor and Aziz handled their trauma and deal with their emotions, thus allowing the Rohingya children to apply those solutions in their own life too. Sesame Street hopes that this would provide psychological and emotional support for them. 

Another idea featured in the show is gender equality. Aziz helps with household chores and Noor loves to study. This might be unusual in a Rohingya household as girls usually do the house chores, received very little education, and are married off at quite a young age. With Noor as an example, Rohingya girls emulate her and see that there's nothing wrong in getting an education and having high dreams. Sesame Street hopes to show Rohingya children that both genders are equal in every aspect of life and deserves to be regarded as such.

However, these empowerment and modernization of children, could put the children, especially girls, at risk. Some of the ideas taught by Sesame Street, like gender equality, might go against the norms of a traditional Rohingya community. This might cause conflicts and estrangement from their family and community. There have been cases of violence towards young adults for breaking a traditional norm. If the Rohingya finds Sesame Street as a threat to their customs, the programme might be banned among them. The younger generation won't learn the same ideas the older generation did. In this way, many wouldn't be able to improve themselves in certain aspects due to the limitations put on them by the customs of the community. 

Not only do children need to be taught to be open minded, I think adults in the community need to be educated to be open minded too. I think that this is where social welfare organizations can step in. NGOs like Gugah Nurani Indonesia and SHINE provide seminars and workshops for parents. These organizations usually teach both children and adults new skills and ideas of the 21st century. My mom and her team are invited by Gugah Nurani Indonesia to teach teachers on how to teach story writing and illustration to children and the importance of creativity to both Indonesian children and parents. She will also help out in their parent seminar on using technology in a productive way. I used to participate in SHINE and the organization has taught new skills such as making organic soaps to both parents and children. Through these kinds of social welfare organizations parents in poverty can broaden their minds and improve their living standards. 

In my opinion, Sesame Street's Rohingya programme is very beneficial to the Rohingya children. They provide not only entertainment and fun, but also attempts to educate and empower them. However, it can also be a double-edged sword as the modernization could bring more harm than good. If all these charity foundations work together, these displaced children will be able to have a better quality of life and brighter future.

The Covid-19 Vaccine

 

As we come to the end of 2020, people are seeing hope for the end of the pandemic as various Covid19 vaccines are in their final clinical testing stage. The Pfizer vaccine is one of them and it has now been approved for emergency usage in several countries such as the United Kingdom and Canada. Despite announced to having a 90% efficacy, it still receives mixed opinions from the public. With the launch of several Covid-19 vaccines around the world, we will now need to weigh the pros and cons of taking the vaccine to make a crucial decision that will affect not only our individual lives but the global community.

Vaccines are crucial to combat Covid-19 and enable us all to return to a semblance of normal life before the pandemic. Vaccines will help us achieve herd immunity. Herd immunity will only happen when a half or a third of a population has the immunity to defend themselves from the virus. It’s estimated that an infected person can spread the virus to at least two or three people. If a lot of people are already immune to the virus, then the spread of the virus will be contained. Thus, this is where the role of vaccine becomes very important. Vaccine can provide Covid-19 immunity in a safer way. When 75% of the community has been vaccinated, the risk of a person getting the virus will be lower. Therefore, we will all be able to go outside again, back to our daily activities.

Even though we all know the benefit of being vaccinated, the short time it took to test the vaccine is one of the main reasons people are hesitant to take the vaccine. Countries are rushing to be one of the first to have a viable vaccine. US Government even set up a program called the Operation Warp Speed. It offered large amounts of money to companies that can produce a vaccine by a certain deadline. People worry that the drug companies might be pressured to deliver the vaccines according to the demand of the operation, affecting how they conduct the clinical trials. Normally, before a vaccine can be distributed to the public, it is required to go through multiple tests and trials. These can take many years to ensure the vaccine's safety. When the trials are rushed, there are great possibilities that there might be mistakes or inaccuracies.

Vaccine development usually ranges from 4 to 10 years. So when drug companies announced successful Covid-19 vaccine in less than a year, I was really sceptical. There must have been some mistakes. After further research, I discovered that one of the reasons researchers were able to speed up the vaccine development was due to past researches of SARS and MERS. Both viruses are a type of coronavirus. In addition to that, the massive amount of funding made it possible for drug companies to run parallel tests. These 2 combined are the ultimate formula in the race to fight Covid-19.

As countries around the world are rolling out the vaccines, all eyes are watching closely for the effect and result of the vaccination. I am fairly certain that drug companies would not be so careless and risk their reputation in creating vaccines that are not safe for the public. Therefore, I think that when the vaccine is available for me, I will choose to be vaccinated. At least I would have done my duty as a responsible citizen and contributed to returning the world back on track.

 

 

The Mau Mau Uprising

 

On June 11 1920, Kenya was colonized by the British for their fertile land. They became part of British Africa with little to no advantages on their sides and experienced an unjust period for around 42 years. Their lands robbed, taxed heavily, and the people forced into labor work. Needless to say, it created resentment between the British and Kenyans. Many revolted, with the most significant one the Mau Mau Uprising. While they are regarded as terrorists, it was this uprising that ultimately led to the independence of Kenya.

The Mau Mau first started as a nationalist group dominated by Kikuyu people. The Kikuyu is the largest ethnic tribe in the colony and they suffered the most in the hands of the British. They pressed the British for their lands back, but with little to no results. As time progressed, radical members of the Mau Mau created a splinter militant group which used violence to drive away British authority. To be a part of that group, the native African had to take an oath. It was believed that if one break that oath, the repercussion would be death.

As the British didn't want the world to know that they were the reason for the war, they portrayed the Mau Mau as the culprits. In British news and media, they represented the Mau Mau as a barbaric and cult-like group who made it their job to raid both English settlers and local people alike. Meanwhile, they portrayed themselves as "saviors" and claimed to help the locals against the Mau Mau with weapons and soldiers. They labelled the locals that worked with them as loyalists, so it sounded like the war is between the Mau Mau and loyalists. They showed the British's compassion towards the locals in the broadcasts, such as British troops honoring a fallen local tribe leader, and predicting the Mau Mau's positions with Kenyan locals. In these broadcasts, there were no words about the British coming to Kenya to claim the lands. Now that we're able to gain more information about what really happened, we can see who the real culprit is. It was the British who was the real perpetrator of violence in Kenya.

It was true that Mau Mau killed thousands of their own tribe, those who are loyal to the British. However, the British also caused a great deal of deaths that they didn’t report. Many Kikuyu men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps with little food and poor sanitation and some were killed without trials, just because they were suspected to be part of the Mau Mau group. I think it’s a pity that so many lives were lost in the Mau Mau uprising, but at least the movement freed the Kenyans from the rule of the British.

Thus, I consider the Mau Mau as heroes of their country. Their determination for independence brought more troubles to the British than its worth. Even when the British had caught the Mau Mau's leader, Dedan Kimathi, the Mau Mau did not dwindle and continued to fight. While the British came for fertile land to plant crops, all they'd done is waste money on these wars. This results in the British granting them independence 3 years later.

If I were a Kikuyu, I would feel upset to be framed as a villain. I fought for my independence, then why would I be the "bad guy"? However, it is also difficult to judge an organization in times of war, as information may be hard to achieve. If the whole world listened to the British news during the time of war, I think many people would believe that the Mau Mau are terrorists. I am pleased that more information about the Mau Mau were discovered after the war and we can see their point of views about the event. It’s interesting to see that historical perspectives about a historical event could change greatly in years after. It’s always crucial to keep this in mind and be critical for new evidence and facts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising

Friends In My Drinking Bottle

Doing chores is a bore for most people, including me! As they're no fun, I always try to find a way to reduce them. One of the things I did to avoid washing my large water bottle was by using it for 2 whole weeks. Can you imagine all the germs and organisms collected there? Ewww. Speaking of gross, I decided to check the water with a USB digital microscope in the hopes of seeing the little friends I had cultured over the past 2 weeks. I predicted that I will find many microorganisms and immediately wash my water bottle after the observation. Please do keep in mind that this was just a fun observation so there aren't things like hypothesis and variables. That being said, come and have a look at them:

Please pardon my Dad's voice :D

The first thing I did was setting up the microscope. The one I own uses the computer screen to see the results, as it doesn't have an ocular lens. Next I used an acrylic tent card holder as a glass slide with a pencil case underneath to make it horizontal. This was a bit difficult as I tend to nudge the pencil case around with my elbow, making the card stand diagonal again. Last of all I put a white sheet of paper under it to get clear results. 

I observed that there were microorganisms and cat fur in my water! The latter was unexpected, because I never saw or felt a thing when drinking it. I also observed that the microorganisms moved away from the light of the microscope, seeking a darker area. However, the microscope is only able to magnify until 500x (half of the common optical common microscope) so I can't identify their species. If anyone has any idea what they are, please do tell me! As for the cat fur, it must be the effect of me kissing my cat too much, but it won't stop me from continuing to do so! 

Located on the side of the microscope is a button to take pictures of the things we see under the microscope, but I couldn't snap a photo with it. Pressing the button will make the microscope shake, which will result in a blurry photo. So, I used my cell phone to capture my computer screen for a clearer photo. I know that the photo quality would've been better if I used the microscope camera, so please do pardon the lines you can see in the picture.

After I had a laugh at my disgusting behaviour, I immediately brought that water bottle to the kitchen and scrubbed and cleaned it like I've never before! In conclusion, whenever I feel afraid when I'm alone at home, all I have to do is remember that I have little tiny friends to company me! Nah just kidding.

 

 

 

Was Abraham Lincoln a White Supremacist?

 

Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the greatest presidents of the United States. He is most well-known for abolishing slavery and is considered a hero who fought for the freedom of slaves. This resulted in his assassination by a confederate loyalist. His death was mourned as "the darkest hour in history", with around 7 million people mourning his funeral train when it made the 13-day journey to Springfield, Illinois. However, when we look back at his actions from a modern perspective, he might not seem to be such an advocate of human rights and equality after all.

North and South America were on rough terms with their political differences, especially about slavery. While the Unions (North) disagreed with slavery, it was the main asset and source of income for the Confederates (South). When Lincoln took office in 1861, he had the ultimate goal of uniting the North and the South. In his famous speech, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It was his opinion that the country must choose to either support or abolish slavery.

In the early period of the civil war, I think Lincoln took a more passive aggressive stance towards the issue of slavery. While Lincoln disagreed with slavery, he wasn't sure about what to do with the slaves if they were emancipated. He thought about just sending them back to their native country but decided against it because they might not be able to survive there. However, he was also conflicted about the slaves’ status and role in society if they were to remain in the US.

Finally, Lincoln was forced to make a decision when the war was going badly for the Union. A sure way for them to win was to destroy the South's main economic centre, which was slavery. This pushed Lincoln to sign the 13th amendment, making it illegal to own slave and punishable by law. Most of the freed slaves joined the Union Army and this helped defeat the Confederate. We can see that Lincoln’s grand action to abolish slavery was based on a very tactical decision to win the war.

Some modern historian considered Lincoln racist and a white supremacist. They based this on his indecisiveness to immediately abolish slavery and his belief that black people cannot be equal to white people. In his own words: ” What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this;”

Lincoln's words are straight down racist and they might sound like something a racist person like Trump might say. That means he doesn't deserve to be called as one of the greatest president of America. However, we should also consider the time period. Human rights for black people have improved so much in the 21st century, while there were no human rights for them in the time of Lincoln. Whatever he said, we must acknowledge that black people's rights are started by Lincoln. In addition to that, we also must acknowledge his change of perception towards blacks' rights. Lincoln proclaimed that he will improve their lives if he gets re-elected for the next 4 years. If that really happened, black people's lives will be one step ahead of today.

The history of Abraham Lincoln is a good example of the words "history is made by those who created it." Lincoln is noted only for his great achievements, which I understand, as it shaped today's world history. I was pretty disappointed though when I learned that he took his time in abolishing slavery as he was my inspiration. However, after more research and reading into primary sources, I think that it’s not fair to label him as a white supremacist because we are judging his actions from a modern perspective. We must keep in mind that during that time, the human rights movement was just at its bud. After a couple of centuries, understandably, the human rights movement has matured significantly. So our modern understanding of it would be very different from Lincoln’s time. Now that I know better, he has become much more than just an inspiration. He is proof that world-changing actions take process. It also shows that it's never too late to change yourself.

 

    

Tante Grey's Infographic Course

Hey guys! I'm extremely sorry for not updating in a really long time. I have been busy studying in the first half of 2020 and I just finished Grade 11 a few months ago. With my main focus on academics, I didn’t find any interesting topics to write for my blog, thus the lack of updates. Now that I am on a short holiday from academics, I have time to join some interesting online events.

 

One of the online events that I joined was an online infographic design course brought by Tante Greysia Susilo, a design lecturer at Pradita University. I don't know whether she has been planning to open this course for some time or did she open this course because of something that happened in instagram.

 

There were mean comments from ignorant people about homeschoolers in an IG’s post and comment section. There were a lot of different kinds of negative comments, belittling homeschoolers’ mentality, lifestyle, and social life. What annoyed me was the fact that they were all untrue and it was posted publicly on social media. A lot of people could get the wrong image about us! This made me momentarily thought about arguing with them online with my homeschooler friends. Luckily, I knocked some common sense into myself just in time. The decision to argue was a foolish impulse and it would definitely make things worse.

However, we felt all pent up. My friends and I, were at loss for what to do. We definitely couldn't leave this alone. Luckily for us, we got an advice from Tante Grey that the medicine to ignorance is education. By educating,we not only help them understand, but also channel our negative energy into something positive! 

 

One of the ways of educating others is through infographics. Thus, Tante Grey offered to teach us to make infographics. Our final project would be making infographics which debunk misconceptions about homeschooler.

 

The online course took place in zoomland and lasted around 2 months. We met once a week, with a total of 18 homeschool teenage participants. We were taught the basics of making a clear and interesting infographic: from collecting ideas to clustering information. After every meeting, the students were given a task to finish. Those who have finished the task would have their results discussed in the next meeting. There weren't any strict deadlines, but we were expected to finish them at a certain time, otherwise we would be left behind!

 

First, Tante Grey taught us the basics. There were a lot of simple details that could be easily overlooked when making infographics, such as data placing. We often forget that we should place our data according to how people usually read, which is from left to right and up to down. Instead, we tend to put our data in areas where we think they might look nice. Another thing about infographics is that there shouldn’t be too many words. It should be quick and easy to read.

 

Then we were given our first task! Tante Grey started by creating a mindmap with “Critiques Homeschoolers receive from the public” as the main theme. The participants were asked to continue it with all the critiques we know. Next,we were asked to pick a specific critique to focus on and make a mind map of the solutions. We were advised to pick the critique that we receive the most, as we would have more to say about it. I picked the topic of socialization.

 

It took me half of the day to create the mindmap, as I used google drawings in google doc. I’m not familiar with it, so it took me a while to get used to it. In addition to that, I made my mindmap with a lot of pictures. These are proofs that I socialize with a lot of kids my age. As the pictures are scattered in many different electronic files, it also took a long time to find them. I was pretty happy that I advanced to the next step without much critiques.

 

Once our mindmaps are done, the next task is to cluster or group all the data we made in the mindmap. Sometimes the topic is too broad and we had to narrow it down or choose a specific aspect of it to write about. While clustering, we also had to design our infographic. These two must be done at the same time to decide which data are the most important and choose the appropriate positions to put them on the infographic. I didn’t have any idea of how I should cluster all my data, so Tante Grey lent me a hand. She first asked me to divide my data into several categories, such as my academic and non-academic activities, my variety of activities or the frequency of my socialization. I originally chose to focus on analyzing the latter.

 

She then gave me examples of how I could divide my frequencies into more categories, such as once a week, once a month, and once a year. She also gave me a format of how my categories would look like in the infographic.

 

Once I have categorized all my data, all I had to do was put them together. I used Canva, a free programme specifically for graphic design. I experienced some difficulty while making the infographic.

 

First of all, I rarely make infographics and had little experience in using programmes like Canva. Thus, I had some difficulty getting around. Next, I couldn’t fit all the pictures using my format. Therefore, I decided to change the format. I think I did a pretty good job at it, but Tante Grey said that I had to review my data placement again. I told her my problem with the pictures, which she replied with an infographic of her own XD. She used the same format with the same amount of pictures, thus proving that it’s possible. Following the examples of the placement  of her picture, I finally managed to finish my infographic.

 

Next we had to ask for feedback. We had to show our infographic to 2 kinds of people: those that are familiar with homeschool and those who aren’t. I chose my parents for the first and my ex-school friends for the second. When asking for feedback, I had to first tell them the message I wanted to send through this infographic. Next, I had to ask if they received the message. Unfortunately, one of the reviewers didn’t get it, but instead she thought I was telling about the variety of activities I did for my socialization.

 

When I talked about this with Tante Grey, she agreed with my reviewer’s point of view that my infographic seemed to lean towards the variation more. She then showed me an infographic made by one of my coursemates, Vyel. I saw how his infographic leans more to the frequency of socialization with the bar graph he put in his infographic. Seeing the difference I decided to just change my title from “Frequency of socialization” to “Variation of Activities for Socialization”

 

When most of us had finished our infographics, they are posted in the instagram of my teen group @Teenspower.squad. As the infographics are posted on social media, we hope that more people will be able to understand more about homeschoolers. I think this infographic is also really useful when facing ignorant people --- all we have to do is share these infographics as a reply to their negative comments. As a person who isn't really into graphic design, I found this course overall interesting. When I first started the course, I thought that making an infographic is only about gathering information and designing an aesthetically interesting charts. I never gave thought as what made them enjoyable to read and look at. Through this course, I learned that there is more than just pasting information on a template.

 

These are the end projects of mine and some others!

This infographic is made by Vyel. The statistic he puts in his infographic clearly showed how frequently he makes friends.

An interesting infographic by Yla!

A very informative infographic by Nuala!