The power of visuals

With the semester coming to an end, the deadline for our WP#3 is approaching as well and with it, the multimodal project. For the multimodal portion of our project, we need a visual that represents our topic. As mentioned on my previous post, my topic for the project is the effects of cyberbullying and the positive correlation it has with the increasing number of suicides among teenagers.

Although it was hard to find a visual that described the correlation between cyberbullying and suicide. I was successfully able to allocate a visual that represented statistics about cyberbullying.

This visual image taken from uknowkids.com (a website for tips for parents), narrates different statistics about cyberbullying and it's meant to inform the parents about the dangers of online bullying. In it, it describes how a majority of teenagers agree that bullying is easier if done online; it also shows the low percentage of kids who report their bullying to their parents and the percentage of parents who are inforfmed about cyberbullying.

This image not only proves to be informative but also an effective visual in terms of appealing to people. First of all, the contrast between black, white, and red is very eye-catching; the silhouette of the kid on the top right of the page appeals to the audience (parents) because it represents a non-specific kid that could be theirs. The visual also has a big font on the word "cyberbullying" and on every number statistic it gives in order to create emphasis on each of those things.

I believe this visual will be of help with my multimodal project because not only is it visually appealing but also provides helpful information about my research topic. 

Finding scholarly articles

With the end of the semester approaching and with it final projects, it is important to stay focused and know where to get the information you need for your assignments.

That being said, I did some research through the TAMU library databases to find articles that seemed appropriate for my research for my topic for WP#3 which is the effects of cyberbullying and the positive correlation they have with the  increasing number of suicides among teenagers. One of the results was an article by David Luxton, Jennifer June, and Jonathan Fairall called "Social media and suicide: a public health perspective."

This article has proven to be not only helpful for my research, but it also serves as one of my scholarly sources. How did I assume it was a scholarly article? Well first of all, it is published in the American Journal of Public Health which is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Public Health Association. Another way to tell that this article is a scholarly article is because it reports the results of a research conducted by them.

The article basically talks about the important role that social media plays in our lives nowadays. However along with the benefits of being connected to other people, there are consequences and it claims that there is evidence that social media and the internet can influence suicide-related behavior. The article also questions whether the increasing use of social media represents a risk for users and if there are any effective ways to counteract cyberbullying.

The article also mentions that prolonged use of the internet can lead to cyberbullying and therefore it can create suicidal behavior. The authors used the data from their research as evidence for their arguments. Finally, the article concludes with the belief that cyberbullying creates feelings of isolation and depression that can lead teens to suicide.

This article is extremely helpful in my research because it creates the connection between both variables that I am studying (cyberbullying and suicide) and is effective at expressing their message.

Videogames throughout time

Nowadays, it is not uncommon for people to gather around at midnight in stores like Best Buy or Walmart for the midnight release of games such as Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed. This should not come as a surprise because games nowadays are becoming highly popular and the demand for them has gone up.

Although I am not really into videogames, I do have several friends who are, and they always tell me their epic tales of how it took them a week to beat a Zelda game, or sometimes even as much as a weekend to beat another game. And even though my friends' tastes in games are different from one another, the one thing they have in common is the fact that they all believe that older games are harder to beat. 

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed true. I would often hear them talk about beating the newer videogames, but the older the game, the harder it is to beat. The only conclusion I have for this change of difficulties is that videogame developers realized that the only way they could make more money was by making games easier to beat. How does this work?

Well, the faster a person finishes a game, the more they will crave another game, and the more games they will buy from that saga, which will give the companies more money, and more reasons to keep making games. The harder the game is, the more time it will take to beat (if possible), and it will take longer for the gamer to get a new game. This may explain why there are so many games from the Grand Theft Auto, Call of duty, and Assassin's Creed saga, but not as many as for Pac-Man or Contra.

Educational differences

Having lived in Mexico until I turned 15, I have always been aware of the different education that my peers in the US and I received. Whenever we talked about our upbringings, I feel as if my schooling was like a prison, however I see nothing wrong with that.

My parents enrolled me in "kindergarten" when I was 3 years old, however we didn't have such thing as "nap time" or sat around just playing games. From what I can remember, we all had to be in our uniforms, ready to start class at 9 am, and "ready to learn." We would learn the alphabet, the colors, the months of the year, and the numbers. By the time we reached our last year in kindergarten (about 5-6 years old), the majority of us already knew how to read and write.

My elementary school experiences seems more of a blur, but what I do remember from it was the strict uniform policies (for girls, we had to wear a jumper dress, with 6 blue buttons on the front -no more, no less-, a white button-up shirt with a blue ribbon tied at the top, we had to wear knee-high socks and black shows, with the hair tied up on a ponytail and a white ribbon on it; for boys, they had to wear black slacks with a vest that had 6 buttons at the front, a white button-up t-shirt, a black tie, and black shoes) which if we failed to follow, we would get in trouble. I also remember our teachers forcing us to have neat and clear handwriting, and failure to do so would result on point deductions from any assignments.

Middle school is where things got harder because not only did the teachers become stricter, but also our workload doubled. It shouldn't be a surprise that the school had a strict uniform policy, but after dealing with uniforms your entire life, you are used to them at this point. The school was set in a way that all of the classrooms where in two buildings of 3 floors each, and you moved around through hallways on the outside. Each classroom had windows facing the hallways, so skipping class to walk around the school would not work because everybody would be able to see you. There was also only one way in and out of each building and to do it, you had to go through the prefects' offices, so once again, skipping class seemed pointless. There were also 2 main entrances for the school, the main entrance and the teachers' entrance. Once the bell rang at 7:30am, the main entrance would be locked and if you arrived late, you would have to go through the teachers' entrance, which meant going by the principal's office.

However after having dealt with strict rules in school for my entire life, I got used to it rather quickly, the only thing I had issues adjusting to was the workload. Up until middle school, I had only taken 6 classes per year, but once I started my first year of middle school (in Mexico, middle school goes from 7th-9th grade) I started taking 13 classes and this lasted until I graduated. We had a block schedule to accommodate for Spanish, Math, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, History, Ethics, Art, English, French, Art, and P.E., and to be honest, it wasn't as hard to handle as one might think, and I was ready for fast-paced learning, which did not occur.

Once I moved to the US and started high school here, I couldn't help but notice how slow-paced the educational system here is, or at least how it was in my district. what we were covering in my classes was stuff that I had learn 2 years before I moved. We were never required to learn the periodic table like I was in 8th grade, or learn all the countries, and capitals of the world along with their locations. To me, this was the biggest cultural shock I had during my first few months in the US, and it wasn't until the end of sophomore year that I started being at the same rate as my friends.

Whenever I tell my story to my friends, they all have the same reaction and ask me if my schools were a prison because to them, they seem like one, but to me this prisons mean my childhood, my upbringing, and even though I don't know any other type of basic schooling, I would not change what I had because in a way, it made me who I am today.

Differentiating between two worlds

I can somehow relate to Lu's story about having a language of school and a language of home, however unlike her, knowing the difference between both wasn't a "tool of survival." To me, the ability to differentiate between languages is more related to being able to communicate.

When I was younger, everyone around me would only speak Spanish, it wasn't until I turned 8 that I started learning English and I felt many doors opened for me. I could now enjoy the music of my favorite bands, I started reading Harry Potter in English, I could do twice as many things. However, I could only do that in my own little word, at my house I had to speak Spanish.

As the years went by and I started practicing English even more, I started mixing both languages, something my dad has always mocked me for. That clear definition between my own little world and everyone else's started becoming blurrier and blurrier. I would sometimes be talking to a friend in English and all of a sudden I would say something in Spanish, or I would be talking to my family in Spanish and then start speaking English. Not only has this put me in awkward situations, but also this has diminished my communication skills.

When I first started learning English, I thought that learning the language would be the challenging part, however differentiating between both languages ended up being just as hard.

Cinco de Mayo

The spring semester is full of holidays: Valentine's day, where people show their love for their family, friends, and their partners; Easter, which marks the end of lent for Catholics, or a huge egg-hunt for kids; and Cinco de Mayo. How is the latter one celebrated? Well in a college setting in the U.S., it is common to hear about Mexican-themed parties, featuring Mexican food and drunk people. Even weeks before Cinco de Mayo actually happens, stores start marketing for it, and people start making plans on how to celebrate this important Mexican holiday.

However, how is this holiday actually celebrated in Mexico?

In Mexico, Cinco de Mayo usually goes somewhat unnoticed. It is a very low-key celebration which might include a parade, but this mostly depends on the city or town, and said parade might get a quick segment on the news. Also, schools get the day off, but that's pretty much it.

So what does Cinco de Mayo actually celebrate? It celebrates the victory of the Mexican army against a French invasion prompted by the Mexican foreign debt. However, this tidbit of information is not well known. So how did this victory turn into the biggest Mexican celebration in the U.S. while in Mexico it's just another day off of school? With the increasing Mexican population and the rise of the Chicano movement, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans tried to find a way to cling to their roots and celebrate every little thing from their culture. Eventually, companies caught on and started turning the holiday into what is known today.

This shows how a group of people celebrating their heritage can become a commercialized holiday.

Zombie Apocalypse

Almost 11 years ago, my friends and I decided to go watch one of the "best-critiqued" films of the time: Resident Evil. I had no idea what the film was about, and neither did most of the group, but we just decided to go because the trailer seemed interesting. I instantly regretted it as soon as the first zombies showed up on screen. Right after the movie was over, my friends and I started discussing the movie and we all came to the conclusion that we would never like to live through something like that.

Fast forward 11 years and now we are in a society that doesn't fear zombies anymore, instead people crave for a zombie apocalypse to happen. What has changed in the past decade that now we embrace the idea of a zombie apocalypse?

To answer this question, we must first look at the increased exposure to the topic of a zombie apocalypse. First of all, countless movies have been created on the topic, ranging from gory horror movies, to gory comedy movies, and to gory romantic movies. Action, horror, and comedy zombie movies portray the surviving humans as heroic and worthy role models, such as Zombieland which narrates the story of a group of survivors as they make their way through a zombie-infested area. The new genre, romantic zombie movies, allows the audience to either create a more sympathetic view of zombies, like Warm Bodies that recently came out in theaters that tells the story of a zombie who falls in love.

On the same line of portraying humans as heroes is the famous AMC series The Walking Dead which also narrates the story of a group of people who are still alive during a zombie apocalypse. The show portrays the survivors as highly skilled heroes in the art of shooting with a bow and arrow, a gun, or just being good at hand-to-hand combat. It comes as no surprise that people who watch these movies and TV shows aspire to be like the main characters, and therefore they embrace the idea of a zombie apocalypse in order to prove their abilities.

While yes, the idea of being skilled at fighting, or an excellent runner when it comes time to escape seems appealing, the realistic side of me would never want a zombie apocalypse because I remember that 12 year-old Dulce who came out terrified of the movie a decade ago, and in all honesty, present-day Dulce might react the same way if a zombie apocalypse were to happen.