5th Sethe

  Why do we remember what we do? Why does our mind choose to remember certain things that seem trivial, and forget things that may actually be important. Actually, why do we tend to remember things that are painful? All questions I have been asking myself for a long time. I remember as clear as day, one moment when I was five or maybe six years old, going on stage in a performance as a pianist, losing my music and barely getting the first measure out before breaking into tears and walking out of the concert hall because I couldn’t remember my piece. Even now I can still feel the fear and humiliation of that day. Yet I can’t remember the answers to a test I studied for not a day before. Isn’t it strange, how that works? I still don’t entirely understand but I do have some theories. I think our memory is not actually to retain information. After all, if that is its purpose let's face it, it does a pretty poor job. I believe that the purpose for memory is to remember our failures, and...

What does it mean to make a memory? If you ask an artist, they may tell you that the memories they make are found in the paintings they create. With every stroke of their brush, they impart vibrant colors onto a canvas to tell stories of experiences past.  If you ask a student, they might say that making memories involves memorizing lengthy equations, or going out with friends, or giving that one embarrassing speech for which they were woefully underprepared. For a young student, memories come and go as they please, as they traverse through the whirlwind of experience that is growing up. If you ask a scientist, they will define making memories as a process that takes place primarily in the brain. They will assert that memories are made when minute alterations are created between the synapses of the 100 billion neurons that reside within our heads. A memory can perhaps be broadly defined as an idea or experience that is remembered by the mind. But the perspectives above show that m...

Nostalgic Normality Picture link We all remember our childhood differently however I think we can all agree that there are some memories we all have in common. Nostalgia is defined as " a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations" (Google.com). We can all remember a few things collectively. these things can range from the warm loving hugs from your parents when your sick, or those nights spent at summer camp around the fire telling stories, roasting marshmallows on a fire with your family while they laugh and tell funny stories, or even the memories of going on the family trip to Disneyland and riding all the rides and enjoying the fun childlike wonder of the Disney parks. We all experience a sentimental feeling when remembering memories like these. It is this Nostalgia that is a normal feeling that everyone feels and is most of the time seen as a good memory. These memories lined with happy emoti...

picture link What is the misinformation effect? According to an article by verwellmind.com , the misinformation effect refers to the tendency of post-event information to interfere and rewrite the memory of the original event.  In the 1970s, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus conducted a study where she asked participants a few questions that had misleading words and phrases about the event they previously witnessed. The participants were shown a video of a traffic accident and were asked questions about what they observed. Some of them were then asked the question, "How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" The rest of the participants were asked to estimate the speed of the car when they "smashed into each other." Additionally, the participants were asked a follow-up question after a week that said, "Did you see any broken glass?"  What Loftus found was that those questions had distorted the participants' memory of the event as they had reco...

picture link “Forgive and forget,” a common phrase delivered to encourage us to move on with our lives whenever we stumble upon something unpleasant. However, is forgiving and forgetting really as simple as people make it sound? There is an important difference to note between forgiving and forgetting; to forgive is to acknowledge and understand that people make mistakes and that they can change for the better. Forgetting, on the other hand, is removing the event from its existence in your memory. A person can only remember so much, and how we choose to allocate that space determines our values in life.  While it’s easy to forgive, many find it difficult to forget. Even if we are not conscious of the wounds and pain in our lives, our body and mind remembers them, ultimately affecting our day-to-day lives. In other words, we can never fully forget the pains inflicted on us by other people. However, on the other hand, humans also tend to forget unwanted memories. Memories that will r...

  Memories are a pathway into the past; one of the closest things we have to time travel. We are quite literally living prior events within our very minds. Now, it is obviously not this complex of a situation, but memories are still extremely important. They give us fragments of places, people, things, and everything that we miss. Often, I find myself remembering things at the oddest times. I will be in the process of finishing my homework, when suddenly the image of what happened at the beach last weekend appears in my head. I wonder what triggers these vivid images. Nothing I am doing at the moment is even remotely close to what happened during the time of the actual event. My favorite occurrence of this situation is while I am missing someone important to me. I feel upset that I am unable to see them, but I remember what took place the last time I saw them. It reassures me to know how happy I make others feel and vice versa.  The worst ones happen when I randomly remember s...

  Image from psychologytoday.com Memory is interesting. At times it is elusive, like when trying to recall the meaning of a certain word while comprehending the prompt for an APEng timed write. At others it is irritating or even disturbing, such as when memories one would rather forget keep resurfacing. People have been fascinated by memory for centuries. My psychology textbook has a unit dedicated to the concept and discusses the various scientists who tirelessly pursued (and continue to pursue) the answers to how memory works and the best ways to enhance it. Even though I spent a long time studying memory I still do not thoroughly understand it, and perhaps I never will, because I honestly do not have the patience…or memory! Memory is relevant to everybody yet extremely underappreciated. It is a prime example of something that most take for granted until it is gone. We rarely notice how many things we are able to remember (our friends’ names, homework assignments, that test tomor...

 A World of Memories Siya Patil APENG P5      It’s pretty easy to remember that embarrassing moment from seven years ago, but not as easy to remember the math formula you need for your test. As frustrating as it is, there’s an amazing phenomenon behind it.           The brain works in wondrous ways; such a small (yet heavy) organ is capable of carrying out complex processes, a lot of which is still unknown to researchers today. You’d think that with the ability to do so much, you’d be able to pass every single memory test you’d ever come across. It doesn’t work that way, but the explanation for it is pretty fascinating, at least in my opinion.           The concept of “practice makes perfect” actually connects with how the brain processes memory. According to an article by Labroots, a scientific networking website, repeating actions leads to certain events being perceived as more “memorable” to our brains du...

 7 March 2022 Empowered Entitlement Keren -_- We all have had our experience with an entitled person, a typical Keren if you will. We all know about the classic short blond haircut and the "I want your manager haircut". These people are the bane of all retail or food workers' lives and job environments'. The power that these people have is the scourge of a lot of people's existence. Their power is figurative and based on the sole laws that run business establishments. These powers they have are based on the fear these workers have towards their bosses and losing their jobs because of these Kerens and their temper tantrums that reflect small children when they do not get their way. The power they have is a power of superficial proportions that can be and is often used for the displeasure of others and the enjoyment of these Kerens. The power of a Keren at its core is the standard that is "The customer is always right" when clearly and logically that is no...

  I think that many of us take the power of choice for granted. Unfortunately, many people have barely any choices in their lives. They have no choice but to work long shifts, they have no choice but to feed others before themselves, and they have no choice in picking what food to eat for their meals. However, we are blessed to have many choices, sometimes it even feels hard to pick one thing out of all the good choices. In an article by Dayana Mason, she says, "Making decisions causes mental fatigue. The more choices we make throughout the day, the more our brain struggles to make them and eventually begins to look for shortcuts. Without a mental break, this can cause us to choose impulsively or to do nothing due to exhaustion. This is why we make better decisions in the morning and are more susceptible to bad decisions (eating ice cream for dinner) later in the day". The way Mason talks about decisions or choices intrigued me. I never thought about how the quality of my cho...

Getting eight hours of sleep is a recommendation often urged by many, and for good reason. Sleep can provide a number of crucial health benefits , such as strengthening the immune system, contributing to a healthier state of mind, and reducing the risk of common health issues such as diabetes. The power of sleep is clear, but an article by the CDC shows that students our age severely lack it. According to the article, a startling 72% of a national sample of high school students received less than the eight recommended hours of sleep. If the power of sleeping is so apparent, this begs the simple question: why? Since we are all high school students ourselves (who have no doubt experienced some form of sleep deprivation), the conclusion to such a question may seem obvious. It is the combination of what often seems like mountains of homework, a rigid school schedule, and early school start times that eat away at our periods of rest. But for experts and school officials, the answer to such...

  Power, expressed as Watts, is Kg(m^2/s^3). At least from a physics perspective. I think the real power however, is the fact that we know that. The knowledge we possess is truly more powerful than any weapon or emotion. I know I talked about the power of our mind in my first blog, but I really want to emphasize one point. More than knowledge or even our ability to maintain that knowledge, the most powerful ability we have, is to accumulate knowledge, that is to say, our ability to learn. As human beings we are constantly seeing new things, making mistakes, and trying new things, thus learning about the world around us. Through our ability to learn we can improve upon our mistakes, and teach the next generation what we have learned so that they can learn even more and build upon the collective knowledge of the species. It is because of our ability to learn that we have created so many of the inventions that we can’t imagine living without today, and are able to invent countless mor...

picture link We live in a world where we absolutely cannot imagine how we would conduct our daily lives without the presence of technology. Technology is everywhere, from your thermostat that controls your heater to the laptop you use to write your bi-weekly blog posts. Technology has the power to change people's lives in both positive and negative ways. One powerful aspect of technology is that it allows us to do more with less. For example, most industries have used technology to speed up processes and produce more consumable products. It also helps save time and can help to create new learning opportunities. Another use of technology that comes to mind is communication. Whether you are texting your friend next door or calling your relatives in another country across the world, technology is what allows you to connect with many different people in all kinds of places. Technology gives people the chance to reach out beyond their homes for conversation and gives them a chance to m...

  I would like to focus again on a positive aspect of power. This specific form of power is something that literally everybody and everything, even inanimate objects, possesses. That power lies in our collective ability to make others happy, if only briefly. Yesterday my cat followed me around the house nonstop from the time I came home to when I went to bed. This was incredibly flattering because, in my humble opinion, being a cat’s favorite is one of the highest honors a person can be blessed with. But it is interesting to think that this tiny cat inadvertently and single handedly made my day in a matter of minutes. I am sure that if a squeaky-voiced cat can make such a difference, we higher-level thinkers certainly can too, even through simple gestures like smiling at friends or holding doors for others. But there is a caveat. For this “power” to truly be impactful, it is important to meet the so-called giver of positivity halfway. In other words, a pretty flower cannot actually...

picture link In our society, why is it that so many people look up to celebrities? Even in our workplaces, what is it that makes us lean on our organizational leaders and managers? One thing that all these people have in common is the referent power they hold upon the subjects.  Referent power is defined as the influence a person has over others due to the admiration and respect they receive from them. Referent power is a personal power, and is determined by the followers rather than the person themself. It is built up over time through the trust earned by the subjects.  Referent power is an important aspect of strong leadership. When people look up someone, they admire their personal traits and qualities. Many will try to refer to their leaders when making decisions, and imitate their way of doing things. This is what bestows the influence leaders have on their followers.  Referent power can also be used to advertise or publicize certain objects or events. For example, m...

I believe that people truly underestimate the impact of taking time out of the day to take care of yourself. Everyone is so focused on making the people around them happy that they forget about the body they reside in. It is so incredibly important to take even five minutes to participate in an action of selfcare. This could be as simple as taking a shower and putting on a facemask or writing down the things that make you happy.  Researchers say that “ A delay of sufficient self-care leads to a decline in physical, mental, and spiritual health. Over a longer term this can cause chronic diseases” ( healthylifestyle ). Not maintaining your mental well-being will result in serious problems in the future. Nowadays it is becoming increasingly important to pay attention to these activities because “ Depression is the most common mental health disorder in the United States among teens and adults” ( teenhelp ). Self-care is known to “ promote rest and relaxation, which benefits our overa...