The Danger of a Single Story

In this TED talk, author and storyteller Chimamanda Adichie discusses the risks that result from a "single story." She begins by discussing her early years and education in Nigeria, where she was exposed to much "whitewashed" literature. The characters in the stories were white, blonde, and blue-eyed, they ate apples and drank ginger beer while playing in the snow. These western portrayals of people in the novels and literature Chimamanda grew up reading stuck with her and the ideas carried on in her early works of writing, where her characters followed the same format and were unrelated to her style of living and the environment she grew up in.

Novelist Chimamanda later relates her experiences to that of her college roommate in America, where she studied. Her roommate expresses the stereotypes she believed to be true about people from Africa. Growing up with American cousins, I felt like I could relate to Chimamanda because of how my cousins and their white friends would ask me questions and make assumptions based purely on my ethnicity of how my life was like and what my experiences were "supposed to be". 

Choose Beautiful

          "Choose Beautiful" is an advertisement or more like a movement form Dove the popular shampoo brand. In the video a social experiment occurs where above the doorway to what appears to be a mall are two signs. Above the doorway it says "average" and above the other door way there is a sign that says "Beautiful." The experiment is setup to see how women of any age would react and most importantly which door way they choose. The significance to which door way they choose reflects upon their self confidence but also how they view themselves. While watching the video it is surprising to see how many women choose the "average" doorway and how most of them are so insecure about going through a door that they choose the average door. I think that main reason that they choose to go through the average door rather than the beautiful door is that they are comparing themselves to the supermodels they see in the media who are photoshopped and die in such a way that are only beneficial their social media presence and not at all contributing toward a healthy lifestyle. As we saw in "The Beguiling Truth" comparing yourself to these people is not what you should be doing but instead accepting yourself for who you are.

              As for the very few women who chose the beautiful door, Those are the women you should look up to because those are the people who know what's what and they don't evaluate themselves based on others but rather how they feel they themselves look and when it boils down to that, everyone is beautiful. I think we should have more campaigns like the one Dove made and help raise awareness for the young women who are beautiful but choose to think otherwise due to the effects of the people around them. The other campaigns shouldn't all be social experiments but instead a petition for more diversity in the media or a woman self appreciation day. I believe many women are struggling with this and we should shed some light on the manner. While there are people out here trying to make a difference in the end the change starts with you and how you view yourself. That's all I have to say about this particular video from Dove because it was such a short and simple video but the topic itself is way more important and complex and shouldn't be left unspoken about.

The Lucky Day

It started like any other day at the Sahel woke up had breakfast went to the beach for a couple of hours then pool for a couple more, had Lunch and then we went out. Me and my family went to stella walk and they had dinner there. Than all of a sudden a huge group of people are gathering around and I can't see what's happening. I lift my sister up and she telles me she sees Amy Samir Ghanem. At first I didn't belive her but my cousion told me her dad is shooting an ad at stella so it could be true. I start walking closer to the croud and now in to it. All I wanted was to tell her I thought she was a good actor and that I really liked "نلي و شريهان" a popular one season show that aired in Ramadan. I eventually got to her and told her, she appreciated it and asked if I wanted a picture so...

The Sahel

I was recently in the Sahel and it was the first time I've travelled since last year. It was a blast but one day was unlike the others. Our compound is Lavista Cascada but we visited other ones because we had friends and family there. Just for context our beach is in my experience the best beach I've been to. We were heading to Telal which is one of the most beautiful and gorgeous places in Sahel but, their beach was way diffrent then ours. Our beach dosen't have any rocks on the shore or in the water, also the sand is natural meaning no one bought the sand and but it near some water. In Telal their beach is practically one huge stone. You know how sometimes on a d beach you see a sand rock and it kinda looks like a rock but it's fragile and easy to crumble. In Telal all their sand is sand rocks but their "sand rocks" are literally almost as strong as regular rocks. Wgen you put them in water they dont just instantly turn into sand but they stay rock for a bit then they only half turn into sand but mistly this werid red stuff which I'm pretty sure is Iron. I mentioned that our beach didnt have any rocks in the water, well Telal has so many rocks in the water that they literally have a bridge that goes over the rocks to the only part of their beach where you can even enter which is usally filled with people. There was this thing I guess you could call it a floating playgroung so me and my cousion sawn to it avoiding rocks left and right and it took like 10 minutes to get there and when we did we climbed on and we fealt good, but it didn't last. Turns out you had to pay 200 EGP an hout to play on some weird floating stuff they had which wasn't worth it at all. The other this he told us was that we would come wearing a life jacket and give him a ticket so we would go on. One things for sure I'm never going back to Telal. Thank you and have a great summer.

Socrates

Socrates was born in 469 BC in Alopece and he spent most of his time in Athens Greece but other than that there is not much to say about his past because nearly nothing is documented. He was a philosopher and one of his most famous quotes is "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing" Here he is trying to uproot ignorance which was very common back then. He also went around his city pressing people's beliefs revealing they know nothing and it made them rethink what they're lead to believe.This way of thinking was called the Socratic Method and it's used as a form of critical discussion in English and Law classes. Socrates was also an open critic of the city's newly formed democracy. Socrates was later charged with not believing in the Athenian way in 399 BC and they claimed that he used his ideas to corrupt the youth and he was sentenced to death by poison. That was the end of Socrates as a man but his soul and ways will carry out through out our lifetimes and his way of thinking and how wise he was will never be forgotten.

Who Makes The Rules

In the novel the giver, the elders are responsible for most of the rules and how the community works. The rules are pretty much rock solid and some of them might never change. When there is a rule they think they need to change they take it into study which is a rather good thing. You wouldn't want people to just come up with protests basically just crying d begging you and annoying just to change the rules, you wouldn't even have the time to think about it you would just change the rules because of annoying citizens,but that's crazy right? Oh wait. I think that our real world community is flawed (which it should be because nothing is perfect). I'm saying that nagging to the government and not leaving them a chance to investigate is crazy. Here in Egypt, whenever there is something we don't like, instead of taking it in a professional way and choosing one person to represent us and have them host meetings we just take to the streets crying and screaming until we get what we want. I don't mean that all communities are to  be as overly strict s the one in the giver, but we should at least have a sense of authority.

           

The Tech Age

The quote reads "students are growing up on a digital playground and no one is on recess duty. So lets break it down one by one, by digital playground it means that kids these days aren't having the regular go outside and play (not including school) but instead free to do what ever they want with no limits on their device such as; phones, i-pads/tablets, laptops and the minor one consoles such as playstations, Xboxs, Nintendo switches etc.. The reason I said minor on consoles is because you could only play games wich are bought with the approval of you parents and you can only watch Netflix if you have a playstaion if you want to watch on your console. The second part to it which I think is the most important part is "...and no one is on recess duty. This refers to how no one can really monitor what your doing unless they have advanced technology like the goverment, or if your parents download a cheap app that your going to get notified that your being watched anyway and you will know. The purpose of this quote is to say that technology is bad but thats not entirely true. Technology os a good thing and its the reason I can make posts like this. My point is that the tech is good but the students are the ones misusing it. That dosent mean that we should strip them from their freedom, instead give them a certian amount of time like, an hour in the morning, an hour in the middle of the day and an hour at night. The only thing I see them having is a flip phone. Even though it cant be tracked you don't have to because with no access to the internet they can only make calls and if only the parents put in their numbers and we apply this to all students then all is good with the world.