Eileen

To Fight for a Dream

She was a quiet little girl, never standing out. She roamed in the shadows, but when her only family, Mateo, lost his life in the revolution, she stepped into the light with fire in her eyes. This is the story of the Mexican Revolution in the eyes of Camila Sánchez, a nineteen year old. Joining the forces under Francisco “Pancho” Villa as a soldadera, she witnesses the drastic changes throughout the revolution and embarks on a journey for peace in both her country and in herself.

The revolution started on November 20th, 1910, when people had gotten enough of Porfirio Díaz’s tyrannical rule and wished for their rights to be returned, but one uprising lead to another. The people’s needs were never addressed, resulting in the changing of four different presidents before Álvaro Obregón brought back a once again peaceful, but changed Mexico in 1920. One of the major changes the revolution brought was land reform, where land was redistributed amongst the citizens. The social reform brought more equal rights, such as workers being able to go on strike, and public education for all. Aside from changes, many things stayed the same as well. Through war, culture remained untouched, so did the Mexican territory. The original goal of the revolution, to oppose dictatorship and re-elections, was also achieved. Although there was land reform, most people of Mexico continued to be in poverty, but both changes and continuities can still be seen today, for example, the Monumento de la Revolucion. Most revolutionaries are buried there: Madero, Carranza, Villa, etc, passing on their legacy.

The Mexican Revolution was one of the bloodiest wars to occur. It lead to the deaths of over two million people, many were just innocent citizens, and damaged a countless number of cities and towns. There were many casualties, but with the effort of everyone, Mexico finally ended the dictatorship that had suffocated it for so long. People received a better lifestyle, making it worth it in the end.

The Mexican Revolution Common Craft Video

March 12, 2023 / Eileen / 0 Comments

Mexico is a beautiful country known for its amazing cuisine, gorgeous beaches, and ancient ruins. Looking at it, it is hard to imagine that this breathtaking land was once filled with war and cries of revolution. The Mexican revolution was a period of bloody struggle to end dictatorship. The five major revolutionary parties lead by Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza, Alvaro Obregon, and Pascual Orozco fought hard for their own ideas of revolution, together sometimes as allies, sometimes as enemies. Switching five presidents in just ten years, the conflict, violence, and betrayal took the lives of over two million people, including that of innocent civilians, before finally achieving the stability and peace we still see today.

In the video, we talk about the important events in the revolution and the cause and effect train of these events. We start from the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz in 1876 all the way to the successful rule of Alvaro Obregon in 1920, when the people finally freed their country as well as themselves from oppression.

What happened exactly? How did these events unfold? Watch “The Mexican Revolution in Plain English” to find out.

Made by Eileen Gao, Sophia Ding, and Alex Ma

Edited by Sophia Ding

Unbroken Notebook Pages

January 18, 2023 / Eileen / 0 Comments

Louis Zamperini. An Olympian, a lieutenant, a prisoner of war, and a Christian speaker. He starts as a normal boy in the little town of Torrance, California with big dreams of success. From his childhood to his elderly age, problems never left his side. Being Italian, he was ostracized by his community. War broke apart his family, pushing him onto a painful journey of anxiety, abuse, and imprisonment. It took away his friends and set him into a constant state of mental turmoil. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is the story of his life and how he overcame those problems and finally achieved peace with the world and himself.

Are you a Renaissance Humanist?

October 21, 2022 / Eileen / 0 Comments

Humanism is an idea that arouse during the Renaissance around 1300. It was started by Petrarch, also known as the “Father of Humanism”. The main elements of humanism are secularism, individualism, equality, and education. These things lead to an increase in the belief of humans and in the fact that humans can shape the world to their needs. Humanists promoted these ideas.

After research, I believe that I am a humanist, as I fully agree with all of these elements. For secularism, people do not have to be bound by religion. To me, religion should be similar to a hobby, not a requirement that hinders a person’s ability to improve and pursue their interests. For individualism, each person is unique in their own way, with different ways of thinking. This element is how humans advance. For equality, I believe that every person has something they offer to this world, and everybody should be given a chance to do this. For education, people should not be scared of the unknown. Learning and gathering knowledge is, again, how the world is improved and advanced.

Humanism allowed humans to step out and discover. This was an important thing that helped shape our world today. If humanism never existed, perhaps we wouldn’t have many of the technologies and artworks we see today.

Made on Canva by Eileen

Dry Children’s Book

March 14, 2022 / Eileen / 0 Comments

In my science fiction and fantasy enrichment, we were asked to create a book report on a book of any of the two genres. I chose to write a children’s book on a chapter in the book, Dry, by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman.

The Blob Glop

March 10, 2022 / Eileen / 0 Comments

For my science fiction and fantasy enrichment, we were asked to create an alien. Meet the BLOB GLOP!

The Blob Glop is an alien that is widely spread out throughout the entire universe. While their appearance makes them largely feared, they are of no high intelligence. However, it is still wise to ignore them, for they can still be a great threat.

These aliens look like a blob of slime. Their movement is sluggish, but when triggered, very fast and bouncy. They often change their color to camouflage with their surroundings. As they age, they get bigger. When they get very big, about to the age of 30 days or when they eat a lot, they split and multiply, spreading into a range between 2-10 new Blob Glops. This allows their population to be very large. As of currently, their population in the universe is between 10 to 50 million. They continue to multiply.

Usually, they wander around, but if they see something they can attack at, they chase after them until they get it and absorb it. They can eat anything. There is nothing in the worlds they cannot consume to grow.

While there is no confirmed communication between themselves, scientists have found that they do make unidentifiable gurgling noises when they meet another one. They also move in an interesting way of moving from side to side. These two both may be how they communicate.

At the moment, the only way to kill the Blob Glop is baking soda. When baking soda is sprayed onto them, they expand and explode into nothingness. The baking sodaer has become a crucial profession on planet Earth. While the universe still struggles to maintain order with Blob Glops wandering around, everyone has begun to develop different ways to keep themselves safe from them.

My Foosball Cardboard Arcade Game

March 22, 2021 / Eileen / 0 Comments

For my 6th grade design class, my partner, Mika Kamiya, and I created a foosball game made of cardboard. We spent about four classes on it. 🙂

One skill I learned while making this game was how to handle certain tools in the design lab. For example, I learned how to properly handle a cutting knife. Another skill I improved on was cooperation. Mika and I made this game together, and we had to work hard and split the work among the two of us.

Our biggest obstacle was the measuring part. This is because for the foosball game to work, the figures in the box had to be able to spin. It was really hard to make all of the figures the exact same size. Also, the ball we were using, which was a ping pong ball, had to be able to fit through the goals. The two goals on either side of the box had to be the same size too.

One thing I would like to change is the skewers connecting the figures and making them spin. The skewers are too fragile, and they have broken a couple of times when we were making the game, resulting a huge amount of hot glue. If I were to make this again, I would use a thicker and more sturdy stick instead.

Overall, I think our game was a success. The skewers turned, and the ball fit through the goals. It was like the actual foosball game,. but only a bit smaller.

Cup Insulator Design Challenge!

November 4, 2020 / Eileen / 0 Comments

Cup Insulator!

Problem:

The problem we were trying to solve was to make an insulator to keep the liquid in the mug hot for as long as possible.

Process:

First, we each made a sketch of our ideas to solve the problem. Then, we shared our ideas with each other and took the ideas we thought are good and put them into one sketch, which was the design we made, and created a paper prototype of it. After carefully picking out the material, we made our insulator and tested it out by putting it on a mug, pouring hot water into it, and checking the temperature every 20 seconds. Afterwards, we recorded the start temperature, end temperature, and the decrease temperature on our sheet of paper.

This is a picture of my group working together and sharing our ideas.

Claim, Evidence, & Reasoning:

C- Plastic caps work the best for holding heat in from the top of the mug.

E- With the plastic cap tightly secured on the mug, the temperature of the water decreased by 8.8˚C in 10 minutes, but without, the temperature decreases by 20.9˚C. Also, even though the temperature of the water we started with the insulator was lower than the temperature of the water without the insulator (lower by 5.8˚C), the temperature we ended with the insulator (78.0˚C) was higher than the temperature we ended without the insulator (71.7˚C).

R- This makes sense because there is no openings in the plastic cap we used, so heat would stay trapped in the mug. Before we settled on using a plastic cap, we thought about using a piece of fabric, but then, we realized that it wasn’t a good idea since it had tiny holes and openings in it, so heat would escape.

This is a picture of our final insulator being tested!

What are you proud of?

I am proud of the fact that my group worked very well together and discussed and shared our ideas with each other to make our insulator work better. We also separated work evenly among the three of us.

What are some limitations your group experienced in this design challenge?

A limitation my group experienced was the fact that the insulator had to not interfere with drinking. This was hard because we could not just cut a hole in our covering because then, heat would escape.

Welcome to Your New Blog!

August 28, 2020 / Eileen / 0 Comments

When you blog you create posts and posts are categorised according to your subject. Some categories have already been set up for you. If you need more categories you can add them as needed. It’s important that your posts have the following:

An engaging title – this should not include the name of the subject since this is referenced in the category.
Body – this is where you share your learning. This can include text, images, embedded videos from Dragons’ Tube or elsewhere. You should always consider how your post looks to your audience. Is it engaging? Do they want to keep reading?
Category – select one that has been set for you or add a new category. Posts can have more than one category e.g. Humanities and Myself as a Learner

Click on the images below to learn more about blogging:

: How do I make a Post?

: How do I upload media?

: How do I embed Media from Dragons’ Tube?

: How do I add new categories?

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein