The Cuban Revolution; José’s Clippings

I was recently cleaning out my house for the first time after I moved to Florida. When I was digging around my attic, I found this journal. Reading this book in my hands, I feel like I’ve been transported back 70 years. The memories, the pain, the emotions come back to me in a rush. The Cuban Revolution was led by Fidel Castro to eliminate racial inequality, corruption, and the lack of justice in Batista’s regime. It all started when Fulgencio Batista, who was running for president, recognized that he was not winning the elections. He led a military coup then forcibly seized the power of the government and placed himself as Cuba’s dictator. Under Batista’s rule, Cubans were struggling, and Castro wanted a change. This journal provides a firsthand perspective of the Cuban Revolution. Now, let’s go back 70 years to when I was just a young student. When I thought Fidel Castro was the coolest man in the world. When I didn’t know any better.

 

José’s conclusion, 1962:

It feels as if we’re back to base one. A mere decade ago, Batista’s oppressive rule gripped the country, leading Cuba down a path of corruption. Life should’ve been better by now, that’s what the revolution was about… wasn’t it? Yet here I am, questioning whether anything has truly changed. The man who promised to free us from Batista’s dictatorship became a tyrant himself, corrupting Cuba and even establishing a communist government. Sure, some aspects of Cuba have progressed. The education and healthcare system set up by Fidel Castro has greatly improved, and Cuba is no longer relying on sugar. However, Cuba has lost a crucial ally—the United States. Even if I haven’t returned to my home country ever since I moved to the US, I still care for it, and I yearn for its freedom and fairness. My country and its people have endured enough distress throughout the revolution, only to have nothing to come out of it. Fidel Castro, your actions and legacy have revealed a truth that cannot be denied. You are no superior to the very dictator you looked to overthrow, Fulgencio Batista. 

The Cuban Revolution: Homeland or Death

The Cuban Revolution (1953-1959) was led by Fidel Castro in an attempt to eliminate racial inequality, corruption, and the lack of justice in Batista’s regime. In 1952, Fulgencio Batista, who was running for president, recognized that he was not winning the elections. He led a military coup and forcibly seized the power of the government, and placed himself as Cuba’s dictator. Under Batista’s rule, Cubans were struggling and Castro wanted a change. This video captures the chaotic events of the Cuban Revolution. Cuba, which was once under an oppressive dictatorship, had finally become a free, successful nation.

At least, that’s what they say… Find out for yourself by watching this video!

Code Girls; Notes

Liza Mundy chronicles the untold story of the young women working to break codes during WWII in the book Code Girls. This literary non-fiction novel follows female codebreakers who cracked countless enemy codes, changing the course of WWII. Liza Mundy impressively depicts some of the social issues and difficulties women faced during that time in an engaging manner, which I enjoyed. This book reads like a narrative, but it also has factoids between chapters and non-fiction elements, providing further information. While reading ‘Code Girls’ you learn a lot about the process of cryptanalysis and the specific factors of code-breaking which was very interesting to read about. 

During our unit ‘Stranger than Fiction’ we tracked the book ‘Hidden Figures’ as a class. We followed daily mini-lessons that helped us develop central ideas and make insightful connections from the text, which we then applied to our own books. Below, you will find some of the notes I took throughout this unit!

NOTE PAGE #1 (Lesson 6 – Central Idea Assessment)

These are notes I took in a mind map format, which was pretty out of my comfort zone. I enjoy taking notes in a very linear format, and I steer away from very visual note-taking. However, I really enjoyed creating this page and really got to showcase some creativity. The advantage of this format is how easy it is for the eye. You can clearly see the information in one glance. For this page, I identified a central idea from the book and developed it with supporting quotes. My central idea was based on responsibility and the impact it brings. To support my thinking, I took 6 quotes from the book. 3 quotes show the positive effects it brings and 3 quotes show the burdens of responsibility. This central idea was echoed through the female code-breakers, as they were empowered to have a purpose in the war, but were also burdened with the responsibility of thousands of lives. I drew specific connections from the quotes and wrote a short paragraph to summarize my thinking.

NOTE PAGE #2 (Lesson 8 – Analyzing Descriptive Passages)

This is a note page I took from our mini-lesson where we analyzed the setting and descriptions of our texts. As a class, we watched a video: ‘San Quentin’s Giants’, and described the setting and tone of the video which we then further developed into a central idea. Next, we looked at a text from ‘Hidden Figures’ and did the same, except this time, we took adjectives from the text and judged if they shed a positive light or a negative light. Lastly, I applied the same method to my own book, ‘Code Girls’. I chose a paragraph on page 104 describing the state of Arlington Hall, where the code-breakers worked. Some adjectives found in the passage were “Hodgepodge” and “Crowded”. Using these adjectives, I could gain new insight into the book and develop a new central idea. The central idea I took from this passage was that even in substandard conditions, the women still worked hard.

NOTE PAGE #3 (Lesson 9 – Recognising Complex Causes and Effects)

This mini-lesson was focused on finding the causes and effects of different sources, such as a situation, a video, and a book. It consists mainly of tables which is the typical format for showing causes and effects. We first watched a short clip from the ‘Hidden Figures’ movie, and we were each given a question. Mine was how this video shows the causes and effects on society, and I showed my thinking on a cause and effect table. Next, we did the same for our own books. I identified two main causes and effects throughout my book and then gathered a couple of quotes to support my thinking. While reading this book, I learned that things are rarely simple in history, and there are countless different reasons why things happen. I realize that I have barely scratched the surface of WWII, but here is some of my thinking regarding the causes and effects shown in this book! One of the biggest central ideas echoed through the book is that WWII opened up many opportunities for women. Since so many men were off at war, there was a sudden decline in code-breakers, and the US was in dire need of intelligence. Therefore, tons of job opportunities opened up for women.

NOTE PAGE #4 (Lesson 10 – The Joy of Rereading)

Rereading and researching our text helps us gain new insight and helps us generate deeper connections within the text. This is what we practiced in lesson 10, which was all about rereading and researching our text. We read two texts as a class and discussed the parts that seemed confusing and important, then generated questions that needed some clarifying. This helped me look at the text at a deeper level and made the rest of the passage make sense. For example, in my book, there was a section where ‘The Battle of Midway’ was mentioned, and I was confused about what it was. I later researched it, and it turns out that the battle was a major naval battle that put the US at a great advantage. I skimmed through the book and found pages that seemed important or pages where something happened.

Thank you for reading my blog post on the book ‘Code Girls’!

It was overall an enjoyable book and I had a great time discussing this book with my book club. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoyed the book ‘Hidden Figures’, as they have similar themes and recurring central ideas. It’s a great book to learn the suppressed side of WWII, and before reading this book, I too had no idea of the code-breakers.

Discovering My Renaissance Humanist Self

Am I a Humanist? By Youngjin Roh

To kick off our second unit, “The Renaissance” in G8 Humanities, we learned about Renaissance humanism and its qualities.

Renaissance humanism was an intellectual movement that appeared during the Renaissance period in 14th-century Italy. Humanists wanted to revive and study the classical world. Renaissance humanism focuses not on religion, but on importance and what it means to be human.

Studying the core beliefs of humanism, we asked ourselves a question: Am I a Humanist? To answer this question, we were asked to take some traits that make up Renaissance Humanism and rate ourselves on how humanist we were. Using my infographic, I discovered that I was 95% humanist.

I agree with most of the ideas that humanists believed in. Social mobility, emphasis on humans, and prioritizing education all seem reasonable and beneficial to me. The only thing I slightly disagree with is how centered humanists were only on ancient Greece and Rome. Greek and Roman ideology was one of the most important things that made up Renaissance humanism, and throughout the whole period, humanists focused on emulating Greek and Roman ideals. While there isn’t anything wrong with this, there was no diversity and they were neglecting the contributions of other cultures. For example, I grew up in ISB. ISB has an incredibly diverse setting, and throughout my life, I’ve met many people from different cultures. Meeting so many people has helped me learn about the different traditions around the world. Additionally, I am Korean, and I’ve been living in China since I was little. This has opened my eyes to the traditions, food, and way of life in China. Knowing that this world is so rich in culture, I can’t help but think that it could’ve been useful to incorporate knowledge from different civilizations to better understand the world during the Renaissance.

Overall, I think Renaissance humanists had some great ideas that sped up the progress of civilization, and without them, our world would look extremely different.

 

Works Cited:

Cartwright, Mark. “Renaissance Humanism.” World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 04 Nov 2020. Web. 20 Oct 2023.

Kennedy, Lesley. “How the Renaissance Challenged the Church and Influenced the Reformation.” HISTORY, A&E Television Networks, 27 Sept. 2021, www.history.com/news/renaissance-influence-reformation-humanism. Accessed 21 Oct. 2023.

Britannica, The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia. “Renaissance”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Oct. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/facts/Renaissance. Accessed 22 October 2023.

 

Template: Pastel Simple Seasons Infographic by Christine Kim

 

Mary’s Meaty Murder

Lamb to the Slaughter, Roald Dahl

I crafted a found poem to illustrate the conflicts in Roald Dahl‘s ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ short story. Interstingly, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ was also adapted into a short film back in 1958, as well as 1979. I would suggest everyone go watch either one because they are both extremely well-made. For my found poem, I used the scenes on page 4 of the story (paragraph 40). This page describes the moment Mary kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, which is the text’s climax.

 

My poem’s concept is centered on Mary’s frustration and shock as she kills her husband. The external conflict (person vs. person) is the tension between the two characters after Patrick reveals that he has decided to leave her. We see the internal conflict from Mary’s shock and denial with this announcement. Mary turns numb and lets her instincts control her. With a spur-of-the-moment decision, she kills her husband. This is where the main part of my poem takes place. I tried to portray Mary’s numbness by using words and phrases that were as distant and cold as possible. For example, In my poem, right after Mary swings the leg of lamb at Patrick, I say:

‘I’ve killed him’
‘Relief’
‘Smile’
‘ “Hullo Sam, she said brightly” ‘

I tried to select words and phrases that would make the tone of the text indifferent and apathetic, even when the content of the text is about committing murder. I thought in my found poem, Mary appeared to show sociopathic behavior and was very unfeeling. This accurately describes what is going on in the story as Mary is also battling reality and her demeanor is as sociopathic and crazy as in my found poem.

 

The artwork on my found poem is essentially just a lot of blood marks. I did this by coloring my hands with red ink and dabbing it onto the paper. I thought this would fit well with the poem because the context of the poem is well, killing people. As for the rest of the design, I decided to keep it simple and a little eerie with the overall mood to match the tone and the context of the poem. For the font of my blog, I found and used this typewriter-looking black and white theme on the ISB Blog website. I thought it fit perfectly with my concept, since it gave a sense of detachment and distance which is mirrored in the story.

LED Lamp Project

Part 1: When we started this project in November, I was quite excited. I thought laser cutting was a cool concept and the phone holder would be very useful. I first measured my phone and then started to sketch 3 possible designs for my phone holder. After getting the initial sketches done, I received feedback from my peers and added things that would improve my phone holder. I added hooks to the designs and also a place to add my AirPods.

After I finished sketching, we downloaded fusion 360 and started learning how to use the tools. We watched a couple of videos and we started to sketch different shapes into fusion. We worked on mostly learning how to use all of the tools and it was pretty difficult at first but it got easier as I did it more.

Then, we went online. When we went online, we continued working in fusion but we also had the option to drop the phone holder and start a new project which was making your own LED lamp. I chose to make a LED lamp and I first chose a design for the lamp. since we were online, I just browsed the internet and chose a design.

 

 

After I showed my design to Ms. Kim, she approved it and we chose our measurements for the lamp. We just traced those into fusion to see what it would look like, then we learned how to make fingers in fusion.

 

 

It was quite difficult at first, but thankfully, for our final design, we got to use a website that would make our boxes for us. After inserting all of our measurements and customizing makercase, I downloaded the DXF and then inserted it into fusion. We then added all of our designs and added the necessary factors onto the box. For example, I had to cut a semi-circle in one panel in order to have a place for the cord to go through.

 

 

After making all of these changes, I downloaded light burn and inserted my final design project into it. After reading the directions in DX, I colored all of it red and then colored the parts I want to be etched, into black. After saving that, I sent it to Ms. Kim and after it got approved, it got sent to be laser cut into cardboard.

Since I was online, I had to pick it up from school. But since I was sick, I couldn’t pick it up from school right away. After picking it up, I went on break and I didn’t assemble it. When I got back to school, I assembled it in class and I tested it out with the light bulb. Most of it was great but I saw that the bridges were a bit too thin and it would break. So, I went back into fusion and I made the bridges a bit thicker. I just sent one side for laser cutting into cardboard because everything else was fine. I just needed to check if the bridges were good. After checking the bridges were ok, I sent my design to the laser cutter to be cut into wood. after getting it back, I decided to stain it into this dark brown color.

Part 2: At first, fusion was super overwhelming because it had so many tools and it was kind of confusing. We started off by learning about the view cube, dimensions, and rectangles from a video. This part wasn’t too hard because we were still offline. After that, we explored the line tool and the circle tool. I also got the hang of this pretty quickly. Now, the spline tool and the mirroring tool were a bit more challenging, especially the mirroring. It was a bit more complex, but once I learned how to do it, it got easier. Similar to mirroring, offset lines were a bit challenging. But, I feel like circular and rectangular were very confusing. I couldn’t quite figure out how to use it and it took me multiple tries to get it correct.

After learning about the different tools to make shapes, we learned about the trim and break tool which was very useful. It wasn’t too hard to get the hang of but I sometimes got confused about which tool was for what.

 

 

After we went online, I decided to make a LED lamp instead of a phone holder. During online, we started working on making fingers in fusion. This was the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in fusion. Especially because it was online, it was so confusing and I still can’t really get the hang of it. Thankfully, we could use a website called makecase which would just make our boxes for us and we could just insert them into fusion. I wanted my lamp to have a lot of light so I made the box pretty small. After inserting my box, I also inserted my design as a canvas and traced the 444 design with the line tool. I also added the bridges which were kind of annoying but I used the copy/move tool which made it so much easier. I also added the circle and the screw holes on the bottom and the cord hole to the side using the circle tool and break tool.

I saved the file as a DXF and inserted it into light burn. Since we were online, I read the instructions in DX and

just colored the parts I wanted to be cut into red and etched into black. I submitted it and when I assembled it, the bridges were too thin so I went back into fusion and made the bridges thicker using the copy and move tool. Then, I just laser cut one side to make sure the bridge was thick enough, and then I submitted it to be cut into the wood. I stained the wood into a dark brown color.

Part 3:

(1) The advice I would give incoming students is to never, EVER procrastinate because I myself had a lot of trouble with that. It is so much better to just get your work done.

(2) I would probably try to pay more attention in class and focus on my work because I could definitely feel I had some trouble with that.

(3) I didn’t really enjoy the utensil challenge much. It was disappointing because all we did was draw and we didn’t get a chance to make anything. I really enjoyed working in fusion but it definitely could get a bit frustrating at times. It probably won’t be as bad for the new students because they probably won’t go online. I think what was better was individual projects. I found it hard to focus on working with other people on group projects.

Utensil Challenge Blog Post

Part 1

When we were brainstorming ideas, we had trouble thinking of utensils so we chose a food that was popular but pretty difficult to eat. We chose sushi. We thought up this utensil similar to chopsticks but the top was connected, sort of like kitchen tongs. We also added flat ends to have a better grip on the sushi. We thought of this utensil because even for people who are experience with chopsticks, sushi often falls into the soy sauce when you’re dipping it. Then we found a new problem. What if the sushi breaks apart? So we came up with this spoon with holes drilled through the bottom. This is so when the sushi is on the spoon, we can dip the spoon in the soy sauce so it will reach the sushi but it won’t fall apart or fall in the soy sauce. Then in the end, we decided to try combining the two. We kept the idea of the tongs but switched out the flat ends for the spoons. We did this so when we pick up the sushi, it was mostly covered, preventing any fallout and we could dip from either the middle where there was a small space or the holes. 

Part 2

When we showed people our first model, the chopstick, some people asked us “would this destroy the sushi?”. For the spoon, there was a lot of positive feedback but one person asked if the sauce would reach the sushi. So to use all that feedback, we combined the spoon part and most of the chopstick’s structure so then the sushi would be in a sort-of cage. This way, it wouldn’t fall or crumble out. As for the concern of the sauce reaching the sushi, you could use the original purpose of the holes and dip from them, or, the spoons wouldn’t fully close around the sushi leaving a gap where the sushi is exposed. You could dip from there. Finally, a lot of people asked about the details of the chopstick, such as, the material and the outer and inner structure of the chopstick. With that feedback, we added measurements of the chopstick as well as the material we could use. Without the feedback, we also changed the material of the top of the chopstick where its connected. Since it would be bending all the time, we made it a material that would be very durable. Rubber. With rubber, it would bend freely while not damaging anything.

Part 3

Some strengths of our chopstick is that it’s very portable and convenient since it’s so small and slim. Also, if you really need to, you could always use the chopstick for other foods. For example, if you’re camping and you don’t have a spoon, you could use these chopsticks. Also, if you use this utensil for takeout, that would be reducing waste from the one-use utensils. A weaknesses of this model is that it might be a bit annoying to take it to every restaurant and/or vacation. Also, you would probably have to have a small pouch for the utensil not to get dirty. Overall, I think a lot of people would use this. It’s very useful and easy to use.

Elevator Pitch