Akash's Blog

AIDS Quilt

akashjournal — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:19:33 +0000

Reading the articles presented on the website, the first thing that struck me is the history and the sheer size of the Quilt. The Quilt was first put together in 1987, in remembrance of the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. During that part of history, people usually hated and therefore neglected AIDS affected community. The quilt creator’s main goal was to craft a memorial for people who died due to this deadly disease and thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. The awareness created by this Quilt would compel the government to pay more attention to the requirements to the respective community and to concentrate on planning more research to cure AIDS. Another goal of the Quilt was to raise funds for AIDS Service Organizations (ASO), who would in turn help by increasing the funds for AIDS prevention and education. As mention above, the other quality of the Quilt that hit me most was the enormity of the Quilt. There are an astonishing 46,000 individual Quilt Panels representing more than 91,000 people who died through AIDS (about 20% of the entire population died). By saying size, I am not considering just the number of Quilt panels that are collected, but every figure connected with Quilt is mind-blowing. The Quilt raised more than 4 million dollars for direct service to people with AIDS. The Quilt represents more than 40 countries.

Connections Between Service and Learning

akashjournal — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:01:08 +0000

As mentioned in my earlier blogs I have been working with Pride Alliance as a part of my English project. Even though the project just started it feels that I learned a lot about LGBT group. As a part of my project, my group was recently asked to make a flyer for the Pride Alliance’s Coming Out Week. We were asked to mainly focus on readers who didn’t yet come out with their sexuality and people who would like to know more information to decide their sexuality. I already have lots of experience with Photoshop as I did some designing during my period in high school. Due to this reason, my group asked me to do the design.

Designing a flyer requires lots of attention to audience and their appeals in particular. Before taking up this project I didn’t know much about the LGBT group and even before taking up the responsibility of designing the flyer I didn’t have much knowledge on them. As I have no idea about my audience I decided to know more about them by doing some research. As I was doing my research, I came across many examples which had direct or similar correlation to what I am doing in class. So instead of doing research online, where most of the information has no legitimacy, I turned towards my English class notes. As I started looking at my notes I realized that the online e-book talks in great detail about audience. So, I skimmed through that part of the chapter again to get the sense of audience and best way to approach them. This helped me a lot to decide what would appeal to my audience, the LGBT group. Along with this e-book, I got a chance to explain my views on a certain topic through the use of a photo essay. I chose to comment on the topic Don’t Ask Don’t tell. Again this is a topic highly connected with LGBT group. I did a great deal of research to do the photo essay. This research has helped me to know how Gays in the army struggle not to disclose their true identity. With this Knowledge I was able to understand the kind of thought process the LGBT people go through before they come out. By knowing this I was able to choose perfect theme that would make them feel comfortable to attend the events during Coming Out Week. Along with these, the movies that we watched in the class also proved to be a great resource for getting information on the Pride Alliance and LGBT group. For example through Education of Shelby Knox, I got a sense of LGBT group and their problems to get an identity. In the same way, the movie Voices from the front also give details on the Gay community if facing and the problems concerned with coming out.

As already reflected before, the project with Pride Alliance and the course materials have aided me by proving a ton of information on LGBT. Before getting connected with my English class and Pride Alliance I didn’t even know any LGBT people or even anyone connected with it. I and my friends even used to use the word “Gay” is a totally different context than its sexual connotation. But after taking up this class and the project, I gained lot of respect for LGBT group. I now understand the pain these People go through, and more over the amount of strength and courage they need to come out with their sexuality. I also comprehend the quantity of mental stress some groups go through to know their own sexuality and then to accept themselves. Along with these I began to support the enlistment of Gays into the army and their right to disclose their identity.

Besides all the information about LGBT, this recent service also supplied me with a heap on information on audience and the way to approach them. If I am ever again put in a situation to design a flyer, the first thing I am going to do is to get more information and understand about my audience. Then I will try to come up with a perfect theme that would allow me to express the need of the company to my audience.

Education……

akashjournal — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:47:48 +0000

From the beginning of the fundraising project, we haven’t made much progress in terms of reaching our goal. Yesterday was the first day for the implantation our strategies to raise money for the AIDS WALK. Yesterday we created a facebook group that contained our mission statement and the URL’s. People who join our group can easily choose through whom they want to donate and can easily navigate to their respective web pages and can help us. Along with this we are going to send mass emails to everyone the freshmen mailing list. Though this might not work, as freshmen are the people on campus with the least amount of money.

Having a large group has its advantages and its disadvantages. Time is a huge disadvantage for having a huge group. Every one of us is taking varied kinds of classes and has different schedules. This has been a big problem for our group as it has been to fix a perfect time that would be good for all the members of the group. Along with this it has been a huge problem to perform the strategies that have been planned for the week. Also with this we have found out that we didn’t prepare a good schedule and have to revise it with our new vision.

Though having problems with time and our strategies we have not changed our goal. We are fixed on our goal as we were at the beginning of the project.

As our planning had not gone too well we’ve been moving things and changing our calendar. For the first two weeks we haven’t completed any projects / strategies that we’ve planned. So we’ve shifted to do all the things we’ve missed into the weekend. After having the conference with the teacher we changed a lot of things mainly in our carnival games department. Our teacher told that it would not be a good idea to spend money for fundraising. So, we have decided to ask different stores to help us get cookies for the carnival games instead of buying them.

As already mentioned above the main problem for our group is time. We can’t make a perfect meeting time that would work for all of us. So, to get rid of this issue we have decided to set up or meeting on the weekends when everyone will be available. Another problem that our group is currently facing is to actually collect money. To amend this difficulty we have been planning different new strategies which would enable us to get more money.

Fundraising Project

akashjournal — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:37:15 +0000

Though having problems with time and our strategies we have not changed our goal. We are fixed on our goal as we were at the beginning of the project.

“Separate but Equal” in sports

akashjournal — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:00:41 +0000

Title IX was initially started to provide equality and stop discrimination against women in the field of education. Though it was started for that particular reason Title IX took part in changing many other policies in other categories. Its main impact was on college sports. Title 9 had made such a significant impact in college sports that it is presently attributed with sports equality than education equality. Title IX has significantly increased the number of women’s college level sports. It helped women to start playing sports which previously were only played by men. This increased the chances for women to be athletic and play the sports they want at college level. Though it has done all this, it failed to make men and women play on the same team. This is called “Separate but Equal” in sports. I think that this decision is appropriate.

Women and men have their own strengths and weaknesses. Before puberty both genders have the same amount of strength and muscle power. After puberty males develop androgen, a hormone which lets them develop more muscle mass per unit volume of body mass. This puts the girls on a losing side if they compete along (or) against men. I think that the separating done by Title IX’s “Separate but Equal” decision helps by making teams compete between each gender’s abilities than countering one gender’s abilities with other gender’s disabilities. For example in the sport of football teams members are very aggressive in tackling and running. A women competing with other men with a heavy muscle mass puts her at a disadvantage.

I think that having separate teams could help the officials to set different rules and regulations that would enhance the experience to the players which in turn increases the enjoyment of the sport. I think that in any sport, a player’s real ability comes into play when he is at the end of his endurance and about to fall down. Consider tennis, in all grand slams men singles, a player is announced as a winner after he has won three sets instead of two sets for women’s singles. Men are usually considered to have more stamina than women and if both genders have the regulations than the true ability of a player might not come to shine.

I also think that separating teams could make a game less offensive. I many sports, the players won’t be in terms to play a full contact game with other genders. In many countries, for example India, it is prohibited to play a full contact sport with other gender. I think that this would also go hand in hand with my first argument and help women to have a better experience. Consider the sport of wrestling; a girl may not be willing to fight with a boy, with a way heavy muscle mass than her, but would be willing to wrestle against a girl of her own size.

As there are advantages there will definitely be some disadvantages with any decision. I think that maintaining different teams would result in huge expenses.

Hello world!

akashjournal — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:07:27 +0000

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