a. My learning from this year has been different than my previous years of high school. The PLA program has given me the opportunity to explore different learning styles and different topics. The PLA program was designed to give students the opportunity to learn differently with a smaller class and to be able to learn about real world topics. What I have learned so far this semester is what it takes to create a business, how to make your logo the math way. I have learned what the Electoral College is and what it does. In my classes outside of PLA, I have learned how to make a wire sculpture. I have learned things I thought I’d never experience.

b.  The things I did like this year, were some of the projects. The business project seemed more difficult than I perceived it to be. There is a lot of steps to making a business than I expected. And a lot of work as well. I really like the journal posts because it gives you the opportunity to express your thoughts and opinion.

c. I feel as if I haven’t grown yet. I feel as if I am better with words now. I have grown a bit intellectually.

d. The only insight I got of myself was I am a better writer, I am sort of good with poetry, I guess you can say. I have not gained much insight concerning myself or community.

 

  Discrimination..  yeah it still exists

There are many types of discrimination. But some are more known than others. Regardless of these discriminations being known of, people choose to ignore it. One type of discrimination that stands out to me is Gender discrimination. Gender discrimination is defined as discrimination based on gender, a common civil rights violation that takes many forms, including sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination and unequal pay for women who do the same job as men.

According to the article, Team USA players allege gender discrimination by CBS news, discuss female soccer players(USA) feel as if they are not treated nor recognized as well as the USA men’s team. Carli Lloyd, fellow USA team member says “ We feel like we’re treated like second class citizens because they don’t care about us as they do the men.” Team members add that they has always been a difference in gender pay, acknowledged by NBA and NFL so why can’t it be said of in soccer. These women play the same sport and are most likely as talented as men but don’t get paid the same, why is that? For years the gender wage gap has been a controversial issue but until people speak up and make a change, it will forever remain the same.

According to NY Daily News’ article, Gender discrimination in organizations is still a real issue in 2016, write San Diego-based tech company Qualcomm agreed to pay a total of $19 million to settle a federal class action lawsuit in a gender discrimination settlement. Later on in the article, they discuss the majority of gender discrimination found in 3 issues: Hiring, Pay inequity and Culture. Author, Jeffery Tobias Halter says “ Let’s discuss the Qualcomm settlement. The case,which involved approximately 3,300 women, states that women at Qualcomm make less than men and were promoted less frequently than “the men who work beside them. “ Women are still being paid less at big companies. It is harder on working mothers as said in the article once again, “ The women said various policies, including 24 hour responsiveness and a culture that rewarded working late..” It wasn’t fair for women who had spouse.

As a result of gender discrimination, it is still happening and needs to be bettered.

Chapter 3 : A Lonely Christmas

I am Yuki, very worried and anxious for Papa’s arrival. I overheard Mr. Toda mention to Mother, the men taken away were kept as prisoners and would be hurt if Japan were to hurt any more Americans. We finally heard from papa. He is well. I and Mother am relieved he is okay. We are given the chance to visit him but then he gives us news he is leaving to an internment camp in Montana. What if I never see him again ? What will we do ? On top of that, there is word of an evacuation.

Chapter 10 : Good Bye, Tanforan

I am Ken, upset and anxious. We are on our way to Utah and I don’t know what to expect. Yuki is making me more nervous with her comments.  I really wanted to go to college and make my family proud but I am torn between the safety of my family and my future.

Chapter 11 : A Home in the Desert

We are now traveling towards our journey to Topaz. When we first arrive Topaz is nice and green. I tell Ken, that I knew Topaz would be nice but we soon move far along and we end up arriving in a small desert. I am concerned about the apartment we are assigned; It is okay but the conditions aren’t as great as they were said to be. Later,  I am looking at the sky with Emi when she collapses, I am scared of what will happen to her.

Chapter 12 : Dust Storm

Emi is hospitalized. I went to go see her and she didn’t look well. There was a sandstorm when I was visiting Emi; therefore, I couldn’t stay long because Mother would then worry of where I am. I soon ran home in the sandy storm, I hid in a laundry barrette. I then ran home. I was worried about Mother and Ken and everyone while running home. I wondered if  Emi would get better. 

Chapter 16 : Another Good Bye

I am Ken. I have decided to join the army instead of going off to college. I am joining with my friend, Jim. It was a very hard decision because I don’t want to leave my family behind but I have to continue my life. I want to serve my country and prove that I am as faithful as any other American and maybe eventually everyone will be let out of the internment camps.

 

I agree with why Kaepernick decided not to stand for the Star Spangled Banner, due to many reasons. First off, America is the land of the free. Even then so it’s not, as an American he has the right to not participate in standing and putting his hand over his heart. So why is the big fuss necessary ? It isn’t.
America had diminished racism overall, but racism is still done today. African Americans are still looked down upon to this day. I believe that he didn’t stand for more than just that one reason. “Kaepernick has said himself that he himself personally has experienced racism by police”, says author Jaweed Kaleem. In the past year, there has been a lot of deaths caused by police brutality and most of which have been African American. Nobody really cared other than discussions written upon social media. Why would he stand to value a country where he isn’t completely free ? He has the right to freedom of speech, to explain why he took the action of not standing to the Star Spangled Banner. This situation had happened prior in 1968 at the Olympics as Jeweed Kaleem states in the article, “In the ‘Land of the Free’ Are You Free to Sit Out the National Anthem”, when Olympic runners, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in black power salutes while the national anthem played during a medal ceremony in Mexico City. This has repeated in time and again they are making a fuss of it. If they didn’t want for it to happen again then they should have made an acception of all types of freedom of speech.

Social wellness is defined as building relationships with others,and dealing with conflict appropriately.

I chose this wellness because first of all I have a hard time handling conflict and I thought I would try to maintain social wellness from now and so forth.

There has only been a few times that I have dealt with situations in a good way. There was this one time, someone was making fun of this girl near me in class and I stepped in and defended her without really knowing who she was. I realized that bullying still happens today and it sucks. I also noticed that everyone is selfish in their own way. People don’t acknowledge bullying happening because it is not happening to them and helping someone or defending them is “not cool”. High school is full of that.

Anyways one time I was not using social wellness was when I got into an argument with my sister. It ended up being my fault because I yelled at her without giving her a chance to explain herself first. I should’ve not made assumptions and just asked her first in a calm way and been calm of the situation.

Social wellness is something new that I have never really considered trying. I try not to worry about other people but when I do, I try to put others’ feelings ahead of mine at times. Overall I am going to try to include social wellness towards my to do list.

Small Business Plan

In our business plan we discuss the idea of our business, then elaborate onto our problem of where we then develop a business to resolve the problem, which in our case is street racing getting enforced by the police. Our solution was to create a safe space for cars to race as they please in a legal way and also for car owners to host car meets and such.

Personal Reflection

For the occupational wellness unit, PLA decided to assign us a project, which was to create our very own business and to create a small business plan as well.  My partner for this assignment was Lizbeth but we later joined Jorge’s group.

For our business we decided to choose street racing. Now when I first heard of the idea, I then asked how our business would work ? We came up with this idea because many people take an interest in street racing but can’t take action because then the police gets involved.

Our solution was to create a facility where street racing can occur legally as well as safely and  where car meets can be held. In order to start our business, we needed to create a small business plan. Although our business plan was a page or so, which the average business plan is 10 pages ( lucky us, am I right ?) it ended up being brief and detailed as one should be.

In order for our business to be complete, we needed a few things. We first needed to create a logo for our business, along with an advertisement but in our case we decided to create a yelp page. Then we had to write our elevator pitch, which was basically proposing a certain amount of our business in exchange for money that can be used for start up costs etc.

Now the last thing before our final presentation is a model to include in the final presentation. It would make the audience more interested in what we have to offer.

Yelp Page

Instead of an advertisement,  my group and I decided to create a yelp page of our own.  On our yelp page includes our company’s address on it, some pictures of events that we host, our hours opened and how to contact us if a buyer is interested in booking the facility for an event. There is even an option to write a review !

Elevator Pitch 

In our elevator pitch, we discuss what our business is and how it can be made into a grown business. My group and I all had different elevator pitches but in mine I discuss a percent of my company I am willing to be bought in exchange for a certain amount of money, my company can use for start up money.

 

Physical wellness is defined as promoting  our bodies for optimal health and functioning. Basically physical wellness is to encourage balance towards physical activity, nutrition and  mental well being to keep your body in top shape.

I believe physical wellness is important to me, because I am all for maintaining myself in good shape,  and eating right and exercising etc.  I just realized I started using physical wellness way more now than ever. I want to say I was super athletic freshman year because I had joined cross country and track. It was super fun but I felt as if I didn’t improve in running until track season. I saw myself as more fit but then come sophomore year, I stopped running completely.

I stopped for two years, then I gained weight and issues. I feel as if in between those two years, my physical wellness reduced completely. As well as not maintaining my physical wellness, I also lacked emotional wellness. I decided to change that when I joined PLA. I started getting better grades and took a liking into all my teachers.

In PLA English last year, we started our 20% blog and I chose to improve my mile time. Starting to run again felt like a fresh start, I didn’t end up improving my mile time but I did maintain physical wellness a bit.

Senior year, I have set a new goal; to lose weight and achieve the body I desire.  I was going to the gym but I stopped.  I now run everyday, sometimes I jog In order to do that, I will be doing a set of exercises and continue to run daily, but of course eat healthy.

With motivation and determination, I will achieve my goal regarding physical wellness. With physical wellness I will achieve the body I want.

This picture represents yoga, a activity that can relieve stress or just to stretch out your muscles etc. It can also be a form of meditation.

 

Being active helps maintain healthy bones, muscles and joints.

In my life, I feel like I needed  to maintain a balance of Emotional & Spiritual wellness because I have trouble controlling my emotions towards everything happening in my life and thoughts that go through my head everyday. I have never really been a positive thinker. High school definitely changed my way of thinking in good ways and in bad. Every year has been a hell of an experience.

It’s my senior year and I have to maintain positive thinking even though I am so nervous about college. Don’t even know if i am going to get in anywhere. Anyways, well yeah in high school, you need to maintain a positive attitude because everything that occurs is so unexpected, feels like just yesterday I was a freshman.  

Spiritual wellness is included in my everyday routine because I need to maintain inner peace as well as a positive attitude. At times I feel as if it can be challenging to maintain inner peace considering I lose my temper quickly, which completely sucks! But there is always room for change.

In my previous years of high school, my emotional wellness was definitely at an all time low. I wasn’t doing well, I had terrible grades, and just felt like I didn’t care about anything. School wasn’t a priority,  hanging with friends and attempting to be pretty like other girls was the priority. I finally realized that wasn’t going to get me good grades, so I started studying and doing homework but things didn’t get better until junior year.

Junior year was my first year of PLA, it was something new but I improved very much mentally as well as receiving good grades. My mom was proud, which was a good feeling. She is also a part of me maintaining emotional wellness, things have gotten tough for us but she always finds a way to make things better with hard work.

I hope to maintain a good attitude throughout the year and to maintain inner peace.  🙂