AHA Government

My name's Phoebe and I'm a senior at Berkeley High School in the small learning community, Arts & Humanities Academy. This Tumblr is for a project in my Government Class.

Assignment #20!

PART 1: Freshman Year
a)   
b)  A major news story I remember from freshman year is Obama running for president! During voting, I worked at a calling center making phone calls reminding people to vote. Also during spirit week, there was U.S.A. day and my friends and I painted american flags and letters on our shirts and spelled out Obama ‘08!
c)   I learned a lot about globalization in Mr.Angell’s history class. We learned the definition of the word and it’s impact on spreading ideas. I think I remember it really well because we went over it again and again, but also because Mr. Angell is such an outrageous teacher that it’s hard to forget anything he says.
d)   My freshman year I went to one lacrosse practice and then decided I didn’t want to play. I think if I could re-do one thing it would be to play lacrosse for at least a year. I think it would have been cool to experience playing a sport and being part of a berkeley high team.
e)  my first big research paper of high school!
f)   Meet lots of new people!  

PART 2: Sophomore Year
a)   
b)   I switched into AHA my sophomore year so there was a big difference returning to school. I met a whole bunch of new people and new teachers and the way the classes were was totally different.
c)     I seriously don’t remember any big news stories from my sophomore year….
d)   Geography of the world and all the United States! In Ms. Gusfield’s history class we focused on this for a while and I remember I was really bad at it so I worked my butt off to memorize and learn everything and I ended up doing really good on the test and ever since then it’s stuck with me!
e)    I’m proud that I jumped into AHA sophomore year and adapted so well, not that it’s hard to with such great classmates and teachers. But I’m proud that I changed from AC to AHA and enjoyed the transition and loved my classes and teachers.
f)    Stahl taught me how to do different types of prints this year, and this is my best one!
g)    PARTY!

PART 3: Junior Year
a)   
b)   I enjoyed my junior year but there were a bunch of hard things. It was hard watching my senior friends applying for college and leaving (my best friend is a year older), it was scary thinking about the fact that i would have to do that the next year and realizing i had no idea what i wanted to do. It was also really hard to stay motivated in school and be on top of all my work.
c)     2010 Bp oil spill… this major event was talked about all the time at home and at school.
d)    The biggest surprise of my junior year was finding out my cousin was pregnant! This was very exciting because she lives in LA, which is pretty close. I’ll be living in LA too next year so I’ll get to see my baby cousin a lot!
e)     I learned that math is hard! Before junior year i had always enjoyed and done well in math classes. My junior year i took math analysis and worked really hard but also realized that i don’t really like math that much.
f)     Standing up for myself. I had a lot of drama with my friends that year. When I was hurt I’m proud that I spoke up about it rather than just brushing it aside. In the end, this was the best thing to do. Also, I’m proud that although I have terrible stage fright i powered through when asked to be an emcee at the senior awards ceremony and did it. I ended up doing a great job and felt really good about myself and the fact that I overcame my fear.
g)    my two best pieces from Stahl’s class. I spent a long time on the colored pencil drawing and am really proud of it, and the painting was my first successful painting and I learned I really like painting on wood!
h)    Lookout for yourself and do what you think is right, but also be open to new experiences.
PART 4: Senior Year
a)    
b)    The best thing about being a senior is feeling very satisfied with your high school career. Feeling like you are the big man on campus but also feeling ready to move on. Also, being really close with so many other seniors and knowing them all so well because we’ve all gone through so much together. Also all the fun senior things during spirit week, etc.  
c)   I would go back and tell my freshman self that working hard in school is incredibly important, but so is socializing and enjoying yourself. You need to balance these out and not be too hard on yourself.
d)    Rising college admission fees and expensive loans! We have been looking at this a lot with you, Lev,  and as we’ve talked about it most definitely impacts and effects us!
e)     Any and every Beyonce song because she is and will always be my idol and i listen to her repeatedly, especially this year.
f)    I think I learned a lot this year, but the internship was definitely a huge thing. I’ve had a job all of highschool, but it is through a family friend. I think learning how to seek out internships and interviewing and working at a place taught me many great skills. I have become close with the woman i interned for and learned so much from her about cooking, running a business, working in a shop and so much more.
g)   I spent the entire first semester in the college career center working on college stuff. I worked really hard and got into UCLA! As this was going on, my grandma, who passed away in November, was sick with pancreatic cancer. I am proud that I was able to spend time with her and my family and still get all my college stuff done. I also got my license this year which I am very excited and proud about.
h)    This is my best piece ever and my first attempt at paper cutting! I like it a lot because it represents my love for visual art and my love for Japanese Tea Ceremony. 
i)      YOLO!

Assignment #19

1. Obama says that interest rates are set to double, meaning that hard working students will be paying about $1,000 extra to get their education. He says that now is not the time to make school more expensive for young people and that interest rates need to go down. I completely agree with Obama. I think that students are working so hard already in school and jobs and are having to stress about so many different financial responsibilities, and to make them worry about high interest rates on top of all that is terrible.

2. I think this forum for the information doesn’t affect Obama’s credibility at all. I think that he is just using a more creative approach and a way that more people will actually listen to. People need to be informed and this is a way to inform more people. Although some could take it as him making a joke, a lot of the time in order to relate to people, you need to add humour so people will listen. Also, having a sense of humor is imporatnt and shows that you are just a normal person, and people can relate to you.   

3. I think this issue is a really challenging one. Students should not have to worry about and pay these ridiculously high loans! Education should be affordable, and everyone should have equal opportunities. Colleges need to lower their prices. I don’t really know how realistic this is, or if it would work at all, but I think that it is important and should be looked in to. 

Also, there should definitely be programs where people who can afford to help out students who don’t have a lot of money, donate money towards their educations. 

KQED TWITTER

@AHA_phoebe

Really cool assignment! Although I agree with Emi, it is pretty hard to write responses with such a limit on how many characters we can use, especially when tagging KQED uses so many already! 

Assignment #18

1. The Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States.

2. The Fed was created by the United States Congress on December 23, 1913. It was created because the United States lacked any formal organization for studying and implementing monetary policy. Because of this markets were often unstable and the public had very little faith in the banking system. 

3. There are 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities around the country that operate under the supervision of the Board of Governors.

4. Reserve Banks act as the operating arm of the central bank and do most of the work of the Fed.

5. The earliest debates on central banking in the United States centered on its constitutionality, private ownership, and the degree to which an economy should be centrally planned. 

Assignment #17

My initial thoughts are stress and fear. I don’t have any credit cards, but I have a debit card. With a debit card I can only spend what money I have in my bank, which although maybe it feels easy to spend, I can’t get in debt. I want credit cards, so that I can make big purchases and learn about credit and one day be able to buy a house, etc, but after reading these alarming statistics I feel sort of scared out of it and reluctant.  

Three facts that stood out to me:

“Nearly all of the 725 students who took the survey in fall 2009 were business majors.” 

This fact stood out to me because you’d think that students studying business would know how to be aware and manage their money.

“75% of them do not know their late payment charges and 70% of them do not know what their over-balance-limit fees might be.” 

This stood out to me because these seem like important things to be aware of if you are making the decision to have a credit card yet so many people are oblivious to them.

“In 2004, the average college student had $946 in credit card debt. By 2009, the average stood at more than $4,100.” 

This stood out to me first of all just because of the dramatic increase of debt, but also because of how terrible it is that students who are working hard yet are so young in college already have that much debt. 

Some of the wider implications of the findings are that people don’t understand the real world and financial responsibility. Also that college students should be educated on things as relevant and important as credit cards.

One of the key findings that i found interesting was the fact about only 9.4%  of credit-card-carrying college students paid off their debt in full each month. In 2003 this survey was taken and 32% paid off their debt each month. This drop is thought to be caused by the financial struggle students already have. This seems crazy because although 32% seems low for something that is important to do, 9.4% is insanely low. I can’t believe how small the percent is when in reality most people should be able to. 

Extra Credit

1.The average income in the United States right now is $41,663.  
2. That comes out to $3,471.91667 per month.
3. I think that as a single person you could live “comfortably” on this, but as a family it would be much harder. When you have a family, you have other people you have to support therefore you need more money. But, in a family usually there is another person working and therefore another income. Other factors that come into play are what benefits your job has. If your job gives you dental and health insurance for yourself and family then that income is better than if you earned the same amount but didn’t get those benefits.  
4. The East Coast has high incomes. The rest of the United States makes similar amounts. In each state, there is a wide range of incomes.  When I first saw it, I noticed that there are tons of little color blocks, showing the variation. With this variation, there is also similarities because most of the states have different areas making different incomes. 
5.  Northern Alaska’s incomes are very high.

The East Coast, specifically the areas near New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, have high incomes. 

The middle of America, specifically areas around Kansas and Nebraska have similar income distribution. 

The West Coast states have bigger areas making the same incomes.

Alaska has many different areas making a range of different incomes.  


Analyzing your Facebookishness

a) 674 facebook friends 
b) 402 friends
c) 276 acquaintances 
d) 9 family members 
e) 13 friends of friends 
f) 2 i’ve never met

I think if I shot portraits of all my facebook friends there would be a lot of high school students, specifically kids from Berkeley High and a lot of college students because of my sister’s friends. Then there would be some older people, most of which are family or family friends. 

Assignment #16

1. ”Well, $500,000 a Year Might Sound Like a Lot, but I’m Hardly Rich.”

2. “‘Sure, it’s an objectively large sum of money,’ they say. ‘But it is far smaller after I spend it.’”

3. ”Come on, we’re all in this together! It’s not like I have infinite money.”

4. My thoughts are that this is complete bullshit. They are rich, $500,000 a year is tons of money and there are no excuses. I’d rather them just admit it rather than trying to beat around the bush.  

5. 

1. ”Hey, I Worked Hard to Get What I Have!”


2.”Why, oh why, does the media bolster President Obama’s rhetoric by using his term: ‘the rich’? Would it not be more appropriate to say ‘the successful,’ or ‘those who work harder?”

3.”I’m not Paris Hilton! I work 70-hour weeks to make this salary!”

4. I think it’s great that hard work earns people money, but I also think that if you’re rich, admit that you’re rich and don’t be ashamed to be called that. Also, I think that a lot of the time people who do work really hard still don’t earn a lot of money so it’s hard to decide how to feel. On one hand, some people do deserve to be rich, but on the other hand there are tons of people who deserve to earn a lot of money yet still don’t. 

5.


1. ”If I Can Do It, So Can You!”

2.”We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.”

3.”This is the land of opportunity, where anyone can make it! Instead of complaining, just go out there and get rich!”

4. I don’t think it’s as easy as they are making it sound. It is hard to just go out and make it, especially if you have less privileges in your life. 

5. 

1. ”You’re Just Jealous Because I Made It and You Didn’t!”

2.”Part of it is jealousy. I stand by that. And here’s why I don’t have a lot of patience for that. My parents, they never played the victim card. My parents never said that we hope the rich people lose something so that we can get something.”

3.”It’s wrong to tear down others instead of improving your own life!”

4. Some of it may be jealousy, yes, but I also think that it is sometimes unfair. 

5.

1. ”You Shouldn’t Be Punishing the Very People Who Make This Country Work!”

2.”There is a deeply disturbing message coming out of the Occupy Wall Street movement … Simply put, it boils down to this: We must punish success …”

3.”If you punish success, society will collapse into communism!”

4. Success shouldn’t be punished, but they also shouldn’t get unfair treatment. 

5. 

1. ”Stop Asking for Handouts! I Never Got Help from Anybody!”

2. ”I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Did anybody help me out? No.”

3. ”I pulled myself up by my bootstraps!”

4. By being on food stamps and welfare, you are getting help. In life, sometimes asking for and getting help is necessary. If everyone cares about everyone else and helps out and isn’t greedy then life would be a lot better. 

5. 

Extra Credit Assignment “This hoodie makes me look so suspicious, huh?”

Extra Credit Assignment

“This hoodie makes me look so suspicious, huh?”