Blog Feed

Blog Post 4: Communicating With a Representative

 

Plans for communicating:

-       Figuring out exactly whom we should contact.

-       Finding telephone numbers and addresses for these representatives.

-       Getting them to talk!

(What are some process methods they feel are flawed?)

(What plans do they have in the future for the Welfare System.)

(How can they make improve the welfare system.)

(What suggestions can be made to us as students in trying to make a difference and have our voices heard?) 

 

WIC South Philadelphia Office

1536 South Broad Street, Philadelphia PA

(215)-463-5571

 

It was no surprise to my partner and I that the representatives at the welfare office weren’t much help to us at all. We contacted them by phone. We spent most of our time on hold or we were given the run around. We weren’t able to get much information on the subjects of our questions that we presented to them. I can’t necessarily say they were rude it just seemed as if they had better things to do. The feedback they did give us wasn’t at all helpful because they didn’t feel as though their system had many flaws. Neither do they believe that there are ways around there system, which was one of our major concerns. I think that maybe if we had shown up in person that it would have been a lot harder for them to ignore us and easier for them to understand how serious we were about changes for the best in the welfare system. 

Vichhay Roeung

Artist Statement

There were many success and failures during this quarter. What this quarter focused on was life and perspective form of art. From my experience this quarter I would have to say it was a challenging and difficult process, as I was introduced to new method of art such as charcoal and real life perspective. Even though using charcoal was like using a crayon, the difference was its ability to show the color and shading. While real life perspective, there were many details in which it was difficult to capture or even show on paper.  

Drawing from real life, was the most challenging process during this whole quarter. As there were always more then just one layer of shade or the image in which I could see, the viewpoints and the details of the object. At first drawing from real life perspective such as my hand was easy but when it came to shading or transparent objects, I couldn’t seem to capture the exact details of the object. The clear bottle small project, I believe was the first challenge in further advancing my real life perspective skills.

My first clear bottle small drawing was that of a glass jug. The difficult part of that project would be my ability to capture the glass like texture of the drawing. Where it looks like the glass was bending and reflects part of the lights. It wasn’t until I worked on the large clear bottle, when I noticed my improvements in this type of skill. Using charcoal, I have to say that was the most successful part of this experience. Mainly because I was able to improve in art, using two skills I wasn’t familiar with, which in the end I believed it was a beautiful piece of art. Which that was one of the art piece that I am proud of and thought was a success.

  For each week there was a new assignment. From real life perspective and charcoal small to real life perspective and charcoal large. Which every project that was assigned during that week must be finished in two class periods, mainly because we only had art twice a week. So most of the projects were to be done on our own time, during the snow, and even when we don’t have the class. I feel that I could get the art done easily and well during class, while at home the motivation for it is not much. Thus, large projects should take a little longer, while there should be art that could be finished in one class period.

  Finally for the menu project where we had to choose a category, I choose to work on the genre focus. Where I had to create two inspired piece of art from my genre. I focused on fantasy art as my genre, as fantasy to me is a colorful and playful art such as a child’s book. Using origami to express myself, I created two scenes. One being a vase filled with origami pastel stars as the soil and lots of origami flowers consisting of a tissue rose and paper lily. The second one features two-origami crane interacting with each other around a pile of food, hearts, and stars. Which these are my inspirations from fantasy art, which combines my imagery of fantasy and my love of origami.

Genre Focus: Fantasy Art and Origami 

Where to watch/listen - 9pm - 1/25/11

• • All major TV networks - ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews
• • Online at whitehouse.gov, cspan, pbs
• • On the Radio at NPR 90.7FM

​​For the Seniors - 

1. 1. Listen to the State of the Union
2. 2. Take notes. 
3. 3. Bring notes to class on Wednesday.

For the Juniors - 

1. Listen to the State of the Union
2. Finish filling out the SOTU Graphic Organizer
3. Bring the SOTU Graphic Organizer to class on Thursday

For the Quarter 2 Benchmark I had to search the three branches of the government, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. For each branch I had to find two positive and two negative examples of the branch's power, and write paragraphs of what they are and how they affect me. I had some serious difficulty with this benchmark. Which is evident from how late I am handing this in. Connecting the laws and court cases and such to myself wasn't that difficult, but finding the examples themselves proved to be difficult and tedious to me. I feel that even though I am late handing this in the quality is well enough to make it worth handing in. I am proud of my work, and proud of myself for getting past my difficulties with the project. 

Here is my lobbying assignment. For the final lobbying assignment,I decided to transfer all my information into a newspaper article. 
I thought this would be a better way to explain my topic and my point of view etc.

For my 2nd quarter project I wanted to show the contrast between color and black and white. At first I wasn't sure how I would show this, but one day when I was really angry I made a splatter painting. I painted the page black and then threw colors onto it. The result was this:



Next I got a white sheet of paper and splattered just black paint on it. The comparison of the two is this:







From here I wanted to draw actual shapes and things so I started a colorful drawing with flowers and got this:



Instead of finishing my colorful project I moved onto a black and white Mandala drawing on the opposite side of the paper. This took ridiculously long to make, but the result was this:



This was my favorite thing to make, even though it was epically difficult. The comparison between my two final drawings is this:



I had a lot of fun doing every aspect of this project. I just wish I would have done this blog post on time :(

I did a terrible job with these. To me my hands look like clay-mation on paper. So i tried doing them in different ways. Didn't work to my expectations. But draewing me kind of did. So i don't quite get what made my face easier to draw.

My Benchmark Ant Byrd

 I've been working solo this project and trying to get in touch with Anthony Hardy Williams 8th District Representative,  and trying to get people aware of the situation.
 As you should know by now I want to get a group together to influence neighborhood cleanups, specifically urban neighborhoods.  I wanted to start a group within SLA that expanded to a much larger crown with the help of the senator, It was to be something bigger than your average optional Saturday block sweep. My main concern has been to have our urban streets clean like we have them clean in Downtown Philadelphia and Independence Hall. I haven't heard anything back from the senator but I also know these things take time and he is a very busy person.

For this blog post it is really just an update on the current status of things. Basically I am just waiting on a go from the Senator or at least some support on his part. It wouldn't be a problem to start straight out of school, i just want the support of the senator.

When thinking about the water issues you need to conceder four main things:

Water scarcity: I some parts of the world the hot climates are drying up water resources leaving 1.1 billion people without access to safe water. This leads to death and illness from drunken unsafe water, affects ford production, leads to hunger and increased global food prices. 

Water sanitation: Throughout poor countries access to clean water and basic sanitation is a major problem. 2.6 billion people are lacking adequate sanitation leading to 5 million deaths per day. 

Water access:Many people have to travel long distances to get the water they need because the other ways of getting water such as through ground water, a spring, or a river. 

Resource management: This is often a political issue, usually there are many groups trying to use the same water source and without political intervention these fights for water can become nasty

This is a link to "World Toilet Day 2009" 

http://waterwars.pulitzergateway.org/?p=7060

Nearly 2.6 million people world wide, 40% of the worlds population, lack access to basic sanitation. 

1.1 billion do not have access to clean water. 

1.8 million people mostly young children die each year form water relatable diseases. 

In sub-saharan Africa the lack of sanitary water is holding back economic growth.

On this site are some videos from the Representatives from Water for People, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Strategic and International Studies and Water Advocates. These people went to these places and saw first hand the depth of the crisis and came p with possible solutions. The above link will take you to their videos.

http://waterwars.pulitzergateway.org/

This is a good website to go and check out the Water Wars. On it you can take a test to see how many gallons of water you use and give your opinions and you can also see whats going on with the rest of the worlds water struggles and you can see what many people are doing to help the problem, you can also share your ideas on helping the water problem. 

Check out our weebly!!