Quick to Save is an app that I designed and developed to teach people in the moment how to perform CPR and rescue breaths. The app provides clear step by step instructions through videos and pictures. A feature unique to this app is its ability to track the user’s location and display it on the screen both by coordinates and an exact address. If a user is unaware of their location then this feature would help them relay this information to emergency services.

Most of my time was spent thoroughly researching CPR and how to make simple projects in Swift. In addition to my CPR research, I talked to two CPR certified people as well as a CPR instructor to make sure I had the most accurate and up to date information. From there my partner and I created six videos: three that were for each age group with water ingestion and three for regular CPR. Since both my partner and I were learning new coding languages we often leaned on each other for help a lot. In the end, I am proud of what I made but the process was not easy. It seemed that every step forward I took two steps backward. I quickly realized that taking breaks and having a positive outlook was going to allow me to have better progress. I also realized that getting stuck is progress too, it means that I’m learning how to do it as I go and that code may be more complex than the tutorials.

This art piece represents the scene from page 125. McMurphy makes himself comfortable in front of the TV, defying the nurses order to get back to work. The other patients see his actions and pull up a chair to join him. McMurphy had attempted to switch the cleaning schedule so that they could sit and watch the world series however his attempt was unsuccessful. He didn’t want to believe he lost so he stood up against Nurse Ratched and finally made her lose her cool. Nurse Ratched, furious, cuts the TV off but McMurphy isn’t bothered. Bromden notes “That eye doesn’t faze him a bit. To tell the truth, he doesn’t even let on he knows the picture is turned off…” (125) The artwork represents McMurphy’s act of defiance as well as the consequences that followed.

The top right portion of the piece represents the cleaning supplies that the patients dropped when deciding to join McMurphy. “Harding shuts off the buffer and leaves it in the hall.” (125) I chose to include this because it shows that the choice the patients made was spur of the moment. I felt it was most important to emphasize McMurphys character in this piece so he got the most detail. McMurphy leans back, “puts his cigarette between his teeth and pushes his cap forward in his red hair till he has to lean back to see out from under the brim.” (125) I drew McMurphy just as described, leaned back, hands crossed behind his head, cigarette in his mouth and hat brim on his head. His relaxed nature while Nurse Ratched yells from behind is really important to notice. He intentionally acts like this because he knows that it will annoy the Nurse and his goal is to make her lose her temper.

In my artwork, I included the other Acutes sitting in front of the gray TV screen to show that they were supportive of the effect it would have on the nurse Ratched and not so much actually wanting to watch the world series. The patients are “sitting there lined up in front of that blanked out TV set, watching the gray screen just like we could see the baseball game clear as day, and she’s ranting and screaming behind us.” (125) McMurphy continuing to watch the TV as if it were still on shows that he doesn’t want to let the Nurse know that she has won. For him, this front that he has put up must stay intact even if that means he has to act in this manner. By doing this he won the bet that he could make the nurse lose her temper.

The nurse’s appearance is simple, she is drawn to have infuriating facial expressions towards the men by the TV. The artwork shows the important moment when she loses her temper with the patients. Throughout this moment her anger grows more intense, “Mr. McMurphy, I’m warning you!” then she pulled out her fist and “all those red - orange fingernails burning into her palm.” (125) In the piece, Nurse Ratched’s Facial expressions, red cheeks and orange fingernails were done intentionally to replicate this moment from the book.

This scene is significant to the story because it’s the first moment where McMurphy makes Nurse Ratched lose her temper on the patients. Each moment before this, she has calmed herself down before things escalated but this scene shows how McMurphy tipped the scales. This scene could lead McMurphy to have many more moments where he defies the rules and causes Nurse Ratched to be furious with him. It leaves the reader wondering about the amount of control the patients truly have within the hospital.

Giavanna Jackson

Ms. Pahomov

College English

October 13, 2023

In the Handmaid’s Tale, readers will come across many moments that make them feel uncomfortable or uneasy. As I was reading, I was mostly uncomfortable reading scenes where Nick made romantic advances towards Offred. In chapter 14, Nick stands behind Offred during the ceremony in the sitting room. He stands so close to her that his foot is touching the back of hers. “He’s so close that the tip of his boot is touching my foot. Is this on purpose? Whether it is or not we are touching, two shapes of leather. I feel my shoe soften, blood flows into it, it grows warm, it becomes a skin. I move my foot slightly away.” (81) This scene makes me uncomfortable because it is clear that Offred is pulling away and rejecting his advances. She knows the others are watching and that at any moment they could see this interaction. She is not able to say anything to him because then she would be seen speaking to him. This is risky for both Nick and Offred since fraternization of any kind between Handmaids and guards is strictly forbidden. As much as Offred wants to feel physical touch and be loved by someone, she wonders if it’s worth dying for. Since Offred pulled away from Nick, I interpreted that as her not wanting to pursue this as of then. So why did Nick continue to push her and move his foot closer? What little boundaries Offred has are being crossed and that makes me uncomfortable. I also want to mention that Nick’s timing was very off. I questioned why he chose to do this at the ceremony, of all places. Technically no place is appropriate for this behavior but a religious ceremony most certainly does not seem like the time.

Later in chapter 17, Nick approaches Offred again in the sitting room but this time she is alone. She snuck into the sitting room hoping to steal anything she could however Nick stumbled upon her before she got the chance to. From the doorway, Nick whispers to her “don’t scream”. As Offred freezes Nick takes the opportunity to step closer to her. “I don’t answer. He too is illegal, here, with me, he can’t give me away. Nor I him; for the moment we’re mirrors. He puts his hand on my arm, and pulls me against him, his mouth on mine, what else comes from such denial?” (98) My initial reaction was worry for Offred because Nick was the one who initiated this interaction so he is intentionally putting her at risk without allowing her to have a choice in the matter. Offred’s situation with Nick is very complicated because she has to consider the fact that Nick could be an Eye and he could be testing her. So for me as the reader, I am uncomfortable by Nick’s advancement towards Offred because if she directly tells him no then she could suffer the consequences for talking to him. However, if Offred goes along with it, she will still be breaking Gilead laws and would still suffer the consequences for rebelling. Nick has put her in this compromising situation, something that he should have never thought was okay to do.

As the scene progresses, we learn more about what Offred is thinking in the moment. The reader gets to see a romantic spark between Nick and Offred develop. We also see them both give in to this romantic craving that has been building up. This moment makes Offred’s entire body tense up as she hasn’t been touched for love in over three years. “I want to reach up, taste his skin, he makes me hungry. His fingers move, feeling my arm under the nightgown sleeve, as if his hand won’t listen to reason. It’s so good, to be touched by someone, to be felt so greedily, to feel so greedy. “ (98-99) My Immediate reaction was to physically recoil in disgust. The arms on my hair stood up and I had goosebumps all down my arms. The words the author chose to use to describe her crave for him are such a bizarre way to explain it. It created a very grotesque image in my mind. This whole scene makes me cringe. The author chose to use taste and touch, two of the five senses, to make the scene a lot more descriptive and easier for the reader to envision. However, that clear image of the scene created a more uncomfortable reading for me.

https://www.wevideo.com/view/2605044182

In my last post Is Insulin a Right or Privilege?, I explained the different ways insulin prices are affected by our society. Insulin is actually pretty cheap to make, so why is the price so high? My only logical explanation is money, people want to make lots of money and nt enough people are aware of this so this problem just gets pushed to the side.Many different diabetes groups are bringing this issue to light and are trying to influence people to care about this. Each group has done their own social media posts about the pricing of insulin. Specifically beyond type 1 sticks out to me most because they are always posting pictures of people with diabetes and it’s not the same person. They also ask questions in their post for people to answer in the chat. I think Posting about it and acknowledging it there is a huge step forward but I also think trying to fix it from the inside is a good idea. With all the legal things involved, it’s a lot harder to get 3 competing companies to lower all their insulin prices since they’d be losing tons of money.

Representative katie porter made a post about this issues couple months ago and I saved this twitter thread because it shows that some people higher up in the government care about this issue as well. In her post she said how quickly prices are rising and that she wants answers. She then tweets under that post saying that she teamed up with the American Economic Liberties Project

I couldn’t decide whether to contact someone or to post about it, so I did both. I think doing both was better than only trying to do one and like I said earlier I think this problem needs to be fixed from the inside. Whether that be the government or the companies themselves. I emailed my local councilman to inform him of the issue. Although I didn’t get a response I still feel like I made a change and I knew that I had a backup option in case I didn’t get a response.

The second thing I did was make a social media post about this issue. The main thing I talked about was the choices that people have to make when it comes to buying their insulin or paying their bills. I didn’t want to make a long post or bore people with all the reasons why this is so I asked for people to repost this and spread awareness.

This is someone reposting my post

I dont know how many people actually repossessed his but I know my friend ddi and she has more followers than me so I know enough people saw this for me to call it successful because even if i only educated one person I would feel like I made change since they can now go on to tell other people. Between these two changes I think I was pretty effective in spreading awareness.

I really enjoyed completing this project because It never got boring and I actually did something aI knew others would see. Over the course of completing this project I realized how invested I was in this issue because in the beginning I knew this issue needed to be fixed and I chose it because I could just as easily be in this situation. Everytime my insulin pump fell off or failed I worried about the amount of insulin being wasted. Even though I knew no matter what I could’ve done I couldn’t have helped someone with it. I feel like I could have asked more people in my family personally to repost because not everyone saw my post. I also think I should’ve tried to create a new account for that and linked it in my bio because I don’t think people took it as seriously. I can still continue to spread awareness about this issue so that these big companies realize what they’re doing is wrong.

Annotated Bibliography

This answer should be obvious but the American healthcare system disagrees. So what is Insulin and how does it affect people’s lives? Insulin is a hormone made by your pancreas and it keeps your blood sugar under control and it’s your main source of energy. When your pancreas stops producing insulin naturally you can become a diabetic which is what happened to me. I have type 1 diabetes meaning that my pancreas doesn’t produce insulin at all so to survive diabetics have to constantly be giving themselves insulin. There is a big crisis with insulin pricing right now and it’s been going on for a while now but it’s been brought to more people’s attention recently. So many people who can’t afford their insulin or can’t afford insurance have to ration their insulin. Insulin pricing has been rising since it was created. There are a multitude of reasons for why this is. Although my family and I don’t have to worry about paying for insulin or any of my other diabetes supplies other families do and the fact that people die from having to do this is insane. I want to change that, I want to help people not have to worry about how they are going to survive. Insulin is a right not a privilege meaning it should be accessible to everyone. However the American healthcare system may say otherwise. Insulin is not accessible to everyone because they can’t afford it or don’t qualify and if they can’t afford to pay for it they will likely die which is not something that should ever happen. We need to spread awareness about this issue because so many people are affected by this and so many people don’t know this is happening.

Throughout my research I discovered that there are about 8 different reasons for why Insulin prices are so high. The main thing I discovered was that it had nothing to do with how expensive insulin is to make. In Fact it’s the opposite, insulin is pretty cheap to make. So why does it still cost so much? There are only 3 pharmaceutical companies; Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and Sanofi. This plays a big role in the pricing of insulin since there aren’t other competitors and when one manufacturer raises their prices the other 2 raise their prices as well. The reason there are only 3 manufacturers of insulin is mainly due to patents. Patents are hard to come by and it stops other people from producing the same exact product. ¨Pharmaceutical companies take advantage of loopholes in the U.S. patent system to build thickets of patents around their drugs which will make them last much longer (evergreening).¨ A patent cannot be renewed so pharmaceutical companies will slightly alter their product so that they can get a new patent on it and this ends up raising prices of insulin. If they couldn’t get a new patent then a generic drug would be put on the market. It would be extremely similar to the name brand insulin and it would be cheaper but since manufacturers continue to renew their patents, people aren’t able to get generic drugs.

The last main role in the pricing of insulin is 3 companies; Pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers. ¨Pharmaceutical companies set the list price for insulin, and are incentivized by profits to continue to raise those prices. For these companies, the price of insulin is a business decision.¨

This image is a map of how insulin pricing is determined. It shows how each player has a role in the pricing of insulin. This picture also shows how money is involved and who benefits most. (PBM’s). This image helped me fully understand how it all works because I could visually see it

So It all starts with Pharmaceutical companies (Drug manufacturers), they produce the product then they sell that to wholesalers who sell it to pharmacies. The price these 2 pay is determined by what the Pharmaceutical companies and the pharmacy benefit managers (PBM´s) negotiate. Once the PBM´s negotiate a price they contact pharmacies and pay them to disperse the drugs. This is where things get sneaky. PBM´s share a small portion of their rebate with insurance companies and they have them manage the drugs benefits. The insurance companies pay the PBM´s for the drugs and dispensing fees. Now I told you earlier PBMś pay pharmacies for this same fee but they (PBM´s) don’t disclose the amount paid to insurance companies so they often over pay and the PBM´s keep the difference. This is called ¨the spread.”

This picture is very similar to the first one but this one involves the consumers and it shows how some parts skip going through certain channels. For example, the drug company can go straight to the pharmacy and sell them the product instead of going through drug wholesalers. This is an easier way to understand what I just said because it can get very confusing. When looking at this map I started looking at the drug company and that’s where it all starts.

All of these reasons lead to the rise in insulin prices. Some people will travel to Canada so they can get insulin cheaper, since it’s cheaper in every other country. To put it in perspective, They found that overall, the average US manufacturer price per standard unit across all insulins was $98.70, compared to $6.94 in Australia, $12.00 in Canada, and $7.52 in the UK. Thats a huge price difference. This got me thinking, If other countries have affordable insulin my question is why can’t we? If other countries can deal with the same issues we have and still have it be affordable then why can’t we? My only possible answer is money, they want to make a lot of money and take advantage of people.

Annotated Bibliography

Mi familia es pequeña. Yo tengo una hermana. Yo tengo cuatro tías y cinco tios. Yo tengo tres primos hermanos y diez otros primos. En mi casa hay mi mamá, mi papá, mi hermana y mi tres mascotas. Yo tengo tres mascotas; dos gatos y un perro. Mis gatos se llaman Joey y Chandler y tienen un año. Mi perro se llama Rocco y tiene siete años.

Mi hermana es Kristina y ella tiene veintidós años. Ella tiene ojos marrones. Ella tiene el pelo castaño. Ella tiene el pelo largo y ondulado. Ella es baja y gordita. Ella es muy inteligente, pero también vaga. Ella es muy bonita y simpática. Ella no es ni antipática ni callada: ella es extrovertida.

Mi papá es Jeff y él tiene cincuenta y dos años. Él tiene ojos marrones. Él es calvo. Él es alto y gordito. Mi papá tiene seis hermanos. Él tiene tres hermanas y tres hermanos. Él es trabajador y divertido. También él es muy dedicado. Él no es ni organizado ni deportista.

Mi nombre es Giavanna. Yo tengo quince años. Yo soy americana y vivo en Filadelfia. Yo tengo ojos marrones. Yo tengo el pelo castaño. Mi pelo es largo y rizado. Yo soy alta. Yo soy muy organizada pero también soy vaga. Yo soy simpática pero también soy callada.

Mi hermana y yo tenemos muchas de las mismas características. Tanto yo como mi hermana, tenemos ojos marrones. También tenemos el pelo largo y castaño. Mi pelo es muy rizado pero su pelo es ondulado. Mi hermana es baja, pero yo soy alta. Nosotras somos vagas e inteligentes. Mi hermana es muy extrovertida pero yo soy muy introvertida.

Explanation:
I chose to add an extra chapter at the end of the book because I felt that I wondered where everyone would be years from now and I thought that I could add my thought nowhere they would be. I wanted the chapter to be far into the future so we could see them grow up, the careers they chose and how Milly is doing. So I chose for the chapter to be 10 years later and it would explain some things that were happening then and some things that happened over the past 10 years. The first choice I made was what Grace would have done career wise and I thought back to what Grace cares alot about. Her family. I thought she would want to help other kids find families and be loved just like her. Grace knows how messed up the foster system is so she thought she could do a little good. I also thought it could help her cope with giving up Peach a little more. The next choice I made was what would the siblings do now. I know that they would still be super close so I had Maya and Grace do something special for Joaquin and Birdie for their anniversary and they would go out to dinner with the whole family. Going out with the whole family was hard for them since there were so many of them and they had different schedules. I figured that the siblings would have married the people who they were with back in high school; Rafe,Claire and Birdie. I also chose for Maya and Claire to have a kid and name her after her two sisters.

Another scene that I thought would fit well into the storyline was Grace thinking about Peach a lot. She loves Peach so much and she knows she made the right choice but she still wonders how life could have been different. Peaches adoptive parents said that they would continue to send updates throughout her childhood so I incorporated that into the story as well. The last thing that I incorporated into the storyline was Mayas and Grace childish relationship. Maya was always very talkative and that would get on Grace nerves. They like to tease each other so I thought it would feel right if Grace did something and it made Maya flip out and get here back.

The biggest choice I made was who I chose the chapter to be about. I thought that Grace would be the best choice since we could talk about Peach and we could talk about her siblings lives through her and ultimately she is the main character.

This piece of work was produced over a span of a month, from end of september to the end of october. I didn’t have to travel anywhere to create my work, I was able to use the pictures that I had taken over quarantine. I also didn’t have to take any new pictures. I used google slides and WeVideo to create this piece of work. I first put all the pictures I had on slides then I filmed myself presenting the slides. I created this piece of work because I wanted to show the good things in 2020 that happened in my life. I wanted to show that the good outweighs the bad things that happened. This piece of artwork very obviously relates to your theme of being a teenager during 2020 because i’m a teen and I talked about things that I did this year. I experienced it all.