What qualities make a good leader? People have different leadership styles and some people respond well to only specific leadership styles. Human beings look to work alongside and under leaders in whom they have faith. Leaders they are comfortable with will make them feel safe. However, what do people look for when their leader is losing their leadership power? Typically with humans, if somebody is afraid of their own actions they choose or make up something else to scapegoat. To them they believe that their scapegoat justifies the action. The Lord of the Flies demonstrates that in society, people will often not take responsibility for their destructive actions and blame it on something else.

In the novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of British school boys are stranded on an island. The boys, who have never been alone in the wild before decide to come together in order to survive and work together to find a way for them to be rescued. The leader of the hunters breaks off and slowly it goes from the rest of the hunters going him to most of the boys joining him. By Chapter one the original leader, Ralph is on his own. By exposing readers to Ralph’s betrayal, William Golding emphasizes how contexts, particularly those that are isolating, influence how people treat one another. Despite Ralph’s strong relationship to the other boys in the beginning of the narrative, he is betrayed because his leadership approach is ineffective. This is a challenge that people come across in their lives and sometimes some people’s betrayal is larger than others. Ralph gradually loses his grip on his fellow boys after a while, forcing him  to lose his power in leadership. The team members begin to dislodge themselves from the team before Ralph even knows it.

Jack does not agree with Ralph’s plans for the fire - to just leave the beast alone. Jack feels insulted by Ralph and believes that Ralph is not a fit leader - Jack doesn’t want to play their games - he runs off and builds his own fire - Ralph notices that there are few bigger kids in his tribe and so the hunters and big kids abandon him.

An example from the book where they refuse to take responsibility was when Jack, Maurice, and Robert steal fire from Ralph’s tribe. After this occurs Ralph and his tribe refuse to take responsibility for their fighting because they are ashamed that they inflicted harm on each other for their blindness in the dark; they are afraid of themselves (for their unspeakable actions). Like with Ralph and his tribe, people in society bring harm upon themselves, but in the end they refuse to admit their flaws and apologize because they believe they will only embarrass or further harm themselves. After Jack, Maurice, and Roger decide to attack Ralph’s tribe Ralph wakes up to noises and other people fill into his hut. “Ralph twisted sideways on top of a writhing body and felt hot breath on his cheek. He began to pound the mouth below him, using his fist as a hammer… A knee jerked up between legs and fell sideways… “I got my knee up,” said Eric with simple pride, “and I hit him in the pills. You should have heard him holler!... (after the fight) Ralph moved suddenly in the dark; but then he heard Eric working his mouth. “What’s the matter?” “Jus’ a tooth loose.” (pgs 167-168) After this the boys realize that they were actually fighting themselves rather than attacking Jack and his team mates.

¨Dad, what are those?¨ I asked.

¨They are called ¨Bung Bungs,¨ my dad replied, as we crossed the street away from the subway station.

My family and I were in the busy streets of Beijing, China at night. We had just visited one of our immigrated American friends and were on our way back to our apartment building. My dad raised his hand in the air when we reached the curb of the sidewalk. As a little kid with only a few weeks in a foreign country, I had a lot of questions.

¨We're going to ride in one of those things?¨ I said. Then a small, boxy, three-wheeled vehicle enclosed in a dark green tarp pulled up to the side walk. My dad went to the front of the ¨Bung Bung¨ and started talking to the driver in Chinese, telling him the address of our apartment. I stared at the odd vehicle from the sidewalk for a few seconds until my mother beckoned me to get into the back of the Bung Bung. I climbed in through a small rectangular door in the back of the Bung Bung and saw the dimly lit interior. My family and I all crammed in on one seat in a small compartment. Then I started to feel the ¨Bung Bung´s¨ motor come to life from underneath our seat and the vehicle started to move.

¨Why didn't we take a taxi?¨ I raised my voice over the roar of the motor and the wind blowing through the open windows.

¨Because these are cheaper than taxis for going short distances,¨ said my dad. ¨They're also good with getting through places that are too small for cars and taxis.¨ He added.

¨If they are cheaper for going short distances than we should have these in America.¨ I thought. ¨But why don't we?¨ It wouldn't be until I got back to America when my father would tell me that the ¨Bung Bungs¨ were unsafe. He told me that the ¨Bung Bungs¨ were not very protective during crashes because of their non-solid exteriors and lack of seat belts for passengers.

Then I wondered what other exotic vehicles there could be in other countries. I recalled back to when I lived in the United States to try to remember if I had seen any ¨Bung Bungs¨. I remembered from visiting cities that I had seen taxis, although I never ridden in one until I lived in China, but I still did not remember seeing Bung Bungs on the U.S. streets at any time. ¨They may have been in American cities that I have never been to.¨ I thought, but I also argued with the fact that they very might be only in Chinese cities. I pondered this thought up until I fell asleep in my bed, in our apartment.

Bung bungs were not the only way I had seen Chinese people get around Beijing. I had seen merchants and salesmen ride around on bikes, pulling carts of different sizes behind them. In these carts, there were items and products waiting to be sold. Some of the other people used these cart pulling bikes to transport their families through the city. I had seen mothers and fathers on bikes and their children would sit in the carts. Outside of the cities, in more rural areas, I saw carts being pulled by animals from oxen to donkeys. I have also visited Thailand and there some of the people living in the rural places rode on the backs of elephants to get through nearby jungles. I even took an Elephant ride with my family and friends while visiting. Also, in Thailand there is a larger and more open, vehicle that is similar to the ¨Bung Bung¨  called a ¨Tuk Tuk¨.

Now that I am back in the U.S., I have had some time to reflect. In different areas of the world people use different modes of transportation that can be very distinct from somewhere else in the world. However, in the end, transportation is the same everywhere: whether it be taxi or a ¨Bung Bung¨, bicycle or subway, it is still a form of getting around.  People everywhere want to get from ¨point A¨ to ¨point B¨, no matter how different the animal or vehicle that moves them.  My hope is people in America can create a small and affordable vehicle like the ¨Bung Bung¨,  but safer to ride.

In my previous two blog posts I have told you about Taney and Bainbridge streets’ problem with litter and my own outdoor observations of my streets. In this blogpost I will be telling you about me actually acting on this situation. In my blogpost, ¨Litter Search and Solutions¨, in the end, I mentioned signing up and joining Not In Philly to help make a positive change in myself and my community. Recently, I have created for  myself an account on http://notinphilly.org/ and registered to clean and Taney street. When you register to clean up your street it shows map of Philadelphia with roads for you to choose from and it shows you who else is currently cleaning that street and the streets near by and how many people there are for that street. When I registered for Taney Street it said I was the first person to register for cleaning that street.

The day after I registered, I went out on Taney street in the afternoon and picked up trash and recyclables off the street with a trash grabber and a plastic bag. I picked up the trash with the help of my father. My father helped me take the pictures of the trash with his camera. We also did a little extra cleaning on Bainbridge Street. When I was out on the street seeing all the trash on the street made me feel displeased with some of my neighbors and sad knowing that it was hurtful to the people, plants and animals that live in this  neighborhood. But when I cleaned up the trash and looked back when I was done, I was very satisfied with how clean the streets looked and was happy knowing I had done a good deed.

Let me tell you about my experience with the Not In Philly registration. There I made myself a new account. Signing up was easy: on their website they gave me a form where I just had to give my name, my phone number, my address, my email address, and make up a password. After that they gave me an email telling me to go to their website and choose a block/street to clean, I choose a block on Taney Street because it was next to my house. I trust this website because it is not a big faceless corporation or a money hungry business. It is a nonprofit organization that seeks to make a good difference and it is currently happening everywhere around the city unlike the Philadelphia Streets Litter Cabinet which I have never seen in action. I also trust this organization because it was created by a well known family friend who is kind and looks towards improving the city and solving its problems, like the litter on the streets.

A website that I found that focuses on reducing litter is called the Litter Less campaign. This campaign not only encourages people to pick up trash but it also aims for changing the minds of children about the problem of littering and what they can do to make a difference, ¨It aims to engage and educate children and young people on the issue of litter, and encourage them to make positive choices.¨(http://www.ecoschools.global/about-the-campaign). The organization is involved in 35 schools around the world and they educate children on cleaning up litter.  I like how this focuses on younger generations, teaching them not to litter.  If we can teach each generation not to litter, pretty soon young people and adults all over the world might stop littering and be more concerned about keeping the environment clean.

Overall, I feel that I have made a change with myself and my neighborhood. My change is that I have gone from just being against littering to standing up and physically acting on the problem. I have made a change in my neighborhood by being the newest person to having a habit of cleaning the streets and being a example to keeping the streets healthy and clean to the neighborhood. I feel really proud of myself for developing these new good habits. So far I plan on cleaning the streets one day every week, but I want to expand this by starting clean on two or three days a week. What is left to be done is to get more people in my neighborhood to clean the streets and join Not In Philly. I love making a good difference in my neighborhood and making clean and healthy decisions.

"About the Campaign." Eco Schools. Eco Schools, 2014. Web. 08 June 2017.

http://notinphilly.org/

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1a1IMIcIqSX8D1xx5avGy6a4UGhaZAydxWbygZ_MH0RQ/edit?usp=sharing

My trash grabber with a piece of plastic.

Some trash around a neighbor’s flower pot.

My collected trash in a plastic bag.

#English 9

#You and the World

In my previous blog post, I looked at how over the past five years, Taney and Bainbridge streets have gone from beautiful and healthy to litter filled and unclean. Why is this? The construction of CHOP towers and new neighbors who don’t seem to care about the neighborhood are the cause. There are multiple organizations that clean up the streets like the Philadelphia Streets Department’s garbage trucks and the Litter Cabinet. These would be helpful clean up plans, but the garbage trucks only pick up people’s trash on Monday and only take the trash in the garbage cans and I have never heard of or seen the Litter Cabinet in my neighborhood. Though there is an organization that is currently in full swing and is effective at picking up litter, called Not in Philly. Not in Philly is a non-profit organization about cleaning various neighborhoods in Philadelphia. It started in Walnut Hill and Spruce Hill but has spread throughout the city over the years. You can sign up on http://notinphilly.org/ to join the organization and clean your own neighborhood with Not In Philly.

On May 6th, I went outside, equipped with a notebook and a camera to make observations on what I saw on Bainbridge and Taney streets. As I walked around, I expected to find the people who were littering so I could write it down for my observations. To my disappointment, I found no one doing such, I was out alone. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I found a lot of leftover trash on the curb and the sidewalk. I found objects such as discarded children’s clay under a family car, plastic bags of dog waste, and used batteries, old newspapers, and cigarettes, both recently discarded and ones that had been there a long time. From my research I have come to the conclusion that Bainbridge street is much dirtier than Taney street. Again, this is because Bainbridge is where the majority of the new neighbors live and at the end of the street is the construction site for the new CHOP towers.

I did help to pick up the litter.  I was not just making observations.  Most of this litter can go in regular trash bins or in recycling bins.  However, the batteries presented a problem: what does a person do with old, slightly crushed batteries? I have heard off different programs that take in used batteries and recycle them. One of these programs is at the University of Pennsylvania upenn battery-recycling. Also, there is a used battery drop box at the information desk in Houston Hall.  Another program is from the PhiladelphiaStreets.com: ¨E-cycling¨. The website says the city has events for collecting ¨...household hazardous waste (HHW)...¨. philadelphiastreets.com/recycling/home-base-residential  This includes electronics (old TVs, computers, etc.), paints, household cleaners, and batteries.  You can find a detailed list of what can and can’t be recycled here. So the next time I see a used battery lying on the streets or on the sidewalk I know I can drop it off at Houston Hall to help the environment and my community. As a way of helping my community I am planning to sign up with ¨Not In Philly¨ and help my neighbors recycle used batteries.

https://sustainability.upenn.edu/news/battery-recycling-expands-sas-buildings

http://www.philadelphiastreets.com/recycling/how-to-recycle

http://www.philadelphiastreets.com/recycling/home-base-residential

http://notinphilly.org/

Damaged battery on Bainbridge St.

Old Play Dough under a car.

English 9

You and the World

Philadelphia is made up of thousands of small neighborhoods. Each neighborhood is unique in its own way, however most share one similarity. Many of the streets and sidewalks in Philadelphia have litter spread along them. I live near Taney and Bainbridge Streets, and it is hard not to notice the trash that is carelessly discarded. The city of Philadelphia has trash trucks that go down our street every Monday morning.  http://www.philadelphiastreets.com/sanitation/residential/. Philadelphia Streets department has a Litter Cabinet that is supposed to reduce trash in neighborhoods http://www.philadelphiastreets.com/zero-starts-with-one/ . But I have never heard anything about them in my neighborhood before. So I think that Not In Philly is a more effective program http://notinphilly.org/. first moved into this neighborhood in the Summer of 2012. It was beautiful and clean thanks to a few of our neighbors who really cared for and supported our neighborhood. They would go out on the street almost every day and pick up the trash, keeping it a healthy place to live. After a few years of living here, some of those neighbors moved out and were soon replaced by new ones. These newcomers were not like the previous ones who left. Instead they lived an unhealthy lifestyle of smoking cigarettes and drinking. They dropped their cigarette butts out on the streets when they were done, leaving a mess behind. In addition, when they put their trash cans or bags outside for the garbage pick up, and they toppled over, they did not pick them up, or pick up the trash that had been left behind. A few years ago construction for CHOP towers began and is still going on to this day. The demolition of some of the nearby factories, the dust, and the litter of the construction workers increased the existing garbage.

During this past MLK day, my family and I went to clean up the streets with trash grabbers and trash bags that were given to us by a nonprofit organization, called Not in Philly.  Not in Philly was started by a family friend of ours, who wanted to help make Philly a better place to live.  We were some of the only ones to pick up the trash while a few neighbors just stood on their door step and watched. We also had the chance to share about Not in Philly with one of our neighbors when he asked what we were doing, and he sounded interested.

There are two reasons, in my opinion, that our neighborhood has become messier and litter filled. First, some of the newer neighbors (mostly in rental properties) do not seem to care about keeping the neighborhood clean.  Second, there is ongoing construction in three places  in our neighborhood, which leads to increased dirt and litter. Our new neighbors on both Taney and Bainbridge streets have contributed to the problem and it is getting worse. This is a negative and damaging situation happening in the community and this affects all the people in the area because it may influence the current people and the future generations in the neighborhood that it is okay to leave litter our streets. This would continue to make Taney and Bainbridge an unhealthy and non-beautiful place to live. Also, the increase in the amount of pollution on Taney and Bainbridge will increase the inhabitants chances of sickness and disease.

http://notinphilly.org/ N Not In Philly Logo

Https://southofsouth.org/sites/southofsouth.org/files/PCPC%20South%20of%20South%20Plan.p

http://www.philadelphiastreets.com/sanitation/residential/¨Sanitation¨ garbage truck: From http://www.philadelphiastreets.com/sanitation/residential/

William Flenner

Soy yo el hijo de una familia de viajeros.

Soy el resultado de varias razas de mezcla

y incontables generaciones explorando.

Como es mi familia's historia.

Veo las colinas rodantes colorado.

Veo los suburbios de wilmington delaware.

Veo la Gran Muralla china.

Saboreo arroz y salsa de soja.

Toco la suave tela de seda.

Oigo el arrullo de las palomas en Colorado.

Vuelo desde muy desde muy lejos.

Vivo en una ciudad del norte.

Somos americanos europeos.

No hablamos alemán, escocés, o irlandés.

No vivimos en europa.

I made a slide with the picture of an otter reaching for ice cream bars in a meme describing the other's thoughts, saying ¨I need dis¨. Below the meme is the title, The Incredible William Magazine. I gave this title so that it could be the cover page for my Me Magazine. Below is the sub title, ¨Now that I've got your attention, please feed the otters or your in debt to me!¨ says to the viewer that the picture has grabbed your attention and it is now asking you to carry out an order to do something related to the picture, in this case, it´s asking to feed the otter(s). I wrote that so that the slide would be interacting with the viewers by asking them a question, to see if they will choose to feed the otter or not. This question is supposed to make the viewer feel like they are looking at what could become an add on a billboard. I chose this picture because it was a meme and lots of people like memes for how funny they can be and memes are sometimes used to get points around. I chose the picture because in my opinion, otters are cute and fascinating animals and otters is most likely to grab the audience's attention. I used a real picture instead of a 2-D cartoon or drawing to apply texture. A real picture shows the true details instead of made-up ones like those of in man-made art. For color and value I put the brightness near middle gray and used black letters to stand out among the gray. The transparency is at 46% and the color contrast at 48% to make the colors of the picture to be visible and not very dull amongst the sentence. The picture covers the entire slide so that it can be very visible to the viewers because it is what is needed to get the viewer´s attention so that they will listen to this presentation. I put the title in red and in piedra font and for the subtitle in black and orbitron font so that they contrast and stand out against each other. Thank you for being a respective listener(s).