This is my third blog post on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. My first blog introduced OCD. It was very vague and was missing information. It also included my quiz on OCD. My second blog gave a brief explanation of what I had done and was planning. It wasn’t very thought out, but had my basic starting plans. It talked a bit about my results.

There are many organizations with a goal of higher OCD awareness. an OCD Awareness Week was even created! Many people have had fundraisers,I and other sponsored events. If your search the internet you can find many websites that focus or at least mention OCD. I like how these people take time to create and promote an entire event to help others. My own goal was simple, help spread awareness for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. As mentioned in earlier blog posts, I made a video about OCD.(couldn’t put it here) It describes the basics of OCD and the different subcategories. I also show some of my test results. This video is rather simple though.

OCD awareness event

In my first blog post, I talked about how teens are the causes of their own and other’s accidental deaths and how teens are not only distracted by their cellphones, but other people. I also talked about how hazardous teen drivers can be while on their cellphones and that teens need to be more aware about their safety while driving. The one big question that I had ending that blog post was WHY? The why question was for why do people keep on getting distracted and possibly not only putting their lives in danger, but others lives.

In my second blog post, I talked about how crashes are more common among the young drivers than any other age group and in 2009 3,242 teens from the ages of 15-19 lost their lives in crashes where the driver was distracted. I also talked about counting 500 cars, 126 of those drivers were on their phones and 26 of those drivers were actually texting while driving. The one big question that I had ending that blog post was HOW? The how question was for how are we going to stop this and spread awareness. That is the question that I am going to answer in this blog post and how I decided to find out for myself.

This was my pledge(on left) vs. what AllState already had in place(on right)

For my agent of change, I decided to convince a company, like AllState, to make a pledge that new drivers would sign as a friendly reminder not to text and drive. I then decided to ask an expert about their point of view on this topic and how safety is key. I went to an AllState office near me and talked to Ms. Rebecca Clemento about this topic and I had some questions:

What are the biggest dangers of teen driving?

What do you already have in place for managing cell phone use with new drivers? Does AllState have any incentives?

Are there any specific policies in place for teen drivers or new drivers?

Have the laws changed for texting and driving as the technology has changed?

What would be the effectiveness of the idea that I am proposing?

Do you think the laws will need to change for safety in the future? If so, how?

For the most part, I think that my agent of change went pretty well and was inspirational not only to me but to the people that I talked to about this. As I was doing this project, the thing that I enjoyed most was finding out all of this cool information that I never knew existed until I started this project. From this project, I learned that this topic was more widespread than I thought, but not as often talked about.

A recurring question that I had in both of my blog posts was: Why do teens, and even adults, go out in the world of driving and continue to be distracted? This question has still yet to be answered, but with more research this question will be answered someday.

Annotated Bibliography

Blog Post #3:

Blog 2

Blog 1

Hey, nice to see you guys again!

Originally, for my Agent of Change, I was going to do a fundraiser for the organization that I was hoping to work with, but there had been many technical difficulties. I had many ideas like teaching at a school and teach things about immigration. But through many hardships, I have decided to make a website here.

This is the front-page of my website.

I wanted to point this towards Cambodians, as you can see, there is Cambodian dialect under the English phrases. I tried my best translating it from English to Cambodian without using a translator and often going to my parents and other relatives for help, as they are immigrants from Cambodia. I was in a hurry so I to use the website, Weebly, which helped me a lot when it came down to my last resort.

On the website I talk about how in the past being a sponsor was a very dangerous thing. This is during the war when people looking for sponsors would get taken and killed. Today there are people that want to be sponsors in an effort to help others in bad countries. I made the website to show the good side of sponsors because when people hear migration they think of illegal immigrants. But sponsors just help start the process so that the immigrants can come to a country legally. I talk about this in the about section of my website.

I also talk about the history and talk more about sponsors in the front page of my website.

The you and the world project was difficult for me because the topic I picked wasn’t a topic that the great majority felt as strongly about it as I did. My topic was immigration and even though it is a big problem it’s not something that students around my age think about. If I was going to do it differently I would pick a much more popular topic. By having a popular project the project will be easier for me. The research part of the project was easy the part that was hard was the agent of change part. Since people didn’t feel as strongly as I did about the topic people didn’t really care about my agent of change. I feel like if we could work in groups the project would of been easier and fun. I also feel like I could of made my topic more specific by focusing on immigrant children because that is a topic people would be more interested in because of the kids. In conclusion my agent of change project didn’t go as good as I wanted it to because I didn’t pick a good topic. Now that I’ve finished the project if I was going to do it again I would know what to do.

The you and the world project was a very fun project. I enjoyed doing it because it made me feel like I was making a difference. The only problem that I had with it was that the time frame for such a big project was small so a lot of things had to be rushed. Overall I feel like one of my biggest successes was the bake sale because I was able to raise over $200. The thing that I feel like I could’ve done better is trying do my interview in person, because I attempted to do my interview over the phone but the autism society wasn’t picking up.  

My original research went very well. I was able to get a large amount of info from the website of the Autism Society, I was also able to get flyers from them. If I were to do it differently I would order autism awareness shirts and sell those to raise money instead. The reason why I would prefer to sell shirts is that I feel like they would last longer and would be better than the flyers since people most likely threw away the flyers.

 Through this project, I have been inspired to be active in my beliefs, rather than passive. I now see that it is very important to not only express your passion through words, but also by being proactive.  For my research, I found extensive information about the impact mental illnesses has on society(i.e suicides, bullying), I wish I would have found more information about more ways the mental illness is broken and unrepaired.This would have definitely enhanced my first blog post because it would show my readers that the problems I described in my blog post actually exist. For my original research, I stumbled upon some disappointments such as getting no response from a lot of organizations and people whom I reached out to. This was discouraging ; however, it was not enough to stop my determination. Initially, I wanted to interview Eleanor Longdin because I had watched her Ted Talk, "The Voices In My Head", where she explained her struggles with mental illness and the reactions of others around her. I figured she would have a lot to say on my topic( America's broken mental health care system). I google searched her, hoping she would have a website, by which she could be contacted, but I was not that lucky. I soon realized, after research, that I would only be able to reach her through social media, which appeared to be a long shot, due to the many farce 'personal' accounts titled 'Eleanor Longdin' on twitter. I decided to abandon my pursuit of Longdin and instead use sources more local. I called about five psychology professors at Penn, but got no response, which is expected looking back in hindsight.  After those attempts failed, I used one of the closest sources available: The teachers and students at SLA. I first created a survey that gauged the knowledge of my freshmen peers about the broken system. I decided to do this because I wanted to reach out to the youth because we are future leaders. Moreover, I interviewed Jevon Price and Ms.Menasion, my advisor, about their opinions on the dull mental health care discussion and how the discussions are resuscitated by tragedy(Newtown).  I decided to interview Ms.Menasion, not only because she is very supportive, but also because she is a special education teacher. Her responses were insightful and very helpful. Ultimately, I felt equipped with my 50 survey responses and two interviews, although that is not originally what I wished my original research to compile of. If I could change anything, I would have used sources closest to me(family, friends, teachers, etc.). My Agent of Change was trifold, including two collaborations.  I was not originally planning to collaborate, however, when I was aked by Opoku to help out with hi bake sale raising money for Autism Awareness, I knew I had accept because it was my very own autistic brother who inspired my topic for this project. Together, we donated $245 to an Autism Awareness Research office in New Jersey. I felt like we made an impact because we contributed to research, which will find new treatments and therapies. Also, we created awareness within our school by distributing autism informative brochures to those who bought our baked goods. Next, I decided to give a presentation at TFI to educate my peers and bring awareness to the gaps in our nation's mental health care system. I found this to be very successful, despite video uploading errors, because my audience looked genuinely interested in what I had to say and I received a lot of compliments afterwards. At last, I combined forced with Jae Regino and Jhazzelle Majarucon and created a social anxiety awareness website. I am really happy with the way it turned out. It is both aesthetically pleasing and educational. Jhazzelle, through her own research,  even discovered the already existing tongue twister challenge, which brought awareness to the complexities of the lives of the socially anxious.  I really enjoyed my three-part Agent of Change awareness-bringing activities and do would not change them if I had another chance.

In my Blog Post #1 and Blog Post #2, I gave a tiny overview on Leukemia and what I did to learn more about it. Blog Post #1 was why I decided to do some research on the topic and my ties with it. Blog Post #2 was where I went to develop more information on the topic and explain even more facts to those who are concerned. And now I have reached my third Blog Post, and boy was it depressing.

Originally for my Agent Of Change, I was going to apply to the Ronald McDonald House of Charities to try my best and volunteer at a Family Room at The Children's Hospital to entertain and provide hope to different leukemia and cancer patients. Unfortunately for me, even when they promised a reply from their office in three days via email, I have yet to receive one. With my hope slowly deteriorating, I fled to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's website to submit another application for a one-time volunteering option. This time, the response time was a day at least. I believed that I had found my Agent Of Change yet again! Instead, I was emailed back almost instantly, stating that options was "No Longer Valid for Volunteering Options". I hope scattered, I believed my chances were slim for getting an uplifting grade on this project. I had only one option left, and I needed as much help as I could get. So I emailed my fellow classmates in Orange Stream and asked them to wear an orange specific shirt or accessory to show support for this cause.

And I was surprised by how much cooperation I had received!

This project was the most interesting of them all, You and the World project actually changed my views on a lot of different things and it was because of the different project that everyone did. Some glows that I had were the presentation that I did in class, I thought that doing this project was the biggest glow because this project was so personal I feel like I'm helping my Mom in so many ways possible that I didn't think I could do. Some Grows that I have would be to continue this project outside of class because it become something that I enjoy doing. I enjoyed doing the Original Research, but lets start at the beginning of the project, I’m not talking about the Research part of the project I’m talking about the proposal. Coming up with a topic to actually research was a little difficult but the way I actually got my topic was from my Mom, she thought that doing this would raise awareness to the topic and get people thinking about it and though the entire project that was what I went by. Now the Research part of the project I was easy but I wish I could find more infomation on my Mom Ms so that I could share with all of you. It’s a lot still to be discovered and I will continue you update you guys if anything changes.

My Original Research was interviewing a doctor, which was scary. I thought that I wasn’t asking the right questions and getting enough information, but then I thought well it's good enough to actually write about. Things that I would do differently is maybe not have a bunch of kids there in the background making a lot of noise. I enjoyed doing the Original Research I thought that part of the project was most interesting part.

For my Agent of change, Me and My Family took part in the MS walk in late April to Early May. The walk raises money for research and new medicine, things like that maybe even finding a cure. I also did a presentation to the class, I was going to do it for advisory but plans got changed. I thought that it went well I just wish the entire class was there to see it. I hope to have a bigger impact and I’m thinking about doing something similar for capstones my senior year at SLA.