3rd Beloved

          Lakshmi Manasa Maddi - Week 12: Strive for Unity      Beyond the power actions hold, the words uttered by some very powerful and influential individuals such as Mahatma Gandhi, have left an everlasting impact on the society. His philosophy of promoting non-violent acts has grown to become more relevant in society as his words have continuously given more hope to the people of marginalized communities. Before I get into specific quotes of his which always inspire me to become a better person, I would like to give a brief context into some of the thoughts he presented to the public, which truly reflected the type of personality he had. A well-known historian, Rajmohan Gandhi, refers to the relevance of Gandhi’s actions in the past in the context of today’s world by mentioning how the freedom of expression and thought in many artists today are able to do so fearlessly without needing to worry about what others think (Nanda) . The struggle f...

Nostalgia! I’ve always thought it was a very beautiful word and very fun to say aloud. “No-stal-juh.” I find that it is one of those feelings that cannot be classified as exactly positive or negative. We associate anger, sadness, fear, and disgust with negativity while we associate joy, calmness, gratitude, and hope with positivity. Nostalgia is an ambiguous neutral medium. It feels great to think about all the good things that happened in the past. But it’s certainly painful to realize that you can’t once again have everything you’re reminiscing about. I pushed nostalgia aside knowing how much unnecessary sadness it caused me a few years ago. I spent all of middle school reminiscing about my younger years that I just despised the present. Of course that might have just been because Thornton was awful in general. But I condemned nostalgia as a useless sentiment and tried my best to fixate onto the present rather than missing what was. Turns out nostalgia isn’t entirely useless after al...

via iStock If you had the opportunity to choose a superpower, what would you choose? Speed, strength, flight, and maybe invisibility are just a few that immediately come to mind. While we may have dreamed about the more fantastical powers when we were younger, what powers would be most practical if we didn’t want to dedicate our entire lives to fighting crime? Personally, I would choose time travel. Now I’m sure everyone’s heard stories about the nightmare situations that irresponsible time travel can create. And of course, creating a time paradox because you misused your power wouldn’t exactly be ideal either. However, while it may just be to my arrogant shortsightedness, I feel that any horrible consequences of time travel can easily be avoided, especially if you simply undid your mistakes. After all, most people probably wouldn’t even use time travel to make changes that would have major implications on the timeline. I know I certainly wouldn’t. The usefulness of time travel would b...

Power in Russia The Russian Federation is the largest country in the world, with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and the internationally recognized second largest military in the world. However, the way power is distributed in Russia is different from most countries. On December 31, 1999, President Yeltsin resigned. President Yeltsin had in 1993 gone into a near civil war with the parliament. This would be known as the 1993 October Coup, and Parliament would be put down when Soviet (Russian) forces stormed the Russia White House and put an end to this constitutional crisis.                         Soviet Tanks firing at the Russian White House With the resignation of Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, the prime minister at the time and the second-hand-man of Yeltsin ascended to Presidency. While Russia pre-Putin could be considered a constitutional republic, once Putin rose into power it would slowly move more right and right: e...

Rowan Smith // Unsplash If you know food, you probably know Gordon Ramsay, a chef world-renowned for his skills and entertaining insults on-screen. You might be wondering why I'd mention this celebrity chef, but it interested me to learn that the legend himself has actually lost over half of his Michelin stars. Thinking about this conception really got me thinking about this identification of quality and luxury, as I had heard about Michelin stars and their prestige, but never really understood the qualifications necessary to earn them. Thinking along the lines of food as an art, it really intrigued me as to what the concrete and objective standards were for the highest quality food money can earn.  The Michelin star system of rating has a lot to do with the development of the automobile industry, with the first Michelin Guide being developed in 1900 by the founders of the popular tire company Micheline. Founding brothers of Michelin Tire, Andre Micheline and Edouard Michelin, need...

  Sahana Narayan - Week 11: The PR Game – 2/16 [ 6:55 PM ] Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently, you’ve probably heard of Kanye West’s recent instagram war against Pete Davidson , who is allegedly dating his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. In the midst of this war, Kanye has cut off some of his closest friends, has gone out with a Kim Kardashian lookalike, and has dragged in innocent celebrities like Billie Eilish and the late Mac Miller into his own divorce drama.  All across Tiktok, Twitter, and gossip outlets, people are declaring that Kanye West has officially gone crazy once again. But for a minute here, I’d like to change the headlines a little bit. Instead of approaching it as him going crazy again, let’s think about how the public has fallen for it once again.  With the stunts Kanye has been pulling right now, he has gained millions of followers just in the last week, meaning more attention to his projects like Donda 2, his next album, which is literally dr...

Image Credits: https://quotefancy.com/quote/1044769/Paul-Auster-One-should-never-underestimate-the-power-of-books Paul Auster once said that “ One should never underestimate the power of books, ” and yet in our current hightech society, books and the power that they harbor seem to be severely underestimated. However, books are vastly influential and contain immense power.  Firstly, books give us “access to the world’s best mentors” ( The Humble Penny ). People who write novels spend months, if not years, on their work. Since writing a book requires a lot of research, people who write books are experts on their topic. Information one receives from books is not only credible, but also life-changing. I think The Humble Penny captured this aspect of books well with this quote: “ Reading is the best possible way to literally download someone else’s brains into yours” ( The Humble Penny ). There is no doubt that knowledge can transform one’s life, and books are the perfect medium to gain...

Avery Sun Week 11 Apartheid In America, with over 70% of the population being white, racism runs rampant as minorities are often ridiculed and treated unfairly. So then, how did South Africa allow itself to be governed by strict, segregational policies for nearly fifty years by its white minority? Beginning in 1948 , the country of South Africa was ruled by a system called “apartheid,” or “apartness.” A series of legislations were enacted separating not only whites from non-white Africans, but also non-whites into 3 subcategories: Black, Coloured (mixed), and Asian. Laws were passed making it illegal to marry a South African of another race. Land Acts were passed leaving 4/5ths of the land in South Africa for the white minority and the rest were forcibly relocated, similar to the Native Americans in our country. These reservations were overcrowded and the soil wasn’t fertile, leaving the people living there no choice but to work for the white people as cheap labor. The government set...

      I have always known that what matters more than a product delivered is the branding behind it. Even in my past blog posts, I have stated that the way an idea is presented is more important than the idea itself. However, I have recently started to think about this, even more, when I didn't just refer to brands as companies, but people as well. I learned that we all have a brand; the things we say and do affect this brand. A brand is nothing but a portrayal. I didn't just think about companies, I thought about music artists and everyone who is able to garner a tremendous amount of support for the content that they put out. One of the things that they all had in common was that the brand was more unique than the product.      First, let's take a look at some companies that dominate or have dominated their sector. Apple is a pretty self-explanatory example. When people want a cell phone, most of the time they get it from Apple. However, my brother always ...

        Lakshmi Manasa Maddi - Week 11: Power Within Art Rooting from the time of the Ancient Greeks, art has always and is still associated with its ability to hold special powers for conceptualizing and bringing ideas to life (Sachant) . From simple images or sketches of things such as stone, ashes, and dirt, the realistic take many professional artists take when creating their art leads into transforming these particular pieces of art by giving them life. Although this might sound magical, art has continued to exert a really effective influence over the actions of human beings as it essentially functioned as a means of communication (Sachant) . When referring to communication, this directly relates to how these representational pieces work to convey the overall picture of their thoughts, wishes, and anything of which they wish to tell the audience to prove the worthiness of rule (Sachant) . Despite it being uncommon for members to be able to develop a literary ski...

   So if you've been on the internet sometime in the last month chances are you've probably heard of Wordle. It's a daily game where players rush to guess one five-letter word in less than six tries. If your guess has a letter that is in the word and placed in the same sequence as it is supposed to be that letter will light up green. If your guess contains a letter that is in the day's word but is not in the right place it will light up yellow. Using these clues becomes a matter of logic and strategically testing different word patterns. It gets quite fun, especially considering it is a daily event. Some people do theirs on the morning ride to work or school. Others (me) have terrible sleep schedules and do it at midnight the moment the daily word comes out.     There being one word each day creates a sort of competitive feeling between those who play. It's not uncommon to see people posting their wordle breakdowns which show how many attempts it took them to gu...

Traditional power grid designs in the United States are fairly straightforward. Based on a system that’s been in use for decades since the introduction of electricity to the home, they consist of a primary centralized energy source sustaining nearby homes with one-way power-flows. But these designs are suffering from our ability to rapidly produce energy as they cannot accommodate the overload, and their reliance on such a static form of distribution stifles our hopes to eventually switch to cleaner forms of energy.  However, with the rise in renewable energy in recent years, a change to power grid design seems to be just around the corner. Because natural energy sources like wind and solar are so variable (based on weather), the constant power flow that a traditional grid design requires simply cannot be sustained. Renewable energy generation is also oftentimes much more scattered, relying on multiple units of panels or mills as opposed to using a large central production plant. ...