Victor and I have made a meaningful contribution to our workplace because started a project that with time, will benefit the way that the Police Department approach investigations involving thermal paper. We took on a project that our mentor had been looking to complete since last August but had not found the time to start. Since this was a project that he was already planning to do at some point, he already had a structure for what he needed us to do to get the information he needs from it. While most of the project was structured by our mentor, we were able to decide that details of our experiments such as labeling, testing, and managing our time. The biggest takeaway that I have from this experience so far is us having so much freedom to in our way that we approach and we complete our assignments. Our mentor would be with us while we were in the lab working, but would leave us to work independently since it was now our project. With the research, experiments, and data we have collected, our mentor himself and his team will pick up where we left off at when our one month internship comes to an end. A thought that occurred to when we were viewing prints we had processed was that some time down the road when this chemical gets approved to use out on the field (we are very confident on our findings so far), I can feel proud that I was apart of the team that initially began the trials.
On Tuesday, my mentor David had gotten called down to the basement to look at a piece of evidence: a car in which a crime was committed in. He had to go inside of the car to look for DNA samples. In the evidence parking lot is where we met a Detective Chooty, the investigator that was leading this case. Victor and I watched them carefully inspect and collect evidence from the car. Our mentor was inside of the car with a UV light to try to find DNA samples of the suspect and victim.
This is the first time we were able to see our mentor actually take part in investigating a case so once I seen their investigative style, it made me really think about if this could be my future. I really tried to imagine if this would be something that I want to do and would enjoy doing as a career. Once we returned back to the third floor, my mentor asked, "So you know why I took down there, right?" I thought it was just to give us more exposure to more of the department so I responded by asking "Why?" He said "Because Detective Chooty is a small woman that has a big role in cases. I wanted you to see that just because you're small, that doesn't mean you can't do something big." This seemed like it would've came right out of a movie because of how inspirational it felt! After this small conversation, it reminded me to not narrow down my path and tell myself that I am not enough for something I want to do. The qualities that I see in the people around me differ from person to person; but as a whole, everyone is very independent while contributing to the "bigger picture". When I first began here, I imagined the environment to be either extremely chaotic because of how many cases there were to tackle, or serious all of the time because their role in a case was so important. Surprisingly, neither of my theories were correct. When it comes to case work, the employees here usually are working in their cubicle while communicating every now and then to update others on their progress for what they're working on. I feel like as far as being able to take a smaller role that contributes to a group effort is something that I am familiar with because of constantly being around sports my whole life. A trait that I have picked up on that has stuck out to me from my time here so far in the Police Department is that they are able to balance out when they are serious and in work more vs. being able to relax for a minute, be goofy, and decompress. I would like to work on strengthening and developing this skill within myself going into senior year because a rollercoaster of events will be coming my way (fun and serious) so I want to balance the amount of time I spend being all business or having fun. Seeing this for myself in the work place is something that will hopefully stick with me for a long time and will be something that I reflect back on.
This week I feel like our Teen Brain health group pushed our thinking about the book we are currently reading and connected to the book. During our section of the agenda where we would discuss our book, we all shared quotes or sections of the book that stood out to us. For each quote that each person shared, as a group we tried to each form a connection to the quote along with elaborating on ways it applies or does not apply to our life. The quote that I shared was:
"When two people become one, they become dependent of one another and what they contribute to the relationship, which becomes apart of your life routine. If this person were to become absent from your daily routines, people and their contribution to your life can be a habit. What is a more admirable habit than love itself?" This quote stood out to me because I’ve always heard how when people get married, they “become one”. Since I heard this only to marriage or relationships, I never really thought about what that truly meant. After reading this part of the book, it pushed me to think more about the relationships I have with family and friends. I started to realize how each tight bond you have in your life doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re “one” meaning on the level of marriage; but you can still somewhat become one with someone like your sibling or best friend. From this realization, I shared it aloud with my group and we started a new discussion on the idea that people can be habits. This is when our discussion became the most real because we were able to speak from personal experiences and the heart. Throughout the week, we have referenced the line and it is very impactful that a book we are reading for class is actually impacting our views on our life outside of school. This week was out Festival del Sol exhibition! During our exhibition, we presented our little books, potential t-shirt designs, and our NAMI walk activity. This exhibition was different than other ones I’ve taken part of in the past because it was a process exhibition. A process exhibition means that we displayed all of the work that is currently still being worked on at its most recent draft to receive critique and feedback from the community.
The way that we ran our station was by first asking visitors if they wanted to take part in our activity which was to play BOP IT. BOP IT is a fast paced game that is shaped with a handle calling out three main actions: BOP IT, TWIST IT, PULL IT. There is a button to press when it says BOP IT, a lever to turn when it says TWIST IT, and a tube to pull when it says PULL IT. Since the game is fast paced, it is very likely the player will lose and restart the game for another round. After playing the game a few times to become familiar with the game, we lead in the the explanation period. We explained how when creating habits, they are typically able to stick much quicker when they are constantly the same. However, something such as BOP IT is much harder to create a habit because it is constantly changing at different rates and patterns; it is very unlikely to always know the order the commands will be given. After explaining the significance of the game, we then led into the second part of our activity which was the goal sheets. On our goal sheets, we had four sections to answer: goal, habit, when, and where. An example sheet that we helped someone with looked like this: Goal: become more hydrated Habit: Drink more water When: Every morning when I wake up Where: Kitchen We would then have our audience fill it out while explaining that goals are much more likely of becoming habits when you attach them to a specific time and location, such as the one above. When your goals and potential habits are not detailed or specific, our brains can go into the mindset of “I’ll do it tomorrow” which is another way that we talk ourselves out of constructing a habit. The motivational message I created about the topic of bad habits is “REALIZING BAD HABITS ARE THE FIRST STEPS TO CREATING GOOD ONES”. I came up to this by thinking back to when we first develop a habit- good or bad. To make this more personal, I thought about my softball swing. I have a habit of dropping my shoulder, which is a bad habit. I hadn’t realized I did this until about a month ago when I kept hitting shallow pop ups to the infield-probably the worst type of hit you can have. I wasn’t sure what it was about my swing that wasn’t right but then my coach told me that every time I swing, I have a habit of dropping my shoulder so that is what is making me swing upwards.
This related to my motivational message because if we hadn’t noticed and pinpointed exactly what was making this happen, I would still have not clue where to start fixing my swing. Since my coach realized the habit of dropping my shoulder, we were able to see what I now need to do to replace and break this habit. This is a habit that I had formed without realizing, but over time it became considered a bad habit. I now connect this realization to the book we are reading, Making Habits, Breaking Habits by James Dean; specifically a chapter we just read about forming habits unconsciously. Since I had formed this habit unconsciously, I wouldn't have realized it if my coach hadn't pointed it out. This Tuesday our class went to the UCSD C.A.R.E. program located at UCSD Medical in Hillcrest. The purpose of us going to UCSD was to learn about the careers of a psychologist and psychiatrist in their research space. We met with Dr. Donna Cook Corbett in her office where we were put into a conference room. In the conference room with a small group of about six of us, she gave us a presentation about her journey to becoming a college graduate, grad school graduate, and psychologist. After sitting in on her presentation, we torued the C.A.R.E program’s office. The office worked as a series of “workshops”, allowing to visit different places in the office to gain a better understanding of everyone’s jobs. We went to three stations: presentation (which I talked about above), measuring brain activity, and mind games. We spent about 30 minutes with each rotation so each one of their team members can teach us about their roles in the office, then we were off to lunch.
When lunch came around, we went to eat at the UCSD Hospital cafeteria across the street. Since there is a negative stigma towards generic hospital food, I decided to play it safe and bring a caesar salad from home. Once we got to the cafeteria, it was like we were at a food court at the mall! There were burgers, fries, chicken strips, and ice cream everywhere! At that point I wished I hadn’t brought food because everything smelled delicious, but I didn’t want to be wasteful so I sat out on the patio with my salad. I sat at a table first with my best friend Nevaeh, but then we were joined by Mrs. Nuvia (my biology teacher) and Sandra (a worker in the UCSD C.A.R.E Program). While eating lunch together, we were able to hear about Sandra’s experience in the field of psychology and her journey to getting whee she is today. Having this lunch with these ladies was an important part of my day because it was the first time I had ever had lunch with a professional. This had me envision of what eating lunch with my mentor for internships or professor would look like. This experience (although there were not really any expectations) helped me practice my professionalism and ability to present myself in a way that sophisticated yet true to myself. This week we got the privilege to travel on a field trip to the UCSD campus to see some of their facilities. While on campus we were able to listening to members of Dr. Kauffman’s lab and Dr. Jay Geibb. When we first arrived on campus, we were greeted by Dr. Jay Geibb who took us to his office on campus where we sat and he began a presentation. His presentation revolved around the topic of adolescent brain health, the ways we grow, and how their understanding of the brain has evolved over the years. I personally took much interest in his presentation because he gave us a presentation that captured our attention and was relatable. Most presentations from professionals to teens usually has a condescending tone or vibe to them in my opinion, but this one did not at all. Dr. Jay spoke very passionately about how as adolescents ourselves, it is crucial that we are informed about what is going on in our brains and the way that we take care of them. I hadn’t realized how much the brain is affected by things such as playing videos games, interacting with social media, and day to day social encounters. By learning about how almost every little thing that is apart of our lives can affect us for the better - or in some cases for the worst; I feel like it now has made me more mindful and aware of the ways I will chose to use my time and where I put my mind’s attention.
This week in biology, our class got the chance to get visits and presentations from people who are highly educated in neuroscience. Neuroscience provides insight to how humans behave by helping me give myself reasons to understand why we feel the ways that we do and why we do the things that we do at this part of my life. From these visitor’s presentations, I learned that examining the teen brain can help me learn about myself; specifically it will help me feel okay with the mental and behavioral changes I’m going through to understand that they’re apart of growing up. As young advocates, it is important that we share our knowledge about brain health to reduce stigma because our generation is going to be the future so we have the power to decide what carries on further or ends now.
What I have displayed on the image above are slices of mice brains on a slide. A slide is a piece of glass that is displaying something under a microscope. We took blue dye and put it onto each slice on the slide. Doing this made each structure of the brain more prominent when placing and analyzing them under the microscope. I’ve always been a student that has known it would be apart of my academic and life path to go to college. From the earliest age of second grade, my teacher would always tell us “you have to do your homework so you can go to college”- Not exactly the way it works, but I guess to a second grader it created a fire under my butt to stay on top of my school work and be self motivated when doing so.
In 2012, my brother graduated high school and during mid-August, would be heading up to San Francisco to attend Sonoma State University. Our trip to take him to school became a family trip in which my mom, dad, brother, and myself packed most of Sammy’s belongings into his car and started our 11 hour drive. The drive was exhausting, cramped, and physically uncomfortable; but it still one of our favorite memories to look back on because even though it was all of the above, we still experienced it all together and for the first time. Now fast forward five years later to our 2017 campus crawl, we took the exact same drive up Northern California; but with a different set of family members. Our junior class of about 160 students piled onto three charter busses and started our journey. I feel like the bus rides between schools held some of the best memories from the trip including a group of students becoming self-appointed DJs, rap battles, and a short 20 minute power naps that made us feel like we had slept for 10 years. |
AuthorMarissa Perez Archives
May 2017
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