The documentary on Imelda showed me the different side of the ex-first lady, Imelda Marcos. Originally, I thought Imelda Marcos was just an ordinary first lady of Ferdinand Marcos, an ordinary mother to her family, and ordinary Filipino woman. However, the case was very different. Imelda Marcos showed her different personalities in the documentary, her political, economic, and socio-cultural side.
Imelda, as a the first lady, helped her husband "lead" Philippines. Opposite from what the people thought of her, she was not just beauty, but also contained brain. She was able to construct different health institutions here in our country such as the Heart Center and Kidney Center. She was also the ambassador of the Philippines for different nations. Finally, she was also the governor of Manila during that time. Who would have thought that a girl like her would be able to do all of those things.
From the documentary, I also learned that Imelda was also some kind of economist, but a weird one. She believes that poverty is just a state. Once you make the people happy, poverty will be eliminated. She said that this is the reason why she always dresses up elegantly, to give the Filipinos a role model. She also said, "When I am happy, the Filipinos are happy." I guess that is also the reasons why the Marcos started stealing from the people, "when I am rich, the Filipinos are rich". WTF.
Finally, Imelda was a very complicated type of person. She was a great fan of European Art and philosophy. She collects very expensive paintings from different parts of the world. She also writes books discussing the relation of art and life. At the same time, we can also say that Imelda is one of our modern contemporary philosophers. In the documentary, it was shown that she was writing different weird, non-sense philosophies in her pad paper. This truly proved that she did not only have beauty, but also brain, a weird brain though.
"I always say you can never be extravagant with beauty. Beauty is God made real. Beauty is life." - Imelda Marcos
Marco Ragaza
2013-59623
STS THX
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Ghost Heart: The Cure to Broken Hearts; STS THX E-One Group Project
Ghost Heart: The Cure to Broken Hearts
According
to the World Health Organization (WHO), cardiovascular diseases are the
top killers globally. By 2030, it is predicted that the number of
people who die because of heart diseases will reach up to 23.3 million
(WHO 2013). From these statistics, it can be seen that the heart is very
crucial because once it collapse, it will lead to death. The heart is
source of life. Without it, life will cease to exist.
Because
of this, the search for the technology to replace a broken heart is
still on. For the past few years, through different breakthroughs in
medicine, doctors and scientists discovered that the heart of a deceased
person can still be used. Because of this, they learned to transplant
the heart from a dead body, to the sick person. Nonetheless, there are
still problems involved in this kind of surgery. Since the heart is
still another person’s organ, rejection (the body rejecting the
transplanted organ) will occur; Because of this, the patient will be
forced to use immunosuppressants which will reduce the strength of
his/her immune system, which will eventually lead to a lot more
complications.
However,
recently in 2007, scientists was able to discover a technology that
involves the use of animal heart and stem cells (Derbyshire 2011). The
goal is to use the animal’s heart, and convert it into a new usable
human heart. This concept is called the Ghost Heart.
The
process starts by extracting the animal heart.
Then, special detergents
are pumped into the heart to clean and remove all the heart cells.
After this, the heart will then become whitish in color. What is left is
the heart’s “skeleton” or scaffold.
Finally, stem cells from the human
patient will be injected into the “ghost heart”, which will then adapt
and transform into new human heart cells. Because of this, the old
animal heart will become a new heart that humans can use.
When
put into the body of the human, the ghost heart will not experience
rejections because it already contains cells that originated from that
same body. (Derbyshire 2011)
With
the ghost heart, life will be free of heartaches. Life will be free of
rejections, and life will be free of complications. With just the use of
a simple animal heart, someone with a broken heart will be able to
experience again the exciting complexities of life.
Sources:
Derbyshire, David 2011. Live human heart grown in lab using stem cells in potential transplant
breakthrough. DailyMail.Co. Retrieved from:
m-cells-potential-transplant-breakthrough.html. March 20, 2014.
Maher, Brendan 2013. Tissue Engineering: How to build a heart. Nature.com. Retrieved from:
World Health Organization 2013. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). World Health Organization.
Reaction Paper: Nightfall
Isaac
Asimov's Nightfall tells the story of Lagash, a planet that never had
a sunset, the people had never seen the stars, the beauty and
coldness of night. It also tells the story of people never inventing
light bulbs or lamps or anything that would produce light.
This
story revolves around the branch of science, astronomy and
psychology. Atronomy because the writer focused more on what the
night would be like with all the stars and the heavenly bodies seen.
Psychology because the author wants to see the reaction of the people
in Lagash when they would experience night time.
The
only thing that came into my mind were questions 'What if this
happened to us?' 'What if we didn't know anything about night and
would only see eclipses?' 'What would our reactions be?'
Flores, Frances Marie G.
2013-49177
Reaction Paper: Imelda Marcos
When
we hear the name Imelda, the first thing in our mind is the first
lady and wife of late President Marcos. We also think of her as the
lady who owns many shoes, someone who doesn't wear the same shoes on
two different days, and someone who is rich.
Imelda
has done so many things when his husband was in the seat of
presidency. She promoted family planing, helped people in need and
other things. But people always see the negative side during the
Marcos regime. They would always say that the Marcos family is
corrupt, that they are the ones who ordered the assassination of
Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., that they make the people suffer
because of the martial law.
The
view on Mrs. Imelda Marcos differ from person to person. Some view
her as inspiration or a good person, others view her as someone who
is corrupt and spoiled. It all depends on a person's way of thinking
and viewing things.
Flores, Frances Marie G.
2013-49177
Reaction Paper: Music and Science
As
we all know, science plays a big part in our lives, even in music.
Yes, music and science is a bit off but it can be possible. An
example of this would be one of my favorite shows, The Big Bang
Theory. It is a science show that has a very catchy intro music. The
lyrics tell the history of the big bang theory. For people who watch
this show, including me, it educates us about science. We may not
notice it, but we learn things or stuffs about science like
scientists or inventions. Music helps in promoting science because
people like music. Since most people do not like science, music can
be a way to educate people with science.
Flores, Frances Marie G.
2013-49177
Reaction Paper: Rhetoric of Cancer
Cancer,
as we all know, gives people a high risk of death, but there are some
who survive it. In the podcast Rhetoric of Cancer, Andrew Graystone
says that "The
language of war dominates cancer discourse, so whether we want to
fight or not, people with cancer are conscripted into a battle
against the self. Our bodies made into war zones, with cancer as the
enemy, medical professionals as infallible heroes, and treatments of
search-and-destroy by any means possible.” In this line, he
associates cancer with war.
In
the podcast, Andrew is looking for the language appropriate to
cancer. He is doing this because he believes that language is
somewhat helpful in curing a person's illness. We all should not look
at the downside when we have illness because it will only make our
minds set on giving up, and it would consume us on really giving up
and loosing the fight with the illness and could lead us to death.
Flores, Frances Marie G.
2013-49177
Reaction Paper: Mind Museum, Mind Movers
Science
plays a big role in our society, everything around us connects to
science. Technology uses science, the plants, the food, everything
uses science. We may or may not know it, but science is used directly
or indirectly to everything we see, hear, smell, taste or feel.
When
the Mind Movers, people working at the Mind Museum, visited our
school and class, they presented something cool. Most of us, if not
all, were amazed with what they presented. It was about the five
states of matter. The activity was fun and interactive. Good thing,
at least everyone participated.
We
have learned or remembered something from our previous science
classes like during elementary or high school days. I've realized,
yes science is in everything around us.
Flores, Frances Marie G.
2013-49177
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