Moving to the United States and having to learn a new culture and language were definitely not the easiest things for a thirteen-year-old to accomplish. It was a challenge. Throughout the process of learning the new culture and language, I first had to overcome the many insults people would spit at me. Dislike would come my way almost daily, for example when I would mispronounce or misuse words in English.
But after being made fun of multiple times, I came to the conclusion that people were not just hurting me; they were unwittingly doing me a favor at the same time. Comments like “dumb Mexican” made me a stronger person by making me want to learn English even faster. Pointing to each of my mistakes, these people lent me their native speaker ears and helped me focus in on the areas I could improve. Those comments made me a bilingual adult who, today, is one of the top students in his class.
In order to accomplish my goal to learn English and not submit to the hatred of others, I always kept something that my parents had said to me when moving to this country: “The more you know, the more you are worth.” This helped me realize that learning a new language would open up more doors for me and would allow me to fill my soul with worthwhile experiences. I forgot the mistakes but learned the lessons.
What are you working for? That is the question you will hear a behavior technician, or likely many other therapy service providers, repeat to a child to better understand how to promote and reward appropriate or desirable behavior. Developmental benchmarks, parent preference, cultural and social norms combine to define a target behavior that once modified will benefit the child by increasing their ability to lead a safe and independent lifestyle. The flip side of this – most adults are working for their paycheck. But what can employers do when that’s not enough to motivate appropriate work performance? Behavioral science has developed a process to find the answers, which can be as unique as the individuals it helps. Applied in the business world, the theory of behavioral science is called Organizational Behavior Management, OBM, and it is a sound investment for owners or management looking to improve many aspects of performance, project management and increase return on investment.
What does this have to do with Avalon? Our town is unique, as the majority of its economic base is centered on tourism. Without our visitors, there would be no jobs for most of the population who live in Avalon, no need for the services provided to exist as they do. Every visitor experience is truly a community experience. Their overall impression of our town will determine if they become a repeat guest or a one star review warning other travelers to avoid our shores. Most business owners I know are looking to secure positive reviews, happy guests and steady flow of return business.
Turning these desires in to well defined goals is part of the process behavioral science uses to achieve measurable change. If you want to see results, you must first clearly define what success looks like to you, and then get focused on how to achieve it. There are volumes of research detailing countless methods by which you can achieve behavioral change, but in Avalon what we really need to work for is a wide-spread culture shift. We need every resident to value and promote positive interactions with our visitors, we need to be Disneyland on the ocean! To speed up this process you can hire a behavioral expert to sort through the many proven methods to encourage such a shift in thoughts and actions and offer the best match for your needs. That is what Avalon-AC4P is offering to the Avalon community!
Where do we start? The power of connection, communication, and collaboration is not to be underestimated. For better or for worse when people gather together and unite under shared principles things start to happen. News and social media have a way of manipulating the truth, and even more dangerous is the lack of facts in media posts that go viral. But these same tools also hold the awesome power to connect folks who are worlds apart physically and philosophically. Critical thinking is needed in these highly controversial times that are promoting the polarization of families, communities and even nations. Be it war or world peace, we are in control of our focus and what we promote in our daily lives. Finding common ground within our greater community is the best way to promote positive growth and a sustainable future for the generations who will inherit what we leave in our wake. Will you chose to focus on and promote principles that encourage us to reach Avalon’s greatest potential? Take our community goal setting survey and share your voice at http://www.AvalonAC4P.org no internet? Call or text YES.612.AC4P to be included.
How are you? Fine, thank you. And you? It’s almost like a single sentence. A pleasantry we all use. When we ask the question – How are you? Do we really expect a real response? No, we hope for the simple answer of fine/good/alright. Nor do we want to share how we really are doing. It’s just a call and response that we all know the rules to. Because in reality we may not be ready to hear how someone is doing and we’re certain no one wants to actually hear our own woes. So, we greet each other and hold up our end of the bargain, smile and carry on.
How do we connect with each other? How do we learn, grow and help? Do we need to? Each of us have our own struggles, so why carry burdens of others? Because maybe we all have similar fears, hopes, worries and desires. If we share them, we can lift each other up. It’s easy to listen (not always pleasant) but easy. Through basic skills of communication we break barriers of fear, loneliness and depression. Human kindness and connection is what we all yearn for, whether we realize it or not.
With friends, I’m using the phrase – “I’m checking in on you” in hopes of further opening the door of sharing. I want to be connected and invested in people, especially those who are closest to me. I, in turn, want to feel safe in sharing my feelings that lay beyond the word fine. We are in this life together. Why not conquer it together as a connected and unified front?
As I was writing this piece, the song Say Something by A Great Big World came on my Pandora channel. Some of the lyrics are:
Say something, I’m giving up on you
I’ll be the one, if you want me to
Anywhere, I would’ve followed you
Say something, I’m giving up on you
And I… am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all
And I will stumble and fall
I’m still learning to love
Just starting to crawl
Let’s continue to check in on each other. So, we will never have to give up on one another. Let’s learn to say something besides – Howareyoufinethankyouandyou?
So, a guy files criminal charges, including hate crime, racism, homophobia and other allegations. And we were outraged that such a despicable crime could occur. Then, we discover that he made everything up just to get attention and the guy is the one who is in trouble…as he should be. THEN, all of the charges against the guy who lied are dropped and he gets away basically scot free.
Here is where I see the danger in that: First of all, having been faked out by false accusations, we might doubt the validity of the story when someone is actually a victim of a crime. (Can you remember the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”?) Also, now anyone can accuse anyone else of some offense or crime, and it does not have to have any basis in fact. So, the word or opinion of one person can effectively change another person’s entire life in an instant. And, there is no consequence for making up false allegations or exaggerating their severity, even if the falsehoods ruin the other person’s life.
Does anyone recall hearing stories of the Salem Witch Trials? Here is a brief summary. In 1692, a couple of young girls in Salem (present day, Danvers), Massachusetts began exhibiting strange and unruly behavior. So that they would not have to face consequences for their bad behavior, they made up stories about three local women being witches and causing their conduct. The hysteria escalated from there. Before it was over, 19 women and one man were convicted of being witches and executed. Five others, including a baby, perished in captivity.
It is my opinion that this is where we are heading if false or exaggerated accusations are met with impunity.
Disturbing Facts About the Salem Witch Trials
The court system back then was not what it is now. Often, being put on trial meant that you were already believed to be guilty. As a result, many accused witches simply confessed to being witches. Incidentally, those who confessed were not put to death. Those who did not confess were put to death.
One of the tests to determine if someone was a witch was to tie the person’s finger to a toe on the opposite side of their body and then put them in a body of water. If the person was able to stay above the water, they were deemed to be a witch. Those who sank below the water’s surface were exonerated of being a witch…and frequently drowned.
None of the Salem witches were burned to death. One of them, Giles Corey (the only man to be executed for being a witch) was crushed to death with heavy stones. His last words were reportedly, “More weight!”
A dog was accused of being a witch and was shot to death. It was then determined that the dog could not have been a witch…because it would not have died if it had been.
Arthur Miller wrote his play The Crucible about the Salem Witch Trials to draw comparisons to what was happening with McCarthyism and the red scare of the 1950s.
One day last week I was a passenger in a golf cart. This is unusual, because I typically walk wherever I go. After we reached our destination, I noticed that I had gotten a message on my cell phone that said that it had noticed that I seemed to be driving and had automatically put itself into silent mode. At first, I thought “My cell phone thought I was driving.” And then I realized, “My cell phone thought.” I know that the technology that most of us carry with us in our cell phones is greater than the technology that was required to land men on the moon and then get them back to Earth safely. But my cell phone THOUGHT! Am I ready for this? Are we ready for this?
It is known as the technological singularity and it is the theoretical instant that artificial intelligence exceeds human intelligence. And, make no mistake of it, it is coming. I am not envisioning a Rise of the Machines kind of situation where artificial intelligence creates an army of soldier androids to exterminate the human race. But it is not too difficult to imagine that artificial intelligence would be able to be completely self-sufficient, rendering human input obsolete. I do not have any idea what that would look like.
People stopped just short of declaring that the moment was upon us when IBM’s Watson defeated two of the best Jeopardy! contestants in the game show’s history. It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but consider this: When artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, it will have the capacity to create greater artificial intelligence than we can create…and it will no longer have a need for us.
“I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.” — Ken Jennings
This new generation has been introduced to the expanding domain of technology. Hardware, like computers and phones, have become smarter, smaller, cheaper, and more accessible. Software innovations have made things like the internet and social media an integral part of the new generation’s upbringing. These changes have helped the new generation in so many ways. But, at the same time, it has undeniably affected students and their learning environments.
I myself have witnessed and gone through many of these technological changes. I can say that it has certainly changed my life in numerous ways. With the ubiquity of technology and increased social connection, so many kids (and even adults) are falling into pressure to be the best in our society. With the introduction of social media, people have been increasingly susceptible to comparing themselves to what they see online and on social media accounts. This encourages people to double-think their appearances and perceptions of success, often resulting in more feelings of insecurity than ever before. With greater insecurities students are facing on a day-to-day basis, they often begin to belittle themselves in a way where their future dreams are warped and compromised by thoughts that they aren’t good enough in the eyes of society.
Our generation must focus to find a way to limit these new advances that are being introduced to us every day. We can start by simply taking time off our screens and focusing on what matters most to us. We can also spend more time motivating kids to chase their dreams and keep in mind that they’re capable of achieving greatness.
It is always ok to speak up and have your voice be heard at all times. Some people are afraid to speak because they might mess up or be laughed at, but that’s how we learn. Nobody is perfect, see? And if you don’t try and make attempts, then you won’t make any progress. Not knowing how to pronounce a word is a common fear we all share. But if you speak in public and mess up, someone can correct you. This corrected mistake increases the chances of learning the proper pronunciation and meaning of the word because you had a type of vivid experience that makes you remember it.
When we do the Vocab Sheets in Mr. Blehm’s Class, for example, we all hesitate as a class to read our answers because we’re scared to get it wrong. I am guilty of this myself. But in the end, this fearful experience motivates us to learn the meaning of the words in front of us on that day. It makes each word real to us so that when we leave the classroom, we take these words and experiences with us.
They are all over Avalon. Actually, they are all over the Island! Giant mosquito-like creatures, flying clumsily into our houses, bouncing against the ceiling, gathering around the lights, landing on our carts. They look like the great-white-sharks of mosquitoes, gigantic, scary-looking. People call them “mosquito-eaters” so they can’t be all bad, can they?
As a matter of fact, pretty much everything you hear about these harmless creatures is wrong. They are NOT mosquitoes. They don’t eat mosquitoes either. They don’t bite. As a matter of fact, they don’t eat a lot, if anything. Maybe A bit of nectar from a flower.
These scary-looking Hulk-like insects are called crane flies (because of their crane-like, long legs). They are a relative of mosquitoes (belonging to the Order diptera, or two-winged flies), but belong to a different family, the Tipulidae.
Crane flies are completely harmless. They live only for a few days as adults. As larvae, they live in wet areas, streams, ponds, and even in the moist soil, feeding of decaying organic matter. As adults, their sole responsibility is to find a mate and procreate. Some species visit flowers (see the pollen on the head of the crane-fly in one of the photos), sipping a bit of nectar and helping pollinate them.
The nature of Catalina Island is fascinating and full of mysteries and stories. We will be sharing more of these stories in upcoming essays and a book.
Painting by Buck Lopez (courtesy of the Catalina Art Association).
We have all seen it and heard its effects, but how many of us have smelled lightning? If you have ever been close to a lightning strike, you have probably noticed a smell, sometimes fairly faint and sometimes overpowering, immediately after, probably even before the hairs on your arm have stopped standing on end. Some describe the odor as similar to chlorine. To me, it smells like melting plastic or burning inorganic matter. It is on the unpleasant side, but the reason behind the smell is really pretty cool.
The two most abundant elements in our atmosphere are oxygen and nitrogen. However, atoms of these elements rarely occur without a partner. Thus, instead of a bunch of Os and Ns in our atmosphere, what we more accurately have is a bunch of O2s and N2s. When lightning strikes, it superheats the air around it to ridiculous temperatures (over 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit), causing the sonic boom we hear as thunder and forcing molecules of air to be violently split apart. All of this activity results, for a short period of time, in stray Os and Ns. Most of these pair back up fairly quickly, but every so often a stray O will join up with an O2 to make a molecule of ozone (O3). The human olfactory system is sensitive enough to smell ozone in small concentrations (about 10 parts per billion – that is roughly equivalent to traveling five feet of your journey all the way to the sun), so even a small amount of ozone in the air is noticeable to us.
Another interesting factoid is that you can sometimes smell ozone before a thunderstorm hits. This results from previous lightning-created ozone molecules being pushed forward at the leading edge of a storm. It does not necessarily indicate that the upcoming storm will be severe, only that it had been severe.
Fun Facts About Lightning
1. A single bolt of lightning is around 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.
2. The irrational fear of lightning is known as keraunophobia.
3. The odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000.
4. Each second there are 50 to 100 Cloud-to-ground lightning strikes to the earth worldwide.
5. On average, the Empire State Building in New York is struck 24 times a year and was once struck eight times in 24 minutes.
6. The energy contained from a single lightning strike can power a 100-watt light bulb for 90 days.
7. “Lightning never strikes twice” is just a myth, lightning can strike the same location many times.
8. Lightning follows the path of least resistance as it streaks through the sky. It would prefer to travel in a straight line, but will shift its path to avoid obstacles, even as small as a speck of dust. This is why it has such an erratic-looking visual signature.
9. “Lightning” and “lightening” do not mean the same thing.
Get ready to moon swoon! March’s super Worm Moon will be the third super moon of 2019. It will appear bigger and brighter than usual as it makes its closest approach to Earth in the lunar cycle. It is the first full moon of Spring — gracing us in full glory on Spring Equinox, March 20th. The worm moon readies us for planting as the ground softens for earthworms to work their magic in the soil. Winter hands the baton to Spring. On March 20th, the full Worm Moon and Spring Equinox aka, Vernal Equinox share the stage.
To understand the significance of the first day of spring, it is helpful to know what the word equinox means. It comes from Latin and means equal day and equal night. Equinoxes occur twice a year. The spring equinox happens when the sun moves north across the celestial equator. Later in the year, in September, the autumnal equinox will occur when the sun crosses the celestial equator to the south.
In ancient cultures, the cycle of the earth around the sun symbolized darkness moving towards light from winter solstice to vernal equinox. The cycles of the seasons reminds us and those who have walked the earth before us that beginnings and endings are eternal. Spring excites us with new birth. Our ancestors were very in touch with these cycles for their survival. It was a way for them to measure if they had enough supplies, and track planting cycles. Each day forward, the day is a little longer until summer solstice. Therefore, spring equinox represents new light, new life, planting seeds, cleaning out the old and making way for the new. This is where the tradition of spring cleaning came from.
As day and night are equal, equinox represents our own need for balance in our life. Yin/Yang. Moon/Sun. Feminine/ Masculine. Dark/Light. Equilibrium invites us to keep our lives in balance.
Many cultures celebrate vernal equinox with eggs. In Christian cultures, Easter eggs are synonymous with Easter. Also known as Paschal eggs, usually colorful decorated chicken eggs. However, the tradition of painting hard boiled eggs during springtime pre-dates Christianity. In many cultures, the egg is a symbol of fertility, new life, and rebirth. For thousands of years, the peoples of Persian culture have decorated eggs on Nowruz, which means “new day”, because the Iranian New Year falls on spring equinox. Other peoples attribute pagan roots to the Easter eggs, and the word Easter itself, to the goddess Eostre, Ostara, Eastre, goddess of the spring/dawn. It is said her feast day is on the full moon following vernal equinox — some say is the identical calculation for Christian Easter in the west. Legend would have it that Eostre found a bird wounded on the ground in late winter. To save its life, she transformed it into a hare. But the transformation was not a complete. The bird took the appearance of a hare but retained the ability to lay eggs. The hare would decorate these eggs and leave them for gifts to Eostre.
Spring celebrations across the globe are fascinating. On spring (and fall) equinox at the ruins of Chichen Itza, Mexico, crowds gather to watch as the afternoon sun creates shadows that resemble a snake moving along the stairs of the 79ft tall Pyramid of Kukulkan. On the spring equinox the snake descends the pyramid until it merges with a large, serpent head sculpture at the base of the structure.
Another ancient story is of the Roman god, Mithras, in some ways similar to the story of Jesus Christ. Mithras was born on winter solstice and resurrected in spring. Mithras helped his followers ascend to the realm of light after death. Also in Roman lore, the followers of Cybele, believed that their goddess had a consort who was born via a virgin birth. His name was Attis. Attis died and was resurrected each year during the vernal equinox.
Ostara (1884) by Johannes Gehrts. The goddess flies through the heavens surrounded by Roman-inspired cherubs, beams of light, and animals. People look up at the goddess from the realm below.
There are so many similarities in how diverse cultures wove stories into their lineages to give meaning the magnificence of our seasons. Funny how we often feel we are so different from each other, yet so often, our stories and traditions repeat a common thread.
Modern vernal celebrations can be rich as our religious, spiritual, familial roots~ and~ also as simple as our practical everyday needs. It is a good time to start your seedlings. When we plant, we also seeding the soil with the energy of new life, new beginning. Something magical happens when each seedling catalyzes the spark of life. We are all constantly changing, starting anew. Nature mirrors our cycles of life. Spring bursts with color. Take some time to celebrate the new life that surrounds you in nature. Happy Spring. Enjoy the Super Worm Moon. Three cheers for new beginnings this vernal equinox promises to bring each of us in our own unique way.
They are all over Avalon. Actually, they are all over the Island! Giant mosquito-like creatures, flying clumsily into our houses, bouncing against the ceiling, gathering around the lights, landing on our carts. They look like the great-white-sharks of mosquitoes, gigantic, scary-looking. People call them “mosquito-eaters” so they can’t be all bad, can they?
Cazuela 