The End

A long, long school year has finally come to an end! I think we all definitely deserve a long, relaxing summer break.

To Ms. Halfen:
Thank you for making psychology a fun yet informative class to take! I truly enjoyed all the sarcastic comments and relatable examples that made remembering certain vocabulary terms easier. I also really enjoyed the many days of watching movies and shows (WWYD, Inside Out, and my absolute favorite: Meth Mountain... Jk). Having simple quizzes and only a few tests, however, was by far my favorite part of the class. Psychology has truly been a wonderful class to look forward to every morning!

My project - click to see details

My favorite project in this class was one that I just finished -- the Inside Out Mind Map. It was great to be able to explore my own "core memories" and make an artsy project out of it. Plus, I absolutely love Inside Out. I may or may not have stayed up until 1 AM working on it, but I think it was definitely worth my time! (P.S. the Train of Thought at the bottom is the Hogwarts Express!)

However, one thing I didn't quite enjoy about this class was... The brain! The structures and functions were horribly difficult to try and memorize; the diagrams were a bit confusing. However, when I took the time to do the vocabulary in the notebook, I began to understand it a bit better (googling several brain diagrams at home helped too). I don't think anything should be taken out of the class curriculum, but maybe a bit more time should be spent on the brain!
One suggestion: spend one class period going over some FRQ samples and responses before the AP. Even though we were prepped for the FRQs by doing Real World Examples in the vocabulary, it is still helpful and will make us feel more prepared if we go over the FRQs format and tips on how to approach it.
Once again, thank you for being a wonderful teacher! See you in AP Econ :)

To the current psych kids:
Thank you for being a wonderful bunch of students with whom I can share laughs and tears (cough cough, Inside Out). It has been a great semester with you guys through all the stress and stuff! Seniors, good luck in college! I'll definitely miss you guys, but I'm sure you all will be super successful and happy. Juniors, we have one more year left! Congrats on getting through the most stressful year of your high school career. I hope senior year is a breeze for us.
Good luck on any finals you're taking, and don't forget to enjoy yourselves and relax over the summer (and maybe get some college apps done? Juniors? Please don't procrastinate?)

To the future psych kids:
Psychology is a fun course and the knowledge acquired from this class is truly helpful to understanding and empathizing with yourself, your peers, and strangers. Learning about the different ways of thinking, disorders, and how society can affect us will give insight to how people work. Ms. Halfen prepares you well for the AP, as long as you put in effort! Do the vocabulary and complete the projects (this is a helpful site for vocabulary).
Good luck in this class :) psychology is truly an interesting class that is also applicable to real life, so I hope you can retain a few things you learn!

Links in this post
Vocabulary help - http://www.alleydog.com

I am (not) the Meme Queen

I missed class on Friday because of my AP Human Geography exam, but apparently we all made psychology-related memes!
I have been exposed to many memes, old and new, but I have neither the experience nor the wit to make memes myself. Thus, as a disclaimer, these memes will be absolutely terrible. I tried my best. (P.S. I made my memes here, feel free to try it out)

Here we go, the first meme. Karen Horney was the female psychologist who disagreed with Freud's sexist views in psychoanalysis. In Freud's Psychosexual Development, stage 3 (the phallic stage) originally involved only the Oedipus Complex and penis envy. Horney came along and, in the effort of making things more equal for women, created the Electra Complex and womb envy. Learn more about Karen Horney and her feminist views of psychology here!

This meme is aesthetically displeasing to me, but what can ya do? Click the image to read the words if it's too small.
Homosexuality was taken out of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), when a series of social reforms took place, starting with the Civil Rights movement, then evolving into the feminist and gay rights movements. This change, along with Alfred Kinsey's studies on male and female sexuality, had a huge cultural impact and benefited the tolerance and acceptance of different sexualities. You can read more about this history of homosexuality and psychology here.

Third meme! I think there are more liberals in Dulles, but I'm sure this meme is applicable in many other regions of Texas. This is related to all of those terms related to group VS group psychology stuff; for example, when a liberal speaks up in class, group polarization may cause every conservative in the room to start with small insults and slowly make more extreme decisions until they are chasing the liberal (in this case, Captain Jack Sparrow). Other cases of social psychology include: groupthink (a liberal may be discouraged from speaking up in class because (s)he is more concerned with group harmony), ingroup bias (all the conservatives support and favor one another in a game and leave the liberal out), conformity (the liberal may soon change some opinions/views in order to fit in with the group's standards), etc. Read more about social psychology here!

I never fully understood the firing process of a neuron, so I hope this meme is scientifically accurate. To my understanding, this is a representation of the All-or-None Principle. A neuron has sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) ions, and the releasing of these ions is what causes the firing of a neuron. Of course, you cannot half-fire a neuron, which is why all the K+ ions are released. If you cannot understand my poor explanation of the firing process of a neuron, or if you don't trust the validity of it (I wouldn't blame you), you can read about it here! I tried to read it and didn't understand it; perhaps you will have better luck.

The final meme! This is a joke about how the Asian father expects all A's from his child, including non-grade related A's like personality types! The type A personality is characterized as a rather uptight, impatient, competitive, and ambitious person whereas the type B personality is characterized as a relaxed, charismatic, easygoing, and laid back person. This also fits in with the meme because type A personalities tend to achieve more in academics than type B. Ha! I feel so clever.
Read up on the personality types (there are more than just A and B) here!

Links in this post:
Meme Generator - https://imgflip.com/memegenerator
Karen Horney - http://www.feministvoices.com/karen-horney/
Homosexuality and Psychiatry - http://www.aglp.org/gap/1_history/
Psychology of Groups - http://nobaproject.com/modules/the-psychology-of-groups
Neuron Firing Process - http://animatlab.com/Help/Documentation/Neural-Network-Editor/Neural-Simulation-Plug-ins/Firing-Rate-Neural-Plug-in/Neuron-Basics
Personality Types - https://www.hiresuccess.com/help/Understandingthe4PersonalityTypes

AP Exams are Still Here

This week's blog is a free-for-all so I'm going to continue the AP discussion from last week. Because that's related to psychology. And education is too, right? I dunno. I'm sleep deprived (still) so this post is a bit of a mess.

One week of APs have gone by! Congrats to everyone for making it halfway. We're almost there! Summer break is coming.

Here's how my week went, if anyone was wondering:

Monday - I spent the entire morning cramming whatever psych knowledge I could into my brain. 30 minutes before the exam, I think we had a prayer circle. It was truly a stressful situation, but I think I did well on it!

Tuesday - I tried my best to learn some more APUSH. I also panicked about the English 4 AP and had to bother Allison about it. It was a mess.

Wednesday - I took the English 4 AP. It wasn't that bad? I'm not too skilled with poems. It's all good. Then I went home and studied a BUNCH of APUSH. Arman and I got this great idea for him to just... teach me the entire curriculum. Maybe we should've gotten this idea a bit earlier? So we Skyped about that. I took a 20 minute break to study for my Chinese quiz, then went back to APUSH.

Thursday and Friday - THE DAY!!! OF CRAMMING! It was terrible! I started crying around 7-8PM because I realized how terribly unprepared I was. Arman and I Skyped the entire night; he had planned on staying up all night while I had planned on sleeping at 11:30. What actually happened was: I took a nap around 11:30 and tried my best to listen to Arman teach me APUSH. I gave up and slept at 12, he kept studying. I woke up at 2AM (he had gone to sleep at 1:45) and, in a panic, I tried to study more APUSH until I collapsed at 4:30AM. When I got to school, I was a mess. But then... just like that it was over. My worst exam of the year!

So here I am now, contemplating what was definitely the worst, most stressful, most horribly panic-inducing week of my entire life. What's the point? I won't remember any details about these courses in a few years. While the Jacksonian Era was important, will I really need to recall that he caused some panic or depression or something (oops I already forgot)? So, for this week's blog post, I'll be analyzing (complaining about) the United States education system!

My psychology knowledge has already disintegrated (sorry Ms. Halfen!), so I don't have a very good memory of names and such. SOME GUY said that a certain level of arousal (stress) makes for optimal performance. Lower-mid level of arousal for difficult tasks, mid-higher level of arousal for easy tasks, etc. So??? Why is school so stressful? :( School is difficult, especially exams that cover extensive amounts of information, yet we all place so much emphasis on it that we make students super anxious and stressed. As many people like to do, I'll bring up Finland's superior education system, which is pretty much the opposite of our system! And they have better scores and stuff. I'm pretty sure that's reflective of SOME GUY'S arousal theory thing.

This is me with my
workload tbh!! What a mess

Honestly though, I've given up on an entire week's worth of homework just for these AP exams. We had two Chinese quizzes back-to-back (which I thought was unfair) on Thursday and Friday; since Friday was the APUSH exam, I didn't study for Chinese at all and got a max of a 75 on it. We had a precal quiz on Thursday, but I hadn't TOUCHED any of the homework because of APs, so I didn't do well on that either. I had an art project due, but I've only done... like... 50% of it. I haven't even started on All the Pretty Horses for English. So. Now I have to catch up on all of that! Is this amount of stress and sleep deprivation REMOTELY healthy for students? No! I used to love school! What happened? Where did America go wrong? Finland only has one standardized test in the entire 12 years of school! How many have I taken in the past two years?? 10??????

Finland has the smallest gap between students, meaning that a child in a rural area has the same opportunity to get a quality education like children in cities! This is because education is funded by the government and schools can pull from the same pool of university-trained teachers. These teachers truly prioritize the well-being of their students. MEANWHILE our government throws college students into debt, and many teachers aren't appreciated or paid enough!

I dunno. I don't know how to fix this mess. I just know that all us students are suffering. Just hang on. One more week of APs. Three more weeks of school after that. We can do it.

Links in this post

Finland article - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/?no-ist

APs are Upon Us!

Disclaimer: If this post seems a little weird and rambling with poor grammar, it's because I'm sleep deprived after studying for so long.

I'm currently taking a break from reviewing for my Psychology AP to type up this blog post. AP week is here! An entire semester (or year) of preparing has come to this moment. A lot is resting on our adolescent shoulders, and the stress can certainly pile up. This post is dedicated to motivation and stress relief and all that good stuff!

This is me right now but
with purple hair

This year, I'm taking 5 AP exams: Psychology, English Literature & Composition, U.S. History, English Language & Composition, and Human Geography. I'm pretty nervous about... all of them. I haven't even started studying for Human Geography (since the exam is May 13, I plan on starting May 6). Last year I took 4 exams; thus, I can get a 3 on one of the exams this year and still get National AP Scholar. A lot is resting on my slim shoulders (approximately $830 and a lot of high expectations). It's safe to say I am so stressed that I don't even feel stressed anymore. Who cares if I fail? At least I tried.

BUT THAT'S THE THING! You, my reader, whom I assume is preparing for AP exams at this time, have tried very hard. Your effort makes a huge difference, no matter what score you get -- as long as you put in all the effort you can while still caring for your health, you are a successful person in my book. If you get a 2 on your exam, it may be devastating to you and your family, but it is NOT the end of the world. Life goes on! We have not even gone through one-fourth of our long, wonderful lives. When you're fifty years old and working a stable job with your kids (and maybe grandkids) surrounding you with love, you're gonna regret ever wasting so much time and effort on school. I'm not saying you should drop all your AP exams and go out to skateboard and do drugs, but I do believe that high school is more than just studying. My fellow classmates and I spend so much time on school work that we forget to live! Devote your time and effort to studying for now, but don't forget that you and your health are important. After AP exams, go watch a movie or something. Lord knows we need it. Don't let all these expectations get to your head. Don't base your worth as an intelligent, capable person on any numerical scores. You are a wonderful, capable student whether you get all 5s or all 1s.

If my rant wasn't helpful in relieving stress, here are some more techniques to help cope with stress. Basically, take breaks whenever needed, treat your body right (sleep and eat healthily), and most importantly, find good friends to help support you! Without my friends, I would be drowning in the stress that I am currently able to manage. Your friends should build you up instead of burden you -- this means that, when you make a joke about how you're going to kill yourself to avoid taking your Chemistry AP (I know we've all made jokes like these before), your friend will tell you that things will be okay and offer support instead of saying, "Same." Trust me, in the long run, these friends will be extremely helpful with self esteem and stress and all the nasty things life throws at you.

Parks and Recreation, anyone?
I love this show so much
#treatyoself ! it's a good philosophy

Life is hard, but we can get through it! One step at a time, one exam at a time, we will soon be free of these burdens and off to college. For now, focus on studying. Motivate yourself with food like ice cream. Be sure to get plenty of rest. Everything will be okay. Don't run yourself into the ground! You may want perfect scores, but your mental and physical health are much more important! Once APs are all done, take yourself and some friends out to eat some food or watch a movie! You all deserve a treat after all the hard work you put into this. And then... after that, guess what? Only 3 weeks until SUMMER BREAK! :)

Links in this post
Stress management tips - http://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-management.htm