This weekend was a very special weekend for my family and me. For the first time in my family’s history, all four generations, from great-grandparents to great-grandchildren were able to gather in San Diego for a weekend full of fun and relaxation.  Seeing all of my family in one gathering made me realize how we as descendants of our elders are living history of the life experiences and decisions that our family before us has made.  Whether some experiences were made accidentally or on purpose, there were made.  We are a mold of what our ancestors raised us to become and that, is living history.

During the weekend I spent some time at my friend’s house where we relaxed listening to old records in her bedroom. Her record player caught my attention since I have noticed that they are becoming more and more popular today. The phonograph was invented by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. Emile Berliner invented the first record. The first commercially available stereo recordings were produced in 1957. Such a cool history is becoming more popular in today’s music playing culture.

So on my way home from class one day, i was listening to my ipod, and the song that plays is “kenji” by Fort Minor. The songs lyrics tell the story of a Japanese-American family’s experience in the U.S. during the events of World War II. Namely Pearl Harbor, the Internment of the Japanese into camps by the U.S., similarly to Germany and the Jews, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Within the song, there are voice inserts by people who either experienced what had happened during that time or have family who have experienced it, the singer’s (Mike Shinoda) own family being one of them. I found it interesting that in a 4 minute song, we can get a glimpse as to what had happened from a Japanese-American standpoint.

-Nick Thips-

This semester I am taking a Women’s Studies 101 class. This past week we were required to watch a movie called Iron Jawed Angels. It is an HBO movie that takes place during the first wave of feminism, specifically in America, in which women fought for the right to vote. The movie revolves around characters such as Alice Paul, played by Hilary Swank, Lucy Burns, played by Frances O’Connor, Ruza Wenclawska, played by Vera Farmiga, and Ida Wells-Barnett, played by Adilah Barnes. It displays how Alice Paul and other suffragists protested for a Constitutional Amendment. These women were harassed, mostly be men as depicted in the movie, as they marched and stood in protest. The movie also shows how the suffragists were put in jail and mistreated after being charged with “obstructing traffic” because they stood on the street in protest. By the end of the movie, all 216 suffragists are released from jail and on August 18, 1920 the 19th Amendment is passed by Congress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO70ZjZ0wrw

In the video, all of imprisoned women start a hunger strike where they don’t eat as a form of protest. As a result, Alice Paul, played by Hilary Swank, is horrifically and repeatedly force fed.

I was at work and found a  really old penny, which I subsequently lost, but I thought it would be cool to find some random pennies and link them to historical events, like pac-man.

In lecture professor Blum talked about how we get history from data, and as I was reading from the HIST book this week it was amazing to see events and time frames that I have been able to witness and be a part of. I was able to put onto my own timeline an event that has been the root of many recent changes in our country. Sep. 11th, 2001, I am able to go back to that morning and remember sitting with my dad on the couch in the living room with all his employees. Although we are haunted by history we are also the ones haunting history.

I saw this monument walking to class one day, and realized how much history was contained in one small area. The monument is a memorial for the San Diego Sate University students whose lives were lost in the many wars over the 20th and early 21st century. The memorial monument also serves as a reminder of the wars and the history that corresponds with each. Most students just walk by this everyday, however if one were to stop and read it, one can reflect on the time periods and the history rooted within it.

In class this week, we discussed the Cold War, specifically what caused it to end. A climactic event that signified the end of the Cold War was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

In November of 2013, my senior AP Government class took a field trip to the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley. At the Library, they have preserved a portion of the Berlin Wall that had collapsed, which I found very interesting to literally be in the presence of a piece of history.

This is my hack , it is the back of the Call of Duty game and as you may see, there is a small advice on the left side on the bottom that say that this content is only for people over 17 + .

In the beginning of this semester , Ms Zeiner was hacking Prof Blums lecture and talked about the explicit content of CD’s and movies.  This hack shows another form of explicit content that is only available for ” adults ” .