Thrill-Seeking for Nerds (who want to change the world)

So, I have a sensory processing disorder (SPD), and it makes me really sensitive to touch and sound. Sometimes, this greatly affects what kinds of advocacy actions I can and can’t do, so I wanted to talk a little bit about what having sensory issues means for my experience with advocacy. Like, this school event? (photo is pre-covid) No. absolutely not. Even if we’re not in a pandemic, you will not see me in a crowd like this. [A cheering crowd forming Ws with their fingers runs onto an indoor basketball court, celebrating a win. Signs in the background say "Bomber Territory"- our school's mascot is, unfortunately, a bomber plane.] First, a little explanation if you’re not familiar with my SPD: loud noises, unexpected noises, and certain types of sounds put me in a fight-or-flight state. So does physical contact with other people. Sometimes, I get sensory overloads when it’s all super overwhelming, and my brain feels so scrambled I can’t recognize what’s happening around m...

This is a shout-out to the Sustainable Development Goal I feel like people most overlook: number 17, "partnerships for the goals." If you're not familiar with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) , they're a list of 17 interlocking global goals of better living for the planet. The United Nations set up a ton of specific targets to be reached around the world by 2030, and they were officially adopted by 193 countries in 2015. Goal 17, at the very end of the list, isn't quite as straightforward as many of the others. I know that personally, as a Model United Nations delegate, this is the goal I ignore most often. My peers and I seem to find climate change and gender equality resolutions more exciting.  "None of the other SDGs can be achieved without achieving SDG 17, because this SDG is highly linked to all the other 16 SDGs." - Naduni Kalungalla Naduni Kalungalla, a Model UN delegate in Sri Lanka, has had a similar experience.  "SDG 17 is actual...

Spoilers for  The Falcon and the Winter Soldier  episode 3! This probably won't make sense anyway if you haven't watched the show, so you've been warned... So, I've been back in the Marvel fandom for nearly 12 weeks, since the first episode of WandaVision. Meanwhile, I never stopped doing global health advocacy. While Monica and Sam become my favorite characters more and more every day, the tuberculosis epidemic is becoming more and more urgent. What can the two tuberculosis references in MCU canon teach us about the real-life epidemic? Image description: my attempts at doodling the COVID-19 virus and tuberculosis bacteria Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne, infectious disease caused by bacteria that usually attack the lungs. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the number one infectious disease killer in the world, taking 1.4 million lives in 2019 and sickening 10 million . And it took a long time for COVID-19 to surpass TB- not until November 2020! TB is still bigge...

Chag Pesach Sameach! I'm so excited; this is my favorite holiday of the entire year. What is Passover?   Also known as Pesach  in Hebrew, this is basically an 8-day-long celebration of the Israelites escaping slavery in ancient Egypt. It's one of the most important Jewish holidays, and we start the whole thing with a seder : the family eats a special meal together, following a specific order of blessings, readings and songs about the Passover story, and actions like breaking a piece of matzah and washing hands. Setting up for one of the tables for a seder several years ago My family usually has a giant seder with dozens of extended family members crowded into one house, but last year, along with many Jewish families around the world, we gathered over Zoom instead (I'm not sure how I feel about people calling Zoom seders "zeders"...) and this year, it was just my immediate family. I often describe Passover to my non-Jewish friends as "the most social justice-y...

As we transition to a new presidential administration and a new Congress, I'm thinking about the idea of the circumstances of advocacy changing.  It's time to kick off the decade of the Green New Deal, time to strengthen global solidarity and decolonize  global health . This is reason enough to sit down and actually have conversations with each other, even the tough ones. It's also time to continue/resume person reflections. How about changing your mind on a political issue? A painting my friend made at our Sunrise launch party For example, over the past year I wondered if I still maintain that climate action has to be bipartisan. Of course, I'd like it to be! But I don't see Republicans taking the climate crisis seriously. We barely see some  Democrats willing to tackle climate justice at the scale we need, based on the science of climate change, the way it intersects with racism and economic inequality, and the urgency of the political moment. This letter to the e...

This morning, I resolved to try some of those self-care steps my therapist and I have been brainstorming. I've always thought of self-care as "go easy on yourself." Like, not stressing out too much if I don't exercise, or eating just because it tastes good and I want to. And I still stand by those being valid! A new idea for me, however, was that self care can take the form of a little extra effort. For example, I made my bed! It took me less than a minute, and I felt a lot more grounded by starting out my day like that-- making my space a little more orderly. Then, in the same vein of straightening up my space to calm down, I spent part of my free second period writing letters to Congress. I got this letter to the editor  about global COVID-19 relief published in a local newspaper last month. When when we have published media, my RESULTS group likes to print out copies and mail them to our members of Congress. You can add your own note, like "Dear _____, I am ...

I'd like to introduce to you one of my favorite bills of 2021 so far: the THRIVE agenda resolution . We'll get to what's in it in a second, but by the name alone I'm already hooked: this is an agenda to Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy (THRIVE). We Model UN nerds and political advocates love a good acronym! Put together by leaders in the movements for environmental justice, Indigenous rights and sovereignty, and racial justice, this resolution outlines a plan for recovery that would be the first step towards our country’s healing, and part one of the decade of the Green New Deal. Making signs for Earth Day 2020 "10 years to act" is catchy, but January-April 2021 is crucial for setting the pace, so don't get comfortable! It's go time. This resolution, first introduced to Congress in September 2020 , centers on 8 pillars , including creating millions of good, safe union jobs and averting climate catastrophe. Ok, so why do we ...

What if we could reach a wide audience of fellow constituents and our members of Congress at the same time? Guess what? We can, by writing a short piece for the opinion section of a newspaper called a Letter to the Editor (LTE)! Usually 150-250 words in length, a LTE is another powerful advocacy tool. If you aren’t familiar with what these look like, here are a couple examples I've written about for global health. Lawmakers should help fight a tuberculosis resurgence (September 12, 2022) The Global Fight to End AIDS  (December 7, 2018) See? Pretty short and to the point. Nothing fancy about it, but more credibility and room to develop your ideas than you'd get with a Tweet. LTEs are short enough that you can keep a couple favorites on a cork board Some everyday people will read your letter, though it may not be our peers at school. (There's one teacher at my school who sees my letters in the paper sometimes and talks to me about them, but overall I get the sense that most...

I wanted to write something about the pros and cons of using social media to engage in the political process. Not least because our very own President of the United States was banned from Twitter following an attempted coup he (and others) incited, an insurrection fueled by propaganda and misinformation that algorithms designed to maximize profit amplified. The thing is, I've only had Instagram since, like, March 2020. Not even a year. Even if I were the most active influencer on the planet, I still couldn't present myself as having any credibility on the topic because my experience on social media is shaped by my age, gender, race, class background, school culture, political beliefs, and more. So, I called for backup and put it up on my Instagram story.   Among the "pros" of social media: “It makes action/resources more accessible” True! You don't have to go through a lot of other websites or attend webinars to find out what your options are for action items. “Sp...