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

When advocacy feels like an uphill battle, who keeps you climbing? Today, I looked for inspiration on what to say about advocacy that I haven't already said here. I found it in a project for U.S. History class, at the end of last school year!  The assignment was to write a letter to my hypothetical future grandchildren about what life was like during 2020. It reminded me how tiring advocacy can be, but also that the power of personal relationships and fun moments do more to keep me engaged than the urgency of statistics, and I think that's a valuable lesson about movements. Here's an excerpt of what I wrote to my imaginary grandchild: Separated from my local community because I was isolated at home, the Sunrise Movement became my community. All that time online was draining, and electoral politics feels soul-sucking, so our team made sure that we were real friends to each other. These were the people I stayed up with until 1 a.m. on election night video calls. The combined ...

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 ...