It should be normalized to ask for help when you need it, rather than choosing to try and tough it out and only ask for help after you fail or make a mistake. It's especially tough to ask for help when everyone around you seems to be doing fine, because it's in our nature to want to avoid standing out or seem different, similar to how people don't like to ask questions out of the fear of sounding stupid.

By limiting options women have, society is basically shooting itself in the foot, because (in terms of the binary rather than the spectrum) that's about half our population. And by having more people in the workforce, that lets the men who may have been pushed into jobs they didn't want or struggle with work in different jobs that they're better suited for because there will be capable women (again thinking in terms of gender binary rather than the gender spectrum) who can take those jobs.

I feel like this is a really important point for the speaker to have hit upon, because while it's great to have rhetoric that encourages girls to strive for jobs that aren't seen as readily available or suitable to them, it's more than okay if they'd rather be the secretary than the CEO. Because it isn't empowering if you're forced to do one thing over another because somebody else wants you to, the goal we're aiming to achieve is to give as many opportunities to the girls as we can, and from there they can choose what it is that they want.

This reminded me of when lockdown/quarantine had just started, and all over the country we knew that stores and restaurants were wasting/discarding food because there wasn't a safe way of giving it to the people who were in need of it. And even if we did have a way to deliver it, they probably wouldn't have agreed to it due to regulations those establishments had. I personally find it frustrating that we take food for granted to the point that we decide whether or not to sell it based on size or shape. It feels like the reasoning behind this is "if I can't have it, nobody can."

When listening to and reading along with the TEDtalk, I wondered how feeding pigs could lead to an outbreak of a disease. Not to mention that I've only heard about foot-and-mouth disease a few times in passing, so I figured that a quick google search would help provide the context I needed as to understand why it lead to forbidding feeding food waste to pigs.

What I found out was that it was a highly communicable disease among cloven-hooved animals that spread through many ways, like close-contact, fodder, motor vehicles, feces, still water, uncooked food scraps, and even through the clothes and skin of the farmers themselves.

Another article said that the main way they dealt with the outbreak was by killing the infected animals, which led to a lot of food waste.

So while I understand why they made it illegal to feed pigs food waste, I think that now we have more knowledge and means to prevent this disease, especially if the solution can be as simple as the speaker said, which was to cook the food before giving it to the pigs.

This is a great example of both ethos and pathos. The ethos is that it was something that happened to him and that the story was about a dish that literally symbolizes a taboo against food waste, which is the topic of this TEDtalk. The pathos comes in when he explains his thoughts from the time, his worry about having somehow offended the culture (because not only was he a foreigner, but Chinese culture prioritizes respect and honor). Also the statement of "he's beating me at my own game!" is light-hearted enough to draw in the audience with its humour.

I remember watching a documentary for school (twice actually, once for my English class, and once for my French class), called "Happy."

As the title suggests, it detailed different cultures and their goals for happiness. And many countries that had happier people were more focused on the people than the products.

One story that had stood out to me was about a woman who was a former beauty pageant queen, and how she had to choose how to recover and find her happiness after being run over by a truck.

She talked about how the immediate aftereffects of the accident were hard, her husband left her, her appearance was drastically altered, and people acted differently towards her.

But she chose to be happy, chose to be with people who made her happy, even though she'd been through such a traumatic event.

So we need to choose happiness, and choose each other and support each other to make that happiness happen.

I've been saying something similar to this a lot recently. "I'm going to manifest a better year." I sincerely believe that words have power, and that speaking things can help them come into being.

Of course I'm not going to rely on those words and just assume things will get better.

I'm not going to manifest a better year just by thinking and wishing for it, those words are to tell my brain and the world that I have a plan, and those words are just a goal for me to reach.

Manifesting a better year will happen each time I act more responsibly. Each time I reach out to friends first, anxiety be damned. Each time I go outside for a walk or a run, I'm making a better year for myself.

I want to be a better person in my eyes. I can't manifest a better year if I don't better myself first. I need to consciously make an effort to improve myself and make better choices. My better year will manifest after I manage to do something about my faults.

We as a people need to choose our future. We need to choose to make things better, and not to wait and hope for someone else to do it or step up first. We can't manifest a better world without making the decision to work for it.

With all that has happened in the last 4-5 years, from the elections to the trainwreck of 2020 in its entirety, I more than agree with how it feels like we're regressing rather than progressing.

I remember hearing about my (at that time) 10 year old brother crying in my mother's lap when Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. I remember feeling sick to my stomach when we watched the inauguration in history class, I actually got a pass to the bathroom because of how nauseous I was.

I remember losing my grandfather the summer of 2018. Learning of his hospitalization out on a trip with my family, how my parents were desperately searching for cheap plane tickets to send her as soon as possible from Maryland to Iowa to see him. I remember hearing the anguish in her voice as she told us that she missed his passing by 30 minutes. She was alone in a rental car in the back roads when her sister called to tell her the news.

I remember the death of one of my guinea pigs on the first day of 2019.

I remember how 2020 went from bad to worse, losing out on school, losing our graduation, losing contact with people outside of blood-related family.

I remember the death of George Floyd and violence used by police during peaceful protests.

I remember the riot in the capital, and the recent evidence during the second impeachment trial that shows just how awful things had gotten.

I remember how this year I realized that even though I had most of my senior year, my underclassmen weren't getting any of it. No sports meets, no marching band, no state championships, no homecoming week or dance. And even for what they are getting, they can't high five, they can't hug, they can't even have spectators to cheer them on. My class will be remembered for our interrupted year and the start of the pandemic. But it's unlikely they'll even have a footnote to remember their struggles.

It feels like no matter how we try to bring ourselves up, insult upon insult gets added to our injuries, and we're not getting the chance to breathe despite having all the time in the world.

It's been really tough to stay positive and believe the world is getting better.

Another point made by this statement, is that while we should strive to help others and put their needs ahead of our own, we should not forget to depend on them when we need it, and to not sacrifice ourselves in a wayward attempt to be considerate. It is a tough balancing act to maintain our compassion towards our peers and self-compassion, but it becomes easier to manage when we keep in mind that our peers are working towards the same compassion for us as we are for them.

Since nobody here is telepathic, we will not know how we make others feel unless they tell us, not to mention our class is asynchronous, so we also suffer from the lack of facial cues and body language when communicating with others.

Communication is key to healthy and supportive relationships, and if we want our community to be supportive, we need to be able to talk to each other in an understanding and open way.

Make use of "I" statements! "I felt this way when you said this." Especially because starting statements with 'you' sound accusatory and lead to people being defensive (even unintentionally). You can further explain why you felt the way you did when you heard or read what they said.

Example: “I felt sad when you said orange was the worst colour, because orange is my favourite colour and it felt invalidating to be told that is was the worst.”