Category: Uncategorized

07/21/17

The human body… Ahh! I absolutely loved the Gross Anatomy Lab at Western University. We got to look at cadavers and examined literally what is on the inside of us! This was my first time seeing a preserved dead body and in what most people would consider a weird way, I found it fascinating! This is something I have always wanted to do and that I am above and beyond passionate about. Holding that human heart and lungs in my hands was such a powerful and inspiring moment for me. At first I was a bit hesitant by the smell but, after the instructor reassured us that it was the chemical preservatives and not death, I felt relief! I can not express how grateful I am for this experience and how it has made me inspired to continue on in the direction of the medical field to educate people to take care of their bodies. We got to witness a body full of cancer and what it does to the body both internally and externally. The only thing I was a little let down about is that we did not get to do the cutting haha. I have always took a keen interest in the human body and to be able to literally hold a real human organs in my own hand is an amazing experience! Most people do not get to do that and I am so grateful the program incorporated this into the program. If I could, I would become a surgeon but that is way too much schooling for me. I am particularly interested in the heart because I just learnt about it a couple of months ago in my Biology 12 class! I felt a connection to this chapter and learning about the blood flow through the heart along with the anatomy of the heart. To conclude, this day was one of the best days at the program for me so far and I only wish that we had more time to learn about other body elements such as the brain!

-Sylena

Well today overall was a pretty interesting day. to start off the day I woke up in a good mood although I was pretty tired. As every morning we did our indigenous games which was really fun we got to work with some new moves and incorporate love with it. After breakfast we got to go to Gross Anatomy Lab to dissect a human body. I thought this was just amazing and really interesting because i have never seen a dead body nor touch a real heart and lungs. It’s just interesting that you can see all the diseases that a person had and what the inside of a body actually looks like because it is nothing like it is in pictures.  To end our day we got to have a social class thing that had us think about our feeling an write about them and i just thought this was creative cause i feel like we don’t really think about our feeling but more of brush them off so when they had us reflect on our feelings it made me more aware of them.

today was really chill and fun. we went to western u. we go tot look at some dead bodys. i got to learn how the heart works. it was really cool to actually hold a really human heart. that is something i thought i would ever do, nut i did an it was really cool. i don’t think i would ever be a doctor though. it was really cool to experience that.

The highlight of my day was going to WesternU to get to view and Examine a human heart and a corpse (that donated itself to educational purposes before death). It was definitely something new to me, it wasnt all that horrifying though, knowing that the person donated their corpse willingly. I learned a lot about the heart and the respiratory system today and i am thankful that I got to do that today.

Today i was unable to participate in the western college event, which sucks because i was looking forward to the event. Even though i may be 12 i don’t act like it. It also fun to do the virtual reality, but i wish i could’ve seen the body and felt the heart, especially because i’m looking into the medical field. I learned a lot about the heart, and how it cooperates with the veins and arteries.

I am a very awkward person and I learned this by being around other people who learned to accept who i am by laughing in unison. I have learned a lot more about by being around people and peers that i can trust and love with all my heart. I have also seen the trouble maker side of me so i know how to tone my behavior down a bit. This is pretty much it. (and that was “Knowing Coyotl with Coyotl). =)

Today is honestly such a blur. All I remember is the cadaver lab and leaving after tearing up… it was so hurtful to see people who have ,made impacts in the world whether they were small or large. The people they’ve met and all of their memories…them in front of me along with hundreds of others. I just couldn’t. Whoever does this for a living, PROPS TO YOU!!!! Sorry, tonight just isn’t something I want to brag about. But it was good, trust. (;

-Aolani

There are many people to look up to in this program and so many of them inspire me. Honestly i cant just pick one person who has so far inspired me in this program i cant even think of one. I can on the other hand think of 27 people who inspire me, 27 amazing people. These 27 people who I’ve just only meet in this past week have inspired me one way or another. Everyone of these pitzer program students have a different story that they have overcame and that is what truly inspires me.

As i sat in my chair i looked around and saw blankets in the far right corner of the room, the tired faces of my fellow friends and elders entering the room i automatically felt such a strange feeling as if something big was gong to happen. Once we were told what we were going to do I did not expect what was to happen next. Once our activity started I quickly started feeling so uncomfortable and started feeling heavy from my chest that was filled with such anger. Towards the end of the activity I saw how affected my friends were by what they experienced. Once they started sharing how they felt about this activity I saw how even though there families were perhaps affected by what the colonizers have done they were still so brave on how they overcame the destruction the colonizers have left behind. These 27 people are such an inspiration in my eyes each and every single one of them will do amazing things.

Peace and Love Christine

today we met with joe parker a white hair, nice pair of glasses, nicely dressed middle aged white man. Imagine a bear in a four cornered room walking around writing on a black board. I compare him to a bear because bears are strong and he has a lot of wisdom. When he passed out his papers I got excited because it was about the zapatista movement. I felt like we learned from eachother. I kind of corrected him. He wrote women and I told him to write it with a y (Womyn). He was like woah. And surprised. Everyone else in the room was like what are you talking about. I explained it to kids who asked me after class. I told them its a womyns empowerment movement. My mom put me into that she said “its womyn spelled with a y!” I tried to think about it today. So the word women has the word men in it so the only way they can self identify is with the wo because theyre not a man unless they identify as a man.

He had a lot of knowledge about revolution and that kind of stuff. He was a white man, but he knew what he was talking about. And I want to know what im talking about, when that knowledge needs to be shared.

My Indigenous culture has had a very large influence on my life, this is because i grew up with elders and parents that taught me not to be ashamed of my culture and to rather embrace it and strive to learn more about it. My biggest inspirations are of course my parents because they are the ones who have been raised in that culture, they gave me a name in my language which i feel is the way to start decolonizing ourselves and they enrolled me in a school that teaches everyone aztec culture, language and heritage. I thank my parents for taking me to ceremony, Danza circles, and other cultural events like Powows, sweats and indigenous people gatherings and these types of programs so i can learn more about not just my culture, but also others peoples cultures. Navajo people are cool. My elder Tata Cuaxle has taught me my language, songs and how to use Aztec instruments and him being a really fun elder to learn from and to gain experience from and that is something i have always looked up to from both Cuaxle and my parents. They three have inspired me to learn what i can about my peoples culture, language and history with the colonizers and i want to take native american/indigenous studies to bring the history and knowledge back to my community to keep the youth woke and to show them that the problems they face in life is a result of colonization and white privilege. On behalf of all natives, i believe we should have easy access to our history, culture and language which is why i want to bring that back to my community and to help fix these problems of colonization by introducing more culture and heritage to the youth.