Turtle Trouble
Jeevesh Konuru
2/23/11
Period 1
Essay
Turtle Trouble
There are three types of endangered turtle species the loggerheads, leatherbacks, and greens in the Philippines that are threatened from poachers. This is because they live on the same beaches as natives that rely on the turtle eggs. Without the turtle eggs they are going hungry. On the other hand when they eat the turtle eggs the turtle population is drastically decreasing. So conservationists are ‘smuggling’ the eggs and taking them to a controlled safe environment. This leaves the natives angry and hungry, and increases the amount of human artificial contact with the turtles. At the same times the turtle populations are supposedly increasing, and according to the conservationists “ we are increasing the turtle population for later generations.”
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African Grey Parrot Smuggling
Jeevesh Konuru
1/13/11
Period 2
Essay
Current Event:
Scores of African Parrots Rescued From Alleged Smuggler
The Congo African Grey Parrot is a endangered parrot prized as a pet for its outstanding ability to speak and even communicate simple phrases. The African Grey is in fact a legal and outstanding pet when bred in captivity. Unfortunately as on January 11 these parrots are often smuggled in order to avoid the tedious job of breeding and weaning. A woman in Africa used a fake permit to steal over 130 of these rare birds to sell in the UK black market. She fed the birds alcohol laced sugarcane in order to calm them and make them drowsy for the trip. The African Grey black market is large and growing.
What I learned from this is article is that people are desperate enough to drug the birds in order to smuggle them. My personal thought about this sad news story is that the birds are being senselessly stolen from there habitat. When a bird is wild caught, legally or not, they are much cheaper for the consumer to purchase. So if the person was to save the trip to Africa and just breed the birds in captivity they could easily sell the birds for 1 grand each since they are much tamer. That’s a $300-$700 increase in profit. I think desperate people will continue to smuggle the birds and the birds will eventually be driven to extinction. Even though people will still be able to watch there captive birds talk, they will never see the real thing sour.
Animoto - Mining in Africa
SS project
Mining in Africa
Jeevesh and Daniel
Kiva
Jeevesh Konuru
12/7/10
Period 2
Essay
Dollars Disguised As Pennies
Kiva is a unique organization that lets everyday people make huge differences and impacts on people all around the world in trouble and poverty. Everyday people like you and me can donate $25 or more to those people in trouble, and in need of some money in order to start a micro-enterprise and lift themselves out of poverty. Once they receive the donation that a citizen in a developed country makes they buy things that will help there business. All of these people are in desperate need of the money, and they are all well deserving of it.
One of the many people in developing countries who are struggling to make a bare living is Goodliva Batromeo. She is a hard working micro-entrepreneur living in Tanzania. She has 3 kids, who she is struggling to feed everyday. Her micro-enterprise is an over the counter fish selling business. She is requesting $1,700 in order to get better equipment to catch fish more easily and steadily. She will also use the lone in order to make everything more sanitary, protecting the meat better, and getting her more customers.
Goodliva Batromeo deserves a donation for many reasons. Imagine yourself in this position: you get up in the morning and go directly to catch the days fish to sell without breakfast because you don’t have enough money to buy enough food even though your 3 children are starving and have malnutrition; only to find that your nets are broken and torn; so you go to the market anyway and decide to sell the one fish that broke your net yesterday when you caught it; but nobody bought the fish since it was smelly and already rotting; and the only thing you got all day was a complaint that the one fish you sold yesterday was bad and the buyer got sick. This is the life Batromeo is forced to live every single day. So by giving her a simple donation you can allow her to get more customers and money because she would be catching more fish, and keeping the fish more sanitary and clean. With the more money she gets she can feed her children. By giving that simple donation you can be saving the three innocent lives of those children.
By giving Batromeo a donation you are not only saving her kids and lifting her out of the treacherous cycle of poverty, but you could also be helping her whole community. The donation could provide more reliable food. It can also save many of Batromeo’s customers from sickness. Overall your small miniscule donation can have gargantuan effects on her and her whole community.
Immigration Interview
Jeevesh Konuru
10/24/10
Period 2
Essay
Immigration Blues and Yellows
Do immigrants feel emotionally happy or sad while immigrating to the United States? Over 4.1 million people immigrate to the US every year. All of them immigrate for different reasons including, war, famine, hopes for a better future, or jobs. Some of the immigrants who move are rich and are looking for some more fame, or opportunity’s and some are exorbitantly poor, and are looking for an opportunity for a better life. All have road bumps while trying to get here, some make it, some don’t, but they all risk something and try there best. Finally they all have mixed emotions while getting here.
“Your father left the country six months before me, and I came after, to meet him.” That is what my mom explained during her interview about her immigration to the United States. Before she came here her name was Varalakshmi, but when she arrived here social security changed her name to Vara. When she arrived she was 19 years old. In India her mother tongue is Telugu, but she also knew English, because she went to an English medium school. Although she knows her parents only know Telugu. That was my mom’s overview before and during her emigration from India.
My mom’s trip to the US was mostly smooth, but clearly there were some emotional difficulties. The first emotional difficulty is leaving behind and part from everything she knows and has. The first thing she had to leave was the culture. In India the community was mostly close knit family, everybody knows each other communities. On the other hand in America there are alone studio houses, where in most cases, nobody even knows there neighbors. The clothing wore in India were normally a Chudidara, but in America the casual attire would be jeans, and a shirt. The second thing she had to leave behind was her family. In India, families are extremely close. Everyone practically lives in one big full house, but she had to leave everyone behind to come here. That must have been extremely difficult. One last thing she had to leave behind was her culture and way of life. Everything from praying at temples, and food, was drastically affected, and made harder to maintain once she moved here. Clearly my mom was forced to leave behind many valuable and priceless things to move to America.
An immigrants to there new home is much like a long guilt, nostalgic, and remorseful reflection. Even though it seems bad it gives the traveler a slight glimpse into there new life in America. My moms check in and out went extremely smoothly compared to the endless amount horrible outcomes. On her flight she encountered both emotional, cultural, and some interesting difficulties. Her first difficulty was when she first took her seat, she could not figure out how to put her seat buckle on, and it took her a few minutes to figure out. Even though this may seem strange, in India you do not often use buckles in cars, buses, or trains. Her second difficulty was the new flight food. The flight attendant asked her if she wanted orange juice or coke, and she asked for orange juice because she wondered how American orange juice tasted like. When she did taste it, she thought that it tasted horrible, compared to India’s fresh squeezed orange juice. Then she got her first American meal, which consisted of wilted lettuce, cold tomatoes, and a hard role. Even though the quality was horrible, she said she thought it tasted interesting in a good way. When she saw the eating customs of the other American passengers she commented that she was “confused, and disguised.” Her third difficulty was that the whole way she was thinking, and crying about missing her parents, culture, and the fact that it would be a long time before she reunites with those things again. At times there were interesting things for her to look at to keep her mind busy, but when there was nothing to do, she mourned. Her last difficulty was the plane stopped in Frankfurt, Germany and nobody understood English. So she could not talk to anyone in Telugu, or English. Even though that was extremely frustrating, it did not matter much, because she had a great time browsing through the stores looking at the new things, and commenting on the extremely high prices. She did not buy anything though because of the high prices. Even though my mom had to face many difficulties on her flight, it ended on a good note when she saw the Statue of Liberty out the window from the plane.
When Immigrants arrive here there troubles and challenges do not end. They often have to face prejudice, discrimination, and problems in settling down. My mom did not have any problems in settling down because my father had already settled here before she came. Although she did not have any problem in that she explained that she had to face a lot of prejudice and discrimination. She even says that she has to deal with it even now. She explained that people treat her slightly differently, by giving her odd looks, and sneers. Sometimes they go as far as to examine her and her belongings as if they are different and weird. Those are the problems that my mom had to face and is still facing after she arrived to this country.
What I learned from this interview is that even when immigrant’s rides go seemingly smoothly and peacefully there are always problems and discomforts along the way. Although my moms overall immigration went very smoothly, she had to face much grief and troubles. She had to go through discrimination, prejudice, cultural changes, food changes, parting from familiar land, and parting from close family. So even though an immigrant’s travel story may seem boring and easy there is always some turmoil hidden.
How Many Earths
Jeevesh Konuru
9/30/10
Mrs. Scott
Essay
How Many Earths?
How many earths does it require in order to sustain the entire human population in a manner just like I live? That is the question that is responded to in the software/game ‘How Many Earths’. The software/game asks various questions such as the amount gas, electricity, food, and beverages are consumed and used every week. After processing the information it tell you how many earths it would take to support the rest of the world if they lived just like you. Finally it shows the categories that most affected your result. I found this to be extremely enlightening, and show’s you the places where you should improve in order to be less of a weight to the environment. The thing that surprised me the most was the amount of toll the earth was taking just to support one of the many species of animal alive. I never would have suspected the toll the earth was taking, before I found out that it would take 4.6 earths if everybody lived just like me. The areas that I consumed the most were transportation, and food. The high number in transportation was due to my dad flying often for business reasons. Another reason is because the only times don’t take the car out is when we are going to school. In every other transportation situation we go in the car. For example, when we are going to sculling practice, which is only 1 mile away, we take the car out. In order to improve this we should take longer, but less frequent flights. We should also only take the car out when completely necessary. For example, if we are going to sculling practice, or even going to the beach, we should take our bikes out, instead of going my car in order to avoid making such a big impact on the environment. The high impact from food was because of wastage of food, and coffee. We do not go through any other beverages, except for a lot of coffee. My parents in total have four cups of coffee a day, which is 28 cups a week. Overall that is a lot of coffee, which is a cash crop. Cash crops are mostly grown in big corporations, thus uses a lot of pesticides to create. All those pesticides end up taking a large toll on the environment. The wastage of food is because of the quantity of packaged goods we consume every week. In order to fix this we should cut down on the high consumption of coffee. Or we could find an alternative source of coffee that does not use pesticides in there crops. In order to fix the amount of packaged items thrown out we could try to find more bio-degradable alternative packaging or foods overall. It takes 4.7 earths to sustain everybody if they lived like me. Even though it would be fine if we had that many earths we only have one. So in order to fix this, I will take what I learned from completing this game and reduce my impact on the earth.
Celebrate Freedom Week-Essay
Jeevesh Konuru 9/21/10 Mrs. Scott World Geography Opportunity Does the age old sentence saying we have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from the declaration of independence still play a part of our life and community today? Thanks to our founders, we have many rights that open many avenues to us Americans that are otherwise normally locked. They include having the right to live life the way each one of us wants to; the right to express what we want to; the right to pursue the goals we set out for ourselves. This gives us many contingencies. These rights have profoundly benefited my daily life. One of these benefits is I do not have anything stopping me from working gargantuan to get a good education. In many countries children have responsibilities, like they may have to go join the army that prevents them from getting the education they want to. Another prosperity’s I have because of my rights is I can practice the religion of my heritage. In many countries there are laws that prevent certain races from practicing their religion. On the other hand I have the freedom to go to the temple and worship as I please. One last benefit I have from the rights set out by my founders is to have a roof over my head every day and I do not have to worry about somebody taking it away. In some countries such as India some people have to constantly live in the fear of the government taking your adobe and leave you hanging. These benefits affect me on a daily basis. One of the oldest sayings in American history, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has the most profound effect on our society today.