5/4/20 Fiona Wang Period 8

Modern Mythology 2020

5/4/2020

Fiona Wang Period 8 #29

Write about what you learned in your online English lessons.

In my most recent English lesson, I learned about how ghosts and the after-life are regarded in contemporary Western culture. I learned more in-depth about what ghosts are, why we fear ghosts, and where the belief about the existence of ghosts comes from. Something I thought was interesting is parapsychology, which is a field of study regarding the investigation of paranormal and psychic phenomena and often thought of as pseudoscience. There’s a general belief that humans and animals have souls, and those souls contain energy. Energy can’t be destroyed, so the “souls” remain. We fear ghosts because we don’t know what they want and like Nathan Heller said in his article, we fear the unknown.   

What is it like working from home?

Working from home is a little different than learning at school. The first couple of days working at home were a little strange but the changes weren't drastic. A lot of the work I was doing in most of my classes already implemented technology in teaching, so the difference wasn't extreme. I found that the workload is actually more manageable when working at home because now I have much more time to do my work. I also liked that I don't have to wake up as early as I used to or spend two hours commuting to school every day. However, I realized that because I'm at home pretty much all the time, it has become more difficult to focus on my work with the numerous distractions everywhere.

What are the updates around the world/community regarding the virus?

More states are allowing some businesses to open up despite rising coronavirus cases and warnings from health officials that reopening too soon can lead to a new wave of deaths and cases. Trump’s administration projected a steady rise in the number of cases over the next couple of weeks, estimating that the daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1. In addition, the forecasts imply that there will be about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, which shows that even though the U.S. has been taking measures to combat the virus, reopening the economy will make it worse. Currently, New York City has 13,536 confirmed coronavirus deaths, with the total number of cases in the city at 170,534.