IHSS Blog 2019-2020

This interview I conducted on a person who had served with the Houston police department. This interview gave me some interesting information but also a lot to think about. What he said was that when he saw the effects of pot on people it was similar to alcohol such as getting addicted to it and he speculates that if it were to become legal the problems that you would see with it would be very very similar to issues with alcohol such as driving while under the influence of it and he also says that the only real problems with it is because its illegal he expanded by saying that people not only  have to worry about being arrested because of it but because its not regulated taxed or anything they don't have to abide by any regulations so they can do what ever they want to do to it  he also said that some people will just sell you crushed dark green leaves and it looks exactly like it but also he said that you don't know what conditions the pot has been kept in when you buy it suc...

This interview I conducted with a doctor who has his own practice. The interview gave me some insight to the medical fields stand point on it. He says that he does understand the medical benefits of it and that he wouldn't prescribe it if it were legal he doesn't think that it can be extremely helpful to people who are in pain the only case in which he would prescribe it would be in the case that the person has seizures and that some seizures only pot can stop them and ease the pain of it he also says that the effects of its ability to ease pain is greatly exaggerated but he says that the effects of it are on people who have health problems but also smoking it he doesn't think is the best way to get the effect of the pot and other ways might be better suited for getting the effect of it he also pointed out that there may be other side effects that we are not aware of yet so there may have to be testing which is not legal in some parts of the United States. He also believes ...

The second person I interviewed for my challenge project was Shara Bumgarner. She has been in education for a long time, and for the last 23 she has been at the Joy School. The Joy School is a school that provides an education to students who weren’t able to succeed in a traditional school. Almost all the students would be classified as special education by the public system. In the interview she talked a lot about how she has learned from her experiences both at joy and before that as a public school teacher. A lot of my project focused on the problem of misunderstanding, as that was the area I was most interested in. She did conforme a lot of concussions I had come to after doing my research, however her way of looking at the cause and the solution of the problem was new. I myself was in Special Education when in elementary school a part of the reason I was drawn to research misunderstanding was that I experienced it. Many past teachers didn’t seem to understand how to teach me or e...

Isabelle Saxon April 30, 2020 Interview Blog 1 For My first Interview I talked to Elyse Trusell. Mrs. Trusell was a teacher and now an administrator for The Joy School. She is highly trained in dealing with special education students and has past experience as a public school teacher. Mrs. Trusell agreed with me about the misunderstanding that special education students face. She talked about how she had seen that misunderstanding when her own brother was a special education student and was told by a teacher that he was unintelligent. Out of all my interviews she seemed to most mirror my views on misunderstanding. She talked about how public school systems need to offer more education on the subject for students, parents, and teachers. She did say that the reason it is not already happening is likely due to lack of money since that can become expensive. She said that she believes that more education on the subject would make a big difference. Stating that she doesn’t believe that...

This interview I did with someone who lives in a state where pot is legal and knows a few people in the pot industry. He gave me a lot of information to what a place with pot legalized looks like. He gave me not only some factual information but also his personal opinions on it they were interesting to say  the least. He also gave me the contact information for someone who sells pot for a living. What he told me about how people look in a place with pot being legal is that you don't see that much of a problem with it the streets aren't flooded with people who are stoned on pot he said that the only problems with it are ones that are exactly the same with alcohol like people driving while under the influence of pot and he can confirm that people walk around parks when they have been smoking it, people getting addicted to it and you can see the same problems with alcohol the regulations around pot there are also similar to the regulations with alcohol. He does from his personal o...

Today I was able to get a second interview, and was very happy because it was from Evelyn's park which is very close to the heart of Houston. Evelyns park has a big green field as well as some other slides and outdoor picnic tables where you are able to relax or bike and just spend time with family or friends. What i found out from my interview is that there are more people enjoying the park, especially during the day. Before people were so regimented in their routine that they didn't really have that time to hang out with family and have a picnic or just play on a field. This pandemic has sort of opened up an oppurtunity for people to have this family time and finish work early and be able to enjoy the outdoors. In my interview we talked a little bit about how parks are attractive to people because of programming and events that may happen as well as just being outdoors and almost going back to the basics with green space and parks. This interview made me think about how this...

Nora Mayral Boyle Dr. Roddy IHSS Challenge Project 30 April 2020 Last Thursday, I conducted my first interview, with a friend that went to Bellaire. He told me what happened the day of the shooting, from his perspective. At the end of the school  day,  he had been talking in the hallways, with his friends, around 4:15, when they saw people running, and a teacher approached him, and told him to evacuate the building. “I had absolutely no idea what was happening.” He ended up waiting about 15-30 minutes, before some teachers explained what was happening. Some of his friends saw the victim of the shooting get rushed into the ambulance, but he didn’t. Initially, they had wanted to return the day following the incident, but they received an incredible amount of backlash, and gave students one day off. The next week, everything has changed. There were police officers checking every single bag. There are 3,500 kids at Bellaire, and they were all in a single line getting the...

Brett Busby Supreme Court Justice of Texas Saturday, April 25th, 2020 at 10:30am Phone Call         For my third interview, I was fortunate enough to interview Supreme Court Justice Brett Busby. He was able to share with me some perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic from a political rather than a medical standpoint. We began discussing his initial impression of the outbreak. Due to his judicial position, he was focused on how the pandemic would impact the court system of Texas. A few weeks before the start of quarantine, he got a call from a reporter regarding the potential cancellation of South by Southwest. This was the first time he realized it was going to affect him in Texas.         He feels that, through the eyes of a court system, Texas was prepared for an outbreak. Over the last several years, the judiciary has been brought into the 20th century under the leadership of the Supreme Court. An online filing system has been developed as ...

Anna Eastman Texas State Representative, District 148 Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 9:00am Email Conversation        My second contact I was able to converse with was Anna Eastman, the Texas State Representative of District 148. We talked over email and she shared her insight regarding the current pandemic on a personal and professional level. When asked if she felt prepared for the outbreak, she said that, on a household level, she was very prepared, but on a professional level, she faced some challenges. Since she was elected in January of this year, she had not hired her staff, so she was forced to make some decisions quickly. On the other hand, she is happy that the pandemic has allowed her to become very engaged with other State Representatives, even if it is over conference calls or Zoom meetings.         She believes that social media has been both helpful to her profession and effective for communicating the seriousness of the situati...

Lindy Mcgee Pediatrician/Previous Board Chair of the Immunization Partnership Saturday, April 18th, 2020 at 9:30am Zoom Meeting         My first interview for my 2020 Challenge Project on "Is Houston Prepared for a Pandemic" was with Lindy Mcgee, a pediatrician and previous Board Chair of the Immunization Partnership. I interviewed her last year for my 2019 Challenge Project regarding vaccinations and learned so much about her work at the Immunization Partnership, the significance of vaccines in society, and her job as a pediatrician. Since she is part of the medical world, I figured she would be the perfect person to share with me some insight on how I can be part of a solution and what information I might consider including in my flyer.         After discussing how mandatory social distancing has changed the way she is able to meet with patients, she shared her thoughts regarding national prepar...

Emilio San Vicente 29/4/20 HISS Mr. Roddy How Schools are prepared For my next interview I asked to Ms. Pilisi to explained me and sent me some articles that were pretty interesting to understand more about what happens to schools when face with extreme situations like shootings.  So basically what she explained to me was that schools are prepared in different ways and actually schools in the USA make simulations some times to provide examples to students of what they need to do when they present some situations like this ones. So what I read and also what Ms. Pilisis explained that there are in most of the schools three main instructions that every teacher and students need to know: Run, Hide, or Fight.  With these rules basically at the beginning of a shooting, when you hear shots fire you need to run the fastest you can until you approach to the nearest exit then use your phone to call the cops. The second option if you can’t run is hide, thi...

Joe and Johanna live in Texas and have 3 boys. They are both competition shooters and own a gun manufacturing company together. They make their own ammunition and compete around the country in shooting tournaments. They are large supporters of the 2nd Amendment and what I found surprising is that Joe grew up in a household where guns weren’t allowed. But he was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to learn about and shoot guns. They are both big advocates for concealed carry and they both carry guns wherever they go. One may think that owning many guns and also having children in your house is very dangerous but for Joe and Johanna it is the complete opposite. They taught their kids about guns at a very young age, they’re kids know how to shoot and even build guns. You may think that this is insane but it is actually the safest form of “gun control”. Education is the number one step in preventing tragedies relating to guns. Joe and Johanna’s children know exactly what to do when th...

Mr. Mangaya is an immigrant from the Phillipines and he is a certified firearms instructor that works with the NRA to provide training courses for firearms, he also owns his own company that teaches people about firearms. He has three college degrees and is a licensed bodyguard and private investigator. He started the interview by saying: “ I am a United States Citizen enjoying the exercise of my 2nd Amendment Rights that most people from around the world could never even imagine”. He grew up in a country where guns were very restricted but he was able to shoot and learn about guns because some of his relatives were Police Officers. One thing that he brought up a lot was that an armed society is a polite society. Think of the impact that it would make if more people began to exercise their rights and carry firearms, the crime rate would drop significantly and people would be safer. He believes that gun laws only restrict citizens from utilizing their rights. Criminals don’t obey the l...

Emilio San Vicente 29/4/20 HISS Mr. Roddy What make teens kill in schools For this topic I reach Dr. Blanca Cienfuegos who explained to me why teens have these extrem ideas and behaviors for killing someone. This topic was pretty delicate to talk about, but at the end I finally understood what is behind this teens.  So there are too many reasons why teens kill but the most common ones are that most of these teens already believed in some horrible ideas that were provoked by themselves or by someone for example if they were harmed by their family or in a difficult environment. Another option that we can find is that they could consume any substance like drugs, making them have decisions that they didn’t think about before but now they do. With this explanation we can show that basically these kids were harmed in some point of their lives, and with this pain they want to try to escape in some way because it is too much weight to carry day after day. These people...

Ariela Kluk Mr. Roddy IHSS 4/29/2020 Taking the information from all three of my interviews, I have found a way to raise awareness without being in contact with anyone. Kelly drinnen (one of our interviewees) gave us many ways we can help save the coral reefs and ways we can help spread the word. She told us to post ono our social medias, to talk to lots of people, to pots flyers and to spread the word. She said that when buying fae washes make sure they don't have those plastic micro beads. Don't grab plastic bags at store bring your own re usable ones. All of these small things will make a difference if you are doing it and those four other people you spread the word too. Its all about spreading the word to help raise more awareness. This is why I am going to make two different types of flyers and post them around my neighborhood, sofi will do the same. We will also post these flyers on social media so we can get more views. In the process of posting these flyers...

Kilali Latter Mr. Roddy IHSS April 28, 2020 Interview 3 My challenge project topic is healthcare in the United States. The third person that I interviewed for my engagement project was Carlon Burt. He works at Bryston Myers Squibb which is a pharmaceutical company. He is the regional business director for oncology, which means he is responsible for the sale of cancer medication. I wanted to interview him because he works in a pharmaceutical company and would know about the pricing of medications, what contributes to the costs of medications, and what pharmaceutical companies are doing to make medication more affordable for people. In our interview, we talked about the process of making medication, pricing medications, patents, costs of medications, insurance companies, and things being done to make medications more affordable. The thing that stood out to me the most during this interview was the cost and programs put in place to help people pay for medications. Pharmaceutical compani...

Kilali Latter Mr. Roddy IHSS April 28, 2020 Interview 1 and 2 My Challenge project topic is healthcare in the United States. For my first two interviews, I decided to interview Charles Gaba and Pong Velasquez. The first person I interviewed is Charles Gaba who is a professional freelance website developer. He doesn’t actually have any medical background, but when the affordable care act was put in place he became very interested in it. He decided to start ACA signups so that there was one place where people could see data on the affordable care act. I wanted to interview him because he knows a lot about the affordable care act as well as how the United States has implemented it. In the interview, we talked about the affordable care act, what ways we could improve the United States healthcare system, and a lot of the politics involved in healthcare. This interview was really great because it gave me a more in-depth look at the affordable care act as I didn’t look that much int...

Sara Avalos Mr. Roddy IHSS May 3, 2020 Interview 2 My topic for my challenge project is the journey that immigrants have to take to come to the United States while enduring physical and mental challenges that come with the journey. For my second interview, I decided to interview an immigrant, who prefers to stay anonymous, that came to the United States from Guatemala. The Immigrants journey to the United States lasted from October 12 to October 20 in 1985. For the Immigrant going throw, Mexico was not easy. The Immigrant crossed the border with the help of coyotes. This immigrant got lost in the mountains, the poachers said to hide in the mountains so that immigration would no find them, in the group that this immigrant was in there were more than 50 people. Once the Immigrant was hiding, this immigrant fell asleep because of the large amount of walking that this Immigrant had to do. Once the Coyotes told the immigrants that it was time to go the Immigrant was still asleep. Once...

Sara Avalos Mr. Roddy IHSS 28 April 2020 Interview Blog My topic for my challenge project is the journey that immigrants have to take to come to the United States while enduring physical and mental challenges that come with the journey. For my first interview, I decided to interview Mariel Sanchez, she works at PAIR as a senior program manager. PAIR is a non-profit organization that helps immigrant students in Middle and High school, by providing them with tutoring and ways to get scholarships and support for college. Mariel Immigrated to the United States when she was in high school, that is where she got interested in working with immigrants. She started working with the YMCA International Service Immigration Department. In our interview, we talked about how Trump has lowered the number of immigrants that are allowed to enter the United States. When Obama left office the acceptance rate for immigrants was around 80,000, Trump has dropped that number to 18,000 immigrants that a...

Henry Quillin Mr. Roddy IHSS 28 April 2020 My challenge project is focused on the Obesity Epidemic in America. This is a huge problem and it seems like it would be pretty difficult for me to have any impact, however, while there is nothing I can really do to help bring down obesity in America, I can positively affect people in my local community. To me, my local community means my neighborhood. I want to engage by educating people in my area about how to live a healthy lifestyle. I will do this by creating a digital infographic that shows which foods are healthy and why. It will also outline how much exercise people should be getting every day and how to exercise smart. I will use my interview notes from my interview with Dr. Gordon, who is an expert on physical activity and lifestyle-based research related to obesity, for the exercise portion of the infographic. I will use my interview notes from my discussion with Drusilla Rosales, who is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian, for ...

Andres  Yengle Mr. Roddy IHSS 26 April 2020 Interview Blog 1 For my first interview I interviewed Naomi Terr (my mom) who is a private lawyer that works with death penalty cases. This interview was more of a practice run so that I wouldn;t make mistakes in my future interviews. I still learned a lot, not only about how to interview but about the death penalty. Naomi Terr first got into social work when she took a job at cps. She often talks about how awful some of the things she saw while working there. She decided that she wanted to help people, and one way to do that was to become a lawyer. When she started law school she wanted to become a prosecutor but as she was taking classes she decided that she wanted to work as a criminal defense lawyer. As a college student she took several death penalty clinics which is why she decided to work closely with the death penalty. Before she went to law school she never gave any thought about the death penalty but when she did give it s...

Andres  Yengle Mr. Roddy IHSS 26 April 2020 Interview Blog 1 For my first interview I interviewed Naomi Terr (my mom) who is a private lawyer that works with death penalty cases. This interview was more of a practice run so that I wouldn;t make mistakes in my future interviews. I still learned a lot, not only about how to interview but about the death penalty. Naomi Terr first got into social work when she took a job at cps. She often talks about how awful some of the things she saw while working there. She decided that she wanted to help people, and one way to do that was to become a lawyer. When she started law school she wanted to become a prosecutor but as she was taking classes she decided that she wanted to work as a criminal defense lawyer. As a college student she took several death penalty clinics which is why she decided to work closely with the death penalty. Before she went to law school she never gave any thought about the death penalty but when she did give it s...

Although I have had some struggles trying to get in touch with people, I was able to get one interview in so far. When I called Houston Beautiful I was able to have a short interview with the admin assistant of the organization. Although she was not exactly who I wanted to talk to she still had some really great information and seemed friendly and like she knew a lot about the organization. When I was talking to her I learned a lot about what Houston Beautiful does and how it really has a focus on beautifying the city and encouraging recycling and cleaning up of litter. Although it seems obvious, this isn't something I had really thought about for my project, but now that its been mentioned a park or greenspace is going to be a lot more appealing if it's clean and there is no litter around. Although I am still not completely sure how I'm going to engage, this has made me think that I want to put a little section about littering and keeping the city clean in whatever I choo...

 Ariela Kluk and Sofi Savarese Mr Roddy IHSS 4/23/2020 Coral Reefs In order to learn more about coral reefs in Texas and the plastic around them, Sofi and I interviewed Kelly Drinnen. Kelly’s journey began in Florida where she graduated college with a minor in Spanish and moved to Texas. She did not study Biology, she actually worked with computer science, but her passion for the ocean took over. She wanted to find a way to turn her love for the ocean into a job. She started working at Seaworld and gave tours to people. She worked her way up to being the director of the Education Program and led summer camps. She began working in an aquarium and a few years later got a job at the National Flower Banks Society as the education coordinator. She spoke to us about the beach clean ups she used to participate in. Kelly, her husband, and her friends would clean up the beach once a month for four years. They mostly found straws from juice boxes, plastic bags, balloons, and ro...

Sofi Savarese Mr. Roody  IHSS  4/26/20 Interview 1 To learn more about trash I contacted a local Galveston homeowner, Paige Penchas. My partner and I asked her questions about the amount of trash found on the Galveston beach. Paige explained that the house that she owns is on a private beach that gets cleaned every day. She explained how she does not see civilians throwing their trash on the ground or into the ocean which is a good sign. Paige thinks that the reason that they don’t throw their trash on the ground is that there are very big blue trash bins in close proximity to each other. Paige elaborates on how the bins are kept in good condition and are appealing to the eye. She says that there is no trash piling up and it doesn't smell very bad. Paige explains that the trash is emptied frequently. Paige also noticed that if there is an area of the beach that people are often visiting, there is no trash compared to places along the beach that have no people. She t...