COGNITIVE SURPLUS

MY PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON THE VIDEO

What are your personal reflections about this video?
Mr. Shirky is going in the correct way accordingly to what I think an individual should represent in his/her society. I agree with the fact that media has been underestimating us for far too long and now it's undeniable, we are producers an as much as we like consuming our nature compels us to do and share our product. Now with that said, there is something we should add to his project. How great would it be if this producing was taking place during social labor? Not just anything as Shirky suggests, but specifically a discourse that is ment to change our society, that fullfills us as human beings. That would truly be the ultimate use of our cognitive surplus. just priceless.

Has it challenged you to think about your activities and how you spend your free time?
Between classes and work I have little time for my self. I tend to spend it with my loved ones. Actually this semester I feel I've become more of a producer because of the different requirements. There's this one class in which we have to create our own material for children's early stimulation and I've combined my new ecological consciousness in recycling material and using it wisely so I won't spare it. I still have some trouble with cutting down my T.V hours I'm an addict. I really need to stop watching some programs that make me feel nauseous afterward ha ha.
Are you primarily a consumer or do you produce and share as much or more than you consume?
I consume more than I produce. When I get a backyard and start a plantation maybe I will be able to say it's a tie.

Does it help you appreciate the social action you are doing for this class?
It makes me feel like I am making an impact and it doesn't matter if what I'm doing is entirely correct. The thing is I'm doing something and for all the right reasons. On top of that it's a selfless act and whatever the outcome I will learn from it.

MARÍA COMES TO VISIT US

Sunday, July 26 / 09

María has been diagnosed with diabetes recently and her mom is calm about it, but she contact the foundation for information. They appointed my mom and they both set up the meeting quickly to see if María can be tempted to go to the camp next weekend (from August 2 to August 9).
Sunday after lunch they arrived at our doorway and we welcome María and mom to our house. We begin with some question about how she's been handling the situation so far in terms of medication, food and livestyle. We tell her to throw away that "insuline"she's been using and give her a new one that will at least last for a month or more. We give her a brandnew glucometer and explain the opertion of it.
Then we use the guide to explain basics and more compicated information of the care she sould be taking of herself. She's only 7 so mom is the one that we adress more, but ask for her opinion on food menu and on how she feels about the situation. We have a parents manual to give for María's mom. We tell her about the subects she can find and ask her if she need something else.
After almost 4 hours of talking we explain about the camp. María's mom is concerned because she's young, but we tell her about the security of it, about the doctors available 24/7 and the guides sleeping with the small groups made accordingly to gender and age. And we give the example of 5 year olds going and returning to home controling their own sugar levels. It seems as we have convinced her so we explain the system of taking the children to a certain point in the city (Alban Borja) and leaving in the same bus to Quito with my mom. My mom has to return because of her job, but then she goes back to Quito and brings the children back to Guayaquil.

I value this opportunity as well as the other. I got to meet an incredible little girl and now I'm involve in her life, hopefully I can help her to keep controlled her condition. It's amazing how they let us in and how we can make a change in their lives.

Geaovanny and Melissa - Lomas de Sartgentillo, Guayas

Me and my mom set out for Lomas de Sargentillo, more or less 1hour and 40 minutes from Guayaquil. My mom knows Geavanny from before and now in the same town a girl named Melissa was diagnosed.
I read the material we are going to present to both children. It's a booklet about having diabetes, learning to live with it and all the messures taken in this situation. It is written for the children to read, easily explined, with no technical words.
My mom got from the foundation and her own poket the insuline (hormone that controls sugar levels in the blood, but diabetics don't produce) and seringe, glucometer (little machine that reveals the levels of sugar in the blood) and stripes (where the blood sample is put), the shooter (with a little stain that punches the finger to get the blood) and stains, alcohol swaps, etc. We went to the supermarket and got Splenda, sugarless marmalade and other supplies.
We finally find ourselves in the road. Listening music as a background I take an intrest on learning more about the children we are abut to meet and the job my mom has been doing. We speak about fairness and how it doesn't mean that low income families shouldn't get sick. It means that they shouldn't be excluded from the society. They should get help from the institutions that are suposedly meant to do so.
I thought about the kind of leaders that are the heads of the children's hospitals. I know for a fact they are doing some part of their job, but then my mom tells me that Geovanny was taken to emergency and as soon as they realized he wouldn't be able to afford the medicine they sent her mother to buy some kind of cheaper insuline. This can't even be called insuline. It just kill them slower that the lack of it would. I'm thinking "doctors can't be capable of this". I'm even more motivated to do this.
When we get there Geaovanny is waiting for us on the main street and gets inside the car to show us the way to his house where his family, Melissa and her mother, are waiting. They receive us warmly and I already feel like this is making it worthy. We sit in the living room surrounded by aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, granfathers, etc.
We conversed for 4 hours with both children, showed the images in the booklets and asked if they any questions. My mom explained how to messure food Carbs and relate it to how much insuline they need. We taught Melissa how to use the glucometer, insuline, etc. We told both of them to use the supplies for several days and not just throw them after one use. And we told them to relay on each other children and moms. Finally we came up with a unit of insuline and food plan for eac child. Melissa's mom was following us every step of the way and Geovanny being older and having diabetes for 4 years now, understood for himself which is ultimately the goal for every kid. They are the one with the condition, they have to be willing to live with it and take care of themselves.
Afterwards I took some contact infromation, medical history and personal information. We told them about the diabetes camp organized by the foundation and they agreed to come. This would be Geovanny's second one and he told Melissa about the activities, the people helping and the other children in the same situation as them. We took Melissa and her mother to their house. And after a lot of thank yous from each family and making a schedule for control visits, we got back to Guayaquil.

MY DISCOURSE ON DIABETES

When I was 8 years old and my follow up brother had 6, after many wrong diagnosis and a diabetic coma, he was diagnosed with diabetes type 1 (also known as Insulin-dependent diabetes, Juvenile diabetes). Doctors said the most outrageous things about the condition (one even said he couldn't receive sun light or do exercise ever again). It wasn't until he went to the USA that he realized the real terms of diabetes and how his life was about to change, but not like the other doctors said.
His life changed, but his been living for almost 15 years with diabetes and hasn't experiences complications aside from one seizure when he was just adapting. I attribute the control that he has over his lifestyle to my mom. When she accepted his condition she never looked back. She got informed, she met with different doctors, she even began to create a diabetes foundation. It's only natural that when met other mothers in her situation, she found some that couldn't afford the expenses and that were misinformed, basically completely lost.
Since then she focused on helping these families with the medicines, information and control of their children. Later on the foundation was moved to Quito and now a days she's still involved. She visits recently diagnosed kids and provide all the guide she can to them and their families.
She was always motivating me to get involved, but I always found a loop hole and got out if it.
But now I finally decided to go with her to one visit and it changed me.

Lyrics "The Revolution will not be televised"

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

For more information about refrences go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised#References

The revolution will not be televised vs. Did you know? we are living in exponential times

When we are children we may believe that somethings happen with no other explanation than magic. As we grow up this is no longger acepted by others when we bring it up, so we replace it with the "he/she did it", or even the classic "i don´t know, it was like that when I got here". It seems to me that we go through live avoiding and dodging those situations in which we, individually, need to take responsability about something.
I recently got a link for a youtube video and against my will I actually took the time to watch it. Alarming numbers, statistics and predictions about the population, technology, careers and much more reminded me of a poem/song that stuck in my mind since I heard it for the first time. So I started to compare both and the constrast between them grew by the moment.
On one hand I have the evidence that supports the fact that people relay on technology to stay informed, communicated and basically updated. But then again the mayority of these users do little if not nothing to get involved on a social discourse.
On the other side I have this 1970 song by Gil Scott Heron which, aside of giving many cultural refrences of the time, sends the message of getting into action and being part of whats going on in the world. Taking responsability on our actions and more importanly go out there and act.

1. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpqut_the-revolution-will-not-be-televise_music
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUMf7FWGdCw

Two links. Compare and contrast. Any comments? Post them.

What did I learn thanks to the interview?

In addition to the answers I got to each question, I could appreciate that Betty is very much involved with everything related to Detodas. Also got a strong sense of how grateful Betty is for the job she's got and the support received from the cooperativa. Finally I can't explain exactly how but I can say that she shows a lot of self confidence and pride of what she does and they way she got to the point in which she is right now in her life.