Wen-Hsin Kuo: WRIT340

Dusk to Dawn: Women's Shelter Dusk to Dawn offers paths to self-sufficiency to women who have lost direction. Our emergency services and 12-step recovery, family living, job training, education and workforce development programs offer a compassionate bridge to achieve and maintain healthy, productive lives. Dusk to Dawn provides pathways to independence for women who have lost direction. Our comprehensive support, including emergency services, 12-step recovery programs, family accommodations, job training, education, and workforce development. We hope to serve as a compassionate conduit to fostering a healthy, meaningful life. Los Angeles is a world-class city renowned for its connection to Hollywood films, A-list celebrities, and all the glitz and glamor in between. But in the heart of Los Angeles, there lies a place where the shadows of skyscrapers cast a veil over a community often overlooked and underserved.  As an international student from Shanghai, I was immediately confront...

  The "big issues" we face as a society often feel overwhelmingly daunting and too big to even approach. Topics like climate change, poverty, inequality, global health, and human rights violations seem insurmountable, especially for a 22-year-old college student like myself. Just navigating the journey to independence feels like a monumental task, let alone making a significant positive impact on the world. Even smaller, more personal problems can appear impossible to change. When I see the issue of homelessness on Skid Row, read headlines about the devastation from Taiwan's recent earthquake, or receive DPS notifications about attempted rape, I'm left feeling so helpless. I'm at a loss as to how I can contribute to making any of this better in any meaningful way. I think it’s important to recognize that even small actions can contribute to positive change. Instead of trying to tackle global issues single-handedly, I want to focus on making a difference in my loca...

“5 Surprising Moments in Vaccine History” is a very interesting Washington Post article written by Anna Rothschild. In addition to the written excerpt, Rothschild also created an educational three part video series that addresses the history of vaccines, debunks myths, and provides a clear scientific understanding of how vaccines are made and how they work.  In the first video, I liked how Rothschild introduced the idea of vaccines from a historical perspective to provide us with background and context. She talks about how before vaccines, people used the process of variolation to protect themselves against smallpox. This was a very rudimentary and unethically tested method of directly exposing a sick person’s postule to an uninfected person. In addition to variolation, people would also expose themselves to a less harmful cousin (cow pox) that could provide similar immunization. One main takeaway from this video was the observation that people became complacent and careless in get...

Random 2, Post 2: The Science of Happiness  I’ve been listening to a lot of Dr. Andrew Huberman’s podcasts recently. For those who are unfamiliar, Huberman is a neuroscience professor at Stanford and shares a lot of his research and findings on his podcast series. I like that his podcasts are rooted in science. He tackles a large range of topics from optimizing sleep to emotional regulation to the effects of drugs on the brain and body. I find his series very digestible and I’ve been trying to incorporate his tools and advice into to my day to day life. I thought I would share some of my main takeaways here: The Science of Happiness: My biggest takway from this podcast is SUNLIGHT. I had no idea that sunlight has such a big effect on our general mood and energy levels. Huberman recommends getting 10 minutes of direct sunlight as soon as you wake up every morning. This serves as a natural wake-up call and increases early-day cortisol release to prepare the body for better sleep at n...