Jennifer Hsueh's blog

A Trip Down Memory Lane (Response to Laura's Project)

Memory is an concept that I've never particularly put much thought into. I am aware of the existence of individuals with eidetic or photographic memory, as well as opposite problems such as memory loss from dementia or anterograde and retrograde amnesia from trauma. Having too little memory always seemed more detrimental than too much memory, but an interesting question that I had after reading Laura's blog post was: why would we choose to forget?

Altered Mental States

Altered mental states have long since been regarded with the potential of spawning great art. The Beatles experimented with virtually all mainstream drugs of their time throughout their entire careers, including benzedrine, amphetamines, LSD, cocaine, and heroin (The Beatles Bible). The Woodstock Music & Art Fair in August of 1969 became regarded as a bastion of hippie culture, sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.

Bloodborne Politics

Since I had done my midterm project with a focus on the social and political connotations of blood, of which HIV/AIDS played a large role, I thought it was appropriate to explore Mark Harrington's essay entitled: "AIDS Activists and People with AIDS: A Movement to Revolutionize Research and for Universal Access to Treatment."

More Than Meats the Eye

Being neither vegetarian/vegan nor particularly conscious of meat consumption, I often hear that meat is damaging to the environment because of the cost of producing and maintaining livestock. There is ample scientific research to support this claim. Some statistics that I found were:

Face-to-Face Confrontation

This week, we explored the idea of pairing two people up with discrete thoughts and beliefs and having these individuals sync up their brainwaves through conscious effort. The first thing that I connected this to was a video that I had seen on Youtube, where two separated individuals were seated across from one another and the woman confronted her ex-boyfriend about why he had cheated on her (Glamor Magazine).

Man's Best Friend

There is perhaps no animal that has been as cherished by humans as the dog. In many ways, dogs have grown alongside us throughout both individual lifetimes and centuries, even to the degree that their genetic selection has been contingent on human selective breeding. One of the most traditional or classical representations of the dog—the one that I was most familiar with—was seen in the Renaissance. This is the standard portrayal of a dog: a loyal companion to its human counterparts, used often as a background motif or to elevate the status of their owners (Bowron).

The (Plant) Lives Around Us

I was born and raised in San Jose, which is what I imagine to be the furthest possible place from nature. As the heart of Silicon Valley, though we still have our share of plants and wildlife, our waters and soil have long since been contaminated by chemical overflow from the tech industries. Outside of my own backyard, my only significant experiences in nature have required long drives outside of the city to designated national parks or landmarks.

What Do We Leave Behind?

Throughout the artists and artworks explored this week, what struck me was the idea that all of us are leaving behind traces of ourselves in everything that we do. Specifically, we are simultaneously teeming with living parts and leaving some of these living remnants behind as we interact with the world.

A New Perspective in the Laboratory

Hello! My name is Jennifer, and I am a fourth year majoring in Psychobiology. Though I was always interested in art when I was younger, I was never exposed to any artistic medium beyond still life and pencil on paper. I saw art as an entirely separate domain from the scientific and medical career that I wanted to pursue. When I decided to come to UCLA to study biology, I left both my hometown of San Jose and my artistic endeavors behind.

Subscribe to RSS - Jennifer Hsueh's blog