Parth's 340 Blog

 World We Dare to Imagine Part 3 Name of Organization: United Play Mission : My organization United Play plans to use the universal language of sports to foster understanding and unity among youth from diverse backgrounds. Our mission is to create safe and inclusive environments where young people of all genders can come together through sports in the hopes of transcending cultural, national, and religious boundaries. Therefore, by facilitating sports programs and events, we aim to promote friendship, teamwork, and mutual respect, which I believe are vital in building a peaceful world, which with the current political climate is much needed.  Passion : My passion for United Play stems from my first-hand experience of watching sports transcending boundary and uniting people of diverse backgrounds. Living in Dubai, but originally being from India, cricket was my sport and when in Dubai I had teammates from Pakistan, and they ultimately became some of my closest friends...

 World We Imagine Part 1  Living in Dubai, I had the opportunity to play sports with people from various backgrounds, including many from Pakistan, even though I am originally from India. Despite the historical tensions between India and Pakistan, sports such as cricket brought us together, and ultimately transcended those deep-seated divides. One of my teammates, originally from Pakistan, eventually became my best friend, and despite now being based in the UK, we are still in touch with each other on a daily basis. That there is the power of sport. This friendship, that was forged on the cricket field, was initially surprising to my cousins back in India, which once again shows the power of sports and how it can challenge and change our preconceptions and biases. Because at the end of the day, we are all the same, we all have the same wants and needs, but we get divided by our own people. Sport proves to be a powerful catalyst for unity and understanding and is hence would be...

 Critical Thinking Extra Credit: Five Surprising Moments in Vaccine History  The article published by The Washington Post, and authored by Anna Rothschild is about the development of vaccines and their history. Anna Rothschild is an on-air journalist that covers science and health, which is supported by her BA in biology from Brown University and her MA in journalism from New York University. This article in particular is quite short as it only includes a very high-level overview of vaccines, but the main focus is the 3 short videos as part of a series. I ended up watching all 3 videos to gain more context about the history of vaccines.    In her article, the author Anna Rothschild traces the history of vaccines back to their primitive but ingenious beginnings with variolation, which is a precursory form of inoculation against smallpox. Rothschild then introduces Onesimus, who was an enslaved man that played a crucial role in bringing variolation to the US (or the Am...

 Random Post 2 - IPL  If you read my first random post, then you can probably guess what I will be writing about: cricket. However, I will be more specifically talking about the Indian Premier League (IPL), mainly because the season started just a week ago, and so for the next two months I will have the chance to watch a cricket game (at 7am though). If you don't already know the IPL, think of the NBA or EPL for cricket. Unlike traditional cricket formats where you are representing your national teams or state teams, the IPL consists of franchises representing various cities in India. Similar to the NBA/EPL, IPL teams are owned by a mix of big corporations, celebrities, business tycoons, which adds a certain glamour to the league. Moreover, the league doesn't just consist of Indian players, the league features a mix of the best international players as well. However, there is a limit of 4 international players that can be featured per team out of a total of 11 players as part ...