a spread from june !

it’s been a while since i posted.. my hiatus went on for quite a while HAHA. the last time i posted i was still a high school student... now i’m a rising second year at uni and we are in the middle of a pandemic w o w

Read More, Read Better

Many of us are looking for more ways to enjoy our time at home in these stressful circumstances. Some of us have turned to books. But how can we make sure we get the most out of them?

There are so many volunteer opportunities that you can participate in without having to leave the sanctuary you call home! Here are some websites I discovered that I use to rack up those volunteer hours. 

Smithsonian Digital Volunteers

The Smithsonian Transcription Center asks for volunteers to transcript various of old documents into a digital form. This is by far the easiest way to volunteer where you do not really need any special skills to help.

Here are the instructions on how to help! general and advanced tips.

United Nations (UN) Volunteering Service

There are various of opportunities to help using your particular skill set including: art and design, translation, writing and editing, outreach and advocacy, teaching and training, research, project development and management, technology development and a whole lot more!

Catchafire.org 

This website is a unique search engine to find volunteer projects and organizations. 

Translators without Borders

If you are bilingual, this is for you! Translators without Borders asks to transcript a document from one language to another. So it is ideal to be fluent in that language.

However, you do have to fill out a Translator Application Form before you can volunteer. Here is the form. 

Zooniverse

Calling all STEM majors! All of these volunteer projects can give you a taste of researching that require no history of research experience. This is a great way to dip your feet into the research aspect of many fields. Honestly, this does not seem like you are “working” and is a lot of fun. 

Project Gutenberg

2020-7-16

Another day of breakfast at my desk 

Rushed notes and rough drafts before I go off to work

🗓 july 17, 2020

1/100 Days of Productivity, 14.02.20 officially starting with my thesis on virtual reality, conceptions of seeing & immersion through wearables i.e. google glass. what a way to spend valentines day. let’s do this.

The teacher has provided a very thoughtful analysis of issues that must be addressed BEFORE we can SAFELY reopen PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

One of the big things my state has been championing for going back to school is using larger rooms such as theaters, gyms, etc.

My mother’s Theater seats 120 people, which is on the bigger side for a public high school. Here is what that 6 feet apart looks like in the seats.Each white X marks a seat that cannot be used. The blue post-its are where they can.

16 seats. Out of 120. We measured the stage as well, to try and find room for kids to sit on-stage. 15 seats. This is one of the biggest rooms on the campus, not including the gym. 30 students, not including the teacher.

Average class size in her school before the pandemic started is 35 at the lowest. I’ve been in high school classes that range closer to 45.

There is an extremely confusing schedule still being hammered out that would involve class sizes being shrunk and finagled around, the semesters changed to quarters etc. etc. The expectation is that the teachers will sanitize their classrooms between the classes. Which is a pain, but teachers will absolutely do that. Good teachers go way above and beyond for their students.

And then the district told them that they have to provide their own PPE.

I live in a big city. You still can’t find good masks around here, gloves are in short supply. Hand sanitizer has finally been swooping back in, lysol wipes or anything like that are not. As of 7/8/2020, their union is still fighting tooth and nail for PPE to be provided. All while our Covid-19 cases continue to explode up.

I’m in California. She’s in a really good district, with decent funding and a great facility. We’re literally in one of the best-case scenario areas. I can’t imagine how the fuck these negotiations are going elsewhere, places with less funding in states run by fucking idiots.

- a parent or childcare professional (like a nanny) could be available throughout the day to supervise the kid and provide assistance

- parents would have to supply the computer and Internet needed

- the kid has to have had good enough grades prior to going online that they aren’t considered a risk for falling behind

The obvious problem with these guidelines is that they favor rich, well-off parents who can afford to cover these conditions. My mother lives in a poor state, so a large swath of kids aren’t going to fall into that category. That’s why the teacher was reporting on it, because it’s unfair and quite possibly illegal.

But on the other hand, I can understand why the school is considering these guidelines. In rural areas where it’s “too expensive” for companies to provide high speed Internet, online instruction has been impossible. Even my mother, the teacher, doesn’t have internet at her house fast enough to stream video, and it has a tight data cap. She would have to go into school anyway just to record her lessons, and then only half the class or so would be able to watch them without going into the public library or somewhere else with public wifi, which is something we’re trying to avoid.

The fact is that systemic issues have brought us to this point. Public schools are underfunded. Teachers are not being paid overtime for the extra work they’re having to put in to change to online instruction (for example, in case they move online my mother’s school made her move to a new software program, and unlike the last one this one doesn’t allow you to import lessons plans so she has to retype them all by hand, not just this year but EVERY year, and that takes hours, which she usually has to spend during her own unpaid time because elementary teachers do not get adequate breaks to do everything they have to during paid school day time). Internet, despite being at this point indispensable to modern life, is not provided to all people in our country because it’s still considered a product and not a utility. And all these problems have collided and they’re coming down on teachers’ heads.