Double-checking measurements

I have made a great deal of progress on my house design over the past week. I did finally fix the problem with the grass, and I made the lighting much better. Over the past few days I have been adding two bedrooms and a bathroom to the house and doing interior design.

I have also spent a few hours each day watching the designer work on models. He bases all of his models off of floor plans and elevation drawings, which are drawings of the side of the building or of cross sections of the interior. He imports these drawings into a computer program and then he drags and shapes these drawings into 3D models. The drawings are sometimes hard to read because you (the person) has to translate the 2D drawing to a 3D model and 2D drawing are not always entirely accurate. For example, in a 2D drawing of a wall there will be a line for the wooden supports and then another line for the drywall that goes over the supports. If the drawing were entirely to scale then the two lines would be so close together that you would need a magnifying glass to differentiate them. Therefore, turning these drawings into 3D models is not always entirely to scale, and therefore the 3D models have to be adjusted in certain ways.

However, the designer has to be careful of exactly how he changes the 3D models because sometimes these discrepancies are due to mistakes in the actual design of the building, not just the drawings, and in these cases the architect has to change the design. So when the designer encounters a problem with translating the 2D drawing into 3D, he has to consult with the architect to determine if it is a real problem or if it is just a product of the drawings.

Flexibility in the Face of Firefighters and Fashion

Today was a little weird in terms of our schedule and required Daijah and I to be flexible. It was Career Day, so the students spent the morning shuffling from between classrooms to hear speakers, including a judge, firefighters (with a truck!), and the mayor of East Cleveland. This reduced our teaching time to the time between speakers when the students were waiting in our classroom. In this time we squeezed in the Chopstick Challenge (for culture day) and time to rehearse and edit speeches. For the Chopstick Challenge, we put Christmas ornaments in a small tub of water, and two students raced to pick up the most ornaments with their chopsticks.

Daijah and I also face the additional challenge of missing students. A lot of our students were escorts for Career Day so weren’t in class, while others had planned to participate in the fashion show at the end of the day, so were elsewhere preparing for that. Mrs. Wilkerson helped to plan Career Day so she was out of the classroom for much of the day, too - leaving Daijah and I in charge, which was nothing less than exhausting. Keeping the kids quiet and under control for speakers and Chinese class time was difficult without having Mrs. Wilkerson step in to settle the class down. Despite these challenges, I think we managed to get a decent amount of work done. I made the program for the performance and Daijah started on our banner. The fashion show was a lot of fun, it was cool to see some of our students in it – it made me feel so proud to see them modeling, singing, dancing and having so much fun.

Fashion Show - 

"We Ball! Enough said!"

Today was career day and fashion/talent show at the school so our session had to be split up throughout the day. This turned out to be a benefit as we got to see how the school works during events. It was fun to still be able to get our lesson in while seeing the school function. Mrs. Wilkerson was a big part in the organization of career day so Lauren and I had a big job in taking care of “our class” in her absence. While our project focus is mostly teaching Chinese culture and language, we have immersed ourselves in the school’s culture and it almost feels like we have really become teachers – and more than just an afternoon activity. I can feel the students becoming more comfortable with us and certainly aren’t afraid to show it. We are working hard on making sure everything is organized for the performance and the students have been teaching themselves through research and are all completely done writing their speaking parts and are now memorizing their parts. Hearing the students integrate our lessons excites me!

Gadzooks! Great Goodbye Generates Glum Gang

Final Thursday of project, and it went kind of like this: well. Long story short we were running through the metrics of the tree recruitment plots with the same efficiency as Grant Gilchrist and his lusciously long strides as he backpedals towards the goal on a fast break only to lunge forward towards the apposing striker at the last second and take the ball from him with great ease.  Sorry that the upcoming World Cup got us so hype about soccer.  Anywho, we would travel with the sturdy enclosures to the various sapling shadows, then work our way through the dense network of young treelings.  On our journey, many an Acacian meanderer inquisitively would ask us about our project due to our innately interesting getup and array of tools. Our garb consisted of the absence of sleeves, which would only constrict the necessary circulation needed for our brains to correctly evaluate each plot.  Additionally, we carried the crucial meter frame of PVC, a rubber mallet, the foot-long loppers, measuring tapes, an array of multi-tools, and, of course, our signature headwear. 

            Trees are in the past, and we shifted our focus to the less glamorous, busy work side of science. Our Friday morning consisted of data entry of the various metrics we have been measuring over these last few weeks, assistance came from the great aid that is Microsoft Excel. Seriously, spreadsheets swiftly sorted and secured the surely sacred science that sensei, sassy scientist Sara, sought to sear into our senior souls. Speaking of that rascal, we pilgrimaged to Parma for a truly bittersweet sendoff at WEST CREEK Reservation. Sara and the team impressed us with their informative audiovisual project.  Now, all due respect to the great BEHI predecessors but Rosgen has to hop back onto his Colorodo school bus and take a trip back to Get-Learnedville and see how we do things in Ohio.  Shale can be erodible!  Sorry for the sass, but no one should ignore Sensei Sara’s emails without expecting a little flack from the boys. On a less jocular note, Sara was really a huge help to our project and we will miss her dearly.

Goodbye,

-The Glum Gang

I'm Ebullient, I'm Sad, I'm Ebullient Again

You know how there are times when higher forces can't decide whether Cleveland should be 77 degrees and sunny or 35 degrees with winds that can relocate your typical clan of dwarves (There are typical dwarf families)? Yeah, that was pretty much my day: a ceaseless, ebbing and flowing revolution of emotional peaks and valleys. It began with a downright comical editorial meeting and culminated with me sitting at my desk, staring at a screen, and contemplating my future. Overall, a pretty STACKian day.

Much like the students at Hawken School, employees at STACK seem to come to work with just a little more pep in their collective step on Fridays. This leads me to believe that TGIF accurately applies to just about anyone with 10 fingers and 10 toes. Wisecracking Senior VP, Josh Staph, came in with an all too relatable anecdote about misrecognizing a face and just going with it. Mistaking a veiled, green shirt-sporting man for Andy Haley, a STACK writer, Josh jestingly yelled, "You're late." The man turned his head and made eye contact with Josh. Josh then realized he'd made a mistake, but chose not to correct it as he believes that, "you're always late." Typical Josh.

After the meeting, the day didn't really pick up until after lunch. During the morning I spent a lot of time bouncing between PED research and interesting articles about the state of the media world. Gawker.com published an interesting and slanderous article about what it's like to work at Vice.com.

The day picked up again when I visited Brian. It was originally just supposed to be a quick check-in, but it ended up being a thirty or forty minute conversation about his path into journalism and his thoughts on a set of wide ranging topics. In my opinion, conversations like those are the greatest part about project. He's a professional who's been in the field for a number of years and he gave me about an hour of his time just to talk. It was a great experience.

Once again, the day stagnated for a large chunk of time after our conversation. Not hearing back from sources is incredibly frustrating. However, I was blindsided with an awesome surprise as the day had just about ended. The Red Sox's PR guy got back to Brian and gave the ok to my interview with Breslow. The good news is, come Tuesday, I'll be able to check off "Interview professional athlete" from my bucket list. The bad news is that I have no clue how to conduct this interview. That being said, there's little doubt that I'll willfully sink aboard my ship of pride if I completely botch this thing.

Electric in the air.

 

Writing and Translating and Writing and Translating and Writing and Translating and Writing and Translating and Writing and

Today we are putting the final touches on writing and translating all of the features for the guidebook. It has pretty much been continual work the entire day at the Cleveland Height Lee Road Library, except for a short break to watch the Turn Down for What music video (highly recommended). Rebekah's Puerto Rican friend John and Nora's dad, who spent several years living in Spain, are going to double check all of our Spanish work. I am very excited for the guidebook to be done and printed and very proud of our massive 41 page accomplishment. There is not much to write about today. Rebekah had roast beef and corn for lunch that she brought from home, I had a snack of Cheez-its, and Nora had some cucumber slices.

The most exciting part of the day for me was noticing that in the library's tribute to the late great Maya Angelou, they mistakenly posted that she died at age -14.

Whoops.

Turn up Friday.

Emeline, Nora, and I have been turning up at the library for the past few days. With the end of project quickly approaching, we are trying to finish the guidebook by the end of the day today. This will allow us to turn the book into the printer early Monday morning. Monday-Wednesday of next week will be spent at Esperanza. The librarian told Emeline and I, in a very polite manner, that we were loud and gave us our own meeting room. It was very nice of her, however the chairs were hard and plastic. For lunch, I went to Melt and got a Monte Cristo with honey mustard and berry preserves. Yum!

Finishing up the Guidebook

The past two days we have been finishing up our guidebook which has been a lot of work. Nora and I went around to the neighborhoods of Tremont, Ohio City, and Lakewood to take pictures and meet with somebody from the Downtown Lakewood Business Alliance. We are finishing up writing all of the features and we (well, mostly me) have been translating all of them.

We ran into Ms. Scott and her Middle East class at the West Side market and chatted with her for a little bit about her class and what we are doing. She was wearing an apron that said "Judy's Middle Eastern Cuisine," a gift from a woman who runs a stand that talked to Ms. Scott's class. We have also run into Sindhura and Carly on their Humans of Cleveland escapades (they declined to interview us).

The guidebook will be sent to the printers by tomorrow afternoon, so we are hurrying to get everything done. We'll see how it turns out!

Adjusting to Comfort

As I run water over my toothbrush in my bathroom upstairs I remember what is like to have to use bottled water. When I sit on my front porch I can look around and there are no wall or barriers. I can go to sleep without listening to dogs bark and guard their homes for hours. I walk down the street and I'm still in shock that I have the right away. There are no starving dogs begging for food in my town. And the most difficult thing to adjust to is the lack of children working in the streets in an attempt to feed themselves that day. I am very aware that all of these things still happen in our country, but the fact that they aren't evident everyday or everywhere shows how amazing our country is.

I only wish that everyone could look at our country through the eyes of those children working instead of going to school. girls would clean windshields or sell gum. Boys would sell flowers or juggle in between cars in an attempt for what to us would be barely a penny. If I had to choose the most important thing that I've come away with after this trip I would choose this overpowering feeling of how blessed I am to have who and what I have.

Busy Busy

Tuesday was an exciting day! Due to the Memorial Day Conference, I was actually stuck at home without a ride back to my dorm and because my dad left to attend another Chinese conference the only person who could take me to the Bible Class was my mom, who needed to take my siblings to school first. Thus, I arrived to the Bible study an hour and a half late, the first time ever! After finally joining the meeting I listened to the lecture that day about what the Bible says about life. Life is a very interesting concept and the Bible equates life to many things, but it usually refers to the ones’ spiritual life.

After the lecture it was time for lunch. I conducted an interview with a friend over lunch and after lunch I spent a few hours distributing fliers for a weekly Bible study around the neighborhood. Then it was dinner and an hour of prayer during the prayer meeting. Around 9 p.m. my day was finally over, and I returned to my dorm to sleep.

Wednesday began with an extreme sense of panic. I woke up late and by the time I got the Bible class it was already 8:05, five minutes over! Today we talked about the Holy Spirit and its implications in the Bible. Something I found interesting was that the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is equivalent to life, and without the Holy Spirit there would be no life.

After the four hour long meeting I had three hours of study time, where I worked on my own project for this Friday. Then at 3:30 p.m. I went to the Church to hand out fliers again and around 6 p.m. I went to a friend’s house for dinner. Then at 10 p.m. I finally returned back to my dorm, marking the end of my day.

My day started with another clinical visit to a school, this time at Mound Elementary School. As I mentioned in my other post involving school visits, there are many benefits to Metro taking their care to the schools. It saves children from missing valuable class time that they might otherwise have to in order for a parent to be able to take them to the clinic. That is if the parent can spend the time at all. Some of the children's parents are working minimum wage jobs, or two jobs, often times both, and have neither the time nor the money to invest into their children's health. The program has proved to be very successful and will be including 10 new schools next fall upping the schools covered from 2 to 12. After my visit to Mound, Mr. Breisch came to visit and seemed very happy to see what I had been doing and meet my many mentors. Once J-Brizzle had verified that I wasn't just goofin around all day, I spent some time talking to another psychiatrist who gave me valuable information about career paths, further patient time and an enjoyable conversation. The day wrapped up with a patient presentation from the social worker, which was shown to the entire medtapp team. A further example of the colocation and integration of disciplines, it was very informative and incredible to be a part of.

A few more tears

Today was our first full day working on our presentations and we are starting to get a little nervous. While the kids are full of creativity and ever one is contributing, they seem to be having problems on focusing on their tasks for more than 8 minutes before getting distracted by another group’s work or side conversations. We did not require the students to work at a Level 1 but we are starting to reconsider. Aside from the lack of attention span, I do believe we are making progress. All of the speaking parts have been written and now the hard part is for each student to memorize his or her part. We don’t want them to be overwhelmed but we also don’t want a mediocre performance! In addition to our teaching, I have also been paying more attention to Mrs. Wilkerson’s teaching tactics. I like most the way she makes her teaching conversational and relatable and the students are comfortable enough with her that they even know the names of her family members and certainly aren’t afraid to ask questions! She is close to the students but they know her as a disciplinary and she has a very good balance.

PS – Lauren is on the verge of her breaking point. 

Paper Cutting and Patience

Today was probably the most frustrating day of project. So, we are getting ready for our final performance, which includes having the students write their speaking parts and preparing any necessary props (for example, the art groups has to design tri-boards to display their Beijing Opera Masks, calligraphy, and paper cutting). Sounds simple enough, right? WRONG. It seems like the kids can’t focus on anything for more than 15 seconds. I really hope their attitudes change because our performance is in ONE WEEK! It seems like a lot of time, but it really isn’t. There’s so much that has to be done before then – make programs, make the banner, buy and prepare food, and practice.

I gave the art group a quick lesson in paper cutting (we don’t have enough time to teach the entire class). They cut out the character “chun,” which means spring. After our brief tutorial, I left them with the necessary supplies and let some other students who join. And after 30 minutes, they only cut 5!! 5! Nine students managed to produce 5 paper cuts. This is what I mean when I say that they can’t focus. This really makes me nervous...I’ll probably just end up doing the rest for their display because we can’t afford to waste any more time. Things didn’t improve much from there, either. I gave the art group 40 minutes to do some research on the computers about the Chinese arts of calligraphy, paper cutting, and Beijing Opera in preparation for their speeches. Three students will talk about one of the art forms each, and the fourth student worked on writing an introduction for the group. 40 minutes later, the best speech consisted of three sentences. This only makes me upset because I know they can do better. They’re working on these huge multi-part Black History projects, so why can’t they write a paragraph about a Chinese art form? Uggghh

Pics from Paper Cutting...