So I've moved in to my apartment. I figured out the T.

 And I had my first day of work yesterday. A lot of orientation stuff. Paperwork, getting an I.D., working out things with a Charliecard.I'm headed out to the other station in Roxbury this afternoon to meet more people.

Comment from Ben Sheldon on January 23, 2007 - 5:32pm

Glad you're getting settled in. Check out JP Licks on Huntington Ave. Mmm, ice cream... too bad it's snowing right now.

It's painfully obvious that I grew up in the south when I get excited over 1/2" of snow (mind yer snickering, Boston-folk), but I should also add that our lab closes when schools close. That means I have at least one day of peace and quiet. Ahhhhh.... Well, apart from the racket caused by the construction next door anyway.

Life at C4K is chugging along nicely. Our recruiting has been up and down (12 last month, but only 4 this month), but the ups seem to have been enough as the lab feels more full than when the year first started. Workshop attendance is still relatively low (3-4 on average), but those that do go seem to enjoy it. I've also started gravitating towards guided activities versus class settings. The more successful workshops have been things like making popup cards, CD art, posters, etc. I've been trying workshops that lead into the tougher topics like digital video and audio with things like dubbing and digital storytelling, but we're still having a tough time getting kids to try them.

One of the neater programs thats starting up is a web development project led by a web design firm. They've offered to volunteer their time and expertise to train a select group of kids to rebuild a website by offering weekly workshops, but it'd be mostly up to the kids to design the site and figure out what they'd like to do. I'm guessing it'll take some gentle prodding to get them going, but we have some really good kids that are attending so I think this particular program has a good chance at doing well.

My random side project for this month is looking into revamping our inventory system. What normally happens is that after all the information is logged into the database, we put a numbered yellow sticker on the components. However, this tends not to work so well for tracking and logging, so I'm looking into rigging up a cheap barcoding system. I picked up some of those cheapie Cue Cat barcode scanners ('fixed' with CatNip) for use as the input and a free barcode font to create stickers for output. Works pretty well so far, except now comes the hard part of coding an Access form in VBA to automate the procedures. Blech. Code.

Looks like we've got a bunch of cool new VISTAs, welcome everyone and best of luck to you in your year of service!

Comment from lauren bratslavsky on February 1, 2007 - 1:27pm

Hey Raymond-

what are your guided activities like for your workshops? And are they contained within one workshop day or over a course of time? I'm working on our youth media lab here in Cincinnati and looking for ideas to for weekly, self-contained activities. Do you have anything written up? I have two activities so far, I'ld be happy to share them too.

And great ingenuity with the barcode system!

Comment from Raymond Varona on February 2, 2007 - 11:38am

Workshops are typically 1.5-2 hours in length and tend to be more like guided activities than formal instructional classes. I usually spend less than 30 minutes on instruction with the rest of the time spent with one-on-one guidance as they work through the main project. I've been on and off about writing things up, but can easily dig through my notes and get back to churning out materials. Here's a list of the workshops I've offered thus far, or at least the ones that I still have notes for:

• Voice Recording and Manipulation
• Silent Movie Making
• Poster Design
• Photoshop Composites (your head on a movie poster)
• 3D Imaging (using Bryce)
• CD Burning
• CD Case Art
• Computer Hardware (assembling computers from individual components)
• Digital Photography (camera use, retouching and enhancement, "glamour shots")
• Dubbing (recording dialogue over movie clips)
• Fonts (finding and installing custom fonts, text properties and effects in various apps)
• Greeting Cards (popup cards)
• iMac Intro/ComicLife
• GIMP Intro
• Fashion w/ Photoshop (use of masks/layers to change colors/textures)
• Photoshop Intro
• Digital Painting (w/ Photoshop)
• Music Remixing (w/ Garageband)
• Webpage Design (basics w/ Dreamweaver)
• Rotoscoping (Animating a lightsaber onto DV footage)

 

If there's any in particular that you're interested in let me know and I'll look to getting those written up.

I flew to Oakland from the Boston PSO at 10:30 pm (I'm a Philly girl so that is 1:30 am my time) and was so tired yet filled with excitement. I can't believe my cat and I made it in one piece! My supervisor from OTX-West (Oakland Technology Exchange) picked me up from the airport. I was missing one of my bags thanks to Delta but that didn't bother me because I was in Cali! My supervisor took me to my co-workers house in Alameda where I would be staying until I find a place. Him and his wife are really cool folks. They've never met me but they offered their home to me. We sat back and talked, ate expensive cheese and drank some wine (now that's my kind of greeting).

In the morning, I went with my co-working to OTX-West to get a tour of the site and sit in on the computer literacy class that he was teaching. This place is awesome! They have done so much already to help bridge the digital divide in Oakland. I'm really glad I'm a part of their team  I checked out my desk and it is cool. I don't think I've ever had a desk before so I"m excited to have one. I can't wait to start on Monday! , I look forward to my year of service and helping OTX-West better server the people of Oakland. Later....

 Naomi

Comment from Mike Matthews on January 21, 2007 - 5:51pm

What up ma! See I told you Oakland would treat u nice.  :D  Hope ur bag shows up. My boss' went missing during the pso so don't feel alone. Keep us posted on your pivotal work for the betterment of humanity. -lol 

Comment from dana sou on January 24, 2007 - 1:08pm

Hey you! SO glad you and your cat made it. Good luck with your project!

Comment from Naomi Jimenez on January 24, 2007 - 5:23pm

Hey Dana! Thanks! Yeah my cat and I are doing well. He started eating and drinking again on Saturday night (he was too traumatised to eat for a day or so). I have been trying to get use to the time difference but they say it should take me a week to adjust. Other than that, I am doing well. I hope you are well and I will talk to you soon.

Later...

Naomi

Comment from Naomi Jimenez on January 24, 2007 - 5:28pm

What's up Mike! Oakland is treating me nice. I did get my bag back the next day so that's good. I have been doing a lot to get acquainted with how my job functions so I've been pretty busy. Anywho, I will keep everyone posted on my work here at OTX-West. Later...

Naomi

Comment from Jessica McCoy on January 31, 2007 - 7:48pm

hey naomi,

Jessica McCoy here, CTC VISTA living and working in Berkeley. We should get dinner/tea/drinks sometime. Also, I'm looking for an apartment right now, too. If you haven't found a place yet, let me know and maybe we can join forces.

Take care,

Jessica

yeesh, my last blog entry was about a conference.  My life really isn't conference to conference.  There's a lot of paperwork and phone calls and activities and sorts all in between.  I guess I just didn't blog in Dec.  Apologies.  

Anyways - to my fellow VISTAs, new and in progress-

Last week I went to Memphis for the National Conference for Media Reform.  Lucky that it was in the middle of the states and in driving distance, otherwise, I wouldn't be able to go.  Quick note- there's a place called Dinosaur World in Kentucky, a few exits before the Maker's Mark factory, and around the great Mammouth Caves, in case anyone wants to plan a trip to Kentucky. 

What a conference!  I didn't have my computer there to blog on the spot but I would say at least a third of the attendees had a laptop.  There were over 3000 people there.  Including Ben Sheldon.  Yay.  

 Every session has audio recordings and a few have video for them.   Go to  http://www.freepress.net/conference/ for all the audio and videos and news stories.

  I suggest listening/reading  Bill Moyers, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Amy Goodman.  Everyone one there had a great speech to say, but I think I liked theirs the most.   In Bill's speech he started it out with a quote from Ben Franklin about democracy is like two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner.   And liberty is a well armed lamb.  Well, that's a great quote expcet it turns out Bill was duped and Franklin was never attributed with saying that.  no one really knows. 

Seeing the Rev. Jesse Jackson speak is an experience.  He starts off all soft and quiet.  As he gets going his speech patters runs up and down like a rollercoaster, half way into the sentence he peaks really loudly and then suddenly drops into a soft ending.  And then by the end of the speech he was energetic, livid, and inspiring.   He spoke of MLK and the Civil Rights movement and how media reform is a civil rights issue.  I just felt that instead of everyone clapping and even some crying with tears of inspiration, followed by shoving off to our sessions, we should have all marched out the building and gone on a march or demonstration or something!  Something that was action and not just a bunch of us cheerleading for our selves.  Anyways... 

 I went to most of the media literacy training workshop done by the New Mexico Media Literacy Project.  Though I am already familiar with media literacy and its core concepts and all that, it's nice to see how to give a presentation that topic.  

 I cut out at some point during the first half to go see the session on Behind Corporate Media, moderator by Phil Donahue.  He was wearing a bow tie, by the way.

 ahhhh.      I've left this blog for awhile now and got sidetracked on other matters, as usual.  Now I'm back to it and it's Saturday morning and I gotta get ready for the kids that come in the afternoon for media lab.  I'll blog more about the conference and definitely about this media lab thing next week.  

tootles.  

Houston? I think we have a problem.  I'm blogging tonight after my first day of PSO (pre-service orientation) in which I have had the privilege of sitting with a group of extraordinary people; the men and women who have volunteered their time and talent through VISTA to help their impoverished fellows.  I am writing with full knowledge that this blog, it's message, and my account will probably be deleted within a few days.

Like many Americans who haven't been directly touched by this program, I have thought of VISTA and AMERICORPS over the years as a vague group of do-gooders out there somewhere.  One cannot imagine without spending time with them just how deadly serious they are about giving of themselves.  The pictures of folks framing a house in New Orleans, ladling soup for the homeless and helping tutor a child to read easily come to mind when thinking of giving.  Helping to deploy the infrastructure that supports the order processing necessary to insure the framers have enough boards and nails, or carrots and peas, or books, is a little more distant in the imagination.  But that is the kind of thing these folks are doing.  If Americorps is the domestic version of the Peacecorps, CTC-Vista is Americorps version of the Army Corps of Engineers.  hoorah!

I feel sad tonight, after 30 years of doing for profit exactly what these folks will swear to donate a year or more of their lives to give this organization that deploys them to uplift the needy.  They need so many more like them and I wish I could be one of them in many ways. 

I have searched the internet to try and find a story like mine; someone whose charitable eyes were too big for his wallet.  I have walked all the way to the PSO before realizing that my personal situation precludes me from taking the final step.  Today I heard a message that I wish I had been able to find on the internet before I came here.   One of the VISTA's said that he could tell who would be successful as a VISTA by asking them what they expected to get from the program.

 I sat and listened and realized that I expected to find a way not to screw my program if I did not go through with being a VISTA.  I realized that I was here because my program needs help, I feel bad for them and tried to be what they thought they needed as a solution.  I think that in order to be an effective VISTA, one needs to want to be an effective VISTA volunteer.  I realize that as a VISTA, I will burnout and be ineffective, but as a part-time volunteer to YES, Inc. I can provide a similar value without risking a melt down that would serve noone well.  To quote the Bard, "To thyne own self, be true, then, as surely as night follows the day, thou canst be false to any man." 

Thanks for the lesson,

Steve

Well I arrived in Boston for the first time in life last night to a scary 15 degree climate. Cold to many, but from someone raised in LA an experienced 80 degrees on Christmas, this was just flippin ridiculous.-lol You know how your foot tingles when it falls asleep, yeah that's how my whole face felt. I missed my first plane @ 620am from LAX to Salt Lake city but was on my on the 8ish am flight with a lay-over in ATL. Goodness gracious why couldn't I have gone to the pso in Atlanta, would've cut the flight in half. Anywho, I'm havin a ball out here in Boston where the accent is apparent. So many green trees and fresh water is foreign to me. It's like a new concept when you're accustomed to a smog filled road-raged infested city. I have like 1 of the coolest supervisors ever (Martin Cheesebouroh) of The Media Aid Center. Basically we give inner-city High School kids the opportunity to learn and get inolved with the film and media industry. We teach various software & build sound stages & TV studios in schools. In 07 I'm plotting world domination! I'm still at the pso so I've gotta be brief. Who've thought I be so darn chatty with my very first Blog entry ever?? Not Mike, no sir. Gotta run. Ya'll stay tuned.

-Big Mike 

Comment from Laura Hanley on January 19, 2007 - 11:46am

Hello from down the road in San Diego!   Best of luck this year with your VISTA experience!

~ Laura

Comment from Corey Funderburk on January 19, 2007 - 3:01pm

Ditto on Laura's comment. Welcome back to sunny So-Cal!

 Hi Everyone

My name is Doreen Young and I am from Rochester, New York. I am attending my first PSO in Boston, Mass.  So far, the Vista orientation has been very interesting and fun!  I am enjoying the people I have met and I am looking forward to a great year as a Vista.

First blog at PSO Boston. Looking foward to the upcoming year of service. I'm from Spokane,WA serving in the same area.  Primarially working with a historical website for the inland northwest.  Tincan is the organization that I'm working under.   Looks like there is going to be alot of learning and interesting times to come. 

Two day PSOs are not so much like month long PSOs like NCCC has conditioned me for.

It lacks Red Cross Classes and creepy looking mannequins.

There's no driver training and pretending you can remember everything about a twelve passenger van for when you become the vehicle specialist eight months later.

There are no uniforms so there's confusion in the morning when suddenly you don't have to wear BDUs and make bigger decisions than "Should I wear my long sleeved or short sleeved grey shirt?" or  "Do you think I should wear the fleece vest?"

There are still people that tell you where to go and what to do.

 You still stay in hotel rooms, but not because you're on spike travel from New Orleans back to Denver.

So a little background on myself: I'm a 19 (almost 20) year old from Ohio...or anywhere. Since I graduated highschool in 2005, I've been travelling with Americorps*NCCC. I almost went back as a second-year corpsmember so I could be on a sweet team with someone from my original team being my TL, but I decided against it. 

 NCCC, for me, consisted of gutting houses all day (taking anything and everything out of a house like mud, carpet, toys, dry wall, furniture, sinks, mirrors, and windows...not in the order), everyday; canoeing with alligators in Louisiana's swamps and bayous; attending high school football games in the Chicksaw capitol, and freezing on the weekends while hiking around the streets of Denver.

After graduation, I deliberated for a couple of weeks in Ohio about what I should do exactly.

VISTA and I had this long conversation about why I should join it and why it would be good for me.

Comment from Catherine Moore on January 18, 2007 - 6:01pm

Hello hotel roomie! Indeed, I imagine the VISTA will be quite different than the NCCC AmeriCorps experience, but definate props to you for pursuing both, and I still want to hear more about your NCCC experience!