Day: May 7, 2021

Week 14: Collaborative Skills

Jennifer Hasani

March 13, 2020, was the last day of what felt normal in my life. It was the last day I would wake up at 6 am to catch the B82 and stand back to back with people. I have never seen a crowded bus since that day and that should say a lot considering how many take NYC transportation. I remember my 8 am class that day; kids were popping jokes about the world ending. This one guy came in with a mask and gloves on, we all thought it was super weird, but who knew that would be our new normal.  I was praying so hard that we would have a two-week break but little did I know it would extend well beyond a year. It was a year of personal growth that I don’t think would have changed me that much had the pandemic not happened. It was not Covid that I feared it was more so not knowing what the future had in store.  It was frightening how quiet the streets were and even if you did see someone it was 6ft away with an N95. 

 

I graduated from my living room on June 30th, 2020, as my graduation was live-streamed on YouTube. I can’t wait to tell future generations what it was like because it really is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, well hopefully. It was kind of depressing because I expected to have family around but it was just me and my mom watching from my couch. I’m really a go big or go home type of person so if you told me this was the way things would be back in 2019 I would’ve cried. That wasn’t the case here though, I was genuinely grateful that we were sitting there happy and healthy. The pandemic made me appreciate the people around me so much more. I was so naive to think that nothing would ever happen to the ones I love but the constant fear of one of them catching covid took a toll on me. 

 

 If you could ask the person I was in March if she believed that she would grow as a person as a result of the quarantine, she would have laughed in your face and locked herself in her room. But as I spent more time with myself away from the outside world, I started to do the thing that had always scared me the most: self-reflect. Self-reflection was something I did at night when I couldn’t sleep because I’d said something dumb six months ago. More specifically, I got to know myself and the people around me.

 

Collaborative Skills (review & critique)

Zenayda Bonilla

…When I arrived home the following situation would be like, as soon I opened the door, my kids were playing on their devices most of the time since they arrive from school, the sink full of dirty dishes, and the garbage piled…that made me crazy, and then I started to yell to them. “You go wash the dishes! You take the garbage out!  Bring me the notes book, I want to check if your homework is done!”  My husband is a really nice guy, and I love him, but he prefers to not argue with them, so he waits for me to put the order in the house (for my kids, I am the bad guy, the meanest mother in the entire world and of course the worse person ever) I am the one who says NO, the one how put rules and the one who had to deal with fights. 

When everything moved online, in the beginning, I was okay with the idea of having classes online, I was focusing on the positive things like safety, time, money, and able to do my other things at home. Thank God, my kids and I all have devices to connect to the classes, and also, we have wifi. Things turned difficult when we all needed to connect at the same time. Four people in a small apartment are trying to find a place to receive the class: my younger son (5th grade) in the kitchen, my older son (college student) in his room, my daughter (high school student) in her room, and me in the living room. Then the internet was acting because all of us were using it at the same time. I learned how to use Blackboard, I did not have any idea how to use it, I quickly learned, but frustration arose when I was trying to send my homework and I did not have the internet. I remember once, I had a math exam and the professor gave us time to do the exercises and show our work. I had 15 minutes remaining when I finished so I started to take pictures of my work and try to send it, the time passed and I did not have success. I was so frustrated, I couldn’t send my professor an email, anything because my internet was off and I began to cry, my children came over and asked what was wrong, I felt so bad because I was supposed to be strong for them and now they saw me so fragile in this situation. 

When COVID-19 came, I felt like I was abruptly stopped from my race. The pandemic was a roller coaster which also gave me a tremendous lesson. This crisis changed my life in many ways. For example, I learned to slow down, stop worrying if the dishes were clean or not, and begin to enjoy every moment in life with my loved ones. I learned to listen to others ‘ concerns, be there to hear their challenges and walked an extra mile with them by finding sources. People in the community were calling because they did not have money to pay the rent or to buy food, and sometimes to buried their loved ones. In the organization that I work for, we did a cash distribution in order to bring some relief to those families.  I asked my children to help me to draw and write notes for those families in need. Between my work, school, family, and my own issues. It was time for me to ask for help as well.  I reach out to my professors and my supervisor and talk about how I was feeling, and I support from then, that to help me to thrive. 

There was no escape, COVID 19 put us in a situation where we can say goodbye to our loved ones, no hugs because we can turn to harm. I was able to do my work from home, but a part-time job the income was that much. Yet, things changed when my husband lost his job. We hear in the news the cases were up and things were just worse and worse. I eventually stopped watching the news because it was affecting me negatively. Therefore I started to look for activities to do with my kids, cooking was one of the things. We made different things that we did not try to do before like cookies, pizza, jams, flans, pupusas, etc. I learned how to play UNO, Monopoly, dominos, casino, and Roblox (we have so much fun). Watching movies, I think we saw all Disney movies. My husband sometimes fell asleep in the middle of the movie, but it was okay. Those activities were opportunities to share our feelings, concerns, we sometimes end laughing or cried together.

In conclusion, even though the pandemic ruined my plans or projections it also changes my life in many ways, COVID gives me a lesson that made me stop, reflex, and enjoyed the most beautiful thing I have, my family. We still have our differences but we have a better and close relationship. Yet, I have to maintain the order and to keep telling them what to do, but now I realized that having them here safe and healthy is a gift, a blessing a privilege and I am not let irrelevant things ruin.  

 

 

2020-2021 and My social emotional roller coaster.

Nicholas E Ramirez

 

The year 2020 has been a difficult and confusing year since I was an understudy and was very much under pressure from multiple events taking place and deprived of a prom and graduation.  

 

  The Year that life became real…

 

In March 2020, the World Health Organization announced COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic in which I lost an aunt and two teachers I was really close to. Both teachers were great  and helped me grow from the ninth grade to the 11th. In light of Covid-19, numerous nations have applied severe social removing measures and a lockdown strategy. The pandemic genuinely affected schools, students, and educators. Students and educators were not permitted in school building, and most organizations have changed to a web-based instruction and learning approach, which was a roller coaster ride. Subsequent to being confronted with the truth of COVID-19, following measures presented by governments everywhere in the world, and different plans made by schools in consistence with these actions, students and teachers needed to roll out an intense improvement to the new customary educating and learning approach, working and gaining from home. The universe of educating and learning has changed significantly and we ended up depending on innovation to direct talks and other instructing learning exercises. Our universe changed drastically where we were basically forced to utilize innovation and learn programs quickly. Notwithstanding these changes, life goes on, and we need to live with this new reality which is personally alluded to as ‘another ordinary’. At numerous establishments, online contributions incorporated the transferring of learning materials onto learning the executive frameworks, acquisition of PCs for students who did not approach PCs, and the getting of free information to the class materials to guarantee that internet learning didn’t get restrictive to students and teachers as far as expenses. Students and teachers needed to change to this new method of conveyance. It felt as if we were rushing to learn how to speak a foreign language; from Google Meet, Zoom and Edgenuity which were all challenging at the beginning. Getting to know these programs overnight was a nightmare for all stakeholders. 

Advanced communications, including exercises, appraisal errands, commitment with students and virtual council gatherings have become ‘another typical’. As a result of COVID-19, computerized education and qualities that were already hard to address, are being cultivated to assist them with exploring the 21st century. The present circumstance makes learning on the web and mixed learning significantly more important than previously. The instructive issues and arrangements have been alluded to as Panic-gogy—for panic + pedagogy. Frenzy gogy implies understanding students’ pragmatic assets and issues, including the accessibility of gadgets and the web, family obligations, students sent home who need to track down another spot to live, and monetary imperatives. In any case, it likewise implies tending to the subject of how educators will move into this climate with their instructing approaches. The tensions between parents, (my mom was out of control), school administrators, and the chancellor grew strong. I mean what could we expect if those leading us couldn’t get it right.  My experience surfing the new norm was by far the worst experience ever, but the worst was my parents trying to help make the current situation better for my sister and I who were seniors, and a piece of our joy and laughter was stolen from us.

During this extraordinary time, I don’t figure we ought to permit the uncommon open door we presently must have the option to watch progressively what the impacts of social removal can mean for our emotional well-being. Prior to the pandemic, a large number of us were at that point participating in a type of social separating. Maybe not precisely the same way we are currently rehearsing, however, the innovation that we have created over ongoing years has prompted an emotional decrease in our social contact and abilities when all is said in done.

 

The discussion about whether we ought to stay isolated during this time isn’t a contention I am attempting to seek after. All things considered, I am attempting to urge us to see this occasion as an interesting chance to concentrate on what social separation can mean for individuals’ psychological wellness throughout an extensive stretch of time and with sensational outcomes because of the greatness of the recent concern. Despite the fact that Covid-19 is new and new to everybody, the disconnection and detachment we currently face are definitely not. For some, this kind of conduct has effectively been a direction for living for quite a while. In any case, the current circumstance we as a whole presently face has permitted us to acquire individual understanding into how that experience feels because of the current conditions. Mental illness continues to be a pervasive issue all through the world and consequently could be

Week 14: Collaborative Skills

Arianna Liang Zheng

Today, I would like to focus on what I have been doing as a bird in a cage during this “long” outbreak, apart from being at home on my phone, watching the news about the pandemic, watching movies and TV shows, and so on. I was able to have good conversations with my parents during the quarantine and cooked some good food for them, which led to me learning a lot of dishes and desserts, and bread, giving me an additional life skill during this time.

Below are some things I have done during the quarantine that makes me feel I am very talented in the dessert category; I should be able to be a good dessert maker.

Macaroons

The first dessert I try to make is Macaroon which I love to eat and buy whenever I see it in any dessert store but it’s a little bit expensive.

I had a lot of challenges at the beginning, the macarons didn’t look good (day 1 and 2) and tasted a little strange; I thought about giving up but I gave myself one last chance and by the third time I felt the taste improved and the appearance was similar to the ones sold outside (day 3).

By making macarons I feel like I’ve become more patient. I would relax for a while when I was focusing on making desserts and not thinking about how scary the virus was outside. I am a person who is prone to anxiety, and I was very anxious in quarantine while worrying about not being able to finish my studies. It is my first year in college after all, and a lot of it is new and unfamiliar, and doing dessert is what I found to ease my mood. 

Birthday Cakes

After macarons, the second dessert I wanted to make was a cake, which means not a cupcake, but like a birthday cake, because my brother and mother, and even myself, spent our birthdays in quarantine during the pandemic and since that time we don’t dare to eat the cakes that are from outside.

The first birthday cake I made was for my brother’s birthday. It was an Earl Grey bubble melt cake with cream and bubble on top, and when we cut it apart, the cream and bubbles would flow down like a waterfall. It was healing to see the cream slowly flowing down. This was the first cake that I made, and I felt that I finished it pretty well, and I became more and more confident to do all the things that followed and to be comfortable with it. 

The second cake was for my birthday, it was a normal strawberry and cherry cream cake, and I loved it, it tasted amazing. I believe this will be one of my most memorable birthdays because I celebrated it by making my cake, which was a new experience for me, it was amazing and interesting. Although I couldn’t spend my birthday with many friends, and also although it was my 18th birthday, I didn’t feel disappointed or unhappy, I still had a meaningful and satisfying day.

The last one was strawberry yogurt with waffle cake, which took more time than the first two cakes, it was a lot of work and tedious. While it took a lot of time, I still felt a sense of accomplishment when it was finished. Making cake has developed my patience and concentration. It is meaningful and loving to make a homemade cake for your family or beloved ones on their birthday.

 

Week 6

Janay Quashie

I chose the Science News article  “How Coronavirus Stress May Scramble Our Brains”. I chose this article over the others because I felt that I could relate to this article much more. Before the pandemic I already had to deal with a lot of stress. I take care of all my siblings while my parents can’t. I relied on working a lot. Once I lost my job in the beginning of the pandemic, the stress piled on. The stress of not working, the stress of figuring out what to do with my siblings, the stress of what happens if I get the virus. I genuinely feel like having so much stress hit me like that at one time has turned my brain into permanent mush. I really do feel like the stress of everything that happened during this pandemic caused many people’s brains to be a different way. The author used im guessing interviews with psychologists, brain experts etc to show how the stress from the pandemic affected our brains. In the article, there was an image showing how the brain functions when people are stressed and when they aren’t. When we’re stressed, we have a weaker control of our thoughts, emotions and how we act. I would say this article is an informative text and I definitely gravitate towards that because it’s much simpler for me to understand and break down. It’s very difficult for me to write and analyze writings that kind of speak from someone’s experiences because it’s usually easier when you can understand where they’re coming from and a lot of times I can’t pick up on it.

Week 5

Janay Quashie

Reflective writing is when someone basically thinks before they write. Whatever the person wrote was well thought out, they put a lot of time into their writing. I do reflective writing a lot but never realized it until this course. I overanalyze and take time about what topic would fit in one place, how long it should be, should it be a leading point or an ending point, everything. In a way, reflective writing pushes you to really write your best work. It helps organize your thoughts and organize it a certain way. When writing, I always start off with an outline of some kind so that I can organize and see all my thoughts in one place. I then organize it by importance. For example, with the Discourse Communities assignment I wrote about my community Brooklyn. In my head I already knew I would have to present the problem and then suggest a solution. Once I identified the problem, I formed my solution. However, in order for someone to really feel the severity of an issue to even want to help with a solution, some personal flair needs to be added. I left the ending paragraphs to talk about personal experiences and tie it into why not having the solution at that time was a negative thing. After that, I added a few words anyone can relate to. Not just people in my city, not just minorities but anyone who needed something done and couldn’t have it done. This was probably one of my favorite pieces that I wrote because it hit so close to home and I was finally able to use things I go through to maybe make someone not feel so alone or finally feel like their community isn’t the only one going through it.

Week 14: Collaborative Skills (Yailene Rodriguez)

Yailene Rodriguez

“Besides feeling like I haven’t had an actual routine since March 2020, there have been some positive outcomes since this pandemic quarantine started. I believe the months of being indoors has allowed me to bring out my creative side. Prior to the outbreak, I really felt like I had no creativity. I felt this especially when it was time to write college essays. College essays usually ask you to talk about great achievements and things you have done that are out of the ordinary. I did no extracurricular activities long enough to be able to mention them in my essays. Most kids were able to talk about the sports they were in, the songs they made, and what dance they performed in. Although my school was a performing arts school, I was not as creative as one should be in an art school. My school did make freshmen try out all the majors before they made a decision. I chose art out of music, dance, and drama because art was the only major that did not need to perform. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in the other majors, it was the fear of not bringing the same creativity to the table, as the other kids did. I always limited myself to what I could explore and that is the reason I didn’t join the softball team like I wanted to, or join the school play, or I could have picked to be a music major, which is what I actually wanted. I also had no clue of what I wanted to do in myself and had no hobbies. Looking back and knowing that my high school experience was cut short, I wished I realized how much creativity I actually had. A year later and I now know I have found out a lot about myself that I might have not found if I wasn’t trapped in my room for months.
One way my creativity branched out is throughout high school as an art major we would have to submit a weekly sketchbook of three random objects we picked at the beginning of the year. I hated this assignment because for all three years I was never able to draw realistic still-life drawings which was the assignment. Also with the amount of school work I had, I usually rushed the drawings. Having this extra time and wanting to step out of the three objects sketch, I decided to paint something that I wanted instead of following what the assignment was. I already had a great connection with the teacher. I believed that she would rather enjoy seeing me finally showing my artistic creativity than the same boring drawings I would give her for years. Knowing this I had little fear that my teacher would be upset that I didn’t continue following the assignment. So I submitted it to my teacher and she actually enjoyed that I stepped out of what she asked because she was able to see the effort and creativity that I put in rather than how I used to submit work. After getting that encouragement from my teacher I started looking forward to the weekly assignment and tried out different techniques. I tried pixel art, following a Tik Tok video on a moonlit ocean, making a realistic-looking bubble, recycled art, and drawing on an iPad. I enjoyed it so much that I ended up buying art supplies, something I didn’t do the whole time I was an art major. This was a great way I spent my time to take my mind off the fear I had about hearing all the people who had passed for COVID.”
This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative.This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative.

Collaborative Skills (Deisi Naula)

Collaborative Skills (Deisi Naula)

Deisi Naula

                  2020 has been the most unpredictable year of my generation. It started off with the World Health Administration declaring that we’re in a pandemic to the whole world shutting down. As the number of people being affected by the Coronavirus kept increasing, we were all concerned not only for ourselves but for our entire family and friends. Many people lost their jobs, students switched to online school, millions have died, essential workers risked their lives,  and worked from home. Families ran out of essential things such as toilet paper and food. The hardships of the past year have shaped us into who we are today. If we hadn’t taken the time for ourselves to experience all the memories that we made in 2020, things would be completely different. In my opinion, the past year happened for a reason, and for many, it has been a difficult challenge to overcome. All the negatives that came from the beginning of being isolated have helped us discover ourselves and learn new things. I’ve grown from that year whether it be dealing with grief, learning new recipes, and getting my mental health into a better state. It was getting worse before it got better, and we just had to trust the process. The news kept feeding us with the number of people that kept dying every day all over the world. Hearing these numbers increase every day made us think about death. Many of us don’t overthink that topic because we’re either afraid of it or just don’t like the idea of it. Nobody really tells us how to deal with grief, we kind of just figure it out when it happens.

                 This was my dog, who I named after my favorite WWE wrestler. At the onset of the pandemic started I had to experience the death of my dog. His name was Randy and he died on March 25th, 2020. Randy stayed with my older brother who lived one block away from me. I got a call at 7 a.m. in the morning from my sister-in-law crying. The only thing she said was “Deisi I think it’s time, Randy is dying.” Hearing those words I immediately got up and rushed to her house with my younger brother. He was laying in his bed unable to move with his eyes red. Once I touched him he started to wag his tail trying to get up to greet me and a few seconds later he had a heart attack. My emotions were all over the place and I just felt tears coming down my eyes. I went back home and stared at the wall then fell asleep. A week went by and my behavior changed completely. I became reckless and ignorant. I took a second to sit down and analyze how I was feeling. I understood that I’m in a phase of grief which is denial. I haven’t fully processed that I lost not only a pet but a best friend who was very important to me. It took me a while to realize that I’m not the only one experiencing this during the pandemic because many people were dying and losing family members. Not only that but everyone who owned a pet would understand the feeling.