#then again september may be the only really applicable month for this given how many articles there were from his album release | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oaimniynaug · 5 years

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I came to Los Angeles to do a PhD, but will leave - in time to come - with so much more

November 17, 2019 I want to first capture the details of my dissertation proposal defence as far as possible, because beyond its significance as a PhD milestone I think it symbolises my personal growth too. From that, I want to reflect on the four ways I think I have grown and matured in Los Angeles. The proposal itself had been one year in the making. The first two or three drafts were prepared for the Ministry of Social and Family Development in November 2018, and after two rounds of review and feedback - in March and June 2019 - I was successful with the grant application in July 2019. S$96,000 for a junior scholar is a big deal, and I was very proud of the achievement, yet unlike past instances of success it didn't feel necessary to scream and shout about it on social media. That itself, in retrospect, was quite the progress, because I didn't need to show off. Instead, my attention shifted to turning the grant application into my dissertation proposal, and I started asking five UCLA faculty members - in August 2019, after arriving in St. Louis with Martin - if they would be on my dissertation committee. I was genuinely surprised that all of them agreed without hesitation, and even more surprised that they were excited for my project. At Martin's in St. Louis it was also the perfect environment to read and write, and in that one month I cleared two years of hoarded readings, improved my literature review, and further strengthened the draft. The old me - even when I started the PhD programme in 2017 and even years of training under a seasoned Singaporean editor - would've scoffed at reviews and suggestions to improve my drafts. For instance, I reacted very badly to the initial results of my written comprehensive examination in June! With the dissertation proposal, across the two months in September and November (and through the awfully painful and expensive dental ordeal), I edited two more drafts of the proposal based on feedback gathered from the five members, whom I met with in-person at least once (and multiple times with the advisor). The week of the defence. Monday, I woke at 3.45am to catch a flight out from St. Louis at 6am, waited an hour for a ride out of the LA airport, went to the gym, unpacked, before getting a dental consultation for a final procedure on Tuesday morning. Tuesday, I woke at 5.30am to hit the gym until 8am, before completing one of the most painful dental procedures at 9am. I prepped for class, finished final revisions to my interview guide, and then taught from 5pm to 7pm. on Wednesday, I woke at 7am for yoga at 7.45am, and right after that, I started to get nervous. I had only gone through my slides and script once (both of which I had prepared the week before), and the defence was at 1.30pm. But as it turned out, I didn't have to worry about the rehearsal. My script had 11 pages; I didn't go past the third. I had 28 slides; I didn't go past the 11th. For sure, I felt a little nervous throughout the two hours. I had barely spoken for 15 minutes, and on the 11th slide about my research questions my five committee members never stopped offering suggestions or thinking about how the questions could be strengthened as well as how I could fit the findings into my dissertation and future research papers. I was worried that my remaining 17 slides and eight pages of script would no longer be compatible with what they were now proposing and I was worried that they would make me go through one more round of changes before passing me. The opposite was true, and I had a hard time believing them when everyone was so effusive. Who said what remains fuzzy to me - though I've probably written some of the comments down amidst my substantive notes - yet it was along the lines of: That despite how I may feel, the defence went really well; that this was one of the most enjoyable and constructive proposal defences they have attended, given how the committee members built upon one another and were genuinely concerned about helping me improve; and that everyone in the room was invested in my dissertation and in my growth as a scholar. I could barely stifle my emotions when they were talking about what I might do or accomplish, research-wise, in the future. I've had the benefit of having good mentors in Singapore, yet this felt a little different because all five committee members knew my work and my research in much greater detail - besides seeing me in class as an undergraduate, a graduate student, or as an intern or researcher, through which my Singaporean mentors have observed me - and they had no reason to offer praise or recommendations if they did not mean it. I felt empowered and energised. And I was prompted to reflect on my personal life too. — The PhD is still important to me. At the same time, it is now one of the many things in life which I treasure. 1. Sexuality and Martin: I've thought and written extensively about both my sexuality and my relationship with Martin, and there is little doubt that a lot of good things have happened since I've come to terms with who I am and since I met him (June 3, 2018). I never could've imagined my life panning out the way it has thus far, and at the same time it has given me confidence for the future. My family and my parents remain in the dark about this important part of my life, and whereas I have been apprehensive about broaching these subjects, I feel like I've grown to be more comfortable in my own skin. My biggest change, I think, is becoming more expressive or emotional (and therefore less stoic). I used to surround myself with a protective bubble for fear of being undermined or judged, yet since I've arrived in LA I've had my eyes opened. Think about this too: I even met and reconciled with Kate in New York, in August this year, when in the past I would've shied from the topic and avoided talking about past chapters of my life. At some point in the future I hope I will have absolutely nothing to hide, and the good thing is that the moment has never felt closer. 2. Personal relationships in Singapore and in Los Angeles: Without going into too much details of my growing-up and education experience in Singapore - especially through junior college and National Service, being arrogant, competitive, and accustomed to keeping to myself - I am learning what it means to be genuine and to be a friend in LA. Notwithstanding the fact that Martin had been texting my colleagues and friends, it felt special to have them wish me well and to celebrate the moment together. In fact, through my two years in the programme, folks like Jason, Melanie, and Michele have grown me what it means to be truly happy for someone else, to not see life as a zero-sum competition. Through Martin too, I've made so many new and dear friends in LA, many of whom I'll continue to know more about. In turn, and again as a result of both my sexuality and my relationship with Martin, I realised that I could be a better friend to those in Singapore. Besides letting so many of them into my life - perhaps in somewhat belated fashion - I've appreciated the need for me to give to: To be a listening ear to them, to keep in regular contact, and to be appreciative of what they do and have done for me. It never occured to me that I could open up so deeply and so intimately with so many of them, and doing so has made me realise that there is a lot more to our collective lives. 3. Therapy: And I've been going for therapy! This is not just a commitment to Martin and our relationship, because going for therapy has always been about my personal growth and development. At the most recent therapy session I spoke at length about the dental ordeal as well as the guilt and frustration I experienced, although in the bigger picture - and for the immediate future - it has always been about building "immunity" for the eventual moment of letting my family, parents, and loved ones in. I still have between two to four years (hopefully!) in the United States, so I want to be as patient as possible. 4. Professional development: I am proud of my research and what I have achieved so far, and the lengthy preamble about my dissertation proposal defence marks an important milestone for me. I am excited and motivated to get my research going. Beyond that, there are two distinct moments with faculty members which remain etched in my mind and which I want to remember: In February this year with Prof. MarySue, and a day after the proposal defence with Prof. Laura. During each of these meetings - in a university setting - I was given a space to think through and to express how I felt about my personal life, and the space or setting itself gave me much-needed affirmation that I was respected and valued. Both of them listened to much of what I have penned here, including my relationship with Martin, and without these moments as well as the support and autonomy my advisor, Prof. Jackson, has afforded me, I would not be writing this. I still have a great deal to learn, but I look to the future with so much more optimism, excitement, and - above all - love.

#gay #PhD

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juelhuang41-blog · 5 years

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Snapchat Techniques And Also Keys of 2019

Top Snapchat Tricks That You Didn't Find out about

Required help with Snapchat? Look no more!

In this overview, we talk about a few of the methods and tricks of Snapchat that you require to know, ASAP!

To begin with, there are many aspects to this trending multimedia application: Chatting as well as calling Snapchat friends, Calling, sharing of pictures, the filters, and lenses that can be made use of, and also and also Stories and also its wonders!

The Snapcat tricks that it holds within, it is no pity to look them up if you are a rookie to the social media application. Snapchat, with all the methods it has, has actually gotten on a stable surge through the ranks also.

By discovering brand-new Snapchat Tricks & Tricks, you will have an all-new experience of the platform which can change your daily usage of the application.

Here is the listing of insane tricks and also keys in Snapchat, that can offer you the very best out of the application:

1. Saving Snapchat Media (Videos/Photos/Stories).

Snapchat revolves around its ability to send as well as share media, such as images as well as video clips, edited with filters as well as lenses, or even text and colours.

With all the hype concerning sharing of media, one fact of Snapchat is that after a collection amount of time, the picture or video disappears and can not be viewed once more, in addition to a replay given.

Applications readily available on the iTunes Shop, or on the Play Shop, are an amazing way to fulfill your wish. In order to save media you wish to see once again, there are a couple of tools that you can take help of:

1) SnapSave: An app that can assist you download received Stories/Photos. It is offered for iOS tools and also available on the iTunes Shop.

2) SnapBox: One more app that allows you to download Stories and also images. Available only on the iTunes Shop for iOS gadgets.

3) Casper: An Android app readily available that can help you save Stories or Photos. It can likewise be downloaded and install from their internet site www.casper.io

4). SaveMySnaps: Readily Available on the Play Shop for Android devices, it enables you to conserve Stories and also Photos from Snapchat. It can additionally be downloaded from their web site www.savemysnaps.com

However greater than every one of these applications, the most practical is to simply take a screenshot of the image! There might be several ways to download and conserve a photo, which you would favor, however more than those complicating ways, just record the screenshot of those minutes!

2. Video Movement! Make your videos enter any motion.

Videos are quick paced as well as a blink of an eye can miss out on the primary plot of it! With this in idea, Snapchat introduced a function where you can edit the rate of a video clip! The three extra settings provided are to speed up the video up, to reduce it down, as well as to rewind it.

Aptly put, as standard as using a filter, the snail icon illustrates slow motion, the bunny for fast forwarding, as well as the backward arrow to rewind. Straightforward and effective.

3. Exactly how to stop continuous video on Snapchat

You always wonder why people often upgrade quotes or words when the stories are been bet 3-4 sec. Or you haven't review the quote or appropriately taken a look at the picture and also the tale has ended.

It really feels dreadful yet here is the remedy, the method is really small and you can utilize this method in Instagram stories likewise, so whenever you play the tale simply hold your thumb or any type of finger on the screen, the story will eventually stop permitting you to quickly view the post. 4. You can recover old Snapchat lenses.

Back in September of 2015, Snapchat initially introduced lenses! With this, video clips as well as pictures were amped up with fashionable awesome designs, and also it made the individuals locate innovative and amusing means to utilize it.

Because of pest concerns, Lens shop was enclosed 2016.

Currently, that did not hinder individuals from discovering ways to have accessibility to the old lenses again.

On iOS, Most likely to Settings > General > Date and also Time, switch off "Establish Automatically" Establish the day as necessary, and you will have accessibility to the lenses once again!

On Android, Go to Settings > Date and also Time, Uncheck "Automatic Day as well as Time" Establish the day as necessary, as well as be as fashionable as you can with the lenses!

When you have actually used your fair share of these lenses, it is encouraged to go back to the setups and also set the date and also time to be automated. This will certainly prevent prospective injury to various other applications that may be affected.

5. Lens Traveler

Snapchat's Lens Traveler permits you to discover as well as open thousands of lenses produced by many Snapchat users utilizing Lens Studio.

Since Snapchat launched Lens workshop in 2017, Developers have submitted around 10,000 one-of-a-kind lenses that have been seen over 2.5 billion times by Snapchatters.

To use this traveler, faucet on the brand-new icon when the lens carousel is running. Touch the lens tile to open up a lens, and also you will certainly be taken to the snap cam, you can also browse for lenses in highlighted tales.

You can open a lens by swiping up on the breaks of these featured tales.

The lens traveler is not available for everyone as Snapchat revealed that it is available to the iOS users as well as will soon be available to the Android customers in the coming months. 6. You can include brand-new pals without having their calls.

You can add brand-new friends on your Snapchat by searching for their Email address, Usernames. You can also welcome individuals from Facebook and email.

However, if you have shed your close friend's contact, there is one more means you can get in touch with them on Snapchat. Snapchat provides an additional means to add your buddies.

" Add Nearby" is a feature that allows you to add pals or a group of friends by searching for them in nearby areas. Sometimes, this is extremely valuable!

To do this, go to "Include Friends", after that choose "Include Close-by"!

That's all there is to it!

7. Accessibility More Shades!

There are various colours within the shade slider that are conveniently available. In order to utilize those which are out the slider itself, drag your finger across the screen to various locations!

If you require to make use of black, weigh down on the colour slider and drag your finger down best corner of your display!

If you require to utilize white, push down on the colour slider and drag your finger to the leading right edge of your screen.

For other colours, drag your finger from the colour slider to the left across the screen. After that glide your finger to the bottom, and you'll be able to pick shades that are absent on the colour slider.

8. Dual Filters!

It obtains a little dull to choose from the limited number of filters Snapchat has to offer, does not it? Well, did you know that you can make use of greater than one filter at once? Yes, that's right. Snapchat allows the usage of 2 or even more filters on the same breeze.

To do that, click your picture and swipe left, select a filter of your selection. After that hold it down with one finger and swipe left once again to locate the second filter. Now you have 2 overlapping filters. Currently your breeze is all excellent to publish!

9. Break Map Explorer!

Ever Since Snapchat Launched Snap map numerous individuals have been using it to overtake their snap buddies.

This function is a tourist guide as to what's taking place on the snap map! To access this function just touch on 'New Updates'

These discover updates typically appear when your breeze buddy is on a holiday, road trip, and also a lot more-- like checking out a dining establishment or a large songs event.

This feature includes updates only from those pals who share their area on Break Map.

10. Resize & Edit Your Messages

When you desire a details means for your message to look, not just can you change the color, but you can additionally position, resize and also angle your message to your liking!

If you yearn for it to be on a single line, after that you do not need to relocate, but if not, after that; you can click the "T" Symbol on top of the display. Click on the message you desire to transform, to switch to text editing mode, and afterwards you can resize it by squeezing or broadening your fingers! snapfacegram

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misssophiachase · 6 years

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Thanks for reviewing part 1 on FF HERE So, I do have a question. Not that we want to see Jodice with anyone else but I need some ideas for potential love interests (not their current spouses). Some that would make for an interesting and possibly humorous, jealous scenario, let me know.

Give Me Love

Actors Candice Accola and Joseph Morgan don't like each other at first but being forced to act together means they can't avoid the simmering attraction developing behind the scenes. Fast forward 8 years and they're due to appear in two fan conventions but given all the baggage and unresolved issues things aren't going to run as smoothly as organisers would hope.

Part 2: All of the Stars

June - 2019 – London, UK

It's just another night and I'm staring at the moon...I saw a shooting star and thought of you.

Joseph wasn't sure how long he'd been staring out the window. One minute the sun was setting in brilliant streaks of bright pink and orange on the horizon and the next it was dark and the sky filled with a shower of stars.

He was due to fly out the next morning but no amount of cocoa or sleeping pills were going to help him relax knowing what the next day held in store.

Candice Accola.

Two words that had the ability to mess with his composure.

Two words that stirred up more memories than any other.

Two words that meant more to him than anything and anyone.

A shooting star emerged moving through the sky breaking him from his thoughts and filling Joseph with a familiar warmth. She loved astronomy so much so that she'd researched the best place to observe it in its full glory. Like Caroline Forbes, Candice Accola had researching down to a fine, but only slightly neurotic, art.

They were camping in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. As promised the heavens were putting on a brilliant show as they lay on the ground his arm securely around her. She'd squealed excitedly when the shooting star appeared unexpectedly and Joseph would never forget the way she berated him for not wishing on it when he had the chance.

Maybe if he had things would be different. Tonight, he wasn't taking any chances and quickly made his wish. Not that he was holding out much hope but the fact it had appeared within days of their reunion seemed almost fitting.

Although they weren't together anymore and hadn't seen each other in eighteen months, he still thought about her incessantly. What she was doing, who she was with and if she ever thought about him like he did her. It just about drove him crazy.

He read the tabloids trying to find out anything he could and every time a new 'love interest' was mentioned Joseph found himself more and more worked up about it. Of course he usually didn't take stock in media reports because they had been wrong about him so many times but it didn't stop him from obsessing and devising strategies on how to break them apart.

Of course Joseph never acted on it, he had a reputation to protect after all, but he kind of wished he could. His mother had told him as a young boy warring with the girl next door that one day he might find someone that he didn't just see as an adversary. Of course he'd asked what that meant and she'd said he'd fall madly in love when he was older and not expecting it. Being eight and extremely scared of 'girl germs' Joseph didn't think that was remotely possible.

Until he ran into Candice at the craft services table with rice stuck to her cheek. Of course he wanted to tell her, in fact his first instinct was to rub it away just to check that her creamy skin was as soft to touch as it looked. But he didn't. Joseph prided himself on being the gentleman his mother raised.

Turns out not telling her about the rice was actually ungentlemanly. Go figure. But that's what he liked about Candice. The fact she had no qualms in telling him just what she thought. Joseph knew then that he was in trouble. Beauty and brains was a tough combination to beat.

It didn't help that just as his attraction grew so did the number of scenes they shared together. It seemed like the viewing public could sense the chemistry between them that Joseph had felt since that first day. Not that he was complaining about spending more time with Candice and hopefully getting to know her better.

The cast and crew raved about her, apparently there was no one she didn't share chemistry with but Joseph hoped he could change that and be the only one. He'd always been competitive so saw it as a professional challenge. Nothing else.

Famous last words.

March - 2012 - Atlanta, GA

Joseph found himself missing home for the first time in a while. Although he'd been working in the States for close to a year now it didn't stop him wanting all of the familiarities from home. He'd spoken to his mother and thoughts of her amazing cooking had infiltrated his brain which he carried with him onto set.

This was the day he saved Caroline from Alaric's clutches at the high school and Joseph was excited about reminding her just how many times he'd saved her now. He could just imagine the cute, exasperated look she got when she was attempting to argue back. Social media had erupted as Candice had predicted after their first scene together and fans were delirious about their onscreen and offscreen characters giving into their feelings. Joseph would have laughed if it wasn't so true.

The scene at the school went off without a hitch which was becoming the norm between them. Even Julie Plec had pulled him aside a few episodes ago and mentioned just how explosive the chemistry between them was. He wasn't going to argue given his ever growing feelings for his beautiful, blonde co-star.

"What's wrong?" She asked, approaching him at the lunch table.

"Excuse me?"

"You haven't boasted about the fact you saved me yet again," she drawled. "I know you were thinking it, Morgan."

"I was," he admitted. "But I'll admit, I was kind of distracted by a bad dose of homesickness." Joseph couldn't believe he was admitting it to her of all people.

"Missing the Queen and Prince Harry?"

"I'll assume that Prince Harry reference was just for you, Accola," he joked. "While her Majesty certainly holds a dear place in my heart I was thinking of my family, if you must know."

"It must be difficult to be this far from home." She murmured. "My family may be in Florida but at least the flight doesn't take that long."

"And without the jet lag," he joked. "I guess I just miss my family and the food."

"I was actually thinking of having a dinner party to celebrate the wrap of season three next week. I can't promise you England but hopefully a pretty good time at least?" Joseph knew declining was madness. He knew this was her way of trying to welcome him and spending time together off set was something he'd been craving for a while.

What Joseph wasn't expecting was the array of English delicacies on her dining room table that night and as he helped himself greedily to the Beef Wellington, he couldn't help but send her a smile of gratitude. The fact she'd thought of him was only making him like her that little bit more.

"Don't ever let my mother taste this," he said pointing to the Yorkshire pudding on his plate.

"Why" She squeaked, self consciously.

"She might not like the competition," he shared. "I can't believe you did all of this."

"I know better than anyone else how difficult homesickness can be, Joseph." His heart almost stopped beating as she uttered his name for the first time since they'd met. "But I couldn't imagine having my family that far away so it was really the least I could do."

"Well, thank you, love," he smiled. The fans seemed to think that was a Klaus term but Joseph had been the one to suggest it to the writers. He was starting to realise he only wanted to use it on one person though, acting or in real life. "You have no idea what this means." He noticed her blush slightly as he said it. If Zach hadn't interrupted their conversation right then who knows what she might have replied?

September - 2012 - Covington, GA

"Now, you both know what you're supposed to do this episode?"

"He's supposed to shamelessly chase me as usual?" Joseph sent her a sideways glance. Ever since her impromptu dinner in March, their relationship had elevated to an extremely flirty friendship. Not that he could recall when they'd ever really been friends. She delighted in teasing him but Joseph would be lying if he didn't delight in exactly the same thing.

"Last time I checked Caroline was the one who suggested a date?"

"Yeah to a movie where I can put at least three seats between us," she quipped.

"Glad to see you two know your lines," the director drawled. "How about we get this show on the road?"

"Happy to buy you a drink later, you know tell you all about being the bad guy," he whispered in her ear tauntingly. "Only the best Moet too. None of these cheap, alcohol props."

"Easy tiger," she joked using British terminology he'd bestowed upon her in the make-up trailer earlier while moving away to her starting point in front of camera.

After the director called cut for the day, Joseph made his way towards the porch where the cast would relax between scenes. It was extremely peaceful overlooking the lake at the fictional Lockwood Mansion at the end of the day. The other actors were filming elsewhere and he found it quite relaxing sitting there and drinking in the Fall afternoon.

"It's days like this which make the job a little more bearable."

"Oh come on, you love it, Accola," he teased. "In fact, I have a souvenir just for you." She cocked her left eyebrow curiously, he obviously had her attention as he placed it on the table between them. She picked it up and read it briefly, a sly smile tugging at her lips.

"I think you should keep this," she announced, placing it back on the table and rocking back in her chair. "I wouldn't want you to forget me or anything."

"How could I with the mention of perspiration? You realise I could write a much better Miss Mystic Falls application? As much as I love Caroline, I don't think everything needs to rhyme."

"Hey," she growled, slapping him from her chair. "We can't all come from the birthplace of William bloody Shakespeare."

"First easy tiger and now the emphatic use of bloody as a makeshift middle name, I'll make a Brit of you yet, love."

"We'll see, Morgan," she muttered. "So, apparently you promised me a really expensive drink." Joseph wasn't sure whether to mention it, he didn't want to come across too eager or anything. But the fact she brought it up was a good sign.

"Well, of course. It's the least I owe you after having to put up with me all day."

"Not sure your thousands of twitter followers would agree, they seem extremely excited about you sharing so many scenes with 'you know who'."

"I didn't realise you followed me on twitter, love?"

"Call it professional courtesy," she shot back, her left eyebrow cocked lazily. "And you really didn't know?"

"Fine, you got me. I've been following you since the beginning for exactly the same reason," he lied. "Dana?" Her face broke into a gorgeous smile as he recited her cheeky reply to one of his tweets.

One drink had led to more at Red Phone Booth whiskey bar in Atlanta. Joseph said the establishment's name was part of her British transition. He was trying to ignore just how gorgeous she looked as they talked across the bar and felt himself slowly losing all his inhibitions. He remembered brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear and placing a chaste kiss on her cheek before escorting her to her accommodation. Who knew he had such impeccable manners? His mother would be proud even if he did have to take a cold shower when he returned to his hotel.

January - 2013 - Atlanta, GA

"There's been two massacres. Pastor Young's farm is here, and the old Lockwood cellar, where you spitefully slaughtered 12 of your own hybrids, is here. According to the book, the expression triangle is equilateral, putting it here."

"Somebody's been skipping their geometry classes. There are actually two places where the third massacre could be." He drew the extra lines on the map as she watched him curiously.

"Well, you didn't let me finish." They held each other's gaze because the scene called for it but Joseph knew it was the built up tension between the two co-stars who couldn't resist each other any longer. He could sense it in her eyes, her demeanour and the fact that her breathing had quickened slightly.

He could barely wait until they called cut and once they finally did he silently signalled her to his trailer with his eyes. They'd missed each other over the holidays, their acting reunion had more than conveyed that, and he couldn't wait to embrace her after all the time apart. Joseph couldn't quite recall whose clothes came off first but before he knew it the beautiful blonde was straddling him naked and he was sucking on her nipples hungrily.

She was moaning now given the pressure he was placing on her left nipple while his other hand found its way south to her wet centre. This was the moment he'd been waiting for and, given the whimper she emitted, so too Candice. He looked into her eyes silently asking for permission but her blue eyes were begging him to continue and before Joseph knew it they were one. It felt effortless as their bodies writhed together, their intermingling cries sounding out as she rode him to climax.

Joseph held her for a long time afterwards, he wasn't one to get attached to anyone but he couldn't let her go. He could feel her heart beating rapidly against his chest as they laid together and decided it was the single best sound he'd probably ever heard. His hand found its way through her golden waves as he placed butterfly kisses across her jaw and onto her collarbone.

"I'm usually more of a gentleman, I promise," he mumbled against her bare skin.

"Like you keep saying, Morgan." She joked. "I'd usually reprimand you but for once I'm not entirely annoyed by your behaviour. Well, as long as this stays just between us."

And suddenly he snapped out of his dream, looks like they were back to professional reality. Joseph had made his fair share of escapes in the middle of the night and it seemed like Candice was giving him a free pass. But did he really want one?

"Of course, we certainly can't risk this coming out." He didn't mean a word of it of course, but this was Hollywood afterall.

#klaroline fan fiction #give me love #misssophiachase #klaroline #all of the stars

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conceptualliteratureblog · 5 years

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Language Profiles: student agency & multilingualism

This post is relevant either to language A/B teachers or to educators looking at whole school literacy implementation ideas.

Thank you, Yi Shen (Sandy) for showing me the power of a language profile in our workshop in Hong Kong (Sha Tin College, September 2017)! This is something any of you can try with your teaching staff or your classrooms to make language a truly dynamic part of the learning process at your school and help people become aware of the power and challenges that come with personal language knowledge.

Some schools will already have a language profile for each student. Often, this only lists the home language(s) and level of English (or language of instruction) of the student. We can do more! Also, sometimes the level of English listed is from an application filled out by parents trying to impress the school. Find out where the information comes from to really understand what it means. Essentially, there are many ways to get more information that can help gain knowledge for the student’s personalised learning strategies, but likely the best person to create this portfolio is the student, at least in secondary schools.

In order to understand how this works for students, try to do it yourself:

Think back to your infant development and schooling: what is your language story? Where and when did you learn language(s)? What dialects do you speak? What slang do you know? Especially if you live away from where you grew up, this dynamic has probably changed over the years. Even if you only speak English, you have probably had exposure to different kinds of English and use a certain type with friends, family, and students. You probably also at one point learned a second language in school. What was this experience of language learning like for you? What excites you about (other) languages? What scares you? How does language give you power? How does it make you powerless?

There will probably be a wide range of responses to these questions from colleagues and students alike. Sharing your language story with a colleague or two can help you to express what language is for you and to have empathy for others who may find difficulty with language.

Try drawing a map of the language(s) you use today. With whom and for what purposes do you speak different languages, dialects, or slang? Maybe your register simply shifts; that is ok as well. Maybe you speak some languages for fun and others out of a need.

I was raised an anglophone. Hailing from Boston, I avoided the accent and local dialect due to the nature of the transplant and immigrant town of Lexington that I grew up in. My parents came from Minnesota and Texas, and each had lived in Boston since just after their university years. We had a blended American English at home.

My mom also studied French extensively at school, so when I started lessons at age 7 in our school system, the fit felt natural. Half of my mom’s family is French and with Québec not that far away, schools in the area at that time all taught French to students as a ‘second’ language. I took French all through grade school until the AP exam when I feel out of love with the language. Suddenly, I had teachers who just cared about correctness and memorisation rather than taking us to see the Impressionist exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts or teaching us how to make crepes. The joy was killed.

So at university, I took Spanish for a year. It was fun, but I wasn’t quite in love with it the same way. And then there were all those other courses on the syllabus and I wanted to double major…so…no language B study for a couple of years. But then, Latin the last year. I had wanted to take Latin as a first-year but my advisor said it was a dead language. What was the point? I found the grammatical structures a fun puzzle and our tiny class of five a fun classical oasis.

After college, I went straight into my MAT to earn a teaching degree. I hadn’t studied abroad like so many US students mostly because of sport with the plan to somehow do it later. My MAT programme allowed you to do your student teaching abroad, but you had to find the school. It was much of the reason I had chosen the program.

I had decided I wanted to give French a go again. After writing to many schools in Switzerland and France, I finally got a positive response from the Lycée International American Section director, just outside of Paris. Paris! What a dream. They wouldn’t pay me, of course, but I could work with several of their teachers and live with one of the school’s families in exchange for some babysitting and tutoring.

That year was bliss. But I could digress for ages about my love affair with Paris…back to the language! I had to take intensive French courses again as part of my visa. It was also a great way to meet people from other places. I had very good, slow, correct French, I was told time and again. But it was slow. Part of culture is how you speak, and the French, at least the Parisians, don’t like to speak slowly. I was given the advice to just spit it out and not worry about my mistakes. So I did that, time and again, until I felt comfortable in French. I felt like a different part of my personality came out in French.

Fast forward three years: I had moved back to the states and then to Italy. My French proved very useful in learning Italian and the locals were even more encouraging about just trying the language out. Within a few months, I was comfortably having conversations. Sadly, a lot of that is lost now after more than a decade without much exposure, but I think I could reclaim it in a month or so if given the opportunity.

Similarly, when I moved to Hong Kong, I took Mandarin Chinese lessons. But though I loved it, I found it difficult to practice the language in a place that is mostly Cantonese and English. Cantonese was trickier to learn and ‘not as useful’ once you move away. I never knew how long I would stay…if I had known it would be eight years, I probably would have learned right away. In any case, learning some Chinese helped me to at least understand what it’s about and is something I would go back to as well with a longer stay in the mainland or again in Hong Kong.

I kept up the French, though, with long, frequent stays in France, lots of films, and a long-term French beau along the way. Now, I have friends with whom I speak French in Vienna, I read in French when I can, and I have that dream of living there….

But most of my life is still lived in English. I’ve learned some German living in Vienna. I took a class and did some self study. But there’s always that time factor, and I decided to have a baby and do some writing instead. Maybe I’ll go back to it. Let’s see how things shape up in a year or two. The little I’ve learned is certainly helpful and shows a sort of respect in trying, I think. When I travel I also like to learn a few phrases for this reason. We who speak English are privileged to have the ‘international language’ at our fingertips. But we are only denying ourselves if we limit the other languages we can learn.

Now I also have a baby boy who is learning language every day. We speak American and British English at home. We try not to swear around him. I sometimes speak with him in French. He will attend a mostly German speaking nursery school soon. It makes more me aware of how and why we learn these languages.

That’s my language story in brief. I’m sure you can find links with geography, emotions, work, and more to understand even more where it all comes from. I have students with much more dynamic backgrounds. Some speak three languages at home with their parents, a different one at school (English), take a foreign language, and speak in some kind of multilingual slang with their friends. When students go through their language journeys, their stories, they find ways to use language for learning. They acquire agency. In asking teachers to also go through the process, they can connect with the student’s learning as they make reflections on their own journeys, connected also to emotion, place, people…the list goes on. These associations help us understand the way we use languages as well as our motivations or fears connected to language.

One of my students studying three language A at school (English, German, Italian) for a trilingual diploma (wow!) conducted her Extended Essay research on the topic of multilingualism and cognition. She narrowed it to bilingualism since little research has been done beyond this, even though, as she noted, many people speak more than two languages. She always felt her languages were a hindrance, which really shocked me. Most of the recent research I had read showed the cognitive power of having more than one language. This is why so many people try to get their kids in immersion programs if there is only one language at home. She was aware of this, but sometimes felt like words escaped her or she couldn’t understand something she read. She realised that even though she reads a lot, the time is divided among these three languages. Her vocabulary development could be limited in that way. Research supported this, but this was the only area she found to be a hindrance. The way she uses language can be more creative and the development of her brain allows for code switching that goes beyond language and into experiences.

Are any of you doing research in this area? I would be interested to hear about any current work with multilingual speakers and happy to post a link to your published work on my blog.

#multilingualism #languageprofile #translanguaging #studentagency #codesign #ibdp #ibmyp #ibpyp #language #literacy

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laceandhockeyskates · 6 years

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What the hell I’ve been up to?!

I don’t even know how to make an introduction for this hot mess but I guess we’ll go month to month more or less because let me tell you 2018.... really fucked me up. Both in good ways, but also in terrible ways? I don’t know... I feel like it’s all worked out in the end but damn was it a mess to get to this point.

January- lovely, lovely January. Aka the last time I’ve posted anything of real value on this blog. I had my first trip out of the country!! Other than that uneventful?!

February and March (since nothing happened)- I turned 25. I don’t remember anything besides grabbing lunch with my grandma for it... so clearly it was a huge deal. Besides that though.... nothing.

April.... this is when things got.... interesting- we found out in April that the retail company I worked for was going out of business. Which was absolutely terrifying. I had no idea what I was going to do, how long it was going to take to find a new job... I knew nothing. That very day that we were told I put in 25 job applications. Within a week I had 4 job interviews lined up for one day that I had off of work, and at the end of that day I had a new job.

May- and it gets worse. May 4th was my last day at the store before I started my new job on May 5th. It was somewhere that I had applied to several times and never got a call back from, and it was only a three minute drive from my house so I thought everything was going to work out. Right? Wrong. I HATED it. With every fiber of my being it was the worst. I sat in my car on my lunch breaks crying more often than I wasn’t. It was honestly awful, and some greater power that be must have recognized how miserable I was because I was only there for less than 2 weeks. I started on the 5th and I worked my last day there on the 17th. I was scheduled to have that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off already which I was thankful for and had all these plans. So since about November-December I had these back pains that started right between my shoulder blades and wrapped around my stomach every few weeks. At first I thought I had a strange strand of the flu, and then I thought I was just sleeping on my back wrong.... well neither was accurate. That Friday night I was sitting on the couch watching tv when the pain hit me again and at that point it was more of an annoyance thing because like seriously?? So I just did what I always did and took pain meds and prepared myself for a night of no sleep and taking a hot bath every two hours to pour steaming hot water over my back (aka the only thing that really helped), by Saturday I wasn’t any better and my dad offered to take me to the ER. I thought he was just tired of listening to me whine about the pain and not really worried but I did let him drive me to Walmart to get a heating pad and more pain killers. Which again... helped.... but only for so long. I actually got to sleep that night and woke up at 3 am in literally the worst pain of my entire life. I quickly got in the tub hoping that the hot water would work or the heating pad or really anything. By 5 am though I knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong and that’s when I asked my dad to take me to the ER. Which I don’t think he took me seriously until 7 when my mom woke up and I asked her to go. It took less than 5 minutes at the ER to be told I have pancreatitis and gallstones and I’m basically screwed. By the time I came back from chest x rays I was being admitted. And let me tell you... that shit sucked. My Er nurse asked me how I was feeling and I literally laughed and told her I was just happy that it wasn’t all in my head. Which she very much assured me that it wasn’t. And that I actually have a high pain tolerance considering anyone else would be screaming in pain, and that if I had waited another few days I’d be going in with a raptured gallbladder. That first day... sucked to put it kindly. Because I had a gallstone blocking my pancreas I wasn’t allowed food (I ended up going from 5 pm Saturday to 2 pm Monday without food) or water (4 am Sunday to 2 pm Monday). Do you know it’s like to go that long? I was the biggest asshole because all I truly wanted was applesauce and water. To top it off though they couldn’t figure out a pain med that actually worked for me. Morphine lasted about as long as it took to get to my toes (a few seconds at best) so I was miserably in pain the entire time. Monday wasn’t too bad. My mom came and visited me, and for the most part I was left alone with the occasional check in minus my surgery consult. Tuesday.... was a day. I’ve never had surgery before and to say I was anxious would be an understatement. I had been waking up around 5-6 am anyways and was just watching the news when I realized there were two people standing outside my door.... I had originally been told my surgery was the 3rd of the day and I wouldn’t be going until about 11 am which gave my parents enough time to get my brother off to school and to be back in time to see me off... that’s not what happened. They had bumped me up to #1. Which meant my labs hadn’t been put in as needed ASAP and had to be run again but as soon as that was done? I was being wheeled away. What I didn’t know was that my mom had a nightmare that I had been taken to surgery early and that I died on the table... so you can imagine her reaction when I texted them that I was actually going to surgery early... needless to say my dad sped all the way to the hospital. Actual surgery though? I don’t remember a ton. I remember going to the holding room and being introduced to a bunch of people that I knew for all of five seconds before going into the OR. I remember moving from my bed to the table and then being wrapped up in a bunch of warm blankets and given the mask. I wasn’t told to count down or anything but within seconds I was out. I remember vaguely waking up to be moved from the table to my bed and I THOUGHT I had only fallen back asleep for the ride to recovery... apparently it was a lot longer than that. I woke up once in recovery and could have sworn they cut me open side to side but nope. It was a successful surgery with only four tiny incisions that hurt like a goddamn bitch let me tell you and then I passed back out... when I finally woke back up again I was awake long enough I was allowed to go to my room where my parents were relieved to see me. I was up walking within an hour (I was told I wasn’t allowed food unless I moved around and got the gas out of myself and had bowl movements. They recommended walking. I wanted food.) and that day was spent between doing laps and sleeping. The next day? The day I was suppose to go home? My labs came back with a high white blood count... and I lost it. Despite my parents visiting me every day I was tired of feeling alone. Luckily though Thursday I was finally released.... in time for my baby brother to graduate high school. Which was a fun ceremony when you’re hopped up on pain meds.

June- was a hot mess of dealing with medical leave at the job I hated, but mostly? It was spent enjoying the summer. Once I was cleared for activity I was swimming nearly every day and soaking in the summer with my two baby cousins who turn 12 soon. Despite the physical pain I had to deal with and the stress of work I wouldn’t have traded that in for anything. It gave me so many fun memories to look back on and enjoy.

July- I was suppose to go back about the 8th but medical leave was... a mess. And tbh at that point it wasn’t worth the stress to keep that job when for the time being I was making enough by doing side jobs for my family to pay my bills. I did start applying for new jobs though while I spent more time enjoying my summer with my kiddos. By the 27th though I was starting my new job, which is where I’m currently at while I type this long ass post but we’ll get into that a little farther down. Two days later though as I was about to start my first full day at my new job I got the text message I never wanted to get. I had to call my cousin/best friend. Long story short her mother had passed away meaning that she had lost both of her parents in seven years. Something I can’t even imagine. But not only that but it meant that my grandma had also lost her sister and best friend, and my great grandmother had to do the one thing no parent should ever go through.

August- was honestly a really intense blur. Between two weeks of dealing with the fall out of losing my aunt and starting my new job I didn’t have a life. In late July/early August though I knew something was up with my car but I honestly thought it was just a tie rod going bad... no. Apparently my entire undercarriage was more or less rusting out and I was screwed. I didn’t have any money saved up for a down payment, I had no idea if I could even afford a car payment yet (despite working a better paying job with more hours but I was use to basically barely making ends meet with maybe $20 left over). Luckily my parents who are the real mvps of my life stepped up and helped me figure everything out and I had a new car within a week of starting to search (she’s my baby girl. I’m obsessed. She’s literally everything I wanted minus the fact that she’s white and my previous car was white and I wanted to avoid that: but besides that... I’m happy with her and she’s worth the pretty penny I pay every month).

September- was a goddamn mess work wise. It’s all I did. Work.

October- I took my first major road trip on my own (driving 2 and a half hours by myself on the interstate. It was a big deal.) and saw FOB in concert which was... life changing. I completely recommend seeing them if you ever have a chance (also machine gun kelly was there and despite the fact that I don’t care for rap.... he was pretty good.). Other than that though October was more work craziness.

And now for November, and if you guessed work was insane... you’d be right. When I was hired in July it was all “oh it’ll only be busy until like October” and now my boss is like “maybe by March we can get our sanity back for two months?” Which don’t get me wrong I’m grateful. I’m making a $1 more an hour, actually working full time, and I don’t hate a majority of my coworkers (there’s still a handful though that if I had a shopping cart at work I’d run of their bare toes but that’s more because they make my life unnecessarily stressful) but I’m actually happy???? Like as stressed out as I am basically 24/7 I’m doing alright. I have a majority of my Christmas shopping done and wrapped which like?? And idk... I’m just.... I’m in a good place. And I won’t lie I still check myself once and awhile going “okay something is bound to go wrong.” But also maybe all the good is outweighing all the bad that I had to deal with. Anyways so that’s the life update. If you actually read that... bless your soul. Message me. We’re now best friends. And hopefully in the coming weeks I figure out what the hell im doing with this blog.

December update I wanna die lol! We had two people quit in three weeks leaving us with four people to cover 24 hours 7 days a week....it’s a great time.

#if you read all of this hi message me you're my new best friend

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frenchfrysword · 6 years

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2018 - My mental health Tw: calorie talk, binge/purge behavior, weight, suicidal thoughts, self harm

January: Went on skiing vacation with my parents and was only busy with trying to burn all the calories from the copious lunches. Got a wound on my tail bone that won’t really heal from all the sit-ups I was doing. My old therapist noticed my weight loss but didn’t have a clue on how to handle it

February: Asked my old therapist to refer me to specialized eating disorder treatment. He said he signed me up. Got really deep into restricting, fasting a lot, even on a friend’s birthday. Reached my lowest weight as an adult

March: Relapsed into bingeing and purging. Quickly spiraled out of control and started spending 10€+ a day on binge food. Would take long walks only to find good spots to throw up. I think February was the month I relapsed into self harm and suicidal behavior. Called the crisis line many times. Got put on temporary medication. Applied for Accute Daytime Therapy (still no ed therapy). Spent three days a week in a small therapy group for burnout/post-psych ward people.

April: Broke up with my boyfriend

May: Got told that my favorite therapist was quiting his job and that our sessions would end. Was heartbroken over this because I finally felt like I had a therapist that could see through my mask and behaviors. Celebrated my three year anniversary with my girlfriend Was still bingeing and purging regularly, also in public locations Got really really close to my best friend

June: Got told that my old therapist (my favorite one) didn’t sign me up for treatment. Had to re-apply for treatment, which took them forever to submit. Finally had a more stable month in terms of food and weight

July: At the end of July, my application for specialized eating disorder treatment finally got sent. I moved out into my own appartment and immediately relapsed into restricting and fasting. Started hula hooping Entered another general daytime treatment and had therapy for as much as 15 hours in one week.

August: Finally had my intake at the ed facility. Relapsed into bingeing and purging again. Spent entire days walking just to burn calories and avoid food. The wound on my tailbone was pretty much open this entire month

September: The ed team kept putting off discussing my case, which led to a lot of frustration.

October: Heard that the ed team had transferred my case back to my old autism team, who did not consent to it being given back to them. Got into therapy limbo. Kind of stabilized bingeing and purging, although still overeating compulsively a lot. Got really really depressed because there was no progress in my ed treatment and I felt really abandoned by the ed team. Also because it was the anniversary of my relapse

November: No word of the ed team. Radio silence. Regular autism therapy started to become really frustrating. Living alone was starting to become impossible due to anxiety, spent a lot of time back with my gf. Anxiety rocketed

December: At the beginning of the month I made a tumblr post stating how good I was doing only to relapse days after. Finally heard back from the ed team that I would have another intake in February. Managed to limit binges to festive days or parties.

#personal #my year #tw #tw ed

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Unemployment Pay May Again Require a Job Search. Is It Too Soon? A tenet of the American unemployment system has been that anyone collecting benefits, in good times and bad, must look for work. That quid pro quo changed early in the pandemic. Profound fears of contagion and the sudden need for millions of workers to become caregivers led states to lift the requirements for reasons both practical and compassionate. But as vaccinations increase and the economy revs back to life, more than half of all states have revived their work search requirements. Arkansas and Louisiana did so months ago in an effort to push workers off their swollen unemployment rolls. Others, like Vermont and Kentucky, have followed in the last few weeks. The rest may be on the way. President Biden on Monday ordered the Labor Department to “work with the remaining states, as health and safety conditions allow,” to put such requirements in place as the pandemic abates. Employers may welcome the moves as potentially enlarging the pool of job seekers. But for many workers, the search obligation is a premature declaration that the world has returned to normal even as legitimate concerns persist about contracting the virus and about child care constraints. “The work search thing is just a mess,” said Tyler Evans, 34, who lost his job of nearly four years at a restaurant in downtown Nashville early in the pandemic. Mr. Evans’s doctor has not cleared him for work, warning him that he faced extra risk from the coronavirus because he has an autoimmune disease. According to Tennessee, however, Mr. Evans must complete three job search activities a week to remain eligible for unemployment benefits. When he explained his situation to people at the State Labor Department, they suggested that he just say he had looked for work, because the state’s system had no way to account for health cases like his. Instead, Mr. Evans has diligently applied to jobs every week — even though he wouldn’t be able to accept any of them. “I would say one out of four times, someone would give me a call back,” he said. “And I would have to say, ‘Oh, I actually can’t work for you for health reasons, but the Department of Labor asked that I do this anyway.’” Research suggests that work search requirements of some form in normal economic times can compel workers to find their next job and reduce their time on unemployment. But the pandemic has added a new layer to a debate over how to balance relief with the presumption that joblessness is only transitory. Most states cut off unemployment benefits after 26 weeks. Business groups say bringing back work search requirements will help juice the labor market and dissuade workers from waiting to return to their old employers or holding out for remote or better-paying jobs. Opponents contend that the mandate keeps undue numbers of Americans from continuing to receive needed benefits because it can be hard to meet the sometimes arduous requirements, including documenting the search efforts. And they say workers may be forced to apply for and accept lower-paying or less-satisfying jobs at a time when the pandemic has caused some to reassess the way they think about their work, their family needs and their prospects. “I think the work search requirement is necessary as an economist,” said Marta Lachowska, an economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich., who has studied the effects of work search requirements on employment. But she added, “Perhaps given the big disruption we have observed to the labor market, people should be given some slack.” In Washington, the issue has become part of a larger clash over jobless benefits that intensified after the disappointing April jobs report, with Republicans asserting that Mr. Biden’s policies are deterring people from looking for work and holding back the economic recovery. A rising number of Republican governors have taken matters into their own hands, moving to end a weekly $300 unemployment supplement and other federally funded emergency assistance that otherwise isn’t due to expire until September. Mr. Biden has rebuffed the criticism of his economic recovery plan. But his embrace of work search requirements — more than a year after the federal government directed states to waive them — has made the practice a pillar in the effort to revitalize the economy. Tim Goodrich, the executive director for state government relations at the National Federation of Independent Business, said his members had complained that they were having trouble filling open positions — a challenge that restoring work search requirements may help alleviate. “They are seeing a lack of applicants, so a job search is certainly helpful,” Mr. Goodrich said. Job openings rose in March to 8.1 million, the Labor Department reported on Tuesday, yet there are more than eight million fewer people working than before the pandemic. Economists ascribe some of the incongruity to a temporary mismatch between the jobs on offer and the skills or background of those looking for work. They say that in a recovering labor market like the current one, there may not be enough suitable jobs for people seeking re-employment, which can frustrate workers and drive them to apply to positions haphazardly. That has been the case for Rie Wilson, 45, who worked in venue sales for a nonprofit in New York City before she lost her job last summer. To fulfill New York’s work search requirement, which generally makes unemployment applicants complete at least three job search activities each week, Ms. Wilson has had to apply for positions she would not typically consider, like administrative assistant jobs, she said. The prospect of accepting such a job makes her anxious. “There is always a thought in my mind that, ‘Well, what if I do get pulled in this direction just because I’m being forced to apply for these jobs? What does that look like for my career?’” she said. The process has been time-consuming, she said, “and it’s also a mental wear and tear because you’re literally pulled from all angles in a very stressful situation.” Alexa Tapia, the unemployment insurance campaign coordinator at the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group, said work search requirements “harm more than they help,” especially during the pandemic. In particular, she said, such requirements perpetuate systemic racism by trapping people of color, especially women, in underpaid work with fewer benefits. And she noted that people of color were more likely to be denied benefits on the basis of such requirements. With state unemployment offices already overtaxed, she added, work search requirements are “just another barrier being put to claimants, and it can be a very demoralizing barrier.” In states that have reinstated work search requirements, worker advocates say an especially frustrating obstacle has been a lack of guidance. Sue Berkowitz, the director of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, which works with low-income South Carolinians, said unemployed workers in the state largely wanted to go back to work. But the information on the state’s website about work search requirements is so confusing, she said, that she worries workers won’t understand it. Before the state reimposed the requirements last month, Ms. Berkowitz sent a marked-up copy of the proposed language to the chief of staff at the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce urging clarifications and changes. One of her biggest concerns was that the language as it stood was at a 12th-grade reading level, while the typical reading level of adult Americans is much lower. She did not hear back. “It was crickets,” she said. More broadly, employees in South Carolina, where the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, can be reluctant to take a job that pays less than the one they had before the pandemic, Ms. Berkowitz said. “It’s not that they are below taking a job that makes a lot less, but their financial needs are high enough that they need to continue to make a certain salary,” she said. Although work search requirements have become a political issue, their restoration does not fall solely along partisan lines. Florida, for instance, where the Republican governor has repeatedly flouted virus restrictions, had kept the work search waiver in place before announcing recently that it would reinstate the requirement at the end of the month. But many other states, particularly Republican ones, have rushed to bring their work search requirements back. That is what Crista San Martin found when they left their job out of health concerns at a dog boarding facility in Cypress, Texas, which reinstated its work search requirement in November. Mx. San Martin, 27, who uses the pronouns they and them, said there were very few job openings near them in the pet care industry, making finding a position onerous. “That made it really difficult for me to log any work searches, because there simply weren’t enough jobs that I would actually want to take for my career,” they said. The first job they applied to was at a Panera, “which is not in my field of interest at all.” Above all, applying to arbitrary jobs felt risky, they said, because there was no way to assess potential employers’ Covid-19 safety protocols. Mx. San Martin has since returned to their old job. “It’s pretty unfair,” they said. “Going out and just casting a wide net and seeing whether a random business will take you is not safe.” Source link Orbem News #Job #pay #require #Search #Unemployment

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memorylang · 4 years

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God’s Grace Through Pandemic Life | #45 | October 2020

As I strolled through the neighborhood on my last week in Reno, after days of freeze warnings and fire watch alerts that I saw on my phone, once-green tree leaves had become red, orange, amber and upon the earth. I’d walked with jacket layers, for I felt the breeze of change.

I celebrated this Hallowe’en in Vegas, where weather’s warmer. Rather than helping at trick-or-treating events of years past, I’d urged against people going around, given we’re in a pandemic. Staying inside, I wrote this month’s tales.

I start us back in Mongolia, February 2020, then bring us up to nowadays via March, June, September and October. Since we’re amid Allhallowtide, the Christian sequence of All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, I’ve decided to make God’s works the topic of today. Whether you read as a Christian or non-Christian, I hope you feel hope!

A traditional Catholic prayer called the Examen involves one considering one’s day to recognize areas where God appeared present. Through this type of reflection, Christians better understand how God exists in every moment of all things. Often, this awareness takes conscious efforts to seek and recognize the Spirit. So in October’s tale, I seek it.

February: Mongolia’s Churches Closed

Eight months ago, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia packing to evacuate to America. By Sunday, March 1, I would be boarding a Peace Corps vehicle with just my backpacks and a suitcase, having by then had to have said final goodbyes.

The Saturday night before, Feb. 29, a local CICM missionary priest visited my apartment. Back in this spring 2020, I’d written to you about how he and I related as foreign Catholics amid pandemic restrictions. I felt consoled by our discussions that night.

My friend looked a bit glum when he said that this was his first Ash Wednesday without Mass. By mid-February, Mongolia had already barred large public gatherings, including church attendance. My friend explained how many Catholic churches, such as those in Korea and Taiwan, experienced the same. I realized that this must have been my first Ash Wednesday without Mass, too—what an uncertain start to Lent.

But my friend and I moved from our dreary topic. We chatted about Mongolia’s culture, American culture and the Congo’s, from where he came. Reflecting on the culture that I’d soon encounter in the States felt refreshing. I felt glad that our discussions readied me for what would come.

My friend and I also discussed Mongolia’s Lunar New Year /Tsagaan Sar/ that had begun that week. We asked each other how many бууз /boe-z/, the traditional steamed dumplings, we’d eaten. He said 15, and I guessed that I’d had at least 30. We chuckled.

My priest raised an insightful point. Compared to more widespread Western practices, Mongolian hospitality felt like it extended across both the rich and poor. My experiences that very morning fit well his observation. An older Mongol friend who’d often given me lifts downtown or back had invited me to the house of his shopkeeper friend. And while the shopkeeper may have had more than other Mongols, he and others gave freely and generously.

Shortly after reflecting with the missionary, my older friend returned to my apartment. To both I gave from my fridge and shelves all the food and ingredients they’d accept. We said bittersweet goodbyes. At least I could give as I’d received.

God has a way too with echoing my late mother in my mind. My friendship with fellow foreigners in Mongolia reminded me of hers in America. She would befriend Chinese and Asian immigrants. When I was little in Indiana, I used to think that Mom simply liked to have friends who looked like her. Years later, when I’d met our relatives in China, they’d told me how she’d help foreign students who’d come to America. She sounded so selfless. And, after my own experiences being a foreigner in, for me, a foreign land, I realized that even the companionship of those who share experiences provides vital social support (Deut. 10:19).

Comforted on my final night in the city whose people I’d committed to serve, I felt renewed on my sudden path to leave.

March: America’s Churches Open

One week later—Sat. March 7—was my first full day back in Vegas. It also marked my return to church for the first time in weeks. At that time, my brothers were still busy with school, and our papa worked in another city. So, I went alone.

Going alone let me arrive early and slip into wherever I wanted to sit. Still, my experiences as a Knight of Columbus led me to favor the front, where few go, anyway. I could hardly believe how in Mongolia so much had already closed yet in the States people acted as though the pandemic was hardly real. People in Mongolia hadn’t gotten the virus, yet people in Vegas already had.

Still, the Mass felt refreshing. Reading the English-language hymnal hearing English-language speakers made so much a breeze. In fact, singing familiar music reminded me of going alone to the bishop’s Thanksgiving 2017 Mass when I visited home the year Mom died. Parishioners at that time had commented that I sang well.

In March 2020, I kind of hoped that people wouldn’t comment, so I could lie low. But at Mass’s end, a woman in front of me complimented me, saying that she’d love to see me in up with the choir. Well, there’s my introduction.

I approached the choir director to learn how to volunteer. I applied that week. When the office woman read my application, she commended that America could really use a person like me, speaking Chinese and Mongolian. I felt glad.

In seven of eight days (week 1, March 7-14) I’d attended Mass, which was definitely a personal record. I spent almost my whole Friday, March 13 enjoying the church’s Lenten activities including Stations of the Cross and Adoration.

But I could feel how times have changed. Seeing the newer Fr. Marc many days instead of our past Fr. Jim felt weird. I’d only seen Fr. Marc once, at Christmas 2019, because he’d started during the summer I left for Peace Corps. Fr. Jim, on the other hand, had pastored there since 2013, from my high school sophomore year till past my college graduation.

At the week’s daily Masses, elderly folks treated me as a new member. They commended me as a young person for showing up to morning prayer, rosary and Mass. To be fair, in all my family’s years since 2008 there, we’d participated in few functions outside Sundays. My late ma was our exception, having sung in the choir. Still, hearing folks commend me for coming to church reminded me of my conversation the week before in Mongolia with my priest who came to say farewell—how much we missed the Mass.

A week later, my second in America, churches closed from the pandemic. This made more sense. Still, I loved my brief week back in church. I’d recounted Easter 2020 in my story of week 6 (April 10-16). Now, let’s fast-forward!

June: Feeling Called to Reach Out

On my last June Wednesday, week 16 (June 19-25), I was in Reno, Nev., taking part in our Carmelite Monastery’s Zoom prayer session. We couldn’t meet in person. During our long contemplative silence, I felt this urge to share with a handful of specific friends my then most recent blog story, “Fathers’ Day, Familiarity and Faith | #38 | June 2020.”

I felt surprised by this idea and sat with it for a while. Ultimately I felt convinced that I ought to share.

I learned that one of the women to whom I sent the story, a friend of mine from high school, had been working for our congressman’s office. We enjoyed catching up. She even shared with me online events about religious diversity.

A couple months later, week 24 (Aug. 14-20), the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) advocacy had requested that I arrange meetings with my congressman’s office. I remembered that I had a friend there. I reached out to her, and she was my in. Her colleagues quickly set a conference call with me and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.

A month of advocacy followed. Then, on week 27 (Sept. 4-10), the NPCA held a check-in call. They mentioned that I should have already been receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). So, they suggested that I reach out to my congressman’s office.

Actually, I consider that 2020 week of Sept. 9 my ‘seven days of wonder’ for its great and many unexpected happenings. The week coincidentally followed a few months’ consecutive daily rosaries. Well, I reached out once more to my friend.

By the next week 28 (Sept. 11-18), after my struggles with the system since mere days after I’d reached the States from Mongolia, I was, in September, then finally receiving the PUA.

I felt extremely privileged and grateful to have had that connection who could help me. I felt awed by how I’d reconnected with her simply because I felt called in prayer to do so. God works in mysterious ways!

September: Wondrous Feelings

Usually, car rides between Reno and Vegas can be for many the most lackluster trips across the American west. Well, this time was different!

During the ride to Vegas ending my week 29 (Sept. 18-24), Dad drove, and my tita /tee-tuh/ (my Filipina stepmom) rode shotgun when she wasn’t driving. Well, Tita suggested that she and I pray a rosary. I felt surprised, since Dad had said that his mom would pray rosaries on car rides. Dad said that the two of us could do the praying for him. Thankfully, since my COVID summer rosaries, I’ve grown accustomed to praying on the fly!

I procured from my pocket the blue rosary that my mom had gifted me in commemoration of my First Communion 2005—one that I’d repaired last year with a Mexican cross I received at World Youth Day. Anyway, I liked to keep it with me. Tita and I prayed the Luminous Mysteries since it was Thursday. Luminous are my favorites, too. They feature Jesus’ teaching, Transfiguration and Last Supper—all among my favorite Biblical moments.

Well, after we finished, I noticed that I had cell service again (a blessing in rural Nevada). I also had received a Facebook message from someone unfamiliar, with a uni listed in Hong Kong. The message thanked me for having written an article. I felt joyfully confused and typed to ask which. He wrote that he meant my one about learning Mongolian! He added, he wanted to travel to Mongolia.

I felt pleased. I’d just finished the piece my week before, recounting experiences learning languages. When I asked him what languages he knows, he mentioned Chinese and added that his English isn’t very good. So, I swapped to Chinese characters, writing back and forth in those. He added that he too is learning Mongolian, so I briefly hopped to Mongolian! Then we settled on Chinese.

Every so often, when my cell service went spotty, I recounted to Tita my joys from this conversation.

Turns out that my new friend worked for a media corporation in Southern (Inner) Mongolia in China. I added, what a coincidence, since I’d studied journalism as an undergrad! He asked on what topics I’d reported, so I linked articles about my pieces on religious and ethnic diversity. He felt amazed! I insisted that I’ve great teachers, friends and God to thank.

By this time, Tita was driving, and we reached Tonopah, the halfway point between Reno and Vegas. Cellular data was stable, so I figured I’d better finish the conversation. With all these coincidences, I felt joys like those of the Magnificat!

I asked the friend about the topics on which he reports. He wrote that he interviews people and covers Chinese Mongols, including their culture, economy and, more recently, the pandemic. His interest in Mongolian culture is why he’s studying their language. I felt amazed! I love when people share stories about diverse groups.

The friend had added that he looked forward to reading more of my work. I felt delighted. Finally, I asked how he’d found my work. Turns out he was reading about Mongolia’s education, came across the Peace Corps, and my article popped up. Somehow after that, he found me on Facebook and messaged me, too! The internet astounds me.

Earlier in the week, I’d attended a seminar in which panelists assured me that whether or not people read my work, I should continue to practice writing daily. Well, somehow my work found someone all the way on our globe’s other side.

And earlier that day, I’d connected online with a stateside Chinese instructor who’d had some free time, being short on students due to the pandemic. She offered to teach me for free, just because I wanted to learn! I felt overjoyed at her offer and thankful that she wrote how glad she was that we’d found each other.

How could I be so blessed?

After all, I’d been already working with a friend to learn my Latin who similarly found joy in instructing me from my sheer willingness to learn. Well, the evening’s surprise conversation with the reporter in Chinese Mongolia gave me my answer.

I, too, try to freely share so others might learn. I’m like those who teach me. So blessed!

October: To Church Again and Again (...And Again!)

I empathize with Americans who insist that we need to reopen churches amid this pandemic. I really worry about public health, and indoor churches can be dangerous when people don’t take all the proper precautions. Despite these, some churches take proper precautions. I felt gladdened this month by multiple opportunities to visit church.

Overall, October was a great month for my faith.

It kicked off with reuniting with the first Peace Corps Mongolia Volunteer from my cohort I’d seen since March! Drew and I had made our farewells in Berlin, Germany, so seeing each other again in Reno, Nev., of all places felt amazing. We swapped religious and spiritual resources like the good ol’ days when we’d served in neighboring Mongolian provinces.

After having been out of church since March 2020 (just watching the liturgies online), I’d gotten to attend Catholic Masses five times! For a Catholic Christian like me, the Mass can be an especially consoling experience with Christ, fellow believers and a religious leader.

My first Masses since week 1 (March 7-14) were in week 31 (Oct. 2-8). My family had come up for our youngest sister’s confirmation at Our Lady of Wisdom Newman Center, Reno, originally to happen at Easter. The Mass felt different, with people so far apart. I felt flickers of memory from my 2016 confirmation and those that I’d attended over the years. So few people this year with such distance between us left me feeling strange but still gladdened by the fellowship.

After the event, we ate out at a Taiwanese restaurant decorated with pictures of the 101. I remembered friends and felt nostalgic about my life in Taipei. I miss Asia.

The Thursday after, fellow Brother Knights of Columbus and I revisited Reno’s cathedral. It had tile floors now instead of carpet. This felt surreal. I hadn’t expected to be there in a while. My Grand Knights and I used to serve there mornings of my undergrad. But, staff still remembered us, greeting us warmly. The place was beautiful. My Worthy Brothers and I returned there the week after, leading up to Fall Retreat 2020.

Winding Up on Retreat

I feel that God does funny things in our lives. Even what we perceive as inconveniences wind up serving His greater mission. My folks and I thought that I would have a ride down to Vegas for the weekend after Fall Retreat, so I let the coordinators know that I’d be around to attend.

Through a series of miscommunications, we found on the morning of Retreat that I actually didn’t have a ride to Vegas. But, too late to change that!

Fall Retreat was awesome, getting to “Be Still” (Mk. 4:39). It was my first retreat since spring 2019, a year and a half prior. Amid undergrad, I was attending two to four retreats a year. Coincidentally, my freshman’s Spring Retreat 2016 theme too was “Be Still” (Ps. 46:10).

On Retreat, coordinators had posted up a still from the Pope’s Lenten 2020 “Urbi et Orbi” (to the City and to the World) prayer service in the Vatican. I recalled having seen that on TV, the surrounding darkness beyond his platform’s lights, my week 4 (March 27-April 2). Reflecting on this image and others during week 33 (Oct. 16-22) reminded me of just how long I’ve been back in the States weathering this pandemic.

The retreat reintroduced me to the Ignatian Examen prayer, so I resumed that, too! Retreat’d helped me to remember that solidarity with Christ and fellow believers is crucial to my spiritual wellbeing.

My fourth October Mass concluded our day. To have a closing Mass reminded me of World Youth Day in Panamá, an exclamation point to mark a grand day. I’d taken years to appreciate the Mass this much.

Later that week, I got to attend Mass one last time, followed by learning this new game, “Among Us” with the students. Evidently it fits the Hallowe’en season! Fellowship is fun.

Being Prepared

By mid-October, week 32 (Oct. 9-15), I’d resumed my grad school search after my Latin-tutoring friend taking the LSAT suggested that I take the GRE while still here in the States.

Meanwhile, the friend with whom I’ve been reading a Psalm a day suggested that I should move to D.C. for its foreign service opportunities. When I mentioned to her my grad school search, she asked a series of probing questions to better understand my intentions. After all, not too many people declare that they want to devote graduate studies to Chinese Christianity.

The next day, I had a Zoom call with a Catholic writer in Malta. I felt surprised that all the questions my friend asked to encourage me to think critically reappeared as similar questions that the writer asked to gauge my interests.

I felt gleefully surprised by similarities. I answered his questions with much greater clarity than my friend’s. He gave me clear advice.

Both encouraged me to remember no matter my work to put God first. As my friend noted, religious leaders of Jesus’ time, according to Scripture, had focused more on the words than their meanings. She insisted that I take to heart the meanings. She and the Catholic writer reminded me of my other spiritual mentors. I felt glad.

November: Election Day!

After seeing my media mentors before I left Reno and having watched the U.S. presidential debates online, I felt drawn to read “Beyond the Messy Truth” by Van Jones. In his book, Jones tries to pinpoint American thoughts that shaped the 2016 election and teach us to understand and respect many perspectives.

People pray on both sides that their candidates win. I pray more that with whatever happens, people on both sides accept the outcome. In these United States, we need decency to work together.

Well, with Bon Jovi’s “2020” on my room’s music player I’ve worked on another few lovely blog stories for you~ Regardless of which way the election goes, my end-of-October story will cover American diversity! Hopefully we’ll know our next president by my time of writing. I’m hoping to include in that second tale this month, too, anecdotal adventures with my present and future.

The closer I get to January, the more I realize I might be going back to Mongolia soon. Keep me in your prayers. And see you on the flipside!

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :)

#Peace Corps #Mongolia #memoir #story #Catholic #God #memoryLang #Coronavirus #COVID-19 #Christian #Nevada #StayHome #news #WithMe #Reno #Las Vegas #USA #evacuation #holidays #election

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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California Relies on Incarcerated Women to Fight Wildfires. Then it Abandons Them.

On September 11, Otila Rogers, a former inmate who spent most of the past decade in and out of California's prison system, received a phone call she'd been waiting for since March.

CAL Fire, the state's largest fire department, wanted to fly her to an airbase in Redding, California to prepare supplies to fight the Bobcat Fire, a wildfire currently raging in the San Gabriel Mountains which overlook Los Angeles from the east.

The assignment, which came during the worst wildfire season in the state's recorded history, is Rogers' first as a certified wildland firefighter, but not her first time fighting California wildfires. Rogers carried out two prison sentences between 2014 and 2018 in the state's fire camps for women, operating a chainsaw while fighting dozens of wildfires in California's backcountry for $1 an hour, and clearing brush for $3 a day during off-season.

"At fire camp, my captains always laughed and said, 'You're so good at this. Why don't you keep doing it when you're out of here?'" Rogers told me on the phone. "The work changed my mentality on life—I loved it. I could smell the fresh air, have the sun hitting my skin, and touch a tree if I wanted to."

After she was released on parole in 2018, she said she didn't think she could continue fighting wildfires, and struggled to find meaningful work in Los Angeles. (Her record, a combination of drug trafficking and arms dealing offenses, precluded her from applying to most jobs, she said.)

"I didn’t have any references or know the right people. Being a felon and having strikes—my whole life since 18, I was in and out of prison and jail—I thought there was no hope for me when I got out," she said. "What fire department is going to hire an ex-felon?"

Otila Rogers, second from left, working on a fire line in December 2019.

California's reliance on lowly-paid incarcerated people to fight fires is well documented, as is the fact that institutional barriers prevent people from being able to become full-time professional firefighters after they are released from prison. Many of the firefighters that Motherboard spoke to found the work meaningful and life-changing. But the sub-minimum wages, which activists and abolitionists have compared to slave labor, and the fact that they are performing inherently essential and dangerous work cannot be ignored.

The ongoing wildfires blazing across the West Coast were sparked by intense, dry lightning storms in August. The destruction has had California and Oregon's governors pleading with foreign governments and other states for additional fire crews. California has received aid from firefighters flown in from Israel, Mexico, and Australia, as well as six states.

Mainstream news outlets have reported that the labor shortage stems from California Governor Gavin Newsom's decision to release hundreds of inmate firefighters in May to prevent the spread of Coronavirus in prisons—saying while it's good news for the criminal justice system, the decision was an imprudent one given record-breaking wildfires are occurring more often. At the start of wildfire season last year, there were 2,772 incarcerated people in the state's conservation fire camps. As of this week, that number had sunk to 1,996, according to a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The current labor shortage, in large part, was brought on by the state itself. Thousands of Californians who have served time in the state's Conservation Camp Program have the training and experience to fight ongoing wildfires, but many institutional barriers prevent them from doing so. Since 1946, California has relied on prison labor to fight wildfires. Inmate firefighters typically make up anywhere between 50 to 80 percent of fire personnel on any given wildfire small or large across the state, and they're some of the state's most exploited workers, earning $1 an hour to risk their lives on the fire line. Six inmate firefighters in California have died over the past four decades.

Once inmate firefighters are released from prison, the barriers to pursuing a career as a firefighter are enormous. EMT certification, for example, excludes people with felonies and certain misdemeanors. Parole requirements prevent people from travelling to remote areas, making it impossible for them to fight wildfires. Meanwhile, CAL Fire and municipal fire departments in California, such as the Los Angeles Fire Department, do not accept applicants with felony records.

Brandon Smith, the executive director of a nonprofit organization called Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program that trains and mentors formerly and currently incarcerated firefighters in California for careers in the wildland and forestry sector, says that incarcerated firefighters have been abandoned by the state, an egregious error considering the extent of California's annual environmental disasters.

"It's a good thing people were released. But [CAL Fire chief] Thom Porter and Governor Gavin Newsom are saying we don't have any more firefighters," Smith told Motherboard. "As of last week, they said there's no more available fire crews. Now they're requesting support from every single state and other countries. No offense but there's a group of people sitting at home in California who are ready and willing to do this work right now. There are thousands of people who can go fill this space."

Formerly incarcerated women, in particular, face the double whammy of overcoming criminal records and institutional sexism, and rarely end up back on the fire line again. In the United States, women make up about 12 percent of civilian wildland firefighters. Aging fire stations often don't accommodate women, and the industry still has many people who wrongly believe that women lack the physical capabilities to be good firefighters.

"Sadly to say, there is little diversity in California's fire departments," Smith said. "Professional firefighters are mostly white men. Meanwhile, the people in fire camps are men of color and women."

The California prison system designates three of its 44 fire camps, Rainbow, Malibu, and Puerta La Cruz, for incarcerated women. Forty-nine incarcerated women firefighters currently remain in the system. Earlier this year, 265 women were serving time in the camps.

"Many of us know everything about being a wildland firefighter," said Rogers, who grew up in a Samoan community in South-Central Los Angeles. "But unfortunately it's about who you know, not what you know."

Rogers, who fought the 2017 Lilac Fire and 2015 Valley Fire, vividly remembers viewing the wreckage of past fires as an inmate. "We would drive through towns, seeing houses burned to the ground. You feel this sadness. You could see everyone praising firefighters, drawing pictures for us, 'We love you guys, we appreciate you guys.' Those people don’t see you as an inmate or a prisoner. They never judged us. It triggered us to be like 'Oh we’re loved, not everyone hates us.'"

Krista Garcia, another formerly incarcerated firefighter who served a seven-and-a-half month prison sentence at Puerta La Cruz, a women's fire camp near San Diego, shared a similar story with Motherboard. "I fell in love with firefighting, being part of a community and giving back, but it really sucks that prisoners get paid so little. It's our life too and we chose to go to the camps," she said.

"When I got out, I wanted to get back into wildland firefighting, but it wasn't something I could rush into," she continued. "I was fighting to get back my three children, and I got a job catering food. After I got off parole, I moved to South Dakota to get a fresh start."

Last year, Garcia moved back to the Los Angeles area, and now is on the path to receiving her wildfire firefighter certification as a student at the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program.

Krista Garcia

On September 11, Newsom signed into law a new bill that could bring more incarcerated firefighters back into wildfire forestry post-prison. The law will allow California's inmate firefighters, excluding some convicted of violent or sex crimes, to have their records expunged, making them eligible for EMT certification and other positions in municipal fire departments they previously had been excluded from.

Criminal justice activists say they appreciate the state's initiative with the caveat that it isn't a full solution; expungement only wipes the most recent felony from someone's record, is not a formal pardon, and state and federal agencies have not said whether they'll accept the state's expungement.

The state's most powerful firefighters union CAL Fire Local 2881, a statewide federation of police unions, and some state prosecutors have opposed the law, saying it would put people in need of emergency assistance at risk.

Smith, the founder of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, himself a formerly incarcerated firefighter who was released in 2014, says it took him two years to figure out how to apply to work as a firefighter after getting released from Wasco State Prison.

"Firefighting is a close knit family. Because of that, you have to hop into the network, know who to talk to, and how to apply for the job. That was never available to us," Smith, who is Black, said. "There's none of that for people of color or women or urban communities. I didn't know about wildfire firefighting until I went to prison, even though I grew up in the backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains in Altadena, California."

Since the law passed on September 11, Smith says his organization—which has helped more than 100 formerly incarcerated people transition to careers in firefighting since its 2015 founding for free—has received hundreds of inquiries from current and former inmates seeking pathways to a career in firefighting.

Rogers met Smith at an American Jobs Center in Compton, California in 2019, after bouncing between jobs while completing parole. "Brandon walked in and gave a speech about firefighting, and I was like, 'Hey do you accept ex-felons?" He was like 'yeah.' And I was like, 'I am so interested.' I was tripping out, talking to a real life firefighter again."

Shortly after, she enrolled in his wildfire and forestry training program. When she received her red card certification to perform tasks on wildfires in California in December 2019, her extended family showed up to her graduation ceremony, adorning her in a crown, leis, and flowers. Until last week, she had been working in a warehouse and waiting to get a fire call from one of the state's fire departments for an assignment.

Otila Rogers

Otila Rogers next to a Bureau of Land Management truck, which is used to provide support on fight wildfires.

We spoke, on the phone, two days before her assignment began.

“I'll be making inventories, driving out to different fires in a big beautiful firetruck and giving them supplies for different fires," she said. "I used to be like, 'Damn I don't know what to do. No one's going to take me seriously as a firefighter.'"

Shannon Clark, another formerly incarcerated fighter who served time in the Malibu Fire Camp for women, and is also now training at the Fire and Forestry Recruitment program to become a certified wildland firefighter.

"When I started firefighting I knew I had found what I had been searching for my whole life. It was like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I haven't found that feeling anywhere else," she said.

Clark, who grew up in Santa Clarita, California, playing volleyball, soccer, softball, and camping as a teenager, went to the prison for the first time when she was 18 for a residential burglary, and spent the next decade in and out of the system, eventually landing in a conservation camp.

"Any major fire in Los Angeles between 2015 and 2018 I was on. I got out in 2018 and had no idea how to keep doing it. I'm a little bit older and didn't have the connections. I got jobs waitressing, in the parks department, and at an aerodynamics factory," she said. "I didn't think it was possible to continue because of my record. It's hindered me in the past."

Shannon Clark

Smith, the fire and forestry recruitment director, says that benefits of having former firefighter inmates work as career firefighters are social, economic, and environmental—echoing the Green New Deal, but law-and-order advocates have skewed public perception toward the opposite conclusion.

"The biggest issue is public perception. Folks are afraid of previously incarcerated people. But it's like 'Sorry we were already protecting your houses while we were incarcerated,’" Smith said. "This is a conversation about criminal justice and the environment. And there's a lot of unique ways we can help out. One of the biggest challenges in the west is that there's too many trees, we need a labor force just to do forest thinning projects. You have utility companies charged with preventing wildfires. I say, instead of hiring private contractors why don't you hire us?"

California Relies on Incarcerated Women to Fight Wildfires. Then it Abandons Them. syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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trentteti · 5 years

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All the LSAT News from 2019

The end of 2019 fast approaching. If 2019 were an LSAT, we’d have just finished making our frantic, final answer selections in the fifth section, and would now be listening to the proctor drone on about some final instructions before being dismissed. Which is to say that our minds would be drifting away from the LSAT and towards how much we’re going to celebrate finishing the test. But before we let our minds drift away from 2019 and towards our New Year’s Eve celebrations, we thought it’d be appropriate to reflect on all the changes to the LSAT this year brought.

In fact, there were so many changes this year. You could argue that the LSAT changed more this year than it had in its entire twenty-eight-year run since taking its modern form in 1991. The number of LSATs administered in 2019 increased dramatically. The test went digital in July. There was a major change to one of the sections of the test — OK, it was just the Writing section, but still. With so many changes to the LSAT in 2019, let’s take a trip through the year to review just how much this exam changed.

January 2019

Even back in January we knew 2019 would bring a ton of changes to the LSAT, but LSAC threw a curveball at us by announcing that they’d be changing the way the LSAT Writing section was administered. LSAC said it would remove the Writing section from test day in June, allowing test takers to take the section at home, on their own computer.

Later that month, the January LSAT was administered. Although it was one of the “nondisclosed” tests that don’t get released — so we never got an in-depth look at it — we learned a few things about the exam. Most agreed that the Logic Games section was the most difficult, made difficult by some hard-to-parse rules. As it turned out, that would be a recurring theme this year — the games given in 2019 would be a little trickier than usual. Read more about the January 2019 LSAT and test takers’ reactions here:

January 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction January 2019 Post-LSAT Carnival

February 2019

This was an unusually quiet February, LSAT-wise, since the typical February exam was pushed to March in 2019. Scores for the January LSAT were released on Valentine’s Day, of all days … and that was about it. Without much LSAT content to feast on, we honored Valentine’s Day by making some LSAT-themed cards and Valentine’s Day logic games, and honored Presidents’ Day by doing a deep dive our favorite facts about presidents who were lawyers.

March 2019

A lot of LSAT- and law school-related news came out in March. We learned that the students of Southern California law school Western State would not be getting their student loan disbursements, which augured the potential closing of that school (it, in a surprise twist, would get sold to Westcliff University and started classes for enrolled students in August). The 2019-2020 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings dropped. And then the March 2019 LSAT was administered. Like January, it was also the first of its kind. Also like January, it was a nondisclosed test, so we never got an extensive look at it. Based on student murmurs, it seemed like the game about the improbably named towns of Quandaryville and Pleasantville was the most difficult part of the test. Read more here:

March 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction March 2019 Post-LSAT Carnival

April 2019

April didn’t exactly shower us with LSAT or law school news. Scores were released for the March exam … and that was about it. We were all excited for the Game of Thrones premiere, so we wrote about LSAT lessons learned from that series. Say what you will about that series’s wet fart of a final season, but at least we got some pearls of wisdom and LSAT content out of it.

May 2019

With switch to the digital LSAT looming, LSAC put some free practice exams in the digital format on its website. We weren’t terribly impressed with the initial interface, though LSAC did eventually make some changes to make it more user friendly. We also did our part to prepare students for the digital LSAT by distinguishing the facts from the fictions about the format change and giving some advice on how to do the online version of the LSAT Writing section.

June 2019

June — which marks the technical beginning of the non-Gregorian LSAT “year” (running from June 1 to May 31, according to LSAC) — saw the first major changes to the LSAT in 2019. For the June test, LSAC officially removed the LSAT Writing section from test day, allowing June test takers to do the section at the time of their choice from the comfort of their homes. When that change came, we tried out the new version of the Writing section, and gave it a very positive review.

If you still have to complete the Writing section, one tip: follow the directions of the security portion of the exam very carefully. After speaking with many test takers, the biggest issue they had with the new version of the exam is getting their LSAT Writing response rejected because there was some “testing irregularity” — read: they didn’t follow the directions entirely. Now, we really doubt that anyone is trying to cheat on the unscored Writing section. Still, for whatever reason, there are a ton of hoops and ladders you’ll have to jump through to do the at-home-version of the section. It’s not a big deal if you get your response is rejected — you’ll just have to do the Writing section again. But to avoid that hassle, make sure to follow all the directions as closely as you can.

The June LSAT was also the last paper-and-pencil version of the test, so technophobic pre-law students signed up in droves to take it. The June exam was administered on the third of the month and, despite having one more question than most LSATs, was generally considered to be a “fair” test, although many complained that the Reading Comprehension section was quite difficult. Fortunately for us, June exams are “disclosed,” so a copy of the test was made public once the scores were released. After we took a look at the June exam, we agreed that the Reading Comp was quite frustrating. Read more about that exam here:

June 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction An In-Depth Look at the June 2019 LSAT

With the unveiling of the digital LSAT in July, we also spent some time preparing our readers for that format switch. We discussed how to get prepared for the digital test, and how to do Reading Comp on the digital test, since marking up the passage with a pencil was no longer possible.

July 2019

July is when things got really crazy for the LSAT. The July LSAT, based on announcements made in 2018, was going to be a totally unique test administration. For one, it would be the test day that LSAC finally unveiled the digital test. However, LSAC would only be administering the digital test to about half of people taking the test. The other half would be given the traditional paper-and-pencil test. And test takers wouldn’t know which version of the test they were getting until test day. This was done so LSAC could conduct a comparative study on the two versions of the test, to make sure that test takers weren’t performing dramatically better on one version of the test. As a reward for being human guinea pigs in LSAC’s studies, July test takers got an unprecedented perk — they could elect to cancel their scores after seeing their score and retake the test for free. Perhaps unsurprisingly, about half of all July test takers took LSAC up on that offer.

The administration of the digital LSAT went, on balance, fairly smoothly. However, there were definitely a few reported hiccups. Many test takers noted that they found it difficult to see their screens clearly under the glare of overhead lights. Many also claimed that the provided stylus made it slightly cumbersome to highlight or underline text or select answer choices. Several test centers experienced significant delays as proctors worked to make the tablets functional. And there were a couple of test centers that had to cancel the test altogether. These issues would, unfortunately, be a recurring theme at test administrations for the rest of the year.

As for the July test itself, most agreed that it was a fairly difficult exam, with a few brutal passages and some very tough games. Read more about the July exam here:

July 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction

August 2019

With all the madness June and July wrought, August was a calmer month for LSAT and law school news. We finally got all the data about last year’s law school admissions cycle, which we summarized here (and will also summarize here: the number of applicants are up overall, but the number of applicants with good LSAT scores has remained steady or even decreased for certain score bands, so having a great LSAT score is still a huge competitive advantage). And in preparation for the first all-digital LSAT in September, we made a comprehensive guide on digital LSAT strategies and updated our test center review page.

And on August 28th, scores from the July exam were finally released. As we discussed above, almost half of all July test takers canceled their score.

September 2019

The LSAT became fully digital in September. Unless you were taking the exam outside of the U.S. and Canada or had special testing accommodations, you were taking the September exam on a tablet. And that’s how the LSATs would work for all subsequent tests, including the October and November tests held later in 2019. People who took the September test had some thoughts on how the newly digital test went. As on the July exam, most reports on the digital test were positive. It seems like most test takers prefer the digital test to the paper-and-pencil version, unless there’s a significant delay in starting the exam or malfunctioning hardware. Unfortunately, there continued to be a number of test takers who reported significant delays or malfunctioning hardware.

As for the content of the September test … it was a hard one. After the exam, test takers expressed a lot of frustration about the difficulty of the games and passages, with the most ire reserved for the so-called “flower game.” Since the September test was disclosed, we got to take a look at the test. And we agreed. It was definitely a hard one (though the difficulty of the “flower game,” we felt, was maybe a bit overstated). Anyway, read more about the September exam and test taker reactions here:

September 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction September 2019 Post-LSAT Carnival An In-Depth Look at the September 2019 LSAT

October 2019

In October, we got what was probably the most unexpected news about the LSAT of the year: the Logic Games section will maybe, one day, disappear. LSAC reached a settlement with a few blind test takers and, according to the statement released by those test takers’ attorney, the Logic Games section would be removed from the test within the next five years. However, according to LSAC’s statement on the matter, they promised only to research alternatives to the Logic Games section during the next five years. So who knows when or how that section is going to change. But this news was still shocking enough to make our resident LSAT nerd write an impassioned defense of logic games.

Outside of that news, the October LSAT came and went. The October test was another nondisclosed test, but according to test takers, it was another fairly difficult test. An unfortunate trend of 2019! Read more about the October exam here:

October 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction October 2019 Post-LSAT Carnival

November 2019

LSAC saw it fit to make one more change to the test in November. It made the surprise announcement that it would now release an applicant’s LSAT score to law schools before that applicant completed the at-home Writing section of that test. We noted how this shouldn’t change your approach to completing the Writing section or applying to law school, but this was still one last change to a test that got so thoroughly changed in 2019.

In addition to that announcement, there was the November LSAT, the last test of the calendar year 2019. Overall, the Logical Reasoning questions, Reading Comp passages, and logic games on the November test weren’t quite as difficult as those on the June or September tests. However, we felt the “curve” for November test was somewhat ungenerous. And, most concerningly, there were a lot of test center disasters for the November exam. Many test centers could not hold the LSAT as planned, so LSAT had to offer a make-up exam to affected test takers on December 8th. Read more about the November test here:

November 2019 LSAT Instant Reaction November 2019 Post-LSAT Carnival An In-Depth Look at the November 2019 LSAT

December 2019

After so many changes, surprise announcements, and trends to monitor throughout 2019, December has been a relatively quiet month. Though I suppose I shouldn’t speak so hastily — there are still two days left for LSAC to announce that the LSAT is now going back to the paper-and-pencil version of the exam, or it’s now going to be a dance recital, or that it’s going to merge with the GRE to form a super test. But, even if those final changes do not come to pass, 2019 has been a wild ride for those of us who have to take or teach the LSAT. Nevertheless, it’s been a pleasure being on this ride with you. We wish you a safe and happy New Year. All the LSAT News from 2018

All the LSAT News from 2019 was originally published on Blueprint LSAT Blog

#Digital LSAT #LSAT #News #score release #trent teti #lsat

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cam-studies-life · 7 years

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Ateneo College Entrance Test

Application Process: Paper (you have to claim your application kit from the university)

Application Period: June – August

Exam Date: August – September (last year’s exam was held on September 24)

Guide to Each Test

The following is what I can remember about each subtest of the ACET. The order of the tests here may not be accurate:

1. English Proficiency

This portion tests your knowledge of basic grammar (correct usage of verb tenses, subject-verb agreement, single-word analogy, etc.). The questions were not very difficult. HOWEVER, this was a difficult portion of the ACET because aside from answering 90 – 100 multiple choice questions, you also need to write an essay within the time limit. Think of it as a two-in-one portion. If I remember correctly, the time limit ranged from 30 – 45 minutes, which seemed so short, believe me. ☹ For the essay, a topic will be given to you. I can’t remember the essay topic of last year’s ACET, but I remember it being quite broad. For this portion, I advise you to speed through the multiple-choice part (without sacrificing accuracy, of course) so that you still have enough time for writing your essay.

2. Reading Comprehension

In this portion, a few of the passages were quite difficult to understand, and the questions didn’t always ask for facts. Sometimes it required you to analyze the meaning of a text (whether implied or explicit). To prepare for this test, practice reading faster. Try not to read the whole passage; it’s more efficient to read the questions first then skim the passages for the answers.

3. Math

The Math portion was quite difficult. There were many questions about lines (slopes of lines, equations of lines, finding the point of intersection of two lines, etc.) and geometry (finding the angles in transversal lines, perimeter and area, etc.). There were also a few world problems. Once again, your enemy in answering this test is TIME.

4. Abstract Reasoning

As the name of the test suggests, its purpose it to test your aptitude in finding patterns or differences in figures. This shouldn’t be very difficult, and you can look at CET reviewers online or in bookstores for sample tests like this. However, TIME is very limited. In last year’s test, there were 25 questions that I had to answer in 5 MINUTES.

5. Vocabulary

Probably one of my favorite portions of the ACET, it is designed to test your vocabulary. It would really help if you are a wide reader, since I recognized most of the words from the books I read. To prepare for this part, I suggest that you take the necessary steps to widen your vocabulary. Aside from reading more, try learning the definition of a few unfamiliar words each day. Similar to the Abstract Reasoning portion, there were 25 questions that had to be answered in 5 minutes.

6. Logical Reasoning

This portion was also quite difficult. The questions came in the form of statements/premises (e.g. “Insects are filthy creatures”, “Man is a mortal being.”). Then, you have to pick the most logical conclusion that can be drawn from the statements/premises given (e.g. “All Caucasians are mortal beings”, “No Caucasians are mortal beings”, “Insects are always filthy creatures”, “Insects are sometimes filthy creatures”). To prepare for this test, review basic Logic (if you took this up in Math/Research class). Make sure to know how to draw a logical conclusion from a set of premises. You have more than 5 minutes to answer this portion, but the time limit was still quite short.

7. Numerical Ability

I remember that this was the last portion of the ACET and, at least for me, also the most relaxing. It was 25 items of the word problems you encounter in Algebra, basically (age, work, mixture problems, etc.). There were also a few questions that required you to apply your knowledge of ratio, proportion, and variations. You have more than 5 minutes to answer this portion, but again, the time limit was still short.

How to Prepare for the ACET

1. Speed

Of the Top 4 CETs, the ACET is definitely the most stressful one to take because of the TIME PRESSURE. I read somewhere that the ACET was designed not to be finished (hence, the ridiculous 5-minute limits jk jk); however, this does not mean that you shouldn’t try! If you wish to pass the ACET, you must work on your speed when it comes to answering. You can do this by timing yourself while taking practice tests. Keep practicing until you can finish answering most, if not all, of the items within the time limit ( while still paying attention to accuracy, of course). By simulating the hectic, time-pressured environment you’ll most likely experience in the ACET, you’ll be able to cope better with the pressure during the actual exam.

2. Review Math

If you’ve noticed, many of the subtests are related to Math (Math, Numerical Ability, Logic). Therefore, I suggest you to pay special attention to this subject. No need to review Science since the ACET doesn’t have a Science portion.

3. Practice your Writing Skills

If you thought you were done with writing when you submitted your essay together with your ACET application, think again. With your application essay, you have the privilege of time and guidance from Grammar Nazis or your English teachers. In the actual ACET, you’ll have neither. Therefore, you need to practice writing a proper essay. Make sure you know how to apply the rules of grammar and how to construct a sound essay (introduction – body – conclusion). Aside from this, you also need to come up with the main idea (and the supporting ideas) of your essay more quickly so that you can finish writing it within the short time limit. (And of course, write legibly!)

Additional Tips:

1. Choose the best time for you.

I don’t know if this will be the case every year, but for my batch, we were given the freedom to pick our preferred time to take the exam (morning or afternoon). I think you should choose the best time for you, while considering the time when you’re most alert/active/energetic and the travel time.

2. Get there early.

The traffic in Katipunan is usually bad, and it gets worse when it’s the scheduled date for the ACET. Unlike the other tests, where your parents can drop you off directly in front of your assigned building/site for the exam, ACET takers are picked up by a shuttle from a certain place and brought to the testing site. Trust me, you’d want to be early.

3. Do your necessities before the test.

Ifthey tell you that the proctor will allow you to use the bathroom before the test starts, DON’T FALL FOR IT. I had a super strict proctor who said he’d start the test even if there were still people in the bathroom (smh). In all honesty, my ACET experience was horrible because I was holding in my pee for at least 2 hours. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to leave the room (even for bathroom breaks) once the test begins, except during break time. There’s a break in between (around 15 minutes), but with the long lines and few bathrooms spread far apart, the time might not be enough.

In my opinion, the questions in the ACET were average in terms of difficulty (I found the questions in the DLSUCET more difficult). However, the time pressure really makes a difference. I also observed that the acceptance rate of the ACET is not as high as the DCAT. If I remember correctly, the scores of applicants are ranked based on percentile (meaning your performance/score depends on the performance of others as well), and ADMU only accepts a certain number of students. However, don’t despair if you are waitlisted! Many of the applicants who passed decide not to enroll, so their slot is given to others. I have a classmate who was waitlisted, so she submitted a letter of appeal (you’ll be given instructions on how to do this later) and other requirements. A few months later, she was informed that she made it 😊

I hope this helped aspiring Ateneans! Feel free to message me/send me an ask if you have more questions about the ACET. Best of luck xx

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raevfitta · 8 years

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Things that are different in Sweden: Defending your PhD Thesis

So as the memories start to haze over, I am going to try to recount the steps that got me to where I am today: the process of finishing your PhD in Sweden. (Shout out to @tiikerikani so I can borrow her Things that are different in Finland theme, based on What's Different in Canada.)

So this is going to be about my road to defending my PhD in Economic History at Uppsala University. It will be a very long and sometimes rambling post. I started my program in September 2012 and defended in March 2017 (about four and a half years - so a success). This will be my reflections on the process of being a Canadian trying to navigate this strange and quasi-medieval system. Since my department is small, some of these things along the way are fairly specific to it. BUT if you want to read about what makes Sweden really unique, just scroll to the bottom and start reading at “The Public Defence: From Planning to After-Party” part of this - that part is more comparable to the regular Swedish experience.

Before the PhD...

So in 2010, I was accepted to do my Masters in Sweden. It was the last year for people outside of the EU to get the chance to do their Masters for free. I had done my Bachelors in History and Scandinavian Studies so I already “knew” Swedish before arriving. Needless to say, I likely wouldn’t have been able to get to the point of finishing my PhD without the chances to both learn Swedish AND to be able to do my MA tuition free. Right now, Sweden is still “working on” making Masters programs more accessible to foreign students again. You get better opportunities for housing, and they are trying to figure out how to make the education cost seem justifiable. If you want to do a Masters, and really want to come to Sweden, the cost might be worth it.

I finished my Masters in May 2012 and received an A on my MA thesis. This is another step that you need to have in order to get accepted to this longer PhD process. Having a strong thesis is primarily what programs (at least in the humanities and social sciences) are looking for. The extra criteria (grades in your course work, for example) are not really considered. Since I didn’t have a Bachelors thesis, I needed to have a fairly strong Masters. From what I have heard from the selection committee, that is how I was picked for one of four spots.

What about the residence thing?

I’m not Swedish - I’m from Canada. I got accepted fairly quickly into a PhD program (I finished my Masters in May and got news of my PhD spot in June or July) so I did not have to worry about the issues of a work or study permit. Since I started studying in September 2010, I had until then to figure something out. The migration board in Sweden is notoriously random when it comes to extending permits. I have never had a “major” issue (other than one time it took damn near three months for a decision) and now have permanent residency. Again, this process is fairly individual. I suspect that the reason it is easier for PhD students to get permanent residency now (it is fairly recent reform, passed in the last two to three years) is because they are demanding international Masters students pay. Permanent residency means that I am not TOO panicked about the job thing now (just highly panicked not overwhelmingly panicked). Needless to say, I will be very glad come September when I don’t have to head down to the immigration office.

The whole PhD process from the daily tasks, to the course work

My year was highly competitive. There were four positions with faculty funding available and there were apparently 20-30 applicants (some of them were the random applicants that were discounted right away but there were many MANY competitive people in the running.) I was the only non-Swede accepted in my year, but there were two other international people at my department. Needless to say, my department uses Swedish as a daily language. If you get accepted to a PhD program in Sweden, you are expected to learn Swedish. You aren’t demanded to learn it or required to show that you can speak Swedish, but there are always debates from department to department about how to deal with this “issue.” Coming from the University of Alberta, where there was a fairly diverse grad student population having to learn and prove they can speak English, this aspect still feels soft to me in Sweden. The TISUS is required to study at the undergrad level, but not the grad level. In a way, this is to allow foreign funding to come to departments - the TISUS is offered rarely when compared to the TOEFL but then again Swedish is a small language. But I think that if you want to have a life in Sweden, you need to learn the language. It will help you over time, especially when it comes to people sending emails without an English translation, trying to get other work, making friends, etc. People will either act bitchy about this or try to help you. I am at the point where I am fluent but get easily frustrated when some one doesn’t understand me. Sometimes, Swedes ask me if I am Norwegian when I speak since I sound “right” but also “not right” at the same time...

Another reason that it is important to know Swedish (and English) is the course work. My PhD is in Economic History - a small department with limited course options. All of my courses had a Swedish component, either reading or speaking instruction. I was (thankfully) allowed to write in English. This is where the language thing gets murky again - I think that departments should be stricter on PhD students learning Swedish but at the same time, I take the English way out for things. I guess this mainly connects to the academic languages in Sweden being Swedish and English. So if you want to take courses, or teach courses, you should learn and use high-level Swedish. They will be easier on your written Swedish (lol see some of my emails) mostly because they are fairly crappy at English some of the time. This is another thing I am a bit critical of - Swedish PhD students writing in (poor) academic English because they think some one will be interested in their very, very Swedish subject. There are dissertations in my department that I have no IDEA why they are (barely) written in English. It will only get worse for our department (see later on in this rant about our proofreader retiring...)

My course work was larger compared to other departments - we had to take 90 credits in my year (now PhD students only need 75...). Most courses are work 7.5 credits so this is a year and a half of ONLY course work. Your dissertation, then, is only worth 150 credits compared to how they are weighted in other departments (for a total of 240).

You are primarily expected to take courses at your department or faculty, or the equivalent department/faculty at another Swedish university that your department has an agreement with (we are part of a national network with economic history departments in Lund, Stockholm, Göteborg and Umeå). But since my dissertation topic was not necessarily “economic” and more “history” I read courses at the history department in Uppsala because I could justify it, as well as took a Latin course through the languages department. The only course I took at Stockholm was a Nightmare™ quantitative methods course. My other courses at Uppsala were an intro course (which included the presentation of two texts to the Higher Seminar), a qualitative methods course, a theory course, two introduction to economic history seminar courses, a course about the history of economic thought, and the above mentioned courses. We also got points for active participation at the higher seminar, which involves coming to a certain number over the course of four years and being an opponent to another PhD student.

One of the courses that are important to take as a PhD student is the pedagogy course. It is not mandatory, but if you take it as a PhD student the department pays for you. The course I took for my pedagogy points was the online version so my experience is different than others who have taken it. My course stretched from November until April, while the standard classroom version is five intense weeks over about a month and a half (the standard 7.5 credit course set up here in Uppsala.) The pedagogy course mixes students, researchers, and even professors from all departments. If you want a promotion, for example to docent/associate professor, you need to have these points. There are people taking this course that have been teaching for 20 years. Needless to say, I never had the nightmare scenario of some one actually coming and watching me teach on some random course. We had a couple of Adobe Connect seminars and online group work. The course is basically a “make work” course - you are given some tools that will help you with teaching, but none of the actual basics (how to write a syllabus, how to write an exam, how to supervise a student) are taught there unless you go digging for them. I recommend getting this over with if you are given the chance - you will need it if you want to stay at the university in the future.

Don’t you need to write a thesis too?

Oh yeah, that. When I applied to my program, I got in more based on the strength of my Masters thesis than the potential of my project. I tossed out something that I didn’t really think that much about and some how got in. I guess the main thing I walked in with were ideas about my source material, my research question, and the contexts for my time period and sources. I had an outline and plans to continue with some of the theories from my Masters, essentially. I knew I wanted to focus on newspapers and media transformation in the early modern period, also connected to the transformation of the public sphere and the state. I knew that my project wasn’t that strong, but I came in with an idea and my final dissertation is still related to it. At least at my department, they did not have heavy demands on the research proposal attached to the application IF you had a strong Masters thesis. HOWEVER I was not attached to a project. Some PhD spots are associated with project funding from researchers at the department. These projects are a lot more restrictive when it comes to your research focus, naturally.

My department also had some strange ideas about supervisors. We had to CHOOSE our supervisors. This was the hardest for me, coming from another subject and faculty (and country). I had no IDEA about the research focus of the people in the department. This is where my struggles as a PhD student began - I am shy and was still very shaky in my Swedish when I started at the department. I asked the ONE person I knew well there and she sent me to one of her former supervisors and that was a mistake for me. I did not feel like this person understood what I wanted to do, nor did the random researcher we got as a secondary supervisor. I struggled my first year basically because I felt that I couldn’t discuss my research with my supervisors. I was floundering. Luckily, in my first year, I had the majority of my course work and could gather quite a bit of my sources and start into my previous research. My first year, for the longest time, seems like such a waste compared to other people mainly because I feel like I could have done MORE.

It was only when I changed supervisors that I found out that the supervisor I ended up with had suggested he could take me from the beginning at the supervisor meeting. When PhD students apply, the department has several committees that discuss the acceptance process. Part of that is talking with a group of those with positions at the department about possible supervision. Previously (before I started) students were assigned supervisors from the beginning based on the competence of the supervisor (primarily associated with methodology or time period). I don’t know if I would have been more successful if I started with my supervisor, but I really hated my first year. It was lonely, depressing, and I got very little actual research done. The fact that my project is now FINISHED just shows you how you have to work through these doubts and issues. If you are unsure about your supervisor, you are allowed to change. You shouldn’t jump ship at the first sign of troubles, but if you cannot work with a person, you will not finish. This is a demanding process that people will get MAD at one another for a time but you should have some sort of positive relationship with your supervisors.

Another reason I struggled in my first year was the shared office situation. I did not walk into my PhD thinking I would have my own office, but it had been a while since I worked in an office environment where people would be walking around, talking, and coming in and out of a room. I ADORE my office mates and NEVER thought they were bad or strange people but I really just struggle being around people. I sat right next to the door so I would always jump when people would run in and out. We sat there for nearly two years before getting two-person rooms. I also feel like I got very little work done in that situation. It was hard to focus and I generally felt like the department would just tell me to suck it up if I complained. I brought up these things at the regular “performance reviews” with the director of grad studies and generally tried to show I could work through the issues, but still raised the fact that they said we would eventually get more individual rooms. When I moved to the two-person room, my work ethic and attitude changed. But when I got my OWN office, I really turned everything around. I had my office for a year, essentially from my final seminar to my book being sent to publication, and in that year, my dissertation became a book. I really compensated for the time I had trouble focusing my working extremely hard in my last year. This is probably not advisable...

Thesis timeline

I mentioned above the final seminar. My department has a fairly good system for helping PhD students remain on track to finish within the “four-year funding” window. Of course it doesn’t work for everyone, and doesn’t go for all departments. The history department, for example, is just starting to implement this idea of a final seminar to actually FORCE PhD students to present and follow a timeline. If you start to fall behind, find yourself unfocused and struggling, these steps feel insurmountable. One of the important things to remember about writing a PhD is that it will be hard and demanding. You have many responsibilities and many of them depend on only YOU. If you want to teach, you need to show an initiative for it - you won’t be handed it. If you want to present at conferences, it will be up to you. Needless to say, the department tries to force you into being organized with your time and that is really a positive if you are like me and need structure.

In the first year, we presented two papers at the higher seminar. In the first term (Winter 2012), I presented my thesis proposal (a longer paper, based on what I presented with my application). In the second term (Spring 2013), I presented an empirical “test” of that proposal (ie, I tried to show that my crazy idea of reading economic news in newspapers was actually viable). Neither of my papers were very good and were heavily criticized but most papers are. People will make comments like “why can’t you do it THIS way” (in other words “DO IT MY WAY”) and “why can’t you make this more THIS WAY” (in my case about writing about things during the 18th and 19th century was not seen as a good thing...and I should make it more about the modern world aka time after WWII) Seminar environments are not for the weak so needless to say I cried quite a bit after each seminar. But I still took the advice and criticism and thought through the problems with my papers. These were some of the first steps in creating my thesis.

At some point during the second or start of the third year, you are expected to have a half-time seminar. At this point, you should have the majority of your courses completed as well. I had my half-time seminar in December 2014 (Winter 2014 term, so during my third year). Now, at this point I had changed supervisors at the start of the 2013 Winter term. I got a real boost from them and actually began crafting a REAL introduction chapter. Some half-time seminars have longer texts. Mine was essentially two and a half chapters (my introduction, which eventually became two chapters), an empirical chapter (now my third chapter), and some tossed together conclusions (I don’t think that any of them survived to my final version.) We had an external opponent, but only from another department. Again, this seminar was not well received but I got some good comments and ideas (from my opponent rather than my department) for how to move forward. NONE of these seminars are “graded.” You are expected to present a text of a certain length and show progress each time. This is like the course work - you either pass or fail. There are no A-D grades at this level (and at most departments at Uppsala, they don’t give these grades anymore.)

It was also during my third year that I started teaching - this involved helping my supervisor with his Master course and getting more supervision. I started supervising undergrad students already in 2013, but in 2014 I got a little bit more responsibilities and pedagogic work. My supervisor had surgery at this time so it was a good solution to him being “sick” and me needing teaching hours. Needless to say, the Winter term of 2014/Spring term of 2015 were a bit of a mess. At this point, we also changed rooms (in the Spring term of 2015Jan-Feb. 2015). I think it was at this point that I REALLY began to have more confidence and take things more seriously. Sitting with only one other person was SUCH a relief for me. My roommate was hardly there and when she was, she was super focused and didn’t need to gossip all of the time. At this point, the new PhD students were becoming established and had this “open door PhD room attitude” of people running in and out, discussing politics more than thesis work. I was soooo thankful to not be in that group, to say the least. My office made didn’t have any awful habits, so I was able to start following my time line and was at the office more. My Swedish was better and I was making progress with my writing. My supervisors and I drew up a plan for the “final stage” and things started to feel “real.” I got more teaching by working with Erasmus students at seminars and starting to feel like a “real” grad student.

My final seminar was during my fourth year (Jan. 2016). We had found an opponent that was based on my source material. Now, even this “draft” was not complete. I had my (very) long introduction, two empirical chapters, and conclusions that were just ramblings basically. The main role my opponent played for this draft was because he knew my sources and could critique them in a way my supervisors couldn’t. To me, this was really helpful compared to some one going over my theories. So, after this, we set up the final stage for preparing for my defence with the head of the department and the director of grad studies. I also moved into my own room (essentially on the day of my final seminar) so I was really starting to feel like there was light at the end of the tunnel.

The final course I needed to complete was my pedagogy course and it mercifully ended in April. Once my courses were completed, we started making the final planning. Again, keeping track of my courses was mainly my responsibility. I told my supervisors about it, but they had no real role in finding or fixing courses for me. Some supervisors (especially if they are really specialized in the field) offer “reading courses.” This is also a solution for PhD students who can’t (won’t?) learn Swedish - you basically read a bunch of books selected for you by your supervisor and you write a paper about it.

The pre-defence

The final step before you can officially book a defence date is to have the professor reading. This is more like defending in North America except that you don’t have an external opponent or a committee at this point (so nothing LIKE North America). You’ll notice that I don’t have anything in here about comps or candidacy or things like that. Everyone I talked to about comps look at me like I am from Mars (and I just say know - I am from the Anglo tradition...). I guess since we need to present often at higher seminar, this acts as a form of comps. But it is by no MEANS as stressful or complicated as comps...reading courses, in this regard, replace this component, as well.

The final seminar acts as the external aspect of your defence, although that opponent has no real say of whether or not you can “technically” move forward. My professor reading was booked for the summer of 2016 (I needed to send my text Aug. 15!). The readers we selected were (lol) my supervisor’s former supervisor and one of his former PhD students. The professor’s reading is where you get the final check to defend. I worked essentially non-stop in the summer of 2016. I also got the position of Erasmus coordinator at the department, so that guaranteed extra prolongation (I had money until Sept. 2016 but with this and my other teaching, I had almost full paycheques until about November.)

At this point, I don’t know if my supervisors “actually” believed in my or they really DID believe in me. We had many MANY discussions that required me to go home and think about what I did and didn’t do. Rewriting this manuscript was about working very, very hard to put together an (almost) book. But (they told me afterward) when they got my manuscript for the professor’s reading, they realized that I had done it. I would make it. My conclusions were still weak (as hell) but I had done what I needed to do. Everyone says “kill your darlings” in writing and that is damned true. You need to be succinct and to the point, along with being summarative and critical of previous research and yourself. I did not listen to my supervisors about EVERYTHING they said, but I did take their advice. I think the most important thing about writing a dissertation is learning how to put, in your own words, the combination of your research, your analysis of the sources, your analysis of the previous research, along with your supervisors’ advice into something unique and clear. I know my dissertation isn’t perfect, but finding that combination is what writing a dissertation is about - not everyone can change the world, but you need to know what PART of the world you can change and write from that perspective.

The professor’s reading will tell you essentially what timeline you are working with to reach your defence. At my department, other PhD students have had to have SECOND professor’s readings. I remember nervously asking if I needed to send my changes again and they said it wasn’t necessary. This really surprised me because I had had SO MUCH criticism at the higher seminar. When I brought that up to my reviewers, they said that in my earlier texts, I hadn’t been that CLEAR in what I wanted to do. The judgement I got was that I could be finished within “several weeks” so that meant a couple of months. They had many recommendations (some I followed, some I didn’t...). It was here that the final process began towards printing a book and having a public defence.

My main supervisor couldn’t be at my professor’s reading, but my secondary supervisor was. He was from another department (history) so, for me, he was a source of sanity in another subject (economic history) that I still struggle so say I am a “master” of. We had an excited little conversation after and he pointed out what was wrong with my concluding chapter (he said it was a combination of my partner’s ideas - he’s a professor in history - and my main supervisor’s ideas.) So that meant in order to be “me”, I needed to redo all of it.

I think that when it comes to writing a thesis, this is another thing to think about. If something isn’t working, just start from scratch. Don’t delete it all (of course) but start with a new introduction. Put your ideas in another order and don’t try to REWRITE your way out of it. I am so thankful for having supervisors who could “see” when I needed to just start over again and not rewrite until it turned into pure garbage.

The Public Defence: From Planning to After-Party

After the professor’s reading, we confirmed with my opponent that I would be defending at the start of the Spring term of 2017. We didn’t have an exact date yet, but that part took a while to iron out (see later on: the party aspect, the having a morning defence slot...). The start of the Winter term of 2016 was a countdown to many, many things.

Finishing the book was something else that you don’t really get in other traditions. You aren’t finishing something that you take down to the bookbinders to make six or seven copies. You are finishing a book that will be published and can be bought in STORES. IT HAS AN ISBN NUMBER!!!

At my department, our resident proofreader and paginator retired JUST before I would finish (I can’t go into the nightmares she had with the guy that defended just before m). Since I had worked with InDesign in my previous life, I was able to paginate my own book. Some people have extra money for printing their books (at publishers that aren’t our university press) so they are able to get professional firms and proofreaders. For me, I asked my friends to read through chapters while also working intensely on it. My supervisors left me to finish a bulk of this without rereading it (again for the billionth time). The last things they read were my introduction and conclusions (naturally).

Once we decided a date (we figured this out in September-October after much disagreement because I would be defending either during spring break for Uppsala schools or spring break for Stockholm schools, along with one of my supervisor’s 40th birthdays...), I contacted the publishing office at the university. They gave me the final timeline for when things needed to be sent in to them. This was when the January deadlines were given to me to send my book to the printers (you send one PDF that you get back and are allowed to make changes to and then another that comes a week later that you CAN’T make changes to - if you find anything wrong at this point, you can request an extra sheet to be printed that they slip in at the start of the book), the date when my book would arrive, and the date for my nailing .... all leading up to the defence.

Since our books are published before the defence, this part of the journey is quite different than systems for PhDs in other countries as well. This part was also the most stressful for me - because you can still fail even if you have your book published. All of the seminars and professor’s readings are there and are MEANT to catch these things - ultimate weaknesses in your research that means you have not fulfilled the qualities for completing a doctorate. Your supervisors also argue on your behalf to the department about finishing on time BUT if you have a really weak thesis and force it into publication, you are on your own with it comes to passing or failing. Some people try to do this - they don’t listen to their supervisors or the people around them and defend even though it is a bad idea. After you have “nailed” your thesis, you can’t take it back - it is out in the world for judgement.

So when you are defending your thesis in Sweden, you are really just performing something more ceremonial. If you on the verge of failing, your opponent or committee will step in during the three weeks between publication and the defence and quietly tell you to unbook your party and essentially that your defence will not go well. Sometimes, the defence itself is called off.

It is still very stressful and very draining, but once your book is printed you have “basically” passed if you have followed all of the advice and directions along the way. I generally believed that something would go wrong with mine (something with my methodology or sources) and I would have to call the whole thing off. I still think about that.

We had our last supervision on Dec. 19 and I was “on my own” for completing the deadlines set up by the publishing office over the next month or so. This meant making sure I had the list of other dissertations at the end of the book, and had, well, a finished book. I needed to check that the pictures I would be including could be published, as well as pick cover art and write an abstract and a summary for the backside. I followed the style of previous dissertations mainly because my department doesn’t have a proper guide for styles. THAT part was the final stress for me. You don’t know how to format your footnotes and you don’t know how to format your references if you aren’t given proper direction. Since you only get one shot at finishing this, you really need to put a lot of time into this final stage of writing: style. Another word of advice: learn a footnote program and make friends with it. My notes and references were never properly organized. I am SURE I still missed referencing some one I noted in a footnote.

Once my rewriting was complete, I moved my files from Word to InDesign. This was how I made my final changes and it felt “finally” real that I would be finishing soon. If you have graphics in your thesis (or just care about how text looks on a page), this program (or an equivalent) is SO much easier than Word. If you are going to lay out your own thesis, try to learn a good lay out program beforehand. Learn what orphans and widows are. Care about how spacing looks.

I took some “time” off around Christmas but I was really focused and made my January deadlines. Throughout this time, we had also made the arrangements for the party. Defences in Sweden are also associated with having a party to celebrate your achievement. You are expected to invite your entire department, family, friends, opponent, supervisors, etc. I had made the reservations for the location at the same time my date was confirmed with the opponent and committee. Once my book was set to print, I was able to change gears and focus on planning the party. I selected a menu I hoped would be okay for everyone and thought about who to invite aside from my department. I also started planning the invitations and the song books...

It takes a few weeks for the book to be printed, but three weeks before the defence you have a public “nailing” of the book. You get to be Martin Luther, essentially. My books came on a Tuesday, and I nailed my book on a Friday at the university library rather than the main university building, since it is currently under construction. My book is 254 pages long so I was really thankful that the guys at the library receiving dock have a drill available for it. Once your book is delivered to your office, you bring ten (plus one) copies to the mail room at the university library (in the basement, to the side, with a door that is marked “Exit only for PhD students”). You then get a slip that says you have done the final job and you take the “plus one” book up to nail it. It took quite a bit of arm strength to get the nail into the board and the book. Apparently you could hear my nailing three floors up in the microfilm room....

After the nailing, you are expected to distribute the book. I sent a PDF to my opponent once that was done (essentially the one I converted before sending it to the printers around the end of January) but now I had a book to send. I sent my book to universities (and technical schools) throughout Sweden, but I also distributed it to colleagues at my department as well as “former” colleagues at the History department. People were invited to my “nailing coffee” or spikfika to get their books and invitations to the party. We bought Ukrainian champagne and I baked cupcakes, but most people at my department get the coffee cart from the cafeteria and buy princesstårta. I wanted something that was more “me” so that was what I did. It was slavic and pink. This is three weeks before the defence so now the weeks are just going to fly by.

People need to pay to attend the party. This meant I needed to wait for people to both RSVP AND pay. The venue needed the numbers the week of the party but it was still hard to wrangle about 70 people into paying attention to deadlines. I was also teaching quite a bit at this point, and my family arrived. If there is ANY advice I can give to people, it is try not to defend at the same time as a bulk of your teaching. I hardly had any time to reread my dissertation.

I talked to my opponent the week of my defence. We went through what we were going to talk about and any thoughts I had about my work. I told him about what I had been criticized about before. Opponents for PhD defences need to be external - this means from another university in Sweden or an international opponent. I ended up having a Swedish opponent and we decided to do the defence in Swedish (not my first choice....). I talked to him about this as well. This is another reason to learn Swedish - if your opponent is also Swedish, you might be asked to do this for the ease of the opponent and committee. Your committee is made up of an external, some one from another faculty, and some one from your department (some committee have more members - there is space for five names on the sheet and reasoning why you need the extra people). My supervisors helped me form the committee so I didn’t need to run around and begging people to be on it.

Your committee and not your opponent decide if you pass or fail. The opponent is there to examine your thesis, but your grading committee decides whether you pass or fail.

So the day of my defence arrives. March 3. I had managed to book a morning defence. Another tip: book a morning defence. Like I just said, the grading committee are going to need to meet to discuss your work before the party. They generally prefer to do it over lunch so having the slot from 10-12 is preferable. You get two hour defences at Uppsala, not the million hour ones in other countries. At my department, we also traditionally book on Fridays (the History department also does this for most defences.) You cannot defend at the same time as some one else from your faculty, so that means there are only two slots available (morning and afternoon) for each faculty. I was able to get the morning slot only because another girl had to drop out (she booked both the morning and the afternoon and didn’t tell me, even though I asked her, that she would be giving up the day.) I almost had to book the afternoon and that would have made a bunch of people upset. Instead I got the auditorium I didn’t like...

We arrived on campus about an hour before the defence and my opponent (by coincidence) was right behind us. I recognized him (we had met once years ago) and sort of stared at him as he followed us in the doors. He was very very nervous so he eventually admitted he recognized me and we brought him up to the department. We set him up in an empty office and I double checked that the flowers and water were purchased (usually one of the admins take money from petty cash and do this.) I went down to the auditorium and checked that the computer worked, and if we needed microphones. I grabbed them from reception, but we ended up not using them. They are actually more annoying than they are beneficial.

By this point (about a half an hour to go), my supervisors arrived (I was annoyed they weren’t there sooner...). Everyone met my family and we got set up. We came down to the auditorium and set up my opponent’s powerpoint and waited for other people to start arriving. I had no idea what was going to happen, what I should do, and how I should act.

I have been to other people’s defences at this auditorium, but have never taught in it. There are three spaces large enough for defences on my campus. Some people are allowed to defend at the main university building if they request it, but I have only been to one defence like that. Thank GOD my one supervisor was there because I had NO IDEA how to turn on the computer for my opponent’s powerpoint. I had to log in as myself and was so worried that my desktop (with all my teaching powerpoints) would show up on the big screen.

Everyone got settled. I was starting to run out of copies of my dissertation at this point so I only bough like five copies down. Another piece of advice: try to get 200 copies printed. I got 180 and only have just over 20 left for, you know, the rest of my career (unless I buy more...). You might need to pay a little (the faculty has a ceiling for how much they contribute to printing if you don’t have outside funding) but it will be worth it to have more copies.

We started my defence in English for the benefit of my family (and also because the moderator thought the defence would be in English and had prepared in English....) but then I was able to say a few words. This is another good thing to do: your opponent will be doing most of the talking so it is good to have SOMETHING to say. I was able to bring up two of the mistakes I had made (and noticed) that were big enough to name (I had some errors in my citations, for example). At this point, everything was rolling in Swedish.

My opponent gave a summary of my book (which lasted about 20 minutes or so) and then I was able to comment if it was a correct interpretation. To me, it was. Then he started to analyze each of my chapters. There was a main concentration on my introduction and some on my methods, before moving into my three time periods in my three empirical chapters. This is where the memories start to get hazy. My defence just seemed to fly by. I didn’t know where to look so I just kept my eyes on my opponent and at my notebook. He mainly looked at his screen and then at me. There were no real “arguments” between us - and no real disagreements. He did point out some weaknesses (I could have brought up more of the critical mercantile perspective shown in my sources) but we were able to have a fairly balanced conversation. There were some things I couldn’t answer - here is more advice: if you can’t answer it, just say your opponent did a good job pointing that out and move on. Don’t try to talk yourself out of a hole because then you are just babbling.

The two hours were over very, very quickly. My opponent summarized the dissertation and then the committee was allowed to ask questions (just a note that my opponent wasn’t able to get through everything he wanted to say...). I got three fairly random questions from my grading committee: the external asked why I didn’t have more summarizing tables of my results, the non-faculty member asked why I didn’t include the Swedish original quotes (SOMETHING I WANTED TO DO BUT EVERYONE TOLD ME TO TAKE THEM OUT) and finally the person from my department asked if I could’ve added an extra time period further on into industrialization (again, the constant complaint of making things more “modern” from my department.)

Then it was over. People applauded and I gave my opponent a quick hug before everyone came down to congratulate me. Already, people were saying what a good job I did. I am not sure if this was because I was so familiar with my text, or because I had not spent TOO much time preparing. If I had read through my book a few more times, I might have started to second guess myself more.

The last people to thank me were my supervisors and my family. My supervisors were SO proud and I could tell. This was when we all sort of parted. My family and I went up to my office and grabbed our coats to go for lunch, and the committee, my opponent, and my supervisors went for the grading lunch.

We made our way into town and about only just more than an HOUR after we had parted, my main supervisor called me to say I had passed. This was a part I didn’t know about. I wasn’t aware that you were told BEFORE the party. So it doesn’t seem like there were too many disagreements between my committee and my supervisors regarding me passing, given how short the time was.

We went home to change and make the final table arrangements. Traditionally, you are expected to place people at the tables rather than let them sit wherever. I sat next to my opponent on one side, my main supervisor on the other, and my other supervisor across from me. My family was placed throughout the table, mixed with my partner’s family and professors from the departments (we counted and over HALF of the people at the party had their PhD and nearly 20 others were PhD students so this was a very, very educated crowd.)

I had printed out the traditional song books before the party as well (the day before - from the printer at the department next door to mine since some one had borked our colour printer.) I only had a few songs since I am not much of a gasque/nation song person (I love snaps but not really snaps songs). My party was at a student nation (see: Things that are different in Uppsala ... some where online...) so I thought I should have SOME songs.

When we got to the nation (I had my party at Uplands), we were able to make the table rearrangements and put the song books and names on the tables. We were there more than a half an hour before the guests but there was still quite a bit to do. We then went to the downstairs area and waited for everyone to arrive around 6.30. Champagne was passed out and shortly before we went to eat dinner at 7, the committee member from my department announced I passed. NOW the celebration could really begin.

The party was filled with really moving speeches. Pretty much all of them made me and many others cry (especially my supervisors and my mom and uncle’s.) Everyone gave their speeches in English so that was really important to me. My supervisors gave the first speech, and then the order sort of blurs for me. One of the members of the history department gave a speech (I was the first one from my master’s programme of ALL the years to finish a phd). My PhD colleague, who will defend next after me, gave a lovely speech. My mom gave a speech, and so did my uncle. My committee member gave a speech, and so did the head of the department. My opponent also gave a sort of “on the spot” speech about fake news and relevance of questions about the media. My partner gave a speech, and so did the wife of my toastmaster. A friend of mine, who is away, sent a video so we played that. The computer was going the entire time in the background so there were ALWAYS pictures of cats shown throughout the meal. A colleague from the history department sang a Stan Rogers song and I made people join in for the whole thing just as the meal ended.

It was a long but also great day. We had a little time left at the nation, and then came back to the apartment for an afterparty. My opponent even came and it was just fantastic. I basically held him hostage until 4 a.m.

So, if there is any way to summarize this whole thing (aka tl;dr): doing a PhD in Sweden is different than in North America or other traditions. In addition to this whole not having to pay tuition, along with getting paid for four years, you get a book published BEFORE you defend. You have a giant party rather than just a dinner with your family and (maybe) your supervisors.

I’m right now stuck in this “post-defence depression” that feels very empty and lonely so it sort of helps to reflect on these “brighter” moments...I almost want to tell people to not defend and in a way I understand why so many people draw out the process for so long.

I’m going to recount what it is like to “convocate” here in May. There are canons and castles involved!!!

#PhD #Thesis #Dissertation #Sweden #Uppsala #Grad School #Study Advice

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