Blog post 6: COVID-19

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_sf0ybFXMa/?igshid=13cwrwxnjcokl

Above is a video I took on April 24th of the line of cars backed up and ready to receive food at the Conway Community center from The Sanneh Foundation

COVD-19 really changed how the world operates, you can’t walk into the bank whenever you want anymore now you have to wait in a long line of vehicles if they have the drive thru option. Restaurants who don’t have drive thru’s are suffering and closed, if they are non essential and the governors stay at home policy is extended to May 18th because people are not quarantining correctly. I lost my license a month ago and have not been able to go to the DMV because most government run offices are closed. Luckily I found it while cleaning my room however I did call and ask the dmv last month what to do and they said until the stay at home order is lifted because the DMV is impacted. My room mate was not able to get her background check done for her new job and was hired anyways with the check postponed. I don’t have the same energy I did months ago for school or work. It’s like my brain shuts off for most of the day and turns back on at night. As I am writing this I have not slept for 24 hours due to being behind on school work. I don’t think I have ever been this behind on school work in my life. Also it is Ramadan and I have to stay away from my family since I moved away. It is usually such a joyous and family oriented tradition to make food together, watch the kids, nap, etc and now I am not working so I have time for my family but safety wise I stay home and face time my family. These are the negatives to this pandemic.

Sat in the sun after presenting in class today

I am currently unemployed and I am able to focus on school work and yet I am still behind, these are tough times for people physically and mentally. Here are some positives to living a world digitally. Traffic is positives, I moved to Burnsville in the beginning of March and commuted to work until I was laid off in April, the commute ever since everyone went into quarantine has been lovely. It usually takes me 35 minutes from Burnsville to North East Minneapolis, in April it took me 15 minutes. I saved a lot of money because I don’t go out to eat anymore or shop. I take a walk everyday with my room mate and cat and I have rested a lot and caught up on a lot of reading and shows I did not have time for during the three week spring break.

Cheap gas and not being able to go anywhere.

Blog 5 – Adapting to America

My parents got married in Minnesota in 1995 and they put four of seven children through high school and almost through college. My mom worked two jobs her whole life the first, this factory job with my dad in the picture above and now at a daycare. She decided to be a stay at home mother and care for her seven children while my dad worked and we moved to Minneapolis in 2001. An expert at gaining new information and insight into the social norms of the different cultures my parents are exposed to and adapt to the behaviors of their host culture in the U.S that is the definition of acculturation. My mom understands our pop culture slang and I remember how shocked my sisters and I were when my mother used the phrase and I oop in the correct context. She listens to whatever music we play in the house and she likes One Direction and she likes Beyonce, etc. She was a huge Micheal Jackson fan back in Somalia and in San Diego.

I graduated in 2015, I have another sister who’s a year younger but I can’t find her graduation pictures. Above is my 21 year old sisters high school graduation from 2018.

My mom, dad, 19 year old brother (2019 high school graduate), his favorite teacher and my youngest brother (turning 7).

Above is my mom she is really proud of her first four who are on their way to completing bachelors degrees! It is a huge accomplishment because my grandfather was huge on education and he built a University back in Somalia.

Above is my father in his business casual attire, he loves posing for the camera.

Overall, I think my parent assimilated well in American culture they’ve been here since the 90’s and were young adults back then escaping from civil war in light of a new peaceful life. I still don’t know why they chose Minnesota but I am proud to be their daughter and make sure all their hard work does not go to waste. My whole life my father worked in the rental car service after leaving Wilmar and moving to Minneapolis, even now at age 60 he works as a driver for rental cars at the airport and always uses himself as an example of what not to do. He tells me he does not want me working manual labor and that I can have the American dream.

Blog 4 – Youtube strike for me, you, the family, and the pets.

Youtube is a place where people can express themselves and be creative while make money. However, Youtube’s rules have become stricter as the years go by and now people can’t seem to stop getting copy righted for even existing. The algorithm is not perfect however, they can work towards fixing this issue more. Here we have a Youtuber who wanted to test out the copy right strike process and filed a claim against his own video. His video after a week or two was mildly taken down and he easily removed it. The problem here is that anyone can claim your work without any liable proof and if you get three copy right strikes you’re channel will be deleted.

Another problem with how easily copy strikes can get filed on Youtube is corporations can use this method to make money and have videos taken down. It not only applies for movies people review on Youtube but for music as well. Even if you pay for it you can still get a strike filed against you by corporations as extortion. Youtube started out for the people and now is run and financially backed by big businesses who are creating controversy and frustration all around.

Blog 3 Area 51

People have been fighting for years whether or not aliens are real and if the government knows and they store aliens in area 51 to perform on them. It has shown up a lot in pop culture and some people really do believe anything they read online nowadays. Twitter culture made a huge trend of having people join together and march towards Area 51. However now the U.S Navy is confirming that they are in fact real and CNN picked up the story. Is it still credible? If so why expose the truth now?

The US Navy has confirmed that certain purported UFO videos made public over the past several years do indeed show "unidentified aerial phenomena" https://t.co/lhK2YNydc5 pic.twitter.com/1MwoyFFNIF

— CNN (@CNN) September 19, 2019

I don’t believe in aliens I think this is staged and the government wants to control the narrative of the media to pull focus away from more important things going on in this country right now. A lot of secrets have been exposed since the COVID-19 outbreak. For example, the AP college entrance exams have always had expensive preparation books and now they are giving them free access due to online schooling. That could have done for the minority community who can’t afford $100 books.

Blog post #2

I think that sometimes professors forget how hard it can be to be a student, especially right now with COVID-19. Dealing with school online like this in the middle of the school year. Sometimes it can feel like work is piling up and the mental capacity to do work is not possible.

Me trying to hide al the stress for school https://t.co/c2XkWzVHDg

— Caro De Bisscop (@CaroDeBisscop) April 30, 2020

In this article a teacher put himself in a student’s shoes and sat in on a tenth and twelfth graders classes for an entire day. He learned that teachers can be sarcastic sometimes when they have to repeat themselves and that students sit too much. He taught for fifteen years and only now was he put in a position to experience what his daughter goes through daily. It just goes to show even though someone was a student once times change and does the experience of being a student.

This teacher saw how hard it was to stay focused sitting in four long blocks and he was exhausted because as a teacher he moves all day and his students sit all day. He was surprised how his host students were so attentive and he felt empathy towards them. I think professors should be more empathetic towards their students during these tough times, especially college students who are adults and have to deal with external forces outside of school.

Reddit VS Discord let the games begin.

The public represented by my classmates and my professor is one of familiarity even though it’s the second week of class I feel more comfortable speaking to the class about different topics and ideas, it is a learning space for everyone involved. Even the professor who has done this class many times and knows what works and what does not.

Blog Post 1: Blogger as intelligent filter: the annotated link post

OH, COME ON. Really??? from Gameofsultans

I found myself playing this online game called Game of Sultans I saw on some Instagram ads last summer. I was never one for falling for advertisement traps or getting into things when I see it repetitively however, Game of Sultans was the first of many for my new addiction to spending real money for app games. With this game also comes limited communication with other real players in real time. This link is basically a bunch of different people on reddit trying to navigate the game as a community. I love how people us similar apps or websites differently to communicate with each other for one game. There is another app called discord where gamers can speak to each other 24/7 instead of posting something on reddit and waiting for a response back. Reddit is like those websites people go to ask each other about symptoms of an illness that always somehow lead to death and discord is like the KIK of the app gaming world. I could spend hours on reddit laughing about weird random stuff. I can’t imagine something as addicting as reddit and than adding games to the mix which is addicting to play. I spent hours on Game of Sultans and double that time on reddit for codes and how to find loopholes.

Discord is basically like Slack in the way it is laid out image wise and there are many different private chat boxes people can make for different games and organize it themselves. I am going to be using games, specifically Game of Sultans throughout the rest of this blog to help people better understand. With reddit there is censorship and yes profanity is allowed but it is limited same with Instagram and nudity that is limited or monitored. With the discord app its a free for all and everyone knows no one uses the age requirements when kids sign up for these type of things. Without much censorship and intended use for 13+. Children who love gaming (games they aren’t even suppose to be playing 13+) in places like discord are subject to a breeding ground for cyber bullying and harassment. Discord does have some guidelines but they value “privacy” and in all honestly just cant keep up with all the different servers people create. They monitor those broader servers for any violations but really they don’t have enough technology or time to monitor one-one cyber chats.

“Online gaming doesn’t have to be a place where bullying is done,” said Mr. Geoppo. “There should be a safe haven.”

The online gaming community not only has to combat addiction to long hours of gaming that is really easy to get caught up in (happens to the best of us) but people also have more leeway to say what they want online and bully. With reddit a child could spend hours reading threads about anything and with discord a child plays games with their friends and strangers who expose them to things children should not be subjected to.

Hello MDST 485!

New year new me 2020