ishte, posts by tag: school - LiveJournal

So anyway, unfortunately today my boss has pretty much confirmed that ARC is pretty well gone forever. It's a real shame too. It was a good job. Best job I have ever had even though the pay was not stupendous. This will be the second time a job I really liked has disappeared out from under me through no fault of my own. In this case, the blame falls squarely on the City of Dayton for leading us on a merry chase after our contracts. In 2011 we had a roughly 70 house contract and we were able to train and maintain on staff 25 disadvantaged workers, many of the, ex-offenders. Recidivism in Ohio is something like 44%, so there is no question such an enterprise is needed. By training workers not only with physical job skills that they can carry forward into other jobs, we also helped them learn important traits to keeping in good standing with their job. Work ethic, punctuality, compatibility with coworkers, leadership and various other skills. It makes sense to help these people empower themselves to become contributing members of their communities as they reenter society. We thought that Dayton agreed, however it has become clear that they don't care about that at all. In early 2012, Boss was working with our state Attorney General to help develop the Moving Ohio Forward Grant which would use some of the money that the banks had to pay states in settlement for the immense fraud they perpetrated on new home buyers just prior to the collapse of the housing market. Unfortuanately for us, in this case, our Attorney General is a Republican and every city commissioner except our departing Mayor is a Democrat. Oh heaven forfend that we should talk to anyone who is not politically aligned with all the City Commissioners. They got mad and started dragging their feet on our next contract (already promised from NSP3 funding).

There is no lack of work in our field. None at all. Dayton has 7000+ blighted houses that need to be removed. They are being removed. Our particular contract was taken off the table and not voted on several times until in mid 2012, we laid off 25 workers and the last two (myself included) went down to part time hours while we continued to scrounge for work since Dayton had let us run dry and had not delivered their promises to us. ARC was aground. It was almost 2 months before a different contract was offered to us after Boss was chastised for his (OMG) fraternization with a (OMFG) Republican politician at the state level to try to get our company more work so we could train and employ more workers. Imagine that. We wanted to TRAIN and HIRE more WORKERS. Aren't Democrats supposed to be in favor of the little guy? the common man? the downtrodden? the WORKER? Anyway, our paltry contract was for less than a 10th the amount of the previous one. And each house was released like it was a precious commodity. The end result was that we could only bring back one team of workers at a time, and we did not at any time have enough work to bring back a third team. As Summer 2012 crept by, we desperately tried to negotiate with the City about our contracts. They promised us that we needn't worry that they would have work for us. Dayton issued 6 bid packets for 60 houses each. They required such outrageously high performance bonds that only one contractor could qualify, and he because he's so wealthy now that he can self bond, has his own landfill and can hardly even be considered local any more because he's spread through several states. Well Kudos to him for being successful. that's great, but he doesn't help Dayton meet any of the green or social goals they purport to want to meet. So he's not getting ALL the work available in Dayton. We bid on two of the packets, after negotiating about the performance bond.

Anyway, this dragged on and we understand that 4 of the 6 packs of demolitions were awarded. Our two were removed from consideration. permanently apparently. Then the city ran us around for a while, and finally issued a 'request for qualifications' which we spent time and energy working on, and turned in... and waited. And waited. And waited all through the winter into spring they said they were assessing it. Then the funding for our current project ran out and the City pulled two houses off our board, one of them already under permit and starting deconstruction. We laid off 4 of our 9 remaining disadvantaged workers. Each week, Dayton promised that they almost had our next work ready. Then about three weeks before the end, we were told that the only thing holding up the works was 16 properties that we had open permits on. of those 16, about 10 had new homes built on them and the City of Dayton had never closed the permits even when they issued new ones. the other six were either waiting for adequate grass to grow on the new clear lots to be inspected, or were the most recent ones we'd deconstructed and were still in excavation. So I toured them, asked for inspections on the ones that could have them, and gave updates on the rest. By the end of the week, all but 3 had finals. Still no contract. When I came in on Tuesday the 11th, Boss told me that he'd decided to close ARC. At the time, he just said there was no work, which was a true statement.

What I learned a couple days later by reading on esrati.com (David Esrati is a local politician and who owns a marketing firm. He's very outspoken about the problems in our city and he tells it like it is) about his feelings about ARC closing was that while they were stringing us along, the city was awarding work to another contractor by using what is called a 'change order'. It means an existing contract has extra funding added to it and extra work. This company is not in the City of Dayton, and their contract apparently was extended twice by more than twice the contract they strung us along on all summer of 2012, and we just found out about it. There was no reason for Dayton to make us bid on the same set of work over and over and over and still never give us anything while promising they would have work for us. So my question is "What gives Dayton? Why'd you screw your own local contractor and cost the city a total of 28 jobs while giving work to two companies out in the suburbs, not even IN Dayton, one of which did not even have to bid for the work as is supposedly required.

So today was the day that Boss told me he didn't intend to bring ARC back at this point even if the city does come back and tell him to come and sign a contract and here's 60 houses to deconstruct this year. I think he's lost heart, and I don't blame him. It's a real crappy situation and Dayton treated a very decent man trying to do something good in the world and an extremely shoddy way. Meanwhile, I have no job, and I really liked my job. I'm really quite angry about this. I want to march down to city hall and have a few sharp words with some people. people who pretty much lied in MY face as well, since the last two visits for consultations were made by ME as I tried to get all the information together for the Community Development Block Grant that we were also trying to get so that we could offer better pay to our workers, but which Boss never turned in, because he became convinced that we wouldn't get any work to use the money one and it would go to waste. I'm really livid about this and I want to chew some heads. I want to mouth of in the way that Esrati does. I'm going to ask Esrati what I can do to help him the next time he runs for office.

In the mean time, I haven't decided what to do yet. I have unemployment for a while. Last summer I got by on half pay for several months. I can this summer too. I can step up my Mary Kay Business to make more money. I had said that if it became clear that my job was not coming back that I might consider going back to school for real. Full time, and have that be my job. I'm pretty much on the verge of making that decision now. I can get started with school while I'm not working and still have an income. My grants will cover my classes and then some extra most quarters. So I'd be pretty well set until my unemployment runs out. Then I can decide if I want to hack pizza or something while I'm in school, or if I want to go ahead and go the student loans route and take out enough to live on too. I don't have to cross that bridge yet. I just need to decide what I want to do, and what path of studies to take. Linguistics, or prosthetics? Or architecture? I was very interested in architecture in high school. I loved drafting classes, but I know I applied a lot of my drafting knowledge to design artificial limb structures. I wanted to find ways to make them move in the most natural way possible. Back then, the technology wasn't really there to make them work in that complex way, but now? Yah... now the technology is moving. It's interesting. I don't really have to declare right away either. I'll still need a language, so I can study both at the same time while i get my gen eds out of the way. I think I'd better fill out my Fasfa pretty soon though. I don't know the deadline date for this year.

Wow, this took forever to whine about. I better go to bed. *grumble* Unemployed and STILL don't have enough damned hours in my day!

Oh I did forget thought that I'm working out a schedule, and that I'm going to get back to writing while i have time to get my brain back on it. I have had Chasing the Trail chapter 15 open and have worked on it. Right now I'm looking for a reference. If anyone remembers what chapter it was that Winry promised Ed he could get up and use his crutch once he showed her he was going to be able to do it (or something like that) I'd appreciate knowing, as I'm trying to find it.

Anyway, night all.

I couldn't help it!! Don't look at me that way!

I found this again after 4 years in my sent mail while i was looking for another sent mail, and I had to repeat it.

For the time being anyway. I've been weighing my options and reasons and the reasons to stop for now by so far outweigh the reasons to continue struggling forward that I can't even find a pro school reason right now. These are in no order of importance... in fact, the last things might weigh the heaviest right now because some of them are the reasons for the first things.

1. I don't know what the hell I am doing, and I'm now way to scattered to figure it out. I wrote a letter to wright state asking them for guidance in my field of study and got a very generic email back that suggested that I could pick from any of a variety of courses they offered, with no suggestion what would make me most employable in the field I wish to enter, nor even a suggestion of where to look. I'm thinking that I'm not going to transfer to Wright State even forewarned as I am by the horror stories I have heard from some other people I have known who attended, even graduated and found themselves unemployable because of the mismanagement of their studies by the school.
2. I am exhausted to the point of illness. Pardon the pun here, but I'm really sick of being ill. I am missing work because I'm so stressed out it makes me ill. I have a good job an I am ruining my chances to move up in that job. It is often all I can do to get myself out the door to go to work, much less continue on to class straight from work. I have since winter quarter started dropped from being the number one agent in my entire call center to 59th. That's unacceptable. I have been in the top 20 ever since I went on production.
3. I'm frustrated. I'm very very frustrated. I'm spread too thin and can't do well at anything right now. When get angry about trying to force myself to go to class, something is wrong. Don't even speak of trying to find time to do homework when I can still brain at the end of the day.
4. The materials provided for my online (which I did not want to take online but which was ONLY available online) class are a joke. Seriously. The quizzes have nothing to do with the materials, then after I go and look up all the quiz questions, (most of which are not directly in the book) the Pretest has little or nothing to do with the quiz for any module it covers. Even after taking the Pretest (read: practice test) multiple times to get the widest sample of questions possible from which to study, generally, if I gather 100 different questions from the pretest and commit them to memory after spending hours researching NOT in my book, but on the web) then on the actual test of 50 questions, less than half of them were one of the 100 I gathered from multiple takings of the pretest. That's not right. It might become right if the teacher were actually interacting with us in any meaningful way, however she is not. The ONLY interaction we get is an email reminder that we're about to hit a deadline for a test, or if we directly question her about something. Sad fact: most of the material that I do find, I find on the websites for other colleges on the same subject right there open to the public for viewing.
5. I have not written anything of note outside of my English class since I started school. The stuff I wrote in English may have been A++ material, but it wasn't anything special to me, and had no meaning at all. In fact, two of my subjects I wrote in direct opposition to how I actually felt about my subject just to make it a small challenge. People now think I like autumn, and that I think it's right that Pluto is no longer a planet. Writing is very important to me. I have wanted to work on Chasing the Trail (yes I know it's fanfiction, not serious, but people like it and I want to finish the story) and get Gaias Song back out. A couple of years ago, brokenbrawler, my erstwhile coauthor gave me some very heavy food for thought to digest on that subject. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but much of it I do. But I have no time to even consider it. At the very least I have got some serious work to do on the opening. I have learned a lot since I wrote that, not the least of which is that cutting out 90% of the scene setting ruined the opening for me. At the same time, I need to bring Daniel into the story more actively. As it stands, he's to sweet and gentle. No I mean he is sweet and gentle, but Daniel is also far more driven than he comes off and I need to demonstrate that right away, so that what he shows on the exterior doesn't soften him too much. I'd also like to work on A Switching Tale. I had loads of fun with that during Nano 2008 and haven't looked at it since.
6. I have no social time at all. If I AM free on a day when someone else is, either I'm too tired, or too depressed to do anything about it. This in an of itself is highly depressing. I'm a very social being, hurt a lot recently by one of my oldest friends who has once again pushed me to the side in favor or newer more interesting friends, so that now I am only contacted occasionally when something is wanted or needed, or when guilt requires it. I'm not sure when I became so uninteresting anyway. I think she's forgotten who I am. My other friends? We used to have coffee pretty regularly at the very least, but not any more. Though I hear things that indicate that some people are having gatherings, I don't hear about them usually until after the fact, probably because it seems like I'm always going to say no, so they don't ask. That in and of itself saddens me.
7. I have no time for my music. NONE... the most I have picked up any instrument in the last 6 months is for some very brief tootling on one of my flutes. Anyone who knows me knows how important my music is to me, even if it's just playing with some friends, or playing by myself. I want to relearn the violin. I plan to buy one so I can. I want to have time to actually practice, maybe visit my friend composer2005 sometimes and play with her, get a pointer to remind me of what I once knew, since she is a teacher now. Maybe I can even pay her for a random lesson once in a while.
8. Ohio failing to produce OIG grants for this school year made it impossible for me to consider maybe talking to my boss about working part time while I'm in school and full time when I'm not. Our call center manager is actually pretty cool about working with people in situations like this, but I have no room to even think about it because there was no OIG money this year. Why? because Ohio failed to produce a budget. I rarely slam my own state because generally speaking I do love my state and am genuinely hurt when I hear other people deride it so harshly, but this complete failure at a time when more and more people are going back to school due to the economy was a real big fail for Ohio.
9. I have no time for physical activity. This makes me ill and depressed. I got a new bike in 2008 which I really loved. We had no summer to speak of so I hardly got to ride it. Then in fall when the weather did straighten up a bit, every day that it was warm and sunny enough to ride I had class, and by the time I was out of class, it was too late to ride, and certainly nobody else was going to want to go. I 100% plan to buy that new Trek FX 7.2 I was lusting over a few days ago. that's 100% decided now. What I do with the other bike, is not decided yet. I'll either keep it or sell it for $400 which is a fair price for a 2008 that cost $550 and only has about 300 miles on it. Knowing that I'm definitely going to buy that red bike, I am not going to spend the entire riding season cooped up inside.
10. I am gaining weight due to stress. Or at the very least, I have gained weight and am struggling to keep from gaining more, which I can't do without physical activity, while stressed out to the max. Stress freaks out my blood sugar and makes it extremely hard to diet. This is 100% unacceptable. I want to bring my bike upstairs and put it on the trainer. right now that's pointless because I don't have time to spend an hour or two on the bike watching a movie when I get home, or by the time I get home I'm too drained (or at present ill) to bother even though I know it would help me.

So there's 10 good reasons. At the moment, I can't even think of a reason to continue at this time other than that I really hate failure, and this feels like a failure to me. A failure to complete something I set out to do. However, having said that, I still mean to complete it, but not until I actually know how to do it, and actually have the time and energy to devote to it. Right now, I need to get out of this house, I need to get it sold or make the very very sad decision to abandon it and let them foreclose, and I need to get my own financial situation into a better recovery. So as much as it makes me weep with disappointment, I think it's the best choice I can make right now. I think I have to make the choice NOW while I can withdraw gracefully with W's and go back to it later when I'm more prepared. The 26th is the last day I can do it. So today I made the choice. I'm no longer a student. At least for the time being. I need to regroup.

But I got my Biology test done with 10 min to spare before the ultimate deadline (as in it had to be finished by no later than 11:55 and I finished it at 11:45) and somehow managed to pull off a 92%. Unfortuantely most of the stuff I knew for this test I did NOT learn in the class... I had to pull it from way back in high school A&P class... seriously this class needs to be more interactive. I learn NOTHING WHATEVER just from reading a text book and then taking a test. I do not learn that way. Still... I better not complain about the grade, though I did actually call one of my wrong answers into question. You bet... because Sartorius DOES abduct the thigh, and I thought that I'd already been marked wrong on the pretest for putting Gluteus Medius. So I put Sartorius since it also Abducts. Just because it Abducts and also rotates does not mean it doesn't count as far as I'm concerned.

in 2006 due to the first formalized scientific definition of the word "planet", Planet Pluto was reclassified as Dwarf Planet Pluto. There has been some pretty hot debate on this since then, and some scientific parties still feel that Pluto should continue to be classified as one of our nine planets.

I would like to see some discussion on both sides of this issue to help me build my argument for an essay I need to write in my English class. I'll leave out which side I'm going to be taking. (haven't actually fully decided to be honest... so you might convince me one way or another. I'd just like to see if any of you think of things on one side or other of the debate that I haven't thought of. Please back up your arguments with facts. Note: If I partake in the debate, please be aware that I have not taken a position yet, and may be playing devil's advocate. Also please note if you prefer I not quote you in my paper or if quote is okay but not by name. Which do you feel should it be? Planet? Dwarf Planet? or maybe Planetoid? Why?

Or maybe Bad and Good.

The Bad: My algebra test score... 67.

It's not a lack of understanding it's a lack of function when I realise that I have twenty problems and three minutes per problem on average to work them. I have never done well on timed math tests. I spent years in the wrong math classes in elementary school because of this. Timing my tests prevents me from having time to check my work and slows my brain down as I waste time worrying about how much time I have left. What MORON decided that it is necessary to time math tests. Do we really have to be able to calculate a function in three minutes or less in the real world? Will the world in fact END if I take four?

The Good: Mr. Alice suggests that I stick with it, and reminds me that I am only 3 points from a C, and that any points I gain from quizzes are just extra points added to tests. He says that as long as I'm able, I should stick it out. If I don't end up with the grade I want, I can retake the class later when I'm not as burdened, or I can stick it out to the very last class and then withdraw and retake it. So apparently I'm demonstrating enough understanding that he thinks I can manage. I note, that there is only ONE male left in our class... and this after most of us women our age were told the whole time we were growing up that girls were not good at math, but guess who is still in the class. granted I don't think I heard any grades significantly better, but all the boys except one have dropped out.

The Good: Finding out today that I'm ranked 11th in my call center out of some 330 agents.

The Good: Finally getting a 100% Quality Assessment

The Good: Having 8 perfect 5 Post Call Surveys (i.e. I have never had anything BUT a perfect 5)

The Good: I talked to my immediate Boss about switching my day off and explained that it would work better with my class structure, and she said to pick up a form, which i have, and turn it in, that she doesn't think this will be an issue as the Call Center manager is very big on adjusting schedules to fit school schedules. So I'll be asking to switch my Thursday day off with Friday so I can have those two days off in a row also be days I don't have class.

Seems like there was something else, but I don't remember what it was.

So yah... generally speaking life is good. I have no time at all, and I'm tired... but even with the somewhat disappointing Algebra score, it's actually not as bad as I was afraid. being 3 points from a C in 5 credit hour class is not bad, and now we're getting into stuff that I do remember from High School and which has applications that are more visual so I'm not having as hard a time following what Mr. Alice is talking about. I'm still finding that it's better if I have already studied what he's going over before he goes over it though. His teaching style is not particularly compatible with my learning style. I've noticed though that now that the class has pared down to seven women (or so) and one man that he seems to be more relaxed too. We're less afraid to ask him to repeat himself or correct himself, or explain better if we don't understand. When there were 20 of us, hardly anyone wanted to be singled out by asking a question that might look stupid to someone else. I guess I'll stick it out for now and see how it goes. I would like to see how I manage once my schedule changes at the very least.

So here is a problem I just worked out. Seriously... This is the problem...

A bird flies 18 mph AGAINST the wind, and 30 mph WITH the wind.
The wind speed is 8 mph. What speed does the bird fly in still air?

( Cut for answer. You'll laugh...Collapse )

Not so bad. The Algebra class went a little fast. The teacher is obviously very excited about mathematics and considers the 'ugly' problems to be the most fun. Strangely enough, when it comes to Algebra, I find the problems with NO numbers at all, and only variables to be the easiest to do. At least to a point. Out of my eight problems, the one that was the easiest for me was the one that was supposed to be the hardest in that section... called a brain bender or some such. hahaha... but I figured that out pretty easily.

Now for English, I have 40 pages to read in the book. Not so easy. I need to take a speed reading course or something. I don't read too fast. I'm not saying that I don't read well. I read quite well. I just tend to read at the pace I speak. In verbalize internally when I read out of habit, because when I read fiction, I read it like I'm telling myself the story. I like it that way. But I need to learn to read OTHER stuff faster. I always hated speed reading exercises in school though. Maybe because at the time I didn't see the point, and also because what they had us speed reading weren't the sorts of things I wanted to blaze through. It was always an interesting story that I wanted to mull over that we were supposed to zip through it.

Spanish I... Kay, so I took the wrapper off my book, and then discovered that there is in fact supposed to be a CD in there with the other objects. NO CD... also, the bookstore policy is supposed to be that if the package is unwrapped there are no returns... WHAT? Ok that's fair enough if everything is IN the package... but if something is missing that you can't know is missing until you get to class and unwrap the book, that's just not right. Fortunately, someone working at the store was kind enough to find someone willing to bend that rule just enough to pull a CD out of another book and give it to me. So now I'm golden. We didn't actually study any Spanish yet. We just familiarized ourselves with the Language lab and so on.

Now I have to go to bed. Work tomorrow. Whoot. *rolls eyes*

Why the hell is it cold? It's the last day of June and ....

Wait a minute... it's the LAST day of JUNE.. and it it NOT the FIRST day of JULY.

Rushes off to fill out the FASFA before the deadline.