The Office of Economic and Workforce Development is inviting local businesses, educational institutions and community based organizations to attend an opportunities and resources fair we will be hosting for our youth ages 16 - 24 who have just graduated from our 6 week employment program and are looking towards next steps in their career path. It's a great opportunity for you to market your business, recruit new hires, and support your community.
For more information, please contact (415) 202-7944 or Michelle Wong at mwong@jcyc.org.
You can register for the event by clicking here.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Summer Youth Employment Program, Michelle speaking...
check it. call 415 202 7944, that's what you'll get. Following my gasp of excitement, crossing of my fingers and contracting of my cheek muscles for the huge smile because someone, anyone, might be returning our phone call with some good news: "We would love to have interns!"
I haven't blogged in ages but I forget that I should be using this portal to assist our rigorous outreach efforts. Now I will, accordingly:
Thanks to the Workforce Investment Act and Federal Recovery grant money, The Office of Economic and Workforce Development has the funding to provide several hundred youth with jobs this summer. The initiative, San Francisco Bridges to Success, will serve 16-18 year old youth with up to 80 hours of paid work experience for the remainder of the summer (concluding August 13) to explore careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We invite workplaces that fall under those career fields to take advantage of the temporary subsidized workers by becoming a worksite!
These interns are of no cost to you because they will be employed and paid through our office. It's basically a way to lend you an extra hand for entry level or easily teachable projects around the office in exchange for valuable job experience that will increase the employability of San Francisco youth.
Interested in becoming a worksite? Call 415 202 7944, for sheezy. hiresfyouth@jcyc.org
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Wisdom Teeth Extraction
They really make it seem as though it’s a mandatory procedure, inescapably necessary! Not like they’re making 2.5k from this less than an hour-long procedure. That’s not their motivation, not at all.
So it goes, my dentist has told me several a times that this needed to be done, the pressure on my teeth were ruining my alignment, why didn’t I do it yet, excuse me, you must do it RIGHT NOW! I would typically believe them, like the time they told me to get braces (thought I never did go through with that,) however, I read Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner’s Freakonomics this past summer and impressionably grew skeptical of those that defend our teeth! You see, extrapolating from the authors’ theories about expert knowledge, I believe that the dentist refers me to the oral surgeon, who, even if I don’t need the procedure, will say I do because if they say I don’t, then the hurts the dentists credibility. If the oral surgeon turns them away, why would the dentist continue to send the oral surgeon his clients? In exchange, the dentist gets the good will of the oral surgeon, and therefore a recommendation in their network.
Who stands to lose? After all, we pay for the insurance to do these sorts of things. The receptionist encourages, “Your under your dads insurance right?, So you get an alottment of $2500 for dental work that expires and renews in July… If you don’t use it, you’ll lose the money anyway.” From this argument alone, I ponder whether I suffer tonsilolith and if I should use the $2500 towards this ear-throat-nose procedure.
So I’m nearing July and of course I want to take advantage of this money. During my consultation, which costs a whopping $200 already, I felt pressured to accept general anesthesia (of course it costs $400 compared to the $170 laughing gas local anesthesia.) I resist with the argument, “But you told my cousin that most people don’t like it because it makes people gag as they sleepily swallow the blood?” He’s pushy, and soon enough I’m walking out the door with a $2500 invoice, a hand full of drugs, $225 co-pay, and a plan to biopsy the mole on my lip!
On February 11th, I’m on the first flight back to San Francisco, early BART & Muni home, 30 minutes of shut-eye and on the way to my 10:30 AM oral surgery! The doctor and assistants quickly hassle me down to the seat, strap me to the IV and I’m out in time to wake up! I can’t move my entire mouth, tongue or lips, and the nurse is strapping ice packs to my cheeks. They instruct my dad the prescription and the take my credit card.
The very next day: I’m off to my meeting with Braelan from the Greenlining Institute and then to my first day at my internship at Center for Asian American Media. I know, I know, I’m a trooper… But it was NOT cute.
Healed and well two months later, I receive a phone call regarding my bill. My insurance did not go through and I may have to pay through the nose, please provide more information regarding my dad’s insurance. Blasphemy! I would not have carried out the procedure were I not insured! After upsetting my father with the news, following his Muni lay off, I called the office back with a piece of my mind – just kidding – those pieces of information they requested. The woman on the phone – yes, she did not know what I was talking about. My insurance remains pending.
Furthermore, I receive a bill from Rand Laboratories (or something like that). I call, “What in the world is this for?” Apparently, a hidden cost to my oral-surgeon-pressured cosmetic surgery procedure: they sent a sample of the said mole to a lab, unbeknownst to me, and are charging me for something, I was NEVER aware of. I haven’t responded to their notices, though perhaps I should soon.
That’s my story. I do not advise.
So it goes, my dentist has told me several a times that this needed to be done, the pressure on my teeth were ruining my alignment, why didn’t I do it yet, excuse me, you must do it RIGHT NOW! I would typically believe them, like the time they told me to get braces (thought I never did go through with that,) however, I read Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner’s Freakonomics this past summer and impressionably grew skeptical of those that defend our teeth! You see, extrapolating from the authors’ theories about expert knowledge, I believe that the dentist refers me to the oral surgeon, who, even if I don’t need the procedure, will say I do because if they say I don’t, then the hurts the dentists credibility. If the oral surgeon turns them away, why would the dentist continue to send the oral surgeon his clients? In exchange, the dentist gets the good will of the oral surgeon, and therefore a recommendation in their network.
Who stands to lose? After all, we pay for the insurance to do these sorts of things. The receptionist encourages, “Your under your dads insurance right?, So you get an alottment of $2500 for dental work that expires and renews in July… If you don’t use it, you’ll lose the money anyway.” From this argument alone, I ponder whether I suffer tonsilolith and if I should use the $2500 towards this ear-throat-nose procedure.
So I’m nearing July and of course I want to take advantage of this money. During my consultation, which costs a whopping $200 already, I felt pressured to accept general anesthesia (of course it costs $400 compared to the $170 laughing gas local anesthesia.) I resist with the argument, “But you told my cousin that most people don’t like it because it makes people gag as they sleepily swallow the blood?” He’s pushy, and soon enough I’m walking out the door with a $2500 invoice, a hand full of drugs, $225 co-pay, and a plan to biopsy the mole on my lip!
On February 11th, I’m on the first flight back to San Francisco, early BART & Muni home, 30 minutes of shut-eye and on the way to my 10:30 AM oral surgery! The doctor and assistants quickly hassle me down to the seat, strap me to the IV and I’m out in time to wake up! I can’t move my entire mouth, tongue or lips, and the nurse is strapping ice packs to my cheeks. They instruct my dad the prescription and the take my credit card.
The very next day: I’m off to my meeting with Braelan from the Greenlining Institute and then to my first day at my internship at Center for Asian American Media. I know, I know, I’m a trooper… But it was NOT cute.
Healed and well two months later, I receive a phone call regarding my bill. My insurance did not go through and I may have to pay through the nose, please provide more information regarding my dad’s insurance. Blasphemy! I would not have carried out the procedure were I not insured! After upsetting my father with the news, following his Muni lay off, I called the office back with a piece of my mind – just kidding – those pieces of information they requested. The woman on the phone – yes, she did not know what I was talking about. My insurance remains pending.
Furthermore, I receive a bill from Rand Laboratories (or something like that). I call, “What in the world is this for?” Apparently, a hidden cost to my oral-surgeon-pressured cosmetic surgery procedure: they sent a sample of the said mole to a lab, unbeknownst to me, and are charging me for something, I was NEVER aware of. I haven’t responded to their notices, though perhaps I should soon.
That’s my story. I do not advise.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Active Voice & Agent Orange
Back in Los Angeles, I received a call from the team at Active Voice, an organization who’s presence in my life predates this blog, asking for a bit of research assistance for their latest endeavor… a social media campaign for awareness of agent orange and its resonating aftermath in Vietnam. Agent Orange is the name of the dioxin used by American efforts during the Vietnam War. It continues to harm our veterans as well as their civilians by causing deformations and cancers in war civilians and their offspring. My mission was to research five successful social media campaigns - what they did and how they did it, from production to budget to distribution.
The digging was an enjoyable learning experience that I’d like to share here. The social media campaigns in question, and my description of them, were:
UNICEF’s believing in zero campaign – Accordingly, 24,000 children die of preventable disease or poor living conditions and UNICEF uses celebrities in their broadcasted PSA and blogs to encourage donations and petition support, asking Congress to provide more funding to UNICEF to fulfill their mission of turning that 24,000 deaths into zero. I’ve seen this ad on TV, which didn’t strike a nerve as much as this research did. Though the petition has passed, and they’ve posted about considerable reduction results, the awareness mission doesn’t stop there.
Nike’s Girl Effect - Nike, despite sweatshop controversy, uses simple text to explain that by investing in just one girl (they use cases in Ethiopia and Bangladesh), by giving her a cow or an education, she will be able to improve the overall condition of her community, city, state, country, and the world. This refers to girls in developing countries that don’t have access to education because of prearranged marriages or fear of rape on the far off commute. It’s funny because some lamizoid comments something along the lines of “girls and guys have equal opportunity in this world, why are girls always asking for hand outs.” He got a mouthful of responses, as deserved. Anyway, the video made me really value my time at the YGC girls unit and I hope that I can inspire a girl to better her community and influence others likewise.
Charity Water – I must say this project is so impressive. A couple years ago, founder Scott Harrison cancels his birthday and asks that all monetary gifts and his birthday party fund go to building a well to provide clean water to those who don’t have access to it. Their PSA stars Jennifer Garner in New York, a mother taking an empty gasoline tank to get her water supply from the pond in central park. She then serves the murky water to her children. That is the reality to a lot of developing communities but a hundred times worse. I watched many of the videos on the Charity Water website that show how far they must travel just to get that water and what the water looks like. Charity Water’s mission is to get you (and me) to follow suit – cancel our birthday and build a well instead on the basis that 20 dollars gives one person water for life. The most beautiful part is that your donation in full goes toward building the water well and the organizations expenses are funded by grants and sponsorships.
Invisible Children – This campaign is the most familiar to me because of its overwhelming support and presences at UCLA. The story goes, three aspiring filmmakers travel to Uganda and discover the children running from the army recruitment (which sounds awful in those terms) because it is the driving force for the countries evil leader! It reminds me a lot of the Blood Diamond story, where the kids are kidnapped and brainwashed to kill, and are treated as disposable in return. This project has been going on for so many years so that now the saved kids that can now be called “visible grownups” are coming to the US to promote the campaign and demonstrate its successes. Its great! Now a nonprofit, Invisible Children draws its strength from staging large scale publicity events that call for volunteers to stay overnight in their city’s downtown district, much like the Ugandan children, and demand political leaders and celebrities rescue them.
Enough Project’s Come Clean for Congo – I don’t know how much attention this garnered because I’ve never heard of it, but apparently the Enough Project, serving as a project of the Center for American Progress, got enough support from Citizen Tube and audiences to ask Obama how he intends to increase pressure on the Sudanese regime to end the violence over conflict minerals (tin, tuxton, and tantalon) in the Congo. The videos make it clear that they don’t expect us to stop using our cell phones, where the conflict minerals are commonly used, rather they’d like us to use our conflict mineral machines to pressure congress and the US Government and United Nations to facilitate peace in Sudan.
Watch and enjoy, they’ll change your life!
The digging was an enjoyable learning experience that I’d like to share here. The social media campaigns in question, and my description of them, were:
UNICEF’s believing in zero campaign – Accordingly, 24,000 children die of preventable disease or poor living conditions and UNICEF uses celebrities in their broadcasted PSA and blogs to encourage donations and petition support, asking Congress to provide more funding to UNICEF to fulfill their mission of turning that 24,000 deaths into zero. I’ve seen this ad on TV, which didn’t strike a nerve as much as this research did. Though the petition has passed, and they’ve posted about considerable reduction results, the awareness mission doesn’t stop there.
Nike’s Girl Effect - Nike, despite sweatshop controversy, uses simple text to explain that by investing in just one girl (they use cases in Ethiopia and Bangladesh), by giving her a cow or an education, she will be able to improve the overall condition of her community, city, state, country, and the world. This refers to girls in developing countries that don’t have access to education because of prearranged marriages or fear of rape on the far off commute. It’s funny because some lamizoid comments something along the lines of “girls and guys have equal opportunity in this world, why are girls always asking for hand outs.” He got a mouthful of responses, as deserved. Anyway, the video made me really value my time at the YGC girls unit and I hope that I can inspire a girl to better her community and influence others likewise.
Charity Water – I must say this project is so impressive. A couple years ago, founder Scott Harrison cancels his birthday and asks that all monetary gifts and his birthday party fund go to building a well to provide clean water to those who don’t have access to it. Their PSA stars Jennifer Garner in New York, a mother taking an empty gasoline tank to get her water supply from the pond in central park. She then serves the murky water to her children. That is the reality to a lot of developing communities but a hundred times worse. I watched many of the videos on the Charity Water website that show how far they must travel just to get that water and what the water looks like. Charity Water’s mission is to get you (and me) to follow suit – cancel our birthday and build a well instead on the basis that 20 dollars gives one person water for life. The most beautiful part is that your donation in full goes toward building the water well and the organizations expenses are funded by grants and sponsorships.
Invisible Children – This campaign is the most familiar to me because of its overwhelming support and presences at UCLA. The story goes, three aspiring filmmakers travel to Uganda and discover the children running from the army recruitment (which sounds awful in those terms) because it is the driving force for the countries evil leader! It reminds me a lot of the Blood Diamond story, where the kids are kidnapped and brainwashed to kill, and are treated as disposable in return. This project has been going on for so many years so that now the saved kids that can now be called “visible grownups” are coming to the US to promote the campaign and demonstrate its successes. Its great! Now a nonprofit, Invisible Children draws its strength from staging large scale publicity events that call for volunteers to stay overnight in their city’s downtown district, much like the Ugandan children, and demand political leaders and celebrities rescue them.
Enough Project’s Come Clean for Congo – I don’t know how much attention this garnered because I’ve never heard of it, but apparently the Enough Project, serving as a project of the Center for American Progress, got enough support from Citizen Tube and audiences to ask Obama how he intends to increase pressure on the Sudanese regime to end the violence over conflict minerals (tin, tuxton, and tantalon) in the Congo. The videos make it clear that they don’t expect us to stop using our cell phones, where the conflict minerals are commonly used, rather they’d like us to use our conflict mineral machines to pressure congress and the US Government and United Nations to facilitate peace in Sudan.
Watch and enjoy, they’ll change your life!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Home away from home – Los Angeles & Las Vegas
It was a personal trip, of course. The only thing there is really to say about my professional growth is my lunch with Daniela because it was there that I discovered that my entire website will need to be redone, again! Apparently, it is best practice to work in divs and not in tables, which explains why my website loads so blockily. Unfortunately, the redesign is a project I do not have time to learn right now, but it will need to be done.
The trip to Las Vegas was also one of pleasure, in celebration of the Chiu Family February birthdays and the surprise engagement of my big cousin Kristina to the tall dark and handsome Brian Keates! Look out for my new project will be to produce a website and other materials for this event. Though Brian thinks it is a silly thing that their wedding would ever need marketing; of course people will be lining up around the block to see this lovely couple pronounce their love. Our successful girls night out crossed paths with the flava of love, himself! I also enjoyed the operatic Phantom, Las Vegas experience in the beautiful Venetian theater!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Introducing the Center for Asian American Media
So, here I am on the road, er in the air again - I should say. It’s been a long time since I’ve written and with very good reason! I can’t decide whether I’ll write all the things I’ve been up to in one entry or cheatingly back date my entries. I guess the posting will tell, soon enough. I am always thinking about what I am going to write though, so here is the line up, chronologically:
Center for Asian American Media
Active Voice
Wisdom Teeth
Youth Works
The Beat
I did drop off the face of the Earth because of a personal emotional roller coaster, which I did blog about and post briefly - those night owls out there may have caught it, but the live version is much better and the feature film will be great too. Inspired by those recent turn of events, (exactly an whole month ago!), I jumped my job search in full gear and secured the paper work to transfer my aunt’s car title to my name, for use while she was away. The deal was I get to keep it under the condition I don’t get it stolen again or name it something stupid like Fred.
Job Searching: I set on a two-pronged strategy approach. I read somewhere (a book I perused through at Borders, apologies for not remembering/crediting that information) that online searching yields only a 10% success rate, taking an unnecessary toll on one’s self esteem, whereas networking bumps it up to 72%. (I like those odds.) I set about organizing my online search, which has been strictly idealist and Craigslist, saving postings I find by submission deadline and then assigning myself to do one each day. Then I made it a to-do to write to those I had crossed paths with, which involved a bit of research about each of them.
Researching one of them, I am now drawing a blank as to who it actually was, I landed on the job forum on the Bay Area Video Coalition’s website. There, I found exciting media related opportunities, particularly an internship at the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). Actually, months ago a friend told me to look into this organization, she loved them. The development internship promised event planning, corporate/donor relations, and graphic design practice for their SF International Asian American Film Festival this month. Although the deadline had passed, I submit a tailored resume/cover letter and received a call early the next day.
The next day was really funny actually. Shattered, I woke up at 9 am with the proactive change of heart on the day of my aunt and uncles 3 month cruise departure. Within 20 minutes, their car title was transferred to my name (a plan I deemed unnecessary just two days prior.) At 10 am, we took my uncle to his doctor appointment, at noon to radiology – there I received the call. The team had been so impressed with my resume that they might have another opportunity for me. Great! I’m thinking maybe a paid position. When can you come in for an interview? Today? Great! I took the bus home, prepped, and arrived early for my meeting with the Devo team. That night, I posted my graphic designs on the print section of my website for them to see. I left for Los Angeles that Friday morning. See next post! :)
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Love Chemistry - Karmeisha Edwards
me and you together
love chemistry
which means to me
true love
we have true chemistry
like science
i love the way you say my name
and call me mommy and babe
that's love chemistry
the way we made love
that drove me crazy
especially the way you kissed me
that was just right
and the way i kissed you
love chemistry
you is my backbone
and be on my brain
all the time
as the days and years go by
i am losing my mind
and wish you was right here
by my side
that is
love chemistry
we is like bonnie & clyde
and romeo & juliet
i love you
you love me
that's love chemistry
she sent chills down my spine when she read this. smiles.
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