Category: Virtual Coffeehouse (Page 3 of 8)

Ibrahim Mfosah

English 1121(Prof. Scalan)

May 1st, 2020

During this lock-down I have been learning how to use a few software programs suitable for my major. Generally we tend to use softwares for three-dimensional modeling, and two-dimensional drawings. Namely rhinoceros, autodesk autocad, and autodesk revit. Now I have started using rendering softwares, namely lumion and twinmotion. Both softwares have one thing in common. They both have a gaming interface. Which means you can use them as if you were playing a computer game, using the same keys as you would in a game. 

The advantage of learning this software is, it helps increase employment chances. More architectural and engineering firms are sorting after render specialists, and even visual effects companies as well. If you have seen a lot of movies in the past decade, you realise that more movies are relying on visual effects to achieve great scenes. I have been learning through youtube tutorials, and tutorials offered by the Arch Tech department, which is very helpful. The good thing is that both softwares are free for students in the United States. So, if you are interested in learning any rendering program that is very easy to use, I recommend getting any of these two softwares. 

Raysi Perez

English 1121 (Prof. Scanlan)

May 2, 2020

One learning outlet that I have recently discovered that has helped me during this time is painting. Since I don’t really have a lot to do during this quarantine, my sisters and I have decided to start painting or at least try to paint. We’ve already tried painting before in my Junior year of high school, and it came out okay. After that, I never painted again. I don’t really know how to paint. Usually, when I draw, I draw stick figures. I was surprised with how my drawing came out, I thought it was going to come out bad.

We already ordered our equipment, and they came a few weeks ago. We searched for many different things that we could try to paint. For our first painting, My older sister decided to paint a waterfall, my twin sister decided to paint a forest, and I decided to paint a bird. It took a very long time for us to paint and we messed up a lot, but the drawings came out decent. For our second painting, we decided to switch and try to paint what the other person painted and our second paintings came out better than our first paintings. Drawing has been entertaining and relaxing. I’m excited to continue painting.

Through this time of this epidemic crisis, the only thing that is not affected was my persistence in reading Chinese fiction novels. Reading Chinese novels has always been my mental food supplies and a way for me to relax from work. Through reading these fiction novels, I can find myself calmer and obtained a great amount of rejoicing when I discovered that update of these novels on the UUKanshu app was not greatly impacted by this epidemic. 

Besides rejoicing on the discovery that my mental food supply is not greatly impacted by COVID-19, I was also able to learn and make dishes with my mom and family. Making dishes has always been an exciting activity that I enjoyed doing. We were able to make steamed hotdog bun, crunchy and crispy fried taro, and clam rice noodle soup for breakfast. There is one interesting noodle dish that I learned from my mom was the combination of cold noodles and side dishes. Where you boil the noodle and then let it cool in cold water, and then you stir fry the meat and vegetables along with a spicy and sweet sauce. After that, we peel the skin of the cucumber that has been sitting in cold water for half an hour( cold water adds crispiness to the cucumber). Then, we cut the cucumber into juliennes, and then we mix the cold noodle, cooked meat vegetables together, and at last add on the cucumbers to finish off the dish. It was really fun and exciting making new dishes and trying to accomplish new things during this time of epidemic crisis. 

Brendan Gonzalez 

Virtual coffeehouse 

Professor Scanlan 

                                               Learning/Creative Outlet 

Something I have gotten into as a learning outlet since this all started is I invested in stocks on an app called robin-hood. I found this to be cool because its good to know about stocks and read on them this also could bring you another source of income at times, even though you aren’t guaranteed a profit its a chance worth taking so far the stocks I invested money in are all bringing me profit not a ton but I only put a small amount of money into the stocks I mainly put my money in oil, oil stocks are extremely low right now since all this has started. Eventually I would like to really get into investing and make money from investing but that is going to take a lot of time until I understand it 100%. Also another creative outlet is working out it helps my mood since I can’t really go outside and hangout or play basketball and it also makes my body feel good . I wish the gyms were open my workouts would be way better then my workouts but for now it will do the gym. 

Leviza Murtazayeva

Prof. Scanlan -English 1121

Virtual Coffeehouse

         Over time, trying out many new applications that can especially help me in the current situation and maybe others. My favorite category of application at this moment are aerological such as “Co-star” app. This app allows you to put information about you to get as much as accurate results as possible. It first suggests you enter information like your full name, birth date, birth location, birth time, and other things about you as you try to make an account. You may customize the profile of yours as much as you want to so that you can be satisfied, this is interesting because other astrological applications never allowed you to create an account before, it was mostly temporary and not as customizable for one individual it was broader. The idea of this application is to provide you with a variety of information about your astrological sign, in-depth explanation about your personality and traits that you will acquire, and even your mood for each day. The most interesting thing about it is that the application shows your birth planets, it is the main source for describing your personality traits. Co-Star also allows you to add your friends and compare each other’s traits and how compatible we are as friends. Lastly, the app sends a motivational quote every morning that only applies to you and your day. I have been learning a lot about signs and horoscopes which have always fascinated me through this app, and the most exciting thing is, all of this is free!

(260 words)

SIYU WU

4/30, 2020

The distance learning and home quarantine，had changed my daily schedule dramatically. Since I don’t need to spend 2 hours travel back and forth，between college and home, just turn on my computer to attend to class, instead of taking subway or bus. The extract time in my schedule gave me an opportunity to reorganize my inventory. In the pass of few years I purchase many “little toys” just because my impulse purchase. In my inventory there is a drone which I purchased 3 years ago，and flied not event an hours in this 3 years. The purpose of buying a drone it to make some interesting video and picture. Now is time to learning to make my own flying video.

Drone is great to have fun， when you just want something to fly around，but when you want to use it to take a nice video and picture, because there are a lot of think to learn. First of all，always is the law issue. In the United State drone can not fly where every you want，you can not fly 5 mile within the airport. Sounds easy right？But it is not easy for a New Yorker，New York is the center of the international air line，there are 3 huge airport, JFK, LGA, EWR, and many small airport. In other word only part of Brooklyn and Long Island allow drone fly，but just a fly under restriction. Except the area within the airport，there are many restriction area not allow drone fly around，even in some park.

Second is the drone itself，the function build in need time to learn how to correctly use it，such as Surrounding，Object of face tracking，etc. Most of the reason to learn your drone is for safety. For example, in my drone in my drone only have one object detect radar in the front which mean it only can avoid the object in forward 90 degree，when I using the Surrounding feature need to know the barrier in your surrounding area and the range in case the drone crash or lost signal cause accident.

During the quarantine，drone will be a good option to visit the world outside of your home without going out of the door.

This creative activity I decided to do was really because of this recent coffeehouse prompt. Thanks to Professor. Scanlan mentioning his own creative activity , I decided to try my hand in duolingo to learn a little of Spanish and Japanese. Duolingo is a wonderful, free app that offers lessons of  many different languages in a interactive way. The app challenges you in a creative way, in sense that you want to really think about the language you are studying. You have a limited number of hearts, and every time you get a wrong answer, you lose a heart. When you are out of hearts, you can either buy more hearts with these special gems(acquired by completing the lessons), buy the unlimited heart package, or wait until it refills. It also gives different variations of questions for the same word. I personally like that, because it helps me understand the word, to the point I know what it is if I were to hear or see it somewhere else. 

The reason I specifically choose to learn about Spanish and Japanese because I’m always immerse in those two languages daily. I listen to reggae-ton  music a lot, and I always found it weird that I could like something that I can’t understand. Additionally, I wanted to learn Japanese because I watched these Japanese cartoons(commonly known as anime) also daily , and I just feel if I can learn it I don’t have to look at the subtitles 24/7.  Duolingo, as great as it is isn’t going to help me learn these languages fully, but it will definitely make the process easier, and fun. 

One of the creative or learning methods that helped me during this time was to cook something I hadn’t cooked before. Cooking – the taste of the food is not the most important thing to me, it’s the enjoyment of the cooking process. Recently, I became interested in sichuan cuisine after watching the program “a bite of China”. Mapo tofu is a szechuan dish that I often eat. I tried two sichuan dishes I had never eaten before, spicy chicken and boiled beef (Poached Sliced Beef in Hot Chili Oil). The two main ingredients are dried chilies and sichuan peppercorns. The ingredients are the whole chicken, peppercorns and dried chilies, scallions, salt, chicken essence, cooking wine, cooking oil, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil (I like the smell of sesame oil, so I will add a little sesame oil when cooking). I’m going to use the Hot Pot condiments to cook boiled beef, and I’m going to add bean sprouts, lettuce.  I’m going to cook it with peppercorns, bean paste, soy sauce, and ginger. I think sesame oil is essential because I like the smell and taste of sesame oil. Sprinkle with chili powder and drizzle with hot oil while serving. If you’re interested in these two dishes you can try.

I am an app enthusiast. When I heard the word “Pinterest” from Marchella, I got super excited. I used it all through high school. For example, my graduation cap was inspired by quotes and designs I found on Pinterest. There is also another app similar to it called We Heart It. I love finding apps that are useful or super fun to explore. If you’re into or looking for photography and editing related apps, these are some recommendations I have for you. VSCO, PS express, Blur image, Splice, and Vont is great! While looking through all my apps, I see ‘flipagram’ and this app actually brings back some middle school memories. It’s a cool app where you can have a bunch of pictures and videos made into a collage video with music. Now, the new trend is tiktok. I’m sure everyone has heard about it. At first, I kind of thought it’s just some cringy app. But personally, I learned some dances and tricks through this app. There are different categories that go from comedy to storytimes to life hacks. It’s like a mini version of youtube. Another interest of mine is reading astrology and horoscopes. Anyone else is a Sagittarius? Sometimes, the information is so accurate and relatable that I find it so strange, yet I love the thrill.