What's Going On Here

When I first started working as a ZeumMaster I really didn't know what to do and how to be friendly and communicate with visitors. For the first month, I was basically like a sponge, absorbing a lot of new information from technical stuff to dealing with challenging visitors, and observing other ZeumMasters ...how they handled challenging situations such as a when a visitor injures themselves, or how they greet customers. Now, it has been 40 weeks since and I feel like I'm a PRO! Having said, I am able to greet visitors and handle all problems professionally.

Want to know what's going on right now? First round of mentor group is about to end, and round two is about to start, how exciting can that be! Throught out the twelve weeks as a group, I gained skills to operate the software iMovie, effectively operate Macintosh computers, and confidently greeted visitors. What I loved getting to announce the Best Of Show to everyone at Zeum andI enjoyed answering their questions. I remembered the day when we as a group voted on what project we should do as a group and we all voted to do the best of show. It was nice to see that we as a group shared a common interest.

One thing that didn't work well was the day when we were setting up for the event because we were kind of in a rush and we really didnt have a large bowl to put the popcorn in but we managed to do everything on time. What I hope to do for round two mentor group is have people from outside of zeum work on a project with us. I really look forward to meeting new people and hope that we get to do something like this.

I'm also excited about camps this summer! I hope I get to work with Perry's Little Voices Camp. Most of the summer camps this year have to do with the 2008 Election year.

Paul

TWJN: Traci Wendy Jule Nicole blogging

PODCAST PODCAST PODCAST.

Our project is centered on producing podcasts regarding the budget cuts in California. These cuts initiated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger are severely crippling the education system in all over California, including the bay area. Our project aims to inform the public about these budget cuts in order to make an impact on the situation. Our belief is: Knowlege Can Lead to Change. If people know about these cuts, they will start to work together to make a difference and change our current situation.

We have spent the past couple of weeks interviewing average San Francisco citizens about the budget cuts. Not only have we learned how to approach strangers without looking like a creep with a recorder, but we also learned how to affectively interview people. We learned how to come up with questions as well as create related questions on the spot. We're planning on asking our teachers, students, and parents about how the budget cuts are affecting their lives. Our project is still in a rough draft state, but we're moving at light speed to deliver this podcast series to the public and stop the budget cuts.

IT'S NOT FAIR!!

''Students Walkout In Alameda Over Budget Cuts''

Hundreds of students walked out of their classes wednesday in Alameda in a protest over the state's proposed budget cuts which have already led to local cutbacks.

I chose this quote because i think that what they did in alameda was really smart. This kids walked out because they were cutting $250,000 from high school sports. But I think that students should be also upset about their education. Education is more important than sports. Unless you're really good at basketball or any other game, athletics won't really take you anywhere in life.

I'm afraid this is going to affect me next year in high school because there might be so many students in every class that teachers might not have time to help every student individually. Another thing that bothers me is that Schwarzenegger is ready to cut $1 billion from medi-cal. It's not fair because some people really depend on Medi-Cal. They might not have enough money to pay for everything the medi-cal pays for.

Well i just think all this is not fair. It's not fair that teachers are getting fired, because some of them are really good teachers. One of my teachers got a pink slip. He's one of my favorite teachers, and I don't think that was fair. I feel very upset beacuse I actually learned something from him. He makes learning easy. And if so many teachers like him got pink slips that they might not be working next year because of the budget cuts I think that's bad.

Califonia's education budget cuts are a huge issue to deal with.

Hello, my name is Leigh Ann, and I am doing a podcast at Zeum on the proposed California budget cuts. We are collecting our research on this blog site so that we can share it with the rest of California.

In my opinion, Schwarzenegger is a cruel cruel man. He plans to cut 4.8 billion from California's education system and additional money from other social services. According to the article "The Governor's Budget Cuts Nearly Every State Department" published in the SF Chronicle on January 11th, 2008, "As Schwarzenegger pushes for an overhaul of the state's health care system to cover nearly all of California's uninsured residents, he also is ready to cut as much as $1 billion form Medi-Cal, the state's medical services program for the poor, elderly and disabled.

To achieve the savings, administration officials said they want to eliminate some Medi-Cal benefits – such as dental care for low-income adults – instead of reducing the number of people who get basic medical services." In my opinion, this quote shows that Schwargenegger doesn't care about other people who are in need, all he is worried about his salary and not people who need health care services and education.

In the same article "Schwarzenegger has asked for several cuts immediately, including $400 million from schools and community colleges, $33 million from Medi-Cal, $74 million from welfare programs and $25 million from a project at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center."

In the in article entitled "CSU rallies against propsed budget cuts" posted on the Mercury News website by Leslie Griffy and Dana Hull, the authors mention that "California State campuses could be forced to reject 10,000 qualified students, offer fewer courses, put off maintenance and lay off lecturers if Govenor Schwarzenegger proposed budget cuts for the system become reality. The state of California has a $14.5 billion dollar deficit."

Budget cuts are a major issue and we should not just let it slide and pretend it doesn't exist, because it does. If you don't want education to be affected than do something like call up his office: (916)445-2841 and tell him what you think. As a reminder if you do call, please be polite and respectful.

Mentor Groupin'

MENTOR GROUPS! This is a new thing we've been doing. The goals of creating mentor groups are several. We work with the same group of four for twelve weeks. It provides more one on one time with an educator based off of our needs. Mentor groups also serve as building a stronger community within a small group. Different educators work on different things (for twelve weeks) such as working on a project, hosting an event, and possibly interviewing our neighbors about things from helping homeless people to getting the community involved with Zeum.

I'm in a group with Carlos, Jule, Samantha, Irina, and myself, Paul. We are currently working on an event called "Best Of". The art from Best Of is basically from when visitors come in and make awesome movies... we highly encourage them to fill out a media release from to have their movie showcased.

All four of us have different jobs. Carlos's job is to call different restaurants to ask for food donations for the event we're hosting. But, we all took turns calling because there were four restaurants to call. My job is to fundraise. I am basically looking for potential donors to donate money for us to rent the Zeum Theater. Fund raising is a new thing for me. One thing I've learned from my mentor group about fund raising is to be calm and polite. I had to call Buca Di Beppo for possible food donation and I was calm, polite and nervous. Usually my nervousness take over but this time it didn't. I remember calling a customer to remind them to stop by for your interview , and my friends were next to me and they were cranking out jokes and I accidentally drooled and I stopped talking in a middle of a sentence. But then I told her that there was static problem. Sorry. Samantha's job is the food entertainer as well as keeping and making sure everything is running smoothly. Jule's job is to advertise this event. Together we made flyer's saying we're having a Best Of showcase for Jule to put around Zeum. Irina's job is similar to Samantha's job except she is making sure we're doing what we need to.

One thing I like about mentor groups in general is that we really get to know who we work with and what each other needs are. I think that schools, after school programs and senior outreach programs should all have a mentor group because that is the only way to get to know who you're working with as suppose to working with 30 people at once. And the fact that after twelve weeks we show what we've done is totally awesome. When the first 12 weeks is over we will switch mentor groups and learn more new exciting things. And I will definitely look back at the time I spent with my group and acknowledge what we've successfully done.

Graffiti is Art

My name is Carlos Monroy, i'm 16 years old and im a ZeumMaster. I have been part of the Zeum crew for 5 months and it's been a very good experience so far.

Zeum has so many things to introduce a young person to. It is a great place to work and to be in and as a worker it has given me many ideas and one of the ideas that I want to talk about is graffiti. Graffiti is not just vandalism. It is also art. Art that people misunderstand and don't know the differences between them. People do many things to express themselves such as write poems, play an instrument, act, play games, and many young adults such as myself do graffiti. There's different kinds of graffiti; There's tagging, trow ups, pieces, wild style, and murals.

What you see around the city is tagging and tagging is just a name that writers get and their object is to be around the city, so that every other tagger knows them. Trow ups are a small graff that you make with cans and it doesn't take long to make - it's easy to do.

Pieces are around cities - you can sometimes see them on store walls and other places. They use more colors and are more organized, they take time to do.

Then there's wild style letters that stands out and many people can't read it... but its very cool... it takes practice to do and many people enjoy looking at them and trying to figure out what they say.

Last form of graff writing is murals, the best of the best it takes a lot of practice and a lot of time to be perfect.



All these kinds of graffiti can be amazing, but few people enjoy this others hate it and don't want to see it. They just think that people who do drugs, and high school drop out do it. They are wrong we are not drug users and most of us are doing very well in high school. There's also people who feel offended and think that the city looks dirty, that is a crime but expressing yourself is not a crime.

My idea that I am bringing to Zeum is to let Zeum and everyone that attends Zeum is to let the art of graffiti stay alive and encourage many young artist who are afraid of going to jail for expressing themselves. With the project BRINGING ART by DARK will make the wall outside in main gallery look better and not just a simple wall. This project will be conducted by a street artist and his friends and it will be soon to come.
"paint the town in many colors and name it art."

It's time for a change

Yesterday at zeum, a few of us had a chance to express our views on the various political issues going on around us.  We talked about the presidential election, which is a first in many ways.  

We talked about the government fundings and most of us agreed that education is what's most important.  We looked at images of political art (like the one to the right) and graffiti.  Recently, the government funding for education was reduced and many teachers lost their jobs.  Teenagers like us, we want a change.  We want to have a say in what we think is most important for us. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtgul, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has," says Margaret Mead an anthropologist.  We should never underestimate the power of teens, nor shall we ever neglect their opinions. thus, teens will be the next generation to make a change in this world.

Many of us depend on those who already have power to help us solve our problems, yet, we dont participate nor believe in politics. "Unlike the older public, halfheartedly involved in democracy, we dont realize the purpose in any involvement at all and this may destroy everything we wish for," says Camila Domonoske. Domonoske is so right, the new generation of teens do not pay attention to politics. thus, we should not complain about the reduction of school funding, the war in Iraq, or the people without healthcares if we are not going to believe and participate in politics. 

At zeum, we are given the opportunity to make a change in this world, to change our reputation in others' eyes that we dont engage in politics.  We're working in mentor groups now and my mentor group with ari and christian will create our own political statements in photoshop and stop-motion animation, to present to people that us, teens, have the ability to cause change in this world.

Josh on Media Movement

What I think about BAYCAT (Bayview Hunters Point Center for Arts and Technology) Presenting: Media Movement - the new exhibit up in the spiral gallery. (the photo is of me, Joshua.)

This morning, the ZeumMasters looked at the new show in the spiral gallery, which was mostly made up of videos. The video I watched the most was about transforming the negative. I picked this video because youth that start off young, influenced by the negativity don't help anyone at all. Living this way not only makes their life difficult, but the community they're living in also.

I know this because it took me till I was fifteen to realize that I wanted to make a difference. That was the turning point in my life because something bad would always happen to me when I was disobediant. I wasn't going to school, I was hanging with youth who were selling drugs, and I would be involved in turf issues just because I was with the wrong crowd. I didn't want that in my life anymore. Pretending to be someone you are not is very hard because everyone wants to be and feel apart of a group.

If I were to run a workshop with other teens on how to use media to make a difference, first, I would give it a name. It will be called, "Love looking for trouble". The video would be a discussion with different youth from different turfs (neighborhoods) but not about the negativity anymore, with another group of youth who are influenced by the negativity from different turfs and have a small conversation on why youth today, love looking for trouble!

I say and pick this name because in the past, my friends and I would be so confused about what's life about. We would get up in the morning and say lets go look for trouble. We would go in the streets looking in cars to see if there was bags in the front or back seat. That mean't that either lab tops were in the bag/s or something useful was in the bag/s because then people would put bags over things. That's why people don't leave important things in their car unless it was some books. You don't get that everyday...a person breaking in your car for a book which is quite funny to say.

However, my friends and I were so confused that we loved looking for trouble until one day we ran into trouble. That was the day where my friends and I knew what we were doing had to stop and change our lives around into something that could influence others to start being positive. For example, instead of stealing and hanging out, finding a job was a better choice. Instead of hanging out on the streets getting into more trouble, playing basketball was a better choice. And finally, instead of waking up bored and lazy, going to school getting educated became the number one thing in our lives.

Of course, other youth in our neighborhoods and people my friends and I knew called us names and thought we were "soft" (doing the right thing makes you soft), but we were told by an older adult, that you only get one life, so be the best that you could be and make things better in life not worser than it already is. This older person was a random senior citizen who knew what we were getting ourselves in just by looking at us. That was surprising!

ZeumMaster Winter Olympic Madness....

The ZMs have been full swing into the annual Winter Olympics. Here's a little sneak peak into the inner world of the ZMs....From the top, Flor shows off her winning creation in the foil hat making competition, Sammi models her hat, Educator Jordan and finally, a group shot.

A World Savvy Tangent

To sort of start off, I'm Dan, and I'm a ZeumMaster. I've gone to Zeum since
I was nine years old, amazed each year with the changes made to each
part of the "museum"...I used to kick the metafield-maze's butt before
they programmed in a level 2. I've been working as a ZeumMaster
for a good seven months now. Done good, made friends and all that.
Everything's been pretty peachy. Capice?

This is also my first time blogging, so don't get too weirded out by whatever
tangents I will quite possibly make.

Yes, it's kinda cheesy, but this is one of the few short video uploads
made by the creative youth at the World Savvy Jam Session whilst informing this generation's long list of intelligent intellects about life changing extremes like poverty, conflict, and peace building in order to prepare a future of great minds.

World Savvy not only encourages a generation of intellectual thinkers, but also challenges people to speak out against unfair situations, promoting natural rights and freedom of individual will, something one could also find at www.youthforhumanrights.org. Look them up.

World Savvy is currently building up for their 2008 theme on Global Health, which, by itself, is one massive topic to cover. But hey, they've done tougher stuff before, and they can do it again, and again, and again, and again.....etc. PBS states in their article on the importance of global health that…

"The world's scientific knowledge, technological expertise, and economic resources are greater than at any point in history. We are capable of applying our collective know-how and wealth to reducing the health risks faced by all nations and alleviating unnecessary human suffering. Many see this as the shared responsibility of wealthier countries. Others continue to raise arguments against pursuing a collaborative approach to the problems of developing nations."

Now, as flawed as the middle sentence is, all countries, be it rich or poor in Resource fulness should be able to touch on a "love thy neighbor" basis. People should be willing to collaborate with each other in order to work towards a common goal, and I think World Savvy brought out global health in order to bridge whatever gaps
they could to help the little guy in this equation.

Poor countries shouldn't have to watch like the lesser sibling while the self appointed favorite sibling gets a bigger slice of the metaphoric cake of good benefits. I know that with every equation, a huge problem has to equal one or more solutions, and that is World Savvy's steps towards a bright future for humankind. I solute your efforts, Savvy.
Keep up the good work.

Those of you who don't know what I'm talking about should go to worldsavvy.org.