Last week was productive and fun. We are getting lots of traction on our Instagram page, specifically due to the Meet the Team Post! We received 716 views and 19 likes. I did fall slightly behind schedule with my weekend post; however, I am now back on track and feel confident about maintaining my schedule. 

I do, however, need to buckle down on my blogs. I hope to finish one today and begin working on the other one, too! 

Alright, finish line’s in sight.Let’s go.

The dummy site is live – I tried to include everything that we’ll use in the actual site, including PDF’s and recordings so there would be as few surprises as possible when we deploy the real thing. It took a few common sense tweaks here and there, but the sample site is currently live and stable. This means that we were also able to put the finishing touch (the QR code) on the brochure. After stumbling in awe through the second floor of Staples, I have acquired proper heavy, glossy brochure paper. Unfortunately, my efforts to print using said beautiful glossy paper were in vain this evening as I could not figure out how to switch the GC printer to the proper tray. Lini and I are going to try tomorrow before class, and between the two of us I’m sure they will be brought into the world in proper tribute to Melissa and Lini’s designs. I look forward to pinning them across the GC and the city at large.

For the next few days, it’ll be pulling together, finishing up the Story Map, making content edits, and finishing the front-end so we can give WBENA the first look (and first crack at critique / suggesting improvements!) for the website. The first deadline is on the horizon. Once we make that, it’s the three R’s – refinements, rehearsals, and write-ups.

TL;DR: I am Bad™️. Things are Bad™️. I’m making my blog post public because I’m tired of being Bad™️ in a bubble. Let’s be Bad™️ together!

Every time I feel like I catch up to the work in class, something in my life outside of class decides to clamp down on me. Right now it’s work, where there’s a compounding of fabricated deadlines and senses of urgency, and some tension with (and, in my humble opinion, a non-zero amount of mismanagement by) my boss.

That said, a thing I did this week that I am proud of: when I was on a plane and the wifi I had been banking on was not working, I decided to move methodically through trying to figure out some of the Wax templating on my own without very reference resources. I screen recorded myself talking through the problem in digestible 10-15 min increments and uploaded the videos to a team folder for others to review when they wanted to understand more about the problem. I think they’ve been educational for others so far, and the construct was certainly a helpful device for me to break down the problem space for myself. I felt like I unlocked a little cheat code for ways of working through overwhelm.

An aside: Relatedly, this idea of writing about “slow development” (as a twin to “slow archives” for us digital humanists) keeps knocking at my mind, and I think my experiences at work and school this semester feel like lessons pointing me towards work on it. Who knows when that might happen or how relevant it will be once I work on it!

My goal last week was to get an MVP version of the program page layout and song page layout looking as close to the wireframes as possible by class tomorrow. Right now, I think I will be lucky to get the program page done by that deadline.

I think my revised goals are:

• program page PR up by class tomorrow (and maybe merged by end of class?)
• defined ticket for another team member to pick up about home page layout / adding a carousel to homepage by EOD (midnight) tomorrow
• song page PR merged by our group meeting Thursday <– this one feels tough, but we will discuss as a team!

In awe of my teammates and all of us doing the most and doing our best as the world is truly reorienting itself.

It feels like literal crunch time!!! But not for this class for some odd reason.

I worked on the map tweaking little things and my two blog posts for our site, I can now say I am a Queens carousel expert! I think the anxiety for my assignments in my other class has me thinking all about the carousels, maybe as a way to avoid the very long research paper I have to write for my other class.

But I have to say, carousels of NYC has really been a positive outlet for me. I am still deciding if I have the courage to present our groups amazing work, and with each passing day I am leaning towards yes. It’s been fun working with my group and being a part of a creative process, and I think the last thing I can really get out of this class is working on my presenting skills.

Last week, I went to visit the Queen’s carousels, and I spoke to the workers at Forest Park, I shared what the project was and told them I’ll be back to give out our super cute bookmarks (shoutout to Julissa)! Even though I have a zillion things to do for my other class, I find myself wanting to go back to my carousel sites, take more pictures and videos, and talk to more workers and people visiting. It motivated me to get my work done for my second class these past few days, and now I can go back this week and share bookmarks, nudge people to follow our socials, and just take a pause and admire the pretty carousels.

At work today I noticed an upcoming deadline and it dawned on me that May is basically here… which means we are rapidly approaching the projects launch. Logically I understand this (and am aware of the deadlines of this class) and tomorrow we’re finalizing the website and practicing the launch before we show WBENA. It’s all coming together and it feels kind of unbelievable. Lini suggested a story map for our history section. It’s user friendly and I think gives the section a sort of material experience with some images and using the map to bring us from Ukraine to North America. We were going to work on our sections asynchronously, but we realized this may cause some issues with saving the map so we’re going to finalize it tomorrow together.

I’m excited to see the project tomorrow! I feel a little disconnected, by choice, from the technical side of the site. I’ve been overwhelmed with the state of the world and life and just haven’t had the bandwidth to do anything that I wasn’t required of me. I vaguely know what’s going on because of the group chat and group meetings. Alex created all of these really great training materials that I hope to look at when things slow down a little.

I continue to chug along on social media content. Once the website is ready it will be time to get back in touch with Dr. Sonevetsky, Dr. Ostashewski, and Nadia to share the final result with them!

Last week was very productive for Outreach. I attended four shows (two wrestling and two concerts) last week (WCW5, HOG Isolation, and Slide Away Day 1 and 2) and connected with fans and wrestlers about the project. I am burnt out. Everyone seemed genuinely interested in the concept and provided us with some resources that could be useful if we were to continue this project beyond the semester. With the showcase slowly approaching, I will not deviate from the original vision, and any additional information at this point would also make our load heavier for the little time we have remaining.

Although the project is not yet completed and requires the final push from everyone involved, I am pleased with the team’s production and output last week. Our group’s focus this week is to complete all the final components for data visualizations and add any necessary finishing touches to the webpage. Outreach is, for the most part, now complete. I also want to shift my focus on the presentation to improve it from the previous one, which includes the feedback we received from Nicole and my classmates. There is so little to do, but also little time to do it. I wish there were more shows and films to see this week but at this point. Everyone also has other classes and any remaining tasks that need to be completed. I will likely take on that load.
I’m looking forward to seeing you all for our final class of April tomorrow.