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confusedlamp · 4 years ago

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Mental Health Strategies

I have dealt with various mental health BS (anxiety, depression, ADHD), and while I haven't gotten it all figured out, I have been dealing with it for well over a decade now. I figured I would make a list of coping mechanisms that have helped me and are worth trying out if you haven't already. None of these things are “magic” (just try this and your brain will be all fixed!), and obviously not applicable in all situations. I mostly learned these via therapy or from other people struggling with mental illness. This also may or may not be to help me have a list of things written down for when I forget.

Putting this below a keep reading thing because this got long FAST:

For depression funks:

-Find a small task you can complete. Wash a dish, throw clothes in the hamper, take out the trash, etc. Something small.

-Take a shower. And try changing clothes. Even if it's in to some pajamas. If you aren't up to showering, try washing your face and maybe wiping down with a wipe. But a change of clothes will still feel better.

-Eat something. Doesn't have to be "healthy." Some food, no matter what it is, is better than no food.

-Can you get outside? Doesn't have to be to excercise. Just sitting on the front steps for a few minutes in the sun.

-Doing something to take care of yourself. Can you brush your teeth? Have a glass of water? Brush your hair? Just pick one thing and so it.

-Plan something. See if you can get a friend to meet you to hang out (or zoom) or maybe for dinner. For yourself, maybe find a movie to go see (post pandemic). Preferably find something that has a set time.

For panics:

- Square breathing. Breathe in for 5, hold for 5, breath out for 5, hold for 5. Repeat.

-There are a ton of meditations on youtube. Search "5 minute meditation" and you'll find a ton of videos.

-After the initial panic is over try calling a friend. If you can't for some reason (sometimes it's 3 am or your friend isn't available), try finding some cat videos on youtube. I highly recommend Cole and Marmalade. Something light that will get your brain on something else.

For Executive Dysfunction:

-Remove steps to putting things away. For awhile in school, I would have a mess of papers that weren't organized or put away because I was trying to use a binder. As silly as it sounds, having to neatly align paper holes or got find a place to punch those holes, would prevent me from putting things away. So I switched to folders. Suddenly I stopped losing things and my papers were organized.

-Bullet journaling. Or rather, I just have a little notebook where I put all my to do lists, grocery lists, project planning, brainstorming, etc. I don't properly Bullet Journal (TM) but I keep all my lists in one spot and it helps.

-To do lists in general. Writing out steps to get something done. Cross things out when you finish them. You get a better sense of accomplishment.

-When executive dysfunction is preventing you from getting out of bed, break it down. Step one, sit up. Step 2, swing legs over side. Step 3 stand up.

-Same with any task. If it seems too overwhelming or you just can't bring yourself to do it, it might be because you are looking at all the steps and feeling it's too much. So just think about the first one.

-Alarms and reminders. I put everything on a calendar in my phone. Google Calendar allows you to set a reminder for events days, weeks, hours, and minutes ahead. You can also set alarms for things like "I know I need to leave at 3 for the appointment, so I am going to set an alarm for 2:45 to start getting ready." Do not rely on yourself to look at the clock. YOU WILL NOT LOOK AT THE CLOCK IN TIME.

-Set the dang alarm clock across the room. That way, you gotta get out of bed to turn it off. Once out of bed, go take any meds, or if you don’t have meds, go do a small morning task. Usually doing this small task is enough to get me awake enough to not get back into bed. If I do, well, at least I have taken my meds.

Sensory Issues:

- Fitted sweat pants and hiking pants. I can’t stand tight clothing, but I want to look presentable. Sweatpants that taper can still look decent. Travel pants or hiking pants (you can find these at places like REI), basically look like slacks but are made out of stretchy material. They also usually are made out of quick dry material which is nice.

-Fidget and sensory toys. I really like hedgehog rings which have these little spikes on them I can run my thumb over. Also the tangle. I have a tangle that has a rubber coating that has little bumps on it. What you end up liking might differ, but those are two of my favorite. Also, if anyone gives you shit about these, you can explain “it’s sorta like a stress ball, but instead you [whatever you do with this fidget toy].”

-Ear plugs. I wear these a lot because I have particular issues with sounds, especially certain ones. I prefer either silicone gummy ones or I like these that are “slim” because they don’t make my ears hurt. You can also get musician ear plugs that are made for musicians to protect their hearing, but still be able to hear tones and what is going on, for when sound is simply too load (also good for concerts).

For General ADHD things:

-Work somewhere different. This is a bit limited due to the pandemic currently, but just working at the kitchen table instead of your bedroom can help. In college, I used to go to the library to work. Just the idea that I was going to someplace specific to do a specific task, helped me actually get started.

-Promise yourself that you will work for 10 minutes. Set an alarm if needed. Usually just starting will make the task seem less intimidating. If 10 minutes is too much, do 5.

-Cardio. Get your self moving. This is good for a lot of things, but I highly recommend it for before you have to sit down to work on a task, like school work. I personally run, but if that’s not your thing dance, a class, walking, biking, etc. Just whatever you like.

-Time dependent things are good to get yourself going. Again, this is limited by the pandemic, but for normal times, can you meet a friend for breakfast? Can you schedule your appointment so you have to get to it before you start work? When I was in college, I used to go to morning gym classes before my first class of the day. This got me up and if I was 5 minutes late, it was better to do that for a gym class than a physics class. Bonus because it was exercise and I could focus better on the class.

-In classes, try to find a notes buddy or study group. That way, if you zoned out a moment, you can ask them for the notes from that section and vice versa. Also, meeting up with them is a great way to have a set time to study.

For General Anxiety/ Depression:

-This is going to sound cheesy as fuck, but: Make a list for what you are good at. Things you like about yourself. Things you have accomplished. They don’t have to be super deep, but can be. Do you like your nose? Can you paint your nails well? Are you good at understanding your cat? Are you good at writing? Drawing? Did you overcome a bad test and still manage to pass a class? If you have a friend or significant other that you are comfortable with, ask them to help maybe. Keep this list for when you feel like shit.

-Yoga. I’m sorry to put this on here because it seems like the most neurotypical advice, but. I honestly love this shit. If you haven’t given it a shot, there’s a reason why people like it. You don’t have to belong to a gym to try it. I highly recommend Yoga with Adrienne. She has some great beginner videos.

-Take breaks from social media and news as needed. Seriously. You are a single person and can’t fix everything. Do what you can (share the information, make a donation, join in mutual aid efforts, etc.) but doom scrolling and obsessing won’t help anyone. If you won’t do it for yourself, consider that burning yourself out will make you unable to help later on.

-Create things. They don’t have to be amazing. Crocheting, knitting, drawing, writing, etc. Having something that you can look at and be like “I made that” is really satisfying. Youtube has some great tutorials for pretty much anything. For drawing, I really like Proko. He has some great videos on drawing faces. But again: IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE GOOD.

General Resources/ Advice:

-If you are currently in college, most campuses will have groups for counseling and even limited one on one sessions. Usually, these counseling groups are free and the one on one sessions can help you find a counselor nearby.

-How to ADHD. Seriously I love this youtube channel. She goes over how ADHD affects the brain and has seriously helped me understand it better.

-The Trevor Project. For LGBTQ teens and youth. They have a hotline and many other resources.

-If what is stopping you from getting therapy is the idea that you are being dramatic/ are not that bad/ others have it worse: Go get therapy. What are we going to do, find the one person who has it the worst off than anyone and only they are allowed to feel bad and get help? Screw that. Get some help.

-Remember that there are good things in your future. Where ever you are in life, you have something positive in your future, even if you don’t know it yet. One day, there will be a moment when you look back on the dark times and be so glad you didn’t give up.

-Obligatory: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ (1-800-273-8255). This is national suicide prevention lifeline, for the US. They can help.

-https://www.crisistextline.org/ For when you don’t like phone calls, try texting instead. Has US, Canada, UK, and Ireland numbers.

#well there you go #my post #mental health #coping mechanisms #adhd #depression #anxiety #depression recovery #mental health resources #hope this helps someone #mental health strategies

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uncloseted · 5 years ago

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Emotional Health and Wellbeing During Isolation/Quarantine

Hi everyone!

I know that a lot of us are currently social distancing, in self-isolation, or in city/state/country mandated quarantine, so I wanted to put together a post about some things you can do to improve your mental health while you’re protecting your physical health. Some of these have become sort of trendy lately, so apologies if you’ve heard them before, but I’m trying to approach making this list from a place of evidence-based lifestyle changes to improve mental health.

Meditation

Meditation reduces anxiety and depression and improves mood when done over a long period of time. Start with a free app like Headspace or Calm to learn how to meditate and to get into the habit of meditating regularly.

Journaling

Journaling can help you let go of any shame, anxiety, fear, and anger you might be carrying around with you. Write your thoughts down somewhere that’s private, whether that’s in a journal, a password protected blog, a locked file on your computer, or something else. Try to let your emotions come out naturally instead of worrying about whether what you’re writing sounds good or not.

Gratitude

Along with journaling, making a habit of practicing gratitude is a good way to improve your overall mood, both in the short term and in the long term. Write down the big and little joys in your life, write about the people you’re grateful for, write three good things that have happened to you that day, write thank you notes to people who have helped you (whether you intend to actually send them or not), write things that you like about yourself. Be as specific as you can. In this difficult time, it can be hard to think of anything as being good, so it’s important to focus on the small things that are bringing you joy.

Mental Health Apps

If you're already struggling with your mental health and need something a little more robust than journaling, you might consider trying out a mental health app. There are a ton of them out there, but these are the ones that the Anxiety and Depression Association of America has vetted, with a rundown of their opinions on each one.

Exercise and sunlight

These next two are a bit obvious, so bear with me, but making sure you’re getting exercise and sunlight even when you’re isolated is really important to reduce the likelihood that you’ll become anxious or depressed. If you’re still in a place where this is a possibility, taking a 20 minute walk outside once a day is a great way to address both of these (as far as we know, you should be fine leaving your house as long as you’re maintaining six feet of distance between you and other people). If that’s not a possibility, sitting outside is the next best thing, followed by getting a light therapy lamp and taking vitamin D supplements. In terms of home workouts, don’t pressure yourself to commit to doing an hour of yoga a day or to walk 10,000 steps around your house. Just getting moving for 15 or 20 minutes is enough, whether that’s making sure to walk 250 steps every hour, doing a few bodyweight exercises when you wake up in the morning, doing a yoga/pilates video, playing an exercise video game, or something else. A few exercise apps are offering month long free trials during the virus; FitOn, Forte Fit, The Daily Burn, Golds Gym, and CorePower Yoga are a few that I’ve seen recently.

Interpersonal interactions

Especially if you’re isolated alone during this period of time, making sure you get regular interpersonal interactions in is really important for your continued wellbeing. Videochat with friends and family using apps like Skype and Zoom, play games or watch movies online with friends, and just generally prioritize staying connected to the people who are closest to you.

Limit your social media

That said, try to limit your social media consumption during this time. The doom and gloom headlines about the spread of the virus, the virtue signaling from your favorite influencers, and the overall feelings of hopelessness online aren’t conducive to good mental health. Consider muting people or accounts who are making you feel anxious during this time or trying to limit the amount of time you’re using social media apps in general. It’s important to stay informed, but being constantly bombarded with reminders that the world is in crisis isn’t helpful to anyone.

Be Kind to Yourself

This is more of a general one, and it encompasses a lot of things, but make an effort to be kind to yourself during this time. Get dressed in the morning even though you’re not going anywhere. Take baths using the bath bombs you’ve been saving or that special face mask. Make your favorite foods that are a little too time-intensive to do during the week, or bake if you like doing that. Don’t give in to the pressure to be productive and create something great during this time. It’s okay if all you can do right now is play Animal Crossing. You don’t need to discover the concept of gravity or write the next great novel just because you have some (forced) extra time on your hands. You just need to get through to the other side as best as you can. On the flip side, though, having goals that you’re working on every day can be good for your mental health, too. Even if you’re working on a goal for five minutes a day, that adds up over time.

Some miscellaneous resources:

If you belong to a library, see if they offer Libby, Overdrive, or another platform for you to download eBooks.

If you’re looking to learn something new, check out Coursera, Kahn Academy, Class Central, and others offer classes in pretty much every topic you could imagine for free. They’re easy to navigate and to understand. Also check out Mango Languages if your library offers it, or a free language learning app like DuoLingo or Babbel.

Some video games are now free to encourage people to stay inside, including The Stanley Parable, Watch Dogs, Drawful 2, and more.

If you’re not on the podcast train already, now is a great time to start. A few I like are Stuff You Should Know (well-researched, fun episodes that cover everything from science and history to pop culture and conspiracy theories), RadioLab (light hearted explorations into the philosophical implications of scientific topics), ReplyAll (”a show about the internet”), Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness (JVN talks with people. Enough said), Welcome to Night Vale (”HP Lovecraft does "A Prairie Home Companion”), and Within the Wires (an anthology series of found audio tapes in an alternate history version of Earth).

Many operas, orchestras, and theaters have put their performances for free online. The Met Opera is streaming it’s Live in HD performances. If you like theater, Playbill put together a list of recorded theater performances and where you can find them. The Seattle Symphony and Wigmore Hall are streaming orchestral performances. Many pop musicians are also doing mini concerts for their fans online, so check to see if your favorites are playing.

Online therapy. I wanted to mention this quickly because I know this is a stressful time for a lot of people and stress can create or exacerbate mental health problems. Although in-person appointments are no longer available, many therapists have switched to online appointments. If you’re struggling, please don’t let this deter you from seeking help. If you’re in the US, check to see if your insurance (or parents’ insurance) cover mental health (or “behavioral health”). Many of them do, making therapy much more affordable.

If you’re in the US and struggling to figure out your financial situation during this crisis, this article from the New York Times has a lot of great information on how to find resources that are relevant to you. You can also use the Benefit Finder can also help you identify the benefits that you are eligible to receive.

Hopefully this helps some of you. I know this is a really difficult time for everyone and I’m always here to listen.

#coronavirus #corona #covid_19 #covid-19 #covid19 #effy's closet #self quarantine #self isolation #social distancing

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theatremarketinginsights · 4 years ago

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What I Discovered About “Rethinking” Theatre Marketing in a Pandemic

By Roger Gonzalez

This past week, I spoke at the TRU (Theatre Resources Unlimited) annual Marketing panel. This is the second annual panel I’ve participated in, and I love that it forces me to rethink what new, hot marketing topics theatre marketers should be thinking about. But a year is a long time, and this year was remarkably life-changing. I don’t need to tell you about the pandemic, the recession, the quarantine, the stay at home, the racial unrest, the political upheaval, and generally the dozens of things that changed so dramatically in the past year. In fact, when TRU’s Bob Ost reached out to me, he was uncertain if there was anything new to really talk about, given that live-theatre was still vaguely in the future. But my feeling was, and is, that we can always talk marketing even when it seems that the whole world is on shut-down with no major changes in in the horizon. In fact, that’s the best time to talk. That’s exactly when you need marketing the most. So I said, yes, let’s do it, even if we don’t have all the answers, which maybe I don’t (don’t hate me for not having a crystal ball).

And just as we agreed to move forward, just a few weeks later, changes began unfolding. Within days, a few public press conferences, and announcements from government officials followed, and we learned that venues would indeed begin the opening process. For Off/Off and Off-Broadway, the dates seem to loom closer than the Fall 2021 dates being thrown around for Broadway. And on the day of the panel (March 25th), it was announced that theatre workers would soon be getting their vaccines. The conversation was all over social media, even though details were still mostly lacking. For me, the challenge was to talk on subject with what TRU described as the theme of their marketing panel for 2021: Rethinking Marketing Strategies to Reach the Wider Virtual Audience.

Rethinking. That word stood out for me. I literally sat down at my sofa one afternoon and started thinking, er, rethinking.

The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that little had actually changed. Sure, performing live-theatre is going to be a major safety challenge as we reopen and that won’t satisfy everyone. Audiences are still very much split on returning to live venues, with some saying they won’t return for some time, and others anxious to don a mask (or two) and sit in a theater and start watching anything.

A year ago, digital platforms like Zoom were unknown. Now everyone seems knows how to use it. Restaurants survive on takeout, retailers on e-commerce, and mask-wearing became political. So how is it possible that "little has changed,” you may ask?

Allow me to explain.

As a marketing consultant, a producer, development consultant, publisher, actor, and stage-director working with hundreds of theatre companies, playwrights, and other marketers outside of the entertainment business, as well as being a college professor teaching marketing, the realization surprised even me. That’s because while the way we do marketing may have shifted, marketing principles have not changed that much. After some “rethinking,” it occurred to me that if you apply five basic principles to your theatre marketing that existed a year ago to today’s approach, you will always have a better chance at succeeding than if you panic, complicate the process, and jump into a reactive mode of marketing. You still need a marketing plan and strategy. You just have to update it to accommodate all the external and internal changes that have happened.

So, here they are. Give them the attention they merit, and spend time doing your own “rethinking.” And please, don’t hesitate to share or discuss. Here goes:

5 Things about your pre-pandemic Theatre Marketing that remain exactly the same one year later.

1. You still must offer a good product, meaning your show, event, or whatever you are presenting or trying to sell. Whether it’s a workshop, class, online course, online symposium, or conference, quality is paramount. Why would anyone want to pay anything (even if it’s free which involves investing your time) for a bad product? A playwright friend of mine says he hates Zooms and so do I...bad Zooms. Another playwright I know also hates Zooms and says she’ll wait for theatre to reopen. Bad idea. The reason we may hate Zooms is because they are not often well-executed. But if you set your mind to creating a great Zoom presentation, or even a better Zoom presentation than the other gal, then you are elevating the platform. To me, that’s worth it. Zooming is not live-theatre and never will be. But shit is shit, and gold is gold no matter what platter you serve it on. Sure, I prefer live theatre, but I’ve walked out of a few live shows in the past because they were awful. If you can provide good production values, great acting, excellent direction, and all the things that make a story worth seeing, people will see it and enjoy it. Give that some thought before you throw some actors together on a live-stream with shaky wifi reception, give them minimal direction, and a script that they can barely read, much less perform. Make your story, and story-telling as great as possible.

2. Find your audience(s). This is still the biggest challenge we face. Even before the pandemic, identifying, finding, and serving the right audience for your show was a mighty challenge. Getting them into the theater was even harder. But now you may find that you actually have some advantages on both the live and virtual platforms. Whereas live theatre restricts your audience to geographic limitations, virtual theatre can be enjoyed by anyone around the globe with access to wifi, a device, and a link. This means you can brand your work, your company or yourself, and build a following bigger than ever before. Last year, you might have been struggling to “put fannies in your seats,” a phrase I’ve always despised for being so narrow-minded. This year, the world is your oyster…identify your ideal audiences, talk to them, embrace them with the story behind the story, and present your product. It’s a different type of targeting, but the principle is the same. Identifying audiences is still a priority, but now the net is larger, requiring a slightly different angle of approach.

3. Figure out how to reach/engage those ideal audiences. If you’ve identified them, where are they? Are they in Facebook groups, on Instagram under a particular hashtag, on a certain website, or other platform? Can you identify that audience because they are following a certain influencer? And if so, what are some ways you can engage them in the conversation and generate interest in you, your theatre company, and your show, or event? Once you matched your product to the right audience, you must decide on the best way to reach those audiences and hook them. Post, talk, engage, and bring them into the fold. Make them life-long followers. You can choose to do it with no-cost organic posts, or low-cost email marketing, even paid advertising. You will need to determine what works best, and what you can afford. And remember, don’t always be selling...engage with stories, and conversations first. Repetitive selling is desperate and annoying.

4. What does that audience would want or need that you can deliver. Why would they see your show? If you can put your finger on that want or need and deliver, you’ve won half the battle. That aspect has never changed. Maybe the need or want has changed, but your ability to connect and deliver is still the same challenge. Think about this, maybe your audience no longer wants to see your show live, but is willing to see it online. Maybe your show fulfills something that can only be delivered in a live show. It really depends on your ability to understand this challenging attribute. Follow that lead. Do your homework.

5. Deliver with a communications strategy that engages that specific audiences’ needs or wants. Make sure your message is clear and convincing. Make sure you begin communicating early enough to hook them when you’re not selling. Then find the right way to communicate your message and proceed to deliver a good product.good product. To do this, you will need to think, plan, strategize, and execute. You need to start the process early...maybe even months or years before. Very importantly, you will need a new, updated marketing plan. (another article coming soon).

Sure, this still may not answer every question you have, but trust me, this is exactly where to start. Human nature hasn’t changed all that much, good story telling is still good story telling. Many little elements have changed, but at the core of all your theatre marketing, these simple 5 principles still apply today and tomorrow. Audiences may have also changed; how you deliver your show is now constantly evolving, ticket pricing could be reconsidered, the competition is different, casting, union requirements, safety issues, media coverage, and what we define as the theatre experience has undergone huge shifts. This is all true (Coming soon, we will touch on these subjects). But if you root yourself in sound marketing principles, the rest falls in line.

Let’s get started here.

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wcuenglish · 4 years ago

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The next faculty member under the Spotlight is Dr. Laura Wright, the new Graduate Program Director in the Department of English. She has been teaching for a total of about 29 years. Of that time, she has spent the last 16 years here at WCU.

In this interview, you’ll hear about why she chose WCU, how she made her way into the field, what books/authors have inspired her love of literature, advice she has for students, and more.

Her requested use of her time in the spotlight: a big thank you and reminder that you can always talk to her!

Below the cut are her answers to student questions and other information:

Why WCU?

My family is from western North Carolina since the 1700s. My family is from Buncombe, Haywood, and Henderson counties. So, my people are all over this region, and my father went to Western Carolina and graduated in 1960 with a business degree. I grew up in Greensboro, and we always came to the mountains because my entire extended family was up here. So I pretty much was here when I wasn’t there. I went to school at Appalachian; I always wanted to live in the mountains. When I was living in New York, my sister lived in Asheville, and I desperately wanted to be in Asheville. I hated living in New York, and I really wanted to be back in the mountains. The job opened up, and I was just like “I’m getting that job.” It’s actually really hard to get a job in this field, and I just made up my mind that I will do whatever and I am going to get that job. I was very determined to get this specific job, and, I mean, I feel like I’m really, really lucky that I got it because that doesn’t work out that way for many people.

How did you find your way in the field?

I started out at Appalachian State, and I was going to major in psychology, and then I decided I didn’t want to do that. Then I was going to major in biology, and then I decided I didn’t want to do that. I don’t know. I really liked literature, I always liked to read, I felt like I was really good at it, and it made sense to me. I just felt like it was the thing that I liked to do more than anything and made sense, and I was good at it. I also feel like that’s a really privileged position to be in because most people go to college, and they’re not necessarily thinking about do I have the luxury to do the thing that I really love to do—I'm going to do the thing that’s going to get me the job that’s going to make me money. And I just kind of decided I was going to do the thing that I really loved, and then I would figure out how to do something with it when I got out. I liked the English major because it had less structure. I felt like it was less authoritarian. I felt like I could make my own rules in it, which is kind of how I’ve always been. I think that’s a big part of it; it felt like a lot more freedom to do something in this field than to do those other things that I thought I was interested in.

What made you fall in love with literature?

I’m the older of two children in my family, and the age gap between my sister and me is like five years, so in a lot of ways I’m psychologically an only child. I’m very used to having a lot of time by myself. I think, as a result, I have a really active imagination and a very complicated inner life, very introverted. I liked books because I could get lost in them and because they showed me things I couldn’t see, just taught me about the world in ways that made sense to me. I’ve always thought that fiction has been a better teacher, for me, about the world and about people than other ways of knowing things like history or science because I think literature is good at activating the empathetic imagination, it’s good at creating empathy. There's actually been studies that say that reading literary fiction helps people become more empathetic. As an empathetic person anyway, I really sucked all that in, and it gave me fuel. It’s hard to even explain at this point what about literature pulled me in because it’s like breathing; it’s been a part of my life for so long.

Was there a certain story or work that made you acknowledge your love for literature? Has it been reflected in your work?

There’s been a lot of them, but the one I always come back to is Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. I remember at the point when I read it, thinking I will never be able to write like this and that Margaret Atwood is saying all the things that I feel and think about the society I live in in a way that I could never express. It was this really profound moment for me because she was writing about a very specific period in American history, but she was doing it in the context of this dystopia where women’s rights were completely stripped from them and this really horrific fascist regime was in place. And I actually could see this happening around me, and I could make sense of it in this intellectual way, but she was doing something through art that activated something else. That was a moment when I realized I could never write novels because I would never be able to do what she did, and she was already doing all the things I would want to do. I’ve been really shaped in my scholarly work by women’s literature. I wrote my master’s thesis on women’s literature—African women’s literature, in particular—so I feel like the works that I’ve read by women have really shaped my feminist ethos in the world and has definitely shaped the way I think about my place in the world.

What got you involved with the eco-feminism movement?

This is a really complicated question for me. I don’t even know how to disaggregate me being a vegan—I feel like veganism is a huge environmental stake, and it's this thing that one does to try and avoid cruelty on a large scale that’s also really environmentally positive. The book that I read that really shaped my thinking with regard to eco-feminism is a book by a woman named Carol Adams, and it’s called The Sexual Politics of Meat, and it’s about the linkages between animals and women and nature and the way that all of these oppressions are interconnected. We have the word intersectional now, which I think is really useful. When she wrote that book, it was in the early 1990s, and intersectionality was not a thing. She’s doing a lot of work talking about how oppressions are linked and intersecting, and if we address just one of them, then we’re missing the larger, structural issues that are allowing for us to oppress nature and animals and women and colonized people. I feel like my whole life has been this exercise in trying to as little harm as possible to as many beings as possible.

Would you recommend entering into a doctoral program?

I have lots of ways of answering this. When I entered my doctoral program or, actually, when I entered the MA program, the United States was in a really serious recession, and I had graduated and didn’t know what I was going to do with a BA in English, and I was like well I’ll just go to grad school. Then when I was applying to PhD programs, everyone said to me “you will never get a job when you get out.” I mean, literally everyone, including all my professors. I graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 2004, and I almost didn’t get a job. I got lots of interviews, and then I got a temporary job before I got the permanent job that I have now, and it was really, really hard. Things are weird right now. I feel like we’re in this period of time where our entire society’s kind of been remade by this pandemic, and I think it’s going to impact higher education—I think it’s going to impact everything in ways that we can’t foresee right now. I taught the ENGL 618 class in the fall, and we talked a lot about this because I felt like we were all going through this together. What does this mean? Are there going to be jobs? Does it make sense to do a PhD? And I would say that I don’t think it makes any less sense now than it ever has. I would advise people who are interested in getting a PhD to definitely not do one unless you can get a full ride and an assistantship to help you with it because the last thing you want to do is incur a bunch of debt. I mean, you’re going to incur debt anyway if you get a PhD. I think if it’s the thing you love and the thing you want to do, and you feel like you have the resources to do it, then you should do it. I would never tell someone not to do something that they felt passionately about because you can’t predict where the world is going to be five years from now.

What advice do you have for students?

The pandemic is a good thing to talk about because, in teaching through it—I've taught hybrid, so I’ve had a lot of face-to-face classes—I've seen the toll it’s taken on everybody, on the faculty, the students, everybody’s families. I feel this way generally, but I think the thing I would say right now is to just be kind. Be kind, be forgiving, air on the side of grace. If you’re struggling, talk to people who might be able to help you. So being able to communicate, and it’s really hard in the age of Zoom to want to communicate. You can’t just drop by people’s offices or people’s houses or whatever. Be as forgiving and kind to yourself and to others as possible. We’re also living in these really polarized times, where we’re just, as a society, at real odds with each other, and to try and look past that and see the humanity in each other and be as caring as we can during times that are unprecedented because none of us have ever lived through anything like this. I don’t think anyone on the planet has lived through anything like this.

You say that you’ve spent much of quarantine drinking. I’m curious to know what your drink of choice is. Is it different at home than at a bar?

First of all, I knew about this question, and I was joking when I said I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time drinking, but, you know, occasionally drinking has helped me through this. I’m kind of a white wine drinker, which I think makes me the whitest white girl ever. I’m sort of a fan of gin and tonics. If I go out to a bar, I will try to drink something with bourbon in it, just a bourbon on the rocks or something like that, because I’m trying to look like the stud that I’m not. Or I’ll try something more exotic because if I’m at home, I don’t really care, but if I’m out somewhere and there’s some fancy thing that I want to get, I’ll do that, but I haven’t been out to a bar in I don’t know how long.

What is your least favorite book you’ve ever read, and why?

That’s a really tough question. I mean, I’ve read a lot of bad books. Okay, so I can think of one that I taught that I really hated. It’s a novel by a British author named Ian McEwan, and it’s called Solar, and it is a work of climate change fiction. I taught a whole class on climate change fiction some years back. His novel came out in the 2010s, and he’s a hugely famous British writer and has written a lot of things for which he’s received a lot of praise. This was a piece that was supposed to be satire, but it didn’t really work. I hated it, and the students hated it, and it was just an unqualified disaster to have on the syllabus.

Anything else you would like to share for your time in the spotlight?

Thank you so much for asking me to do this. I am always here to answer questions and would be happy to talk to anybody about anything.

#faculty spotlight #WCU #wcu english #western carolina university #student questions #vegan studies #literature

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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The Actual Experience of Virtual Experiences

You can tour a museum at 9, take a mixology class at 11, and swoop over Machu Picchu at 3, but do these online versions of “doing stuff” really scratch the itch?

Most of us are currently missing things like Outside and Proximity to Other Humans. For the lucky ones, at least, monotony and loneliness are our most prominent enemies, as we stare down seemingly endless nights of Netflix and bean soaking, longing for the day we can experience somewhere else. If you run a business that requires anyone travel from one place to another, this means that you’re particularly reeling. Airline capacity is down 73 percent, hotels are empty, and even the potential reopening of restaurants and bars comes with heavy caveats. Because of that, brands like Airbnb, Viator, Google, and various tourism councils have begun offering virtual “experiences,” so that hypothetically you both keep spending money and also don’t die of boredom. But can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter? Or are they, you know, both screens?

Broadly, there are two types of experiences happening today. First, there are interactive classes and group activities, where you can learn to make pasta or Irish step dance or listen to a museum docent talk about statuary on a video call — all with other people looking to emerge from this time with a new skill set. In Philadelphia, one restaurant owner is trying to mimic the experience of dining out. He video calls you for your order and then, once it’s delivered, calls back to check in on your wine and see how everything is. Aside from the fact that they take place over a video call, these experiences are pretty close to their in-person counterparts: you sign up for a particular time and date, you follow directions, and supposedly you learn something, or at least pretend you’re in a restaurant.

Can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter?

And then there are the experiences that aim to “immerse” you in some locale that is not your apartment, whether that’s Rome’s colosseum or an orchard of cherry blossoms in Japan or the British Museum. Often, the entirety of the experience is just a 360-degree camera or other pre-recorded video footage of a beautiful place, and sometimes it’s free. Maybe for a brief moment it will seem as if you aren’t on the couch with your partner who won’t stop bouncing every time they try to catch a tarantula in Animal Crossing, but instead are surrounded by skulls and a haunting breeze in Paris’s catacombs. Or seeing the Faroe Islands through the eyes of a local with a camera strapped to their shirt and whose movements you can control with a joypad (yes, this is real, and no, it does not seem ethical).

Both of these types of experiences are not new, except for the joypad thing. Virtual cooking classes and workouts are offered by plenty of companies, and Google has long allowed you to tour the world’s museums, or plant yourself in the middle of a national park on Google Earth. Normally, these offerings are an invaluable tool for those who don’t have the ability — whether financially or physically or because there’s only so much time — to visit these spaces in person. Personally, I’ve avoided them all. Aside from the occasional video yoga class, it just didn’t seem worth it — too much potential for technical difficulties, too easy to open Twitter in another tab. Plus, I could just go there if I really wanted.

But now that the pandemic has wiped out any in-person plans for the foreseeable future, boredom is my primary struggle. I finish work and move from my dining table to my couch, queueing up another movie or TV show or video game. The idea of a plan, of something to look forward to, feels increasingly distant — and online experiences increasingly appealing. Can they actually fulfill our collective void of “doing,” or just highlight how far we are from ever “experiencing” in person again? I decided to fill up my calendar again to find out — or at least see if I could forget about the confining walls of my apartment, even for a few minutes.

The instructions for Airbnb’s “GINspiration History & Cocktails at Home” said that points would be given for the best outfit, so I put on earrings and an actual shirt before signing on. The company best known for providing vacation and short-term rentals offered “experiences” — both real-life and virtual — before the spread of COVID-19, but has taken care to promote the latter on its homepage recently. You can learn to cook tacos or pasta or tapas, or watch a man wandering the streets of Prague in a plague doctor costume as you learn about the Black Death. My hour-and-a-half long class promised the bartender would teach me to make some great gin cocktails, as well as tell me a bit about the history of the spirit itself. It took place at 11:30 in the morning EST (the host was in England) but time is meaningless now, right?

I assume I won the best outfit contest, as I was the only student.

Signing onto what you assume will be a bustling Zoom chat only to find yourself the only one there is a little like showing up early to a party; it’s deeply embarrassing for no specific reason, and the only way through is to act like being a party of one is your favorite thing. We waited a few minutes for the other student who had signed up, but he never came. He is my enemy now, and I began the class feeling resentful that I had no other participants to hide behind, and that I had to make an extra grocery run to pick up the limes and juices necessary for cocktail prep. These should have been provided for me, I thought. There should have been more people. It shouldn’t be like this.

But as I listened to my instructor’s story about accidentally spilling a bright pink Cosmo all over a bachelorette’s white dress, I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger. For an hour and a half the bartender and I chatted, he told jokes, we traded stories and watched each other’s reactions, I drank a French 75 on an empty stomach, and he taught me how to make daiquiris and Cosmos as well, because I came woefully unprepared in the ingredients department. And I know it’s a bartender’s job to make everyone feel like their friend, but I felt like his friend, which meant I felt like my kitchen was a bar. The magic worked, and I’m not sure if my socialization itch would have been scratched had that other guy (still my enemy) showed up.

So I tried another one. I have been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art countless times in my life. As a New Yorker, I can name my price and visit my personal highlights on any rainy day — the Arms & Armor section, the Asian and “Arab Lands” wings, jewelry, “Inferno” by Franz von Stuck. The Met is currently offering 360 degree video of some of its corridors, but to see any art up close right now, I had to sign up for a tour with Walks. The hour-long tour promised a docent would uncover the “scandals and secrets that lie behind some of the artifacts in America’s greatest art collection,” and an art lecture would mean I’d experience the Met in a way I haven’t since I was a kid on a class trip.

I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger.

Our docent first started by highlighting all the benefits of an at-home video tour, as if we had a choice. On a normal day we’d probably have to wait outside in a line, waddle through security, and check our coats before seeing any art. Now, he joked, we could be “naked with a glass of cabernet” on hand, and because our “tour” took the form of a slideshow of images, we could zip from the Egyptian wing to “Washington Crossing the Delaware” nearly instantly. In the museum it would have been a 15-minute walk. Our docent clicked through works I’d never stopped to notice before, and famous paintings I’d never really considered that deeply. I learned who Madame X was in John Singer Sargent’s portrait, and that Monet’s water lilies were more staged than I’d previously imagined. I regretted that I’d spent so much time at the Met cycling through what I already knew.

But I found myself missing that 15-minute walk. Our tour was an hour long and featured 87 PowerPoint slides. As soon as we were done with one painting we hopped to the next, leaving barely any time for our new knowledge to sink in. I pictured myself in the alternate-universe version of the tour, following a man holding a flag, maybe chatting with a stranger on the tour about what he’d just said as we weaved through galleries, feeling whether the energy of the group was “bored” or “amused” or “laughing politely.” Our video host turned off everyone’s cameras, so I couldn’t even see the nine other participants’ faces as our docent spoke, or allow him to see my genuine laughs at any of his jokes. I joined to stave off the loneliness, but once the call was ended, I felt newly alone.

In an online conference hosted last week by Arival Online, a resource specifically for the tours and attractions companies, members of the tourism industry gathered to discuss the pros and pitfalls of virtual tours, and whether they were worth investing in. The short answer was yes. Andy Lawrence of Vox Group (no relation) noted that this is what business will be like for a while. “From that we know social distancing will become a norm, and the easiest way to deal with this is to give someone the power to take a tour how and when they want,” he said. However, he denied it was a long-term solution, as people can get free videos of monuments and museums on YouTube. Online education may be a need now, but there’s no telling how long it’ll last.

But others noted it didn’t seem like interactive tours were really competing with the videos on YouTube. “I don’t see it as a full replacement for travel, but a new initiative that’s complementary for travel when we get back to normal,” said Matthijs Kefi of Withlocals. After all, streaming a video is one-way. “Our hosts also want to connect with other people, everyone likes that interaction.” The point of a guided tour or a lesson is rarely just the accumulation of new information. We had cookbooks and Wikipedia before the pandemic. What we want is people.

Public anonymity is one of the things that keeps me in my hometown of New York. I’ve cried in parks, in museums, and at well-renowned bars. I’ve sat quietly with my thoughts at crowded restaurants, and I’ve had life-changing conversations in front of world-famous monuments. Some of the most important things have happened to me while I’ve been shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers.

Now, all of these things happen on my couch. There is no white-noise of humanity to provide cover to my sobs or my half-baked ideas. I am not anonymous, but alone, and the thing I am missing the most is being in public with strangers. What I wouldn’t give right now to attend a book reading, have a drink, or look at a painting with people I’ll never know. What I miss about the world isn’t being told about an artist’s life by a docent. It’s meandering through a museum, talking to my partner about why a newly seen painting is hitting us, quietly experiencing the beauties of life alone in company.

As soon as I named this craving for myself I started feeling it in anything else I tried to do. I clicked around a virtual tour of Machu Picchu where tourists in bucket hats and cargo shorts stand frozen and warped by the circular camera. I tried to recall what the wind felt like on my own trip there over a decade ago, but I could only focus on what it would be like to overhear another person’s conversation. I looked at cherry blossoms blooming in Prospect Park, and thought of the last time I was there, which happened to be the same weekend as the West Indian Day Parade so the Japanese garden was juxtaposed with booming dancehall music from the street. I tried “going” somewhere I’d never been before, the Great Wall of China, only to find myself focusing more on a tourist squatting while drinking a water bottle than any of the sights.

“The same” is too high a bar to set for these experiences. Nobody is advertising that these virtual tours and classes will provide an identical experience to one in person, but rather they’re a way to support docents and guides and bartenders who would otherwise be out of work. But even then, it’s too easy to recall the other version of this experience, the one where your conversation isn’t studded with glitching video, where you can shake the bartender’s hand after he’s taught you how to make a lemon twist, where even after you’ve found a quiet spot at the top of Machu Picchu where it feels like you’re the only person in the whole world, you can walk back down and watch everyone else having their own moments of transcendence without ever having to ask them about it.

Most everything about life right now is both deeply essential and muted. We’re instructed to leave our houses only for necessary work or supplies, and only touch those we live with (which could mean no one at all). Every decision carries the weight of literal life and death. And yet every action feels like a photocopied version of reality, like we’re in a holding pattern until life gets switched back on. The virtual tours and classes are no different. Human interaction, however it happens, feels newly vital. But mostly, these tours and experiences don’t provide that any more than watching Too Hot to Handle on Netflix does. The majority of them are one-way entertainment, good enough if the topic interests you, but the equivalent of an interesting PBS special. And even when they are slightly more interactive, there is no lasting release. You say goodbye, feeling smarter or tipsier or full. The video sputters and freezes and then it ends, and you’re still in your living room, with no one to even ignore you.

Anyway, I love Cosmos now, so at least there’s that.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2A0rvW5 https://ift.tt/3ddgm2g

You can tour a museum at 9, take a mixology class at 11, and swoop over Machu Picchu at 3, but do these online versions of “doing stuff” really scratch the itch?

Can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter?

I assume I won the best outfit contest, as I was the only student.

I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger.

Anyway, I love Cosmos now, so at least there’s that.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2A0rvW5 via Blogger https://ift.tt/3c516V4

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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babyconnectingworld · 5 years ago

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How To Cope With Anxiety Caused By The Coronavirus Outbreak – For Parents

How are you coping with Coronavirus Outbreak? If you are struggling, you are not alone. This is not normal, and we all have to go easy on ourselves. However, some of us need more than just giving ourselves permission to let some things go right now. Some of us need to take extra measures to make sure our mental health stays in check during this time. It would be one thing to solely deal with the stress of your entire family having to change every aspect of your lives. However, we have the uncertainty of the Coronavirus outbreak itself. How do I protect myself and family? What can I do to help the health care workers on the front lines? Add to that all of that the uncertainty regarding when this will all end, and it is enough to make even the calmest person anxious. Working on your mental fitness right now is easier said than done. Most of us parents already had a large amount of stress upon us. Just keeping up with our households while shuttling kids around and working a job was hard enough. Sure, we no longer have to shuttle the kids around, but keeping them entertained without going out and about is a real challenge for many of us. Now, we feel the pressure to keep up with a household that is continuously lived in, a kitchen that is constantly being used as your children tell you “I’m hungry”. Some of us are trying to work from home and must referee sibling wrestling matches while on Zoom calls. Some of us are trying to save our small businesses with little to no time. Why? Because we are now our children’s teachers on top of everything else. You have likely seen the meme about our grandparents being asked to go to war, and we are just being asked to sit on our couches. The thought of catching up on Netflix series and actually reading a book would be a dream come true, but that is far from reality. Parents would do anything for a nap during social distancing, but we just do not have the time. Parents are finding they have less time than normal, and honestly, that is the even case when doing the bare minimum during these social distancing days. Of course, there are some parents out there that are rocking it. They are taking advantage of every virtual tour of a park or museum while doodling with Mo Mo Willems at lunch and a Pinterest board dedicated to all of the creative art that they will do with their kids. When you see social media posts, you feel even more anxious. You wonder if you should make a schedule of all of the amazing opportunities your kids have to learn by all of the amazing companies throwing free resources your way, but the thought of making that schedule overwhelms you. STOP! Give yourself Grace. But giving yourself grace is not enough. You need to take some steps to manage the constant pressure you will be under in the coming weeks. For some of you, a prescription may be necessary to bring a sense of calm to this new (temporary) way of life. However, that should not be your first step. There are so other ways to cope with the stress and anxiety that comes with this unprecedented lifestyle we are currently experiencing. Read More: 5 Unique Ways to Destress as a SAHM Coronavirus Outbreak Coping Strategies Check Out It is okay to check out for a bit. Just keeping up with the news or maybe a very engaged Facebook group might seem overwhelming at this time. You do not have to do all the things. You will have to let go of things that are not serving you well during this time, and that is okay! Turn Off The Television Do not have the cable news stations on all day with constant coronavirus coverage. We know it is out there. We know what we should do to combat it. Stay at home! Wash your hands! It’s okay to get updates throughout the day but do not become obsessed. It will heighten your sense of anxiety and lack of control. Similarly, do not stream Netflix all day. Accomplish something each day. Create a Schedule It does not have to be a strict schedule but have some sense of order to each day. Make the weekdays feel like weekdays and celebrate the weekends. Give yourself things to look forward to. Wine down Wednesdays, Take Out Thursdays, Movie Night Fridays, Sweet Treat Saturday.

Walk away You are likely on edge right now, even if you do not realize it. Before blowing up at loved ones, try walking away, even it is just to another room. If the kids are on your last nerve and there is another grown up in the house, go to the next step … Get Outside Go for a walk. Go for a run. Get on your bike and explore the area around your home. Mow your lawn. Tend to your garden. Get a projector to play movies in your back yard with your family on movie night.

Happy Hour With Friends You are probably starting to miss your friends. Set up a time to hang out virtually with them. Facetime a single friend or create a zoom conference call for a group of friends. You need to laugh with your friends. Try to one-up each other with your Coronavirus outbreak trials and tribulations. Another idea is getting up before your family for coffee time with friends. Of course, this would only work with your friends who you do not mind seeing you with no makeup and bedhead! Video Call Facetime Chatting Communication Concept Meditate Have you been meaning to add meditation into your daily routine? There are many benefits to meditating including reducing anxiety. For those new to meditation, you will likely need all the help you can get to be in the right mental space to meditate effectively. Both Headspace and Calm apps are fantastic solutions to learn about meditation. Both apps offer free elements of their program, so there is no need to purchase a paid version while you are testing things out. Yoga Being in and around your house means you are likely not moving like normal. Those of you bending over your kiddos and keeping track of their school work may feel even more strain. Stress in and of itself causes you to carry your body in different ways which affect your muscles. To combat this, try yoga at home to stretch and strengthen your muscles. Making yoga part of your daily routine also comes with the benefit of forcing some time for meditation. There are YouTube channels and apps that allow you to easily bring yoga into your home. A couple of favorites are Yoga By Adriene on YouTube and the Down Dog app which is currently free through May 1st. Down Dog allows you to tailor your yoga routine to your level and the elements of practice that are more important to you.

Essential Oils There are many health and therapeutic benefits associated with essential oils. There are many essential oils that tout relieving anxiety, but the most popular by far is lavender. There are quite a few mixtures aimed at alleviating anxiety. If you do not own a diffuser, this is a great time to experiment with one. Even if you do not feel that the oils are helping reduce anxiety, at least your house will smell nice since you have to be in it so much right now! Take an Epsom Salt Bath A bath is relaxing by nature. Many times we do not take one because we do not have time for it in our crazy schedules. Now, we have nothing but time. Warm water increases your body temperature which helps regulate anxiety. Adding Epsom salt to your bath can help even more because the magnesium sulfate in the salt can calm anxiety and lower blood pressure. Flowers It may sound silly, but flowers have a way of brightening our moods. In fact, a study conducted by Rutgers University found that flowers were found to improve emotional health by triggering feelings of happiness, satisfaction, and social comfortability.

Yale’s Happiness Course This immensely popular Yale course which is actually titled ‘The Science of Well-Being’ is being offered for free via Coursera. Per the Coursera website, here is what you can expect from this course: In this course you will engage in a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and build more productive habits. As preparation for these tasks, Professor Laurie Santos reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change. You will ultimately be prepared to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your life. Keep A Gratitude Journal People dealing with anxiety are more prone to negative thoughts. By documenting what you are thankful for each day, especially now when life is nothing like we’ve experienced before, it helps us stay in a positive, more peaceful state of mind. It is so easy to worry about what we can not control which causes anxiety. When you focus on what you do control and are grateful for, you will feel at peace.

CBD Products If all else fails, and you need a little extra something, try a natural supplement before getting a prescription. CBD seems to be all the rage right now, it is everywhere. CBD is the part of the cannabis plant that does not give you a high. CBD can be used as an anxiety treatment in a myriad of ways including gummies, tinctures, balms, face masks, and lotions. You have heard this a lot over the last few weeks, but it has to be said – this too shall pass. Sure, you know that somewhere back in your brain, but it does not feel that way now. Things will be different going forward again, but we will not have to spend the rest of our lives in our homes. It is totally acceptable to feel anxious about the disease, the pressure of being in your home for weeks on end while entertaining and schooling children, explaining Coronavirus to your children, not knowing how long we will live like this, and trying to understand what the world will look like when this is over. However, there is not much you can do right now other than practicing social distancing and washing your hands. If that lack of control has caused anxiety for you, please try some of the above suggestions to help you get through the next few weeks. Photo Credits: unsplash.com and pixabay.com Read the full article

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xhostcom · 5 years ago

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A Beginners Guide To Aria Markup

Accessibility is a major issue in today’s online world. These days, having a website that many people struggle to navigate is considered unacceptable. ARIA markup is a step in the right direction. It’s an answer to the question how you can make your website more usable for those with disabilities. What is ARIA? A set of code attributes that expand HTML’s capabilities and make it easy to optimize your site for screen readers. It does this by making parts of your website visible to assistive technology, that otherwise, these devices wouldn’t be able to interact with at all. Ready to include ARIA in your website? Or just curious to learn more about it? In this article, we’ll explain what ARIA is, how to make your site accessible, and give you the resources to learn more about this invaluable technology.

Why Make Your Site Accessible?

Some people might wonder: why care about web accessibility? Is it really worth putting in the resources to learn specifications like ARIA? Is creating an accessible website really making much of an impact? Disability Isn’t Uncommon In actuality, yes. Disability isn’t so rare. 18.7% of Americans have a disability of some form. While not all of these will impair their ability to interact with the web, that’s still a staggering number, and it only includes people from the US. 3.3% of Americans also have a vision impairment. This means they could have trouble seeing websites and may rely on tools like screen readers. That’s also a significant percentage of your potential user base and includes the elderly and those with temporary disabilities. People with impairments need the Internet just as much as everyone else. Many use it to shop, socialize, and find information. Sometimes it’s their primary, or even their sole way, of doing so. 54% of disabled people are online, and while this number is smaller than compared to the general population, it’s still a significant portion. Plus, it’s 2019. In this day and age, we should strive to include every user group as well as we can. Giving people with disabilities unrestricted access to browse the web should be a major goal for any web developer. Plus, it even comes with personal benefits. Accessibility Overlaps With Good Web Design and SEO A site that follows accessibility standards is often one that’s using good web design principles, works better on mobile devices, and ranks high in SEO. For instance, one of the WCAG standards includes not auto-playing long clips of audio without a way to stop the sound. This is already a big no-no for web designers. Another standard is providing enough color contrast between elements. Colors that blend together on a website are often an indication of a bad palette. As a consequence, following accessibility guidelines leads to a site that looks better and is more user-friendly. Can anybody say win-win?

Accessibility is also an important part of SEO. Shirking it can lead to ranking penalties from Google and other search engines. But adding alt text to your images, including keyboard controls in interactive elements, and using headings both help disabled visitors and give you an SEO boost.

As you can see, making your site accessible is a good idea as it has an impact on all user groups. If designing a website that offers everyone a good experience is your aim, then you should do everything you can to avoid excluding people with impairments. One thing you can do is implement ARIA into your design, so people with screen readers can better find their way through your site. What are Screen Readers? A screen reader is a program that reads the content of a page or document out loud while allowing you to navigate it using the keyboard. Anyone can download one onto their computer, and there are a variety of programs available free or paid. Some of them also help navigate the desktop and other programs as well as websites. They may enlarge text and images for the visually impaired, and some can output to a refreshable braille display. This guide explains how screen readers work. Without screen readers, visually impaired people would struggle to use a computer and the Internet, or be unable to use them at all. ARIA markup plays a big part in how these tools function. It provides extra information, giving them more options and the ability to interact with parts of the UI that would otherwise be invisible to them. But what exactly is ARIA, and how can you improve your website by including it? Let’s give a quick breakdown on this specification and how it works.

What is ARIA?

ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. It is a set of attributes that provide extra context for how a web page is laid out and what’s inside it. In other words, they give more information about parts of the UI, such as popup alerts, menus, or even whole sections of the page. If you have ever looked at a website with the browser developer tools, you might have seen it before. To quote the Mozilla documentation: “The complementary landmark role is used to designate a supporting section that relates to the main content, yet can stand alone when separated.” So, basically, this part of the markup lets screen readers know about what part of the layout they are dealing with. Consequently, ARIA allows you to create accessible interfaces and widgets without even changing how they look or act on the front end. Most people won’t be able to even tell the markup is present. But add a little code, and screen readers will be able to seamlessly interact with your interface. When is ARIA Really Necessary? By default, screen readers can understand most HTML and HTML5 elements. If you have a very simple, static site, you may not need to implement ARIA at all. But some Javascript, dynamic, and interactive elements can’t be seen by screen readers, and this is where the markup comes in. On the other hand, you shouldn’t use ARIA when what you’re defining is already accessible. For instance, the HTML element is recognized by screen readers. It doesn’t need to have a button ARIA role. You should only include roles when you’re not using HTML elements that are supported by assistive devices. In the same vein, technically I don’t need to add the complementary role to an aside element above as they both describe the same thing. However, you find this markup quite often as it is above. Still confused? Let’s talk a little more about how ARIA works.

Understanding ARIA

Things can get very complex with ARIA, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But the basics of it are fairly easy to break down. Once you understand those, learning more advanced concepts will be a snap. ARIA markup is made up of three attributes: roles, states, and properties. ARIA Roles Roles define elements on a page, such as buttons and checkboxes. They help screen readers tell what parts of a page do, and they have four different sub-categories: landmark, document, widget, and abstract roles. Landmark roles — Separate a site into different sections, like main content, navigation, and complementary areas. This can help visitors get their bearings and more easily find what they’re looking for on a page.Document roles — Describe specific sections within a page, such as articles, documents, lists, and rows.Widget roles — Define elements and interfaces. Tabs, textboxes, alerts, and buttons are some of the elements ARIA can describe. When HTML doesn’t define these elements, or you’re using a widget made of many different parts, widget roles can help.Abstract roles — These are utilized by the browser. You don’t need to worry about them.States and Properties States and properties work similarly to each other. Properties once set rarely change, as they only describe relationships with other elements. States are dynamic and can change on their own or with user interaction. An example of a state is aria-busy, which tells the screen reader that the element is updating. Another is aria-pressed, which indicates that a button has been pushed. These are elements which can actively change. On the other hand, properties include attributes like aria-valuemax which sets the maximum number in a range selector, or aria-haspopup which indicates that an element will trigger a popup. These are not likely to update. And that’s the basics of ARIA. Much simpler once it’s broken down, right? But you’d be surprised how much you can do with it. To learn more, try the official WAI-ARIA documentation, or Google’s beginner introduction for developers.

Testing for ARIA Accessibility

Once you’ve implemented ARIA, you might want to make sure that everything is running smoothly. How does your site really look on assistive devices? The most obvious way is to download a free screen reader like NVDA, blindfold yourself, and go to town. This will give you the full experience.

You can also skip the blindfold and just hover the elements you want to check ARIA attributes on, but you’ll miss out on key info like how difficult it is to find those elements. Even this isn’t a perfect representation of what it’s like to use a screen reader as it takes a lot of practice to learn, so it’s best to ask actual users to test drive your website. There are also many inspector tools like Firefox’s Accessibility Inspector that let you see information about selected elements. WAVE points out various errors, including those with ARIA. Finally, this ARIA widget checklist makes a great audit for while you’re designing.

Other Ways to Make Your Site Accessible

ARIA markup is just the beginning when it comes to web accessibility. There are many other standards you should follow to make your site usable by people with vision, hearing, mobility, and other impairments. Here are a few examples of just a handful of guidelines you should follow. Website content is responsive and works while zoomed in.The site and its elements can be used with only a keyboard.Text is properly contrasted against the background.All non-text content has text alternatives, including audio and video captions/transcripts.Ensure that most images have descriptive alt text, and decorative images have empty alt text.No information is conveyed solely through sight, sound, or color.Avoid auto-playing audio without providing a mute button.Automatically moving elements can be paused or stopped.That’s only a handful of what you can do to make your site truly accessible. If this feels like too much, try the simple accessibility checklist. Use it as a basis for your design before moving onto the more detailed WCAG guidelines.

Making Your Site Usable for Everyone

Avoiding accessibility can have a negative impact on your user base and even your reputation. People with disabilities make up a large percentage of web users, and it’s important to ensure that the majority of the Internet isn’t closed off to them. By implementing accessibility standards including ARIA markup, you’re both giving screen reader users the ability to see more of the web, and allowing your website to grow as large as possible. Once you know how to include specifications like ARIA, accessibility will seem a lot less confusing. Making your site easier to use for everyone means more people willing to stick around, so there’s no reason not to use ARIA if your site needs it. Many themes also offer it out of the box by now. These standards don’t just help people with disabilities; they help everyone. Accessibility guidelines often overlap with good web design practices and are quick to implement once you know them. So remember to include ARIA when you’re developing a website. It’s better for you and for all your users. Do you ever have trouble navigating websites? What could web designers and developers do to improve the situation? Let us know your experiences with online accessibility (or lack thereof) in the comments! Read the full article

#accessibility #aria #webaccessibility

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jesseneufeld · 5 years ago

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6 self-care steps for a pandemic — always important, now essential

Airline attendants say it well: if the plane hits turbulence and the oxygen masks come down, place a mask on yourself first before turning to help others. This is absolutely critical. If we don’t, we may not be able to help anyone.

Well, we’ve all hit the same turbulence, folks, and we all need to take good care of ourselves, our bodies, and our minds.

Healthcare providers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic absolutely have to be functioning well in order to do their jobs well. At such a stressful time, with so much change and uncertainty, combined with the pressures of patient care during this pandemic, it almost seems like too much. How are people like doctors holding it together? Could we all learn from their tips on coping?

This week, I reached out to my colleagues in the Massachusetts General Hospital Healthy Lifestyle Program to find out. We’re all primary care physicians within the Division of General Internal Medicine who have been urgently redeployed to new and different jobs, such as staffing our makeshift COVID-19 surge clinics, learning new technology to provide much-needed telehealth, and creating serious illness plans with our most at-risk patients.

During a period when stress and fear are running high, these six strategies from my colleagues can help.

Acknowledge the turbulence

Ben Crocker, MD, is the medical director of a large primary care practice and a healthy lifestyle advocate. “Social distancing and the loss of work and/or routine are tremendous pressures, both physically and psychologically,” he says. “At the same time, our society tends to specifically reward heroic efforts that show that we can continue to perform at the same level, all while keeping a brave face. Many people are struggling to work full-time remotely while simultaneously caring full-time for their family at home. Those who continue to work on the front lines may feel the need to overload their schedules, or commit to too much.”

His advice on this is relevant to everyone, not just front-line providers. Check in, he urges. Mourn your losses. And check out, too.

“Check in with yourself,” says Dr. Crocker. With so much news and instructions flying around about what to do and how to do it, take time to listen to what your body and mind need.

During such frantic times we may tend to ignore acknowledging the loss of “the way things were.” We forget to mourn, or grieve, or simply express our sadness about not being able to socialize, see a close friend, attend a favorite exercise class, interact with neighbors and family, or worship collectively. Grant yourself the time and space to acknowledge your loss. This can help you stay grounded with the current state of life.

“And allow yourself to physically, mentally, emotionally check out on a regular basis,” he adds. “Intentionally create ‘shutdown’ time in your schedule. This can be healthy time alone, for meditation and quietude.”

Fuel your body with healthy food

Helen Delichatsios, MD, has a degree in nutrition and runs healthy cooking classes for her patients.

“In times such as these, nutrition and healthy eating can easily fall to the wayside,” she says. “However, if anything, it is more important than ever to appropriately fuel our bodies and to do so in a mindful way. We have increased physical and mental stress, and healthy eating is vital in supporting our immune system to stave off illness and recuperate faster if we fall ill.”

Anne Thorndike, MD, usually works in the cardiometabolic center, helping people at high risk for heart disease change the way they eat and live. “We’re all eating at home more,” she notes. “This is a great time to explore new recipes you’ve been meaning to try. Be creative with what you have stocked in the house. Plan your grocery list so you have the basics on hand for healthy meals. Frozen vegetables and fruits are a great option when you can’t buy fresh produce on a regular basis.”

Amy Wheeler, MD, is also certified in obesity medicine and runs healthy lifestyle sessions for patients. At home, she’s been adapting healthy recipes she usually makes with fresh ingredients by using simple substitutes. Try her easy, adaptable recipe for Quarantine Chili for a family of five:

“Last night, I diced an onion and potato, then added one chicken breast cut in chunks, 1/2 small can diced green chilies, 1/4 cup salsa, 3 to 4 teaspoons paprika, 1 teaspoon cumin, a sprinkle of cheese, some leftover rice, 1 can yellow corn, and 1 can tomatoes. Once the chicken is cooked, try a dollop of Greek yogurt on top instead of sour cream.”

Use fresh ingredients if you have them, or canned or frozen if you don’t. Goes nicely with tortillas, but it’s also great right out of a bowl.

Move your body

“We are all spending less time commuting, driving our kids around, and doing errands,” says Dr. Thorndike. “Use the extra time to take a walk or do some exercise at home. Even housework can be a way to be physically active!”

Dr. Wheeler finds it helps to set SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timed. These are by definition small steps that are easy to achieve, and thus fuel motivation.

“I have been making little SMART goals for myself,” she says. “Daily goals like ‘I will take a 20-minute walk outside at 10 am today, while wearing my mask and performing social distancing.’ Or ‘I will find three flowers with different colors on my walk.’ Helps me get out of my PJs, off the laptop, and appreciating nature — very relaxing!”

Prioritize sleep

Our bodies need sufficient sleep in order to function. Me, I’ve been working hard to keep a schedule, setting my alarm for my usual early morning time, and going to bed just after my kids. This helps to ensure I get a solid eight hours of sleep, so that I’ll be at my best when I’m called into clinic.

It can help to see the light — and dark (literally). “Spend time outside in nature,” Dr. Crocker suggests. “Exposure to the visible diurnal rhythms of the day/night is an added benefit.” For additional tips on getting the rest you need, see this blog on sleep strategies for uncertain times.

Find ways to connect socially

Dr. Delichatsios loves to cook at home and has been having virtual dinner parties.

“Why don’t you invite some people over for dinner?” she suggests “In our family, we call them FaceTime Dinners, Zoom Dinners, or Skype Dinners. These platforms have allowed us to ‘go out to dinner’ and connect with many friends and families, when before we were often too busy to meet up in person.”

Dr. Crocker has a great suggestion that can be a win-win for working parents and their relatives. “With school out, if you have kids and any extended family, invite the relative (grandparent, aunt, uncle) to teach an online lesson once a week on the same topic or a rotating topic. Allow that special bonding time between your child and their relative to unburden your time.”

He also found a way to continue choir singing from home. “Try a different way of connecting with friends and colleagues — a chat room, or Zoom meeting over a meal. I joined a 20-voice choir that I’ve never physically sung with and sang in a recorded five-part arrangement — all from my home!”

Find ways to ease stress

Everything you’ve read to this point can help you manage stress and anxiety. Eating healthy, being active, and getting enough sleep all help us to mitigate the effects of stress and anxiety on our bodies. One more technique is positive thinking.

Remembering and acknowledging the good in our lives is a powerfully positive action. “Practicing gratitude for what we still have — our health, our families, our homes, food, whatever it may be — rather than rehearsing the daily ‘loss’ of life and routine as we know it, is an important health practice,” notes Dr. Crocker.

In our household, we take turns saying grace before we eat dinner. One part of grace is to state something we’re grateful for, and usually it ends up being a bunch of things, sometimes silly ones like our cats cuddling with us, or the sun shining. But it always makes us smile!

Follow me on Twitter @drmoniquetello

For information about the coronavirus or COVID-19, see the Harvard Health Publishing Coronavirus Resource Center and podcasts.

The post 6 self-care steps for a pandemic — always important, now essential appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

6 self-care steps for a pandemic — always important, now essential published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

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mhealthb007 · 5 years ago

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Well, we’ve all hit the same turbulence, folks, and we all need to take good care of ourselves, our bodies, and our minds.

During a period when stress and fear are running high, these six strategies from my colleagues can help.

Acknowledge the turbulence

His advice on this is relevant to everyone, not just front-line providers. Check in, he urges. Mourn your losses. And check out, too.

“Check in with yourself,” says Dr. Crocker. With so much news and instructions flying around about what to do and how to do it, take time to listen to what your body and mind need.

Fuel your body with healthy food

Helen Delichatsios, MD, has a degree in nutrition and runs healthy cooking classes for her patients.

Use fresh ingredients if you have them, or canned or frozen if you don’t. Goes nicely with tortillas, but it’s also great right out of a bowl.

Move your body

Dr. Wheeler finds it helps to set SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timed. These are by definition small steps that are easy to achieve, and thus fuel motivation.

Prioritize sleep

Find ways to connect socially

Dr. Delichatsios loves to cook at home and has been having virtual dinner parties.

Find ways to ease stress

Follow me on Twitter @drmoniquetello

For information about the coronavirus or COVID-19, see the Harvard Health Publishing Coronavirus Resource Center and podcasts.

The post 6 self-care steps for a pandemic — always important, now essential appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

from Harvard Health Blog https://ift.tt/3evcQ4H Original Content By : https://ift.tt/1UayBFY

#Health #Fitness #Healthy #Fit #Health and Fitness #Being Healthy #Health maintenance #fitness mainte

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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You can tour a museum at 9, take a mixology class at 11, and swoop over Machu Picchu at 3, but do these online versions of “doing stuff” really scratch the itch? Most of us are currently missing things like Outside and Proximity to Other Humans. For the lucky ones, at least, monotony and loneliness are our most prominent enemies, as we stare down seemingly endless nights of Netflix and bean soaking, longing for the day we can experience somewhere else. If you run a business that requires anyone travel from one place to another, this means that you’re particularly reeling. Airline capacity is down 73 percent, hotels are empty, and even the potential reopening of restaurants and bars comes with heavy caveats. Because of that, brands like Airbnb, Viator, Google, and various tourism councils have begun offering virtual “experiences,” so that hypothetically you both keep spending money and also don’t die of boredom. But can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter? Or are they, you know, both screens? Broadly, there are two types of experiences happening today. First, there are interactive classes and group activities, where you can learn to make pasta or Irish step dance or listen to a museum docent talk about statuary on a video call — all with other people looking to emerge from this time with a new skill set. In Philadelphia, one restaurant owner is trying to mimic the experience of dining out. He video calls you for your order and then, once it’s delivered, calls back to check in on your wine and see how everything is. Aside from the fact that they take place over a video call, these experiences are pretty close to their in-person counterparts: you sign up for a particular time and date, you follow directions, and supposedly you learn something, or at least pretend you’re in a restaurant. Can paying to stare at a screen for culture really rescue you from the monotony of staring at Twitter? And then there are the experiences that aim to “immerse” you in some locale that is not your apartment, whether that’s Rome’s colosseum or an orchard of cherry blossoms in Japan or the British Museum. Often, the entirety of the experience is just a 360-degree camera or other pre-recorded video footage of a beautiful place, and sometimes it’s free. Maybe for a brief moment it will seem as if you aren’t on the couch with your partner who won’t stop bouncing every time they try to catch a tarantula in Animal Crossing, but instead are surrounded by skulls and a haunting breeze in Paris’s catacombs. Or seeing the Faroe Islands through the eyes of a local with a camera strapped to their shirt and whose movements you can control with a joypad (yes, this is real, and no, it does not seem ethical). Both of these types of experiences are not new, except for the joypad thing. Virtual cooking classes and workouts are offered by plenty of companies, and Google has long allowed you to tour the world’s museums, or plant yourself in the middle of a national park on Google Earth. Normally, these offerings are an invaluable tool for those who don’t have the ability — whether financially or physically or because there’s only so much time — to visit these spaces in person. Personally, I’ve avoided them all. Aside from the occasional video yoga class, it just didn’t seem worth it — too much potential for technical difficulties, too easy to open Twitter in another tab. Plus, I could just go there if I really wanted. But now that the pandemic has wiped out any in-person plans for the foreseeable future, boredom is my primary struggle. I finish work and move from my dining table to my couch, queueing up another movie or TV show or video game. The idea of a plan, of something to look forward to, feels increasingly distant — and online experiences increasingly appealing. Can they actually fulfill our collective void of “doing,” or just highlight how far we are from ever “experiencing” in person again? I decided to fill up my calendar again to find out — or at least see if I could forget about the confining walls of my apartment, even for a few minutes. The instructions for Airbnb’s “GINspiration History & Cocktails at Home” said that points would be given for the best outfit, so I put on earrings and an actual shirt before signing on. The company best known for providing vacation and short-term rentals offered “experiences” — both real-life and virtual — before the spread of COVID-19, but has taken care to promote the latter on its homepage recently. You can learn to cook tacos or pasta or tapas, or watch a man wandering the streets of Prague in a plague doctor costume as you learn about the Black Death. My hour-and-a-half long class promised the bartender would teach me to make some great gin cocktails, as well as tell me a bit about the history of the spirit itself. It took place at 11:30 in the morning EST (the host was in England) but time is meaningless now, right? I assume I won the best outfit contest, as I was the only student. Signing onto what you assume will be a bustling Zoom chat only to find yourself the only one there is a little like showing up early to a party; it’s deeply embarrassing for no specific reason, and the only way through is to act like being a party of one is your favorite thing. We waited a few minutes for the other student who had signed up, but he never came. He is my enemy now, and I began the class feeling resentful that I had no other participants to hide behind, and that I had to make an extra grocery run to pick up the limes and juices necessary for cocktail prep. These should have been provided for me, I thought. There should have been more people. It shouldn’t be like this. But as I listened to my instructor’s story about accidentally spilling a bright pink Cosmo all over a bachelorette’s white dress, I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger. For an hour and a half the bartender and I chatted, he told jokes, we traded stories and watched each other’s reactions, I drank a French 75 on an empty stomach, and he taught me how to make daiquiris and Cosmos as well, because I came woefully unprepared in the ingredients department. And I know it’s a bartender’s job to make everyone feel like their friend, but I felt like his friend, which meant I felt like my kitchen was a bar. The magic worked, and I’m not sure if my socialization itch would have been scratched had that other guy (still my enemy) showed up. So I tried another one. I have been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art countless times in my life. As a New Yorker, I can name my price and visit my personal highlights on any rainy day — the Arms & Armor section, the Asian and “Arab Lands” wings, jewelry, “Inferno” by Franz von Stuck. The Met is currently offering 360 degree video of some of its corridors, but to see any art up close right now, I had to sign up for a tour with Walks. The hour-long tour promised a docent would uncover the “scandals and secrets that lie behind some of the artifacts in America’s greatest art collection,” and an art lecture would mean I’d experience the Met in a way I haven’t since I was a kid on a class trip. I realized I was experiencing what felt like something new after weeks of monotony: talking to a stranger. Our docent first started by highlighting all the benefits of an at-home video tour, as if we had a choice. On a normal day we’d probably have to wait outside in a line, waddle through security, and check our coats before seeing any art. Now, he joked, we could be “naked with a glass of cabernet” on hand, and because our “tour” took the form of a slideshow of images, we could zip from the Egyptian wing to “Washington Crossing the Delaware” nearly instantly. In the museum it would have been a 15-minute walk. Our docent clicked through works I’d never stopped to notice before, and famous paintings I’d never really considered that deeply. I learned who Madame X was in John Singer Sargent’s portrait, and that Monet’s water lilies were more staged than I’d previously imagined. I regretted that I’d spent so much time at the Met cycling through what I already knew. But I found myself missing that 15-minute walk. Our tour was an hour long and featured 87 PowerPoint slides. As soon as we were done with one painting we hopped to the next, leaving barely any time for our new knowledge to sink in. I pictured myself in the alternate-universe version of the tour, following a man holding a flag, maybe chatting with a stranger on the tour about what he’d just said as we weaved through galleries, feeling whether the energy of the group was “bored” or “amused” or “laughing politely.” Our video host turned off everyone’s cameras, so I couldn’t even see the nine other participants’ faces as our docent spoke, or allow him to see my genuine laughs at any of his jokes. I joined to stave off the loneliness, but once the call was ended, I felt newly alone. In an online conference hosted last week by Arival Online, a resource specifically for the tours and attractions companies, members of the tourism industry gathered to discuss the pros and pitfalls of virtual tours, and whether they were worth investing in. The short answer was yes. Andy Lawrence of Vox Group (no relation) noted that this is what business will be like for a while. “From that we know social distancing will become a norm, and the easiest way to deal with this is to give someone the power to take a tour how and when they want,” he said. However, he denied it was a long-term solution, as people can get free videos of monuments and museums on YouTube. Online education may be a need now, but there’s no telling how long it’ll last. But others noted it didn’t seem like interactive tours were really competing with the videos on YouTube. “I don’t see it as a full replacement for travel, but a new initiative that’s complementary for travel when we get back to normal,” said Matthijs Kefi of Withlocals. After all, streaming a video is one-way. “Our hosts also want to connect with other people, everyone likes that interaction.” The point of a guided tour or a lesson is rarely just the accumulation of new information. We had cookbooks and Wikipedia before the pandemic. What we want is people. Public anonymity is one of the things that keeps me in my hometown of New York. I’ve cried in parks, in museums, and at well-renowned bars. I’ve sat quietly with my thoughts at crowded restaurants, and I’ve had life-changing conversations in front of world-famous monuments. Some of the most important things have happened to me while I’ve been shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers. Now, all of these things happen on my couch. There is no white-noise of humanity to provide cover to my sobs or my half-baked ideas. I am not anonymous, but alone, and the thing I am missing the most is being in public with strangers. What I wouldn’t give right now to attend a book reading, have a drink, or look at a painting with people I’ll never know. What I miss about the world isn’t being told about an artist’s life by a docent. It’s meandering through a museum, talking to my partner about why a newly seen painting is hitting us, quietly experiencing the beauties of life alone in company. As soon as I named this craving for myself I started feeling it in anything else I tried to do. I clicked around a virtual tour of Machu Picchu where tourists in bucket hats and cargo shorts stand frozen and warped by the circular camera. I tried to recall what the wind felt like on my own trip there over a decade ago, but I could only focus on what it would be like to overhear another person’s conversation. I looked at cherry blossoms blooming in Prospect Park, and thought of the last time I was there, which happened to be the same weekend as the West Indian Day Parade so the Japanese garden was juxtaposed with booming dancehall music from the street. I tried “going” somewhere I’d never been before, the Great Wall of China, only to find myself focusing more on a tourist squatting while drinking a water bottle than any of the sights. “The same” is too high a bar to set for these experiences. Nobody is advertising that these virtual tours and classes will provide an identical experience to one in person, but rather they’re a way to support docents and guides and bartenders who would otherwise be out of work. But even then, it’s too easy to recall the other version of this experience, the one where your conversation isn’t studded with glitching video, where you can shake the bartender’s hand after he’s taught you how to make a lemon twist, where even after you’ve found a quiet spot at the top of Machu Picchu where it feels like you’re the only person in the whole world, you can walk back down and watch everyone else having their own moments of transcendence without ever having to ask them about it. Most everything about life right now is both deeply essential and muted. We’re instructed to leave our houses only for necessary work or supplies, and only touch those we live with (which could mean no one at all). Every decision carries the weight of literal life and death. And yet every action feels like a photocopied version of reality, like we’re in a holding pattern until life gets switched back on. The virtual tours and classes are no different. Human interaction, however it happens, feels newly vital. But mostly, these tours and experiences don’t provide that any more than watching Too Hot to Handle on Netflix does. The majority of them are one-way entertainment, good enough if the topic interests you, but the equivalent of an interesting PBS special. And even when they are slightly more interactive, there is no lasting release. You say goodbye, feeling smarter or tipsier or full. The video sputters and freezes and then it ends, and you’re still in your living room, with no one to even ignore you. Anyway, I love Cosmos now, so at least there’s that. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2A0rvW5

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-actual-experience-of-virtual.html

#EasyFoodNetwork #ComfortFoodRecipes #EasyRecipes #GoodFood #BestComfortFoodRecipes #TastyFoodv

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