Hello everybody. This is Ajay Kumar. I welcome you all to the session delving into the Linux boot process for an ARM SoC. Today, me and my colleague Tiago Ramalingam from FDF Software Solutions, Samsung Semiconductor India Research Bangalore will take you guys through the Linux boot process on an ARM SoC. Regarding the topics being covered, we will start off by describing the basic ARM V8 SoC architecture and few of the SoC components, including the internal memory. Then we will see the role of bootloader in booting a kernel like setting up and initializing the RAM, fetching and copying the kernel images to main memory, decompressing that kernel image and how a kernel image looks after the decompression. We will see how the bootloader prepares the SoC environment for jumping into the kernel. We will see how secondary CPUs are specified and how actual jumping from bootloader to kernel happens and the subsequent kernel routing which runs after jumping into the kernel. Later, my colleague Tiago will take you guys through the architecture independent kernel starting point which is the start kernel and discuss about the process creation, the memory management data structures initialization and scheduler initialization, IRQ initialization and rest of the boot up things. Before going to the actual session, we will make a few assumptions like ARM has both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, but with the interest of time, we will stick to the 64-bit architecture, the ARM V8 mainly and we will assume we only have a single guest OS which is the Linux. So, we will not be utilizing the hypervisor feature and the bootloader nomenclature like BL0, BL1, etc., are for explanation only. They are not assumed to be strict nomenclature. It can vary based on the type of bootloader you are using. Also, any complex SoC boot not only involves the ARM V8 blocks, there might be few other microcontrollers which might be supporting the SoC boot that is beyond the scope of this talk. Let's start by describing a simple ARM V8 SoC. The figure depicts a typical big little ARM SoC. So, the main components of this SoC are the CPU cluster, the main memory and the memory controller, the system buses and other DMAable and non-DMAable subsystem which are necessary for the functioning of the SoC and what's not depicted in this picture are few of the critical power management and clock management blocks. In this session, we will mainly concentrate on these two blocks which is the CPU cluster and the main memory. So, apart from the main memory, SoC will have other types of memory namely the ROM which is the read-only memory and the SRAM which is also the volatile memory. The ROM code usually contains the reset vectors which are executed upon the reset release of the cortex A block. This ROM will prepare this SRAM block by initializing the same and the SRAM can support any C execution routines. The ROM code as we said is executed upon the CS95 or the Cortex A block reset release and since it is the first thing to be executed, it executes in the secure EL3 mode. This ROM code initializes the storage or the flash memory and also the SRAM memory and helps in copying the bootloader image EL0 from the storage to the SRAM. After copying, it also sets up a stack on the SRAM so that it helps in the execution of C routines from BL0. The bootloader BL0 starts executing from the SRAM and it initializes few of the core clocks and also the power domain for the DRAM block and the clock for the CIN. The clock for the memory controller will be usually based on the memory speed and also the BL0 is expected to initialize all of the main memory available in the system. It can do so using some static information present in the code or maybe some hand checking mechanism which detects the memory on the fly. After the BL0 has initialized the main memory, now we can load bigger images like the bootloader one BL1 which can execute from the main memory. The BL1 actually initializes most of the system components and also copies the binaries needed for Linux boot like DTP, image and RANDIS to the main memory. At BL1, you can have interrupts enabled and also initialize few subsystems like the display for displaying some boot of logo or provide some sound acknowledgement using the sound subsystem. Also either the BL0 or the BL1 should keep a secure monitor code for handling secure accesses from the panel in future. The bootloader image BL1 executing from the main memory copies the DTP image under RANDIS to main memory. Now what are these images? The DTP is the device tree block which is a compiled version of a device tree format which in turn is a description of the hardware on this SOC or the board. The image is the actual kernel binary image. The RANDIS image is actually a minimum root interface loaded before mounting the actual Linux root frame system and this might be required for execution of few initial Linux startup scripts. Let's discuss more about the device tree block. A device tree is actually a description of your device hardware in a format Linux can understand. A special compiler called device tree compiler takes the device tree as input and converts it into a device tree block. How your device tree represents your hardware is by providing the memory map addresses, IRQs, GPIOs, clocks, regulators, etc. which are needed by your device. It can also go on describing the SOC by defining the CPU and memory nodes and other things. Before we jump into the kernel, the bootloader must select the appropriate device tree file which is to be bootable on this board and pass the same as an argument into the kernel image. We will see how the address of the DTB image is embedded into the kernel image in the next few slides. But what we should remember here is that the DTB should be within 2MB size and also kept at an address which is 2MB aligned. This is because the kernel might map the same into a single 2MB block with cacheable attributes. Unlike 32-bit ARM Linux, the 64-bit ARM Linux doesn't have a kernel decompressor for decompressing the kernel image. So whenever you compile the kernel for 64-bit ARM, you will get two kinds of images. One is the uncompressed image and the compressed image. So in case you are storing the compressed version of the image on the storage, the bootloader has to take care of the responsibility of decompressing the same and place it into the main memory. The real one is the bootloader which is supposed to do the same. In case you don't want to spend time in decompressing the same, you can always use the uncompressed image directly to place it into the memory. The header of a decompressed kernel image for an ARM 64-bit kernel has following 64-bit header. The code field represents the startup text section inside the compiled binary. The field text offset which has become obsolete now, which once used to represent the image load offset from the DRAM base. The image size field represents the effective kernel image size in little indian format. There is also a flags field in which there are four bits which are significant as of now. The bit zero indicates whether the kernel indianess is decadent or the little indian. And the next two bits represents the page size or the page granularity which will be used inside the kernel namely 4k 16k or 64k. The third bit also is a hint for the physical placement of the kernel. If it is zero, that means the two MB aligned kernel base address is very near to the base of DRAM. If it is one, that means the two MB aligned base of the kernel image can be anywhere inside the main memory. This picture shows a sample dissection of a kernel image header dump. As you can see, this represents the code fields and this represents the image size and the obsolete text offset. You can see being zero here and this 0000008 is actually 1010 which means little indian kernel with 4k pages and one which is the two MB aligned base of this kernel image can be anywhere in memory. Also, this magic number is nothing but the ASCII value for ARM and 64 for the 64 bit. Now that we have placed the kernel image and other necessary binaries in the main memory, what remains is the setting up of jump environment. ARM64 Linux mandated certain boot protocol should be followed before jumping into the kernel. Mainly, any DMA capable device has to be disabled so that the active DMA does not corrupt the main memory. Coming to the primary CPU which is executing the bootloader core before jumping into the kernel, the x0 register of the primary CPU should contain the physical address of the device tree block. X1, X2, X3 should be zeros. Likewise, for the secondary CPUs, all of the X0, X1, X2, X3 should be zeros. All forms of interrupts on the CPUs must be masked using the DAF flags. For all the CPUs, the MMUs must be off and the data cache has to be disabled while the instruction cache may be kept on or off. But this instruction cache should not hold any stale entries corresponding to the address range of the currently loaded kernel image. Coming to the architecture and timers, timers at different exception levels have to be initialized before jumping into the kernel. And all the CPUs which are booted inside the kernel must fall into the same coherency domain which is the inner cerebral domain as mandated by ARM64 Linux. Any platform related configuration which is needed to enable the same has to be done by the bootloader before jumping into the kernel. Also, all writable architecture system register inside the CPU has to be written and initialized by the software running at a higher exception level than the kernel, example the EL3. And all the requirements which we spoke of till now, like the CPU register modes and the state of caches, the condition of MMUs, architecture timers, the coherency condition and system registers should apply to all the CPUs. Remember, all CPUs should enter the kernel at the same exception level. The primary CPU which is executing the bootloader anyhow jumps directly to the first instruction of the kernel image. How the secondary CPUs are booted during the kernel boot are mentioned in the enable method dt property which are specified inside the CPU nodes. The most commonly method used is the PSA enable method, which is the power state coordination interface method where the kernel during the course of boot up will issue the CPU on calls for the respective CPUs as described in the PSA guide. From the ATF side, the secure monitor will take care of powering those CPUs internally. There is also another method called the spin table method, where we also need to specify a CPU release address property and the secondary CPU spin outside of the kernel in a reserve memory area, which is already specified in the CPU release address property. Once the bootloader BL1 has performed all necessary SS initialization like initializing the clocks, the power domains and the other subsystems needed for the kernel boot and it is done repairing the jump environment. It will eventually jump to the kernel. Let's take the example of code boot to see how different jump instructions are performed. As you can see the precondition before jump, it is disabling the CPU interrupts in this line and it is also disabling the MMU and plushing the catches over here. It is repairing the kernel entry point infrastructure where it will embed the starting point of the kernel address. And at the end of these instructions, we would see bootloader jumping into the kernel and the first kernel instruction getting executed. At this moment, if you see the hardware snapshot, you can see only the primary CPU 0 is active and if it is in the EL1 mode, the CMU and PMU for the CPU clusters have been configured for all the CPUs. The MMU is off, the data cache is off while the instruction cache may be kept on and all the necessary binaries are placed at their respective addresses adhering to the respective alignment or some other placement constraints. You can also see we do have a SMC place in order to respond to any of the PSA calls from the kernel. So primary entry is the name of the assembly routine which is entered for ARM64 kernel upon exit from the bootloader code. This function is defined in the file arch ARM64 kernel entry.s file. Let's briefly discuss what the kernel subroutine primary entry does before calling the start kernel function. So the primary entry calls the subroutine preserve boot args which preserves the argument passed by the bootloader in the registers x0 to x3. If you remember, we had passed the address of the device tree blocking x0 which it is copying to x21 register. Then it calls the subroutine init kernel EL which will do some setup based on the current kernel exception level whether we have arrived at EL1 or EL2 and store the same in the register W0. After this, if the kernel has KSLR enabled then some setting is done for kernel address space layout randomization and then whatever CPU boot mode we stored in W0 is set to the flat boot CPU mode for later usage. After this create page table subroutine is called where we set up the initial page tables required for kernel initialization. As you can see, we create a identity mapping for the MMU enablement code which usually happens at the lower addresses which need to be set in TTBR0. The page table responsible to handle those translation is created at idmap.pgl and a linear mapping for the first few MB of the kernel is also created in this subroutine at init pg depth. After this it calls CPU setup subroutine which further initializes the processor for turning the MMU on. It starts off with clearing the TLB and then setting the size for the virtual and the physical addresses to be used in the translation and also checks if some of the VM features can be enabled. It does so by setting the translation control register and the system control register. The last subroutine to be called is the primary switch which sets the page table addresses prepared in the previous slide which is the idmap pg depth and the init pg depth for the lower and the higher addresses. Since we have the page table assigned already, we can enable the MMU. So, we enable the MMU by configuring the required page granularity. If the KSLR is enabled, we perform the KSLR operation here. The last subroutine which is called is the primary switched subroutine which assigns the vector table for the EL1 level, clears the BSA segment for the kernel, sets up a stack for the kernel, creates a mapping for the FDT addresses and eventually calls the CROT start underscore kernel. From here on, my colleague Thiago will be taking over. Thank you. Thank you, Ajit. Kernel is always booted by an architecture specific code, but then execution is passed to the start kernel function that is responsible for common kernel installation and is an architecture independent kernel starting point. Start kernel executes a wide range of installation functions. It sets up interrupt handling, further configures memory, starts the init process which is the first process base process and then starts the idle task via CPU idle function. Notably, the kernel startup process also mounts the initial RAM disk that is init RB. Init task presents the initial task structure that stores all the information about the process. The process 0 is statically defined this is the only process that is not created by kernel thread nor fork. Set task stack and magic function will find the end address of the stack and then insert magic value for overflow detection. The stack can either grow down or grow up. Either way, the end of stack function will return the end address. The first processor activation. The boot CPU init function initializes various CPU mass for the bootstack processor. The kernel uses the CPU mass to record the state of the CPU. CPU mass provides a bitmap representing the set of CPUs in a system. A bit of zero or one represents the state of the CPU under each CPU mass. The status of the CPU can be basically divided into following four types. CPU possible, CPU present, CPU online and CPU active. The setup arch function is responsible for initial machine specific initialization procedures. This includes setting up machine vector for the host, determining the location and sizes of available memory. Set up arch function also initializes a basic memory allocator called bootmem to use during the boot process. Calls paging init to enable the host memory management unit. Many devices have buffers where a driver can write something or read from there. This is achieved through mapping the control registers and the memory of a device to the memory address space. None of the memory mapped iu addresses are used by the kernel directly. There is a special iu remap function which allows us to convert the physical address on a bus to a kernel virtual address. In other words, iu remap maps iu physical memory regions to make them accessible from the kernel. We need to initialize early iu remap for early initialization port which needs to be temporarily mapped iu or memory regions before the normal mapping function like iu remap are available. The parse early param function parses kernel command line and sets of different services depends on the given parameters. The kernel initializes the paging mechanism of the kernel through paging init so that our virtual runtime space is initially established. And the mapping of a physical address for virtual address space can be completed. In ARM64 architecture, the kernel completes the initialization of the mem block through the ARM64 mem block init function and then starts to initialize the paging mechanism through the paging init function. Paging init is responsible for establishing page tables that can only be used in the kernel and the user space is inaccessible. The PSCI is a firmware interface implementing CPU power-related operations specified by ARM PSCI spec that includes CPU on, off, suspend, etc. Did you need any function? Initializes the kernel's PID hash table, a lookup table for quickly mapping process IDs to process descriptors used by the kernel. Also the function then initializes the vectors and bottom off handlers used by the kernel various internal times. SMP on ARM SoC. A symmetric multiprocessor system is a multiprocessor system with centralized shared memory called main memory operating under a single operating system with two or more homogeneous processes. Most of the SMP code is not architecture dependent in the kernel directory. Few SMP functions related to SOCs are SMP init CPU functions that set up the set of possible CPUs via CPU possible function. It is called very early during the boot up process from the setup function. SMP prepare CPUs function enables coherency, initializes CPU possible map, requires the resources like power, RAM, clock, etc. This is also called very early during the boot up process that is before the init calls, but after the setup large function. SMP secondary init function perform platform specific installation of the specific CPU called from secondary start kernel on the CPU which has just been started. SMP boot secondary function actually boots a secondary CPU identified by the CPU number given in a parameter called from CPU up on the booting CPU. The init IRQ function initializes the GIC controllers, scans the device tree for matching interrupt controller nodes and calls their respective initialization functions. The time init function initializes the host system tick timer hardware. It installs the timer's interrupt handlers and configures the timer to produce a periodic tick. Rest init function. The start kernel function initializes dozens of kernel subsystem and ends calling rest init function. Rest init function in its turn spams the very first user space processor through kernel init function. Its process ID is one. It will become the direct or indirect ancestor of all user space processes. It also spams thread process. Normally the process ID2 that's the parent of all kernel threads. Finally, it runs CPU idle function. A process that take over CPU whenever there is no other process using it. Kernel init function will start any additional CPU code. If there is an initial RAM disk is defined, it will decompress and mount it. Then it loads the device drivers, mount the root file system in the read-only mode and finally call the init process. Thank you.


Hi everyone, welcome to this session called Interviewing PrEP 101, How to Achieve Interview Success, and this session is going to build on all of the other career presentations that we've had this this past few weeks, in particular by Alex, who, you know, and myself, who we've covered things like the skills, interests, and the values, and how to write a resume, and these kinds of topics. And Alex has told me that she touched on the method that we will be talking about today. So she hinted at this, so we'll be kind of just building on each other's work. So welcome everyone, my name is Daniel Moglin. I work at UC Davis Health, and I serve PhDs and postdocs in helping them and supporting them in their career and professional development. I completed my PhD in linguistics in March of 2017, and I really just love the grad student population, and I love supporting them, and I just really wanted to have an impact and have that like really direct impact on people, and so I found myself in the world of like career and professional development, and I've been doing this for about four and a half years now, and it's just been a really good, it's been a wonderful fit for me, and I'm really happy to be here to present on the topic of interviewing. So if everyone wants to like just say hi in the chat box, and you can say, some people did this already, but just say like hi from, you can say where you're from or what university you're affiliated with. You're also welcome to click on the three little dots and click rename if you want to add your pronouns or your location as well, because part of what we're doing here is, and Rachel and I were talking about this right before, and is that we are building connections and network by all being here. We are all over the country and the world, and the whole conference and workshop that workshops that we've been attending is really just the beginning, so I really want to encourage everyone to stay in touch with people, because we will all be entering the work world together. We might be colleagues, we might be hiring each other, and so the more that we can stay in touch, the better. So I'm seeing folks from Arizona, oh is another UC Davis? Oh Bay Area, cool. Hi Kayla, Long Beach, St. Louis, Connecticut, Boston, Florida, Kansas, New York, Canada, and Arbor, Oregon, San Francisco, Washington. All right, cool. Welcome everyone. Good to see you all. So the basic structure of today's workshop is that I'm going to present some materials. It's meant to be interactive, so feel free to put questions in the chat box, or it would be helpful if you click the raise hand button that way your your your name will pop up. Rachel, if I miss a question in the chat box or a raised hand, just give me a nudge. Happy to address questions, because ultimately this presentation, it's not for me, it's for you, and so I have things that I think will be helpful for you, but I also want to make sure we cover topics that are important to you as well. So with that, I'm going to share my screen and we'll go ahead and get started. I'll make sure you all have my email address. Feel free to add me on LinkedIn too. I'm totally happy to continue the conversation. All right, so just to start off, as we kind of settle in, I would I invite you to think about the job interviews that you've had in your life. What did it feel like to, you know, get the email saying, hey, we want to interview you, or what was it like to prepare for the interview? What was it like to actually go to the interview? What was what was happening in your, you know, emotional and physical body? How did the interview go? What do you think you did well? What would you want to improve on? So just kind of start bringing that in, reflecting on the job interviews you've had. And I want to also bring in, how do you measure a successful interview? And for this question, I invite, if anyone wants to type in the chat box, what do you, how do you, how do you measure a successful interview? You're welcome, welcome to type that in. We'll be talking about that. And also another question I want to bring in just early on is which interview questions are you most concerned about? And if there's any of those that come up, go ahead and just type those in the chat box now or anytime during this presentation, because those are the questions that we really want to focus on, right? The so-called easy questions or the questions that you feel comfortable with. Yeah, you can prepare for them great, but it sees ones that you're like, oh, if they ask this question, I really, I really need to have a prepared answer. Those are the ones that I really want to focus on, because those are the questions that you don't want to be caught off guard, right? And there's this kind of element of the interview where like some questions seem like they're being asked just to catch you off guard. So how do you kind of prepare for these kind of questions that you, you know, that you, if you encounter them in an interview, you kind of want to have a prepared response. You don't want to like think about an answer on the spot. All right, so I see some chats coming in. So yeah, so a successful interview, not cringing afterwards. Yeah, I'm wondering why I said what I said. A successful interview when I get the job. Yeah, I want to like, I want to dig into that definition a little bit, because there's definitely external factors, right? It's not just, it's not just, you know, if you get the job or not, but that is definitely a, it could be a measure of success, usually by getting the jobs, but also a great way to learn about yourself and what you're expecting from the position. Go to the next round. I never feel successful. Yeah, so something to think about there. Fun. If there's some element of like maybe light-heartedness or ease or something. Cool. These are great. Yeah, biggest weakness. Yeah, we will cover that one for sure as a question to be concerned about. Feeling confident. How did you reinvent the wheel and get everyone on board type questions? Okay, I'm curious to hear more about that. How did you deal with the difficult co-workers or anything around conflict? Yeah, these are great. Just even the self-introduction question. Wow, you have 10 minutes. I've never heard, I've never heard someone be given 10 minutes to tell me about yourself. That's, that would be a lot of time to just be on the spot. Narrating the story. So yeah, we'll be talking about how to structure our stories when we respond to interview questions. Yeah, tell me about a time you couldn't meet a deadline. All right, these are great. Wonderful. Let's keep all of these in our minds. So I just want to start by saying, you know, when I think of a successful interview, it's like, yeah, if you get a job, it's easy to be like, that was successful. But just to provide a little more nuanced definition there, or at least what it means to me, is, you know, at least for me, it's very much a feeling. It's like, when I walk away from the interview, I ask myself, do I have any regrets, right? Is there anything that I would have wanted to do differently? And the other one that I ask myself is, did I say everything that I wanted to say? And when we do interview prep, we're basically preparing for what are the stories that we want to share in the interview. We don't know what questions are going to ask, but we know what we want to share. We know, so I know that if I don't talk about this particular experience in the interview, I'm going to have some sort of regret, you know? And I kind of, I aired toward the side of this kind of definition because you can only control what you can control. There's so many other factors. So what can you control in measuring success in terms of what you have control over, versus what you don't have control over? All right, so let's dive in here. First things first, don't judge your performance or your self-worth on a job offer. There's just too many variables. So basically, a reminder is, let's say you're submitting a bunch of resumes, and let's say you're not getting any interviews, right?  Maybe you're applying for jobs that are asking for way too much experience, more than you have. But let's look at some of these other factors. But if you are getting interviews, then that shows me that your resume and cover letter are conveying what they need to convey, that you're applying for jobs that you're well suited for. So let's say you're getting interviews but not jobs. All right, then we need to talk more about what's happening at the interview stage. And, you know, I've just heard, I've been working with folks for, you know, almost five years now, and I've heard so many stories. And it's just the reality, right? When by the time you get to the interview stage, they are interviewing people who have met all of the requirements that they're looking for in the job. As such, and they have to pick one, right? So it could be that you are just as qualified and just as great as everyone else, but they have to pick one person, right? So that is out of your control to a certain extent. And I've also heard many stories, and I have a story myself around this, where you go to an interview, you don't get the job, and then they email you and say, yeah, you didn't get the job, but we really liked you and, you know, we want to keep you in mind for further, for future positions. I know people who have then, you know, applied again, got in another interview and now are working at that company. So not getting a job is not the end of the conversation.  This happened to me. I applied for a graduate writing specialist position at UCSB, Santa Barbara, and I was a finalist, and they really liked me, but they chose someone else. And then about a couple weeks later, they emailed me and they said, hey, we have another opening and it was for a, I think a graduate student program director or assistant director position. And they said, we would love for you to apply for this position. And let me tell you, when someone says, we would love for you to apply for this position, that is a great invitation. I ended up not applying because at that time, I just got my, I got my career position at Davis. And I, yeah, my family and I were not ready to up and move at that point. We had a infant and we were just getting established in Davis. Anyways, the point is that, you know, even not getting a job interview is not necessarily unsuccessful, right? How can you continue to leverage that is something to think about. All right, this is something that I went to this, this was maybe a year, a couple years ago, and I went to a career panel and it was with hiring managers. And this was someone who was in a hiring manager position. And the question was to the panelists, what's the one, like what's the main thing you're looking for when you're interviewing, when you're interviewing people? So my ears, my ears perked up, right? A hiring manager, like what is the one thing you're looking for? And this particular answer surprised me and in some ways shocked me. So I'm going to share it with you and I'm sharing it as one person's response from a couple years ago. It's not like it's supposed to be necessarily generalizable, although I think it's, I think it's some, it's some chewy, chewy food for thought. So her response was likability. And when she said that, my, you know, my, my, my, my jaw was a gape. I was like, what? How, yeah, like how could you, yeah, what does that even mean? Like, isn't likability so subjective? So when you hear this, I welcome, I welcome thoughts on this in the chat box, if you want to add your perspective. But what do you think about when, you know, I'm thinking, well, wait, a hiring manager, aren't you looking for skills? And, you know, you want someone who could do the job? Like, what's this like likability? Like, okay, how do you, yeah, how do you measure that? Like, what does that mean? Isn't that subjective? So, yeah, open. I'm open to hearing your thoughts in the chat box, or if you do want to chime in, you're welcome to as well. Just raise your hand and let me know. Doesn't sound fair. I've heard this too. I think they have to judge whether many people will find someone likable. If they like you, they'll look for reasons to hire. If not, they'll discount every reason. Yeah. It's super subjective. How about you click with others? Yeah. Thank you. This is great. Yeah. What does that mean for people of color?  You know, like in terms of, yeah, like fairness seems unfair. I'm disheartened by that. Yeah. That's what, well, that's why my job was a gape. I was like, what? How, like, what? How is that even possible? Okay. I heard that before. Yeah. Yeah, and disability too, right? So, likeability is something that is, yeah, there's inherent bias there. It seems problematic. Cool. Thanks, y'all. So, the reason why I'm kind of putting this out there is because there is a subjective quality in nature to interviewing. Interviewing is an inexact science. How can you talk, have a conversation with someone for an hour, and then decide if they're going to be the best person to work at your company for the next, you know, five or 10 years? You know, it's really, it's really just kind of this microcosm snapshot with inherent biases. I think what I interpreted this, this answer to mean, at least touch on, is that when they, when someone is hiring you on a team, you know, just straight up, like, I see and I work with my colleagues more than I see my family, or maybe just as much, you know. So, it's like, you spend a lot of time with your work colleagues. And I think what this person was touching on was, yeah, like, they want to create a, you know, a positive, whatever, work environment or something. And so, and also just, you know, this is also at the interview stage. So, this is all, this is after they've checked your resume, they've checked your skills. And so now they're actually meeting you. And it's just a reminder that behind every single company in job position is a human. And humans are human, right?  Again, this is just one hiring manager, you know, from a career panel, but I thought it was at least like, it brought up a lot for me. And that's why I kind of share it, because there's something here that's like, it feels like it goes beyond just answering the interview questions. Does that make sense? So, I'm just bringing this up just to kind of like, help you think about your audience, right? Part of interviewing is, you know, you're interviewing for a particular person or group of people. All right, so let's dig in here. This is just kind of a little bit of nuts and bolts here. So, types of interviews. Initially, you'll probably start with like an HR interview or a phone screen. So, that's basically someone from HR who's not in your specialized field, really just looking over your resume and making sure you check all the boxes for the job. And this is a gatekeeper, right? It's a gatekeeper. It's usually a 30-minute, 20-30-minute appointment.  More and more, I don't know if anyone has experience with this. I don't have direct, like, I haven't done this personally, but more and more, they're doing just straight-up recorded interview on the computer. Like, it's just you and your computer. The question will pop up. You will have, you know, two minutes to answer it. You record your answer and you submit it.    It could be a series of interviews. So, it could be like 30 minutes with each, you know, with lots of different people. It might include some sort of job talk or presentation. Really pay attention, right? Pay attention to what they say. Is the interview going to be 45 minutes, or is it going to be four hours? Who are you talking to? You know, you can even ask, like, hey, you know, how can I prepare for this? Is there anything you want me to prepare? Because there might be a talk or presentation. So, really do that kind of legwork and figure out what is this interview going to look like. There might be a panel interview. This is where it's you and maybe, four or five people, you know, four or three people or something, more than one person. And they just kind of go in order and just ask you questions. These are often pretty standardized, as in they have, they ask the exact same questions to every candidate, and they do that to try to maintain, you know, fairness. And oftentimes in these kinds of interviews, there's no, there's no feedback or response. After you answer your question, they will say thank you, and move on to the next question. And they'll be taking notes, and then they'll probably be scoring you afterwards. On this note, anytime you all have a chance to be on a hiring committee, I so, so, so recommend it. You will get these opportunities, even as, you know, students, to be able to respond to so recommended. You will get these opportunities, even as, you know, students to be like, hey, we're hiring. I had this opportunity when I was a grad student, we were hiring a couple of faculty members in my department, and they want grad student input, you know, they want undergrad student input. Anytime you can kind of be on that side of the coin too, it's really helpful because you get to see, just get to be more familiar with the interview process. There might be a test or an assessment. So depending on what you are going into, there might be a, you know, some sort of case study, a technical interview, or a coding challenge. These are all different kinds of interviews. Oh, awesome. Whitman says, our school board is hiring new treasurer, and we were doing a panel, panel interviews just last night. Yeah, so great. Yeah, anytime you can kind of, and also there's opportunities.  And so go to those two. Just anytime you can kind of like see how other people interview, just get more familiar with the types of questions that are asked. It's gonna be super helpful because the best way to practice for an interview is to have an interview because it's high stakes. It makes you really think about what you need to do. You do the interview. So you learn about kind of what questions are asked.  Andy says, I had a curiosity when, when any of us has gone to interview, do they usually tell you the type of interview? Yeah, it's so my last one was a panel interview is initially to me, I see three people instead of one. Yeah. And you're always so Andy, you're always welcome when you get an offer for an interview to inquire, if they don't tell you, you can inquire like, because you want to know, like, you want to know who's going to be there. Yeah. Like, so you can look them up and you can actually do that research. So if it's vague, I would really recommend inquiring and say, Hey, what kind of, you know, what kind of interviews is going to be, who's going to be there? I'm just trying to prepare. So I want to know what I can do to prepare. But in my experience, it's, they, it's, I mean, mostly I've seen interviews that kind of roughly outline what to expect. You'll have two hours. It'll be this kind of interview, such and such. So all right, pro tip. When you apply for a job, always, always, always save the job description as a PDF. After the job posting expires, it's oftentimes removed. And so two weeks later, and let's say you have a job interview and the job postings removed, you don't have any record of what job you applied for. So really save your, save your job posting as a PDF, because the best way to prepare for an interview is to go back to the job posting. Okay. And you go point by point, point by point and turn every single thing that it says, you know, in terms of a qualification or a skill that's necessary, you just turn that into a question. So must be familiar with discourse analysis. Turn it into a question. What, what's your experience with discourse analysis? And then figure out your answer with that, you know what I mean? Whatever job you're applying for, look at what it's requiring and be able to speak to each part, each point in that job posting. Because that's, that's pretty much the majority of the information that we have is the job posting. So make sure you save that and really, really understand as best as you can what the job is. Look at the company, the institution, their website, their mission, look at the language that they use, right? Is it more formal or less formal?  That's kind of built into our brains. Look at the people, look them up on LinkedIn, look them up, get some sort of, just get some familiarity with who you might be talking to. Ideally, you have already done your networking. So let's say you're applying at Duolingo, Duolingo, and you've already talked to someone from Duolingo because you met them here at this conference. Go ahead and reach out to them again and say, hey, remember me? Now I'm applying for a job at Duolingo, and I'm really excited. I'd love to check in with you about how I can prep for it. And depending on, you know, obviously if they're on the hiring committee, then they probably won't be able to help you prep. But yeah, cool, Charlotte. Yeah, every time Duolingo posts a job, y'all, I'm just like, that job seems so cool. So I'm always, I'm always eyeing the Duolingo jobs. It seems like a really, I have a friend who works there too, so I'm like, I'm, seems like a really cool company. And do a mock interview, which we will be doing today.  Could we meet for 20 minutes and just you ask me questions and I'm just going to answer them and just going to try to, you know, just, just get that, get the interview prep going. All right, types of interview questions. This is not exhaustive, but definitely some that you will see. The first question is pretty much always tell me about yourself. And it's so common, it's shortened to TMAY. In this question, I really recommend you kind of string together past, present and future and try to do it in about, you know, 60 to 60 to 90 seconds. But basically, where have you been? Where are you now? And where are you going? And really thread it so that it's all in alignment with whatever job you're applying for, right? So you, so tell me about yourself is not tell me about your dog or tell me about your vacation. I mean, it sounds general, but it's no, it's tell me about yourself in the context of this particular job, right? Behavioral questions we'll be focusing on today. These are questions that sound, these are questions that require some sort of narrative story. So these are questions that sound like, tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a colleague or describe a time when you worked collaboratively in a team. These are very common questions. So common that you will find them in pretty much every interview you do. So we'll talk a lot about those. The weakness and the strength question, this one already came up as a question of concern. We can absolutely workshop this question. I will tell you what my strategy is or what the prevailing strategy is, particularly about weakness. So for weakness, again, it's an interview, not a deposition, alright?  So basically, the way I like to reframe this question is, what is something that you're working on? So it might be a weakness, but it's something that you're actively working on. I'll give you an example of a bad response. And then I'll give you an example of one of my responses, and not that my response is like the gold star, but just like to give you an example of how to tackle this. So I worked with someone, I'm sorry I'm laughing, but I worked with someone who he said, when they asked him this question, he said, his weakness is that he has a quick temper. And maybe for reasons that are self-evident, I found that that was a problematic answer, right? Even if that's true, not something that you want to tell the people who are considering hiring you. Alright, so let's get that out of the way. One of my go-to responses, which is quite true for me, is that one of my weaknesses, or I don't even know if I'd call it a weakness, right? But one of how I would respond to this is that I'm generally conflict avoidant, but over the years I've grown and I understand the value. Like when there is a conflict, it's better to actually approach it head-on and try to understand the other person's position, because then you can actually come together and have a better result. So that's something that I'm working on. So it's something that, so that's like an example of like, oh because, and then I often will say, because I value harmony, I value peace in the workplace. So that's kind of where it's coming from, right? But I understand that conflict in any sort of workplace or any sort of work environment can happen. And make it short, you don't need to dwell on your weakness, you don't need to, I like to say on a scale of one to ten, where maybe ten is your greatest weakness, don't choose a ten. Choose a, choose a five or a six, maybe a seven. But don't choose, don't choose a weakness that is directly related to the job you're applying for. So if I was applying for a conflict mediation position, I would not say my weakness is conflict. You know what I mean? So pay attention to what you're applying for. Choose something that's more, you know, lateral or periphery. And it's something that you're working on. And don't dwell on this question. Answer it and move on. You don't need to dwell on this. Most of the questions will be about your fit and qualifications. There are some of these questions that are, I call and put you on the spot questions. These are questions that are by definition you can't prepare for. And that's the whole point. I'm going to give you an example of this on the next slide. You can expect technical questions or case studies, depending on if you're going into certain fields. And the interview will pretty much always end with questions for them. Always come with two to three questions that you want to ask them. That's an important part of this too. Any questions? I have an example of the put you on the spot question. And this happened in a job interview almost three years ago now. And it was for a startup in Santa Monica. I was invited for the onsite interview. And it was for a position that was like a recruiter, talent acquisition kind of position. And here's the question. Oh, and this was with the CEO of the company.  But the CEO, I sat down with the CEO I think for an hour and a half. And this was the question he asked me. All right. I'm giving you a brick. You have two minutes to tell me everything you can do with this brick. Ready? Go. And he literally took out a piece of paper and was like doing tally marks for every response I gave. How many of you think I prepared for this question? Hopefully no one. How many of you think of this question when you prepare for an interview? Probably no one. So what is the point of this question? I welcome your chats. Why? Uncomfortable. Out of left field that question. Bizarre. Are you supposed to ask what needs to be accomplished? Well, you go to the final ones first. Here's a buddy. How does this person, yeah, go under pressure, do under pressure, respond under pressure, flexibility on their feet. Yeah, they're creative thinking. Okay, cool. I think you're getting it. You're getting it. The point is, the whole point of the question is that you can't prepare for it. That's the whole point, right? So how do you think on your feet? Some of it, some you might call this, you know, ideation, which is a part of design thinking. And literally it was not the quality of my, is ideation, because it was not the quality of my responses. It was the quantity. He was doing tally marks. He wasn't, he wasn't recording my responses. He was recording how many responses. So I just, I just dug in. I said, you could throw it. You could sell it. You could trade it. You could use it as a doorstop. You could put it on your head.  It doesn't matter. It didn't matter what the responses were. He was just looking for quantity. I'm showing you this because I don't want you to get thrown off in an interview. Part of the interview process is you do not know what they're going to ask. So how do you prepare for that? All right, I'm going to show you how to prepare for the behavioral questions. Is everyone still with me? Are we good? So the behavioral questions all right. See some thumbs up. Cool. The general advice here, which I will follow, is to respond with STAR. Behavioral questions, remember, are the ones that sound like, describe a time when you innovated a new program or project or something. So you have to tell a story. STAR means situation, task, action, result. I put the T in parentheses. And this is Harkening. Alex mentioned this in her workshops previously as well, the STAR method. So I'm glad we're getting to cover it. I put the T in parentheses because I oftentimes just wrap the T in with the S. So situation, task is basically like, what's the setup? The action crucially is what did you do? Not what other people did, right? What was your action? And then finally, what was the result or outcome? Something tangible. Okay. Is this, if this is new for folks? Let me, yeah, I'm going to give you some resources about this so you can look more into it in just a second. But I know for some, this might be a new concept. But situation, action, result. I'm going to give you an example.  Harkening back to SARs or something. Here's mine. My situation, action, result. So the idea with all interview prep is that you're not like reading a script. You are, you know, it's a natural conversation. But this is something that I absolutely know. So this is how I measure, partly measure my success. I know that in my, in my interview, I absolutely want to, yeah, thanks, Jody. Yeah, absolutely. Your team is also your actions. Yeah. But talk about it as, as what you've done as well, right? That's the focus. Yeah, totally. So situation. So during my PhD program, I served as a graduate writing fellow for three years. And I worked in a team of five graduate students and three professors. And we provide, we provided support for graduate student writers and also postdoc writers. Okay, that's the situation. What did I do, right? So we each had to implement a campus-wide project. I created the writing partner program, which placed students into writing groups. So this was kind of my contribution. And then result. In the first year, over a hundred graduate students signed up for the program. And the program still exists today. And that is still true. And I, this program was created like, it must have been eight, eight years ago now, maybe. And so this program became institutionalized. And so now it continues on every year, which is pretty cool. All right. So that's my SAR example. And notice that I, then at the bottom, I kind of put some tags. Like, I could kind of shape this example for, if they asked me a question about leadership, I could probably shape it for that. If they asked about teamwork, I would focus more on the fact that I was on a team. If they wanted to ask about innovation or program development, this is the one I would, this is the, this is the example I would give. So notice that instead of starting with what the question is, I'm actually starting with what my experiences are, right? Because I know that if I don't talk about these certain experiences, I'm going to feel regret. And I'm going to not feel successful in my interview. I'm going to minimize real quick just to give you a couple of links that I do want you to pull up. And they're both from the Muse, which, you know, I think is a pretty good career website. Let me open up the chat box real quick. And the first one is behavioral questions. And we're going to use these for our, I want you to pull up these because we're going to have these in our mock interview. We're going to be using the behavioral questions. And then the next one is the star method or the star method. This one, I would say, go ahead and just kind of keep open for future, future reading, because we don't have time to go through all of that in this moment, but just a good, good overview of the star method or star method. All right, so we got those up. All right. So what we're going to do is we're going to be moving into our mock interview here. And for those of you who are watching this on the recording, I invite you to play along because this is the interactive part. And this is really the key takeaway here. This is the key takeaway to this whole workshop. And so we're going to spend, let's do like five minutes. I really want to give you some time here. And it doesn't have to be a quiet, this doesn't have to be a quiet space. You're welcome to ask me questions and stuff, but we're going to have five minutes to think about these. And if you want to just think about them in your head, that's fine. If you want to write some things down, that's fine too. Here's what we're doing. Try to think about three SAR examples. So what are the seminal experiences that you have that if you go into a job interview, you absolutely know you want to talk about and kind of form them into a situation, action, result.  We're going to be workshopping this in the mock interview. So think of the SAR example first and then add some tags. So add some themes or tags. So this would be a SAR example that would work for communication or collaboration or conflict resolution or whatever your tags might be. And you can use that Muse article. If you look at the Muse article, you'll see that there are, let me just show it real quick here. You'll see that there's categories here. The first five questions are about teamwork. So you want to make sure you probably have some sort of example that shows you can work on a team if that's relevant to jobs you're applying for. Client facing skills. So these are questions like, tell me about a time when you made sure a customer was pleased with your service. So depending on what kind of job you're applying for, that might be relevant. Ability to adapt. So adaptability might be another theme or time management skills, communication skills, motivation, and values. So you can use those as kind of sample tags or you can make your own. But start thinking of some of these SAR examples. And there's a couple chats I'm going to check out. Even if you're in the library, you can still think about your SAR examples because this is really the true takeaway here. This is the interview prep that I'm talking about. So five minutes on the clock. Have a look at that muse article, look at the different types of behavioral questions. Think about your, these are the experiences that if you do not talk about in the interview, you will feel regret. You will feel, ah, I missed that opportunity. That's what these are. Anything more than five years ago that sounds about right. You know, I don't think there's any, there's no official rule here. There's no like, oh, if you say anything more than five years ago than it, you know, whatever counts against you. I would say generally speaking, you know, depending on where you are in your career too, right? Five years is a really long time if you're just coming out of your undergraduate. And five years is really a short time if you're 20, 30 years into your career. So it's definitely depends on where you are. So no, no generalized rule. Generally speaking, I've heard on the resume, you know, you want to keep things, you know, less than 10 years old, anything more than 10 years feels, you know, a little bit on the, on the older side.  Rather than if you want to talk about undergrad stuff as a, as a graduate student and you're applying for a job, it has to be, so it has to be really relevant. So my two criteria is, is it relevant and is it recent? So if it's not recent, it better be relevant. You know what I mean? So relevant and recent are two criteria to think about for this. But basically, you know, what you did in the undergrad is what got you into grad school and what you did in grad school is what's going to get you the job. So only talk about grad school or for folks coming out of undergrad, only talk about high school if it's really supremely relevant. Otherwise, you know, what you did in high school helped you get into college and college is what's going to help you get the job. So no, no, no hard and fast rule here, but yeah, be strategic. Is it relevant? Is it recent?  Yeah, absolutely. That is definitely part of your experience. And so I would even say that that would be, that would be wonderful, right? Because then you're giving, you're really shedding context on really who you are. I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak the question for folks who are watching the recording here. So because I think it's a really good question. Is it ever useful to give a star story that's from a non-work context, like an international student who has to be adaptable? Can stuff like that be mentioned?  But like work, volunteer experience, anything on campus, you know, things, certain things about your identity can be really valuable too. I'm not necessarily saying avoid family at all costs, but you know, just be, just be aware of how personal you're, you're getting here. For people watching this on the recording, let me, let me outline what we're going to do first. And then I'm going to copy and paste the, these into the chat box for folks so they can have them available. But basically, we are going to do a mock interview. So create a formal interview space. We're going to mostly have groups of three. So just pay attention if you have one of those people who cannot verbally participate, that they will just be in the room with you. And just kind of listening on, and that will be helpful for them as well. Formal interview space means no feedback, no immediate feedback. Okay, so we're going to do a role play here. And if I'm the interviewer, I'm going to ask a question, and then the interviewee will answer. And then as the interviewer, I will say thank you. Next question, not giving you any feedback, because that's what it's like in the real deal. You don't get any feedback right away. You can do feedback. After, afterwards you can talk about it, but not, not during the role play. And then you will be practicing these questions using your star examples. This is, I literally gave you five minutes to prep. I do not expect all star answers here, but try them out and then talk about it. See what, see what happens, see what you like, see what you didn't like, see what you want to change. And then wait until the end of the role play to give some feedback. Here is the interview schedule. If you would like to give some context, you as the interviewee can say I'm going to, I'm applying for, you know, such and such position at Duolingo, if you want, you don't have to, but that might help give some context. If you have a job in mind, if you don't, no worries. When I do this workshop, I usually do it as part of a series. So we've already, we've already found a job posting and we use that job posting as the interview, as the job we're interviewing for, but no worries. Or you could just say kind of vaguely what kinds of jobs you are interested in or, or yeah, you talked to someone at Verilog a couple of days ago and you might be interested in that position. I don't know. Anyways, the first question is why are you interested in this position or tell me about yourself. And then you have three questions. Behavioral question one, behavioral question two and behavioral question three. Or if you want to sneak in here, the strength, what is your greatest strength and greatest weakness question? You can do that. Two, the whole point, y'all is that as, as the interviewee, you don't know what you're going to be asked. That's the whole point. You got to listen to the question and respond as best you can. So for the behavioral questions, I invite you to look up, pull up that Muse article and choose some from there. If that's helpful, those are some standard ones. I'm going to put this interview schedule into the chat box so that you, let me see. Yes, I can post it again. No worries. Yeah. Thanks for letting me know. I would have missed that otherwise. Here is the article that I'm, that you can pull up. Okay. And so here's the interview questions. We have about 25 ish minutes. So what I would recommend, if you have a group of three, most people will be in a group of three. And what I recommend is, you know, maybe five to seven minutes, you know, per person. And you can do like, basically like two people are interviewing one person. So you can kind of switch off asking questions. And then give a, you know, then a few minutes of feedback or something. If that feels too pressed for time, you can take out one of the behavioral questions and just do tell me about yourself, behavioral question one, and then behavioral question two, for the strength and weakness question. So just pay, pay attention to timing. Make sure everyone has some time, but you'll have maybe seven or eight minutes per person, including some time for feedback. Okay. And make sure you introduce yourselves and say hi as well. All right, y'all. We're going to, any questions before we open up the breakout rooms? Okay. You'll be in a room with either, it's either going to be groups of two or three. So just plan your time accordingly. And you'll have about 25 minutes and we'll call you back at the end. All right. If we're ready to go, let's, we'll stop the recording and we'll send you off.


Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another ChatGPT free AI tutorial. I'm going to show you how to create an ebook, write an ebook, and use it to generate passive income. And we're going to do it in less than five minutes. I'm going to show you every single step of the way how to do it. Let's get started. First step, go to chat.openai.com. And we're in ChatGPT like I am here. The next step is if you have your own idea, you can type it in here and start that way. If you do not have an idea, you're not sure what to write about, we'll start with me and then we'll we'll go through it step by step. So the first step is you want to go ahead and go give me 10 ideas for nonfiction ebooks. For example, now keep in mind that nonfiction ebooks are great for chat GPT fiction ebooks where you know they talk about make believe stuff and not so good. It's not as good at writing poetry and stuff like that. It's not a reverse. It's more for history and science and all those types of things. So there we go. Nonfiction. It gave me 10 ideas. Let's see here. How how to manual for a specific skill or hobby. Okay, that sounds interesting. Okay, so let's go give me sub categories for number four. I'm just picking this at random. You guys can of course go and go with anything that you think best and here we go. We're going to get a few more ideas knitting, crocheting, photography and videography. Okay, that makes sense. Photography and videography. Okay, so those sounds good. So I'm going to go ahead and give me ideas for photography and videography. So basically we're just trying to narrow it down because if you write a broad book, it's not as good as if you go very very niche, especially if you're selling ebooks. So anyways, it's giving me a bunch of ideas and we're going to pick one of these. I'm a videographer slash photographer. So let's go ahead and just see what we got here. Digital camera or smartphone camera. Okay, beginner's guide. Okay, right now. This is the important step, right? An outline for a let's go beginners. We're going to go with the first one to a smartphone camera for videography. Something like that. Okay, now this is just an example of course. This is going to write the outline. This is the critical step. You can see here that it's giving you an introduction, the getting started, shooting techniques, holy smokes. It's going really into depth. So this is the basic skeleton of what the book's going to look like. Now, once this is done and it'll be done in a few seconds, it's very very quick. We're going to dig in deep now. Now we're going to go into the details. So introduction. I'm going to take this before I start actually. I'm going to go ahead and select this whole thing. I'm going to Command C on a Mac. Control C on a PC. Go to Microsoft Word or whatever you use to record your document. And I'm just going to go Command V and paste it. It's not formatted very nicely, but formatting is easy to fix, especially in the end. So here we go. This is our basic format. You can even use this as a table of contents if you want it to. It's ready to go. Okay, so I'm going to enter down and then we're going to go here. Okay, so introduction. I'm going to type that in. And again, the formatting doesn't matter. And then the first part is what do we got? The benefits of using a smartphone camera for videography. That's what we're going to do. Now I'm going to go Command V and I'm going to type in the benefits. Let's just go ahead. The benefits of using a smartphone camera for videography. Detailed explanation or okay, something like that. Here we go. Now we're writing the ebook. Okay, so there are several benefits to using a smartphone camera for videography. All right, these look pretty good, pretty standard. Let's go ahead and begin selecting these. So this is going to be the introduction to the to the book. Again, you can get rid of the numbers if you don't want the numbers. If you do want the numbers, great. Whatever works for you. However, you want to set your book up. I'm going to Command C, take all that. Command C, go to my book. And this is the introduction. Command V. There we go. There are several benefits. Introduction, blah, blah, blah. Now watch this. I'm going to elaborate on number one, because why not? You know, it's a nice little bit, but maybe I want to know more details on how it's so convenient that smartphones are portable, easy to carry. But again, that's pretty basic. Everybody knows that. Let's dig in. So here we go. One of the main benefits of the smartphone camera videography is convenient. Okay, good. This sounds pretty good. I'll take this. Command C. And you'll see here what's happening. I'm going to go ahead and yeah, okay, this is ugly, but that's okay. Command V. Drop it in.  So what I'm doing basically is again, I'm just going ahead and copying and pasting what it tells me and when I get something like convenience, I dig in. So I would then write for number two. I would go explain. I would elaborate. Let's just do it. Elaborate on number two. Okay, and then bang, this number two here, it's going to go ahead and talk about the quality and because this is a conversation, it's very, very smart. Chat GPT is smart and we can now just go ahead and take this and we're going to go ahead and drop it into the document and this is how we're creating the ebook. Where's quality right here? Okay, so there we go. I will just drop this in. Of course, you've got to proof read it and make sure it makes sense. I'm going to go ahead and pay special, unformatted text because I just wanted to go directly in there and bang, we've now got a 441 word document or ebook and then watch this. To keep going on, we're going to go, okay, this is how we would do the first part. Now we would go the second part, the capabilities and limitations of smartphone cameras. Elaborate on copy, paste, bang. We take this and we just drill through the outline step by step. You're going to have an amazing ebook. You can select generate passive income and that's all there is to it guys. Thanks for watching.


e framework, allows local authorities to meet the needs of children and young people for whom they are responsible through the provision of school clothing grants and allows the Government to amend or extend entitlement to school clothing grants if required in the future. Amendment 168, to which I have already referred, makes its new regulation making powers subject to the affirmative procedure to ensure that Parliament is afforded sufficient scrutiny of any change to the policy on the provision of school clothing grants. Providing our children and young people who need it most with school clothing grants will help to remove barriers to education, reduce inequality gaps, raise attainment and improve their health and well-being. Amendment 117, Mary Scanlon's name, will not allow ministers to specify an amount of grant, only that a grant be paid to certain pupils so that the same level of disparity and inconsistency would continue to exist across Scotland. Families will still suffer from a postcode lottery because amendment 170 does not allow for a minimum amount of school clothing grant to be set nationally. Further, amendment 169 in my name can offer more flexibility to make different provision for different purposes. For example, a different amount of grant could be set for primary school pupils as compared with secondary school pupils. I just cite that as an example, not necessarily as a proposal. Amendment 170 allows for no such flexibility. Lastly, amendment 170 has an internal contradiction. Subsection 2 imposes a duty on authorities to provide pupils falling within subsection 3 with a grant. Subsection 6 provides that the school clothing grant can only be paid to the parent of the pupil. It does not recognise that the pupil themselves may be in receipt of a specified benefit and therefore the grant should be paid direct to them, as opposed to their parent. Finally, amendment 174 is a minor technical amendment that amends the long title of the bill to reflect the inclusion of the new regulation making powers relating to clothing grants. I move amendment 114 and ask members to support all of my amendments in this group. Given what I have said, I ask Mrs Scanlon not to move her amendments. I call on Mary Scanlon to speak to amendment 166 and other amendments in the group. Thank you, convener. I am pleased to say that I will not be moving that amendment. As you know, depending on the time that amendments go in, you are not always fully aware of what is there already. However, I have been working with the child poverty action group on those amendments and they have told me that they are very pleased indeed that amendment 169, tabled by the cabinet secretary, will enable the Scottish Government to introduce regulations, ensuring that all education authorities provide school clothing grants and establish a minimum value. They feel that there is still a need for consideration to be given to 170 looking at a more direct approach, putting education authorities' requirement to provide school clothing grants beyond any doubt. They give the example of all 32 local authorities in Scotland currently providing school clothing grants, although the rates vary dramatically from £20 in Angus to £110 in West Lothian. Angus Council has recently announced, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, that its intention is to scrap the school clothing grant altogether and that it feels that there is a real worry that, in the absence of a legislative duty, other local authorities may follow. I heard what the cabinet secretary was saying and, at the appropriate time, I will not be moving. Again, the further two amendments in the group convener came from discussions with the Child Poverty Action Group, and both of those amendments are probing amendments. I think that that is highly appropriate at this point in the bill that awareness is raised, discussion is given, and I trust that colleagues will respect those issues being raised at this appropriate time. Amendment 166 gives the Scottish Government policy commitment to provide school meals to children. The Prime Minister said that it would put eligibility for free school meals for P123 in the same legal footing as existing entitlement to free school lunches. To be fair, I listened very carefully to what the cabinet secretary said. I appreciate that the Government has the regulatory powers in order to do that already. Amendment 167 is, again, a probing amendment. The Child Poverty Action Group has put that on the agenda in the past. It is simply looking for a discussion around extending provision of universal free school meals above primary 4. It is not my party policy, but I think that it is appropriate at this point in time, convener, that we raise those issues for a wider discussion. Thank you very much. Mary, any other members wish to contribute to this debate at this time? Nope. Can I call the cabinet secretary to wind up? I'll just be very brief, convener, if I can reassure Mrs Scanlon that the purpose of the Government amendments in terms of school clothing is indeed to introduce consistency and to be clear that it is a financial grant to those who require assistance with school uniforms. We have seen a proliferation of school uniform banks across the country. It is important that the Government responds to that. We know that there is considerable variability across the country with councils considering scrapping school clothing grants while others continue to pay in excess of £100. A lot of work has been done on that in the past. We look forward to continuing to work with COSLA on this matter, which has certainly verbalised their willingness to work with Government in this area. We would hope to have a similar outcome with regard to school clothing grants in terms of the work that we have achieved in free school meals. Although we have the regulation powers to take action, those have not had to be implemented because we have reached a voluntary agreement. We want to reach a voluntary agreement in relation to school clothing grants, but it is important to future proof our position on that matter. The question is, therefore, that amendment 114 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Can I call amendments 115, 116, 117 and 118, all in the name of the Cabinet Secretary and all previously debated? Can I invite the Cabinet Secretary to move amendments 115 to 118 on block? Thank you. Can I ask whether any member objects to a single question being put on amendments 115 to 118? There being no objections, the question is, therefore, that amendments 115 to 118 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? That is agreed. Can I call amendment 166, in the name of Mary Scanlon, already debated with amendment 114, Mary Scanlon, to move or not move? Not move. That is not moved. Can I call amendment 167, in the name of Mary Scanlon, already debated with amendment 114, Mary Scanlon, to move or not move? Not move. Thank you. That is not moved. Can I call amendments 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125 and 168, all in the name of the Cabinet Secretary and all previously debated? Can I invite the Cabinet Secretary to move amendments 119 to 125 and 168 on block? Thank you. Can I ask whether any member objects to a single question being put on amendments 119 to 125 and 168? There being no objections, the question is that amendments 119 to 125 and 168 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? That is agreed. The question is that section 18 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Can I call amendment 169, in the name of the Cabinet Secretary, already debated with amendment 114, Cabinet Secretary, to move formally? Moved. The question is that amendment 169 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? That is agreed. Can I call amendment 170, in the name of Mary Scanlon, already debated with amendment 114, Mary Scanlon, to move or not move? Not move. That is not moved. Therefore, can I call amendment 171, in the name of Gordon MacDonald, in a group on its own? Gordon MacDonald to move and speak to amendment 171. Thank you, convener, and I am pleased to be moving this amendment. It is a small and fairly technical measure, but one that has the potential to have a big impact. Importantly, it also gives effect to a key aspiration certainly shared across the SNP group to enable greater participation in all aspects of public life. People should have a say in how decisions are reached in all parts of life, and section 70 complaints are so fundamental to so many families and communities that it is right that, if the Government is making changes to how these operate, however well-intentioned the changes are, it should consult on what its proposals are to make sure that they have at least listened to the views of others. Given the regulatory powers proposed will address timescales for everyone from complainant to ministers involved in a section 70 complaints process, it makes it even more important that these timescales are consulted upon to ensure that they strike the right balance. I ask colleagues to support this amendment and I move amendment 171 in my name. Thank you very much, Gordon. Any other members wish to contribute to the debate? Nope. Therefore, can I call the cabinet secretary? Thank you, convener. I want to thank Mr MacDonald for bringing forward this amendment on the section 70 provisions. As he states, a low section 70 is a small part of Education Scotland Act 1980. It is nevertheless an important one. I agree that it is important that we make sure that the regulations that we make about section 70 should be subject to consultation. Those regulations will, in particular, make provision about the timescales in which all parts of the section 70 complaints process should be completed. In my response to the stage 1 report by the committee, I indicated that our intention was to consult on them, and amendment 171 puts that beyond doubt. I am happy to support the amendment that was put forward by Mr MacDonald. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. Gordon MacDonald to wind up and to indicate whether he wishes to press or withdraw his amendment. Given that I am asked by the cabinet secretary, I do not think after. I do not add anything other than that. I want to press the amendment. The question is that amendment 171 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? That is agreed. The question is that section 19 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Given the time and what we still have to get through, I am not confident that we will complete the rest of it today. Therefore, I am going to bring the committee meeting to an end at this stage and we will pick up from where we are finished tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock as day 3 of stage 2 of the Education Scotland Bill. Before I bring the meeting to a close, can I thank everyone who has organised and supported the meeting here in Dunfermline today? I think that it has gone exceptionally well. We have had a great welcome here in Dunfermline, and I think that hospitality has been very nice as well. We do not usually get a sandwich in committees, so I thank you very much for who has organised that. The coffee is better here as well, so I thank you again for who has organised that. Can I thank everybody who has organised it? Can I thank all those members of the public who came along? Can I particularly thank the primary school peoples who came along this morning as well? Thank you very much for that. I close the meeting.


The study found that individuals who have atypical language dominance also show hemispheric differences in the macro-scale, functional gradients that situate discrete large-scale networks along a continuous spectrum, extending from unimodal through association territories. This suggests that genetics play a role in determining the degree of laterality in language processing. This article was authored by Loic Labbeck, Gen.G.E., B.T. Tonosio, and others.


This park contains strong language, sexual scenes and references from the beginning and throughout. Don't show fire!    I absolutely love seeing the family and meeting new faces Faced Abbey and Adam seem like good crack I can't wait for the night out Don't show fire! Everyone knows that I'm drunk, I shouldn't be left alone Don't blame me!  I'm getting intimate, I've been waiting for this I'll now Fave doing?  I don't think so, what's going on here? Fave, seriously, get! To defraud If it's a prude, or she's just like the rest of us No one asked me to for a day I didn't Fave I just didn't ask him, I wanted to for a day Even though you guys enjoy sucking a fake cock That's fine, but it's not my thing at all But why, why not?  You're like, he was, he was really honest He said no You see this, he said no Chloe has been off with this all day And now she's going in on it Just because I don't want to gobble on a rubber willy I'm not going to go at you, but everybody's no That's the way we are I feel, I feel an age because You're like, we're all sucking cocks of it And I feel like, okay, am I doing something wrong?  Definitely you got it Got it? No, no Go on, give us a hug You're good, yeah? Sophie's got me back She's given us the confidence That I should just be myself And that is all I know how to be