to today's event a reminder to media on the line please press star one to enter the queue you will be limited to one question and one follow-up with that I will hand it over to Minister of Finance Selena Robinson thank you good afternoon everyone it's great to be here today I'd like to begin by acknowledging that I'm speaking to you from the traditional territory of the Lekwungen speaking peoples the Esquimalt and the Songhees nations last week we released budget 2022 it's a budget that continues our work to build a stronger society by putting people first and it comes at a time when affordability is top of mind for British Columbians now more than ever this government needs to do everything possible to make life more affordable for people for families and for businesses reducing the cost of child care is an important affordability measure for British Columbians and making child care more accessible and affordable helps people especially women participate in the workforce with budget 2022 we're saving families more money as we move closer than ever to our plan $10 a day child care since launching child care BC since launching the child care BC plan in budget 2018 government has invested over 2.4 billion dollars to build an affordable accessible high quality child care system budget 2022 also embeds child care within the ministry of education so parents know that when their child is ready there will be a classroom ready to welcome them to tell us more about this work I'd like to ask Jennifer Whiteside minister of education to join us with more details minister hello and good afternoon my name is Jennifer Whiteside I'm BC's minister of education and soon-to-be minister of education and child care and I'm very grateful to be joining you today from the traditional territory of the Likungwan speaking people of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations thank you so much minister Robinson for your words and I'm it's terrific to be here with my colleague minister Chen and I'm with Carly and Kyosha who are who are joining us and we'll speak lady later and I just wanted to also give a shout out to BC students and their families to all of our teachers and support staff the early childhood educators and the many others who work in schools and in school districts you know when I meet with parents and educators and others looking out for kids in our province they always talk about the importance of the early years we know giving kids the best possible start with early childhood education is critical to their growth and development it helps create the opportunity for every child to thrive early childhood education is also about opportunities for parents it allows them to work outside the home to pursue education or skills training to support their families and build a good future for themselves and their loved ones all well knowing their children are learning in a safe environment and that's why our government has been increasing our investments in and building child care BC into a core service that families can count on we know that when we invest in people we build stronger communities and a stronger province for everyone and one of the biggest returns we get on our investments is with our public schools in BC we know that at the heart of every great community is a great school with a fabulous team of staff with educators who are beloved by their students where communities really come together and today we're building schools to be more than just places of learning and intellectual development we also want our schools to be our community hub our heart our schools are cherished places of mental and emotional support for children and youth and for parents our schools launch kids into a lifelong learning journey and with the changes that we're making in budget 2022 that journey is now starting a little younger as we work to make care and education of kids of all ages better and easier for parents the ministry of education will become the ministry of education and child care starting next month we've listened to the child care advocates it's their expertise that is guiding us on the path of fixing the child care crisis in BC and this is an important recognition of their hard work it's also because we want parents and educators to know that we believe your child's early years are just as important as their K-12 education we want parents to know that we're building child care BC to be as available and reliable as their local public school we want to better plan and build new child care regionally to meet needs of local families and we want the goal of building more child care spaces to be front and center when we plan new schools so we can make it easier for families to come together as their children move through different ages and milestones so what's new today we're announcing the expansion of two important services for families the first is just before this innovative service supports children in the year before they enter kindergarten and helps make it easier for kids to transition from child care to school we're expanding the just before program to 14 more school districts for the 2022-23 school year so that more kids are supported for success in kindergarten the second announcement relates to seamless day kindergarten and just like it sounds we're making it easier for working parents and for kids by putting before and after school care for kindergarten age children in their classroom over the next three years we'll be expanding seamless day kindergarten to up to 36 additional schools across bc to relieve more parents of the stress of juggling multiple sites during their child's day making sure every family can get quality child care in their community is a big job there are a lot of moving parts that need to work together to make sure it's there for families when they need it and this is another step in the right direction on that journey together every day we're focused on strengthening child care as a necessity for all rather than leaving it as a luxury you have to be wealthy to afford we want bc parents to know you can count on us from your child's early years all the way to graduation it's all part of our commitment to build a stronger bc for everyone through the ministry of education and child care we will continue to invest in new and leading edge early learning and child care programs to best support our youngest learners and help make transitions within the education system easier for everyone so i want to say a big thank you to bc families parents students teachers and all of the staff in arcade a 12 system for supporting and embracing seamless day just before and the other programs in school districts throughout the province thank you very much and now i am so pleased to introduce kary nickle a parent from the okanagan skaha school district my name is carlie nickle and i am like spoken a parent from the just before program here in penticton bc uh thank you so much for having me this event actually is perfect timing because my son is in the program right now this afternoon so it does buy me a little bit of time to join you all um that being said my family has really appreciated the opportunity to have our younger son at the local school here um in the just before program it's been a great way for him to get an introduction to school he has learned to print his name words to various songs practiced routines in the classroom worked on his fine motor skills and preparing him for to be independent when he starts kindergarten he's built confidence in doing tasks like getting to ready to play outside it can be very tricky um getting all that winter gear on and his teachers have helped him master um that task he's also practicing his behavior as far as being respectful and respectful to his friends um it truly warms my heart when he runs out of class and has little play dates set up with new friends that he's met and it has been great for him to also be introduced to the principal and other staff at the school and it really makes me feel more confident with his transition into kindergarten knowing that there's a safe space that he'll be attending um i have also been so lucky to have this special care of our very two um two very fantastic educators miss Tavris and miss Alexis they support and give our son William so much extra love care and attention they have helped me and my husband recognize ways we can support William Moore like working on his concentration for certain tasks by breaking them down into smaller steps also encouraged us with the areas that he's excelling in like music and being excited for whatever task is coming on next in the classroom miss Tavris and miss Alexis also have taken the time after class often to chat with me which honestly i believe is probably more for me than my son um it's been really hard with anxiety um from putting a child in school and with all the things going on in the world right now and them taking that time to check on my mental health and to make sure that i know that William is doing well and ways that they can support me and him has just really been important it's helped me a lot i have really appreciated actually for my for my own mental health this program as a primary caregiver i could feel some very often that i'm quite isolated especially with rules on gatherings and i'm having an affordable option to send my child has been so important because it gives me that time at home for time for myself or for other household tasks it also has let me you know say hello to parents drop-offs and pickups we've made friendships um seeing people what they're doing throughout their day making friends to be able to go for walks with it can be quite hard um when you start at a new school making those friendships and so knowing that both myself and my son will have friends starting in the kindergarten year um has just meant a lot and it definitely makes a better part to my day getting to see people and chat a little bit um and then that overall the my family's experience has been fantastic and i truly am excited that more families in bc will experience this program and it's really great to hear um that the they will be continuing the program and supporting families with what they need to attend because it definitely can be a financial burden on some and we're so lucky that we get to send our son five afternoons a week and um i'm it's really exciting to hear that there's going to be support for more families to do so so thank you for having me well thank you so much carly and just listening to your words um reminded me of what life was like 26 27 years ago and i wish i had those programs uh when i was um a mom with uh with with preschoolers and i also want to thank minister white side for her fabulous announcements and with that i will now introduce uh and ask minister of state for child care katrina chen to say a few words thank you so much minister robinson and minister white side and before i begin i want to acknowledge that i'm joining you from bernaby on the unceded traditional territories of the coast selish peoples and i do want to give a special shout out and say thank you to carly and kiyosha who's going to share her story later for being with us here today and share your family stories and how child care and services are really critical to you and your little ones um your stories are important for us to know the reasons why we need to continue the work we've been doing to bring child care as a core service that all bc families can count on and minister robinson quickly talked about 20 something years ago but even if your parents in bc just about five years ago or or even now for many parents we know how our child care journey probably started even before your child arrived your family and friends will likely give you advice from the day you started waiting for your little one when you're pregnant and they would say you better start looking for child care you would probably all have heard that as moms and parents and maybe your friends have school age kids and they remember how hard it was to find a space or how expensive it was just for one child in daycare not mentioning two or three kids and parents also tell us that journey gets bumpier each time their child heats a new milestone so even if for example you can find under five or even taller care by the time is for kindergarten the search for before and after school care begins many parents like myself need care somewhere close to the school as well so then when it's the you know we as parents we think about when is the right time to transition out of before and after school care do we need it because our kids are ready or is it because it's expensive or hard to find so throughout this child care journey there are so many so many tough choices and that is why we started the child care bc plan in 2018 it is about making it easier for parents on every step of the way doing their child care journey we are working to end the patchwork child care services that don't work for working parents we want child care in bc to be dependable care everybody can count on and that is why we have been building together with child care advocates providers and parents like Kyosha and Carly here during the past past five years with all of the stories with all the things that we've learned we've made a lot of progress and the progress are already making positive differences for families and you may ask what kind of differences where is ten dollar a day child care plan and as you may hear from Kyosha the work we've done so far to bring down the cost of child care has already been making a big difference for many many bc families when families can afford child care they can focus on their work and other areas of their lives and since the release of child care bc in 2018 we have been working hard to turn the corner and reverse the damage done by treating child care as a luxury rather than a necessity that families can count on tens and thousands of families throughout bc are already saving uh thousands sorry hundreds of dollars sorry thousands a year uh but hundreds of dollars a month because we are funding child care centers to reduce their fees already about 96 percent of eligible licensed child care providers having wrote in our fee reduction program saving families up to 350 a month per child and more savings are on the way we are broadening and deepening those savings as part of budget 2022 that by the end of this year we're cutting average child care fees by 50 percent for families with children aged five and under from 2019 levels this means an average of 20 a day or 400 a month and for the first time ever in bc we are making sure parents of school age kids are also getting a break on the cost of care they will pay for an average about 20 a day or 400 a month for before and after school care in september 2023 and those sort of important steps on our journey to $10 day child care our 10-year plan for all bc families and really in just a few short years we've already funded more than 26 000 new licensed child care spaces and that is the fastest space creation in bc's history bc families will continue to benefit from the creation of 30 new spaces for children from births to age five by march 2026 and a total of 40 000 spaces by march 2028 we're going to continue to work hard connecting more parents with child care in their communities so they aren't left wondering where to turn because we know bc families have diverse needs that require diverse options so we're going to continue to support all kinds of child care providers from public to non-profit to for profit and family run in-home oth care to help deliver the care that you need that works for your family with diverse choices and diverse needs and because child care doesn't work without educators i want to give our collective thanks to the dedicated professionals like minister weissai has already said who provide such important services and care for our children and for our future generations their expertise and training help give kids the best possible start possible but low wages and uncertainty we know have driven many of them out of the profession and that is why we've been working hard on recruit recruitment and retention efforts so they can enter this profession stay in this profession for a long time and that is why we're expending post-secondary seats providing bursaries for more early childhood educators we're working to make sure early childhood educators get better pay and respect so they can choose and afford to keep looking after our young children's our babies while i'm speaking today i also have to take a moment to reach out directly to people and young people who are planning their future if you love kids please consider early childhood education we will need about 10 000 early childhood educators over the next decade and opportunities are huge and we want you to see early childhood education as a rewarding career you can dedicate yourself for the long term because kids need you we need you bc families count on your services and we're going to keep fighting for early childhood educators businesses families local communities we all benefit from making child care a core service family can count on and that is why we're making quality inclusive child care available to families when they need it at the price they can afford that is the vision we've been campaigning from the beginning of our 10-year child care bc journey i know it sounds like a long time but we are well underway we're cutting fees by half by the end of this year and that is a mission we're determined to fulfill two bc families because we are stronger when we work together and by strengthening child care together we can make life better for families not just today but for many years and generations to come so once again thank you all for joining us here today and thanks to everyone from child care advocates parents educators to all British Columbians who have supported the work that we have been doing collectively together to make this historic and important positive changes for families in bc thank you thank you so much minister chen and thank you for your your advocacy and your passion for the issue it's really paying off and with that i'd like to ask kiyosha jarard to ask to share her story with us kiyosha hello thank you for having me i'm a parent as well as an educator at tigger two early learning center in comox bc and i wanted to thank you for allowing me to be part of the conversation of how the access to quality affordable child care has made lives better for all families across bc as a mum of two when the cc fri funding first became available in 2018 it was a great step forward in providing families all across bc with a hundred dollars for ages three to five and three hundred fifty dollars for infant toddlers towards care for child care fees 96 of facilities have child care facilities have enrolled in this initiative and yet many families and parents are not aware that this provincial funding is currently being applied to their child care fees it simply goes to show you how much child care really does cost furthermore i'd personally like to speak about the life changing experience the ten dollar a day child care bc funding has had on my family as with any family experiencing the cost of child care you can understand that the entire process is a very stressful endeavor at ten dollars a day my children are able to attend a quality child care facility and in turn both myself and my husband are able to work knowing that the daily cost of child care is no longer a struggle this has benefited us so much and we are now able to apply our finances to different aspects of our life and in turn this has made a stressful conversation a very inviting one so it's a process and not something that will happen overnight even something as simple as cutting child care fees in half will have a large impact on children and families like the results have been truly life changing thank you thank you so much for sharing your experience with us kiyosha since we introduced our child care bc plan we have funded over 26 000 new child care spaces each of those spaces means a parent who struggles less with the child care costs as a barrier to employment a parent who can go to work with peace of mind knowing that their child is safe each of those spaces means businesses can keep the talent that they need to grow this is what it means to invest in an economy that works for everyone to make our community stronger and more affordable by putting people first thank you so much for joining us today and we're happy to take any questions that you may have thank you very much a reminder to media on the line if you would like the opportunity to ask a question please press star one to enter the queue you will be limited to one question and one follow-up i'll just pause to allow media the chance to queue should they have any questions okay it appears your information was so comprehensive no questions today thank you everyone for participating have a great day


This study examined the prevalence of multi-morbidity in the United States prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It found that multi-morbidity was common, affecting over half of the population aged 20 years and up. The prevalence of multi-morbidity was higher among younger people, and was associated with age, race-ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and lack of access to healthcare. Additionally, cardiometabolic diseases such as obesity, hypolipidemia, hypotension, and diabetes were highly prevalent and were associated with severe disease and death from COVID-19. These findings suggest that multi-morbidity is a major contributor to the severity of COVID-19 cases and should be taken into account when developing strategies to prevent and treat the virus. This article was authored by Bijan Mossadegi, Roberta Kaysheta, Dolores Ondasuhu, and others.


Another coup d'etat in Africa, and this time it's in Guinea, as the military arrests President Kandy and dissolves the government. Plus, the federal government of Nigeria wants political and religious leaders not to set the nation ablaze with infidery rhetoric. Well, this is plus politics, and I am very animal. In 2021 alone, there have been three major coups in Africa, the Malian coup d'etat on the 24th of May 2021, the Chad coup d'etat which resulted in the death of long-serving leader Idris Debi. And most recently, in Guinea, special forces have seized power in a coup, arrested the president and promised to change the political makeup of the country. Well, joining us to discuss this is peace and conflict expert Westafiqa Nkasi Wardu, and political analyst and researcher Kambale Musavuli. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for having me. Well, I'm going to start with you, Kambale, because I saw your post on social media, and you had quite a lot to say. I mean, I know I've spoken to you about other issues in the DRC, but this time, Guinea. And there are so many question marks on this coup d'etat. But look, I hear that it has backed a lot of fear in the hearts of the ordinary civilians in the country. But then we also saw a lot of people celebrating in the streets. But let's start by looking at the reasons why the army have taken over. They're talking about high-handedness. They're talking about corruption issues and the personalization of institutions in the state. So let's look at the government of Kondi since he came into power in 2010. I mean, the claims provided by the couplers are valid claims from the people. They're not the first one to say that. The people of Guinea have been challenging the change in the constitution of the country. And just last year, there was an election there where the president of Guinea changed the terms to be three terms then. People were in the streets. The election was more with irregularities. People have been ousted. So they're just expressing the aspirations of the people. The challenge is the method they use to take control of the country. We've seen this before. I mean, when you look at Zimbabwe, people were jibberlading the position of Mugabe. Today, we see that the current rule of the country is not the aspirations of the people. So any revolutionary process that does not come from the people itself, we know through our own experience, our human history, that it will not result to fundamental change. But I can understand why the Guinean people, a section of them, a large section of the Guinean people, are celebrating the coup. Because their expression is small, they are happy. There is change in the leadership of the country, and they want a leadership that represents that. Interesting. So let's take a look at Conde's leadership style, which is something that you have pointed to. He spent decades in opposition to the previous leaders, and he's been in a position to previous regimes. He seemed to be someone who really wanted to lead the country. And finally, he was given an opportunity to do so. But then here we are. He took a coup d'etat to get him out of office. And obviously, you're saying, and we echo him what the people are saying, he did not live up to expectations. So I ask you, because I'm going somewhere with my question. Why do we have African leaders who keep pushing to want to lead the country, who wax very lyrical when it comes to the right things to say? But when it comes to actualizing those promises, we see a total different thing. The institutions are personalized. We don't have strong institutions and practice of a democratic rule that is personalized. That's one of the challenges in some of the countries, particularly in Guinea. It was really up to Conde to change that methodology of always looking at this providential leader who will fix everything. If the institutions were strong, the judiciary, the executive and other institutions wouldn't be where we are now. But then it's up to the African people to change it. We have the same issues in DRC. We just had a presidential election in DRC. It was more irregularities. An opposition leader has taken control of the country. And we're seeing that now, why it's changing the justices. That's only a reflection that there is not a strong civil society. There is not a strong left movement in the country. And because of the vacuum of a strong organization, the only organizing force is the military. And the military is filling up the vacuum and it's an instrument of violence. So we know that they are not going to resolve the fundamental aspirations of the people. But I think, in my view, I think those are superficial discussions. I think that we have to look at Guinea in the context of the region, its strategic position, its mineral wealth. What does this mean for the region, for the people? Just if you look at the statement that came out of the meeting today, the former ministers and the couplers at the meeting today. And they came out with about seven points of things that's going to move forward. One thing that took my attention is, I think it's point five or six, where they said that there will not be a curfew of mining operations in the country. So there are all these changes, but somehow for money, people can still mine. So that brings the question, why?  So if you shut it down, then it means that you're obviously declaring a state of emergency on the economy of the country. Correct me if I'm wrong. This is 24 hours after the coup. Let's think about it. The borders are shut down. One of the major decisions, 24 hours after the coup, is around mining operations. We're not thinking about the well-being of the people. People were not in the streets. How many people have that? What is the situation in the country? One of the major decisions right after the coup is to make sure that the mining operations are not affected. That tells me that they are also listening to outside interests, not just the interests of the people there. But beyond that, too, I think we can even speak about those who did the coup. A particular special force within the military, not under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Defense, trained by the French, and particularly Africa, U.S. Africa. They've been trained in Burkina Faso extensively. Some of them have actually come to the War College in the United States for training. So this is a unit that does not, in my view, have allegiance to the Guinea and people. So are you supporting that the U.S. government and the French authorities have a hand in this coup? And what would be their benefit? I'm going to go to Cassie in a bit, but I want you to because you seem to have this theory that there might be the hand of Issa in this particular matter. So explain to me why you think the U.S. and maybe the French forces are involved. I don't think that Guinea and soldiers, or Guinea and military, are training French and American soldiers. So that's something for us to be clear. Whenever I'm speaking about the military training of the soldiers, the Americans and the French allow these military forces to have military training where they are involved in coups. We've seen that in Mali. We've seen that in Chad. When we look at the region, why is, I believe, that Guinea is important. There is presence of China. What would be the interest of the United States in Guinea? China has a $20 million deal for infrastructure and mineral exploration. There are other deals also happening around iron ore. They have the largest iron ore in the world. And I'm sure some have followed the case of the diamond, the Benis diamond, the Israeli businessman called the Corruption. There are many interests, particularly many interests, that is a stake in Guinea and that is also tied to Chinese operation. If the United States and France is involved, it will be clearly to counter China in the region. And that's how I would like to, from at least my analysis, to say it's not just a local issue, a regional, it does have international ties. Cassie, looking at democracies across the African continent and a bit to stabilize it side by side with these core attempts, mostly as a result of bad leadership. Will it be, what will be the future of the constitutional government in West Africa and the African continent at large if we continuously see these calculated core attempts and to borrow from what Kambali is saying, that we cannot just jessison the fact that there is something in Guinea that the rest of the world might be eyeing. So, it does put a very dangerous trend, really. It is something to be worrying about. In the past four years, we've had a specific number of coups. We've had coups in Babwe, we've had coups in Mali, in Chad, in Sudan, and now in Guinea. So it really, really is troubling. But it does tell a particular story. I mean, as worrying as this trend is, it tells a particular story. One, it really points to the fact that one of the issues around that is coup intervention, military intervention in African countries. I mean, we see that talking about corruption with the poor leadership. We see the fact that these particular leaders that were victims of coups were not leading their countries well. They were actually bad leaders. So that is one of the troubling things. Second, as Kambali has stated, is the point that there is an issue of institution. We have a lot of institutions in Africa that are unicycling. We have a tendency to really make the actual leader institution rather than build institutions ourselves. And so when we get to that point, we see where there is really no institution to hold the particular leader in check. I mean, you ask the question about the fact why African leaders would pine to become leaders, and then they would go in and then they wouldn't do the work. And it's really about institutions. And when we talk about institutions, we're talking about the things like the police. We talked about the various kinds of government like the judiciary, like the legislature. I mean, these are particular institutions that should hold or keep in check the particular leaders. And we have a situation where one of the major casualty of African leadership, the particular leadership in Africa, are these institutions. Because when you become a strong man, you become an all-in-all. But then ultimately, that leads to an issue. It leads to an issue where you have the military, well-trained and strong, and they are feeling to become the only institution that is untainted and badly untouched by the leaders that are able to intervene. But that's a problem because we cannot, if we are going to build democratic institutions and stable government in Africa, we cannot depend on the military consistently because it puts us in a situation where, one, people see that the power does not decide on the people anymore. So if the people cannot decide leaders for themselves, or in a sense decide the change of leadership by themselves, and it will depend on military intervention, that could lead to a really serious situation because it could, for instance, lead to a point where African leaders begin to depend on the military. They may see the military as the people that they should be rather than the people. But one of the major points to note here is that there is often a correlation between unstable democracy, unstable leadership, and if there's some coup d'etat in Africa. I mean, for example, in the past 14, in the past four decades, we've had about 100 coup d'etats and 200 successful, 100 successful coup d'etats and 200 attempted coups in Africa. That's really, really troubling for a particular nation where East Wales independence was in the 1950s. So it is very, very troubling. And it creates an avenue of instability. It creates an avenue where people do not see, where people do not have hope in democratic institutions where elections and political participation do not need to be desired at all. And that's really, really troubling for the African continent. It's really, really troubling for the African Union and for some of the other regional bodies like the Echoas and SAJC as well. I just want to push you a little bit more on the issue of strong institutions because that's something we play around with in Nigeria. We say, oh, we don't need strong men. We need strong institutions. We just throw it around there, but we never realistically do anything about it or push for it. And so from what you and Cambale have said, yes, it's the obvious that you're stating, but if I have pushed, for example, our President Bahari has been trying to run for this office four times, finally, his president. And I know that you're not in Nigeria but you understand what the Nigerian system is facing right now. I mean, the Naira is taking a deep dive. The economy is in its worst state. Insecurity is rife. The list is endless. But when we say we want to change something, this change obviously is supposed to begin with that leader. And shouldn't that be handsing off the legislature, handsing off the judiciary, allowing these systems to thrive and be independent somewhat? Especially in Nigeria, we have the Independent National Electrical Commission. We have the ICPC. We have the EFCC. How independent are they? And if a leader is not able to project that change, how are we supposedly to get these strong institutions? Are they supposed to fall from the sky? So thank you very much, Naira, and that was a very good question. But the attitude is involved here. In Africa, in Nigeria and just like in New York, in other African countries, we are being deprived of not investing in strengthening institutions over time. Institutions are not built in the day, or built in the tenure of the particular president. It's something that needs to be done consistently over time. So whatever we say in Nigeria, or in some other African countries, like we say in Guinea and Manu right now, is nearer than this is of neglect of those institutions. So that's one. And so we come to the point where there is a particular leader that sort of pulls the thread and the whole edifice comes falling down. Because none of these things, or none of these institutions have been built on a solid foundation. That's one. Secondly, it's also important for us to understand that how do we build institutions? Yes, institutions are manned by people, but institutions are also as a result of law, as a result of principles, as a result of documentation that are put in place where everybody decides to comply by this particular set of rules. And when we do not focus on building those institutions, we come to a situation where the leader has now become the strongman. We become the situation where citizens in Africa focus exclusively on the strongman, or the strength of the particular leader. I mean, we saw that in 2015 elections where the former president was led, led a lot of elections because people felt he wasn't strong enough. By investing in institutions, by patiently building on the judiciary, investing not just resources, investing in time and skill on the judiciary, in the police, in other civil institutions like in legislature, we're essentially trying to create a system that is not part from that leader. I mean, therefore in fact, in the general installation, I mean, I like to call it the installation in the U.S., where people actually wanted to present the complete handover of the validation of the application of results in the U.S. It was people. I mean, even though there was a particular situation where the president of the country was not only in support of the non-certification process, but the institution held. And that is an example of how institutions have spent a decade in building. It comes from different systems of government, different successive governments coming, playing their own rules, playing their own rules. But it's also about bravely of the particular people that are being led to man this institution. And we've seen examples of brave judging in the territorial setting, not just in Africa. I mean, in Nigeria, we've seen that in Nigeria. We've seen that in so many other countries as well. We've seen institutions, we've seen situations where particular strong persons have actually put their thumbs up and said, no, this is not how it should be done. But the problem is that if we do not create an institution where the people that man a particular institution are incentivized, are promoted to actually ensure that these institutions do the things that they are meant to do, in fact, institutions that we currently face right now, where essentially institutions are poor, institutions are common, and the strong man's policies is what takes place. And we see particular presidents or political leaders that stay over, stay there welcome. They do not have problems in essentially destroying the ground on that, the constitution that holds the fabric of society together. And so that's the kind of problem that we're going to be using. Well, my next question was for Kambali, but I think we lost a connection with him. Hopefully we can get him back. Well, this next question, I'm going to put it to you. Democracy is great and all.  We know we also put the people's interest above every other thing, but how practicable is democracy in Africa today, knowing where we're coming from and where we are right now, because it's still taking a long time for us to integrate, you know, the democratic system. We still have that autocratic and, you know, dictatorial spirit, you know, in the guise of a democracy. So must we be democratic to have good leadership? Can we not have good leadership without it being democratic? And I'm not saying that we should just send democracy in its entirety, but I'm asking if it isn't really practicable across the continent, should we be looking at other forms of government as it may work within those different domains? Yeah, so I've heard this argument before. I mean, in a lot of times, you know, especially from Africa, the reason democracy is still in Africa is not because of democracy. It's not a cause of democracy. It's the cause of people that have essentially refused to build. Democracy is not a magic wand or a silver bullet that makes all the problems go away. That's not what happened. It involves work. It involves voting of the police and doing the actual work that you require to do. What we have is a situation where we have particular governments in Africa taking little bits and pieces of what is supposed to be called democracy and then waiting for people to run and assist in the democratic system of government. Democratic principles are founded on the pillars and the foundations of human rights, right? And the fact that everybody had to say in how the government works, in political participation, in elections being held frequently, in the principles of fairness and justice and equity. I mean, these are particular strong foundations and pillars of democracy. And if you can find any other system of government that guarantees this, but up until now, democracy is the best form of that. Even in situations where there are particular countries that operate the monarchy system of government, they have to find a way to incorporate democracy. Because you cannot depend on the will or the benevolence of one person to guarantee on this life. Human nature has shown that that is never possible. So we need to have a system where everybody understands what's happening and everybody knows that if there is a problem, they know where to seek the dress. Power cannot be concentrated in any one man or in any one individual. That is the way for people to do that. I think we have Cambale back. And this question, I reserved it for you, but Cambale, if you can hear me, let me just go with this question. Now the United Nations has condemned the cool attempt, the cool plot in Guinea. The government of Nigeria has done the same. And several other people have talked about it. But let's talk about France. Let's talk about the Francophone countries and what's been happening. You're from DRC. And lately we've seen Francophone countries experiencing different kinds of problems, whether it be a cool, whether it be conflicts, whether it be gun-running, all sorts of things are happening. And I'm saying most, if not 80%, of Francophone countries. What is France doing as a partner to these Francophone countries that have doused tension, apart from boots on the ground. What is France doing to douse the tension in its former French colonies? Because we seem to see a trend of sorts in all the Francophone countries on the African continent. Beyond even the Francophone country and the earlier comment you made around the statements, let's not forget that the DRC, the president of the DRC is the chairman of the African Union this year. What is the statement condemning the coup? Are you still there, Cambale? I think that we have network connection issues there. So I'm just going to leave that question for Cambale to come back to.  If people seem to be losing hope in the ballots, they're losing faith in the systems of governments, in the judiciary. Do we see more of these coup attempts happening across the continent? Because, yes, we see the people on the streets of Gili rejoicing. It seems like, oh, the army has done them a favor of sorts. But then who holds the army accountable at the end of the day? That's one side of the question. The other side is, might we see many more African countries that seem to be oppressed having these same kinds of coup plot attempts? Mariah, I said earlier that this is a dangerous trade. One, because if people if we're consistently coping on the military to intervene in democratic processes, that's trouble. One, because the military has never been known for each democratic term, it's a democratic place because it has areas to respect for human rights and all of that. It has never been known for that. So we have a situation where we're constantly exchanging one evil for the other. That's essentially what is going to happen. But also, the other moral part is that if we have a situation, because African leaders, the things about African leaders is that they are highly adaptive. They can adapt to any changing situation. If we have a situation where we need to become sort of that last for the common man, and I refuse to accept that there is a change in me, we would get to the point where leaders become accountable to the military and to the military leaders, rather than the people. So you have this pseudo-democracy where there is a democratic government but they are constantly controlled by military backers that for the point of, for the sake of diplomacy would not want to put themselves out there as leaders. So that does have to warrant you. And I have to raise the other question. I mean, this is four years down. We've seen this happen in Zimbabwe. We've seen it happen in Somalia. In Sudan, like that. We've seen it happen in Mali. We've seen it happen in Chad and in Guinea. And I think that it's going to keep happening, particularly in some of the countries. The problem is that we need to do much more than condemn this kind of act. And one of the ways that we can do that is actually ensure that the condemnation even before the military intervention takes place. If the AU and the other regional governments should not only blind eye to particular situations where governments fail, where elections are big, that people and the leader perpetrators serve in office. We need to begin to call out some of these issues and provide some sort of opportunity for action. And for particular leaders of Australia, welcome. Well, Kasih Woldu is a peace and conflict expert in West Africa. And of course, we lost Kambali Mosa Valley where he is a political analyst and a researcher. Thank you very much for being part of the conversation. Thank you. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a short break and when we return and they are not just blowing hot and cold on political and religious critics, they're saying that they need to put an end to the kind of rhetoric that they're putting out. We'll get to find out more after this break.


So the chapter today deals with a critically important aspect, which is essentially community building. And Jeff, you're going to take us through our few-minute synopsis here of the chapter. I see that we already have a slide ready to go. So Flora is yours, Jeff, hit it. Tell us about this chapter. Alrighty. So I took this chapter because I've realized for a long time that community building in classes is crucial. And I've done a lot over the years to try and do it. And I remain terrible at it. So just sort of backing up years, there was this book called I think it's called What Matters at College, which was this giant longitudinal study done in the US of university students. It was basically a correlation fishing expedition where they did this big longitudinal study looking at many, many different things and just tried to look for correlations with everything. And sort of surprising to the people doing the study, just about the only thing that seemed to matter was the degree to which students form functional peer groups during their degrees. And so I read this years and years ago, and ever since I've been saying, well, OK, so why don't we do more in our classes to deliberately foster a formation of peer groups? And like I say, despite trying a lot to do it, I think I'm still pretty awful at it. Anyway, so the sort of underlying theory here is Vygotsky, good old stuff, zone of proximal development. And in this sort of newer framework for thinking about it in terms of a community of inquiry, there are sort of these three prongs, cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. And I've tried to sort of put that, hang on, why is this not going? There we go. In more plain language, right? Give students stuff to talk about, give them opportunities to do that in real human interactions, but structure it all in a way that still leads to your course objectives. So the chapter is full of various recommendations for how to go about this, and in particular, how to go about it in an online course. So they talk about introductory posts, which I tried last term and got zero buy-in from my students, but that's probably because I made it optional. And as we all know, anything you make optional, no students will do. I did a Meet Your Instructor video discussion prompts, having online discussions going and not just sort of tossing it out and saying, OK, well, here's a place for you to post, but actually having prompts and that you have to participate in the discussions so that there's an instructor presence in it and so on. And again, if it's optional, no one will do it. So presumably you need to have some sort of incentive, being aware of diversity, so monitoring and looking for various signs of students marginalizing other students. I liked this suggestion of name stories, and in particular, part of what I liked about it, and my phone is just reminding me of my next thing, part of what I liked about it is getting every student in the class to tell their name story, because I find, of course, a lot of the time, we're teaching students and we have the students with names that we know how to pronounce, Mike, Sarah, and so on. And then we have our international students and we fumble with their names and eventually sheepishly ask, can you help me pronounce your name? And it draws attention to those specific students' names, whereas if you just start out with name stories for everyone, then you can get that pronunciation guide, but not single out particular students. And then the overall advice that's always good advice in any teaching, I think, be kind. So they talk a lot about deadline extension policies and actually use exactly the same words for it that I do in my own courses, where I have what I call get out of jail free cards. I like the term they use, oops, certificates or oops, tokens or whatever. I might actually switch to that. It's less of a mouthful than get out of jail free card. All right, there's my five minute. I don't know whether I went over five minutes, but five minute summary of the chapter. Perfect. Does anyone want to add some things to that? Floor is open for anyone who wants to add some summary. Yeah, no. I think Jeff has an uncanny ability to touch on the main points there, because the last part is around that idea of some compassion and conveying support. The really interesting point is that those three presences are great. If you think about balancing those out in some way, I think you're getting to the heart of how to create this community in a asynchronous environment. Asynchronous, well, you're there. You're present, but it's easy for the instructor to disappear. Social presence can be bolstered by teacher presence. So those two can kind of meld together really nicely. So I thought that was really important. And they also mentioned a couple of other books like that are very specific to creating strategies for creating that that I kind of highlighted. So I wouldn't mind taking a peek at those just to see if you can write a whole book on creating community. Actually, I have exactly the same thing. I've got a highlighted thing that says creating engaging discussions. I'm reading through, I have a physical copy of the book, but I've actually, you can't see it because it's being eaten by Microsoft, but I have a physical copy of the book, but I actually reading the online one because it's so easy to cut and paste. And so I just keep a running text document here. And yeah, there's a lot of, in theory, summer reading that's going to happen. Good, good, good, yeah. One thing I wanted to add is just to emphasize maybe a different dimension of something that Jeff had pointed out. So the idea that the chapters started with of these three kind of components of building that zone of proximal development with the teaching presence. The way it was framed, I think, was a little bit more active and I think should be a little bit more active in the sense that the actual, the titles, and I think the titles are important here, were reveal your personality and convey caring and support. And that's the, I mean, those are, they should be part of the teaching, obviously, but that active effort to do that, to actively project yourself in and to not just be caring, but to convey caring. So there is an active performance involved in that, right from the very beginning, where you let your students know that you are the kind of person they can. So it's one thing to respond with empathy, but a student isn't even going to ask for understanding unless you have actively conveyed that you are that type of person. In the same way as injecting as much as possible into your course, who you are as a human being. And part of that for me is that I'm a first gen student. And as a result, I'm a lot more, not just tolerant, but directly understanding, because I was a terrible student. I had a lot of stuff going on when I was in undergrad and I messed up a lot. And so it would be unfair of me to require a different standard than I did. On the other hand, there were times when I could have had a sterner hand and I did sometimes from professors and that combination of stern support and understanding is really what got me A's in a lot of classes as opposed to the grades I don't wanna talk about, A's classes. But that active effort to project yourself into the course as a human being, right? Who is fun and has a personality. And it doesn't have to be, I'm the hilarious guy. It can be whatever your personality is. Like don't try to be someone you're not. But whoever that person is, but that person is a person who cares and he was listening and is actively there to help. I think that active engagement is a really important part of it that I took out. Anyways, it was one of those actually affirming things where you're reading through and you're like, oh man, I'm doing this already, right? This is great. Show that, go for it. I was just gonna say like building on that. I had a similar reaction in the sense of doing it. One of the things that I've not really struggled with for a long time, I definitely struggled with it early on in my teaching career. But I teach performance studies, I teach communication. So it's sort of built into the content in some ways that you kind of from day one try to build community, at least if these are the kinds of classes in a certain kind of community you're trying to foster. What I noticed is I think I'm pretty good at building community. I don't know if it's always as connected to the goals of the course, it's connected for me, I don't know if it's a parent that it's connected to the goals of the course for the students. And so I think that that point about not just conveying empathy or even caring or conveying your cultural responsive teaching, but also being more transparent about that, I mean, not explaining every single element of everything, right? But making sure that your students understand like, so I have, I don't call it an oops token, but I'm definitely gonna think about that as a way to process what I already do, which is I read something in the Chronicle a couple of years ago that was basically about ditching deadlines. And I was like, well, that's a little much, I don't know if I need to ditch them entirely. But one of the suggestions was to have for one written or turned in kind of assignment per term, your students get a three-day no questions asked grace period. And what they have to do at the end of that three days is contact you and say like, hey, you know, it's almost done, I'm gonna have it to you tomorrow or I'm really, really still struggling with this for X, Y or Z reason and they don't have to go into great detail, but you try to help them through it and students have responded so positively to that even when they don't use it, right?  And, but the oops token adds the layer of like an action that they have to do as opposed to just sort of automatically not turning the thing in. So I'm really, I'm really interested in how I might use that. That's right, it was a long winding road sometimes. I don't know, that's good. Yeah, I don't know. I had some reservations about the oops token, but I'm open to it. I am maybe too accommodating. I try to start the class by projecting sternness because you can only, you can't, you can't, you know, get that back, you know, you can only move down from whatever your point is. It's impossible to get harder as you go along in the class.  But even then, if someone comes along and they have a legitimate excuse and that legitimate excuse can even be, you know what, honestly, I just lost control of the class for a while. It doesn't have to be my dad got cancer, which I've had a number of students legitimately like that.  I mean, I've had those actual excuses, but I've also had the excuses that are, you know, not technically acceptable, but are 100% understandable. You know, I just, I don't know what happened. I just kind of lost control of the course for a bit. And if any student ever comes forwards and projects an interest in succeeding, I always give them the opportunity and usually without significant penalty.  If I had a 300 person class, that would probably be total chaos.  Otherwise everyone would take advantage. Maybe it's the combination of the fact that I start every class by doing the things that we have in here and saying, look, I'm a real human being, et cetera. But I haven't felt like deadline extension-y stuff has been exploited. In fact, to the opposite, I feel like more often at the end of the class will come along and I'll be like, why didn't you just reach out? You know, we could have fixed this. But I mean, I do definitely have students who come along and, you know, they haven't done things for half a class and then they show up and they say, look, I just want to do goodness.  It doesn't have to be something. It could just be, I mean, that's not delegitimized. That is legitimate. I was depressed is a legitimate excuse, even if it's not clinical. It's just, I was in a bad place. So I don't know, I haven't had to invoke any kind of token kind of thing. And I worry about students, I worry about that kind of creating a stigma in that you have to, I don't know, and maybe this is a made up worry, but the idea that you still have to acknowledge wrongness kind of, you know, there's an additional barrier where you have to go and walk in with a, you know, with a red scarlet letter on you or something, which is the uke's token. Maybe that's not the case, but I just, I worry that that might be the case, rather than just, it's an additional thing where you have to have a badge, like a literal thing that you bring in, rather than just being like, hey, can I have some help? So here's how, and, you know, this depends on, this can depend on how you sell it. So the way I put it is, yeah, no, if you've been ill or you've got a death in the family or any excuse like that, no, you don't need to use an uke's token or I call them get out of jail free cards, but I think I'll call them uke's tokens from now on. No, those are legitimate reasons for missing a deadline or whatever and just tell me, and I'm gonna give you an extension, right? And I record an extension and discuss the extension with the student and say, you know, if you're still not gonna be able to make that date, then keep me posted and, you know, we'll further extend it to the extent that that's possible. But the get out of jail free cards are the no questions asked.  That you have two times during the course when you can just miss a deadline with no excuse and have no penalty for it.  So, because, you know, there are certain things that I really want them to get done on time because, you know, physics is one of these disciplines where everything builds on the thing before it, right? And so, if they get behind on certain things, it just becomes irrecoverable, right?   So here, you can miss a couple and have no consequence to help you balance things, right? So that's how I sell it. And I think the students appreciate it and seem willing to use it. And yeah, so I do get students still coming and saying, well, you know, they tend to come and say, well, you know, this happened, I wanna use a get out of jail free card and I'll come back and say, no, that's a legitimate excuse, no card required. I've recorded an extension, right? Right, but it also is like sort of teaching them in a way not that they don't necessarily know, but like that in the work world and in sort of culture generally, like if you, like we're asking you to be responsible, we're not asking you to be an automaton, right? And so, you know, we're treating you as the human being that we want you to eventually become, right? And we're remembering that you're a human being, but I think there's lots of different ways to do that. And I think that's sort of the core of this chapter, right? Is like, we're teaching human beings and that can be hard to remember online, but also that's not the orientation that higher ed has always had, right?  We've always been teaching humans, but that's in, you know, at least in my opinion, that's not like we're not often or always treated as humans, right? As faculty, right? We have all these demands and expectations on our time. And so the whole system, like this is this sort of a shift in orientation. Yeah, I'm gonna throw things over to Patrick in a second, but just before I wanted to make a quick comment for directly at faculty, I might be listening to you guys as well, which is that this is all obviously focused on students and, you know, how to create the student experience, but my personal experience is that a lot of these steps in projecting empathy, revealing yourself as a human being, that humanization is actually really good for the faculty member because the more likely they are to recognize, I've actually even had people write this in evaluations that you're the kind of teacher who makes us want to work for you because we don't wanna let you down because they have that relationship with you.  I might say that you have to be best friends, but you don't wanna let a person down who you have respect for, right? But in addition, I mean, I've messed up seriously in classes, like drop the ball on things, right? And the more people recognize that you're trying your hardest, including even just being straight up and honest and being like, you know what, COVID's rough on us too. I was up till three in the morning last night. This is gonna be a bit of a rough lesson, but we're doing our best. They are so much more understanding of the little blips and, you know, missions and roughness and all of that. And it gives you a context where you can experiment and you can mess up and everything else, where if they view you as a human being who is honestly doing your best, right? I found it like about a selfish level. It helps the valuations and everything as well as just helps them to be more open to things you'd like to try that are experimental, et cetera. I just wanna jump, no comments. I wanna jump into Patrick and give him a chance to speak to this. In particular, Patrick, because you're the one here who actually is not just an educator, but an educator of educators, right? So in terms of building communities of practice and this sort of thing, what advice would you give to your students who are gonna go out and be doing this full-time?  I mean, they're even covered in classrooms as an education professor. No, exactly, exactly what you're saying is that it is a very relational undertaking, right? You have to connect with your students. I'm gonna just give a minute and then I gotta jump to an hour. Yeah, absolutely. We only have three minutes left. We're gonna jump to an hour. But to say that, and oftentimes we can reveal ourselves as we become more confident, right? It's really difficult. All these little authoritarian kind of ticks that we use and being the sage on the stage, it's about being vulnerable. As you said, Jason is about showing yourself. It's about connecting with people one-on-one.  Jason probably wouldn't do it. Jeff does, it works for him perfectly fine. But yeah, you build confidence, I think, and in the confidence you become more human, more able to connect with students. We often default to those authoritarian stances, right? I have to be rigid. They'll run right over me. It's about control. And we find that, and to your point, Jason, students appear evaluations, self-evaluations. I find students harder on themselves than I would be. Hey, it's not that bad. You did pretty good on this and that. You have to talk them down sometimes. So it's not just every kid's gonna give themselves 100%, and this will just fall apart. You have to take some risks, show who you are, be authentic, and generally, most times kids respond and you can build that relationship. That's what we try to teach teachers in training for sure. Fantastic. All right, well, that's a great spot to stop and we're right at 11.59. So next week we've got Patrick, you're gonna be leading the discussion. And if anyone wants to come into the discussion underneath this where we're posting the video to talk about maybe some things that you've done that have helped build community in your classroom, I'd really love to hear some of those examples. And otherwise, we'll see you guys on Tuesday. Excellent. See you. Bye, Patrick.


Today's a big day for the Navy and a big day for America. We're demonstrating the Great Green Fleet today, which is a carrier strike group where the service combatants and aircraft are running on a 50-50 blend of avgas and biofuel or diesel and biofuel. This helps us address a military vulnerability of foreign sources of energy and helps us establish a domestic competitive source of energy to fuel our fleet. Right now with the price spikes we've got on oil and gas, with the places that we buy our oil and gas from, we're simply too vulnerable to that, to the price spikes and to the supply for that. But when the price goes up, we don't have but a couple places to go get the money, either from operations, which means we sail less, we steam less, we train less, or from platform, and I don't want to have to make that decision. This gives us a competitive domestic source of fuel, and it's a big day for the sailors of this strike group. They are the ones making this happen. I'm going to go see the Nimitz, the Princeton, and the Chaffee. All three of these ships and their crews, the pilots, the ground crews for the aircraft, all working incredibly hard to make this happen. And one of the important things is that this is a drop in fuel, that it could be any ships in the Navy, it could be any aircraft in the Navy, it just happens to be these three at the rim of the Pacific exercise. It's going to help the economy of the United States, it's going to help us develop a new energy economy to keep track with the rest of the world, because what we don't want to do is trade one source of foreign energy for another source of foreign energy. It's helping our farmers, it's helping our entrepreneurs, it's helping our industrial base, it is helping in a whole lot of ways, but the main reason we're doing it is to make us better war fighters, is to make us a better military force. Beside the fuel that we're using, we're going to look at one of the things I'm going to get to see today are the energy efficiencies that are being used on, right now on Chaffee, but are beginning to move fleet-wide. And these have the potential to save us literally a million barrels of fuel a year if it's done fleet-wide. Just simple things like stern flaps, like voyage planning, like LED lights. These things all add up so that we can do the same job using less energy.


In that case, a depression might be the beginning of a healing process. Oh, yes. Certainly. It's a great advantage. A depression is a blessing of God. I mean, in the individual, it's the greatest blessing somebody can have. Not used to looking at it that way. You've always talked about the blessing of a neurosis, because it's the only way you are tempted to look within. As long as things go out well, you run away from yourself. Or most people do.


that is so cute hey guys so valentine's day is literally around the corner okay it's not like that soon but it's like two weeks away but i just wanted to go around shopping and get like little gifts because i don't know i feel like valentine's day should be more celebrated because if you think about it there's not really like a holiday in between like now and like a few months like there's nothing going on except for valentine's day you know what i mean this is kind of like the dry period of the year where there's not really much to celebrate i mean my birthday is in march so there's that but like i mean like holidays you know like i feel like all the holidays happen in like the end of the year and then all of a sudden it's like a dry period where nothing is holiday anymore but we should consider valentine's day as more of a holiday and not even if you just have a boyfriend like you should still celebrate valentine's day even if you're single because self love self love okay honestly get yourself some treats treat yourself to something have a movie night with yourself or with your friends like it can seriously be such a good experience and you can celebrate it like get like bake little cute like heart shaped cupcakes or something you know like make make a day out of it i feel like that's so fun even though i have a boyfriend i still would want to celebrate valentine's day with my girlfriends too like that's just something fun to do i am currently at starbucks because madison wants like a starbucks tumblr cup she wants like a specific green one so i'm gonna go inside and see if they have the green one that she wants and see or anything like similar cute and if not then i'm just gonna go to like a different starbucks and check because she said that she's been wanting that for a while and i feel like that's just such a cute little gift so i'm gonna get her that and i'm gonna just like fill it with maybe some candies get her little teddy bear we're gonna go to the dollar store see what kind of candies they have i feel like that would be really cute and then for my friend julia i'm gonna order this like little cup on amazon i'll show you guys it online like i haven't ordered it yet but it's so cute and they're both single so i feel like i don't know i just like feel the need to treat my single ladies you know what i mean like that's just something fun to do and then for joel my boyfriend it's funny i'm like i'm planning these gifts not even for my boyfriend i think i'm just gonna get him like a little teddy bear and just like write him a little love letter you know i feel like it's so much easier to get girl something for valentine's day because it's like you get them flowers like the classic gift you know but guys it's like what do you get your boyfriend okay let's go in and see if they have the cup i really hope that they do okay yes i just got out of the dollar store i went to two starbucks and i didn't find the cup that i wanted i found like a cute water bottle that was the same color that she wanted but it wasn't the exact thing that she wanted so i'm gonna go to one more starbucks and if they don't have it i don't know what i'm gonna do i think i might just pick up that other water bottle because it is really cute but i did find a lot of cute stuff at the dollar store before i get into that i just want to say thank you to anna luisa for sponsoring this video so right now they are doing a buy one get one 40 off on their website for valentine's day so now's a perfect time to treat yourself like i was talking about before i didn't even mean to do that you should go treat yourself to some cute ass jewelry or even one of your girlfriend whoever in your life you can treat for valentine's day like that's so cute i love anna luisa because they are sustainable and you guys know i want to start moving my purchases more sustainable they literally have so many pieces cute ass pieces on the website i'm gonna show you guys what i got honestly the rings are literally the best i'm gonna get my nails done for valentine's day soon i'm so excited i'll show you guys out in a different vlog but anyways these are the rings that i got this time um i don't know why but i really just like love the big stack on this finger i don't know why but it just i feel like it looks cool and then this ring is actually adjustable which is really nice so these are the three rings that i picked out and i've been really into rings lately these two on this hand are actually from them as well but i've been so into rings lately and i just feel like they make your hands look so cute especially when you have like your nails done i've been so into just like wearing rings i don't know they just like pull together everything i talk about this a lot i know that but i swear to god they just pull together an outfit they pull together your hands and they make your hands look more cute i don't know how to describe it but yeah literally so cute so yeah go shop them down below if you guys want to and you can even like match with me some rings if you want to as well because that's that's really cute anyways um i'm gonna give you guys a little haul right now how freaking cute is this like are you kidding me i'm envisioning putting just like what i mean this is for me this is not a gift this huge massive card is for joel um it's literally so big as you can see it's massive and i feel like this is just like really cute and funny so i'm gonna this is going to be a little sad birthday card and another gift from myself i honestly envisioned this putting them on the back of my phone case because i feel like that would be so cute just like sticking them in random places um i feel like that would just be so cute i got that and then i got joel some chocolate roses because i feel like he would like that way better than real flowers so how cute next i got these cookie cutters because i want to put like cookies in the little gift things that i'm making so i'm probably gonna make like sugar cookies or something and then decorate them and next i got these flower petals just to put in the bag to get bags next i got these two little bags how cute i literally died when i saw them one for julia and one for madison i just thought these were so cute i got this little stuffed animal for madison this one for joel and i will show you guys i'm gonna like order some stuff online tonight that i want to put into julia's gift so i'll like show you guys everything but literally everything is so cute like i can't balance i say just so freaking cute love day like that is so cute it has you don't have to have a significant other you can literally love anybody so this is literally the third starbucks that i've been to and i still can't find her a freaking the cup of chile it's like the dark green one she looks like the dark green tumblr and i still can't buy it so i think i'm just gonna go back and get that other one that i saw but honestly i think that will do because that one's still really cute and then if i wait it out and i feel like that one's gonna get sold out and then i won't be able to find anything so i think i'm just gonna do that okay you guys just got out of the first starbucks that i went in so which is funny um here is what i got her i think that this is so cute actually and it's like a water bottle so i feel like it's good because you can like bring it to the gym put it in her bag you know it's not like a tumblr where you have to keep it upright and this is like her favorite color it's so cute honestly i'm actually really happy with it i was hoping to get a tumblr but i feel like this might be even better so anyways this is what i ended up getting so cute so this is gonna be for madison i also ended up going to walmart because i wanted to see what type of candies they had and i got a big bear for joel because i just thought that this was a lot more cute i got madison a little monkey because she's been wanting a monkey for so long like a real monkey so i felt that this was funnier than the other thing that i got because it's like a monkey you know they had a way better selection at walmart i got these little hearts that have like little words on them and then i got the red um you guys know what these are everybody knows what these are these candies and then i got just a little bag of heart chocolates so yeah because they didn't have any of this at the dollar store get ready right now so i'm just gonna show you guys like a very like i'm sure you guys um my makeup like my everyday makeup look but this makeup look is like my simplistic makeup literally this takes me five minutes not even joking so i go in with this merit beauty stick it's like a foundation concealer you can really put this wherever you want but it's like what i like about it is it's really like for me at least it's like minimal coverage so it's not like heavy it's not cakey or any of that and i just like to put this quickly in like areas that i want a little bit of coverage i literally go like that like a couple swipes over my face and i just love it because it's literally so quick and then i take their brush and i just blend it in i feel like using a beauty blender takes a little longer because you got to like wet it and everything so yeah that's all i do for the face coverage because usually i would go in with like two darker concealer and then a lighter concealer and that gives me more like a full coverage look but this is just literally like you put on and it matches my skin tone perfectly so it's like no makeup makeup look you know what i mean and now i'm just gonna go in with the makeup mario bronzing stick and just take a brush and then blend it out i love this stuff so much like it just blends in so nicely now i'm going to just go in with my strudelite tillbury powder this is in the lightest shade and when i'm doing a makeup look like this i make sure to get as least as possible on my little brush just because i just want to set my makeup i don't want to like cake anything on you know so i'm just setting it because i get really greasy like around my nose area so i make sure to just like emphasize that area and then that's literally it i just put like a tiny dust amount on my brush just to set it so now for blush i'm just going to go in with the wear beauty one that i've been using for a while it's just in the shade bliss i do have a blush from mera beauty and it looks like this but the thing is um this is just constructive criticism for them because i really do love their products but the only thing about the blush is that i just don't think it's pigmented enough um i will put on the layers of it and it's really sheer which is good if you really want like just like a natural gliss glimmer on your cheek but for me personally i've just been really in love with blush and it just like hasn't been enough for me like it's too sheer and blush ends up rubbing off of me anyways like during the day so putting that on it like lasts like two seconds but sometimes i'll just like put it on to top off the blush that i put on like below because it does give like a really nice like glowy finish now i'm just gonna go in with the charlotte tillbury um setting spray this stuff definitely helps my makeup last all day like i wore it on set the other day for like i was on set for like 14 hours and my makeup held up really good especially while wearing a mask now i'm just going to take the mera beauty highlighter and pop that on jenny's really so cute and then i'm going in with the mera beauty brow pomade i think i don't know what this i think it's called pomade i just love this stuff because it's literally so quick and then the last thing i'm going to do is just curl my eyelashes i have been finding that my eyelashes have grown so much and i have a feeling that it's because i've been taking biotin and collagen and i think that's a big step up with your hair skin and nails they have grown tremendously like i don't think they've ever looked this long before i really want to get like a lash lift just because i feel like that would be so convenient like i would never wear mascara if i had a lash lift i literally just leave my eyelashes but then i was doing more research on it and then there was this doctor that was like yeah like you can go blind from it and like because the chemicals or something like really scary like that so i was like uh like you know it's kind of ruined it for me so i don't know i really want to get one but like that also scares me like i don't want any damage to my eyebrows so i wonder if you guys have like an experience with a lash lift and tint i probably want to get a tint because my eyelashes are already black so i wouldn't need that but as far as like the lifting goes let me know if you guys have done that before because i want to but like that video literally scared me so i don't know what to believe but anyway so this is my little um natural makeup look literally took me like two minutes and yeah one other thing that i would do is add a lip liner and then that's basically it um but my lip liner is not here right now so we're not gonna do that but i do love my lip liner as well but yeah so this is just like my go-to natural no makeup makeup look i guess you can call it because i don't even like wear mascara i just curl my lashes and then so i'm literally currently at the dentist and i haven't gone to the dentist since like before like maybe two years ago because ever since like the virus started we just like haven't gone to the dentist because i don't know i don't maybe they've been closed like i don't even know why but we just haven't gone and this is my first appointment in like two years and i literally like let me tell you i don't think anybody likes dentists but i i like literally hate it so much i literally dread even though i go like once a year is it that you supposed to book a dentist probably once a year or every six months or whatever i dread it so much even though i haven't gone in two years i feel like i was just here like that's literally crazy um but this is my first dentist appointment that i'm going completely alone because usually like my mom books us with like everybody we usually all go together and make it like a whole like dentist trip but this is my first time going alone because my mom had to make sure that she booked me in before i'm off of her benefits plan so we're getting covered i am like a part of the union now for background acting and stuff so i will give benefits i just need to like sign up through them i just haven't like look at the i just haven't looked at the benefits plans yet so i need to do that but anyways so oh two to two 12 22 love how i picked up the phone at that one but anyways wish me luck though how i get through these types of things like doing things that i don't like like doctor's appointments i just hate stuff like that um how i get myself through it is i'm like literally in like a few hours you're gonna be done like you're gonna be done and you're gonna be home in your bed nice and relaxed like it's not that big of a deal because soon enough before you know what it's gonna be over you know what i mean like it's gonna be down and dusted that's how i get through myself through these types of things is i imagine myself like in like a couple hours and i'm like like it's gonna be over with so it's not that bad anyways i have to go in my point was at 12 30 so we have seven minutes to get inside wish me luck by the time you're watching this like the next clip i'm gonna be out so it's like lucky you guys you don't have to go to the dentist with me guys i wore jeans today yes i wore jeans today i don't think i've worn jeans for like so long out i just put on these really cute pair of jeans from revolve and then i have on just this like zip up and this really cold today so i have to throw on the puffer i didn't want to throw on the puffer but i have to because it's so cold but yeah i'm literally wearing jeans and i never wear jeans this is like revolutionary okay let's go so we are officially done at the dentist i'm literally so happy that was long what time is it oh my god that was an hour and a half it's literally two o'clock i didn't even realize that was that long holy s*** wow that was not as bad as i remembered i kind of wish they had a tv in there because you're just like literally sitting there like for like an hour and a half it's really boring but it's okay i was trying to like meditate i was like you know what i'm just gonna clear my mind and just like relax you know listen to the little drilly sounds anyways okay this is how my phone turned out i think it's cute i mean i don't know if it's ugly or cute like i really honestly can't tell for like a hundred percent sure like i'm not really that sure but i think that it's cute so let me know how you guys like it actually it is really cute like it's just fun okay it's just fun and different and a little crafty situation a little crafty moment okay i actually really like this little these little hearts i just took some pictures in the mirror and like it looks so cute because of these little hearts like it's so the Valentine's Day i'll show you guys you see i'm just trying to like show the case you know like it's cute just trying to show off the case that is so cute i do not regret doing these little hearts that is adorable so if you guys want to copy me do it just literally go to the dollar store get some cute little heart studs and stick them on the back of your phone case probably not the on the back of your phone because you definitely do not want to ruin your actual phone but if you guys have like a case a plain case then do it would recommend so in terms of the Valentine's Day gifts i told you guys what i wanted to get Julia and this is like the type of cute ass like little heart shape mug that i wanted to get her because i think that these are so cute literally it will make you feel so like just like cute while drinking your coffee and these come in a two pack so honestly i'm gonna give her one and then keep one to myself um but yeah these are literally adorable i don't know like what brand i'm gonna get yet i'm just gonna like look at the reviews and everything but i'm definitely gonna get her one of these because i think it's perfect okay guys so i'm gonna end off today's video here thank you so much to Anna Luisa for sponsoring it if you guys want to go shop don't forget to click the link in my description and yeah because they're having such a good sale and literally the cutest jewelry ever and such good quality and especially for the price too like i've literally had some of their jewelry pieces and like rings for so long now and they have not tarnished like one percent like they're such good quality so definitely recommend go check out the links in my description and yeah thank you guys so much for watching um i hope you have an amazing valentine's day honestly we should treat it like a holiday and i don't know like even madison was like this the other day but she's like so excited for valentine's day i was like i don't know what's in the air this year but it's just like feels like more of a holiday this year and i like it but anyways i hope you guys have a great valentine's day and don't forget to treat yourself and yeah i will see you guys in my next video bye


Hello everyone. Today we're going to be checking out this glass stovetop protector. As you can see on here it says do not place the mat on the stovetop when you're using the stove naturally. But this will clear up space for you. It'll prevent this glass stovetop from being scratched. As you can see this one's never had one on it. So let's open this up. There's the mat. It has a couple hooks here. Very nice fit. You can prepare food on here. It opens up more opportunities for workspace in your kitchen. Now instead of ordinary rubber material this is a heat resistant fiberglass material. That's more heat resistant than your typical rubber mats. Now I'm fortunate enough I do have a cutting board here that has the rubber ends on it. But if your cutting board does not you take a chance of scratching up the glass top on your stove. That's why a lot of people will not use their glass top stove as a preparation station for cooking food. Now I've got a lot more room to prep for when I'm cooking. Easy to clean off. Wipes off with the damp rag and these little hooks you can peel the backing off and they're clear and you can stick them up so you can have a place to hang your mat when not in use. If you don't have a cutting board you can just cut right on top of there. Protect your glass. Now this mat comes in several different colors. You can get it black, blue, brown, gray, or red. This mat also comes in many different sizes. You can get a 21 by 24 inch, 21 by 29 and a half inch, 21 by 32 inch, 21 by 36 inch, 24 by 31 inch, and 24 by 36 inch. The surface of this mat is coated with a protective layer of liquid silicon and it can resist heat up to 550 degrees celsius which is about 1022 degrees fahrenheit. This mat can also be used not only as a cooktop cover but it can be used as a countertop mat, dish drying mat, ironing mat, washing machine top cover. This is easy to clean. As I mentioned, you can wash it by hand and hang it up on the wall to dry or it is also dishwasher safe. You can throw it in the dishwasher. You can also just fold this up and throw it in the drawer. This is a very nice product. I'm sure we'll get a lot of use out of this and I want to thank the company for sending this to me to try out. As always, link for this product will be in the description box below. Thanks for watching everyone. Have a great day!


The Ladybug Steam Vapor giveaway has begun and we are now taking photo submissions. Advanced vapor technologies is giving away two ladybugs with two ways to win. First for those who have a ladybug there's a photo contest. Show us how your ladybug steam vapor system cleans the toughest projects. Then go to cleaningbusinesstoday.com slash ladybug and upload your before and after photos. The public will vote for their favorites. The one with the most votes wins the first ladybug. When someone votes for their favorite before and after photos that person will be entered into a random drawing to win the second ladybug. The Ladybug Steam Vapor giveaway ends April 29th so get to cleaning and upload your photos or just vote for your favorites. For details visit cleaningbusinesstoday.com slash ladybug.


kailang no windows pero saan ko hukawa ng legit windows dami options, dami prices ako nito goody na lang may cdkeyoffers.com madali lang ang order search for no software you need add to cart daan ka sa payment options nila wala pag 5 minutes finished may legit working cdk na para sa windows mo gamitan ng aming code kaya kung nagahanap ka ng legit mura at original software check out cdkeyoffers.com at no say in what we had to say about them but basically long story short these cases are typical of deep cool super easy for beginners to build in very reasonable budget and you get quality bits they don't feel cheap even though the price is good and that's really been the MO of deep cool making things accessible at a quality price so these are full ATX cases and they are a little large especially by today's standards even ATX cases are slimming down a little that size helps beginners because you don't need to be super exacting in what you measure there's a lot of space to make mistakes both in the build and both in the parts that you get for example the max height of a CPU cooler that you can install here is 175mm that is quite tall even the big boy coolers now like noctua's ny15 only clock in at around 165mm so a lot of height a lot of space for your air cooling if liquid cooling is more your thing then these cases do fit 360mm rads no problem and the last thing that usually gets beginner builders is the length of your GPU no need to worry about that in these cases because they can fit a max length of 380mm for GPUs that is quite long even the longest cards right now don't hit that length so there's a lot of space a lot of room for mistakes and a lot of room to get your hands in there and really get messy if this is the first time that you're building continuing the ease of use of the cases are the front shrouds which are both magnetic so you just pop it out and then the standard cleanable dust filter now is just a hook again this is plastic but it doesn't feel plasticky like you don't feel like after 10 uses and it reveals the frame again super easy to build in because everything is so accessible and easy to find you readily notice where we screwed in the fans here and because you can see the screws so easily it's quite easy to take a screwdriver and unmount them if need be swap them out with RGB fans or a radiator and that's one of the things I like about Deepcool is that they make it easy for you to figure things out get a manual like how do I open this case how do I get to this part everything is very intuitive it doesn't get much simpler than pulling things out snapping it out and then you have access already to the front fans same thing with the CK500 here the panel is a bit different so here for the CK560 you have the kind of cross design so it's perforated excellent for RGB fans I really like how when you have RGB the pattern glows out through the front panel the CK500 is just a flat black panel same design so you pop it out, it's magnetic and then you have the clip that you just unclip and then again it's exactly the same case with the frame here in front these have become standard recently these kind of very easy to reach and clean mesh filters because everybody is obsessed now with airflow and ensuring good airflow means that your case needs to this needs to be clean so a lot of dust is going to go through here not only deep cool dust this basically everybody has to do it now where all of the dust filters are very easy to reach for the CK500 and the 560 you have the front mesh filter you have the magnetic top filter so held on by magnets here at the top and then you have the slide out which you just pop out like this a lot of budget cases want you to forget about this these usually come out super flimsy sometimes they don't even have a frame it's just like a gauze strip at the bottom just so that they can claim they have a mesh filter again I just want to emphasize the quality of deep cool the frame is super is very sturdy even for the rear filter of the case and super easy to pull in and pull out one nice bit that you don't usually find in some cases is the adjustable GPU mount I mentioned earlier that a lot of GPUs now are becoming longer and longer and the problem with that is that it can tend to sag because the main support is here the longer the GPU is the more likely its weight will cause it to sag down so a lot of companies now are creating additional third party anti-GPU bag towers basically which go over here but deep cool has included its own version already integrated into the case so you can change it up and down depending on the height where you install your GPU and the actual surface that the GPU will rest on is padded it doesn't look like a lot but it's a nice nod to the fact that yes GPUs are getting longer and you don't need to get a third party solution that will cost more money into the case alongside all of that are the usual refinements that make it easier to build so you have the grommets for cable management you will notice though that there aren't the usual sometimes with more high end cases there are guide posts with velcro somewhere along here here and here sometimes there are channels built into the chassis so you can bunch up particular cables there you don't find anything like that here not so much an awkward deep cool just a fact that this is what you get for this very acceptable price range although you might not really need a lot of those guides for cable management because again there's so much room here in the back the PSU shroud covers up a lot of the cables basically you can tuck hide away anything behind this thing and you can get away with a lot of rushed cable management for example what we've done with the 500 you'll notice how clean it looks because a lot of the cables as they should be are hidden in the back and hidden by the PSU shroud you can find the two less storage base so again they're just like clips and the sum of its parts is that it makes it super easy for builders especially beginners to just get into the case put in your hardware give it a little cable management and everything will be good to go and as over to be honest I don't really understand the big deal but the front panel a lot of people ask like how many USB slots does that have so the both of these guys have the standard two USB panels and it does have one type C which is becoming more and more in demand lately a few years ago you would only find type C ports on the front panel in very high end cases but it's nice that that is now trickling down mainstream cases aesthetically actually I really like this it looks like a big shield to be honest the front panel of the CK500 it's not cheap shiny plasticky it's very solid metal and there's a nice texture slightly abrasive tactile feel to the front panel I personally prefer the CK500 black panel because it's tickers you can just leave it as is you can use it in your office it's one of those things where it looks clean but it leaves a lot of room for customization so there you have two very similar cases from Deepcool but they share the same design philosophy very reasonable price at the same time very accessible especially to beginners that might need room to work in a case whether you're not yet used to having to squeeze in there with smaller parts and more more precise measurements of the parts and the cables and things like that solid offering again from Deepcool I give the cases both 4 out of 5 they're very attractive for the price point and if you're that market where you want all of the modern amenities in a quality package thanks for watching thank you to our top fans na affordo namin to kupuwa na to ande joke lang thank you to liya magnaya, iyan meru ITX addict, John Ruben Ocha Christian Espinosa and Rafael James thank you for supporting the channel