Amanda Miles South Albany High Schools Photography and Digital Arts Teacher

Amanda Miles and her husband in Vagas, Navada 

Amanda Miles is a high school teacher where she teachers digital arts and photography. She has been teaching in this job since 2006 at South Albany High School in Albany, Oregon. She has been married for 17 years and has one son. Her job is one of a kind at south albany highshool no one else in the school. Her students are always really engaged and wanting to learn about the digital arts world along with photography. Amanda always puts the students artwork that they make in her classes all over the walls in her classroom. 

What was it like working as a school teacher during the pandemic?

Amanda says that working as a school teacher during the pandemic is hard because the school expects them to go from teaching remotely to teaching in-person simultaneously, which is hard on all teachers. 

What has changed from when you started your job from now?

The change between when she started her job in 2006 to now she had to learn how to teach remotely very fast with the pandemic shutting the schools down for a while. She also had to show all of her students how to look at the lessons and do their assignments on Canvas which is an online learning platform. 

What is the best part of your job?

The best part of Amanda’s job is that she can create relationships with her student’s whether it is in person or online. 

What has been a challage with your job?

What has been struggling with is she can’t get any more breaks during her lessons as she used to during her lessons because now all of her breaks she disinfecting her classroom and her equipment

What covid regulations are you following at your job?

The covid regulations that the school and Amanda are following during this pandemic sis she is disinfecting all of her desks and equipment that the students use along with wearing masks when they have in-person school. 

What do you wish you could change about your job right now during the pandemic?

Amanda wishes she could have more funding for more equipment so each and every student could have their tablet so they could check them out and take home to do their homework instead of all the kids having to share the tablets and cameras 

Where did you go to school?

Amanda went to McKay High School in Salem, Oregon. she also went to college at willamette university

Who is your role model for your job and career

Amanda’s idol was her former teacher Mr. David and because of what she went through in high school if it wasn’t because of him she doesn't know if she would have stuck up with all of the things she challenged or have been where she is today 

If you could do any job in the world what would it be and why?

Amanda wouldn’t change her job for the world she worked so hard to get to where she’s at right now. The digital arts program, helped her shape her career to what it is now. She loves the kids she teaches because they always surprise her with how much they go above and beyond on their work in her class. The kids also make her job fun each and every day. 

At a Glance:

Occupation: High school teacher at South Albany High School 

Where your job is located: Albany, Oregon

How many years have you been at your job:  years

Job title: Digital arts, photography, and coding teacher

Where did you go to school: Mckay High School in Salem and went to college to willamette university

Favorite place to visit: The beach

Favorite sports team: She doesn’t follow sports but she supports the teams at her job and as she quotes it “GO REDHAWKS”

Years married: 17 years

Children: One 

Dream vacation: Paris, France 

postcard from the Winchester Mystery House

Hello from the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California!

During the pandemic, it was closed down, only open in a virtual option on their website that you can buy. Now they’re back open for business every day. The Winchester Mystery House has 160 rooms altogether, 40 of them are bedrooms. Visitors will discover some 2,000 doors and 40 staircases throughout the house, three elevators, and ONE shower. The Winchester mystery house holds the Guinness world record for the longest continual construction. 

What is interesting about this house is that Sarah Winchester held seances where she saw where people were killed by Winchester rifles, when she would do these seances she shoudl see where the people were killed and build rooms where they died so they could be at peace. Sarah spent 38 years building and tearing down rooms over and over again to make new rooms. Each room was nailed shut with 13 nails because she wanted to to keep the spirits sealed in and to protect her family. 

Over the years they added staircases that went to nowhere and a window that never sees sunlight. This place is a fun trip because they have a really good backstory about how Sarah Winchester built her house and what is still there today, even though she has been dead for almost 100 years. 

After Sarah Winchester died they put her house up for auction in February 1923, five months after her death. The house was sold for $123,000 to a wealthy investor on June 30, 1923. 

The house was opened to the public as a tourist attraction when there was the first tour with Mayme Brown, who is the leaser of the house and the family’s estate. As of 2019, the Winchester Mystery House is one of the four most haunted houses in America, according to USAToday.  

What other tourists say about the Winchester Mystery House is that it is a great experience for all of the family and that the self-guided tour is incredible. According to Travelwaits.com, it is incredible because of all the rooms that are in the house, 160 rooms altogether. 

Some say that due to covid there weren't a lot of places that you can see but it was still a great experience because you could see a lot of the house including the staircase that leads to nowhere. 

In addition to the house, the property includes a cemetery and a garden. The reason why Sarah started building the house more was that she lost her daughter from marasmus and her husband to tuberculosis. 

Through the years of building Sarah Winchester got arthritis so bad to the point she couldn't walk up stairs anymore. From then she made a staircase that she could walk up the stairs where the stairs were smaller inclines so she could get up the stairs without hurting herself   

After 38 years of the constant building of her house, she stopped building, and within 24 hours she passed away from heart failure. 

If you like haunted houses and creepy things, then this is the place for you because there are all of those in this one house. 

At a Glance

Address: 525 S Winchester Blvd., San Jose, CA 95128

Business hours: Monday through Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Phone number: (408)-247-2000

Website: www.winchestermysteryhouse.com

when i moved out during the pandemic

The start of 2020 was hard for me because of the pandemic, finding a new job, and in June I moved out for the first time away from my parents. 

While packing up my Honda Civic with all of my belongings, I felt like something was eating at me. While putting my standing jewelry box into my car, I figured out what that feeling was -- it was sadness. 

When I loaded the last of my belongings into my car and hugged my parents goodbye, I walked back to my car and drove off. While driving, a song came on from my playlist named “I’m Already There” from Lonestar, and that’s when I burst into tears.  

While driving the backroads from Tangent to Corvallis, I cried the whole time. I felt homesick even though I could turn around and go back with my parents. But it was time for me to start a new life where I was paying my own bills, fending for myself like the adult I was becoming and that I know I was going to be. 

When I got to my new home I sat down on my new California king-size bed and held my guinea pig Phantom close to my chest and just cuddled him. His squeaking noises started to soothe me and eventually I stopped crying and continued to cuddle him till my boyfriend came home. I felt homesick for the next couple of weeks after moving in just because this was all new to me and none of it felt real. 

For those couple of weeks, I kept having dreams about me being 6 years old sitting on the floor playing with my Barbie dolls, and my parents watching over me and protecting me from anything that could hurt me. 

Now being in this house for almost a year I have learned a lot from being an adult -- like paying bills sucks, along with once you are on your own things change a lot. But it’s going to be okay because this is what people do with their lives. They live under their parents’ roof with their protection, to being on their own with no protection and having to budget all of your money into things you need to pay and buy. Sometimes you need to work your ass off to make ends meet because something could happen that you weren’t expecting at all. 

 

Now I see my parents about two times a week and spend time with them and help them with anything they need, including shopping and taking them wherever they need to go, such as taking them to trails so they can go walking, doctor appointments, and to work when the other one is sick. 

I have made a lot of sacrifices during this time of living on my own and during the pandemic, including not buying online so much and leaving my job to protect my family from COVID-19.

review of the Irregulars

The Netflix original series “The Irregulars” is a horror-like supernatural setting that is based on the Sherlock Holmes books. This series came out on March 26. It is about a group of teenagers that live in London, England during the 1800s who have recurring nightmares about supernatural beings that they believe are in London with them. 

While living their own lives there is this man who watches over the kids in Apartment 221B, Sherlock Holmes’ apartment. The group of teenagers struggled to make ends meet to make sure they don’t live on the streets. The main kids that in this show are Jessie( Darcie Shaw), Billy(Jojo Macari), Bea( Thaddea Graham) , Spike(McKell David), Leopold(Harrison Osterfield), Doctor Watson(Royce Pierreson), and Sherlock Holmes(Henry Lloyd-Hughes). 

Among the challenges for the teens: Jessie gets nightmares where she sees a doctor from the black plague and believes is going to kill her; and Bea is looking at her mother’s gravestone when Holmes’ collaborator Dr. Watson appears to enlist her help and is willing to pay for the task. Watson wants Bea to find four babies that have disappeared over the past couple of days.

If you don’t mind a little bit of gore and like mystery films this is a good show for that. Twists and turns abound throughout the series, whether about what is happening in London or where the missing babies went. Then for good measure, the creators have included a lot of romance between Bea and Leopold. 

While watching this series for the first time everything was very out there, where each of the main characters had seen a different part of what is happening in London around the time setting. The main kids have attitudes from being on the streets most of their life. 

the plotline was very predictable where I could see what was going to happen next before it even happened. With the characters,you could see what life was giving them and the pain they went through with the events that were in their lives being teenagers living in an abandoned house and pretty much living off the streets. The character’s backstories were pretty genuine about everything. 

The executive producer of the show Tom Bidwell said, “It’s quite a unique show with many genres; it’s adventure, it’s horror, it’s crime, it’s romance, it’s fantasy, it’s a mystery.” 

But Brian Tallerico, a blog writer, had a different experience with the show he said, “the direction here too often feels flat and shapeless, bouncing around a costume drama in which they don’t always look comfortable or genuine.”

This series has a lot of chilling things that happen from beginning to end, it will put you on the edge of your seat to find out what happens next. “The Irregulars” will leave you wanting more over and over again through each episode.

The actors were divided between who liked the series and who didn’t. The actors who played Bea( Thaddea Graham), Jessie( Darci Shaw) and Leopold (Harrison Osterfield)were very intrigued by the backstory and were in the zone and wanted to keep filming. the rest of the class didn’t really like what was going on with the storyline and how it was all about Bea and Jessie for the most part,they got a lot of the screen time instead of the rest of the group. 

At a Glance:

The Irregulars 

Starring: Harrison Osterfield (Leopold), Thaddea Graham (Bea), Darci Shaw ( Jessie), Jojo Marari (Billy), McKell David (spike), Royce Pierreson ( Doctor Watson), Henry Lloyd-Hughes ( Sherlock Holmes)

Summary: spin-off of the Sherlock Holmes books

Rated: TV-14

Showing at: Netflix

Distributor: Netflix 

Rating: ***

Genre: mystery, fantasy, romance, crime, horror adventure

Release date: March 26, 2021

Reviews from other people and the actors

https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/netflixs-the-irregulars-succumbs-to-some-pretty-regular-problems

https://collider.com/the-irregulars-finale-ending-explained-netflix/

introduction blog

 my name is chrissy veach i am a art student in my sophomore year of college and I'm specializing in photojournalism/ journalism. i am currently in Corvallis but I'm originally from silverton and albany. whats new in my life is that I'm currently starting my own business for my knitting projects. where am i in my life is i have one more year of college and then i am going to find a job of a journalism. i took featured writing to get more experience in writing to go to my journalism career. i am looking forward to learning more about writing along with writing stories for the commuter. my three goals for this term is to write more stories for the commuter along with more that i don't really know right now lol. hournalisum is still my major kind of. 

Interview with Audrey Anderson 14 Question Interview

 

Title: An Interview with Audrey Anderson

Deck: Instructor At LBCC Gives Us An Insight Into Her Work

Audrey Anderson is a bakery department instructor and co-curricular advisor at LBCC. She has been at Linn-Benton Community College for four years. She has a husband and two dogs, and lives in Corvallis. She has her own business named Roux Events and Catering. She is originally from Independence and went to culinary school in Newport. 

She used to be an executive catering chef for Willamette University, and used to manage a lot of catering events. She loves going outside and going camping and hiking. She and her family have Sunday dinners every week and they always make something that is really warming feeling and that everyone likes. 

What did you do before your job as an instructor?

Chef Audrey Anderson used to be an executive catering chef for Willamette University in Salem. She did a lot of event management among other things. 

What is some background about your life? What do you like to do, hobbies, favorite food?

She likes to go outside and go camping. She likes hanging out with her dogs and her family. Her favorite food is Thai and Chinese food.

What is the best part about your job as an instructor?

She loves that she can be an advocate for the students and she is the co-curricular adviser for the curriculum. She gets to talk more directly with the students, more one-on-one time than in a big group and she can be there for them and guide them through the process of cooking and help them relate to the process so they understand it better.

What is the most embarrassing thing that has happened while being a chef?

When she would manage a lot of people and do a lot of events a day there would sometimes be a drop in communication and it wouldn't be good when she had a staff of 30-60 people that she was managing and she would have to “suck it up” and take the blame even though some line in the communication there was something that got disrupted. 

What is a time where something went really wrong in the kitchen?

When she was managing a restaurant in Independence for a while, they had an oil drain and it got backed up and it started smelling like sewage, and it was in this small little area and they had to shut down the whole restaurant and get it professionally cleaned.

What is your favorite lesson to teach and why?

She really loves to teach laminated doughs and teach the process of lamination because there is a lot to do with time management and temperature management and with this dough there are a lot of variables that could mess up  what you're doing. It could make the dough a gray color sometimes. If you mess up any of the variables the dough can get messed up very easily. 

What is the most important thing for LBCC students to know before they leave college?

There is always more to know. The culinary arts instructors give really good information and a baseline of information for them to take and build off in their futures in a restaurant, even if they are working for someone or owning a restaurant of their own. There is always more to learn. Having the accountability to say that they don't know everything and be open to learn more through their career and their life. 

What is your dream meal you would like to cook?

Anything that could be shared between her family because her family does Sunday family dinner. When you can cook something that everyone relates to and have a good experience it doesn't matter what you do as long as everyone is happy and having a good time.

What has been the best cake/meal you have ever prepared?

She feels like every time she makes a cake they get better and better every time. She did this cake for her cousin's wedding, it was a simple naked cake with flowers all over it, it was a 3 teir cake. 

Why did you choose to switch from your previous career to an instructor?

She's always wanted to be an instructor and by the point when she was in culinary school she had already worked in the industry for seven years. She had an opportunity to become an instructional assistant, where she would tutor students and help them with their cooking methods, notes, homework. In her school she got a lot of experience with instructing when she went to Oregon Coast Culinary Institute and put a bug in her skills with her skills on instructing. She loves working in event services and just working in a kitchen. 

What classes do you teach outside of the culinary department?

She used to do private classes from her business that were anywhere from two to four people. She hasn't been teaching the private classes since Covid hit and she has put her business to a stop. 

What has changed in your culinary department due to Covid?

They have had a big push for a more centered curriculum and they are more on track to teach one-on-one with students and teaching at a very personal level. It could get mixed up a lot because you can have 10 different students doing different things. They are all on the same page of making the curriculum to help everyone to stay on the same page. They can deliver the instruction so they are more direct. 

At a Glance:

Audrey Anderson

Hometown: Independence, Oregon 

Age: 32

Spouse: Yes

Kids: No but she has dogs

Instructor title: Instructional specialist for baking

Years at LBCC: Four

Favorite sports team: Portland Trail Blazers

Favorite TV show: “Mind of a Chef,” Amazon Prime Video

Favorite type of cake: Black Forest Cake

Name of her business: Roux Events and Catering

Cullenary CTE

 Soren Skinner is a Culinary Arts major and is in his second and last year of his degree. When he gets his degree he wants to open his own restaurant. This program is helping him fine tune his skills in cooking and management. How COVID has affected this program is that it's affected the organization of the kitchens. Skinner says, “It's impossible to fully teach culinary arts online.” Since March of 2019 when everything shut down because of COVID things were hard for everyone. But since October of 2020 things have gotten better with trying to organize, learning online, and more. 

The biggest challenge is the change of pace from high school to college, like the sudden  long hours on their feet. It's also a hard way to learn and some people get cut from the program. Some big highlights are that the students have free reign of what they want to make in their rotations, and also the banquets that happen three times a year. During the banquetes there is a lot of food being made inspired by many different regions and provinces in the world. The banquetes also give them memories and an experience for future events either in college or in life when they open or manage a restaurant. 

In this program, they were taught not only how to do things, but also why it was important to do them a certain way. Soren says, “Why vinaigrettes work, why bread is such a fickle creature, why meat behaves in a certain way.” Once the students are taught why things are done it clicks differently in their mind instead of being told what to do and how it's done.

For future students Soren said to not give up even when it gets hard. Sometimes you will want to pull your hair out, but you have to keep trying and stay organized because that will help you. 

Aiden Nielsen is a culinary student who is in his second and last year of the program. He decided to go into the CTE culinary arts program because he has always had a passion for cooking and he wants to take a leap into the STEM program at OSU. 

COVID has changed the program so much, they can’t have any people in the cafeteria like they could before covid and they can't have a full production crew in the kitchen either. All the students have an online order form that they can give the chefs to order the product for their dishes. 

When the students first when into this program as first years they were learning basic skills and using those skills for mass production, but now as second years they are honed on fine tuning their skills, regions, and learn how to cook on the line at the Santiam Grill, which now with COVID the second years can’t do it anymore. 

Some of the biggest challenges are time commitment because some days you are there for normal times where you're in the kitchen and some days Aiden is there from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Some of the biggest highlights are that you can bond with your classmates and instructors. 

There are a number of benefits to joining the CTE Culinary arts program. Like Aiden, he is the president of the culinary club that they have and he has the opportunity to go to different locations and meet different chefs, farmers and more. 

For future students who are thinking of going into the CTE culinary arts program Aiden has suggested to make the most of your time and get involved in things. It also helps if you make connections with your classmates and teachers and get every little bit of knowledge that you can that will help you in the long run.

Unity meeting/ celebration

 The Unity Celebration of 2021 was held on Feb. 26.

There were a lot of people performing at this year’s Unity Celebration, including LBCC Poet Laureate Sofia Griffith, the LBCC choir, keynote speaker Christopher Hughbanks, and the winner of the Black History Month Essay Contest Jason Davis.

Hughbanks is earning a Ph.D. at Oregon State University, and his major is Language Equality and Educational Policy. How he has connections to LBCC is that he and English instructor Ramycia McGhee are good friends and he has attended events that are a part of the NAACP. They also hosted the annual freedom fund banquet. 

What Hughbanks wants to do when he graduates is to continue teaching and focusing on working for social change in Linn and Benton counties. His goals include continuing to work in his community, he also wants to focus on health and wellness. How he is going to achieve these goals, is to take it one day at a time. He is doing his reading and writing each day to get closer to his Ph.D and celebrating each day because he is a little closer to what he wants to do and he is staying connected with his friends. 

If Hughbanks could change the world and he had to pick his top three it would be to create more spaces that cultivate care, connection, and love between human beings; to take care of the environment; and honor the original caretakers of the land. He also wants better transportation within the state that uses renewable energy. The last thing he would want to change is a better health care policy that supports taking care of ourselves physically and emotionally. 

Jason Davis was the award winner of the Black History Month Essay Contest, and was in the unity meeting. What made him want to write a paper for the contest was that his teacher wanted him to enter this contest and he hadn't thought anything about it till his teacher brought it up to him. When he was writing this essay he felt good about how he was sharing his experience. 

He loves writing but he doesn't really share his work, but when he won the award it was a real confidence booster to him. He didn't think that he was going to win the award of first place of the Annual Black History Month Essay Contest; he didn't think that his writing was award worthy. When he was writing his essay he felt energized, he felt like there was good energy while writing the story. Davis wanted to create a story that people could connect with. 

Davis is currently going to LBCC with a major in psychology. When he graduates he wants to become a psychologist. He would like to work in schools and work with children. Davis believes that at a young age it is important to learn about mental illnesses so it can change people’s lives so people can move through it together. His goals include being able to educate parents and children about mental illnesses, especially African American communities. How he is going to achieve his goal is to be honest, so America's school systems will be receptive to teaching mindfulness and mental health. 

If Davis could change the top three things in the world he would erase racism because it serves no purpose to have others divided between people. He would also change the perception that material things and monetary wealth are important. “If people were more focused on what was truly important in the arts, science and exploration of the unknown,” he said.  He also would want a flying car. He wants to make our history always be told honestly, not sanitizing it because it may be deserving to some people or because they may be ashamed of the events in the past. Our history can help us dictate what our future looks like but only if we can see the truth. 

The celebration, now in its 12th year, began with a song written by LBCC student Mari Estibel Valverde and sung by the college’s choir.

Along with Davis, the other essay contest winners were Lacy Kennedy, second place, and Serenity Wilson took third place. 

Adult Basic Skills faculty member Jan West earned the Analee Fuentes Unity Award,  which is presented to one employee (or employee group) and one student (or group of students) for their contributions to diversity and social justice on campus. The students honored were Christopher Byers, Alexis Castaneda-Perez, Nyssa Cronin, Cassie Cruze, Shonna Dempsey, Ruta Faifaise, Jessica N. Hampton, Katherine Hemlock, Amy Huskey, Carla Medel, Hannah Morelos, Katie Niemeyer and Wesley Sharps. They were nominated for their contributions to the newly released (open educational resource) text for HDFS 201, “Contemporary Families: An Equity Lens.”

First awarded in 2015, the Gary Westford-Robin Havenick Community Connections Award was presented to Deb Powell, executive director of Love INC of Linn County.

CTE Program Celebration Informational Technology

 Week 2 of the CTE Celebration Month is informational technology. The jobs that are a part of the information technology CTE program include:

• Graphic designer

• Web designer

• Prepress technician

• Bookkeeper

• Medical biller/coder

• Payroll specialist

• General manager

• Event planner

• Preschool teacher

• Teacher assistant

• Network and computer administrator

The Business Management program has three certificates, which include: event management, retail management, and small business management. These management degrees were created in 2016 after the program was started. 

The informational technology job wages are:

• Graphic designers - $57,542

• Web designer s- $50,300

• Prepress technician - $45,073

• Bookkeeping - $44,336

• Medical biller/coder - $52,697

• Payroll specialist - $48,750

• General manager - $ 72,100

• Event manager - $41,717

• Preschool teacher - $ 33,246

• Teacher assistant - $33,470

• Network and computer system administer - $87,201

Michelle Hayes is an accounting technology major at LBCC. What made her go into LBCC’s Career and Technical Education program is that she has always loved numbers. That helped her be able to work in any field that she was looking into when she completes her accounting technology degree. 

Due to COVID, the program has been harder in that there are pros and cons. One of the pros of the program during Covid is how much instructors are helping, and one of the cons is that it's online. 

The biggest challenge is not being able to be in person, Hayes said. The biggest highlight is working with numbers and learning and making new friends along the way. 

The benefits of joining the CTE program include learning about the classes that are for accounting majors, and she can be certified in QuickBooks online and help her skills in Microsoft. 

Some information for future CTE students that Michelle shared: “Stay motivated and don't give up, because the teachers in this will support and help you in any way possible.”