Avery Balasbas

Shelter-in-Place Log #4

School has been closed since March 13th, 2020 and Governor Gavin Newsom ordered a Shelter-in-Place on March 17th, 2020. Despite other pandemics in recent decades (H1N1, SARS, Ebola, etc.) there hasn’t been a global pandemic or even state-wide shutdown during those times. And in accordance to SFUSD’s Continuity of Learning Protocol, all assignments at thisContinue reading “Shelter-in-Place Log #4”

Shelter-in-Place Log #3

March 25, 2020: Today the superintendent announced that six Bay Area school districts will extend the closure through May 1st and SFUSD being one of them. Like I mentioned in one of the previous logs— I am surprised and not surprised that they have extended the closure. I’m glad they did keeping in mind public safety, but now whatContinue reading “Shelter-in-Place Log #3”

Shelter-in-Place Log #2

Currently, SFUSD has put out what they define as the “Continuity of Learning” to address what [at least our district is doing, not so sure across the state] students could be doing and what teachers should be doing. Before the city-wide lockdown & shelter-in-place, I already anticipated that closure was upon us, especially with theContinue reading “Shelter-in-Place Log #2”

Shelter-in-Place Log #1

It’s been an interesting past few months for humanity and especially the past few weeks for California. Throughout January & February, more racially charged instances towards Asian Americans and Asians all over the world were springing up. At first, it was very distant, through Twitter or videos on Instagram. Then it turned into violence towardsContinue reading “Shelter-in-Place Log #1”

My Two Loves

Prologue: Aya and I decided to get a dog back in 2018. She seriously started looking for rehoming a puppy that Fall, and I didn’t really think anything of it. It was my first year working full-time so finding a dog wasn’t at the forefront of the laundry list of teacher tasks I was drowningContinue reading “My Two Loves”

Literary Analysis Annotation Organizer

Prologue: This is a scaffold that I have been developing over time, adapted from an assignment that one of my Teacher Ed professors assigned us to do when completing his readings every week. During my undergrad in one of my Teacher Ed classes, one of our weekly assignments for the class readings was to useContinue reading “Literary Analysis Annotation Organizer”

Parents just want to be included

A few days before the news of Gigi & Kobe’s death I saw this video of John Boyega on Twitter— surprising his parents with a house of their own. The weeks following of the Bryant accident has made me reflect on the recent deaths of my family and friends. And something he said resonated with me:Continue reading “Parents just want to be included”

Beauty Marks & Body Dysmorphia

Prologue: I can’t say I’m diagnosed with this because there are people out there who probably really struggle with their accepting appearance or given body. It affects their daily lives and sometimes even hour to minute interactions with their appearance. For those that don’t know, body dysmorphia is an obsessive focus on a perceived flawContinue reading “Beauty Marks & Body Dysmorphia”

Using Final Cut to edit a travel video

Seoul, South Korea Balasbas Trip 2019 Prologue: My parents have been asking for my brother and I to put a video together of the trips we had over July 2019. It’s been awhile, but it’s hard to make time to be creative while balancing work. Before, I could just slap videos together with iMovie, butContinue reading “Using Final Cut to edit a travel video”

Recounting the night

Prologue: This is a piece that I wrote one month after asking my girlfriend to go steady. Be official. Be together exclusively. I love looking back at things that I wrote at the beginning of our relationship. I actually wrote a lot. Most of it transformed into photos, and videos of her or moments together.Continue reading “Recounting the night”