Teaching Excel in DC

So I actually did get to teach Excel last Wednesday. I took the metro there because parking was difficult to find before 6:30PM, I couldn't just randomly park on the side of the street because it was considered "rush hour".

I severely underestimated how many students there were going to be, it was actually just 3 students. They had very basic Excel skills at varying levels. I stuck to my "lesson plans" and taught the extreme basics during the "first class", such as what cells, rows, columns, and worksheets were, along with how to input data into cells, and basic cell formatting.

Overall, it was pretty successful, I'm somewhat excited to see how the rest of the class will be.

Volunteering Continued

I rarely believe in "Giving a man a fish" type of volunteering. Instead, I'm usually more interested in helping people help themselves. But I guess once in a while, I'll "give out fish" just to do it.

Today, I helped make/pack sandwiches for the homeless. It reminded me a lot of the typical middle school lunch bag. It was a brown bag, with a bologna and cheese sandwich in one of those small sandwich bags, a snack (either apple sauce or pudding), and a fruit juice box.

We packed about 80 of them, and I'm delivering them to a shelter after work. Speaking of volunteering, I think I'm going to start volunteering at Byte Back Community Computer Center. I'll be teacher Excel, level 1 and 2, but mostly "real world applications" of Excel. Hopefully, it'll be fun.

Volunteering in Northern Virginia

I do something nice for other people every once in a while for absolutely no reason. Well, not "absolutely no reason", it could be boredom or Karma building.

I have exchanged a few Emails from "Northern Virginia Family Service", and I am going to start volunteering for them. They have a class where adults go there to learn the skills to get better jobs so they don't have to work in entry-level jobs for the rest of their lives. The class teaches speaking, computers, job searching, resume writing, interviewing, and other type of skills of that nature. It's a class Mon-Fri 8AM-2PM for 22 weeks. By statistics, over 90% of adults who graduate obtain "better" jobs.

I visited them today during lunch. The majority of the students in that class are foreign. I remember when I was young and new to the US, my parents had help from other Chinese people to "point them the way" in their careers back in Long Island. But what if there was nobody to help them with anything? I can definitely imagine this class being extremely beneficial for foreigners who don't totally understand the US customs and work culture. Nobody else will tell them "during a job interview, when asked why leaving the current job, don't complain about the low pay or about the current boss".

Due to my fulltime job, I can only participate in this about two days a week, 8-9AM (before work), but I'd love to participate more, if the experience turns out to be rewarding.

Philosophical Question: Is it still considered an "unselfish act" if the sole purpose of an act is to make me feel better about myself, bored and give myself something to do, or building karma for myself?