ethanyoo.com/content/now.md

---
title: Now
date: 2022-01-24
layout: permalink
description: "Find out what I am doing now: what I'm reading, what I'm working on in my free time, and where I'm at professionally."
---

**You might also want to read:** [What is a "now page"?](https://nownownow.com/about)

## Recent academic and professional decisions

Through AmeriCorps VISTA, I have been serving as the Program Evaluation Specialist at a large human service organization.

I have been working toward a second bachelor's degree (Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science) at Thomas Edison State University (TESU). I am currently taking Data Structures (in C++), Database Management, and Software Engineering. I am also making use of credit recommendations from [ACE](https://www.acenet.edu/National-Guide/Pages/default.aspx) and NCCRS for coursework at non-collegiate providers (e.g., [Study.com](https://study.com/college/index.html)).

I plan to start the last two of my required classes (Computer Architecture and the liberal arts capstone) at TESU next month and apply for June 2022 graduation.

As of January 6, 2022, I have officially withdrawn from the Master of Social Work (MSW) program at Smith College School for Social Work. I have since applied to ALA-accredited master's degree programs in library and information science.

## In my free time

I'm toying with the idea of writing publicly on [Write.as](https://ethan.writeas.com/) again. I only made it to Day 4 of the 100-day challenge, but I did end that last post with "I'm having fun writing posts as part of #100DaysToOffload!"

I'm also planning to update [the resources page](/resources/) (or create a separate page) with content related to civic technology, computational social science, and data science.

## What I'm reading

Schoonmaker, S. (2018). *Free software, the Internet, and global communities of resistance.* Routledge.

# In previous months

## November 2021

* Between moving in January 2021 and summer coursework at Smith College, I had some months where I wasn't regularly volunteering as an EMT. I'm back to it as of late November 2021.

## December 2020

* I started participating in [#100DaysToOffload](https://100daystooffload.com/) on December 1. #100DaysToOffload "challenge[s] people to publish 100 posts on their **personal blog** in a year." I'm posting these entries to [Write.as,](https://ethan.writeas.com/) a blogging platform with its foundations in [free software](https://writefreely.org/) and [a respect for privacy.](https://write.as/principles)
* I disabled access logs and updated the [privacy policy](/privacy/) on December 24.
* I left Mastodon for a few weeks before creating a new account as [@ethanyoo@todon.eu](https://todon.eu/@ethanyoo) on December 29.

## November 2020

* I wrote my first "personal" post on November 2, where I describe [leaving Cloudflare and GitLab Pages.](/cloudflare/)
* I'm back to volunteering as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) as of November 4.
* I posted the [privacy and security policy](/privacy/) for this website on November 8.
* I wrote a new ["Start" page](/index.html) on November 11; it's now more of a landing page. There is an image of the old index page at the bottom of this post.
* I added the "Now" page (what you're currently reading) on November 11.

# Images

![The index.html (a website's default starting page) until November 11, 2020. It included summaries of the four most recent posts, as well as the header and footer. The current index page has similar links, including a modified footer.](/index-old.png#center "The website's index (home) page until November 11, 2020.")