Just In Time

December 24th and I finally finished my Christmas shopping. Yeah it's super late, and yeah Target was the most crowded I've ever seen it. It just gave me reassurance that there are a plethora of ill-prepared individuals just like me. I'm just happy I was able to actually get it all done.

Captains Log

It's only two days into my vacation and already my sleep schedule is messed up. I find myself falling asleep at 3am and waking up at 11am the next morning. These shenanigans have to stop soon, or else I'll be doomed when my vacation is over.

The Final Stretch

First fourteen weeks are down, and only seven short weeks to go. Everyone seems to be saying that these last seven weeks really focus on internship readiness. What does internship readiness mean you may ask. Well, I believe that it's just like any other promotion in a career. If a person in my situation is internship ready it means that they were given certain responsibilities to upkeep as well as a set attitude and demeanor that must be present at all times.

I believe that I am internship ready, an I'm not the only one. Both of my evaluations were extremely positive and assuring of my skills and attitude. The only piece of "negative" feedback in my evaluations was to just keep performing the exact way that I was an am, and I will continue to do so. I will continue this by helping myself as well as my colleagues around me, being as punctual as possible, being accountable an responsible as possible, and always keeping a positive attitude. If I keep up the way I've been for the last fourteen weeks (and I'm sure I will), then I should have no problem in the transition into my internship.

It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Worst of Times

Everyone who's had a job has had a job that they disliked. I believe that it's much more common to have a bad job than a good or decent job. Out of the three jobs that I've ever had, I disliked all three. However, the one that I disliked the least would have to be my flower delivery job. There's many reasons why I disliked it the least. For one, who can seriously get mad at delivering flowers all day? You're dealing with flowers, and all you're doing is making people's day. My average day at the job consisted of sweeping up for about fifteen minutes, looking over delivery orders for the day, planning out the best routes for delivery, and simply driving around town for hours putting a smile on people's faces.Given the right circumstances, it can be one of the best jobs ever.

I think that that everyone at some point has had the dishonor of working in retail. I've never heard of someone having a pleasant overall experience with their retail job. This statistic includes myself. Once upon a time, I worked at a little place called Safeway. I only worked at Safeway for seven or so months, and I worked harder than everyone else that had the same position as I did. However, despite my hard work and dedication to the job, I got absolutely no where in the "careerical" totem pole. My hard work was only rewarded with more (terrible) hours and tasks that weren't in my job range and did not come with any added benefits or pay. I think it's safe to say that if you want to absolutely go no where in your life, a retail job is the right thing for you.

Destroy My Economy Once, Shame On You...

People say that history is bound to repeat itself. I believe this to be true even more so for huge events like wars, economy breakdowns, etc just for the simple fact that we remember things that have a bigger impact on us. I find the mural Frozen Assets by Diego Rivera to be very interesting. Though it was created regarding the great depression, it really could relate no any large economy breakdown. Nowadays, when people think economy many thoughts may pop up. One that applies itself more so than others is the Occupy movement. When I look at Frozen Assets, I think that Rivera must be some kind of time wizard to be able to create something that relates so strongly to an event that's happening eighty years in the future. What I see when I look at the mural closed off banks, people who've lost everything because of said closing, and huge, thriving corporations being built on top of those people. This directly relates to the Occupy movement in that the 1% is thriving and getting richer, while the 99% is getting poorer and poorer. I also believe that the closing of the banks could be taken as symbolic rather than literal. It could represent all that caused the 99% to become poorer than they'd like, which then caused them to Occupy. If you were to look at that situation that way, then the whole Great Depression could be blamed on banks and such.

My Biggest Inspiration

Almost every single person has some kind of inspiration in their life. Some may be inspired by an event. Some may be inspired by a person or group of people. Some may even be inspired by a dream they had. Inspirations come in extreme variety, but as long as they serve their purpose then it doesn't really matter what kind of inspiration they are. Then again, if it didn't serve the purpose of being an inspiration, then it wouldn't be an inspiration in the first place.

My biggest inspiration in my life is my grandfather. He's always been a very important part of my life. He was there to set me straight when I wasn't doing so well in school. He was there to help me out when I needed a place to stay. He has always been there for me when I needed him. I also look up to him because he's always been a very successful individual. He's a retired city engineer, and he's worked on very important projects in a handful of major cities. He's just been a very important part of my life, and I'm very grateful for all of his support in my endeavors.

Though I have countless inspirations that effect my life positively, my grandfather is by far the most important inspiration in my life. I know I can always count on him whenever I have a problem in my life. Be it an assignment I’m having trouble on, or a resume I need looking at and correcting, or if I need some money lent to me for something important. Whatever the support may be, I can always count on my grandfather to come through for me.

Karammunity

I have not been a part of many outside communities in my life. I was never involved with any school clubs, or boy scouts, camp, or anything like that. One community that I really devoted a huge chunk of my life to was my martial arts class. For around seven years I practiced Tae Kwon Do. I started from the very bottom and worked my way to the very top and achieved my black belt.

My martial arts community was very strong. Everyone was there for many different reason, but we all were working towards the same goal: to achieve discipline, character, guidance, and maybe awesome physical prowess.

Every member of this community chose to be there, and each and every one of the members had a different background. Despite the diversity, we were all able to come together in both cooperation and friendly competition. We worked through grueling exercises, focused and complicated forms and friendly sparring against one another. The goals of this community is to build extreme self discipline and respect, respecting others, team work, skill building and many other life lessons and invaluable techniques.

Seven Weeks Down, Fourteen to go!

The first seven weeks of the year Up program have been not just fun and interesting, but very challenging as well. There are some areas that I passed through with flying colors, and there are some areas that I could use a little work in.

Plus!
Public speaking -  I feel that this program has helped my public speaking tremendously. I have absolutely no problem speaking in front of an audience (an audience of at least 40 so far, but it's a start).
Paying attention - I found almost everything in this module to be very interesting, and I have no problem keeping most of that information in my head.
Turning in quality work - I made sure that each assignment was complete and with little to no mistakes. As soon as I found something that was incorrect, I would remedy it.
Little side talking - Because I found all the material so interesting I was able to focus primarily on the work and save the socializing for when it was okay.
Friendly to colleagues -Everyone in my learning community is so awesome and nice. I found absolutely no problem in making friends with each and every one of them.
Helping fellow colleagues - Whenever I saw someone who may have been confused by a certain thing, I would always try and extend a helping hand to that person.

Delta!
Could participate more - Even though I know the material and the answer, I rarely ever raised my hand to participate in class. I always figured someone else would be thrilled to do it. It's something I can work on in the future.
Could help others more - Even though I tried to help out as many people as I could in class, I could always help more.
Could completely eliminate side talking - There are a few occasions where I'll lean over to the side and crack a quick joke with one of my fellow colleagues. I believe that can be saved for after class, or when there's an appropriate time for socializing during class.
Could study more for tests - Though I did extremely well on the tech final and midterm, I still have no idea what my grade was for the Business Communications final. It's making me quite uneasy, as I did not study much for that final, and I was a little unsure about more of that final than I would have liked to be.

My Neighborhood Reflection

Our surroundings can have a major impact on who we are, or who we become. More specifically, the surroundings we grew up in. If we lived in a particularly flavorful neighborhood, chances are we would grow up to reflect the activity in that neighborhood. Same with a boring, plain neighborhood. We'd more than likely end up boring, and not knowing anything other than what we grew up in. My point is that for most people, our surroundings have a huge impact on the person we become.

This concept is not always the case though. I, for instance, grew up surrounded by terrible rap, and sagging pants. I do not look down upon people who have adopted this lifestyle. It just simply isn't me. I believe that when it comes to this situation, there are two categories people may fall under: people adopt a lifestyle because of their environment, and people who've adopted their lifestyle despite their surroundings. There is however, a lot of space in between these two categories that one may fall in, and I believe that this is where I reside.

I do believe that had I grown up in a different area, I'd have come out a different person. Not because I followed the behavior that was around me, but maybe because I saw it happening constantly, and it gave me the idea of what I don't want to be. I wanted my personality to be as much me as possible, and not sculpted around an environmental stereotype. I listen to music that was uncommon in my neighborhood. I grew up hearing a lot of Eminem, 50 Cent, Outkast, and all that stuff. I find all of that to be just terrible noise. Another example is my appearance. Where over-sized white T-shirts and baggy jeans were popular, I was wearing quirky, medium sized t-shirts with white cargo pants. there are countless factors that go into a person's personality, and though environment plays a huge role, I don't believe that your entire demeanor can be related to where you grew up, where you currently reside, or anything like that.

Poverty of the Business Variety

The business world today is pretty cutthroat. No one's afraid to get their hands dirty for a little bit of money. A prime example of this is all of those businesses that take advantage of the unfortunate for their own gain. For example, an individual who may seem to be in a bad place financially could walk into a banking corporation trying to find a way to make their situation better. What some of these companies do is gather as much information about that individuals finances as possible, and come up with a plan to allow that company to get the highest amount of money they can out of that person without completely running them into the ground. While they're still decent enough to take their other financial needs into consideration, the amount of wiggle room they give the individual is very ephemeral if not non-existent.

Although this technique is not particularly illegal, I find it to be quite immoral. These businesses are doing absolutely no good for the society. How are the poor supposed to move up in the world when all these businesses are taking complete advantage of them and making their situation even worse? I mean, of course it falls under the consumer to pay more attention to detail and read in between the lines, but if you were in a financial pickle, and someone offered a quick way out with just a few stipulations, you'd be thrilled to take it. 

What those people may not know though, is that those stipulations will most likely make you worse off than you were before. Even more so if you're poor to begin with. Just because these people are desperate for a quick buck, that doesn't make it okay to quickly take advantage of them, which is what these businesses are doing. I understand that everyone needs to make a living, but there’s always a moral line, and these companies have no problem crossing it and then some.

Walk The Walk

Greetings readers and fellow colleagues! I would like to start this post by giving a little personal information about myself. I was born and raised in the (sarcastically) wonderful town of Vallejo, CA. I have many hobbies; most of them are physical activities such as running, surfing, biking, and all that jazz. However, I do have an extreme love for computers, video games, and basically anything tech.

Ever since I was a little kid, I was always fascinated by computers. I would always strive to answer any questions I had via hands on self-teaching. I would constantly find myself popping open a computer tower to unplug and inspect all the parts. I would always get a feeling of satisfaction whenever I would close up the tower, power up the computer, and have it work as if I never tampered with it.

This love for computers has only grown over the years, and blossomed into a desire. A desire to have a stable career in any sort of tech corporation. There's many fields of computer science that I'm interested in: be it a software engineer, IT specialist, bug tester, or anything in between. Fortunately for me, I'm headed down the right path to accomplishing my goals.

Death Sentence in Georgia Sparks Major Contraversy

        Once again, there is another Death Sentence case floating around the media, though it's not just your average death sentence. The sentence was issued to a one Troy Davis. He was convicted of murdering a police officer (Mark MacPhail) on August 19, 1989. Multiple people had said that they saw Davis physically shoot MacPhail, and even some said that Davis had confessed the murder to them personally. Despite this "evidence", the case was still one of the most controversial cases in a long while. Me personally, I am for the death sentence, just as long as there's really hard evidence against the person, and every story matches up. If a person was convicted of a death-penalty worthy crime, and there's any sign of a hole in the case, they should not have to face the death penalty. That being said, I believe that Troy Davis should have only served jail time, even if it was life. There were so many holes in his case: the gun was never found, only bullet casings that were traced to Davis; many witnesses changed their testimonies, saying that they saw a man who was with Davis shoot the cop, rather than Davis himself. I was surprised to see that there were so many famous people against the execution: Sean "P Diddy" Combs, former president Jimmy Carter, and even Pope Benedict XVI. The NAACP even tried to get President Obama involved, even though he doesn't have the power to grant Davis clemency for a state conviction. Obama felt that choosing a side in the case wouldn't be a good idea, so he respectfully declined. Though I do believe that there was enough evidence to have a case against Davis, I most definitely believe that there was not enough to sentence him to the Death penalty.

                                                                      Bibliography

Author: Greg Bluestein

URL: http://news.yahoo.com/ga-executes-davis-supporters-claim-injustice-031409578.html

My High School Experience

     My experience in high school left a lot to be desired. It was filled with missing teachers, slacking substitutes, unruly children, and classes constantly being cut, just to name a few. During senior year, I had a Spanish2 class that didn't have a teacher the entire year. Every day, we had a new sub. All I did in that class was play cards with my friends, and get an A. It was absolutely ridiculous. The lack of staff was not the only problem with that school. The children there weren’t the most well behaved bunch. Fights would break out constantly, so often to where there would be about three cops patrolling the school at all times. Also, there were little to no extra classes available. It reached the point to where it was basically just History classes, Science classes, Math classes, Government and Economics, and Spanish.  One could probably blame all this pandemonium on the immediate area the school was located in, but I believe that the real problem was the fact that being located in Vallejo really gave it no hope at all.

          

Grammatical Effects of Unintentional Peer Pressure.

          For a large chunk of our childhood, all we know is parents. They're the ones (in most cases) who taught us how to speak in the first place, so of course they're the majority share holders of our speech methods. I believe that all that changes when a child has his first day of school. It's a new world, and that child will no doubt be hearing words they've never heard before, and not just words, but how they're pronounced as well.  Such is the beauty in the flexibility of the English language.

         I feel that the older you get, the more you create your own certain style of language, and the impact others may have on you becomes less and less. I say that mostly because that is how my childhood was. Coincidentally, it seems as though my English straightened up soon after graduating from high school.
   
        I would like to say that the entirety of slang has left me for good, but that would be quite impossible. When hanging out with my circle of friends, one of us would come up with an incredibly hilarious word or phrase to describe something. It didn't necessarily have to make sense (in fact, most of the time, it didn't), but we all knew from then on what it was, and would giggle every time one of us used it. We're constantly coming up with new phrases, and discarding the old. Thought it may sound like nonsense to anyone in our immediate area at the time, we all know exactly what the other is talking about... But I guess that's basically what slang is, right?