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.