Family Christmas

Christmas is always a big event with my family. Aside from Thanksgiving, my family always comes together to celebrate this event with food, games, and smiles. Every Christmas the gift exchange game we do is called the White Elephant, which is where everyone brings a gift and we draw numbers. The numbers are called in order and each person gets to pick a gift that is wrapped. Most of these gifts however were gag gifts but they come with a gift card. These gag gifts makes the event so much more enjoyable and allows everyone to be creative in how they disguise their gag gift. Unfortunately, for me I picked a gift that I hoped wasn't anything bad, but inside the box was a plunger. I was laughing all night about it because there were even funnier gifts given out, but I think mine was the best. This event always brings my family come together and I plan to keep this event going when I have children of my own.

Qualities of an Intern

The differences everyone encounters in their job is their duties and responsibilities. Most jobs have their benefits as well as negatives which ultimately determines whether or not that is the job that you would want. Some similarities I noticed were that it involved a lot of human interaction and it required a lot of organization skills as well as communication.Internship readiness appears to me as someone who is confident, energetic, hard working, and ready to interact with many people. These people show that they can turn things on time, cooperate with others, and always have a positive attitude. I would like to become this type of person to better myself and to be ready for internship as I continue to grow. I believe that if I can demonstrate this attitude towards my future manager and convert on the feedback I am being given at Year Up I will be successful in whatever path I choose

Reflection on Poll Working Experience

A one day job that I’ve had during high school was Poll Worker for San Francisco. My job was to connect everyone’s identification with the list we had to make sure they were in the right poll area to vote. I enjoyed this job because there was a lot of interaction and I got to meet many new faces. At 6 A.M. in the morning we all had to show up in a cold dark garage and set up the poll area. Unfortunately this is probably the part I hated along with closing because I did not know my fellow poll workers and it was freezing in the morning not to mention that it was really far away from my house. Despite the setting up and closing I felt this job really taught me a lot because I quickly adapted to the situation and managed to set everything up with my poll workers before it was official opening time. It was really hard to remember everyone’s names but none of us took it personally. I felt once we got to know each other during our down time it felt a lot easier to talk with each other.  I developed a little more patience working with people because I knew that it would take a while to match people’s identification with the names on the list and that they were busy people and had better things to do. I feel this experience taught me how to work together with a team quickly and even though it was an ephemeral type of job, I got more out of this experience than any other type of job.

Occupy Movement's relationship to mural

I feel that there’s a clear connection between the mural and The Occupy Movement. The connection would be that the mural itself is what the future would appear to be if things were continue to happen without change. There’s a famous phrase I heard which is history will continue to repeat itself. Right now in today’s economy we are in a recession which follows into a depression. The mural appears to display as though the city itself is in a depression because of all the colors the buildings are drawn as. The bodies placed in rows on the ground appear as though this will happen in the future which is why I believe there is a connection. The Occupy Movement is trying to stop this recession leading to the depression which is what they have picked up from the mural. The people in the mural appear to be suffering because they are unable to do anything now that it’s too late. The Occupy Movement however realized this and want to put a stop to this because they realized it can still be changed. The mural also tends to show the secrecy of what corporations are hiding from the public which is the wealth and power they truly hold. The movement’s slogan “We are the 99%” shows that they understand what these top corporations are doing and are fighting back. The connection between the mural and The Occupy Movement goes hand in hand because they are the preventers to stop what the future would look like. The future being the possible outcome of what is displayed in the mural which I feel is a very powerful image.

My Inspiration

What inspires me every single day would be my dad. He’s always been supportive of me whatever decision I made throughout my life so far and constantly gives me advice whenever I ask for it. He’s the only person I talk to about my problems because he’s open minded and always asks me when I usually come home how my day was. How he inspires me is because of the fact that he’s a hard worker. When I was a child I never got to see him until the evening because he worked as a mechanic all the way in Oakland. During middle school he left that job to work for the city and then he had more time to spend with me. Everyday he would help me with my homework and keep me on track with my studies along with my mom. My mother would always push me and stress me out but my dad was always there to comfort me whenever she went a little too far. Today he usually wakes up about 2 A.M. just to go to work which is quite amazing because he’s working this early compared to all the other people I know. It isn’t easy going to sleep early just to start work before the sun even shines. I feel very inspired to be dedicated because I would like to find a job that I would personally love and that I would show up that early for. He never complained about his job ever so I’m sure it’s something he enjoys doing. Usually whenever I see him working on cars he loves to talk about the parts which fascinates me because I can relate that to a computer. I hope they one day I can grow up to be like him and become the same model he was for me for my future children.

Steam Community

Steam is a client program that allows computer gamers to find each other and play games that they are interested in. The community aspect comes from the groups that are formed for each particular game. In these communities, location is a non-factor to join because all you really need is a computer and internet access to communicate to the groups. There are many different groups pertaining to many different games so no matter what you play you will never be playing alone. Depending on the members, most communities are helpful because they can all relate to each other and are more then willing to be supportive towards whatever you are trying to accomplish. What I enjoy about the communities is that they are very friendly and most members are active so whatever game I decide to play, I will never be alone.

Reflection

+                                                                                                     -
All assignments completed                                                           Patience
Elevator speech                                                                            Infractions
No absences                                                                                 More focus
Did well on quizzes/tests                                                              Take notes


I believe I did well this first module with the expectations I had for myself. A major issues I need to work on would be to not earn anymore infractions throughout the second module because I know the rules, but it was just common mistakes I made that made me earn them. I have a perfect attendance so far and I would like to keep that up and continue to complete all of my assignments. I would like to improve on my focus in class by getting more sleep and to have patience in class. The reason I would like to work on my patience is because I feel impatient at times during lectures when we spend 20 minutes learning something that may be simple for me but may not be simple for others. One last thing I need to work on is note taking because I rarely take notes on material that I have learned in the past, but it would be a good idea for me to start anyways as a refresher.

Hi Neighbor

     I am who I am because of the neighborhood I lived in. My neighborhood is very quiet and friendly. I don’t really talk to my neighbors to be honest and nothing really happens in the sunset really. When I heard about my colleagues’ neighborhoods I could only feel fortunate that I came from somewhere different. I didn’t have to experience the hardships and problems they had faced from their situations. That’s why I feel thankful, if I had been brought up in a different neighborhood I might not be where I am today. Most people tend to affiliate with different people because of where they live. I believe that it affects them greatly because they are the people who they will probably stick with through their school years or maybe even the rest of their life. The reason for this is because as kids you grow up with them and your relationship only becomes better as you get to know them. Having come from a quiet neighborhood I feel that’s maybe the reason why I don’t talk to my neighbors really. They don’t communicate and I feel that they probably don’t want to be bothered. Most of my neighbors I once saw moved out as well so I never really got to know them. I met most of my friends from school rather than the neighborhood mostly because I attended a private school and got to see the same faces every day. I believe that you can control who you want to be regardless of the neighborhood you come from because you meet new people every day. Having come from a quiet neighborhood I wasn’t very social in class and I didn’t really know how to talk to people. I did try however to make friends which is how I controlled how I wanted to be.

Closing the divide

Companies who profit from low-wage earners take advantage of them because they don’t want people to jump classes. Employees in these companies feel insecure if all of a sudden there were more people qualified for their jobs. The opportunity divide is an unjust system that doesn’t give everyone equal opportunity and prevents people from proving they can do the job just as well as another person. Companies pay low wages knowing that they can get away with it because to them, they’re making jobs but it’s only encouraging people to not go for a higher education because of the wages. I believe that government and the individuals themselves are the solution to fix this opportunity divide. Most companies are run by greed and try to cut their costs to maximize their profit. Government intervention is needed to stop corporations from taking advantage of the “cheap labor” they can obtain because they do not promote people from getting a higher education. It’s unfortunate that fast food jobs doesn’t require any type of degree or paperwork, just a simple application and an interview to become accepted which leads to no social development. Individuals have to put in the effort and time to break the gap as well because it starts with you. You the individual must come to realize that something isn’t right with how the opportunity divide is set up. Once you acknowledge it exists then you can do something about it.

An example would be how I personally felt that there was an opportunity divide because I wasn’t given the same chances as everyone else was to get a job because of the degrees or certificates I needed. I decided to enroll Year Up which believes in closing that divide. Not only that but it presents many opportunities that you normally wouldn’t have like working at a company as an intern. I believe this is one method to close this ephemeral divide and many more people will follow us as we continue to work towards our goals.

Who I am today

I am currently a student at Year Up and what drives me every day to show up is the skills I plan to learn from this program. I consider myself a hard worker and very reliable because I always try to show up early for class and turn in my work on time. If people rely on me to get something done I will always complete it. I was raised in an environment where grades were everything to my mother. I was sent to a private school and always had to follow the school uniform and rules. My mother would always push me to work harder so that I would be already used to it and not slack off later in school. She had also stressed how important it was to do homework. She had set high expectations for me and relied on me to always excel in class. What motivates me is my passion for technology and the many new people I get to meet along the way of my career. Many individuals appear throughout your life but what matters is whether or not you take the step to meet that person and find out what you can do for them so that they will see you as a source of help and so you can see them the same way.

NASA Satelite crash being considered a joke?

                News of a satellite falling from space have been speculated but the question right now is where. A NASA satellite which is the size of a bus is hovering earth’s atmosphere and air molecules are bouncing off the satellite which is causing its orbit to go off course. Eventually the satellite will be pulled down by Earth’s gravity and will fall down like a flying meteor. 26 large pieces of the satellite, roughly 330 pounds are expected to survive and crash into the Earth’s surface. Many people around the world are questioning whether or not they should be concerned. NASA has calculated that there is a 1-in-3,200 chance of anyone on Earth being hurt by the satellite crashing into them (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/science/space/23satellite.html?_r=1&hp). The satellite is expected to come down on Friday around 6 p.m. Eastern time. It circles around the Earth four times in six hours which is the reason why some people have become paranoid.

                My opinion on this matter was that while I was reading the article it seemed like it was being considered almost as a joke. I read that somewhere along the article that someone mentioned that their chances of getting hit by a satellite are even greater than winning the lottery. NASA should be responsible for this and they need to do something to prevent this from even touching the Earth’s surface.  I can’t understand people talking about the satellite would want this to happen as if it didn’t interfere with their daily lives, but rather they should show a little more concern rather than talk it off like it was no big deal.

My Highschool experience

My high school experience was a mixture of good and bad moments over the four years. My freshmen year, I felt like everyone else was trying to adjust and meet new people. The teachers I had to me didn’t seem to care, they just wanted us to read the book and do the homework. There was hardly any interactive activities my first two years. My third and fourth year, high school got better because I received good teachers that actually taught and cared about what we learned in class. By that time I knew most of my classmates because I had classes with them and knew who most of them were so the awkwardness of day one went away. The atmosphere definitely felt friendly especially because of the teachers’ attitude and the many new friends I had met the first two years. Unfortunately in my school we receive the same counselor for the four years there and my counselor wasn’t my favorite at all. It felt like every time I met with my counselor to discuss about the classes I wanted to take she would put me in something I completely didn’t want to take.

Who Influenced The Way I Talk?

        The person who heavily influenced the way I talk would be my grandmother. Growing up my parents were usually busy with work so I didn’t really see them until the evening. My grandmother would take care of me from the morning till then. She only spoke Cantonese because she was born in china and immigrated to America. She spoke very little, if any English because she had learned later on through interaction with our relatives who had lived here. As a child she spoke mainly Cantonese to me so it was only normal for me to learn. I didn’t learn English until I started watching television shows such as Barney or Blue's Clues. My English was quite horrible because I didn’t know how to structure my sentences properly so I guess I spoke “broken” English. My word choice and usage were not proper at all. In Cantonese there is really only one way to say a word and in English there are better ways to say words which are synonyms. Unfortunately when I had picked up more English my Cantonese soon became broken which when I realized that was the saddest day of my life. My English now is fine but my Cantonese is “broken” so I can't speak to her well anymore. She understands very little English so I can make out some words to her but it's difficult speaking to her in Cantonese at times.