HOMEWORK

It seems pretty linear a definition, but I'm going to break it down for you as to why my heart just jumps at the word. 
Home 
Just about everyone should know what this means. Its the place where your heart is, but more than that it truly is where you can be yourself and do whatever it is your heart desires. For me I live in Alameda, but I consider my home to be my room. Over the winter break I have done a lot of cleaning up and organizing of my room. It now has a really nice night stand and my bed is covered with a futon. This allows me to work on my bed with great ease.
Work
The definition of this word should be a stranger to no one. Yet while I worked on my home I also took great joy working on my Classwork. I took off an extra day and a half so I had a lot to work on. With it not even halfway into the break I feel like I’ve already almost finished all my work. Work may not make a lot of people happy but no one can deny that getting your work done early leaves you very happy and relaxed.
I still have a lot to do with more blog posts to come but for now I just enjoy this and smile.

From Start to Finish

Some of the qualities of a person ready for internship are:Confidence, Professionalism, and attitude. I have confidence in my tech skills and communication capabilities. One example is how I prepare to be in class on time and I give my everything to focus and excel at my assignments. To practice professionalism one must dress to impress. Keep your cool and always have a positive attitude are my heart and greatest strength. In the future I will do what ever I can to stay ahead of the game completing home work before its due  maintaining a routine of going above and beyond the call of duty and move forward in learning languages for humans and computers.

Employment Environment

1. What is the best and the worst job (paid or volunteer) that you have ever had?

• What were some of your primary responsibilities?
• What made the job enjoyable or not?
• What skills did you develop that will serve you well in internship?
• What lessons did you learn about the workplace and yourself?

I’ve had a lot of jobs I’ve liked. My top two jobs would be Cost Plus World Market and Raley’s Supermarket. At Cost Plus I was a sales associate responsible for just about everything from running the cash register to aggregating the inventory. What made this job the most enjoyable job I’ve ever had is how well the team worked. The people in authority were genuine and taught me a lot about the world of retail and work. I learned that one mistake isn’t the end of my job, but I must move forward and grow from that mistake to be better.

While Raley’s was a nice job there were a few hiccups that kind of crawled under my skin. Again I worked as a sales associate, but in a super market the culture was different then a specialty market. I mean for starters there was a uniform at raleys while Cost Plus was very loose with their dress code. Raleys also had a more authoritative line of command whereas Cost Plus had a open and friendly line of command. Raleys was still a wonderful place to work. Everyone there was very friendly and when I left to pursue more education they all wished me the best of luck.

Raleys taught me that education is of the utmost importance, and everyone on a good team will always have your back. Cost Plus taught me that surviving black Friday with your team basically makes you family. If anything, these two jobs have taught me that a job isn’t just you it’s a team of people working together to make that job into a community.

SOPA needs to wash up

In the article SOPA loses BSA support for online censorship Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe all agreed that the Stop Online Piracy Act needs some more work. The act as it stands is like a giant fish net that allows any copyright holder who feels as if their copy right is being infringed to have the website hosting it remove the content. IF the website hosting it fights this or if the copyright holder wants to they can cut off all forms of advertising which will deal a significant blow to the revenue of the website. What Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe all saw was cluster of mines that no company could steer through unharmed.  They are in support of protecting and enforcing copyright holders authority, but they also agreed that SOPA’s wording took it way too far. I have been watching over SOPA and bills like it for quite some time. This isn’t the first time big business has tried to “buy” the internet. However what has been shown is the uproar it will cause for this is not the first time this has happened. In Egypt and London the internet proved to circumvent a government that was trying to oppress its people; however, with SOPA it has been compared to communist china that blatantly censors whatever the government does not deem right. Internet piracy is bad but the way big business make it out to be is far from the truth.  We don’t need to give Hollywood complete control of the internet in order to stop internet piracy. We just need some self-control.

Inspiration In its Entirety

In small and large ways, we are all inspired. We draw our inspiration from people, pictures, art, music, behaviour, nature, etc. Consider something that inspires you and write a blog post of 300-350 words about it. Here are some things you may touch on:

• Describe the source of your inspiration- be specific and detailed.
• What feelings or emotions do you experience?
• Are you alone or do you share this inspiration with others? Are you aware of others having an alternate reaction to your source of inspiration?
• Forecast how long you think this inspiration will last- does it inspire you in the moment or something that you will derive inspiration from for the years to come?

Inspiration to me comes in many forms. People can inspire me but this is often rare unless I truly focus on what I want to learn from them. Communing with God in his natural creation draws much inspiration. Meditation of things such as in the silence of the waves lapping on the beach or taking a deep breath in the middle of a forest makes me feel his presence as though it was right next to me. I take inspiration from everything to be genuinely honest but what sticks with me is what makes me happy to be blunt.

People that inspire me right now are those with difficulties that I would be crushed under but still maintain their highest quality of work possible. I am inspired by them to use every second of my life that, most days, is a breeze. I don’t have it as hard and is a luxury that I am learning to appreciate; and, utilize to its fullest. In my year up class two ladies have caught my eye for their undeletable strength. They deal with outside noise akin to being in the front row in front of the speakers at an AC DC concert going on at a bomb range and they still survive, and some days, thrive. I constantly find myself helping them but I feel it is the least I can do for the inspiration and motivation to be better than I am always.

In the grander scale of things the sole inspiration I will always have with me in the good or bad days is my faith and walk with Christ. I feel the holy spirit in me like it’s another person and I can feel its strength on my darkest days. I also feel its joy and happiness on the brightest of times. Celebration and worship to me constantly inspire me. They work in me to grind out the little pebbles and help me keep a solid focus on the tasks ahead of me seeing through Christ’s eyes.

Inspiration takes many forms to me. Be it strength to do what I know must be done. Be it the cleansing and recovering power found in the only person that has been with me since I was born. I know in my heart how it feels to be inspired; it is like a roaring inferno made of love and genuine care.

Essay Pre Write

so what can I say about communities? I haven't known many. See the thing is when I leave I'm not really missed and yeah that can be kind of sad but at the same time its liberating. I think it reflects what people know about me, which is that I don't let go of things. even though I'm not with you your still in my heart good or bad and maybe it is something I should change but its a huge core part of what makes me who I am. its apart of who I am in a community. Maybe I'm not the guy always there or the guy that you can always count on but I am genuine and I am honest but I'm also not there. I guess finding a home is hard for me. Staying in one place always brings up bad wounds still bleeding. Its kind of a constant reminder of the now I don't want to live in. Everyday is a day I wake up working towards my dreams and quite frankly sometimes living in them. I still work hard to go forward for my dreams but in a community, sharing isn't always caring. come to think of it whenever I think of communities I have a negative thought to them. I think there have been maybe 2 or 3 communities where I really felt I belonged but even then it was hard. It seems its hard to be me in a group of people and that hurts but the pain fades away with friends and believe it or not I do make them. My friends are like my community and I guess we all share something that I never really thought of before. We are all ourselves, we present to each other our true personalities and try to unashamedly lay our problems out. There is a name for this, I know what community I belong to just not its name. The underground community? The new generation community? But no I want to break it down, I want to find a community where I truly belong because who I was may be the same but I'm not the same even with everything going around I keep my friends close. I guess to me belonging to a community or being missed never mattered because my communities appreciated my "grenade" personality. I want to write about my church though because of the community I felt there and the people I miss because I'm not there. On the other hand writing about year up also brings to mind alot of stuff I want to put down. Its just so much such a big choice; I can't make a choice that big. I can't answer the bigger question of "which community do I belong to" I just don't know.

I am learning to know myself

Topic:

What are some of the things you learned about yourself as a student or a professional in Module I? Did you surprise yourself in any way? Were you proud of yourself? Were you at all disappointed in yourself? Why? 

Module 1 was some “manure” but I gained more growth from my problems then I did get held back. I took adversity or problems I faced and turned them into solutions for problems.  What grew from me in module one was a branch with new types of fruits on the tree of my life. The fruits were sometimes very sweet and memorable like a Fuji apple, which is my favorite. Other times they were much like a grapefruit, I knew it was healthy for me even if I felt it was unnecessary.  Each day I grew to understand the fruit more than how it tasted. I understood what it did for my body and there were days I didn’t eat it, but maybe I would draw it. I learned and grew from the fruit of module one and it made me hunger for what module 2 would bring. 

I was surprised by how much I was appreciated which had never happened before for me. I was proud that I did my best to fight for what I believed in. I was disappointed that I couldn’t communicate properly or at least knowledgeably enough that my words conveyed the meaning I intended.  I want to be a professional technological mercenary. I want to tackle projects sometimes two at a time but only held by my whim as appose to another pencil pusher like what I’ve seen. I have the talent now all it takes is learning how to fly…so to speak.

Neighborhood Know-how

Write a post on your blog- 300-350 words- in which you talk about your surroundings and how this environment has affected you as a person:

• Briefly describe your neighborhood.
• Which statement best fits you and why?
• I am who I am because of the neighborhood I live(d) in.
• I am who I am despite the neighborhood I live(d) in.

From the outside Alameda can look scary but on the inside...well its still sort of scary but for different reasons. In a "small" city of a little over seventy thousand it can seem "barren" but I look at the housing and the community like Powerlight computers, Jim's coffee shop, south shore central...I mean Alameda town center and the wild life community much like an extended part of my own house. There hasn’t been too much of a need to work on our appearance except maybe a little up keep here or there and the big changes that have been made enhance not change our city. Sure we remodeled our mall of the mall from south shore central to Alameda town center but it still remained an outdoor mall. We also saw renovations to the Dunes apartment housing which made it much more aesthetically marketable but what always made it so wonderful is the actual layout which was not changed. Even though Alameda to me is home I know to many it can seem scary but that just makes me feel like I’m living in a haunted house and friends with all the scary monsters there, it really brings home the feeling don’t judge a book by its cover.
A lot of qualities Alameda carries I inherited. For example a lot of people might think Alameda is like a sort of Hitchcock film city, meaning that it’s eerie and scary and I feel people look at me the same way with misunderstanding. Once they see me welcome them, much like Alameda does when you get to know it, I do everything I can to offer whomever comes my way whatever I can. In many ways I want to spend the rest of my days in Alameda because it truly is the one place on earth I’ve found that I truly call home. I am who I am because of the neighborhood I lived in.

Prosperous Poverty

“Hey I’ve got an amazing deal for you, anything you want for free!!!! All you have to do is Surrender to me your soul and everything of value you have now and forever also worship me.” Seem like a joke? Well it should be, however it’s an unfortunate reality that makes our going forward as a united people near impossible. How can people care so little about their fellow human? How can they wake up in the morning and go to work? All good questions regrettably dwarfed by the statistic that banks like Stephen Inc. make sales that total more than 250 billion a year off of people who can’t find the time to read the fine print. This entraps them into a cycle of debt that carries on for generations. It must be stopped, not just to make our family and friends quality of life better but to make hope for tomorrow brighter.

Some might say the most prudent method is finger pointing. “Why hasn’t the government regulated how much big corporations can squeeze from the individual?” The truth is closer to home than we might care to admit. We need to empower and motivate the people around us by sharing our stories of failure, not as a curse but as a badge of honor for the knowledge we have learned and must share. The resources to stop the cycle are in our hands, our minds, and our hearts. We have all been hurt on this level but we must break the silence and spread the power of knowledge.

In the end, yes, I say the responsibility lays on the individual to provide help for their fellow human being to help bring down this parasite to our very lives. While it may seem like a challenge, we must sit down and put aside our pride. To let our mistakes feed a new generation of growth to become stronger this environmental accident.

My Passions

One of my greatest passions and motivations is animals! From dogs and cats to reptiles and birds, even small furry critters, I love them all. I’ve always been curious about the bond between man and man’s best friend and to this day it’s a constant source of joy. I think about the day that I can spend a Saturday out on the beach playing catch or sitting down inside curled up with a loyal friend and good book during a rainy day. Animals represent the best humanity has to offer and I’ve seen it first-hand.

I am also a huge fan of comics. From Bill Amend’s foxtrot to Rumiko Takeshi’s Ranma ½ to Jeph Jacques QuestionableContent.net, you will almost always find me with my nose in some form of comics because of the story and culture they bring to life. In foxtrot, it was reliving the 90’s, for Ranma it was the zany unbelievable stories that all seem to happen in hour long increments, and in QC it’s an alternative offbeat humor that almost always makes me laugh. It is always the best feeling to find people who I can connect with through comics because we have the greatest of laughs and happiest of times reminiscing about our experiences in each “world” we have been to.

I think my greatest passion comes from sharing myself and my knowledge with others. I can’t think of one place that I’ve been too where someone didn’t ask me for help. On Treasure Island at the Job Corps Center in my class I was almost something like a student teacher helping nearly the entire class. It was such a great encouragement that I could use my experience and knowledge to help others that it is probably one of my most precious some-what secret passions

Interested in Boredom

School is a difficult topic to make interesting. Especially if you were the only one. If you read my blog and feel a connection it's because for most of my high school life, that's how I did everything. Make friends? Message online. Talk to teachers? Message online. Social interaction? Chat room online. Suffice it to say high school was rather lonely. My father was working on average possibly 100 hours per week and my mother was my only support, its because of her that I survived and continue to for she was more like a teacher then any of my "734CH3r2" (Leet speak for teachers, I fluently learned how to speak it through most of my high school career). As much as my mom tried there was only so much she could teach me, what I didn't get in school I learned from life. To be honest if someone truly were to be interested in my boring old school the phrase "raised by wolves" would be brought to mind....I'm talking about werewolves of course.

Happy Misery

I thought about it and as a child I didn't have many friends so it explains for, awhile, why I was silent. However when I spoke my proficiency and my continuous train of thought became rather obvious as to what made me speak the way I did. My father gave me knowledge and my mother gave me wisdom. From my father sprung forth a hunger that shall never be satisfied, it drove me to the point of madness but under control it helped me truly become who I am. From my mother came a breathe of life, she taught me happiness, beauty, and sarcasm. I became who I am from one more person, Jesus Christ. My faith taught me to stay my tongue, speak the peace in your heart, and live life.

When I found my voice, it was soon silenced. It seems whatever I had to say no one really cared to hear. It wasn't until I started praying that I realized it was because of my honesty that people didn't want to hear me. They loved there lie so much they couldn't bear to loose it even for the freedom of a better truth. I knew that the spirit within me would keep a path lit for my heart to travel and whatever was ahead was better than what I left behind. Now its a matter of following my path until I’m finally, truly, Home.