Where were the Parents?

Last Monday, I was in the MLK library studying with a few friends. It has now become a weekly thing where every Monday, a couple of friends and I meet up and study at MLK to try to start the week right by studying in a nice sequestered environment. The feeling of silence makes it possible to help me focus, and actually get some work done, which otherwise would be near impossible in any other situation. I just seem to have a problem of studying at home, as there are too many distractions that await, but now getting back to the story.

Just as my friends and I were finally settled in to our table on the fifth floor, suddenly the fire alarm goes off. There remained to be incessant flashing of the alarm lights, and a nice uproar of people making their way to the stairs to exit. It was hard to imagine that this was happening. I was not sure what to think, and I tried not to rush to judgement, but then about an hour later another friend of mine walks into this local coffee shop, where my friends and I were attempting to study, with some news about the fire alarm being pulled. The reason why the fire alarm was pulled was due to some kid pulling the alarm. Just as I heard that I started to feel a little bit angry at the fact that some kid destroyed my relaxing study area. Yes, I know I'm complaining just like a little kid, but when I'm struggling to find the right place to study, it makes it hard to feel any type of understanding towards the kid. It is just other people in the library were trying to do the same thing and be productive in their studies.

I know that kids will be kids, but the question I have has to do with the Parents. Where were the Parents? Why were they not watching their kid? I know that I do not have the full story, but it is still hard to understand that this kid would be able to pull the fire alarm. Pulling a fire alarm is serious business, and when it is a false alarm that can make some people very frustrated. Yes, that includes myself. However, it was a false-alarm, but I just hope for future reference that these Parents are in complete control of their kid. Kids will be kids, and life goes on. So, in this case I will stop complaining and welcome this new week, as well as new month. May November be better than October. Good luck to everyone in this critical and defining month.

A Nice Change of Pace

Pain=Happiness

People are afraid of pain.

However, I am not afraid anymore.

It felt so right, despite the circumstances.

She was worth the sacrifices.

She helped me grow, and for that I will forever be thankful.

I hope that she knows that I was sincere.

I did find her perfect in every way.

There is nothing I wanted to change.

There was a reason I fell for her, and because of this I never wanted her to change for anyone.

She was real and that was all that mattered.

Before I met her, I thought love was an illusion.

However, this illusion became reality. I then became the fool, but a fool in love, nonetheless.

No grade, no amount of money, no level of accomplishment, could trump this feeling.

I felt like I had already climbed the highest mountain or made that breakthrough discovery.

I may feel full of pain, but this is a joyful pain.

Even though it feels like my city is burning down, I remain hopeful that I will rebuild it.

This feeling of repeated shock still remains, but I will always hold her in the highest regard.

I wish her the best, she deserves the best, and whoever is lucky to be with her, better get this memo.

The reaction to your writing may sound brazen, but expressing these type of feelings should be hackneyed, and will help to create the necessary growth needed to advance in this world. Let your heart speak to the world!!

Surviving The Daily Grind

This past week I have been thinking about my future. I guess I have come to the realization that my undergrad will be done in just over the next year. I find it hard to imagine that this time spent in college has passed by so fast, and the baleful part that remains involves the upsetting job market that awaits. However, with this ever shrinking job market, I find it easy to fathom that I will be unable to find the job I want after I graduate. Still, I have come to the conclusion that no matter what job I land out of school, it will still be an irreproachable job, as it will come down to what I make out of the situation. During my time working in retail, I have come to be humbled by the fact that this job does matter, and that if I cannot handle this job, then I will not be able to handle anything that life throws my way.

So, as this job market continues to get worse, just remember that whatever job that is available, it is up to making the best out of every job situation. I know that it is easy to state this on my blog, but it all comes down to embracing the times of our struggle and making the best of it, since the climb up the mountain top will only remain steep in the future. There is a reason why all of my fellow classmates have made it this far in life, as they have persevered to handle the daily grind that has come their way. I know that in the coming years, life will only be more difficult, but it is important to remember that with the right mindset and work ethic that things will change for the better.

Procrastinating On Midterms

This procrastination has to stop. It is catching up with me. Well, there are two things I need to do in order to make this change happen. This first includes staying off the website known as Facebook. This website just has a dynamism over me, for which I'm having a problem shaking. It is quite frustrating that this website is taking time out of my life like this. It is just those pointless applications and the time I take to posting articles on my page, which takes the most time.

However, it is not the website that needs to be blamed. Only I can make the changes necessary to get past this obstacle. The other thing, which I have finally come to determine creates this procrastination is my lack of ability for me to focus when I'm at home. I'm just never able to focus, which is for a multiple amount of reasons. So, my main focus will now be to just get all my homework done at school. I know that if I actually stay a little later studying on campus, I will be able to get the work I want to get done.

The reason why I'm writing about this is because this past week I put off studying for two midterms, which were back to back, and with the same Professor. Before Monday of last week, I had done none of the reading for any of the classes and was just going off what I knew from lecture, which of all I attended. It was extremely difficult to balance studying for both midterms, as there did not seem to be enough time to internalize all the information. In order to best prepare for these midterms, I just avoided Facebook and studied at school later. The grades for these midterms are not out yet, but when I was focused at school studying, I felt I was getting something done and was beating this terrible habit.

Whatever my grades happen to turn out for these midterms, I remain hopeful that I have learned my lesson. It is climacteric that I get my studying schedule in order, and to take the necessary steps to beat this habit, instead of blaming other factors that I can control. So, now I'm off to go study for a midterm that I have this Tuesday, but if you are suffering from procrastination, spend a little time and analyze what is causing this problem, and what can be done to solve it.

Yes, I am a "Traitor"

This morning, I turned on my computer and checked the daily headlines. I was browsing around the Internet and found a very interesting story, which had to do with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) deciding on the site for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games.

There were four finalists for this event: Tokyo, Madrid, Chicago, and Rio de Janerio. The first two cities that were eliminated came to be Tokyo and Chicago. It then all came down to Madrid and Rio De Janerio. Madrid would end up being eliminated and for the first time in the history of the South American Continent, a South American country will be hosting the Olympics.

Brazil will be the second Latin American country to host the games since Mexico did back in 1968. This is a monumental occasion for the country of Brazil and the Latin America countries in the region. It will be the formal ideal situation where Brazil, like China in 2008, to showcase their rising nation.

It is now time to address my "traitor" status, which has come to hit me, since I first professed my congratulations toward Brazil for scooping up the 2016 Olympic Games. Yes, I was not in support of the Chicago obtaining the bid, it was not due to any type of anti-Midwest sentiment toward this region, but I find it hard to take this bid seriously when the division between the citizens was so tempestuous.

However, this was not the main reason why I was excited for Brazil gaining the games. My main reason has to do with the lack of site distribution that has occurred since the Modern Olympics were first started up in 1896. I was looking over some numbers and I found a disturbing disparity of how many times the U.S. has hosted the Olympics games, which was a staggering 8 times. When I saw this my jaw just dropped, and after browsing through all of the other regions of the world that got to host the Olympics, I saw no country from the South American Continent had hosted the Olympic games. So, due to this reasoning, I find it prodigious that Brazil gets to host the 2016 Olympic Games. It is about time that this booming country and growing Continent firmly get to be on the World stage to show all that they have accomplished.

So, please if you happen to be upset that Chicago didn't get the games, remember that America has been more than lucky to host the Olympic Games.

Can Despair Create Happiness?

During my Freshman year of College, I had the opportunity to take part in a Drama class. In this class, we watched a lot of movies, trying to analyze what type of camera angles were being used, if we could really believe the acting of the characters, and in this case we would have the ability to critique the movie. There was this one movie, which really grabbed my attention, it was not due to the phenomenal acting, the strong story line, or the cinematography, but it was because of this one statement from one of the characters.

This movie was "Little Miss Sunshine", in this film it gave a detailed analysis of the complex inner-workings of the average family, as this one family would experience their own set of complex problems. Toward the end of the movie, there was this scene where Frank (Steve Carrell) was speaking to Dwayne (Paul Dano), about a comment that he made about wanting to skip through high school.

The dialogue is presented as follows, thanks to imdb.com: (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449059/quotes)

"Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that. "

The basic meaning of this dialogue is centered on the belief from Frank, that the years which Proust suffered through helped to make him stronger and wiser from the adversity he experienced. The time that Proust was happy and successful, as Frank explains were a waste, since he was not able to learn anything of any real substance. The question now remains: Do you buy this?

I do buy this statement to some extent. The reason why I take this statement seriously has to do with the idea that when we are faced with conflict or unfavorable circumstances, it causes us to get out of our comfort zone and take the actions necessary to survive the situation. Then the after- effects of this selected situation helps to prepare us potentially for similar future conflicts, which most likely will take hold. The lessons that we take from these past obstacles can spill over into other areas of our lives as well.

In my life I have had to overcome many obstacles to get where I am today. Even though I'm in no position to brag, I still feel that through the obstacles, which I have had to overcome have put me in a better position to succeed in the future.

In this case, I will give an example of how a situation of uncertainty and adversity has helped to put myself in a better position today. Going back again to my Freshman year of College, I was saddled with what felt like extreme pressure to do well at school, being that I was the first in my family to go to college.

The Fall semester started off terrible, I had no idea what my Professors expected or what I expected from them. I had this constant fear of flunking out, being that I previously heard horror stories of how Freshman usually flunk out. All of these new found pressures had a deep and negative impact on my psyche, as I entered in to the intense college environment.

However, there was one defining moment during this first semester for which would change me forever. In my Political Science class, we were assigned back in August, a 10- page research paper, which had to be based on the analysis of any political ideology. The only problem that occurred was that I put off writing this paper until 8pm the day before it was due. I already had my sources, but no real understanding of the subject that I was writing about. Despite these palisade type obstacles I plugged away at attempting to write a decent research paper, which at the time was my longest. I then had finally finished at 5am, and when this happened I suddenly felt a sense of accomplishment, despite having the feeling that this was not my best work.

However, I still had this feeling of Sanguineness, which I had never quite had before. The reason for this feeling as I later analyzed involved overcoming this once unthinkable obstacle of not being able to meet a college level deadline, and that if I could create a paper of decent standing with little effort and time put into it, that I could handle any situation that will be put in front of me in the future. This was a powerful feeling and a feeling that has remained with me to this day, when a new obstacle comes up. Despite having this moment of dark despair, I was able to fight through it, and because of this I'm better off for it to this day.

Even though I did not get an "A" on this paper, my "C" felt like an "A", being that I knew it was not up to my potential. Success and a little adversity can go a long way in still helping a person grow, but there is no way that it can measure up to the struggles that we all suffer through.

So, just remember that the times that you are suffering through, will end up paying dividends in the future. Facing adversity head on, despite the result, will in the long-term make the average person better off, but in the end it all comes down to if we are willing to put in the work necessary and are willing to take the bumps and bruises that come with the territory to advance our own well-being. I would hope that everybody, in every situation, in every background, and in each phase of their life will remember that there is some good, which comes from suffering through adversity, and just to remember to embrace the struggles which you are involved in, because you will be better off for it. This may sound naive or idiotic, but just think back to a time where you were faced with an uphill challenge, which you may have thought was impossible to accomplish, but even with these obstacles you were still able to push through and accomplish the goals you were seeking to meet.

Success is beyond fantastic, but there is still so much more that we can take from the adversity that we face. It may not be the best way to get where we want to go, but in the end we will be better off for the difficult situations that we get to experience.

It Never Ends.....

During this past weekend, I had the opportunity to see first hand the desolation that plagues our environment. This activity consisted of helping to clean up Upper Carr Lake in Salinas. This activity was in association with the statewide Coastal Clean Up that took hold this past Saturday.

Members of the SJSU Environmental Resource Center (ERC) as well as students from around the greater area volunteered their time to help clean up this heavily neglected Lake. It was quite disturbing to find the wide amount of litter that engulfed the Lake. The things the people would put into this lake ranged of the most random things. This included finding street signs, tires, rims, bikes, mattresses, crap bags, desks, paint cans, strollers, and everything else that you can imagine. All in all, as a group we found over a 1,000 pounds of trash just by cleaning that one Lake. This is just an eye-popping number that caused me to have a weird churning feeling in my stomach. This feeling developed in the way that I felt a sense of guilt that our fellow community is doing this. As this once marvelous Lake has been diminished of its purity, and the innocent animals that are being threatened is quite a perturbing scene.

This experience helped me understand unlike anytime before that as a community we need to continue to work together to stop these things for happening, and continue to put the work in to our environment to have it remain pure and pristine.

There is still much to do to right the wrongs of the past, but there still is hope for the rest of us, when groups like the ERC and the many volunteers take time out of their busy schedules to help make our planet a cleaner place.