Holiday Family Meeting

Over the weekend I made time to complete half of my Qualityh Assurance homework. I am so glad I made time to do so, reason being my wife's family can be an interesting endeavor to undertake.  I spent time with my wife's in-laws and siblings. We watched the 49ers beat The Seattle Seahawks 19 - 17. At my wife's brothers house we opened Christmas presents, the children were very excited with the presents  they opened. As I look back on how the night went on, it was fun to see my wife and I get a long with  with people who are usually are disagreeable. With everything consider it was a great Christmas to spend with the in laws. 

The YUBA Standards

The qualities that shows someone is internship ready is , being on time/time management, knowing how to organize/prioritize their time, and participating in a professional manner in any work environment. I plan to show that I am ready for internship by continuing to go to sleep on time so I can be effective at Year up. I plan to affect the environment in a positive way, like my colleague Nick Sing is well known for. I will continue to make to time to get my assigned work done before the deadline. I plan to able effort to communicate with my advisor Sherry, to take advantage of a third party perspective that will help me grow. As far as change is concerned, I would love to maintain habits that I have cultivated (that have listed above) to make sure that I get the most out of the Year up program. I am turning my attention to my interpersonal skills which I am changing, how I connect with my peers, so I don’t stand out in a negative manor. I will change how I spend my down time, to feed my passion for technology. 

My first Job

The best job that I enjoyed working at was Lowie’s Movie Theater, now knew as AMC 1000.

While I worked at Lowie’s theater, I had many responsibilities do to the fact that all employees had to

Cross trained in every department. My responsibilities ranged from the following: cleaning the theater

Rooms, sales at the concession stand, sales in the box office, and ticket taker/doorman. What made working at the movie theater enjoyable, was the fact that I had great supervisors. In this role at Lowie’s Movie theaters, I learned how to pick up new things that I had not attempted before. I learned how to be pliable to change  and that I could handle responsibilities well.  

Reoccurring Nightmare

The Connection between the Occupy Movement and Diego Rivera public painting “Frozen assets” are running parallel lines that both agree to this point, that power is held only by the rich. By this painting “Frozen Assets” holding the bank as the third picture, it shows the bank to be underground to a point of being hidden. This shows that everyone above the in the middle picture dose not know about these sources wealth. Occupy are trying to show that more people know about the hidden wealth by showing up and camping out in front of Wall Street. Occupy is trying to show the 99% are the ones sitting outside of wall street, until they see a shift in the balance of power in the US. This shows that a pattern is definitely being made and that our past mistakes are our future torments.       

The Samurai Within

In my short life span I have witness many things and as time as has passed I have seen many inspiration. I remember seeing the movie remember the Titans because of certain speeches that are made by Denzel Washington; inspirations like these that I have seen that have been long lasting and are still apart of me till this day. While other inspirations that I have seen were just for the moment or the situation. I would like to focus on one of the inspirations that have stuck with me. I derive inspiration from the anima called Afro samurai. The reason I find this anima so inspiring is the fact it was the first American anima, the over all look of the animation was beautifully drawn, and the music along with fights sequences just took my will to draw to a whole different level. When I am feeling down I can throw into the DVD player and all my problems don’t seem to be as bad as the main character situation. I understand that this anima has so many different interpretations no matter how many times I watch Afro samurai. I share the feeling in the animation about the main character called Afro that every day I as well have to choose how I want to live this one life I have. When I come across a problem that seems so huge I picture a katana in my hand, energy surges through my body, and no problem that I face has any other choose but to be cut down. Afro Samurai inspires me to always reach my goal, to be number one the way that best suites my style, and that I must face my what I want head on. This what I draw some of my inspiration from and I will never stop living up to said inspiration.          

Eassy Pre Write

Communities: Young Prophetz

Community benefits: very supportive, can voice your opinion,have people to bounce ideas from, growth in creativity, rooted in the rap culture,  no exclusion,

Disadvantages of community: One topic/order of business, unorganized,  high expectation, high Archie, our community being misunderstood,

What I do and Doing it Well

Looking back on the past seven weeks, I have seen a lot of strength that appear new to me, and some grow areas that I have been battling to conquer.  During this module I would like to highlight the things that I still need to improve on, so that you can understand way I hold what I did well in the module as a high achievement. The things I still have to work on goes as follows, 1) my grammar skills are to date something I struggle with, and being a part of the Year Up environment has helped me overcome this struggle, even I have some ways to go. 2) I found my verbal skills to need improvement as well, more along the lines of public speaking, 3) I had earned one infraction over the entire module, granted that I felt it was out of my control, I did not take it as well as I could have, and it shows me that I still have a growth area in dealing with my emotions. 4)Last but not least I found a growth area in how I study, I had earned as 83% on my final Technology exam , and I felt that I could have got a higher grade if I had been a little more sturdiest with hoe I took my notes.

The things I did well in the previous module as I look back on the workload was surprising, 1) I found that I worked better under pressure than I have done in the past, 2) I stay professional to the best of my abilities on the Year Up site, 3) and even though I had earned only one infraction during the past module, that was the first and last.  

Teachings Of Wisdom

I have lived in many different neighborhoods that have been considered to be poor or "ghetto". In many places I have lived, there has been poverty, violence, and a lack of resources. To verbally show you, I once lived in the mission district; the mission was and to some still has resemblance of the concrete jungle it once was. I have learned some of my most valuable lessons from these low income communities, I have also seen some of life’s cruelties take place in these poor neighborhoods. I grew up in 16^th and mission for a part of my life. The neighborhood itself was an interesting place. In the mission you do not really feel safe. There were gang members on every corner, deals going down in back allies, and an eeriely quite at times when the sirens would stop. I knew at anytime something could happen to me, at the same time I felt safe because I always had friends looking out for me. When I say friends I do not just mean people my age, I also mean adults or what the younger gang members called “the Old G’s” due to my family members, and friends of the family.

I am who I am because of the places I have grown up and the lessons I have learned, I have always been instructed in my life by the people that were marked bad, evil, or malicious. They taught me the codes of honor that covers more then just street editcate, they taught me how to socially interact and respect others. I have come to understand that I would not be the same man that I am today if I had not grown up in places like this. I have become greater because I took their wisdom, their advice. To honor them I will not fall into the same pits falls that are out there waiting.     

The Cycles of The Poverty Business

I feel that these companies are taking advantage of people living in poverty, even though there is an open market because people need money to pay rent and buy the essentials that they need to live. These companies prey on poverty stricken communities because the people in these communities don’t know any better or even know how the credit system works. So together with the publics limited understanding to the credit system, the media shows, and tells people in poverty that they need to live above what their needs actually are. When the truth is the system is setup to keep certain communities in poverty, so that they can keep making money off the same demographic. The fact that there are no set laws to keep these injustices from happening, this becomes more of a moral issue. These companies are exploiting the fact that communities in poverty don’t have access to certain resources, and these companies offer the services/resources without letting people know the pitfalls of the contract that they sign.    

This issue is hard for me to say who exactly should be responsible for alleviating problem like this. Personally I am bristled to know that these corporations are knowingly doing this to the poverty demographic, also at the same time they can’t really be held responsible for people ignorance or lack of interest of reading the fine print. On the other hand even if the common consumer does read over the fine print, there are words that common communities have had no experiences with, and will not recognize. In the end it will take efforts from the companies to explain the fine print in depth, for the government to reinstate economics in general education study, and people a like to expand their vocabulary to understand the outlines of these contracts to close the gap of this issue.   

Triumphant Journey (Bio)

Have you ever met a person that no one wanted to support? Well I am that person, my name is Elvis Morales, and I have experienced the feeling of being left to fend for myself. In my academic career no one noticed that I was dyslexic, so they did not take the time to teach me where I could understand. So I was placed in special education classes. My step dad (Majic Morales) showed me how to use these so called disadvantages as stepping stones to change my life. It has made me stronger in ways I could not see before.  This has since sparked a passion in me to help youth who were like me. This is what drew me towards becoming a part of the year up program. The more I can learn the more help I can be to other youth. The more children I can help, the more they see that they have no limitations, and the more we have young adults succeding in our communities  

California bill would ban warrantless cell phone searches

The article I choose to research was one on Cell phones and making a new bill that would bar unlawful searches of a person under arrest. I agree that limits such as these are necessary for the reason that police officers have a bad history of injustice. That they (police officer) more often than not are more willing to serve their interest then up holding the rights of the people under arrest. It would also mean that it would not be limited to just phones; it would go for tablet computers, laptops, e-readers, media players, and other available devices. In the article from CNN.com this phrase stood out because I believe in certain freedoms, I don’t believe in up saturation and the courts agree and see the same issue. (“They recognize that there must be limits to searches -- but they also know that incriminating evidence can be anywhere, and it's likely to be hidden.")This is also another side of the issue, that limiting the view of the searches of cell phones of persons in custody may let critical evidence slip though the creaks of an already shaky judicial system. So for myself this is a question of how far is too far. When do we cross the line between upholding the law and taking away personal freedoms?  This is an issue that affects anyone who owns a piece of communication technology. So even though it would be a hard decision I agree that these searches need to be monitor to ensure justice.         http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/20/tech/mobile/california-phone-search-law/index.html

My High School Experience

I went to Urban Pioneer High school; it was a continuation school for troubled youth. I had gone through a lot in my academic career before I went to this school. I had a problem with bullies and anger but nevertheless, I did make it through high school. Urban Pioneer was a place where they taught you based on how you would encounter situations in life, not in text books. I had trouble with participating and being an active learner but the teachers actually cared here. All the anxieties I had felt through middle school had been lifted. I did not have to worry about bullies at this institution and I felt that the teachers were more exacting with how they explained the paper work. So my experience of high school was more on a turnaround; I went from hating school to being able to understand why it was okay to apply myself in everything I could ever come to do in the future.   

Variations of Language

I have come to know and understand that the language I use was not molded by just my peers, parents, and teachers. It was made out of necessity of interacting with everything in my day to day world. I know a lot of people would that I have just one way of speaking and this would not be true. When I was younger I didn’t have a voice to be heard, it was an adults world where my opinion was not needed nor did not matter. So I looked for ways to be heard though what I heard every single day over the radio. Voices like Big Pun, Bigge, Tupac, Common, and even classical composers showed me how to express what was in my heart. I know that learning how to express myself would not be enough I would have to learn how to articulate to people in a professional matter. So my dad showed me the language of business men and taught me how to transition from one variation to the next. I know and understand that true language is built and made out of a need to affect change in the world we live in. So then all aspects of living helps mold and change things that we see, believe, and understand as a community. Most people can’t change their language until they are shown a new way of living.