...it was about time

     The day has come, finally. During this whole semester I dreamed about this moment, the moment when I wrote this closing blog post. As you may have notice by the way I wrote on my posts I am not a writer neither a reader. At least not in the literary artistic sense because I do like to read other stuff. You may be asking why did I enrolled in this Journey, well I did because I had to. This has been a very demanding assignment, I had never wrote so much in my whole life.

When they told me I had to make a blog for this class

    I was waiting for this day since the day I had to open the gmail account. For me writing is not very attractive and I have never been prone to do so by myself. I come from a school that inculcates Science and mathematics from an early age. They did have a humanities program in which the more creative students had the opportunities to express them self and had the space to create. But I was not one of those students I was in the realm of science and mathematics from early on. Being so I like to learn and discover not create, because I don't believe you can create knowledge you can only discover it and make it available. The easy post were the ones I just needed to tell an experience like the tourist for a day one. The hard one were the ones I needed to read some piece of literature and write about some aspect of it. Those were a headache.

     So why did I enrolled in a class were I had to make a blog and write an average of 4.667 blog per month? Well I did int knew. But really I did int though it would be so hard and time consuming. One of the reasons I think this was so hard for me its because I have a structure of writing that was first establish in my 10th grade. This one was general, an essay. I remember that my first graded essay had to be a persuasive essay. I did it about the dangers of drinking sugared beverages, especially sodas. It was what we consider in Natural Sciences, tertiary literature, because it was an article based on other sources that were not necessarily primary literature which are papers published in Scientific Journals that have been subject to peer review. So then that structure was reinforced and molded to the scientific way of writing when I arrived to college. When I encountered with this project that the writing is based on non concrete things it was a shock to the structure on my head. I did not knew were to start how to organize the ideas. That's with out mentioning the creative and interactive part of it, making hyperlinks, making the page look pretty, adding images. This is something I don't even remember doing in high school and even less so in college. So when I though I was finished I had to go back and start to see what could I do to make my post look more interesting. That could easily take an hour.

     The great thing about this experience of making a blog post is that it is really practical and useful. This can be a great way to build an audience for some kind of business. I believe the greatest benefit I have gained from this is not the creative writing but the practical skill of having a blog and managing it. In today's world this is a great tool.

Every time I had no ideas for the blog post's.

On "A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincade

     A Small Place by Jamaica Kincade, talks about the Britain's colonizers in Antigua, during colonial times and about how they influenced in all aspects of the local culture like politics, economy, social and cultural traditions. Her tone is very sarcastic but with a littel bit of hate and anger in it. Essentially the writing is direct attack towards the colonizers. Completely normal I would say.

     As a Puerto Rican I can relate very easy with this writer. Being born it to one of the last colonies in the world puts me in the same place as this writer but I don't share all of her opinions and attitudes against my colonizer. But this was not always the case. In my house and my whole family are statehooders with means they agree with the American presence in the island and that they would like to become part of the republic. But since I can remember I was always more of a "Lefty" kind of guy the idea of indecency was always of great passion to me. The ideals of the Puerto Rican Nationalist's party and of the Independent party resonated with me and I always had something to say about the topic. Essentially I was OK with the facts that we were subject to the approval of another nation criteria in every aspect of our political, legal an economic themes the only one in which we had "freedom" was in our cultural aspect. I was one of this guys who always had something bad to say about the "yankees".

     But something happened when I entered college that little by little I started to change my mind. I think the big detonator was my Social Sciences class, yes this sounds like a paradox. The class that everybody takes and gets a little bit of communism into their head was the one I took and completely changed my point of view from a "fuck yankees" to a "yea if you could send a little more money that would be great". I am still in this debate about what do I want for my country and the fact that elections are coming soon puts a little more pressure but I guess that's part of it.

     Kincade exposes that the universities established by the English colonizers were biased and hat the education they provided did not resonate with the island cultural background. Now I am not very sure about how the UPR was founded but I'm pretty sure it was with gringo money and even more so today the university operates with mostly federal funds. So if the education were biased, winch is not, I would not be mad at all because they are the ones paying for it, the least they could expect is to receive some credit for it.

UPRRP Tower.

OAPI Students Activity

     This is a job to compensate for the Literary contest  awards I could not attend. I was not able to attend because I had already confirmed my participation in the OAPI Student Health and Well being
Fair. My participation was in collaboration whit the "Circle of Nutrition and Dietetics" which I am part
off. The activity was held in the Student center from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. When I arrived at 10 we were assigned a table and some chairs for the display of our educational material. The other tables were
all ready filled with stuff and people were starting to arrive and looking for some brochures and some
souvenirs but we had none of them because the person who had our materials had not yet arrived.
We could not do much because when people looked at our table they saw nothing, it was empty so they did not  even bother asking for information.

     So in the mean while I started to look at things in my surroundings. I looked at the other tables and
there contents, there were some with musical therapy, artistic therapy, dance therapy, sport therapy and
much more. There were others that had free health test like a thyroid test, HIV test between others.
Finally at 11:10 am the person in charge to bring the educational material arrived with it and handed it
to us. We started to organize it and rapidly discussed what we were going to say and not say because
this was a special population we were dealing with. After we had organized and prepared everything people started to approach our table but they were kind of scared to come in close, we don't know why. So as they came in we ask them if they knew what healthy eating was, if they knew what was the "My Plate" representation and if they knew what it meant. Most of them had saw it previously but did not know how to read it and what foods were cataloged behind each category. So our primary job was to educate them on how to make good use of this tools and explain the food groups to them so that they could make better choices. Some of these people looked completely fine and no one would have though that they are OAPI students other were extremely shy and didn't say a word except from "no" and "thanks". The hardest part of the activity was having to give a talk when someone was playing and instrument or something because the volumewas stupid high.

     This experience was really touching for me because I am very sympathetic towards others and having to see a great amount of people not being able to don some things we give for granted or just being different was really hard. Even tough I liked the experience and that it was of great enrichment, I don't see myself working with people with special needs. It takes a great deal of patience and ease characteristics that are not my strong ports. Also in the times that no one was approaching our table and that we were free, we talked and share as partners, we were more than one int the table, so it was also enriching from that part because we shared experiences and our thoughts. Finally the best part of the activity was that we got free food and snacks! That's always a win.

This is not the actual activity but one in wich we were doing the same thing, I dont have one from the OAPI activity.

Conference

          Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to present an investigation about the tourist perception towards Puerto Rico in a forum held in one of the amphitheater of the general studies building, DMN. My group was composed of two other members, Sabrina and Barbara which were the ones who made this job came together and I thank them both for their effort and commitment. The presentations started at 1:00PM so I arrived at 12:55 and I saw Sabrina and Barbara on stage already and I freaked out. I though that the hour was changed and I was not aware of it and that I would get zero points and that I would fail the class. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that they were in charge of the previous presentation and that was the reason they were on stage so early.

     So finally the forum began and I was sitting nervously waiting for my groups turn. When it was finally our turn to present my heart started pumping really fast, my hands got sweaty and I was trembling. I tried all the relaxation techniques I could do with out making it to obvious that I was doing them. Breathing deeply and controlled, counting backwards from a 100, making power poses but non did work at their full potential. When it was my turn to talk I was struggling with the microphone because you had to put it certain way so you could be heard properly. My first part I had to read from the power point presentation because it was a long cited work. The first part was over I had read the decently and broke the ice with no big problem. For the second part I had planned to read quickly the bullets and talk about that topic. This was what I had prepared for and I was doing ok but suddenly some lady in the back literally yield and laugh really hard, so much that everybody could hear her and all of that while i was talking. As she interrupted me my whole face changed I went from being very nervous to being so angry I wanted to insult the lady. Apparently everybody in the room notice my anger by the way my face changed when I heard the comment. After this I lost focus and I started to make very stupid errors in my pronunciation of words and lost my rithym. After finishing the presentation we ran out of time for the Q & A section which i would have loved to address the lady that interrupted my presentation.

     Overall this was a very professional experience I like to dress up for this occasions because is the only excuse I have to wear my good clothes, even though I am always in shorts and tank tops I do like to dress properly. Speaking in front of an audience is something that is very challenging to me but that I want to master, so this was a good starting point and I know I have along way ahead to become a great confectionist.

Journal Review Blog

     This was a free writing activity in which we had to make at least five entry's a week for eight weeks with a set of simple rules which were; Don't cross-out, don't worry about spelling, punctuation and grammar, don't get logical, go for the jugular and finally keep you're hand moving. At the end of this activity I had completed 46 entrees. My writing changed a little during this period. At first i could not avoid getting logical with the things that i was writing because that's just me and it was hard breaking that habit. About half way into the activities the change was more appreciable. With regards to grammar I have never been very strict about it and it was really easy not thinking about it. Also with every session I noticed that I became more structured  with the way I wrote like I adapted to writing without lines. Writing the first though was the most inconsistent thing for me because that was dependant on the type of thought and how i felt in that particular moment. On January 30, 2015 I made an entry in which i talked about what happened to me the night before. I started explaining the environment and the circumstances of the situation and half way I had arrived to what would be the climax of the story. Then after that i was expressing how i felt about what I just explained. This activity was of much self enrichment, I as wrote this things I realize that i am a very emotional person and also a sensitive one because everything that happened in my surroundings had an impact in the way I felt. Also as a writer I learned that I am very structured even when i am traing not to be so, and that's reflects a lot about me and who I am. As a puertorrican I learned that I am very proud of my culture but very angry towards my people or at least some of them. This activity makes me discover the traveler inside me after describing the things I saw in many of my entrees I understood that I enjoy looking at things and traing to understand their function in their surroundings.

Blank Paper, the hardest part was to begin writing

On Jim Cooper: "Theaching English"

        In this script Jim was talking about the hard time he had teaching English tom Puertorrican students at the "Colegio". First I have always asked myself, why are professors at college so different from teachers in high school? Teachers did all they could to help you learn and get a good grade. In contrast professors they just do the minimum effort they are required to and don't care much if you pass the class or not. The difference between the two relies in that, teachers want to teach it is their vocation but professors don't want to teach, they are investigators. A teacher goes to college to learn how to teach he learns the skills and methods about teaching in contrast a professor goes to college to learn a specific subject and becomes and expert in it. Even if they continue on graduated studies a teacher will study the subject of how to teach a professor will study the subject of his interest to a more profound length. This is important because this is probably the most determining factor that affects student in their transition from high school to college.

       Most professors in college or at least in my faculty, the faculty of natural sciences are scientist they are investigators that is what they like to do. They are hired by the university with the condition that their investigations will bring funds to the institution.Thus the institution provides the facilities for the professor to do his investigation but he has to give a mini mun of credits hours per semester. This is why most professors could care less about their students because they just give lectures that are on such a basic level for their understanding that they get bored and just don't want to do it because it is interfering with the time they could be investing in their investigation. I think i went in a little bit of a rant there but I guess that's what blogs are for.

        In high school I had a PROFESSOR, he was the only one who did int study pedagogy, he studied mathematics and he went on to getting a masters Segre im no sure if he got a PhD, well probably he did because prior to giving class in the high school he was a professor in UPR-Cayey and at "La Politecnica". I remember when i got to 11 grade were he teached pre-calculus, every body was telling me "he is the worst","you are going to fail","he is the demon". But i did not listen to them because i though it could not be that hard. So as the semester went on I recognize that the course was had and that he wanted to push us to our limits he wanted to get us out of our comfort zone. He was more of a trainer or a coach than a teacher. But I at the end of the year I got A in the two semesters and was one of the two students that were excuse from the final test. During the semester I got to know him better and I talked to him on a daily basis and to this day he is one of the only teachers that i go and visit once in a while when i go to pick up my siblings.

This is Mirabal "The Profesor" from highschool and me at the graduation ceremony.

On Jim Cooper: Helping

          In this writing, Jim Cooper exposes the educational differences between the American system and the "puertorrican" system. The big difference that he exposes is that the American system is competitive and the puertorrican system is cooperative. But where does this sense of competitiveness or cooperativeness comes from? Is it intrinsic from the educational system or does it has socio-cultural roots? In analyzing this we have to take in consideration the time at which this was written because the Puerto Rico, and the conditions in it, are not the same to the ones we have today. In other words we cant be ana-cronical about this. For instance back then we were not as "Americanized"as we are now, because we have now been under direct American influence for over a hundred years. Back then it was just a couple of decades so we were still as "boricuas" as we could have been.

     Now we have adopted a lot of customs and traditions from the US and we have lost some of our traditions, but I think its not that we surrender our traditions to adopt the ones from the US but that the capitalist system, in which virtually all country in the world are part of, has forced us to adopt certain customs that are more convenient in this kind of system. The fact that we take them from the US its due to he fact that first we are part of it and second they are probably the best ones in this capitalist system so why not copy the best one? Hey it is helping! In this same line of thought a competitive systems makes a perfect "training" for a capitalist society in contrast a cooperative system its not the best way to go in a system in which you have to fend for you're self and that if you don't know how to do something you will get run over by others.

     Now, I am not saying that being cooperative is a bad thing but neither I am saying that being competitive is also. But that a system is probably a reflection of the society and its circumstances. But here we are talking at a collective level, sociologically we should say. If we go down to an individualistic  level or a pshycologial level it takes a whole new meaning. This is because at an individual level we may have different motivators such as not liking the person at our side so we will not help them. Maybe we know the teacher personally or a family member does and we are afraid that helping others could bring a bad situation. But then again it comes down to the circumstances.

Jim should have tried this.

Riview on: A Room With A View

      A Room With A View, the 1985 film  is a movie based on E. M Foster book, it's a story about a young man and woman who fall in love while vacationing in Florence and how they altered each others lives forever. But also it is a story about how a single travel and the experiences it encompasses can change you'er perspective and therefore you're live and the way you see things in it. Also it presents class stereotype issues in the British culture. In this film the room with a view is a very symbolic name and a very assertive one. In the movie the characters called for a room with a view and its of understanding because everybody wants the best view on a hotel room when on vacation. But the message I understood was much more than just a good view. You see in a room with a view, you can stare at the view that place has to offer. And for me this movie had just that staring at different "stereotypes"different kind of people. In the movie most of the important characters have an antagonist. This provides for broader view of a topic for example the clergymen are suppose to be very strict and "by the book"but in the movie one of them was like that and the other was kind of more liberal and of free spirit. An other example is the one between Charlotte and Lucy were the first one is a very old fashioned classical  style of women, also depicted with her age, she is old. The other one Lucy is the open minded more liberal one, also depicted with her age, she is young. There are other examples of this in the film but for me this was a pretty good relation between the characters and the title. Because they provided the view that we wanted.

A View

On Peter Roberts, Identity

     In this post I am going to talk about Peter Roberts paper "The Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language, Race and Ecology.""  In this short essay Roberts talks about the identity of human being, more specifically about its national identity as he says "...in the modern, political world human beings are automatically identified with a country, and national identity is generally established by place of birth or place of residence."  This topic will be addressed towards the national identity crisis being experience here im Puerto Rico. Roberts also talks about Language and about how language has both beneficial and detrimental aspects to it, as he says "Language therefore establishes bonds between all communities of human beings but at the same time set up barriers between communities".  Roberts talks also about sameness and how it allows people to associate with one another as he says  "...it is the senses of sight (color/race) and sound (language) that provided the initial and usually most deep-seated conclusions about sameness and difference in identity."  This concepts will be developed with the intention of deepening our concept of identity.

Barcodes define identity.

 Someone with national identity is someone with a sense of belonging to a nation, in most cases to the nation they were born in to. People from the United States are a perfect example of people with a clear national identity, they have such a strong national identity that they have spread their culture all over the world. Puertorricans national identity never had the chance to mature, it was becoming stronger and stronger before the US came and stunt our developing nations identity. Since then our national identity has been under constant bombardment from other nations cultures and it have felt the damage but somehow we have persisted, somehow our pillars have not fallen. But by no means it has stayed intact. We developed the ability to be flexible with our identity we let somethings go, we let somethings come in and absorb them into our national identity. But there is a filter that must be passed before becoming part of our identity and that is language. We have gives up countess cultural rituals and costumes but not our language.

Fingerprint defines our identity

     Language is the most important pillar in our national cultural identity with out our language we could have not been able to stayed alive as a nation until this day. Our language is rich and strong but flexible, it conserves its structure but allows minor changes and that make some considerable effects on it. Our languages gives us the ability to connect with ourselves and with other within our group but as all languages it can create some barriers, but this barriers as not as hard to overcome because Spanish ans especially our Spanish is so flexible that it allows for easier barriers to overcome.

      Our senses are wired up and meant to give information to our brain so that it can make decisions. Site is the most influential of our senses when it comes to discriminating. I say discriminate but I am not talking in a dis respective manner I mean it in differentiating type of way. We discriminate because that's what were are wired to do we naturally like things that are the same as us and dislike the ones that are different. In society for example there are clubs which is a group of people that share some common characteristics and they decide to from a group. This doesn't mean that this people are completely the same, of course the have differences but they decide to let them apart so that they come together to work for a bigger purpose. Becoming part of a group is a human need we need to know and feel that we belong some were. This is because we are social beings we need interactions we need to be with people. This sense of sameness with the group gives us a sense of security that is compare to no other.

     We can conclude that national identity is based upon language and that our senses are our first tools of discrimination's, that we must master.

Tourist For A Day

     2:45 PM on Saturday I was at the airport waiting for my best friend Tristian to arrive with the Michigan Wolverines Men's Gymnastics Team for the annual Invitational Gymnastics Puertorrican Tournament. There he was, it had been almost a year from the last time i saw him, I have missed him so much. There I meet all of his teammates and his coaches they were all "White American" you're typical "gringo" expet for three of them, One of the coaches is Chinese and one of the team members is African American and the other is from Bangladesh. So after they got all their stuff we went to the hotel which was the Double Tree by Hilton in the Condado area. After they had settle down we went to a near by restaurant that offers local cuisine. Here i got the opportunity to meat some of the team members and Chow, the Chinese coach. After I helped them order their food and drinks I decided to not behave like a tour guide but to try to become one of them and be a "tourist". After we ate we went for a walk in the Condado area but not all together we separated in littel groups. The group I was in was composed of Stacy; the African-American, Syque; the guy from Bangladesh, Sam; gringo Olympic medalist, and three other that i don't remember quite well and of course my best friend and his father who was supposed to take care of the team because they were still under 21 and the university they are from is responsible for them.

This is an old one, but it was on my best friends birthday so whatever.

      When we were walking i noticed their amusement toward the atmosphere of the area. We then decided to go to the walk on the beach, most of them had never been on a beach never the less imagine how beautiful our beaches are. So we started walking on the beach and all the sudden i started to enjoy feeling the sand on my feet, i say this because normally i hate sand and it getting in every part of my body. So i noticed that if i could just think that i am not from here i could enjoy being on the beach and taking a walk  in it. Then we just stooped and started looking to the horizon and a "oceanic feeling" took over me i felt in peace. While we were all starring at the beautiful site the wind started blowing real hard and that windy noise was a bliss to my ears. Then just before were going to leave one of the guys asked my friend, "why did you left this place? I mean look at this Michigan is nothing like it." Immediately i looked at my best friend and he said " I ask myself the same question every fucking day while i have to deal with subzero temperatures and little sunlight." That just maked me appreciate more this opportunity ia have to live here. When we were done enjoin the view we headed back to the hotel but in our way back some girls  started screaming at us, calling us, yelling their numbers at us and when we all looked they started like screaming "locaaaaaaa mira mira OMGaaad que bellos". I am pretty sure that was because they saw the white boys, white skin, blues or green eyes, blond hair, big muscles. I looked like a broomstick standing by their side.



     So we went back to the hotel and decided we were going to hang out in Old San Juan  because Condado on Fridays its not the most visited place by the local youth. So we got ready and headed to Old San Juan. When we got there we started to ordered shots and a bar and at this point i feel part of the team you know I even talk to my friend in English I became fluent in like two hours. So we were at a bar and suddenly this four girls that a my friend Tristian knew came to us and started greeting us and when they greeted me they did in English so i said to myself " ok you all ready part of the group". So we went bar hopping and this guys were very loud they but like they look like tourist nobody says a thing. I took advantage of this like i could behave how ever i wanted and they didn't care and the locals could not tell a difference. Ordering in English was very funny because at the bars we were going, the cheap ones, the bartenders knew no English so i played the roll of a gringo traing to speak Spanish and all of that. Overall i think the most interesting part of this exercise was to see how locals treat tourist completely different compared  to the way they treat other locals and i remember walking down the street looking at the way the locals were looking at us and seeing myself in them because I am pretty sure i look at tourist the same way.  This is all I have for you today and ill see you next time.

This are the coolest guys I have ever hangout with, Tristian and I are in the right corner behind Stacy, don't ask who took the photo. 

Perspective

     Perspective is defined as; the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one in having a meaningful interrelationship, also as; the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship. The way we look, the way we speak, the way we are, everything is sculpted by our perspective on a particular topic and more so in life. Lets say we have an X situation and we have two different persons lets name them person 1 and 2. So person 1 has and idea "a" and person 2 has an idea "b". If we ask these two people to comment on situation X they will most likely have very differing comments. Why is this? This is because this two people had a different idea they have different conceptual maps in their head and therefore that chances of having a different opinion is very likely. The idea "a" and "b" could have been religious ideas, political ideas, economic ideas, different ideas conceive different perspectives. Thus an idea precedes a perspective so for us to take control of our perspective we must take control of our ideas. And the way we do this is by learning and applying what we find correct and useful. But perspective does not stay just as ideas but it shapes our whole personality and it evens shapes our body. A perspective about life is very important to us because it guides our life it gives us north and what to look forward to. Having a positive perspective its very important because perspective acts as a filter for our minds. Perspectives is what help us discard information coming into us from our senses, it tells us this is not important and this is. This is all i got to say on this today i hope its been informative and not boring. See you on the next one.

The clasical perspective drawing

About English in Puerto Rico and its Background

     What its now known as Puerto Rico was an island inhabited by "Taino"Indians which they called boriquen, When the Spain fleets arrived about five hundred years ago they established them selves and enslaved the local plus they also brought Africans as additional slaves for a bigger work force. This planted the seed for a new culture and a new country that was soon to be born.It took about twelve generations to establish a sense of uniqueness a sense of not being part of Spain but being a country in it of itself. During all this time a culture was being developed and a language with it, Later the local revolutionary's were cultivating this national pride and demanding Spain liberty but then came the war between the United States and Spain and as a result Puerto Rico was passed from the Spanish government to the United States government. And thus we went from being owned by a Spanish speaking nation to a English speaking nation. Immediately the work of unculturization began and the US government was imposing English as a first language but it was not working out well. It is at this point that the history of the English of Puerto Rico began.

"Newyorricans" at the Puertorrican parade in New York 

     The US started out pretty much the same way we did they were colonies of a super power. Their mother nation was England and ours was Spain. The two had a language of their own and both had African slave men influences. The difference was that the people that went from England to the united states were not just bad people as it was in the case of the people that went from Spain to Puerto Rico. You see the immigration from England to US was mostly religious and political thus the people that migrated were educated and with "good" morals. In contrast with the people that went from Spain to Puerto Rico were mostly criminals and people with no education. So this created two very different cultures.

Puertorricans at the Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastian in Puerto Rico

     So when English was imposed in the schools of Puerto Rico it was not well assimilated the teachers did not knew how to speak English let alone teach it. The student were barley abel to learn Spanish and now they had to start learning a new language. So the government decided that they would keep Spanish as our first language. The people that spoke English those days were the rich ones the ones with access to a better education and more opportunities or people that went to the army had to learn English also.This does not differ that much from today because even though  English is thought in public schools it is the people that comes from private school the ones with a better uderstandind and a better management of the language. So the English in Puerto Rico is spoke by the middle and upper class and this have some major implications in the type of vocabulary used and in which fields it is being used for example; people using English in the island will most likely be professionals in their work area or companies but it is not used in the daily activities. Overall English in Puerto Rico is very well spoken but very different from the one spoken in the mainland. In contrast the English spoken by a considerable amount of Puertoricans in the US is very different from the one spoken in the island this is because most of they people that migrated from the island to the mainland back in the 60s were of a lower class. Here is a clip of a good imitation of the Englis spoken by Puertorrican immigrants in the US.  This is all I have for you today, see you on the next one.

Running Brave

     The movie Running Brave is a very emotionally charged movie. From discrimination, racism, cultural shock, all of which were very taxing on Billy. But this movie was about a journey, a quest. This young man from an Indian Reservation wanted to be some thing in life. He wanted to be successfully and the way to go was trough college. Of course he was from a poor family with no economical resources to pay for it but he had his legs which would get him all the way to the Olympics. But looking at it this way is a over simplification, its like looking at it like a state function. This is way I am going to talk to you about the reasons why Billy had some ups and downs and why he backed up sometimes or took off like a rocket on others.

      When Billy was waiting for the buss that was going to pick him up at the reservation he was very exited and motivated. He wanted to get to college and start his college life and excel trough it. But as soon as he arrived he realized that the place was not waiting for him with opened arms. People did not accepted him he was kind of an outcast. His coach treated him like a little boy. He was academically challenged, socially challenged because no body wanted to be with him and he was rejected from social circles and fraternities. In his sport he was not allowed to do as he wanted he had to do as the coach said it should be and when he did as he wanted he was punished. All of this diminished his motivation and he started to fell back and let go of his dreams. It got to the point were he was just running to be hand to hand with his sponsor so he wasn't doing it for himself. This was  negative motivation, it is like having a dog running you from behind, you run not because you want to but because you have to. This started to affect Billy and he was loosing all his races, he was just not filling good. Billy then had some problems with his family he went back to the reservation. In there he noticed everybody had faith in him because he was a role model for them he was a symbol of hope for his people.

     It was a mixture of him noticing his people wanted to see him succeed and he wanting to go to the Olympics that motivated him to train harder, and win his place in the Olympic race.
Now he had a positive motivation, now he was running not because he had to but because he wanted to. This maked him have a better performance because of the positive mindset. In the race he gave everything he had to win it and so he did. The end of the race was the end of a journey that began when he left the reservation to go to college. He had a lot of trouble and bad moments but also he had good things that kept him moving forward. This is all i got to say to you today,see you next time.

Self-Reflection

        My name is Jorge Cosme, I am currently in my second year of college. I am majoring in natural sciences with a concentration in nutrition and dietetics, I also work as a personal trainer to pay for my college expenses. So I am going to talk you about myself, not about what I do but about who I am. Since i was young i was fascinated with science and knowledge I loved learning about things and how they worked. I guess that thirst for learning has shaped my whole life. when you have this thing for learning about how stuff works life becomes very interesting but also very terrifying you know. your personality becomes affected by how much you learn, you begin full of energy and positive outlook but as you start to understands thing it all becomes kind of sad. Its kind of a paradox you start knowing nothing and full of excitement and as you progress you start getting the other way around knowing a lot but not exited at all. But you see knowledge is a tool and as every tool you can have it but you need to know how to use it correctly so that you can feel in control, otherwise the tool will control you. So I am currently in my way of mastering my mind and the knowledge in it so I can use it to my favor.

      I have started this empowerment process because I like to be in control, and being in control of myself is important if i want to be in control of my surroundings. I often find myself thinking about my future and how i want it to be. All the time I spend thinking about my future could be a product of how much i want to be successful. Sometimes its fun to think about you re future, thinking about the job you will have or what kind of relationships will be present in you're life. It also can be very frustrating thinking that you could end up in a place were you did not wanted to be having a job that you don't like, being unhappy and those things. I find that thinking about my future its either very good or very bad. Either I get motivated to do something or unmotivated. And again this is a tool and I often find myself training to master it so it can only be used for good.

       I have been told that I am an overachiever. Because for me its never "good enough" it is always "it could have been better". I blame this characteristic trait of me on my parents which always told me to be the best and to one of my most influential figures in my life, my eleventh grade math teacher, which with whom i developed a very good relationship while everybody else avoided him or criticized him for being to harsh on us. But I don't blame him he is a great teacher and a great remodel. For now that's all I got to say for you today, Until the next one.