Goodbye!

The blog consisted in posting what you wanted and how you wanted in a way that it would relate with the class. Usually, I posted works that were related to what we were giving in the class that week. This project helped me with my writing skills and how I expressed even though it is an informal or conversational style. This is something anyone could see; therefore, I had to give my best in every entry so that it would be interesting for the people who read it. 

Writing is something that helps you liberate yourself. We often endure situations in our daily life that may derail us. This semester I have fallen in love with it. This course has offered me several techniques that makes this process a fun one: the journal, life compass and now the blog. In this last technique that Dr. Pittmann taught us, we had to get creative and include media. At first, I didn’t know what to attach but then I started to research things that were related to the topic I was discussing and not only I had the media, but also I could add more information to the discussion. I noticed how in some entries I attached things that literally described what was going on in my mind while writing. 

         

This blog became a part of my daily schedule. I would log in and write new entries or checked my classmates’ blogs and read their amazing entries. I loved how each and every one of them created their blogs, in terms of the design. Also, I enjoyed reading their entries because they each had different opinions or saw things in another perspective. I laughed with pictures that were funny and got serious when talking about delicate topics. 

            

The semester has come to an end. To be the first one, I could say that, although it was hard to adapt to the university and deal with the classes, it was a very good one. There were times that I had to deal with a great amount of stress, but writing helped me reduce it. I can say that this project was my favorite one. I had the liberty to have fun while doing the entries. I learned a lot from this blog and I will definitely put to use what I learned here. 

Inagural Speech of the semester

Hearing the engineer Alexis Mazol was very inspiring. It is fascinating the fact that just with a few words you hear from someone who has a lot of experience can encourage you to do so many things. He is known in many places of the world because of the work that he has done to protect nature. He won the Environment Goldman in 2002. His love for his land encouraged him to do all that he has accomplished. He began the project of “Auto Gestión Comunitaria”. The goal of this project is to protect the environment and promote the conservation of our culture. He also founded Casa Pueblo which is the headquarters of his works.

   

Ing. Mazol encouraged us, the students, to follow our dreams and have faith. “Those are the two keys you need in life. You need to help your island and see what can you do to help it. The only way we can save our country is if the people unite with motivation and help as much as they can.” he said. 

There is so much we can do to help our country now more than ever. When we finish something, we have to continue and do another project that will be of benefit as well. We should put all of our knowledge and service and offer it to Puerto Rico. Learn as much as we can and see how we can use it to make our community a better one. Thanks to the café, Madre Hilda, that is located in Casa Pueblo, they can do the projects they want. It is an economic independence for them. Casa Pueblo is an eco-friendly house. They use solar energy instead of the normal electricity because of how expensive it is. They also have Bosque Escuela a school that gives their class outdoor, a radio station that it is dedicated to the environment, and a music school that promotes our culture.

            

On the other hand, he has been part of several protest and historic events that involves the environment. He talked about how in 1980 the people of Adjuntas joined forces for 15 years to prevent the exploitation of the mine. It was because of the perseverance of the people that they won the case. He was a part of the protest against “Ruta Gasoducto” which they also stopped. Casa Pueblo joined forces with engineers of the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez campus, and together they created Posterriqueño which is a focal alternative with an 83% of efficiency. Bosque Foresta is another project that is in charge of managing forests. They have been doing this during 20 years now.

            

Definitely, the engineer and his group of work has done a lot of positive things for Puerto Rico. They focus on all of the aspects that we, the citizens, have to take care in our daily life. This serve as an example that there are many ways in which you can involve with the community and help as much as possible. There is always something to do. I learned that instead of complaining, we have to get our hands dirty and help our country. He admired Eugenio Maria de Hostos because it was him who teached America to think. For Mazol, the University should be a place in which you have to learn as much as you can from all the faculties so that when we graduate we can be useful and use our intellect to help our country, not to send it back in time.

"El que no quiere a su patria, no quiere a su madre." - Calle 13

Memories

The website http://www.dictionary.com/browse/memories define memories as a faculty of retaining and reviving events, facts, etc. Let's focus on the memories, not the one in which you memorize tons of facts for a test.

Memories, they never die. We are who we are thanks to them. They define us as a person. It is as if you were a pirate that always want more treasures. We tend to seek adventures and do things we have never done before. Therefore, we keep them with us, very close to our hearts.

Of course, there are those memories we would rather forget. Every person has gone through situations that has marked them greatly in their lives. I once heard that the human being tends to forget moments that traumatized us. It makes sense. We want to forget something so badly that we eventually do it without even noticing it. We notice this if others bring them back by talking about them. But you should remember that what you forget, you can never retell. 

Every day that goes by, you are making memories. You may not notice it because of the lifestyle we have is so agitated but trust me, you are. I would get angry when people said to me: "Enjoy your high school, those good old days will never come back". I was enjoying them trust me. But now that I'm in college, I understand what they were trying to tell me. The memories that I created throughout the four years of high school will always be with me. They certainly prepared me for this whole new step of my life. The same will happen eventually with college and next thing I know, I will be working in what I love. 

"Life's a climb, but the view is great". We can't help it, there are going to be good and bad memories. It is up to us how are we going to 

"I may not know it, but this are the moments that I'm gonna remember most of.."

MAKE SURE YOU ENJOY EVERY STEP OF THE WAY!

Orbitting Izzy - Reflection

This is the story of Nancy Whiteley who had recently got out of prison and was determined to start fresh. She was incarcerated because of credit card fraud. She and her husband used to live a luxurious life, traveling and eating fancy at other people's expense. Eventually, she began working at the accounting firm of Isadore Weintraub (Izzy). 

Adapting to a new life was hard for Nancy. She had a 9-5 work and was paid the minimum. Her job required little effort, since she did all of her work in 1 hour. This new lifestyle bored her a lot, but she eventually developed a friendship with Izzy. He was a rich, married, and uptight man. She, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of him. Her husband, Aldo, taught her how to be reckless and "have fun". Yet, the both complemented each other. They did things they had never done before, "teenage fun". She literally was orbiting Izzy because she was trying to figure him out. Also, he was the only one who kept her company and hanged out with her. 

Some differences between them 

There was a problem, Aldo was always present in her mind. Even though he wasn't there, he influenced her. She tried to forget him, move on but she couldn't. With Aldo things were "easier". Now she had to work in order to pay rent, eat, etc. The gifts she started to receive from him reminded her of the life she once had and wanted to return to. 

Her time with Izzy was fun until he started to develop more than friend feelings towards her. He misunderstood several things. If only they would have communicated better, things wouldn't have turned out as they did. As much as he learned from her to have fun, she learn from him to take responsibilities and do things nobody would do for her. And instead of talking to him and being honest, she just ran away into Aldo's arms to end up in the same path she was once in. 

That someone was Izzy.

I didn't expect this finale because I really thought she had learned from her mistakes. Her sister also tried to helped her but it also didn't worked. Nancy was blinded by "love". Instead of seeing things as they were, she was still in a bubble that she was meant to live a life that she was not meant to. You have to work hard because nothing is given to you in a silver platter. She worked all day and had a job but this was not enough for her, she wanted more and more and more. For me, you have to be grateful with what you have and also for what you don't have because that will make you work hard to obtain it. Second opportunities are not something people usually give. I think this quote sums things up:

Life compass - Reflection

The life compass technique is a very unique one. While using this, you get to evaluate how you are feeling that day at a specific moment. The scale goes from 1 to 3, 1 being weak and 3 great. What is it you evaluate? Your mind, body, spirit, and emotions.  After the evaluation, you comment about what’s going on in your life that may affect your whole being. Using this technique was a totally different experience from the Journal. In overall, my scores were 2, meaning that most of the time I’m ok.

It is not until I finished this project that I had the opportunity to compare each writing technique, the life compass vs. the journal. I liked more the journal experience. I had the liberty to talk and discuss topics that I wanted, disconnected with the world. I was not obligated to talk about myself all the time. Somehow I always found a topic that engaged me and distracted me. It gave me fluidity and I, for the first time, enjoyed the writing.

The life compass was a little more difficult for me. I had to deal with the problems that I was facing that day, those that I wanted to avoid. The part that I very much liked was that I noticed how every part of me is connected. Whenever one was not doing well, it somehow affected the others.

Now, let’s talk about my “scores”. One thing that I realized was that I was not myself whenever I had a test. My mood changed from the week before until the week after the test. Stress is something that, sadly, takes over me and dominates me from head to toes. Everyone tells me the same thing, that I have to learn on how to deal and reduce it. I have followed the majority of the advices they give me, but it’s always present. Beside the university, things that I can’t control also cause me a great amount of stress. I like to be in control. Beside this, I also noticed that my physical state was one of my strongest area. Most of the time I got 2 or 3. Also, whenever my mind was down, my emotions and spirit were also down. Because I’m not a morning person, I used to get low scores on the days that I wrote in the morning. I believe this may be because I am still sleepy or simply I woke up annoyed for no reason.

There are good and bad days. Some have certain impact on you. I selected one of my entries that shocked me the most to share it with you. Before reading it again, I was aware that it had been one of the worst days of my semester. What I did not remember, though, was all the details I wrote down to describe and include every detail that affected me that day. It was as if I was reliving it. I am a generalized epileptic patient who has been diagnosed for over a year now. Eight months had passed since I didn’t had a seizure episode. It was not until Saturday, October 29, that I had a relapse and had multiples seizure episodes, as I always had. This crisis has been of of the hardest yet because the three episodes I had were one hour apart each one. My family was always with me until the doctors came and stabilized me. I don’t like to tell everyone the details of every episode I have because automatically, most of the people, begin to see and treat you different. Also, it is still very hard to be open about this topic that influences my life so much.

            

In conclusion, although I liked more Natalie Goldberg’s technique, I enjoyed a lot this one too. It was something very unique and different. You get to see yourself from another perspective. For 5 minutes you dedicate those few minutes to yourself. At first, it was hard to me to adapt but eventually I got used to it and began to analyze how I was feeling on a specific day and what was bothering me. I, for instance, described everything as much as I could so that I could get it out of me. This technique helped me guide myself and notice which areas do I have to work more on. As every human, every now and then I have mood swings. Thanks to this, now I know how to deal with situations that affects me instead of ignoring them until I exploded, like I did before.  It was the only time in the day in which I had “me time” and I certainly took advantage of it and used it. I will continue to do this because of all of the things I mentioned before. Here’s a graph which shows my overall scores in every area:

So if you did your math, that would be a 8/12. This means that most of the time I'm ok.