Semester Reflection

What have you learned about the way you learn, work, and/or collaborate?
The way i learn is not very simple. I tend to be forgetful at times needing to go over the material again. This was a struggle for me when studying for tests. I started doing this better towards the end of the year when I would just take an hour out of my day to study. 
I can say that I am a hard worker when I apply myself for projects and class assignments. I do sometimes get off task while working in class but towards the end of the year I learned to catch myself and get back on task.

What project was most valuable to you, and what have you gained from it?
Ampersand was most valuable to me this year. One, I learned that multiple drafts can turn your work into high quality writing, and two, writing tips are very helpful in creating interesting and understandable writing.

Describe in detail one significant academic challenge you faced this year. Why was it a challenge for you? Go in depth, use specific experiences, and explain how they contrast with a less challenging experience.
One challenge I faced this year was with the balance of school, work, and sports. I went into this year with a job, taking up my time on weekends and sometimes weekdays. But I still knew school was first. Towards the middle of the year I started baseball which resulted in leaving early for games resulting in missing class. The balance was very difficult at first because I have never done anything like this. I put school first, baseball second, and work last. This was proven successful in my grades, that while juggling 3 different activities I can still maintain a high GPA.

Writing Reflection

In the beginning of the year my writing was messy and didn't prove the point I was trying to make. I had not learned the writing tips, therefor my writing didn't make sense and had unnecessary words which went against all the writing we learned at the end of the year. In my Ampersand piece I tried to use the tip, make meaning early. This means that the important information or points go first in sentences and paragraphs.  In my Into Thin Air essay I wrote my paragraphs so that all the important information was mixed around in different order so that it was hard to understand.

Drafts played a huge role in Ampersand. I started out my essay writing about my job then I was going to try and relate it to cooking. This was a challenge because as hard as I tried, I couldn't accomplish this. I realized that I just needed to stick with cooking and how I feel about it, which worked very well for me. Over the course of the eight different drafts my writing went from bad to shiny and polished. This was because I used the writing tips such as; make meaning early, avoid using ings, and revisit sentence basics. With these tools I could write like a pro!

A goal I have for myself for writing in the future is follow the rules and tips. When I think of this, I think about the long list of tips that promote what to do, and what not to do while writing anything. I will not write for length using filler words and run-on sentences, but I will make meaning early.

Historical Reflection

Of all of the historical figures we have studied this year, including—but definitely not limited to—Presidents, philosophers, politicians, leaders, social movement-ers, and the many everyday people that have contributed to American history & culture, who would you most like to run into in college?

FDR would be a sweet person to have as a friend in college. He would be the cool nerd that you could rely on to help you on homework as well as be a good person to talk to.

I chose him because he was the only guy that seemed cool to hang out with. Hitler would be kinda weird because he would kill me, Hoover was not a very popular guy and that was about it. 

"The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces." When FDR tell us all stories about his presidential term, he often starts out by talking about the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

"The only thing we have to fear. . .is fear itself." This is one line that he will say over and over again. This was his most famous line from his inaugural address.  


Speech to Congress, December 8, 1941

Literary Reflection

If you could bring one character from any one book that we have read this year with you when you go to college, who would bring? Why?
In the book Slaughterhouse Five, the character Billy Pilgrim interested me the most. If I were to pick a character from any book from the semester to have as a friend, I would have to choose Billy.
In college Billy would be the kid to always tell the interesting stories and always have insightful thoughts about everything. When he was abducted and brought Tralfamadore, he learned so much and it brought out an experience that changed his life. This would benefit me because his stories will become more interesting and insightful.

Besides the fact the Billy Pilgrim dies in the book in a plane crash, lets just pretend that he didn't.

"Billy Pilgrim says that the Universe does not look like a lot of bright little dots to the creatures from Tralfamadore. The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti." page 110

This shows how much insight he would have on things. If you are abducted by aliens, you are bound to have either very cool stories or just be crazy. Billy Pilgrim is not the type of kid who stands up for himself so he would not be a very strong friend but at least he has a good personality.

Post Trial Reflection

The main fact that I recall from the prosecution was the one ben had said about the law being unconstitutional. He stated that the law goes against the Constitution because it says that a state can not make international laws, and a state can not deal with international issues without the federal government.

The defense made a couple good points in which Dorian has said that Ellis Island was where a bunch of immigrants came in and were documented but we need that again with the Mexico/ US border.

I feel that the most important evidence was from the constitution that Ben and Davaughn has stated.

I would have to say that the most important argument was from Ben and Jan Brewer the governor of Arizona. Where Jan had said that there was no racial profiling involved in the arrests of immigrants then Ben gave us the news report of the McDonald's Raid and this totally contradicted what Jan had said. Later into the case both sides had argued back and forth about racial profiling.

I think it should be Guilty because that's what we as a Jury decided and that decision was moral to the immigrants and people of Arizona.

I think I deserve a 48 out of 50 because I focused on the trial and took great notes during the trial. I was also the head Juror and was a leader during the jury deliberation.

WW2 Letters

I am going to be a pilot from the Battle of Midway. I watched a documentary about the battle and it really interested me. This battle was the most decisive battle between the US and Japan. It was the first battle being fought over seas between ship fleets. Us was the underdogs not expected to win.

My letter is going to be kind of a diary from the perspective one one of the pilots that just got back from the battle.

Blog #15

-Postwar rebuilding:

I am really interested in the postwar rebuilding because it shows in the countries now. Randy made a good point when he told us that Japan and Germany have the strongest economies. The reason for this is caused by the process in which the country was rebuilt after a war. He made the relation between the successful countries and North Korea which hasn't really recovered from a war so they are cut off from the rest of the world. I hope to learn more of the reasoning behind this.

Blog #14

1. What are the most interesting aspects of World Wars 1 and 2?
WW1: It was the first war where there were tank battles. It as the first war where there was an estimated trillion dollars in war costs.
WW2:80% of Soviet males born in 1923 didn't survive World War 2

2. What do you hope to learn about these wars?
I hope to learn the causes and effects of the war and how it effected the people.

3. How/Why are these wars important today? How do they impact and/or inform our world today? hint: think about alliances, democracies around the world, cultures, international institutions, nuclear (and other) technologies, etc.

These wars are what formed our alliances that we still have to this day. Also around the world countries have conflicts and disagreements and these wars are what those stemmed from.

Final Grapes of Wrath

In the novel The Grapes of Wrath the tone is set early on when the Joads, a migrant family is forced to move out of their home. As one can imagine this will be depressing and a struggle for the family. When all of the main characters are introduced, we have a typical family with a few exceptions. Tom Joad, Ma Joad, Rose of Sharon and Pa Joad are the migrant family but early on in the novel Tom meets an ex-preacher who he becomes friends with. The group’s journey is like a rollercoaster with very little ups but many downs.

We first met him when he was deciding that he didn’t want to be a preacher anymore. He was sleeping with women from church, didn’t believe in what he was preaching and he believed that the holy sprit is found split up equally between the people. J.C., these initials demonstrate power and the strength of an individual. Throughout the novel Jim Casy is the leading figure that reflects Jesus Christ. In the novel we see the Dust Bowl in the perspective of a migrant family.  Steinbeck describes a time of unfair poverty, unity, and the human spirit. Early in the novel we meet Jim Casy, "A man sat on the ground, leaning against the trunk of the tree. His legs were crossed and one barefoot extended nearly as high as his head."  At this point of the book we meet a calm relaxed ex-preacher. Shown through different forms Jim Casy is seen as Jesus Christ.

When Ma Joad is introduced in the novel, she jumps right out as one with high sprits. She is one to think about others before she thinks about herself. In the middle of the book when the Joads are traveling to California Grandma dies and without question Ma takes matters into her own hands and doesn’t tell anyone so that they can make it through the checkpoint with the excuse that grandma was very sick and they needed to get her to the hospital soon.

A setting of poverty is a constant through out the whole book. Steinbeck makes it more obvious when family members and friends start dying. The novel starts out with two men driving in a old run down truck and one of the men is hitch-hiking, this means that the man was too poor to have is own car or pay for his own ride and this event sets the tone for the entire novel with it just getting worse and worse. Once the family leaves to head to California the setting starts to get bad, we read about the car salesmen who rip people off, we read about the gas station owner and how the Joads are trying to get gas from him for free and we hear about grandma and grandpa dying. The setting was never exciting of pretty; it would either be ugly (hoovervilles) or gross (the crops being sprayed with poison).

In conclusion, the characters grew closer progressing through the novel, yet the setting grew more depressing. This goes to show that the tone set, was not done by accident, but to prove a point, that nothing went well during this time, and i how shitty life can get.

Blog # 12

Public works projects directly benefited communities. For example buildings, dams and canals. The new deal promised many things to reassure the American population that every thing was going to be ok. The famous part of the new deal was the Social Security Plan which is still around to this day.

Blog # 11

Dear President Obama,

I have a plan that I think could change the crises that is currently going on. I feel that we should make welfare a temporary option for the poor. What I mean by this is for example if someone is out of work, they get money for a year, at the most, and in that time it is put on them to find a job. This will save us all so much money because many people are taking advantage of this. This is not fair to the people paying for these lazy people who don't care about what they do and don't even try. Take this into consideration.

Sincerely,
Grant Garrity

Blog # 10

I think this book is perfect in showing what the farmers went through. I think that the Jode family represents the average family at that time because they did so many things that families back then would have done. The book also does not have many happy experiences, they were all sad and depressing like when the grandparents died. This was wrote this way to show how depressed the people of that time were. 

Blog # 9

I feel that both structured and free work are valuable for developing a high quality piece of writing. The reason I do so well during free work time is because I have so many option to explore different resources, to see what works and what doesn't work. For example I found my writing topic for Ampersand during free work time when I was reading the New Yorker and came across an interesting article about food. I benefited from the structured work time because here I expanded on my idea more and good helpful feedback from my fellow classmates. So overall I feel I have learned a lot from free work time and structured work time.

Blog # 8

First off I think that FDR and Barack are very alike in the things they did for the people. For example FDR had a radio show which really made him popular whereas Barack posts videos on his website often kind of like a update of whats going on.

Right now we are looking in the past at what FDR did and comparing it to what Barack is going to do. Now this to me is unfair because Barack has not had a chance to prove himself and FDR has. FDR has done much more than Barack obviously like for example create the Social Security program. Now Barack is trying to fix and mend together programs that have fallen apart.

They were both put in the same exact situation where the economy has crashed and they are in charge of putting it back together. This is good and bad for both of the presidents, good because the Americans look at them as a saivor, bad because if they can't get everything together, Americans will hate them. 

Blog # 7

I think that like today, the smaller businesses would close and the larger ones with remain strong but lose many workers. A small businesses for example a flower store will not do so well during the hard time because the people have a limited spending amount which limits them to buying small "unnecessary" things like flowers. Where as the larger businesses who have established customers like a Costco keep almost all of their customers. I think that my internship would not get shut down but they would lose a large amount of their spending money. This would limit them to smaller projects making every small part that much more valuable.  

Blog #6

"I was a preacher" said Jim Casy

I thought this was a good quote because it says a lot about this person by a first impression. Also it makes you think, why did he stop preaching? so this quote struck me as important to this particular character.

Blog #5

http://ohmyinternship.tumblr.com/post/380372247/mentorinterview

First of all I really like how the interview was layed out. It looks very clean and professional. I also like how the writing is very relaxing ams flows smoothly.

http://stevenblogger-steven14.blogspot.com/

I thought the layout was very neat and professional also on this photo essay. I also think that the pictures look really nice and the captions go with the pictures.

http://danielatoscano.blogspot.com/

Two of dani's peices of writing really caugfht my eye. The first one, the mentor interview was really cool because it almost looks like it coulf be published in a newspaper and I like how she used the writing rules.  I also really likes her photo essay because the pictures were amazing.

Photo Essay

Ignacio Rivera is a very intelligent man who somewhat loves his job. “It’s a job,” answered Ignacio an Environmental Engineer at SpaWar in San Diego California when I asked him how he liked his job. He has been working here at SpaWar for about 15 years now and he says, “I like it at times.” Some projects that he has worked on in the past have been a horrible experience and some are the best experiences he has ever had with a project. “There was this project on developing a model to estimate the water quality criterion for copper in coastal harbors. The project lasted about five years, and included scientists from several different areas of expertise, including, modelers, biologists, chemists, oceanographers, toxicologists, etc. There were several publications out of this project, and the final product is in the process to be approved by EPA for use in coastal environments.” This is Ignacio’s most memorable project of his career. I asked Ignacio why he likes his job and he responded, “Some projects are way off my field of expertise, and require extra effort to deal with. In contrast, those projects that involve my actual expertise seem to be the more interesting ones.” This was interesting to me because some people wonder how someone can work in a job that they don’t like or are not interested in. Here is a man who still tries hard and puts in all of his effort even if he doesn’t like what he is working on at the moment. The benefit of this makes the projects he does like working on that much more interesting and exciting.

Internship was a great experience for me but the 3 weeks was not enough. After the three-week emersion I was invited to go out in the “field” with my mentor and a couple of his coworkers. We traveled to Camp Pendleton located north of Oceanside where we needed to deploy a probe. This probe tests for water temperature, PH and depth. We arrived at about 9 AM and to our arrival the weather was cloudy with a nice ocean breeze. Located under a bridge was where we had to deploy the probe. One huge bridge support made out of solid reinforced concrete in an oval shape was where we some how had to attach this probe. Our day started by putting together all of the parts to make this probe. This included a solar panel, a radio transmitter, the probe it self, a pipe to hold the probe in place and many other components. This probe weighed about 50 pounds so this was extremely hard to get in the water as you can imagine. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to an hour and still no probe deployed. It was my idea to hoist the probe into the air from the rafters of the railroad tracks. It is then when we finally got it to stay.

Inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS). This machine measures very small amounts of the purest elements in water samples in the parts per billion. The plasma part is a heated element almost like an oven but only a little hotter, this plasma reaches a sizzling temperature of 10,000 degrees which is the same as the shell of the sun. The concentration I was testing for was around 8 to 15 parts per billion and the type of element was Copper known as CU. Now to put this in perspective, the water we drink everyday has a little over 300 ppb of CU. Now you might ask how does this machine work? First the water sample comes through a tube and mixes with a gas caller Argon, this then turns the water into an aerosol, which shoots through these cones. Along the way the aerosol breaks down into tiny particles called ions. These ions then hit the MS part of the machine called the Mass Spectroscopy and this measures the ions. Each sample is taken and then plotted in a file on a computer where the user can read the data.

When I hear that someone is working in a lab I think of someone mixing chemicals and explosions. In the lab at SpaWar this was not the case unfortunately. The lab is one large room with a smaller room inside of it called the clean room. This is known as the “particle free room”. The lab has fume hoods, which are mainly where chemicals are to be mixed. The fume hood at SpaWar has many different instruments on it, some of which I have no clue what they do. In the lab I learned many different ways of sampling water and creating chemicals to test the water. I learned that when conducting work in a lab every measurement counts, I think of it like baking, all the measurements have to be precise or else the cake doesn’t rise.

Chemicals are very fun to play with. In second grade we built the volcanoes and but baking powder vinegar and red food coloring in to watch the lava flow out. Well this happens to be a chemical reaction. Chemical reactions can be big and explosive, or they can be cold and icy. Unfortunately I did not experience any of these when I was working with chemicals at SpaWar. Doing work with chemicals here consisted of putting on a white “hazmat” suit and going in a clean room and digging chemicals out of jars with a metal spoon. Now this was not as easy as it sounds. First off it was like trying to dig up cement with a spoon, the chemicals were so hard and compact that it was almost impossible to get them out. After I finally broke everything up there was this white residue that would fall off the spoon onto my gloves. Now before all this started my mentor told me that none of these were harmful and that I didn’t need gloves. I believed him until I got some of this white residue on my hand and it started burning me. Now as you can imagine this would be quite a shock, someone tells you that it is not harmful and you get it on your flesh and it starts burning right away and it feels like some has put a match out on your hand. So from that point on I wore gloves when working with chemicals.

Blog #4

For the book Ampersand, I hope to contribute some of my skills. I want to make a cool cover design or page design for the book. I also want to improve on my writing that I can then put into the book.

Ignacio Rivera

Your job can be good and bad

         Ignacio Rivera is a very intelligent man who somewhat loves his job. “It’s a job,” answered Ignacio an Environmental Engineer at SpaWar in San Diego California when I asked him how he liked his job. He has been working here at SpaWar for about 15 years now and he says, “I like it at times.” Some projects that he has worked on in the past have been a horrible experience and some are the best experiences he has ever had with a project. “There was this project on developing a model to estimate the water quality criterion for copper in coastal harbors.  The project lasted about five years, and included scientists from several different areas of expertise, including, modelers, biologists, chemists, oceanographers, toxicologists, etc. There were several publications out of this project, and the final product is in the process to be approved by EPA for use in coastal environments.” This is Ignacio’s most memorable project of his career. I asked Ignacio why he likes his job and he responded, “Some projects are way off my field of expertise, and require extra effort to deal with.  In contrast, those projects that involve my actual expertise seem to be the more interesting ones.” This was interesting to me because some people wonder how someone can work in a job that they don’t like or are not interested in. Here is a man who still tries hard and puts in all of his effort even if he doesn’t like what he is working on at the moment. The benefit of this makes the projects he does like working on that much more interesting and exciting.

         Going back to Ignacio’s earlier years in life that led him up to being what he is now, I asked him some questions about how he got into this career field. With the first question being, 30 years ago would you see yourself in this position? If no what did you want to be? When Ignacio was a young boy his dad was his role model who was an accountant. So being a role model to him when Ignacio was a boy he wanted to be just like his dad and that was an accountant. When I asked Ignacio what steps he took to get where he is now I was shocked to hear what he had to say. In his younger years he was not to blown away by chemistry and learning it, but when all of his friends loved it and got him “hooked” he could not hold back the pier pressure. It became a study group, where his group of friends got together and helped each other study before tests. In high school and college Chemistry was not hard at all for him because he got into it.  In college he decided to get on the chemical track for Ocean Sciences. “After College I worked as environmental scientist in Mexico, and found out that I needed better knowledge in analytical chemistry.” Says Ignacio. He later came to the United States to get his masters degree in Analytical Chemistry, and later he had the opportunity to get his doctorate degree in Geochemistry where he studied heavy metals in aquatic environments.

         In this economy, if you asked many people how they feel about their job security, some would not be too confident. Now if you work for the government this is another story. Ignacio has been working for at SpaWar for a little over 15 years. Now SpaWar is part of the Department of Defense (part of the government), the government does not want to start firing its employees, this would make the job of rebuilding the economy many times harder. With much experience, Ignacio says he feels “safe” where he is now and has no plans to leave where he is working to find a different job.  

 

Ignacio working in the clean room at SpaWar San Diego preparing samples

Blog #2

When I first met Ignacio I was very impressed to see all the work he has completed over the span of his career, from the tests in Pearl Harbor to the methods he used to conduct tests. At SpaWar Bayside, located in San Diego California, on the outer perimeter of Point Loma Ignacio comes to work every day around 8:30 AM. His day starts off in a small office with a cluttered desk with pictures of his two kids where he checks his email for anything important that is going on that day. His work consists of long hours in a lab or going out in the field and deploying probes or traveling to different places. Labeled as an Environmental Engineer getting a Doctorate degree in Chemistry was not easy at all.

Is there anything else I should add?
How is it so far?
Does the working make sense?
any other questions or comments?

Blog #1

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939600/steve_jobs_the_rolling_stone_interview

This interview is very interesting because it brings you to the interview with all the details involved in the introduction. I like how the Interviewee goes into great detail explaining the environment at jobs job and also jobs. This makes you want to read the interview that much more.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/25940442

The Sean Penn interview was the best out of the three because I really like how the beginning was kind of a biography. This really pulls the reader in especially if it is very interesting and well put together.