Intern Readiness

A qualifying YearUp intern should have mastered three key characteristics to ensure success at their upcoming job. One; the individual must be able to demonstrate the important quality of being dependable. If one is not dependable, no one will rely on that person to be responsible for a specific job.

The second trait for a qualified intern would be the skill of note taking. The intern becomes the companies’ freshman. As an intern, you may be required to learn new software and skills, so it is essential to take good notes and demonstrate that publically.

The third quality would be to do all of the small things correctly. As an intern, you may not have all the opportunities in the world to stand out or contribute great value to the company, so it is important to be reliable with the small things. It does not matter if you did not add the best value. What really matters is being an intern that can be trusted with the little things.

I have the same goals as I did in module two. That is to strive for academic excellence. Maintaining a excellent academic record in this module will re-assure that I am ready for an internship because it takes the same amount of energy and effort to add value to a tech related company. When I accomplish this, I will have proven to myself and everyone else that I am proficient in keeping my duties.

Easy Money

I could never work any type of grounds work as a career; let alone as a summer job. When I was in my early teens year; my Dad use to take my brother and I to work as ground keepers. My father was unemployed at the time and my Dad needed some help brother getting started with his starting business. I wanted to spend our summer doing not so productive activities. I remember when it all started.

One random summer day, my Dad brought a brand new red lawn mower with a complimenting weed whacker. We were in business, waking up early in the morning to travel to various lawns and yards to tame. We often worked in hot sun; I hated this type of work. As an individual who is allergic to cats, I was more averse to pollen. My eyes would water up and my nose became very runny. The thin bandana used to wrap around my face was always hotter than the sun and did little to protect my nostrils from inhaling dust. I suffered every time I cut grass and pollen based trees. Working my Dads trade was not my fancy, so I was determined to does some other type of work.

My Dad made it mandatory for me to do some kind of work while my brother and Dad worked grounds. I began to reach out to those who needed computer assistant. I was very fortunate to obtain a decent clientele. I had found my ideal type of summer job. Staying inside and fixing my clients machines while I could sipped on ice lemonade was much better than what I was doing prior. I thought I had a good run until my Dad made me work with him and my brother on grounds once more.The morbid experience had recycled it self.

Google fires unpopular products at random

Google.com has announced the termination of six Google service products. Just yesterday Google post on their blog a detailed briefing of the products which include Google Bookmarks List, Friend connect Gears, Search Timeline, Wave and Google Knoll. The post on Google's blog titled “more spring cleaning out of season”. Some Google customers are not soo happy about the discontinuation of a more popular web application called translate. The applications grants you the ability to translate languages. I will miss this tool, but the Google user body will never fully understand the reasoning to killing Google Translate. I use this tool all the time. This tool is a gateway to enter foreign websites.Google's decision seems a bit random in my conspiracy theory state of mind.


Sources:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/23/google-sets-execution-dates-for-wave-knol-friend-connect-and-m/

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-spring-cleaning-out-of-season.html

Inspire me too!

Nothing can inspire me more than a good movie. When I become engaged into a film, I feel like the main characters challenges become my own. Some inspirational films that I have watched in the past have inspired my interest in technology. The movie hackers pumped my interest in my early teenage years. I wanted to be like the main character, Zero Cool, the same hacker who kisses Angelina Jolie and the end of the film. Nerdy fantasy like this inspired me to learn how to type properly, console into computers and learn about computer networking. Most inspirational films like this leave me thinking about it for months or every time I want to get inspired again. If it were not for such films, the world would have very bad films.

Even though films are a great source of inspiration, the people in my life have inspired me to advance in my future.

My little community

I joined the nerdiest community when I was 12 years old. SDF Pulbic Access UNIX Systems is a non-profit Unix Shell account provider. When in the system offers programs and tools that are typical for your average hacker. I found this community in a Google search. The process of connecting to SDF was a challenging itself, but things really took off for me when I did figure out how to use the system. I remember opening up a black screen and typing in foreign commands in the shell to maneuverer through directories with using a mouse. This is still my preferred method of navigating through files.

I would spend much of my time on SDF, inside of school on my breaks and home. Some of the programs provided by SDF allow users to interact with each other in a chat room like layout. Programs like “com” are essential to the community, for it votes on how the system runs.

Module 1 overview

What are some of the things you learned about yourself as a student or a professional in Module I? Did you surprise yourself in any way? Were you proud of yourself? Were you at all disappointed in yourself? Why?

My overall performance in module #1 was not done to my satisfaction. In the beginning of module #1 I struggled with turning my assignments on time. Sometimes I would not complete my homework in time for class. I recovered from this habit quickly but still struggled to remember about turning in my guest speaker questions. It is very easy for me to forget to turn in an assignment after you are done using it to ask a guest speaker a question.
Another thing that I struggled with in module #1 was my lack of communication with my instructors. In the beginning I was afraid to ask for assistance or follow up with an email. But I worked hard on speaking out to my teachers more. I learned that my teachers may feel like I am not very engaged with the program all together.

Public speaking is always something that I need work in. I feel like I am progressing in this area just from attending YearUp. Nevertheless I still need to practice more in class.
On a positive note, I am impressed with the quality of my writing, it has improved dramatically. Putting my thought onto the screen has never been easier for me. Writing is a tool that I will always strive to improve in.

Neighborhood Watch

To what extent does a person’s neighborhood shape who she or he is? 
Briefly describe your neighborhood. Which statement best fits you and why? 
I am who I am because of the neighborhood I live(d) in. 
I am who I am despite the neighborhood I live(d) in.

One's neighborhood will dramatically molded a person’s perspective on life and social progression in diverse atmospheres. I have had the pleasure of living in the rich urban community of East Oakland. Living in the “ghetto” ignited a spark in my mother; she raised my brother in a sense of not being a part of our environment but still living in it. On a daily basis my family witnessed prostitution, drugs deals, drug usage and other crimes common in the “hood”. My mother was so determined to raise her children with less exposure of this environment that she fought for use to attend school in another school district in a suburban area.

I attended school in Castro Valley which is a very safe city in the bay area; going to school here definitely molded the way I socialize and who I associate myself with. Although I lived in Oakland, I spent more time in the safe zone. Every year my mother struggled to get us in Castro Valley Unified School district with success. It was in 2001 that my mother was not able to get me into the school district and I had no choice to attend school in my appropriate school district.

I attend a school in Oakland for the 6th grade and was not prepared to interact with students who lived and went to school in Oakland. Oakland schools back then were known for testing low and struggling with controlling violence within the campus. I didn’t enjoy much of my schooling expirence because I was constantly picked on in class and had little friends to hang out with. The 6th grade was a super crucial in my social development, and attending school in Oakland taught me a lot about being in my environment but not a part of it.

Where did my money go?

The dollar is an indispensable evil and having more is never enough. It is this evil that drives competing financial corporations to remain superior to their competition while the citizen suffers. These corporations market to citizens most vulnerable to be swallowed into a life time of debt. I have been and personally know people who are victims of credit card debt due to sugar coated marketing.

In the year 2009 I was offered a credit card from the Capitol One credit corporation. At age 19 I had a credit limit of $700 with an interest rate of zero percent financing (without reading the fine line). I saw this to be a great opportunity to build my credit from a no credit profile. As the responsible 19 year old I thought myself to be by paying my bill on time for the first two months, I didn’t pay my third month payment on time. Instantly after 12 o’clock Eastern Time a high interest rate was applied to the additional balance. The factor that made this situation so bad for me is that I did not have a job. It was very easy for me to ignore my balance, I ignored my balance for 4 months. My $700 balance turned into a balance of $1200. Unfortunately I had to rely on my parents to pay for my outstanding balance.

Shame on the credit card companies who market to young adults without jobs. Capitol one offered me a credit card when they knew that I did not have a job. This is how such a company makes billions of dollars from naive young adults who desire to be responsible, but are not.

Don’t accept any credit cards without a job.

You will know me

It has never surprised me that my fellow men may question my mysterious character. Since I am a man of few words, the things that I do and say may often be misunderstood. It does surprise me that it has taken 21 years to realize that my meekness has made me an awkward individual (in my opinion). I guess that is one of the norms of life, you learn about yourself and what others think of you. Here is a little about what I do know about me.

I’m quiet, but I do enjoy socializing with others. One of my goals in life is to become a front man for a brutal death metal band. How is that for quiet? Performing in front of a crowd is easy for me since I wouldn’t need to personally know my audience. Expressing my self through technical rhythm is my fancy. It must be the metal break down that erases my line of comfort and helps me to take risk. I know there is a rock star part of me waiting to be unleashed. I can imagine myself playing solo guitar or growling lead vocals. I can envision me controlling the crowd’s energy through the use of brutal pinch harmonics and blast beats. I know my dream of touching the metal scene is un-realistic for today, but until I blossom out of this written text and into real life, I will practice this leashed part of me in the class room.

The best years of your life...

I have attended two high schools over my academic career but I will only review one. Castro Valley high is a California distinguished school; meaning this school tested as one of the highest in California standard . I studied at this school during my freshmen and sophomore year. Even though I didn't have too many friends at this school of 3000 students many still knew who I was; perhaps it was my uncommon name that made me standout in a non important way. in high school I had a select group of friends who all had common interest. I liked this school especially because there was a computer lab where I could hang out with my friends and encourage my computer addiction. I not only enjoyed my teachers but the time that I spent at this school, even if it was for only a select few of my high school education. My time at this school was great. I would recommend this school to anyone who is seeking a large clique Hollywood high school. This school offers a quality education plus an enthusiastic extra curricular student community.

Please don't mind my speech.

My speech is molded by the people I spend most of my time with, it is a direct influence of these people. Like most individuals my early speech development began in the home. Mother never used improper speech even though she could have been easily conditioned to do so because she grew up and raised my brother and I east oakland, but I could never tell the difference between the proper versus the improper speech that was all around me on a daily basis.