Polishing a Dimond.

Internship readiness to me it means to be able to adapt to a new environment relatively fast, and also demonstrating to be able to perform and deliver high quality work. After being introduced to the professionalism concept, I believe that internship readiness is bringing brightness thoughts to the work place. Some of the qualities of a great intern are pretty basic stay on time, well organized, high performance, inquisitive and eager to learn but the most important to me will be self motivated. Through my Year Up experience I acquired many skills that help me become a better student as well as a better person.  I believe that I am not fully prepare for my internship, however I accept and welcomed the challenge, I want to be able to polish my thoughts as well as my writing skills. In this last module I am ready to give my all and demonstrate and let others who I am.

The pearly tears.

The pearly tears.

I cried, and cried the first thing I learned to do was to cry. Crying is the first thing a baby learns to do, it is survival he or she must learn how to cry to communicate and try to express want he wants , crying it is also the first job you probably had. Crying is simple, natural, invasive, but that doesn’t mean that crying is not a job, many of our job titles come that way, we not even notice that the things we do are important jobs, maybe my definition of work can be quite allusive. During our life time we gain different job titles I am a daughter, a mother, a friend, a sister, a waitress but the most important job is being a student,’’ a learner’’. My first job after high school was to sell vacuums door to door, the job description is harder than it sounds I knew that I was not going to succeed in a job like that, but I decided to try it. The first couple of days I was ready to quit, I wanted so bad to go home and forget about having to walk whole neighborhoods knocking door to door, smiling and pretending that I was happy, trying to peruse home owners to buy a 2500 dollars vacuum ,which I knew it was almost impossible to sell due to the economy, however I did not quit the job. I kept attending the meetings that they offered, I wanted to learn, I learned that sells persons try or pretend to be happy most of the time, sells persons literary brainwash people and even analyze their costumers, in order to come with the bestselling strategy. I wanted to be like that I wanted to become like that, so I try to learn and take advantage of the opportunity that was given to me there to learn and be happy regardless of the situation. I literally learn that when one door closes other might open and is not worth it to get stock on that door. My second job was at a restaurant ,the manager in there was the worse bipolar person I ever met, she made me clean every single dirty spot in the restaurant, and working with her was like being directed under an army officer the stress and the expectation for me where greater than what I expected. I hate my manager, but after I got fired I realize that she only wanted me to do my best and pushed me to be best performer , at the end of my experience there I was offered a manager position and I thanked  my manager for being so tough on me because she helped me bring the best in me. My third job, was working overnight delivering newspapers. They paid me 459 dollar biweekly for throwing 800 newspapers per night, It is been the most challenging and the most demanding job I ever had, not only I had to learn all the addresses of the clients but also I had to be aware that no matter the conditions of the weather, I had to be able to delivered their newspapers daily. It was so frustrated to me when I had complains of persons, many times I asked myself  if they thought about how difficult was to do the job being a young woman in the middle of the night with freezing temperatures or raining  driving alone. I hold that job for almost six months until I decided to leave it. Working in there did not make me richer, but it made me stronger I never thought that I could be so reliable and so responsible at the point of sacrificing myself so that others can enjoy their lecture every morning. From all my work experiences I learned something that build  up my character and shape my personality. I cried many times I felt discourage, but I thank and appreciate every single learning opportunity given to me. From every single mistake I had in my previous jobs I  dropped precious  tears, but behind all of them there is a beautiful learning experience, so my favorite job ever is to learn from my mistakes , and all I want is to keep learning.

Rebellion is power.

Rebellious do, the right thing.

I respect and admire those who stand up for their believes, those who see the world different, those who are not afraid to speak up their mind. I admire those  who have the courage to tell  the untold stories , the things we all  know about but few dare  to say out loud, the ones that want to destroy the secrecy .   I think that those who stand up, speak , act and do something  are those who make justice exist in this world. I can’t imagine history without those who wanted independence, the ones who fought against slavery or the ones that believed that we should all be equal regardless of color ethnicity or social statues.  People who want to expand freedom, people who go against rules. People who wants liberty equality and rights for all and they go beyond their imaginations to make things happen. I am a Rebellious by nature I can accept concepts and rules without questioning the purpose of a common cause. I admire persons who believe in honesty and value the true, but sadly in our actual world less and less people have this valuable skills. Instead we have more selfish and greedy politicians, business owners, associations and even whole corporations with the thirst of power and endless ambitious. The world that we have is reflected by those who are greedy and  only think about themselves instead of being  trustworthy leaders and focus on the needs of population, the future of our kids and everyone’s well  the focus on what is the best capital the best revenue the best investment . It’s hard to find corporations that can take decisions without focusing in the profit first, most member of corporations detach from acting  like humans , in the professional environment very few colleges, manager, bosses , CEO care about the personal lives of their employees, and that is where  I  believe that the business model starts to act selfish  when every single member of a corporation try to ignore the emotional part of being human and instead try to work as a machine efficient productive useful , but senseless. No one at a office work will care about a college facing personal problems instead of offering any kind of support  corporations will have that person fired the moment personal issue will affect the company’s expectative. Finding somebody else that could be capable of being productive is very easy and as many say no one is irreplaceable. How can we all be against something that we are all part of? . Corporations secure their incomes first it’s all about the money as long as they have their money they won’t stop to think about others . We are facing a time where companies have make their profits out of others suffer an example of this is the housing crisis, thousands of families have lost their houses do to irregular interest rates on their mortgage control by banks which are obviously securing their money first . Actions like this one can evolve to a series of uncontrolled economic crisis, but again companies won’t worry about because the price will be paid by those who are on the bottom. After the great depression Diego Rivera express this kind of situation on his famous mural ‘’Frozen Assets’’ in which he painted his emotions and reveal what his eyes saw ,about bankers and the duel that people from the low class can feel  and face when corporations build their capital over peoples suffering , Rivera lost his job and was forced out of the country after publishing his murals. He was one that decided to do the right thing even when that would mean to lose his job. The 99% occupy movement are those who stand up, those who want to change things and stop corporations from stepping over people’s suffering. Rebellious is power and only the ones who are rebel enough and dare to change things to make them the right way are the ones who fight for our rights. You might not want to camp outside in the cold weather or protest and get arrested but you can support by doing the right thing by not forgetting that we are humans not robots and that is not always about money there are many other valuable values to keep and many other things to archive.

Maria Maldonado.

Inspiration = inner aspiration

Inspiration comes and goes right?. The greek metology  believed that inspiration could take the form of a beautiful lady and be  send by the gods. Muses help you  ,guide you and inspire you through  the creation . Therefore the source of knowledge sounds to me  like depending on how good your muse is. The muse could really be the one who decides if  your brain could work or not?.  Does she decide when to turn my brain off and on? .  Well giving it a second thought probably a muse would not work for me I need inspiration 24/7 and even further! . Maybe something like a super heroe would work. Yes that is what I need , but no a fictional I need a real one. One that I can look to for help, advice, and maybe tissue if need it. Now the think is that most people believe that super heroes are super strong, with mega millionaire bank accounts and even  famous. Now again I get to the same question who decides the power and the influence that a person could have in other person?. Okay who knows maybe god, innocence, gratefulness, money?.  Maybe  my admiration for a talent that other person could have? .  who knows the world is weird wild and complicated .. complex . all I know is that my super heroe doesn’t wear his panties over his pants although my grandmothers panties are kind of funny. Yes my lovely and caring grandmother is my hero my muse my brave soldier. She might look sweet but her character  makes her the stronger man I had never met . she raised  five kids by herself , she survive the hardship of being a single mother in a society who excluded and stereotype woman like her. My beloved grandmother  never attend school , she was  poor to do so she learn through life the hard way as she used to tell me. Literacy was not a problem for her even though she did not read or write nobody could fool her and take advantage of her. She knew when a person lie to her, ‘’look into their eyes , hear their breath ,if you cant trust them from the bottom of your heart turn around and move on’’ she said , how she did it , how she knew still a mystery to solve for me . she was  a beautiful woman but  think that she never gave up her soul to any men. My distinguish grandmother never gives up on her ideas and her believes , nobody can break her perseveration and the willing that she has to get things done her way exactly how she wants it. I’m so proud and so bless to have a her blood in my veins there is no a day that I live without think about her bravery and her character. Most of the times when I feel alone and I’m afraid of being a single mom .  I think about my grandmother and she gains more and more respect from me . I never thought that raising a kid without a partner to support you could be so hard and so challenging .  in my weakest times I close my eyes and I think about her  and she fulfills any doubt that I could have in myself. She is not the only strong woman I know , but she is the one I want to become. I pray to god and I work hard so that one day I could have a grandkid that could feel what I feel for my GRANDMOTHER.

Community- the common unity life style.

 I work in family restaurant called '' La selva'', which means the jungle in spanish. I have work there for almost a year now and I consider them to be part of my family. I  heard once that friends are the family you choose and that concept is one of my favorites. In La selva we not only serve food with our biggest smile, we enjoy the time that we work together.We laugh, dance, talk, help each other and sometimes even have teraphy session in the kitchen.I dont think that La selva is like any other job out there, what makes la selva special to me is that is a place of unity. We celebrate hollidays together, for example we do a romantic night on valentine's day, we wear costumes in halloween and in christmas we give toys and presents to our costumers. La selva is of course a jungle, our boss loves decoration and he allows us to add a monkey  here and there once in a while.which means that the decoration of the restaurant could be  a piece of art from the chef's artistic talent. Our boss is very supportive he is not so strict, but he does expect the best from us . We are open to give a ideas to improve our service or invent  a new plate. We do suprize birthday  parties to eachother,and sometimes when the restaurant closes we go to the park and have barbeque to spend more time together. Unfortunately the restaurant has not been doing so well for the past months and I'm  afraid to say that our boss is almost facing bankruptcy. Which means that he has to pay us once a month, and he even pays us in payments sometimes. Amazingly no one has quit the job, instead we try to come with more ideas and plates to make our restaurant a better one everyday.
I think that community is a place where persons share a commong goal , and their passion for that goal unites them so they can act as one. One community which could act as one for many, and many for one. A  community also makes me think about the importance of every single individual in the world.  Today  I  thank the farmer who cultivate the food  I  ate,the person who sew my clothes , the person who builded my house. We all depend of eachother to live even when it feels like we are alone in this world . we always had somebody that cared for us and helped us live through the day. I think that no matter how small the work is, it is important, for me and for all the world. Today  I want to be the change that I want to see in this world and give my best because I know that  I  dont have to be famous and rich to be important for the world. I  just have to be me and give the best of me every single day.

Plus/Delta . Evolution is a change!

PLUS:

• I did all of my assignments on time.
• Time management.
• I did not quit the program when I was frustrated.
• I woke up early.
• I made new friends.
• I  learn to be more professional.

Deltas:

•  I need to improve the quality of my work.
• I need to be more patience with myself.
• I  need to study more.
• I need to participate more in class.
• I need to bring more leadership skills to class. 

During my first module at Year Up , I learn a lot about myself. I enjoy to learned new skills in order to improve my professionalism. I believe that I have to keep working on my growth areas, and discover myself even more. My first module inspire me to be a better person and also inspire me to choose my career.I am more confident,t and I learned that I only need to be myself in order to stand out and be notice.

Richmond souls: high dreams, talent and ambitious for success.

Richmond California is a ‘’hood’’ community, most of its habitants are Latino and African-American. Richmond is a city that holds a history of hardship and commitment to the community. The Richmond harbor once was use to repair battle ships from world war two, now a days the harbor is abandon and very few people work in there. Richmond is not a wealthy community but it is rich in so many other aspects. During the pass years of the economic recession, part of Richmond is been re-possess by the banks and home owners had been kicked out. Properties and buildings are now abandoned as a result   more homeless and more criminal activity in the city. Many outsiders think that Richmond is a horrible place to move in; with remembrances of murder victims on street corners the city life looks tougher than it actually is. I believe that all the people that lives in the city would like to move to another community and improve their lives but to get out of the ‘’hood ‘’ a person has to be determinate to change and embrace new concepts and life styles but at the same time represent with honor and respect the place where they came from. Escaping from a community where maybe your family has been living generations is not impossible but it is hard. Improvement is a change and change is evolution. I can't think about a reason to stay there in the hood with all this wrong conceps and stereotypes of me. I love Richmond, I love my home but just like every proccess of nature there is a time to fly away from my nest. Unless I win the lottery my only chance to improve my life is trought education. I found my wings in YEARUP, these program is empowering me to change, I realize that in order to be successful I have to be able to change my defects and correct my mistakes, it would not make any sense to me if I come to year up and not follow the rules and adapt to them . if I want to be a professional I need to learn to act like a professional. My best friend once told me ''fake it to make it'' and that to me means that I have to pretent first in order to be.At that point keeping an open mind is essential for personal growth, for example I can not be stuck at my old habits of being irresponsable. It would not make any sense of come to year up and behave like if I am in a street in Richmond competing with others to see who makes the loudest noise.I do not think that escaping from a community like Richmond is imposible I believe is a challenge, and that challenge is to accept the change in our lives and take advantage of every opportunity that life provide us.I think that persons stay in the same community for decades because they are scare of change. I'm gifted and I'm very proud of my roots, but the world goes beyond the walls in my room , the world goes beyond my imagination and discovering the world and what is out there is the best thing that can happen to me and that is what would make me escape from my own fears and my own liltle world.

Stealing a broke man's pocket.

Interest rates, credit scores, financing, loans, are terms that not everybody understands. Falling into on bad investment can ruin your life and make you a slave of payments during the rest of your life. Some interest rates can actually double the amount of money you initially borrow. When you borrow money banks try to take advantage of the situation, most banks make their costumer sign a contracts that are unclear and inconsistent to literally chain the costumers to rates that go beyond their imagination and financial capacity. Avoiding this kind of contracts is almost impossible; most bankers don’t give their costumers many options or opportunities. Banks make huge profits out of interest rates that are based on credit scores and the credit scores are given by financial institutions. This cycle is control by banks and in my opinion is unfair and is meant to create a fair advantage to banks. Credit scores are supposed to be given every time you pay your bills on time in order to make you an accountable payer and gain bankers trust to borrow money. I believe that in this process bankers have all the control they need to do whatever they want to people. I feel that if they control the credit scores they can control the interest rate. I feel like the banks take advantage of persons with limited resources, especially with people with a lock of financial knowledge , banks target this persons because they are the ones that don’t understand the terms  and contracts . Sadly banks  target the most vulnerable individuals in society , mostly low income persons not well educated and with no other financial option available in this world. I had never thought about how rich people want to keep poor people miserable .  I’m  conscious that when people sign the contracts, they agree to the terms given but most of these terms are unbelievable.

April 7th 1991.

My first sight in these earth was in a hospital in Mexico city on April 7 1991.Since that day i been mentally  video taping  all the events ,moments,and stories that crossed my way. I wish i could remember every single name of the persons that I have met or their faces  , but sometimes I even forget relatives  names. All the things I always kept alive in my memory are the stories, the lessons and the love in which persons  marked my life and my heart.
I consider myself to have an old soul trap in a young body.I have not read many stories I'll rather hear them. One of my biggest passion is to help others and try to understand them, I think part of my passion was develop growing up in a hospital surrounded by  friends diagnosed with terminal diseases.Seeing them die and see their families suffer change my personality and the way I care for others. I went through several transition periods in my life that go from cultural changes, economical and marital statues.I consider every mistake I did as a precious learning experience and i would never change anything that happened in my life.  I consider myself to be a talented person but more important I'm a blessed person. The way I love to live is free!. I love and embrace anything that is different from me, and I hate to lose the opportunity to learn from that different person, idea or concept. I also see myself as a weird specimen  human being I love to think different and go against ,stereotypes, margins,and  specially wrong concepts about me. I'm a boxer in the ring of life, I love to defend my ideas and polish my believes ,I'm not a quitter I try to keep standing even though many times I fell like I run out of strength and energy I think that the day I will stop fighting that would be the day of my death.I believe in my inner power and I never doubt myself in my capabilities.I accept myself and  i feel proud of my achievements. Lastly I'm Samantha Bustamante.

Careers ,money vs passion.

Patient dies under care of fill-in nurse in Oakland

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/24/MNKA1L97H6.DTL#ixzz1Z1q57p2M

A female patient died at an Oakland hospital due to what was describe as a ‘’ medical error’’.  The nurse who was a replacement hired during a labor dispute gave the patient a fatal overdose of medication..  As many as 23000 nurses at 34 hospitals in northern and central California walked off the job on Thursday. the strike battle over proposed changes in benefits,as well as patient staffing issues .hospital officials believe that the temporary nurses were not less qualified than the staff  nurses , but other believe that the replacement nurses lacked the proper certification needed for the jobs they were doing .

I believe that the nurses that decided to abandoned their jobs and decided to strike were irresponsible and are in some way guilty of the patient’s dead. I believe that the nurses needed to be professional and strike in a different way. I believe that nurses, doctors, firefighters, policeman and persons who offer public services have to be aware of the importance of their jobs in our society. I believe that more than a career they have to feel passion and love whatever they are doing and do it well. I think that it is important for them to strike and express their emotions, after all these is a free country , but the lives of many of us depend on them. I would not describe this event as an accident I think is a consequence of the wrong actions that nurses did and the poor professionalism and importance to them on their jobs. I feel that they need to carry their title with honor and respect and value more their core values as health providers. This also makes me feel that many of these medical staff  care more about money and their benefits, than  patient's health and help to save lives..

Don't judge a school by its fame.

Don't judge a school by its fame.

I had the opportunity to be part of the 2009 class of Kennedy high school in Richmond. The first day I walked thought the door I felt scare the school had a bad reputation and I did not know what to expect. As I walked through the hallway I looked around and the conditions of the school scared me even more. The lockers were falling apart, the walls were painted with graffiti in some  cases  the graffiti were sexually offensive for women, the bathrooms were always flooded and dirty there were rat traps in the gardens and inside the classrooms most of the desks or chairs were broken and full of gang marks. I can’t remember all the things that the school needed to be repair but, all of us knew that the school never had funds for those promised improvements. I wanted to transfer to a better school I talked with my mother about it, but she simply said ''no''. Being in a student in there felt more like being a prisoner in a jail. I had no other option so I stood there. My parents always pushed me to try new experiences and then decided, they always wanted me to ''suffer'' first, and to me it’s like pushing me into a pool with no swimming skills and expecting me not to drawn. Obviously high school was not their exemption but being there really made me feel stressed out. There were more gangs than clubs, more Saturday school than tutorials and more probation officers than counselors. I remember the guy that run away from home , the guy that got arrested, I remember the dead body in front of our school ,I remember the day that a group of friends that went to a party and one of them fired a gun and killed his own friend , I remember the day that the girls locker room were on fire , I remember the walk- out days when we protest  in order to keep our school open ,I remember the couple that committed suicide after they found out she was pregnant...the list of incidents is just too long to write it (robbery sexual assault drug dealers etc) . After all of our behavior I knew why we could not say proudly '' I am a Kennedy student'' to others that high school and the reputation sounded like we were a bunch of young criminals trying to get a diploma. Today I can say that I am proud of the education that Kennedy gave me. I am not saying that I feel proud of my classmate’s criminal activity, I am proud to say that we made it through -adversity; we kept the school open for future generations. I am proud of being part of the change and the change I want to see in our community. Today I want to be able to change the future of the following classes of Kennedy high school. I want to work hard and proof that we have potential, talent, future and power and that not because we come from tough neighborhoods, that we are a bunch of criminals.  One day in my graduation ceremony holding my master's degree in my hands. I want to be able to put my head up high and say proudly I graduated from Kennedy high school the best school I ever attended ''My life school'' and I made it happen­_.

love the way you talk!

 I believe that language is the easiest way to express yourself. I believe that you develope your speech thorough time, enviroment, sorroundings, heritage, culture, race, friends, family, finally by your own personality and thoughts . Many will disagree with my opinion and my perspective of life but i strongly believe that every single person in these planet is unique and important. I believe that thorugh language we carry on our past. we learn new words daily  and day by day the way  we talk and think changes, but if you think about words as being a part of yourself you only go trhough life giving a piece of you to others . Teaching and reciving words  is not only with the purpose of  expanding your vocabulary of words, to me  learning a new word from a friend  is accepting and embracing  a part of them . Words always have a meaning but they are also powerful, words are names,opinions ,ideas.I wonder who decided these names?? who named things?? who decided to name love to a feeling ?. I dont know the answer to these questions but i am sure that the word love has centuries of existance in these world  .I think that words are  powerful and when you give out a word you can give out a feeling a thought or an  object. I think that words can be descructive as well as contructive so the use of language is essential in life.   Exploring the speech in my family I discovered that the way we talk has come from generation and generations back I can be using the same words that my grandmother used when she was a girl and now I am teaching the same word to my daughter such as love and the meaning of love in our family.