Last time, I started talking about how some of the classes I had taken in 2010 had started making sense and at last 2011 was my last year at De Anza. I had many conversations with counselors, friends, family, and others throughout these years. 2011 was a fun year because of the new goals I set for myself and some of them I did accomplish. 2012 was the year I finally became who I wanted to be and I discovered a few things about myself and my peers. 2013 so far has been amazing even though there have been some ups and downs. So, in 2011 the revelation came to me that I was getting old and I couldn’t be at community college forever. I also started seeing another side of my job that I couldn’t possibly imagine. There was also a few things I wish I would have done differently but it was for the better and so 2011 began with a bang and a whimper.
2011- Taking small breaks can set you up for failure or success
At the beginning of the year, I started by looking at the classes I was taking and my life. The classes I was taking were for fun and for what it was worth I felt less motivated than I used to. The Anthropology class that I took was taking the perspectives of culture and how they were integrated into our society. My geography class was taken from a perspective of looking at the world and how it functioned from the rivers, the locations, the weather, and the populations involved. The Latin American class was so much fun due to the interaction and the chemistry that the professor implemented amongst everyone. However, during Valentine’s day I started feeling a little pain in my kidney and on the left side of my body. I knew what this was but I had no idea how to control this because it was during a school day. I had had kidney stones before but I had no idea how to let it go other than drink lots of water. I called my doctor’s office and he made me an appointment for the next week. I saw him and he sent me to a specialist that dealt with this kind of issue. I found out a few weeks later that I had Polycystic Kidney Disease which I have documented before on this blog. I take medication for this and the good thing is that my blood pressure has gone down immensely since then. Of course, I remember the lesson I learned from this was that some things are better left unsaid because I found out some time later that it was a hereditary disease. My mom had it when she was pregnant with me and so there it was that I told myself that I had to start eating healthier and doing more exercise. I had my gym membership but I kept making the excuse that the gym was too far and I couldn’t make time. I started making time before midnight and/or during the weekend at night after work. Ever since then, I have made vow to at least go 3-5 times a week and I have felt great ever since. I also started figuring out that I had to start building my bank account back up because at this time I had little to no money. I wasn’t afraid any more of saying no to someone at the request of spending a substantial amount of money. So, the fun part was saving money and making sure that my money was being spent carefully instead of being taken for granted. I was so happy at this point but my classes were taking a toll on me because I really didn’t know where to go after this quarter. I had taken virtually every class necessary that I needed but I had no clue what else to take. One day, I got on assist.org to check what I needed to transfer and I thought nothing of it because I was afraid of how I would do in the classes. I thought I would be able to take Intermediate Algebra in the spring quarter but because I had already dropped it four times I was unable to take it (although at the time I was unaware of this). I ended up taking three pretty useless classes in the spring (Political movements, Environmental science, and Weight training). Once again they were fun but I had already gotten to used to this routine and I really had to do something different. If I wanted to get to that next level, I needed help and that I did get. When the quarter was coming to an end, I had a long talk with a good friend and a few other people in my life. These talks resulted in me coming to the realization that A) Maybe I was just burnt out from all these years of taking these classes which amounted to a lot of units (180 or so to that point) and B) There were really only four more classes I needed to take (two of which I dreaded and two of which were stimulating). I was ready for a new challenge and I started thinking that De Anza was the answer but it was not to be. I went there once to see if I could take Intermediate Algebra one more time and one counselor said it was fine but when I went to take my paper to see if I could the admissions said that I couldn’t so I was super pissed after this. I sat down for the next few days pondering what I should do and I went to see another counselor but this one encouraged me to take Intermediate Algebra at Mission College and stay there to take Stats. Of course, the other option was to take it at Mission and come back to De Anza to take stats. This would be the beginning of a long year in 2012. So, from June 2011 to January 2012 I took an almost seven month break and to be honest I did need it. I got to see my job from a morning perspective and I was seeing what it was like to start at 6 in the morning. Looking back at my project 365, I see how my idea of memory and mind stimulating pictures can bring about a moment and a time in life. Some of them make me think that 2011 was a fun and strange time because the breaks in life are far and few between. I would be working out and working most of the time making me think that I was doing something wrong but I said to myself that this was necessary for myself. I had no time to breathe and this was the first time I saw from another perspective what it’s like to just relax a little bit. I started doing a few things on my own like cooking, cleaning, and helping around my house. I also took a long vacation to Mexico and afterwards I started applying to colleges which, I didn’t know this at the time, was a test run to filling out an application. The ultimate lesson that I learned from these down times was you really need a short break sometimes to see what it’s like and if you need to figure out a few things then so be it. You may not always succeed but you’re not always going to fail either. I started looking at 2012 as a challenge and as a chance to succeed at a higher level. I read a few books on Algebra so that helped out a little bit because I was challenging myself to do better than I should be doing (boy it was fun in 2012). The new challenge was preparing myself for a new school which I knew little about other than a few meetings with a good friend there. Mission college, I was there for a year and a half and it was some of the most fun I had. I saw the school and I started wondering what kind of people I would meet here? I was getting better at meeting people and introducing myself to others. When I sit down somewhere or I go to a function I know where I want to sit and I give myself a bit of time to observe the situation that is ahead of me. This is something I was getting myself acquainted during these down times as I started meeting and working with others to better myself. My personality started coming out and from this I learned some great things. 2011 was a great year and some of this is documented in my project 365 which is something I look back on to remind me of all the fun and weird times. 2012 was a different and complete 365 due to some even stranger people I met. Let’s just say that it was from this year that I finally accomplished a few goals and I made a 180 on a stance I had.
2012- Being optimistic but cautious brings about a smart and creative thinker
The first thing I learned about 2012 was that you’ll never fail unless you really try. The months of January-May was filled with self doubt and optimism. The first reason I say this is because at work I started having fun and most of self doubt was gone. Most people at my job seem down most of the time and I started taking on the role of vanguard. This was because I hated seeing people down in the dumps about the job I had to do but I kept reminding them that they were getting paid for this. I started by inquiring about people’s lives rather than talking all the time about myself. Those first few months had me thinking that challenges were mounting because at first when I took Algebra at 8 in the morning I wouldn’t be able to do it. But, most of the time when I was taking it I started asking myself how bad did I want it? How bad did I want to graduate from college in a degree in Psychology? I would ask a good friend in that class about some of his study habits and we would share about some of the issues we had with the material. The professor was helpful if you asked and that’s what I most enjoyed when she would teach. She wasn’t great but I believe she actually did care about the class she was teaching. The key in this case was trying because I would try hard in the class and I believed my professor saw this as she would give me some compliments on my problems that I did on my homework and quizzes. It was some of the most challenging material I have had to grasp in my life and I wasn’t afraid because if I failed I knew I at least tried. I would do horrible on some of the quizzes/tests but on some of them I would do great as some material was easier to grasp. I ended up taking a less than favorable grade into the final and I knew that if I wanted to get past this I needed to pull an all nighter. The day of May 20th-May 21st is a day that will go down in infamy as it was the longest night of my life that lasted until 5 in the morning. I looked at everything and realized that I wanted this badly and I started getting it as test time was approaching. Once I sat down, I knew the material and what was even better was that she gave us the choice of choosing the problems we wanted to do on the test. I ended up doing better in the class than I had anticipated and I got a C which was good enough to move onto Stats (more on this fun and strange situation later). The other two classes (Psychobio and weight training) were both great to learn a little more about our functions of the body and in one of them I ended up meeting two very cool classmates that worked in there just as hard as I did. The class was weight training combined with cross training but I learned so much about what a true workout really is. I didn’t think about this until now but taking that class made me a much more enthusiast for exercise. It doesn’t matter how in shape or out of shape a person may be but what matters is that you try your hardest to give all the effort you can. Psychobio was simple and easy because it was online and all we really needed to do was three exams, a question every week, and a paper. This class was one of the classes I needed to transfer and it was much simpler than I would have thought. I was a little afraid because Mission was so close yet so far away at 8 in the morning. It was a whole new school but I did meet some great people in that first semester. I ended up making a good friend in Algebra that helped me a little bit when I had a question and vice-a- versa. What motivated me towards the end of the semester was a good friend that I met at work which I have documented in an earlier blog post about and I have to say it was so fun hanging out with her as I learned how to live life again. We would do all sorts of fun stuff together like eat out together, watch a few movies together, and share a few laughs at work. I figured that I needed to do well in my classes of doing well in my classes for her because I didn’t want to look defeated in her eyes. I learned from this whole experience that friendships can only take you far and sometimes our emotions get the best of us. I would write more about her but the past that her and I had is something I’ve already let out enough about here and it was a very small period in my life that lasted 8 months. Anyway, in the summer was the first time that I happened to take classes and one I did well in and the other was just a blurb. Human Biology was the first of classes that I realized that not everything is easy as they say it’s going to be. So, what do you do? You find a group of people and you form a kick ass group. I happened to get lucky with mine because I saw the middle table where I picked to sit and I said this looks right. It was a group of girls and I was little intimated at first but I said maybe they’ll help me with my fear of talking to girls consistently? As the semester wore on, our group got smaller and bigger as it became clear that this class was not cut out for everyone. I was lingering on the border of a B and a high C for the longest time in the class and so were both of my group mates that remained in my group. This taught me that if you want to perform well in a summer class (or any class for that matter) you have to find the right people to get into your circle and integrate them with a system that you all find fitting. For example, if we wanted to do well in our class we had to study in the morning and in the afternoon together because if we all studied we knew what we were talking about. I ended up getting a B in that class with the help of my group mates and a little bit of handy writing on a term paper that took me 5 days to write (and it wasn’t easy material). On the other hand, my basket was full with doing Stats almost every day this time last year and I was completely lost because of the online class portion. I didn’t know what certain symbols in stats meant and this hindered me for most of the session because I really didn’t know where to go to ask for help. In those 6 weeks, I did horribly on the quizzes and the tests and I ended up failing the class. I gave it a try but what was most important was that I tried and I got some experience under my belt. But, a great opportunity arose with the integration of a fall class that was hybrid and it met once a week and it happened to be on my day off. I was stoked to have this opportunity once again and the good thing was that this was the only class I needed to transfer to a university and it was 16 weeks instead of 6. I ended up grasping the material much better this time due to timing, studying, not stressing about other classes, and getting plenty of rest along with the homework, tests, and quizzes. The best part was that everyone was helping each other out in the online portion and the professor was more than willing to help out anyone that had questions. In this class, I ended up with a much better grade of a B and because of my confidence in my ability to finish this class I ended up applying to two universities. One I got into (San Jose State) and the other was only taking AA-T degrees so I think I ended up making a good choice. I started realizing that my journey at community college was surely coming to an end. All the tests, presentations, quizzes, homework, and papers written had been worth it as I had a clear variety of skills. I didn’t slack off in the dire time when I had little reason to take these classes but I just wanted to learn. It didn’t matter if it was a speech requirement that I had already fulfilled, I just wanted to see the other side of what this field was like. I took so many classes that life became fun. I believe that is what life is about as I stated in the title that you have to be optimistic but cautious because you never know what may hit you. It could be personal, you may have to take a journey that takes you somewhere into the unknown, or you may just be looking for answers. Being a smart and creative thinker can also add fruits to life because when a bad situation arises you identify what you need to do and realize that there are solutions to almost every problem. I have come to know who I am these last ten years because I went through so much, personally and professionally. It doesn’t matter if it was good or bad. What mattered is that you saw what came and you took care of what needed to be done in your life at that point in time. Hopefully in 2023, I’ll be writing a blog on the years of 2013-2022 and just maybe I’ll be married, with kids, and a great job but until then here’s a bit of 2013 has brought me (a list to look back on in 2023)
2013- Only expect the best possible effort from yourself
- Another strange disease (keratoconus)
- An awkward friend
- More stimulating conversations with baseball fans and others
- The Oakland A’s proved that 2012 wasn’t a fluke
- This time around I’m on my way to a university to get my bachelor’s degree
- Long walks to Mountain View and Los Gatos
- More time=longer workouts
- Helping out more than usual at my house
- Becoming a little more helpful to others
- Knowing how I became who I am
Just Another Day... 