Blog Post #16: What I Dream of Internship Looking Like

When I get ready to enter my internship, a question that I have in my mind is if I will have acquired enough information for whatever job(s) I will be doing. I would hate to go into my internship and forget everything that I've learned from Year Up. Another thing I think about is how I will adapt to working with my coworkers. This also gives me anxiety because of the pre-conceived thoughts that I have about my future coworker’s personalities and their ambition when it comes to doing work. I have not put too much thought into how I will stand out in my work community, so I guess I can say that's something I currently have anxieties about, as well. 

Although it is not a bad thing to consider, another anxiety that I have is that I will want to continue to work in my internship after the six month period. I have future plans to go back to school for Interior Design, and I would not want to get side-tracked by this experience. Although I am sure that my internship would not be a bad experience, I am sure of what I want to do afterwards. I hope that I will be known as someone who is dependable and knowledgeable in the things that I do during my internship. I feel that my prior experience with utilizing my downtime and working with multiple customers will help me going into my internship.

Blog Post #15: Thursday, December 29, 2011

Today, I planned on spending time with my sisters. However, I ended up spending the whole day with my friends. My morning started at around 8:30 a.m., when I had to wait for a Sears maintenance representative to fix my refrigerator at my new house. After he left, I picked up one of my friends, and then dropped her off to another friend's house.

Afterwards, I was pretty tired because I am not a morning person, and my body was still in shock from waking up so early. Therefore when I got home, I had plans to take a thirty minute nap. However, I ended up having an hour conversation with another friend of mine before I finally took my long anticipated nap. When I went to take my nap, I had set my alarm for thirty minutes after the time. Instead,  I ended up waking up two hours later with another phone call from another friend who needed to be picked up from work.

After I picked my friend up, we went shopping for a couple of hours, and then picked up my friend that I dropped off that morning. When I picked her up, we went driving through various cities, and just having fun with each other. It was a very fun, hectic, and unplanned day.

Blog Post #14: Monday, December 26, 2011

Today, I spent another day with my family but for another holiday. My aunt did not believe in the story of Christmas, and instead believed in the morals of Kwanzaa, and wanted our family to gather at her house to celebrate the first day. A part of me has always wanted to celebrate Kwanzaa because it is about bringing family together, and coming together to give thanks for the things given to us throughout the year. My aunt had taught me a lot that day. I had learned about some of the words that were used around the holiday, and what they represent. Today represented "Umoja", which meant unity.

My sisters and cousins got to participate in a lot of things, too. They got to light the first Kwanzaa candle, pour water in a bowl for ancestors, and say a prayer for the family. The only thing we did not do traditionally was exchange a daily gift because we already participated in that on Saturday.  It was a very unique experience, and changed the way I felt about even participating today.

Blog Post #13: Saturday, December 24, 2011

Today, I spent my Christmas Eve and part of my Christmas with some of my close family members. My family and I had plans to celebrate and exchange gifts at my grandmother's house. When I arrived there, I ended up wrapping presents for my grandmother because she was too busy cooking.

Since my great grandmother wast admitted into the hospital weeks before, I did not get the chance to see her until that day we had our Christmas celebration. It made me happy to see her around people, especially my family. Before we opened and exchanged gifts, my aunt took tons of photos of everybody and forced all the children to pose like a bunch of princesses.

For the first time in my 22 years of celebrating Christmas, I had presents that did not have wrapping paper on it. However, I did get a lot of gift cards. I think this was the first Christmas that symbolized that I was an adult because of the gifts I got and the way they were wrapped. Altogether, I was very satisfied with this day.

Blog Post #12: What does Internship Readiness look like?

Qualities that I believe someone has who is internship ready are leadership, dependability, determination, humility, humbleness, along with their own personality. I plan to demonstrate internship readiness by improving on my growth areas that were pointed out by my instructors and peers. I would also demonstrate this by working more intimately with my peers, and coming up with ways of staying connected with them. I also will strive to stand out as a leader in my own ways in class. Things that I plan to change is my approach to class and working with others. I also plan to be more energized and excited about class and my internship opportunities.

I would also like to work more on my networking and showing my personality to corporate companies. Since I want to hold my own firm, I need to acquire the skills of social networking. I would also like to work more on working with a team of people. This is not my strong suit, and I need to figure out how to work intimately with people.

Blog Post #11: Zeal & Pain at the Workplace

The best job that I had was working at Target between November 2009 to March 2011. I was 19 and it was my very first job, so I was very excited. I was worried when I started because I was hired on as a Seasonal Inventory/Stock Team Member, but my manager had asked me to stay after three months of working there. During almost two years there, I was trained in truck scanning, cashiering, merchandise planning/organizing, price changing, and returning stock.

Things that made my job enjoyable was the fact that it was my first job, and I was encouraged to learn more and do more at work. I also got a lot of hours. Things that the workplace has taught me is to take whatever opportunity that comes my way, and be excited about the work that you're given. Things that I learned that I can take into my internship is being excited about work, and taking on whatever workload that you can without burning yourself out.

The worst job that I had was working as a Seasonal Sales Representative at The Picture People between November 2010 to February 2011. I had got the job because I wasn't going to school, and I figured that I would go for another job. Some of the tasks that I did was greeting/interacting with customers, getting them to their appointed picture room, viewing pictures, and selling to them. I knew how to sell because I had to do that at Target, but working at Picture People made the job more intimate with the customer, and a lot more selling that I preferred because of my personal financial morals. The co-workers I had were very conniving, and always wanted to talk about irrelevant things.

Blog Post #10: Link between Rivera's Mural & the Occupy Movement

The in-depth message that Diego Rivera's Frozen Assets mural shows is how capitalism reigns over cities, while poor laborers don't get benefits and the wealthy does. The Occupy Movement that's going on today has to do with protesting for economic and social equality that many people in America feel is lacking. Rivera's mural and the movement are connected because the artwork brings up things that are lacking in America.

The connection between the two aren't very clear because they're set in different times. However, they point out the same issues. Rivera's artwork was created around 1931-1932, and the problems seem to closely tie into today's events. The Occupy Movement goes more in depth to say that most of America is represented in 99 %tile, and they are paying the wealth's taxes (the 1%). That 1% also collects more money than any class below it, as the government undermines the 99%'s labor output.

An incident very similar to today's protest happened during the Great Depression, and that's what Rivera tried to showcase in his piece. The top half of the picture shows corporate banking business being built, while the second half shows homeless laborers sleeping in sheds and not reaping benefits. The bottom half shows a secret trade between the bank and a few wealthy people.

After getting insightful information about the mural, I can see where the "We are the 99%" motto that is used in the movement comes from. The wealthy are getting paid money under the table, which should be shared with the laborers. While all of this is going on, the only concern the government has is building corporate America, instead of building homes for workers. I feel that it takes a lot of reading between the lines to see the connection between Rivera's artwork message, and the Occupy Movement today.

Info:
Diego Rivera's Frozen Assets Mural
The Occupy Movement
The Great Depression