Neighborhood

An intense blend of different cultures, the significant essences of each social class, there are many things to appreciate about this neighborhood. Living near a highway and a mall brings the inner city busy-ness closer to me. Traffic is not foreign over here, an empty street is. There is always someone walking down each block because its safe for the most part. There aren't any houses nearby, the rows begin many blocks away. On my particular block, there are doctor's offices, a gated playground, an open area with a bench, and many, many cars. The area is flooded with people who are comfortable and polite. There are trees showing off their healthy green leaves in this transformation of springtime. They're held back by concrete and bricks lining the block. There's a comfortable noise level that eases up as the day winds down.
The air is mostly clean and clear until you walk into my building, a foreign smell of cooked food is picked up. The people in the neighborhood are mostly busy, working folk, the ages range, exemplifying the variation of each age group presence. This area is great because it's safe , divers and community minded/oriented. There seems to be a low crime rate over here according to the lack of news reported incidents. There are a few open areas such as a couple of parks, empty lots, and school fields. Train stations are within walking distance from my co-op building. Overall it seems to be a great area to live in for its easy accessibility to transportation means, schools, shopping areas, and recreational locations. There are two libraries close by that I've visited on occasion. It takes 30 minutes to travel to my old neighborhood, Jamaica, and the same amount of time to reach Manhattan.This travel time is a staple in my active life which I can rely on. There are numerous food stores a few blocks away. There is a local supermarket in which everyone knows each other. From this view, the trees don't dance the way I usually see from my own window. There is some litter on other blocks and sometimes the garbage is from other blocks. The only thing I don't like about it, is that it's so far from everyone I know in Brooklyn and Rosedale.

Guessing game of my love: food!

The cook I work with made it for me with a side order. It was very crunchy, slightly salty, and creamily sweet with bitter vegetables poking out. This meal reminded me of a particular holiday. The crumbs from my deliberate biting fell to the plate. The red sauce squeezed out as I pressed my meal together. I dipped my side order into a mildly sweet sauce from a bottle. I ended up chewing on the last bit of thickly sliced meat and that was all she wrote.

Closed

I'm so upset that the high school I attended will be closing. There's even Facebook groups dedicated to keep it open. I was notified of meetings earlier this year where former students were in attendance to voice their opinion. I've heard it will be closing anyway.

I'd like to see the school decrease the enrollment rate to compare to the amount of graduates each year.

This disappoints me that it will close, but it doesn't surprise me. When I was a senior, the school definitely changed. The hallways were louder because of the younger students, the hallways were always littered with kids and security officers. The didn't seem to be an end to it. They were looked at as loud and rambunctious, without cause.

It's Elementary, Watson

What I liked about elementary school was that it was not my zone school, but I was allowed to attend anyway since my grandmother was a teacher there. I liked that people would recognize me for many different things, including this.

I lived in her house, so it was easy for us to arrive in the morning. We drove the 45 minutes to the South Ozone Park location. I became familiar with her fellow teachers and their grandchildren. I liked that she called the kids her own, but I knew there was no way I could feel jealous or neglected. I was so small growing up, that she sent the older kids for me after school or just whenever she needed me. At that age, we didn't look much alike, but she always introduced me to others proudly.

School Times

In junior and high school, I hated waking up so early. I mean, I guess us students had it kind of easy compared to the teachers. In my world, waking up at 6:30 a.m. was the end of the world. It was easy to tell that I'm a night person. I would stay up late on the phone or watching t.v. All through school, I had not paid attention to time management. That helped me become the procrastinating student I am today. I can say that I'm working on it since a few years ago. In high school, I was late for my first period probably 80% of the time. I would have still been getting ready for school by the time I was supposed to leave. An ideal time to start school probably would have been 8:30 or 9 a.m. I wonder who came up with these hours anyway.

It was interesting that I lived 30 minutes away from the high school when traveling on the bus and walking distance.

Immigrants, Students, College,Funding, Citizenship

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/22/undocumented.students/

I don't know many facts when it comes to immigrants and funding their educations and activities. From the recording we heard in class regarding the topic, it seems that these girls might have searched for options to get into college if they had the knowledge of what they were missing and how it would affect their future. Lacking certain documents could hold someone back from the opportunities available to Americans.

The fact that these girls want to go and work hard to go is impressive and helps others appreciate the value of determination and education.

Worst Job

For me, it didn't get any worse than a customer service representative position at Domino's Pizza. My best friend and I met there in the summer of 2005. I was 19-20 years old. We had a great time getting to know each other there and laughing about every little thing.

There were a few perks to the job. We were allowed to create our own little pizzas, have breaks, phone calls, and leniency as far as prompt arrival to work. It seemed the worst because of the way all of the workers were treated at times by some of the customers and the general manager. Sometimes we were yelled at, cursed out, thought to be stupid, called liars by the callers. Then, our manager talked to us like we were less than others when he was upset with us or we screwed something up. It was like a twisted family, like he's an uncle taking care of two sisters. We had to argue over our hours to make sure they were accurate, just a mess. It was easy to tell that we were overqualified.