Jeff Bliss- Speaks Up Huntsville, TX

  

The kid has intelligence his manor speaking seems like he has a very good vocabulary not street. Looks like a clean cut kid, yet needs more to attracts his attention which is true, how can he be getting an education or taught in his class if his teacher is giving out packets instead of engaging with the students and most of all very wrongful to bring up the pay check comment, a real teacher does it for the love of teaching and for making a change in a student life and influencing the students potential by causing an impact on their students.

Some people need additional things to engage them rather than be almost self taught by handouts, the student is right when he tells the teacher that she isn't teaching, as I could see from the clip the teacher was yelling at him all the while sitting at the desk instead if standing up and showing professionalism and in a Superior manor since she is the adult in the classroom.  She showed to be a lazy person who couldn't even get up and show respect for her students or any kind of maturity to try to show any kind of enforcement to even make him leave, yes he was wrong for bursting out in front of the class yet something had to trigger this built up tensions and it all came from the "teacher", as it showed that maybe that school needs to follow up on its teacher classroom relationships as it seems that a student spoke up due to not getting the proper education.

INTO THE WILD

Into the wild can interest in the way that it focuses on providing a look on individual self exploring. Finding ourselves in a the way of knowing what we want for our sake, looking for what interest us. As in finding a passion for life and what is in it, For Christopher Johnson was a young guy from the suburbs who couldn't identify himself with his own class. Maybe a bit selfish in my opinion, as he came from a well to do family, probably his family did strive and worked hard for him to have a better life which he couldn't identify with. Yes he reached a good education level yet if we think about it how good did that work out. He did not help the people around him or even himself. He left everything behind to explore and see if he could find something else for himself.

I suppose I see it from this point, myself coming from a background of having to work hard to gain everything for my family and myself. And yet it intrigues me how a well to do guy from a good family just leaves everything its as if not everything was enough for Chris.  Possibly this self discovery or journey to find himself is nothing more than low self esteem, derived from a bad childhood growing up in a certain type of environment or some trauma built up and kept bottled up from childhood in his household with his family.

Yet He had this passion to just give up his entire life to be something he wasn’t from the start He wanted to venture and be some one else as he made this persona of some sort of world traveller, free spirited without a care in the world.  With even coming up with a fake name for himself “Alexander Supertramp”,  seems like he was passionate bout searching for a new life or exploring himself in some sort of way as he began to speak up about things he wanted  and was very arrogant about himself, arrogant in the way that he seemed to think he was right and knew it all. Yet at to what cost did that get him to as he caused his own death.

DIFFICULTIES & STRATEGIES= STRUGGLE

What issues do you face that make thriving in college difficult for you? 

College becomes difficult, when work, family/friends and a social life all intertwine with one another. In life difficulties are dealt with everyday for myself the difficulties I face on a daily basis is getting up early to go to work to provide for myself and my mother who has been a single parent to my siblings and I all my life, now she is my responsibility for which I work very hard for as she did for me when I was younger. 

Due to an accident she had at her previous employer she was not able to return to work as she had disc degeneration/herniation in her spine/back.  Besides having to work in the city of Oakland and dealing with the environment itself my job position, as a Quality Analyst & Accounts Receivable Administrator is a very high demanding and a big responsibility to carry. Which my responsibilities are: to review, edit, correct and type up medical orthopedic reports, as well as bill agencies/attorney’s/insurance companies & patients themselves. That is already a big stressful responsibility for which I am very proud to have as I began as a temporary filing clerk and later began to help out in each department till I got a higher position without having any prior technical training or certification my work speaks for itself for I now run my department. 

While having to deal with school and work at the same time I have issues everyday as I take away my own privilege of having a real lunch during work for I turn my lunch time into study and homework time, when I don’t take a lunch I leave work early to finish school work or run errands I do not have time to do for my household or take my mother to doctors appointments as my time is very limited.

Work and school already take up most of my time, yet there is my boyfriend and family whom I barley have time to spend with. The most difficult thing is to spend time with my boyfriend, my family and my friends as the few hours I have to spend is to do school work and sleep instead of being able to spend time with my loved ones. I think the biggest obstacle is to give up precious time on school in order to have a higher education and a better career to benefit my self, my family and one day my future kids. 

All in all the obstacles I face in my life in order to succeed is giving up time with my loved ones, limited time in my daily life and the biggest responsibility of all is being the head of my house hold while being a spouse to my boyfriend and having dinner ready every night while rushing to pull all nighter’s to better my future. 

The last year to me the biggest difficulty I’ve had to deal with is the death of my father, my past has been something I carry, for which my mother was on her own most of my life and I’ve had to live with poverty, hard work, hunger at times when I was younger the struggle of survival has been the biggest difficulty in my life that up to present day still affect my life today and for I am living proof of how hard it has been to push forward for myself and my family.

What strategies do you have for dealing with these potential deal breakers?

I think the strategies I can enforce within my difficulties is spending the little time I have with the people that matter most in my life. Many of us take life for granted and even though we may not have that much time each day, we can take some time out of our busy day to play with our phones and laptops so we should all be able to call each other, text, or even do web-camera calls. Even if we may not be able to interact on a daily basis with our loved ones a simple message or hello or smile can go a long way. For me a big strategy is to embrace what I have and how far I’ve come and look onto my past as its what’s gotten me this far and that helps me have more courage to keep pushing forward as all my hard work will eventually pay off and I will one day be rewarded for all the sacrifices I’ve given up. 

How Will You Be Social Change in 2013?

                                  We can help make a social change, inspire and give back.

HUB StoryBooth : Why Do You Care?

Some people in our community actually care

A Rose Out of Concrete-Andrade

Life for people living in urban neighborhoods or poverty is posed as impossible to survive. No odds of survival if your roots are coming from negative (concrete) rough lives. If more effort and resources were to be put into effect, there would be roses growing from everywhere not just small rose gardens. If someone actually took time to care the outcome of crimes/ jobs urban cities would be incredible, Its a cause and effect type of thing.

For instance if the past wouldn't have influenced the people then things would be different. People don't give time to stop and reflect and see that if everyone were to give back to urban cities peoples lives could be impacted and changed, the cycle needs to change with the education and upbringing of children. This needs to improve, how can we survive as babies without being fed and nurtured by our parents then we wouldn't survive but as adults your on your own so you forget the affections and love and caring as you only aspire to survive, and if you don't have that support from your family, friends or community then you look onto negativity and aspire survive of the fittest even if that means committing crimes, dropping out of school or doing drugs and illicit activities.


1. Why would we let our community fall apart?

2. Who can help these urban cities/ What changes can be made

3. Why isn't the state focusing on re enforcing resources to better the education in urban cities? 

Passion Project

1. How Does the Movie Speak to You?

The Passion Project reflects a part of who I am as when I first started to attend Chabot in 2005. I began with my career path in Criminal Justice as this was the career goal I intended since high school, yet due to a full time job and no longer having time to think about a any full time educational goals I felt discouraged and confused in the career path I wanted to study originally as I felt my passion for the Criminal Justice degree faded.   Once I took most of the Classes for that degree a few semesters later I needed to take a class that fell within the humanities portion that counts for transfer and graduation which the only one within the time range of my work schedule was a Mass Communication Introduction class. At this point I felt that I was missing something as the passion and enthusiasm I felt for the degree I originally started was not what I wanted to do anymore.

Once taking the Mass-Communication Class, from the first day of that class I knew that my passion had changed. I think from growing up throughout the years and also it was something I enjoyed, not just a career goal I expected to have as Criminal Justice degree was something that had been supported by my family. As our families always seems to think about economic/financial stability and that it’s something good for our future or so they think. Yet as we grow up as is said in the Passion Project film we have to wake up from the fairytale and stop dreaming and leave or passions behind. Yet I felt that after I took on the Mass communication class it influenced me to leave the Degree of Criminal Justice and take on a Mass-Communication Degree (Radio/TV/Journalism/Media/Advertising). I began to realize that I saw a new me begin to grow and new thoughts, and my entire way of seeing life had changed. My Passion for a new career path had changed which influenced my whole life and everything had begun to change around me. My family questioned this decision and yet it took them time to realize that it was something that I not just enjoyed but something I was really good at. My mother began to see projects I had done and noticed I began to work at Chabot’s TV & Radio Station and began to see I was so passionate about it that she was proud of me.

2. What is the connection between passion and poverty?

Passion is something you fall in love with as you enjoy it and feel so great about doing it.  And sometimes people believe that we must do things that we may not be passionate about in order to have a high economic standing. But sometimes no mater how much money we may have or power, we can be poor in not having the things we love. Poverty is not having things we may need to survive or live and to be happy with but realistically, in life we may have a high education and a good career path but some people may not be happy with their lives and are poor within the means of not having love, a good family or even good vibes around them.