Author Archives: JENNIFER CONDOR

Over the course of this semester, the things that have helped me become a better writer is the practice we had with using grammar and punctuation in writing. As a writer, I always had a weakness in dealing with incorrect grammar in the essays I have written throughout my high school years. I feel like I have gotten better at catching little grammar mistakes in my writing. The work that I’m most proud of is the first essay we did, the Literacy Narrative essay. I feel like this essay was the best one I composed because it helped me recall significant memories from my journey of how I became a reader and a writer. I was able to explore and discover more about my writing tone. The writing project that presented the most challenges for me was the Analytical Research paper because it took me a lot of time to write it, I had to change my ideas a lot of times and it was difficult to keep my ideas organized in my research paper. The aspects of the writing process that I still struggle with is organizing my ideas in writing in a way that makes the essay flow and easy to understand. I have always enjoyed writing, more like freestyle writing where I can just talk about my ideas without a specific prompt or rules to follow. As a writer, I often find myself writing meaningful poems. I plan to develop my voice as a writer in the future by focusing on staying on track on the specific topics given when writing papers in my future classes.

The idea that we have developed throughout the semester that has stayed with me is the message of Junot Diaz’s short story “Fiesta 1980” because his story displays what masculinity is and how it affects other individuals in society, such as family members. It stayed with me because we should be aware that masculinity still exists in households today where the man of the house takes control of his own family members. Yunior, the main character of the story has a struggling relationship with his strict father, he is often conflicted with going with the flow on his father’s unfaithful actions and hiding his true emotions from his mother, and telling her the truth. I believe that children in the present day shouldn’t be pressured by masculinity to be someone they truly don’t feel like being, which brings up the importance of one’s self-identity. On the other hand, my thoughts about my own identity have developed more in a good way. I feel like I was able to learn more about myself through the connections my culture has with other cultures and its similar lifestyles. 

I feel like this semester has really helped me realize that from now on, many challenges will come but in just believing in myself, I will overcome them. I’m aware that being a SEEK student at Baruch College is a privilege that I have. I will take advantage of the opportunity I have and work hard and put my biggest effort in everything I do. One of the biggest struggles I had this semester was my math class, it really surprised me because math used to be my favorite subject. One of my goals is to one day give back to the program that will help me pursue a business career and reach success.                            

For my research paper, I’m going to be talking about the concept of the American Dream. What I already know about the concept of the American Dream is that it’s the belief that everyone regardless of their differences in race and  social class, can achieve their own version of success in a society where there are opportunities for everyone. My research question is, To what extent is the concept of the American Dream still relevant in the present day. This topic about the American Dream is interesting to me because I want to learn more about it, what makes the idea of the American seem like something so powerful that many people’s lives are affected by it. In the process of researching answers to my question on the American Dream, I found an interesting academic article from the EBSCO host website, named “ The American Dream and today’s reality” by Topolnicki, Denise M., the data given in the article is what caught my attention. It gives statistics on factors that affect the idea of the American Dream such as, the middle class shrank because many got richer, Upward mobility is still the American way, Today’ s best jobs go to college grads. When I’m given numbers as prove for a certain position, I believe numbers tell the truth and tell the real story. So far I feel like I found a good source but I have to still  find many more sources to make my research paper stronger. I have always heard about what the American Dream was but I didn’t really know anything in-depth about it so that is what motivated me to do research on that topic. I want my research paper to analyze the idea of the American Dream, where I can fully understand whether the idea still exists today, or in what ways it has changed to make it what it is today.

I am part of the Hispanic Community where many cultures come together as one especially with what we have in common which is speaking the Spanish language. I find it very interesting being a part of this community because I get to learn about several different hispanic cultures. So far, I know some things about the Ecuadorian, Colombian, Mexican, Peruvian, Argentina, Dominican Republic, and Spain Culture. Although there’s a lot of good and interesting things about this community, there’s also some issues that should be addressed. Many of these hispanic countries suffer from a lot of poverty due to the countries’ economic problems. Many hispanic families in countries such as Ecuador, Mexico, Honduras suffer from poverty. I believe that Poverty is one of the biggest issues in this community because people are living a hard life trying to find ways to support themselves and their families but there is  lack of attention and help that they get from others. When I hear about the Poverty problems in these countries, I think about how children are negatively affected by problems  and it makes me upset. I think that this issue of poverty can be addressed by giving more free education to these children that are suffering to live a stable life. It can help children receive help and  have somewhere is be and learn about  many things that  can inspire them to want a better future. A future that can create a turning point in their lives and take them out of poverty, And this can be a great help for themselves and further generations after that.Ever since I was a child, I used to watch tv ads that would talk about helping families suffering from poverty, especially helping their children of these families. And I used to think to myself, “ What can I do to help these children that are going through many challenges just to survive?’’ And I used to think a lot about it and now in days, I’m thinking about sending donations to families with children in need in the future if I ever get the opportunity. I really hope one day I will get to do so because it will be a great help for them.

When I was young , the first superhero I learned about  was Spider-Man.My parents used to buy me a lot of children’s movies that were famous back in the early 2000 ‘s.The movies that became significant to me was the series of Spider-man movies with actor Tobey Maguire. In my opinion, with Spider-man, I was able to learn about what being a hero really meant compare to other superheroes. Spider-Man lived a double life as a hero and as Peter Parker, he was always trying his best to make sure his neighborhood was safe. Being a hero to me means helping others for their benefit and being an inspirational role model to society. The series of movies include, Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-man 3 (2007). In each movie, Spider-Man goes through several challenges dealing with villains as well as dealing  with his own identity as a hero. I remember watching these movies repeatedly and every time , I would observe the actions of Spider-Man and become so amused and think of him as a cool hero. That was the way he became my favorite super hero. I feel like many people from the generation I grew up with also know about the series of movies because of how popular it was back then. I was hoping the series would continue after the third movie but unfortunately it didn’t. After that, many other people came out to take the role of Spider-Man creating new versions of it. I think that even though the newer versions of Spider-Man are now out and popular, people should also take the history of Spider-Man into mind and watch what is now considered “old movies”.In reality, in the history of Spider-man movies, it’s popularity began with the first Spider-man movie that came out in 2002.So I believe that  we should take a chance to watch the older versions of Spider-Man before watching the newer versions just to learn about its history and its development.

The article, “My Metric for success? Happiness”by Richard Branson addresses something meaningful to me in terms of what success means to me. He talks about how success is not measure by the amount of money of a person earns or by the status of a person.The idea  that he is trying to enforce is that money is not happiness and if it is , it doesn’t create long term happiness. While reading this article I realized that when Branson states, “My family are my greatest achievement. When they are happy, I am happy, and that make me feel so successful.” , he is referring to the fact that the people that we are close to, makes us feel like  we have achieve so much because of the motivation and happiness they give us.He also mentions that doing what you love is what makes you feel that success you long for.I agree with the message he is giving his audience saying that life is too short and that happiness should be in everyone’s list of goals because without happiness , can someone really feel successful?This article made me realize that I should take any chance I have to find out what I’m truly passionate about and eventually find ways to balance the challenges that will come in my life with my goals of becoming successful. Success is not something that I fear but it is something that I want to have with my effort and hard work and something that has been achieved with a good mindset and motives.

Article website : “My Metric for success?Happiness”, Richard Branson

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-metric-success-happiness-richard-branson

 George Dila ’s perspective on writing  in” RETHINKING THE SHITTY FIRST DRAFT” clearly reflects my approach to writing because he knows the importance of a first draft , he keeps on revising as he develops his first draft writing and he doesn’t refer to the beginning process as shitty.There are many times, I actually do like writing because that’s the way I feel like I can express my ideas more.So I believe that first drafts should be done carefully because it gives me an idea of how I should continue the rest of the draft.The first draft should have as much effort to start with something strong and end with something much stronger. The writing method Dila uses is the one I follow rather than Lamott’s because it works for me more when writing papers.

In all families, behind closed doors there’s a bit of everything such as happiness, sadness, arguments, madness, conflicts,  misunderstandings and I believe that no family is perfect. In this picture , the type of family we are is not shown.In this period of time, in the summer of 2016 my family was going through some challenging moments, my family decided to go on a vacation to light up our moods and relax because we were stressed and my mother was in the process of recovering from a heart surgery she had back in 2014.We wanted to take a break from the reality of life and  especially make my mother happy because she’s someone very important to us. As a family we were all going through hardships, we weren’t as close as we used to be because the connection and understanding wasn’t always there and we wanted to reunited our family as one whole again.In reality my family wasn’t as happy as it may seem in the picture but we tried our best to cheer each other up, the smiles made in the picture are not false , instead it was the results of going through a memorable family trip experience. The trip really changed us and made our bond stronger and we became more caring towards each other. Some other things that can’t be seen in this picture is the full details about the trip, it was taken place in DisneyWorld , Orlando ,Florida. Overall the the family picture is something unforgettable to me and I can recall many good  moments just by looking at the picture.

I care about my culture and learning from it, my parents are from Ecuador, a country in South America .I was born in Brooklyn and I  have lived there my whole life and I grew up in a cultural household where I was taught how to speak in Spanish. While I was learning Spanish through my parents I was also learning the English language in school. So in reality I was taught both languages at the same time. When holidays and festivals came, I would always celebrate the holiday with my family members just the way they did in Ecuador. I grew up eating their kinds of foods and even I spend some time learning how to cook Ecuadorian meals which I’m so eager to know about. I feel like I represent Ecuador My Ecuadorian background has become an important part of me because it’s part of my identity , it’s how I identify myself as besides my American identity. I got to experience my culture and learn about its origins back in the summer of 2018. My brother and I went on a one month vacation to Ecuador, we met our family members for the first time and it was awesome. I got to learn about the lifestyle that people lived and got to see how life was very different from the life in the United States , my Ecuadorian family were used to the camping and  farming life and they used natural vegetables and fruits to cook meals . They ate in a healthier way then the way I eat regular meals and I learned how to eat better. The special memory I have from my vacation was when all my dad’s family got together to celebrate my birthday and I felt so happy because I got to get closer to them as family and learn about their culture and the experience was unforgettable for me. This has also inspired me to learn about other cultures and diversity around the world.