LC 21

So as far as the monologue goes, I wasn’t part of the whole music video portion with jennifer, dipabali, ronna & karyn because I had work that day. Work kills a lot of things lol but the money is worth it and very much needed (not sure if that’s correct grammar). But they videotaped me talking about my Baruch life up until that point and just added it on to the video right after the whole music video thingy. But you guys could just look at Dipabali’s post for their lyrics haha

Okay now for blog post 3, Baruch life is pretty good so far I guess. I expected to do a lot better in classes coming out of Stuyvesant High School (not bragging =x) but I guess working and going to college together isn’t the easiest thing. I’m hoping for at least a B average for my first semester, not sure of what to expect though. If I could do my first semester all over again then I would study A LOT more and take my school work a bit more seriously. But since that’s not happening, I guess I’ll just have to do all of that next semester huh? I haven’t really changed since I came to Baruch, life still seems the same just a lot busier I guess. But besides that I’m still the same old me 🙂

Valeria I’m sorry for posting this so late, it honestly kept slipping my mind. By the way wanted to let you know that you made Freshman Seminar pretty fun, and I/we will miss you. But we’ll definitely see each other in the halls, right? & thanks for that talk we had on the last day..that was nice of you 🙂

Okay so I have to write a two page paper about the gallery we visited so I’m going to show you what I felt about a certain picture. Then I’ll post that picture and then post a picture of myself..enjoy =)

The picture, Rwandan Hutu Refugees Waiting for Medical Attention taken by Gilles Peress, is of Hutu Refugees from Rwanda, a unified republic of central-eastern Africa, waiting for medical assistance after the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. A massacre between the Hutu and the Tutsi, the genocide resulted in a mass murder of 800,000 Rwandans, with hundreds of others injured. In the picture, Gilles Peress captures the helpless look of the men, women, and children after such a tragedy. Many of them lost their families after the massacre.

The picture expresses many emotions, all of which are negative. The viewer can easily feel pain, sorrow and fear upon examination. The two men kneeling in the center have helpless looks on their faces. The way they are crouching with their hands holding their heads shows the feeling of helplessness. Tragedy has just struck – something which they did not expect. They look defeated – they probably have lost their family member(s). They aren’t sure which way life will take them, what turns are ahead. As of that moment, they’re stuck in that place and time can not change what has just happened. All they can do at that moment is hope for the best, but it’s difficult to do so after having lost everything that was dear, including their everyday lives.

Towards the left of the picture, we see a child hiding her face behind her mother’s shawl. One can just imagine the fear in that child, witnessing the death of hundreds of thousands of people at such a young age. She may have lost her siblings, maybe even her father. Even the man on the far right is hiding himself under what seems to be a blanket. Such strong forms of pain and sorrow make living nearly impossible for those who are older, but Peress captures a child trying to deal with it.

At the far right of the picture, in the background we see a man sitting on the floor. The expression on his face shows that this tragedy had caught him completely by surprise – he doesn’t know what hit him. The way he’s sitting alone, the viewer can easily assume that this man has lost his family. If you closely examine his face, you can see that he’s not crying however. When one suffers through pain but cannot let the pain leak out in the form of tears, the pain becomes worse and that is what Peress captures the man experiencing.

Peress captures pain and sorrow amongst the Rwandan Hutu in this picture. The Hutu, as well as the Tutsi were suffering due to the genocide. Interestingly enough, U.S. officials knew exactly who was leading the genocide, and actually spoke with those leaders to urge an end to the violence but did not follow up with concrete action. Furthermore, the U.S. lobbied the U.N. for a total withdrawal of U.N. forces in Rwanda in April 1994. This picture not only expresses the effects of the tragedy in Rwanda, but also targets the United States officials who were of no help to those who were innocent. Peress not only does an excellent job in capturing emotions of the Rwandan Hutus after the genocide, but also targets the United States officials who chose to neglect the issues.

AND THIS IS ME: ;D

So, this is the last blog! i thought i did this already but i guess not. Fro was an awesome experience, it was pretty fun, i especially loved the scenarios we did in there.

Now, I came into Baruch not liking it, had this preconceived image of it, that was negative. But now that I got involved, and met all these different people, I like it a lot.

I don’t really know what else to say…yay baruch? lol

So I went to a dinner meeting last Tuesday (the 16^th of November) for an Accounting group called the IMA. My friend’s dad is the president of the New York chapter, and he knows that I’m attending Baruch so he invited me to this. It was a really cool experience and I learned a lot from it, in addition to meeting lots of people in the business area. The guest speaker is a graduate from U Penn and he spoke about career management. However, the most rewarding experience that I had was being able to talk to someone in a field of business that I’m very interested in. I am really interested in risk management, particularly because it has a lot to do with numbers (and I’m a numbers guy). Pretty much, I spent most of the evening talking with a guy who works in risk management about the feel of the job. One thing I learned that got me really excited was the fact that people who work in risk management are picked up my big companies really easily. Apparently it’s the big thing on the market right now, because if a company makes big risks, they can win big with proper data and advisement. So yeah, this is a filler for the Charles N.Li panel that I missed because of my piano lesson… uhm I don’t know what else to say so I’m just going to end it here (:

I don’t know whether Baruch has lived up to my expectations or not, just because I’ve  (we’ve) been here for only 3 months (almost 3 months). I don’t think it’s possible to judge the experience after such a short time, unless it the experience exceeds your most wildest dreams. So far, it’s been pretty normal except for the endless amounts of opportunities (business-wise) that Baruch offers. I’m amazed at how much they cater towards the business students (I was expecting it, but it exceeded my expectations). Mock interviews, internships, job offers, etc. All of these things were way above what I imagined.

I think that my first semester at Baruch went well. I was disappointed not to get a math or business oriented class, but it turns out that my professors were all really cool. I was also disappointed to have dropped a class (good thing I dropped it 2 days after school started, though). I just didn’t feel that I could handle so much writing in one semester. I feel that I did the right thing, as the work load is just enough for me to keep busy, as well as just short enough to keep me from pulling my hair out.

Hmmmmm…. I feel that I shouldn’t have missed so many classes ^_^

I don’t think that I’ve changed since I started at Baruch College. Maybe I have, but it probably didn’t have anything to do with Baruch, probably just my personal life.

I did not really set any expectations walking into Baruch College. I was just excited to start fresh at a new school where no one knew who I was. Honestly, I was also scared because I am shy, at first, meeting new people. It usually takes me a while to open up to people, so I was concerned that I would not make any friends, especially because Baruch is a commuter school. My high school friends were even concerned for me. But no worries! I met interesting(?), fun people and made friends. The transition from high school to college was easily made as well.

My first semester at Baruch was quite spectacular, if I must say. Honestly, I am very weak in the field of humanities, but this semester, most of my classes were in this field. At first, I wanted to change and drop my classes but I challenged myself. And looking back, I do not regret the decisions that I made especially because at this point in time, I survived the gruesome papers, presentations, and other workloads. I now see the light at the end of the tunnel! 😀

However, given another chance, I would not repeat few of my classes. Just glad that it’s over. YES!

I am also proud of myself for joining few clubs and adapting to the commuter life. I wanted to kill myself going back and forth between NJ and NY everyday just for school. But after the first week, I had no problems and I definitely adjusted to the city life.

 If there is one thing that I would do differently during the first semester, I would have liked to be more outgoing to meet and talk with other peers and take a different approach in studying/preparing for classes. But let’s not look back. Let’s look forward to the surprises Baruch have in store for me for the next 3 and half years!

Baruch College has so far taught me to become more independent- only I can make the change and the decisions for my future. Yet, at the same time, Baruch taught me that there are many hands to help me get through ordeals and that I am not alone.

It has been fun writing these blogs! It has been a rewarding experience. (I think it is more rewarding because we won the pizza party! hehe :P)