Category Archives: Blog Post 2

College life is currently going great for me. However all my classes seem to somehow involve history, a subject I am not particularly enthusiastic about. However the class I currently enjoy the most is History. The professor is funny and captures the class attention even though it is the last class of the day. My favorite days however are Monday and Wednesday, the days in which I only have one class.

A challenge in adapting to college life is the amount of reading. It wouldn’t be so bad if the readings weren’t so terribly boring. Reading would either make me start spacing out and forgetting what I had read, or make me start falling asleep. The next challenge is taking the train. Usually whenever I get a seat, there is always someone next to me trying to squish me. Another bad thing about the subways is the smell of pee and rats…ugh D:… The smell gets worse when it rains or when it’s humid. Sometimes when the door closes, the smell would go away, but sometimes it would find another way in. There is also the buses. Everyone likes to make a line when the bus is not there, however when they catch sight of the bus, the line becomes a blob of people running for the bus.

What I enjoy most in college is the lower amount of time spent in school. However the schedules can be quite annoying. Before my AP scores were received I was in calculus (on Monday and Wednesday.) I had a four hour break between calculus and sociology. Luckily I only had calculus once or twice.

As I learned in Sociology today, life has different stages. We couldn’t be perfect in every stages, but we could continue to make up for the lack in previous stage. Even though we couldn’t stop the time, as long as we cherish time, we could slow down the steps that time made. But what is considered to be cherishing the time? Is your life cherished as long as others thought it to be perfect? Perhaps my mom had been too harsh on me, so I always wanted to do my best in order to reach my mom’s standards, even though I didn’t always agree with her. I had tried to please and satisfy others for a long time, but life is not doing other’s favor and winning other’s praise. If you gingerly follow the rules that others set for you, in the end you would not be yourself anymore. As Orson Welles said “we’re born alone; we live alone; we die alone; only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for a moment that we are not alone.” 
I once told my friend I felt guilty and regretted for something. I didn’t remember the exact event I was regretting about but I do remember his response. He said to me, “Don’t ever be guilty or regretted. Whatever you do is your choice.” When you reach your destination, don’t look back in anger and regret about the things you have done for your life.
Things are always easy to say but difficult to do, however, it’s crucial to notice the truth that you have to live your life for yourself.
“Busy for living or busy for death?”
I choose to get busy for living; I choose to enjoy my life. This is me.

I don’t really know what to write about in my monologue but anyway

HERE WE GO…

My name is Ariel Olivares,
I am 18 years old and I’m Dominican. I am going to talk about an everyday necessity in my life MUSIC. I don’t think I could go one single day without listening to music. It’s that addicting I find it so inspiring sometimes a song might just give me that little boost I need in the morning to get up, or something to listen to whenever I’m bored etc.., with so many genres of music everyone
should be able to claim one category or artists their favorite. I feel that Music is everywhere whether someone is blasting rap music driving down the block in their car with the windows down. Or it’s the girl on the train listening to Katy
Perry it’s an everyday thing. I don’t know about you guys but sometimes I can’t get a song out of my head because it’s so catchy. MUSIC just straightforward is entertainment and its One of the few things that gets me going. Artists do a
great job of talking about real life occurrences and sing it in a song. This is the feeling I get when I really get into the rap lyrics of my music.

For many students college life can be a really frightening experience. However, on the other side of the coin it can also be the one of most rewarding and best experience in your life. For it is in college were you begin to explore who you really are and begin to express your opinions and views. But, nevertheless what I want to get across is regardless of how you view college, whether you find it exciting or scary in the end it is your own choices and decisions that shapes and forms the experiences that you have in college.

I remember my first few weeks in Baruch College how I made a promise to the  bronze statue of Bernard Baruch and to myself that I would do my best in order to excel in my school life and would try my very best to not commit the same grave errors that I did in high school. So far the only thing that I have excelled is in, finding out firsthand the difficulty in breaking a habit. Although I have not done the best that I could possibly do, I feel that it’s not the end of life for I know that the mistakes that I made today can be corrected by the success of tomorrow. Even though it sounds utterly ridiculous, I apologize to Mister Baruch using the words of Tyron Edwards- “Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.”

With that said, hopefully I will able to learn from my mistakes and errors and try harder to make the right decisions. Whether it’s a small decision such as spending my time re-reading the work in order to better understand the material when I could’ve have spent it by playing computer games or eating. Or if it’s an important decision such as studying for a midterm or final instead of hanging out with friends or eating I could instead open up a textbook and start studying. Regardless of whether I make the right choice or not, all those decisions will shape and form my experiences in Baruch College.

I have two definitions of failing: one, a failure does not mean getting an F on an exam; it means being unsuccessful in my standards. Two, letting my parents, teachers, friends, and myself down is a failure. A failure can be as little as not being able to speak up in a class, when I promised myself to do so.

I am afraid of failing.

Not only am I afraid of failing, I extremely dislike the guilt or consequence that comes with it.  Failing and the guilt or consequence that comes with it have negative impact on me that I spend too much time focusing on one problem. For example, I once had to attend a program that needed a great deal of participation. While I wanted to go for educational purposes and experience, I decided not to go because I was afraid to speak up. This “failure” bothered me through a whole summer. I felt as if I backed out on something great. And I wished I attended. But what can be done? The program was already over and so was the summer.

Not being able to accomplish goals is one of my fears. It is because it would mean maybe I did not try hard enough to do well or I was not even on a certain level to try in the first place.

As time passes by I don’t think that failing is the end of my life. Although the immediate feeling after a failure is bad, I do think that as the time passes by, the failure will eventually help. I mean, experiencing failures will be helpful someday.

Oprah Winfrey once said, “Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.” I understand the meaning behind it and rather than avoiding and being afraid of it, I will begin my life facing failures when I have to.

Like the man said to the boy “Can I kick it?” I’m not a very angry person but a lot of things piss me off. So I guess I am an angry person but I try not to be angry. One could say I’m calm like a bomb. But I digress from whatever point I was trying to make. The thing at the top of my shit list is politicians. Politicians are some of the worst people ever. They say they represent the people when all they represent is their own agenda. It is their job to keep the country moving forward and to do what is best for the people that elect them and as anyone can see from the way the country is going they aren’t doing their jobs. They say they see the issues but still blind like they’re fluent in Braille. It’s not just republicans or democrats that are making problems, it’s the whole government. I just found out that the Supreme Court decided that corporations are people too. Where in the constitution would it possibly say that? How does that make any sense? Everything is just getting worse. I know that sounds grim and it is. But there are other things that piss me off so I’m going talk about those.

I don’t like the police or the DEA. The police serve a good purpose most of the time as with the DEA to an extent. However a lot of things they do are a waste of time and money, in my opinion. I am a marijuana enthusiast and so most of my complaints stem from there. The United States government spends more than $7 billion a year enforcing marijuana laws. In my opinion that’s $7 billion down the drain because I don’t see the number of marijuana smokers decreasing. Plus we are several trillions of dollars in debt can we really spare this money. Every type of person smokes weed so is it right to turn people into criminals just because they want to indulge in something that relaxes them?  But I guess that’s not the police’s fault, so I’ll throw that under why I hate the government.

Well that was a decent rant about some of the stuff I hate. Now here’s a funky introduction of how nice I am. Tell your mother, tell your father, send a telegram. Actually I’m not sure why I just said that. See there comes a time in every man’s life when he’s got to handle up on his own. Can’t depend on friends to help you in a squeeze, please, they got problems of their own. That part of my life is now.

In this monologue, or rant or whatever you want to call it, I’ve taken lines from various music groups, mostly rap. If you can guess that’s awesome.

My personal motto is “practice makes perfect”. It is a very common saying that has already been overly used yet it is very true. Most of the things you do need practice, for example playing the piano or dancing. There are very few people who are born with natural talents and only need minimal practice. Most of us need lots of practice in order to perform better. I do believe that a lot of things take practice in order to be good at it. When you practice thousands of times, you will eventually get familiar with the subject, so it becomes easier. After all, no matter who you are, someone with natural talent or an ordinary person, you need practice to achieve higher.

One of my personal examples of practice makes perfect is when I first learned English. Spelling has always been my biggest problem. I need more practice than anyone else in the class. So in order for me to achieve higher, I would write each word ten or twenty times. Practicing and writing out the words allowed me to memorize the spellings. During tests, I wouldn’t be afraid that I would forget how to spell a word, because having practiced many times; it gave me confidence that I know the spelling well.

Apart from all the hard work in school, I’ve learned that relaxing yourself at a certain point can also help you gain motivation to work a step further. Each person had their own ways of relaxing themselves. For me, sitting in front of the TV watching my favorite shows is what makes me feel relaxed. I feel that home is the most comfortable place for me to be because it separates me away from all the chaos that might be happened outside. My home is my little circle for me to be away from everything and relax. I’ve found that relaxing myself can help me maintain myself at a stress free mode. There are too much stress out there, doesn’t matter if its school, work, or personal issues, you have to part yourself away from stress first and let yourself prepare to face the chaos.

My family is my biggest support to overcome these obstacles. My parents are always supportive of my decisions. They also give advices when I face problems or fear. Sometimes I do not agree with the decisions they made for me, but in the end I know that what they do for me are always in my best interest. I try to do my best to accomplish what they’ve set for me because it is the only way to thank them for being always there for me.

We are kids. Tall kids, short kids, fat kids, skinny kids, smart kids, stupid kids, kids who like to party, kids who like to take it easy, kids who fail, kids who pass, kids who sneeze, kids who cough, kids who eat a lot, kids who starve, kids who like to be kids. Why do we always want to be older? Let’s stay kids for as long as we can. Being a kid is fun. Being an adult is boring and dull. We are kids in college. We are kids experiencing the best years of our lives. Let’s stay young, man. Don’t fight being young. You’ll regret it later.

We get looked at closer in stores. We have class. We get tests. We can’t buy alcohol. We go out. We have fun. We make mistakes. So what? That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Living young, wild and free.

We have a whole world to fall back on, why worry about every step? Take two forward, but only one back. One back to start over a bit; but one forward to remember the mistake you made. Life is a learning experience. Remember that.

We are kids now, but not forever.

 I really do not know what should I write for my monologue.  Then I read my free writing which is writing during Freshman Seminar Class, I think it might give me some ideas about myself.  Then I really find something that is inside of me, but I did not thought about it before.

 I am a “thinking person”, not a “action person”.   In another word, I like to think, to image, but I do not like to do, to try or to achieve.  For example, some of you might know StarCraft II, it is very famous worldwide PC game.  I decided long time ago about I am going to buy this game, and play this.  But I actually did not buy this.   I feel excited when I watched replay about this game on Youtube, I know I love this, but never play this at all.

 I also find out that I do not like to change.  Let me explain to make my point clearly.  My everyday is like one day, everything is the same.  I only go to same bakery to get my breakfast.  I only listen to same music on the way to Baruch College.  I only go to one barbershop to get haircut even when I move to different area of city, etc.  Once I like something, or get used to it, I will not change.

 I love to sleep.  I think Getting enough hours for sleep is the most important for me.  When I was in high school, I go to bed at 11 o’clock, and wake up 6 : 30 a.m.  When I was Freshman in College, I go to bed at 12 o’clock, and wake up 8 o’clock.  I always sleep more than 7 hours a day, that is the minimum of I can endure.  And enough sleep hour can give me full energy for next day.  By the way, I like to get a short time of sleep after I finish class every day.  And I need three alarm clock to wake me up in the morning.

 That are three things I find our from my free writing.  Free writing is a person writes continuously for a set period of time without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic.(Wikipedia)  And I think free writing is based on our subconscious, it might give us some idea we never though before.  I will keep doing this exercise, and get to know myself better.

My name is Jake Kuhl. I was born October 9, 1993. I live in the Bronx in a residental home. I use to live in an apartment but moved when I was eleven years old. I have one younger brother and I have a very close family. I live near the water and I enjoy swimming very much, my father and I own a sailboat and i like to sail. I am also a lifeguard, In the summer i spend most of the days at the beach. I am also a big sports fan. I am a diehard New York Ranger, Jets, and Yankee fan. Hockey is probably my favorite sport, this can be attributed mostly to my grandma who is probably the biggest Ranger fan in the world. My very first hockey game was at madison square garden when i was seven years old, I was with my grandma and my cousin. I played roller hockey throughout my childhood for a local leauge. In high school i played varsity ice hockey for four years and won a championship in my sopohomore year. It would be nice if Baruch had a hockey team but there is still local roller hockey leauges where i live. I decided to go to Baruch because it is a good affordable school. In high school i always thought that i was going to be a lawyer or a businessman but know I really dont know what i want to be. I do want to join the coast guard reserve because i have always loved the water and I think it would be an enjoyable experience. Maybe i will do something in public administartion when i graduate but i still dont know. Well i will found out soon what i am going to do with my life.