Monthly Archives: March 2013

I wake up every Monday and Wednesday morning dreading the fact that I have to leave my bed.  My first class of the day has to be my worst class, sociology.  9:30 sharp, I have to be in class or I’ll be locked lock out.  It’s a horrible way to start the week, yet I drag my lifeless body out of bed.  I can’t shake the fact that sociology is completely useless for me.  I would rather take anthropology, a subject that would intrigue me.  The study of humans seems way interesting in my mind.  Baruch had other plans for me however.  I didn’t even get the option to switch classes.  I hate when I don’t have control over certain things, especially when it involved my future.  I don’t want to get a bad grade in that class.  I can’t get a bad grade, I need a good grade.  Hell, I’ll take a B-.  It’s stressful when you have a professor who’s so uncooperative.  I walk into the class and I’m in a third world country, an over exaggeration of course but nonetheless a real feeling.  She is the absolute ruler and we are her subjects.  Her word is not to be questioned it is law.   She is to be feared and revered.  God forbid I open my mouth to disagree with a statement or to explain something to another student.  I wonder if this is a healthy work environment.  By school standards is this a nurturing environment where I can grow and flourish?  I’m given material to read and memorize however, my professor doesn’t agree with some of it.  And I quote “the textbook is wrong, I don’t agree with it, I rather you use my definition” she said.  At that moment my face goes blank.  Thoughts of just walking out of the class go through my mind.  Why doesn’t she just write her own textbook?  Are you that full of yourself that you could openly disagree with accredited work?  What’s the point of us using it if she just going to say it wrong.  She’s been teaching for what she says 40 years, I think she could have written one.  I’ve had some tough teachers in the past, but this takes the cake.  I’ve heard that this is her last semester or year teaching.  God bless future student who will never know of this woman.  Somehow I’ll get through the class.  A few students have dropped the class; I often wonder it I should follow in their footsteps.  I don’t want to drop it but I think I should.  It poses a risk to my academic success.  I could always take it again, perhaps at another school.  I am thinking about transferring.  It might not be a requirement at a different school, yet I don’t know what to do.  I have till April 12th to make my decision.

Lies. Everyone has told lies. There are many ways to lie: either for yourself or for others. Many different cultures feel that telling fids is a moral destruction. But I feel that there are times that you should be allowed to lie. For example, when you know someone who’s a little overweight and he/she asks you to honestly tell her if “she’s fat,” I wouldn’y have the valor to be honest. And seriously, if you know your truth might make someone feel uncomfortable, it’s best to keep it to oneself. However, it is always safe to keep track on your lies. If you consistently tell fids, you might loose sense on what’s right and wrong.

It is OK to lie if you want to prevent hardships or pain. But if you start lying for your self-benefit that might change things a little. Things might not start working out alright for you anymore because of the many times you lied. Be careful and what you keep and secret and what you don’t. Lies might start turning into excuses and excuses doesn’t lead to succesfulness. Although it’s always to be honest with others, it is always important to be honest with yourself first.

This monologue is supposed to be about this semester so far

You see I first went to SUNY Albany

The atmosphere just wasn’t for me

I was homesick after the first night

I knew something just wasn’t right

I decided to come back home, no point in being upstate

Called some schools in the city but they said it was too late

So I spent some time working and learned how to drive.

The semester off kind of made me feel alive.

I took care of a lot of things at home especially because my mom left

You see at home I am the only girl I live with my dad and my brother so my house is always a mess

So as a college student I am faced with the question. What will I do for the rest of my life? Tough question right?

You want to be happy and love what you do

But we all want that nice paycheck too.

This semester is my first semester so it’s a little challenging to balance work, home, school, family, my boyfriend and going to the gym.

Feels like I don’t have time to breath

Math 1020 was BUNK

But I got a 99 on my final though which wasn’t that tough

And let me not start about Political Science talk about boring, it is honestly a joke

Sociology is probably my favorite class

English is cool except all we do it talk about sex and LGBT

History…. Is yeah… just a lot of studying

I just need to start adjusting

My biggest accomplishment in life was being SO president of my high school

I was involved in so many clubs so you can say I was kind of cool.

Baruch is a commuter school honestly I am not a big fan

Its hard to get used to I mean don’t get me wrong its great just not the same man

Maybe I will find my place here at Baruch.

I have met some cool people like A-money and Rubinator.

Who I spend most my time in school with and will probably hang out with later

I’m not really sure how to end this so I’m just going to stop here

I really hope to enjoy Baruch a little more next year

It sucks when your name is so common in this world, you get jumbled up with other people in systems.

First off, my name is Ruben Abimael Flores. Not Ruben Flores Jr. Secondly, I go to Baruch College, not Lehman College.

I came in for freshman orientation the happiest I could be. After taking a 6 month break from school, and working for a bit of that time, I figured I need find something to do before I become a couch potato. Several hours into the orientation itself, one of the peers pulls me out and tells me the one thing I didn’t expect.

“The last four digits of the social security you showed isn’t in the system.”

What? Are you kidding me? How is it that my information is wrong? I put all the information in myself! Lucky for me, the lady working in the ID center was a sweetheart, and had patience for my problems. It took me 3 weeks to fix all that was wrong. Tons of visits to the offices just to prove that I am NOT Ruben Flores Jr.

I’ve come to realize that no one will help you unless you seek the help itself. During that time, I met some of the dimmest people, some people who just don’t want to deal with student issues, and some people who understand the situations we’re put in.

Perhaps I’ll have experiences that you can’t find anywhere else. I hope the rest of my time here at Baruch will be just as eventful but less stressing.

What do I constantly think about? Being that I am nineteen, you might think my mind is filled with beautiful girls, getting wasted at wild parties, getting to work on time and miraculously finding a way to past the coming test. These are some of the thoughts that may fill an average teenager’s mind, but I am no average teen. I am a young billionaire. Please, do not mistake my words for idle talk or fictions of my imagination. The words I speak are true, and whether you believe it or not, it will happen. You see, the reason why I can stand here boldly, and say this to you, is because I crave success. I do not crave it like a person may crave sweets or sexual pleasure. No. I crave success like an asthmatic craves air to breath. I don’t think you heard me right. I said, I crave success like an asthmatic craves air to breath. Success is not something I merely seek to achieve; it is something I would die without. You can say I’m addicted. So addicted that I must read about success everyday. My long smoothly rolled blunt filled with sour Kush and purple haze……… is going on a website and reading about people who started from nothing, and became billionaires. I immerse myself in success, reading books like, “Think and grow rich,” “The secret,” and “The Master key.” I watch videos by people like Mark Cuban and Will Smith. I allow nothing, but positive thoughts to fill my mind. This may seem simple to you and you may wonder, what makes me think I’m so special. The reason why I’m special…is because I let nothing stop me from achieving my dreams. I am homeless, living under the mercy of a neighbor. There are days where I have filled my stomach, with the smell of the stores I pass on my way from school. I have spent countless nights sleeping on living room floors. I have walked for hours so that I could save a metro card in order to get to school. All the while I attend school everyday, dressed in my business attire, smiling happily from cheek to cheek. No one would ever suspect that this is the life I live. You would think that this would discourage me greatly. No. The life I live inspires me, it encourages me, it drives me. Being able to live at the lowest, and overcome it, has taught me that nothing is impossible, and that you can achieve your biggest dreams if you believe, and strive for it. Each day I wake up and smile, being thankful for the things I do have, because to me, I have plenty. I smile not only for today, but also for tomorrow, because I know it will be a better day. My situation is but a temporary circumstance that is preparing me for my bright future. This is why I will achieve success.

What I Like Doing Best:

The best hobby that I ever get acquainted with is the eternal love for soccer. The beautiful game played by 1o men by their foot and one person with the use of his all his body parts. Although my achievement for the game as a player remains an unsatisfactory part of my life but I love everything about it. I love watching the game live and especially the “UEFA Champions league” which comprises of the all the league champions of the countries in Europe. I feel it is better than the world football cup in a sense that the players in the clubs are chosen according to their talents and skills rather than their nationality in the national team. Whatever the case, the game is beautiful no matter where it is played and no matter how it is played. The dribbling, the 20 people chasing for one ball and the moment of victory and happiness and loss and despair when the goals are scored is all the part of the game. That is why the advertising line of all products related to the game is ‘It’s all in the game’ because it may mean nothing to you if you don’t love football but Scottish player Bill Shankly said “Football is not the matter of life and death, it is more than that” in the appreciation of the game. Yes, that is what it is for the football lovers. There is even a rumor among the football fanatics that the war between the two countries was stopped for a night because the soldiers wanted to see the game of world cup when ‘Pele’ was playing after the Second World War. The game has the capacity to spread fraternity and love throughout the people of the world. The oldest game in the history has evolved to the game of investment and playground for the money, the game has become one of the expensive games indeed. The game has seen its ups and downs and has produced the legends in the world history of football like Maradona, Pele, George Best, Michael Platini, Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo etc. The game has evolved with time and has become more competitive than ever. It is surprising that the magical game has been attracting the Americans these days. It is not so much winning the women’s football tournament two years consecutively in Olympics will go in vain but the choices of football superstars like David Beckham and Thierry Henry to play in the MLS cup has indeed affected them. The constant entry of US national team in the world cup and advancing past the group stages in 2010 has indeed shown the signs of development of the game in this part of the world as well. Let’s hope it will be more popular than the American ‘Football’, Basketball and Rugby.

I likes to watch movies and TV shows. I could lean skills from these shows. One of my favorite TV show is “The watching dead”. It is not scary to me since it makes me laugh and exciting. I like to watch how people are tricking each other and it gains me some survival and social skills.
I likes to watching movies also. It could make me to be more calm when facing dangerous situations. The way of Hollywood making its movie is fantastic. So not only am i are addicting to it, My friends are addicting to it also.
Last but not least, i like to watching video game cut-scene also. I like it because some of these cut-scene are more fiction than the movies. I was a video game player, however i am no longer interest in its game-play since too much attention need in order to beat the game. It also makes me angry when i can’t beat the game. So, instead of playing the game, i like to watch the game cutscene

The main theme from my free writes seems to be the problems with having two lives. My life is now transatlantic. I love being here and I’m so glad I came. I feel like it was something that I had to do and is one of the only things I really felt sure about even though it meant leaving my life in England. I applied to university in England, even though I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so applied for psychology. I never actually sent the application as I decided I would take a year off and go to Australia with my friend. We ended up not having enough money to go to Australia and the idea of my gap year would be changed.

I got a job doing club photography and promotion and met some really amazing people and had the best time. After summer, all my friends from high school went away to university and my friend and I were left behind planning to go to Australia. We didn’t save enough so ended up coming to New York to stay with her sister. We had the best time together exploring New York city and Long Island and Queens- where we were living. I decided to apply to college in New York. We stayed in New York twice for two months each visit together. After I came back home from the second trip, I didn’t want to leave, I hated being back and didn’t do anything for a month. Even being at the airport hearing British accents made me depressed. Then I decided to apply to CUNY colleges and get back to New York.

Once summer started all my friends were home though and I had so much fun. Then when they all left again, the students at my local university were back so work got really good again. I ended up spending a lot of time on the campus promoting and met loads of people. I used to hate my hometown and complain about it all the time but the time between coming home and going to college, I really started to appreciate Norwich. I had a great job, a boyfriend, great friends, I was really loving my life. I got my acceptance letter for Baruch really late and I didn’t think I was going to get my VISA in time so I kind of convinced myself I would have to defer. I got a cancellation visa interview and got it in time.

Leaving was hard but I wasn’t excited. I didn’t want to leave the life I had built in Norwich but I felt like it’s something I really wanted to do but also had to do. I feel like it was important for me to get away from my hometown otherwise I would’ve stayed there not really experiencing anything else. I love it here now but sometimes I really miss Norwich. One of the free write prompts was where do you see yourself in 5 years, really made me realize that I have no idea which continent I want to end up living in. I love both so much and can’t choose.

I haven’t really had any problems at Baruch so far, I’m really enjoying everything and I’m not really finding it that different to the last 2 years of high School in England. Living in the dorms is interesting… I’m glad I did it as a life experience but I like my own personal space and sharing a room with two other girls and sometimes one girl’s boyfriend is crowded. I’ve had some really good experiences so far and I’m so glad I’m here but I’m also looking forward to going home for summer for the other half of my transatlantic life.

I am a very lazy person. I don’t like any kinds of works. I only do them if I have to. And that’s why I am so frustrating for the midterm now. I don’t think being lazy is such a bad thing. A lot great things were invented by lazy people. Douglas Englebart, the guy who’s too lazy to type operation code, invented computer mouse. Josephine Cochrane, the lady who’s tired of washing dishes, invented dishwasher. Being lazy is not always about not doing something. And actually a lot of lazy people are quite organized. They organized because there will be less work to find things if they are organized. Lazy people can also become very productive if they find ways to make things easier rather than just not doing it.

I like lazy people, and I also very respect hard-working people. Maybe a combination of lazy people and the discipline people will be a better solution.