time management

Time management was huge for me. Since I go to school four days a week, work thirty hours a week and have to do homework between that, managing what time I have left was key. I didn’t really have any particular strategy. I mostly just wrote down assignments and their due dates. The best I could do on the assignments was to get them done as early as possible. I would do homework while I was at school between classes or any other time I had a chance. Any time that I had, I was usually doing homework. Another thing I had to work around was spending time with my girlfriend. Since that was a priority, we found ways to hang out and do our homework at the same time. However this was more beneficial to her because I usually ended up doing her history homework for her.

            Fortunately I didn’t have to have a real, planned out program like the people who came in for the panel had. I didn’t have any specific books or anything else like that that I used. If I had something written down in the planner, I was pretty much good on remembering what things I had to do and when they were due. Just having a list of what I had to do and by when was the real contributing factor to my academic success.

            This usually worked pretty well, of course until I get scheduled for five days in a row when there are things due on the fifth day. At that point it basically comes down to sleep or homework, and unfortunately, homework usually won. This method worked out pretty well, though for the majority of the semester.

            I’ll probably still use this next semester. It worked well for me this semester and will probably work next semester as well. I will also be working less hours next semester because I switched jobs and get paid more now. Hopefully that will be able to make up for the extra class that I’ll be enrolled in next semester. I had to take an extra unit than I did this semester to be able to stay on track for my degrees that I want to pursue. Hopefully my classes won’t be too bad. I’m already going to be taking two upper division classes next semester for my minors.

 Also, since I work at a coffee shop now, late nights might end up being more bearable.

HIV test write up

So to finish getting my A in your class I went to the HIV testing on Friday night. After I finally found where it was in the UVA I went in and filled out all of the information on the questionnaire. It was way busier than I expected. There were tons of people from the GEL class and a bunch of people from other GEL classes as well. The actual testing was easy and much less complicated than I had expected. I thought that it would have taken much longer than twenty minutes for the results to come back. Although my results weren’t something I was really worried about, It’s still nice to just know for sure. Also, since my girlfriend came with me, she got to meet you and thought you were awesome. I think the best part was watching a group of frat boys all take a bunch of the condom packs and then each of them putting them back when their friends weren’t around.

Campus Rec

So for my Campus rec event I went of the fishing Excursion. After having to be up super early to get to the school after closing at work the night before I wasn’t exactly too enthused to be there. However, Hugo was crazy awake and extremely enthusiastic, which helped. When we got to the docks, I had already talked to a few people, and one girl who was dead set on catching a shark. Both I and all the fishing guides were pretty much positive that she stood little chance of catching anything even close to a shark. But low and behold, about an hour into the trip, she and another person both caught decent sized lemon shark. It’s always the least experienced person who ends up catching the best fish. Of course I only caught a few small or medium sized fish, but I got two keepers. One rockfish and one sand bass.  Not too big, but good enough to keep and get a few fillets.

            Even though I wasn’t happy to have to go do a campus activity for my class, as I had a lot of other commitments. However, I’m glad that I did it now. I ended up having a lot of fun. The trip was a really good value; most fishing trips like that cost much more, and end up being a lot more crowded. I plan on going on the CSUSM fishing trip every time they offer it. It really was a great experience and a good way to get more involved. I’m not too into going to a lot of sporting events of many social things but I love fishing.

Cultural experience post

A few years ago I had the opportunity to go on a vacation around the Caribbean with my family. I was fortunate enough to be taken by my grandparents on a cruise and one of the stops we made was in Cartagena, Columbia. This city is a huge port city with a bay similar in size to San Diego’s bay. Now as we all know, Columbia doesn’t have the best anti-drug policy. I expected to see a sketchy city that was full of slums and other such things. However, that part of my trip was eye-opening.

The tour guide for our trip had lived in Cartagena his entire life. Through the tour I started to talk with him. Having already taken four years of Spanish, I spoke almost entirely Spanish with him. Since he had such enthusiasm, he was happy to speak to me for the duration of the tour, and even happier to listen to me struggle through my broken Spanish. Listening to him talk about the city he loved so much was incredible and it opened my eyes to what I think is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Even  though I came into this thinking it would be something you hear about in cartel stories, the love that the tour guide had for his city made me see it in the same light that he saw it,

            Cartagena has tons of beautiful architecture from the Spanish occupation including a giant fortress on the top on a hill. After climbing the ramp up to the top, we met a group of Columbian school kids on a felled trip to the city from further inland. After talking with their teacher, we found out that all of the kids had to save up money to afford this trip.

This group of students was just as amazed at the massive scale of the architecture as they were with meeting Americans. I couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, but they definitely amazed to meet people from a country they had only ever heard about.  It was hard to believe that I was just as impressive as a fortress bigger than the campus at San Marcos. While all the tourists were marveling at the scale and beauty of all the buildings, the students were amazed by us. Just as what we all see as regular and banal, like the computer we typed these on or the classrooms we sit in, the students lived everyday around what we found fascinating.

Now that I’m going to be studying more Spanish at San Marcos, I really want to go back to somewhere like that to study abroad. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a chance of being sent to Columbia due to the unsafe conditions. However, the school does have programs in plenty of other Spanish speaking countries. I would love to go and study abroad, not only to earn credits and improve my speaking abilities, but to learn more about the lives and cultures of people outside of the U.S. I loved seeing the amazing world outside what we get to see in our lives. There’s a lot more to learn in life than what can be learned in a classroom and I think everyone should have the chances I’ve been given to see so much of the world. I would encourage everyone to take a trip to somewhere you wouldn’t think about going if they ever get the chance. Tons of people can say they went to Paris, or France, or Rome, but not many people can say they’ve spent time somewhere that no one’s heard of and learned how they lived and seen a side of life that no one in America knows.

Hi my name is Chris and I'm from Poway. My major is History. I drive from home everyday.
In my spare time I like to fish Bass, Trout, Salmon, Bat Ray, Shark and Deep Sea. After college i plan to be a High School teacher teaching European History. In high school I was on swim and water polo teams. I have two dogs and they'r both adopted and mutts.
This summer, I went on a cruise in Alaska where I caught an 11 lb King Salmon. I also managed to get 73 mosquito bites.