Dana's Blog

My first job was pretty simple, cashier. It wasn't hard to learn what I had to do. The hard part was learning how to get over being nervous since I've always been shy around new people. This caused me to blank on a very simple task (counting out change) one time. I started getting anxious that I wasn't doing anything right and then I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing. It was like I couldn't keep the numbers in my head and thoughts just kept slipping out of my mind and I just couldn't mentally grasp onto anything. After a while, I managed to get used to things so I didn't have slip-ups like that again. I was able to do my job properly and I sort of learned how to be less shy around people. I can talk a little more casually and less anxiously to people that I meet face-to-face, so it was generally a good first job experience. The part about giving very elaborate descriptions of dishes and using "magic words" to give the waiter/waitress the u...

Changing from an objective mindset into a subjective mindset will be hard for me, I think, since I don’t really like giving my opinions and thoughts on something that needs a lot of research and knowledge. I’m not the type of person to passionately debate about a topic since I always feel like I don’t have enough knowledge to support any claims I have. I also personally hate getting into debates since I do not have a confrontational personality. But it’s also pretty frustrating sometimes since I’d like to express my thoughts without stumbling over my words or coming across as really ignorant. I guess this would also be a good way to get out of my comfort zone of timidity and a good way to improve on my debating skills. I think blogs would have an interesting response to a rhetorical situation since they are incorporate someone’s thoughts and feelings regarding the rhetorical situation. I have watched a few vlogs (video blogs) that react to news. What I noticed from these vlogs (I ...

I always hated The noise from people talking too loud The noise from cars from the honking to their screeching brakes and the barkers that would call out that there was still room on the bus The terrible disorganization from the city traffic I was always tired Of being the odd one out when I couldn't speak properly and mangled the words and sentences Of having to stay quiet while my relatives tried to haggle with the people at the market Of the fact that I could never comfortably wear sweaters outside I always did love The mangoes over there the ones here taste and look different and are not  as sweet Hearing that single bird call out into the dead of night while it circled my house while I stayed awake Listening to the rain as it pattered on the roof and hearing the thunder as it boomed into the house and my bones The orange light that would bathe everything in the early evening; a warning of more rain to come in the night And now I always miss My relative...

When I was young my family and I moved to the Philippines and I had absolutely no grasp of the language. I had no idea how the culture was or how to behave in certain situations (there's this thing where younger people have to address their elders by taking the older person's hand, bowing their heads a bit, and tapping the back of hand to their foreheads to show respect). It wasn't so harsh for me since most people understood that I was a young kid who didn't grow up these customs. In school it wasn't so bad either since it was an international school and english was the dominant language.  Eventually, enough time passed and I could understand the language to the point where I could get involved with casual conversations. But I couldn't speak very well since I refrained from practicing talking (I was teased a lot since my accent was really bad). This was my "mushfaking". I could pretend enough by laughing along with the jokes they made but my "...

When I was younger, math was always my worst subject. I never liked doing any of the homework and I was never interested in paying attention in class; I'd always be reading books (which got me in trouble plenty of times). I remember thinking how I would never get a job that needed more than the basics of math.  In my first year of college I still had the mindset of not going anywhere near math, so I chose broadcast journalism as my major. I stayed in it for almost two years before I realized that this was not something I was interested in and, a few months before my second year of college ended, I started planning on changing my major. I was still adamant on not going into any math-related major.  The summer before my third year, my family and I unexpectedly moved here to San Diego.  None of the credits from my old school transferred to the community college I started attending so I was basically a freshman all over again.  My first math class here was v...