20 Questions

For internship, I am required to interview my mentor about his life in relation to the workplace.

These are the questions.

1. Where did you go to college?

2. What did you major in?

3. What is the part of your job that you like the most?

4. What is the part of your job that you like the least?

5. Where did you start out working?

6. What was the biggest thing you did in the business world?

7. Why do you work here?

8. How did you get a job here?

9. How much money does your position make?

10. Were you promoted? If so, how where you promoted?

11. How long have you been in this industry?

12. What do you think of the intern program?

13. What were your interests as a child?

14. What's the best part of having employees?

15. What's the worst part of having employees?

16. What is your favorite part of the day?

17. What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

18. What influenced you to get in this industry?

19. What were some problems that you had when you started here?

20. How is your work impacting the common folk of America?

First Day O' Internship

          The first day of internship was an interesting one indeed.  Nothing interesting really happened because most of the people in the office that I am going to be working with were out today, and my mentor and main supervisor didn't have anything for me or my colleague to work on.  

          It all started when we arrived at the trolley station after waiting forever for public transportation to bring us there. we walked down to the building and walked in, then called our mentor to come down and get us (as instructed by an email that he sent us).  It turns out that the building that has huge lettering on the side of it that says "Driver Alliant Insurance" wasn't

 our building, even though that was the company we were going to be interning at.  So, we had to walk all the way back and past the trolley station to get to the new building.  When we walked in, it was a huge building, big and open with tons of windows and an organic foods/sandwiches restaurant in it on the first floor.  When our mentor met us downstairs he brought us up to the floor we were going to be working on and gave us a general explanation of what they had so far for us, which wasn't much, then showed us around the floor a little.  After that, our supervisor talked to us a little about what we want to do there, then we left.  After we left, we went and ate at a Submarina by the trolley station, and then went to wait for the trolley.  While waiting, we were met by an interesting character telling us that he was a monk, and was trying to give us a book on zen and chakra, for any donations we might be able to give (he said that he wasn't trying to sell anything, but when we didn't have any donations he snatched the book away and gave us business cards).  After taking the trolley back to the Old Town station, I went to go take a bus home, and while I was waiting, I noticed an interesting group of people.  They were tourists from Germany, and it was fascinating trying to piece together what they were talking about, especially when they brought out beef jerky (which none of them have ever had before).  Then I got home, went to Souplantation, and sat down to write this blog.  I am now ending this blog, and will go on with my life until thursday, when my next blog will be due.  Good Night.

The Second Coming

Our country has fought through multiple crises throughout its lifetime; some of which being depressions, war, and civil irresponsibility. Our thirty-second president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, faced one of the biggest struggles in America, the Great Depression, wholeheartedly. Now we face an almost identical crisis, but under a new president, Barack Obama. FDR's first inaugural address is related to our current economic crisis through the unemployment rate of our country then and now, and the state of each of our financial systems.

One of the things that you might notice with our current economy would be our unemployment rate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of December of 2008, 7.2% of the country was unemployed[i], which means that out of every hundred people in the United States, about 7 people don't have a job. This is very similar to the situation back in 1933, whilst the Great Depression was in full effect. FDR's speech states, "Our greatest primary task is to put people to work … treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war,"[ii] This was his way of telling the people that this problem is just as important as World War Two, which he also had to deal with.

Another big thing that has been happening with our economy is the financial crisis; banks and insurance companies going down, some of which even going bankrupt. One such company, AIG, has been having problems with this for years. "For the second time in three years, the board at American International Group, the giant insurance company, replaced its chief executive Sunday in the wake of its falling stock price and regulatory concerns about its accounting"[iii], says Jonathan Glater for the New York Times. AIG claims the problem has been the policies their CEO's have been putting in place along with their CEO's poor use of the company's assets, and have been trying to deal with this problem by getting rid of two CEOs since 2005. There was a very similar problem back in 1933 that FDR also commented about in his speech. "The rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence," [iv] This explains that the money dealers, or the leaders of the American financial systems, have been committing very similar acts that our financial leaders have committed.

1933 was a very hard time for the United States, but Franklin Roosevelt was there to help us through it. Now, we are in a scarily similar situation, and we now have a new president, Barack Obama, who has also dedicated himself to bringing us back to what we were. With the 2^nd Depression on its way, and the corruption within our financial system boiling over with faults, we really need someone similar to FDR to help us pull through.

---

[i] "Current Population Survey(CPS)." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 26 Jan. 2009 http://www.bls.gov/cps/.

[ii] Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. "First Inaugural Address." East Portico of the Capitol Building, Washington D.C.. 4 Mar. 1933.

[iii] Glater, Jonathan. "With Shares Battered, A.I.G. Ousts Leader - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com." Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com. 16 June 2008. 26 Jan. 2009 <http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/with-shares-battered-aig-ousts-leader/?scp=8&sq=aig%20ceo&st=cse>.

[iv] Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. "First Inaugural Address." East Portico of the Capitol Building, Washington D.C.. 4 Mar. 1933.

Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech

Draft of Iconic Art

The next draft has gone very far.  I have some new concepts that I would like to discuss in the statement other than some of the ones stated previously, and I also have a newly revised picture.  Although I cannot post the picture because of reasons too complex to go into at the moment.

 The new things that I am going to add in would be information on why the terrorists "chose" that path, bestowed upon me by this little article here, and more information on a successful choice to save the capitol on the well known flight of "Let's Roll".  This information will probably replace whatever I was going to talk about with the people in the recovery effort, because what I was talking about in the last post really struck me as a very ignorant post, and I do not want to be the one suffering ignorance.

 My thesis statement is also now revised to "The incident involving 9-11 is connected to the quote by the choices made in multiple situations by various people around the world, including the middle east and the ruling religious and political leaders governing the would be terrorists, the heroic passengers of flight 93, and the terrorists themselves on the two planes that hit the Twin Towers."

 This revision of everything occurred because, first of all, its was only a rough outline, and second of all, I want to have this art piece be more positive and pro-America, and not to make it seem like I am anti-America in any way.  It was also changed because I have only recently come across some new thoughts such as the article about why people become terrorists, and the leaders who manipulate the correct messages of various significant texts to bend people to their will.

 That was a quick overview of the changes made in my artists statement.  Have a good day.

Artist Statement Outline

In class, we are creating art pieces combining a creative arts person from United States history, and a historical situation or person from the more non-creative nonfiction side of the United States history, and creating both an art piece, and an artists statement on the art piece. I chose to use a quote from Dr. Seuss' book Oh, The Places You'll Go!, and the 9-11 situation from 2001. Here is the rough draft of the art piece that I have going.
The thesis statement that I have so far for my artists statement is, "The correlation between this quote from Theodore Geisel's Oh, The Places You'll Go! and the 9-11 incident can be interpreted many different ways, including a literal, and figurative sense, and each of these can also be applied to three groups of people in the pictures situation, the terrorists, the people on the planes, and the people in the rescue at after the incident occurs."

The first paragraph will start with a question, asking the reader what they think about destiny or fate.  Then it will go on and bring up the picture and the quote and how they fit together.

From this, the first two paragraphs would go over the literal and figurative meanings of the terrorists situation, talking about how they could have chosen to do this and volunteered or they might have been forced to this by a higher power.  The next paragraph would go over the people on the planes, who either chose to try and live by fighting back, or accepted their fate by sitting off to the side.  Then the last paragraph or two would go over the people who were volunteers, the people who volunteered not to help, and the ones made to help whether they liked it or not.

Throughout the body paragraphs, I am going to use other quotes from the same book that apply, because after looking up where the original quote came from and its context, it can really work in the situation.  I am also going to state Dr. Seuss' relationship to war, and how he used to be a political cartoonist specializing in world war two comedy.

The conclusion will be made up of the restatement of the thesis, coming out to be something similar to "9-11 and this quote remain relevant to each other through a strong literal meaning, and a hinted figurative meaning, which can be applied to everyone in the vicinity of the crash.  It will also mention the concept of destiny and the concept of moulding your own destiny, where I will probably end it asking what the reader thinks of fate after reading the artists statement.

George Bush, Environmentalist?

          There are two things to go over in this blog, one is a news story from Washington Post about how George Bush, in his final days of presidency, setting up a natural preserve out in three areas of the Pacific ocean, and the other is an article from Salon.com on all of Bush's environmental sins.

          The first article I am going to explain is the one from the Washington Post.  This first one goes over, as stated earlier, how he is declaring 3 areas out in the Pacific a marine national monument.  Now this is great and all, but what information you have so far doesn't explain the whole story.  George Bush is now doing what no person has ever done before, believe it or not.  The article from the Washington Post says "Bush's decision to safeguard far-flung areas totaling 195,280 square miles ... by the end of his term he will have protected more ocean than any person in history."  This is great.  These "monuments" he just set up will protect from fishing, oil rigs, and any other sort of damage you could imagine.

           The second article on the other hand, shows all of George's other environmental flaws while in office.  The "Seven Sins" listed are...

1. "Bush Sin 1: Blew hot air on global warming"

                   This means that Bush ignored the mandatory greenhouse gas emission reduction, prompting other countries to do this as well.

2. "Bush Sin 2: Failed to regulate greenhouse gases at home"

                   Meaning he vetoed any law that congress tried to put in place to regulate emissions.

3. "Bush Sin 3: Failed to develop clean energy sources"

                   According to the article Bush promoted the idea that we will all be driving eco-friendly cars by 2020, then goes on to say that he hasn't promoted the individual eco-friendly powering systems enough, while promoting coal and oil.

4. "Bush Sin 4: Abandoned endangered species"

                   George Bush has apparently never declared a species of animal endangered.

5. "Bush Sin 5: Carved up the American West for oil and gas excavation"

                   According to the article, "Since Bush took office, an area slightly larger than the state of Kentucky has been leased for oil and gas drilling on public lands in the United States; almost 27 million acres have been designated to be plundered for their hydrocarbons."  Make what you will of it.

6. "Bush Sin 6: Not seeing the forest or the trees"

                  Bush has created a policy that has enabled forest "thinning" in order to help prevent wildfires, but ends up being a deforestation process.

7. "Bush Sin 7: Choked our clean air standards"

                  This part of the article claims that Bush has been trying to back up any regulation on clean air, creating more and more emissions.

          Both of these stories have legitimacy to them, so the big question is what choice makes the biggest impact?  All of these choices that he made impact the world, and influences their choices as well.  Because of our leniency on gas regulations, other countries have become lenient as well, but the national monument system can possibly encourage other countries to do the same and save one of the only environments left barely touched by humans.

          So, is George Bush environmental enough for us?

Internshipping

          This semester, I am required to take an internship, and I will write down a few things that are in the works for them in this blog.

          1. During this internship, I plan on immersing myself in all that is the adult world.  What I mean by this is, I plan to (almost) cut all ties from school while embarking on my internship, and act as if I was an actual employee at whatever place I get placed in.  I plan on thinking as realistically as possible, so I do not get thrown in situations that are over my head.  I do not know exactly how I will experience all that I can of the "adult" world, but once I learn how, I will participate is it and experience it to the fullest.

          2. I plan to progress as a person with this internship.  I think that, given the correct environment, I can change into a person who is a lot more organized and focused.  I plan on learning who I need to end up being in order to be able to function in the work environment later on in my life, and I also plan on learning how to achieve this transformation.  If I can succeed, it could quite possibly change my entire life and how I go about my day.

          3. The only goals that I have for this internship would be to pace myself, and find my limits.  If I can keep up those goals, I will be able to accomplish almost anything.  These are probably the most important things that I need to find about myself at the moment, so they are what I am striving for.