skateboarding

Let’s start by saying that skateboarding community are not brainless people who are out to destroy property and do drugs for their own self loathing. The skateboard communities are about living a world only dedicated to manipulating the skateboard to do difficult and complex tricks. By having this idea is in every skateboarder’s mind because there is a welcoming when someone does something that took a lot of practice. That dedication is respected towards all skateboarders and because skateboarding is everywhere, there is a lot of creative ways to manipulate a “skate-spot”, so that a person skateboarding can apply their idea to that particular spot that’s worth manipulating. By means of being successful at creating a difficult trick at a skate spot, there is a true nirvana of doing something that no one has ever done. This interaction is essential to the community because creating a complex idea is one way to start this new wave of skateboarding. This is what all skateboarders are ask of each other, and this is what exactly what I enjoy about this community.

Plus and Deltas about last module

Plus

1. I do well at small talk and opening the conversation to other individuals in a group.
2. I do well at  getting things done on time and being prepared before class starts.
3. I am a creative thinking, who helps others create ideas they did not think of.
4. I do well at helping and showing others when I understand the material.
5. I do well at telling others wheres the class and which is the next class.  

Delta

1. I have some awkward moments with keeping the conversation going.
2. Time Management is difficult because I come home late.
3. Infractions are a problem, one for tardiness and one for a late assignment which was in the same bad day.
4. For some reason I held my participation for others, however passing good topics to change the class.   
5. I occasionally think of what others are thinking which leads me off track.

Gentrification

My neighborhood in San Francisco is the Excelsior district. It has changed who I am today because of all the elements it had that I grew up with. My elementary school was four blocks from my house, my skateboard park was created seven blocks away from my house, and one of my closest friends lived about eight houses away. My closest friend was Adam, I knew him since elementary but we never went to the same school. We were just neighbors and passed each other one day and talked about skateboarding in 1998.  The same year the skateboarding park was created and this is where I learned underground music, committed to learn new tricks on the skateboard, and connected to teens younger and older than me who were not from my neighborhood. As a matter of fact, the earliest idea of a neighborhood came from my elementary school since my friends lived closed to the school. As I walked around the neighborhood and got to know the neighbors I became subconsciously conditioned to be normal and quiet. I didn’t like because the neighborhood became calm and ordinary, but seeing the neighborhood today, I see new neighbors trying to be the “loud neighbor”. They make all these useless noises for attention. When I was a kid, our family was known as the loud neighbor since my dad, a mechanic, was always in the garage using his loud tools and leaving the music on ultra-loud.  Today the loud people have parties and continue to have loads of people over even when there is no party. However, not too long ago another house like one of the loud houses I mentioned got broken into. The owner got stabbed because he used his house as place to hold rooms filled with Marijuana plants.  Yes, my neighborhood has changed but it changed me significantly when I was young.

I feel “normal neighborhoods” are targeted for people to leave their mark, not knowing that these neighborhoods actually change you.  

Business of Poverty

In the article, The Poverty Business, Brian Grow and Keith Epstein describe how people get stuck paying more for things on credit. My first reaction to this article was, "it's up to the person to make their own judgment, there's no reason to feel disappointed because they should have read the whole agreement and did the research on the product they are buying". Its their own fault for getting themselves into trouble because they did not read or ask questions to specific life changing choices. However, I do understand that people have to make last minuet decisions and end with something they didn't know. For example my dad can relate to these people who got duped, because he did not do the research and because the suppliers were very convincing. My dad agreed to buy a timeshare and give them 2000$ a month. The worst part to this example is that my dad was also with my mom, and as much as my parents said no to the idea, they ended up signing and paying.
I get people are evil and they want your income because, "it's a dog-eat-dog world", but to use the resources like friends and family and chat with them can help anyone's choice before making a life changing decision.
I also wrote that "jobs are for teens not adults, careers are for adults". By this comment I think if a person isn't organized, then why make unprofitable decisions. In addition to people's choices, what they do reflects on what they have done, and by having these evil suppliers trick them is letting them fall into areas they did not see coming, such as moving or doing illegal things for money.
People have to read, because if they do nothing, then everyone will continue to let this happen and eventually it will backfire on the suppliers. Thus we're livings in a “dog-eat-dog” world, why not bite back.