Tuesday, May 25, 2010

GLO PORTFOLIO

This GLO portfolio has really helped me to display what I’ve done this sophomore year. I think it was a really good way to show how much I’ve grown from my freshmen year. It also shows what I accomplished through my projects and through my writing. This portfolio also gives people an idea of which projects that I liked and how the GLO's played a role in a lot of the assignments.

http://www2.k12.hi.us/~dgarcia/GLOPORT.html

Friday, May 21, 2010

Project Infinity Journal

The benefits that come from helping others are recognition from others and yourself and also making new friendships. For some people recognition is all they need and they don’t need the gifts, knowing that they have just helped someone is much more satisfying and self healing. The benefits if helping also affect your health. Studies have shown that people who volunteer and help others were happier and in better physical and mental health and had less depression than people who were less likely to help others.

I have always liked to put myself into situations where I would have to talk and mingle with people. Joining activities in and out of school and sports gave me the experience of being around people and being able to meet new people. But also volunteering and being able to help people have been something that I have also liked doing. I know I like helping people based on experiences. Not all situations will be good ones but you just have to learn from the hard situations and just continue to help others.

My interview with my Aunty who is a registered nurse at Kapiolani has answered my questions about what the jobs of nurses are. She has also informed me about what I will encounter when working with patients, customers, or people on any job. When working with people for volunteering, or for a job, there will be those days where you might not be having a great day or a patient is very uncooperative. You might experience those on a daily basis but you can’t let that get to you and you just have to stay friendly and courteous. I have made a visit to Fern Elementary School and I volunteered to work with the students at an after school program. Waiting to get started I observed an A+ staff member; she handled the children and their parents if they had any questions. She stayed nice and involved with each child. I had observed that you need to be able to care for each student needs, and you need to listen to what they have to say.

At the A+ I specifically was assigned to work with Kindergarteners and First graders. There I was with a bunch of little kids doing arts and crafts, playing games and helping them with homework. I helped lead an arts and crafts project, where the students were making a water play day flyer, many students were engaged in doing the project and they came to ask us for help with drawing a picture or putting glitter on their papers. But then again there were a couple of shy students which I had to care for and help but more importantly I had to make them feel a bit more comfortable and get them engaged in the art project. We played a simple ball game and it started to get boring, but I knew I couldn’t show that I was not enjoying myself to the kids so I just kept playing the game and smiling and laughing at times just so the kids wouldn’t see that I was getting bored.

With both answers from my interview with my aunty and volunteering and working with the children at the after school program I have made many observations. With kids I noticed that you have to be attentive to each child and working with children is much more different than working with high school students or adults. When you meet a child you have to be nice to them, but when you meet an adult you just need to prove to that person that you know what you’re doing and you will get things done. To be able to work with people you need to have good communication skills, very friendly and caring, and you have to be able to work with all kinds of people because you will be meeting new people all of the time and building friendships. This is a true passion because I do like helping people and putting smiles on their faces and I would like to continue to meet new people and care for their needs even if that means that there will be days that won’t be good.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Research for Passion

Research helping others and Meeting new people

My research on Google has shown that the importance of helping others is a principle that can be found in society. There are different things that motivate an individual to help people, but the experience that impacts the individual is what counts.
A Norwegian philosopher by the name of Arne Naess suggests that our ability to help others results from a sense of humans to feel as parts of a whole. This idea can be found in the field of transpersonal psychology, basically we help others because we “need” to help others.

The benefits that come from helping others are recognition from others and yourself and also making new friendships. For some people recognition is all they need and they don’t need the gifts, knowing that they have just helped someone is much more satisfying and self healing. The benefits if helping also affect your health. Studies have shown that people who volunteer and help others were happier and in better physical and mental health and had less depression than people who were less likely to help others.


Interview with Gilda Garcia (RN at Kapiolani Medical Center) :
What skills do you need to have to work with patients at a doctor's office?
Medical assistants can work in a variety of settings including hospitals, physician's offices and clinics. They are able to specialize in front office procedure handling administrative duties, in the back office dealing with patients in the clinical setting, or both. Examples of skills: detail oriented, well organized, excellent communication skills, knowledgeable with medical terminology and ICD-9 coding, personable, friendly.

What are some benefits that you receive when working and interacting with patients?
The advantage of taking up this career is the amazing exposure and experience you get along the way. As a medical assistant, I am constantly meeting people of different races, cultures, backgrounds and with different problems. Helping and caring for patients is a very rewarding experience. You would also be actively involved in the ongoing process of patients care. My efforts towards improving the patients health makes me feel happy and it gives me satisfaction knowing that I spend my days helping others and making a difference.

What are some things that you have to consider when thinking of working in a doctor's office as a nurse? When choosing to work in a doctor's office you need to consider which type of medical specialty you want to work for. For example: Pediatrics, OB/GYN, geriatrics, dermatology, internal medicine, etc. Think about what specialty you are interested in and what types of patients you would be great with. For example: children, elderly or both.

What are the bad things about working with patients?
There are days when I have angry or unhappy patients-which makes my day a little harder but I wouldn't say that this is a bad thing. My job is to keep being courteous and friendly while caring/helping the patient.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Journal 32

1. Describe a memorable learning experience
A memorable learning experience would be when my dad taught me how to prepare the main dish for dinner which was spaghetti. I never really cooked, I was used to my parents making me dinner or making myself a microwavable dinner. That day dad called me over and told me exactly that I was going to learn how to make this and I have to make it all by myself next time. So I asked questions about cooking the ground beef and the spaghetti noodles. My dad and I bonded and it was a very funny experience that's why I remember it the most. It’s good that he taught me how to cook a main dish.

2. What is your vision for the ideal school?
My ideal vision of a school is having the students do a lot of the projects and work in school and not at home so the the teachers can interact with the students and make sure that the students understands the work. I also think that there should be life skills classes for the students to know how to be a good person and student.

3. What do you need to learn? &How would you learn it best?
I think that we need to learn life skills, social skills, studying skills, and responsibility. With life skills students will know how to be better people and how not to make the wrong choices. We need Social skills because everyone should know how to talk to people no matter what their age is and in the appropriate way. Studying skills because we also need to be good in school and studying will help each student become a better learner. We also need to learn responsibility because students have to know how to take care of themselves and how to avoid bad situations.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Journal #31: What is your passion ?

1. I have a passion for putting myself in positions or activities where i get to meet new people and do new things.


2. My experiences have been in paddling, brown bags to stardom and being a football manager. I've got to do many new things that i love doing and i met a lot of new people.

3. I like to take this through out my whole life because it will help me become a very social person and it gives me a lot of courage and confidence to meet and talk to new people. I would like to stretch this through doing other activities around school that will get me involved and something where i will be around people.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

I Believe Essay

Desha Garcia
I believe that you should always push your hardest to get what you want …
That was my motto for my paddling season. I went to practice not knowing how bad conditioning was going to be, what the plans were for the day, and how many of us out of the 30 girls on the team were actually going to be racing at the first race. I basically did not know what to expect. We had a new coach with new techniques and she made paddling very intimidating. I was a newbie all over again. Your technique and skills that you knew for paddling didn’t matter because everyone was starting at the bottom of the barrel, basically from scratch. We were all going to build up from there and we have to do some major fighting for a seat in the canoe.

The day that my coach moved me up to varsity I became very intimidated because I was one of 4 sophomores that were on the varsity team. Last year I was on Junior Varsity and I hardly raced at all, but being on varsity is a whole other level. The races are a mile long. The girls that you will be racing against have been racing since freshmen year. I had no faith in myself at all, I wasn’t as experienced as the others but I knew that with a small team I have to push myself to get a seat in the canoe to beat out the other teams. Each day it was a fight to see who would show the signs of weakness and to see who would be able to stick it out through all the tough conditioning and training.

I went to practice every day and I listened to all the tips that my coach had given us and I applied every single one to my paddling. I didn’t care if other people didn’t give a 100% effort because I did. I wanted to race and I wanted my team to make it to states. At each practice when we would scrimmage and race the other JV girl’s crew, I made sure that we beat them and then try to catch up to the boys. I had hope for myself that I would be able to race the first race because I had been working so hard and trying to show the coaches that I wanted a seat the most. I was known as the girl who would come to the lagoon when there was no practice for the girls just to practice with the mix crews. Having said that I was on Junior Varsity last year and I hardly ever raced, I wanted to be the one that would automatically race on Saturdays and I wouldn’t have to worry about someone taking my seat.

A couple of weeks before the first race my coach told us what seats we were going to be racing in the whole season. I was given seat one. The seat that leads the whole canoe, my stroke will determine how fast the canoe will move and how much power we all pull. My hard work had paid off just for this while; the real test was the actual races and what we place at those races. Race after race we been placing in the top 4. That’s really good. We all set high goals for our crew and so did my coaches. We took each practice seriously now that championships were getting closer. We shed blood sweat and tears for the varsity girls paddling crew. We all wanted the same things, Medals, making it to states, and bringing home a states champions banner.

We raced each race as if it was a championship, sure we didn’t get first or second but this season was the first season in a very long time where the varsity girls paddling team at Moanalua High School went to states. We worked so hard for it; we beat out the other west and east OIA crews on Oahu to make it to states. My girls gave it all they got and I for sure improved a lot since freshmen year. I’ve gotten compliments on how good we were and knowing that this was my first year on the varsity crew and we made that far I felt very happy. I was proud to be on varsity and I was proud to say even though my team didn’t walk away with the state champ’s banner we made it far enough just to get to states. It was a very rough ride getting to where we were at the end of the season, without hard work, dedication, and discipline we wouldn’t have been a close team and we wouldn’t be placing in the top four at every race without those things.

I believe that you should always push your hardest to get what you want …

Mulan Graphic

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