Final discussions and next quarter...

So our final discussion in feminism was regarding feminism in film. I cited three films where I felt that women were portrayed as real, having feelings that many of us in the real world have. I talked about such films as "The Accused", "Waiting to Exhale", and "Juno". I think a lot of my classmates could totally relate to the title character portrayed by Ellen Page, because she didn't represent some cookie-cutter image of young teen girls that are often seen in teen movies regularly. In my experience, the only way that the girl gets noticed--or receives any type of respect--in these movies is not because of her intelligence or what she brings to the table in terms of personality, but it's usually her looks. Interestingly, Page's character is pretty, but not in a conventional way. It's her personality and smarts that attract her suitor to her initially as her best friend; their relationship dynamic changes when she learns that a one-time "encounter" has resulted in a pregnancy. The film also touched on the issue of choice: should Juno abort or carry the baby to term? What I liked about this film--and I shared this with my classmates--is that the choice was totally Juno's; once she'd made up in her mind that she was going to carry the baby to term and give it up for adoption, she was supported by her family. We were all able to come up with a movie or two that we felt related to feminism in one way or another and showed a woman either on equal footing with a male counterpart or being supported by a male figure in her life to achieve what society tells her that she cannot.

I also was able to share what I learned and took away from my finance class; I was able to realize that financial management is important in all that we do, whether it's simply to manage our personal finances or it's to run a business. We cannot do either without first learning where to start. This course was a good one; I only wished I'd done better on the last GHA. I got a decent grade, nonetheless.

I also learned a lot from my CIS 203 class dealing with advanced databases. I learned that if I should ever go into business for myself, I'll know how to keep an organized record of customers/clients and how to get rid of any records that have no use.

War-gasms and nature rape...

So this is the topic being discussed this week in Feminism, and the reading gave us an interesting perspective. The parallel noted that those who engaged in war compared the conquering of countries and leaving them virtually lifeless to that of a sexual act. What I picked up on right away was the suggestion of force to achieve these means. Unfortunately, this is what men have done to nature; they have torn apart every vestige of nature until it no longer can sufficiently provide what we need. Much the way a rape victim cannot fully recover from being raped, this earth cannot recover from repeated abuses by men who seek to conquer the earth, rather than understand it.

What we also discussed with regard to the earth is how this topic is related to feminism, in that men oftentimes are forceful in their methods to gain success and/or access to something, instead of seeking other means to acquire what is desired. My suggestion was that men should seek to not only bridge the gap between male and female, but between humans and the earth by extension.

One more week of classes....

I can't believe it; it seems like I just started my Access class, and now it's over (I just turned in the final reinforcement). I have a couple more assignments for other classes, and then I can relax for the next couple of weeks until the summer session starts. Everyone at work and at home keeps asking me when I'm going to graduate, and I keep telling them the end of the year. I think they're as excited for me as I am for myself. After having worked hard to get myself back in school, and as much as I enjoy it, I'm looking forward to graduation and seeing the payoff of all my hard work: a great job in my field of choice. I really am looking forward to something in the financial field; however, having taking the computer technology courses and other courses, I feel that I could easily adapt to any working environment.

So I just read Vanessa's blog, and I'm very excited for her. Again, she is an example of one of the sharp minds of Berkeley College students. AND she's a young person who is on a fast track to a great career path. She's taking both her school and work responsibilities seriously, and I am as proud of her as if she were a family member of mine (well, in a way, she is, because I consider Berkeley College students one big, happy family). It's also nice to see Aleksandra still posting here on the boards, even though she's graduated. When I read about how she's doing in her job, it's very encouraging. She, like Vanessa, is a young person who forged ahead and got her education and is now reaping the benefits of her hard work and dedication.

Excitement and challenges....

So we're nearing the end of another quarter, and I can hardly wait for the next one. And then I have one more quarter before I graduate. Exciting, isn't it? I'll FINALLY be able to see the West Paterson campus of Berkeley College. But before that, I still want to be able to get involved in some school activities (besides the online clubs). I also still want to look at Career Services and see what types of jobs are being offered, so that I can explore my options for when I graduate....

...which brings me to the challenging. So I know that I'll eventually have to do my internship for school, and this presents sort of a special challenge: how to go about fulfilling my internship requirements and my work responsibilities. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, but my stomach is already in knots, just thinking about it. Things like this are good for lots of thinking over, but the fall will be here shortly, and I don't want to be scrambling at the last minute, trying to figure it all out. I need to make my plans in advance, giving my employers notice and all that and seeing exactly how many hours I will have to do for my internship. So, it's a cause for concern, but a good concern...AND it's exciting. I'd considered doing my internship where I work, but we're a not-for-profit organization, and I really don't see where else they'd put me besides the front desk (which is where I am now). I'll voice my concerns to Advisement, and see what they come up with. So while I'm concerned, I'm not overly worried. I'm sure it'll work out.

Thank goodness for your classmates...

What you may not necessarily understand, another one of your classmates may pick up on. So I discussed how I'd run into a snag in my last Access homework assignment, because while I got the results that I needed, the finished product didn't look like the professor's proof. So when a few of my classmates got the same result as me, I realized that I didn't do anything wrong, that I actually did what the book said. The SORT order of the table was alphabetical by last name, and not by Student I.D., as shown in the proof. So I changed it in my database, and what do you know? It came out exactly as shown in the professor's proof. I have to thank my classmate for discovering this; otherwise, I'd still be racking my brains, wondering what I did wrong.

In feminism, we're discussing women's voice in society, particularly with regard to sexuality. One of the readings we had to do was with regard to lesbianism, and how lesbians are not only disregarded because of being women, but because of their sexuality. They are either regarded as part of the female community or part of the gay community, both of which are largely ignored by men (and to some extent, women who still hold to traditional views of femininity). From the writer's perspective, while she is both gay and female, lesbians are a unique group and should not be made to melt into subgroups, but to stand out and be counted.

UGH....I'm so annoyed....

Well, not really, but I missed yet ANOTHER chance to meet face-to-face with other Berkeley College students (outside of the computer lab of the Newark campus, that is). As those of you online may know--and those of you who don't take classes online, but check out Blackboard from time to time, at any rate, may know--Berkeley has weekly activities for us students to be involved in (outside of our classrooms and hard work; not to say that these should be downplayed, but all work and no play makes a person a little irritable and burned out). So there's a jazz quartet playing at the Newark campus from 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. Works out perfectly for me if I plan ahead, correct? Well, no, because they're playing TOMORROW. :( I couldn't even play this off as a class trip if I wanted to. Besides, Berkeley College teaches us to have a work ethic, and while it's nice to be a part of school activities, I can't justify leaving work early to do so. I'm sure that Berkeley will have something that I can attend during the summer and plan ahead for.

Remember that saying, "Slow and steady wins the race"? Well, I'm finding this to be true with regard to my assignments. I rushed ahead saying how easy I found this recent Access tutorial...only to stumble on the homework assignment and have to ask for help. I'm going to reread the case again and hopefully my professor can provide some insight into where I went wrong, as well.

At least I seem to be doing well in all of my classes this quarter; it really helps that I finally have my own computer, instead of having to bounce from the library to the house computer to the school to my brother's laptop. It also helps that all of the programs I need are right here on my computer, and that I can practice regularly. Maybe that's what I need to do on a daily basis with regard to my Computer Information Systems courses. Proficiency is key; it's one thing to mess up on a homework assignment, but quite another to make a total mess of things on the job.

This was the hardest Access project ever....

This had to do with customing reports and making mailing labels. So I started out pretty well for the first few pages, but then I had to keep going back and re-reading the directions for the project, and then it didn't look like the professor's proofs upon completion; so I had to go back into Design View and fix it so that it would come out looking like the proof that the professor had in the Course Documents. I think I was still a little off, but it came close to what the proof looked like. At least the settings seemed to match.

I did a little better with the homework assignment this week for Finance 300. There was one part of the problem that I didn't understand, but I worked it out to the best of my ability and submitted it for grading. Perhaps the professor will guide me and show me where I went wrong. Besides, checking out my grading scale, I'm doing pretty good in both classes, so if I keep doing what I'm doing, I'll be able to bring my GPA back up to at least a 3.0. That would be good.

I'm already looking forward to next quarter, particularly English 111; as we all well know, telecommunication will soon be the norm and not the exception in business, so we may as well learn everything there is to know now. I'm also excited about the Business Seminar course that I've signed up for. It'll be interesting to see what the course format is like.

Religion and feminism....

So this week, we had a discussion regarding religion and feminism (as well as an essay on the topic). We discussed the role of the woman Eve in regard to feminism and how some practices in religion served to subjugate women. I had a bit of a problem with the way that the writers seemed to slant their views on Eve and other women in the Bible, in that they felt that men viewed all women in the light of one biblical women, without looking at the positive examples of other women in the Bible. I felt that by looking for ways that the Bible and, by extension, religion demeaned women, the writers of these articles overlooked ways in which the Bible served to uplift women and punished not just wicked women, but also wicked men, as well.

This is one of the points that I brought out in discussion board posting--that if we look for ways that the Bible has "done us wrong" as women, so to speak, we miss out on ways that the Bible has highlighted positive female examples that we can look up to. Nevertheless, it was interesting and eye-opening to see what people really thought of the Bible writers and their writings, as well as what they felt the Bible figures represented.