The End Blog 19/Food

    On a cool winter afternoon I was walking the city when all of a sudden it seems like the world around me changed. No matter how cold it was it seemed like I have entered paradise. A paradise of farmer's market that is where I could see all types of activities going on and food of all types was being sold. Even all types of people from different places. Not only that but the place was incredibly packed like Times Square that it was almost hard for me to walk around there but nonetheless I had fun coming here again for a project.
     As I'm walking and learning from beginning to end of the market I can see all types of food being sold. Some rare and new to me. You name it. All types of bread, all types of leaves, fruits, meat, beverages, wine, pasta and much more!  

The market was even selling some cool drawings made by someone and fine art was also on display to buy in the food market. The activities that I witnessed around were that people seemed to be analyzing and investigating what they were going to buy. They asked questions about the foods' setting and so on. Others were also taking pictures. I even saw some entertainment like the one you see in my pictures. Overall everyone seemed to be having a great time.
      The pictures you see on the side are a few of many that I took on that day and I decided to put a variety of pictures. I even included the main entrance of the market which is divided in two parts where in the first part they sell different kinds of cool sculptures, ornaments and much more art! I even posted a picture as an example which looks like an Asian sculpture. The picture you see about the "Flying Pigs Farm" caught my eye so I took a look and saw all kinds of meat. I even saw a chorizo sausage which I decided to buy for a meal. I figure I should buy this since I like it and it would be more easier for me to distinguish between the other Latin sausages and American sausage I have eaten. Also because I wouldn't know if buying the leaves or anything else would be easy to see the difference in taste so meat was my best bet. My parents always used to tell me how the meat and soup tasted better in their country but I could never understand why but when I did travel there and experienced it for myself I could understand why. My theory was that maybe because we lived in a hot climate part of the country and the hot climate areas brings out the happy good vibe but I guess I was wrong. I even heard that natural medicine treatment was better in other countries which I do believe. I'm only trying to compare and point out the great false common stereotypes I hear about the U.S.A because when I was in the Union Square market you have better knowledge. But now it was time to taste something different. According to the seller when I asked about this particular meat he told me lots of things like how the sausage I bought had some spice in it so if I buy the regular meat I can taste it even more better. The farm was somewhere in upstate NY and that these were the rarest pigs ever. He even said the pig was stunned with something and that was it. I guess in my country and many others they still kill pigs through the heart. I also think the wines sold their were from the country since I heard that wine country tastes better which I never knew. The Flying Pigs Farm have their own website. All of what I explained is what I learned but not only that because it also gave me a reflection of similar cool big markets I saw in my parent's country for the first time also with their own art but in Union Square you see all types of art, sometimes eccentric. Many other people and also me who live in the quiet urban parts of the city it can be quite hard to get access to a market like this. But with today's power of the internet nothing seems impossible. I have seen markets before but too small and nothing compared like in Union Square filled with rare food, crazy cool art but above all great, helpful people that make a difference. One more thing, bring enough money!  

The meal that you see is the Flying Pigs chorizo sausage. I made it on a small oven since I take caution on not making it with oil on pan which is unhealthy. I included on the side of the sausage, plantain and a mix of leaves with it. I shared it with my siblings and I explained to them what this meant. The flavor was decent and smooth so I'm guessing this is what fresh pig meat tastes like. I'm hoping to return sometime again soon to explore more of this and discover new food. Expensive but still healthy and great. It was a great experience in paradise.                                                                        

The sausages might look like they are burned but the color is the result of well-cooked meat to kill bacteria.

Ball slips from hand

Outline Blog 18

      In the passage " the $2 camisole: How cheap is ruining our lives" by the author Mary Elizabeth Williams she states how things that are worth of something should be valued more. Desperate marketing and because of the bad economy resulted low prices every year. Also even if these are low prices there is a big cost because for a person having to buy a glasses that were only 2 weeks used still broke. Even the kitchen cabinets which were brand new had to be replaced. The iphone can't even last in crack-free marks even though 2 years went by but it was usable.

    I do agree that things should be cheap anyways.
Reason 1 If I buy something expensive it still wont work.
 I keep on buying earphones every year and it takes only 8 months or so for it to stop transmitting sound.

Reason 2. Discounts are good so I don't have to buy from the original price.
 I bought this xbox chair for my brother to sit on while he plays his xbox games. It had a bass speaker on the sides that we can use with a connector to connect to the xbox and to the TV so it can give out a high pitch sound like being at a movie theater. Great isn't it and the chair looked cool also. But, after one month it stopped transmitting sound and even the handles that came with the chair lost its nails and the handle broke. I replaced it again and again it went down. I bought this on the holiday season for $70 luckily at Target because the original price was $120! Worthless item for kids.

Overall this women should not be concerned about this problem and is overreacting because I do agree with her on some items having value because you can still get a TV for $300 at least that can last for 5-10 years. Not bad. A wide-screen TV which is around $2,000 and can last 10 years. On the 5th year somehow cracked. Not bad. I can go on.. She should be concerned about the Metrocard hikes or many other problems in this country. Hopefully she doesn't want any value on those!








  

Ninth Lab/Blog 17: Reflection on Blogging

No, I still need to complete like probably 3 or 4 more labs but I usually get it done later on when I have my thoughts put together.

No, I just checked other blog entries instead "Living in the Matrix". Doesn't just have to be Living in the Matrix. I have checked some blogs sometimes to get ideas although most of the help came from me listening.

I would say some of the differences are that I now put in more specific details on my response and even if I'm pissed off, well not necessarily pissed, I still never write my opinion in my summary because even just a few words like "this is unforgiven" can screw it up! These are the changes I've made according to what I learned from the professor. I hope to learn my final errors this Tuesday.


          I think blogging has helped me in probably many different ways that I would have a hard time explaining. One of the things that pops up in my mind is that usually I would check the comment sections under my blog entries then I would mostly check my errors in my CATW and realize the errors I have done so I can correct them. Sometimes because I just don't seem to have that much errors it has limited me to check back that often on the blog entries but I still think the blog process procedure was a great idea. It has given me the chance to go check other student's blogs and I realize that every student can have a different starting sentence on their personal response. I usually don't look at summaries because they seem easy and something I learned to correct within the professor.
          In my responses I usually use the "I agree with this" or "this is is significant" method then use my own personal two examples which is more easier for me and gives me the opportunity to write more. For example in my last set of blogs or CATW's starting from Blog 11 until now, I wrote like this in "Let Them Eat Fat", "another example out is that statistically the low-income areas have less healthy organic supermarkets. This is why there are more reports of diabetes and other related sicknesses in the low-income communities". So as you can see this is a method I have been using nowadays and when I check back to my comment section to check how I did my tutors and professor advises me to use more specific examples for my response. I guess what I could have done in my blog even more differently is to proofread my blog again and to annotate from the reading which sometimes I'm not used at doing. For example, as I happen to check my blog entries I knew I had it all right but one student who commented on my blog tells me that I should check my grammar next time and to my surprise she was right. I actually don't even know what happened to me when I wrote this in blog entry for "Let Them Eat Fat", "In Let Them Eat Fat by the author Greg Critser discusses how, fast-food companies because of the cheap need from poor people in the meals the innovation known as supersizing was born".               
            Eventually this is just one of the types of errors I have to deal with now so blogging has helped me in checking for my minor errors because as of today according to them and thanks to my tutors and professor it seems like the only errors I need to correct. Even though it can be hard to find some students who finished their blogs I looked within the comment section from other tutors and some students only. Overall, according to the help I received from the blog comments mostly I have to recognize that having my own blog for my essays has been of great help.

Blog 16: The New Industrial MIgrants

                                                                 Part 1       
          In the passage "The New Industrial Immigrants" from Fast Food Nation by the author Eric Shlosser he states that during the late 20th century what the meatpacking district used to be about has changed from wages to a large turnover rate in hiring immigrants. Immigrants came pouring to the USA from the poorest countries. A lot of them were employed. But the pay now is more lower than a few decades ago. This would be due to the rise of turnover rate where Monfort just hires people to fill the jobs fast. Knowing that the pay is low and their vacation never happens most of the workers quit. What the executives claim is that this turnover rate helps with keeping insurance costs low. But a turnover rate for them is their benefit for it makes jobs an advantage for them to control and not get them on union.                                                                                                                                                      Part 2
        In the passage "The New Industrial Immigrants" from Fast Food Nation by the author Eric Shlosser he states that a way for the meat companies to maintain the flow of new workers in the meat slaugherhouses the company IBP has for many years sent out a team to recruit more workers in the United State's most poorest communities. It has hired refugees, homeless people. Even buses to take the workers far away. Now they have their own labor office in Mexico City, ads. Buses which will take from Mexico to the jobs in America. Immigration services already has an idea that many who work in the meatpacking industry are mostly illegal immigrants but the executives deny this. Even if they deny they have already admitted to paying them the lowest wage. Another company which was GFI also sent recruiters to hire for work. They then rented the bus to send from Texas to Minnesota and left them at a homeless shelter. The company would pay them and give them free hamburgers which was denied and soon this story would go to the news because since they were promised free rentals everyone was angry about it, even the advocates because they knew they shouldn't be assisting companies that transport low-cost labor.
                                                               Response
            It doesn't surprise me even that much that this has been going on. In my opinion I think after 9/11 it has been more easy for me understand how this country plays the game and it ain't beautiful. This passage is just another part of the game of how the elite play. It makes me think that this world, not just America especially with this topic is almost like a food animal chain. The insect gets eaten by the mouse, mouse gets eaten by owl and it goes on and on. So if we try to educate them about this chain they should be cautious of the person who is at the top of the chain. If not then unfortunately you die or you get played.
            An example I can give about this is that right after the attacks on 9/11 the workers who volunteered to work in the clean up were lied to by Rudy Guliani claimed that the "air would be safe". But the workers LIABILITY to this was imminent as they complained about respiratory problems. Some even catching cancer. The workers have finally sued the city for this. I guess there is a reason why the pyramid exists where you group the upper to the lower and this almost reflects the "the new industrial migrants" article.
          This is in my opinion also happens in sports entertainment at least that I know of because when Mike Tyson started getting more high in the game and more popular he claims how Don King was an asshole who took 1/3 of his money, humiliated him and betrayed him. He also claims how he did this to others. Now maybe we can say that this being BORNE by the bosses of the companies to gain a lot of profit and yes I know if I was one I would do this for a limited time but I can't understand why be so unfair. Yes we know life is unfair but why be so cruel. Maybe of course in the meatpacking industry it could be overcrowded and there is no choice but we all know they use this excuse to control them so they can be RELUCTANT to join union by turnover rate so obviously something is not right here. They even admitted this. We do understand that in business we are taught then when business go down then companies have to fire their employers. But still they hire anyway and if this was necessary then why they have to be creeps and fake-laugh about it in interviews. Not just these bosses from the food industry but I have seen this kind of response from other elites when confronted.
      Overall it's an issue people are already protesting about and I think by buying more healthy foods it takes an affect for the better.





                                                                                                                                                         

Blog 15/ Eighth Lab Greenmarket Farmer's Markets

            As a country and a city like New York City who seems to be always bombarded with entertainment ads there is something useful out there that is going on and we can find this in a website called "Greenmarket Farmers Market" and look for its locations of markets to where find healthy food. For me it wasn't actually the location that bothered me a lot but mostly the price as I already heard that these places were around but didn't exactly know where to go. So mostly what interested me most about the website is like other websites, that hardly give you any information or location, this is the real deal because it gives us all the locations we can go to and pick our healthy foods. I totally wouldn't mind taking the train to one of these locations even if I lived 40 minutes away from them. If Columbus could travel for something so small and struggled in extreme conditions then with this website and today's modern technology using a train or a car why not us?
          Especially, what most caught me was not only that these people could help each other to make a difference, creating projects to build rainwater harvesting systems to help grow gardens, is one example, but also that they would provide us with healthy turkey and we can call them to order it. Also, that you can find fruits or vegetables easily where it is cheap. So its not only fruits or vegetables that we can look for but fresh turkey provided to us rather than the ones sold up front already cooked which might only contain drugs and which is probably not healthy. Now that I'm aware of this I think that for the first time I can buy my first fresh turkey from a market and the last I heard from my old-generation family is that they always claim that if they do go back to their country they always want to eat the original corn, meat or soup,etc because it is much more "better" or "fresh" which I always wondered what they meant since most of their cultural food comes from agriculture and the ones sold here on Trade Fair has a different taste. Let's see if this turkey I buy at Greenmarket Farmers Market is any different than the ones sold at Trade Fair, etc.
                           

Blog 14 Ideas for Improving My Performance in the CATW

Improving My Annotation


1. I should identify my examples or details.
2. Annotate the main points of what the passage is mostly talking about
3.Check each paragraph in order to not miss out anything.
4. Get the main idea first and then exclude the minor details.
5.Annotating is a great idea so you can write your essay more quickly without going back to the essay

Improving my Response

1. Writing the thesis first so then you can write your two examples.
2. These ideas you would then use them to develop into multiple paragraphs.
3. Write your conclusion unto that lesson that you experienced or learned about in school.

Transitions to organize your CATW
To show time has passed
Immediately
Thereafter
Soon

Stop and Compare
Whereas
But
In Spite Of
Yet

Give Reader an Example
For example, For instance, In this care

To conclude
In brief, In conclusion Hence, As a result, Thus, Summing Up

Make the reader move forward
And then, Further, Moreover, What's more, Furthermore, Besides

Blog 13 Typing CATW 5

         In the article, "How to Do One Thing at a Time" by Nancy Jones she explains how multi-tasking can intefere and have a bad impact in our lives. If we end up performing difficult things all at once it is called multitasking. If you are trying to concentrate writing an essay but at the same time watching TV or eating supper then chances are we end up not doing well or neither. If we make one group do multi-tasking like playing chess and have him/her answering the cellphone a lot then chances are they don't do better in the game but if the other group of people are playing chess with no sound around or answering the phone then they do better. This is why Clifford Nass believes that the brain does better when we do things in an organizing order versus than doing them all together at the same time.
         One significant idea in the passage is when the author, Nancy Jones, points out about Clifford Nass quote when he says, "a tremendous amount of evidence shows that the brain does better when it's performing tasks in sequence rather than all at once", because for example if you are texting while driving then how can you concentrate when you are being cautious that you don't crash another car in front of you. This issue has been reported on the news every year. It has gotten out of hand that is is now close to the drunk driving accident issue. I don't understand how people can text and drive at the same time. Anyone doing that would have to wait for a red light to text. Instead  of texting I would let someone call me because it is much easier to view the cars that are in front of you while you drive and avoid accidents. Another good example I can give about multi-tasking is reading a complex book or doing homework of difficult math and listening to music at the same time because when I do listen to music I realize that I end up finishing later but if I don't listen to music I finish faster, concentrate better and remember more. This is why I think it makes sense that our brains have "cognitive" limits according to the passage. So if I'm doing homework and listening to music then it's more harder for the brain because the brain isn't a machine that can memorize all the steps or remember all the rules that apply to math all at once plus the stimulation that the brain recieves to the music I enjoy can just lead me to errors or forgetting when I don't even realize it as long as I research this matter or go to a yoga class I can cure my addiction to multi-tasking, you can too.