As you can see, this blog talks about the journey of life from my point of view and my family’s. With my entries, I tried to create a sequence of events people go through in life. Starting with yourself as subject in the world, then going to school and college in which you face problems and stress. After this, you become an adult and life becomes harder because you face life and work struggles such as poverty, sickness, and accidents that can cause you death or almost cause you death. You can also go through happy moments such becoming successful and finding love in a partner, family member or even a pet. At the end, you eventually die but you leave behind all the memories and things you went through, that made you who you are. This is what I tried to explain in this blog, but with my point of view and experiences, giving examples of things that have impacted me and my family. I gave my examples for you to compare them with your life and remember that everyone is different and have different lives and problems. You should never think your life is the worst because everybody goes through hard times, it’s just a matter of never giving up and trying to live happily through your life’s journey.

 

As I wrote about love and death my dog also came to my mind. It is scientifically proven that when you have a pet you get to love him as a family member and you suffer his or her death just as much. There is evidence that interacting with pets does reduce people’s stress, provided the pet is behaving properly. Good interactions do have quite a profound effect, causing changes in oxytocin and in beta endorphins. Those are actual changes going on in the body of somebody who is stroking a friendly dog. As time goes by, you start to love your pet unconditionally and when it dies you become devastated.

Personally, I’ve been through this and it has been one of the happiest but at the same time saddest journeys of my life. When I was 7 my mom decided to grant me the wish of having a shit-zu puppy. When we went to choose the one I wanted, there was a little girl puppy that came to me and when I looked at her I knew that needed to be my dog so I decided to name her “Mia”. As the years went by, she became my best and most loyal friend; I loved her more than anything in the world. She was my company in my happiest and saddest moments and I just knew I could not live without her, she definitely brought out the best in me. When I turned 19, Mia turned 12 and she started getting sick until we found out she had cancer. My whole family suffered this news as if it was a family member because for us, she was. We then needed to put her to sleep and I can say this moment when I saw her close her beautiful eyes forever, was the saddest moment of my life. The thought of losing my best friend and never seeing her again was devastating. After this, I needed to go to the psychologist because I just couldn’t accept it. With time, I got better because I learned to be happy with the memories and not so sad with the loss.

This experience made me feel really connected to the movie “Marley and Me”. This movie is about a family that moves to Florida and adopt Marley, a yellow Labrador puppy. As Marley grows up he becomes a mischievous handful, but even though he was destroying everything, they get to love him a lot because he brought out the best in the family. As the years went by, he became their best friend, but he then becomes old and they needed to put him to sleep. This scene where they were devastated to see how they made their dog sleep forever, made me cry for hours because this was exactly how I felt when Mia died. The things the dad said at the process where exactly the things I thought about when I was going through this… “I love you more than anything, I don’t know exactly where we go from here, but I want you to remember you’re a great dog Marley. You thought me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.”

As you can see, a dog or pet can really mean the world to a person and you can get to love him as much as a family member. Pets have a way of making you a better person and they teach you things like: seizing the moment, living each day with joy no matter what, appreciating the little things, and following your heart. In other words, a dog doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb, give him his heart and he’ll give you his. This is what makes their love the purest of them all.

 

Marley & Me [Video file]. (n.d.).

Brulliard, K. (2017, November 03). Why do we love pets? An expert explains. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/11/03/pets-arent-wonder-drugs-heres-why-we-love-them-anyway/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.925c62e88d11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we travel through life, we find love in different ways, we face a lot of problems, etc., until we finally die. Death is said to be the rule of life and sometimes it is really hard for us to accept we are all going to die including your loved ones and yourself. Humans can die in different ways like accidents, sickness or just because of being old. One of the saddest ways old people die is because Alzheimer. Alzheimer is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking, and behavior. It is really hard for the family members to go through this with the person because symptoms usually develop slowly and get worse over time, becoming severe enough to interfere with daily task.

In my opinion, Alzheimer’s disease changes the life of the person with the condition and the people that care about that person. Even though the disease is gradual, no one is ever ready for the impact the disease has on family relationships and responsibilities. As a great-granddaughter, it was really hard for me to overcome my great-grandmother’s diagnosis and her death years later. My great-grandmother and I were very close, we used to share everything and be together at least once a week. She was my secret-keeper and I trusted her more than anyone, until one day I realized something was wrong. She used to show me pictures of my dad and my aunts when they were little, and one time she confused me with my aunt in the picture. I started laughing because I thought it was a joke, how could I be alive at that time if my dad was in the picture as a 7-year old boy. When I realized she was serious I got worried, but I just tried to ignore it. Months later, she got lost driving and when the police officer asked her where she lived so he could help her, she couldn’t remember. At this point, we took her to a doctor and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer. After this, our lives changed and we suffered everyday seeing how she slowly got worse. The day I cried the most was the day she couldn’t remember me but told me: “I have a beautiful great-granddaughter that used to see me almost every day and I miss her, but I can’t remember her face. Do you know her?”. Some days she remembered me and some days she didn’t, but I tried to enjoy every minute by her side until she died.

In the blog “My Grandmother’s Alzheimer’s Story”, a girl talks about the same experience I went through and when I read it, I felt I could relate to her feelings in a lot of ways. She says: “My grandma has always been a high energy, fashionable, beautiful and fun-loving woman. She has also been one of the strongest and feistiest people I know. Her distinct sayings, lessons, cooking, and laughter are forever ingrained in my brain. We are bonded for life, despite the fact that she no longer knows who I am”. This is exactly how I felt with my great-grandmother and it really teared me apart to see her like this. The blog also talks about all the changes the person with the condition goes through which were the same as my great-grandmother. First, they start to forget about little things like where are their keys or calling her three sons each other’s’ name accidentally. But within a few months, it goes downhill fast. They go in a state of total dementia where they repeat themselves constantly until they can’t even remember who they are. Nevertheless, sometimes they have moments of lucidy in which their memory reverts back to younger years and all they talk about is things from the past.

The last thing the blog talks about is accepting the diagnosis, which I think is the hardest part of the situation… “I will never be able to walk into my grandmother’s home and be greeted by her loving embrace. Her phone number- a number I’ve called all my life is no longer in service. These thoughts alone are enough to bring tears to my eyes, but the bottom line is that she is still alive; just living in a sort of alternate universe”. This is exactly how I felt, like she was alive because she was breathing but at the same time dead because she just wasn’t herself anymore and I missed her every day. In conclusion, Alzheimer is a really harmful condition for both the person and his/her family. Seeing a loved one battling this condition is one of the toughest things to go through, but it is something we just need to accept because death is inevitable.

My Grandmother’s Alzheimer’s Story. (2018, October 11). Retrieved from https://www.alzheimers.net/granddaughters-alzheimers-perspective/

 

 

 

 

Just as bad things can happen to us through the journey of life, good things can also happen. One of the biggest pleasures in life is the feeling of love. When you love someone, you feel a great affection that can include romantic or sexual attraction.. In other words, you feel connected to that person in a way you never want to let go. The origin of love is something most people question and there are different believes on how this feeling came to life.

The song “The origin of love” appears in the movie Hedwig & The Angry Inch, and it gives an explanation on how love was created. This explanation is based on The Myth of Aristophanes, which states that love was created a long time ago as an effect of something the gods did. It explains that years before, humans had 4 arms, 4 legs and two heads. One day the gods got mad at them and decided to cut them in half. Since that day, people spent their whole life looking for their other half and that feeling of extreme attraction to that half is what we call love: “Last time I saw you, we just split in two… but I could swear by your expression that the pain down in your soul was the same as the one down in mine… that’s the pain that cuts a straight line down through the heart, we call it love. We wrapped our arms around each other trying to shove ourselves back together we were making love…”.

Personally, I’ve experienced love in different ways. I’ve felt love for my mother and family, love for my pet, love for my friends, and love for a boy. Consequently, the strongest one and the one that has made me suffer and feel the most has been the love for a boy. To me, being in love is having the gaps in your life filled that you didn’t even know needed filling. It’s the feeling of having your head in the clouds but feet on the ground all at the same time. I also believe being in love feels like finding an extension of yourself that you never knew you had until he or she helped you discover there is more to you than you thought. When you are with that person, you feel like you are with someone you’ve known your whole life, who sees you for who you are and loves you for things you don’t even love. For that reason, I do believe in the myth of the origin of love because the attraction you feel towards that person is so strong that you can call him or her your other half.

Another question a lot of people ask themselves is whether love really exists or it’s just an illusion. There are different opinions about this even though I believe is real. The ultimate purpose of human beings is to breed and have children, and with time continuing the next generation. Everything in our life is geared towards that goal and it is something that is beyond our conscious control. Because of this, some people say falling in love is a blind biological urge in us. In other words, that love is basically an illusion, which pull men and women together. As you can see, there are different opinions on where or not love exists but I think it definitely exists because it’s not possible that it is just an illusion when you would even give your life for that person. Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter if it really exist or not, the important thing is that it makes us feel happy and peaceful and that is something that its worth a million.

 

Hedwig & The Angry Inch – The Origin Of Love. (2001, January 01). Retrieved from https://genius.com/Hedwig-and-the-angry-inch-the-origin-of-love-lyrics

Love Is An Illusion? (2012, December 21). Retrieved from https://ronnyeo.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/love-is-an-illusion/

 

 

 

 

One of the biggest life struggles a person can go through is poverty. Poverty can be defined as the scarcity or the lack of material possessions or money. As you can see, this word is a multifaceted concept, which may include social, economic, and political elements. A person can be poor in different ways like: love poor, family poor, money poor, etc. Being money poor is a very challenging thing to live with now a days. The world’s society right know revolves around money and without it you are limited in almost everything. Nevertheless, a lot of people with perseverance and determination overcome this and find their way out of this horrible problem.

The movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” shows this idea of being poor and desperate because of money. It talks about a poor man that tries to succeed to give his son a better life. Through this journey he faces a lot of difficulties. First, he started to sell bone density scanners and since they did not sell as he wanted, his wife leaves him and his son and they are forced to live out in the streets. He then loses everything he had so he decides to apply in a 6-month competition for the position of stockbroker in a company. During this non- paying internship/competition, nobody believed in him and took him as a joke since he didn’t have education nor the tools to win this top position. He tries to make his little son think it was all a game, so he didn’t get scared. With tears in his eyes, he starts to give his son trash food and they start to sleep in places like public bathrooms and streets, so they can stay afloat. As the movie goes on, a lot of devastation scenes are showed until he finally gets what he wants with determination. As you can see, it’s a very inspirational movie that gives the message of never giving up. Even though they were evicted from their home and faced a lot of financial problems, he stayed positive and found small bits of happiness with his son until he got what he wanted. At the end he says: “This part of my life… this part right here, this is called “happiness”.

After I watched this movie, I can say I changed since it made me have another perspective on what is really important in life. It also made me more determined to always achieve what I want. Few months after watching this movie I went to Santorini, Greece. I was very excited to see the famous white buildings and houses everybody talks, and I just imagined a beautiful place with happy people. When I got there, I was surprised with what it really was. The place was beautiful but most of the people were not as happy as I thought they were, the majority was very poor. There were kids begging for money in the streets but there was one kid in particular that caught my attention. He was a 14-year-old kid carrying his newborn sister. They were both crying, and he was begging for food not money. I stared at him for a couple of seconds until I started to tear-up. I went to him and gave him a lot of money, so they could eat for a couple of days. He looked at me like I was some kind of angel and then he hugged me as a way to say thank you. At that moment, I remembered the movie and told him something the man said to his son: “Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something. You got a dream, you got to protect it. When people can’t do something themselves they’re going to tell you that you can’t to it and they’re not going to help you. You want something, go get it. Never give up, it will get better… I promise”. After I said this something inside of me told me he really heard me and that now he was going to be strong and fight for his sister and him. This made me feel happy with myself and it made me realize how one can get all he/she really wants with determination and a will to succeed. I can say this experience has definitely been an important part of my life’s journey since it made me a better person.

Seven pounds, , The pursuit of happyness [Video file]. (n.d.)

 

 

Death is something nobody can explain. When you die nobody really knows what happens next and I think that is the real mystery of life. As well as you can die in an accident or as an old person, and never come back, you can also die or almost die and come back to life. This type of experience can be defined as a near-death experience and can be explained by people who have been in the border of death or people that have died and come back. Such experience may come with the feeling of levitation, total serenity, presence of a light or tunnel, etc. As hard as it is to believe, I have been through one of this in which I did experience some of the characteristics mentioned before.

Near-death experiences are one of the toughest things to overcome in life. Ever since this happened to me, I have been so paranoid and scare because it is increasable to think I was personally in that position. This happened to me one time I drowned, fainted and came back. I was at Culebra on the beach with my little cousin and a wave pushed us very far from the shore. We tried to swim back but the current was too strong, so we started screaming for help. We then realized nobody could see us or hear us and we started to cry. I remember feeling desperate, in no control of myself because we had actually no way out of it. I wanted to save my little cousin and myself and I didn’t know how. I cried and pushed us to try to swim against the current for a long time until I gave up. I was so tired, and I could barely breathe anymore. At this moment, all my panic disappeared, and I just accepted I was going to die peacefully, and I let myself go. I remember I heard my little cousin screaming as I felt the water going up my face through my lips, my nose and when it reached my eyes I fainted. I don’t know if it was a dream but as I fainted, I saw a light and all I wanted to do is go to it because it made me feel peaceful. Next thing I knew, I was in kayak of a person that saw me beneath the water and pulled me and my cousin up.

As I read “The science of Near-Death Experiences” I thought about my experience and I felt I could compare myself to all of them especially to the feeling of Jeff Olsen. He is a man that fell asleep while driving and crashed his car with his whole family in it. He says that lying in the wreckage with his back broken, one arm nearly torn off, and one leg destroyed, he was for a while conscious enough to register that his 7-year-old son was crying but his wife and infant son were silent. He then questioned himself: “What do you say to a man who feels responsible for the death of half his family?”. This is exactly how I felt with my little cousin. I felt responsible and guilty for the danger she was at and so desperate that I could not help her. I just thought about how little she was and how close she was to die.

After we were saved, I sat down and though about my life and all of the things I took for granted. I used to be a very stressful girl who always got worried and though life was over for things that weren’t really important. Ever since that day I realized. I should be thankful I’m alive and I should live with less worries and stress. As some people in the reading say: “If your life has been a struggle, a near-death experience sets you in a different direction: you nearly died, so something has to change… It offers the possibility of an escape from something that holds you back, and a transformation into something better.” I can say this has been one of the toughest journeys of my life and one of the most difficult experiences to overcome. But, thanks to this, I am now a better person who is grateful every day for what she has and most of all for being alive.

Lichfield, Gideon. “The Science of Near-Death Experiences.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 23 Nov. 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-science-of-near-death-experiences/386231/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Us humans never really think about catastrophes or tragedies until they actually happen to us or to someone we love. We always live life thinking everything will be perfect and nothing really bad is going to happen when in reality sometimes is not like this. When something like this happens humans often go through a series of steps which involve: stress, fear, paralysis, denial, and after a long-time, acceptance. The feelings of fear and stress often make us panic and don’t let us think clearly and that is when the disaster really happens.

These ideas are explained in the book “The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes and how can we do better” by Amanda Ripley. This book focuses on how people react in the face of disasters and her goal is to understand what people do before, during and after such events, and to help more of us survive them. She explains and gives examples of people who have been through these experiences including: earthquakes, plane crashes, bomb attacks, floods, and shootings. She analyses how they react and how this affects the outcome of the situation. First of all, when someone encounters this kind of situation usually the first reaction is stress and fear. Fear and stress interfere with the part of our brain that handles complex thinking. When we are scared, we often lose the ability to solve problems. Certain situational factors can turn fear into panic, but, far more often, can turn it into paralysis. This paralysis can affect how a person handles the situation and can cause a disaster which comes with denial.

When I read the section called “Paralysis”, I remembered an event that once happened to my mom. This section tells a little story that talks about a shooting in which a boy panicked and paralyzed as he saw and heard his classmates getting shot. He went through the process of stress, fear, paralysis and denial. First, he describes how he could not think clearly because of stress and fear. Then, he describes how he was in denial of what was happening: “This is not what I think it is, is it?… It’s probably construction”. After this, he describes how he paralyzed and panicked, and he just couldn’t handle the situation: “But as soon as I saw the gun come in, I just froze”. He started to overthink and got the idea that if he moved, he was going to get shot.

The same way my mother went through a lot of work struggles she also went through a lot of life struggles. When she was fifteen her father was shot in front of her and this tragedy caused her great suffering through her life. She told me her dad got into some money problems with some people and since he didn’t pay them back for a long time, they decided to kill him. They were at their house having dinner when 3 men barged in with guns and started to scream that if my grandfather didn’t pay them at that instant, he was going to shoot his whole family and him. My mom told me that at that moment she had so much stress and fear she couldn’t move. She panicked in a way that didn’t let her think straight, she just stood there without movement. She had the same reaction as the boy in the reading and actually thought that if she moved, they were all going to get shot instantly, so she just froze. Her dad told the men he didn’t have the money but that I if they were going to kill somebody that please just let it be him. Without thinking about it, they shot him, killed him, and left the house. My mom told me that when this happened, she just looked straight at him for 5 minutes, paralyzed and without saying a word. She then started to whisper “no…no…no…. this is not happening…”, she was in absolute denial. All this made her suffer for a lot of years until she finally accepted it and made peace with herself. With all this, I realized these steps people go through during a disaster really happen and affect the outcome of the situation. We should all be aware of them so if something goes wrong, we will try to act our best to try and solve the problem or avoid it after it really happens. Like the Ripley says: “We should all create a statistically derived ranking of the hazards we actually face and a smart plan for dealing with them”

Ripley, A. (2008). The unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes and how we can do better. New York: Crown.

 

I decided to interview my mother because she is an inspiration for me and all the young people that dream of success. She is a woman that went through a lot in her life but she still managed to be perseverant and work for her goals, until she became a very successful woman.

 

What is your business about?

“My business is a Speech, Occupational and Psychological Therapy Center for children.”

 

How did you get the idea of creating this business?

“I got the idea while I was doing my masters in accounting. I had to prepare a business plan to complete the master’s degree. My sister is Speech Pathologist and she suggested the idea of ​​making the business plan of a speech therapy, occupational and psychological center. When I delivered the project to the teacher, he motivated me to make the business a reality.”

 

Do you really like what you do?

“I love it, it is a great satisfaction to help all these children achieve their maximum potential.”

 

Why did you decide to set up that business if your specialty is in accounting / CPA?

“ I decided to set up that business because when the teacher motivated me to do the business, I loved the idea of ​​doing it with my sister. I understood that it was a tremendous combination, she being pathologist and me the accountant.”

 

Do you think that having become a professional (CPA) opened doors for you when creating your business?

“Not directly since it has nothing to do with that branch. But, thanks to that the idea came up and my title helped me when I needed help from other companies.”

 

How did you get where you are right now, a successful woman?

“Perseverance, effort and dedication. Also, I have an excellent work team that has helped me through all the journey.”

 

Tell us about the process; the ups and downs and everything you went through to reach your goal.

“At first the business started with a loan, we did not have so much operational capital, most of the contracts with this type of business are with the government and this was quite challenging. But, as I said before, we persisted and we have been 19 years and very successful.”

 

Is it worth the sacrifice and all the problems that you go through in the process of achieving your goal? Why?

“Yes. When a person has a goal, it should not be taken away from the world, it must persist until it is achieved and worth it, which is what I decided to do.”

 

Do you think that perseverance is the key to success? Why? Tell us about your personal experience.

“Yes. In the process rejections will arise, but in reality rejection does not exist. When someone tells you no in something, think that you stayed the same as you were, not that you were rejected. The problem comes when that rejection makes you feel bad, that you have to cancel it and not feel like that. Always persevere and persevere until you reach your dreams and goals.”

 

Any advice on how to become successful in life?

“Everything you want in life is possible.. follow your dreams, and persevere until you achieve them.”

 

“I will breathe. I will think of solutions. I will not let worry control me. I will not let my stress level break me. I will simply breathe, and it will be okay because I don’t quit.”

-Shayne McClendon

I chose to write this quote because it has really motivated and inspired me during my college years. After school, one of the most important journeys in life is college. This is really important because it shapes your future and defines who you are going to be as a professional. To achieve goals as a professional, people might go through a lot of stress and face a lot of problems. Stress can be defined as an emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation. This can really affect a person’s mental health and tranquility, and even cause depression. It is really important to learn to control stress, so you can achieve your goals in an emotionally stable state. At the end when you become a professional, all the sacrifices and struggles are worth it, and you live a better life.

Personally, I have experienced this feeling of too much stress because of college and my personal life and it has been one of my most challenging journeys. Ever since I started college, I’ve never had a normal educational year. In my first year, I experienced a strike. Because of this strike, we were without classes for almost 3 months. This gave me a lot of stress because I didn’t know what was going to happen with my education and future. When we finally came back, the greatest hurricane of all time hit the place I live at and classes were obviously cancelled again. After this, my life became surrounded by stress. My family was very bad economically because of the hurricane and I needed to start working. We didn’t have water, nor much food and people were going crazy. After some time, the university decided to open even though some people didn’t even have houses. As you imagine, this was my worst semester by far. I had a lot of college work and exams, I needed to work every day, there was little amounts of food and water, traffic was horrible every day and life just got a whole lot complicated and harder. I used to cry every night because I could not handle the stress and I went into a great depression because I was failing. I started to treat people badly for no reason and I wasn’t as nice and polite as I used to. Stress consumed me in a way I could not live with myself and I thought everyday of giving up and dropping out of college. With time and doctors, I learned to handle the stress and life got better and easier. But, I can say the most important tool that got me through this was my perseverance. Every time I thought about giving up, I then remembered the future I wanted and how my mom always taught me to be perseverant to reach my goals, and that motivated me to keep trying. Now I am one step closer to reaching my goal and I could not be prouder of myself. As you can see, achieving your goals is not always easy or perfect, you can face problems and struggles but at the end it is all worth it. I dream every day of the day I finally become the professional I want and be completely happy, just like my mother.

 

A journey can mean a lot of things. It can be described as a trip from one place to another, but it can also be described as an emotional or mental trip that has changed you. In my experience, I’ve taken various trips or journeys that have changed me and taught me things I didn’t know. One of them has been the time I did a road trip through the south of the USA. On this journey, I did a lot of things, such as going to UCLA in California for a summer camp and learning about different places in the United States.

My favorite part of the trip was going to the UCLA summer camp. This was due to the fact that in this place I realized I wanted to study science and be a doctor. They showed me different careers but the one I loved was definitely medicine. In this place I also learned how it felt to live alone and to meet new people from all around the world. I ended up finding my dream job and being friends with people that have a really different culture than mine,

After going to California, I went in a car from there to Florida but stayed in the different stated that were in between. As you can imagine, I went to a lot of places, and apart from California I also had two more that I really liked. These were New Mexico and Louisiana. To be honest, I loved Louisiana because of the Mardi Gras party they have. I loved the concept and the colors of the party; it was all surrounded by a mood of happiness and joy. Also, thanks to this my senior year theme was carnival/ Mardi Gras.

My other favorite place was New Mexico. I loved this place because of the vibe and the things I did there. In this place, people were really nice and always in a good mood. Also, while there I went on a hot air balloon. This is one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life. The feeling of being in a balloon is so different from the feeling of being on a plane or helicopter because you can really feel the air and the smell. In other words, you can really feel you are up there “flying”. In conclusion, this has been one of the best journeys of my life so far. I learned a lot about different things including culture, but most importantly, I found my dream job. This will be a trip I will remember forever.