week 13

We moved this week...BLAH!!!!!! While I am SO thankful to my in-laws for letting us stay with them along with take over their garage with our things I am missing MY home. Its difficult to go from doing our "own" thing to having others in the house...or better yet us in their home. I have a BIG problem with change. I hope it gets better once we get into our routine.

SO week 13...we are ALMOST DONE!!!!!=]
"Write a brief blog reflecting your own thought process and strategies and exploring how that might be different from others (or the same). How will it benefit you in reaching your readers? Or challenge you? If you are trying to reach readers from a specific culture, how might you alter the way you share your message?"

I am a little scatter brained when it comes to my thought process. I have a little saying I usually say when I've made a comment and get that "WHAT???" look from people: "It sounded good in my head."
I have TONS of thoughts that are in there and sometimes ok most of the time its hard for me to put them in order and S.L.O.W. down. We think I have ADHD. I have  a very very very difficult time staying on task and often trail off and have to come back. I think I need to learn to slow down and take one thing on at a time so I can relate to my readers a more. I am pretty open to hearing new strategies and ways of doing things so people from different cultures are encouraged to give me insight into how I could do things differently.  

Life in SALINAS

Let me post you some links from just this past week of things that were on the news just for SALINAS not necessarily things going on in towns near, then I will go on with my rant:
hmph this was just now: http://www.kionrightnow.com/story/19990594/police-receive-reports-of-gunshot-victim-at-las-casitas-skate-park
THIS IS AWESOME:http://news.salinaspd.com/index.cfm/Salinas_Receives_SAFE_NEIGHBORHOODS_GRANT_AWARD_5164.htm#.UJRh9YZX6DE
10-31-12 http://news.salinaspd.com/index.cfm/Armed_Robbery_of_Business_5163.htm#.UJRiGYZX6DE
10-29-12 http://news.salinaspd.com/index.cfm/Armed_Robbery_Business_5156.htm#.UJRiNIZX6DE
10-29-12 http://news.salinaspd.com/index.cfm/Robbery_to_Business_Knife_5157.htm#.UJRiV4ZX6DE
10-29-12 http://news.salinaspd.com/index.cfm/Armed_Robbery_Business_5158.htm#.UJRiZ4ZX6DE
10-29-12 http://news.salinaspd.com/index.cfm/Attempted_Homicide_5159.htm#.UJRie4ZX6DE
10-28-12http://news.salinaspd.com/index.cfm/Burglary_Possession_of_Stolen_Property_5154.htm#.UJRizoZX6DE

OK so this is all just since Sunday the 28th. I chose to highlight one for you(I HOPE YOU CAN COPY AND PASTE THE LINKS).
The one I highlighted was an attempted homicide. This is the street NEXT to mine, the ONLY thing that separates the two streets is an empty lot that we play with my son in and a very small motel that is frequented by drug dealers/addicts and prostitutes. We live right off of north main street and the freeway off ramp.
My son had been in bed for a while, I was just starting to fall asleep and my boyfriend was asleep. I heard sirens but they had been going off all evening. I heard a siren and then skidding and then lights were blinding me while I was in bed. I jumped up and was praying they weren't having another high speed chase. Oh I was wrong it was WORSE. By the time I had jumped up the street was already COVERED by the whole freaking Salinas Police force.They proceeded to block off the freeway offramp and redirect cars to turn around and go the other way(down a one way street) to get away from the crime scene. We watched for a good hour through the windows, behind our locked doors and windows with the alarm system on, that's a whole other story! We watched the police search our street and backyards and watched as 3 ambulance came down the road. Turns out it was 3 people shot, one was a 4 month  pregnant woman. I know OF the people who were shot and they do run with a gang affiliates so as of now I'm not surprised it happened. I couldn't sleep AT ALL that night, thankfully I didn't work the next morning. I was a MESS! I was crying off and on and finally asked my boyfriend can we just move back to your parents house(in a different town that has had 1 shooting in the last 10 years. Anyway the shooting I wrote about a month or so ago that my son and I witnessed was a tough call and I wanted to move. THIS one was the deal breaker! We gave our 30 days notice and will be moving back in with my in-laws by Dec 1st.
I feel so anxious!!!! I am 8 months pregnant, we have finals coming up, I HAVE to move, my dog will have to be an outside dog=[& the drive is over an hour to work both ways.
Trying to stay positive though! It will help with saving money, my son will be able to see his grandparents more, my new baby will be able to know his grandparents like Ethan does, and I will have more help available to me,

week 11

Looking over the chart I see that I am more left brain oriented. I have a more hands on learning style and list my facts in columns. I also like to use visual images and my emotions usually control what I choose to do, which is more creative based from the right side of the brain.
I tend to be emotionally charged and I hope I can learn to balance that. When I let my emotions choose my actions I feel like I could have had a better thought process and decided my actions more logically.

Week 8

What holds me back?
I need to work on managing my time for classes. I feel like I second guess my work. I have a VERY hard time focusing on tasks, I believe I have a form of ADHD but have never been diagnosed. As a student I find myself reading a page over and over and still having a hard time focusing on what I read. While working on specific tasks I jump around. I guess I think this holds me back. I have made it very far in school dealing with this but I hope to manage my time better to give myself more time to read.

Getting anxious

As my pregnancy goes on I feel  like I am getting more and more anxious to finish loose ends. I feel like I should be doing more work and adding more on to my plate. I hear people talk about how tired they are or how many hours they put at work and it makes me feel like I need to "educate" them on how much more they can do. My mom pointed out that since I was 14 I have kept myself EXTREMELY busy and know I don't know how to do nothing during a day. I guess I am going to make a goal to do nothing for one day a week and just relax. WHAT IS RELAXING:::???=]

Based on the quote from this week I can sort of relate. I am very stressed about the upcoming semester and the work load. Not only is the work load difficult as is but I feel like all of the classes are piling up. At home my son is testing me and I find that the more I talk the more he yells. The less I talk the more he has the opportunity to explain what/how he is feeling. I am very stressed but I am trying to not be so pushy and rush him.
It will be a tough ride but I hope to finish my BA without any problems or push backs. I think next semester I will have to take less classes but I will talk to Jamie about that soon.=]

This week we are supposed to get into something more personal. I can't think about anything more personal than what I have already put out in the open...I'm an open book really lol.
So I will write about an experience I went through this week after work while coming home from picking my son up at day care. It put a spin on things I though wouldn't matter and didn't matter until that day.

If any one googles Salinas,ca they will get probably a million hits on gang violence in the last 4-5 years. We have been featured on shows like "Gang Land" and President Obama mentioned the city at one of his public addresses.
There are NUMEROUS shootings and most involve gangs or are gang related. I moved to Salinas in 2007 ,besides living here off an on in my childhood. My mom and I moved from my dads house and we got an apartment in the "nice"side of Salinas, the south side.When I was pregnant with my son in 2009 the shootings were RIDICULOUS, 29 in a year. There was one week where I remember 5 in one day. Not only were they happening on the "bad" side of town but on our peaceful block.

Usually I don't pay attention to the everyday news broadcast that someone was shot...AGAIN. I think it doesn't effect me because I'm not a gang member and I don't affiliate with anyone who is.

Wednesday I was driving down the BUSIEST BUSIEST street in the city at 6pm, which is when everyone is driving home from work. I'm talking with my son and notice a man laying on the sidewalk right in front of the salvation army and think to myself, 'dang a homeless guy is passed out! Why isn't anyone there?' which isn't unlikely. I then notice his clothes are VERY CLEAN! A black tee, dark jeans, and white tennies. I slow down but wonder why NOBODY else is on their brakes... they have to have seen someone laying there! Right? Ethan asks me "He's nigh-night?" At that exact moment I'm directly on the side of this man and he is laying on his side with blood on the sidewalk coming from his head and NOT one person is near him. I immediately sped up, not wanting my son to see him, and I called 911. Apparently I was one of the first callers to 911, other calls came through after I had started talking to the dispatcher. My house is about 2 blocks from this. I pulled into my driveway and told my boyfriend what had happened and the look on his face was blank.
It ends up that the man who was shot was a 22 year old and the suspect was walking behind him on the sidewalk for quite some time before he pulled out a gun and shot him in the back of the head and ran off.
My boyfriend and I had a talk and we are looking for new homes OUT of Salinas as well as my mom. We want to move back to our hometown Gonzales which is about 20 mins south of here.
So now looking at this situation I see how we can all be effected in direct and indirect ways and it shocks me.
I am still kind of shocked at the whole situation and wonder what is going wrong in this community that murders are going unsolved like they are, when they are happening in BROAD daylight and on a BUSY street right in front of the salvation army, that was busy?

Failure at seperating work from home..

I had a taste of separating home from work today and didn't and haven't done to well.
While I was in a meeting for our shift change this morning I was informed that while everyone in the assisted living homes including all staff(and me=(...) were sick Monday it followed to a resident that I had grown to become REALLY close to. He was 60 years old and non verbal due to his brain injury. He was very vocal and loved to hold hands and be in constant physical contact. He laughed and did things to make us laugh and frustrated us all at the same time.
Tuesday night he became really ill and the staff took him to the hospital Wednesday afternoon after high blood pressure. He became unconscious after and shortly after suffered a heart attack and passed away at 8pm.
When I was told I felt like I was hit with a big rig!
I was planning on going in and seeing his smiley curious face today and instead passed by his room several times and waited for him to come out  following his staff member and being his noisy happy self.
I find it hard to not take feelings home and I hope to learn to separate the two very soon. I have a 40 min drive home from work and usually can separate frustration or being tired but I could not kick this.
Anyway I guess my point is I hope we all learn to separate work from home.

Now that I have started my first week of classes I have started to realize this is going to take EFFORT. I am juggling home, school, and work...which I really think is not going to stay full time. 

I think what will keep me going an driving me to keep going with school is my family. I am the first in my immediate family to graduate high school and the first to go to college and make it this far. My mom was talking about her work schedule changing in a few weeks and I reminded her when I was pregnant with my son I was in school from 8am-12 pm, worked at the after school program from 2-6 pm and then worked my evening job from 6:30-2am. If I could do it she could switch from working afternoons to nights. She then told me "Shelia Marie I'm not super woman!"

I realized people expect so much out of me because I expect so much out of myself. If I want to succeed in school I need to focus on school! 

I am planning on focusing on school and showing my son that I am doing this not only for myself but for him. WE will succeed together. I hope I can give my point of view to the other members of the DL community. I want them to know I am here and I can relate to lots of different situations people go through and If I am not able to, I can LISTEN and if needed give support.

When studying I have started listening to different calm study music from youtube...try it out.=]

PS. We had an ultrasound. BABY in the oven is a BOY=]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rws1FHmQGS0

Day 1

My name is Shelia Hammond. I am 23 years old. I have a 2 1/2 year old son and I am 5 1/2 months pregnant. This is my first year here at HSU and I plan to stick to the very end.=] Since I was younger working with my mom in daycare centers I've always known I wanted to work with children. I started a new job in 2009 1:1 with special needs children at a brand new after school program, where I was the VERY FIRST inclusion assistant out on the floor. It was QUITE an experience!! After about a week of working with/ trying not to be beat down by 6-8 year olds, I figured out THIS is what I want to do!

As of right now I still work part time with the organization and started working full time at a group home for adults who have acquired brain injuries. I help them with everyday life things and take them on community outings. I like working there for now but I am still pulled toward special needs children and their families. Families I have seen through out our program feel lost and are SO excited when they see all of the resources they are able to get to, but just never had someone point them out.

I am outspoken and LOVE my family. Right now is a very difficult turning point in my life and I think this blog will be awesome for me to share what is going on in my education, work, and personal life.