lapalabra

So teaching is getting better, teaching in East LA. Still challenging, but improving in some ways.

Will want to write a longer journal entry soon in the future. But its the first time I have been called and addressed by Mr.¨ ___¨ frequently and regularly.

But even more so, its just ¨Hey Mister¨ or ¨Mister¨ . I guess thats the presupposed name here for the teachers.

Do I like it? Sometimes no, sometimes I don´t mind, sometimes I find it amusing. But rarely do I ever think ¨Hey student¨ in reply. Lol. Nah, its just funny sometimes when I think about it.

¨Hey Mister¨

~jayel

P.s. It seems common to address teachers by Mister or Miss here in LA. Why may it be? I´m still trying to figure that one out.

Dear Readership,

Should I call it that? Should I address a letter as such. Perhaps so, perhaps not, but one probably gets the general idea.

The past couple months have been busy, and this quarter at UCLA has flown by faster than one can imagine. Several highlights, if I have to name a few.

-winter retreat at the beginning of the quarter
-meeting up with an old friend from Davis, going to a great Mexican restaurant in East LA
-running around the campus perimeter, and not stopping.
-first day of student teaching
-days of student teaching where I got a lot of good input, after equally ¨long¨ days (that should be a euphemism)
-hanging out and seeing some movies
-study groups lesson planning
-running around the campus perimeter, running on the toes for at least 1.5 miles (supposedly better running technique), and having sore legs for the next couple days.
-hanging out with a good childhood friend, going to church, then eating at El Mercadito in East LA.
-having a teacher from high school get in contact with me, offer advice on teaching, and encouragement. such a surprise and such a blessing. For those that you admire, to bestow upon you a blessing and encouragement.
-Having a conference call with 8 other people for a project at work, doing research on how students learn science. Talking to the head PI, with eight of us in a room, talking over the phone.
-hanging out with friends after church. Eating lunches together. For most of the past couple weeks, have been going to the first service at church. For the past two weeks, I´ve gone to the second service. Not as much can be done in the afternoon if I do this, but its Sunday, and I´m going to take a day of rest. It was good catching up with friends I hadn´t seen/hung out with for about a month.
-taking it easy, today, Sunday, finishing up some stuff, and walking around westwood. Took a couple pictures of a tree with new growth and some lingering old leaves. I thought it was a nice image. Perhaps sometime I´ll be able to post it.

Teaching at school has been challenging. Been talking to quite a few people for advice. Teacher friends, colleagues, friends from fellowship and church. A lot comes with experience, a lot comes with time. Your all learning. For a class of 35 and that many kids, its time for growth. Your not doing anything wrong. Don´t take things personal. Your growing. (there, I kind of just went into the third person voice of advice I´ve heard). I really thank God for the friends and the colleagues I´ve met (especially those that have experience teaching in the public schools). Thank you God.

Church is going really well. I´m really enjoying this series on the Beatitudes. I really like Harvest Rock Church, its just far away (West LA relative to Pasadena). For Friday nights and even Sunday evenings, it would be a far drive. Unless I stayed late on Sundays. Fortunately Sunday traffic is good. I´ve heard otherwise of Friday evening. But thank God (its Friday, lol) for a good church, and friends to meet up with Sunday.

I´m thankful, for the prayers and the support network I´ve got here. Friends at UCLA, church, fellowship, and even friends up in Northern CA to contact.

Logging out, with hopefully more journals to follow...Honestly, I wish I could journal more often, and I wish I would--there is much to record, to treasure, and remember, but for lack of time. And I suppose, I finally got back to the subject of this journal. ¨On the topic of journaling¨ I wish I could and would do it more often.

~jayel

Well, its been quite a quarter so far. I can´t believe I am already into 6 weeks into winter quarter. For the month of January, I spent much of the time acclimating to a school in East LA getting prepared to student teach. And for the past two weeks, a group of three of us from the East LA team have been at Lincoln High School. It has gone well, and its been challenging. But I´ve enjoyed it.

With regards to other areas. Chi Alpha has been going well. Went on a retreat early in January, and gotten to know the folks pretty well. On a regular basis, play racquetball with Winston, my campus pastor. In terms of church, have been going to Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena. Really enjoy it.

February´s a short month, with a couple long weekends. Time to rest and recoup, and spend time with friends. Anyhow, I´ll leave it at that for a short entry. Shortest in a long while, after that long entry in December. Until next time.

~jayel

12/24/06

End of Quarter entry, pre Christmas journal:

So here I am sitting in the car with my dad, during the winter break, driving along. I’d just like to reflect upon the last few weeks, including some of the highlights. Hanging out with some good family friends, highlights from school, and anticipations about the next quarter.

So on a previous saturday about two weeks ago, some good family friends from orange county visited me at ucla. We had a good time. First they brought me to a nice lunch, and we explored Chinatown and went to a shopping mart there. Got some fishballs for fishball soup. Good idea I must say, tried making that later in the week and it was pretty good. We explored a bit of Chinatown, including sun yat sen square. I found out that china town is remarkably close to where I may be teaching next quarter, Lincoln high school. then we went back to my place in westwood. But before that, we took a driving tour of ucla. I got to show jesse various areas of campus, especially the central part near Royce and Powell. Daniel was there, taking many of pictures. We went back to my place where I helped Daniel setup a website. He had mentioned earlier he wanted to setup a gallery for a gallery website. This took a couple hours to decide upon a host and setup the website, a wordpress and gallery2 installation. Not bad. Anyhow, after that, we went out to Enzo’s pizza, and had a 23 inch pizza. I think it was a shock to them It had chicken, sausage, mushrooms and green bell peppers. I didn’t know that jesse didn’t like bellpeppers, so that slowed down his eating. Sharon and Daniel were quite stuffed. After that, we walked over to diddy riese and I want ed to treat them to ice cream cookie sandwiches. Unfortunately, they were no longer hungry. Perhaps next time. Later they came back to the apt, and I showed Daniel the website, he was quite pleased. It was quite a full day, and they departed for orange county around 9. They were in la since 12. It was a good day, to hang out with family and friends.

Sunday, went to Harvest Rock for church. I think one of the pastors talked about contending ofr a promise or contending for a healing. At least I think that was the speaker that day. I really enjoy harvest rock, it’s a good church, about thirty minutes away though. So in traffic, it will be considerably further away. The preaching is good, and I enjoy the young adults group. The people are friendly there, and often times they hangout after the second service going to lunch. That Sunday, I went to hrc with Peter, a good friend I met at the beginning of the quarter (graduate Christian fellowship). We’ve explored churches together. Anyhow, the previous week, we went to koreatown for a meal, and this Sunday, we explored Glendale, a neighboring town, and la Canada. A trader joes was in la Canada. We got lost there, as we were looking for downtown Glendale. Driving back to brand street on Glendale, we stopped by to look for a restaurent. A Peruvian restaurant or Mexican restaurant. Hum…the Peruvian one sounded interesting, but not as conventional. Eventually we decided to go to Don Cuco’s the Mexican restaurant. They had a Sunday buffet that day. It was quite delicious. Lots of good food. And they had menudo too! Haha, yah, I know you guys are really interested in that, but I heard that menudo is supposed to be really nutritious. We hung out there for a while, and peter brainstormed about good places to bring his friend from Maryland when she visited. Hum… any good spots in LA County/Orange County?

Monday:
I may have mentioned this in an earlier blog entry, but things at work are going pretty good. Am learning how to use iMovie and edit video clips. It’s a good job that intertwines education, science, and technology.

Tuesday:
This was a long day—in a good way. Started out that morning, ran the perimeter of the campus from Sunset to Wilshire with a friend. That was quite some run. For the first part, it was fine. But the longest I’ve run continuously was a cross country race for about 2 miles in high school. Turns out the perimeter of the campus run is 3.7 miles….I didn’t quite expect it to be that long. Lol. Oh well. Then I went off to work, had a team meeting on project, what we wanted to accomplish by early next year, and analysis of some of the video edits. Turned out pretty good, and am learning more about the project, and how to apply the work in the classroom. Stayed on campus till about 2-3 or so, working roughly half the day. Then went to a GSEIS party at Moore. Hung out a bit, saw a few people, met a few others, just absorbed the ambiance, then head off to a friends place on the East LA TEP team. I hung out there from about 4-8. Long time. There was food, some old NES/SNES/Mario Kart games. It was amusing watching people get all riled up over these old games. It was quite funny. Watched the Lakers game too, where they beat the Rockets. It was a good time to hangout. I really like my team, we are really close knit. Next quarter, some of us are going to teach in Garfield, others in Lincoln, some in Roosevelt and some in Stevenson. Its been a good fall quarter for the TEP.

Wednesday
Morning, I went to CSULB to take the Constitution test. Required for getting a teacher credential, if you took US History in college it wavered you out of it. However, passing the AP US in high school didn’t. No one told me that. Took the test, pretty easy, some ambiguous questions (e.g. The United Nations charter was signed in _______ in 1945….obviously the UN is located in Manhattan, NY, but I believe the charter itself was signed in SF at the end of WWII). Call it an ambiguous question or not, the test is over, and on to teaching for next quarter. Then went back to campus roughly around 1, and got some tasks done. Did some stuff in Moore, then Ackermann, then picked up a ticket to the Emerald Bowl (UCLA v Florida State on Dec 27 in SF). While passing by Ackermann, I saw an old friend from Sacramento. I taught in a teaching internship, Summerbridge Sacramento, for two summers—math and science/chemistry. Of the teachers there, I know two that currently go to UCLA. I hadn’t seen this one friend since 2004. It was good meeting up with her, out of the blue. Then I went and hung out with a friend from the TEP program. Had a good conversation about the quarter, the TEP program, and the social justice emphasis of the program. It was good talking about all those things, especially the last one. Went back to Weyburn and cooked up a fish ball soup for the first time. Pretty good. Noodles from Ranch, some chicken broth, and fish balls from Chinatown. Give it some time, and a little improvisation, and a nice meal/snack. Later that evening, there was a free screening of the upcoming movie Freedom Writers. It was a good movie. I felt it gave a better and more realistic, less glossed over, impression of teaching inner city that the movie Stand and Deliver. Good movie. Good music too in the background. That was the second free movie screening I saw this quarter, besides the Nativity. That’s something nice about UCLA. Many other positives, but the free screenings and campus cinema movies at Ackermann can’t be beat.

Thursday 12/14
Slept in this morning. Later in the day went to a DIGSSS meeting with Flo, a friend from Chi Alpha. She is in this fellowship for grad students/Ph.D’s in the social sciences. It was quite intriguing and insightful (poor word choice, oh well) into how the doctorate system works at a university, and the funding and support they get. It was a Christmas party, so they their was nice lunch meal, socializing, and then a gift exchange. It was nice. Meeting other people, and might get some insights on programs within the Grad School of Education. Stayed on campus for a while, actually walked in Royce Hall for the first time, just to explore it. Then went back to my apt, and watched the UCLA v Nebraska Final Four game. It started out good for UCLA. We beat them the first match, but then Nebraska came back and took the next three. It ended a good year for vball. Hats off to Carter and Meriweather. Go Bruins. Then went downstairs, and worked on a paper for my science methods class. Tried out a mac laptop, using the wifi/airport/wireless. Not bad. May consider buying a laptop in the upcoming year, after Windows Vista comes out. May actually consider buying a mac laptop (likely will be dell or lenovo though), because I like the iMovie software. It would be ideal to do a triple boot, using boot camp and the like. But we shall see…

Friday 12/15
Went to work, printed out several edit summaries, and worked on a couple other things. Then sent off a Christmas letter to the family I stayed with in Uganda during the missions trip this summer. I hope they get it in time, or at least for the New Year Airmail Letter Post supposedly takes only 4-7 days. Hum…we’ll see how long it takes to get from Entebbe/Kampala to the local neighborhood in Ntinda Kampala. How fast is the letter mail service in Central Africa? I don’t know. Hopefully I will get an email back from them. It would be a nice surprise.

Saturday 12/16
Helped a friend get to LAX early in the morning. As in 6:30 driving out of UCLA. Then afterwards, drove onwards to Orange County to meetup with my sister. Early. As in 7:30. Lol, to wake her up and tell her, “Hey, you said you needed help with moving.” So I helped her move her stuff. Boxes and boxes of stuff. Things still to pack, and things to transport. Last time I did this, was mid to late 90’s when she was in college. Let me tell you this, the things have accumulated, so that the boxes have multiplied. Stayed their till 4 in the afternoon, and drove on back.

Sunday 12/17
Went to church at Harvest Rock in Pasadena. Good message and service. Later hung out with some friends, and went to Old Town and had lunch at some Malaysian restaurant—but I could tell that some of them were speaking Cantonese. Later went to Gelato. Then went back to the church. Hung out for a bit in Pasadena, and walked back to Old Town for a stroll/Christmas shop. Then drove to N. Hollywood to meetup with some friends from the East LA team, for one last informal social meetup. We had a good time. Going to a good restaurant. Some really good food. Saw the Lakers play, and lose this time… Had a good time, hanging out with friends, talking about the quarter, the next one, and the Christmas break. Really good time.

Monday 12/18
Drove back to the Bay Area. Six and a half hours. Driving up the 5 from 65 to 70 mph, didn’t really encounter traffic till I hit the bay area junctions. Then even then not too bad. It is really nice being back in the Bay. Traffic here is awesome compared to LA. No understatement. I still don’t get the traffic patterns there, and the unpredictability of it all. It may improve when I learn the side roads. But he freeway networks there boggle my mind. Fortunately, I bought myself a Thompsons guide—mostly right now for reassurance if I get lost.

Tuesday—Saturday
Hung out at home, caught up on rest, bought the Christmas presents, wrapped them up. Did a bit of work on the laptop, video editing. Not much, but a nice change of pace, and nice to be back home I miss the “warmer” southern California weather though. Also, finally got the Christmas lights hung up—two days before Christmas… My mom really likes lights, and she made sure that me and my dad knew that before we strung the lights outside the house. Then some good family friends from Folsom came to visit during Saturday evening. It was really good getting caught up with them. Ben and David, nice catching up with both of you.

Sunday 12/24
Went to church this morning, Christmas service, good preaching and a Christmas play. Quite amusing, some parts of it, with some Oaktown style to it. Lol. But the best part, two relatives came to Shiloh with us. One Aunt from Oregon, and one Aunt from the Sunnyvale/San Jose area. It was good meeting with them. Talked about church, missions in Africa and Ukraine, and how the family is doing. Had a really good time to catch up, times you treasure forever.

That was along journal entry—have been wanting to write that one for a while, and tomorrow is Christmas. So far only two kids are home, and two more to come tomorrow. It feels like a good time to do a Tiny Tim declaration “and God bless everyone” or do a rendition of “God Rest ye Merry Gentleman.”

God bless,

Jayel

This quarter has passed by quickly. Its gone by well, but my my my. December is already here and Christmas is around the block.

Just wanted to write down a few things, and then in a few days I´ll give a better record. Things have gone well with school, and work. Got a compliment today on progress in work. That felt good. Have been learning a lot by working with iMovie and editing/digitizing of film. Learning about education, science, and technology all at the same time.

Today, also saw a movie, ¨Stanger than Fiction¨ with some friends from Chi Alpha--interesting movie. Before that we hung out a bit in Westwood. Eating at Enzo´s Pizzeria. Awesome Calzones. And then hung out at my place.

Have had a good quarter, and plenty to be thankful for.

~jayel

Hello All,

Just wanted to give a summary/recap of the past month and some key events.

1. Visits to schools
2. Job
3. Celebration of a family friends birthday
4. Church

There, concise, yes now read further. Lol, and if this is livejournal, it will actually includes the details, and if this is a xanga post you´ll have to link to the livejournal. Why? Because I like livejournal. In short, its got nicer features and you can do more stuff with it. Anyhow, on with the story.

1. Visit to Schools
Over the past three weeks, I´ve gone to Lincoln highschool in East LA. Its a far cry from the schools in SF/Oakland. Its 3500 students. Spans two streets. And this isn´t the largest school either. Belmont has 5400 kids. Whoa. Yah...its a whole new ballgame. Classes are the same, content is the same, demographics are different, and its a little sunnier and warmer down here. But there are a couple things that I have learned observing classes. For the science classes, you just need to have a general background. I´ve met people with degrees in liberal studies teaching middle school science, and people who majored in biology undergrad, then got a masters in art history, worked in a museum ten years, career switch, in the 80´s and now teaching biology and AP biology at a highschool. Content is important, but so is classroom management, how you deal with students, and how you work with fellow teachers and administrators. That being said. I really enjoyed the visit to Lincoln, it gave me a nice flavor of HS in East LA. I enjoyed watching Paulsons class, as well as Kwons. Taylors, Cajinas, and Pastors class were also interesting, each had something I could learn from. At Belvedere middle school, I enjoyed watching Aguinaga. She had a good handle of the class and a distinctive style. I also learned more about dealings with the administration and getting funding for science in the classroom. Also it was good to see TEP resident teachers in their second year. Aguinaga, Ganley, Muneno, Tejada, seeing them all was good. Plus, it was the middle school age, a good age to teach.

2. Job
Found one. Asked people in ETU/Educational Technology Unit at Moore Hall at GSEIS if they were hiring. They do the tech support for the school. Have gotten to know them quite a bit over the past month. Will always be asking them odd questions here and there about networking, mac, linux, etc. No jobs were available there, but Day was able to reference me to a professor that was hiring for a project. It had something to do with videotaping and using software on OS X. Emailed for more info, and scheduled an interview. Talked about technology, science, education, dealing with students, and got the job. Its going to deal with editing video footage of science classrooms. Looking for science representations of learning. Different methods students show their learning and various assessment methods. Its a good project, and definitely areas for me to grown in. Someone else is going to do the filming for now, I´m just going to do the editing and analyzing/notetaking of the details. But its good to get going doing some research. It´ll improve my science practice in the future, and increase my familiarity with the technology. It´s a good job--I look forward to getting more involved with it.

3. Celebration of a family friends birthday
My parents visited on Friday. They drove down to LA to visit. They got to see me and my sister on Friday. But their real purpose was to celebrate a good friends birthday. My mom has known him since the days when she was in Hong Kong. She was really influential in his life, before he got saved, and now he is doing work with missions overseas while operating out of California. It was good seeing them all (him and his family--whom I've known since I was younger). I drove down to Orange yesterday to see them. I met up with Mom and Dad. It was really good seeing him. He was so surprised to see me, but especially my mom and dad. All their friends from the local area were there too, even the hyper young children--which there were plenty of. Got to catch up with Jesse and Aaron, his sons, and got caught up one things. Hopefully, I´ll be able to hang out with them more now that I am in SoCal. Anyhow, they cooked and barbequed a bunch of food. Before we ate, we prayed. Then Aaron and Jesse´s dad said a few words. Turned out ¨a few words" would turn into 10 or so minutes reflecting upon family and friends. Each of us added something. My mom talked for a bit, she started to cry too at one point. Family´s known each other so long, and its been good. Then lunch proceeded, and we bbq´d outside, HK style. Hung out with the kids, played some video games, ate, played some ping pong. Napped. Listened to my parents talk with the others. Had some really good conversations, and got to listen to the insights of an older generation. I´ll remember these moments. Soon 6:00/7:00 rolled around, and we had to leave. The hyper kids were still there, didn´t quite want us to leave. Had a good time. Glad I came.

4. Church

Over the past weeks, as in since late September, I´ve been visiting churches in LA. Faith, Newsong, Mosaic, Vineyard, Newsong, the Garden, and Harvest Rock. Each had something unique about them, something I appreciated. But this Sunday, I´d say was special. Drove to Pasadena this morning, taking the 405, then some freeway East that turned into 134. Got to Harvest Rock this morning, and met up with a friend, Peter, that also has been visiting churches. Was a really good service, lots of good worship and praise. Good preaching, the pastor got into the Word. Relevent material. Then later after the service, met a few people, learned more about the church, got some stuff, then got prayed over. It was good. Drove back to UCLA via the downtown route, took 110 (I think thats right) southwest, then the 10 west. Dropped by a place for lunch and then grocery shopping, and then back to UCLA.

Overall a very good month. A lot to be thankful for, just got to pace myself and allocate time and resources where they should be placed. Gotta be thankful.

~jayel

To the Readers,

Yah, so the subject pretty much summarizes it. East LA's got some Mombo Jombo schools--note I just spelled it this way because it seemed more phonetically correct than Mambo Jambo.

Belvedere Middle was at least 2400, and we visited Lincoln High this week. That campus is huge in land mass, encompassing two blocks, with a walkover bridge to another section of campus. Its got about 3500 students. Observed there for about two days this week--had a good time, talked to some good teachers, and got to get a better taste of what teaching in the hs level would be like.

LA's a far cry from SF. The Lincoln HS in the land of St. Francis had only about 2000 kids. Welcome to LA, where the population is more impacted than the SF Bay Area's 6 million people.

Bienvenidos, Bienvenue.

~jayel

Dear LJ Fans,

Hum...who is that? I don't know, perhaps Uncle John, and people in the Bay Area or perhaps some old friends in the Davis/Sacramento region. Who knows? Or perhaps some random person from Canada who found the Sanyo Baby pictures on one of these blogs. I don't know, but suffice it to say "LJ Fans" is a term that doesn't do justice.

Anyhow, just wanted to give a quick update. This is the first time I've blogged under daylight in a long time. Normally it goes for in the evenings. I started this journal around 6:30 pm PST in LA. Soon at 7 it shall get dark--similar to how it got dark in Uganda at 7 in mid July.

Anyhow, here's a description of the past couple weeks.

Church
Have been exploring around quite a bit. I met someone from the grad christian fellowship who was also looking for a good church. So far we've visited 2 churches, and the other sunday I visited one by myself. Faith, Newsong, and Mosaic. They are each nice in their own way, I did like Newsong however. But I'm still looking. In time, I want to visit Harvest Rock in Pasadena, I've heard about it for sometime, and I'd like to see how it is, especially as how some people from Oakland told me about it.

Fellowship
Chi Alpha has been really good. I've hung out at their place. I've hung out on campus, and invited some people over to my apt. Played racquetball yesterday with the campus pastor. Had a real good fun game. Learned how to play the strategy game "Risk" for the first time on the welcome night bbq. Had a good time--its more fun than I thought. But in just going over to Winstons house (campus pastor), I feel like at Chi Alpha I am at home already. Talking to people and friends who recently (and I mean within the past 1.5 or so years) moved out from MO, they have already become my friends and home for me. Its been good.

Friends: Was able to hang out with some old hs friends, and a good family friend from Sac/Folsom (UCLA Class of 2005--I wonder if one of his relatives may be reading this blog? :) ). Its been good catching up with everyone. Also, have been able to catch up with some other close family friends in Irvine. Visited them mid September, and may take a drive down to visit them again soon. Plus, theres the positive that I can spend more time with my older sister who lives in Orange county. Just last weekend we got to hangout. We had a great time.

Class

...
too be updated later...

10/12/06

Class has been going well. Last week we went to Belvedere Middle School in East LA for about four days. I enjoyed watching the middle school. One thing to note, make sure you know what the school uniform is the day before you visit (e.g. maroon, grey or white shirts and slacks). Otherwise, you might just happen to wear a maroon polo shirt and a pair of khaki's. They're you go for blending into a school. But in function, the school had some really good teachers (Aguinaga) and some all around friendly ones (Carter). Learned quite a few things. The commute was rough sometimes, but for the most part manageable, only in the junctions is there real trouble. On Thursday, we went to our neighborhood support team leaders house and had a nice bbq. It was nice.

Laters,

jayel

Westwood,

I like the town. Its a nice pleasant stroll to UCLA, and the surrounding environs have a nice atmosphere.

Good restaurants, nice weather, and all in a walkable distance. I'll update more soon on the campus, activities, and people I've met.

~jayel

September 17, 2006

Bonjour Telemundo,

As promised, here's the entry to follow-up the previous, with a roundup of summer events.

:missions trip to Uganda (mid July)
This went by really well. I detailed some parts in previous blogs. Fourteen of us from Davis went down to Uganda. Its a really beautiful country, and the people are very friendly. We helped out at two orphanages. We visited several churches. We helped out in a rural district to transform a house into a hospital. It was nice staying with Benny Kagonyera's family--he's studying in the US right now, so we got connected with his family and family friends. It was a special time. Definitely put a lot more perspective in me, and things to think about in terms of thankfulness, and differences between America and other countries, and the international scope. Good times. Good times.

:house projects (late August)
Dad and I finally tore down that old swingset in the backyard. Do I wish I had a picture...No, not really--that swingseet has seen better days. It took a while to dig out the poles sunken in concrete 1-1.5 feet deep. Tough stuff. But not as difficult as removing those rusted in bolts. Later on, we took on another project to repair the fence on the side of the house. Not too bad. Most of the labor is in making sure the cuts are precise...so it was back and forth between the sawblade.

:diversions
I messed around a lot with computer. Before I even left Davis, I finally made the jump over to linux (Kubuntu, Ubuntu/Debian KDE derivative). Not bad, not bad. Has pretty much all the same usability as windows, and nice stability. Biggest plus, besides the lack of virus/worms, is the huge amounts of software available. It makes this OS prime for development...which is what I did, with a couple websites. Finally, plunked down money and bought a website address and server space, and worked on it over the summer. www.agsdot.com . Kinda ignored it in June and July, then in August started working on it. Transported stuff over to it from the splink website (e.g. the gallery), and was proud when I finally was able to install drupal on the website (the cms backend www.drupal.org)--it takes longer to install than wordpress and mambo...but I like the features and setup of drupal better than mambo, and it seems like you can extend drupal a lot further than wordpress. Anyhow, come late August, I help one of my sisters friends set up a website for her chemistry classroom. Not bad, set it up in a day. Used hostmonster.com and wordpress software so she could do most of the content uploading and management herself. The website looks pretty good now, and she uploaded all the pdf's and docs onto it. I look forward to seeing how the website progresses over the year.

:sisters wedding
Late August, went really really well. I really enjoyed it and am happy for my sister. I took a couple of pictures. It was at the Brazilian room in Tilden Park/Berkeley. A beautiful outdoor wedding. The ringbearer was really funny. It was my nephew, and he just ran with the pillo down the aisle. Makes for a memory. Followed by a nice reception with cake and snacks in the Brazilian room. Follow it up a few hours later, and there's the banquet at East Ocean in Emeryville. Nice banquet, and good food. Lots of opportunities to catch up with family and friends. We all had a wonderful time.

:antipation and thoughts of grad school at UCLA, next stage of life, eh?
Hum...I suppose it would be better if I finished this journal before I arrived at UCLA, but here I am. Well here goes some current thoughts. I wonder what its going to be like doing a masters program. How does graduate life differ from undergraduate life. How will the workload compare. And what will it be like observing and teaching in the schools in LA Unified. The question about traffic seems to already have been answered. Its going to be severe. Just pray for better flow along the freeways. And in terms of friends and meeting people. I've already met up with a lot of people from Chi Alpha. Visited a graduate christian fellowship and met a couple more friends. Already played racquetball with one of them yesterday, and today drove another friend to church. Then helped him out in the afternoon. Also got to hang out with some old HS friends. I really look forward to Chi Alpha here. Have already hung out with some of the people for two days at least. Its been good. More details on this in a later entry, and life in LA.

:personal accomplishments/memorables
Tearing down the swingset, building a fence, setting up a website, jumping over to Linux, my sisters wedding, the happiness of it all, going to Uganda, standing on the Equator, and eating lunch in the Southern hemisphere, helping setup a classroom website for my sisters friend. Going to the Moscone Center in SF on August 14 and having everything I listed to at Linuxworld just fly over my head. Yah...esoteric stuff. Hanging out with friends, Joe Lin, Mark Alviar, and playing soccer at Berkeley.

Good summer, good summer indeed.

~jayel

Hola Telemundo,

Yes indeed, a journal to follow-up the previous inexplicable entry. Answer is, yes, the "social aggregating networking site" does plunk these down into the mini-feeds. Oh well, more integration of these Web 2.0 apps, with gratitude towards the RSS feeds. Anyhow, back to the summer basics.

Yes indeed, I'll boil it down to the summer basics, then come back with a more in depth journal entry once I've got more time--tomorrow, I'm going to wake up early to drive down to LA.

:missions trip to Uganda

:house projects

:diversions

:sisters wedding

:antipation and thoughts of grad school at UCLA, next stage of life, eh?

:personal accomplishments/memorables

So here's to the last of the Northern California livejournal entries--most of them have been done here so far, except for that lone Uganda entry, lol. I'll post soon once I get the computer connected to the network in LA, further expounding upon the outline I just posted. So here's to the next. See you later alligator.

~jayel

So there goes, an atypical way of saying the conventional script.

"Hello World"

Yes, indeed a "real" journal entry will soon follow but I just want to test out this entry for one thing...

Do the "mini-feeds" and live feeds of one certain website that aggregates data (as of recent, and supposedly caused an uproar--though I don't personally as of yet mind) latch onto these livejournal postings if you indicate you use this blogging service?

Well, so anyhow, that was one long convoluted sentence. We'll see if it flies through.

~jayel

P.s. Anyhow, if it does "latch" onto these postings, feel free to comment.

Beautiful Country...

Journal entry soon to follow

Letter sent to family and friends about Uganda. Was in central Africa from July 5-July 20 give or take a few days for travel. Enjoy.

+++
July 25, 2006

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, I just got back from Uganda several days ago. The trip went well, all 15 days of it, flying from SFO to London, from London to Kampala. But before I share some memories and reflections, I'd like to thank you for your support, both in helping me to fund the trip, flying there, getting ground supplies, prayer and moral support. It meant a lot to know the many people that gave advice, kept me in their thoughts, and prayed for me during the trip. I couldn't have done it without you.

Once we arrived in Uganda, our group (14 of us) settled down, and stayed with Benny Kagonyera's--the one team member "studying abroad" in the US from Uganda-- family and friends place. Over the course of the next week and a half we traveled quite a bit around the countryside: visiting several churches, the source of the Nile, the Watoto Village Orphanage, the Mukono District where we helped transform a house into a hospital, the Equator, and Sanyu baby orphanage in Kampala. I wish I had time to describe all of these, but I'll only relate a few memories below.*

At the Sanyu Baby Orphanage, we helped take care of the babies for several hours. The children are from 0-3 years old, and they are abandoned by their parents in various parts of the city. The people from the Sanyu baby clinic often find these babies in dire circumstances before they take them in, with the ultimate goal of adoption into a family. As we held those kids in our arms, I could not imagine how they could have been abandoned by anyone. And yet they were the most cheerful kids, toddlers just ambling around, wanting to get picked up and be held. During the time, as I was reading through Isaiah a couple days previous, Isaiah 49:15-16 stood out in my mind as I reflected caring for these babies. "Can a women forget her nursing child...surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hand." Like the babies at that orphanage, God hasn't forgotten any of us. He lifts us up and takes care of us. It was really neat to reflect upon that Scripture while working with those kids. The second day, we visited the orphanage to drop off some baby formula. All the babies were in one room. As we walked in, several babies lifted their arms to get picked up and held. Several teammembers did so, but soon all the babies started to follow suite and when we weren't able to pick them all up they started to cry. One baby approached me, walked right to my feet and lifted his arms. I didn't quite know how to respond. I've never felt this emotion before. While I may find babies occasionally like this in a nursery or daycare, I felt an special added extra concern for these children--they have no parents and its just them in the orphanage with the caregivers. I'm thankful for the opportunity I had to interact with these children, to hold them and pray for them.

After visiting Sanyu, we visited the Watoto village to help out with some of their needs in preparations for classrooms and teachers rooms for their schools. We helped to paint two of their classrooms with a considerable amount of white paint. In addition, quite a bit of morter and bricks were laid down as we helped build a new teachers room. During that day I helped transport the wet mortar and shovel it to the workers site. I also did a little bit of bricklaying but I found out that laying down brick and mortar was a bit more challenging than I though it would be. The workers there appreciated our extra help, and continued on as we visited the next part of the village. Watoto started in 1992 and currently accommodates approximately 1500+ children. Many of these children have lost one or both parents. At Watoto village, the children are placed in homes with at least one adult, and the local church tries to provide a father figure from the community to mentor the children in each of these homes. When I visited this Watoto site, I observed many homes, many tidily organized, with children inside doing some homework on the commons tables. There was a nice soccer field outdoors, and all the children were eager to see us. I wish I was able to spend more time with them. More information about Watoto can be found at http://watoto.com/us/AboutUs/index.cfm .

The majority of our labor during the trip was in the Mukono district. Its an area about 30 minutes away from the capital city Kampala. It was quite a bit more rural than the city, one of the schoolhouses their was built in 1910. As we trekked through the district, we eventually met a man, Joseph, born in the 1920's that used to be the main sponsor of the school. In his prime, he used to try to fund and support many progressive projects for the village. However, at this age, he realized the best way to help out now would be to donate his old living residence to be used as a womens hospital. The house he donated was a fair size, with at least 8-10 rooms. However, the condition of the building had deteriorated as the building fell into disuse. Over the course of three days, we cleaned cleaned out the rooms, removed cobwebs (and I mean thick thick cobwebs), chased out cockroaches and rats, sandpapered the walls in preparation for painting, and then primed the surfaces of the walls. It was quite a messy project, but at the end of the day the house looked much better. Several more steps will need to be taken to transform the house into a womens hospital, but the impact of this project on the community will be huge. During the week, Joan Kakwenzire, a Uganda Senior Presidential Advisor on Poverty Alleviation, visited us at the project site and expressed her gratitude. A week later she held a party in our honor and was thankful that "so many volunteers helped us. You (volunteers) are always welcome in Uganda." She told each of us to forward that message to the people in the States.

It was also nice to visit several churches in Uganda, St. Lukes an Anglican Church and Kampala Pentecostal Church, which supports and helped initiate the Watoto Village. During one of the services at KPC, one person spoke of their success at Watoto. Different than a project supported by an NGO or a global organization like World Vision, this outreach which supports 1500+ children is the product of the church and local community efforts. It was a real privilege to visit the village and be able to see first hand its successes. At Watoto, after painting and bricklaying, we visited one of the villages and passed out toothbrushes, hygiene kits, and some snacks. It was real neat to participate with them in some soccer matches, to go to their homes and see the kids writing down in their notebooks information about "respiration in the lungs" and insects being the "vector for malaria." I'll never forget the people I met there, the smiles and the laughs.

Uganda is a beautiful country. It surprisingly has a climate that was better than California--especially with this current heatwave. The countryside is green and the temperature never seemed to surpass 70 or 80 Fahrenheit. More importantly, the people were extremely friendly. At dinners, which started around 8 or 9 pm and were always long, if there was ever a visitor, they would make a concerted effort to go around, shake hands, and introduce themselves to everyone. But on the other hand, Uganda is a country that still deals with the effects of Idi Amin, the LRA, and the AIDS crisis. Benny Kagonyera, who is "studying abroad" in the US, mentioned that because of these issues "Uganda is about 15 years behind where it have been in development." But it was a privilege to visit and be part of the things that are helping to uplift Uganda: the Watoto Village, the Sanyu Baby Orphanage, and the Mukono District Womens Hospital. It was a privilege to volunteer. I am grateful for the opportunity that we had as a team to go across the globe to benefit a community in a different part of the world. I'll never forget the wonderful times I had there.

Once again, thank you for helping to sponsor us for the Uganda trip. I've enjoyed writing this letter to you—in some ways its a journal reflection for myself as well of the good memories and times there. I'm still processing through some of the moments there, but if you'd like to learn more about Uganda or the work we did there, feel free to contact me. In the meantime, I hope you are having a wonderful summer. God bless.

Sincerely,



J L


P.s. *I hope you enjoy the photos that I am including with this letter. I wish I could send more. However, at the website http://agsedu.splink.net/photos/ , I created an album of photos entitled Uganda that has several hundred photos of the trip. There are pictures of Sanyu baby orphanage, Watoto Village, the Mukono District house and school, Benny's family and much more.

2:10 Sunday July 16 Uganda Time

Dear Friends,

To those that actually check a rarely updated journal account, here goes an entry only a few degrees north of the equator. This actual paragraph shall be sparse, but I'll give you a flavor of the Uganda trip through several emails I have been able to send in the past few days. These internet cafes make you want to cram as much emailing time/writing time in as possible.

Hope you enjoy, and when I get back to N. America, State side I'll write a longer more thorough entry.

Sincerely,

Jayel

+++++
Jul 10(6 days ago)
Dear Family,

Things are going well in Uganda. Right now it is Monday at 6:15 in the evening, about 10 hours ahead of PST. To give a quick summary.

Friday: rested, went to Benny Kagonyera's family's place, rested, went to Kampala Pentecostal Church Central. Its an old converted theater. Really good praise and worship, reminded me of shiloh, except everyone was African.

Saturday: went to the source of the Nile, too quite a bit of pictures, some other stuff, which I forgot (once again I am at an internet terminal and racing the clock)

Sunday: went to an Anglican church in Ntinda, Kampala. Little bit more liturgical, praise was good though, they had that old song "I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart, I will enter his courts with praise." We were there for three services about 1.5-2.0 hours each, we did a skit in them. Then went back to Benny's place. and had lunch. I was a bit beat, so I took a nap. Turns out that the nap that I started at 3:30 lasted till 8:30. It was worth it. Then watched the world cup. It was nice seeing Italy win. Stayed up till 12:00 then went to bed.

Monday: today, went to a small baby's orphanage today around noon time. Found out hte babies were sleeping. Then we went to lunch at Garden City. It was a much more developed part of town. Then returned to the orphanage. Spent time there from 3-5:45, then drove back with a couple people to Garden City (an City Mall type place). Went to the internet cafe, and typed this message.

So far I've taken about 230 pictures or so, I'll upload them when I return to the states, I don't have enough time at these terminals to do anything. But in the meantime, send me an email message. I look forward to hearing from you on how things are going in the US.

With love,

Jayel

+++

July 16

Dear All

Things are going well in Uganda. I've taken a ton of pictures (at least 400 by now), and journaled stuff in my quadrille pad. There is much to update you on later when I get back.

For the past couple days, we have worked at a house cleaning things up to convert it into a maternity hospital. We also visited the Watoto orphanages (1500 kids) supported by a Kampala church. Then today (sunday morning) we went to Kampala Pentecostal Church North. We went to KPC central the first friday we got here.

So far things are going well. I enjoy Uganda. Yet I look forward to returning to the states. The roads are "rough" here and the van/bus is getting on my nerves a bit.

Other than that, I wish all of you the best. Send me an update of how things are going.

Jay

June 23, 2006

Its been a while since I've posted in this journal. So here goes for an update. 1. I've graduated and am transitiioning from one stage of life to the next. 2. In a week or so I will go to Uganda with the church in Davis 3. I will be going to UCLA in the fall, and am looking forward to it and meeting with friends.

For June, the whole month was transitional, looking at the past four years, realizing that they spun by so quickly. You really got to appreciate what you've got. Especially the friendships and the relationships you've made over the past four years. I'm going to miss DCF the most. Friends, the campus pastors, the familiarity--but then there's next year with the move over to LA and the Chi Alpha fellowship there. I look forward to meeting with them too. Memorable moments of June/May include: biking to Woodland/Winters (12 miles, and then 17 miles), conversations with friends, going to the graduations, some of the speeches("overcoming obstacles measure of progress"), especially Black Grad (African and African American Graduation). I enjoyed hearing the speeches and saying some final farewells.

Eventwise in June, it goes as follows. Took my last couple finals/projects. No more art projects, no more music quizzes ( YES!!!!) and no more microbiology exams. I'm done. After I finished my finals, I just stuck out in Davis and hung out and caught up with friends. Two days after my microbio final, I biked with Joe Lin to Winters, a town about 15-17 miles West depending on the route. Its a quaint town, quiet. The bikeride there contained a lot of scenery and farmland. The town is nice, a slice of Americana, but virtually no growth (slow growth towns, Winters probably beats them), but a nice town. I walked on Friday. Woke up early, arrived on the lawn early. Hung out and caught up with some friends. Went through the cermony, and got passed an "Alumni" please remember and support Davis card, and an alumni pin. Also got some pictures taken. Was able to shake hands with the chancellor and say hello to him. I'm really glad of this. He seemed to recognize me too. I'll miss those "Brown Bag Lunches with the Chancellor." And then when the "Hail to California" ended, I threw up my cap, in fact twice at the end of the ceremony after I recovered it--hey, I didn't throw my cap in highschool, and I didn't want to regret not doing it in college. Then I hung out in Davis for a day or so afterwards, switched my computer over to Linux, bought a domain name and website (I'll be polishing it up over the summer, transitioning all the agsedu splink stuff on over to the new website), went home for Fathers Day, went to dinner/lunch in Alameda with Grandfather. Then I returned to Davis to do some packing. Moved stuff to and fro from Davis on Wednesday and Thursday.. Got my computer hooked up, the wireless configured at home with the linux box. On Friday, got to meet up with Pastor David in Oakland, talked to Thessa, my Sunday school teacher, and started typing this journal entry.

On Fathers day, when I came back to town, I talked to Dad. "You know Dad, finally after four years of taking science/biology courses, I can finally settle down and start taking classes and get some more experience in teaching science." I look forward to UCLA and their Science TEP (Teacher Education Program). I've got the experience of two summers in Sacramento teaching math and science to motivated middle school students. Come next fall, I am going to experience science with high school students in LA Unified. And it'll be wonderful to experience a new atmosphere. I've grown accustomed to Davis. Now I'll get more acquainted with Southern California. Also, I'll be getting to meet up with another Chi Alpha campus fellowship. I lookf forward to meeting up with the campus pastor there. Its going to be good. The education, the trainig I will receive, and the friendships I will make, and the ways in which I will grow.

The Uganda trip shall be from June 5-June 20. I'll be going with DCA (Davis Christian Assemblies) and friends from DCF. There are 14 people on the team, five college students, and two high school students. We are going to do some construction work at a womens hospital in Kampala (the capitol region of Uganda), and working at an orphanage with 10,000 kids. and doing some church ministry as well. I really look forward to it, especially the work with the children at the orphanage. Theres going to be quite a time zone transition. First we're flying to London, then Kampala. In terms of food and vaccinations, I've got the travel shots. In terms of bugs/mosquitos, well there's malarone for the malaria pills. But those things aside, Gods going to protect us and position us to where he would have us to be. He's going to open up our eyes to the things he would have us to see, and help us encourage one another as a team while we're there. I'm definitely going to grow a lot of faith, and be changed as I travel there, am there, and come back.

~jayel

May 19, 2006

A Prayer Request and thoughts of Praise

Be it resolved, and may these words ring true

Lord, may I have a heart of thanksgiving and gratitude in all circumstances
enlarge my trust in You and enlarge my faith and belief

may I fear the Lord only and above all and not
that of man or expectations of others and that of self

I don't want pride
I don't want extremes
I want more of God Confidence
I want more of self confidence

Casey, a good friend, just told me
"We all have problems, but thats why we're here for each other."
"I've got your back"
and I know he does
I am glad for the friends that you know will pray there for you

thank you that you've brought me thus far
for the people that you bring in my life
both in the know and those not
may I heed your advice and thoughts and words above all
you've brought me thus far
and you'll carry me through

"being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ"--Phil 1:6

no pride no pride
all credit to Him
all credit to Him
Look what the Lord has done

April 19, 2006

Dear Friends,

This month has passed by well. The last time I updated was perhaps in mid March. Time surely flies. This is my last quarter studying at the University of California Davis. I have three classes: Microbiology 102, Art 5 Sculpture, and Music 10.

In terms of graduate schools, I can happily say that next fall I shall be atttending that University of California located in the "The Angels." Indeed, I shall commence my studies in UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Systems. There classes will be taken to achieve a Masters of Education in the Science Teacher Education Program.

In all candor, it was difficult to make the choice between all the schools I got accepted too. In order of acceptance date (from early March 3 to March 24): Stanford, Columbia Teachers College, UCLA, Cal Berkeley, and NYU. Each school is splendid in its own right. Three of the schools offered various scholarship moneys. However, some were private and some were public. And some didn't send their scholarship/grant/financial aid letters till after April 16--the deadline for 3 of the schools. Personally, Columbia would have been a wonderful place to go to. Their deadline was on May 15, however, they didn't mail out their financial aid notices till mid April. NYU, Stanford, and UCLA offered scholarships.

However, UCLA offered the most in terms of academic and personal growth. Finance wise, NYU actually offered more. But tuition and ROI (return on investment) shall be greater at the UC school than the Stanford and NYU. Academically, UCLA's stellar program situates me as a novice teacher the first year. The second year, I shall be a resident--think medical student--teacher in a high school in LA Unified. And because, I received an NSF scholarship, I have the opportunity to teach one extra year. This pretty much ensures me two solid years of teaching with excellent mentorship and feedback. Magnificent!

However this quarter at UCD, I am in the process of closing off some deals. For example, classes at Davis. Three more classes provide me with ample time to explore various fields sans plant biology. This is recreational. Art 5 sculpture utilizes the medium of cardboard, plaster, and wood. Music 10 develops in students awareness of the many facets of music. And for Microbiology, well, I've grown to see that prokaryotes "are the most important species on earth." Perhaps to Professor Wheelis this is true, and perhaps to the ecosystem. But in all sincerety, prokaryotic microbes pale in comparison to the human beings "created on the sixth day." Yes indeed, we are a special people.

In terms of things I'd like to reflect and remember:

-Rest in Him, how do you avoid being overwhelmed or burned out, "spend time with God" and "spend time with good friends." Priorities according to these dictums. This supersedes anything else.

-Jesus shall take care of you, no matter what option you choose. Why does He do this? Because you are His child; you are His son, you are His daughter. I came to know this truth more profoundly when I had to decide between graduate programs. All five choices had a "Go Green Light" on them. Sometimes choices are clear cut polar choices such as Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Black and White, Orange and Blue. However, some choices are the option of "Good and Better." And sometimes you don't know how to choose. Does God speak through coin flips. Maybe he does. But I didn't choose this way. My roommate made a good point when I posed the question. He said, "Maybe God can speak through a coin toss. But its like this. I can offer to make dinner on Thursday and then give you two slips of paper that say "Yes" and "No." Then I immediately walk away and say, "Yo Jon, put the piece of paper under the door." Thats the kind of response we desire from God in a coin toss. Its a clear cut Yes/No. But God desires more than just a Multiple Choice Yes No relationship with us. Turning to God for help and making a choice, sticking with it, and resting in Him, means so much more to Him. And you know what? I have a peace about UCLA. Its going to be wonderful. Why? Because God is my God and God is with me.

Well, its been a pleasure catching up on the things happening this quarter. Please do leave a comment if you feel inclined. Coming up, during the next journal entry, I will describe how me and 14 other friends are going to travel to Uganda this summer to do service projects and many other outreaches.

Have a splendid day, and God bless you.

Your friend,

Jay El

March 22, 2006

Dear Sir and Ma'am:

With the completion of the last final,so completes the second to last quarter at this University of California Davis. It was satisfying finishing that last Plant Biology Class. I don't quite recall when I last wrote in this journal. But this quarter has been long and short, event filled and fast.

Many events and thoughts were transcribed down in a paper journal. A short description follows: EVE 100, PLB 112, PLB 160, and EDU 153. They were Evolution, Plant Growth and Development, Plant Biotechnology, and Cultural Diversity in Education. Each class had high quality aspects unique to each one. I also was able to take PE Hapkido and PE Rock Climbing. In terms of the quarter, I finished 4 grad school applications in January. Later that month, I flew down to LA for an NSCS conference and UCLA Gradschool interview.

In February, I went to SF one night with DCF for City Ministries Outreach on Polk Street, Mission, and the Civic Center Area. Also, I got to see a great presentation on West Africa and Guatemala--a Med School Professor that teaches Gross Anatomy gave his presentation on medical missions in that region. It was quite eye opening. This will also help prepare me for the DCF/DCA trip to Uganda. Here we will do orphanage work, building houses, and church work with the AOG church in Uganda. I highly anticipate this in early to mid July. I had a busy couple of weeks, then I had an interview with Berkeley on March 3. I went home for the weekend. I always enjoy these trips home.

On March 6, I received my first letter back from a graduate school. Then I received the second one on March 11. Then I received a call on March 17. Stanford, Columbia Teachers College, and UCLA. This is exciting. I still await two more responses. But for now, I just want to visit two more regions: the South Bay and Manhattan.

Spring Break commences on Friday till Tuesday of next week. It goes from March 24 to March 28. I look forward to this chance to rest. Have a wonderful day.

~jayel