My Summer

This summer was probably the most boring one I've had so far; I didn't really have plans and hardly anything to do. One fun thing I did this summer was attend a CodeNow program which lasted 3 days. There, I was introduced to the coding language Ruby. It was confusing to understand, but I had a fun time at the program as I met new people and was given free food. It amazes me how far technology has come, it's everywhere and it plays a humongous role in our daily lives. But for the majority of the summer, I stayed indoors and played games or practice learning guitar. I don't really mind staying indoors, but it can get really boring. I hope next year I make some plans. I'm hoping I could travel to different places in or out of the country or state or get a job.

Summer 2016

               This summer was one of the best summers i have had in a long time. I was able to go to Vermont with my family for two weeks. Vermont is only five hours away from New York but it felt as if we had gone to a new country. Unlike New York, Vermont has many trees and animals. It also didn't have many buildings, it was like a town that one would see in the movies. During that time i witnessed many things that weren't normal to me.

            
















             I saw huge acres of land that held animals, crops and a bunch of trees. I also met a lot of really nice people which is odd to me since the Bronx isn't a very friendly environment. I was so fascinated by the fact that the people would start a conversation over the littlest things. One day my family had went to the grocery store, i was supposed to get cheese and ham while the rest of my family looked for other stuff. While in line, two ladies started randomly talking to me about maple ham. Never in my life would i have thought that i would have a 5 minute conversation about ham, specifically maple ham. Besides that encounter, people would always say hi which was somewhat weird since i didn't know them but nice because i was able to interact with other human beings besides my family.   Overall, i had a great summer with my family. We interacted with each other way more then we did the whole year. This trip was filled of barbecues, movie nights and late night adventures. 







           

My Summer Experience

So my summer could have been better but I really enjoyed working at my dad shop. He's a mechanic and a car dealer and he wanted me to be a secretary in his office. All I did was pick up the phone and take messages. When customers came in, I had to assist them in what they needed. If they wanted a car or also wanted to buy one, I ask for the consent of my dad and went ahead to do so. Buying cars is fun because it's an auction and the customer has to tell me the highest price I have to go on their car. Sometimes I win the car, sometimes I don't. Also me and my sister helped push a car into the street. Yes it was very heavy but it was fun until oil got all over my jeans. That's how my summer went in July. I really enjoyed being able to help others find what they desire and also being around family because most of the customers were people I knew.

Granada Nicaragua 2016!

(Apoyo Lagoon Natural Reserve)

This day was our last day working on our CAP (Community Action Project). It was one of the most emotional days. Looking back to this day I remember the smiles and laughs of all the kids while playing with the pinatas as well as when we presented them with all the school supplies that we donated them with. It was a day that we celebrated all of our hard work on La Escuela Inmaculada. Many of us painted the school, this was to enhance the appearance of the school. Other Glimpsers worked on crafting cement in order to renovate the playground and make a pathway to the kitchen. This helped the school transform into a safe environment for the kids. After this, the leadership team had a surprise for us. This surprise is shown in the picture above. This place was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. It had a beautiful view of the lagoon that we were able to swim in. This view took my breathe away. It was something that I knew i had to cherish because of the complete difference in environment between Nicaragua and New York. That's some of the unfortunate things about NYC, because NYC is a city the only time I see nature is central park and the Hudson River that I can see from apartment window. 

                                                                  (La Casa de Comedia)
         
        This picture shows the house of comedy. This house is a special house with an important purpose. This house is made out of about 20,000 PLASTIC AND GLASS BOTTLES. This house was so beautiful and fascinating. The people who live there work in a circus and create an atmosphere that makes it feel like a home filled with love and joy. They even have a couch made out of plastic bottles, which is actually comfortable (they put cushions on top). One of the residents of this house explained to us that in Nicaragua, water is very sacred. There is also a big trash problem in Nicaragua. I got to experience this problem while being in Nicaragua. This meant closing the water while I was brushing my teeth when it was not needed. I also saw how there was almost no trash cans in the streets. This trash sometimes end up in the rivers which effect people lives. This house relieved some of that problem. One of residents of the house also told us how he reached some of the kids on how to recycle and reuse. For example he turned a pack of gum box into a wallet. After our tour of the house we were able to learn circus tricks. The best thing was doing aerobics, however juggling was challenge for me because I can't even catch and yoga was difficult because of the heat.                                

            This is one of the designs of the bottle house. This house is a two story house filled with beautiful art and amazingly kind people.

Summer 2016

   My summer this year was total different than what I had planned. Everything I had planned most likely will take place next summer. However my summer was actually quite fun. I got to do a lot of things I wanted to do for a long time, meet some amazing people and sleep alot. Time flies, it's hard to believe school starts next week.
     It occurred to me that during the summer I tend to eat the most unhealthy foods. Based on the New York Times researcher speculated that children put on weight more quickly over summer vacation for reasons that might also explain why adults eat more on the weekend and gain weight faster during the holidays. During the school year were more focuse in passing our classes that we don't eat as much as we would if we had nothing to do. Beside the increase of unhealthy food eating during summer,  the weather was something else. It was incredibly hot. So the Air conditioner was definitely on all day if I was home. Recent research has shown that average summer temperatures post-2050 will regularly top today’s records. It's clear that this is an effect of global warming.
   I saw my schedule today and for someone who loves science I'm glad I have 3 period just for it. I ready to start this school year. The summer was a blast but in a week it's back to getting in mindset of school.

What I Learned about Life

I know the title of this seems a bit off-putting but I think it would be best if I were to explain everything I've learned throughout the summer, especially throughout the Heckscher Pre-College program.

My sister, my dad, and my mom at the park

My dad attempting to look cool

This summer I've gone to Dorney Park with my family along with another friend. We had a great time there and spent a few hours getting on a few rides and going to the Wave Pool. I personally only went on one roller coaster ride because of my intense fear of them. It was possibly the scariest experience I've had because of how unsafe I felt.

I didn't do much else this summer except spend some time with my friend's and family. I don't suppose I had the most exciting summer but it was definitely enjoyable.

I started off with the Heckscher program thinking the college process was going to be easy. It is quite simple but it put the realization into my head as to the fact that we're all growing up extremely fast. It feels as though just yesterday we were all freshmen. I'm happy with where I am in terms of my social and academic life because it's transitioned into a healthy lifestyle compared to my middle school experience.

I am hopeful that the college process will be much more easy-going and will be rewarding more than ever because of the amount of hard work that everyone has put in.

All Around Summer 16

         This summer I had many different opportunities and jobs presented to me. During the month of July I was an intern with Build-on (unpaid) and I was placed in Bryant Hill Community Garden with two other interns. In this program, me and the two other interns went every Tuesday and Thursday to help the garden leader Lucia around the garden. During the month of August I began to work at  Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. This is a program at with Columbia University where teams were set up and given a group leader with a specific task and working on the Hudson River to gather information that would help them towards their goal.

         At the garden me and my other teammates saw that the garden wasn't in the best condition and we wanted to help bring up the environment because we learned how important a community garden actually is. We learned that how a community garden not only helps make the environment more beautiful but actually helps people in nutrition. While we were in the garden we began to do little things like pack things up, tidy up around the garden, pull weeds and more. But later we got to have a much better experience because the group leader began to explain to us all the things that a garden can do for a community. Like this garden specifically lets children come in certain days to help garden and get a better experience with plants and nature, mainly because this is more of a natural garden where the terrain isn't leveled like most gardens you would see. During this time we also learned how to collect honey and plant properly. Lately the garden had a gazebo put in the center but didn't have proper stairs so what we did was help put some into place so it would be easier to access.

         Me and my teammates also saw the garden needed more help then just a few kids in one summer so me and my teammates had some ideas. One idea was that we have kids from the AP Environmental class go during the school year at least once a month to help bring-up the garden. We also talked about how we can have a section in school programs such as day for children where we can talk about the garden and how it can be used to help people and pitch new ideas to the community.

This is a picture of the garden, but not while we were there.

        During the month of August I worked with SSFRP program that had 9 teams each with a different task at their disposal. I was placed into the nutrients team. Marsh ecosystems are important modifiers of nutrients from sewage and agricultural runoff. Piermont Marsh, a brackish tidal marsh located in the lower Hudson River Estuary, is an irregularly inundated wetland system with two tidal creeks and one freshwater creek. My teams objective during this summer was to determine which nutrients have a river source or a marsh source. This means that we were trying to establish weather were nutrients coming in or out of the Hudson. We did this by measuring the marsh nutrient cycle  in 30 minute intervals. Water samples and sensor data (DO%, and Salinity) were collected for nutrients (nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, and ammonium). Our data research shows the marsh appears to be a significant consumer of nitrate during the summer and a source of phosphate to the adjacent river water.

We also had to collect all the data and analyze it and put it all on a poster to present in front of everyone who participated in the program and some scientist.

This is our team and the process we have done thought the summer

I feel like this program has opened my eyes because I honestly learned so much new things and i had a better environment to do it in. This program was more self guided and most independent. It is different from my other experiences because I was always told what to do, in this program they gave you the materials and you and your team had to come up with the solution. Of course we had our own scientist that helped us through the process but he helped us in the way that he was woking next to us not on-top of us. He made it seem like everyones part in the research was equal to his. This experience has been very eye opening and fun for me. Made me think I don't mind doing work like this for the rest of my life.

If you would like to see more pictures of the program check out the SSFRP page on Facebook. This is the first time that this has been used for the program and they are hoping it is used more while the program begins to continue and progress.