Voyage to Italy

I h ad a wonderful cultural experience. Got to see all the major city of the country. It was a great vacation getaway; the itinerary was well thought out. I captured some amazing pictures and meet some really cool new people along the way. It provided a great learning experience as to the arts, history, culture, and the people.

Check out some of the great images I took at Rome, Assisi, Florence, Bologna, Venice

View my Italy trip complete  photo collection @ Voyage to Italy

3 Words → Best, Summer, Ever.

When summer-time rolls around, the first things that come to my mind is warm weather, hot summer nights, no school, adventures, getting away, lemonade, ice cream and summer flings. I always envision  having the perfect summer but always found myself either in summer school or just working all summer long.

This summer 0f 2o11 things were drastically  different. To sum in up in three words, I had the Best, Summer, Ever.

My summer begin with a trip to Italy.

I spend sometime in Orlando for my best friend wedding.

Spend some time with an old friend.

Enjoyed a Night out at Time Square with some buddies a day after my bday.

Spend some time at the poconcos for my good friend weddding.

Got a chance to work with some unique individuals for my photography portfolio.

Did some planking. Everybody doing it so  I gave it a try.

I Finish off the summer doing my  first wedding photography  in Haiti.

Hopefully next summer will top this one.

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Farewell Amy Winehouse

“If you can’t sort something out for yourself, no one can help you.” – Amy Winehouse

Walking on Water

“You know you’re made for more
So don’t be afraid to move
Your faith is all
It takes and you can
Walk on the water…
Walk on the water too.”

Busy – chasing pavements

chasing pavements

Senioritis at it’s Best!

If you’re a senior and ever find yourself saying these things – “Why didn’t I study for that history exam?, I’ll get to it later tonight, this paper is easy; I’m not stressing it, who studies anyways.” You’re probably like me, suffering from a bad case of “senioritis. The urban dictionary defines Senioritis as “a crippling disease that strikes high school and college seniors. Symptoms include: laziness, an over-excessive wearing of track pants, old athletic shirts, sweatpants, athletic shorts, and sweatshirts. Also features a lack of studying, repeated absences, and a generally dismissive attitude.” Currently the only known cure is a phenomenon known as Graduation.

Currently I’m dealing with bad case of serious seniorities, I’m at the end of my rope. I’ve thought about this mathematically, and it makes me want to cry when I come to the conclusion that I have to spend more hours working than sleeping in the next few days. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but right now it couldn’t feel more real.

 

I guess you can say this is a real lesson in procrastination because honestly, do I want to be writing long essay and reading chapter after chapter of random books No. But will I? Yes. I always do this to myself and you would think that at my last semester of undergrad, I would have figured out that maybe it isn’t the healthiest way to work. Oh well, lesson learned too late.

I am not motivated to do anything other than sit and watch tv.  I’m not motivated to do any school work.  Honestly, at this point, I just don’t care much about my grades.  I can’t lose my scholarship now and my GPA won’t matter when I get a job.  Yeah, I’m going to do my homework but won’t put nearly as much effort into it, I just don’t want to do anything!

Basically, I’m just so ready to be done.  Can we fast forward to May14 already?!  Please!  Just when I keep thinking the senioritis can’t get any worst it does.  How much worse will it get before May 14 finally roles around?

The Bottom Line: Stay focused and motivated during your senior year. You won’t want to do anything, but if you force yourself to do it (and do it on-time), life will be much easier. Seeing my calendar today reminded me of how little time I have left to get my stuff together.  Fortunately I still have plenty of time to get back on track, but I never should have fallen this far behind in the first place.

Learn from my mistakes, future seniors. I’m not the first to make them, and sadly, I won’t be the last.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

 

 

I think this song is about suicide. It’s about a guy who just feels unloved and wants to die. The lyrics “Mama, I just killed a man/ put a gun against his head/ pulled my trigger, now he’s dead” are about an attempt, maybe Russian Roulette. Part of him died when he realised that he really did want to die, so he wrote a suicide note to his mother- all of the Mama parts support this. And it’s not that he wants to die, persay. He just wants it all to end. He wishes he’d “never been born at all”. He’s morally conflicted about his decision- part of him wants to live (“Let me go!”) and part of him wants to die (“We will not let you go”). He then realises that he doesn’t care, that “nothing really matters” and shoots himself.

Wing Bowl 19 (610WIP) Squibb Threepeats As Wing Bowl Champion

“Gladiators used to fight to the death. Now gladiators eat until they throw up.” Wingbowl was an awesome experience. A lot of drunk guys, a lot of half naked girls, some naked girls, a lot of cursing, fat guys eating wings, fat guys not eating wings. Lots of Fun. Nothing better than pure male bravado!

Super Squibb wingbowl 19 Champ

Super Squibb rallied to take the title for the third year in a row, beating El Wingador by just one wing, with a total of 255 wings

Squibb Threepeats As Wing Bowl Champion

Wingbowl champion John "Super Squibb" Squibb

Life as you know it:My last semester at HFU.

 

 

This is my last semester as a college student. Graduation here I come, Woo-hoo! Actually, I’m a bit sad about this at times, but delighted about moving on. Wasn’t anticipated being here for 5 years but like they say in life “everything happens for a reason.” Monday January 10, begins the first day of my last semester as a student at Holy Family University. Two classes this semester stand in my way of reaching my dream. American History 1820 and Two Dimension Design according to my advisors and then I’m done.

This has been a hard, long five-year road. At times it was difficult seeing my friends’ by-passing me in their academic achievements. But never the less I’m almost at the light at the end of the tunnel and I can’t wait to put this behind me and strive for other things, in areas that I really want to pursue. Overall the experience I had here at HFU was great. Aside from doing things like interning, side jobs, freelance work, it was a great experience. And I know that when I graduate there’s such a big, scary world out there. I’m faced with many questions about what to do after graduation. There’s the economy: will I even find a job after graduation? There’s my own self doubt: am I adequately prepared to be part of the work force? Do I even want to work when I’m finished? I also worry about if I’ll ever make it back to school. Ideally, I would love to get a master degree in public communications eventually, but there’s always the possibility that life will take me in another direction and I’ll never find time to go to graduate school. I realize that all these thoughts are probably irrelevant now, and I should probably just focus on the present and not the future. But it’s hard to be distracted from the future when it’s so large and mysterious. I still wonder how these five years gone by so quickly? I feel like it was only yesterday that I strolled into town from Brooklyn, New York, knowing nothing more about Philadelphia than the fact that it was the city of brotherly love. No major, no plan, just parents who threatened to disown me if I didn’t go to college.

In the past five years I’ve declared a major (and two minors), I put myself out on a limb to get work experience, learned a few things about time management, and networking, and deadlines. It’s funny looking a my school ID which still has my picture from freshman year.(The younger days) but look at me now, fully grown beard and finally maturity kicked in.

Valery Cadet

As a freshman, I remember looking at seniors and saying “man they must have it all together,” and I imagined that I would too. I thought by spring of my senior year I would have several jobs lined up to choose from, and would probably be in a serious relationship with some foxy woman, would have saved tons of money, and making straight A’s. Mostly all impossible goals. It proves how naïve I was at 18. I’ve learned that things don’t always work out like you envision them. Life throws surprises at you. You learn things outside the classroom things that you never considered, like how to pay your own bills on time, how to recover from a night of drinking, and how to say goodbye to friends who were going nowhere fast in life.

ETC Building

The place at Holy Family I’ll miss the most is the lower level of the library, where I spend a lot of time studying and sleeping on that black colored leather sofa with the red pillows.

I’ll miss my conversation with Pat Wood from the financial aid office. She was always straight forward with me and school me on financial aid 101; a class she gives free of charge.

I’ll miss the ladies at the business office; they were always nice to me and made the business side of school more pleasant.

I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Pelham, she made me a better writer; always pushed me to continue exploring different elements of writing. Their are a lot of things that I’ve learned here at Holy Family University. I should be proud of them. All the cramming, the exams, the papers, the risks, the losses. Whatever has seen me through the past 8 semesters, let’s just hope it carry over to what ever I may venture out to in the near future. May 14! I’m counting down the days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6……

Button-front or Button-up shirt

In these difficult economic times it’s especially important to dress well. Many are losing their jobs, and sadly sometimes attire alone determines who stays and who goes. Today we’ll be talking about dress shirts- their origin and history, discuss collar types, fit, styles and appropriateness in today’s business environment.

History:

Although a light corporate color blue should now be a staple of any man’s wardrobe, it was originally a sign of workers who did manual labor. Indeed, the term blue-collar is derived from 19th century uniform dress codes of industrial workplaces. Industrial and manual workers wear durable clothing that can be dirty, soiled, or scrapped at work. A popular element of such clothing has been, and still is, a light or navy blue work shirt.

In contrast, the adjective ‘white collar’ was first used by Upton Sinclair in relation to modern clerical, administrative and management workers during the 1930s. Sinclair’s usage is related to the fact that, during most of the 19th and 20th centuries, male office workers in European and American countries almost always had to wear dress shirts, which had collars and were usually white.

The “banker’s collar white shirt” had its origin in the 19^th century detachable collar, first invented in 1827 in Troy NY, by Mrs. Hannah Montague, a housewife who was having difficulties with her husband’s “ring-around-the-collar.” Her husband showed off his wife’s invention to the guys around town, and soon all the wives of Troyembraced this new invention. Soon after, merchants followed suit, and manufactured collars in mass quantities for sale to the outside world. By 1897, twenty-five manufacturers in Troy were producing a total of eight million dozen collars and cuffs a year. Linen collars were offered in a breathtaking variety of styles and had become the status-symbol of the growing office-worker class (i.e. “white collar” workers). Mail order catalogs like Sears-Roebuck, Montgomery-Ward, and Bloomingdale’s sent detachable collars to every part of America, along with the often colorful collarless shirts with which they were worn.

The button-down collar is an ad-hoc remedy hastily cobbled together during a “chukka” in a heated polo match in Great Britain A frustrated player realized that by ingeniously anchoring ends of his collar points with a button not only prevented their wild flailing about in his face but completely eliminated the bedeviling problem that tormented his concentration as he galloped full-speed, down-field. Oddly enough, the button-collared shirt was originally imported to the United States by Brooks Brothers. Ironically, it was intended for sale to blue collar workers.

Collar Styles:

It’s important in today’s business environment to wear crisp, professional shirts that put your best foot forward. The spread of your collar, or the gap between the points, should fit the shape of your face.

The further the points of your collar are from one another, the thinner your face should be. The closer the points are, the rounder your face should be.

But personal preference should be allowed to have some role in your decisions. For instance, I started wearing a slightly modified spread collar last summer. I think it frames my face very well, and holds a thick woven tie in place just right.

Wide spreads or even cutaways (shirts with gaps in the collar in the area where the tie is located) look great on Brad Pitt, but not so good on the rest of us. And you’re taking quite a professional risk with such a shirt, unless you own the company or are a highly paid consultant.

Shirt Styles

In this economic downturn I wouldn’t wear any kind of white collared shirt, banker or not.  Likewise for spread collars beyond a medium, or modified spread. Depending on your office environment, it may not even be proper to wear button-downs. You’re best staying to the conservative points and medium spreads. For colors stick to conservative white or corporate blue.

Fit

Many “out of the box” shirts are exactly that. They are made for the average man in your size- collar size, sleeve size, body size. Problem is- what if you’re not the average man? Take for example if your shirt’s too blousy- the body’s too big. It will keep coming out of your pants and irritate you to no end.

If you can afford it, and will remain at your present size for the foreseeable future, I’d   recommend investing in custom shirts. These garments tend to cost more, but you will tend to wear them more because you’ve invested the money, and because I assume you will choose something you like.