I am one of them!

          When I think of community, I will say I am in the US TV series community.  Technically, I think I am one of that community since I was seventeen years old and I watched an American drama on TV for the first time. The one called "Prison Break" got my attention and made me fall in love with the US TV series. When the series "Prison Break" ended, I started to watch the other good US TV series from then on. And later as I grew up day by day and began using the internet, I knew there were a lot of people who love US TV series like me. Some of them built some different web pages, blogs or forums that let all of us free to share, make comments and discuss anything you want about any US TV series online. And all we need to do is just click on the website and leave anything we want. I love this community. All of us have the same hobby watching US TV series and we are from all over the world. We always interact with each other through the internet, but I know some of our people  know each  other more in the real world, but  not  me. I won't meet people that I just talk to  online. I mean, at least not now. Mostly, we talk about the US TV series that we like, but sometimes we also share something about our own things with these familiar strangers. To be honest, I always get support from them and I feel freer to tell them about my troubles in my life because they don't know me in some ways. On the contrary, I am not stingy in giving my support to these people who need it and I feel good about that. You can't deny that it's another way to help people. But all of that happens because we like the same thing.The US TV series  bring us get together.

          You can say that it’s a big community because it includes people around the world and everybody can join us as long as they want, but it can be small also because we have only one thing in common with everybody here and we all are not forced to be a part of this community.  People here can be young, old, male, female, good people or even bad people.

Puls and delta of myself in module 1.

In class, I always stay awake and listen to the instructors and my colleagues carefully, learn from them for anything that good for myself. I am proud of myself that I know how to write a formal e-mail which is helpful for my future business, and I think my English is having a great improvement .I glad that when I talking to my English speaker friends who are outside the program, they said my English is being better than before. And after class, I stay in the site almost every day to finish my homework and ask for help at something I don't understand. Although sometimes I still cannot finish my homework on time, but I have to say I take all of my homework seriously, I will carry on it and I will try to improve the quality of my homework in Module 2. Another delta of myself in module 1 is I have not enough engagement in the class, I have to talk more, I need more confident to express my thoughts and my work. And this is also the most important things I am looking forward in the Module 2. Also, I know a 90 minutes’ class is not enough to understand all the things taught in class, it need more time to understand it after class. I think I didn’t do well on this. Sometimes I always forget to follow up the points or questions I don’t understand in class ,I should take it mores seriously in this module so that I can get more progress.

My neighborhood.

 
I live in Excelsior District, which is located along Mission Street. Living in Excelsior for almost a year, i found out that the majority of the residents here are Latino and Chinese .Someone thought it was a good idea to name all the streets here after the places in Europe, and that's one of the reasons why i like living here. Excelsior keep on going after it skirts Bernal Heights, and any attempt at gentrification is abandoned. It’s replaced by liquors Laundromats, and a few dining establishments with seriously unpretentious character. Latino culture can see anywhere in Excelsior ,while there are also a lot of Chines living here in the lately year. I know Latino culture after I moved in San Francisco, living next to Latino gave me a chance to know another different culture besides Chinese culture and also let others know more about Chinese. I like eating Mexican food because there is a lot of Mexican cuisine here near my house. I like living here also because the convenient of transportation , there are different lines of bus and also Bart station near my house.
I am who I am because of the neighborhood I live in. I like most of the people who live here, they are nice to me. As I said earlier, there are a lot of Chinese people living in my neighborhood. It feels like I am in my hometown. It also it gives me a chance to learn another country's culture. Another thing I have to mention is my landlord; who is a Chinese couple. They’ve lived here in Excelsior over 40 years and own three houses which they worked very hard for in their early ages. They said they love this place. They like to talk to their renters. Occasionally, when I run into them up in public places, they stop and chat with me. They make me feel as if I am talking to my family or friends instead of my landlord. I don’t think I will ever forget their kindness, even after I move out of here in the future.

The Poverty Business

The companies who profit from low-wage earners are making the opportunity divide worse by providing working poor financing programs that they can’t even afford. But even though these companies know the truth, the working poor cannot afford that much money for cars, computers, credit card payments or houses, these are things that low-income people want and need in their lives. The salesmen don’t explain the terms that their clients have to know clearly before they sign any documents. As a result, the working poor keep spending their money on payments every month instead of saving their money to improve their lives. Once they can’t improve their lives with their low income, they will not get out of poverty. It means they will stay in this vicious cycle and cannot make any change for themselves.

 I don’t think the responsibility should be held by a single person. It should be the responsibility of all the people who engage in this activity, including corporations, government, and individuals. The corporations shouldn’t just look at their own profit. They have a  responsibility to close the opportunity divide by making some financing plans for the working poor that really fit their needs instead of only making money from the poor. And the companies should also let their salesmen know the importance of explaining the contracts specifically enough to their clients who aren’t familiar enough with the financing plan. For the government, they should make some laws that can protect the people from being cheated by the corporations,and for individuals, they are the key people in the activity. They should also take responsibility for understanding the documents they are not familiar with before they sign. They should understand what the budget is for them every month and they should not spend more than that.

The specific contract content should be given clearly to the clients. They should have a copy of any documents they need in their native language. Another resource is the contact list with all the information of the staff that can help them when the clients have something they don’t know or they want to know more of. The government should provide some documents that tell the people what they should do when they are mistreated by the companies.  

who is Bella ?

 My name is Bella, a 21 years old girl who come from China. I grew up in China,I moved to San Francisco in November 2010,and I love my new city. I finished my high school and attending college in china before I came to USA  with my whole family .China  isn’t a English  speaking world, so I have to admit that it’s hard for me to live in this new English speaking city at the beginning  when I came here.To be honest, I like English more than any other else languages beside my native language, so I am trying my best to access the world of English, I hope I can speak English fluently and feel more comfortable while talking with English speakers as soon as possible, and I know I will make it one day as long as I am keep going on it.I read English books, listen English radio, make English friends, and whatever I can do in order to know more about English culture. I worked as a cashier before for a half of year until I know about the program called YEARUP from my one of my friends. Without any doubts, I quit  my current job and chose to apply to be a student in the program because I love to work in the field of I.T and I know clearly that the program will provide me a great chance to get what I want. Finally I found my goal about the future and I will not going to stop. Before I step in the site in the first day, I knew that I will be a  different one between the class because I can’t speak a standard English as my classmates and instructors  do, but I still want to do it. Anyone have their fears, so do I .I afraid that  I can’t catch up other students, I afraid people can’t not understand me at all, but the more I fear, the more I want to face it and make it to the right way. I want challenges, because I think that’s the important factors for me to access the way  to success.