Days I Enjoy And Love.

The world has come to an end for some today.

At Disney

One would be my grandma, Carmen Arroyo. Four days before her birthday. Rest in Peace.

Carmen R. Arroyo

December 25, 1937 – December 20, 2012

Obituary

Age: 74 of Sun City; Entered eternal Rest on Thursday evening following hospitalization and illness just days before her Christmas birthday. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico Carmen was the beloved daughter of Raymond and Faustina Cardona. She was the devoted wife to the late Regulo Arroyo who passed in 2010. For many years, Carmen worked in the billing department with a county government agency. Known as “Mama” to her grandchildren she was a staunch provider and giver who loved her family dearly. Carmen was an enormous baseball fan, especially of NY Yankees and she loved Derek Jeter. She also enjoyed her Spanish novels and novelas. She was a “Shopaholic” who enjoyed stores. She found great pleasure in entertaining in her earlier years and she especially enjoyed all holidays, no matter if it was Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day, Halloween, or her birthday, Christmas day. Carmen will be greatly missed by her son Ray (Jackie), daughter Victoria, her six adored grandchildren: Anthony, Jonathan, Jessica, Rachel, Nicholas and Christopher and her siblings, sisters Miriam, Judith & Tilly and her brothers Louie, Wilfredo “Eddie”, and Edwin as well as many loving nieces and nephews. Carmen now joins her late parents, husband, and son Victor Cardona in Eternity

I graduated today. B.A. in Psychology. It was unfortunate that most of my friends have either, A.) already graduated, B.) haven’t graduated yet, and C.) had a graduation ceremony at a different time then mine. Either way,  finally got it… six years later, five more to go. Now, the two year Masters in Industrial Organizational Psychology program, then, PhD. I’ve applied to Cal State Long Beach and San Diego State University so far. I have San Jose State, Cal State San Bernardino, San Francisco State University and U.C Irvine to apply for. It’s time to go out and celebrate.

I definitely wasn’t doing this at TFA’s (Tampa Fencing Academy) Open Epee on Sunday. 12th place…
this is what happens when you don’t study before a test;
I mean review the material and practice before the exam in the next couple of hours.

Also, completed the survey and data analysis for the Charm City Classic, the Division 1-A Regional Open Circuit.
Over 300 competitors and 48 responses. There were some flaws to the survey, of course,
but I’m designing them better each time. The report can be view here.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_7crVQ17tv6MmYwMGZ3dzNsS28

Statistics in Psychology was what first got me into research. Manipulating variables and data and watching the results come alive. I didn’t do so well in Research Methods, a 79.4. A 79.5 would have given me a B for the course. I knew my research methods, I just didn’t participate 100% in class work. I looked at the grade as, people will see this as: Jonathan only understood 79.4% of the material. That’s a C. He only understood an average amount of the material, he was on average with the rest of the kids. A “C” is in theory, average. I didn’t want a “C average.” I’m an “A” average person, so I like to think. I decide to back it up with Psychological Tests & Measurements, got an A. Got an A in experimental design. To be and feel fulfilled, you have to really enjoy the work you do, and life is mostly work. To do great work, we must enjoy what we do. Why do bad work? If anything is worth doing, you might as well do it right, if it’s worth your time and doing it.  Ask yourself everyday, “If today was my last day alive, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” and if the answer has been “no” consistently, then something needs to change. I enjoy questioning people and things, not in a controversial way, which sucks because a lot of closed off and insecure people take it that way. Questioning and getting answers helps me understand things, rather than just walking around and making bad judgments. I hae not knowing or understanding why something is the way it is. Just bugs the hell out of me. You might find yourself asking, “well Jonathan, why do you care what others are doing or why they are doing it?” For the same reason you care to ask me that type of question. To clear up uncertainties in life. It’s closure, Like when your friend Molly starts laughing an covering her mouth at her phone and tells you she did something bad, yett she won’t tell you what she did and just keeps you guessing. It’s annoying. Some people and situations are ambiguous as hell and you just don’t know what to expect out of them. Listening breeds understanding and fosters empathy.

I should not have made that gmail account as jhernandez.eda, eda for Experimental Design & Analysis. It should be sda for Survey Design & Analysis. I’m not even experimenting on anything. I guess I’m experimenting on whether or not survey design is something I can hustle. But, after recently attending “edc” in Orlando, I’ve been influenced. I enjoy surveying or “questioning” tournaments and their effectiveness, and I do it by getting competitor feedback. I want to question Summer Nationals. It helps the event organizers see where their weaknesses and strengths are; and people, like tournaments, no matter how big, strong and reputable we are or think we are, all have flaws and weaknesses. We all have strengths. The surveys and questioning allows us to reflect and help ourselves. It humbles us. Manage your weaknesses, improve on your strengths. Don’t put all our focus and energy on our weakness because, well, they are weakness, your strengths could use the focus and energy. Just manage the flaws and focus on the big picture. This reminds me of a quote my friend Craig Thornton told me, one night in L.A, ” jack of all trades and master of none.” Funny, he had mentioned that every waiter in the restaurants will tell you they’re an actor/director/ screen-play writer, etc. yet their waiting tables. This reminds me of another quote by a business marketing company owner named Steve whom I fence with. There’s a rule about managing projects, three by three, four by four, five by five. I think that’s what he said, or something like three is plenty, four is one more, five is too high; and what it means is you can manage three projects and that’s plenty of work. It takes up a lot of energy and time to do three projects so you can do three good projects at once. Four projects, ya it’s just one more but it or the other projects will suffer in quality. Then five projects is just too many and really, you can only effectively manage three projects well and no more than five, at most. Some try to be the jack of all trades and manage different projects, more than they can handle, when really it’s better to master them one by one. I can juggle five classes and get a B average, or slowly take two or three at a time and get all A’s. For those of you in no rush.

Today, I earned these two gifts. It’s too bad I couldn’t have attended and presented at yesterday’s ceremony, although I did have a group project to present at the same time. Everything worked out in the end and I have Molly and Musa to thank. Maha took care of her own.

I would also like to thank these people for facilitating my presentation and completion of the CLCE Student Leadership Program:

Aspen Teague (the face behind the emails)
Todd Wells
Joey Monahan
Emily Idio
Ray McCrory
Maddie Brown
USF Fencing Team
Tampa Fencing Academy
Ande Kemp
Winny Shen & the DOVE Lab
Family & Friends

… and all the people who focus on the word “can’t.” You’ve limited yourselves out of the way and made room for those who “can.”

“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” — General George Patton

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