Salt, Sugar, Fat

Michael Moss did a great job on the research of “Salt, Sugar, Fat”. There is a lot to learn, when it comes to writing my own research. He had much information on the companies that produces products with many of the salt, sugar and fat ingredients. Moss gathers much information, like what products that have the most sugar ingredient and what this country consumes the most. The numbers he provides amazes me, because one had to interview other researchers and get company permission to get those information. Moss not only talks about in the book about what is marketed, but he talks about the marketing geniuses. How they target the consumers wants and desires. In the beginning of the book he wrote how our bodies and mind acknowledge these ingredients as if we were originally born this way, especially how we respond to sugar. Being a type two diabetic myself, it is hard for me to resist the sweets. My mind tells me I should avoid the sugary products, but my body tells me different. Many of these companies have done human research to see how people respond to the taste of their products, so they know how to better produce and market it to the public. I am also glad that he also wrote that there are concerns of how the products are affecting the consumers and obesity and diabetes has been a big concern. In the food industry, they have to think about how to make money and how to make their business grow. It is also nice to know that these same companies are aware of what the consumers is concern about and they do try to adjust many of these main ingredients to the food they produce. This is there way of showing the public that they acknowledge their concern. These companies also try not to take away too much, so that the products do not change too much to where the taste is compromised. What I got out of this book, is a lot of information and to think about what I eat.

My Memories of Jesse

I have not seen or heard from him for way too long, but it’s not his fault. Every time I think of him, I could almost see his face so clearly. He stood 5 foot and 9 inches tall and had big brown eyes that blinked a lot due to a nervous habit, and he had a smile that can be seen from a distance. His hair was always groomed well, but then with a ton of moose on his hair, I doubt a strand of hair would come out of place. When I would describe him to others, I would tell them that he looked like a smaller version of “the Rock”. Jesse was always a great dresser. Even when he went to the pier to go fishing, he always looks like he was ready to go out for a casual luncheon. Maybe that is what he was trying to tell the fish, that they would join him for lunch. He was the youngest of seven children and had the most positive and outgoing personality. Jesse has always been active since he was little, I can remember how hyper he was. Always on the go and couldn’t stand to be still. He loved exercising and lifting weights to keep in shape, and I think that’s what kept him from being to hyper. Jesse didn’t wear a lot of jewelry, but he did wear a necklace, watch and his wedding ring. He was a very sociable person and he had many friends. If someone needed help, he would offer a hand. When our family would have a bar-b-q, he was there helping, joking around and having fun with everyone. I remembered when I would call him, the first thing he would say is yellow and I would say blue? It was a running joke between the both of us. It’s funny how I have four other brothers and they call me sis, but Jesse called me shissy. I do miss him calling me shissy, in that even tone voice of his. Sometimes while driving, a Prince Song would play on the radio. I would remember how he and I would imitate a dance he did from a video called “Kiss”, and we would do a “spoof” dance as a joke. Many of my memories of him were always dancing. He did a little dance number during one of my Halloween parties I had. My husband had built a cardboard coffin, and he came out of it and did a dance from “Thriller”, wearing a monster mask. It was great and everyone loved it. It’s funny that our relationship started with me being like a mother to him. All three of my older siblings left and I was left behind to help take care of my three younger brothers. I was the middle child, but when the three older siblings left home, I became the oldest. My three younger brothers always thought they had to protect their 14 year old sister. It was funny and yet I felt proud to see a 9, 7 and a 6 year old, surrounding me as if they were my guards. As Jesse got older, we got closer. If he saw me sad, he would find time to make me laugh, even if he had a bad day. We played around a lot. Like, when I would play punch him on his arms, he would say he was going to tattle on me. He would say he was a paid tattle tale, because he used to work part time with Dial Security. Besides remembering what an optimistic and playful person he was. What really made me proud of him was that he achieved his Associates Degree. Even with all the obstacles that he came across, he kept trying to achieve a better life for himself and his family. Jesse showed me that, if you keep trying, you can achieve your goals and this is why I decided to go back to school. We go through life thinking that, the older sibling is supposed to teach and guide the younger ones, and yet he ended up doing the opposite. I just wished that I could have been there more for him at the end, just like he was there for me, when I needed him. All I can do now is honor his memory, by making him proud of me. So I am trying to achieve my Associates Degree for my future, my family and in memory of Jesse. He has been gone now for five years and I miss him so. Rest in peace little brother, I love you.

Family

The word “family” is a strong word and should have a meaning for everyone, but unfortunately that is not always the case. A family comes in all kinds of sizes and origin. Some are a small family of two, “a husband and a wife”, or a couple with a child, or a couple with many children. Then there are those who do not want to have children and considers their pets as family. How ever anyone perceives family, it should have meaning. I myself have been curious about the people who approach me for money, or the ones I see living in the streets. I often wonder where their families are and do they know that person is living in the streets. I know most of the people who live on the street choose the life they lead and some have been put in a position or something, but never the less, my curiosity is do their families know or care that they are in these situations. I myself come from a family of seven and have four children of my own and I would not like to see any of my family members in that same situation. Every time I come across someone begging for money, food or see someone holding a sign that they are hungry. I sometimes wonder, if they are living in the streets or do they have families that know that they are sleeping in an ally or beach side. I have come across places that you can tell a transient has been sleeping in that area and again I wonder where their families are and do they care. I know that all of us who have families that care about us or those of us who looks out for family members are very fortunate and bless. Whether I am in good terms with my family members or not, I still would not want to see them living in the streets. I know the saying goes, “you can’t help those who does not want to be helped”, but I would feel really bad if I did not try to do something for any of my family members in that situation. If someone who has a family in that situation, I often think about if they even tried to look for help for that person or even suggest program or church they could talk to. There are so many programs and churches out there that are available. So my point and question is, how does these homeless people end up existing the way they do and do they not have someone in their life to care about them, doesn’t the word family have meaning anymore. I guess that is something that I will never really know, but I am glad that my family and I have each other.

Is the Holiday Season too Materialistic?

As much as I agree with Saleh, that material is not everything and that getting carried away with gift giving is not all that good. I have to agree more with Lauren Smith’s idea in how she feels about the holidays not being to materialistic. Smith brings up a good point in how the gift can come from the heart and like Halloween, everyone does not get to dress in costumes all the time. During the gift giving holiday, this is a time not only to reflect, but also a time to have the excuse or reason to give someone in need, something they needed without showing pity. Smith believed that the holiday season should not only be a time for families and friends, but to be selfish. Charities are a good example of giving to those who can not afford many things. My sister was once in that position, where she could not afford to buy presents for her grandchildren and charity places that had donated gifts to children whose families are economically disabled, where able to provide a little happiness the children. I too was once in that position where I had told my children that I could not afford much of a gift for them and friends came through with wonderful gifts for my children to have a great Christmas. While time and memory is good to create and teach our children, giving to children and others who can not afford even the small stuff, can be joyful. As long as people remember that gift giving can be a selfless act, and that it should also get balance with spending time with loved ones. This is when it does not become too materialistic. Not all my family can always afford presents for each other, but we do try to make sure that the little ones enjoys Christmas every year. Then the adults spend time eating and just enjoying each others company. That is how my family and friends deal with the holidays.

Fall Semester

I had attended Oxnard College in my later teens to my mid twenties, but I ended up taking a break. Unfortunately I never returned, until the fall of 2013. This is my fourth semester here in Oxnard College and I really like the fact that my brain is getting the well deserve dusting it needed. The Challenges that I face now is that I am much older and trying to keep up with my studies and I am finding it to be a lot harder than it use to be. This kind of bugs me because I expected more from myself. One would think the older we get the wiser or more experience we are. Well I have the experience of life and I feel I am wiser, because I know now the importance on completing an education. As I see all the younger generation around me, I feel somewhat intimidated at times. What I do focus on is my studies and my work load is actually not bad, but my brain still has problem grasping all my subjects. I am very close to getting my Associates Degree and all I need is to complete three more subjects after this semester, then I will have my degree. There are times I feel that it is too late for me, but then my husband and children tell me it is never too late to complete my education. I know earning my degree can re-open doors for me to go back to work. Once I receive my degree, I would like to work in a very good company and in better position. I have twenty five more years before I have to retire, so I would like to get started up on some security for my later years. Thinking about how proud my family is of me and knowing that at the end of the tunnel will eventually be a great reward, is what motivates me to keep on going.

Reality TV Shows

There are so many reality shows now and some are crazy. There is one in particularly that I feel is a bit crazy to me, the new show called “The Legend of Mick Dodge”. It is supposedly on its second season; it is relatively new to me. There is a camera guy that follows this guy who lives in the wilderness and eats what the wilderness provides. This guy must have lived of the land for so long, that he talks to the moss growing on the trees and calls it Gnome’s. National Geographic must find this guy really interesting. I don’t really like watching the show, but every now and then, my husband turns it to the National Geographic channel. My husband is a channel changer and he really loves the educational channels and I find some of them to be enlightening as well. As my husband turns the channels, I end up viewing some of the reality show with him and some of them actually make me laugh. Some of the shows make me wonder if people really are like that in this world, you know weird or crazy. I get that there are real drama’s that happen in the real world, but I didn’t realize that, many viewers are that interested in those drama or there are those who doesn’t mind having their life and business for everyone to see. Have we as viewers become that bored with our lives that we turn our attention to others, or is it because that we prefer to see others go through it, so that we feel that our own life does not look as bad a we think. Then there are some shows I like, because I feel it has humor and some educational qualities as well. For example I do like to watch “American Pickers”, because I find them entertaining and funny and what ever they find, they explain the history that goes with the item they buy. Then there is this one show that I watch every now and then, where these people hunt for wild mushrooms or ginseng and sell it to chiefs or private companies. These people actually make a lot of money for these, but they do have to work at finding them in the wilderness. When I watch this particular program, I often think about the mushrooms on my dinner plate when I go out. This kind of educational show is actually great for people to watch, because they provide history or educational information that we normally do not think about in our normal day to day life. Also some of them can be quite entertaining as they provide us with knowledge of information. Sometime I feel I show my age when I actually turn it to the History channel or National Geographic channel and begin to relax and enjoy the program. I guess it is a bit of a guilty pleasure, because I enjoy watching the show. Although I still enjoy my sitcoms and other fictional shows. As much as I enjoy having my brain gain knowledge, I do need a break from to much input.

A Change in Attitude and Perspective

Changes in life is a normal thing to go through, But some people have a harder time excepting change. When I was younger I hated things around me constantly changed, and I would get very depressed about it. I wanted things to stay the same as they are, when things around me changed, I felt like I was being left behind. When I was fifteen years old, my mother decided to take me back to the Philippines. My mother had taken my older sister and me to the states when I was two and my sister was four years old. So going back was a change that was exciting and yet a bit scary for me. I have not seen my Aunts, Uncles and cousins in thirteen years. When my mother and I got to the airport, my heart was literally pounding, because this was the first time I had ever been on a plain, since I left the Philippines, when I was two. When we got there we were greeted by my aunts and uncles who started to cry, due to happiness and excitement. My relatives were so glad to see my mother and I, they wanted to show us off to everyone they knew. My mother, having been born and raised in the Philippines, knew her way around. She had planned a tour for me. She took me to several different churches in and around Baclaran, which is the City she was from. Going through this tour for two weeks, I saw how the people lived there and how life was like for my relatives, as well as for the people I saw and met. My mind began to think about how I use to feel my life in the U.S. was very poor, because I didn’t get to do a lot of things like the rest of my friends, and I found myself to jealous of them. Although after seeing some children living in a shack and seeing a little disable girl beg in the middle of the market street, I began to realize that I had no right to feel the way I did in the U.S. When I came back home to the U.S., my attitude and perspective about my adopted home that I grew up in was different. Going back to the Philippines was immediately a life changing event for me, I learned not to take my home here in the U.S. for granted and to appreciate my life here. As I got older, I told my children and friends the experience I had there and the lesson I felt I had learned. I still keep that appreciation and thank my mother everyday, even when she is no longer with me, for taking me back. That trip, was one of the best eye opening gift, she can ever give me.

Fast Foods

Fast Foods, Then and Now As a child growing up in a Filipino home and a military father who was over seas a lot, my mother made home cooked meals. She preferred to cook at home rather then take seven children out for a fast food meal. She was raised in the old ways, so the great portion of the time, my siblings and I ate a lot of Filipino food. My mother loved to cook and she always cooked for an army, although having seven children was pretty much an army for her. So she had to cook meals that would be enough to feed all of my siblings and me, as well as having enough left over for the next day. Fast food was considered as a treat, which my siblings and I received very seldom. Once in awhile my mother felt like having a special family time and she would go to Kentucky Fried Chicken and purchase two bucket of original chicken, biscuits with honey and two large containers of mash potatoes with gravy and some corn on the cob. The whole family would eat dinner in the living room and watch a movie of her choosing. When she would treat us to KFC, it was a very special bonding time for all of us. It is the kind of memories that put a smile on a face and stay for a long time. Now that I am older and my children are grown and have families of their own, my husband and I depend on fast food. My husband and I live with our daughter and son-in-law and two grandchildren and our entire schedule are different hours. My husband works from seven to five and me and my daughter and son-in-law attend school. Because of all our busy and odd hours, I help take care of the grandchildren. Being able to cook dinner is not always an option, so we rely on fast food or buy TV dinners. My husband is very picky of what type of food he eats, so we end up eating from El Burrito for a carne asada burrito or we get a hamburger from Carl’s Jr and a kid’s meal for our granddaughter. Our grandson is only one year old so we have to get something that is still soft enough for him to eat and my daughter and son-in-law usually takes care of their meal when they come home. We do try to have a home cook meal as a family at least once or twice a week; I would cook meatloaf or Bar-B-Q a tri-tip. But because everyone’s taste in food is different, like my daughter is on a diet and our schedule to eat are all different times, my husband and I rely on fast food. Cooking for my family use to be a wonderful and normal routine and I would eventually like to get back to cooking at home again, because I miss cooking in the kitchen and financially it would be better.

Significant Changes in Losing Loved Ones

When I here people talk about losing someone they love, it always seem to be awkward and the only thing that comes out of my mouth is I’m sorry for your lost or my condolences.  Growing up I never really thought how it would feel losing a family member, except remembering a feeling of sadness for others, like family friends and distant relatives, when they lose a family member.  Till one day that sadness that I used to sympathize for others, became real and magnified and my life changed in many ways.

When I moved to Florida in November of 1994, due to my ex-husband getting a promotional transfer with his company, I new I was not going to be able to see my family and friends who lived in Oxnard California for a while.  I did try to make an effort to call my mom at least twice a month to see how things were with the rest of the family back home in Oxnard and in my late twenties, time was something I did not think about.  Within the fourteen years of living in Florida, my mom and I had tried to catch up every now and then on how both of us were doing and how my father and my four brothers who still lived in Oxnard.  In 2003 I began to notice the conversation with my mom began to start with her telling me that she was not feeling well lately and I thought it was just the stress of her missing the rest of us who had moved away, so I had advised her to see her doctor.  Three weeks went by and I had not heard from my mom, so I decided to call and see what her doctor had to say.  She told me that the doctor requested lab work and the results stated she had diabetes and high blood pressure, so the doctor put her on medication to help control her diabetes and high blood pressure and told her losing weight is necessary.

In March of 2007 my mother turned seventy-one years old, but she was still not feeling well, she had stated that she had follow the doctors request to lose the weight she needed and to eat right and take her medication, the doctor even gave her a list of foods that she could or could not eat, my mom lost a lot of weight and weighed 100 pounds, but her health was still not doing well.  I had asked her if she spoke to her doctor and she said they order more lab work and that she would let me know in a few weeks.  Through out my childhood years, my mother always had some kind of ailment, but she always ended up fine and growing up I always pictured her to be this very strong and stubborn lady, and my siblings and I use to joke around that our mother would out live us.

A month went by since I had heard from my mother, I had been busy with work and my teenage girls, and I figured my mother would have called me if it was very serious.  I decided to call her, just to see how things are and she answered the phone sounding tired and out of breath.  Joking with her I asked if she had been excising or doing too much around the house, she answered back, no, my body just feels worn down a lot lately.  My mother told me that the results of the lab test did not come back well, the doctor had told her due to her diabetes, both her kidneys were going and one kidney was pretty much gone.  The doctor gave her an option to go on dialysis, but she refused the procedure. 

On May 19^th 2007, I flew into California, so I can talk to her about the dialysis and hope I could convince her to go through it so her life would extend longer.  I knew in my heart that this would be the last time I would see my mother alive, because she did not want to spend a lot time with needles in her arms and I knew would be stubborn about it.  The three weeks I had with my mother was one of the best memories I had of her, because we talked and bonded and she told me how proud she was of me, which my mother never said before. 

I went back to Florida and to my own busy life and two weeks later I get this horrifying phone call early in the morning while I was at work from my youngest brother Jessie, he had called me on his cell phone and he begins to panic.  He said that he and my other brother tried to wake her up to give her medication and she would not wake up, he said she felt cold and her breathing was very week.  I rushed out of the office and told him to call 911 right away, so he started calling on the house phone and I could here him and my other brother from the cell phone and I can here the panic fear in their voices.  My supervisor comes out to find out what is wrong with me and why did I run out with out notifying any superior, but before she can say anything, she had heard the conversation I was having with the other person on the phone and realize it sounded urgent, so she left me be to finish the phone call.  Finally he tells me that the paramedics were arriving and I can here the on the phone asking all kinds of questions towards my brothers and they were just crying and trying to answer their questions.  I can here the paramedics saying she is not breathing and I here them say something about the defibrillator and then my brother gets on his phone and tells me he will call me back and then he hung up the phone. 

My whole experience with just those few minutes with my brother, felt like this was all a bad dream and then I began to feel very numb and spacey.  I did not know my supervisor was behind me all this time and she finally approached me and told me to call someone to pick me up and take me home.  At the time I felt like she was talking gibberish and I began to cry.  I finally snapped out of it and tried to call my brother again and I couldn’t get a hold of him, so I tried the house phone and still no one was answering.  Finally my daughter called me crying and said that her Uncle couldn’t get a hold of me and decided to call her, he told her to give me the message that her grandma, my mother is gone, so on June 19^th 2007 my mother past away.  All I can here is my daughter crying and all I could do was stand there like a statue.  When she realized I wasn’t saying much, she said she was calling her step dad, to come and get me.  That very night I curled up in a ball and waited till my sister arrived the next day to plan our travel to attend our mother’s funeral in Oxnard California. 

During the time of the viewing and the burial, my siblings and I had a conversation on who will help take care of our father and all the bills and legal paperwork, for some reason I was volunteered to do this.

After the funeral, I came back to Florida with my youngest daughter and my husband, and my husband and I began to plan us moving back to Oxnard California and on September 30^th 2007, my husband and I moved back home to California to help take care of my father.  My two younger girls who were fifteen and eighteen at the time, stayed in Florida with their biological father.  My life not only changed in what I experienced in a loss, but I geographically change as well and in my job position.  I had to quit my job in Florida and find another in Oxnard.  Also time seem to matter more now to me and sometimes I find that I spread myself to thin, trying to be there for everyone and still try to think of myself and my future, that is why I am back in school.

   

Second Week In Art Class

In my early twenties, I went to school in Oxnard College to try to get my Business Management Degree, but getting married and having children distracted me from completing my education.  I found that having a family came first, Which is very important to me.
Now my children are all grown and have their own families, I thought it was time to concentrate on me and now I am back in school.  Although being fifty and in school, I found I had a lot of refreshing to do and being older kind of frightens me, cause sometimes feel a bit uncomfortable being in class with all the younger generation.
One of my class is beginning art, because I need this class to complete my AS degree, but it has gotten my interest intrigued. So far we haven't started yet, because we are trying to get our clicker and App for attendance and questions, set up.  Although next Tuesday we get to go to a gallery her at the college, and this sounds exciting.  I am definitly looking forward to learning more about art or how to spot art.