A few pictures from my trip to the Dominican Republic.

I went to the Dominican Republic this summer on vacation to visit my family. Here are a few pictures.This is a picture of a few of my family members in the beach I grew up in. I love this scenario, it reminds me of the humble little place that I came from.

This is the house of the woman who raised my while my birth mother worked here in the U.S.

Houses in Samana.

The beach in Las Terrenas, Samana.

Los Haitises.

Fish, I believe sardines, in El Parque Nacional Los Haitises.

Cueva Boca de Tiburon. Shark Mouth Cave.

A cave in El Parque Nacional Los Haitises.

My Nintendo 3DS is awesome!!

I bought my Nintendo 3DS about two months ago. I chose the black one and got The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time along with Super Mario 3D Land. I loved replaying Ocarina of Time. This time around I actually beat the whole game. Last time I attempted to beat it I was ten so, I guess that is why it didn't work out. The game was so fun I couldn't put it down. I found myself taking my 3DS out while waiting for a class to start and I would play Ocarina of Time. It was fun the controls were good and the story is great just as I remember. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Super Mario 3D Land is fun, this one I still haven't beat maybe I am just to lazy. The game is great, when they said it would be 3D they really meant it. All the levels have great detail and are overall fun to play. The game has a twist after you beat the eight world but I will not reveal that, I'll let you find out on your own, or at least YouTube and Google it if you are curious to see what it is. Like always, you are saving Princess Peach but the layout of the game is very different to other Mario games. You get new suits one of my favorite being the Tanooki suit, which dresses Mario in a raccoon like outfit giving him a tail he can whip enemies with and the ability to jump and fly in the air for a few extra seconds that a regular jump allows.

I am very glad I invested my money into my 3DS. I am now anxiously waiting for E3 to come so I can see what new games are coming out and what I might buy. Next week I intend to buy Rayman: Origins, it comes out June 5th. I can't wait, the demo was really fun and I'm looking forward to playing it.

"The Avengers" peeps in my Swackett app

A holocaust story

     I recently had to visit my schools holocaust center during a class to learn more about what happened and how it can relate to the U.S correctional system.  We had a guest speaker, she is a survivor of the holocaust. Here is a brief summary of her story.

          Her name is Jane. She was born in a small town in Germany to a Jewish family. She was a teenager when Hitler came into power. For her family the treatment of Jews was not as bad as in other places because it was a small town away from the capital city. Because her family did not want to be around when things got worst, and to avoid being sent to a concentration camp her father tried to get them visas to get out of Germany. Unfortunately, many other countries were closing their doors to immigating Jews. The only choices they had where China and Cuba. They bought tickets to go to Cuba on a ship and because they could not keep the German money her father decided to buy first class tickets. She states that they rode comfortably until they arived to Cuba.

         When they arrived to Cuba they came across a problem. The Cuban government had to check all the doctor records of the Jews and after about a week they decided they could not enter into Cuba, that they could not find the records or something of the sort. The ship set off to try and find somewhere for them to go, or they would have to return to Germany. Her father did not want to go back because they no longer had money and couldn't get all their things back. They ended up in France. She was sent to an orphanage with all the other children her age. Her parent lived in France, too but separated from the children, they did however see each other occasionally. After a few months of being in France, her father found a way to get them visas to the United States. She arrived at New York, and moved to Queens and has lived there ever since. 

People are getting dumber?

I have been meaning to put this blog up for a while, but I have been busy with school and work so I find it hard to find the time to do it. Well, here is an article I found in The New York Times website in the opinion section. I like to go into this section and see what people think on the subjects given. This particular article caught my eye since it is something I think about constantly. Are people getting dumber? Where does society's value lie? Has the whole world turned materialistic? Well, in this article I saw how many people agreed and disagreed on the subject.

I for one, do not think people are completely stupid. I think that they are very lazy. Why do I think they are lazy? Well, there are so many ways to find information on current events in this world yet this generation seems to only care about the latest fad and not the important things that are going on. Just the other day while sitting in my Corrections and Sentencing class a fellow classmate stated that we go to college to "gain common sense". That statement blew my mind. All I could think was "what are you doing here?" and "how did you get into college?" I think that rather than looking up which famous person is engaged and what new sneakers are in style we should worry about becoming smarter humans so that the next generation will be better than the one we are living in. I do not want to bring children into a world where people quote Drake by saying "YOLO" several times a day. I do not need Drake to tell me I will only live once, that's common sense but now that I think about it maybe my classmate gets her knowledge from Drake.

I leave you with this, rather than seeking the material thinks in life, strive to become an intelligent person in society and make the world a smarter place for our children to live in.

Here is the link to article I found. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/26/are-people-getting-dumber/people-are-getting-dumber-and-its-no-joke?scp=1&sq=people%20are%20getting%20dumber&st=Search

Valentines Day PEEP on Swackett.

New York Public Transportation

That magical piece of machinery that I ride constantly and yet everytime I ride it, I see different people. I find it very interesting that although I ride the train and bus on a daily basis, I hardly ever see the same people. So many faces we see and forget in a few minutes.

Just the other day I was heading to school at seven thirty in the morning, and I found myself in a semi-packed train, but that wasn't the issue. When my stop came I noticed I wasn't the only one getting of but the majority of the people on the train where getting off also. I don't think I had ever seen such an axious group of people trying to get off the train. Well, Maybe I had seen it before but I didn't notice it like that day. I tried to stay behind the crowd, but that was impossible, so my next choice was to blend in. These people looked like an angry mob that would trample anyone who got in between them and the way to the stairs. I was midly impressed by their ability to walk so united and look so feirce. Well that's is just one of my train ride stories.

So much information, yet so many uninformed people.

These days there seems to be a lot of information being spread everywhere. So many news papers, blogs, websites, and apps containing information on current events and yet there are so many people who don't bother to look up anything that is going on in the world. Typically, I enjoy mocking these people, not because I think I am any better, but how can a person be so ignorant to walk around with only their own idea of what is going on in the world. How can you live like that? I enjoy looking up articles and finding out what is going on in the world, specially in law enforcement and crime. In this day and age, one must be informed of whats happening at all times. Things change rapidly. New things are invented and discovered everyday. Why wait for a friend to update you on current events when you can effortlessly look something up on your phone, computer, tablet, or iPod. It is just that easy? I like to encourage people to find things out on their own, to know most of the answers to questions regarding current events. An app on my ipod that I think is a great source for news is Pulse News. It looks cool and is very easy to use. You can create different sections of news. For example, I have; Top News, Social (connected to my Facebook), Page 3 (random news sources) and Gaming. It contains many different news sources such as; Barnes and Noble Reviews, Today.com, Someecards, Wall Street Journal. I highly recommend this app it is great for discovering new things and following old news.

My Sims: A Burglar Visits.

Old Candies I love and miss.

1. Bubble Jug.

Gum in a bottle that was first powder then turned into gum. Very Juicy.

2.Charleston Chew.

Charleston Chew a candy bar made of flavored nougat covered in chocolate flavor coating.

3. Peanut Chews.

Peanuts and molasses covered in chocolate. They come in dark chocolate and milk chocolate coating. Very chewy and crunchy.

4. Crazy Hair. 

Fruity and tarty filling in a plastic container with a little hat. To get the candy filling out you twist a little lever in the bottom and the filling grows out like hair. I found these very fun and just a bit messy.

5.Spice Girls Lollipops.

These were only sold for a few years in the 90's. They brought a sticker inside and were tasty. I loved them as a kid.

Little games that are big fun (in my opinion)

Tiny Towers.

This is a game where your goal is to build a tall tower while creating businesses, renting to little citizens, and giving those citizens their dream job. I downloaded this game to my iPod Touch out of boredom and now I am hooked on it. I play it everyday! It is very fun and addicting. I like that they have a little thing called "Bitbook" which is like "Facebook" for your little citizens who are in the game called "Bitizens" because of the graphics. You can edit your bussinesses and paint them to customize. It is really cute and I highly recomend it. I got my brothers hooked on it too, it's just that good.

Books are boring?

Many people these days like to say that books are boring. I strongly disagree. I love books and I love reading. I do not believe there is such thing as a boring book. Every book has its own story and style, you just have to find your favorite themes and styles of writing and look for books that fit that criteria. Personally, I love Crime and Thriller books. I also love Romance novels. My favorite authors for Crime themed books are Micheal Connelly and John Grisham. Because I want to become a prosecutor I like the legal dialogues in the books they write. For romance I like to read Nora Roberts and Nicholas Sparks. I am also a big Harry Potter fan, I love the books. I find they are better than the movies becuase they have much more detail and movies tend to skip over a few things that happen. I understand why this happens, how would a eight-hundred  page book be able to fit into a two to three hour movie.

I always recommend reading to the kids in my family because it helps improve their vocabulary. Reading teaches many things ranging from vocabulary to life lessons. Reading to me is also a way to escape the daily routine.

Here is a picture of my current collections of books. It is a bit small since i donated a few of my other books two years ago and recently decided to start my collection again.

Nintendo 3DS

I finally decided to get the Nintendo 3DS. I picked it manly for the games. I look forward to reliving The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It is a game that I enjoyed in my childhood. The 3DS lately is having a steadily increasing sale. It seems to be very popular at the time. Although, I did want to get the PSvita I decided I will wait for the next generation vita to come out. The PSvita is going to be pricey and I really don't want to leave a big dent in my pocket. The memory cards for the PSvita are going to be approx over $100 if you want a good amount of space. So the 3DS is the less expensive choice. Here are a few games I look forward to purchasing for the 3DS.
1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
2. New Super Mario Bros
3. Mario Kart DS
4. Super Mario 64 DS
5. Luigi's Mansion 2
6. Paper Mario 3DS
7. Rayman Origins
8. Professor Layton and the Last Specter (DS)
Among others.