Introduction Assignment

My name is Jacob.

I’ve grown up, gone to school, church, and most everything else in San Diego.

And while some might call that boring, I call it...

well,
so maybe it's a little boring.

But I am, to a certain degree, a creature of habit who is well accustomed to his habitat and I haven’t felt the urge to really venture beyond San Diego for any substantial period of time yet. I say “yet” because I’ve heard that teaching opportunities are not by any means abundant within the San Diego area, so it could be very likely that as I write this and, word by word, begin my journey to becoming a teacher, I may be setting into motion a series of events that could very likely be the impetus for me to leave and test the waters outside of my comfortable sanctum of a home. Who knows.

At this point I’m beginning to wonder if veering from the prescribed three-paragraph format will make me lose points. Perhaps it’s best to err on the side of caution…

I went to La Costa Meadows Elementary school and have considerably decent memories from every grade but the third grade and I really can’t say why. I went to San Marcos middle school for seventh grade but then transferred to Oakcrest in Encinitas for eighth grade. I served all four years of my high school sentence at La Costa Canyon high school where I played lacrosse all four years and have spent the years subsequent my graduation missing it sorely.

As for technology, I only got a cell phone about 2 years ago and still hate the wretched thing. To answer the prompt, I don’t mind Macs but their user-friendliness and style it seems are luxuries that many (including myself) cannot afford, hence the HP laptop that I am currently writing on. My parents recently bought a trashcan with a motion-sensor lid that opens when its sensor is triggered by holding garbage in front of it and it’s the most infernally frustrating and unnecessary piece of technological crap that I’ve ever seen in my life. I wasn't aware that there are people who are in the business of creating complete pieces of trash that actually function as trash receptacles as well. My mistake.

I use a variety of technologies in making music at home, from my beloved drum set to my guitar, sampler/drum machine, amplifier, and various pedals for looping and processing what I play or play along with. I also work at a Starbucks where we use a very complicated and frequently dysfunctional machine to brew espresso coffee and steam milk for our specialty coffee drinks as well as blenders and brewers for the others. All around I’d say I use a lot of technology and would have to agree with Tesla, who saw technology as a tool for allowing mankind to overcome the burdens of work and the traditional boundaries of time and space so that we could fully utilize our cognitive and imaginative capacities for the improvement of the quality of life for all mankind.

As for the mission statement, I think that “transform” and “social justice” are good but (in the case of social justice) often times loaded terms but, to avoid an argument for argument’s sake, I more or less agree with the statement. I hadn’t read it before applying to CSUSM, but I did apply here because I heard the teaching program was excellent, so perhaps it can be counted as a sort of secondary motivating factor in my application. I agree with the shared governance/Socratic/democratic elements of the statement as well and believe that the educational environment must be one where every idea and opinion is afforded an equal opportunity for expression so that the fullest realization of an idea or truth can be realized.

And I suppose that's it...

And instead of a picture of me, I'll sweeten the deal and upgrade your blog reading package by throwing in a video, free of charge.

enjoy.