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Although we are at the end of October, it is still National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and you have a few more days to become or stay aware. I would like to celebrate the survivors, pay tribute to those who have lost their struggle, and remind everyone to know the warning signs, get screened and stay in charge of your health. Although it is very rare, men can get breast cancer too. Everyone needs to be aware, both for themselves and for their loved ones.
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month has a great website full of important information and links – http://www.nbcam.org. This is an excellent place to begin awareness. Many people do not like to think about illness or death, but pretending that nothing bad is going to happen or ignoring warning signs or the “feeling that something is wrong” will hurt you. Even if you feel fine and have no warning signs, make sure you do self exams, have regular breast exams performed by a health professional and get diagnostic tests such as a mammogram and MRI. The website provides links to free or low-cost mammograms if you do not have health insurance or are not covered by Medicare or Medicaid.
Become informed and remember that you are your best advocate! Do not be afraid to speak to your doctor, ask questions, ask more questions and push for as much information as possible. Yes, you need to rely on the health professionals, but you are a vital member of the team.
As discussed on nbcam.org, many women have risk factors that are associated with a greater chance to develop breast cancer. If you fall into this category, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center offers programs, screenings, early interventions, support and other resources. This is a link to the Women at Risk website. It is conducting a symposium entitled, “Empower Yourself: Lifestyle and Wellness Choices of Women at High Risk for or with Breast Cancer” on Monday, 11/14/11 from 5:30 to 8 in midtown. Please call 212-305-5917 or email info@womenatrisknyc.org for more information.
If you are a breast cancer patient, keep on taking care of and empowering yourself. Learn as much as you can about your illness and take advantage of all the support groups out there. If you are a survivor, congratulations and please share your experiences and knowledge. We all have to take care of each other. Whether you are a patient or a survivor, I hope you have many years of health and happiness.
A very dear friend was buried last week. She learned she had inflammatory breast cancer almost 10 years ago. Inflammatory breast cancer is rare and unlike traditional breast cancers. There is no lump. Her breast was red and inflamed and she thought she had an infection. Her regular doctor put her on antibiotics. She finally went to a specialist who sent her for tests and to see more specialists, and she was diagnosed a few months later with inflammatory breast cancer. By the time the cancer appears as a red inflamed breast, it is already advanced. An oncologist at a famous Eastside cancer center coldly gave her three months, but she refused to accept it. She was fortunate to find a not so famous oncologist in Orange County with a wonderful staff whose care, combined with her determination, gave her almost 10 years.
Rest in peace Dawn, and all other strong and brave women who lost their battles. We will keep fighting in your memory.
Mary Casey is a student in the MS in Business Leadership and Management program at CUNY School of Professional Studies and is an alumna of Lehman College. She is an administrator for a university in NYC. She loves to travel and wants to see as much of the world as possible. Mary almost has more comments on the SPS blog than she received on the community/political blog that she created and maintained from 2002 to 2004.
A major interruption with communication has caused Black Berry RIM users to scramble. Why do we rely on technology so much? Because technology has proven to be a useful, efficient and inexpensive tool that allows intra-company communication and communication with outside clients. The majority of U.S. companies offer blackberry devices to its employees as a means to stay in contact at all times.
But when technology doesn’t measure up, it can be detrimental and even costly. According to the The Roland Martin Report “Mike Lazaridis, founder of BlackBerry’s Canadian parent company, Research In Motion, appeared this morning in a YouTube video to say, “Since launching BlackBerry in 1999, it’s been my goal to provide reliable, real-time communications around the world. We did not deliver on that goal this week. Not even close.”
Now, I must admit I have relied (and still do) on my device to keep me in touch with work related emails and personal messages alike. That’s a good thing. Technology has been monumental in many new arenas of our society, but with anything, nothing is absolute.
Our society has evolved dramatically in more ways than not – one being, the ways in which we communicate. Twenty years ago, TXTNG was unheard of! There was a time (before my time) when a boy and girl liked each other, they would write love letters back and forth. That form of communicating as we know it is now outdated.
Businesses that rely on technological devices to increase productivity should use these mishaps as a learning curve to find ways to keep things moving, if this should happen again – hopefully it won’t. Otherwise, we’ll continue to experience these disruptions all over again.
RIM has provided a very useful service to many companies local and international.
I read an article in Thursday’s WSJ, by Will Connors, Ben Drummett and Christopher Lawton which said “hardware failure began in Europe, Mideast and Africa since Monday. The company was forced to “throttle” data traffic through its world-wide servers in order to deal with the backlog, triggering fresh disruptions in previously unaffected markets, including Japan, Singapore and – starting early Wednesday morning-North America.”
For many professionals, this is a must have.
“Service disruptions affected a wide array of U.S. federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury, as well as emergency services.”
During the email chaos yesterday afternoon, my boss hadn’t received one email since ten o’clock that morning. But he didn’t mind. Others that were affected, vented their frustrations on Twitter and Facebook instantly.
With dwindling sales of Blackberry devices, this serves as ammunition for customers to move to the iPhone and HTC smartphones.
Sources: Wall Street Journal, pages A1 & A2 (Thursday, October 13th)
Roland S. Martin’s blog: http://rolandmartinreports.com/blog/2011/10/blackberry-outage-rim-apologizes-says-service-returning/
Miranda A. Walker is currently in her freshman year in the B.A. in Communication & Culture program at CUNY School of Professional Studies. She works in the multi-media industry as an Executive Assistant at the New York Daily News. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her children and reading immensely. Her dream is to one day run her own company.
With the somewhat-sudden loss of Steve Jobs, everyone is wondering about the future of Apple. The stagnation of Facebook also has people wondering what Mark Zuckerberg has up his sleeve next. Twitter has taken flight and is continuing to gain speed as it moves towards the horizon. Everyone in Silicon Valley is scrambling to be the next big thing.
Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration.
Many people, in the United States and across the world want to have that single great idea that makes them millions. They want to find a niche in the technology world to fill. Once you think the market is saturated with tech companies, innovative ideas and more services you didn’t know you needed, something else comes up. It seems almost inevitable.
It’s one of the great things about innovators like Steve Jobs. They keep on re-inventing and they keep on moving forward.
But this post is not about Steve Jobs.
We are suffering from a lack of clear vision and focus. So many people get start-up money, rent some office space, add “fun extras” and wait for the money to roll in. Google did not gain it’s place in the marketplace by offering gourmet meals to it’s employees and adding treadmill-desks to the offices. They did it by working hard and thinking outside of the box.
I think too many of us fail to do the same. We expect that our great ideas will be enough to carry us through.
What we need are fresh injections of new ideas and new perspectives. I came across a blog entry that made the statement that we need to see more women in tech. I think that’s only a partial answer. I think we need more of everyone in tech. Many people of color and most socio-economic statures never venture into tech. Often it’s the lack of education. But there are many other factors at play. Many people think it’s too hard. Or too boring. Some people just don’t have the financial or emotional support to dedicate the hours needed in order to put good ideas into action.
It’s not to say that the people who make technology now aren’t doing it well or fast enough. But if we have more people with different cultural and educational perspectives, I’m sure that we’d see technology move even faster than ever.
Are you up for the challenge?
Ebonye Gussine is a recent graduate in the Master of Science in Business Management & Leadership Program at the CUNY School of Professional Studies. She loves writing, reading, and is an avid fan of John Steinbeck’s works. In her spare time she sings off-key and travels to new places.
A friend and I decided to go to the Occupy Wall Street protest the first Sunday in October. We made the plans after the infamous pepper spraying incident but before the 700 arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge. We didn’t know what to expect.
The last time I participated in a group protest was in August 2004 against the RNC Convention in New York. It was a family affair – my then husband and our two eye-rolling kids who were in high school. (The family that protests together . . .) It was a very festive and diverse atmosphere, with babies being pushed in strollers and grandmas being pushed in wheelchairs. Multi-generations of families and people of all races and colors marched together.
As we marched up 7th Avenue, we were penned in by police barricades. It was hot in the sun and no one was allowed to climb under or over the barricades to buy water in any of the stores along the route. Only at certain cross streets were people allowed to enter or leave the procession. There was a major police presence with few incidents during the march. As we passed Madison Square Garden (the site of the convention) and the Fox News studio, we were met counter-protesters and the volume “words were exchanged”, but the police forced the marchers to keep moving. Funny, but the pro-Bush protesters were allowed to stake out their positions and not coerced to move.
Although the march appeared very orderly and it was far-removed from 1968 style demonstrations, it was later revealed that over 1,800 people were arrested that weekend and held in a pen on the West Side nicknamed “Guantanamo on the Hudson”. Although the NYC Police Department lost millions in civil suits overs the arrests, they were not required to release data used in leading up to those arrests. Surveillance and intelligence gathering methods were kept secret “in the interests of national security”. (http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/nypd-can-keep-its-secrets-2004-convention-arrests-remain-mysterious/)
Well, the Occupy Wall Street protests sure need some invigorating. It looked more like a tourist attraction last weekend, with out-of-towners gawking at a patchwork of humanity temporarily living in Zuccotti Park. Where are the major media outlets? Where are the thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of actual participants? Where is the outrage? Are we so beaten down and defeated that we have no fight left?
There was certainly no absence of police presence. The number of police vans filled with cops just sitting there, squad cars, unmarked cars (so obvious), uniformed police, inspectors, detectives and undercover officers was astounding to the point of being laughable. Who was protecting the rest of the city? Police barricades were set up everywhere, making walking in the area difficult. No one was allowed to use a bullhorn. Taking pictures made the police very nervous. I overheard a few of them talking among each other (if he takes a picture of me . . .). Terrorism threats and national security are the buzzwords used to keep from upsetting the status quo.
Unions such as the United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United, and Transport Workers Union Local 100 and well known people (Michael Moore, Joseph Stiglitz) and organizations (MoveOn) are joining in support of the protests against the greed and corruption that are causing the collapse of our economy and destruction of the middle class. This will help to legitimize and publicize the movement. Isn’t it time to speak out?
Mary Casey is a student in the MS in Business Leadership and Management program at CUNY School of Professional Studies and is an alumna of Lehman College. She is an administrator for a university in NYC. She loves to travel and wants to see as much of the world as possible. Mary almost has more comments on the SPS blog than she received on the community/political blog that she created and maintained from 2002 to 2004.
I’m on my eighth week of the Extreme Home Fitness system P90X and I am so bored. I started working out in 2007. At that time I was in a transition period and I wanted to simplify many things in my life. Working out helped me to feel better about myself, while I dealt with a lot of personal issues.
I started off by doing free workouts on Time Warner’s Exercise TV On Demand. As I got more into it, I decided to buy workout DVDs, as well as yoga DVDs. My favorite cardio DVD workouts are TurboJam and TurboFire with Chalene Johnson. Fast forward four years and many workouts, I purchased P90X. I stumbled upon the infomercial one day and always wanted to try it, so when I saw it on EBay for $39.95 I knew I couldn’t pass that deal up.
I really like the trainer Tony Horton; he’s knowledgeable, funny and keeps you motivated throughout. Here’s my problem… too much weight training and not enough cardio. I’m a cardio junkie and I need to sweat buckets in order to feel like I’ve had a good workout. Weight training, doesn’t bring my heart rate up enough. There are cardio workouts in the P90X system, but they are far from the high intensity that I was used to doing throughout the years. A definite plus about the weight training, is that I’ve definitely gotten very toned, but I’m feeling too bulky, my weight has gone up and I’m not burning any fat, just building muscle. So how do I get the weight training benefits of P90X and still get my high intensity cardio?
I’ve come up with an idea off combining P90X and TurboFire workouts. Both of these home workouts have a week to week workout schedule. My plan is to do one week of weight training with the P90X and then one week of high intensity cardio with the TurboFire workouts, alternating weeks until I finish both programs. This way my muscles never get a chance to get used to anything because I’ll be constantly changing my movements. Hopefully, I’ll get the results that I’m looking for, toned and lean muscles. I know it sounds like a lot, but I’m up for the challenge and I love working out.
If anyone else wants to join me in this challenge, let me know and we can keep each other motivated. Wish me luck.
Martine Chevry received her B.A. in Communications and Culture from the CUNY School of Professional Studies in June 2011. She currently works as an Editorial Assistant and lives in Queens, New York. Martine is currently planning on self publishing her first novel in Spring 2012. She enjoys writing, working out, shopping, reading and reality television.
Astronomy as I had known it consisted only of the Sun, Moon and stars. But after I took the plunge of enrolling in an astronomy course here at SPS, my perception of what I thought I knew had drastically changed for the better.
I tend to be the sort of person that likes to play it safe. Here’s what I mean: I try to stick to what I know best so if I fail, it can be on a subject matter that I know vs. something I have no clue about. That might sound silly but it’s the truth. Ordinarily, I would have preferred to enroll in Biology or Earth Science but since I’m a college student, I felt it better suited me to try something more challenging. (I forced myself to enroll).
According to Wikipedia, astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the Earth’s atmosphere (such as the cosmic background radiation). At least I was partially correct. Before, I get all technical, the basics of astronomy began with early observations – some of which you might have heard of. These great explorers are like Galileo who turned the newly invented telescope with great discoveries, but Newton made tremendous strides in physics, which connects with astronomy. Or how about Ptolemy, the astronomer, mathematician, and author who wrote an astronomical treatise (is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay), on the complex subject on the motion of stars and planetary paths. There was also a man named Copernicus who proposed the heliocentric system and Kepler adopted the detailed laws of planetary motion. Not only have these men contributed to the history of astronomy, they have allowed us to see and further discover what is above our Earth’s atmosphere.
Have you ever wondered why we have seasons?
Seasons as we know it, are a direct result of the Earth’s tilt! You’re probably wondering what that means, right? Well it means that Summer (from the Latin word “sol” meaning “sun” and stare, “to stand”) is the point on the ecliptic (plane of the earth’s orbit around the sun), where the Sun is at its northern most point above the celestial equator. It represents the point in Earth’s orbit where our planet’s North Pole points closet to the Sun! This occurs on or near June 21.
Six months later, the Sun is at its southernmost point or the Winter Solstice (December 21) the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. These two affect the height of the Sun above the horizon and the length of the day – which combine to account for the seasons we experience.
One of the many stunning images available on the Hubble website.
This is truly fascinating!
Astronomers view any and all activity by high-powered ground telescopes and even the HST (Hubble Space Telescope). The HST is very unique device since its stationed high above our Earth’s atmosphere. It has produced thousands upon thousands of crystal clear images that the ground telescopes aren’t able to produce. Images are passed to another satellite in space and finally beamed to a ground telescope and transferred to a computer at the Goddard Space Center in Maryland.
If you have a chance to log onto Hubble’s official website at: http://hubblesite.org, there are extraordinary images that could possibly bring you to tears.
According to the NY Post, an outdated research satellite will re-enter our atmosphere where it’s expected be destroyed. I can’t but help to have a new-found respect for this science and technology, which is ever-changing before our eyes.
What I’m learning from taking this course is that observations and new challenging can be exciting and even thrilling. My decision to rise to the challenge is definitely paying off by this new-found hobby I’ve acquired of becoming an elementary star-gazer.
Sources: Wikipedia.com, Astronomy Today, Volume II, chapter 4 & 5 (Chaisson, McMillian)
Miranda A. Walker is currently in her freshman year in the B.A. in Communication & Culture program at CUNY School of Professional Studies. She works in the multi-media industry as an Executive Assistant at the New York Daily News. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her children and reading immensely. Her dream is to one day run her own company.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), the official United States policy on gays serving in the military since December 21, 1993, officially ended on September 20, 2011. DADT was actually repealed by Congress last December, but enforcement was permitted until the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certified that repeal “would not harm military readiness”. Can you imagine requiring such certification and waiting periods when Truman issued an Executive Order ending segregation in the military? In any event, all certifications were completed by July and the mandated 60-day waiting period ended on September 20th.
Although homosexual men in the military faced recriminations since the Revolutionary War, they were not officially banned from service until after World War II. Warm bodies of any orientation were needed during wars. Through the years, openly gay service members faced severe discrimination and abuse, and were subject to dishonorable discharge, confinement in mental institutions and/or courts martial.
Bill Clinton campaigned on a promise to end the military’s ban on gay personnel, but after he was elected his proposal met intense opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, members of Congress from both political parties, and a large part of the public. As a compromise, Congress reached an agreement known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” and it became law. Military personnel would not be asked about their sexual orientation and would not be discharged simply for being gay. They could be gay but not act gay. Engaging in homosexual or lesbian activities were still grounds for dismissal.
The growing LGBT movement along with the revelation that the military discharged 20 Arabic and 6 Farsi linguists between 1998 and 2004 because they were gay greatly heightened the call to repeal DADT. President Obama campaigned on a promise to repeal the law and it was fiercely opposed by Congressional Republicans led by John “Faust” McCain, Lindsay Graham and entrenched military leaders. Many of the fiercest opponents of repeal were either sell-outs to the far right wing or self-haters afraid of their own ambiguous sexual identity. (Watch reruns of Glee featuring the football bully.) Those who want to keep government out of our lives are okay with it intruding on our lives when it concerns a woman’s choice or what goes on between consenting adults.
With the repeal of DADT, all qualified men and women can now choose to serve and protect our national security. The US is no longer the only industrialized country banning LGBT individuals from serving openly in the military.
Mary Casey is a student in the MS in Business Leadership and Management program at CUNY School of Professional Studies and is an alumna of Lehman College. She is an administrator for a university in NYC. She loves to travel and wants to see as much of the world as possible. Mary hopes to get more comments on the SPS blog than she received on the community/political blog that she created and maintained from 2002 to 2004.
“Will I make my connection?” I asked the bus driver.
She smiled at me and told me I had three minutes and I would be fine.
Knowing what New York bus schedules are like, I was highly skeptical.
I caught my connecting bus.
This was the first of many culture shocks I would receive while starting over. Fresh out of SPS with my new shiny degree, I moved to California with my fiancé to start a job in Silicon Valley.
When I arrived at my job’s lobby, I was greeted by a very friendly receptionist. I was escorted upstairs by my new boss and given every possible tool I could need to get my job done. I felt like a celebrity my first day.
Countless meetings didn’t bother me at all. I learned so much that first day. I learned about the company, how they operate, the tools they use and how they draw from many different fields in order to get their work done. I am part of a super talented team, but most importantly I felt like a part of the team.
As I watched with amusement, my new boss propelled a foam rocket at one of the team members (even more culture shock), I reflected on how fortunate I was to land a job that used all of my degrees and all of my skills. It is humbling to realize that out of the entire talent pool that is Silicon Valley, that they chose me for this role.
I have so much more to learn, but I am ready for the challenge.
Ebonye Gussine is a recent graduate in the Master of Science in Business Management & Leadership Program at the CUNY School of Professional Studies. She loves writing, reading, and is an avid fan of John Steinbeck’s works. In her spare time she sings off-key and travels to new places.
I was embarking on a long plane ride back to New York when I decided to rifle through the random literature available in the pocket in front of my seat whilst the stewardess engaged in the standard mime routine showing what might, but probably won’t, increase your luck in the event of some objectionable, airborne misfortune. As it were, however, luck was on my side just then. British Airways has a fun magazine called Business Life (eat it Delta!) that just so happened to have a story on one of the most weird-yet-innovative ideas I have seen in awhile: trading trash. So much was I intrigued that I decided I would have to dedicate one of this semester’s blog posts to the brilliant entrepreneur of other people’s rubbish: Brooke Farrell.
Farrell has a background in marketing and advertising and was a former waste management consultant in the US for years where she learned the ins and outs of the colossal amount of trash percolating its way into landfills and on unfortunate occasions, other parts of the earth not suitable to handle it. In an interview with Smart Planet, Farrell stated of her experience in the trash industry:
“I got a huge exposure to different angles on trash. The real learning there was the scale, the scope of how much stuff is generated both by communities of residents and also by business and industry. There’s just so much more than any of us can imagine. I calculated, based on the latest EPA estimates, that there was enough waste to fill trucks and wrap garbage trucks around the equator 600 times. That’s just what’s generated in the U.S. in one year”.
According to Farrell, only 30% of trash today is sent for recycling, a number she says is unacceptable. This means that the other 70% (usually) goes to landfills – those horrible smelly places where VCRs and cassette players go to die. As distressing as all of this may sound, for Farrell, it presented an opportunity – one that no one had ever thought of before.
In 2009, Farrell quit her job and together with her business partner/brother-in-law Chad Farrell started a company called RecycleMatch. What RecycleMatch does is similar to what eBay does, only it does it with trash. It is essentially “the E-Harmony for trash”, as Chad Farrell has described it – a web 2.0 platform that helps companies to maximize the value of their waste materials and lower disposal costs by matching them with another company who can make use of the waste. To start off, the pair located companies with different kinds of trash that was destined for a landfill and it would pitch those companies to list the trash on their website instead. It wasn’t that difficult; who wouldn’t want to make a few bucks on something they were about to pay a landfill to throw out? After the trash was listed, they set out to find a buyer – someone who could use the waste material for something else. Little by little, a market emerged.
Most of what is listed on the site is material waste and RecycleMatch also offers sustainability software on their website that “enables corporations to maximize the economic and environmental impact of their Zero Waste initiatives”. Since its inception, RecycleMatch has attracted thousands of buyers and sellers to its website and the rubbish trade has gotten off to a good start. Some examples of trades on RecycleMatch include food waste that was bought and converted to an energy source and damaged, non-recyclable glass that was bought, crushed and used to make counter tops and other materials for building.
RecycleMatch has been listed in a myriad of magazines, including Entrepreneur and Forbes, for its innovative idea and the success that it has seen as a result. As the company continues to grow I can only imagine that it will continue to expand both in content and in location and soon, more like it will appear. The future of cleaner trash disposal has arrived, landfill moguls be warned!
Nina Michael is in her senior year in the BS in Business program at CUNY School of Professional Studies. Nina has been all over the world and loves traveling; she currently lives between Italy and New York where she works as a professional English teacher and translator. She loves languages, food, coffee, wine and a good book; she is also a first-rate bartender.
I am a resident New Yorker, but I haven’t understood or even cared about my home state’s major attractions.
I’ll explain why.
Recently, my company moved from its midtown digs to plusher and more greener pastures at South Ferry. There’s a conglomerate of shops, businesses, restaurants and of course Battery Park to name a few. My initial attitude upon hearing that we were moving, was that of reservation or even unhappiness. Why would my company decide to pick up and leave our present location to a new area that could pose to be difficult – navigation wise?
How dare they!
After two and a half-months, the area has really grown on me. I’m proud to say where I now work, since it’s an ideal location for any business or resident to work or live in. I hadn’t known the many things my company was lacking in terms of location, location, location!
One of the goals any business considers when choosing where to do business – is the location. Location is key. It can prove to be beneficial or devastating – to say the least.
Our former address in midtown proved to be devastating because the daily walk from the subway was a schlep no one cared for especially in nasty weather. There were a limited variety of restaurants and shops and I mean, limited! It took an half-hour to arrive at an ideal restaurant or even a local store.
Or try eating at the same restaurant, week after week. Who does that? On many occasions, I’d forgo eating lunch and resort to having a snack instead, until I got home later in the evening.
So before you’re faced with a change however intense it may be, trying looking at the brighter side of things. Who knows, you may learn a true life lesson that drastically enriches you!
Miranda A. Walker is currently in her freshman year in the B.A. in Communication & Culture program at CUNY School of Professional Studies. She works in the multi-media industry as an Executive Assistant at the New York Daily News. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her children and reading immensely. Her dream is to one day run her own company.
