Summary

The Most Important thing that I learned this semester in Leadership for Change 294 is how to pursue my goal. This semester for me at UIC was difficult because most of my time went into my senior research thesis, and the History department at UIC require that the length of the paper to be 20pages. the Leadership for change course was my refuge for balance and it gave me the opportunity to relieve myself from the everyday stress from school. This sounds weird considering that the Leadership course is located at school but the class itself is taught in a way that allows me as a student to learn more effectively, and the teaching method promotes a stress free enviorment because I did not have to worry about taking notes or big exams. This above all things contributed to my growth as an individual, because it enabled me to focus on ME and to understand my strengths and my weaknesses. Due to this class my whole mode of thinking has changed because before this class I thought that all I had to do was go to school and I would achieve my goal. Halfway through the class I realize that to achieve my goal I had to do more things such as, networking, interviews, hardtimes, brainstorm, planning wall, etc; all of these are tools that will help me achieve my goal. Now I feel better prepared about my chances in the future and about how i will respond to challenges that I may face in the future. Through the class I was able to group with other individuals who also faced similar challenges, there was also individuals who had more experience and connections than I have and I was able to learn from them, these are things that I never did before. There are three things I like most about the class and that is , the teaching method, the interaction between students, and the amount of resources provided. I'm not saying that the class is perfect it did have some issues and that was: Grading, people who did not participate in the groups, and long debates. I suggest that the class remains the same because it has a great chemistry with the students

Sunday Meeting

This sunday I held a meeting with myself. this meeting with myself was to outline my next move and how would I execute my next move. I also went over everything I have done thus far and predicted how much more I would have to do to get to where I want to be. I also took the time out to think about what makes a good teacher, how can I be effective in my teaching and how to communicate to students with a wide range of learning needs.

Weekly business meeting

This week I held a meeting with my cousin Nick who also is pursuing a career in education. At the meeting we both made outlines as to how to accomplish various steps to achieving our short term goals that would eventually lead us to completing our ultimate goal. Nick has a lot of connects such as teachers, principals, city of Chicago administrators, etc. So through this meeting I was able to get connected with his connections because he gave me numbers and told me who to ask for and to tell them that I know him. We also made backup outlines as to what we would do if either of us failed to reach our primary objective. The weekly business meeting was very helpful because it allowed me to share my fears and inexperience's with others.

First steps

One of my first steps was to create a professional resume. So this week I decided to go to the UIC career services office located on Racine and Harrison. I sat down with shabeer and he help me find different words that could be used to make my resume more professional. I also learned new tips when it come to the outline of my resume. The plan is to create this resume and submitt it with an Application to work at Urban Prep Highschool. The funny part of completing this task was that I had to call urban prep highschool and I was kinda nervous because I could not find the number to the school online, so eventually I found it and when I called the school the receptionist gave me the number to the director of the school, so I dailed the directors number and his name popped up when I dailed it in my phone, come to find out I already had the directors number because I was talking to a friend of mine that I play basketball with and he gave me the number months ago, and he knows the director of Urban prep Highschool. This took away my nervousness and I was able to contact him and he told me that they are hiring and they especially want male black teachers because the school is an all boys school and it's in the hood (englewood). I'm on it!

Michgan State

The national championship game was a big upset for me because I was on the Rockemore ban wagon rooting for Michigan state, and they lost so I lost 80$. It's ok though, because they did put up a good fight to get to the Championship game, who could of thought that they could have beaten Louisville and UCONN wow! Big ups to the Spartans they deserve it.

P/S
I'm still mad as hell (Damn!)
Juicy

FEAR!

usually I'm not afraid to fail but this week I experienced fear:
1. I was afraid that I would not be able to get a job that would help pay the bills while im persuing my goal.
2. I noticed it this week and it manifested as panic, Instead of concentrating on what I had to do I was in a state of panic
3. the type of fear that was reveled to me was stage fright
4. The message is that I need to stay focus on my school work because it will open doors to jobs
5. I got over it by looking at T.V. and playing basketball

Next Step

OK now that I have gathered info and have completed my interviews I decided to go out and actually apply for teaching positions, but at the highschool level and the results were interesting. first things first I'm not a certified teacher nor have I completed any certification process. I just wanted to apply just to see what would happen and to get a very clear understanding of it would take just to teach at the secondary level. First I went to the Illinois board of education(located on 14th floor of the Thompson center) and told them that I'm graduating in May and that I did not take any teaching certification course, so I asked them what could I do. They told me that I could apply to an alternate route to teaching program offered at various educational institutions, come to find out this program is at UIC wow!. The told me the different qualifications so I said the hell with it how about substitute teaching and they told me how to apply and what I needed to have so I'm in the process of doing that now and if I'm done before 12:ooam I will blog about it. I know if I can sub the at least I would have a job while I'm contemplating on my next move. Then I got a revelation! my mom is a teacher at Marshall high school so I asked her if I was to sub could she get me in Marshall on a daily basis and she said that she can get me to sub everyday at Marshall. so today I went to Marshall high school to talk to the principal and he said my mom is cool and that he can hook me up. Wow! its not what you know it's who you know. Back to the plan I tried to apply to various educational institutions and it was all for nothing because they just throw your application away if you don't qualify.

Juicy interview Johari Jabir #6

The funny thing about this interview was that I had contacted this professor the Friday before spring break and I was kinda worried that he would not be available for the interview. Fortunately for me he was at University hall and he told me to come in at 1:30 Monday, so I went home thinking that's this person better not send me off. I went to his office today and sure enough he was there at 1:30 like he said that he would be. the professor name is Johari Jabir Ph.D and he is an Assistant Professor at UIC. The first question I asked him was why did he choose to become a professor, and his answer was that though his educational career he was motivated by good teachers and that these good teachers was his reason for becoming a teacher. I soon found out that this professor has a degree in Theology and that his area of interest is African-American religion and African cultures. When he told me this I automatically thought that this guy was a minister of some sort so I told him that it seemed like he is a very religious person and he asked me why do I think that, and I said because you have a degree in theology, he said that he does not consider himself a very religious person. Wow!. Anyway I asked him what was it that he like and dislike about teaching at UIC. His answer was that he likes working with the students but dislikes the faculty Hierarchy system at the University. For me this was the best Interview because we talked about other things as well, such as why I think that only black people should write about African history, come to find out I was being stereotypical, he also likes old gospel music

Johari Jabir PhD
African American Studies(MC069)
601 South Morgan Street,1203 UH
chicago Illinois 60607-7112
Phone# (312) 996-2962

Venting by Juicy aka Hard times

I'm taking this time to vent on my blog (please excuse the profanity)
Ok here we go!
What the hell! AIG giving out bonuses when people like me are broke as hell
Target can kiss my ass because they hyped my head up like they were going to give me a job but instead gave it to a person who should be retired, they had me do all that bullshit for nothing
you won't see me buying anything from they ass, if you ask me walmart got lower prices anyway. I got kicked out of a college class for the first time ever, getting kicked out of class was not the hard part but hell once I got kicked out I went home looking stupid as hell because I told my mom that I would be in class from 5-8pm but when she saw me at 6pm she thought that I lied to her, I eventually told her the truth and she laughed at my ass but its cool because now I'm going to blog my ass off Thanks Professor Rock I got my head back in the game.
I'm pissed because I'm 300 pounds and I workout but I don't see any change, I was reminded of the Chris Brown and Rihanna incident and if he hit that girl like they say he did then I'm done with his ass because that's some coward shit I didn't like his soft ass anyway and if anybody see him tell his ass to come hit on me my address is 6842 s Jeffery, because any man can hit a woman but I bet that same man would think twice before hitting another man especially Chris Brown, I WOULD WHIP HIS ASS, but hey life is still good, to those who live it, I actually thought that I was going to Disney World for spring break but my auntie who was in charge of planning the trip forgot to include me DAMN! she bogus she lucky she is my aunt or else she would have heard a mouth full from me. Another issue for me is this fake ass Governor(Pat Quinn) that I did not vote for is talking about raising taxes I mean damn how much do we have to pay shit chips went from 25cent to 35 cent CTA don't even give transfers anymore what the hell is this world coming to,hell for me this is not a recession but A depression because the economy got me depressed as hell. I called myself being nice to a homeless guy who was begging for food, I had $20 and when he asked for something to eat I told him that I would buy his something from McDonald's, this dude got the nerve to get offended and he began to curse at me (he should have googled JOE BAILEY because he would have known not to fuck with me) her I am trying to feed yo ass and u got the nerve to come at me like that because yo ass don't want to eat McDonald's hell yo ass not getting steak shit you better get something off the dollar menu and be happy dammit, Many people may not believe me but I really am trying to stop cursing, Thanks hearing me vent Thanks and have a nice day

Interview #5 with Juice

My approach to the interview process has been straight forward and random, since I'm great with people I decided to go to university hall and interview role models fortunately for me many students do not take advantage of office hours so gathering these interviews was quite easy. This time I was went to the 10th floor of university hall and the fist office I saw that was open I went into when I entered the office the lady that was in the office said "can I help you"(she was a white which was a plus) and I said you most certainly can help me, and thats when I asked her for an Interview and she said ok, come to find out she is a teaching assistant and her name is Maria. Maria is unique because she wants a Ph.D but does not really want to teach instead she wasnt to find a job in coorperate America. When she told me this it made me think that even if I did not become a professor if I get a Ph.d I could use it in other areas. I asked Maria why don't she want to teach which to me was wierd because she is already an teaching assistant, she stated that she did not want to teach because she dont like being stuck in a class room. Maria is also a much older woman she looks like she is in her late 30's (out of respect I did not ask her how old was she), she eventually told me that after undergrad(Michigan State) she took some time off and was working for different companies and organizations this was her motivation to get a higher level of education to some day have a higher position in the coorperate world, The problem that she had to face was going back to school because it would mean that she could no longer work as often as she did and this would cause her to get less money, thats when she said that sometimes you have to take a step back in order to get to where you want to go. I myself learned a lot from this interview and it made me realize that road blocks will occur when accomplishing a goal and that I might have to go back and redo step 3 in order to move one to steps 4,5,&6, Interview #6 will be conducted Monday at 1:30
UH1010 Maria, Newitzs

The planner

This is Joe's planner I finnally found out how to put the picture on the blogger.
The planner is a forecast of what aspects of my goal I plan on having completed within five years.

Second time around part 2

This time I decided to interview someone that is not s teacher but one day hopes to become a college professor and her name is Elizabeth Sanford. I found this woman to be very informative because she worked for the Chicago Public school system for 6 years and knows many people that teach at Universities. The interview process was wierd because she did not of the talking I rarely had time to ask her any more questions because she had answered them before I could actually ask her. She did a lot of talking but to sum up what she said, she basically told me that she is in the doctorate program at Chicago State and that it's a long and hard road becoming a teacher. When I asked her for her contact info she refused to give it because she don't feel comfortable giving out her personal information.

Second time around

I interviewed another UIC professor but this time my aim was to interview someone who was in my concentration which is Ancient history. I interviewed Karen Ross who is a professor of Roman art History at UIC, I asked her what steps did she have to take to pursue a career in roman Art History she stated that she first had to get a Ph.D in roman art and she also indicated that she it's mandatory for someone interested in this field to take Ancient Greek, and Latin also French and German. I'm glad I talked to her because I did not know this at first. I also asked her what made her interested in this field of study and she said that it was college because in college she had a class that related to classical art and she loved it so much that she decided to pursue it, before this her previous goal was to study Egypt. This was all this info I could squeeze out of her and she was more than willing to meet next week to finish our discussion.

Dr. Karen Ros
Office Hour: TH 10:45-11:45. I can be found in the Visual Resources Library, Henry Hall, Rm. 106. Please walk in and ask for me.
Office of the Classics Department: UH 1804. I have a mailbox here.
E-mail: kros@uic.edu (preferred means of communication).
Phone: 996-3281 (messages only)

Role model Interviews

I interviewed two professors I did not know and never had a class with.
The first one was Exa Von-Alt
I asked her what inspired her to become a professor
her answer was that when she was an undergrad at Weelock College her undergraduate director told her that teaching at a university was more flexiable and less irritating than teaching high School.
We also talked about what steps had to be taken to achieve this goal, she first stated that she had to get an B.A in history, then after that she had to take the G.R.E she also needed three letters of recommendation, a writing sample, a C.V which is an academic resume and a statement of purpose.
The next person I interviewed was Perry Duis who is a history professor at UIC
I asked him why did he choose to become a teacher, and he stated that he became a teacher because he enjoyed being a student and he enjoyed the university athmosphere and that being a professor reseambles being a student.
I also asked him what he had to accomplish in order to become a professor he stated that he Had to get a PH.D in History from the unversity of chicago and write a book(aka Dissertation)
When asked what are the challenges of being a professor he said that the hardest challege was being one person at home and a different person when he comes to work.
Now that he has accomplished his goal of becoming a teacher his sights are set on writing more books
Duis, Perry R. Professor 1022 UH MC 198
312-996-8757prduis@uic.edu

So long from da juiceman broken finger and all
Peace

My Personality type

ENFJ Popular and sensitive, with outstanding people skills. Externally focused, with real concern for how others think and feel. Usually dislike being alone. They see everything from the human angle, and dislike impersonal analysis. Very effective at managing people issues, and leading group discussions. Interested in serving others, and probably place the needs of others over their own needs. Click here for a detailed description of ENFJ.

Dream Juice

My Dream is to live a good life, and to have a positive impact on those I encounter I know it seems silly and one might question what do I mean by living a good life living a good life to me means actually living instead of conforming to many norms of society My touchstone for this dream is love (Loving life) My role model is my mom because when she was pregnant with me many people talked about her because she met my father in Jamaica and when she got back to the states she found out that she was pregnant, when my mom was younger it was traditionally expected for a woman to stop everything when she is expecting a baby, but when my mom found out that she was pregnant she did not drop out of college instead she pressed on and finished school and now she travels often and she help other people and she feels at peace with herself and her surroundings My target is a Peace Prize(Let me explain): When my life come to an end I want to be at peace with myself knowing that in this life I was able to impact others, also to be at peace knowing that I lived my life the way I wanted to live it Insight Gained: By doing this activity I realized that I have been molded by my society, but the crazy part is that while being molded I did not ask questions as to why I behaved a certain way

Apple Juice

Whats good everybody this is the one and only Juicy thats right I'm back
and I gone show yall how to get down in Dr. Rock 294 class.
I'm taking the Leadership for change course because I enjoyed the previous class that
Prof. Rock taught fall of 08.
I think thats the only reason why because I did not know what the class was about but I did know that Prof. Rock was teaching it.
Now that I know what the class is about I expect to know more about myself after the course
When I was a child I was fascinated by toys and cartoons
I always asked myself why slyvester never got a chance to actually eat tweety, or why Jerry always had to outsmart Tom
I was amazed when I recived my first ninga turtle play kit and my G.I. Joe action figures,
as a kid I was also amazed at Michael Jordan because I actually thought that he could fly
I was attracted to sports and females(because I had a huge crush for a girl named Alexis who was in first, second, and third grade with me) when I was little