An Intelligent Career Choice by Professor Bert Lorenzo

I discovered many years ago my students who know what they want to do with their lives professionally and even personally tend to perform better in my courses and from discussions with them I discover they do well in their other courses too.

Not everyone has the luck to know early on what they want to do with their lives. Some discover their call as children but some 50 year olds still don’t know what they want to do when they grow up.

Consult can help. Some discover what they want to do or what they might enjoy when they talk with those who know how to approach this problem. I tend to give students who talk with me about this a set of tips I think work excellently but I won’t mention them here. I have a different goal here.

I want to suggest a profession with a solid future and list some benefits practioners enjoy. We’ve left the Information Age in the United States and now live in what I like to call the Content Age. We have all sorts of devices and media that need material. Technology for the most part exists to provide content: images, words and sounds. Young people inclined toward photography, art, computer graphics, design and especially composition have an opportune future.

No matter how advanced the technology we still need content, good content but we don’t have enough content much less the good kind. Notice how many technical advances we have in cable television yet much programming gets repeated and recycled. Program production and content tend to require more money than technological advancement does but this will change. Young people will see to it.

Quality creative people will find a niche in the Content Age. Take Pixar for example. The movies Steve Jobs and his coworkers have made there and distributed through Disney stand among the most successful movie ventures of all time. They didn’t have a single star yet some contributed their voices. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc. make but a short example of content genius. People paid to see these films for the story and images. The material and art made these films. We’ll see more productions where no stars need apply. Content will rule so I see nothing but opportunity for creative types especially writers who do what they must to establish themselves.

All professional must establish themselves. This takes years. Professionals must establish their abilities, commitment and philosophy. Once writers do this they can reap many benefits.

Writers can work from anywhere because of technology. They can work from home. Established writers enjoy great independence and leisure. The disciplined can do terrific things with these two benefits. Writers get to do something valuable. They can steer their careers to where they choose the topics about which they write so they can choose topics they consider of merit.

The best at their craft can develop a brand and gain a following. They have fans. They become stars. Which lawyers, accountants or engineers can claim this? Writers can develop their style. They can approach their work in a limitless number of ways. Few professionals have this luxury because rules, codes, traditions all bound them. Most importantly the best writers can shape the future and make life better for their readers and listeners.

Start today if you like what you’ve read. In ten years and after steady practice you could stand among the best.

Copyright Bert Lorenzo, 2011

Woman of the Sea by Dr. Harold Mahabir

Of Things, Sketches and Reflections is one of the early publications by Trinidad-born, Dr. Harold Mahabir, who is an adjunct member of the College Prep Department. This poem was published in the Trinidad Express, one of the leading Caribbean newspapers, when his book was reviewed, "I like these poems which were featured by the Express, not only for there indigenous settings, but for the symbolic strength and endurance of woman."

She scurries in her pirogue across the sea

like through a roadway in an automobile,

rounds the corners of sharp coves and bays

rides the potholes and ruts of changing

troughed waves.She is open

to the tropic temperaments

to the sun's blister without a cloud

the rains that look like a wet-look cloth.

Each day she ferries her child to school

and returns, without need of fisherman parent

or spouse. She unmoors her boat

pulls on its power

directs it with stern grip on rudder

her keel aslant

high on a wave crest

squirting the frantic waters like squids' legs.

She had dipped her childhood years

into the sea, floated up and swam

like a foetus in amnion,

like a floating nereid

familiar with the wave foams

as the white divides on a pitch-road.

I stand like Darwin and watch

this creature of adaptation, this woman

who scales a rockface to her yard

where her fine trees bear

the floral centres of finer threads;

who jumps from sea to land

like an amphibian

With Cancer and With Child by Dr. Harold Mahabir

Of Things, Sketches and Reflections is one of the early publications by Trinidad-born, Dr. Harold Mahabir, who is an adjunct member of the College Prep Department. This poem was published in the Trinidad Express, one of the leading Caribbean newspapers, when his book was reviewed, "I like these poems which were featured by the Express, not only for there indigenous settings, but for the symbolic strength and endurance of woman."

Her time skated on the hazards

of a roller, on the tumorous ball

tossed to jerk and rhythm

of her lung. And each blood-bit coughed up

was a little life-spill.

Wells for eyes,their ink

wrote the lustres of her life

marked hope with her hand

on the limbs moving in her womb.

There lay the continuity

amid nature's felling nonchalance.

her hair flared down her shoulder

like a prayer-shawl,plaited into thickness

like a rope moored to the gates

of a Seventh Heaven, to the mat folded

after her noon-tide zorah.

She prayed on the count of her beads

a hundred times around.Acceptance

fulfilled her extended hands, peace

numbed her to the probe in her spine.

And her strength became memorial.

A Message to Students by Bert Lorenzo

As a youth I set a goal.
I would read more, think more,
remember more and know more
than anyone in the room.
I knew the competition prepared
so I prepared to meet the challenge.
What about you?
If we meet someday
do you think you could read, think,
remember and know more than me?
Will you prepare for the challenge?
Now’s the time.

Copyright Bert Lorenzo, 2011

Why Read? by Professor Bert Lorenzo

I have two answers for the question of why read. We need to read because only through practice can we master the most important of the academic skills. Skills like playing a musical instrument, drawing, writing need a coach but students can improve their reading effectively on their own. We live in an ever increasingly sophisticated society. This makes literacy paramount. People read constantly because of technology that requires it but do they read effectively? They must learn to do so. Through enough practice they can become masters or outliers of the skill. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers suggests 10,000 hours of practice. This takes about ten years so start today. Set a schedule and a place to read regularly. Create your own bookroom where you can go undisturbed to read, think and analyze.

I write this today though because of the second answer. We need to read better because without it we can’t even begin to succeed in a sophisticated society such as ours. In every field we continue to witness innovation and advanced technology and practices. New textbooks reflect these advancements. Soon even the best minds won’t be able to read said textbooks without superior reading ability.

Master readers can make themselves rich. The most successful in any field read better than their competition. Take John Paulson for example. As president of Paulson & Company he manages people’s money. He decides in which companies to invest or divest his clients’ money and he does it well. Last year as we heard constantly from reporters and politicians about the recession, the weak economy and high unemployment Paulson earned five billion not million but billion dollars. How did he do it? He reads masterfully. He reads better than other investors. He probably reads better than most professors. He reads about the economic health of companies around the world and makes extremely educated and intelligent decisions about whether or not and how much to invest in those companies. He sits, reads, thinks and makes himself and many others rich. Not a bad way to spend a day.

Master readers can impact history. Take Malcolm X for example. He spent six years in prison and during that time he read more than most people probably read in a lifetime. He wrote in his autobiography that he wanted to imitate his role model John Elton Bembry and, “command total respect with words.” Malcolm X read everything prison administrators permitted and things they didn’t permit too. Reading had a cathartic effect on him. He turned his rage into reason. He changed himself and with his mind began to change those around him. He created work for himself. He became perhaps the best public speaker and lecturer of his time. He read, wrote and spoke about myriad topics and left the world a different place than how he found it.

Master readers increase their intelligence. Some psychologists believe humans have a fixed intelligence. I disagree. Take the expression that knowledge is power. I interpret power to mean intelligence. More knowledge means more intelligence. We gain knowledge through limited sources. Longfellow wrote, “A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years’ study of books.” I agree but how many of us could find such a person? We need to read for pleasure and information. Information, ideas, facts, opinions constitute the ingredients of knowledge. Reading is our best source of knowledge. To paraphrase Franklin, reading can make us healthy, wealthy and wise.

Copyright Bert Lorenzo, 2010

Geisha-Friends by Ms. Carmen Welsh

Geisha-Friends

The Age of Women By Professsor Bert Lorenzo

I favor women. I grew up surrounded by aunts, female cousins, sisters and my mother and their female friends so I’ve always found comfort, peace and safety in their company. I’ve also felt more at ease with female friends and I don’t speak guy talk fluently. To paraphrase Richard Dreyfuss in Whose Life is it Anyway?, I love everything about women especially the way they think. I think it great the future trend of women gaining more power in the world.

We live in an exciting time because we will witness the birth of a new age. Those of us of a certain age witnessed the birth of the information age. Now we enter the age of women. The former lead to the latter. Women will lead in the even newer age of information manipulation.

We live in an increasingly sophisticated world. The brain has surpassed brawn in the workplace and on the battlefield. Women outnumber men in classrooms in the U.S. and in many other first world countries. This bodes well for women economically and politically while men suffer high unemployment rates and tyrants lose power. Women develop their communication, reasoning and organizational skills at a much higher rate than men and increasing show more courage than men in extremely dangerous situations.

In Cuba Las Damas de Blanco take to the streets every day to protest the increasingly repressive communist regime. They speak, absent men, on behalf of political prisoners and democracy. Every day they suffer physical and psychological abuse but they remain undeterred.

In Venezuela recently elected representative Maria Corina Machado is the lone, loud voice in Venezuela’s national assembly. She argues against the increasingly repressive Chaviztas. I urge you to view her February 24, 2011 speech at the national assembly. I remind you she criticizes the Chavez regime at risk to her and her family’s safety. I predict her the next Venezuelan president.

In the Middle East and in the U.S. more and more Muslim women, not men, write and speak-up against the pox that has infested that classical culture. These Muslim women, not men, have the courage to admit the Muslim problem in the world.

In the business world all major companies and corporations run by women have done well during the economic shift of the past few years and through their innovation and hard work women drive the economic explosion of developing nations like India, Brazil and Chile and in U.S. politics women continue to gain power. More and more women have seats in congress and in the executive cabinet. I predict a woman the next U.S. President.

In the second and especially the third world women still suffer. They’ve made little ground on men and because tyrants rule in these two worlds neither sex has opportunity to evolve. Women particularly have a terrific plight because superstition and chauvinism flourish in these countries. How can women advance and make their countries better when men in those countries can “legally” rape, perform female genital mutilation and kill women for honor?

I have hope that the lives of these women and of their daughters will improve thanks to their own efforts, the increased free flow of information and long-distance communication tools.

Copyright Bert Lorenzo, 2011

GQ Guy by Ms. Maria Balcelo

A picture in a GQ magazine inspired Maria to sketch this piece.
She used paper and pencil, very simple materials.

Why Write? by Professor Bert Lorenzo

I remind my students at the start of every semester I consider my course the most valuable they’ll ever take not because of me but because of the value of writing and of writing clearly. I discuss many of the purposes of writing and we talk a lot about academic and professional writing and how in these situations clarity should always remain job one because we write in these cases to communicate ideas and directions. Whether we write for one reader or thousands we must make sure they understand the message.

We live in an ever increasing sophisticated society. This makes literacy paramount. My students read and write constantly because of technology that requires it but do they read and write effectively? They must learn to do so.

I don’t talk to them much about personal writing like journals, diaries and letters but they also serve important purposes but personal writing can teach us about ourselves or help us learn period. Writing can even have a therapeutic effect-very important in a sophisticated society. Two of my favorite therapies rely on writing extensively.

In the Japanese Naikan Therapy the therapist teaches clients how to practice gratitude and to focus on the good things and people in their lives. Many people make our lives possible and bearable but we don’t often focus on that. Naikan therapists have their clients write lists of all the people who make their day possible: the grocer, the farmer, the bus driver, the soldier, the waiter. The list gets very long as the therapist helps patients brainstorm. Sometimes clients work on their lists for days in seclusion. They even write thank you letters. I don’t know enough about the therapy so I don’t know whether they send the letters.

In Narrative Therapy clients write about events in their lives to help deconstruct those events and make new, more mentally healthy meaning or interpretation. Through writing they discover they’d distorted what happened. Through writing they learn and find reality and clarity. They discover writing can help them take control of a problem and can help reshape their identity. Narrative therapists conclude all events influence our lives. Because writing helps us learn we discover how a particular event impacted us manifold from our values to our health. Narrating the event helps us “re-story” it. From there we can conquer the problem.

Therapeutic writing can help us conquer fear, depression, anxiety, anger. One therapeutic theory says that you need to get it out of your system. If you feel angry with someone try this. Write him a letter and really tell him what you think. Then put away the letter. Return to it three days later and decide then if you want to mail it. You may have gotten the anger out of your system just by writing. You can now destroy the letter before anyone else reads it.

This simple exercise may cool your anger and perhaps help you keep a friend. Most people who write letters in anger and send them probably live to regret it.

Literacy gives us power. I hope you’ll exercise it.

Copyright Bert Lorenzo, 2010

Social Contract by Dr. George M. Gabb

Of dreams I fly of times long gone by

Since my eyes first saw the dawn

Where the thundering of hooves now quiet

After the lions, no longer hungry, lay lazily

And from lush green savannahs to dust driven dens

My mind ravenous with curiosity

I ventured into the powdered white north and tropical paradises

And to this day, without greed, I made neither haste nor waste

I persisted and I flourished

Until the chains of civilization placed my children into bondage

I am judged by the color of my skin

Not by my miracles nor the magnitude of my sins

Though sensibilities would believers of us make

That thousands of years of progress we have made to date

Yet, I am punished for my only offense

The very breath that I take

In apprenticeship of learned men

I thrive, I build, I embrace the art of Zen

From the ruins of Egypt, Rome, and Greece

To the east where live the Persians, the Hindu, the Chinese

I till the soil, mine the earth, and raise edifices that

Sing heavenly tribute to eras gone by

That haunts my soul, enslave my body, and condemn my children

I forge forward frayed conquistador satiated on the sanguine promise,

We will inherit it all

I am judged by the color of my skin

Not by my miracles nor the magnitude of my sins

Though sensibilities would believers of us make

That thousands of years of progress we have made to date

Yet, I am punished for my only offense

The very breath that I take

Obese with the luxury to freely roam

Every crevice of theories, thought, and ideas

We stumble onto each new day unaware of our fortune

Where in gilded homes we rest, we feed, we caress

And in fancy chariots we traverse Eden renovated with cement and steel

The same path today, the same path yesterday, the same path tomorrow

And if we vary we see clearly the empty promise of home

Our caves, our fields, our forests, our streams

Heavy their burden on the children of our Fathers’ dreams

Their lies, our tears, we part at the seams

We divert our eyes, clench our purses, believing this is not me

We are true to form and to history’s recursivity

I am judged by the color of my skin

Not by my miracles nor the magnitude of my sins

Though sensibilities would believers of us make

That thousands of years of progress we have made to date

Yet, I am punished for my only offense

The very breath that I take

I will continue to persist for I wish to do more than exist

I aspire to civility