My Service Work

Doing service work has always been something that gave me a lot of satisfaction.  I've never belonged to an organization or non- profit of any kind but I do have several examples of when I've taken it upon myself do to services for things that I believe in. 
        I've always done landscaping and for a good part of my life I worked either for myself, or for my cousin where I had complete freedom to run the day as I wished.  I would often do services for free if I truly believed the customer could not afford it.  I would form relationships with my customers and I would make it a priority to come by without being asked to offer my help with snow removal, leaf removal, hanging Christmas lights, and whatever else I was concerned my customer needed and could not do.  I can also think of several occasions of when I did there snow removal and did the neighbors house as well without being asked.  Sometimes I would see an older man shoveling snow and I would come help without expecting anything.  A lot of the time money would be given to me and that was nice but I did not do it for money and would have gladly done it without it.
      Thinking back I can begin to understand why I was and am this way.  My parents used to drop me off out in the country for weeks at a time in the summer and I would do manual labor my whole stay.  My grandmother who was in her late seventies at the time would wake me up at dawn and we would get dressed as if we were going to work.  We would chop wood, pick weeds, cut grass, shovel snow plant trees, and whatever else that we could think of doing to make the 24 acre property look nicer.  I did this all just to receive the satisfaction and pride of the outdoors and manual labor.  Many times she would send me home with a twenty dollar bill and I was very grateful, but again, the money was just a bonus.  The real gift was what I felt inside.  A connection with nature, with myself, and with God.  When I wasn't at her house I was at home doing work.  Every week when I was finished cutting my lawn I would cut Ms. Nellie's.  She was my neighbor and was in the better part of her eighties.  I would do whatever she needed.  Her husband had died and I could sense that she was lonely.  We would have tea together and she would tell me of her adventures as a young woman.  I loved listening to her and I always felt better about myself.  After tea I would begin on some of her house chores like putting things in the addict or moving furniture.  Then when the sun began to go down she would hand me 2 dollar bills and I would go to the corner store and get a snack. 
       Today, I'm a 27 year old man and I still have elderly people in my life that
I visit on a weekly basis to do yard work and house chores for.  Often I get paid and although the extra cash is appreciated, the way I feel inside is far more rewarding.  I go to Mr. Hardimans, who is in his eighties every Saturday and for four hours he has me for whatever him and his wife need done.  He's a millionaire and used to be the CEO of the New York stock exchange but  none the less, we sit and talk for at least one of those hours as if we were equals.  He doesn't act any different than anyone else and you would never know he was a millionaire, in fact it feels as if he treats me like a son.  It is truly a pleasure to spend Saturday mornings with him.  I also have a snow -plow for my truck and I plow my whole alley for free as well as touch up the street out front when needed. I also drive to my grandmother's property who is no longer with us and plow her driveway for my dad,(for free).  Every week when I cut my lawn, I also cut my neighbors, then I walk across the street and cut my mothers, and then I cut her neighbors.  So for lawns every time I cut and I do it for free.  Sometimes it takes longer then I want it to because I'm very busy, but I know I'm doing a good thing.
       So you see, I may not already belong to a non-profit organization but I do as much service work as I can reasonably fit into my schedule.  I always have and I always will.  Now I would like to take it a step further and not just help the elderly, but also help children.

My Future After CCBC

Knowing what my major would be before I started school turned how to be very helpful.  I just started here at CCBC this semester but I know what it is that I have to do while I'm here and where I am going when I'm finished.  My goal while at CCBC is to earn my Associate of Applied Science in Biotechnology.  This is a difficult degree to earn because it includes many high level sciences and maths.
      Once I have earned my A.A.S. I will then transfer to UMBC to continue pursuing my degree in the medical science field.  I will need to get my Bachelor's in Biotechnology but I am also hoping to get my PH.D.  While attending UMBC I am hoping to work part-time in a lab and then once I am finished with school it is most likely that I will work for a University or a hospital doing research.  Another job prospect at that time may be Phizer or some other large pharmaceutical company, where I'll be designing new drugs.
      Medical research and science has always been a major area of interest for me.  In the ninth grade I read the entire Pill Book from front to back and studied each drug.  I would quiz myself just for fun until I began to memorize every drug in the 1998 edition of the Pill Book.  I then took Chemistry three years in a row because I enjoyed it so much.  As I approached my mid-twenties I began coming up with therories for medicine based on my understanding of neurotransmitters.  I cannot remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday but when it comes to medical terminology I just remember.  Mostly because I want to I think.  So there you have it, I'm going to be a Medical Scientist and I figure what better place to start then to study Biotechnology right here at CCBC.

         When i was around thirteen my parents had split up and I was to move to Joppatown with my father,his girlfriend, and her son.  All of my friends lived thirty minutes away in Rosedale and I spent that summer there with them.  I allowed no time to adjust into my new home, family, and community and before i knew it orientation for highschool had passed.  I started school that year without knowing a single person.  I was transitioning to a new school, a new family, a new neighborhood, and from middle school to highschool all at once.  Needless to say as bad as I wanted to join the wrestling team I did not.  As bad as I wanted to talk to that girl, I did not.  I did not want to attend gym and after two months I was still so nervous I still couldn't find my classroom.  I then stopped going to that school, moved in with my mother and attended Overlea High where I new everyone and I was imediately one of the most popular students there.  Problem with that is that the previous nschool was much better and I would probaly have done much better academically.  The school that I transfered to allowed me to be comfortable and i worried more about keeping my reputation then i did my grades.  I couldnt wait to get out of my gifted and talented class so i could stand in the hall for five minutes with my not so gifted friends who would probaly be leaving after that class. 
          My experience or situation was very much like Tinto describes as the transitional phase and seperation.  Very clearly, I could not seperate from my past and my friends and so therefore I could not transition into my new neighborhood or school.  Tinto is very right in my opinion when it comes to his theory on intelligence having little to do with transitioning or success for for that matter.  I didnt tranition because I didnt want to.  i was not willing to let go of my past even though I knew i would be more successful at the new school.  Since i could not seperate I could not transition and therefore I could not succeed.
 When I transfer from Dundalk to a four-year college I feel that it will be a much easier transition for me then when from moving from middle into highschool.  Some reasons are that I am more mature now and I understand first hand the importance for higher education.  Also, I am not nor will I be attatched to anyone from this school.  Family has taken the place of friends and so seperation will not play a part in my transitioning process. 
     Even though those issues from the past no longer exist I do feel there will be some new ones although even that feeling may lessen when that time arrives. Being older thhen the average student, not having friends within the school and being married with childeren are all things that I feel will slightly seperate me fom the rest of the student. 
    The school(s) that Im looking into attending are UMBC and University of Maryland(College Park).  Both schools offer science and biotechnology as there main majors and unless something changes then that will be my desired major; Biotechnology. 

Childhhod Commercial

This is a Nintendo commercial from when I wa a child.  Although I do not know the exact date that this commercial came out I imagine it was between 1989 and 1991.  I was around six when my parents bought me my Nintendo for Christmas.  It was commercials like this one that had me begging my parents for a new Nintendo. 
             The fact that a young child is in the commercial shows that it is aimed towards children.  It allows them them to relate more easily when they're watching someone there own age.   Some of the appeals the commercial uses are that the child watching will feel rewarded and will gain deep satisfaction.  Its a very exciting and intense commercial and often times excitment is all it takes to catch the eye of a child. 
              The commercial doesn't seem very realistic but realistic can be boring and boring wouldn't sell very well.  Marketers want children to think that this is the coolest thing out and in that sense the commercial was realistic because it was in fact the coolest thing out.  I believe that the marketersa selling this product didn' have a very difficult time.  All they had to do is convince a child.  After that its only a matter of when is the parent going to give in to there child. 

My Name

         My name is Domonic Drozd and I've always liked my name because not many people have it so it makes me feel unique or different. It means "of the Lord", which of course helps strengthen the ego. There's something about being "God-like" has always made me feel superior. A lot of saints and cardinals were named Domonic and when I was a young child, my grandfather always played the music box of three nuns who sang a melody called "Dominque" which is the feminine version of me.
One interesting fact that I only recently learned about my last name is that after all these years of have claiming to be Polish, I am actually in fact half russian. Within the last few years, I've met a couple people of Russian heritage and as soon as I told them my last name, they recognized it to be Russian. So I then began to do some research and what I found out is although my father's parents came to The United States on a ship from Poland, their parents came to Poland from Russia. So even though the name Drozd is now considered a Polish name, the original form of the name is Drozdinski which is a Russian name.
So the name might not be completely interesting and has no remarkable stories to it, but it is my name and is special to me due to that fact alone. There is a sense of pride that I've always had and so eleven months ago when I had my first born son, I named him Domonic Andrew Drozd II after his father.