My literacies

Throughout my life, I have learned many things and found many hobbies. Naturally, as one tends to do, some hobbies and skills became things that I became very interested in or very good at, thus, making me literate in the different areas. Some of those hobbies/activities for me are: Watches, Cars, Bussing Tables, and Grammar........yes, Grammar.

First, Watches. Ever since I was about 13 years old, I have wanted a nice watch. Basically, I feel as though men don't have a lot of options when it comes to buying nice things. Women have necklaces, rings, bracelets, purses, etc, but what do men have? Watches. I received my first nice watch last christmas. My girlfriend bought me a black seiko with diamond hour markers, and from that moment on, I was hooked. I currently have a watch collection of 5 watches, I would have 6 but I sold one to get another. My watches span from my rather simple black seiko, to my newest/most pricey watch, a custom order diamond Movado. After buying some watches, I eventually wanted to learn how they work and how to put them together, so I am currently in the process of teaching myself about watches.

I have always had a fascination with cars. After many years and car shows, I can identify cars at night, from a distance, simply by their headlights. This helps sometimes with identifying police cars as well. I have also been interested in the inner workings of cars, but still only have a slight understanding of how they work/ how to fix them.

I have worked at Luciano's Restaurant in Wrentham, Ma for almost two years now. There are some days when I don't mind it, and there are others where I swear if the food weren't so good, and weren't free, I would quit. It is an upscale restaurant close to Gillette Stadium that is frequented every once in a while by Patriot's players, such as Vince Wilfork, Teddy Bruschi, Wes Welker, as well as former Patriot's player, TIm Tebow. During the past two years, I have essentially perfected the art of bussing tables. After practicing for so long, I basically do two jobs, I do my job, and then help the waiters and get paid extra. Not everyone can do this, but since I am able to complete my work quickly, I have time to do more, which helps a lot at the end of the day. I am currently in the process of making the transition to a waiter due to my good work, but I can definitely say that I am literate in bussing. I think working everyone should at some point in their life work in a restaurant. It is hard work but it usually pays off if you can handle it. The link below details some responsibilities for your typical busboy, but trust me, it is a job that has many different tasks, more than are mentioned.
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/kind-job-busboy-do-1214.html

Grammar, a topic that usually scares people, is something that I have been studying for many years. The reason that I am including this is because I have done a lot of learning outside of school. Once I started taking Portuguese in High School, I started to become interested in language structure, ended up buying a number of books, and studying outside of school due to pure interest. What started as a simple interest turned into my future career and college major. Ask me about the indicative mood, or the subjunctive mood, or verb tenses and I can describe them in and out. It is because of this that I believe learning out of school is just as important as in school.

While these things don't have much in common, I believe they will all help me some day in the classroom, for a number of reasons. Watches and Cars have taught me and attention to detail and working with small parts, as well as learning not only what things are, but also how they work. Bussing tables has taught me work ethic. In my opinion, restaurant work is some of the hardest work, people come and go at a very fast rate, few actually stay for extended periods of time. Two years is like 20 years in a restaurant. Working here has taught me how to handle stressful situations with a smile. I have learned to not let anything get to me at work. Finally, having a very profound understanding of my content area due to outside work is obviously useful because teachers need to be experts in their content areas. Overall, even though none of these are really related, they all contribute to my future goals.