My name is Valerie. Im currently in my third year at City Tech. After high school I attended St. Francis college in Brooklyn for a year before leaving to work full time. I met my husband shortly after and we opened a brick oven pizzeria, “Lucali” in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. It has been open since 2006 and is a popular restaurant and has received an number of accolades and praise among the press and foodies alike. We also have a 8 year old, Kalista, who is the apple of my eye. Though I love the restaurant business, I felt that I wanted to have my degree in what I have always had a passion for; History. I am currently matriculated in the CUNY Baccalaureate program. The discipline that I have chosen is “The History of Medicine, Women, and Ancient Civilizations”. Assuming this endeavor later on in life has most certainly been a challenge, but definitely a rewarding one. When I was a kid I aspired to become a doctor, but I always loved learning about the history of ancient civilizations, but I put that interest aside as mainly a hobby. When I decided to go back to school, I originally intended to pursue nursing. I took a Western Civilization class and realized that I truly loved History and that I wanted to pursue that road rather than nursing. With the CUNY BA Program I was able to combine both my love of medicine and history. As far as extracurricular activities are concerned I don’t have much time to pursue any between the restaurant, school and my daughter. When I do get a moment to unwind, its definitely watching good movie, listening to music, or going out to eat. I am a  huge junk food gal! I am a self professed homebody, and relish the fact whenever I get a chance just to sit and hang out.
Category Archives: Homework
The Not so Interesting Me
There is really not a lot to say about me because I do not have a very active or adventurous lifestyle.  My life does not make people âooooâ and âahhh,â so, I am introducing a plain/generic life to you.
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York with the aspiration of one day becoming a doctor. I had always set my heart to become a doctor and help others in their ailments. As I got older and tried to pursue this dream, well the dream of my parents, I volunteered at hospitals and found jobs working in the health field. I pursued something that my parents wanted me to have, however, this was not attainable for me because I was not doing well in basic biology 101. While working as a certified nurse assistant I started to learn that I did not want to work in a field that I was getting annoyed with every single day and that this field was not for me. I made up my mind that I rather make less money in a career that I love than more money in a career that I hate. I also had to make the decision to let go the definition of what was a true profession from my parentâs standpoint. Eventually, this led me to changing my major to Law and Paralegal Studies.
So, let me be honest I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I did not know anything about the law. With my own life experience, I never wanted to get involved in law. I would always say, âI do not like the police, marshals, FBI, lawyers, and anyone else involved in law enforcement.â And maybe I still have a lack of trust for them but I love the law. After getting the chance to go to the courts in my school assignments (e.g. NYS Family Court, NYS Criminal Court, NYS Civil Court, etc.), I got to experience the inner workings of the court, how the law was being used to come to the verdict, and the hard decisions that judges had to experience when deciding cases. I also got a chance to speak to a judge and realized these judges were people too. They were not piously sitting on a throne for people to bow and worship them. They had to make, sometimes, tough decisions that they could not go by their feelings alone but the law itself. Now, that I am a junior in college, I have aspirations of going to law school. I have not considered what field of law I want to work in because there are so many choices to pick from but I think when I am in law school the answer will eventually come to me.
Besides my professional goals, I also like baking. Baking is my escape from school. I can be creative and make up different flavor combinations of cakes, cookies, bars, breads, and other desserts. Law is not in my mind 24 hours a day/seven days a week, so the baking gives my mind a break from school and life. Also, my family gets to be my personal guinea pig in tasting my creations.
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”
I am actually not your father..
Aside from painting a self-portrait, introducing myself is probably the hardest thing to do. In person I would probably say hi in a sweet way, try to be funny -cue the awkward laughs- and divert the attention, as quickly as possible, to someone else. I love your dress where is it from? Â
To help with writing this I asked my friends to describe me… um after the jokes ended I was told I’m a hipster. Ha!  I used to do that before it was cool. *insert relevant emoji here* (Just in case you couldn’t tell that was a joke I’m not pretentious, well at least I hope I’m not) Why is it seemingly impossible to get serious answers from your friends?
After all that I realized I didn’t even mention the most important thing, my name. Although thinking about it now I think I should just keep my identity a secret and reveal it in a dramatic way like Darth Vader. Sorry I cut your hand off and all but guess what I’m actually 50% of the reason you exist.  *dun dun dun*
This is the part where I wish I could say I am a published, popular author or an astronaut that has been to Saturn but I can’t. Outside of my dreams I’m actually not as cool as Agent Peggy Carter and S.H.I.E.L.D doesn’t actually exist. And no matter how much I wish my Hogwarts letter got lost along the way (darn owls) I’m still stuck going to the same boring college as the rest of you. Even so, I’m still awaiting my letter to Hogwarts (or a ticket to the theme park). What do you mean I’m too old? I’m only 20, it’s not that far from 11… (I sincerely apologize if you don’t know a thing about Harry Potter or Marvel and don’t understand the references- use it as an excuse to read/watch)
On a serious note, I am so tragically average that telling you about myself would be cruel. Think the typical boring do-good protagonist in a contemporary novel, except nothing interesting ever happens to me. What I will tell you though is that I read way to many books, mostly sci-fi and fantasy, and dream about the weirdest things because of them. If asked to choose between my family or a chance to go to Disney world every day of the year, you best believe I am going to choose Disney world my family. I’m studying to be a legal drug dealer aka a pharmacist (my doctor’s words not mine), Â and the only time I will pull ‘all-nighters’ would be to finish a book or binge watch some tv show. If there was one piece of advice I was to give someone it would be to never change yourself for anyone, be yourself and don’t give up on your dreams. Be practical about it but don’t give up. (That’s not one piece is it?)
*ba dum tss*
Food is the first, the only love of my life. (Psst. If you give me free food we can be friends 0:) ) ‘ Wanderlust’ is my favorite word and also an everlasting feeling. There you have it folks, a little something about me. Looking forward to reading about you guys as well.
“Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.” –Â Virginia Woolf
Introductions
Now that our course is beginning, letâs take some time to get to know each other. Please write a blog post introducing yourself. Let us know what your interests areâacademic, extracurricular, professionalâand what makes you interesting. We’re going to start the semester with posts at approximately 350 words (approximately one typed page), so aim for that. You might consider it a draft of the bio you revise for the appropriate audience and purpose to add to your OpenLab profile or your ePortfolio, so it can do double or triple duty.
A few guidelines and instructions:
- You need to have an OpenLab account and have joined our Openlab Course to complete this assignment.
- If you do not yet have an OpenLab account, please sign up for one, and take advantage of the help materials related to signing up. Remember that you can choose any username you want, and it won’t display publicly except in the URL for your profile. You can also choose a display name that can be different from your user name. That’s how you’ll appear any time you write something or appear in a list of members.
- Once you have an account, sign in and navigate to our course profile and click on Join Now below the course avatar. You are now a member of our course on the OpenLab. Welcome!
- To write the post, click on Course Site on the right side. Then click on the (+) at the top of the screen.
- Follow the blogging guidelines for the course.
- To get credit for writing this introduction (your first homework assignment), be sure to choose the category Introductions on the right-hand side of the screen when you write your post. Just below the category options, feel free to add any tags you think reflect your post, or to choose from the tags that others have already added.
- Where it reads “Enter title here,” add an interesting title that interests your readers in what you have written.
- As I just said above, on the OpenLab, you are known only by your display name. That means that in your introduction, you do not need to identify yourself by your proper name. Please only include your proper name (first or first and last) if you feel comfortable doing so.
- Similarly, you may include a photograph of yourself if you want, but it is not required. Consider your privacy and do what makes you comfortable.
- You can link to any site, on the OpenLab or anywhere on the Web, so if, for example, you have your own blog, or did work for another class, project, club or ePortfolio on the OpenLab that you want to call our attention to, feel free to link us to other sites by highlighting the text you want to become a hyperlink and clicking on the button that looks like two links of a chain; you’ll then paste your link into the box that appears.
- As you draft you might occasionally click Save Draft on the right side. When you finish composing and proofreading your post, click the blue Publish button on the right side. If you need to make any changes, be sure to click on that same button that now read Update.
- If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this post and Iâll respond to you that way (even if you donât have an OpenLab account yet, you can still add a comment below).
- This post is due by Sunday night, February 1st.
Feel free to comment on each others’ posts–this is a great way to connect with each other and to familiarize yourself with the features of the blog. I look forward to getting to know you through your posts!
