Jean-Luc Marcel Antoine, is a native of Haiti and has been living in New York City since a major earthquake damaged a huge part of his beloved homeland in 2010. He has found NYC to be a wonderful second home and he wants to make the most out of the opportunities the city has to offer. Because of his love, appreciation, interest and passion for science, biomedical sciences, he is currently pursuing a bachelor degree in Bioinformatics at New York City College of Technology. He enjoys participating in clubs and other fun extracurricular activities at City Tech and other places to broaden his horizons and meet new people along the way. Jean-Luc has many passions and one which is photography. Through photography he loves to document about the New York experience by looking at it from an inside perspective. By exploring NYC’s interesting places and events, he has found to be a passion to show his discoveries by portraying New York’s uniqueness, diversity, people and culture. Thus he is a photo blogger at the City Tech OpenLab’s  “The Buzz” which is a great platform for him to share his art with the City Tech community and the world. Not just for entertainment, Jean-Luc is a football (soccer) fanatics that loves and is a very die hard supporter of the beautiful game especially for his beloved team New York City FC for which he has traveled in many parts of the country to see play. Apart from that Jean-Luc is someone that likes taking part in adventures to travel to influence and help others by volunteering and in any other ways possible in order to make the world a better place.

This semester, my blogging of interest and what going to focus about is a project that I call “Humans of City Tech”. It is an idea inspired by Brandon Stanton whom is the creator of the fantastic New York’s blog “Humans of New York”. My goal is to create a movement in order to humanize the community of New York City College of Technology by featuring the humans that study, work, freqent affiliated in some ways and frequent this institution. Thus basically the idea is to go around City Tech and to interview students, faculty and staff and tell their stories in the most unique ways from their own perspective and find what makes them apart from everyone else. I plan to have conversations with people from the City tech community in which they tell me about a particular question that I asked or anything they want to share. One huge aspect of the project is to connect the students, faculties and staff stories with their portrait or a photo that can best represent them.   The reason why I’m so interested to take on this new project and to do “Humans of City Tech” (HOCT) is because I want to humanize City Tech. Some people may have a lot of interesting things to share or is looking to be heard but do not have the audience to listen to them, thus by sharing their stories or any particular thing about them, I’m hopeful that they will have the chance to get noticed by all City Tech community. It is a good way for students and others from the City Tech community to make friends, connection and find people that have similar interests as them.

A lot of people fantasize on having a fairytalelike, fantastic and unique wedding. However, actually having it is one of the best moments someone can experience in life. Perfection is subjective of course, and many may argue that it is not attainable, however Tirzah walking down the aisle being accompanied by Spiderman (NYCFC_Spiderman) and Patrick being in a crowd full of cheering NYCFC fans, was perfect in their eyes. Everyone in the crowd made the couple feel special and they absolutely loved it. The fans’ hands held high up in the sky, were chanting their names and jumping in joy with the newlyweds. They were also celebrating in the most beautiful, colorful and expressive ways with smoke bombs, balloons, banners and scarves held up high to show their love and passion for NYCFC

If you were not there to see this beautiful ceremony unfolding and be part of that lovely and great atmosphere, you definitely missed a unique experience, but don’t worry you can always releive the moment here https://vsco.co/zeusnycfc/grid/1 but being there in person was a whole other experience.

Apparently, if you and your spouse are die-hard and passionate New York City Football Club fans, having a NYCFC theme wedding is the perfect way to celebrate your special day. And rightly so, that was the dream wedding that Tirzah and Patrick Rivera made a reality on  a beautiful day of March 13th, 2016 at The Bronx under the 4 train tracks next to the Yankee Stadium. They specifically chose that particular day and location to celebrate their union, due to the fact it was NYCFC’s 2016 season home opener.

At the beginning when Tirzah and Patrick announced that they wanted to have a NYCFC hooligan theme wedding, they knew they were going to have the time of their lives , but they definitely were not expecting it to be so thrilling. It will take something 10 times as marvelous to even attempt to top this glorious weeding.

Your wedding day is for you to shine and to celebrate love with your significant other. It is the perfect opportunity to say “I do”, and to passionately kiss your lover while having tears sliding down your eyes. Thus, what is better than celebrating your special day with people that you love and in a way that make you and your lover the most happy? It did not matter if the people attending were family,  or even strangers, they all celebrated together for Tirzah and Patrick as one big family and made them feel special and have a hell of a wedding.

One thing for sure, if you live in New York City or you are an NYCFC fan into carnavalesque, festive and public celebrations, NYCFC supporters are an interesting group of people to invite to your events such as weddings, parties, birthdays etc. NYCFC supporters are passionate, lively, and an expressive group of people.

The reason for that is simply because NYCFC fans and football/soccer fans in general are one of, if not the most  prideful people about their team and city.When they get together as one to showcase this pride, it is a very powerful phenomena to see or experience. Thus, when Tirzah and Patrick experienced the grandeur of NYCFC fans, they wish they could do it over and over again.

NYCFC fans from all walk of life gathered to celebrate with the couple in order to make their wedding everything that they wanted it to be. But how amazed were Tirzah and Patrick when they realized that the wedding ceremony amazingly exceeded their expectations! It was the kind of scenes you usually see in movies, however this was reality and that day, reality was more than extraordinary! It was the first NYCFC’s fans wedding and one the most stunning and beautiful that I have ever attended.

Everything was wonderful as people were celebrating with the couple, but being officially married was all Tirzah and Patrick were waiting for. Thus when the moment finally arrived for the ceremony to take a more romantic tone, that’s when the couple started to be really excited and emotional. Tirzah was not feeling anything other then extreme happiness and likewise for Patrick who eagerly wanted to take her in his arms and to kiss her. So when their great friend who was their wedding officiant  said “By the power vested in me by the state of New York, I know pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.” Patrick jumped and did not hesitate to make the moment he was waiting for the most count.

The couple could not wait to tie the knot and for those two lovebirds, sharing their special day with NYCFC was the ideal way to truly feel happy. And indeed what a beautiful wedding it was. Everyone was in good spirit and celebrating with the lovers and  NYCFC friends to make their wedding a success and once a life time experience for them.

Congratulations to Patrick Rivera and Tirzah Rivera for this astounding showcase of love and passion for themselves and New York City Football Club.

In football/soccer the supporters are the best thing that teams are the most grateful for. The teams and players know nothing is more powerful, motivating and a morale booster than having passionate supporters singing, chanting and cheering for them during the all 90 minutes of the game. Thus by no means do football/soccer teams take their supporters for granted.

Teams have many loyal fans that love them unconditionally. As a result, players make playing and winning not only about a paycheck and a personal satisfaction,  but instead it becomes a collective effort to play with their hearts, to give it all they got, and playing well in order to show to the fans that they truly appreciate their support. Players would not only show the same love and passion to the fans, they will also fight for them as best as they can on the field to win in a convincing manner. However one thing that is truly remarkable about football/soccer fans, no matter how bad their team is doing, they will be there every single games encouraging and cheering on the team at their lowest in order to bring back to better days. Thus you could not imagine the joy that supporters get when their team respond back and are showing that same love back to their fans by winning but most importantly giving all their best out there on the field.

Therefore, the only way to really witness or be part of this phenomenon, is to experience it for yourself. Luckily you won’t have to go too far to see or experience this, there is New York City Football Club (NYCFC) right here in New York that play at Yankee Stadium where supporters at the supporters sections, get really passionate about their team and show that passion at every game.

Photo taken at Yankee Stadium

Photo taken at Yankee Stadium

Photo taken at Yankee Stadium

Photo taken at Yankee Stadium

Driving in New York City, is obviously different than driving on a highway, urban, or rural areas.. Surely, everyone has different driving skills, but for many it is a challenge to drive in the city. Have you ever been stuck in traffic in New York City? That could be one of the worst situation to be but, also the most interesting. Well, we know the nature of New Yorkers; some aren’t really nice thus one can imagine what type of situations that can arise.

But New York City’s streets are unlike other cities, thus being stuck in traffic can be very interesting.  Especially in the city where it can be a great challenge to move around. Many even say if you can drive in the city, it is possible that you can drive anywhere else. Some streets in Manhattan are intimidating because they are narrow and pedestrians a lot of the times disregard the lights making dangerous for drivers to deal with. This makes a lot of people want to avoid driving in the city because of the fear of striking someone. However, at least for the most part New Yorker’s respect the laws of the street and the signs, imagine the chaos that it could have been if everyone was going crazy on the streets.

 Photo taken in Manhattan

Photo taken in Manhattan

Photo taken in Manhattan

Photo taken in Manhattan

Photo taken in Manhattan

Photo taken in Manhattan

Photo taken in Manhattan