Author: Brian Tenecela (Page 6 of 7)

What are hardships? Do hardships define who we are or what we will be? An early morning I smell the sweet aromatic brewing of my mother’s coffee. I sit down at the dining table and serve myself some pancakes with a fresh hot cup of coffee, as the steaming hot vapor emerges from the coffee. With a little rush, I proceed to finish my breakfast and put on my work uniform, a gray collared long-sleeve buttoned-down shirt, black dress pants, and some black polished shoes. I step outside to a cool breeze of wind and the rumbling of the exhaust of the car as it begins to regulate after remotely being turned on. As I make my way towards my job I roll down the driver’s side window allowing the morning breeze air to flow right into the rest of the car while it hits my face gracefully as If I were on a rollercoaster. The streets are quiet as there are few cars on the road and the sidewalks in complete emptiness which normally would be filled with people chatting. Within minutes I arrive to work and as I enter the driveway to the building my boss follows right behind me.

Julie Lavelle the director of culinary services a really tomboyish woman with blonde hair who could never be missed as she drove a white 2014 Dodge Challenger with blue fire wrap on both sides of the vehicle. She parks right beside me, and as I step out of the car so does she. I greet her, “Good morning Chef” She then says “Hi sweetie, how are you I had no idea you were working today”. We chatted for a few minutes about it and how I had picked up tons of shifts to help out. She made a comment that every day I am present fabulous and tons of positive things on work being great. Keeping this moment in mind I got through the long day which started at 6 o’clock in the morning till 8 at night. My final test dates were unorganized and last minute I ended up missing them that week but everything my management, boss, and regional bosses had told me about how great I am not only as a worker but person. It kept my spirits up and made me contemplate everything. At that moment I realized I was already great as a person but I still tried my absolute best to push for more. It made me realize I had let down my education by not allowing time to be there on my finals.  The point is we all go through hardships throughout our lifetime but it’s what we do as a result of it that really matters. That day I felt like a complete failure I had let down one of my pursued goals which for me was everything because I wanted to go graduate from college with a degree to later have a profession in medicine which at the time was to be a doctor.  I’m not the one to show emotion but inside I felt like the world was crumbling there was anger, hate, sadness, and disappointment flowing all over my body.

That same day we got out of work late which never happened while I was working on shift. My coworkers noticed something was wrong and they all asked, “Is everything all right, Brian? “. “Yes, everything is fabulously screwed up” I thought to say every time I was asked. I went straight home with the hopes of finishing the day off as if it were a normal regular day. I sat at the dining room table contemplating what was next, I would have to be paying for college with money from my own pocket the way things were academically for me. As crazy as it may seem but there is a very famous saying “There is a light at the end of every tunnel. Some tunnels just happen to be longer than others” by the lovely Ada Adams and I want to say I am the perfect advocate for this quote as I can correlate it with my life. Before I continue on I would like to firstly say I am not one who answers random phone calls, especially if it happens to be late at night and I always think of this precise moment on the fact that how extremely my life would’ve been. (to be continued)

– Brian Tenecela

An early morning I smell the sweet aromatic brewing of my mother’s coffee. I sit down at the dining table and serve myself some pancakes with a fresh hot cup of coffee, as the steaming hot vapor emerges from the coffee. With a little rush, I proceed to finish my breakfast and put on my work uniform, a gray collared long-sleeve buttoned-down shirt, black dress pants, and some black polished shoes. I step outside to a cool breeze of wind as the clouds pile upon one another creating a shady cool day. I get into my car and hear the exhaust roar as I step on the pedal. As I make my way towards my job I roll down the driver’s side window allowing the morning breeze air to flow right into the rest of the car while it hits my face gracefully as If I were on a rollercoaster. The streets are quiet as there are few cars on the road and the sidewalks in complete emptiness which normally would be filled with people chatting. Within minutes I arrive to work and as I enter the driveway to the building my boss follows right behind me.

Julie Lavelle the director of culinary services a really tomboyish woman with blonde hair who could never be missed as she drove a white 2014 Dodge Challenger with blue fire wrap on both sides of the vehicle. She parks right beside me, and as I step out of the car so does she. I greet her, “Good morning Chef” She then says “Hi sweetie, how are you I had no idea you were working today”. We chatted for a few minutes about it and how I had picked up tons of shifts to help out. She made a comment that every day I am present fabulous and tons of positive things on work being great. Keeping this moment in mind I got through the long day which started at 6 o’clock in the morning till 8 at night. My final test dates were unorganized and last minute I ended up missing them that week but everything my management, boss, and regional bosses had told me about how great I am not only as a worker but person. It kept my spirits up and made me contemplate everything. At that mere moment I realized I was already great as a person but I still tried my absolute best to push for more. It made me realize I had let down my education by not allowing time to be there on my finals.

– Brian Tenecela

Are adversities important? What is adversity? Well as with most things, we acknowledge the existence of things, learn, and continue on with our lives. However, going through adversities and their importance is something that should not be overlooked.  I say this because everyone undergoes adversities but it is what we learn and proceed to do as a result of it.  One experience I underwent and as a result changed my views on education as a whole was my first year of college as the graduating high school class of 2021. The COVID pandemic was still present in my first year of college but it was slowly starting to fade as the number of cases dropped and people were beginning to take the COVID vaccines that started being available for the public. I would first like to state my last two years of High School were altered by COVID-19 and as a result had virtual classes/learning. I had convinced my job to work full time while in my last year of high school which was the beginning problem to the downfall that proceeded that came afterward of finishing my first year of college because I had decided to do overtime. Learning and reading the educational narratives we have gone over in class can be related to my perspective. One example is from Maybe I Can Save Myself by writing by a Latinx student in the sense they state “I am trying to fit in” The author shares their difficulties with coming to acceptance of themselves in society. They have the notion they don’t belong where they are and that they are better off being somewhere else. I too felt that I was not doing enough, that I could do more which is why I decided to manage work and school. However, in my case, I leaned towards work more than school.

I was getting all my assignments done and keeping up with the learning that we were going over in class. It was all going great but like that saying “All great things come to an end” by Geoffrey Chaucer I got caught up at the end. Not only did I make the big mistake of working overtime 12+ long-hour shifts. I unfortunately filled up my time to the point I had no leverage for my finals. Not even that but I didn’t follow up to exactly when they were going to happen. I missed some of my finals and as a result, was automatically given a failing grade for two classes. Then what I underwent that following year made me realize that just because I failed some classes, I wasn’t a failure. Simply because I missed my finals did not make me a failure at all, wanting to be great in all aspects was not wrong. I just did not organize myself well on time. Knowing that all I can correlate that with my perspective with education. Education is great and everyone is capable of learning. Everyone is capable of anything they put their mind to and they should not be told otherwise.

– Brian Tenecela