An Interview with David Lapota

1. Which college or university did you attend?
2. What was your major?
3. Did you have to take any classes that you weren't expecting to have to take for your majoring choice? For example, lots of math courses for an English language major.
4. How did that help you with your previous jobs (if any) and/or career choice?
5. Before you attended college, did you think you would be in the field you are in now?

1. How long have you worked with SPAWAR
2. Why did you decide to work here?
3. Did you have any other jobs before working here?
4. The SPAWAR campus is quite large. Were you intimidated at all when you first started working here?
5. Does working with this company have any advantages that working with a similar company?

1. What is your earliest memory as a child?
2. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? How long did you stick to that?
3. What is your biggest success in life, thus far?
4. Do you think your job has changed your personality at all?
5. Have you ever been an intern? Did you ever think that you'd be mentoring interns?

1. What is your most favorite part of your job?
2. What is your least favorite part of your job?
3. Is this your ideal workplace?
4. Do you enjoy studying marine life?
5. How do you think your work impacts the lives of the common people?

Internship

My first day was not as exciting as I'd hoped it would be. In actuality, it was quite boring and monotonous. I am working in a laboratory with three other students, one from High Tech High, and the other two from International. In the lab, we don't so much test as we do preparations. We use samples taken from multiple beaches and bays along the San Diego coastline that are very heavy in bioluminescent bacteria called Dino Flaggelates. With those samples we count the number of Dino Flaggelates in a 1mL sample. This is done to find the number of bacteria per 'x-amount' sample. After that, we used different samples taken, yet again, from beaches and bays along the San Diego coastline and do various tests on them. We use a refractometer to check the solidity of the water and we simultaneously test for pH levels in the water. Sound familiar? After that, we take the samples and add water fleas to them to eat up all the other bacteria for further testing of which I cannot remember was for.

I got to my internship through public transportation. My route is the 28 westbound, then I transfer to the 84 westbound to the Submarine Station. I get off at the front gate for SPAWAR and show the security guards my visitor badge and school ID for reference. I got home a similar way, yet slightly different. While at internship today, I made friends with the two of the three other students there (the other intern was absent) and one of them, Emily from International, offered me a ride to the Old Town trolley station. From there, I took the trolley home.

As for lunch, I did the same thing I normally do: eat at Vons with Rodrigo!

All in all, my first day at internship can be labeled as a success!

Historic Adresses

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32^nd President of the United States of America, spoke to the people on the morning of March 4, 1933 to give his inauguration speech. His speech directly and memorably addressed the Great Depression and his hope to rectify it and bring America back on its feet. In his speech, FDR spoke with an air of hope and inspiration that was well needed during that time of anguish and despair. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inauguration speech makes connections to present day events such as the current recession and the multiple bank foreclosures.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into presidency in 1933, the country was already crumbling. At the time, the country had suffered three years of economic depression already and it was still going. Almost half America’s 24,000 banks had failed which had destroyed the savings of many depositors. In addition, millions of people were either out of work or had jobs that couldn’t pay enough to survive during this economic crisis. FDR had proposed a plan to help change all this. His plan was very fittingly called the New Deal.

The New Deal was a “sequence of programs he initiated between 1933 and 1936 with the goal of giving work (relief) to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the economy during The Great Depression.” The First New Deal was a plan for short-term relief which Paul Krugman states “wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run.” FDR’s Second New Deal is the long-term, more successful of the two plans. His Second New Deal focused on “labor union support, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief program, the Social Security Act, and programs to aid farmers, including tenant farmers and migrant workers.” In his first inauguration speech, FDR proclaims “Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.” This definitely relates to why the second of the two New Deal plans worked so much better, because he put people to work with the second plan.

In this economic recession, President Barack Obama and his cabinet have probably the toughest decisions to make in regards to fixing the situation of banks failing. In addition to this, they are also faced with the task of helping decrease the unemployment rate. Although they aren’t pressed for short-term solutions, nor have any, Obama and his economic team are working towards reaching a solid one.

You can see that through the first inauguration speech made by FDR, there are many things that are said about the times then that still pertain to the times today. Mainly being the state of the economy and how he, as a newly-elected president at the time, would attempt to rectify it.

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"Franklin D. Roosevelt: First Inaugural Address. U.S. Inaugural Addresses. 1989." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Thesaurus and hundreds more. 22 Jan. 2009 .

"Op-Ed Columnist - Franklin Delano Obama? - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 22 Jan. 2009 .

"Obama Has No Quick Fix for Banks - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 22 Jan. 2009 .

"FDR's First Inaugural Address Declaring 'War' on the Great Depression." National Archives and Records Administration. 22 Jan. 2009 .

"New Deal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 22 Jan. 2009 .

Obama's Inauguration

"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage."

This was stated by President Barack Obama in his inauguration address to the people of the United States. This resonates with me because throughout this economic crisis, I felt as if I were the only person that really saw the hope in this country. When he said this earlier this morning, I heard something that gave me more hope in the country because I feel we will have a leader that could actually lead the country.

As stated above, his words relate to everyday life as I know it by way of sharing the same hopeful outlook through all of this hardship in America's economy.

Artist Statement Outline

Dustin Kensrue's lyrics create a literal connection to the Great Depression by juxtaposing a helpful outlook with a somber outlook of an event which I interpreted to be this historical period.

helpful:
great depression caused by stock market crash
stock market is based on money
money will be the entity addressed in my writing
The first and third lines of the three quatrains provides a list of things that money does to help.
It seems as if it were written in a way such that money is talking to another person.

somber:
The second and fourth lines of the three quatrains, for the most part, provide an aside of sorts that is stated in a more somber tone than the first and third lines. Although some lines do seem to be positive, the first and third lines of the three quatrians are moreso.
The final couplet provides us with a line that is quite evidently the most somber thought within the 14 lines. "And after all of this, I am amazed that I am cursed more than I am praised." This line while being somber, gives us headroom to fit it to interpretations such as mine. While the Great Depression was a horribly sad time, if you look at the line positively you can see that, if taken as a direct referrence to the Great Depression, it could mean that America was given an opportunity to build upon it's past failures and failed to recognize that aspect of the event.

Internship Blog

1. What do you hope to learn or discover about the "adult" world of work while you are at your internship?

I hope to gain a better understanding of what it's like to work in the "adult" world. In addition, I would like to understand what kind of work a business has to endure to reach a final product.

2. What do you hope to learn or discover about yourself and your identity while you are at your internship this semester?

I hope to understand my limits better. I don't know what exactly I'm capable of doing, as of yet, although I feel as if through this semester long "project" I will be able to further understand what I'm capable of doing, and also how I go about accomplishing tasks. I hope that this experience will open my eyes wider to see what I can do to improve my ethics at school, and further on into the workplace.

3. What goals do you have for yourself for your internship experience?

My goal for this internship experience - as cliche as it is - is to do my best because through that I will hope to learn what I stated above.