Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

Hundreds of people have been given the name Neil Dias. Thousands have been born on April 16, 1988. Millions have been raised in Long Island. These facts do not identify who I am; they are rather just some statistics about myself. My surroundings have influenced the person who I am today and have helped to create this identity that people know as Neil Dias. I am a family man. Family is my first priority and I care very much for them. I have an older brother, an older sister, and two loving parents. I was born and raised in a small town in Long Island and have only known this surrounding so far in my life. I can be described with such words as loyal, caring, and determined. I am very close to my family, and leaving them to go to college is a big change for me, however it’s just an adjustment that I’ll have to get used to, and so far it hasn’t been too bad. My mom has two jobs. She has been a nurse for over 20 years and a full-time mom for about 27 years. She shows her love for me by often smothering me with kisses. As I am the youngest child, she loves babying me by making me food everyday, doing my laundry, etc. Out of my whole family, I am probably closest with her and we don’t usually have arguments or fights. When I was younger and afraid to sleep in my bed alone, I would run to my parent’s room and sleep next to my mom. This made me feel safe and warm. Sleeping in her bed was one of my favorite memories growing up because of the way it made me feel. My mother has had a huge influence on the person who I’ve become today. With any other mother, I think that I would be a very different person. If I had a stricter mother, I would be more tempted to disobey her and do drugs and be bad. It would make it more tempting because when someone tells me that I can’t do something, it makes me want to do it more. Since my mom is more relaxed about things, I learn on my own and I choose not to do certain things. In college, I’ve noticed how many people with strict parents go crazy during the first month. Since they don’t drink often, they don’t know their tolerance level and therefore when they come here, they drink too much and get into trouble. Also as a kid growing up, my mom had enrolled me into little league, every year from 1st grade to 7th grade. She was there to root me on in most of my games, and that showed me how much she really cared. Most moms are too tired to go to their son’s baseball games after a long day of work. I felt motivated to play well, just because she was there watching me. I’d practice with my brother and I got better and better. By performing well in my baseball games and having my mom there to cheer me on, this gave me confidence as a kid, which is very important for a young child growing up. My brother, Amrish, is 27 years old, and he is a mortgage banker. He is the loudest and most outgoing person in my family. Although he has his own apartment and has a successful job, I sometimes wonder how he could still be such a kid. He jokes around a lot immaturely and likes to have fun. I like hanging out with him because he’s fun to be around and I don’t see him too often. When I was younger, we would wrestle a lot and he’d always beat me up. His reasoning for that was that he was teaching me how to fight. And after every fight, he would put his dirty socks in my mouth as a finishing move that he always did. Despite our fights, I always looked up to my brother and I wanted to be like him. He would train me in different sports and teach me a lot of things. He taught me things from how to swing a baseball bat, to how to get things from our mom. I used to be shy in elementary school and I just clung onto a couple of my friends and didn’t really talk to many other kids. So when I was going into the 2nd grade, I was in a camp program for my school over the summer and my brother was my counselor. He would get me involved in a lot of things by giving me special attention since I’m his little brother. I gained a lot of new friends because of him and that made me happy and more confident about myself. For example, usually captains in a kickball game are the two best players, so my brother would assign me and someone else who was really good as captains. This made me feel good because I felt like I was one of the best players. Since I felt like one of the best, I performed like one of the best. I live in a town called Roslyn where there isn’t much to do at all. On a typical Saturday night I would go to New York City with my friends, and discover the club and bar scenes. I found trips to the city as very enjoyable because I liked being in an urban setting, as opposed to always being in the suburbs. Most people in Roslyn tend to be superficial and stuck up. It’s the place where rich teenagers sell drugs, simply because $200 a week isn’t enough from their parents (ask Adam even). Seeing these kids sell drugs, and especially get caught while doing so, shows me how stupid they really are. There is no need to sell drugs when you live a comfortable lifestyle in a safe neighborhood. They risk so much to gain so little. To be honest, I once considered selling marijuana because I had a friend that did so and he made a lot of money for a high school kid. However, the more I hung out with that friend, the more I realized how his life revolved around smoking pot, selling pot and stealing pot. I didn’t want this to be a part of my life, and I’d rather work harder and longer in a real job earning legitimate money. Another thing about Roslyn, is that a lot of the moms look as if they’re in there twenties…and some of them actually are. For most Roslyn families, the father has a high paying job and so therefore the mothers don’t work. They have much free time to workout and stay in shape. It seems like these wives only married their husbands for the money. The last thing I want is to marry someone that doesn’t really love me and that just loves my money because having a truly loving wife is essential for happiness. I am glad to be out of Roslyn because this is not how the real world is. A lot of people in this town are deceiving. They often hide their true feelings, and just cover up the way they feel with a smile. This is mostly seen in the classroom when a “popular” person would tell an unfunny joke, and others would just pretend to laugh in order to be acknowledged or seem “cool.” There are several stereotypes about Long Islanders. People mainly think of them as being spoiled and shallow. They would be thought of as spoiled, perhaps because many parents in Roslyn buy their kids expensive clothing and give them a lot of money every week. Also, they may be known as shallow because a lot of people in school would never want to be caught talking to certain people, just because of their social status. Living in Long Island has actually kept me farther from living into this stereotype because I observe around me a bunch of people like this and I realize that it’s not the right way to act. For example, usually if a kind, yet awkward looking guy just said “hi” to a girl, the girl wouldn’t say anything. She’d just give him a snotty look and walk away. Seeing this happen to others, and I’ve seen it happen a lot, makes me feel bad because it’s not fair for people to be judged based solely upon their looks and status. Just because someone looks different, doesn’t mean that they are a bad person. I don’t think I would believe in this as much as I do if I grew up anywhere other than on Long Island. I understand if my parents don’t want to buy me $500 jeans or a $1000 jacket; the last thing I am is spoiled, that’s why during high school I had a job and earned my money on my own, so that I could buy things for myself and be independent. During elementary and middle school, I was hard working and I was one of the smartest kids in my grade. I would make sure all of my homework was done and that I was prepared for every test. Then when I started going into high school, I made friends with a lot of the older kids and most of them were slackers. The more I hung out with them, the more of a slacker I became. I started not to care about school and I didn’t mind if I got a bad grade on something. My grades got lower and lower, and I cared less and less. I felt like I was wasting my time by learning about the half-life of carbon-14, because I knew this would have nothing to do with my future. Most of my classes were a joke and they didn’t challenge me at all, therefore I had no motivation to do well. The administrators and faculty would make students take a bunch of classes, even though a lot of them were pointless and a waste of time. It seems like they just wanted us to be in school as long as possible, so it looks like we’re learning something, but in reality we’re not and our time is just being wasted by having to take these kinds of classes, in which we would barely do anything. My gourmet cooking class consisted of sitting by a table and talking to others. We would rarely even cook and a lot of the times our teacher wouldn’t even show up. I didn’t care at all about these classes, and as a result of this I stopped caring about all of my other classes as well. By my senior year, I was one of the biggest slackers in school and I was known for falling asleep a lot during class. To show how much of a joke senior year was, I would bring in a pillow and blanket and just fall asleep in most of my classes, and my teachers wouldn’t be surprised if they saw me just sleeping in the back of the room. I couldn’t wait for college because I knew it would be much more of a challenge. I knew I could focus on what I want to study and I would take the courses that would help me the most for my future, and try to stay very business oriented. I would love to be in a class that taught about business and that basically would help to prepare me for when I get a job after college. Also I can control when my classes are and this helps tremendously because a big reason why I didn’t try so hard in high school was because I was half-awake, and only had about 6 hours of sleep each night. I would be in no mood to do any work because I’d always just be way too tired and sleepy. The extra sleep in college has definitely made me feel more enlightened and ready to work. I like the idea that how well I do in college will determine the kind of job I get after college. This further motivates me because I know my future depends on how well I do in my classes now. I am now motivated to do well and my goal is to stay as close to a 4.0 GPA as possible. During high school, I was very close with my friends. As any other loyal friend would, I’d help my friends when they got into trouble…and my friends always got into trouble. I’m usually the person who tells them to stop before they do anything stupid. One day my friend decided to throw a party. He didn’t mean to have many people over, but the party got blown up and people were coming from every direction, so it got to the point where we had to stop letting people in that we didn’t know. A squad of kids came from a nearby high school and they all wanted to get in the party. My friend told them that they couldn’t get in because he didn’t know them, and then they became upset and angered. The five of them started throwing punches at my friend and they got him down and they kept punching him. Then me and another friend ran in to help him, and the two of us basically had to fight the five of them. After the fight was over, people around us clapped and we helped my friend back in the house, but we also had to end the party. Usually in Roslyn, I noticed that if one person is in trouble, a lot of the times their friends will barely even help them out. Therefore I respect this trait of loyalty in other people. This is why I am thinking about joining a fraternity for my sophomore year. I like the idea of having a small, close-knit group of friends. Ever since I was small, I have always been fascinated with money. I started working when I was 5 years old. I would vacuum the house, wash the cars, massage my dad’s head, etc. Within about 2 to 3 years, I already made $3,000 and put that into a mutual funds account. Everyone in my family would borrow money from me and I would charge interest to them…even though no one would pay the interest charge except for my parents. My goal in high school was to be able to get enough money so that I could buy the car that I wanted. I started working a lot and I was raking in the cash, but it was never enough. By the time I was a senior I had saved about $13,000. When I want something, I go after it and don’t stop working until I get it. I think my determination will help me a lot in my future because it’s important to have goals and strive for them in the business world, or for any occupation for that matter. I decided not to buy a car because I didn’t want to waste all of my money on a different car than what I had in mind. I wanted to buy a used Honda Accord and add a bunch of extra things to the car, such as a nice stereo system, tinted windows, neon lights, I wanted to lower the car and put better rims on it, etc. I realize now that even if I had saved enough money for this car, it wouldn’t be financially worth it because if I had gotten insurance under my name, it would be about $4,000 a year, which is just too much. Also I probably would have gotten sick of the car in a few years because that type of car is better for a high school kid, instead of someone more professional whom I’d be in a few years. I think that I made the right decision and I think that my responsibility was shown in the making of this choice. I think that I’ll just keep saving money and eventually buy a more professional car, such as an Acura TL. My goal now is to be successful in college, and then join a good graduate school and then possibly become an investment banker because I like the idea of retiring early, that would give me a lot of time to do other things such as spend more time with my family, open up a new business, have more leisure time, etc. I am made up of several qualities. I am loyal, I stick with my friends and family whenever they are in trouble and I help them to overcome their problems. I am caring, I care very much about my friends and family and I will always be there for them. I am determined, I will do whatever it takes to succeed and reach my goals. A wise man once said, “A desire can overcome all objections and obstacles.” As long as you keep striving for something, you can achieve it. If you give up, you automatically fail. The rest of my future depends on what I make it out to be. I do not believe that there is already a set path for me to follow. I choose my own destiny.

--ndias 13:20 28 November 2006 (EDT)