Happy Holidays and Happy New Year

You guys! We have reached the end of class. I am a little sad that this upcoming Saturday is the last class. This class is truly a memorable one. I have learned new things about myself and has given me a boost of confidence in the professional work environment. I am now getting ready to go on vacation that begins this Sunday. It is time to recharge and prepare for the new year. I would love to stay connected to you all via this platform. I will be checking periodically to see if how you all are doing. I wish you all the very best! 

6.4.1 Themes and Templates

Has anyone been surprised at how many features PowerPoint contains? It is honestly more than I personally need for my employment and every day life. The various themes and templates allows for so much creativity. The themes follow a certain color scheme and the templates help you stay organized. 

What profession truly utilizes all Power Point's capabilities? I am curious to know if any of you use it to where you are sitting for a good amount of time working on a presentation? Anyway, I was hoping I would be done with this chapter by now! Almost there. I will soon be ready for that third certification. 

I am running out of photos to share! I better get back out there and shoot.

The Holidays

I am so caught up with the holiday season although it does not feel like the holidays at all! BUT traditions are traditions. It is important to spend some time with the family but all this running around for last minute gifts and ending the previous month at work is making me fall behind. What was I thinking when I accepted to shoot an even this weekend? Send help LOL

Everyone meet Coffee. He is my 12 year old Chihuahua. He is my life! :-)

A7 Mail Merge

I want to know if I was the only one over thinking this assignment? I went on Google and did a full on search of how to imbed information/data into a Word document during a mail merge. You can most definitely imbed objects such as a spreadsheet! I did realize it was a possibility but never tried it until yesterday. I was confused and then it hit me, "I do not think this is the purpose of this assignment". I went with my gut and submitted the assignment the way I knew how to go about a mail merge. I hope I did it correctly! *fingers crossed* How do you think you all did?

𝐻𝒶𝓅𝓅𝓎 𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀𝓈𝑔𝒾𝓋𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓁𝓁! 

📍Zacapoaxtla, PUE Mexico

Roughly 2,300 miles away from where I sit typing this blog post with roughly 8,000 inhabitants (compare that to the 2.8 million here in Las Vegas) this is Zacapoaxtla, Puebla. This is where I was born. A humble, modest, and honest environment. A place I walked as a toddler but can hardly remember a thing about it. I was only a year old when my parents moved us to the United States. I had the opportunity to return in 2019 and would love for people to know of this "hidden gem".

Vendors set up to sell their merchandise every Wednesday in the center of the small city. 

A forest like this one is just a short 15 minute drive. 

You feel safe during any time of the day. The city is just as beautiful at night.

Taxi's that look like the one pictured here are very common and are an affordable form of transportation for any visitor. $10.00 could get you up to a 45 min ride. 

These are only a few of the spectacular views of this uncommonly known city. I hope to have peaked an interest and you look into visiting. :)

With Only Three Minutes to Spare!

You guys! I am so excited to share that I have passed my MO-200 tonight! I had the hardest time with "B.5.2 Microsoft Excel Practice - Form B". Form A was easy for me but B took me 3-4 tries to even get a passing score. Professor Wu believed I could pass MO-200 and was pushing for me to take it. Closer to the end of the exam I was scared that I was not going to finish in time. I finished the exam with only three minutes to spare. I didn't have enough time to even go back and check my work. Imagine how surprised I was when I saw that my score was closer to 1000 than I thought it would be! I think I even did better than I did with Word. I am so glad I agreed to take it tonight. One less thing to worry about! :-)

Thank you for believing in me, Professor. 😊

"The most important thing is to enjoy your life — to be happy. It's all that matters." - Audrey Hepburn

This Year

I became accustomed to writing my blog posts about a chapter of LabSim. I can not think of anything else to post about at the moment. I am having a hard time showing up to class on time lately and that is disappointing me to the fullest. I am going through a lot at home recently. It is greatly affecting my daily routines. I would have never thought that I would be going through this much change this year. It is almost unbelievable. I am working to getting to a new normal. Hopefully sooner than later. 

"There's no going back to the way things were. Those days are over. They happened. There's only going forward to the way things can be." - Dr John Delony

5.7.4 The IF Function

I am having such a great time learning more about Excel! I have yet another instance where this class has helped at work. I deal with spreadsheets daily at work. This specific chapter I learned how to use sumif's. I was able to utilize it yesterday. The spreadsheet I used it on consisted of four departments - Install, Service, E-Service, and Telecom. I needed to allocate how much was being charged to each department so I assigned each employee a letter (I, S, E, T) depending on what department that person was in. I was able to tell my function to sum depending on the letter. This was my third time dealing with this spreadsheet. This was so useful.

5.3.4 Data Entry Facts

Excel has many functions that can be hard to remember. One feature that I particularly like that is mentioned in this section of Chapter 5 is the "Freeze Pane Feature"! This is a feature that I like to use when dealing with a form that needs to be properly filled out. An example I have is, as usual, from work. The employee's have a tool allowance that I keep track of on an excel spreadsheet. Who ever managed it before did not utilize the "Freeze Top Row" which contains the names of what goes into each field. They must have had the fields already memorized. Me, being a recent hire, could not remember each field. Each time I would scroll to enter a deduction I could not remember what information went where since scrolling down move away from the top row that contained the titles of each column. That's when "Freeze Top Row" came in handy for me. There is so much more to learn in Excel and I am here for it. :-)

4.10.4 Table of Contents

Today at work I ran into having to make a Table of Contents. I had not done this on my own before. I didn't realize that your heading style had to be specific in order for the automatic table of contents to populate. It certainly helped to be knowledgeable in Microsoft Word. I was able to quickly figure this out. Now my Accounts Payable Guide has a more professional look! 

2.3.2 File Storage Options

 I feel file storage is such an important topic and many tend to forget about physical storage devices since you can store a lot on a "Cloud". I see people pull their pictures/files from their phones and move them to a different storage device which tends to be a laptop. They eventually run into the same issue. The device also runs out of storage. A storage device that I would have like to see further information on is the external hard drive. It very briefly mentions it. I know a lot of photographers use external hard drives. This way they don't over load their working computer devices. I have not found the need to utilize one myself as I currently use an outdated MacBook to store my pictures. With 1TB of memory, I am set for a little while. I am concerned this dinosaur of a MacBook might give out on me so I will be moving files over to an external hard drive soon! 

"Los Angeles? That’s just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco." -John Lennon

1.1.14 File Compression Facts

I decided to write about this topic because it is related to photos. I was glad to learn about the terms for losing quality during compression. Lossy compression of files happens so often and I see it all the time on the internet. I see this especially in social media posts. When uploading many don't realize their photos are being compressed. This happens because most mobile phones save pictures as JPG. I am very harsh on losing picture quality but most people do not seem to mind this at all. 

“I can walk down the streets of San Francisco, and here I’m normal.” – Robin Williams

Hard Time

I am finding this semester incredibly difficult to keep up with. I am still trying to find a good routine which is making me fall behind. I am definitely thinking it has a lot to do with my new job. I am barely on my second month. I am having to learn a lot of new tasks. I am also having a lot of work thrown at me. It is overwhelming but I can do this. 

The very next thing I need to get working on are my posts for the first three chapters. It has been on the back burner for a few days now. Here we go!

“Being willing to delay pleasure for a greater result is a sign of maturity.” ~ Dave Ramsey

So Motivating!

You all are so motivating. I sincerely enjoy reading about how you all are pushing through the struggles. We all go through it in a similar way or another. I do find myself questioning how so many other people can juggle school, work and a family all at once.  

I'm enjoying reading more about everyone's goals, hobbies and thoughts. I like, Kevin, enjoy photography. The pictures I include in my posts were taken by me. Kevin, you truly have an impressive camera. I can only hope to one day have one like it. I also took Photography 101. The image I included in my post today is hanging at the North Las Vegas campus Building A. It was a finalist in a photography competition this last spring semester. 

“You have to reach the point that what people think is not your primary motivator. Reaching the goal is the motivator.”
― Dave Ramsey, The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

Been Up Since 5 AM

Oh man! This summer break is definitely taking a toll on me. I have been too comfortable not working on anything. I am currently sitting at the CSN North Las Vegas campus at approximately 9:30 PM. I just finished up English class. Even though I am only taking two classes at a time I am finding it hard to get back into the groove of things. 

It is "month end" at work and which is basically closing out the previous month (August). It is incredibly tedious work just like this class. Despite all of this, I am still going to push myself to go to the gym before making it home. Aren't we all glad coffee exist? Nothing a Pumpkin Cold Brew from Starbucks can't fix!

“Change is painful. Few people have the courage to seek out change. Most people won’t change until the pain of where they are exceeds the pain of change.”
― Dave Ramsey, The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

IS 101 - 3012 Impression

I have never utilized a blogging website so I am already finding this course rather interesting. Professor Wu is definitely unlike any other professor I have come across. He genuinely cares about this course and it shows. 

Before signing up for this course, I will be honest but like most people, I looked it up on "ratemyprofessors.com." Professor Wu has such great feedback. I can already tell why. I also asked around to see if anyone else that I knew had taken this course. They all did mention that it is very time consuming so I made sure that I would have time to give this class the attention it requires. 

I am looking forward to attending class in person this upcoming Saturday and learning more about the programs I already use everyday. 

“Henry Ford said, “Those who never make mistakes work for those of us who do.”
― Dave Ramsey, EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches