As a State Trooper, my life’s mission is to serve and protect the state of New York. By supporting my values of Perspective, perseverance, and social intelligence, I work toward my life’s mission by working jobs in my field, gaining experience, and knowledge.

The survey i took to see my character strengths showed me that my top five character strengths were, perspective, perseverance, social intelligence, humor and fairness. These strengths will help me and have already helped me in my life while following my career path. The first strength perspective has already helped me in my hospital security occupation i currently have. During my daily duties working the security position i get called to do what is called a patient watch. A patient watch or often referred to as a one on one happens when an individual is a risk to themselves or others. For instance if someone came into the Emergency department and said they feel as if they would end their life or would end someone else’s life they will be put on a one on one. While on a one on one that patient cannot leave the emergency department until discharged after receiving an evaluation from a crisis counselor to see if they need to be admitted to a mental health facility or if they are safe to return home. Since they cannot leave the emergency department it is crucial to keep them calm and wanting to receive help. If they are not calm and attempt to leave the hospital they could potentially become restrained. This is because they are considered to be mental health arrests do to not being safe for themselves or other people around them. It is important to not let any patient watch get out of hand because it makes them a-lot harder to calm own once it gets to this point and it makes you look bad and every other patient nervous to see this occur around them. My perspective has helped me in my past experiences with deal with one on one patients. My plan of action to keep a patient calm is to talk with them when or if they choose to talk with me because it is not my place to make them talk. I had one patient whose information or specifics i will not reveal hut they were a danger to both themselves and others and i made them feel calm when they were getting worked up and made them feel as if i was a safe person to talk to and that i cared about them and wanted them to get help. This perspective i had was me putting myself in their shoes and experiencing life the way they experience it to the best of my abilities. This strategy worked very well and i was able to keep them calm and even when they started to have an angry attitude towards the nursing staff i was able to calm him down and subdue the situation effectively. My character trait worked well for that situation i was in.

Joe Carlson                                                                                                      KC 101 Kolb model

 

My field period takes place in a professional environment being the fact that it is a hospital and especially because it is in the security department. The hospitals I will be working in however are in a mostly rural environment. The most interesting part of this job would be all the different personalities I will be encountering throughout my time in the hospital. I was attracted to these types of jobs because I want to have a career in law enforcement and security is a very good way to gain experience for the career as a New York State trooper. I do not really worry about this field period because I have had a job in security before and handled myself very well. I have dealt with a wide variety of attitudes and individuals who were under the influence of alcohol and other drugs, so I feel I will be prepared for what I encounter. This field period fits on my mind map because it will help me to achieve my goal of being a state trooper. I will learn more about my people skills based on how well I handle tense situations. My field period and my learning and my learning at Keuka college gives me an edge because when I apply for the NYSP academy I will have a bachelor’s degree instead of just an associate degree. I will use my skills I gained while searching for my field period to have an edge with other jobs and field periods for my future careers.

The field period that I would consider to be my dream field period would be working as a security guard at Allegany Mountain resort at Rainbow Lake. This is my dream field period because I have history working here as a security guard. Last summer I graduated high school with my New York State security guard license. The license got me my first security job which was at Allegany Mountain Resort. The people I work with are a big part of why this would be my dream field period I would like to pursue. When my birthday came around everyone said happy birthday to me and the girls in the cafeteria baked me a cinnamon bun with a candle on it. this was a small gesture but I meant a lot to me. Another example how good the people here are to work with is the resort manager Michelle. Michelle is probably the best a park manager can get. She has the some of the best people skills I have ever seen. Have witnessed her calming down a very tense group of twenty year olds swearing up and down in about 3 minutes. That is not the whole reason however why I am using her as an example. Michelle goes above and beyond for her employees. For me personally when I moved to Keuka college which is just over a two-hour drive, to make it possible for me to still work for the rest she set aside a camper in the park just for me to stay so I can work on the weekends.Working security for the resort has also given me a lot of experience in the field of law enforcement. My supervisor who is head of security, was a town cop for years and even worked on the special operations team for the police department. I have learned a lot from him such as tips on handling situations and from past experiences he has shared with me personally. Mostly this ism dream field period because of all the first hand experience I got from my position in security. I have handled situations regarding drug abuse, alcohol intoxication, domestic violence, and many more similar topics. I have worked many times with the Cattaraugus county Sheriffs department, The local EMS and ambulance crew, and the New York State Police. The experiences I have had here have better prepared me for my future careers. My new security job is in healthcare security at Finger Lakes Health. Finger lakes Health security is going to be more demanding and a more professional environment. I feel very strongly to that my experience at Allegany Mountain Resort has made me ready to perform well at the hospital for security. As for the future I plan to apply for the New York State Police. The work experience I will gain in my field periods and my job history should make my resume stick out when it comes time to earn a spot in the State Police academy.

As a class experiment i picked ten items from my closet and looked into where they are made and i took it a step further and did some research on each manufacturing country. The first item i picked is my grey long sleeve Adidas shirt. I just got this shirt for my birthday yesterday but i already like it a lot. This shirt was made in Thailand. I have two articles of clothing that came from Thailand that i picked out. The other piece is my favorite pair of black Nike shorts. The location of Thailand is just above Vietnam but they are both south of Asia against the ocean. If i took a flight to Thailand it would take me 22 hours and 5 minutes to get there. Thailand is considered a third world country. The next two items from my closet are my Nike running sneakers and my Kobe Mentality basketball shoes. These two pairs of shoes from my closet are connected because they were both made in Vietnam. Another article of clothing i have that is made in Vietnam is my Adidas sweatpants i just got for my birthday. These are already my favorite pair of sweatpants because they are very comfortable and are athletically built. Vietnam is just below Thailand and so close that they touch borders. As i mentioned before both Thailand and Vietnam are on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. If i wanted to take a flight to Vietnam it would take me 22 hours and 1 minute to get there.Vietnam is considered a third world country also. My next article of clothing comes from a country that i haven’t ever heard of until i looked on the tag. My American Eagle boxer briefs come from a place called Macau. Macau is a special administrative region of china on the south coast of China. A flight there would take 21 hours and 55 minutes to get there. This country is different then all the rest in the fact that it is considered part a second world country (China) instead of a third world country like the others. This is significant to me because a second world country is considered to be a country with more wealth on that specific ranking system. That means a more wealthy country is still producing factory made clothing, that is unique and interesting to me personally. The next piece of clothing is my nike tank top. This tank top is probably my favorite to wear to practice for either basketball or track. It is light and comfortable all of the time. It is made in Malaysia. Malaysia is located south of Vietnam on the same peninsula as Singapore. If i flew to Malaysia it would take me 23 hours and 45 minutes to arrive. Similar to the other countries Malaysia is a third world country. As i was looking through my closet deciding what to pick to write about i saw my backpack and decided that it would be interesting to include. I thought that because i carry it around with my and wear it daily as if it was a piece of clothing. My backpack was made in Indonesia. Indonesia is located just northwest of Australia. I i was to fly there it would take me 24 hours and 5 minutes. Although all the flights would be very long this would be the longest flight to a country on my list. Also like the other countries, Indonesia is a third world country. My next article of clothing is my favorite shirt. This shirt is the that i am wearing as pictured below. This shirt is my Keuka College basketball shirt that is made by the brand Champion. This shirt expresses who i am because the sport basketball is more than just a sport to me, it is a way of life. With my involvement to the sport basketball it drives me to keep my grades up, always act appropriately, and live my life with all the lessons i have learned as a result of playing for so many years. This shirt was made in Nicaragua. Nicaragua is located in Central America between Costa Rica and Honduras. If i were to fly there it would take me 8 hours and 15 minutes. This is the closest country to where i live, However it is still a third world country. The last piece of clothing i am going to talk about is my under armor hoodie. This hoodie i got running cross country in high school. It was made in Jordan. Jordan is a country right next to Israel in the Middle East. If i was going to fly to Jordan it would take me 15 hours and 5 minutes. This country is also a third world country. I included all of the flight times for each one of the countries i listed for a specific reason. In the book “Where am i Wearing” by Kelsey Timmerman, he travels to where his clothes are made. This is the reason i included the flight times, to show how far away my clothes travel before i ever even get them, just like Timmerman’s goal in his book. I also included if a country was first second or third world for a specific reason. However outdated this classification system was based on the amount of wealth a country has. I felt this would be an interesting detail to add when discussing the production of clothing.

It can sometimes be hard to have a favorite song, movie, book, etc. For something to be considered your “favorite” that would mean that it either stands out to you, has some meaning in your life, or you can just connect with it. If I could pick three songs to be a soundtrack to my life, they would be; Big Green Tractor by Jason Aldean, Young, Dumb, and Broke by DJ. Khalid, and The Good the Bad and The Ugly by Ennio Morricone.

 

The first song in my list of three would be Big Green Tractor by Jason Aldean. This song stands out to me based on my past jobs working as a farmer. My first ever job was on a dairy farm, however even before this my father had a horse farm so I grew up driving tractors. My dad told me the story a few times how when I was just three years old I was just sitting on the seat of the tractor and he was opening a gate in front of us when the machine slipped into gear. Even though I was four years old I put my foot on the clutch and stopped the tractor from hitting him. Some other memories I have would be when my dad had a backhoe on his John Deere. When I was six years old I would sit on my dad’s lap and he would teach me the controls, so I could dig a whole. The first time I dug on my own I ended up making a soon do be puddle in the driveway. Memories like this is what makes this song so special to me. The first big farm I worked on at the time was called Ken Adams Dairy Farm. This farm had only John Deere tractors that were mostly bigger sized but there was a range of sizes for every job that needed to be done. My first real driving memory on that farm was when I first started in the fall of 2014 when I was told that another guy got the pay loader stuck while digging a whole in the pasture. I knew what to do obviously, I got the chain and used a medium-sized tractor with four-wheel drive and pulled him out. I was the one picked to pull him out because I was really the only non-Amish worker there at the time. I went from this first time just simply pulling out a stuck vehicle to doing field work and eventually being entrusted with every responsibility that needed to be done. At the time that I left that farm at the end of 2017 I was even the only one who could do a certain number of jobs proficiently. A big example of being the only one who can do certain jobs would be backing wagons into the shed to be stored. The wagons being backed in were either hay wagons or auger wagons commonly known as “Chopper Boxes”. I had no difficulty parking the wagons because my mindset would be that I would imagine I am just moving a little red wagon by hand. These wagons had dual axles, so the tongue would only turn the two wheels in the front. This is what was the hardest part about backing them in and was the reason most couldn’t back them in. What increased the difficulty of backing them in was that the Chopper Boxes were about 40’ long and about 20’ high. These dimensions made it hard to see the back of the wagon efficiently, so you essentially couldn’t see where you were going. The hay wagons when we had a big day of square baling could be filled up to as much as three stacked tiers above the frame of the wagon. That made it so high that if it was to close to the rafters it would catch and break them off. It would also if too close to the sides hit the outside tin and either make a dent or a whole. The boss does not want to have his shed broken due to negligence, so it made my job even more important to back them in the right way. I respond to this song on an emotional level to these memories and this song and I also respond on a physical level being I have driven these tractors my whole life and it brings back many memories of that. Hearing this song just brings me back to these memories and reminds me of my past.

The next song in the soundtrack to my life would be Young, Dumb, and Broke, by DJ Khalid. I can relate to this song more to how I am in the present. I am as are most college students young, dumb, and broke. Although this song highlights on the negatives of being a teenager turning into an adult, this song talks a lot about the fun of living life. It has a positive tone overall. “What’s fun about commitment? When we have our life to live” (Khalid Young, Dumb, and Broke). This quote shows one of the positive parts of the song. It is based around the idea of just letting go and living life. Khalid’s music is mostly focused on that idea. He used different beats and rhythms to create a feeling of freedom. I respond to this song emotionally because when it plays I immediately think of sitting around a campfire on a summer night with all my friends having a great time with no cares in the world. I respond to this son g on a physical note because I physically am young, I physically am dumb, and sadly I am physically broke. Hearing this song makes me want to relive the memories I have made over the years with my friends.

The last song on the soundtrack to my life would be The Good the Bad and The Ugly by Ennio Morricone. This song is most popularly known from the movie The Good the Bad and The Ugly starring Clint Eastwood. This song relates to me because I would always watch western movies with my dad. To some kids they would think of this experience as being dumb or not interesting. For me however I think the opposite. My father is no longer living, and I greatly loved watching the movies with him. He would most of the time fall asleep during them and then I would have to explain some parts to him, but he would also use the time during the movies to tell me how much I meant to him. There is nothing I wouldn’t give up having him back in my life just, so I could have the talks we had during the movies. That is how I would connect to this song on an emotional level. This song doesn’t even need words to have that effect, just hearing this song being played immediately takes me back to those memories I do not ever want to forget. I can still remember that the unrelated show, “Rawhide”, that my dad would like to watch showed what it was like to push cattle long distances. I liked this show because it showed in detail what life was like for a cattle herder.  Another show my dad loved to watch and I think of when I hear this song is “Bonanza”. My dad always liked to make it back in time from wherever he was to watch his Bonanza. This show was about the father Ben Cartwright watching over his ranch that was famously called “The Ponderosa”. What I remember about this TV series is that it seemed lie their ranch was always being attacked by outsiders. They always won, and they had their own iconic theme song to go with the show. Even though they had a different theme song I still relate this show to the song The Good the Bad and the Ugly because of all the hours I have spent watching those western movies and shows with him. The actual movie, “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”, was the story of two unlikely allies. “Joe” played by Clint Eastwood and “Tuco” played by Eli Wallach, team up. However, this does not last long. Joe captures a bandit and tries to get him executed. The story changes when as the bandit is being hung he rescues him and in turn makes Tuco angry. Tuco in turn tries to have Joe murdered for this but that does not last long when they must rejoin as a team to beat out a criminal and the union army for their share of $20,000 that a soldier hid buried in the desert sand. They get the money in the sand and then the movie is over and the song The Good the Bad and the Ugly plays once more. The physical response this song brings up in me is me stopping what I am doing just to relive the memories of those movies with my dad.

 

In my life i have made a few mistakes. One of these times is when i rolled my four wheeler when i was coming home from work. I was not old enough to have my license so i had to take my four wheeler through the woods to get home. so i just finished working a ten hour day at the end of summer before my sophomore year of high school. I got on my four wheeler and was just driving home which is only about two miles away. Halfway home that’s when it happened.

There was a hill that was relatively steep and the engine on my four wheeler decided to quit on me. I was three quarters up the hill so i just decided i could coast backwards down the hill like I’ve done a thousand times before. Well it was just my lucky day that my brakes didn’t work. I lost control down the hill and it threw me off onto the ground. once i hit the ground i had to roll out of the way so that my four wheeler didn’t land on my head and my chest.

I ended up going to the hospital right away. Once i got there they sent me up to a bigger hospital in Buffalo. I was seen by a collarbone specialist and he recommended surgery. He said it was the worst break he’s every saw and i was in a brace for 8 months. I learned to never trust the brakes on anything with no backup plan.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton