CTP Skill Center

Today was the much-anticipated day before Mock Interviews. I am planning on having a rough day tomorrow, so I spent some time practicing with my Q&A the last couple days. I will probably try to do my best without having unrealistic expectations. It’s only a practice interview after all.

In class today, we went through a slides presentation on Google search modifiers, such as “Exact Phrase”, Exclusion (-), and other specific ways to narrow a google search. Using asterisk, on the other hand, opens up more search results because the asterisk stands for a Wildcard term that can be anything if you fill in the blank.

We also went through the accountability assignment that was originally due tomorrow. Given that we won’t have time to go over the emails we sent to instructors tomorrow, we quickly presented our ideas for the BerkMart Store New Items today. Mine was a 1TB Flash Drive, which is difficult to imagine we are already at a place with technology where we could use Terabytes for flash memory.

Other small projects we did this week include the About Me section on the BerkMart WordPress. And, during my extra free time, I practiced with Cash Out and Money Master. It’s more challenging and fun to use foreign currencies, such as Australia, Canada, UK, India, South Africa, etc.

I’m looking forward to showing up tomorrow and doing my best.

Today we continued working on the webpage lab. It was fun, and we as a class got to insert images into the webpages. Also today, everyone got a chance to present their tech articles, and it went over well. Tomorrow will be mock interviews. I hope it goes well.

We started with our tech articles. The others picked some interesting ones today. I think they had fun or at least were very interested in what they chose today. The rest of the class, we finished our web coding and web server lab. I do not know why, but even when I am not trying, my work leans towards the cute side. I finished, so I worked on the Scratch lab and animated part of my name. That was fun, and I felt like a little kid playing. If you are interested in looking at it, here is the link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1370024231

August 19, 2026: Today, I presented my weekly tech article, worked on Percipio, and made some more edits to my custom website including adding an image.

We worked on our coding and web server again. I got my first one done, than started on advance lab. Made buttons on the two web pages so they are connected. I did use an old project from ages ago that I made a turkey using html.

Today, I learned more about HTML and webpage creation, and I continued with the HTML lab project. I’m taking a long time with the setup to make sure it’s all correct (and fully documented), and I also had to meet with Carrie (which was difficult), so I’m clearly significantly behind everyone else on the project. I can try to catch up after hours, however. My goal is to have my webpage complete by tomorrow.

Really amazing class today. I was a bit behind (13:53 instead of 13:50) because I got caught up speaking to my therapist for a few minutes (over both of our time limits). However, the squeeze-in we got saved more time for the end of our days, so apologies to CTP and all attendees! Thank you to Carrie for the quick check-in. I appreciated the simple, quick questions that did not scare or worry me at all. Actually, great help for me to notice the resume info was missing!

I enjoyed the customer service training and flyer check-in. I also felt proud to have actually acted on my reminders about homework, accountability specifically. It also felt really good to actually ask questions today without fear of belittling or negative repercussions. I also enjoyed my CSR practicing time with the team. Alex was kind enough to be CSR first which took away my nerves and anxiety to handle the interaction. Mike . . . Excuse me, Paul, created challenges for me. I was nervous at first but remembered I haven’t been working BerkMart for too too long and wasn’t exactly sure of the items we had. Plus, he gave me suggestions to find items I couldn’t locate. After my second round Alex also aided in reminding me (through his own customer service with Marc) that I forgot to give Paul Boboure a rundown of the items he was purchasing! This is why teamwork makes the dream work. Not degrading just positive memory notes.

Thank y’all so much for all the large and mini lessons coming across the screen!

Started the day by clocking in with Homebase. I continued working on the coding and web server project. I also got to log in to the Apache-PC virtual machine on my main laptop via Terminal on my Mac, which is cool to control instead of using the virtual machine itself. I also got to create custom websites using the terminal, which is also fun to do. I would say today was an exciting day. Now I am doing my “What did I do today” post. I am ready to clock out of Homebase.

8 18 2026

In class, we continued working on the lab, and I got to the point where we could start modifying the website. We also got to view the other student websites, which was interesting. Also, it was interesting to use different CLI commands on the VM and on the home computer to make changes to the website.

Today’s typing practice I hit another personal best: 84 WPM with 99% accuracy. I’ve never typed above 90 WPM, but that seems feasible at this point.

In PRO class today, we reviewed the BerkMart Flyers we produced yesterday on Google Docs. There were a few grammar errors that I should have fixed with Grammarly, so I will try to pay attention to those red-line warnings going forward.

The other thing we did today in class was Point of Sales transactions on the Square online store. I practiced a couple of customer service scenarios with Tiye and the instructors. It’s getting to the point where I know the items sold at BerkMart pretty well. And, I hope my new item recommendation (I had been working on as an accountability assignment) passes with flying colors.

When we weren’t working on any projects in PRO, we were given time to do some research on United Business Bank, which is participating in mock interviews on Thursday. Some things to remember is the large number of branches in Colorado as well as the Bay Area. And, it’s interesting to remember that it was founded in 2004 and went through a corporate takeover about ten years ago. It will be interesting to note how the employees respect or enjoy the “U Matter” PR campaign advertised in its banking services and community engagement efforts.