Campus Safari

On Thursday, September 27 there was an event for the This I Believe called Performing Art as Salute to Excellence. At this event there were current and graduate students who performed beautifully. One girl told a story in song about dreams and making them come true. Another girl did poetry about overcoming struggles in college and she was great. There was a flute and piano duet which I never knew could sound so good. Even with no words I could really feel the emotion in the music that I really enjoyed. Going to this event made me see that there are so many people with talent that go unrecognized and I was glad that I and many others came to see them. I felt great and I plan on attending much more of the programs that SCSU has to offer.

Questions

Before, I actually gave the video project I shot I dreaded it because I didn’t want to interview people and be a bother but in actuality the people I interviewed didn’t seem bothered by me at all. I have yet to interview a professor but I am excited to do so to get a somewhat professional response. The topic of my video is how to stay on task and deal with college on your own. I chose this topic because I thought that it would help me with questions that I had myself and maybe for others as well. There is one question I think I will find one answer to which is “What do you do to make sure that your work is all complete and still  have enough free time for yourself?” I think the most valuable answers were the ones that the upperclassmen answered because I felt like they had more experience and I could take learn from their interviews and use it to my advantage. I think my questions are important to first-year students because it’s better for them to hear from different point of views and relate to what they have to say and hopefully use that to their own advantage. The questions I use aren’t going to make the video interesting; it is the response that I get from other people that does. A question is only interesting by its answer. By doing this video project I’ve understood that other students can relate to me and I’m not just the only one who is curious about college.

One Week

I didn’t realize how much time I spent relaxing rather than doing school work until I recorded what I did daily for a week hour by hour. It takes me about one hour and a half each morning to get ready. I take a nap for about one to three hours at most about every day and this week I spent thirteen hours napping. I guess you can say I’m a tad bit lazy. Over the week on average I spent twelve hours either studying or doing homework which doesn’t really seem like a lot but it gets me by. I typically don’t study for long periods of time because after a little while I will feel myself drifting into a different mindset as I’m trying to read and memorize my notes; reason for that is because I lost interest, get off track, and bored really easily. Calculating how much time I spent relaxing was twenty-four hours, which is double the amount I do studying or doing homework. If someone who didn’t know me were to see how much time I spend doing school work verses play time would really think I do not have my priorities straight which is partially true but at the end of the day no matter how many hours of sleep I have to sacrifice I do get what I have to done. I didn’t realize how much EATING could suck up my time but it does but nearly not as much time as my napping, studying, or relaxing. I already knew that those three activities took up most of my time but damn eating does its justice, which is why I am going to do less of that because I could be studying more and it’s really unhealthy for my body. In order to maintain my time I think I should finish my school work before I go out which saves me time at night so I can go to sleep earlier so I won’t have to nap as much and then my hours will fall into place. I’m thankful for this assignment because it was a real eye opener.

Campus Safari: Getting Involved; Involvement Fair

On Wednesday, September 19, 2012 there was an Involvement Fair in the Academic Quad. To my surprise I actually enjoyed it. It was hosted for inauguration of the president. There was a barbeque as well I ate bbq chicken, corn on the cob (my favorite) and potato salad. Anyways there were about 50 clubs and more and I signed up for a few. One of them was the Collegiate Health Service Corps which benefits me because of my major being nursing it improves knowledge of health careers, gains experience in health care field, builds resume with excellence and plenty more other benefits as well. The West Indian Club and the Anthropology Club I took a liking to because of my heritage and I am currently taking an anthropology course and I really enjoy it. I think these are great opportunities to get involved with SCSU!

Professor's Do the Grading, Not Me

The assignment to find a blog that deserves a grade A was difficult to me just because I want it to be fair but I also do not want to read everyone’s blog page by page. I randomly selected some links and looked for creativity and stuff but that isn’t necessarily what makes a blog interesting. I stumbled upon Beata Grudzinkski’s blogger Is This Real Life?  & reason being for her blog receiving an “A” is because this assignment I’m doing right now for her is I wanted to write about in mine. She had the guts to not do the assignment given but support strong reasons why. And also I think just by looking at it was well over 300 words so that just gets points in my book because I’m always trying to stop when I reach the limit. Anyways another one of her blogs that I really did enjoy was the “Brighter Days” because she really got so deep with it and I could totally relate to her situation because my grandmother had breast cancer. Runner up is Bethany Castellano, I like her blog because it is simple but pretty and I think that she does a really good job with talking about how she feels. Another thing I like is her titles because they seem really original, well at least to me.

All together I think that grading other student’s blog just isn’t my job that is the professors so I did have a hard time doing so but I tried the best I can and can only hope someone notices my own!

Tips

There have been many different tips that professors have given me but the one tip from my English professor is to practice what you preach. No it isn’t completely relevant to college but in some ways it is. For example, he told the class that some of our friends may be slacking off and it is a friend’s best interest to give another friend advice but sometimes we find ourselves doing just the same. As a student we have to take a good look at ourselves and apply our habits and share it with another rather than tell someone else what’s better for them neglecting the fact that we also have to better ourselves. Another tip was from my inquiry teacher and she discussed agency. A few examples of agency are being responsible for yourself, have a connection with your professor, be structured and represent something bigger than self and determination. As a college student I can find myself being responsible for myself. Reason being is that it is my responsibility to go to class and if I choose not to it’s up to me to find the work missed. Another reason is I cannot expect one of my peers to always be my backbone because at the end of the day it is me, myself, and I. I don’t really think practicing what I preach will really help me because I am not a hypocrite so I kind of always act upon what I say and also that isn’t really applicable to school. I know that I will be fulfilling my full potential as a student when it is reflected in my work and I feel good about accomplishing it. How I can make sure that I’m doing so Is to stay on task because if I don’t stay on task then it will completely throw me off and once I’m in too deep I don’t try to get back into the shallow water.

Campus Safari: First Football Home Game

The only football that I really watch is the Bulldogs which is the team my little brother plays for. I’m not a faithful football fan and I don’t even have a favorite team I just root for whoevers taking the lead. I definitely don’t watch it every Sunday or place bids and all that.  Naturally though, I do sit down and act like I’m paying full attention to the Super bowl but only because my family likes to watch it AND the wings are banging. Mm wings and the commercials make me laugh! Well today there was our first home game against Saint Anthony University and from what I stayed to watch they were winning, on OUR TURF. How that happens, I just don’t know but anyways so I found myself really into the game maybe because I was with my good friends and we were all getting the crowd hyped up just like everyone else was doing. Half time is also my favorite part of football games because you can see all the good routines dance groups or cheerleaders put together. Today SAU, the Falcons, yeah their drum line was the bomb and their routine was too!! I came too late for the free t-shirts and subs but now I know for next time tailgating to get the goods starts at 12. Overall this game was something different that I’m not used to seeing at home and I had a fun time.

Debunking The Myth of Multitasking

According to Dave Crenshaw, the most common kind of multitasking doesn’t book productivity but it actually slows you down. This is true. In the article Crenshaw states that his mission is to create environments that let employees grasp full attention on one task before moving onto the other. Basically I don’t think he really believes in multitasking and neither do I. Junior year in high school I used to talk about how I can multi-task this and that until my chemistry teacher enlightened me with an interesting fact. She told the class that multitasking is physically impossible; a brain cannot focus on two things at once but switches back and forth really fast between two tasks. I did not want to believe it but one time when I was walking down the hallway texting and my friend came beside next to me I tried to hold a conversation with her while texting and the text I was sending were the words I was saying to her. Clearly, I cannot multi task. Crenshaw also comes up with a few tips to reduce “switchtasking” in his words and they are: take control over technology, schedule what you can schedule, and focus on the person. The tip that I feel like would help me the most is to schedule what I can because when I start planning ahead and forget what I’ve already planned I panic at last minute when too much is on my plate that I can’t handle. His way of scheduling is to set regular times within the days of the week and let others know that you’ll be scheduling accordingly so they know when to expect a reply. I guess that type of advice would come in handy for like a professional because at this day and age I am not a very busy person, the most I do is plan to go out with my friends and do homework. Like right now, it is so late to be typing this damn blog because I FORGOT ABOUT IT until I was singing in the shower and I remembered that we talked about singing in INQ class so then it reminded me I have something to do tonight. Thank God for that shower.

There's Nothing Wrong With Opening Up

Life is not always the easiest but from my past I’ve understood that I must keep my head held high through every situation. At the age of five my parents got a divorce and me being a daddy’s girl I was very distraught because I didn’t know how to handle it at such a young age. Well during that time my mom became pregnant with my little brother, who is the love of my life. Yes we have the same mother and father but we experienced different things. I was always jealous of him getting my mother’s love because she felt that he needed that more at the time than I did. I would always act like it never bothered me but it did, a lot. I never saw my dad as much as I used to and I used to cry at night. Being in a one income household with two kids to take care of was not the easiest for my mom. For about five months we were homeless and had to jump from about three houses just to have a roof over our head. Our financial situation was terrible but my mom did everything in her power to keep us together as a family. For a while, we weren’t as spoiled as we used to be and had to stay homebound. My mother struggled to keep us in Catholic School and I never knew why she would do that when we barely had money. She believed a good education and background was better than anything. Still even in seventh grade I was sad that all the other kids in my class had fathers that would attend our school concerts and mine didn’t.

It took some time and how I coped was speaking on it because that does help. All the time spent upset was because every one of my emotions was kept bottled inside. In college obviously I’m not going to lose a dad again but I can lose something much more important and that’s my drive to try. When I feel like calling it quits that’s it I don’t tell anyone I just do and now I know that there are people that I can talk to that will help me persevere. For example, as of right now I have no difficulties, but Erica time I think will help me get over the problems I may face in the future. All in all I learned that in order to get over things you have to face the situation at hand and find the right person you feel comfortable with and talk to them. Nothing feels better than relieving your stress and I’m so grateful for the people who are there for me in my life.

Campus Safari: Fail

The whole idea behind Campus Safari is very, um, annoying but that is not why I failed to get the assignment done. I totally was not paying attention to the dates and realized that I was going home this weekend, but I am not going to make excuses for myself and neglect the assignment, so I heard from other people what was to be accomplished and then I felt bad because I thought it would be interesting rather than annoying. This will be late and I know it and because of my failure to do so now I have to write two blogs in a matter of two hours because my friend wants to watch the Hunger Games hosted at the Student Center at 8 o’clock. Instead I went to the book store and asked them for a j-o-b. Before I came to Southern my mother signed me up for work study and I was for sure I would get some kind of position and I didn’t. I was really aggravated so I wanted to see if there were other ways I could find a job. Unfortunately, when I went to the Book Store I was told that all the positions were taken and as soon as I got my spring schedule I should rush and give it to them. Usually, I am not the one to ask why something didn’t happen and I just go with the flow but I talked to who I believed was the manager (completely forgot her name) and asked her why my mom signed me up for work study if I wasn’t going to get it. My problem is that I always want what I go after and when I don’t get it I am ticked off. Well she continued to explain that there are so many students on campus who probably felt the same way I did. The amount of positions available at a certain location couldn’t hire all the students on campus or else hours wouldn’t be distributed evenly and it would be a hot mess. I learned from her that although you may be the first or the last person to go for something it’s not necessarily your fault that you didn’t get what you want because the world does not revolve around me. Thanks to the woman I understand that Southern has to look at the students as a WHOLE not just satisfying one student at a time but instead taking into consideration a group of people who stress the same issue.

Blogging is not my forté

I don’t enjoy blogging and I reason being is because I’m forced to do it but if it was just on my own time and explaining how I feel then I would enjoy it more. Blogging to me is just like reading. I like to read but a piece of text that I want to read not what someone else is telling me to read. In my opinion to blog means you’re taking the time to share with the world how you are feeling about a certain topic or anything in general. I think when a professor is telling you what to write about its less sincere because you then have to ramble on about nonsense you could particularly don’t care for. On the flipside, reading other peoples blogs are much more interesting to me so when I blog and see that people viewed it, it’s like I wasn’t just blogging for my own good health but for others to get a feel for what I have to say. I am more of a viewer on blogging websites rather than a blogger. I commend Professor Guarino for sharing other students in her inquiry class’ blogs because when I read them sometimes I get a base of what I should be talking about; not by copying. I like seeing if other students share the same views I do. To me, there isn’t a negative outcome from blogging because you can only learn take back a lesson or a point of what you read. When I’m in the process of writing a blog post it opens up my mind to a world of things I never would have thought about if I didn’t have to sit down and write about how I feel.  As the semester goes on maybe I’ll enjoy blogging a little bit more than I do now, I only hope that I do.

First Week

My new weird friend named Kam. LOL

The week before college started, I was so anxious and so many thoughts ran through my head for the expectations that were ahead of me and I did my own type of "pregame" for preparation. I thought to myself of making many friends or at least enough that could be my support system. The only thing I was excited for was that my best friend Alayna from home was coming to the SCSU with me. Move in day was very hot, and not as long. My mom woke my little (even though he's bigger than me) brother to wake up early so we can get there fast. Luckily, we were the first people in line! Thanks to my mom I got dibs the Loft bed before my roommate's did. :-P We unpacked and settled all of my things fairly quick which I was sad about because that meant less time with my family. I met my roommate Ashia first and we kicked it off quick! Next came Tayanira and she came later on in the day and left for a while so we didn't connect until the second day. All of us get along great and have a good connection and communication with each other. I also made really good friends with the girls on my floor.

The first three days of college the administration planned events for the freshman to do. My favorite was YOLO dance party. Next came the sex talk comedian Maria who came, she was funny but made sense and then the guest speaker who talked about suicide prevention.

First day of classes weren't hard, probably because it was the first day but they were fun! Not to support favoritism, but my favorite teachers hands down have to be my English and INQ because they both have high spirits, nice, and enthusiastic. My favorite class to learn about things is my Anthropology because it seems so interesting to learn about different cultures and species which is something I'm very interested in.

My overall first week of school was a different experience in which I did enjoy. I haven't felt too homesick but I do miss my little brother tremendously. I can't wait until I start to get into the real jam of things.