Final Blog

This semester has had its ups and downs and what I have found that it is really stressful being in college.  It’s almost like the times when I entered my junior year in high school when everyone told me that this year was the biggest year because colleges mostly look at this year.  It’s kind of like that pressure for probably four years.  Imagine doing what feels like constant work in your dorm room that you feel like when one thing is done with you just have another whole project to begin.  That is what my first semester of school felt like.  At some points I just had to stop and take a break and sometimes those breaks were too long.  I forgot to do things and I couldn’t finish them in time.  Time management was a big factor when it came down to it because I would never know when to finish hanging out and when to start doing my homework.  Now that I look back maybe I need to take more breaks and not try to do everything at once.  This winter break so far was a big breath of fresh air because I finally had a week to do nothing but hang out with old friends and not worry about school.  Until this assignment of course.  The classes I have taken have taught me not a lot I already knew.  I knew everything before going into math that was taught and same thing with Spanish.  Some knew things were taught in my English and philosophy class.  The INQ class we learned about time management and stress and clearly I did not take a lot from it.  I struggled with grades I thought and nothing really surprised me about my grades considering they are about average with my typical high school grades.  I can definitely work harder in class next semester and I am hoping I will learn after this mistake.  My problem also is that I am not organized.  If I was to be organized and write everything down then I would have everything done ahead of time and I would not have to rush everything at once.  Next semester I am going to try and be a whole new person.  A person that I should have been this semester when I entered college, and I need to learn to be more organized and more responsible.  I can tell you that where I want to be from here is a long way from where I am now.  I want to be so far away that I cannot even go back to this way of unorganization.  This problem of mine needs to stop some way, and I need to just focus in on what is important.  My only achievements are what I did well in.  Classes like Math, English, and Philosophy are the only things I can say I am proud of, and as for the rest I am only embarrassed.  I am embarrassed that I let my grade slip away from me in my INQ class and I am embarrassed that I did not do the work I should have done in that class.  I know my mother would be flipped with the way I slacked in this class and knowing how much potential I actually have.  Hopefully this is that last of it and I only want to see this in the past and for now on I will move forward.  

Roommate Problems

This video project was most definitely my best video.  It was very funny to not only make, but to watch.  I am very happy with the outcome of this video.  The video may be a little bit confusing because you may think that Ryan is my roommate, but the video has a bunch of clips of things that would annoy you if it was your roommate.  The editing was really well done thanks to the help of Ryan.  I did it on a Mac this time and I found out that windows movie maker is easier, but IMovie offers so much more things to do.  This video was very funny, and it had the time amount down.  It included many examples of things that would annoy another roommate and it also includes two ways of how you can solve this problem.  The weaknesses of this video might be that it is hard to follow.  Do not think that it is a story, because it is not. Enjoy!!

Where is all the Creativity?

This weekend I was continuing to read Twyla Tharp’s book “The Creative Habit,” when I found an exercise that I could really find useful in my life.  On page 205 and exercise twenty-eight, Twyla gives us an example on how we can continue to inspire ourselves to be creative every day.  I for example have had great ideas and worked long and hard over them to exhaustion, and when I try to continue the next day I find myself not interested anymore.  On the other hand I have done something where I was so interested I found myself doing it more than important things like homework.  But overall Twyla recommends that we stop before we get too carried away in one days’ worth of things.  In one of Twyla’s chapters she says that you must identify the concept that isn’t working so you can be creative.  It is really important for us to find this so we can let free and be who we really are.  I believe that we all change, and it is never for the better when it comes to creativity.  When we are young we want to make friends and be “cool.”  There is always that one kid who will make fun of you for doing something out of the norm, and forever they might be changed.  It’s bad because some of these people that might change could have possibly created something no one has ever seen, but because they were turned off of their true creativity at a young age nothing will be created at all.  Also there creativity may be gone forever.  

Campus Safari

The Fitness center is located on the second floor of the Adanti Student center.  To work out there you must pay sixty dollars which covers one semester of school.  It includes things like yoga and any other program they offer.  The hours that they are open are as followed:

Monday-Thursday           7-10

Friday                               7-8

Saturday                           9:30-4:30

Sunday                              2-7

The Fitness Center at Southern Connecticut State University is a great place to go if you are looking to get rid of that freshman 15, or just trying to stay in shape.

The Creative Habit

Twyla Tharp did not grab my interests in her first chapter of her book.  She talks about her interests that are completely different than mine.  She creates dances for ballet recitals and although she has created some famous performances, it is not what I am into.  I was glad near the end of that first chapter when she said the entire book would not be about ballets.  That was a positive for me, and it kept me still reading.  The second chapter she talks about rituals and how they keep us going on in life.  Twyla has a ritual that she gets up incredibly early like 5:30 or maybe even five, and she catches a taxi to the gym where she has gone for the last 14 years with the same personal trainer.  I can relate to the rituals talk with that I have maybe one ritual that I can think of and that is taking a shower.  Taking a shower right when I get up in the morning wakes me up and I am ready to start the day.  In the last chapter she talks about creative DNA and how it is our personality.  Overall the book is okay and I will continue to read.  Even though it is my homework to read.   Twyla does repeat her points a little too much, or she has too many examples which may turn a reader off.  I did skip over some pages because they repeated too much of the same things.

Creativity

My video did not come out as good as I wanted it.  Unfortunately time management came into play while doing my video.  There was a storm last week and I did not get anything done while home.  This week I rushed to get it all done.  Its not that the video is bad though, I just believe it could get boring to watch after a while.  There are a lot of pictures in my video.  I was trying to put a youtube video into my movie, but I could not figure out how to convert a video from youtube into my movie.  Like I said pictures take up most of my video.  They are good quality pictures that I got from different websites.  The music in the very begging is “Can I kick it” while the main theme song is “My oh My” by newer rap artist Mackelmore.  The song by Mackelmore flows with the theme because he raps about his favorite Major League Baseball team the Seattle Mariners, which Seattle is where he is from.  The movie gives a list of all the sports teams that you can join.  If you are awarded scholarship money or you are asked to play on the team you are playing D II sports.  If you want to have fun with your friends you can join the club, or intramural teams.  I hope I learn from this video in that I have better time management with my next movie.  

Halfway

Today I officially got all of my midterm grades.  I think that in every class the grade on my midterm reflects the amount of effort I have put into each class.  My overall GPA would be around a 3.  These midterm grades have shown me that I need to put in a lot more studying into my classes and same with work.  I think that a B average is a good one to start out with because it is definitely a big change from high school that takes used to getting too.  I know that I can do better than that though if I set high standards.  I expect nothing but good grades from now on and I hope I can continue only to get B grades and better.  I just need to put in more effort after class, but it’s hard because I’m tired when I get out of my late classes.  Because of these later classes I stay up until one a.m. doing homework and studying and I do not do enough sleeping.  I need to fix my schedule around.  I have been trying to work my schedule for next year so that I get up early and I don’t have late classes, so that I can go to bed at a reasonable time.  I am hoping this works, and I am excited to see how I will progress throughout the rest of the semester.  I expect only good things!