Last Safari Blog

For our last safari blog I attended The 2012 SCSU Day of Peace located
in the Lyman Center.  The opening ceremony consisted on guest
speakers, SCSU drum line and SCSU dance team they also had live music.Being a dancer myself I was very impressed with the dance team and there routine.  After the opening ceremony SCSU community members read their own original work on peace.  After that there was live
performances and an open zumba floor.  This was defiantly the most fun
I've had doing a safari blog and the readings on peace were moving

Success and Failure

My greatest success this semester would have to be figuring out what I want to do for a career.  Everyone always told me I would make a great nurse and others said id make a good teacher but neither of those really resonated with me.  So finally being able to say what I want to do after graduation is a great feeling and I think being here at southern finally led and showed me what I wanted to do.  Another success I had this semester was getting good grades I have all A’s and B’s which I’m very proud of because in high school I usually had C’s and B’s.  It felt good to tell my parents that I have good grades hand have them be proud of me too.  My biggest failure this semester was not focusing on math as much as I should have, I still have a B but I could have gotten more out of the course by practicing and focusing more.  I’m taking a lot away from these experiences most especially because I’m transferring out of southern but I don’t regret coming here at all because it showed me what I’m good at and what I need to work on.  It also showed me that I’m self driven and I don’t need other people to motivate me.  I’m thankful for the successes and failures this semester because they each showed me who I am and what I’m capable of doing.         

Where is your final project going?

  In preparation for the final project I’m defiantly leaning towards the writing assignment instead of the video strictly because I’m better at writing then making videos.  I haven’t started answering any of the questions yet, but I intend to do that later on tonight so I can at least get the ball rolling on it.  A goal I’ve set for myself is to answer each question with a hundred words or more.  A tip that I got from the writing center was to use a thesaurus when you run out of words to say, so I plan to put that tip to good use.  I also want to make it engaging to look at so the pictures I use will hopefully grab the attention of the reader.  I don’t want to have the normal generic answers that mostly everyone else will answer with because firstly I want a good grade and secondly I don’t want to bore the reader.  I also pan to do it one piece at a time so I have time to proof read and revise my work.  I will most likely brain storm a list of answers to each question then take the best answers from the list and elaborate on them in my blog.  If I see that that writing isn’t turning out as interesting as I would like I’ll switch to making a video however I doubt that I’ll have to do this.  I like the direction my final project is heading in and I plan to keep on track with it.    

Video #3 Reflection

For our third video assignment I talk about peer pressure and its effect on college students.  This video was actually very fun to make because I had a friend video tape my roommate and I, which was somewhat of a bonding experience for us.  I’m pretty confident in my video because I stated the problem and proposed a solution to it.  However it was not as long as it should have been, but to be honest if I made it any longer it would have been redundant.  However I could have tried to come up with a more creative way to make it longer.  Regardless I’m proud of my video, and I think I made good points in it and gave some advice about how to avoid peer pressure and still have friends.  For a lot of people it’s either they have a good social life or a good academic life, its rare and a nice combination when you can find a balance between friends and school.  That’s was the main point I as trying to get across in my video, which I think I did pretty well.  Also I added a lot more pictures to this video then I did to my previous videos.  I've become very familiar with windows live video maker over the course of this semester, which I’m thankful for because it’s one more skill I could use in the work environment.  I also did different animations in this video then the other one and I figured out how to make slides move along faster so it’s easier to read the words on them.  All together I’m proud of my video the only thing I wish I did differently would have been to try to make it longer.          

blog video #3 Peer Pressure

Safari Blog #13 Writing Center

For this week’s Safari blog I went to the Writing Center located in EN A-012.  Usually you have to make an appointment to meet with someone for help on assignment but someone happen to be available when I went so it worked out perfectly.  I figured since finals are coming up and I’m going to have to write a lot of papers I should get some tips on how to improve my writing skills.  My tutor as extremely helpful she gave me multiple techniques and tips to really engage my reader and also looked over my first draft and fixed a few grammatical errors.  You may consult a tutor with a draft-in-progress, with a completed draft, or with no draft at all.  The tutors are available to help you with whatever questions you have that regard your writing.  I would defiantly go again and recommend going to anyone who has a hard time starting or revising their own papers.  

Twyla Tharp: Last Post

After reading Twyla Tharp's book and listening to the many discussions in class about her approaches to success I think as an individual I would benefit from her ways of thinking but also as a society we would become a happier and a more successful nation.  We can gain a lot by looking thru Tharps perspective because we would become better more creative thinkers, essentially we would be able to think more abstractly and see more than one solution to a problem.   Society as a whole defines creativity as something were born with and it can’t be learned however Tharp argues the complete opposite.  Creativity is so important because without creativity we wouldn’t have creators.  People never really notice how hard it is to be creative until they have to build something from scratch, or be completely original with a thought or idea.     We can incorporate creativity more in our daily lives by taking time out of our day to draw a simple or complex picture. Even something small to get the creative juices flowing therefore taking our brains to a different level of thinking where we usually produce our most creative thoughts.  We can teach creativity by encouraging children to use different methods of problem solving.  Most teachers teach lessons one way and make it clear that there is only way correct way to solve the problem at hand, promoting this problem solving method leads to non-creative thinking, basically killing children’s imaginations.  We should attempt to teach kids and teach ourselves how to be more creative because it opens up some many more doors and helps us see and interrupt things in more than one way.  

Individual vs. Team Autonomy

After our library assignment about autonomy I found the article Under the influence of the team? An investigation of the relationships between team autonomy, individual autonomy and social influence within teams written by Jønsson, Thomas  and Jeppesen, Hans Jeppe.   Initially I thought individual autonomy would be better to have then team autonomy, but after reading the article I've changed my mind.  In this article the author states that team autonomy and individual autonomy are closely related and basically play off of each.    “The results of the multiple regression analyses show that team autonomy is positively associated with individual autonomy, which is neither moderated by the team's ability to make the employee feel responsible nor by team support."   This quote from the article is very powerful because it shows not team and self-autonomy are very similar and anyone who is capable of team autonomy is capable self-autonomy.  I learned a lot about how to utilize the library’s website and how to use it the right way.  Also I learned the different parts of the library and where to go if I have a problem or question about any of my assignments.  Obviously I learned about autonomy and how there can be more than one type.  Pervious from today I had an idea of what autonomy meant but now I know for sure that autonomy is self-reliance and independence.  This applies to me as a first year student because autonomy is required as a college student and part of being autonomic is knowing where to go to get the proper information such as the library.        

Safari #3 Health Center

  For this week’s Safari Blog I went to the Health center to see what they had to offer, and what kind of personnel they have on staff. At the Health Center, you will find a physician, advanced practice nurses, and registered nurses. The staff of the Health Center can treat illnesses, refer you to specialists, answer your questions, and help you handle medical problems.  They ask you to make an appointment for all visits. Most times an appointment can be obtained on the same day that you call. They also take urgent walk-ins.  It’s also possible to will be tested for HIV / STIs at the health center. It’s located on Wintergreen Avenue near university residence halls and across the street from Moore Field house.  There open Monday – Thursday 8:00am-6:00pm and Friday -8:00am-5:00pm.   

#16 Pick a Fight

For this blogging assignment I choose to do #16 Pick a Fight.  Usually I wouldn’t even take this exercise into consideration because in most situations I don’t care enough about the opposite parties argument is to fight with them about it.  However on this one particular morning my friend and I were waiting in the omelet line at Conn for about an hour then when our turned rolled around two other girls thought it was there turn as well.  Usually no problem id let them go before us but I had work in ten minutes and already waited an hour so I wasn’t leaving there without an omelet. Obviously the two other girls were not happy about this, but I wasn’t too concerned with their feelings at that point.  So I did something very out of character and completely disregarded what they were saying and started ordering my omelet.   If they had been there before us I would of never done that but they were wrong and I was right therefore I was not going to wait another fifteen minutes for an omelet just so I wouldn’t offend two strangers.  Obviously confrontation in a public place is never the way to go but instead of arguing    I just ignored basically everything they said and proceed with my order.  Which might have made it worse, but it felt so good for once to put myself before someone else.  I constantly do what other people want to do because it’s not worth an argument to me, but for some reason this omelet was.  After this situation I’m defiantly going to challenge things that other people say more, because I always just assume oh that must know what they’re talking about, but sometimes they have no idea.  This exercise opened my eyes and showed me that’s it okay to be stubborn sometimes.

Facing Fears

This blog was very hard for me because I don’t really fear that many things in life besides the obvious things like death or being tortured, however I do not like heights.  In fact even looking at tall buildings can give me slight anxiety.  I figured the best way to help conquer this fear would be to desensitize myself to it.  Therefore I went to the top floor of the student center sat in the lounge section by a window and did my homework.  This may seem small or ridiculous to others but to me it’s a real fear.   Every so often id look out the window and be reminded of how high up I was, but then id realize there’s no way I could fall out.  I wouldn’t say this made me completely get over my fear of heights, but it’s a step in the right direction.  The strange thing about my fear of heights is its only when I’m in a stationary place.  For example I can go on any roller coaster and be fine, but if I’m on the top level of a mall and look down I get very scared.    While I was doing my homework on the top level of the student center after awhile I didn’t even realize how high up I was because I was more concerned with doing my homework.  So my strategy from now on is going to be to preoccupy myself when somewhere high up or on the top floor of a tall building.