This is it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMEkaq4310M&feature=youtu.be

The last and the final

College is stressful, that has been my biggest problem that I have run into as a freshman, and how the heck am I suppose to deal with that stress.

I’ve learned it takes time, a lot of time to adjust. College is not swift, they throw you right in whether you are ready or not. Basically I had to go face first and get over that I couldn’t deal with stress and try to understand how to deal with it. It wasn’t easy, not one bit.

In the end that was my biggest achievement of my first semester. I took on the stress, figured out how to handle it and how to get everything done without feeling like I had no time to myself. I now have a huge calendar on my wall where everything is written. I also time myself when I am working on certain things. Such as when I am working on an art piece I can keep working and getting more details into it, but I don’t always have the time so from now on even if I have 3 hours of work to do sometimes I push that 3 hours into 2 if I am tight on time.

In the end, I have successfully kept all straight A’s. At some points I was scared and thought I was going to fail a class, which was Art history. In all my classes I had to retain a lot of information in a short time and on top of that try to read a huge Art history book every other night put me to sleep.

I tried reading during the day and I still fell asleep no matter what. So to even out me over sleeping in the day time I would stay up that extra amount I slept and I would just read. It worked out perfectly, I got to read and I got enough sleep throughout the semester.

So far so good, I haven’t made as many friends as I would hope in college but being a commuter is not easy. I have a part-time job at night and I lose a lot of weekday time to study and work on homework or meet friends.

Right now in college I don’t know what my speed is, and I have a feeling that I might end up taking longer to graduate at the rate I am going. I’m planning to study abroad and I have no idea where that may take me. I may end up wanting to live there, or even changing my career. In the end I am excited with the desicisions I have made so far in my college career and I can only hope that it gets better and better from here on out.

I hope though that I can improve my involvement with others and with the school since I really feel like I am at high school still. I want to feel like a college student.

Now that only scary part is can I keep doing what I just adjusted myself to and make it work next semester. I can only hope what I am doing now is what I need to do for college. Otherwise I will only be going through another stressful crazy semester. I will only look forward and enjoy the rest of my college career though and know that no matter what college dishes out to me that I will overcome it since I over came so much this first semester. At times I cried a lot and didn’t think I could finish another semester here. But I did it, and now I know that I can do it over and over again. 

All the Laughs We Had..

At first, I wont lie, I thought why would Southern put 22 people in the same two classes back to back for about 3 hours total twice a weeks; I couldn't figure why they would force students into something like that.

But now with only one week with this group of people, I want to have another class with all of them next semester as well.

The bonds everyone slowly made are now going to be ripped apart. At this point I am not sure if this was a good idea or bad one. Being a commuter this had helped me make friends on campus that I wouldn't have been able to by myself.

I'll miss this odd connection this group of people have made with each other. Through all of our frustrations with Professor Hawkins and are laughs we have become closer to one another than most will realize.

Next semester at 11 in the afternoon on a tuesday or thursday most of our class will wonder what each other is doing, what classes we now have instead and maybe question why didn't we try to be in one of their classes with them.

I know a few people I wish I could have classes with, but because of our different majors and requirements.. we might never met in the classroom again.

In the end, our little learning community has grown on me and I feel it has grown on everyone else as well. Hopefully we all we meet each other later on in the next semester or at some other random moment.


I wasn't really sure about underlying meanings behind using our community learning so I looked up some back ground information about the process. Sadly I couldnt find too much on the topic, however I found this website  that looked into problems a learning group could have and I felt that this was a huge factor for myself in the classroom. Most the time I wanted the teacher to push the class more and not 'baby' them because others were lacking. It is college, people should pick up their own slack. I don't want to be brutal towards those who couldn't keep up or don't put in the effort. But If southern does another community learning group they need to make sure that everyone is at the same level, or make sure the teacher doesnt hold back because of some students. You should never stop another students progress in learning because others cannot achieve it.

My Ideal Life

Its not ideal, I just have a goal.


After college all I want is to have a job as an art teacher. It is pretty simple. I don't care where or for how much, I just want to inspire others to get involved with art. I decided a while ago that the place where I could inspire people the most is starting in a high school and having my students branch out to others.



Of course I would like my own place and be on my own. Other than that my life would be filled with art work and that is my goal and my dream.

To most people, they would think my idea life after college is odd. Why? Because I don't want to live in an expensive house and have a job where I get paid too much to sit on my butt. CEO's are ruining our country.

I want to show our culture and the younger generations that their morals and their dreams are not what they seem. I want to inspire people to bring back art but also do something that they love and not be worried what others my think or how our country wont let you do it since it is not in science or math.

We need to bring our world back to life, we need to paint it green and show everyone the truth of what our world is coming to.

So yes, my ideal life after college is small, but my underlying goal  is much bigger than anyone could think of.

In this article the author explains exactly what I mean by how the younger generations are forgetting the real aspects of art and what it should mean.

What's going on in my video?

Little ideas, big ideas, I really don't know where I am going with this.

I want to make a stand though in southern's community and make it know that the students want to fix it. I want to feel apart of a college. If I did, maybe I wouldn't want to transfer as much as I want to now.

I want to get some insight on whats going on, on campus. So i want to try and take some clips of things that are going on. Explain maybe why they are or aren't working, and why people don't want to go to them.

I want the video to feel like you are exploring southern and wonder what will happen next.

Maybe i'll show some students things they didn't know about southern.

In addition, i want to put more in put from students and their feelings/reactions to make it more relate-able and understanding to a more diverse group.

I also need to get times where I can interview people and add them into my video. So far my plans are moving swiftly unlike the midterm. Wish me luck!


Blurb: I tried finding help with the creativity of a video and found this funny article, maybe it could help later one, who knows.

Video Final

Our final is about a problem within or about southern and a proposal of how to fix it. It took me a little while to think about what I wanted to spend my time on trying to fix. The most bothersome thing for me, is not feeling part of a college; sadly I still feel like I am in highschool. There we go, I found my problem.

How can southern help commuters feel more apart of southern and have that 'college experience' ?

Already I have a few ideas that southern can start to lean towards. One is something Emmanuel, in boston, does. My older sister went there so I am planning on interviewing her and getting her feelings toward it. What her college did was every tuesday and thursday from 11.30 or 12 till 2 there wouldn't be any classes scheduled instead groups could meet and there would be activities. 

This would be a huge step for commuters feelings a part of the school.



My plan for the video is as follows;


An intro, describing the disconnection to the school and thus the problem.

Commuters feelings about being a part of the college(Interviews)

How people on campus feel about commuters(interviews)

My own proposal (sister interview)
          What others think of my proposal
          What people want(interviews)
Examples of events (references to other schools)

Conclusion of thoughts

Credits



Here is a commuter trying to get involved and sharing their feelings.

Commuting is a preference

After reading the two articles I felt annoyed. Personally I hate commuting every day, but I think I would hate to live on campus even more.

It's not that I don't like people or I have a problem with a roommate. It is southern itself I have a problem with and do not want to live there. I like cooking my own meals since conn hall is not my favorite place. I also liked keeping my job back in my hometown.

There is a lot of down falls though. At first most people were cold to me since everyone already made 'friend circles' in the dorms. People do not like letting other people in.

I feel distant from everyone since I can't be on campus all the time. The days I really have time is saturday and sunday, other than that every day I have to drive home and do homework before I go to my job. It is a very stressful and unexciting freshman year.

One article that talked about how commuters graduate later on I can understand. I'm only taking 4 classes next semester, not because I want to but because the classes conflicted or weren't offered other times or enough times or they were at night when I was working. If I lived on campus it wouldn't matter if I had a class at 8. But if my class ends a 10 in the morning, what am I suppose to do for that how time. I could lung my laptop and all my work around with me but since I don't live there I would feel alone and awkward there for so long.

Commuting is a preference of a person and what they like and also, can handle. I know that when I transfer, I wont be commuting, but it also wont be around here.

Something else that's worrisome about commuting.

Language is all around you

For some, the language requirement at southern is a hassle, or a waste of time.

At first that was my first thought as well. I was put into German, my mom laughed at me saying "Are you really going to stick with that?". I thought about it, and it was hard enough to change one class why bother changing my langue and see how it is.

I fell in love with it. My class is something I look forward to, my professor makes our class fun and exciting to learn German.

Today in class, Amandas group discussed the language requirement at southern and related it so everyone in our class.

Hopefully it showed everyone how important studying languages is. For me I try to tell everyone to learn a different language that most people are not use to, since they may never know if they like it or not.

Amanda's group said the big problem about learning another language is motivation so I looked up about how to learn another language. I found this article that tells the basics to trying to learn a language.

Learning all about multiple Intelligences

People of course having their own unique learning style. Since people are all different and have different qualities that suit their own way of understanding and remembering information.

Reading over multiple Intelligences I tried to think where I belonged in the different groups. It was hard to place myself somewhere, my own qualities overlapped in so many different categories.

Thinking about how much I overlapped categories made me realize how can we group billions of different people into these categories. Of course this is a generalization but then I thought about how school is not generalized.

Schools over look students multiple intelligences, but then again I feel as if everyone is grouped together in different categories and are actually generalized as well.


The discussion of multiple intelligences is somewhat vague and conflicting. 

The chart above helped me think about the different ranges a person can have in  the different categories. It also showed me that every single person in the world can be and is most likely have different styles they need to be taught in order to achieve their full potential. 

Take a quick test :)

Debt And College go Hand in Hand

Based off of all of three of Tina's, Nina's and Mike's reading, I wish I could become a teacher without going to college.

In this article Mr. Castillo is having huge problems trying to get ahead in life. It worries me about all the others in America who can't keep up with loans and end up going back to college because they can't find a job.

College is becoming a vicious cycle of lost money. Graduating and being 40,000 in debt is a pretty big deal, especially when you know you have to go back to school.

In addition, this article  tells how the government is trying to help students with the loan rates. Even so will that really help all those who are under right now?

America needs to help its people with education. Everyone wants to go to school here but each year it seems harder and harder to pay for it all.

Soon marriages wont want to have children in fear of not being able to pay for college.

All in all, money is a huge problem for college students. Personally I know a lot of students who do not work though. I feel like everyone needs a head start and needs a part time job well before going to college to learn how to save up and be able to deal with the loans after college.

Too many teenagers miss out of a good education about MONEY, and I feel we should start there.

 Start Early

Some Secrets Aren't Forever (Safari 10 or 12?

At the lyman hall on Friday November 4, Frank Warren the creator of PostSecret came to southern.

A friend of mine that came home for the weekend from college loves PostSecret and when I told her the creator was coming here she insisted that we go. Of course I knew what PostSecret was and saw a few cards that friends showed me, but I never was really into knowing others secrets until last night.

Mr. Warren showed everyone some secrets that weren't allowed in his books, some of his own secrets, facts, and how it all started.

But most of all he gave an underlying message to everyone. I believe it was a message that you can take in anyway you wanted, good, bad, helpful, hurtful.

For me that message was, no matter what happens through your life even when you feel like you are so alone and everyone left your side, you aren't alone, you have to open your eyes for just a small second and realize that there is so many people around you willing to give you a hand when you need it the most.

Some people might have gotten a different view, others may have wanted to go help someone. In the end Mr. Warren, I feel, is set on giving these speeches and reaching out to everyone through others. To me that is a goal that hopefully he will meet one way or another.


For anyone that reads this, I hope you take the time to read more postsecrets and hopefully go see PostSecret Live.

What's Interesting at SCSU?..

You tell me.

What there is, or isn't. Should be or shouldn't. All at Southern.

(Maybe an art gallery)

But something at southern that is interesting, is there Study Abroad program, which I am actually going through the process now trying to get all my paper work. For someone who lives on campus I don't see any problems trying to get appointments. For me however I have limited times when I can be on campus, and sadly teachers are not there on the weekends.

The study abroad programs has so many different countrys opened up to its students to pick and study at. Personally I am going to Germany next fall to study art. I can't believe it.

Their advisors are very nice and they help you out step by step to make sure that all the paperwork is done and collected.

Just simply being able to study in Germany for the same price as southern blows my mind. I can't wait for the experience and I can't wait to study art in another country.




If you ever wanted to study abroad or were thinking about it, click here.

Fun in the...SNOW

With the early snow the only thing that comes to mind is the awaiting snowboarding season. For some that might sound scary, others may be intrigued, and then there is those you like to ski... We wont get into that.

Something that interests me ever since I was little was the thrill of snowboarding.
At first, I wont lie, it was extremely painful to learn how to snowbaord.

The first time I got onto a ski-lift, I wasn't sure what to do. One, I forgot to unstrap a foot from my board, two I almost missed getting off the ski-lift, and three, I went the wrong way getting off and went into the woods. Nothing is easy the first time.

None the less, snowboard has its benefits. Exspecialy when you start to go down the slope, slowly picking up speed, weaving here to there, up and down. Your body heats up but the cold winter air freezes your face.

Yes winter is slowly approaching and I can't wait till snowboarding season. This year hopefully my doctor will pass me and I will actually go unlike last year and the year before. I have missed it so much.

Soggy Wednesday

Campus Safari Number Five

Supporting NB pride, my hometown North Branford, I went and saw the girls Field hockey game, mostly Kaitlyn a friend from home, versus Mercy on Wednesday Night.

 It was raining a lot and a few times I thought the girls were going to get really hurt slipping. It was also chilly and windy, worst night to pick to go see a game. My boyfriend came and watched with me as we cheered on the girls. I had to explain somethings to him but the game is pretty simple to understand, its the plays and different tricks they preform which is the hard part. 

Kaitlyn got two assists during the game. In the end the score was 4-2 with our girls kicking some Mercy butt. 

The game was exciting and poor Kaitlyn was soaked to death. "I love playing with my girls here, but I still miss good ol' NB" -Kaitlyn

Get in a game, make friends, and have fun; maybe joining a sport is what someone needs?

What sport to choose? Which one could be right for you?

OUT of the COMFORT ZONE

*Disclaimer*
Oops, this blog post was never posted on Wednesday for reasons I don't know, but it's here now!


I can roller-blade and snowboard, but apparently I cannot ice skate. Last Sunday a few of my friends were home and I went ice-skating with them.

I've never gone before so it was something new and exciting. When I was lacing up my skates I watched others slide over the ice with ease and it made me want to hurry up and try.

As I stepped out onto the cold ice I realized this was going to be a lot harder to stand up straight than it looked. Of course all of my friends left me behind and started off without me. As I was struggling to skate by myself I stayed close to the wall of the rink just in case I felt as if I was going to fall.

I envyed my friends as they kept passing me by and I just wanted to leave. I hated ice-skating already. I kept trying to get the hang of it even though I couldn't figure out how to stop.

I still wanted to leave the majority of the time I was there.

I started to think about it; why was I getting so frustrated and angry. I knew I was going to have some trouble learning but I didn't expect no one to help teach me, I was all by myself on the rink. There was people all around me of course, but I was on my own trying to figure out how to skate.


Just like college, there will be people all around you most of the time but that doesn't mean they will help you when you need it. Trying to ice-skate all by myself was just an example, a taste, of what i'm going to run into in college, learning how to problem solve without any help.


In addition I was looking up articles about comfort zones for people at jobs and at college. I came across this interesting one for personal and professional growth at http://www.cdnbizwomen.com/articles/lockwood4.html. It had some very good points and made me wonder how I can be more open minded about many different aspects of my life that I always keep the same.

The Art of Critical Thinking (VIDEO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr8Nq-kjYlg

Grades show you your effort.

For me, my grades are where they should be. Each and every day I try to put in as much work for each class as I can.

I like to organize so I am hardly behind. Somethings however take more time than I thought and I end up losing time. However I still finish everything for school early so I wont stress about it.

Only grade I am concerned about in my Art history class, my teacher hasn't put up our grades or anything, its worrisome. Even since my quiz that I failed in his class I have been studying all the time, I don't know yet if what I've been doing has paid off, I hope it has.

If what I changed in that class works, than I need to read the readings before lecture and make flash cards during the weekend and review each day. It seems like a lot but its all spread out, and better than failing the class, which I need.



Some certain goals for the next half... I want to buy a giant calender to stay on top of dates and times. I am organized, but I do things too early or I don't finish and forget. I want something that's in my face that I can't forget about.



Kinda like this:

Some quick tips to bring your grades up.

Critical Time.

Organizing my time is something I do about almost everything in my life. I even schedule certain times to see my boyfriend. It's not like I'm crazy or have OCD about it, I just need to make sure I am using every minute I have in a day to good use.

Sadly with exams this week studying has taken over my life temporarily. Most of my time spent for the video has only been on interviews, gathering information, and a lot of brainstorming on how to bring everything together.

I put a lot of thought into brainstorming because I want to be able to film what I need, maybe some extra things thrown it, and whip it all together. I love it when everything falls into place nicely when I work hard on it.

But, just like my art, I know it wont come out exactly as planned and I am anticipating that. I will not get stressed about this video. Hopefully.

I may take off work on Monday however because I pressured on time on Mondays. I only have 2 hours from when I get home from class till I have to go to work till 10.30, in that time I need to eat as well not just work on homework.

So I have a little cramming to do but I have all day Friday, few hours Thursday, and all weekend to well whip everything I got together.


Here it goesssss.

Budget cuts?

What problems?

Technology is my thing. Thankfully I'm not having any technical problems with my video project on critical thinking. 


The only thing I am having troubles with is how to put all my information together in a clear why that all comes together in the end. 
I've been rewriting drafts after drafts and filming pointless parts over and over. 
I need some help is what it came down too. 


I asked my mom, I asked my friends, I asked teachers. Sadly I got little help. Or the help was very confusing. 


So I decided to take each piece of information and just jot down the basic understanding of what I want to talk about. It helped somewhat. I felt like I was planning out a paper, but I think that is just what I need to do. 


It needs a lot more work though and I need a few ideas for transition from one question to the next. 






Here goes some more planning!




Here's an article about planning a video. I found it pretty useful, I didn't go to the extreme that it is talking about; a full blown movie. 

Where did my advisor go?

Campus Safari number 8. 


Easily enough I called my major's secretary, which actually covers art, art history and art education to find out who my advisor was. In less than a minute I gave her my name and she told me my advisor just like that. Mr. Arthur Guagliumi. She transferred my call and I got him right away. 


I told him that I was a freshman and was just assigned him as my advisor and I wanted to make an appointment. He gave me directions to his office and told me there was a sign-up sheet right outside. 


Then next day I follow his instructions and get completely lost in Eagleman Hall. I end up in the psychology department.. then the English department. I stop at the map of directories and look to see if there is an art wing of some sort that I may have missed. Nothing.. not one place that involves art. So I think what should I do now.


Then I see "Dean of Arts and Science", something like that and I go right there. I tell the the secretary there that I think I messed up the directions and she told me exactly where to go. 


She also gave me the secretary's office in case I needed to ask her some questions as well. 


Finally I get to my advisor's room and make an appointment to see him and discuss my classes and study abroad next year. 


I feel that if I found his room right away I wouldn't have felt as accomplished as I did when I had to go and figure it out all on my own. I was happy in the end that I wouldn't be late for class and I got a meeting so early. 




Here is the Directory for anyone else in case they don't want to get lost like me. 








I don't have a picture of my advisor's mailbox because he said I could just leave things in his office. Here's the campus instead :)

The Art of Critical Thinking

What goes in it?

During it?

Why?

Who?

Does color count at all?

Extra points...?

So many random ideas have been flowing through my mind as to how am I suppose to explain critical thinking. I could ask someone... "HEY!, what is critical thinking?" and before they respond just add, "That's critical thinking, you're trying to get an answer and trying to explain it, exactly." 

But I want be more artistic with it. I want to show my own major through my work and make it blossom in a way.

I just got a camera today, so no video to show. I also got the wrong camera and hate it. On a brighter note, I don't exactly know how to use art to figure out what critical thinking is. I can show you a creative side?, that's more fun and exciting. Truthfully, I want people to watch my video and laugh and understand thinking in a whole new way. 

My theme, or the basis of my video will be me traveling around and explaining things through art and quote what others and teachers think Art of critical thinking is. 

Hopefully, by watching my video my classmates will realize how much art goes into thinking and visualizing. Getting everyone to think outside the box: 

Let your brain free and see what you come up with!

Here is something that I might ask random people to try and solve. Critical thinking.. with drawing.

Critical Thinking. What does that mean?

Lets start off with what thinking is. Well thinking is using thought or rational judgement. Critical is exact evaluation and judgement.

Both words seem to work together, trying to get to the same end point. Basically critical thinking is using exact judgement and thought. The ways to obtaining exact thought gets a little lost. People can get an answer one way or maybe a completely different way.

"The ArtScience process explores many ways of representing the same source of disciplinary knowledge without altering the integrity of that knowledge." (Siler, T)

You can take a creative approach or you can take a more intellectual approach to solving critical thinking. For me I prefer a more artistic view.
Graphs, charts, drawings, sketching, imagining, contemplating. To an extent this creative approach could be exact, or a little off.  In the end through drawing something out or scribbling I can get an answer about something that I'm questioning.

ArtScience 

Siler, T. (2011). The ArtScience Program for Realizing Human Potential. Leonardo, 44(5), 417-424. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Can you hear this?

Sadly I had a hard time trying to listen to the radio station at southern. On my #6 campus safari I went to the student center in search for the radio station. Unfortunately no one was there when I went. They also didn't have any listens of different shows, only different times when people aired. 


This whole trip was a disaster. I got home and tried over and over again to listen to the radio station online but I couldn't figure it out. 


Finally after I tried it the next day it worked. The whole time it was playing Spanish songs, not really my thing. Maybe it was just the style of who was on air. Finally they played songs I could understand with weird commercials in-between the songs. It was entertaining however, but personally I'll most likely be listening to my own music. 








Maybe in a week I'll check back to see if another person is picking out the songs and find a person with the same style and taste in music as me. 


Check it out in the mean time, wsinradio.org 

Bending at the wrong angles...

       Stress is a hard thing to deal with. Personally stress helps me finish thing on time or early so I have time to sit down, think, and breathe. Sometimes I need something to do to help me when I feel the pressure of stress is going to make me go mad. Lately I've been doing more yoga, almost every morning.


      My aunt is a yoga instructor and sent me one her books not too long ago. I take a lot of what the books suggests to help you become healthier overall. I found that the yoga throughout the book helps me greatly with stress. I focus on my breathing and I try as hard as I can to clear my head and not let stress get the better of me.


     Yoga has been a huge help throughout my whole life since I started a few years ago. And in my experiences with yoga I can say honestly it would help anyone to relieve stress.

Stress-free yoga

Apples are awesome

Eat an apple a day, it'll keep the doctor away.


People get sick a lot. Unfortunately I am one of those few who are always sick. It is either this or that, a virus
but it actually isn't a virus. Not matter what, I am at the doctors at least once a month with some kind of
illness.

I am just use to being sick, but I don't sub-come to my illnesses. I go to school, I might fall asleep but I
attempt, I do my school work and I push myself. For others, who aren't dying all the time, don't know what
to do when they get sick.

For me,
Nightquil is my best friend
Doctors aren't scary
You can never ever have too many tissues
Always carry extra cough drops
Take vitamins every day
Apples are awesome
Stay away from sick people at all costs
Wash your hands as much as possible
Sleep 8 hours a night, really it feels awesome when you do
Eat healthy, not fast food please


I don't have ways to prevent getting sick because I've tried almost everything. Some people just get sick. The
horrible part though is no matter how terrible you feel stay on top of your school work at all costs. Make
yourself wake up and do a little bit at a time. Drink lots of tea, I think it's suppose to be good for you.
But to sum it all up, being sick isn't fun. You just need perseverance to overcome what you have and the work you need to do for school


Prevention anyone?

It's All About That Group Thing

Number Nine on the Campus Safari 


I got lost a few times trying to find the Student Life room, which ended up being on the second floor in the student center. There I looked into different clubs that I could join. It was pretty hard for me because most clubs meet when I had class or work. It really frustrated me that clubs didn't meet on weekends too much. 


I already am planing on joining the German Club to help further my speaking skills. The club meets on Wednesdays at 1 to 2, which is a time I can actually go and be able to finish homework and get home on time to get ready for work. Commuting, working, finishing my homework, and joining a club leaves me with little time where I end up stressing about everything. 






I want to join the German Club though because I feel it would help me and give me more time to practice with others who have the same interest in trying to speak German. My professor also made it sound very fun. 


Another club, or should I say clubs, interested me was the Religious clubs. I have to go back and talk to someone else to see if they have an Episcopalian Club because church use to be a huge part of my life. I use to do a lot of community work in New Haven with other churches that were sisters and brothers of mine. I would like to bring that back to Southern and see if there are other fellow Episcopalians.    








If you're wondering what an Episcopalian is, click here. :)

Survey Question Anyone?... anyone?

It's hard to track people down to ask a simple question. 


In the past few weeks throughout my inquiry classes I have been really thinking about the toll of technology use on our minds and how we function. I ended up asking two questions to a random sort of people, or whoever I could get my grasp on. 

1. On average how many times do you think you use your phone throughout the day?
2. Do you feel weird when you don't your phone on you? 

I got many varied answers. The reason I asked these questions in the first place was to see how attached people where to their 'instant gratification devices', which is something I came up with while thinking about how people react to their phones. If someone wants an answer, they will get one within minutes using their phone. Or maybe someone is bored, they can instantly fix that with all the apps that are available to download onto their phone. Endless possibilities to conquer the need for instant gratification. 

The results to my questions further helped me see how 'glued' to our devices we really are. To the first question, everyone I asked said that they use their phones at least, or very well over 100 times or more throughout the day, they also added that "that count may just be texting alone though..". Instant messaging on the go to accommodate you where ever and whenever. 

The answers to the second question I asked people were actually shocking. Everyone put some thought into how they would feel without their phone. One person said "if i am struck with awareness that the weight of my phone is missing from my leg, there is a moment of primal panic. On more than one occasion I have checked facebook on my phone while on facebook on my computer. Sometimes I feel vibrations that are not there, and when I rip my phone out of my pocket to the black and print-smudged screen, i am crushed."

In the end all I saw was repeated uneasiness when I asked someone what they would feel without their phone. Honestly, I wouldn't like the feeling of my phone being somewhere else either. 

Part instant gratification and almost seems addictive as well. Could our phones soon be able to send out addictive waves where we can't control ourselves, or maybe we are already there with technology. 

An article that shows actual results from tests and explain how teens in general felt the same way as people I surveyed. 

Where is my time going?

Almost like grains of sand flowing, keeping track of time, my sand is disappearing right out sight. Desperately I try to get my 8 hours of sleep otherwise I feel as if I am barely functioning throughout the day. When my weekends come into sight I end up sleeping up to 11 hours, how I end up doing this mind-boggles me. The rest of my weekend hours go to studying and doing whatever work I can for the week coming up. Mostly art, reading art history, and studying German. Throughout the week I try to cram so many things in before I go off to work from 4.30-10 Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Rest of my hours in the week I am in school or driving to school, sometimes eating. 


I wish I could stop my sand from slipping away and take a moment or two to think. 
I miss contemplating what I'm doing or saying, or going to say or do. Now I seem to say either yes, no, later, can't, bye bye bye. Everything blurs here and there as information jams up in my head giving me a constant annoying headache. 


I know I am not the only one frustrated with it, I know complaining won't help it. That's why in the end I pick studying all day on the weekends instead of going out. If I have time at night, I treat myself and have fun. 


In the end sadly, this won't be a stress-less easy first semester in my book, it'll be more of a headache with time and me running against the sand that's slipping away. 


Wanna take a break? Find a show you like and take a load off your shoulders with the help of my favorite thing, hulu. :)

Number Seven, A trip to get fit

I took a walk to the fitness center between classes and decided to look around. Two students at the front dress asked if I wanted to sign up, I already have a membership at another gym right by my house, but I decided to take ask some questions.



The hours of the fitness center are as followed:
Monday- Thursday: 7 am - 10 pm
Friday 7 am - 8 pm
Saturday 9.30 am - 4.30 pm
Sunday 2 pm - 7 pm


The fitness center is equipped with many machines ranging from treadmills to lat pull-downs and chest presses, shoulder presses, and leg presses, you name it, they have it.
It costs a little more than my own gym, but if I lived on campus it would be more convenient for me to go there. It is 60$ per semester or 35$, a reduced price,  if you start during the middle of the semester.


While I was asking about prices I thought about how much the classes were. When you pay for the semester all the classes come free as well. So I decided to look at what kind of classes they offered. First and only one I wanted to attend was the yoga class. Yoga is so calming and can make you feel great all throughout the day.
Of course they only have yoga classes when I have class or work. But yoga can benefit anyone and everyone.

If you're thinking is silly but you're stressed all the time take a look at this. Maybe yoga can become a thing of your life like I wish it could be more of mine.

What is Really Important?

My task : Look at fellow classmates blogs and judge which ones could be ranked as "A" material.

I don't know how it is for everyone, but I am absolutely horrible, terrible, god awful at picking and deciding. I read almost every single person's blogs, a random post from each one, and that didn't help. How am I suppose to rank them. Each person has there own set mind on what they want from their blog, how they want readers to feel or think. In the end I picked those that made me laugh, talked about things they liked that personally I never got into, and one that was just what we were suppose to do.

Louie's happy blog time, is just that. He makes corny jokes through all of his posts and makes me giggle as I read them. He finishes the assignments we are suppose to do, but he adds his own personality into them and makes me feel as if he is talking to the reader, which could be anyone.
Rachel's blog sends off a feeling of gentleness and ease. Its background is bright pink and her personality just like Louie's shouts out at you. In the beginning I know Rachel had some trouble with starting up her own blog but you can easily see that she is getting more comfortable with it and writing about herself.
Finally there is Kelsey's blog. In her posts she is clearly just doing the assignments she was given and put little of her own personality in it. She is very organized and her post flow very nicely. Only thing is I wish she would put more Kelsey into her writings.

To sum it all up, I like to see variety in everyone's writing, which is why I choose such different blogs. In my opinion everyone is ranked differently. Sometimes though, words describe better than a letter or number.

A little spice of Art

Shifting and searching through blogs is not a common thing for me. First thing whenever Google something is artwork, instead this time I looked at art teachers and what they had to say. 

• Art for Small Hands
• Adventures of an Art Teacher

These two blogs above caught my eye. They both are art teachers but go about writing and explaining art in different ways. One teacher explains how to bring art up into a child and let them grow, the other shows art projects of her students along with instructional blog posts. 


Of course these two blogs are influential on me and I even bookmarked them so I can go back and get some inspiration from them. The two teachers made me want to teach art even more. In both blogs the women seemed to love art and children just as much as I do. 


Others though who might not be interested in art education or art in general might still be fascinated with these two blogs. A babysitter could easily get some quick ideas to make crafts with whoever they are watching. Or maybe a person is insecure about their artwork. In all honesty, anything a person makes whether another person thinks it is good or not, it is artwork. 


Art isn't just for 'artists', it is for everyone. It can be a stress reliever, or something that helps you think. A boredom reducer. Art can be whatever you make it to be. 


Here is an easy low relief project made out of simple cardboard that anyone can do: 

It was one of the projects made by Katie Morris. 
Try it out and you may have more fun than you thought you would.

A little Trip From Here to There. #3

Every day, every signal day, I walk by the Health center and all these buildings around it. I really didn't know what was in them, I figured they were offices.

I am a commuter, an oblivious student to Southern. I know where my classes are and where the student center is, everything else on campus just looms over me like an abandoned building.  I'm rushed on time when I'm on campus so I never had the chance to look around. Either I have back to back classes, which all of mine are, or I am running home to get some studying in before work.

Honestly, I didn't want to go places I didn't have to. But when I got to the health center I asked to talk to a nurse and told them how I wanted to ask a few questions on help issues here at Southern. I waited for a little bit and talked to one of the wellness managers, or assistants, I'm not sure which it was. Everyone welcomed me in and told me as much as they could.

I talked to a nurse one-on-one and she told me some common health issues. To my surprise nothing seemed surprising, flues, colds, strep, mono, and a few STD's were all things I figured were going to be common. Then the nurse mentioned stress related illnesses. She told me that so many students get run down and get colds and flues very easily because they are so over stressed.

Simple enough though, the nurse went on to explain that all of these common health issues are too easy to avoid. All you need to do is exercise good hand washing, get a flu shot every year, sleep right, and make healthy food choices and safe sex.

I'm not really worried about getting sick any more this year. I told the nurse I get sick very easily and she told me that if I don't stress myself out and get enough sleep I should be perfectly fine, just make sure I avoid anyone coughing.





If you think you're stressing yourself out just go here  Understanding Stress, and see if you need a quiet day of relaxation.

And for everyone who is living in a dorm, the health center had this nice poster with some cool information:

Technology Twister

Just about everyone who can access technology most likely uses it. Who wouldn't. 
As you read my blog on the internet you're, I'm guessing, either on a computer or a smart phone. 

Now my question is, are you reading this blog out of curiosity, maybe you're bored, or maybe just maybe you have a technology problem. I don't want to sound insulting or rude, but maybe you should step away from the internet and get some fresh air. If you want to understand some interesting ideas about the over use of technology in your life and how stressful it could be making you, then go ahead and be intertwined with the internet. 

First off, personally, I'm on the internet too much than I would prefer and I can only dream about escaping and going hiking or even go rafting in a river for days on end. I was very jealous of theses scientists that got to do just that.

Five scientists spent a week in May at a remote area of southern Utah, rafting in the San Juan River, camping on the  banks and hiking the tributary canyons. It wasn't a vacation or even a get-away. The main point of this lovely voyage was to understand how heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think and behave. This trip was to show how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects, hopefully.

Through out the trip little changes occurred. A non-believer of this trip, Todd Braver, stopped wearing his watch saying he just forgot, which he never did. The scientists under went a type of relaxation and by the 3rd day completely pushed away any technology and was so content at watching the stars and hiking the day away. 

People end up forgetting about how nice it is to get away from technology and relax. For these five scientists in the end, they all agreed the trip was a success. 

From that short trip do you believe our brain needs to cool down from societies busy schedule? I sure do. 

Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime : In this link, the article tells about how people get upset when technology is taken away from them. People feel the need to multitask and distract themselves because they don't want to feel 'bored'. 

Do these people ever think about downtime their brain needs to be able to function better. Sleep is great to regenerate for your body, but your brain needs some downtime of just sitting back and being unplugged. 

For many people, technology isn't a problem, but for others it could be causing a lot of stress on you and maybe your relationships. 

For another read click here. Hopefully it's not too late for you and maybe you can escape into the wilderness and get some relaxation for you and your overworked brain. 

Day Dreamer to the extreme

After reading The 'Learning Knights' of Bell Telephone and How to Become a Deep Thinker at College I thought of a few interesting ideas.


One huge idea was that the workers at Bell Telephone were put on a 10 month intense program called the Institute of Humanistic Studies for Executives during this time they had no other time then to read and think about their courses. But because of how intense the program was it led these workers to becoming deep thinkers. This thought connected back to How to Become a Deep Thinker at College. 


This one little connection, this little thought made me sit and think about my own thinking process, my time spent of analyzing and processing my classes and questions I have about them. In the end I looked at myself as a day dreamer, swiftly drifting through the day trying not to analysis a thing and just going with what everything seems to be.  


In college and in life, everything isn't what it seems. These two articles made me actually consider about how much time I put into just thinking. I don't want to let my brain run free and day dream about random things just as much but be more productive and achieve a deeper thinking on class work and on my own life as well. 

I shouldn't lose precious thinking time on day dreaming. 


In addition, I looked up other articles about critical thinking to see what others thought about the topic. I came across the article Thinking Cap: Angst Before High School on Nytimes.com. The article talked about research being done to see if students going to more renowned High School score's had a different long term outcome than those who had equal testing scores but didn't get into the school. The results were that the students really didn't show much difference. I thought this article related to deeper thinking because even though the students that didn't get into a renowned school they ended up having more time to think and practice and to keep up with their counterparts who did attend the renowned school.