Final Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0DgRnLOh0o&context=C344a249ADOEgsToPDskJvTYzFkFOZ2L57XAsuPivi

Self-Assesment

  In my first semester of college, I learned a lot about myself and my learning process. I procrastinate a lot. In high school it was one thing, I could get away with it, but in college, you cannot do that. It affected a lot of my grades. I would wait until last minute, so my work would not be the best that I could produce. I also learned that I have to keep track of what is due because I forget a lot of things easily. This hurt my grade a lot in this class especially. I would always forget to do my blog posts, so my grade went down because of that.
  One of the things that I have had the biggest trouble with so far is waking up early. I cannot seem to get up when it is before 10:30. I missed some classes because of this so I knew not to sign up for any classes that were too early for me next semester. I am noit sure why I cannot get up early. I used to have to do it in high school, but I cannot seem to here. It may be because I am staying up later here because I am around all of my friends, but whatever it is, I hope to overcome it in the future.
  My biggest achievements so far this year has been getting my work done when it gets time to crack down. I was able to do a few papers last minuet, and recieved good grades on them. I know it is not a good thing to say that I waited until last minute, but I was proud that I got them done. To help me with my success, I used my friends a lot. Most times when I had an essay, they also did, so we would sit together in the lobby and we would make sure that we were all focusing on what we needed to get done.
  To be honest, my time management skills have been less than satisfactory. I wuld continually put things off until the point where I was almost pulling an all nighter just to finish it. I spent a lot of my time this semester hanging out with my friends, which also caused me to slack on my school work. Because of my slacking, my grades are not going to be where I wanted them. But I now know what I should and should not do next semester in order to get my grades where I want them.
  My grades this semester have been low, but I have learned a lot in my classes. My english class taught me a lot about college writing that I will need for my college career. Inquiry helped me learn new skills to help me succeed in college. My math class this semester helped me decide that I want my second major to be math. My last class anthropology did not help me too much, but it did teach me that when you have difficult teachers, you have to learn on your own and make the best of it.
  I have to say that I am not where I had hoped to be in my college career. I wanted my grades much higher, but I have learned from my mistakes.I want to bring my grades up from here on out. I have to apply myself and stop with the procrastination.
  My goals for next semeter are plain and simple. Better grades and no procrastinating. I want to get my work done early so that I will not forget about them and so that I put my best effort and work into them. This will help me with my grades also.

Final Video Draft

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbCWlxOeQlc&feature=youtube_gdata

Learning Community

   I really enjoyed having a learning community for my first year here at Southern. I liked having a group of people that I saw every week in two of my classes and I will miss having them there all the time. It was nice walking around and seeing people that I recognized from my class, and I have heard a lot of people say that they are quiet in all of their classes except for anthropology and inquiry. I think that this shows that people felt more comfortable around people in their learning community. This may be because we see eachother so often, but in my opinion it is a good thing to hear. I met some really nice people and I hope that I have other classes with them.

  One thing that I will miss a lot is when we go to Inquiry together and vent about our problem. I feel as if we all felt so comfortable being ourselves that it will be a really different feeling when we do not have that anymore because the semester is over.

Favorite Teacher to Many

  I have not thought much about what my ideal life after college. The only thing that I have really thought about was the fact that it may be hard for me to get a job because teaching jobs are limited. But if I had to think about it and imagine it, it would most likely be like this.
  I want to be the best teacher that I can possible be. I want all of the kids to want to get me as a teacher. I want to be like my favorite teacher when I was younger. In my old school, on the last day you would spend the entire day meeting your new teacher and your new classmates. We would all hope for the nicest most friendliest teacher that all the older kids would talk about the most. In fourth grade, I wanted a specific teacher so badly. The last few days of school all I would talk about is how nice she was and how great of a teacher she would be. When we found out who was in what class, of course I was one of the last ones to find out because my last name starts with a "T". Then I found out that I got the teacher that I wanted. I was so excited and then it came time to split off and meet our new teachers. As soon as I walked into her class I knew that she was exactly like everyone said. Her room was all decorated and she had such a fun and bubbly personality. She was the most fairest teacher that I have ever had.
  I want to decorate my class just like she did and I want all the kids to get excited when they find out that they will be in my class.

Radio Station

  One assignment that I never thought I would do was to find a radio station and listen to it. Then this week I was in my room on Facebook and my upstairs neighbor put up a status saying that he had a radio station and to listen to it.The show is on Wednesdays at 9:15. The show is called Jamz-Center and they played old songs and new ones. You can listen to this station online at WSIN Radio : 1590 AM
  I would for sure listen to this radio station again and not just because the person is someone I know, but because they had good music and it was interesting in general. I would give the show an A because they took calls and talked about interesting things.
  I recommend that people listen and enjoy this station.

True Life: SCSU on the Weekends

  I got my idea from Kelsey in class on Tuesday. I am going to make my video like the MTV show True Life to make my movie more original and less boring. I am planning on finding the music (hopefully) and make the title as much like the show as I can. I am going to improve my video by actually getting people to be video taped. My last video was all quotes because only one person was willing to be filmed. The True Life idea will add originality because it is not just a video with people answering questions, but it has originality. I am going to try to find commercials that have at least something to do with my topic so it is like you are really watching a television show.
  I could not work on my project over break because I have to ask people from SCSU the questions and I did not see anyone over break. I made questions to ask and now that I am back I have been working on it. I recorded two people already so it is already better than my last video. I will also use this picture as my first slide and add words to it.

Final Project

  For my final video projects, I have decided to focus on the problem that all residents on campus face, boring weekends. Many students who live on campus go home on the weekends not because they miss their family, but because there aren't many activities that you can do on campus. As residents, we pay so much money to live on campus, and we do not spend the entire week there. As someone who stays on the weekend, I can tell you that the campus is dead. No one is ever there and it makes it even more boring.
  For the solution, I want to focus on asking people who go home why they go home, and what could be changed on campus to make them stay for the weekend. I also want to ask people who stay on campus for the weekend why they stay, and what they do while they are here. I want to see how many people stay because they want to, and how many people stay because they can't get a ride home.
The way that I am going to do my video is:

-Title Page

-First question (Do you go home on  the weekends. What do you go home or why not and what do you do on campus.)

-Interviews and quotes to answer the question

-Second question(How could SCSU get you to stay or make the weekends more fun.)

-Interviews and quotes to answer questions

- Facts about things that SCSU offers on weekends and information about shuttles and where they go.

-There will be pictures of activities that have gone on during weekends and other things.

  I am hoping that this video will convince people to stay on campus weekend and show people that there are activities that go on. It might make the weekends more fun if people were there and it may even convince groups like RHA to create more activities on the weekend because more students are staying.

Meeting With My English Teacher

  This past Monday I had a meeting with my English teacher about redoing one of my papers. She has this rule where you can redo one of your papers, and instead of averaging out the scores, she will just throw the old score out. I was scheduled to have my meeting with her two weeks ago, but when I went to her office, there was a note saying that she was running late, so she would not be able to make the meeting. When I rescheduled the meeting, the day that I happened to pick was the day that we were having class in the library class room, so we had our meeting outside of the room by the desks, so I did not meet with her in her office, but I did meet with her.
  We went over what I had to improve on my essay in order to get a better grade on it. One of the major things that I had to improve was the length of my essay. It was too short, so she said that no matter how good or bad the actual essay was, she would not have been able to pass it either way. Just knowing this I knew I had a lot of work a head of me. Then she gave me some tips on how to improve the length of the essay and she pointed out some mistakes that I clearly missed. She told me that if I point with my finger, and read the essay backwards, I would be able to find my mistakes, like using the word you, better and easier then just reading it because my mind will already know what it is expecting to read because I wrote it. This meeting was extremely helpful and I am glad I signed up for it.

College Life

  For Hanna, Erin, Kelsey, and Ashley's group I read about college life and how to balance studying and social life. They talk about a lot of things that relate to me as a first semester freshman. They talked about how it seems like we have a lot of free time because our schedules are so spaced out. This relates to me because I feel this exact way. I am not use to have two classes so spaced out in one day, or only having three classes back to back in one day for such a short period of time. And then I have a three day weekend because I have no class on Friday. This all sounds good in general, but it's all so weird to me. I have free time, but at the same time it does not feel like I do at all. The articles suggested that you join clubs and get involved. I have done this, an although it has helped me be more social, it makes less free time for me. I love going to my meetings, but there are those times when I just can't because I have too much work to do for my classes. They also suggested for people to keep their doors open when you are in you're room so people can come in and visit. I agree with this because my and my roommates had this idea at the beginning of the semester, and it worked a lot. We still do it not too. We also like to sit out in the common area or lobby because then you just say hi to a lot of people, and you start to make conversations and new friends. I also watched the movie that they had up for us, it was a little weird. They talked as if they were on a hunt for animals in the wild. It was amusing and I got the point that they were trying to say.

INFJ

  For this week's class, I took a test for Louie, Mike, and Dane's group. The test was to see what type of personality you have. I got the personality of INFJ. The website says that this is the personality of a counselor because you tend to sympathize and empathise with other people. This description somewhat fits me because I want to be an elementary school teacher, so type of personality will fit in perfectly with that type of job.
  After I took that test, I read out left side brain people and right side brain people. The articles basically say that people who use their left brain more prefer certain things and are better at certain things and people who use their right side of the brain are better at the things that the left sided brain people are bad at. After comparing the two lists and reading the articles, I realized that I have qualities from both, for example, I am both a dog and cat person, but I am more of a left sided brain person.
  I am better at algebra than geometry, I need total quiet to read, I am good at math, and I would rather be serious than clown around. All of these traits coincide with the left side of the brain and not the right. The left side of the brain also control the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body. This makes sense because I am right handed.
  If there was an in between, such as a middle brained person, that may describe me better because although the left brain does describe me better then the right, there are still many things from the right that describe me.

Kids Then and Now

  This week, I am partnering up with Adriana and Stephanie to do a project about parenting skills and how they have changed since we were younger. From that topic, we took it a step further and add three sub-categories: different types of parenting skills, kids and social networks, and kids and reality television. I decided to do the main research on the topic of kids and reality television. I wanted to do this section of our project because I have heard first hand about what types of shows kids are watchng now. I coach 10, 11, and 12 year olds and I am always hearing about the new episodes of Jersey Shore or The Real World. It always amazes me because I know that when I was their age I was not watching those types of shows. I was watching Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. And what amazes me even more is that their parents do not seem to mind as much as you would expect them to. Some of the parents even watch the reality shows with them. When I was there age, my mom would get so mad if she ever caught me trying to watch shows on MTV because she saw them as innapropriate, as do most other parents. For this reason, my group and I believe that parents are way more lenient then when we were kids.

Alcohol Readings

  I found the readings for Dion, Jason, and Nick's group really interesting. A lot of the facts that are in the article are things that I did not know, and would have never guessed. There were a lot of percentages of college students who drink, and the numbers are so much higher than I would have ever expected.
  I learned that there are a lot of college students who binge drink. One person in class today talked about one possibility as to why so many college students binge drink. They said that it may be because so many college students do not drink in high school because either their parents had real control over them, or it was hard for them to get their hand on alcohol, so now that they are in college, there is alcohol all around them, and their parents are not here to stop them from drinking when they want. They are doing what they have wanted to do since high school, and a lot of students expect college to be about drinking and partying, so that is what they do. This makes complete sense to me because I have seen it happen. There are people who used to drink in high school and go to house parties, so when they came to college, drinking and partying were not as big of a deal. And then I have seen people who were sheltered in high school, and they came to college and it is an entirely different experience because they do not have people to tell them that they cannot do this or that, so they do as much as the can whenever they can.
  This is why I believe all of the facts and statistics that are in the reading that they gave us to read.

High School to College in the Blink of an Eye

 It feels like I was just in High School hanging out with my friends and knowing everyone in my school, and now I'm on my own in college. I do my own laundry when I run out of clothes to wear and I have no other choice but to wash them, I have to motivate myself to go to class everyday even if I do not feel like it, and I have to make my own food when I do not feel like going to Conn Hall because it gets tiring after a while

 It also feels weird not being at home. I can't sleep in my own bed and have my family and pets around me all the time like I am use to. I miss waking up to my cat and dogs cuddling with me in my bed. I also miss my bed in general. It was so big and comfy and on the floor, unlike my high lofted bed here. I hate when I wake up and I can’t just get off my bed and walk, I have to climb down just to go to the bathroom.

One thing that I love about being here though is having all my friends around all the time because they live all around me. I feel like I am living in a small town with all of these neighbors around with little restaurants all around you and everything you need. It is like being in your own little world, and when you go out of your little town, you forget things, like that you can’t use Hoot Loot everywhere you go, and it happens a lot to me.

I also enjoy living with my friend of five years. It is nice to have her around, even if there are days where we need time apart so we go home.

Slipping and Sliding to Class

With the sudden snow in the middle of fall, I was talking to some upperclassmen in my building. He was telling me and my roommates about last winter and we learned some interesting facts about Southern that other freshman might want to know. He told us that Southern does not like to cancel school. They are the last of all the state schools to cancel school. If they do not have to, then they will not. This worries me because I am very clumsy, and I tend to slip a lot in the winter. I am not looking forward to it because I have noticed that when it is wet outside, the granite stairs get very slippery.

To make matters worse, the kid also told us that the bridge is “like a slippery death trap.” According to him, the bridge is always slippery, even if they put rock salt down and the bridge occasionally gets black ice. I feel as if that is completely unsafe. So many people use the bridge, and if it is really that slippery, it makes me wonder how many people will slip and fall this winter. I may just feel safer just walking in the street and using the cross walks because at least there is rock salt down so it will be a little easier to walk. Another possibility in order to avoid falling, besides walking like a turtle, is to take the shuttle. My only thing about this is I would have to know the bus schedule, and I feel like a lot of people, especially upperclassmen, do this, so there would not be that many seats left on the shuttle.

The more that I thought about it, the more I realize that just because the school does not close, does not mean that the teacher will not cancel the class.

Say Hi to The Chainsaw Guy

  Last Friday, I went to Lake Compounce with my friends and Southern for the haunted grave yard. Now I hate scary things. I do not watch scary movies, and I try to avoid being scared as much as possible. Me and my other friend, who is the same way as me, were told that the scary would stay in the haunted grave yard. It turns out we were lied to. There were people in costumes all over the place. Me and my two friends went on rides the majority of the time and we sure did not go into that haunted grave yard. The only hard part was avoiding the people walking around intentionally trying to scare people.

  In order to do this, we all walked arm in arm looking around like the most paranoid people ever. The first creature that we saw was a odd looking thing. From behind you could not really tell what he, or it, was. We followed him for a while, and then we discovered what he was. He went in-between the bushes and blended in, he was a bush. He would hide there and scare unknowing people who walked by him. We walched him scare a few people, and then we continued to walk so that no one would try to get us.

    After we went on a few more rides, my friends wanted to go on this rollercoaster that goes upside down. Now I hate heights, so me going on all of the other rides was unlike me enough that I did not need to go on this roller coaster. I walked through the line with them and then went through the exit when they went on. While I was watching them, I kept looking behind my back, and it is a good thing I did. Behind me was this zombie looking guy with a chainsaw. He scared two grown men behind me who screamed like little girls and ran. When he started to approach me, my heart was pounding. Now I know they aren't really zombies, but it was still scary. So I did the only thing that I could think of to get him away from me. I turned my head, smiled, waved, and said "Hey!" After he looked at me for a little while, he turned his head, waved, and walked away. It felt so good to know that all I had to do to get him away was wave.

Midterms and Beyond

  I can honestly say that I am not proud of my midterm grades at all. I honestly believe that I could have done so much better and I know why they were the way they were for each one. The reason for each one is homework. I either forgot that I had it, or I would try to do it and not fully understand it, and the computer doesn't count partial credit, so for my math class I can't really do anything about it. I was honestly expecting the grades because I knew I was behind on my assignments.
  For this next half of the semester, I will be doing all of my homework and my papers ahead of time and not wait until last minute to complete them (which is why I am completing this assignment now). For my math, I will do the assignments as soon as I get them, even if they aren't due for a few days. This will also help me because if I don't understand it, I will have time to ask my teacher how to do it because if I wait until the night it's due, I won't have time to ask. For english I will check my syllabus everyday even if I am sure that I don't have any that day, or I think I already did it because she sometimes gives us more than one in a day to do. For inquiry, I will do my blog posts all at once when I can so that I don't forget when one is due, because that is my biggest problem. I feel good about anthropology, it is just hard for me to do the homework when I don't understand the reading. For this I may need to read it one day twice, and then the next day read it twice again before I do the assignment just to make sure I cover everything.

Something New and Exciting

  This past weekend, I did something that I never do. I am an extremely shy person. I hang out with certain people with my full personality showing, but as soon as I get around new people, I stay really quiet and out of the way. This past weekend I went to a murder mystery even in my hall with my roommate. After it was all over and done with, we were asked to help out with a banner for homecoming. We decided to stay along with all of the people on the eboard and a few other residence. I decided to be my normal self instead of hiding my true personality.
  It turns out that there are some really cool people in my residence hall that I never even knew lived here. We worked on the banner for five hours and we were all laughing and dancing the entire time. For the next few days after that, we all continued to hang out in the basement and work on the banner so that we could make it the best that we could. We finally finished it today and it came out amazing. I made friends with a lot of people that I will most likely hang out with more.
   If I hadn't been myself, people may have not noticed me or not really got to know me. From this experience, I realize that I should really do that more often. I am in ollege and being shy all the time just isn't a good way for me to make more friends. We all hung out so much in the past four days that I would honestly say that if we ever had to do another major thing with our hall, I would hope that it would be with the same people.

Troubleshooting

  I have never really used Window's Movie Maker, and it turns out it's not as easy as I thought it was. I started last week and I made all of the title slides with no problem.  I changed the slide color, the font size, and the transitions into each slide. The problems came when I tried to add music. I was attempting to add music to a specific part and I only wanted to use a specific part of the song. For some odd reason, I could not figure out how to do it. To this point in time, I still have not figured out how to do it. I have to play around with the music more, but for right now, I am more focused on cutting my videos and putting them all together to make it one amazing video. If it truly comes down to it, I am sure that someone will know how to fix this and I will be able to ask when it comes time to ass all of the music because at this pint, I was just fooling around with it to see if I could do  it because I am not sure what music I want to put in it quite yet.

Library Skills

  Last week I learned a new skill that I am sure I will be using very often, how to find a book in my school's giant library.We had to find a book on critical thinking that we can use to help us make our videos for our midterm. Finding the book wasn't as hard as I had expected. Once I went on the library website to see if the book was available and where I could find it, all I had to do was look at the letters and numbers on all of the rows in order to find which book I was looking for.This will help me when I have to write papers for all of my classes, so I'm glad I learned it because I didn't know that you could use that website to look for not only books, but articles and other things that would help me with my papers.

Midterm Video

  Midterms are coming up. Usually that means spending hours studying for all different classes and panicking. Lucky for me we got a different project for my inquiry class that it actually interesting. We have to make a video interviewing people and asking them about critical thinking. The questions that I decided to focus on within the topic are how do you use critical thinking in school, and how do you use it outside of school. So far I know that I am going to use windows movie maker and I know who I am going to interview. I have already asked the question to a few people so that they have time to think about how they want to answer it. The only thing I haven't done is started the actual movie. I am going to start the camera interviewing and such this weekend. I know what I want the video to look like I just have to get it to look like I want it to.

What Is Critical Thinking?..No Really.

  When you look up "Critical Thinking", the actual definition is disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence. This makes my eyebrow go up and my head hurt. Over the past few months of school, we have been learning a little bit about it, and it's helped a little, but not by much. During inquiry, it finally hit me what critical thinking really means. It's about answering somethinf using evidence and explaining with a deeper meaning.
  The book, Critical Thinking, by John Hoaglund helped me undertand it a little bit more. In the book, it shows examples that you would have to put into premises and comclusions. Then after you try, it shows you the correct answer, the wrong answer, and why they're right or wrong. This helps me because I will never understand it if I'm just told that it's wrong.
  I never realized how much I actually use critical thinking, especially in college. In HighSchool, you had to answer thing, but in college you have to answer then with deeper thought in it and you have to back it up with a lot more examples to show that you know what you're doing.

Work Cited:
Hoaglund, John. Critical Thinking. Newport News, VA: Vale, 1995. Print. 6 October 2011.

Football vs Hockey

  This past Friday, my friends and I decided to game hop. We went from the football game against UNH to the hockey game against Farmingdale State all in one night. The first game that we went to was the football game. There were a lot of people there and the energy was pretty good. Everyone was standing the entire time and they were all completely into the game. My friends and I left at half time in order to make it to the net game, but when we left, we were winning 13 to 7. In the end, the team lost the game.
  We rushed to the shuttle that was taking us to the hockey game and we headed over to the game. When we got there, it was completely different. We were all up close to the team and everyone did chants together instead of doing three different ones at once. No this wasn't my first hockey game, but it was the first one that I actually got into. I was screaming along with everyone else and I learned a lot about hockey. They game was really close. In the first period, we scored two points. Then in the second period the other team caught up to us and scored one more. The score was two to three and everything got a lot more intense. In the third period, we scored and tied the game, that is until the other teamed scored again. Thankfully we caught back up, after being robbed by the refs when they took away one of our points. The game went into a five minute overtime and no one scored. With the game still tied, we went into shoot outs. Now I'm not sure how it exactly works, but they went back and forth with one person from each team trying to score on the other team's goalie.
  We made out first shot, and the goalie blocked the other teams first shot. Then they made it, and we did too. Then both teams missed twice in a row. Finally we scored and then blocked the shot, so we won!! It was the most intense thing to watch. I think I prefer hockey over football because you're right there close up to the ice and it's a better fan based atmosphere. I am definitely a huge fan of SCSU hockey and I will be going to as many games as I possibly can.

Relax The Stress

 
   This assignment worked out well for me this week because this week was oddly stressful. With my cheerleader's competition is next week and we aren't wuite ready. I am also attempting to help our younger squad, and on top of it trying to keep up with my school work. It's a lot more stress than people think, but I made a commitment and I have to stick to it. By Saturday, I was so tired and worn out that I had to go home to just relax. I had to go to my cheerleader's football game, and I was really dreading it. I was so stressed that I was on the boarder of a panic attack. When I got to the game, my stress all seemed to go away. My cheerleaders always seem to know how to make me laugh and smile. Being with them for those three hours made me feel so much better, I was shocked. They really know how to put a smile on my face and make me feel better.

Staying Healthy While Studying

  A lot of students have an issue staying healthy during the school year, but it's worse in college because it's hard to make up a class if you miss it. There are a few things that you can do to help prevent being sick. The first id the obvious, a flu shot. You don't want to be caught with the flu, because you won't be in class for a week. You can also carry tissues so you don't have to wipe your nose on your sleeve, EWW!! And let's not forget our handy dandy purel. Keep it with you just incase you touch something gross or if someone sneezes on you. There is also this new medacine that I recently discovered. It is called Zicam. As soon as you get that icky feeling, you take it, and it either helps prevent it, or allows you to get over it faster. Just as a fact, it does work. I took it when my roommate and I both felt sick, and a week later, she got sick and I didn't. If you follow these guidlines, your year will be a little easier.

Is There Even Enough Time In The Day?

 
  Over the past week, I kept track of everything I was doing hour by hour to see what I was really doing everyday that made me feel like I never had enough time for homework. Now it just so happened that the week that I was doing this, a lot of unexpected and infrequent things came up, but it still never the less showed me a lot.
  My Inquiry showed us the math on how much time we should have left over for homework during the week. Now she came up with 70 hours, but she only gave us 2 hours to relax a day, and we all know we use more than that. When I was keeping track of everything, it seemed like I had a lot more going on than I even knew. With me coaching cheerleading four times a week, and between my classes, it just doesn't seem like there's that much time. I did find that I would do work about 2-3 hours a  night, and even in between classes (if there was even a break). I also realized that I do hang out with my friends a lot, but in my defense, we occasionally do work when we hang out.
  I have come to the conclusion that even if I don't have a lot of time during the week for work, as long as I get it done, it doesn't really matter if it's 2-3 hours a night or 7.

What Clubs Should I join?

  This past week I went to a club fair on campus to see what clubs I wanted to get involved in this year. The fair was huge! There were so many clubs that I didn't even know where to start. The first club that caught my interest was Colleges Against Cancer. I had heard a lot about this group ever since I got on campus, so I wanted to see what they were about. They work to help fund raise to for cancer patients and things related to cancer. Another thing that they also do is work with the people who run Relay For Life to help organize it. This club interested me because I've known a few people, including my great grandmother, who have either died or had cancer, so I want to help raise money for it and be a part of a group that is doing something really good.
  When I was at the fair, a lot of the sororities caught y eye. Before I got to SCSU, I decided that I wanted to join a sorority because I like the idea of being really close to a group of people. They also do a lot of volunteer work which I like to do. I haven't decided which sorority I want to join but I know that I want to join one next semester because I don't want to commit to one until I'm stead with my work.

My A+ Opinion

  
  As I was going through my Inquiry classmate's blogs, I found a few that deserved an A+ without a doubt. One blog that I found really interesting is Louie's blog, Louie's Happy Blog Time. His posts are all different from the ones that I see everyone else write. He also uses cartoons, that I think he makes himself, to show what he did, instead of using actual photographs.
  Another person's blog that interested me was Spencer's blog, starting as an SCSU freshman. Her blog looks different from everyone else's because each blog post has a different color for the font, which catches your eye as soon as you click on it. The name is also very catchy. The title just makes you want read because it makes you curious as to what it's like to be a freshman at SCSU.
   The last blog that I found interesting and different was Mike's blog A New Chapter: Freshman Year. Mike isn't in my class but his blog's name was catchy, so it made me want to click on it. The titles of all his posts are catchy, too. They make you want to just stop and read them. All of the pictures are also different. They aren't all google images, even though some are, but majority aren't which is a change from all the rest.
   All of these blogs have different qualities tat make them each deserve not only an A, but an A+.

Blogs That Interest Me

    While going through other people's blogs, I discoveredsome blogs that really relate to me. One blog that I discovered is called Coaching Youth Cheerleading. This blog interests me because I personally coach youth cheerleading, and this blog has a lot of tips, and it allows people to post questions and make suggestions to other people.  The blog is mostly from one person's perspective. They give most of the advice and answer majority of the wuestions, but other people can too. This type of blog is more of a disscussion board than just a blog where people just read, but I find this more interesting because then you get more than just one person's perspective.

   Another blog that I discovered was the complete opposite. The blog is called A Vet's Guide To LIfe and it's about being a vet. It is a blog written by a vaterinarian who writes about his experiences as a vet and what his life is like. Unlike the other blog, people can't just post things and comment, although you can email him personally to ask him questions about his blogs and topics related to it. This blog is interesting to me because I want to be a vet, so seeing what they go through and what their life is like.

Fun Futness Center Facts

   I decided to take a trip down to the fitness center for this week's Campus Safari and I learned a few things about it. The gym is open seven days a week, so you don't have to worry about going on one day because it's closed the next. They are also open during morning and night for those people who prefer to work out before class, and those who prefer to work out after.  Monday-Thursday they are open from 7a.m.-10p.m., Friday 7a.m.-8p.m., Saturday 9:30a.m.- 4:30p.m., and Sunday 2p.m.-7p.m. And just like some doctor's offices, you can't go in 30 minutes before they close.
   I didn't get the exact count on how many machines there were, but don't worry, I found out how many types of machines there are. They have 4 types of cardio machines, 7 types of plate loaded machines, 14 types of weight machines, and different free weights.
   A great thing about the fitness center is that you can sign up for any of their classes for free!! One thing that I've always wanted to do was zumba. The gym is offering a class on September 20 in the Ballroom of the student center at 7:30p.m. that I am considering doing. It is taught by Melanie and Amanda.

  Now I know what you're wondering, how much does all of this cost?? Well it will cost you $60 for a semester. But don't worry, if you don't want to sign up now, you can pay $35 when there is only half of a semester left.

The Kids and the Marshmellow

     I recently watched this video, Don't Eat The Marshmellow. In this video, the asked young kids, about eight years old, from Columbia to wait fifteen minutes before they ate a marshmellow that they left in the empty room with the child. In the end, two out of three kids ate the marshmellow, while one out of three were able to wait until the entire fifteen minutes were up.
     What the man who did the study realized was that the kids that had the patience ended up be very succesful in school. They got good grades and went on to college. The kids who couldn't wait failed in school, and some times didn't even finish.
     I beleieve that the difference between the kids who waited and the kids who couldn't were based on how they were raised. Some parents force their kids to wait for things and don't just give in right away. The kids learned how to wait for what they want, and not just take it when they want it.

College Through My Eyes

When I think of the word college, I start to freak out. The idea of so much work that I have no free time pops into my head and I start to get worried. I could say that most first year college students feel the same way. In my Inquiry class, I learned that college isn't so different from high school. You basically have to do the same amount of work, but you just have the majority of it outside of a classroom as opposed to doing most of your work in class. None of us really know what college is going to be like until we experience it for ourselves, but this isn't the only thing that comes to my mind when I think about college. I also think about what I want to accomplish for myself in my first year. I would love to be more outgoing. I am such a shy person, and when I am around the right people, I tend to let myself express myself more, and worry less about what people are thinking of me. I went to a small high school. We didn't have all the activities like sports games and all the clubs that they have here, so I really want to take advantage of those and get the full college experience. I hope that by going to school at SCSU, I can learn the skill and gain the independene that I will need to go farther away next year so that I can major in what I truly want to be, a Veterinary Technician. When I was 5, I had said that I wanted to be a teacher, and until two moths before college started, that was true. But then I realized what I was really passionante about, animal. This affects a lot of my decisions that I will make this year becuase I don't want to get too involved, and then have to leave it all. The only think I can hope for is that my first year will go as good as I hope.

5 words, things, or concepts that make me Taylor: family, friends, responsible, loyalty, and animal activist.

Family is a big part of my life. I have always found that no matter what is going on in my life, I can always count on them to be there for me and support me. They always know what to say or do to make me feel better, and I would do the same for them in a heart beat.





My friends are so important to me. They are like my second family. We all go through so much together and it makes us all so much closer and our friendship so much closer. They make me come out of my shell and I can just have fun with them.





Being responsible is a big deal to me. I feel that if you're not responsible, you won't make it very far in life. You need to be responsible to get and hold a job, to get through school, and to get people to trust you. I feel that in order to be trusted, you must earn it, and you need to be responsible to do it.





Loyalty is a MAJOR part of my life. I have had a few experiences in my life where people were disloyal and it affected my life severely. If someone isn't loyal, I don't need them in my life. I don't need the stress in my life.





Animals have a special place in my heart. I have been volunteering for animal shelters for the past four years and I have been attending many different events to stop the belief that pit bulls are dangerous and for animals in general. Animals are such a big part of my life that I am going to school to be a  veterinary technichian.