calling the semester quits...

I honestly do not know where to begin.  If you asked me where I would be today, a year ago I would definitely not have said here.  All through high school I thought I was going far away for school, I didn’t want to know anyone and basically to me, college was a chance for me to start over.  Well I didn’t go far away, I came to Southern and when I started, I didn’t know one student.  My first few months at Southern were the worst experience of my life thus far but it’s amazing what one close friend and a car can do to change all of that around.

         Southern as a learning environment, taking out the fun and focusing mainly on the education is excellent.  I was so nervous to come to college and start having to teach myself and just losing all boundaries I had before in high school.  Transitioning was pretty difficult but once I got the hang of it, I realized that I flourish in environments where I am in control.  I made the rules, made the schedules for completing the work and if I didn’t want to stop to eat dinner, I didn’t have to.  To me, sometimes this was hard and I felt overwhelmed MANY times but overall, I think it was awesome to have a taste of the real world.  I’m definitely not ready to be completely in charge but I like where my responsibilities are at this point.

         Many of my classes were similarly set up to my high school classes and for this I am thankful that I went to such a challenging high school.  I struggled everyday of high school and I was always told it would pay off.  It did.  My classroom strategies that I learned in high school definitely carried over with me to college.  I know that if I don’t understand something, I need to raise my hand and ask a question because no ones going to stop and ask if the class understands.  I know that if I am struggling with a homework assignment, I should e-mail the professor right away and not wait until the last minute because there is no guarantee that they will respond.  If I wasn’t taught these skills in high school I would’ve struggled a lot more at Southern than I actually did, academically.

         Speaking of grades…. This is potentially the first time I have not gotten a C or lower as a grade since the 6^th grade.  One class is on the verge of a C but other than that, I worked extremely hard and it paid off.  My grades for this semester are amazing (to me and my family at least) and I could not be more proud of myself.  As selfish as this sounds, my grades are something I am very proud of at Southern.  I thought that the transition and new ways of learning were going to be negative impacts on my grades as a college student but thankfully I was wrong. 

         Next semester I am really hoping to just keep improving with my grades and possibly making Dean’s List.  If I could achieve that, I would be amazed with myself.  In order to do that I plan on focusing on my studies and definitely limiting the procrastination… That’s a big downfall of mine but I have realized this and hopefully next semester I can keep this to a low.  All in all, I think this semester went very well and I’m excited to keep kicking some butt next semester and also for the rest of my college career!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the semester!!

last week of blogging!

For my final project I decided on a long blog post discussing myself as a student this semester as well as a college student in general. I’m not usually good at assessing myself as a person but I know I’m very realistic so I think this will be a good evaluation.  So far I’ve picked out a few of the guiding questions that were posted on the class blog that I’m going to use as a basis for my post.  The three main questions are:

What have you learned about yourself as a college student so far? Where are you in your learning process?

How are you doing in meeting the personal goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the semester? Are you where you had hoped you would be by this point in your college career?

Where do you want to go from here and what do you think you need to do in order to get there? Is there anything you need to change? Is there anything you can improve upon in the upcoming semesters?

I think chose these three questions because I think that they can flow very well in the answers.  Obviously I’m going to have to answer more than just these three but I picked these as the main focus for my final blog post.

I haven’t really thought on how to make it interesting but I’m probably going to have to do this through the pictures I choose because the writing itself if pretty self explanatory. 

Video Project

Alright.... So I had half of this video done on my computer died during the day and didn't save it so I had to start over.  Needless to say my video is far from a good job but I think the information in it is good.  I just wish it was more engaging and had the components the other one had.   I can thankfully say that not all of these roommate problems have happened to me but in a small scale a few of them have.  Sometimes you just have one of those days where everyone can get on your last nerve and when you have to live with someone you barely know, they usually become victim to this.  So here ya go: Roomie Issues!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_9PHJ-Xacg&feature=youtu.be

Tharp comes to an end

Tharp has many different perspectives on what it means to be creative and how one can obtain that.  Personally, I think that creativity is not something you can obtain but something you create (no pun intended).  But seriously, you cannot simply teach someone to be creative, because technically, you’d be teaching everyone the same thing, which is the opposite of being creative.  To be creative you have to let someone discover things and just analyze things in their own way.  They themselves have to come up with ideas, you can’t persuade them to think one way or another because that’s taking all of the fun out of them becoming an individual. 

         I do think that creativity and individualism is key to a successful and rewarding life but I also know that these two things are extremely hard to accomplish and it takes a lot of work to be different.  Sometimes you have to step back and realize that you can’t be completely different but you can try your best and have to accept that.  Once you become happy with whom you are and accept yourself as a person, the creativity can start flowing and you can try to change for the better.

         I think that creativity cannot be taught but there are many ways to make people become creative in our everyday lives.  If you give someone a topic and just have them write down every word that they associate with it, that is a creative exercise and can result in amazing things.  Simple, yet effective. 

INQ takes on the library

During our library research I learned more than just how to locate things in the library.  On the topic of autonomy, I learned and finally understand what it actually is.  Autonomy really demonstrates what it takes to be creative and become an individual.  Autonomy means taking charge of your own life, it means taking that extra step to be different and make yourself unique.  This is not always easy and in fact some people prefer not to put in the extra effort and choose to rather conform to the social normalities.

            As a freshman in college, autonomy definitely applies to everyone.  I came to Southern knowing not one person and after a semester here, I’d say I know a lot of people but I would consider myself to have one friend.  This isn’t because I don’t put myself out there and I don’t go out because I do both of those.  I am extremely picky when it comes to my friends and most of my friends are very similar to myself.  This can be a downfall of mine but I would consider it the opposite.  If you have a million friends that you aren’t extremely close with, it will set you up for disappointment but if you have a handful of very close friends, there’s always someone that you can guarantee will be there when you need them.    So all in all, the library research seemed almost tedious at first but I am happy that we had that experience because not only do I know where to find everything I need in the library now, I know what autonomy is.

        

oh na na whats my name

Wellllll for my second exercise I'm changing my name. Not literally but the exercise asks if I could change my name what would it be?  It's not just about a name that you like but it actually says a lot more about a person.  A name can tell you a lot about someones character whether you believe it or not.    My full name is Bethany Gina Castellano.  I was originally supposed to be named Gina Bethany Castellano but my mom's ruling obviously won and I got Bethany Gina. Anyways, I've always said when/if I have a daughter I will name her Gianna.  So if I could change my name, I would be Gianna Mari Castellano... I know, sounds really Irish....
    I havent really pinpointed a reason why I love this name so much but I just have this vision in my head that its such a regal name.  Gina is just plain but GIANNA is so beautiful and Italian.  I'm very proud of my Italian heritage so I guess that came into play when I was thinking of names but even if I wasn't Italian, I think I would still like to have Gianna as my name.  Another name that I always like was Giulianna like Julianna but more.... Italian and just different.  I like different names a lot.  I have to say, I do like my name just because not many people have it.  In school I never had to be Bethany C. like the group of Kevin R., Kevin H. and Kevin D. and so on and so on.  I really liked that and I want my kids to have it the same way.  I think it made me feel special, even though when you're 6, everything makes you feel special.
   So, if i could have any name it would be Gianna Mari Castellano and since I cant have it, my lucky daughter will have to take on that task for me.

live, laugh, love

     Just thinking about my fears gets me nervous.  I know its the total cliche answer for a girl but one of my biggest fears is falling in love.  I still haven't exactly pinpointed why but this fear sets me back in so many ways.  I know that in a relationship I tend to be the more quiet one and if something bothers me I usually don't talk about it but instead I just become an introvert and my significant other cant help because they have no clue why I'm acting the way I am.  Now that I'm thinking about it, because I'm afraid to fall in love, I guess I'm also afraid of being hurt.  I know what it's like to be hurt in a relationship and because of that I don't think I've ever been the same.  Call me crazy but it's the truth.  I know that not all people are the same and the chances of that happening are slim, but theres still a chance in my head.
     One of my favorite quotes in the whole entire world is by Babe Ruth, the baseball sensation.  He once said "never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game".  For some reason this quote just always related to everything I did in life.  Cheerleading is a sport that you need to be fearless.  Flipping upside down, being thrown 10 feet in the air and trusting someone will catch you are a few things that don't mix well with fear.  So whether its cheerleading, or falling in love, fear is something that has always held me back.  My college essay was all about this and how it relates to everyone.  I feel that at some point every single person has let their fear stop them from doing something that they truly desired.
   Fear is evil.  It has basically become part of our unconscious mind.  There are things in life that we would feel embarrassed by so we dont do it.  Embarrassment is directly related to fear in my opinion.  So moral of the story, LIVE. LAUGH. LOVE. with no regrets, fears, or embarrassment.

Creative Habit

     So far, Twyla Tharp’s book has been very interesting to me. I’m not usually one to be intrigued by things that make me think deeper into life or think about questions that really can’t be answered, basically anything philosophic.  However, Tharp really seems to grasp concepts that are deeper thinking and bring them to real life examples, sometimes too many examples.  Her writing does get repetitive sometimes but I think it’s only to guarantee the reader’s understanding.

         My favorite part of the book so far is the examples that she puts after each chapter.  Some may think this is annoying and probably just skip right through it.  To be honest, that’s what I did at first too but after reading one exercise I realized that it really completes the understanding of her concepts.  My favorite one is the one about the coins.  She talks about how rearranging and organizing a handful of change can be a very intense mental warm up.  The coins can be placed in so many different ways but only one way is actually satisfying to us.  We could technically rearrange them forever but at some point, we will feel that we have the “correct” arrangement and put the coins away.