Campus Safari

For my Campus Safari this week I went to the Health Center.  I actually went as a patient because I injured my hip (again) while I was running but while I was there I figured I'll make this my Campus Safari.  Before I went in, I had to fill out a sheet with a lot of random questions.  They were mostly about my sex life even though I was going for a hip injury.... I was confused but they told me this is protocol  for any patient who comes in the Health Center so I answered them.  While the nurse was checking my hip out, I asked a few questions about why the Health Center is so centered around sex.  She told me that their most common patients are those who have STDs or pregnancy scares.  Since we are in college I did expect that this happened a lot but I wouldn't think it was the most common occurrence in the center.  It was a surprise but I'm glad that they are so knowledgable about all of this and are more than willing to help because I know that at college some students tend to go a little "crazy" per se and sometimes this help will be crucial to their health.

lights. camera. wait what?

So for the topic of my video I'm focusing on how to deal with being homesick.  I chose this topic because I'm having a really hard time with it and it's actually gotten to a point that I'm transferring to home and I'm going to commute for second semester.  My doing this video I hope that I find out that I am not the only one who feels this way and I hope someone can reassure me that going home on the weekends is okay.
I'm going to be asking questions to first year students about if they're homesick, how often they go home, and how far away they live from here.  I think that the closer people live, the less likely they are to feel homesick but these interviews will give me the true answers. To faculty and staff I'm going to ask them if they can tell when students are homesick.  Most parents can tell but I'm curious to see if a third party guest has this ability.  And lastly, I want to ask older students if they got over their homesickness or if they just never were to begin with.  
To make an interesting video with these questions, I'm not going to use a lot of actual video footage but rather text slides but I need to make sure I don't put too much text on each slide because that will make it worse.  So I need to focus on limiting text, and adding pictures and maybe video clips from movies (if I can figure out how to do that) to keep my video entertaining.

so little time.

This time study actually opened my eyes to a lot of different things.  First of all, I never really do my homework at the same time everyday.  I just find somewhere to fit it in and do as much as I can until I get bored and then I stop for a little bit, relax, sometimes sleep, and then start working again until I’m finished.  We talked about this in class and how if you make a routine to do your schoolwork at the same time every night, your brain begins to be trained to focus and get the work done.  I think that after doing this study, I’m going to put a conscious effort into doing my work at the same time every day so that I don’t have a problem staying focused.

            Also, I realized that I don’t go to bed before midnight or one on most nights.  This is probably why I take naps everyday and cant focus on my schoolwork.  Another effect of this lack of sleep is that it takes a toll on my health.  I never really feel 100% healthy or energized and from the results of this study I now know why.  So as a result of this study, and training myself to do my work at the same time every night, I think that my sleeping patterns may tend to become regular which will make for a more relaxed, happier Bethany.

  So, to recap… as a result of this study I realized my homework schedule is all over the place, along with my sleeping schedule.  So because of this, I plan on making a schedule for when I can do my homework and hopefully I can figure out a time that I can stick with every night.  Now with cheerleading, this might become a little bit more difficult but it will also be teaching me time management as well as sticking to a schedule.  I think that this study was very helpful and I’m glad that we did it and that I stuck with it.

        

Campus Safari #3

For my Campus Safari this week, I went to the Involvement Fair in the Academic Quad.  There were a lot of tables for sports teams and clubs but one that stuck out to me was the cheer team.  I was really nervous to go talk to the girls but I'm glad I did.  After getting the courage to go over, I listed my e-mail address for the coach to email me.  To my surprise, Coach Trish emailed me the next day and asked me to go practice with the team. After practice she welcomed me to the family and thanked me for coming to practice.  So all in all, I am so glad that I got the courage to go to the table because in the end, my dreams for myself at Southern came true.  So, this completes my first blog post as a Division 2 cheerleader : )

Also, we found this crazy guy at the fair:

ABCDF, whys there no E?

While reading through a few of our classes’ blogs I realized that everyone does put effort into these and not only time.  They share stories, personal and some not so personal but in the end the shared. The whole blogging experience is something I am brand new to.  This is the first blog I’ve ever had, first time I’ve ever read one and first time I’m giving someone else a grade.  I feel kind of… weird giving my opinion on how other peoples blogs are especially because they can see it but here goes nothing.

            One blog that I feel represents an A grade would be the blog titled “when in doubt, be brave”.  Not only is the title of this blog catchy, so are her entries.  There aren’t pictures on every single post in her blog but the layout, color scheme and blog entries themselves make up for this.  Her entry about a hardship we have gone through was extremely personal and I give her props for sharing.  The story was about her sister being 16 and pregnant and how this impacted her life greatly.  She doesn’t tell this story for a pity party but rather the opposite.  She tells us about how it taught her to be selfless and to put other people before you. 

            All in all, I feel that Jillian Nero’s blog was one the stood out to me and I hope other classmates feel the same way and didn’t just overlook her blog because it didn’t look interesting at first glance.

eat.sleep.success.

Over the past few weeks as a college student, I’ve learned way too many things. I think that the lessons I’ve learned thus far surpass the life lessons I’ve learned in my 18 years before college.  The main lesson is sleep when you can, not when it’s socially acceptable.  Sleep is something I used to take for granted and now, its something I wish I could have more of.  This isn’t something I’ve learned in a classroom but it’s something that will help me become a better student.

            Another lesson I’ve learned is do your homework once you get assigned it.  All through high school, I was Queen Procrastinator, which didn’t end up badly, but I knew in the back of my mind it was never the best option.  Here at Southern, I know that procrastination will get me nowhere and my free time fills up very quickly so I can’t rely on this for getting work done.   So now once I receive an assignment, I do it as quickly as possible, sometimes I can even get it done right after class when I get back to my dorm. 

            To be sure that I am fulfilling my goals as a student, I know that sleep, and completing work in a timely fashion will be playing key roles.  The two seem like irrelevant aspects of ones life as a student but I personally feel that these two components will make for a successful, happy and motivated college student.

WHAT NOT TO BE: 

With sleep, completion of work, and social time, we can all avoid this.

Campus Safari

For my campus safari this week I went to the men's soccer game against Dowling on Tuesday September 11th.  The game started off pretty slowly but picked up the pace before we knew it.  It was 0-1 Dowling within the first 10 minutes but the Owls weren't happy with this and quickly returned the favor of a goal to Dowling putting it at 1-1.  The second half made up for the slow pace of the first half. Southern scored it's second goal right away making the score 2-1. When the timer ran out, this score remained giving the boys a 2-0 record to start off the season.  I went to the game with my friends Steph, Jenn and Emma, in the picture below you can see us in our school spirit !

the sophomore year from hell.

Sophomore year of high school was hands down the most difficult time I’ve faced in my life.  Aside from the fact school was getting more challenging, within a month of each other my grandfather died and I got mono.

         My Papa and I were extremely close.  He was in a nursing home so he got bored very often which led to us talking on the phone 3-4 times a day.  At the time I would complain about it because I thought it was annoying.  I never knew that one day I’d give anything for him to call me, even just once.  I got the phone call that he was going as I was on my way home from my first prom that I was asked to.  My mom got on the phone and said that Papa was very sick and wasn’t going to make it through the night. After such a great night, this was the last thing I was expecting to hear.  She asked if I wanted to come to the hospital but I’m extremely emotional about that stuff so I declined.  My mom accepted this because she knew how hard it would be, but she put Papa on the phone.  He told me that one day, we’d have our own prom together.  I will never forget that phone call. 

         I didn’t go to school for like 2 weeks after this because it was so hard for me to even get out of my bed, I was an emotional wreck.  When my friends finally got me to go out again, we went to the movies.  I got my favorite blue icee and we all sat down.  My friend had a sip of my drink but failed to mention they just got over mono.  So by the transitive property, this chick got mono.  I was out of school for another week and a half which obviously led to horrible grades.

         At first I thought there was no way to get over either of these events.  Then I realized that by staying home, not leaving my bed and sometimes not eating for days at a time was going to accomplish nothing.  My Papa was gone, I had mono, and there was no way to reverse these events.  It killed me inside when I had to face the facts that I couldn’t be sad anymore, but I knew everything would be okay with help from my family and friends.  To this day I cry thinking about that night, I even cried writing this paper… my roommate thinks I’m a nutcase sitting here with my headphones in crying.  But all in all, I learned that when you surround yourself with people who love and support you, anything is possible.  

working smart or smartly working?

The blog I’m choosing to write about is “Work Hard or Work Smart”. The main argument that was raised in this piece was if we work to succeed or to get ahead.  This led to the question as to if we work hard which means we make a plan, or if we work smart which means working the plan.

         Many people think that to work hard you have to spend some time and just get whatever it is you’re working on done.  This blog, as well as what we’ve been talking about in class goes to show that by giving something time doesn’t mean you worked hard on it.  Effort and time are two things that SHOULD go hand in hand but tend not to.  This blog basically develops this idea into working hard versus working smart which then goes along with the idea of effort versus time.

         I personally strive to work smart but as we know things don’t always go as planned.  Working hard requires time where as working smart requires time AND effort.  Technically working smart is a more strenuous type of work because it requires much more thinking all around. In the blog, the question of how to work smart is raised.  The answer was simple “work hard, work smart and live strong”.  To be quite honest, I don’t think this answers the question at all.  So on that note…. What does it ACTUALLY mean to work smart?