Southern Diversity

Finally after computer, phone and power outage difficulties, here is my completed video! I am much more happy with this video then my last so I am definitely improving.The thing I believe I did well with this video is that there is a clear beginning middle and end that are labeled with a title slide, a conclusion and cast, followed by bloopers. I also stuck to one main topic which was diversity and I thoroughly went through the issue presenting the reasons why southerns diversity makes it a great place to go to school. Although there are some errors in the film such as in one slide words go over a picture that I was not able to edit out. For some reason the words did not show up on the edit version only when the film was played. The other some what of a mistake was that the music did not fit the mood perfectly but that was the only soundtrack I could make work. Other than those few things I am pleased with my film. It is not as hard to watch as my last one and I got to personalize this video a little bit more than the last. I also did not just put video clips back to back, I learned how to make slides with words on them for transitions and how to play around with the transitions effects between slides.

National Hispanic Heritage Month

For campus safari this week I attended an event at the student center. It was called the "Fourth Annual Empowering Lives Presentation". It was in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Throughout the event they had dancers preform to break up the speakers. Overall, the most important speaker was Bethzaida Sanabria-Vega. She talked about her Latina background and how she was born in Puerto Rico and is the oldest of many kids. She never thought she would grow up from a poor family being Hispanic and make herself into a judge. At first, her only goal was to become a lawyer. Yet she was so successful and good at what she did she ended up being a judge. Her speach was definitely inspiring and interesting. Also towards the end the stepping up drill team performed so I was there to support my friends and they did well! Lastly they served delicious Spanish food, which was for sure the highlight of my day.

Grades

I have finally gotten all of my grades back and I would say I am somewhat pleased. In Anthropology and Psychology I have an A- which I am very pleased with. I will continue to work as hard in those classes and get that grade even higher or at the very strive to keep it the same. For right now Psychology is my major so I am extremely pleased I am doing very well while at the same time I am not stressing too much about the class. It is relatively easy to me. Now, in composition I have a B+ which I was somewhat surprised about because Essays are not my strong point and I have to put a lot of effort into that class. Although I will admit there have been times when I put little to no effort and skated by on the essay. After seeing that I am almost at an A, it makes me want to push harder to get an A in that class. That would make me very happy. For this class I was actually disappointed because I have a B, which I thought I was doing a lot better at. I put effort into this class and my grades I have seen in class have been good so I did not expect a B. That definitely annoyed me; therefore I will try to bring it up because there is no reason to have a B in INQ. Despite this, the video assignment we have coming up concerns me because I am very bad at making videos and this could further hurt my grade. The only thing I need to do is keep up with the times of my blogging. Many times I get so caught up in my other work I forget the time and before I know it the blog I was supposed to do was due yesterday. I have started to write it out in my planner in advance and will definitely work on that. Lastly, I have a C in math which is not good but at the same time I am relieved that I am passing. Before this last I knew I was not passing but I pulled it up with my Mid Term and the fact that he threw out my lowest grade. So I am temporarily relieved but then also equally as stressed because I need to maintain and even go further to get the ideal grades. If these were my final grades my estimated GPA would be about a 3.22. To sum up I believe that yes my grade does reflect the amount of effort I put in, except for INQ, I thought I put more effort in than what showed. 

Multicultural Center

The multicultural center, located in the student center on the second floor is home to a small gallery of art. It is all from one artist and they change who it is every semester. This time it is an African artist who is drawing people in the shape of Africa and put African American individuals that the shapes of their heads make words like love and respect. All of the items are a large collection of variations of the same concept. She is trying to convey the feeling that we all came from Africa and we should have love for the country and love for African Americans. This collection is extremely interesting and I encourage everyone to go look at it. I really like the art work, it is very interesting and it is also like a puzzle trying to find out where the words are inside the picture. The only thing I would have liked to see was some color in it. If she put color in some of them and left some of them black and white I would have loved that. It is trying to accomplish peace and love. 

Fried Dough

This week there was an event on campus. It was Thursday night when I first discovered it, I was walking back to my dorm after stuffing myself with dinner. There was a truck by the side of my building with the words, "Fried Dough" so you already know I was interested. Me and my friends swarmed the truck to find out what was happening with it. It turns out we got there before the event started. In the basement of Farnham there were activities happening that you must attend to get the fried dough. Of course I bought a ticket and joined the crowd inside. They gave away fried dough and candy apples which was great. Whenever you get involved on campus they have some type of treat for you.
 

Stress Free!

Lately we have all been stressing over our midterms and studying for all our very important tests. In order to relieve some tension and stress we decided to have a game and movie night. In the basement of our building we checked out the materials to play pool and brought down cards and spoons. We play this game called spoons that is competitive but always gets us cracking up. We all planned out that it would start after Conn dinner, therefore all our homework had to be done before so when we were downstairs no one would be thinking about the homework they had to do. That was the most important part and point of the night. You cannot be stress free knowing that you have work to do. It will sit in the back of your head and you will not quite focus on having fun but at the same time you will still be stressed. So we continued to play pool, spoons, listen to music and dance, and just chill and talk. It was a great way to relax and not something we usual get a chance to do because we all have different schedules and free times. But we planned it and really scheduled it out. I am happy that we got a chance to do this because we have not had a chance to do this since the beginning of the year.

Improvement Is Key

As midterms come around I have started to reflect on how I have done so far in my classes. With some aspects I am very happy and some I am not as pleased with. Although I have only gotten one grade back I have a general idea of how my grades are. The one class I got back was a class that was originally very hard for me yet I almost have an A. This has just pushed me to really go that extra step to get that A. Now that I know I am that close I will definitely put the 100% and be extremely proud at the end of the semester when I have that A in something that is not my strong point. The only worry I have for this semester is Math. I might not get a good grade in that class, and that is worrying me. Other than that the rest of my grades are all in the B and possibly A range. So I am almost reaching my goals and by reflecting on this it will push me to finish up the semester with great grades I can brag about. This means putting more time and effort into my work even when I really don’t feel like it or have more entertaining things to do. Overall I have continued to improve and work on things that are difficult for me. I even went to tutoring sessions for math to help out with my grade. Having said all of this, for next semester my goals are simply to do better. With more effort and more time I will have the grades that I want and deserve. I am also in much anticipation to see what the rest of my grades are this semester and cant wait to think of new ways to achieve a better grade. 

Pep Rally

This week for my campus safari item I went to the pep rally here at southern, located in the gym at the Moore-Field House. When you enter you go in get a ticket and go up onto the left side of bleachers. It was interesting to me that the bleachers were on the second level and the gym was on the first, therefore you were looking down onto the activities. I have never been to a gym like that before and thought it was very different. I mainly went to support my friends on the step team and just check out how the pep rally's are here at Southern Connecticut State University. I ended up liking the vibe and enjoyed myself. It was for sure a positive experience. I forgot to take any pictures of the actual pep rally but I have a picture of me and my friend at the pep rally so I will post that.

Failure and the Mindset

I feel as though the idea of failure and the book Mindset is simply just the difference between someone who is optimistic and pessimistic. Someone who looks at the glass half full or the glass half empty. Sometimes when someone is depressed they will see a failure as a much more devastating thing then someone who is not. I see the author’s point that anyone can change their mindset, yes but to an extent. Some people are born nicer than others, happier than others. My friend Alyssa from back home is the sweetest girl I have ever met and could not be mean to anyone. She is constantly motivated and learning from her failures no matter what happened. Yet her sister is the opposite, she is lazy, depressed, and pessimistic. She failed out of hair school and now refuses to do anything and lives at home. Why can’t her sister think more like her? I think you are born into your mindset and the things that happen to you in your life affect the way you think. If many difficulties happening to me I would be a completely different person. Although I have tried to change my mindset to a more positive one, it is not as easy as it seems. However this method works to an extent I do not believe that everyone can be changed fully. Therefore depending on what you have been through in life, the support system you have, the motivation and self worth you possess and much more affects your mindset and reaction. Failure can be interpreted in many ways and that is highly dependent on your mindset, and whether or not you can or want to change that way of thinking.

Comfort Zone

I am not sure if this counts as necessarily counts as pushing myself out of my comfort zone but it is something I usually do not like doing. I asked a few people from my composition class to join me and do a peer editing session outside of class. I really hate sharing my writing but I figured it would help with my assignment and possibly a better grade. Also I figured I could learn a lot just by listening to how others organized their papers and how they put everything together. The difficulty I faced was finding one idea that connects all the articles and to be able to synthesize it into one fluent paper. So I figured I would academically challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone by doing this. At first it really was kind of awkward because I do not like sharing my piece especially if it’s not perfect and done well. But they helped me see the things I was missing and organize it. I did the best I could to help them as well and learned some good techniques and styles from their writing. Despite the initial uncomfortable feeling it went well overall. Now this is not something that I would do all the time but when it is needed and I cannot get a conference with my teacher or a tutor it could work. If there are no other resources available, make new ones. Your peers are here to help you as well, the more people you know and talk to the more people that can help you with an answer or problem when it comes down to it.  Overall I am glad that I did this and in the future will think more about continuing to push myself out of my comfort zone.

 

Granoff Building; Make a visit today

The health center is located across from Wilkinson Hall joined to the back of the Campus Police building. It is called the Granoff Student Health Center! They are there for any problems you may have while at southern concerning your health or well being. When I asked them about what some common health problems are they said stress is a huge one because it can lead to other problems such as eating disorders or drinking too much. When you walk into the health center there are posters and pamphlets everywhere. If you are ever curious about something; an std, disorder, stress, relationships there are pamphlets about almost everything. They have free condoms and free advice so go there whenever you need anything! They also said that if you’re sexually active to get checked for std’s every 6 months! Get checked today, it’s free!

Mindset; fixed or growth

 

I really like what the Mindset book is trying to tell us. The argument that the author is trying to make is that in general there are two mindsets; either you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset or a mixture of both. I think that in general this is very true. Some people love challenges and thrive to learn as much as they can despite how difficult it is while others stick to what they know and would rather not go outside of their comfort zone all the time because they think they already know what they like and are good at. It is also true that most times individuals with the growth mindset strive to improve themselves while the fixed mindsets may feel like a failure and reflect one fail as saying they are a failure. I also thought it was very interesting when they talked about how those with the fixed mindset are more likely to be depressed (or it is more common). This does seem to make sense though because if they are taking things to the head and really letting it effect their confidence and feeling of worth than of course when things go wrong they will take it to the heart, unlike the people with a growth mindset. They see the world through different eyes, taking any failure as an opportunity to get better. This book is really interesting and although this is something I always knew in the back of my mind it’s interesting to me to see it in full detail and called to my attention. While reading it also reminded me of the article 10,000 hours because it talked about how with the growth mindset and effort anything can be achieved. Yet it is not guaranteed that because you work hard at something that you will succeed or be great at it but the difference is that the growth mindset will not take it personally and will keep working at it or try something else.

Video Reflection

To reflect on the video that I made I just want to say that this is the first movie I have ever made. Before this I didn't have the software and did not know how to do anything regarding making a movie.  So this is just an inexperienced start. I managed my time by spacing out the interviews that I did. Instead of doing it all at once I took it little by little because once you start it is easier to continue on. Another teacher I had said if you do a little of it at first just to get it started, it gets the ball rolling. As far as making the video informative, the interviews speak for themselves. It gives all the view, opinions, advice and personal experience with time management and how they make it work. I wanted it to be simple and informative, the topic I chose was a simple one therefore I broke it down to the three categories; freshman, upperclassman, and staff. As far as conclusions there is not one set conclusion, everyone does what works for them and the information speaks for itself.