Out of the box!

Coming to Southern as a freshman was a bit intimidating, new environment, new faces, more independence and all the feelings a nervous freshman could ever have. I was frankly as scared as a cat about to be dunked in water. Throughout the days and classes I had broke out of my shell just a bit, by making new friends that I love and cherish. So far throughout the semester I've learned about myself that even though I'm painfully shy, I usually understand material if I engage in class more, with questions as to how we have come to that solution or when just listening to other's people thoughts, I never realized how close minded I was. Most times when I read books I am uninterested in, I tend to get the gist of them and just basically sum up in my head what the whole point of the story was. But when I get to class and listen to everyone's summaries I'm like "Wow i never thought of it that way." Which helps me have a better understanding of the book/article. Some of my common challenges is actually Math, the Mental Abuse To Humans, as fellow friends would classify it is, time management and commuting by train. Now with Math I have learned that in order for me to understand the formulas and procedures of how to solve a specific equation, I have to actually do some work, besides copying from the board. So I started doing some My Math Lab problems and actually writing in my unwritten Math workbook, for the 2nd time this whole semester. With teachers they teach in certain ways, like using common methods that we should know about but sometimes I'm new to this method and I usually ask my friend, that explains it in a different way that I could understand. So now my grade is actually better than I expected, esp. how my grade was starting at the beginning of the semester. Commuting? I want someone to live my life for a day, they would say "how do you do it?" because its so hectic, I do so much to get there early enough, wait long enough and end up to class late. Being late is not my cup of tea, I actually HATE being late and I would avoid it if all possible. Overcoming this challenge is just accepting the fact that the shuttle schedule will never change, the trains will not always be on time, the bus will never be on time (sadly) and other uncontrollable transportation issues. Time management? Who doesn't have a problem with that? No seriously though. This was a huge issue for me at the beginning of the semester, juggling homework, commuting time, sleeping, eating, walking my dog, going to work and what little social life I have. The solution I have to this is staying up long periods of nights which will probably end in death. LOL j,k. Well  next semester I made my schedule so that it would work around my job, even though I'll be going to classes in the late afternoon, which means getting home late, I'll have the whole night and next morning to finish all my unfinished homework so i'm hoping that I planned out my schedule correctly. As for social life and sleeping, I'll just leave it until the weekend to catch up with my friends' lives and my sleep. Through my successful time managing skills, I managed to get a decent A-B average out of every class. Now onward with next semester, I need more sleep! ~

Maze.

Going through a library is like going through a maze, you never really know your way around and you could get lost. After giving up I find deciding to ask the librarian for help and she directed me. The book that I got was an American
dictionary because my teacher said my spelling was horrible and unreadable. Lol she didn't really say that, I just asked her what I can do to increase my knowledge Of vocabulary.

YOU GET F.

All throughout the semester I have learned more about my strengths and weaknesses and how I can make all my weaknesses into strengths or at least try to, for that matter. This semester my biggest accomplishment has been my writing, not to brag but I was always a good a writer, going over the page limit, being super specific and going into so much detail (there can never be enough!). But throughout the semester my English teacher has helped me prove to myself that I do not suck at writing persuasive essays, I just need to get a certain format/outline before I start to write. She had given me awesome comments on my very long essays on how I improved from the first assignment she had given us! I'm going to miss her positive feedback and her helpful ways, but hopefully I'll refer back to my old essays when I get stuck on writing. I do think I need to improving on my summary and response paper, it's just so hard to start off and get your ideas together without saying they are yours! Enough about my awesome writing skills, one of my failures besides math, which you all know of is the complicated subject nanotechnology. It's so hard to grasp, I understand somethings but if I zone out for like two seconds, I get lost and confused as to what he is explaining and how was it relevant to the last thing he mentioned. Although the applications of nanotechnology are cool and useful, it's just comprehending the subject as a whole that makes me confused, Hopefully I wont fully fail that class, I don't really want to, I'd love to nicely pass the class with some understanding to the materials that are on a nanoscale reign and how they function :)

What?

Along with the stressful exam cramming and studying time I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts, a lot of teachers want essays with their along with you studying for their hardcore final, It's pretty hard trying to manage time yet again, but then that is to be expected since finals are coming up super fast. Only one more week to finals and everybody is super stressed and tensed you can see how packed the libraries and computer stations are now. I couldn't find anywhere to sit down and study, except the food court and no one wants to study in there. This girl was even crying like next to me. D: I have answered some of the questions but I don't really know how I'm going to make it flow into each other, maybe i'll just act as if it's a story and add in minor details that will eventually lead to the final event, which is the end of the semester. So far my 600 word post is going in circles and a video is like out of the question since my editing skills like suck and I don't want to be on camera. Hopefully what will distinguish my reflection from others is of course, my own experiences, I'm pretty sure everyone went through something else difficult this semester and won't have the same problems as me. Everyone is different, people have different strengths and weaknesses so I think just the post alone should make each and every one of the student's post different from others. In my blog post along with 600 words I will try to use pictures so the readers can actually get a image on what I'm descriptively describing in every little detail. So I'm hoping that my final project actually turns out swell and that my readers enjoy my actual last post. Well probably.

Quantity over Quality

Don't know why i titled it that, but here's my video. If you can't read the red writing during the "fighting" scene it says, "7 bottles later and 3 drunk people" Sorry for the horrible quality and sadly I forgot to include that you can go to the DARC (drug and alcohol resource center) for more information about drinking and drugs,  -________-

WHERE IS IT?

That was the main question being asked today by my fellow students, some didn't know where to find their books, some didn't even know where the reference desk was! But ultimately we grouped together and explored the library together, even though I came here several times before, but usually for uses of the computer lab on the fourth floor.  I also had a library workshop with my English class, but it was with a different librarian with a nice accent. I've learned that the library is actually more than just books, it has very useful electronic sources, searching for books online and seeing if they are even available without moving a muscle, (well besides the ones in your hand).Also i learned the difference between the reference desk and the circulation and the purposes of each desk. I'm still wondering the purpose of the first desk when you walk right into the library, maybe it's security. Some things we remain unknown. The post about people's questions were helpful too.  "Without autonomy we cant decide whether what we want is worth cherishing or pursuing" this quote helps because it gives me a better understanding of autonomy and it makes me think. Autonomy is basically free will right? So Imagine having your values dictated? Everything you ever stood for was someone else's opinion and everything else was wrong. For example, everyone wouldn't have a will to continue on if they are always doubting themselves, they would't get very far in life. Without free will we'd be like mindless zombies and That'd be a monotone boring world. Hopefully I'm explaining what my understanding of Autonomy is.

The Curse

Okay so like I've tried to do Twyla Tharp's exercise called "Give yourself a little challenge". Now since I enjoy writing short stories (usually animated but i'll stick with realistic) I've decided to write a story without the word "The" and this is how it went.

Okay well maybe that's not exactly how it went. 

The story is below

It was a cold night, leaves were blowin', wind was whistling and leftover raindrops from the tree leaves were just fell upon my window as I was sitting on my convenient window seat. I stared out my windowpane just thinking about life, what I accomplished, my failures and what I've overcame. Not much came to mind, seeing as I didn't really get far in life yet, I'm only a freshman yet again. Someone was knocking quite hard actually, interrupting my thoughts. I reluctantly rose up from my seat and slowly walked to my door, the person was outside was trying to twist a door knob. My adrenaline was pumping, my hairs were standing up on the back of my neck in anticipation, my fear of being faced with my worst nightmare was rushing forward as I swung open the door, being faced with...Nothing, Just a tree branch hitting my door. I turned on my outside light and I saw cars that had crashed, fires still blazing, buildings had crashed, The dead ruling the night. It was my dream Apocalyptic world .

That was actually very hard, I had to rethink of ways to actually write a couple of sentences because I wanted to use the so many times. Without the this short whatever, sounds pretty possessive since instead of the I just used "My" which wasn't my intention since I never include myself in my stories. Also it seemed as if the story could only be told from my point of view since I used My so much, and not in third person like stories are usually written. Anyways I love the word the and I shall always need it.

P.S I'll stick to fictional writing :D