Farewell Campus Safari's

For my final campus safari I decided to visit the Writing Center today. It’s located in Engleman A-012. I didn’t really go down there with any purpose, or question other than to find out information for my campus safari. But, with what I learned today I think I will be going down there again to get help with writing some of my papers. I’m usually a good writer when it comes to essays, but sometimes I get stuck in a rut when it comes to thinking of a thesis and how to really hook my reader. There are many tutors waiting to help you. You can meet with a tutor with a draft 100% ready for revising, or even no draft at all. I can tell that I’m going to be able to improve my writing skills after going down and meeting with a tutor more. I'm actually very happy that I picked this as my final safari, because I can now benefit from it.



 

 

Never let Success get to your Head, and Never let Failure get to your Heart.

When I sat here for a while and thought about it I realized what my greatest successes in this semester was just that I made it to the end alive. I always planned on going to college and becoming all that I can be, but I didn’t think it’d be this hard. I knew the work would be difficult, but I didn’t know that leaving my family and friends behind in little old Terryville would be this hard. I guess the easiest thing I did was move in, and just plan my future. I also think my greatest success is making it this far. After I moved in, and wasn’t happy living in a dorm room over an hour back at home, I didn’t picture myself making it to finals. I used to think of every excuse that I could so that I could just go home and not have to come back. Coming to college was such a great accomplishment because my family and I didn’t think I would be able to due to my pain syndrome still not being under control, and me always being sick and missing school. But I’m here, and I did make it to finals week of my first semester, and I think that’s my greatest accomplishment. That I made it here this far, and did pretty damn good as well. As far as my failures go, I guess that would be my procrastination. Although I did my work, holding off on it as long as possible was also part of getting it done. I always found an excuse to try and do other things before doing all my homework. At first, I was good at distracting myself with other things but then I would get too stressed if I waited until the last minute. I guess I can say that I got better with that, but it still is part of my problem. Another failure would be that I didn’t try as hard as I possibly could have. Seeing my midterm grades, and thinking about what my grades are going to be after finals, part of me wishes I just put in a little bit more effort. I did push myself, but I don’t think I really pushed myself as much as I could. And, I see that as a failure. I also didn’t remind myself how important it was that I went to every single class. It’s not that I just missed class because I didn’t go, whenever I did miss class it was because of my pain, but I wish that I pushed myself to go the days that I felt kinda bad, and truly stayed home when I was having a really bad day pain wise. All together I think my bads weigh out the good, so therefore I am happy with my performance during my first semester here at Southern. I plan on reminding myself of my failures, the rest of my time here at school so that I won’t have the same problem in the end.



Work in Progress

For my final project I definitely think that writing a 600-word blog would be easier for me instead of the video, especially because I haven’t had the absolute best luck with making videos. To start brainstorming I wrote down all the questions and started answering them to see which ones would be best to write about and answer. The questions that I thought I could really answer the most I put stars next too so that when it came time to write them in my blog I would be able to just go right to those questions. I’ve learned that when I’ve had time to really think about what I’m going to blog, and what pictures I’m going to use it makes it so easy to write. It feels like the 300+ words just came out of nowhere and it feels good to be productive like that. I always hated having to sit at my computer and think about what I was going to write because then it feels like it takes forever before you hit that 300 mark.  After I answered the questions I actually started writing it on Microsoft word now, so that I have plenty of time to think of anything else I want to add to it, and to have plenty of time to edit and revise it to the best of my abilities.  I think everyone who does this blog post will be successful in making it interesting and distinctive because they’re answering questions about themselves and you’ll be learning about what helped them, and in the end you’ll be learning more ideas for your learning styles and see if others study skills help you. I always found that reading books about someone’s life and what they’ve done and accomplished, more interesting than someone who just throws a story together. It shows that you can really do whatever you set your mind too. And, I’m curious to see if they took what I did out of our Inquiry class, so I’m really looking forward to reading peoples blogs.

 



 



Stop Thinking in Black and White

After reading The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp I definitely learned to look at life in a new perspective. I also believe that a lot of people would benefit from reading this book as well. While reading this I think that we learned that the definition of creativity can be based on many different things, I also think that living your life in Tharp’s perspective we will look at life in a more creative way and become greater creative thinkers. I think that creativity can be more important to some people such as engineers, people who have to design a whole building from scratch. Based off of what they’ve seen in the past and present, and thinking about what buildings would look like in the future. Society proclaims that you’re born with creativity, but I now see it differently after reading this book. For me, sitting there staring at a blank canvas is overwhelming because I’m looking at the bigger picture with what others will think and what the final outcome will look like. To others, it could be the next spot to create something spectacular. I think the easiest way to begin thinking more creatively would be if every day we took time out to draw or paint a picture. I remember being younger I would love to color and draw because it gave me the opportunity to think freely, and having no rules. I also remember that when I was in 6^th grade math my teacher told us that drawing the problem out, could really help you solve the problem, to this day I still draw out math problems to make them easier for me to solve. I think that as kids grow up, we should start teaching them that thinking freely is the easiest way to start to see the world in a more creative way.

Where to go when you need help.

Unfortunately because of my lovely kidney stones I wasn’t able to record my roommates for our third video project. Instead I had to do an all text video, although it was all text I think that this was probably the best video that I’ve made this semester. I think this video project assignment was an easier one because it dealt with what problems freshman can face their first year, and who wouldn’t know that better than a freshman. Freshman can be faced with so many different problems, so there were many different things you could do your video on. I chose two different problems and kind of put them together. A lot of times when there’s a coupled with only one of the two going into their freshman year for college, they fight a lot because they think the worst and think that the one going to college will cheat on the other one, or vice versa which creates a lot of stress, and then causes them to fight. I saw that first hand living with my roommate because her and her boyfriend fought the first two months of school because he didn’t trust her and thought that she was going to go out tonight and cheat on him. The fighting got so bad, that she ended up breaking up with him. After they took a break they realized that they really did love each other and got back together. I also used underage drinking as an example because a lot of freshman come into college and get so caught up in the partying that they lose sight for why they actually came to college. The excessive drinking in my video was what I said was fictional, because that’s not the case for me or my roommates. Also, a lot of times when someone is fighting with their significant other they use alcohol as an escape. So that’s what I did in my video. I used the fighting of my roommates relationship to lead them to turn to drinking to feel better. I then used the counseling services on campus as what she could do to get help.

 

http://www.southernct.edu/counseling/

 

Autonomy vs. Beneficence

Although I missed our class session where we learned about what autonomy means, I was still able to find out and learn to understand what it means. I found an article online Autonomy vs. Beneficence, and it states that autonomy is the “personal rule of the self that is free from both controlling interferences by others and from personal limitations that prevent meaningful choice.” Meaning that autonomy is about an individual’s independence. The article also states that beneficence is, “an action that is done to benefit others.” I learned that autonomy can mean many different things but the one that I understood the most was autonomy having to do with medicine, like in a hospital. It means that not only does autonomy allow patients to make their own decisions; doctors as well have to provide many different options for the patient to choose. Doctors also have to respect the choice of the patient no matter what that may be. Beneficence is something that definitely more understandable in a doctor/medical perspective. Doctors are expected to do whatever they can for their patients, doing so without causing harm. Doctors are supposed to do what they can to help their patients, but they don’t need to fully live up to the exact definition of beneficence, although the goal of medicine is the well-being of their patients. The article also explains that medicine is the most common way to compare the two, autonomy and beneficence because a doctor’s job is to take care of their patients and do what they can to benefit their health. And, patients have the autonomous decision to make independent choices for what their doctor does to help, and treat them. Meaning, as long as the patient makes an autonomous decision, the doctor’s duty is to respect and fulfill the patients decision.

http://missinglink.ucsf.edu/lm/ethics/content%20pages/fast_fact_auton_bene.htm

 

A Little Bit of an Explanation.

I can definitely say from experience that kidney stones are the worst things to ever have happen to you. I didn’t even know what kidney stones were until my doctor told me in the emergency room that I had them and that’s why I was in so much pain. Like any other 18 year old with an iPhone I immediately started researching them and what caused them, and they weren’t kidding when they said it was something pretty serious. I’m usually the one who always gets sick so I thought I was on a roll, it being November and not getting sick my entire first semester of college. But, I should have known that I had something more serious coming my way and that I did. I unfortunately missed classes from November 20, until yesterday. Due to the heavy narcotic pain medication that I was on, I wasn’t able to drive or even begin all the work that I had missed. Now that I’m a little better, here are the blogging assignments that I wasn’t able to do until now.

 

Video Project 3