This semester has been pretty rough for me. I have overcome a lot of obstacles and learned a lot more about myself. I learned that I AM LAZY. Being lazy is not a good thing in college...AT ALL. I kept digging holes that were to big for me to get out of involving my school work and when i was on the ground, I got pushed even furthur down by my coaches to see if I would make the effort to..excuse my language...get up off my ass and start working like I was supposed to be doing all semester. I thought I could come in here(college) and do what I did in highschool. Look at how that worked out for me. Two suspensionsm, one for a week and the other a month all because I could not get my act together. Now, I am doing assigments on time and or even handed in before the due date because I had motivation. My team and coaches and professors were all behind me to get me back on the rigth track. I am very thankful for the support system I have here at Southern, without them, I would be ineligable to play next semester and I probably would have failed out of school.
My biggest achievments this semester was definetly making this big turn around with only 4 weeks left. I had to work my butt off and I had to go to a lot of meetings with professors and coaches and A LOT of study hall hours were put in to my efforts. The beginning of this semester I put all of my effort into basketball...not smart. The once I got in trouble for not doing my school work, all of my focus was there and not on the court, so I pulled my hamstring for not being in shape. I have now learned to evenly distribute my time between my sport and school.
My grades this semester you ask? Well they were horrible to say the least. I am a smart person, I just do not want to put the  hours into the work. So, because of my slacking it resulted in poor grades. I most definetly could have been an A/B student. Next semester, I am  going to stay on top of all my school work, while balancing basketball.
My coach and I had a meeting the other day. We talked about what I am doing. She asked me a simple question, "Do you know who you are?" after forever of waiting to answer, my reply was, "I don't know..." This then turned into a discussion about who I want to be. I want to be the best person I can be for my team and for myself. I want to be a liked individual, who has to work hard for everything they want. I don't just want things handed to me. I'm growing up and with that comes responsiblity.

Final INQ Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o493wCdVCPY

We all have different paths, But they cross others and thats how you make friends

    At the beginning of this semester, we were told that our INQ class would help us to make friends and to survive the first semester of college. These random people were supposed to help you get through your classes and help you adjust. They did just that. I feel like we have become closer. Well most of us. We talk out side of class now and our helping each other with our video projects.
    But when it comes to our anthropology class we HAD to stick together. We all shared a common dislike..now Im not going to post about whom or what. They should all know. We have had our shares of laughs and what the heck is going ons in that class.
    Im definetly going to miss walking down that stairwell to our next class, all of us knowing what was coming next. We are able to joke with each other about anything now and we do not care.
    My experience has taught me that you have to put yourself out there if you want to have friends. Sure, I can be outgoing and confident but that either if I know you or if i'll never have to see you again. In this case, we all saw each other for an approximate total of 6 hours a week. So it was either, suck it up and get over my fears, or live in the shadows of the class. I came out of my shell and got to know everyone. They are all great people and we all share a lot of common interests. We are most definetly going to see each other around campus and it gives us a feeling of belonging. We will wave at each other, ask how the new semester is going. Joke about our awesome anthropology class. We made a lot of memories here, and I hope they continue on down the road.

My Ideal College Life

It's definetly not like the movies...well, for me anyways...

 

    In the movies there are Frat parties every day. People rarely go to class or you never see them studying. Yes, I am referring to Greek on abc family.

 My ideal college life would be, going to class Monday through Friday. Doing the normal good student routine. Getting GOOD grades in all of my classes and maintain at least a 3.5 GPA. Then there would be going to practice. I absolutely love basketball, and I do not like functioning as your average student. Sure, there are fun activities around campus. Yes, I would like to become part of a Sorority but that is not going to happen because basketball is a job and I would not have it any other way.

 Now, if I were not playing basketball, I would be a part of so many clubs and activities. And I know this is a school assignment so I’m not going to say I’m promoting underage drinking…but we all know about thirsty Thursdays. I would probably…maybe not...maybe participate in this day.

            In my ideal college everyone would go to all sporting events. The stands would be packed with students full of school spirit. Everyone would be showing their pride. That they actually loved the school they went too.

Campus Safari Community Service

    It's been awhile but our team has done 3 things of community service this year. So far we have helped during the SCSU Community Service today, volunteered at the New Haven Foot Race and the Breast Cancer Awarness Walk. I wanted to go to read to the kids at the Beecher Street School, but it conflicts with my class times. So, Im just going to talk about all three.
    During the Southern Day of Service, we went to the park down on Whalley Ave and helped clean the skate park and the surrounding areas. The skatepark was completely vandalized, it had cigarettes and broken bottles and grafitti everywhere. So we helped paint and pick up all the trash. It was great seeing all o the other organizations there and we all bonded(:

    At the New Haven Foot Race(which our head coach participated in!!) We got there at 6am and we helped set up the registration tent and set up the tshirts and bags which we helped distribute. At 8am the runners started pouring in. It got a little crazy but everyone was so nice and it felt great to be there and experience a race like that.

    Lastly, we helped in setting up the Breast Cancer Awareness Walk. I cannot remember the exact location, since I have never been there before and Im not from around here. But we set up tents,moved benches, put up bows, and help with the food. I had never been to a Cancer Walk of any type before, but because this was for breast cancer it moved me. My grandmother is a breast cancer survivor and it showed how many people lost loved ones, and who are still fighting.

    Community Service is a great way for you to give back to the community and it even helps to make you feel better about yourself. Helping others, for me gives me great satisfaction and I hope it does the same for everyone else. You never know when your going to be the one that needs a shoulder to lean on.

Final Video Progress

    Today before class, I had Professor Guarino look at my first draft and she gave me a few pointers. I realized today, that I am pretty far ahead of the rest of the class, but that does not mean I can start slacking now. Because I had so much, she was able to offer more feedback. I need to come up with a creative introduction and conclusion. For the conclusion I was just going to talk about my personal experience and how I have learned to BALANCE my academics and sport. However, for the intro I am thinking that i might an actual interviewer, such as I ask the question and then the interviews would answer. This was I can be more a part of my project.

    OH! I just came up with an awesome idea for transition slides! If there a basketball player have them catch a basketball or baseball, catch a baseball. This would be for their intro slides of course.

    Now, without any interviews my video is 3 minutes. I’m thinking since my questions are pretty open ended and i have so many people to interview I should be set with my time. The only thing Im a little worried about is going over the time limit. I want to get all of th information in that's necessary, but it is hard to do with this time constraint and the topic that I have. There is just so much to say about it.

    I wanted to sign up to show my second draft this Thursday, but I don’t feel prepared enough and the only available day left was the last one. I should have the entire thing done by then.

   I cannot wait for the finished product! This is actually one of my favorite projects. I am actually getting into this one!

Forgein Languages

Amanda's group presented their teaching in class on the topic of whether or not a foreign language should be required in college. They had the class talking, which normally does not happen. Everyone had their own opinions, but what it really came down to was that it was a necessity. It turned out to be a necessity because America is full of different cultures and people speak many different languages. This requires us to be able to speak different languages for the jobs that we want. The more languages that you can speak and understand, the more job opportunities that are going to open up for you.

            Mainly people take Spanish courses throughout their lives; well that’s the majority of students today. Spanish is one of the most popular languages because there are so many Spanish speaking natives living in the country. America is one giant melting pot full of culture, so it requires us to speak more than one language. Being versatile helps in so many fields such as nursing or any jobs that require traveling.

            These groups’ articles were on learning a second language. Amanda also discussed in class that the Armed forces are trying to push their military personnel into learning Arabic. In order to do this they give you points that go towards you moving up in rank. It is basically an incentive to get you to learn a second or maybe third language.