The Dreaded Midterm Grades

My midterm grades were not the greatest but they weren’t bad. I feel that I really need to buckle down and focus on my classes for the rest of the semester. I’m doing the best in my English, inquiry, and wellness class. My other two classes are math and economics which aren’t as good as I would like them to be because my grades were just average but I know I can improve them by the end of the semester.

I’m going to start with talking about my English class. My English teacher works well with trying to help us get a good grade. I have a B+ in his class and I believe I can even get it higher with the next essay. I expected this grade when I got my first essay back. I hope my grade goes up by the end of the semester.

For my inquiry class I had no idea what to expect because we have so many blogs and projects and homework assignment I can’t keep up with all the grades. I was excited with my grade because it means I have been doing my blogs well and on time and my midterm project most have came out good. I hope I can keep this grade.

My wellness class is just easy. I’ve had a paper and a midterm in this class and I’m doing very well. The class only meets once a week so I have to get all my work done on time but its easy if your work gets done. I wasn’t surprised with this grade.

In economics we’ve only had one test and that’s all that counts so I knew exactly what I had in the class. We have two more two tests and I know I have to rock them or my grade in this class won’t be as good as I need to be and economics is important in the major I’m leaning towards.

Math was the only class that I was really surprised with my grade I thought it would be much higher but I talked to my professor and I know how I can get it up soon.

Response to articles

Getting poor grades on anything always made me have a panic attack. Anything below an 80 is just unacceptable in my eyes and in my parent’s eyes. I admit that I can be lazy and just do the bare minimum but I feel  that if it meets what is required why shouldn’t you get at least a B.  However I disagree with the article that talked about just showing up and doing the readings should be enough. You have to actually know the material and study the material in order to get those good grades.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=student%20expectations%20cause%20grade%20dispute&st=cse

This article was right in talking about how students react to getting a C and thinking they deserve a B. I’m the same way though when I get bad grade I almost hate myself and I need to know how and why I got that poor grade. School takes more than just effort you need to know what’s going on in your class and be prepared for test. The one thing I disagree with this article about is “He said that if students developed a genuine interest in their field, grades would take a back seat, and holistic and intrinsically motivated learning could take place.” I personally think grades are important no matter what and shouldn’t take a back seat. I know I’m always concerned with my grades; how can you get into a good college with bad grades or graduate school with bad grades. Your grades should never take a back seat. My suggest to students that don’t understand why they’re getting a low grade is to go and talk to the professor and see what they can do to improve their grade.

Nobody wants an F

Motivation

My video is all about motivation. Self motivation vs. rewards, do people work better for themselves are the idea of having a reward waiting for them at the end? Before I started this video I believed most people would say the reward but in the end mostly everyone said self motivation was the best motivation. I hope you all like my video!

BEING BROKE SUCKS!

I NEED MONEY FAST!!!

Back home I had an awesome part time job. I worked at nine west a woman’s shoe store and I mostly worked on weekends so I was pretty busy but I had flexible hours. When I was going away to school I decided to quit my job because I didn’t want to have to go home every single weekend but now that I’m at school I am completely broke and wish I still had my job. I was worried that I wouldn’t want to go home every weekend but so far I have and I haven’t had much to do. Now I have no money and nothing to do on weekends. It is really hard to find a job on campus or even in my home town now. It sucks because at school all my friends want to go out or order food but I can’t because I have absolutely no money. My parents kept telling me to save my money for school and not just spend it on whatever but I of course didn’t listen. I didn’t believe that I would need that much money for school and I thought I could find a job on campus but I was wrong. I hate to admit but a lot of the time my parents are right about stuff like that but I just choice not to listen to them for whatever reason. Right now I am the cliché college student that has no money for anything. I am hoping to look around the Clinton outlets tomorrow for a job since it is literally two minutes from my house or I’m hoping to find a job on campus because I can’t be broke anymore. I love money and I love spending money so I need to find a solution to my problem quick! Let me know if you hear of any jobs on campus.

Lee is Awesome!

Our peer mentor Lee is awesome! At first I didn’t know why we needed a peer mentor since we went a month without one but Lee is very helpful. She knows a lot about the campus and how to get involved with the campus and it’s something I need. I’ve realized I have had way too much time on my hands so I need to find a job or a club on campus to get me involved and I believe Lee can help me with that.

I also wasn’t sure what the big deal about having a peer mentor was, I thought it was just an upperclassman who needed to put something on their resume and was just here because they had to be there but Lee seems to want to be here. It’s obvious that Lee cares and she wants to make it work within our class. Lee is also a very real person. She told us about some mistakes she’s made in her past and I really respect that about her. I recently made a big mistake and I haven’t been able to really admit to and share it with people but maybe I will be able to own up to my mistake like Lee was.

I also like the activities Lee has us do with her every Thursday especially the first day when we got in a circle and did her laughing exercises. I was having a bad day and that actually made me feel a lot better. We are very lucky we have Lee as out peer mentor because she is very real and seems to really care about us. I’m looking forward to the rest of the year with her!

Laughter

No Idea?

I still haven’t decided what I want to do for a career it’s a big decision and I have no clue. I’ve always enjoyed helping people so I know that will be a big factor in deciding. I don’t want to just pick a major to get it over with; I want to know that it’s the right job for me.

When I was younger I actually dreamed of becoming a lawyer and that is still a big option in my life. I did a job shadow at a law firm and I really enjoyed everything they did so I’m leaning towards law at the moment. The only thing that is holding me back is all the schooling. I know that makes me sound lazy but I just don’t know if I can go to school 4 extra years and it would be very expensive.  Instead of a lawyer the next best option would to just be a paralegal.

My second choice is to be a therapist. I’m basically a therapist with all my friends back home. They come to me with all their problems which are mostly relationship problems. I love being able to help my friends and knowing that they can trust me is the best feeling in the world. They come to me about everything and I try and do my best to give them good advice so maybe being a therapist would be good job choice for me.

I have many different options to explore and that’s why I find college so exciting. Everything is new to me and I’m only a freshman so I can still decide what major I want. If you're having trouble deciding then you should look at this website. http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Pick-A-Major

Good Blog vs. Great Blog

There are many things that make a blog either just a good blog or a great blog. You need to make the blog your own. Everyone has their own type of voice or style and that’s what you need to put in your blog. If your blog doesn’t sound like you then it might be a little confusing. I tend to have my blogs with a more serious tone so it would be hard for me to just switch into a humor tone.

Another thing you need is pictures. It’s my opinion that pictures brighten up a blog and just make them more fun. You don’t need many pictures one or two is plenty but those pictures make a huge difference on your blog. People see the pictures first and wonder what your blog can be about and when they actually read your blog they have the picture as a connection. Pictures help you connect to almost anything. When I see a blog I get turned off if all you see are words because I believe it’s boring.

The last thing I always have in my blog are links. I want everyone to know where I get my ideas from. When I wrote about time management I wanted the link that helped me help everyone else out. The links are fun because you never know what will be on the other side. I tried posting a youtube video in my last blog about We The Kings but I couldn’t figure it out but if you know how to post videos to your blog it makes it more interesting. If I saw a blog with a We The King music video on it I would watch it. Everyone has their own style and you just need to make sure you put that into your blog.  

Motivation

Is this what we need to feel accomplished?

How do you get motivated in life? Does it come from yourself or others offering you a rewards? When we were younger and played sports we were motivated to win by the little trophies they gave us or else the whole season would have been pointless. When you get older you realize the game is more about winning and playing well for yourself not just for the stupid trophies. When I went from playing soccer for fun to a premier team everything within my motivation changed. Does this happen for everyone?

I’m going to interview my physical wellness teacher during my next class to see what she thinks about all this. Is your life healthier if you do something for yourself rather just for a reward? I’m interested in seeing the results. I’m also going to see how someone feels when they graduated high school. Did they feel accomplished and proud of themselves for making it so far and graduating or was graduating just a reward for them? I want to see how people feel about there lives. http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=9741&cn=353

Honestly I don’t know how I feel about my own question yet. I know when I graduated high school I was proud of myself for doing and starting getting ready to start the next chapter in my life but I was also excited to just be out of my high school. It really depends on the situation because sometimes you don’t need a reward feeling good about yourself is plenty. I’m looking forward to explore this idea further.

We The Kings

Jennie and I at We The Kings

AnnMaire and I at We The Kings

I never really listened to much of We The Kings before there concert but I really enjoyed their concert. My friends from home were came up to see the concert to so it was just a really fun night. My home friends meet my school friends the whole night went great. I listened to great music, hung out with old friends, and new friends. 

The beginning of the night went by really slow and I almost regretted going to the concert. We waited outside for what seemed like forever, we didn’t have that great of seats, my friends were taking forever to get there, and I didn’t even know any of the opening bands songs but once We The Kings came on stage the whole night turned around. I remembered how much I use to like there music and how great they were on stage.  

During the concert I was sitting with my two new friends from school AnnMaire and Jennie, we had a great time. They live right across the hall from me so we normally hang out in the dorms but the We The Kings concert was the first night we actually went out and did something. We were singing and just having fun and it was a great night. Towards the end of the concert we saw this group of girls run to the stage so we followed them and it was the best part of the night. The last few songs we were right by the stage dancing and singing along with the band and people we didn’t even know. We were all connected through this night.
    
The best part was they sang my favorite song Check Yes Juliet last http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CUyWJ7UINM&ob=av2n . I was disappointed because I didn’t think they would play it but they finally did at the end. We all had a great night and I’m really glad I ended up going!