Thanksgiving Feast

Well considering it was just Thanksgiving I thought I would talk about the food we ate on Thursday. My mom went overboard with so much food, there was to much food for only six people. We had a small Thanksgiving this year just my mom, dad, brother, aunt, uncle, and me but my mom cooked for about twenty people. We had turkey, ham, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry, rolls, lasagna, green beans, apple pie, pumpkin, cookies, and much more. I normally don’t eat that much at Thanksgiving because I’m a picky eater I’ll have some turkey, rolls and cookies for desert. My parents always yell at me to eat more since there is so much food but I don’t really like any of the other food.

I always feel bad that my mom cooks all day and I never help your make anything but the deserts. She did a great job on the food this year it made me wish I wasn’t such a picky eater. I do have to say I made some good cookies this year and I was told my apple pie was delicious (I don’t eat pie.) I really enjoy Thanksgiving altogether it’s a nice relaxing day with the family and if I do want seconds on any food I don’t feel guilty because it’s one day a year. This year I had two helpings of turkey since it was so amazing and I can’t wait till next year so I can have even more turkey and cookies!

If you're having trouble finding recipes for Thanksgiving next year look here http://www.oceanspray.com/

video draft

I tried uploading my blog and it wouldn't let me I thought home my home computer would let me upload but it doesn't and it doesn't let me put my videos on either so I'm going to try and redo the video on a computer at school that has windows movie player since I don't know how to work the imovie on the mac computers.

Changing...

School Work Comes First

The difficult situation I have been in this semester is the same problem I imagine any college freshman has managing my social life with my school life. Down deep I know that my school work should be the most important thing on my mind and nothing should be as important. My parents are paying a lot of money for me to live on campus and go to school at Southern so I don’t want to disappoint them but when someone ask me to hang out ill leave me school for later and go and hang out. This is something I really need to work on because I can’t just stay in the routine of putting my social life before my school work.

I’m hoping that next semester I learn from this semester and put my school work first. I have one semester almost complete so I know what I did right and what I did wrong and I believe it should be easy to change. I know I’m going to have to change my priorities though because I am taking six classes next semester and it’s going to be hard. I’m going to be in a harder math and obviously our class isn’t the best in math. The only way I’m going to have a chance next semester is if I start to change now. Next time I am doing homework or studying for a test I’m going to tell my friend that I can’t hang out. It’s going to be hard for me since I hate missing things with my friends but it’s going to be something I have to do and something I will do!

There is a lot of information in this link and a lot of different links that will help me manage my time. Are you having a hard time managing your time? Look here! http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/14629/time_management_for_college_freshmen.html?cat=25

Peer Advocates

My peer advocate club

When I was in high school there were multiple situations when I had to be a leader. Two specific situations were when I was president of the club Amnesty International and when I was a member of peer advocates. I think I was more of a leader when I was part of The Morgan Peer Advocate Club. We were role models for the school because we were above the influence. We were a group of leaders trying to make a difference in the community that we live in. We were there to bring what we learn in our training sessions, and use it in the real world. We didn’t just learn about problems out there, we would try to make what we learned, a good-kind of reality. Our main mission within in our school and town was, to improve the place we learn and the place we live in by maintaining drug-free living. We went through a year of training to help guide others live the same drug-free life we lived.

I choice to be a leader within my community because I don’t believe in drug use and there was way to much of it in my town. I knew to many good people that ended up turning to drugs and are now “potheads” I wanted to help as many people as I could stay away from drugs. I lost to many people to drugs and I wanted the cycle to end so I joined peer advocates. I was only apart of peer advocates for two short years but I really believe in what they are about and wish I joined the club my freshman year. I think becoming a peer advocates saved me from just becoming another drug addict in my town and I am eternally grateful for the peer advocate club. They do great work and help a lot of people and I’m glad I can say I was apart of something like that.

I don't believe I talked enough about how important a peer advocate but this link does http://www.vanderbilt.edu/isss/documents/PeerAdvocateJobDescription.pdf

Wilkinson

Wilkinson Hall

When it comes to studying my locations are pretty boring; I study in my room, the common room, the library, or the basement of Wilkinson hall. I’m not very adventures I like studying inside in the quite. I know a lot of people that like to study outside but I get way to distracted outside I need the quiet and calmness of my room or just any place inside my building.
 

I know where suppose to talk about an interesting place to study but haven’t had the need to find any new cool place to study I’m happy with my room or the common room. The common room is actually a very fun place to study because everyone is studying and you help each other out. For instance me and three other girls on my floor are in the same economics class and we just had a HUGE test Wednesday and we all studied in the common room together and really helped each other out. I don’t know how I did on the test but I’m hoping that the atmosphere helped me study better.
 

Once it’s nice out again maybe I’ll try studying outside for finals but for now I think I’m just going to stick with studying in my room or the common room. There are the few times when I need to go to the library to study because that’s the only place I can truly force myself to study and stay focused but I know everyone knows they can study in the library. I think you just need to find a place the works for you.

Inquiry

I actually find our inquiry class very intellectually stimulating. It was one of the only classes I have where you need to really think about what we are discussing. At first I was going to say that my economics class was the most stimulating class but everything I learn is in the text or in my notes, with inquiry there is no right or wrong answer to the questions, it’s all our own opinion.
 
We always have to read articles before class and we have to think about what the articles are about. For our last class we read about grade inflation and what it does for our society. Do our high school teachers just give us grades based on hard work and because they just want us to pass but our college professors don’t care? These articles make us think and take a side about grade inflation there is no right or wrong answer but we do have to really think about it. Everyone had different opinions some people believed that if you work hard and study that should mean you automatically get a good grade but I however believe that working hard doesn’t mean you deserve a good grade, you need to go above and beyond in college.
 
Inquiry is the only class where I can voice my opinion and have an open discussion. In math there are no opinions, you’re either right or wrong with your answers. That is why math is so boring you can’t have any creativity or discussions like in inquiry. I really believe people need a class where they all have full out discussions or debates about there opinions.

Grade Inflation

I want to get that A

 In my high school grade inflation never really happened. My teachers really believed in earning your grades on your own and giving no extra credit. If you didn’t do your homework in my school you were pretty much out of luck because that is all my teachers cared about; being prepared for class. My teachers were big on “preparing us for college” if we turned in work late or unfinished they would give us a zero and say that doesn’t fly in college.
 

I agree with a lot of my classmates were saying though, I do believe if you go to all your classes and do all your work to the best of your ability and study as much as possible than you should be able to get a B or higher. I have learned that the teachers in my high school that pushed me to do more than just average have really helped me out. If they just let me get away with doing the bare minimum and I still passed I wouldn’t have learned anything about what college is all about. People hated my high school and said it was just a joke but I really believe they have helped me out.
 

I personally don’t believe in grade inflation because it makes us lazy as a society but I do believe you work hard and put all your effort into a class then your professor should take that into consideration. I do not believe Cs are acceptable grades so I will be doing everything in my power to get a good grade and I know I will have to work hard for those good grades. 

Can grade inflation be dangerous http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/gi.htm

Try reading a good book

Quite honestly this has been one of the most stressful weeks of my life and there wasn’t much I could do to help that. On Tuesday evening one of my friends spilt soup on my laptop and there hasn’t been much I could do to fix it and on Wednesday evening I realized I had a paper saved that was due for my Thursday class. I had no idea what do since there was no way I could get that paper off my laptop so I decided to go the library and rewrite the paper but the computers in the library weren’t working. So between Tuesday and Thursday I was just completely stressed out and there was no way for me dealing with that stress until this weekend.

Whenever I come home and just relax with my family do I become unstressed. I guess I’m really not answering this question that great considering the week I had but normally just coming home for the weekend with my parents works. The other thing I do to relieve stress is to read one of my books. I use to read for pleasure all the time but being in college I really haven’t had the time. I read probably the most embarrassing series considering I’m in college now but I love The Pretty Little Liars series and The Clique series. This weekend I read the new Clique book and it was so relaxing.
People always think I’m weird when I say I love reading for fun but it really helps me out. I think I’m actually going to the bookstore tomorrow to stock up on some more books. If you don't know how to relieve your stress go to this website...http://www.cyberparent.com/stress/25ways.htm