Don't rationalize, just feel.

I read the chapter on relationships because I'm a dysfunctional teen who grew up on Cinderella and the ideals that revolve around 2.3 kids, a white picket fence, and a golden retriever. This entire book is about how to change or sustain a good functioning life. The chapter on relationships was interesting because I think, above all else, love is all that matters in the world we live in. A long time ago relationships didn't matter as much as they do now. people married people and had children end of story. Now a days people get married and divorced like its nothing. Seeing that makes me believe in love as a more fragile thing than it ever was. It can be created and destroyed over and over again according to our social norms so I've always been confused as to who what when where and how I'll find my one and only, or if I'll find a few of those. Basically, I'm confused to the point that the intro of this blog might now even make sense to most. The bottom line is I could use a little help in the relationship department so that chapter was most appealing right off the bat. It talked about how fixed mindset people want revenge and expect magic while growth mindset people move on. Identifying as a fixed mindset person I believe this is true, I do hold grudges more often than I'd like. As for the magic part I don't see that as a negative characteristic. I think magic gives people hope and hope keeps some of us moving forward. Fixed mindsets are seen as a negative thing but believing in magic isn't bad it isn't wrong, maybe taken to an extreme but believing that someday my life will be like a Taylor Swift song is lovely in my opinion. You might say I'm blissfully ignorant but I like to think of it as optimistic, I know I wont graduate college by a miracle, I know magic wont give me a great job I love, but tell me why exactly I cant walk into a room and see my soul mate and just know deep down inside that they're the one. That doesn't sound so ridiculous to me, in fact that sounds beautiful and why can't love be beautiful magic? If only the book addressed that.

Terror? Oh yes, that sounds fun!

In case you couldn't tell my title is 100% sarcastic. Being scared does not sound like a good time to me. Why on earth would I want to put myself on the verge of tears? I simply don't understand the reasoning behind that. This weekend I was asked if I wanted to go to the trail of terror with my best friends and remembering my assignment to step outside of my comfort zone I agreed. I admit I was a little apprehensive considering my past experiences. I went three years ago and chickened out. I waited 5 hours got to the entrance and left. What a waste of time. Then I decided to be daring and try again the next year and I actually went in! okay so I might have cried a little, or a lot. But i learned a lesson, never EVER do that again. Never the less I decided to be brave, suck it up, and go. I went with my best friends and they all just had to bring up the day I chickened out. That was helpful. We walked up to the line and the terror ensued. People dressed up as dead little girls, midget devils that get in your face, zombie farmers that hang from trees, they went to extremes this year to insure people got what they paid for. The line wasn't so bad this year we only waited two hours and I'm not going to lie, I was mildly excited until the unthinkable happened. I was just standing there minding my own business when out of nowhere comes a bloody clown right up in my face. If you know me you know clowns are the end all be all of fears for me. I don't have a reason behind it, no repressed memories they just scare the living daylights out of me. I don't think I've ever screamed so loud in my life. After the little incident in line I was really thinking about turning back, but I didn't. I marched right into that tiny room and endured the entire trail. Honestly, I'm proud of myself, it may seem like a small feat of bravery but for me it was something I could really be proud of. I'm glad I did this, I actually proved something to myself about what I get out of the effort I put in.

New isn't always bad

I come from a town where football and cross town rivalries are a huge deal. School spirit is never in short supply as virtually my entire grade was apart of a group called 'the green machine'. Coming to southern I knew things were going to be different in that area. After attending my first football game I saw some blatant differences that somewhat bothered me. For one attendance even at a home game was a bit on the slim side. Cheerleaders were peppy as ever but that's not who I went to see. My high school band was huge maybe even as notorious as the football team and southern doesn't even have a band. Our drum line was interesting and the football team for its first win so I did enjoy myself. Although, I do miss the spark of electricity in the air as we crush yet another team. I'm getting accustomed to southern life and while the game wasn't what I'm used to I'm glad I attended to see our team take our first well deserved victory.

Reality check

The conversations in inquiry has resonated with me for the past few days. We're talking about our mindsets and it's made me take a step back and analyze my own life and how my mindset has changed since coming to college. During the in-class discussion I found myself to be a fixed minded person. I don't take initiative to move forward or better myself which is not a good trait in a college student, I admit. It was fine in high school to be good at something and make minimal improvement but here I am constantly expected to be better than I was the day before, a task i have found to be troublesome. I do want to better myself but there is one thing that keeps me from excelling, my lack of drive. I have no motivation at all to do well in classes I find trivial and under educating. for example my philosophy class is something I choose not to attend. I do the work and I will pass but attending class for an hour and fifteen minutes is almost unbearable. Perhaps attending class would better my mind but I simply don't care to retain what that class has to offer me. I have zero motivation to excel in philosophy so I choose to be average where it's easy and I'm comfortable. The opposite seems to be true for my inquiry class. I truly enjoy class time spent discussing the readings or previous class material but when it comes to extra work done outside of class i feel under stimulated therefore I lose interest and take no agency to do well. after reading about how I can be grouped into the fixed mindset category it really makes the reality of my laziness hit hard. All in all I can see this book as being one of the most important things I've ever read.

Dorm Life.

My easiest decision when going through colleges was whether i wanted to commute or not. Everyone told me to go away, where ever I go. Recently someone asked me how far away I lived and when I said 20 minutes they asked me why I lived here. I suppose it is silly that I live here when I could just commute for much less money. I wanted the entire experience and I have to say living here was the best decision I every made. I wonder if commuters only commute because they have to not because they want to so that's why I chose commuting verses living on campus as my topic for my video. I am genuinely interested in other peoples points of view on the subject. I chose this as a topic because its something I'm oblivious to, the option of commuting was never even given to me not that I'd take the opportunity. I know a lot of people who have commuted and then lived on campus and vise-versa and I'm interested to see who feels as if they made the right decision and why. I know my decision to stay here was the right one for me so I'm excited to share what I've learned with others.
I know going away from home seems like a hard thing to do but for me it was what i looked forward to all summer.i wanted to branch out and live in my own world surrounded by my friends. living alone is hard, yes, but its so exciting. It's a building full of kids just eating and studying and yelling and laughing and playing and its honestly the most fun I've ever had. I'm grateful for my opportunity to stay here and I wouldn't trade it for the world. So maybe this video project will change m mind and show me the advantage of commuting and why so many choose that road.

Miscellaneous=procrastination

When the assignment was given to record every hour of our days I have to say I was nervous. I knew there would be a lot of sleeping and eating but I didn't realize just how much time i spent on miscellaneous. Most nights are spent in the upstairs lobby doing homework yet i really don't get much work done in the end. I technically am doing homework but It's probably a sentence every half hour if I really focus. It wasn't so much the map of my time that opened my eyes but the result. I saw how many hours I spend "doing homework" and if i really spent all that time applying myself I would have finished every single blog for this class by now. Its a disappointing realization that I have terrible study skills. I've always been an average student but seeing it written down on paper that all my time Ins't adding up is disheartening. As corny as this sounds I think this assignment really made a difference in my life. I kind of see now that I need to completely remove myself from the world and get done what I came here to do or else my parents are paying for nothing. Not everyone has this opportunity and I feel as if I'm squandering it when I spend all my time just hanging around stressing out about all the work I have to do. We read in an article this week about how trying to change everything at once doesn't work and I think that's why I have had such a hard time managing my time here. Ive tried to do everything at once and make it all perfect when I need to take one step at a time. The first step being not thinking of all the work I have to do as motivation. Negative motivation doesn't work I recently found out so maybe I should spend more time actually doing things than talking about how unpleasant they will be.

Size doesn't matter.

Although high school I didn't really believe in being graded on my writing I was really excited about this assignment. the thing about writing is it isn't like math where you're either right or wrong. There's a lot of grey area because its basically opinion. I've given duplicate papers to different professorial and gotten drastically different critiques. So why are we given the task of judging others when its all just a matter of opinion? I do have a moral issue with this I do like judging, so I accept the challenge. 

I chose Weston's blog as my example of A work because it was refreshing after reading the same thing over and over again. I like individuality and I enjoy change so it was nice to see how he interprets things. I love how he embraces his differences of opinion. Most people would get discouraged but he keeps on going with what he feels is right. Even in class he does this. He may have a different pinion than me but as I've stated in previous entries I admire bravery. Popular opinion is that length is what makes a good entry but I disagree. When given a required length An entry can consist of ramblings and nonsense. I feel about Weston's blog how I feel about mini skirts, they're long enough to cover the important parts but short enough to keep me interested.