Skills After Graduating College

1. Develop personal goals:  When I graduate, I want to make sure that I continue to set high goals for myself and reach as many goals as possible.  College has already helped my goal setting skills.

2. Practice analyzing difficult problems: I have been given opportunities to think quickly and analyze certain events and problems to find out an answer.  I can think more critically which helps me with my problem solving skills.

3. Learn to be an excellent writer: I have been able to expand my thoughts through this blog and writing out many papers throughout the year.  I have been very creative and have been able to come up with many different new ways to express myself in my writing.  I hope to soon write a children's story personally for the class I teach.

4. Responsibility: I have learned many new responsibility skills and have been able to prove to my peers, family, and friends that I am very responsible in getting my work done, studying, and decision making. 

5. Leadership: Being a part of the Service Leadership Program I have been given several opportunities to work with others and build relationships with many.  I have also been able to perform my leadership in many unique ways.

High School to College Writing

Dear High School Student,

When you enter your freshman year of college you will notice a lot of big changes in all of your classes and your writing.  Two major topics that Keith Hjortshoj writes about in his book The Transition to College Writing are (1) college work requires new kinds of motivation and self-discipline and (2) high school teachers are typically generalists while college teachers are specialists.

What Hjortshoj means by college work requires new kinds of motivation and self-discipline is that when you are in college you are paying for your education.  This means you are allowed to skip class as much as you want and not study.  Your grades can suffer, but you won't have your parents or teachers telling you that you need to motivate yourself, study, and go to class everyday.  When you go into class you have to motivate yourself not to sit in a lecture and doodle or fall asleep.  You will need to learn how to take proper notes and keep yourself not distracted.

Another topic that Hjortshoj brings up is that high school teachers are typically generalists while college teachers are specialists.  This means that high school teachers will know a little bit about each subject, but college professors and teachers are teaching one specific subject and went to school majoring specifically in that major.

Two transitions that I came up with are (1) you are given more opportunities to be independent and (2) you are able to make life long friends at college.  When you are at college you are given many chances to be independent.  This means that outside of classes you can make the decisions to go back home or to your dorm room and study or go out and party.  You no longer have your parents telling you what to do and are going to ground you if you make the wrong decisions.  The second topic is you are able to make life long friends at college.  You are able to experience many new things and events at college and what makes those experiences easier is having friends by your side.  Typically after high school you don't see too many people you went to school with, but at college your are with them everyday.

Semester Needs to be Over

I wish that this semester could just be over already.  I am ready for summer break to start just so I don't have to be on campus everyday of the week.  It is a waste of gas and I can't wait to have my life back, that is for sure.  My life literally consists of going to classes, doing homework as soon as I get home, studying for all of the tests and exams that are coming up, and finally getting to sleep at 2:00 am and then waking up about 5 hours later.  Can't this be done yet?

Hitchcock Individual Post

Ethics in Hitchcock Films:
There are plenty of events that could be ethical or unethical in Hitchcock films depending on what opinion you have on the topics and time era that you watch his films.  In the movie Notorious there are many examples shown such as the clothing some of the female characters wear, when there are kissing scenes in the movie they have to have each kiss under three seconds long, they show a scene in the beginning of the film when Alicia is driving drunk and then she wakes up super hungover, Alicia is also undercover throughout the movie as an agent, and she commits adultry on her husband who she is actually spying on with Devlin.

Psychology in Hitchcock Films:
Hitchcock showed two main events in his film Notorious that dealt with psychology.  The first scene was when the MacGuffin was hidden in champagne bottles and the two main characters had to think of complex places as to where the MacGuffin could have been.  The second scene was when Alicia discovered that she was poisoned and how she reacted.

Historical Context in Hitchcock Films:
The time era of the 1960's kissing scenes could not last longer than three seconds long, so you will see a lot of kissing that is short then they will go back at it again and then stop.  This was a continuous patter during Hitchock's film Notorious.  This film was also based in the time frame when there were problems between the United States and Nazi Germany.

Technology/Science in Hitchcock Films:
Hitchcock had a good usage of camera angles throughout the film Notorious, but my favorite scene is when Alicia is laying in her bed hungover and while her body is rolling over, the camera follows her.  It is very comical and this is a great example of how well Hitchcock captured this scene.

The First Time I Hosted Cheerleading Tryouts

I have been the Jr. High cheerleading coach at Ayersville for almost a year now.  A matter a fact, it will be year on June 26 of this year.  Last year when I started my coaching job, there were already tryouts held and it just so happened that everyone made the team that year.  The previous coach before me decided that it would be best to take all of the girls, but in my opinion she really shouldn't have done that because a few of the girls she took weren't as experienced as the other girls and I thought that it would be embarrassing for those girls to be cheering.  I still worked with what was given to me, and I was very grateful for the experience I was given with those girls.  At the end of basketball season, I was starting to grow very excited because it was that time of the year when cheerleading tryouts are supposed to take place.  I made up all of the material and was super excited to get to know all of the girls and see how great of cheerleaders they were going to be.  All of the girls gave it their all during the tryout clinics, but I knew not all of them were going to make it simply because they all had different levels of cheerleading experience.  Some of the girls were gymnasts and attended tumbling classes, so that gave them an edge on their flexibility and tumbling, others were in dance, so that helped them catch on faster to the coreography that was taught, while some girls have never cheered a day in their lives.  I knew it was going to be really hard to cut some girls, but I knew it would be something that I would have to do eventually.  Tryouts were held on April 1 at 5:30 and they didn't get done until almost 9:00.  When the judges gave me all of the score sheets, I had to then add up all of the scores.  I was so nervous about the outcomes and my hands were shaking in fear simply because I don't like to disappoint people.  It was time to announce the girls who made the teams.  I called all of the girls into the big gym and had them sit down on the court.  I began by giving the girls a motivational speech because I didn't want the girls who didn't make it to give up if cheerleading was something they truly wanted to do.  After announcing each girl, I would stop and look at the expression on the girls faces when their name was called.  When the announcements were completed I didn't look at the girls that I had cut from the team, simply because if I see someone upset that will make me upset.  I am excited to work with the nine girls that I have chosen to be on the cheerleading team, and I can't wait to see what all we can accomplish this year.