Midterms Sound Intimidating

 

When I looked at my midterm grades, while for some classes I was pleased with my grade, others I was not. I truly believe that I could work harder on each of my classes, but I’m still getting used to the fact that I have so much more freedom now and it is up to me to work for the grade I want. For the next half of the semester I’m going to work 2x as hard so that I can get my grades up and make sure I get the grade that I know I want and that I feel I deserve.

There is one class, however, that I feel I am working to my complete full potential and I am not pleased with my grade. Anyone who knows me can probably guess that I am talking about my math class. In that class I have a B+. Yes that is a good grade, but I feel like I worked hard enough to have at least an A-.

I definitely have a few goals I am going to set for the rest of the semester. I am going to study a lot more for tests, but also put in a lot more effort into ever single assignment that is given to me. I might even need to pick up a few study habits so that I can be sure to complete all tests and be confident that I am going to get a good grade on it because I studied hard for the test.

Changing a Diaper?!?

   
When I was asked to do something that was out of my comfort zone, I was really curious as to what I would come up with because I am one who will try anything. But I happen to find something just a little bit out of my comfort zone, which was change a baby. Yes it doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but I don’t like to change a baby. I think it is pretty disgusting and should be the responsibility of the parents to clean after the baby in this way.

    I love to play with babies and I like how cute they are, but when my sister asked me to change her baby for her, I wasn’t exactly pleased and excited to perform this act. My niece is about 9 months old, and my mom and sister are always talking about how when she goes to the bathroom, she happens to go a lot. With this knowledge, would you want to just willingly jump on the fact of changing an infant?

    I happen to get pretty lucky this time. When I had to change my niece she had only gone pee, so it wasn’t really a big mess to clean up, just a quick diaper switch. I’m sure when I grow older, this will no longer be that big of a deal because I do want to have a child when I get older and ill even look up how to change a diaper. I might even be able to work my way up to changing a worse kind of diaper as well.

Article Evaluation

           The article on narcissism didn’t really surprise me, but I feel like it is a big insult. I mean, calling our generation a very narcissistic one I feel is a bit overdone, but I will admit to a bit of this when I first started high school. When I began freshman year in high school, I believed I should get at least a c just for showing up to class and doing every homework assignment, regardless of what I got on test grades and quiz grades, and other assignment that the teacher felt like giving us during that year. I feel as though in a way you can link narcissism with laziness, because with the ideas in your head that if you do the bare minimum of some assignments and you deserve at least a B, then obviously you are just too lazy to work to your full potential. That shows that you really don’t deserve a B for: Boy you are doing good!, you deserve more of a D for: Dang you need to work harder man. I will agree nowadays our generation is getting slightly lazier due to technology, but I know that, if anything, narcissism is just going to get worse, and calling our current generation very narcissistic is not even going to be able to compare to that.

         Also, teachers should not change the way they grade just to benefit a student. “The current system works” so why would you change that? A student failing is not because of a teacher, or because of how grading standards are, it is most likely because they are not putting an effort into doing well in the class. “You get out of the class what you put into the class.” It is a very stupid idea to change how to grade things just because a student doesn’t want to work hard.

Inquiry Midterm Project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EAmyT6N6x0

This is my inquiry midterm video project. I interviewed 3 undergraduate students, Jenn Creevy, Ilya Avdeenkov, and Sarah Aquila. Then i also interviewed a president of the Crescent Players, the SCSU theatre group, Bryan Ruzicka. Lastly i interviewed 2 of my teachers Peter Sinclair and James Walsh. I went around to everyone and asked the following questions:

1. When are your classes?

2. What motivates you to go to class?

3. How do you plan your time management?

4. What do you do from most important to lowest important?

Free Write for Lee

      Since I have a time to free write, I thought I might branch off from my earlier blog post and talk a little bit more about our peer mentor and what her goal is in our class room. As I stated earlier we have a peer mentor in our inquiry class and her name is Lee. Lee has been through a lot of experiences in life and in a classroom. She really had a thorough look at life and while she is still learning, she has already been through so much. Since Lee has a whopping 15 minutes before class starts on Thursdays, she gives us a certain thing to do that really gets us started. We wish we had a bit more time with this brilliant woman, but we happen to have a class immediately following. Lee is very good at making us really think, and that is what she wants us to do. Look at things outside the box rather than inside.

      What I really want to talk about is one of the assignments she gave us last week on Thursday. It was called Who Am I? This assignment was meant for us to write 5 sentences starting with “I am” and for us to look inside and see who we really are. I in a way didn’t take this assignment completely serious and didn’t put my full thought into it. I just wrote what was at the top of my head. I really wish I didn’t goof around, and I wish I respected the assignment more, so I decided I should give Lee the respect she really deserves from me, and do the assignment over for her.

     Who Am I?

I am a man who likes to seek adventure and gain a certain learning from it.

I am someone who loves to hear about your problems and then help you solve them.

I am the wind beneath a girl’s wings constantly blowing to keep her floating.

I am the protector of some of life’s most valuable treasures, family and love.

I am Ilmar Molder, a boy who is learning with everyday trying to become the man he wants to be.

Thanks a lot Lee. You’re the best.

Peer Mentor

                Having a peer mentor in a classroom environment is very helpful when it comes to learning. Peer mentors can be very helpful with whatever it is your learning and can even be a good friend in the classroom environment. Peer mentors are upper class men who take a role in your class that is there to help you when you need it and even add their own little twist on the class.

The peer mentor that we have in our INQ class is Lee. Lee is a senior at southern Connecticut and gets to spend some time with us alone on Thursdays for 15 minutes before our teacher Jennifer comes in and recaps what we should have read or had prepared for class. Lee has a few exercises set out for us every time she comes to class and she is always prepared. These exercises are not only fun but they either get us all awake and moving or they really get us to start thinking.

Having a peer mentor kind of takes the a bit of stress off of the class because even though you have a teacher there to help you, knowing that you have someone that is around your age there to help you makes you feel even that much more comfortable. So far from my peer mentor I have learned a bit of critical thinking. Too not just look at the big picture, but actually to look around it, or outside the box as many people would say.

I LOVE MATH

     
       Now I wouldn’t say that I exactly “love” math, but I really do enjoy math. Actually it is probably the class I look forward to the most because I really can’t wait to take more notes and learn more about it. Sound strange to you? Yes that is the usual answer I get when I tell people I actually really enjoy math class and doing any kind of math assignment. But if you were really good at something, wouldn’t you enjoy doing it a lot too? My current major right now is Secondary Education: Mathematics. That means that I want to get a degree in teaching math to the middle school – high school level.

      I do want to change my major though. I am definitely keeping it geared towards math but not secondary education. It’s not that I don’t like the thought of teaching anymore, but I want a job I might enjoy even more, so I might go for a degree in business math/marketing, or even full out engineering. I want to take my math to a much higher level than just handing off my knowledge to other students. As cool as that actually sounds, I really want a better paying job, and something that has to do with business. I am also very interested in computers. I used to write a lot of computer programs and would love to have a job in computer tech or in hardware/software design. I may even change my major at southern to something along the lines of Computer Science or Computer Programming.

SUCCESS-ful blogging!

    Hooray! Your probably reading this because you want to know what makes a good blog post. Well this is what i think. What makes a good blog post? I feel like that is a question that is not answered with a fact, but rather an opinion. Everybody looks for different things when they read whether it’s a book or just a small blog post. When I look for a blog post, I first try and see if anything compares to me and if I can relate to anything. So if your blog post is semi-universal then it will draw me in and make me more likely to read it. People who have or talk about the same ideas as me draw me in so I can see how they feel about those ideas. Some of the blogs that I seem to relate to most are Mike’s Blog and D.J.’s Blog.

     Something else that draws me into reading a blog or piece of writing is uniqueness. If a blog is completely random or very different than anything I have ever read, I am more driven to read about it because then I am more curious. It cannot be boring though. If a blog is completely random and unique, but it’s boring then I won’t want to read it.

     Bringing me to the 3^rd characteristic of a good blog, it needs to be interesting. It has to keep me entertained so that I don’t just exit the browser, or close the book.  I have to want to read it, I have to have something trigger in my brain that will cause me to want to learn more about what the topic has to offer. That is a good blog post!

Upcoming Video Project

        There is a big project coming up for my Inquiry class. We must make a video presentation with a couple of inquiry questions and, in a way, we must interview some people of our choice. You can check out our teacher, Jennifer Guarino's blog that has some good blogs and information on the project as well as inquiry articles/questions. We need to pick 2 members of the Southern staff, 3 Undergraduate students, and an older role model, such as an OA, peer mentor, CC, etc. I believe this is going to be a pretty fun and exciting project to complete because it really shows the difference in people’s opinions and even lifestyles depending on what questions someone picks. I am thinking about interviewing my friend Ilya Avdeenkov, Jenn Creevy, and Christina Marino. The OA I might choose would be Rick Raucci and one so far the staff member I chose is Peter Sinclair.

          I chose a few questions to ask that I thought would be interesting, so I could see how people go about their life with school. One of my questions is about time management. I am interested to see how everybody plans out their own priorities. The other question is a little more concentrated on self discipline. I want to know what drives people to wake up in the morning, or go to class at night, if that happens to be the case. It is interesting to know what certain people might say. Some answers may be my parents make me, some might be I want to graduate for a good job, or some may even be that you do it so you can learn something new. I am excited to know what answers I may get.

We The Kings Event

As each semester progresses, SCSU provides many different activities and events that you can attend on campus. These range from different concerts to plays, and even some smaller things on the side such as giving away free stuff. One of the events that I attended just so happened to be a concert. 

        A group of my friends and I all got our extremely cheap tickets because we are students at southern, which is a great bonus, and met up at the Lyman threatre before the event took place. Even though we were early, there was still an extremely long line we had to wait in because other people attending the concert got there even before us. There was such a great amount of people they decided to split the line into two groups: boys on the right two doors, and girls on the left two doors. There was a monumental amount of woman who happened to be attending the concert, and a real small amount of guys. That being said, I managed to get inside to the seating area 10x faster than all of my other friends who came with me so I was stuck with the pressure of saving a seat for everyone. 

        The band playing at the concert was We the Kings and started at 8 pm and ended sometime around 11 pm. I had a really great time attending this event and I am looking forward to many other events that going to be happening there. Some upcoming events im going to attend include: The Nobodies of comedy, Colin Mochre and Brad Sherwood Improv, and even more. To find a complete list of events at southern check out their website!