Service-Learning Wrap Up

Today was my last day at my service site. I really had a good experience serving as a mentor. I feel like I learned some people skills and hopefully was able to help out a kid while doing it. My mentee, Josh, and I were able to develop a deeper relationship than I expected at the beginning of the program. We became pretty good friends and I feel as though both us benefited because of this program. I was able to teach him some organization skills and helped him with his homework whenever he had any. I wish I could be a mentor next semester too but my schedule doesn’t permit it. Josh was a good kid and it was fun and rejuvenating to hang out in a middle school again. I had a good experience at Hand Middle School and feel as though I matured throughout the whole process.  

Capstone Personal Challenge

I fulfilled my personal challenges during one of the times I visited home. I got up in front of the congregation and read a few verses from the Bible. At my church we read three readings every service that somehow relate to the sermon that is about to be delivered. I told my mom to sign me up to be one of the readers when I came back to visit. This was a difficult task for me because I feel awkward getting up in front of my entire church and reading from the Bible. Luckily I didn’t stumble on words too badly and actually read it pretty decent. It felt good knowing that I can get up in front of a ton a people and not look like an idiot. Over the summer I plan on volunteering a few more Sundays to be a reader because it is good public speaking practice.

Capstone Conversation

To fulfill my Capstone Conversation requirement I went to hear Dr. Hickey speak. Dr. Hickey has a done a lot of incredible things in his lifetime hearing about his experiences. The message I really took away from listening to him speak was the importance of setting good goals. I now find myself setting goals and then creating action plans to execute what I set out to do. Dr. Hickey accomplished a lot of the things he did through good goal setting and by making plans that would help him reach his goals. I need to use these tools in my own life to maximize my potential success. Throughout my past I have been lazy and failed to plan and not participate in everything that I would have liked to. This has caused me to miss out on opportunities that I will not have again. If I can use better goal setting skills I will be able to experience more.

Capstone Social

For my Capstone Social event I went down to hot cookie Friday. I couldn’t pass up the chance to eat free cookies. I really enjoy eating cookies, especially freshly baked cookies. I got there and met some cool people, ate some pretty good cookies. The cookies were very warm and I greatly enjoyed eating them. This was probably my favorite Capstone event because I got to eat some pretty good cookies. I could tell that everybody else seemed to be enjoying the cookies. Next semester the Capstone Social that I go to will definitely be Hot Cookie Friday because I get to eat some pretty good cookies. It would be nice if at every Capstone event they passed out freshly baked cookies, I think it would boost attendance. Overall, I had a good time at Hot Cookie Friday eating freshly baked cookies and engaging in small talk with fellow scholars.

Capstone Cinema

The Capstone Cinema that I attended was the film Jesus Camp. This film was a documentary on a very controversial religious camp. In this camp, children are taught to praise God and Jesus. They do this in a very new age way of worshiping. Children are standing around with their arms raised up crying and doing a whole bunch of strange stuff. The image was a bit concerning. The camp looked like a young terrorist training camp except for the children were Christian. To me the whole camp was far too extreme for children and seemed cultish. Fortunately I was not the only person that thought these practices were too extreme. After this film was shown many people disapproved of its content and how the camp was run. This caused for the camp to close down and discontinue its highly controversial methods of getting kids to worship the Christian faith.

Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving plans were to go out to Colorado to visit my family out there. My uncle has a ranch out there and we all decided to go out there for Thanksgiving for a change. He lives way up in the mountains and is very secluded from civilization. It was really nice being able to hang out with the family and enjoy the scenery of Colorado. One bad thing about visiting there is that there is no cell phone service in the area or Internet. My great uncle doesn’t think it necessary to get Internet because he spends most of his time outside anyways. Luckily they have satellite TV so I didn’t have to miss any football. Fortunately I am in the airport right now where I do have Internet access and am writing my blogs, hopefully they won’t be counted as late. I really hope I can get back in time to watch the USC and Clemson game.

Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving plans were to go out to Colorado to visit my family out there. My uncle has a ranch out there and we all decided to go out there for Thanksgiving for a change. He lives way up in the mountains and is very secluded from civilization. It was really nice being able to hang out with the family and enjoy the scenery of Colorado. One bad thing about visiting there is that there is no cell phone service in the area or Internet. My great uncle doesn’t think it necessary to get Internet because he spends most of his time outside anyways. Luckily they have satellite TV so I didn’t have to miss any football. Fortunately I am in the airport right now where I do have Internet access and am writing my blogs, hopefully they won’t be counted as late. I really hope I can get back in time to watch the USC and Clemson game.