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.

Sustainability

I do feel as though I live a sustainable lifestyle. I try not to be wasteful in my day to day activities but sometimes I still can be. To me sustainability is living a lifestyle where you don’t use more than you can give back. I think as a whole we need to come together and try to be more conservative in the use of our natural resources. Our culture today is one in which sustainability is not strongly emphasized. Instead, we value buying a lot of things that we may not need and not worrying about the impact we may be having on the world. One thing that I could do to try to be more sustainable is to recycle more. They just put in recycling bins in the room where I throw all my trash and I’m going to try and use those to attempt to improve my sustainability.

Career Center Presentation

My plans for Thanksgiving are to fly out to Colorado and spend Thanksgiving at my uncle’s ranch up in the mountains. Growing up I always wanted to be some sort of an athlete. If it was football season I wanted to be a football player, if it was basketball season I wanted to be a basketball player, whatever sport was on TV the most for a period of time is the sport I wanted to go pro in, with the exception of baseball. I would be interested in doing an internship this summer but I would rather wait and do my internship the summer after sophomore or junior year. I am going to take some classes over the summer and would rather just do a simple job to give me a small income over the summer. I would prefer to take it easy this summer. What I found most interesting from the presentation was all the tools that can be found on the career center’s website.

"The Hangover": USC Edition- EXTRA CREDIT

The material discussed in “The Hangover”: The USC Edition was nothing new to me. It was just more information about the dangers of consuming alcohol and how to handle certain situations concerning alcohol. Unfortunately the clips they were going to show didn’t work so the funny material from The Hangover was not incorporated into the presentation. The presenters showed us a lot of facts about drinking that has already been pretty well drilled into my head. After the main presentation we were divided up into small group. In these small groups we played drinking games, but not with real alcohol, just little paper squares that say “drink”. We played the drinking game Circle of Death, a game using a deck of cards. In this game you draw a card and have to do whatever the number represents, the loser of this will have to take a drink. By giving us these drink squares every time we lost I could really see how quickly a person can become intoxicated during drinking games.

Mutual Expectations Workshop- EXTRA CREDIT

I wasn’t too sure what to think when I first went walked into Harper College for the Mutual Expectations Workshop. It was really nice getting to enjoy a little snack before it started. There were a few round tables where everybody sat, students and faculty, to discuss academic integrity. Once everybody arrived we immediately got into discussion. We went around, saying what we thought faculty and students do to promote academic integrity. It was really interesting to hear the views of the faculty at my table. Questions about how to deal with giving fair grades with students, how to educate students about plagiarism, and other ethical questions were all discussed in this workshop. We then went on to talk about how each side might be able to improve in their ability to promote academic integrity. Listening to what the faculty and other students had to say really made me think about how I go about academic integrity and I definitely learned a few tips to improve on in the future.

Financial Responsibility

Yes I do see myself as being financially responsible. I just think I do a good job of not spending money on frivolous items. I really budget myself, my parents give me a certain amount of money each month and I think I do a pretty good job of making the most out of it. I just spend money on things that I want and everything finds a way to work out to my liking. When I come out of college I don’t even think I’ll try to get a job right away. My plan is to take a year or two off and hike the Appalachian Trail or maybe the Sierra Trail, just something outdoors. I’m also considering doing a little excursion by boat down to Cancun, doing a lot of fishing along the way. Then after that I’ll go to business school and once completed I’ll hopefully start off making close to six figures.

Brain Rules Chapters 11 & 12

I think I have managed my time so far this semester okay, but I definitely feel as though I could have done better. I should have spent more time trying to do Astronomy, a self-paced class that I am in. Since the semester is coming to an end I’m in a hurry to try to get all the required units done so that I can make a good grade in that class. I also wish I had spent more time doing my blogs, of which I consistently forgot to do until it was too late. I wish I had more time to work out and do other physical activities. To make room for this activity I will spend less time lying around being unproductive and instead go out and do something productive, such as working out. I just need to get more motivated and then I think I will be able to accomplish this.

Healthy Carolina

Yes I do consider myself a healthy. I exercise regularly in which I lift as well as participate in cardiovascular exercises. I also try to keep a good diet. I usually have sandwiches and baked chips for lunch. For dinner, I’ll often go for a grilled chicken salad or something from the hotline, I try to stay away from pizza and food served at the grill. Also, I make it a point to get enough sleep which is important in maintaining one’s health. In addition, I am not a smoker of cigarettes which is an activity that is detrimental to one’s health. I have developed a few relationships with people her at the University of South Carolina. Many of these new relationships consist of people who are Capstone Scholars. I believe that these relationships are good in supporting my success because we share the same goals of high academic achievement. 

Spirituality and Religion

To me religion and spirituality are different.  Religion is more concrete and has a defined set of beliefs. Spirituality is just going out somewhere and feeling the presence of a higher being. In my opinion, a person needs to have at least a little faith in a higher being in order to be spiritual. I can really relate to the whole spirituality idea. I am an Episcopalian and despite not believing everything that is taught I still feel as though I have a relationship with God. When I go out into nature I am able to experience the presence of a higher being that is not of this world. The beliefs of the South are definitely conservative. Most of the people of the South have strong ties to the church. This can be seen in the many dry counties that exist as well as the no sale of alcohol in the state of Georgia.