Procrastination Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZC9cS-gtDw&feature=plcp

        For my video, I decided to use the topic of procrastination. I found that this is something college students deal with on a daily basis. Some try and learn from their mistakes while others don't know how to fix their procrastination problems. In my video i decided to go with the topic of the MTV show True Life. True Life follows and records people to see if they learn from their mistakes or continue on with their bad habits. In my video I used two students at Southern and showed one student which succeeded and one that failed. With the student that succeeded you can see his tips on how he improved. On the failed student you can see how her future will basically be since she doesn't want to put in any effort. Overall both videos show you what procrastination causes and the effects it has on your everyday life. By putting assignments and studying for tests off another day it will finally come to the day of that test or the due date for assignments and the procrastinator will not be ready or prepared at all.

"The unknown is a fearful place, and anything new is a step into the unknown."

-Twyla Tharp

                Overall I thought “The Creative Habit” was a good book. It taught you how to shape yourself all around to become a better creative thinker. What I liked most about this book was that it is the few of many books I've read that actually ties back to the beginning. Most books have weird titles and you never know why sometimes. With Twyla’s book it all made sense to me once I finished the book and in class today when I happened to actually read the title of the book without just glancing at it.  What Twyla was trying to get you to do throughout the whole book was to make creativity a habit.  To bring creativity into your life you have to be accepting and willing to make it a habit. By following all the steps in her book one can then make creativity a habit in their life from now on, or realize it has been a habit in their life this whole time. Throughout her life she has been striving to make creativity a habit and has done so and provided in this book the steps to not only begin creativity but once you find it, how to keep it rolling and where to go with it.

                Twyla’s book taught me a lot and I’m glad I was able to take so much from it.  She was the one who finally showed me why I have such bad stage fright, why I hate public speaking, and etc. It was because of fears always in the back of my head. I never really thought to take notice of them until I read her chapter titled “Rituals of preparation.”  In it she has a list of fears that always paralyzed her creativity. I found that I pretty much relate to all of them. This list of fears showed me the root of my problems I mentioned before, I just never took the time to actually try and see what was stopping me. Now that I have discovered what has been getting in the way of my creativity, I can work on getting rid of these fears to better help myself.

Autonomy 

                 For this week’s Inquiry class we went to the Library to learn more about what it has to offer for its students. The Librarian Wendy showed us floors one and two. On the first floor she pointed out some places that a student can go to for help with any homework assignment and these included the Reference desk and the Circulation desk. On the second floor we went to the computer lab while she showed us a tutorial of how to find a book or any journal article on Southern’s Library website.  I learned how to research books on this website and where to find them and overall it showed me finding books in the library are not as hard as it may seem.

                One thing we were instructed to research was autonomy or a form of it. I found a book called “The Property Tax and Local Autonomy.” It proved to be a good resource because it provided many examples within the text of how tax-base sharing undermines the efficiency of the property tax. A journal I found was called “Autopoiesis and Natural Drift: Genetic Information, Reproduction, and Evolution Revisited.” This came up as a result of typing in biological autonomy. The journal proved to be a good resource because it had a list at the beginning of over 10 resources that helped contribute the facts into creating this journal.

                Aside from forms of autonomy, the general meaning of it that I learned today was that it is the right of self- governing, directing freedom, and moral independence.  This applies to me as a first-year student because within the freshman class there are those that are self-motivated and some that are not. Freshmen should try and be autonomous, and set that goal for themselves instead of entering college with a mindset of not even trying. An autonomous freshman will succeed because they are well rounded in the sense that they have self-motivation, independence, and appropriate mindsets.

Campus Safari

For this week’s campus safari I decided to do #8 which was to visit the office of the secretary of the department you are majoring in and ask about the process of getting an adviser  As of now I am majoring in Biology and went to the main office which is located in Jenning’s Hall on the second floor. The secretary there is Xan Walker. She explained that to get an adviser in this department you have to fill out a blue sheet and put down your major and personal information. From there you will be assigned an adviser that has studied in that concentration of your major. I was not allowed to take a picture of the mailbox in the biology office but here is a picture of where the office is located. 

Brown Eyed Girl

               For this week’s blog, we were to pick an exercise out of Twyla Tharp’s book “The Creative Habit.” I decided to choose exercise 9 on page 75-77. She wants you to take a picture of you, you with your family or any picture of yourself, and study it. “What do you see in it that is indisputably similar to your life today, to the person you’ve become?”(77). I decided to choose a picture from when I was about 9 months old. My mom took this picture on my first Easter and she always used to tell me how it captures exactly who I am.

                The reason my mom told me she took this picture was because of my eyes. My family would always call me their Brown Eyed Girl from Van Morrison’s song.  What I can take from this picture is that my eyes are big and brown and always deep in thought. From such a young age I was observing everything and just taking in the world around me. I find that today I still do the exact same thing. I’m always deep in thought just taking in everything as it comes my way. I’m a very observant person and even as a baby I was too. I also can see from this picture a little girl with eyes that hold so much curiosity but yet have a hint of confidence in them. It’s as if I’m questioning things and observing but yet I’m ready for what comes my way. I like the scratch mark on my face above one of my eyes. It shows that I was always exploring and not afraid of anything. It didn’t matter if I got hurt or not it never bothered me, as long as I was crawling and exploring new things I was fine. Overall I see a girl that is curious yet ready to take on the world little by little. She always looks at her mom and dad for support with her big eyes but she is ready to take on anything.

                I would say that this picture basically describes who I am today. I still observe everything around me and am still curious about things to this day. I’m always ready to learn and discover new things because I have always wanted to know as much about the world as I possibly could. I still have scratches but more specifically I have bruises on my legs from many things ,climbing West Rock, Dancing the list is endless. I still see the same girl today that I see in that picture just a little bit older, and now she has grown into a smart successful woman.

Face Your Fears

                “So I combat my fears with a starting-down ritual, like a boxer looking his opponent right in the eye before a bout.”(22) Like Twyla says in her book The Creative Habit, we all have fears that get in the way of her true potential, but to face them we must first define them.  To practice this she has given us an exercise to do which requires just that; putting a name to our fears.

                With most things in life everyone has those fears in everything they do. They always remain in the back of our minds as a constant reminder of what could go wrong. For me personally it depends what I’m doing with which fear is holding me back. When presenting a school project my fears are 1. That I’ll look stupid 2. I’ll blurt something out that makes no sense 3. Everyone can see how nervous I am 4. I won’t do the best I can.  These are the fears associated when I do anything related to presenting projects, or talking in public. When I’m about to do a solo or perform in a dance recital the fears that constantly run through my head are 1. I’ll forget the whole routine 2. I’ll fall or hurt myself 3. I’ll look like a bad dancer 4. I’ll recognize someone in the audience and get 10x more nervous. Taking a closer look at all these fears, it shows me that they’re taking away from my true potential. They stop me from achieving my very best and that shouldn't happen. Now when I do things with fears in the back of my mind, I will take them and try and prove myself wrong, by doing my very best and really not caring what everyone else thinks.  Like Twyla says, “There’s nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks.”(32)

Campus Safari

      For this week’s campus safari, I decided to join the fitness center. I was fortunate enough though to only pay $30 instead of $60 because they were giving away memberships for half price. Once you get your membership, you can go to the gym whenever you want. The specific hours are:

Monday-Thursday      7:00 am-10:00 pm

Friday                       7:00 am-8:00 pm

Saturday                   9:30 am-4:30 pm

Sunday                     2:00 pm-7:00 pm

They have many ways to work out once you are a member. You can run on a treadmill, lift weights or use any of the other fitness equipment. The gym also provides the students with classes they can take all times during the day. One specifically I know about is Monday-Wednesday are Zumba classes. They have yoga classes, weightlifting and many more to pick from. While there Natalie, Canisha, and I decided to do Zumba Pink which was an event that was to raise money for breast cancer. The Zumba teachers at the gym taught it and overall it was a fun time and all while serving a great cause. Here is the link to the article regarding Zumba Pink and the embarrassing interview they did with me... http://thesouthernnews.org/2012/10/09/zumba-shakes-it-for-a-cause/

“Creativity takes courage. ” 

― Henri Matisse

          

         Personally for me, Twyla Tharp’s book “The Creative Habit” has been very interesting. It is one of those books where I actually can pay attention to what I’m reading and not fall asleep because it does not interest me. I think Twyla was clever in how she set her book up. When reading it she makes words bigger than others or sets the page up differently than that of a standard page in a book. She finds a way to not only write about creativity but to also make that writing creative. What I liked a lot from reading her book are the struggles she talks about in regards to creativity. One of her quotes stood out which was “Some people find this moment-the moment before creativity begins-so painful that they simply cannot deal with it.”(5) I always find this to be exactly how I feel before starting something. I find it painful because I always have that feeling of fear that it won’t be good enough or I’ll make an idiot out of myself. But what I do find is that the feeling of fear does not last forever. Once you actually start the creativity process of what you are working on the rest will come naturally. This happened to me last year when I had to create a dance using dancers from the dance department to show in the senior recital. I had no idea what song to use or how to even start it. But after a few weeks I started trying and making choreography and soon it all came together perfectly. But the time before when I was in the decision making process was the hardest part because Twyla was right, it is so hard to deal with because it’s not only stressful but it brings up all these free floating fears; that continually are what you can only think about getting in the way of your creative process.