Final Rough Draft

Be thankful and be yourself!

Does anyone want to try some Brazilian rice and beans?
Happy Thanksgiving!

Since I moved here from Brazil, celebrating Thanksgiving is something that is relatively new for us. We don’t have a lot of family in the U.S so we usually spend Thanksgiving with our close family friends which happen to be American. Therefore, we always leave it up to them to cook for us.

                Cooking a large turkey is not a Brazilian culture, in fact, not too many Brazilian know how to even prepare at turkey. The first time that we saw stuffing, we thought it looked like gross soggy bread and we didn’t understand why this was a meal. Although Brazilians do eat sweet potatoes, it is usually eaten as a dessert so it was weird seeing people put their sweet potatoes in the same plate as the turkey and stuffing. The only thing my mom would bring to our friends house was the pies, which we are also not used to because Brazilians don’t make apple and pumpkin pies. After watching our friends cook Thanksgiving dinner for a few years, we decided to make our own Thanksgiving dinner this year.

                My mom and I read all over the internet how to stuff a turkey, make stuffing and ham. We were extremely excited and proud of ourselves for finally making our own Thanksgiving dinner. My original plan was to take a picture of our dinner table and display our home cooked American style dinner, but due to the fact that we burnt the turkey, made the stuffing look like soup, and my little brother dropped the apple pie on the ground, that was impossible.

                So instead we decided to make our home cooked Brazilian rice and beans. We learned that it doesn’t matter what food you make, Thanksgiving is all about being thankful for being part of this country and this country is all about diversity so having rice and beans for Thanksgiving is okay!

Are you feeling intellectually stimulated?

                I would say that the class that I feel most intellectually stimulated would have to be my psychology class. I took psychology in high school and I found it to be really interesting so I was excited to take it in college as well. My college professor Dr. Leonard, has made psychology not only a lesson that he teaches, but also the world you live around. Since he is a doctor, he meets with his patients everyday and then comes to class and gives us real life examples of how the human mind works.

                I love learning about all of the scientists that discovered human feelings such as motivation, and self consciousness. When he teaches us and explains to us how the brain can make us think and feel a certain way, it really gets me thinking about myself, my friends and everyone else around me. It helps me understand why people act the way they do, or why people don’t act the way they should. Trying to analyze the human mind is one of the most interesting things I have ever tried to do. It really makes you think and wonder how that is happening.

                After being in Dr. Leonard’s class, we now know what part of the brain is being stimulated and what kind of medicine a person would have to take in order to even that out. I like feeling intellectually stimulated, it makes me feel like I am accomplishing something when I can use knowledge I learned in class, and apply it to the real world.

Boy do I love This Library

My own little corner = <3

                The place that I love to study on campus is the library. Although that may sound boring, I like to go to the basement of the library and study all the way in the corner by the windows. Since it is the basement, it is never crowded and no one is ever walking around looking for a book. I think it is perfect. Every test I’ve had so far, I go to the same exact place. And since I go down there so often, I’ve realized that there are people who do the exact same thing, almost like “regulars” in a restaurant. It’s actually quite funny because now we’ve become acquaintances and smile at each other when one of us arrives.

                Although I love that place in the library, I must say that it definitely let me down last Monday. Because I was lazy and didn’t want to study Sunday night, I decided to just go to the library on Monday morning and study three hours before my exam (should have known it was going to be a bad idea). After having a stressful morning and having to go back twice to my dorm because I first forgot my hoot loot, then forgot my cell phone, I was relieved to finally get to the library. The second I smiled at my acquaintances, and opened my books to get comfortable and study…the fire alarm went off and everyone had to evacuate the building and wait outside in the rain for then minutes before coming back inside.

Lesson learned, do not wait to do things last minute because it always kicks you in the ass.

What I say goes!

At home, I am the number one babysitter.

              Since I was young I always saw myself as a leader due to the fact that I have a twin brother, I was the one to always take charge. When we were fourteen years old, my mother was in the middle of separating my step dad when she found out that she was pregnant. Being an independent person, she decided to leave him anyways and be a single mom. When my little brother Eddy was born, I automatically took a leadership role over my brother. I would clean the house, get my mom whatever she wanted, and babysat Eddy so she could rest. When eddy was only four month old my mom went back to working night shifts which left me and my twin brother home with our new born brother.

                Right away I no longer was a child, I felt like an adult because I had an adult responsibility. I organized my time to do homework and study right after school, so when my mom left for work at six o’clock, then I would have nothing else to worry about other than taking care of Eddy. I would feed Eddy dinner, play games with him, give him a bath and then give him a bottle and put him in his crib. By the end of the night I was extremely exhausted.

                Although sometimes I feel as if some of my childhood was stolen because I matured so fast, I think it has helped me in the future, especially in college. For some freshman students, this is their first time being on their own and having big responsibilities, but not for me. I would say that since coming to college, I feel a lot less responsibly than I did at home. One down fall for being a leader at a young age is that sometimes when I work in group projects, I tend to be bossy and want things my way, only because that's how it is at home. But since college I think I have gotten a lot better at working together and realizing that I am not the boss here.

                It is really weird for me to only have to worry about myself, I often catch myself being bored or missing having to do chores and put Eddy to bed.

Try not to bump heads

One of the most difficult things I have ever dealt with this semester was dealing with my roommate. My best friend from high school and I decided to live together in a double. Sadly we were placed in triple with a roommate who had a very hard time getting along with us at first. She is from Hartford and has a very different outlook in life and has an extremely aggressive personality. Knowing that she would feel out of the loop since me and my other roommate has been best friends for years, we decided to invite her out with us and even play mad libs, and she was always rude and never wanted to.  She had a box in the middle of the room and every morning, one of us with trip on it. But we were too intimidated by her to approach her. We spoke to our CC and she told us that we should just calmly explain to her that we have been getting hurt by her box and ask her nicely to find a better place for it.

We finally built up the courage to talk to her about it, and surprisingly she was calm about it and moved it right away, she had no idea her box came as an inconvenience to us. This taught us not to judge people by their ethnicity and background, because now we feel lucky to have her as a roommate because she is actually very down to earth and she hangs out with us a lot more often.

Just wanted to share

Although this is not a blog that we were assigned to do, I decided to post one of my personal blogs on here to share with you guys.

Independence

[in-di-pen-duhns]

-noun

1.  freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others.

                Have you ever felt so mentally injured or betrayed that you cannot help but temporarily become a bitter person? I think it’s safe to say that almost everyone has. As human beings it is only normal to build a strong defense mechanism against deception. Although it is not a glorious feeling to know that I unmistakably fall into that category, I'm glad I did.

                Since birth we are programmed to form and maintain emotional relationships and it is only normal to gradually become attached and dependent towards people. So what happens when the person you fell "deep in love with", breaks your heart? What is the right way to react? What is the right thing to do? With so many deranged emotions you cannot help but react with rage, denial and disbelief.

                Your main priority begins to revolve around making them feel half as much pain as you are feeling. You want nothing more than for them to regret what they did. You want them to see what they are losing and for them to realize that they are never getting it back. Let’s be honest, that is extremely immature.

                I am simply writing this as a thank you.

                Sometimes people get so caught up in their relationships that they begin to lose sight of themselves. Day by day their independence starts to slip away. People forget that the most important thing to do is to love yourself more than anyone else because

you are the only person who can make your dreams come true and  college is the perfect place to begin.

                Although this situation has torn me apart, I am finally seeing sight of myself again.I am starting to see the "old Alyne" as people like to put it. This past week I have had an internal struggle on fighting with myself of what I want, and what is right. I have never had to struggle so much with myself to make the right choice for me. I have come to the conclusions that I should be with someone who respects me as much as I respect myself, and if I can't find that person, than I am much better off alone. This is all a part of life, and a great learning experience. You need to be positive about things and not live with a constant grudge.

                So what happens when the person you fell "deep in love with", breaks your heart? You learn from it, you accept it and you move on. <3

I knew this would be a bad idea!

 

                This week I decided to try going to yoga. My roommate goes every Thursday to an advanced yoga class and she is always bragging about how much better she feels. Since I’m not the most flexible person, I never thought I would be one to enjoy it. But I went against what I thought and decided to go to “Yoga Core Meltdown”, a less advanced yoga class for beginners. In all honesty, I didn’t like it, and I was right. Although it was a beginner class, everyone there seemed to know exactly what to do. One major thing that I was worried about was flexibility, and that was the least of my worries.  But what I should have been worried about was the fact that they were going to put me in uncomfortable positions that would give me a horrible leg cramp. Sadly this class was a full forty-five minutes, and like a champ, I stayed till the end.

                Even though yoga was not for me and it ended up being a complete disaster, I had a great time laughing at myself, and being laughed at by my roommate. I recommend exercising to relieve stress. It’s a time where your mind does not wonder, you just focus on exercising or in my case, following my yoga instructors bizarre poses. You can also get a good laugh and time to relax with your friends. After a good sweat, I always feel like a new and improved person, as if I just sweat all of my worries away and it keeps me motivated to go back to my dorm and worry about more homework. I ’m glad I didn’t go with my gut feeling about not liking yoga it because in the end, it was actually a funny experience.

                Next Tuesday I’m dragging my roommate to Buns Guns and Abs, I think it’s my turn to laugh! J

So you're telling me my effort isn't good enough eh?

Why do you think college students expect things to come to them so easy, and why do you think they react in such an unrealistic matter when things don’t go their way?

                I think the reason why college students expect things to come so easy to them such as good grades, is because they are still doing their work with a high school mindset. Unlike high school teachers, college professors expect a lot more out of students.

                As a high school student, I went to class, did my work, studied for my tests and passed every class with an A. I do the same exact thing in college and when I got my midterm grades I realized that surprisingly I was in the B range. I didn’t understand how that was possible because in my eyes, I did everything I was supposed to do so I should have gotten a A. This is where college is different than high school, in order to have an A in a class, you have to go above and beyond and somehow make yourself stand out and show your professor that you are unique and different and deserve a better grade than the rest. This is something that I am definitely not used to. I’ve realized that doing mediocre work just blends you in with the rest of the students.

                Luckily for me, I am a college students who understands why I got the grade I got, and I understand what I have to do to make it better. But what about the other students who let their narcissistic personality determine whether the professor is grading fairly or not? Those are the students who as children, had parents who spoiled them and told them how wonderful they were. Growing up being told everyday that you are the best, affects you as an adult. What happens when you get to college and you have a professor who criticizes you? Those are the students who do not know how to take criticism and blame the professors for their poor grade.

                Sadly there are a lot of students like that, and if they all get together and complain to an important person, they eventually get their way with grade inflation. This is something that every school does, to either make their students happy, make the professor look better, or just make their school overall look better. For example, if everyone is failing their history class because no one is used to studying as much as they should and no one is used to the work load, they are all going to go to the chair person and complain, and after enough complaints the chair person will increase everyone’s grade.

                Overall, not being used to college work, or being narcissist when it comes to what grade you should get, it all comes down to the fact that you have to work for what you have. And some understand that and just choose to work harder in school or they work hard to be bratty and eventually get their way, just like they used to do to their parents. I think its time to grow up, don't you?

Midterms already?!

          A lot of my midterm grades have not been posted. Only my INQ and COMP has. My COMP grade caught me by surprise so I talked to Pete and he gave me my paper to redo so I can get a better grade. He also spoke to me about class participation because it is a main factor when it comes to his grading. I then E-mailed two of my professors asking when they will be up. And one of my professors is senile and refuses to use VISTA so I don’t know how I’m supposed to know my grade.

          I feel myself already starting to get lazy and less motivated due to the fact that I’m letting personal stress effect my motivation to do homework. My roommate Liana Krohelski and I decided to make a motivation bored where we wrote things we would like to accomplish before winter break. We wrote it all scattered like a collage and whenever we accomplish a goal we are going to erase something off of it. We’re hoping that our white board will be completely white in a feel weeks.

As corny as this may seem, this website actually came in handy. Check it out!

Just a little out of shape.

                                                                               

          This week I decided to do something outside of my comfort zone…going to a work out class. My friends and I signed up for the gym in the beginning of the semester, but we barely go. When I saw this blogging assignment I thought the perfect thing to do was go to the “Buns Guns and Abs” class that they offered on Tuesday. We also went to a meeting that they had in Neff Hall about the myths of the freshman fifteen and way to prevent from gaining weight, which was actually pretty useful information.

          We were extremely proud of ourselves for finally putting our sixty dollar membership to good use, little did we know that Buns Guns and Abs are much harder than we imagined. All three of us were completely exhausted after the first fifteen minutes, just to find out that those fifteen minutes was just the warm up. We then exercised with a nine pound weight over our shoulders and stepped up and down on a stepper for an additional thirty minutes. Lets just say that till this day, I have difficulty walking down the stairs.

         Although going to Buns, Guns and Abs was really hard work, we all loved the feeling of getting a good workout and cannot wait to go back this week and experience another forty five minutes of Buns Guns and Abs.

What's going on with our generation?

All three articles this week were related.

Generation Me, had a lot to do with our generation and the recession we are experiencing. Due to the fact that everyone seems to be somewhat broke, parents are having a tough time spoiling their children as much as they have in the past. As quoted from the articles, “recession saved us from a parenting ethos that churns out ego-addled spoiled brats”.  They also stated that Southern Connecticut State was surveyed and 10% of 20-somthins have symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.

This relates to the next article about grade disputes. Due to the fact that all of the children are so narcissistic they believe that their grade should be higher than it really is. Professors wondered where this sense of entitlement was coming from and now we know that it comes from the parents.

On the article called American Education, they discuss the problem about grade inflation. That is when the school raises their students’ grade to make their school look better, with smatter students. For example, schools do this to their graduate students to make their students as close to a 4.0 GPA as possible, that way their resume looks better and gives them a higher chance of getting hired. But grade inflation is something that a lot of work fields have been paying attention to, so they are taking regards that their future employee’s grades have been changed. 

Motivation

For some reason my video was not uploading onto blogger so I uploaded it on youtube instead.
Although it took me more time than expected to finally come up with a solid idea for the project, I am happy with the outcome.
This was much more enjoyable than I thought but I did experience some technical difficulties. When making my video I realized that everyone that I interviewed did not speak load enough and I had difficulty hearing them. I was never able to find a way to make their voice louder so when I present this video I will have to turn up the volume on the computer when my interviews appear. Other than that, I feel as if everything went smoothly. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xz3ihgNMk8

 

Coming in to SCSU as a freshman, I had my mind set on getting my BSN; bachelor science in nursing. After carefully picking my first semester classes based all on my nursing requirements, I am starting to have a change of heart.

One of the required classes for nursing psychology. After almost half a semester has passed, I have found psychology to be my favorite class. I am starting to think that I want to change my major into eventually getting my masters in psychology, but since I never really looked into it, I am not too sure what kinds of classes I have to take and how hard it is.

I chose nursing because I love the feeling of knowing that you are helping someone. I like the feeling that because of you, that person is now in better health. I love to do volunteer work and have recently applied to be in Best Buddies.

Now this is where I begin to feel confused, I feel as if psychologists do the same thing. No they do not help people with medicine, but they mentally help people. Which I feel as if it is still a pleasure to know that you are making a difference in someone’s life.

It’s hard to feel so confused about something that will eventually determine my whole entire future.

I have recently written a blog very similar to this before and Jennifer gave me advice and said we would meet individually and talk about this, so already I am more relaxed.

CLICK

Dear Motivation, whats stopping me from completing this rough draft?

My inquiry question is, “What makes you motivated?” Although the rough draft is due on Tuesday, I am going to be honest and admit that I have not done much work. I have been procrastinating on the project because I am not confident about my question and don’t really know where to start. I am so controlling that I have a hard time starting something if I don't know how it's going to end or what the purpose is. I have plenty of notes on the articles about motivation and different types of procrastinators but when it comes down to actually asking my question…I don’t really like it.

I feel as if my question is really broad. Am I trying to ask what keeps someone motivates in school, or what keeps someone motivates in life? Both might have two different types of motivation. Or is your motivations the same for whatever your goal may be?

I thought that I could start asking undergraduates what keeps them motivated, and none of them know how to answer the question because they feel as if it is too broad. So I started with what motivates you in school and what motivates you outside of school…None of them have given me a good enough answer that I feel should make it to my video, maybe it is because they don’t necessarily understand my question.

Maybe my question should turn into what motivated you as a child, and what motivates you as an adult. Many of us are on our own for the first time, does this change what keeps us motivated since we have to rely on ourselves so much more?

I think it is safe to say that I have a lot more thinking and figuring out to do before the rough draft of this project is due on the 5^th, (my birthday J). I would be more than happy if anyone could give me some sort of input or advice on how to make my project seem like it has more of a purpose and direction. Thanks!

Here is the article that I am turning to for advice. CLICK

WE THE KINGS!

I attended the We the Kings concert on September 17^th. My friends and I went to the club fair and saw that they were selling tickets for only five dollars, and if you bought them there we could also get a free We the Kings tee shirt. We got a big group of us to agree to all buy tickets and the day before the concert we all walked to the Lyman Center to pick them up

. We weren’t surprised to see that the show was not as full as we expected it to be. The show fell on a Friday night, and if you’re anyone who lives on campus, you would know that everyone goes home for the weekend and we are left with a ghost town as a campus. I think that if we had more shows or fun events on weekends, it would encourage more students to stay for the weekend and hangout with their friends. Maybe they should have a survey of who we would want to see, or what events we would be more interested in. I try to stay on campus as much as possible due to the fact that I am paying a great amount of money to live on campus. Might as well make it worthwhile.

Maybe as a class we can come up with a list of things we enjoy, and see if we can bring it to the club who hosts and organizes events for us. Sometimes I feel as if they host events that none of us like and think it’s a little corny. Leave me comments with your ideas :)

 

          Every other week I religiously check Lauren Conrad’s blog. I found out she had a blog over a year ago when she was on The Hills, a reality show on MTV. I love everything about Lauren, the way she acts, the way she dresses and especially her creative ideas. She updates her blog about once a week with new fashion ideas, comments about what she did on her weekends and fun and creative arts and crafts. She even sometimes posts sneak peaks of her new clothes line and photo shoots for magazines and commercials. Her blog styles are always very colorful and artistic. She uses visual images and videos to describe what she is talking about, which grabs her reader’s attention and makes us feel much more involved. If you are huge Hills nerd, then click here to see what Lauren is up to!

            I am the kind of person who is always looking for inspirational quotes to help me get through my day. A few weeks back when I was trying to look for quotes on google I came across this site. I never really considered it a blog till I actually became a blogger. This site if filled with inspirational essays, quotes and even positive feed back on how to accomplish goals. I have shared this site with my family and close friends because I love the amount of information it attains.

            These two blogs are very different from each other. Lauren’s blog is more of a personal blog and her style of writing is much more colorful and entertaining to the human eye. But if you go to the inspiration blog page, you will notice that it is not a personal blog. The writing style varies from quote to quote, and the objective of the site is to give positive feed back, not entertain the viewers with color and photos.

What's your procrastination style?!

Yes, procrastination is something that as a college student, I fall guilty of. But why is that? There are three types of procrastinators; decisional, avoider and arousal. Decisional procrastinators tend to procrastinate due to the fact that they just don’t know how to make up their mind. Avoider procrastinators tend to be scared of either failure or success so they find it much easier to just avoid the situation as late as possible. Lastly is the arousal procrastinators; these are the people that specifically wait to do things in the last minute because they get hooked on the energy and thrill they get when trying to accomplish something last minute.

Now the question is, how do you change that? If you are a procrastinator and so is your best friend, chances are…you will never improve unless you force yourself to. Psychologist say to surround yourself with people who don’t procrastinate. They will motivate you to be more like them and subconsciously you will become less of a procrastinator.

From reading the motivation article I was able to learn the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is more short term motivation such as doing this blog before Saturday so I can get a short reward of getting a better grade in the INQ course. This type of motivation doesn’t last too long and it isn’t a very life changing kind of motivation. But intrinsic motivation is long term motivation that comes from within. For example, I have a motivation within myself to do well in school overall because I have a goal of one day being a successful nurse. Intrinsic motivation cannot be pushed upon you; this is a goal and motivation that only you have created. People tend to be more motivated with intrinsic motivation, than with extrinsic motivation where they are told to do something.

Being a college student I feel as if I have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. And when I am procrastinating I first think about my short term goal to get an assignment done, then followed by my long term goal of wanting to be a nurse, therefore pushing myself to be overall more motivated and less of a procrastinator.

Here is a fun site that I found on how to discover your procrastination style. I found it to be actually pretty fun. Once you know what kind of procrastinator you are, it gives you information on how to improve. Find out what kind of procrastination style you have and post it here!

Outcasts United

                Although reading “Outcasts United” over the summer was not my idea of fun, I have to say that I’ve grown to like it. Being a college freshman I can finally relate to all of the boys coming into a new world and having to adjust. That is exactly what every other freshman has been doing these past three weeks.

                After being assigned this blog, the first thing I thought of relating the “Outcasts United” book to was Professor Jennifer. She reminds me of Luma Mufleh or her coach Brown. Luma’s coach planned to accomplish a lot with her team and she wasted no time trying to get them to be successful. She would work her team so hard that at times they wondered if it was really worth it. As stated by Warren St. John, “Though she disliked Coach Brown, she wanted desperately to play well for her.” Luma stuck through all of the insane amounts of running and conditioning because she liked to push herself and wanted to impress her coach.

                This reminds me of Professor Jenifer because when I first walked into inquiry I figured it would be an easy A. After just a few minutes with Professor Jenifer in the room, I realized that I was horribly mistaken. Inquiry is the classroom that I focus on the most due to the fact that we always have something else due and we are not in high school so we aren’t reminded daily to do it. Though I don’t like the amount of responsibility that Professor Jenifer gives us, both Coach Brown and Professor Jenifer assign us these tasks because they know it will benefit us in the near future. After being in inquiry for only three weeks, I realized that her style of teaching is already helping me manage my time better and be more organized. 

Decisions Decisions...Help!

            I came into SCSU with my mind set on becoming a BSN; Bachelor of Science in Nursing. But after quite a few psychology classes, I realized that I have a great interest in it. I find it to be my favorite class this semester and it easily catches my attention. Lately I’ve been thinking about whether or not I made the right decision about basing all of my classes around nursing. I figured it would be a great idea to revolve my entire schedule on trying to complete the required classes in order to take the NCLEX-RN Exam in two years.

            I chose nursing because I find a joy in helping people and it would make me feel wonderful to know that I was a big part in saving someone’s life. Also, being a nurse gives you an opportunity to work in pretty much any department in a hospital, pediatrics’ office or even a nursing home. Having so many opportunities to work assures you that if you ever get bored with one department, you can move on to the next one. Although I still have my heart set on nursing, I keep questioning my decision.

            Lately psychology has caught my attention. Psychology majors can work in the human services field. This gives you the opportunity to work with people one-on-one whiling trying to help them cope with stress or teaching them certain life skills.

            I want to include more psychology into my schedule but I’m afraid it is going interfere with trying to quickly take all of my required nursing classes. Does anyone have advice? Help!

My Vision Board

Take it easy :)

The biggest challenge that I have had to deal with since moving to SCSU was having roommates. I am lucky enough to have my best friend as one of my roommates, but that didn’t make adjusting to having to share a room with people, any easier. I don’t want to sound spoiled but I have been very fortunate to always have my own room. I have always seen my room as my peaceful zone. I have my radio, TV and computer in there, so when I feel a little overwhelmed I like to come home and shut my bedroom door and have some time to myself in my peaceful zone.

Although my roommates are relatively quiet and respectful, my dorm room cannot be compared to my peaceful zone. I am also a very controlling person and I like things my way, and my way only. Therefore, two weeks ago I would easily get bothered by the TV being too loud, the girls talking while I was studying, how messy their side of the room would get, or random people coming into my room and sitting on my bed since I have the bottom bunk.

The reason why it was so hard for me to adjust was because everyone loves routine and when their routine gets mixed up, it makes a person feel a sense of discomfort. But after carefully communicating with the girls and getting to know each other, we have found a good medium of how to make everyone in the room happy. Tomorrow being two full weeks since living in SCSU, I can safely say that I am finally getting the hang of things. I do not get as bothered by the small things and I am trying to stop being so controlling and going with the flow.

Are You a Deep Thinker?

                 To be quite honest, reading online articles is something that I find extremely hard to do, due to the fact that I have a short attention span. Unless I find something to be extremely interesting, it is extremely difficult for me to try to analyze the articles and ask myself questions about it. Of the three articles that I was assigned I did find an interest in one of them, “How to Become a Deep Thinking at College”.

            Right away that article caught my attention. I attempted to read the previous article that I was assigned but found it impossible to be a deep thinker because the article bore me. Needing some immediate advice, I quickly began to read the next article. As I began reading I realized that this article sounded a lot like Professor Jennifer.

            Jennifer has explained to my class that college students are on their own and anyone can go through college as long as they learn to manage their time correctly. She also says that college students are expected to be thinkers, something that the article cannot stress enough about. Every college professor has a syllabus, and it is our job to manage our time correctly to be able to do those days of homework. Professors also assign work to be done online, since your professor is not there to answer questions, you have to use your college thinking skills and try to ask questions and analyze the homework to the best of your ability.  College thinkers also ask a lot of questions, if there is something you do not understand or something that bores you, you can write down questions about parts of the homework, or article that confuse you and ask them the next day.

This article was interesting to me because it reminded me that all of the advice that my professors have given me is very useful and close to the advice that this article gives me. I guess I never really paid any attention to them because just figured they were over reacting and trying to scare the freshman, but after only one week as a college student I can easily agree that all of my professors including, were right. 

College

       To me college is a place filled with opportunities to succeed. You can accomplish anything you want if you try. Academically, being a college student is a job, it is our job to manage our time correctly and hand in things on time. Socially I want to meet, good and memorable people. I want to be able to feel proud of myself when receiving my diploma and prove to myself that I can do it..

       So far I am having a great college experience, being away from home for the first time is hard to deal with. I miss my family already but I try to push it aside when I go to class so I can have my full attention to my professor. I feel very fortunate to be considered part of SCSU.

       I plan on joining a few clubs and getting involved with the school. I feel that the more involved I am, the more fun I will have living on campus. Joining clubs is also a great was of making new friends and bonding with new people. I am also very interested in the Omega Zeta Pi sorority. After talking to Kristen, the head of Omega Zeta Pi, I became very interested. She explained how her sorority does various community services and they host many fun and active events.

       The goal that I have for myself is to be a well educated and well rounded person. To learn how to manage my time wisely and make good choices for myself.

Here are some sororities and clubs, read and get involved!

Who is Alyne Rodrigues?

       Seeing as how everyone loves to talk about themselves, I figured writing this blog would come easy to me. But thirty five minutes later, I have gotten as far as creating a dull title. After great procrastination and facebook stalking, I decided to buckle down and take the challenge of trying to think of five words, things or concepts that define who I am. 

       The first thing that popped into my head was the word independent. When I was seven years old my mother, brother and I moved to the United States from Brazil, automatically forcing me to put myself out there and learn the English language. Since my mother learned to speak English slower than I did, it taught me to learn to do things on my own, such as homework and school projects. Every since my twin brother and I were nine years old, my mother has always worked nights. Meaning that we had to fend for ourselves and mature much faster than most children our age. Having to learn independence from a young age made me the very goal oriented, persistent person that I am today.

       Coming from a poverty struck place in Brazil to being a successful eighteen year old at SCSU, has made me a very confident person. If I were to live in Brazil, I would not have the opportunity to go to college, or even graduate high school. Because I now live in a country filled with freedom and opportunity to succeed, I have full confidence in myself that I will one day be both successful and happy. 

       I  think that coming from a different country has also made me a very realistic and unique person. I can see that things are not just handed to you. Seeing my mother struggle in this country to provide my brother and I with food, shelter and a good education has made me appreciate the small things. I am realistic that trying to live the American dream is not as easy as it seems, and that if you want to succeed you have to go through hell and back. The bigger the success, the harder it will be to get there. Leading me to be realistic that I will struggle in SCSU with the challenges that awaits me, and if you want to succeed you have to work hard.

       Inescapable, I am a very family oriented person. The only family that I have in the United States is my mother, twin brother and a five year old brother who I have helped raise since I was fourteen. Since we only have each other, we have an indescribable bond. My mother being a single mom and only thirty seven years old, has become my biggest support system and bestfriend. When I was fifteen I began watching my little brother while my mother was at work. I loved being able to help raise my little brother and watching him grow into a toddle, and last week when he got on the bus for the first time for his first day of kindergarten, it brought tears to my eyes. My twin brother is my other half. We have been through everything together and I feel as if he is the only person who truly understands me.

     Although I feel as if describing oneself in just five different ways is a conflict on its own due to the fact that there is so much more about me to get to know, I feel as if I have chosen the five most important words that defines who I am as a person and what is  important to me.