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.