Final Self-Assessment.

So, my first semester in college is over. It’s been a crazy ride. It went by so fast, first of all. Like in the blink of an eye. I still can’t believe it. It actually still seems like just yesterday I was starting high school, singing in the choir, making new friends, falling in love, going through endless trials and tribulations, actually succeeding in my junior year math class, learning a new language, auditioning for a choir, getting into that choir and being apart of a new family, watching my classes powder puff game end in a complete and utter bullshit tie. (We totally won), to my senior outing, hanging out with my classmates, to senior prom. It all went by so fast, much like this first semester in college. I honestly remember being terrified to graduate, leave the comfort of my hometown, my high school where I’d met people that changed my life. I remember thinking freshmen-the first half of my senior year, I could not WAIT to get out of what we all referred to as “hell hole” otherwise known as O.H. Platt High School. Like I said, it was only until the second half of my senior year that I felt this way. Once it hit a certain time of the year, it actually made me sad to think of leaving everyone behind. My senior class was so close. A lot of us had gone to school together since elementary school. We’d been so used to seeing each other every single day for most of our lives. Now, they’re not there anymore, and it’s weird. I’d met amazing people in high school, including my choir director who seriously, changed my life. And I’m not trying to come off cliché, but I honestly never thought of teaching a high school choir, until him. He broke me from my comfort zone as well. I used to be terrified to sing in front of people. Now, I could care less. I never wanted to teach music, I just loved music, it was my way of expressing myself. Now, I’m studying to become just like him. You see, the point of me summarizing my high school career is to show you how far I came in those four years, and how far I’ve yet to go, and how in just four short months, I’ve come even farther. See, I changed a lot in high school. From my confidence level, to my weight and jean size. Both extremely positive, by the way. And I think I’ve changed quite a bit in these four months as well. These four months have been a crazy roller coaster ride, filled with stress, tears, smiles and laughter. Along with lots of “I’m not gonna do this now, I’ll get to it later”, “Maybe I’m not cut out for this?”, “What the hell did I get myself into?”, “I just need some help”, “What could that possibly mean?”, “I don’t even know what’s going on in this class”, “I suck at math”, “I don't care about Neanderthals!” and a lot more.  I found myself wondering if maybe I should have taken a semester off, like the financial aid office had almost forced me to do, but I’m a fighter, I wasn’t going to let them just drop my schedule because they screwed up. I had found an answer to most of the questions I had coming into college. The truth is, I really didn’t think what I got myself into was a wise decision. But looking back on the semester, I know I wouldn’t have it any other way. Yeah, it was hard. Of course its hard, its college! Why did I ever think it would be easy? I recall the feeling of dying to graduate and go to college. Now sometimes I long for the simplicity that high school held. Am I weird for missing high school? Will I be weird when I most likely miss college after graduating? I don't know, maybe to some. But that’s kind of a normal thing for me. I always miss the old days. But I digress, I look back on the past four months, and I feel like I’ve matured quite a bit. Yeah, I procrastinated a bit and that’s my biggest downfall. Hell, I’ve been trying to put off writing this since I woke up this morning, simply because I’m feeling lazy. But when you just start doing your work, it takes all the stress off you. Now, this is just one more thing to cross off my to-do list. (Seriously, I have a to do list app on my phone.) I know now that not putting things off and just sucking it up and doing it, helps you out in the long run. It sucks to get started when all you wanna do is anything but your homework, but in the end, you’ll have less stress and that’s a wonderful feeling. Looking back on the mistakes I’ve made this past semester, I realize that making mistakes is completely human. No one is perfect, so why was I trying to be “super college student?” That’s never going to be me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get better grades next semester by simply just doing my work when it’s assigned! I want to correct a lot of the mistakes I’ve made along the way. I want to try harder. My main goal for next semester is to absolutely ace every single tutorial I have. I want to blow my professor away with my progress and make him proud. I want to come back with a vengeance and prove that I really am a fighter and I’m going to work damn hard for the things that I want. After all, I want to be a great choir director like mine from high school? Well, then I’ve got to work my butt off to get there. So next semester, I’m going to work hard, but am I going to try to be the perfect college student? Absolutely not. I’m still going to hang out with my friends and go to concerts,(which I do all the time, seriously if you saw my twitter, you’d be surprised) and still have fun, while also buckling down and just doing my homework and stop procrastinating so much! I still have to write my anthropology paper. Which is completely outlined already, yet I’m still putting it off because I procrastinate too much. I also chose to write this blog, which is due after that paper! And that paper is due the same day as my next concert I’m going to! So I’m not going to be doing this next semester. The best thing to do would have been to do my anthro paper this past weekend. I’ve still got time, but its possible I’ll keep putting it off. Anyways, I look back on these past four months, and I smile.(I sound like I’m giving a speech at my high school graduation.) I learned so much. I’ve grown. Yes, I’ve made mistakes, but every freshmen in college, every student, every person on the planet has made mistakes. We are only human. I don’t regret the decisions I made, since I didn’t make any decisions that affect my health and well being. Unless you consider staying up later to watch FRIENDS something that affects my health, since its less sleep, but anyways. I feel like the majority of the decisions I made were good ones. I didn’t hurt anyone, I didn’t hurt myself. I did my best and made mistakes but I survived and I’ll do better next semester. Since I sort of know what to expect now, no more adjusting is really needed, so it should get a little easier in that sense from here. I’m excited to start my second semester. But I’m also excited for a well deserved break, as I’m sure everyone is. I wouldn’t change a thing about my first semester, except maybe the night math class, which was totally out of my hands, but I survived that no matter how much I hated it. I had a great experience in my first semester and I really enjoyed myself and its made me like SCSU even more.

Common problems faced by freshmen in college

I like the outcome of my video despite the MANY problems I faced with it. I spent a lot of time on it and I hope everyone enjoys it. I'm so happy that I didn't have to restart the video completely.

Success vs. Failure

It's inevitable. Everyone is going to fail at some point, and everyone is going to succeed at one point. It just happens, it's a part of life. It depends on how you react to these successes and failures that make you better able to cope. This semester has been full of ups and downs for me. To failing math because I have never been good at math, to doing horribly on a tutorial because my practice sessions were not sufficient enough. Yeah, it sucked to see the bad grades on my papers. Grades I had never seen in my life! But it made me want to try harder to get back on the right track. So I practiced more efficiently for my tutorials and my professor continues telling me that I've improved. I've worked harder in math and started giving the professor my undivided attention and brought my grade up. Maybe it's only a D now, but I'm passing. I also ran into a slump where I had gotten the lowest grade on an anthropology test, but I made a comeback in that class as well. Maybe I'm not at the level I'd like to be at yet, but I can only go up from where I am. Some of the successes I've had this semester include beginning to understand everything behind music theory. I had never taken a theory class in my life, so everything was so new to me. But I've gotten to a point where I understand everything, and the class has become more fun than a burden. It was only a burden when I felt stupid and like I was behind, now I feel pretty confident about my final. The point is, you can invest a lot of time into something and still fail, like I did with math. But you need to pick yourself up and try harder and great things can come of it.

Brainstorming for the final!

So our final is to write a final blog post, or make a final video. I'm pretty sure I'm going to write a blog post, because if I make a video, I'll lose my train of thought and start rambling. Plus, technology has not been on my side lately. I also come across better in writing. It just seems like a no brainer to use my strength. There's a series of questions that we should answer or touch upon in our final posts, I'll probably answer most, if not all of the questions, since the post has to be 600 words. Judging by some of the questions, it will really help us get an idea of our overall performance this semester and help us improve on some things for the spring. To decide what I'll actually include in my post, I'll probably answer each question and elaborate a little bit on each and see what answers will really show how I've grown and what I've done in my first semester in college. I've been through some slumps and achieved some pretty great things in my opinion that I'd like to talk about as well, to show that it's okay to fail once in awhile, as long as you pick yourself back up and try again. I'd also like to talk about how I plan to improve next semester, get rid of the things I've done this semester that didn't work, keep the ones that did work, and try to stay on track throughout the whole semester to keep my grades up where I should be. I'd also like to discuss how much more work I'll have to put in next semester compared to this current one. I'd also like to touch upon time management and stress management for sure, since I could use some improvements on that from time to time. I hope my final self-assessment blog post will show the things I've overcome this semester and the things I need to work on and still change for the upcoming one.

“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” ~Marc Chagall

In my opinion, Twyla Tharp's book was great. I think we can learn a lot from her. Most of the people in the world today think creativity only exists in music, art, dance or something of that nature. But creativity can be used anywhere, in any field. I think she's trying to show is how creativity can be used in our everyday lives. In education, in relationships, in an exercise routine, in medicine, in basically any career field you can imagine, you should be using your creativity. I also think a lot of her exercises included in the book can help us to trigger our creative thoughts. Something has to trigger you to come up with a new innovative idea, and I think these exercises are very helpful, to an extent. Not every exercise will work for everyone but it's worth a shot right? You should try anything and everything to get yourself into the habit of thinking creatively. I also think that this book can help you learn a lot about yourself, especially through the exercises. One of them, which I previously wrote about, was when you let your mind wander. And when you let your mind wander, you get a closer look into the things that hold a lot of meaning to you. That will help you get a better understanding of who you are. I also loved the chapter about skill. In this chapter she discusses different types of skill within different people, like musicians, dancers, artists, and of course, careers outside of the arts. She also made a list of different categories of skills, like musical skill, dramatic, athletic, painterly, sculptural, psychological, design, theatrical, temporal, motivational, entrepreneurial, promotional, and literary skills. She also defines each skill and what it can be used for. I think it's a great way for people who don't think they're very creative to see that they really do have some creativity they aren't using. In conclusion, I believe being creative is important, not just as a musician, but as a human being, you'd be surprised where you can use your creativity.

Autonomy. Library. Research.

Autonomy means to be independent. Autonomy is a trait that every college student must have. We must be independent. We're in that point in our lives when we're basically on our own. Some are living on campus, so they're already out of the house. But for people like me who are commuting and still living with their parents, it doesn't make the need to be independent any less. My parents don't tell me when to do my homework. They don't tell me what to do. They know that I'm smart enough to do it on my own. And they also know I'm responsible enough to take care of myself when it comes to school. And in our library visit on Tuesday, we learned how to find books online that had to do with the subject of autonomy. We also searched for articles on it as well. I believe that teach applies to us as first year students because we're going to be at southern for the next few years and there is no way we will never have to go to the library. So we need to learn how to use the system so we can find books on our own, autonomy. We also need to know how to search for anything we're looking for, like journals, articles, encyclopedias. It's very useful information for when we need to go to the library and do research for a class. There are also a ton of databases and sources for you to do research on your major. There were tons of music databases for me to look through. And each one was so different so I would be getting so much information from different aspects. I can only imagine how many databases there are for majors like nursing. At any rate, you see, having autonomy, being independent is very important for first year students, also knowing how to find what you need in the library is important for first year students. This way we won't have to ask for help every time we're there, another way to have autonomy.

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. ~Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

Twyla Tharp says "You're alone, you're suffering and you don't have a good reason for putting yourself through that misery. To build up your tolerance for solitude, you need a goal". I'm referring to the second exercise in the book. This exercise is about having moments of solitude and being okay with it. I've created a list of things I like doing alone. I like reading alone. I like writing alone. I like going for runs alone. I like doing homework in solitude. Sometimes I enjoy just sitting in my room listening to music in solitude. There's probably more but I'm drawing a blank. You see, I don't mind being alone because it gives me a chance to recuperate and straighten out my mind. It gives me a chance to think clearly without the clutter of others words and thoughts crowding my mind. For example, I like to write alone. I can't write a story, a song or a poem with people around. I'd never be able to concentrate. I rarely let people read my work unless its something I'm really proud of. So in order to make something I'm proud of, I need complete solitude. Another example, I like reading and doing homework alone. How can you concentrate on schoolwork or a good book with other people talking around you? You won't get the full idea of the book or be able to do your schoolwork to the best of your ability because you won't be able to concentrate. Twyla Tharp also says "Sit alone in a room and let your thoughts go wherever they will. Work up to 10 minutes a day of this mindless mental wandering." She's basically saying its okay to daydream, and being alone isn't something that should make you feel lonely. Yes, sometimes I'd love to be out with my friends all day and not want to be alone one bit. But other times I enjoy being alone. When you're alone you have time to think and do something you enjoy. You can end up finding something that makes you extremely happy, or at least find your peace of mind.