How You Doing?

                My video project is doing very well and I have been working on it every day. After last class, I decided to change what I had, so my project would be more interesting. I feel the project so far is doing great and has a little bit of everything. It has pictures, videos, interviews, and music. It is only about three minutes so far, but it’s pretty clean and is packed with interesting facts. I added fun facts to the project so that it drew viewers in more.

                To make my project stand out, I made my video project tv themed. For example, I decided to start my video like the beginning like local news channels. I even added a news intro music and made a fake tv station: Southern News. The best part is that my news headline is the introduction to my topic. I even pretend to be a news reporter when I did interviews which makes the video funny.

                Another tv themed idea I put in the video was me reading answered questions from professors. It was another idea of introducing another section of the video. (which was another interview part) I made it similar to “viewer of the week”. I named it was ‘Letters to Krista’, and the viewers of the week are the professors.  I am happy with my applied ideas and hope it brings something funny, different, and interesting to the viewers.  Also, if you remembered my lest video, there were all text slides with plain colored back rounds. I finally managed to figure out how to put pictures with texts in the video. On this video project, most of the texts slides have pictures as the back round. This adds something new and different compared to my old video.

                Even though my video is only about three minutes, I have a layout of what else I will be adding. I am happy with the project because I have been spacing out the work.

The Impact of Stress on A College Student's Life

                When I started to brain storm for my project, I was really scared because I couldn’t find the perfect topic. I wanted to find something that was very common, with a lot of information, and enough material to pull some interviews. Finally, it dawned on me: Stress and how it affects a student in college. I want to have stress as the problem, find certain things that cause it, how it affects you in college, and finally, how to prevent it.

                It will have 4 parts: The introduction to stress, the causes of stress, its impact on you, and prevention. The whole video will have included research, and interviews by both students and professors. For the students, I wanted to interview them about different nervous habits related to stress and cures they have come up with. For professors, I want to interview them about the difference they noticed in stressed students and non stressed students.

Here are my questions for fellow student interviews:

-Have you experienced stress in college so far?

-What are some causes for your stress?

-What are the symptoms of your stress?

-What do you usually do about it?

Here are the interview questions for the professors:

-Of the students you teach, about how many do you think experience stress? (%)

-Do you notice a difference in a student’s work when they are stressed?

-Do you think stress overall can affect a students’ grade?

                Overall, I want my video to have music, video interviews, quotes, text slides, statistics, and pictures. The video will address the impact of stress to a college student’s life and how to prevent it. At the end of the video, I will link the topic back to critical thinking. I will do this by elaborating on the idea that if we are stressed, we can’t use our brain fully, and this means we are prevented from using all of our intelligence in college.

Leave Or Stay?

                I read an article from Kevin’s group, which was about living on campus and living off campus. The article was very interesting and informative because it had pros and cons for both. I myself am an off campus student, and I choose it because it fit me better. I am not sure whether I would necessarily choose between on or off campus. But, for me personally, living at home is more fitting.

                                Even though I am a commuter student, I feel that there is a way that you can have the best of both worlds. What I mean is it is possible to be a little bit of both. I know many students that live near the SCSU campus, but, they don’t live on campus. A student that lives within walking distance of the campus can stay over night and even pick classes at night. They can even dine at Conn Hall and then go home to their house. Another way to have both, is to live on campus, but go home for the weekends. You can have the necessities for what you need for your classes during the week, and you can go home for the weekend, unwind, and see your family.

                I myself live at home, but I still try to get the “college life”. I have really good friends on campus and once a week I stay in the dorms. I have the ability to have privacy and familiarity at home. Then I can go to the dorms, get away from my job, my family, and my hometown. Also, it builds a stronger social life for me because it is hard making friends when commuting. The only hard thing about commuting is having friends at school and friends in your home town. I just wish I could have my school friends meet my home town friends.

To The Left?.....Or Right?

                I read an article from Tori’s group. I was very interested in the first article which discussed the characteristics of left brained people and right brained people. I had heard of the concept, but I never learned a lot until I read this article. This article really interested me and I even related it to my project’s topic involving learning styles and intelligences.

                When I read the article, many characteristics related to me. Overall, I matched many more characteristics of someone who is Right Brained. Right brained people tend to be bad with directions. I myself am very bad with directions, because I learn visually through land marks. Another thing that made me feel more right brained was when I read about how a right brained person would go on gut instincts in a test. Whether I was to study or not, I always would choose the answer that caught my eye first. Also, it mentions how right brainers can tell the approximate time without looking at the clock. This jumped out on me because I do that all the time. I used to think I was crazy until I read that idea in this article. After the article I feel I was able to characterize some meaning into the common concepts discussed in the article.

                The article left me even more curious about whether I was left brained or right brained. Even though the article gave me enough information, I wanted a second source. So, on the page that the article was on had many links. I chose the one with the quiz, which determined further into being left or right brained. I took the quiz and was pretty surprised. I got 9 answers favoring left and 9 favoring right. This meant that I got a tie. I read further and the quiz said I leaned more on the left brained. So I am a little unsure as to whether I am a leftie or a rightie.

It's Not Over Yet

After the class with Tina’s group, I decided to go back and read the article called, “College Grad: ‘I wish I’d Gone To Prison Instead.’ ” I went back because I became interested on the topic. When I read the article all of the statistics were shocking and scary. The worst part is that the article was from 2009, so the statistics can even be higher.

                It is really scary to think that you can get handed a diploma and a stack of bills at the same time. I realized I am glad that I commute, because I am saving a lot of money. If I had lived in the dorms, it would be another ten thousand per year I would have to pay back. All together I would have to pay about forty thousand after I graduate and the forty thousand doesn’t include tuition.

                This all together made me realize I made a good decision by staying home. Owing another forty thousand would mean that I got my degree and jobs of my dreams to pay off my college debt. So, this means I would be paying off my debt before even starting my life. It’s impossible to graduate from college then manage to live in your own apartment and pay off the loans.

                Another smart decision I have made is not owning a credit card. My parent wanted me to, but I was afraid from being in debt later on. I am happy I made the decision, because the article convinced me to never get a credit card. The smarter thing is to save up money in the bank, then use a debit card for emergencies only. Even though I feel like I have made good decisions to prevent debt so far, I still need to be careful when establishing credit. I have no credit, but, when I do establish it, I will be very careful with my monthly bills.

No Coffee No Workee

                I decided to read the article for Valerie’s group. The article was about how stress can affect you mentally and physically. I found it very interesting because I never knew stress had so many physical side effects. It mentioned such things like stomach cramping and increased asthma. This article really helped out and made me realize I should second guess the sources for my headaches and muscle tension. Recently I have been having trouble with these headaches that I get almost every day. The worst part is that I still can’t figure out what is triggering them. When I read the article I kind of just dawned on me: the headaches could be caused by stress.

                I really enjoyed the tips to prevent stress like yoga or meditation. These are really good ideas, yet since we are college students, how do we have time for these activities? May be for a class discussion we should try to come up with other ideas for stress that we can fit into our busy schedules. Here are some of my easy and quick tips and ideas for stress:

-Some times stress is caused by bad sleeping habits. If you have trouble winding down so you can sleep, try putting lavender scent or oil under your pillow. Lavender is proven to relax you. What I do is blot some lavender oil on a tissue and I put this under my pillow.

- Coffee is great for a wake up but it some times gives us that crash at the end of the day and because of this we sometimes don’t get everything done for the day. Sometimes I like to cut down on the coffee in the morning. Instead, I have a cup of tea. It still wakes you up in the morning and you don’t end up crashing later. (I prefer English breakfast tea in the morning)

Red Flag

                Everyone has heard of abusive relationships. Most people think it’s the whole idea of physical abuse. Yet it can be mental abuse too. It can be subtle too, and many people don’t even realize it. The worst part is that the victims of mental abuse think it is their fault.

                Sadly, I know from experience that mental abuse does exist. I dated someone for only about a month and a half, and now that I have spent time away from this person, I realized what they were doing to me. I thought nothing was wrong when we were together even though everyone around me said I was being treated badly. I feel stupid because I never listened to my parents and best friend. The person I was with literally brainwashed me and I was so oblivious to it. He would try to convince me to come live with him, even though I was already taking care of him every night because he was always drunk. I was also stupid because I thought his drinking problems would pass, yet one day I realized he was an alcoholic. Every time I would try to tell him he had drinking problems, he would end up convincing me that I needed help, not him. When I finally listened to my friends and family and broke up with him, he threatened me. When he was drunk every night, he would call me multiple times screaming at me.

                After his threats and showing up at my work, I ended up becoming terrified of him. He finally left me alone when I told him I was going to call the police if he didn’t . To this day I am still afraid of him. This blog is to show people that they should never go through this. Also, this is to show the signs of abusive relationships and the signs of alcoholism. 

http://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/spotting-the-signs-of-emotional-abuse.aspx

(A link about the signs of mental abuse)