Free Write 2/28/2012

The best piece of research that I have ever written was for no one but myself.  During high school and the recruiting process, I had to research a lot of different schools.  There were many different aspects of researching schools such as location, enrollment size, majors, the division that the sports played in, etc.  This was the best research that I have ever written because it gave me a clear picture of what I wanted and what I didn't want in a school that I was going to spend four years of my life at.  The ways that I researched the different schools were by looking at the schools academic and athletic websites and by calling the softball coaches to ask them questions about the school and their program.  This research paid off in the end because it led me to Siena College, the perfect fit for me.

Free Write 2/23/2012

• Clinical studies, throughout many countries
• longitudinal studies
• 381 independent studies were examined to see the behavior changes of the children playing the game
• pathelogical studies relating video game addictions to substance abuse addiction
• when limits are set on children by their parents, students become more rebellious

Free Write 2/21/2012

The best cookie that I have ever had would have to be a snowman shaped and frosted cookie from Wegmans.  I first saw this cookie when I was looking through advertisements during the winter holidays and immediately I thought "I need to get my hands on this cookie".  The cookie was shaped like a snowman so that would probably mean that it was either cut by hand with a snowman shaped cookie cutter or it went through a machine that mass produced snowman shaped cookies.  The icing on the cookie was detailed which mean that because Wegmans mass produces these cookies, the icing was not done by hand but was done through a machine.  The cookies were suppposed to be fresh the next day but we bought them a day early and they were still warm.  This means that the cookies were baked in store and not shipped in already baked.  This was the best cookie that I ever ate in my life because the ingredients were fantastic and the cookies were baked in the place that I purchased them which means that they were fresh.  That is the one and only time that I have ever had that cookie and I would really like to have it again but I don't know if that is possible...

Free Write 2/16/2012

The best piece of research that I have come in contact with probably would have to be a book on Abraham Lincoln that my brother had to read over a summer during his middle school years.  My dad stayed home that summer and decided that he wanted to read the book along with my brother to help him understand the material.  The book went into detail about Lincoln's entire life, from early childhood until the day he was assassinated.  This book has stuck with our familiy ever since we read it because now my dad has some sort of infatuation with Abraham Lincoln and anything that relates to him.  Living in D.C., he gets to see a lot of Abraham Lincoln things such as the Lincoln Memorial and Lincoln running the presidents race every home game for the Washington Nationals.  This piece of research really resonated with him and, in turn, resonated with our entire family.

Second Video

If the second video was about me, it would have many pictures of my friends, my family, my team, the service work that I've done, softball, classes, and my future.  I know that in the future I want to be successful and I want to have a job in business but I am not sure exactly what I want to do yet.  I want to show that college will hopefully be the happiest and most fun four years of my life.  This includes softball, a social life, service work that i'm involved in, and learning to make my future better and brighter.

5 Greatest Stressers

• Not enough hours in the day
• Lack of sleep
• Balancing class, softball, homework, social life
• Extremely loud hallways
• Being far from home

Free Write 2/9/2012

If I were to create a video that contained the stresses of a college student it would contain many things.  The early mornings of 6 am practices.  The running from class to class because they are on opposite sides of campus.  The long mid-day practices that take up most of your afternoon.  The cramming in homework in the little bit of free time that you have during the day and having to stay up late just to finish it all and start all over the next day.  I think that I would create my scenes in a fast forwarded kind of way because I feel like that accurately describes my life at the moment.  I would also point out that I do not have much time to breathe, have time to myself, because of all the different things that have to be accomplished in one day.  I would also make this video a time laspse of a few days to show that I am usually doing the same thing over and over everyday.

Free Write 2/7/2012

A conversation that I was not listening in is when my parents are mad at me and are barading me.  They go on and on about the things that I'm doing wrong and I just sit there and I am a yes man.  These conversations seem to go on forever and the information seems to just get lost.  A conversation that I was listening in was a conversation with my old travel softball coach.  We had a very good realtionship last season and I would be the person that he would go to when there was a problem with anything that realted to the team.  We would have long conversations about the problems on the team and ways that these problems could be fixed.  This realtionship made last year my favorite year of travel ball out of the seven years that I played because of the lack of drama and openness of communication.

Free Write 2/2/2012

Looking at both of the buckets that were displayed in the video about paradigms, I feel like I am in the first bucket.  I have so many different things that I want to do or have to do but there is never enough time to fit it all.  I do my best to get the things done that I believe are the most important but I also fee like I do not have enough time in one day.  There are some leisure activities that I leave out of my day because there is just not enough time.  I also feel like, since the start of this new semester and the start of longer practices in the middle of the day, I am up for a long period of time so that I can stay on top of my homework.  When games start in March, there will be less space in the bucket.  The only things that I can think of that will be able to fit in the bucket will be softball, school work, and classes most of the time.  The one thing that cannot be taken out of my bucket are basic necessities like eating and sleeping.  Lack of sleep is different from not sleeping at all.