5B: How to Use Your Time.

                This time study assignment has really come to show how much my life is consumed by school and football practice. Monday through Wednesday my days are consumed by classes until 1 then football meetings and practice from 1:10 until 5:45, then comes study hall… three dreadful hours from 7:30 until 10:30. With such busy days and so much time spent on football, these study halls are really the only thing that enables me to complete some of my work, though I still find myself in my dorm working for two or three more hours after study lets out. It was said that we’d spend roughly 30 to 40 hours not including class doing review work, which is exactly right.. every week I have 20 to 30 hours of more work to do, on top of practices and games for football. I wouldn’t quite say I’ve touched that magic number of 40 hours yet though.. I hope to keep it that way.

                I never really paid any attention to what exactly my time was spent on during the week, but when I actually break it down and analyze it closely.. football and school has slowly taken over my life. Ironically, I still find enough time to socialize and make friend amongst the rest of the campus.. I still have time devoted to just me (good thing I’m a diagnosed insomniac). Sadly, I felt myself putting off my inquiry assignments until the last day.. and it turned out what I thought was the last day was the wrong day; procrastination at its finest (reasons why It’s 8:52 on a Wednesday and I’m doing them now).

                Throughout the rest of the first semester I plan on sticking to a schedule that works and enables me to finish my required assignments for the week, while staying well rested for football games/practice, and maintain a sense of “me” time or down time. 

5A: How Good of a Student Am I?

College has a brought upon a whole new set of challenges when talking in terms of academics especially when coming from high school and prep school; which wasn’t nearly as demanding. Throughout high school I was able to get by without studying or really applying myself at all, and still managed to finish top ten in my class. This wasn’t the case when I began my prep year and sure isn’t the case in college. The preparation of aspect of college, and following a syllabus is really what has thrown me off completely; not being reminded every day that an assignment is due is something that I’m not necessarily used to. Take inquiry for example, blogging was never something that really interested me or was a requirement for that matter and now it’s 60% of our final grade which has actually really hit me roughly throughout the first four weeks. I’ve had to really adjust to a different type of teaching style and assignment style. For example my grade is exceptionally high in media studies and history because they are courses in which I can watch a teacher put things on the board, and since I have a photographic memory and learn visually, it makes quizzes and tests that much easier.

College has led to some successes and extreme failures, even though I’m only four weeks in. My goal was to finish with 3.0 or higher, and now in such a short time I find myself struggling to pass my inquiry class. Everything moves so fast, that maybe I’m just now starting to adust.. twenty-eight days later. The articles we’ve been reading lately stress the importance of planning out your assignments and being well organized; time management is key. This is such a difference from what I’ve previously been doing because I was able to wait until the last minute in high school and still manage to get A’s. As the first semester continues on I plan on being more organized with my assignments and making sure I know the proper days that all of my assignments are due. (Inquiry) 

4V: Vocabulary for the Betterment of the Mind.

What is Delayed Gratification?

Delayed Gratification is the ability to resist temptation that potentially presents an immediate reward in exchange you receive a more pleasing reward, but after a certain period of time. The ability to show the characteristics of being able to delay gratification at young age has been said that it leads to far more success as a young teen and young adult. The “don’t eat the marshmallow” test was one of the first studies done on four year old children to see how they’d display the ability to delay gratification. Some researchers believe the test was accurate in saying those who waited to eat the marshmallow would display more success at an older age and some researchers disagree completely. To make the decision that a child will be unsuccessful based off of a test that they took at the age of four is ridiculous. Being able to delay gratification can be hard, but if the later reward is well worth it, then you’ll do what it takes to show characteristics of patience, maturity, and responsibility.
What is metacognition? Metacognition is the exact process of understanding one's own thought process. It's the true act of thinking about thinking.

What is nature vs nurture? Nurture is something you've grown with, something that has been instilled into at a young age. And nature is the skills and tools you pick up on as you live life. The things that you adjust to in life. 

4B: INQ Discussions. Is delayed gratification actually accurate?

It is stated that children who are able to show characteristics of being able to delay gratification will grow to have more success when they are young adults and young teens. How true is this exactly? Can you really decide a child's success on what they're doing when they're four and five years old? As a child I personally lacked patience and was extremely spoiled; getting everything I wanted, when I wanted it. But is that exactly how I am now? I wouldn't exactly say I'm the spoiled brat I was in '98, I grew into a responsible and mature adult.. with high SAT scores. The fact that children aren't able to delay gratification is no reason to decide whether or not they'll be great test takers in the future.

At such a young age children aren't set in the right mind frame to really think to delay gratification. They see the marshmallow, and are instantly tempted to eat it.. maybe the child who eats the marshmallow right away knows that only one marshmallow will fill them up, who are we to decide? They say that most important and need principle to success is the ability to delay gratification the ability to show self discipline.. does a four year old child really display any characteristics of having any self discipline?

The whole lesson throughout this class, I really thought.. "Maybe the child who exhibits such lack of patience will be the one who comes out to be most successful?!" The child who just can't seem to wait at all for whats coming, and needs it at that exact second will display the most success in the future. That child could potentially be the one who is the hungriest to become better at what they do, the one who is most determined to go out and win on a sporting field. Maybe impatience is good.

4A: Well Worth the Wait

                Delayed gratification is the ability to put off instant gratification, showing your own personal self-discipline thus leading to the fact that you possess one of the most important virtues.. patience. Middle school was around the time when all of my friends were first starting to get their first cell phones, and I was that odd man out. My mother insisted that I was far too young and irresponsible to maintain the oh-so sacred cell phone. She decided to make me wait until my freshman year of high school to get my first phone, the Blackberry Curve 360, and boy was I cool. Though in sixth grade I wanted the phone right away, instant gratification, just because my friends had it; it was well worth the wait because the phone I had gotten going into high school was the newest phone on the market. Patience was a virtue.. It almost was like the marshmallow test except a far longer wait period for the reward I had received.

                Being in an era of the smart phone and Apple technology, we as American’s are seemingly growing to lack the virtue of patience and maybe even hard work itself. We are so used to instant gratification and knowing exactly what’s happening at every exact time, that if that was taken away from us I don’t think we would function very well. Take Siri for instance, Apple’s voice animated information provider, anything you don’t have an answer for you can simply ask Siri and twenty seconds later you have the desired answer.. seems like instant gratification to me. If one hasn’t experienced delayed gratification before in their life, I feel as if they were put into a situation in which they’d have to experience it they wouldn’t handle it very well. Instant gratification has taken over today’s people and the advancement of technology is the number one cause of it. 

                Technologies provide us with almost instantaneous relief to any problem that we are seemingly faced with; there is almost a technology for everything. Take the App Store on the iPhone for instance, there is over 100,000 apps that are designed to instantly gratify us.. thus because we live in a world of instant gratification. 

3B: 14 Years Strong

              Never having played another sport until my freshman year of high school, gymnastics was my absolute life. I loved everything about it.. still do at that. Practicing more than thirty hours a week at the age of twelve was something I loved doing, I loved practicing and training hard simply because I wanted to be the best. That was really the only motivation I needed to get up every morning before school and go to practice from 5 a.m. until 7 a.m, the only motivation I needed to go back to the gym after school and train from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. For fourteen years, I was motivated by victory and the love of the sport. Middle school was a time when kids were truly starting to find themselves, make friends and hangout; not for me, middle school marked a time where I started nationally competing and was in a different state every other weekend. I could say that it was purely the self-motivation that kept me going, but it really was the gold. The gold medal kept me going, winning my first national championship at the age of eleven in sixth grade was really the reason I was so motivated. I loved the feeling of being on top; from the age of ten until my last national competition in Seattle, Washington at the age of sixteen the top was where I was. I was a five time national championship and didn’t know what a silver medal was.. so if that’s not motivation enough to want to keep something going then I don’t know what is.

                It’s been nearly three years since I’ve been out of the sport and the love that I have for this sport will always be there, it grows every day. Gymnastics was a sport that instilled so much discipline and focus into me that during those years I was nationally competing my grades were higher, I was more respectful, kinder, and I was off of my ADHD medication. Though the physical aspects of gymnastics don’t help me with much in college (except for on the football and baseball field), the discipline and focus it instilled have helped me through high school and prep year. It taught such great time management skills at such a young age that those skills I learned at the age of thirteen just seemed to carry over to high school. My coaches’ motto was “If I can’t make you the next Alexei Nemov, I’ll make you well focused and disciplined young men who respect others and most importantly respect themselves.”  

3v: What is Initiative?

To take the initiative is to step up and be responsible and handle something before someone has to refer you in the proper direction in getting said thing done. To take the initiative one needs to be someone who shows characteristics of being that of a leader, that of which is able to stand out and constantly do whatever it takes to make the right moves towards perfection without having to be constantly reminded. Though this isn’t the exact Webster definition of initiative, but coming from someone who plays sports and is faced with having to “take the initiative” every day, this is what I feel initiative truly means. 

3A: The Good & The Bad

“There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Shakespeare once said these words and they seemingly get at the fact that deep thought and thorough logic behind certain subjects lead us to believe that they are in fact good or bad. He is stating that if we didn’t think and over analyze such ideas of certain things we would never be led into believing things are good, bad or hold a negative or positive weight. This quote directly relates to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation because intrinsic motivation is self-driven motivation; and if one is simply self-motivated then outside interaction does not easily affect one’s direct beliefs one what exactly is good or bad. One who is intrinsically motivated then they will come to making their own decisions on what is good or bad. One who is extrinsically motivated is someone who is easily influenced or motivated by an outside force.. so for this person any little outside force that possesses a good or bad thought on something will potentially lean towards this decision. When thinking about a growth mindset and a fixed mindset one potentially already has a predetermined decision on what he or she truly believes is good or bad if one possesses a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is the concept that knowledge is fixed, already possessed when one is born. While on the other hand one who possesses a growth mindset may be more open and susceptible to forming their own belief and opinion on to what exactly is good or bad. A growth mindset is possessed by those truly deep thinkers; those who are willing to step out of their comfort zone in order to learn and try something brand new. Those are seemingly the people who stand alone. In my own opinion, someone who even possesses a growth mindset or fixed mindset or someone who is intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated will still have a preconceived thought as to what is good or bad, so their own thoughts and logic won’t even really matter. We live in a time in which everything is so structured that as soon as you are born you are being told what is wrong and what is right; you’re told what is bad and what exactly is good. The way things are now is deep thought really the reason why we think things are good or bad? Or is it the preconceived concept of good and bad and right and wrong that is forced upon us at such a young age?

2I: Campus Involvement Post #5

Everyday I'm given the opportunity to suit up and participate in collegiate level athletics. Though the campus involvement task itself was attend a Southern Connecticut State University sporting event, I feel as if suiting up everyday and playing for Southern Connecticut is even better. The feeling of playing a college sport is so much more of a thrill than high school, it's so much more exciting. Through all of the fun and excitement collegiate athletics holds, it isn't nearly as easy as high school.. it's something like a full time job. Through all the hard-work I'll put in over these next four years, it'll all be worth it; because unlike high school where 85% of the students play a sport only about 10% of the community at a university is given this opportunity.

2V: What is Motivation?

"Let's go boys!" "You got this!" "You can beat IUP, JUST DON"T GIVE UP!" Seems like motivation to me? Everyday at football practice we are attacked by a slew of motivational comments from all eight of our coaches. Motivation in my own words is simple really. Positive reinforcement when one is doing something as strenuous as squatting 455 pounds or as simple as doing the math problem on the white board in front of the class. The act of motivation is being able to push through something, and having that mental toughness and physical desire to keep going, no matter how sore or tired your body is. Motivation from others around you and self-motivation are two things that cannot be lacked if one wants to have complete success at what he or she is doing.

1V: What is Inquiry?

After my first inquiry class, I found myself asking what exactly is "Inquiry"...?! Obviously the word inquire instantly came to mind, but I knew there had to be a deeper meaning behind this word. As the next class came I realized that there was so much information being thrown at us, that it had to be something that was extremely confusing that some bored college professor came up with. As I picked up that eleven-hundred page Webster's Dictionary, I found myself rifling through thin-crinkly, easy-tearing paper; only to come to the simple definition of .... "the act of gathering or asking for information." Amazing.. So simple.

1I: Campus Involvement Task #3

The health center is seemingly something that most college students don't really appreciate as much as they possibly should, especially us athletes in the trainer's office. Having someone their to fix our every little bump and bruise is something we shouldn't take for granted. Being in the trainer's office everyday has led to me noticing that one of the most commonly faced injuries among athletes is a pulled muscle. The pulled muscle is a nagging injury that if not healed properly and rested thoroughly can instantly turn to a tear; and keep that athlete out for multiple months. Proper treatment and rehab is the most important thing I've learned from the trainer's offices and health center.

1B: Yes, I'm very new to this blogging ordeal.

Blogging? If you came up to me three weeks ago and said "Hey Deej, do you blog by any chance?" I'd probably laugh in your face and respond with "Man, the only thing I know how to do on a computer is go on YouTube and download music!" The starting of college in just one and a half short weeks, I've already acquired many different skills on the internet and computer; and get this... I'm blogging in three of my classes. I plan on keeping it simple really, nothing to fancy or flashy.. just my simple thoughts put down in a minimum of three hundred words, four times a week. I plan on only blogging about things that I can directly relate to myself, or directly affect my life itself.. why would I bother informing you on things that ninety-five percent of America doesn't care about. So stay tuned.. I promise not to disappoint on my blog!! (You have my word Mrs. Guarino)

1A: College For Me

Setting off on such a new journey and new step in life brought along so many mixed emotions with it. I really didn't know how to feel when I packed my bags and readied myself to embark on this new and such foreign part of my life. I was sad, nervous, anxious, excited, jittery and extremely fearful all at once; my brain seemed as if it was going to explode due to not knowing how to handle so many emotions at once. What exactly is college? Movies portray it as 24/7 partying and nonstop fun, while parents and teachers call it "an institute of higher learning; such a place that acts as a haven in which one shall go to better themselves for their far but yet so near futures." Personally, I see college as a place that I'll call home for the next four or so years, a place in which I will thrive for academic success, and a place in which I will compete in two different varsity sports. To me, having the opportunity to go to college is something I just can't take for granted. I'm the first person on my father's side to attend college, and I know that if he were alive he'd be more than proud at what I've exactly accomplished in my life up until this point. Personally, making my mother proud is something that I'll always put first in my life, so to show her that I can succeed academically and athletically, all while being alone and away on my own, is something that I plan on doing. That really is my primary focus and main goal of college. As my first two weeks comes to a close, I still remain fearful, nervous and excited for what the rest of my freshman year entails for me; so stick around bloggers and you'll be kept informed!