Tuesday Presentations (April 24)

Cassie
She did a power point and it was interesting how she changed her research to focus on Music Therapy. She had some strong research topics on how they use it in hospitals and that they have a degree you can get dealing with music therapy. This gives her project credibility. She also used the topic of using music in schools and how it helps increase test scores and grades. We should take away the fact that music can help in all aspects in your life; it isn't just there for your entertainment people can use it to speak to others. People also use music to connect with others and to express their feelings.

Cara
I had to ask a question and my question would be, "Have you found yourself helping with other associations, or ever looked into other types of charities that go along with your topic?"

Thursday Presentation

Luke
This was a new topic to me because I have never heard anything about lucid dreaming. I learned qute a bit about what it is and was able to understand. I like that he made a Tumblr for his project it was something new to see. The main points of his project was that you can get to know yourself through dreaming. We can take away the facts that we sleep majority of our lives and that by writing down your dreams you can get back those hours you slept away, and by re-reading your dreams you can have enjoyment on what you dream.

Blog For Presentations on Tuesday

Kate D.
The main points of her presentation were that giving back doesn't always have to be something life changing, and when you give back to someone it positively affects you too. I liked that she put in there that you don't have to change someone's life to be considered to be doing a good deed because when people think about it they usually relate it to taking someone's life and completely changing it for the better. She had research, which gave her a lot of credibility. I thought it was interesting the fact that she had physical research on it because not a lot of people will think there is solid research on a topic like this, and it was more than the just one study done. There was multiple evidence of research. I also liked that she made a website and that people can contact her if they need to. The thing that we can take away from the argument is that it is a good thing to be helpful and kind to others; it not only benefits the other person, but it benefits you too.

TJ
He did his experiment over creating new habits and if you can really form one in thirty days. He challenged himself with three things: working out everyday, eating breakfast, and flossing everyday. He talks about how it depends on the person if they can really form a habit in thirty days, and there was a fact that it ranged from 18-254 days for people to from a habit that participated in an experiment. This was good evidence of how it varies. I found it interesting how he gave us tips to form a habit and that he found benefits in the habits he had chosen to do. This could be helpful for people to who are trying to pick up a new habit that can be good for their life. From this presentation, we should take away the reasons why forming habits can benefit us and how we can form them. You can also see what you should avoid when you think you are going in the direction of forming a bad habit.

Multi-Modal

As you have been reading I did my research on exercising and heart healthy lifestyles. I know that a lot of people will be doing Power Points and I don't really feeling doing another one. When we were in class I liked the idea of the Photo Story and it is something I have never done, so it should be a new experience. The thing is I'm not real sure about how I can present my research in a Photo story. I know that I could incorporate my experiences and my dad, but the actual research is going to be tricky. Since I would be showing it to you guys, I was wondering if you had any ideas you could share with me to help? Any suggestions would be amazing, just to help me get the ball rolling.

Meme

What is Text?

There are textbooks and text messages, so text can range in what it means. To me it is about anything that you can read and comprehend. Text is writing your words down whether it is for homework, a book, or texting to your friends. I don't know how to really elaborate more than that because it has such a wide range of definition. It can be seen as a way to express how you feel or explain a math problem. Basically if you can read it and it is somehow written down, whether electronically or on paper, then it is text.

Aristotle Assignment

Over break I have decided to keep up with being healthy. I realized that being heart healthy has kind of become apart of me. Without thinking about I completely ignored the cabinet with the potato chips and cookies; I went straight to the healthy food, which is limited in my household. My mom is someone who likes to be healthy, but she sees it as fat free chips and reduced fat snack foods. My step-dad enjoys eating frozen pizza all by himself for lunch; as you can see these are two conflicting eating habits. You would think that since my mom eats healthier than my step-dad then there would be more healthy food in my household, but for some reason its very sparse. We have a lot of frozen food which doesn't always sound appealing and isn't always the best for you. I ended up talking to my mom about it and telling her that if she were to buy fruit and fresh veggies I would be more likely to snack on those instead of the oreos she buys for my step dad. She told me that she will try to do it and that if i really wanted to I could do the grocery shopping and get the healthy foods that I wanted. I then replied telling her I don't think Monty, my step-dad, and brother would enjoy that because I wouldn't get them any hot pockets, frozen pizzas, chips, or cookies. Monty then tells me I can do the healthy shopping and he would get the foods that he really wants. But anyway I am now going to have healthier foods to snack on, which is good since I work in an ice cream shop and that's not going to help my healthy habits. I need to be strong and keep up my good work.

Keeping On

The question that everyone faces now is whether or not you should continue your experiment. As you know I was being heart healthy. I have made the decision to keep living a heart healthy lifestyle, but I am going to be a little lenient in my eating habits because I'm sorry I cannot live my life without having a cheeseburger, or even better a steakburger from Steak N' Shake....YUM!! I know that it is better to stay healthy and only allow myself to indulge in artery clogging foods every once in awhile so it isn't too terrible. I am planning on still working out almost everyday and allow myself some breaks. I know that I have started to enjoy running and I am looking forward to running a 5K. I am also hopeful to run more races in my future, and even though I know that I will probably never ever run a marathon I might run a half-marathon. I don't think that will be anytime soon though.

Waste Land

I enjoyed watching the documentary about the pickers. I found them very inspiring and loved that they knew that they had to do whatever they could to support their families. In the beginning you saw that everyone was pretty okay with being a picker and it never really seemed to bother them, and they just wanted to be represented and for people to understand. As the film went on Vik included a few pickers to help him put together his art. The more involved the workers became the more they realized that they didn't really like to be in the position they were in, and they found the inspiration to strive for better things.

The argument is that people can become what they want if they never give up. As the documentary was going on you see the people start to have bigger dreams and want to do more with their lives. Once they saw their lives in a different light, as I mentioned earlier, they realized that they didn't enjoy working in the land fill as much as they thought they did. As time passed the more involved they started to become with their dreams and trying to do something different. By the end of the documentary it told you that the pickers were finally being represented and that a lot of them were doing different things.

I believe this argument can be universal because many people have dreams and they are told they can't do it. So they end up never really trying to accomplish their goal. Everyone wants to try and do something with their lives no matter where they come from and what social class you belong to. Although in the end of the film Vik talks about how he feels once you achieve everything you no longer have the drive to accomplish things. He says that you feel as though you have accomplished all that you need to and that you lose your inspiration to do more things.

So Far, So Good

To be honest it wasn't too difficult to switch to being heart healthy since I was already making the switch to a healthier lifestyle. The tough part for me is that when I was just being healthy I could eat different foods and I didn't have to worry too much about all the contents of the food I was taking into my body, and I would every now and then have a bad day that I wouldn't worry too much about. It is hard to be healthy everyday. Another thing that I am kind of grateful for is that I actually enjoy healthy food. I've always liked it and find it just as tasty as some foods.

Some things that I have found that are good for your heart that you can find on campus is a salad, and instead of getting regular lettuce try the spinach, it is just as good (I think) and it is better for your heart. There are sandwiches you can get in Woodworth that you can have them make and put the toppings you want on it. A turkey sandwich is a good substitution for the artery clogging cheeseburger, or you can get a grilled chicken sandwich, not the chicken with the breading. Also for mornings try getting oatmeal or a granola bar that has whole grains in it; when you are buying a granola bar you should look at the contents because some just aren't as healthy as they say. It is actually good for you to snack in between meals and have a smaller meal instead of three big meals. A good snack food is always fruit, but oranges are some of the healthiest for your heart.

I have been exercising daily, and it really helps that we have a Fitness Room just down the hall from my dorm. I have been running everyday and found out that I kind of enjoy it. I have never really been the runner, and I have always hated it whenever I had to do it for gym class or for two-a-day practices. I'm a swimmer to say the least, and I would love to go to the pool and swim sometime. But I am finding it difficult to get to the pool with my schedule. Now that I have actually found out that I can enjoy running, me and my friend have decided to run a 5K in March. There is actually one that's here in Muncie on March 17th, and my friend goes to Anderson so she isn't too far. So I'm not just running to be heart healthy I am starting to train for my first running race ever. I would like to think this is an improvement from my hatred of running to signing up to run in a 5K.

Research Article

Horwich, Tamara B., Samuel Broderick, and Leway Chen. "Relation Among Body Mass Index, Exercise Training, and Outcomes in Chronic Systolic Heart Failure." EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. American Journal of Cardiology, Dec. 2011. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7>

This article talks about the risk of heart failure and that by being more active you can decrease your chances. It takes a range of people, weight wise, and has them do exercise training to see if there are any changes. This proves to be a benefit and the exercise training proved successful in reducing the risk of heart failure.

(De)Construction

For my object I had absolutely no idea what I was going to break. I had an original idea that didn't turn out so well and I had no idea how to piece it back together. I didn't know of anything in my dorm I could break, and as it turns out I went home this past weekend so I decided to look for something there. I was looking around my house when I came upon an old shirt from high school. I decided that I was going to cut it up, this is signifying that I am done with high school and it is time to move on.

Now the next part was putting it back together. I was thinking about this when I remembered my friend one time found this thing on Pinterest where you can make bracelets out of t-shirts, this seemed like a good idea on making it into a new object. It's new meaning was that I am not going to forget where I came from and how it has influenced my life, but I am not going to let it define me. When I am wearing this bracelet no one will know that it used to be a t-shirt from my high school; they'll just think that it is some craft I did on my own. But when I look at it I will think of the fun times I had and the people that influence my life.

Something I Feel Like Sharing

This is a good video I found and it is interesting to watch him draw everything out. It touches on how exercise helps your heart, but it also talks about other diseases. It just proves how easy it is to be healthy and the facts are there to show you it doesn't take much. Hopefully this inspires you to take just the simplest step to becoming a little bit healthier everyday.

Heart Healthy

For my experiment I have chosen to start living a heart healthy. I plan on doing this by eating healthy and cutting out the foods that are most known for clogging your arteries and picking up new ones that will help strengthen my heart. I also am going to be working out regularly in order to make my heart stronger. This doesn't mean I am not going to be pushing myself too far; I am just going to bump up my regular exercise schedule from what it was.

Some people might be wondering why I chose this as my subject for my experiment. This year I have already kind of turned my life around from unhealthy habits to better choices, so I knew that I wanted to do something along the lines of health because I have been gaining new knowledge. As I was thinking about it I knew that I didn't want to do something about just becoming healthy I wanted it to be something more specific. I also wanted it to relate to my life and something that could benefit me in the long run. Then it came to me, I should do something with my heart because I have a long line of heart disease in my family. On my dad's side of the family my grandpa had congestive heart failure and my grandma died due to a heart attack, and her father had a total of 4 heart attacks in his life. My dad has also had a heart attack about 5 years ago. On my mom's side of the family my grandma Joyce had a heart attack and her older brother, Uncle Kevin, had a heart attack. Because my Uncle Kevin had a heart attack my other Uncle, Chuck, decided to get his heart checked out and found out that he had blockage in two of his arteries and needed to get stints put in. While he was on the operating table he ended up have a heart attack. As you can see there are quite a few heart problems in my close family, and I kind of have it coming at me from two directions. Once I was looking it over I knew that I needed to make a change unlike they did and try to prevent it.

The Art of Listening

The Art of Listening discusses about the way listening has been lost in the world, but in Africa listening is a guiding principle. Mankell talks about how he has noticed over the years he has noticed through interviews that he has to answer questions much faster than 10 or 5 years ago. He brings up the fact that maybe we are given two years and one mouth to listen twice as much as we speak, but in society today we talk and talk and talk and the tiniest bit of silence freaks us out. As you continue to read the article Mankell starts to talk about how African literature is different from Western literature; African literature has stories that go and back between time periods to share a story, while in Western literature typically goes from beginning to end.

In class we read Kenneth Burke’s Parlor conversation. In this it talks about coming into a conversation that is already heavily being discussed and no one is able to tell you the whole story because none of them were even there in the beginning. This can relate to the article The Art of Listening because in the Parlor conversation you have to sit there and listen to what they are discussing in order for you to actually come into the conversation. It is showing that you cannot just keep talking or you won’t be able to know what is going on in the situation or even in your surroundings.

Library Session

The library session taught me some new things even though I have been to one already. I learned about new sites to search for information that was not taught to us last time, such as LexisNexis Academic and the CQ researcher. These will be helpful for me when I research the topic that I want to do my project over. I started to look up some articles on LexisNexis Academic that pertain to my topic. I can use the Academic Search Premier for a more specific search when I need to know something more exact and don’t want to find thousands of articles pertaining to the topic I have chose to research. When I was at the library last semester with my English 103 class we were shown how to work this search site and even though I had already known to run it they had added a few new features that are good to know about. We were also shown Card Cat last time and there were also a few new features on that. I don’t exactly remember which one it was, but there was one that you can now text yourself the location of the book you are looking for that is something that wasn’t available last time I was there and it seems really helpful. These databases are going to be helpful because they range in size and you could probably ultimately find anything you need; you can even have them order an article if you need them to.

What's Important Me

Hello my name is Allison Cass and I am a freshman. I think the thing that is most important would be my family and I would like to include my two best friends in this category because they basically are family.

As for my true family I come from a divorced family. Both of my parents are remarried. I live with my mom and me her are close and we can basically talk about anything. I’m also close with my stepdad he is really supportive of whatever decisions I make. I am so glad my mom met him because I can tell that she is really happy with him. My mom also have taught me that a relationship with God is a great thing to have in my life, and I have really cherished this lesson. My dad doesn’t live too far from me just about 15 to 20 minutes away. I enjoy the fact that I can see him whenever I want and that he isn’t hundreds of miles away. I have a brother, a stepbrother, and a half-sister. I fall in the middle of them all; my brothers are both older than me and my sister is 8 years younger than me. I enjoy not being an only child; even though they get on my nerves I would probably be really bored without them. I have hardships with my family that have brought us together and then there are the ones that make you angry at each other, but only for awhile. Going through all these times have made me a stronger person and I feel that they have helped me become who I am today.

Onto my chosen family, my two best friends Emileigh and Michelle. They are spectacular if I must say and we even have a name that was brought upon us by Emileigh’s dad, The Troll Herd. It is kind of a funny story in how we attained this name that I will not touch on as of now. I have known Emileigh since I was 4 years old. I met her when my mom was moving after my parents divorce. My mom decided that it would be best if we lived close to my grandparents, my dad’s parents, so they could help her any time she needed help with my and my brother. We ended up moving just across the street from them and my grandpa was the one who introduced us while I was over their house. She was walking with her mom around the neighborhood and then my grandpa mentioned that I was new to the neighborhood so I went over to house and so the friendship began. In the fourth grade was when I had the pleasure of meeting Michelle. I didn’t know anyone in my class at all which is weird because I go to a very small school where there were only 400 in the entire high school. I knew one girl in there from when I had gone to daycare and she knew Michelle. We got along great and so the friendship blossomed from there. It wasn’t until I was entering my senior year that my friendships seemed to run together.  Ever since then we have been inseparable.