Food...

I’m so sick of food. I’m sick of making food, and I’m sick of talking about food. Since I was fourteen I’ve been cooking, talking about, and selling different kinds of food. As much as I love it, it’s been my job for too long for me not to know the ins and outs of food; how it’s made, how it’s served, how it’s eaten, and who’s washing the dishes. Working in the restaurant business has given me a lot of knowledge about food and takes away the fun of just sitting down and eating a good meal. Instead of just being a normal person sitting down and enjoying their meal, I spend the time of my meal wondering how each portion of the meal was prepared, how the cook incorporated different ingredients to produce different flavors, and what else could have been done to increase the quality of the meal. While at a restaurant, I spend more time wondering what the kitchen looks like, what type of food is used, and what style of cooking is most commonly used. Did they fry, pan sear, or grill their chicken? These are the types of things I think about because of my experience in working at a restaurant. Before the meal comes I’m ready to critique it, and while I’m waiting for the meal I’m critiquing the service of the restaurant. I feel as if I cannot just enjoy food anymore because I’ve spent too much time working with it. So if you would like the best tasting fettuccine Bolognese let me know, but I’m not going to enjoy it with you. 

What's the situation?

    Difficult situations are pretty much second nature to me.  Frequently, I have found myself in situations that I would love to run and hide from.  The unfortunate truth is that no matter how difficult and unpleasant situations might be, we have to face them and fight our hardest to make it out of them.  No person has been successful without overcoming a difficult situation or obstacle and knowing this helps me push through every difficult situation I encounter.  No matter how big or how small the situation, they all should be faced with the same mentality: It can be done.

    Having to balance working two jobs and going to school full time is my most difficult situation so far during this semester. Meeting different deadlines pertaining to each obligation has been the hardest struggle within this situation because there are so many different requirements that need to be met weekly. For example, I have to make sure my blogs are done on time along with making sure all of my paperwork is collected and handed in on time to the Director of Underwriting at the financial group.  With all the typing and writing I have to do, it’s easy to forget or lose track of what needs to be handed in and when. I should probably make use of my daily planner although time goes by so quickly that by the time I look at it I’m a couple of days behind. 

I'm down for whatever, you just lead the way.

     During the course of my life, there have been many times when I needed to step up to the plate and be a leader when no one else would.  From the time when I was in elementary school and all throughout my schooling, I was used to taking the initiative and leading my group or class to get the project done or goal achieved. When I was in middle school, I remember being the student in my groups who got everyone focused and working together instead of messing around with other students like everyone else.  I have always taken work seriously and when its time to get it done I’m usually always the first to get started.

     Every November at Platt Technical High School, there would be a school wide canned food drive that helped stock the Milford Food Bank and feed the hungry during the holiday season.  The school always made it a competition between the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior classes hoping to inspire students to take part in the food drive.  In November of 2008, I took the food drive to another level.

    After working with my principal and student government, I was allowed to personally raise funds for the food drive.  So instead of just gathering canned foods from students, I was permitted to collect monetary donations that would in turn be used to buy more canned goods to be entered into the drive.  Every week, I persistently gathered money from faculty and students to support the food drive.  After three weeks, I collected over $1000 and purchased canned foods that filled three pick up trucks.  My principal allowed me and students of my choice to leave school in Milford, drive to Price Rite in Bridgeport and buy almost everything they had stocked.  

    At the end of the food drive, there were 16000 non perishable food items donated school wide and I was responsible for funding and purchasing roughly 10000 of those items.

Exploring Southern

As a commuter and with the schedule that I have, I am only on campus two days a week.  That means I take five classes each day I come to Southern.  Although it isn't that great of a schedule, I kind of find it easy in some ways.  For example, instead of going crazy remembering due dates for each class, I know that if it was assigned Tuesday, its due Thursday and if it was assigned Thursday, its due Tuesday.  That definitely has its negative side effects, but for now I'll just focus on the good parts.

Being that I'm only on campus these two days a week and in classes most of the day, I haven’t found a good place to study.  I don’t really like the library for some reason and the student center is usually too crazy around the time I would be there.  So as a result, I have found my sanctuary: the driver seat of my truck (which is soon to be sold along with my other car so you really will see me in a pre-owned BMW soon, I wasn’t kidding.)  The truck is always there in the parking lot, my seat is never taken, and no one is playing the harmonica (some kid was playing his harmonica in the student center last week; really?!) while I'm trying to get some homework done.  I can listen to my own music, put my seat back a little bit, crack open a book and do some homework.

      Now this isn’t my ideal place to study but it definitely has helped me this semester.  Sometimes it is also nice to know that I have somewhere to go to just unwind and get away from everything.  Every once in a while I take ride up to the top of West Rock (two minutes from campus, off of Wintergreen) and look at the view of New Haven/Hamden and do some homework.  The Ford Explorer is like a portable office/library and it couldn’t be more useful.  I should probably go change the oil soon…

Stress

Monday:  Wake up, work all day, homework, sleep.

Tuesday:  Wake up, go to school from 8:10 AM until 7:30 PM.

Wednesday:  Wake up, work all day, homework, sleep.

Thursday:  Wake up, go to school from 8:10 AM until 7:30 PM.

Friday:  Wake up, work all day, work all night, sleep.

Saturday:  Wake up, get things done, work all night, sleep.

Sunday:  Day off.

First off, I really hate my life at this point in time.  I am constantly stressed by my schedule and attempt to find relief from whatever is available.  The one thing that I can always rely on as a stress relief is going to the gym.  Before classes started in August, my weekly schedule was much different.  The gym was always incorporated into my daily routine and I was in the best shape of my life.  It felt good to hit the gym hard every day and looking good was a great confidence booster as well.  Now my life has made a big change.  I fit the gym in where I can and therefore am not as fit as I could be.

         The gym is the perfect place to blow off some steam.  Throw some weights around, get the stress and anger out and then look good as a result is a perfect plan for the easily stressed.  Sometimes if schedules coincide, I can meet up with the guys at the gym and talk about where we're at and what upcoming things we got going on.  Obviously we talk about the girls in our lives and how crazy that can drive us (which usually leads us to the gym so somehow it’s a vicious cycle).  The gym is great place to regroup and get your head straight.  Sometimes the best part is just not thinking about anything.  Just running on the treadmill or throwing up the bar on the bench can distract you from everything else and I've found that thinking about nothing is sometimes the best thought you could ever have.

Damnation from Inflation

During Tuesday's discussion, we talked about grade inflation and the mostly negative effects it has on students.  Although a simple thing like adding a few points to a test or average may seem harmless, it has the potential to do what I'm going to call "misdirecting the students."  Grade inflation misdirects the students because it gives them a false sense of accomplishment and confidence.

When students get good grades, the natural reaction is for them to be proud of themselves and feel accomplished because they did what they were supposed to do.  So if a student's grade is inflated, they didn’t actually do what was needed to be done in order to obtain that grade.  While students are going above and beyond and working hard for that A, some students end up getting the same grade or close to it only because of the inflation of their grade.  That misdirects students into a false understanding of what is needed to be done in order to be a successful student and therefore will never fully comprehend what a good student does.

Grade inflation also gives students a false sense of confidence which could be found directly after the sense of accomplishment they think they have.  After the student receives the grade that has been inflated, they see the mark on the paper, feel accomplished and then think that they did a really good job.  This leads to the students being confident in what they are thinking is excellent work while it just may be average work.  They become confident in thinking that what they did qualified as good work, so they will maintain that same level of confidence by producing the same level of work.  This could lead to bad performance in the real working world due to the false understanding of quality work.

Philosophy

Out of the five classes I am currently enrolled in at Southern, I think that the class I am most intellectually stimulated by is my philosophy class.  As we discuss different views on life according to different philosophers, it forces your mind into thinking even further than "outside the box" and create a clear understanding of how the philosopher is thinking and where the thoughts are derived from.  It's different than just simple thinking or solving a math problem because philosophers think so differently. A philosopher's thought process is different than that of a normal thinking.  They take basic thoughts and concepts and break them down to understand why it is the way it is.  Most people just take things for what they are and don’t bother thinking about why or how it became that way.  We live our lives without the necessity to find out more because we are consumed with so many other daily life things like work and appointments.  We never take the time to break it down because it is easier to just not think about it and accept it for what it is.

            My philosophy professor also makes the class intellectually stimulating because he is always asking us questions.  He will never accept something for what it is.  He always the breaks the readings down and deciphers what the persons saying and what it is in regards to.  This is because he is a philosopher so I guess it's just what he would naturally do, just as in the case of anything for him.