College Class

                One college class that I have really enjoyed taking this spring is my Acting One class. The reason I took this class is because at one point in the beginning of first semester I tried to be a double major with Early Childhood Education and Theatre Studies. I thought that maybe I could try to teach preschool age children, but maybe try and do theatre education for adolescents on the side, but really I think I just wanted to do theatre for fun; I love it! But I even though I was only taking one theatre class last semester, I quickly realized how much time it would take out of my day just to focus on theatre, and that didn’t even include what all I would do for my education major. So, I decided to drop the theatre major. The cool thing about ISU’s theatre program is that anyone can audition to be in shows without being a theatre major or minor. So I plan to audition for shows next year. That’s partially why I decided to go ahead and keep my acting class for this semester. I knew that high school acting was a little different than acting in college and beyond, so I wanted to learn techniques before I auditioned here at school. It’s been really cool to learn new ways of acting. As my acting teacher says, in high school you are rewarded in acting for being the most outrageous character up on stage. But in college, acting is about “getting the job done”. Sometimes being too “showy” in college theatre can get you in trouble; it just looks too fake. With getting the job done, you need to be as real as you can be. You need to get as close as possible to how you would really respond to situations as you would in real life. In our real lives, you say and do things in order to get what you want; well, this goes for acting as well. 334

Research Paper

For my research paper, I am discussing adult patients dealing with the emotional struggles of childhood sexual abuse. I find this topic very interesting; even though it is a very depressing topic, I am fascinated with how this type of trauma can sort of warp the mind.

I find that I always have trouble with finding sources when first coming up with material to research with. I guess maybe I should rephrase that; I do not really have that much trouble finding sources, I just have anxiety that I will. Even when coming up with a topic can be stressful. It’s not that I can’t come up with topics, I just always try to think ahead and think if I will be able to come up with enough credible sources to obtain information. To overcome my anxiety, I always talk to my teacher about what my ideas are and get reassurance for if they are good, or get advice for how I can improve and come up with more ideas.

Another problem that I sometimes encounter is just simply keeping my focus. I often get distracted very easily when working on the computer. This is because I love to flip on and off from sites such as facebook and pinterest. It is very hard for me to stay off of these sites sometime. I go to sit down and write my paper, and before I know it, I have been sitting facebook creeping for an hour and a half. Sometimes it helps if I go somewhere other than my dorm room. I usually like to stay and do homework in my room because of pure laziness. But I know that if I’m not getting work done, it’s time to move and go somewhere like the library for a couple hours.  300

Spring Break

                For my spring break, I am going on a trip to Miami, FL. I am going with Merge, a campus ministry here at ISU. Every year, Merge goes to Miami during spring break to work with Habitat for Humanity to build a house for a family in need. I have been on three mission trips in my past years of high school, but I have never been on one like this. Usually, I would be working with children for like vacation bible school type activities. I have never been on a trip like this to build anything, so I am very excited to finally have this experience. I am also excited to visit a different city in Florida; I have family in Ft. Myers, so that is the only area of Florida I have never been to.

                At 10pm on Friday night, 40 of us college students will be packed into 15 vans and headed on the road! That night and all the next day we will be driving. Saturday night, we will stop in Clermont to spend the night. On Sunday, we get up to go to church. Then we have a cook out, day on the lake at this nice old lady’s house that has offered us a day of fun before we go work. After a few hours of boating, we will head back on the road until we reach Miami. We thought we might have to stay in a church basement, but we lucked out and got a renovated motel instead.

                Monday is a beach day, then the next 4 days are reserved for working. We will be working all day, but at the end of each day, we have some sort of fun party or activity planned to end the day.

                As I said before, I am very excited for this trip, and I cannot wait to get to know everyone in the group better!

                Happy Spring Break! 323

Growing Up

            I always knew that college would be a time for me to mature in a whole new way and to finally “grow up”. But I don’t think I realized how much and how quickly I would actually have to grow up until now. Along with academic due dates comes deadlines for payments of classes. Not only is there worry for paying for school, but also just having extra cash around for necessities and just to go out and have some fun. Unfortunately, my parents are not really able to help me pay for school; I’m kind of on my own in that sense. I survived pretty well this first year. But my experience from this year has caused me to really crack down to prepare for next year. Filling out the FAFSA is always a great joy… yeah, right. I started filling it out at the end of Christmas break. But then I had to wait until the middle of February to finish it because I had to wait for taxes to be done and such. The day that I was finishing up, I’m pretty sure I called my dad nine times in a row to ask questions about certain sections. But when I finally got it done, I felt relieved, and had achieved at least one more thing to help me out. Every little bit helps. A couple weeks ago, I walked to uptown, picking up all the applications I could from different shops and restaurants.  I actually just had an interview for Merry Ann’s diner. It seemed to go well; I think I pretty much got the job. The lady said she would contact me about training sometime next week, so that’s good. I’ve never had experience serving in a restaurant before, but I’ve always wanted to try it; it sounds like it might be fun. Tomorrow I have another interview in a town close to my home town for a summer job. It’s to be a field inspector. If I get the job, I’ll be working from early in the morning until evening, walking up and down corn fields. It’ll be hell, but I’ll be making bank. And I’ll get a wicked tan. Not to mention one of my friends works there already. So, there will be some perks to it. I’m hopeful everything will work out just fine. 393