I thought I’d combine day two and three. I am going to try to keep up with this but life happens. Here’s to hoping.

What happened yesterday?

I had my second class: Careers in Mass Media. I have the same teacher as Beginning Reporting so that is exciting. Careers in Mass Media will be probably one of my boring class. I think the reason it will be interesting is because of the teacher. Dr. Edwards (so far) seems like an incredible teacher and I look forward to his teaching. I believe this class will be more about the policies and such when it comes to mass communications. He is going to talk about the different degrees in mass communication, how to develop your portfolio. Al in all, it’s going to be an introduction class to mass communications. It will be a great way to determine if journalism is really what I want to do.

My second day of work, I did a workshop called “Getting Myself Together…Am I Ready For The Semester?” Only two students showed up but that didn’t surprise me since we hadn’t put a lot of advertising towards any of the workshops. It has been a hectic week due to Blackboard being down and the weather on Friday being bad.

The workshop was a learning experience for me. The speaker, or rather the facilitator was Dr. Kirk. I enjoyed talking to him. The thing that stuck with me was his little story. He told about a teacher getting a giant plastic tub. First the man put in rocks, then gravel, then sand then water. The teacher then asked what it meant.

Dr. Kirk went on to explain that you have to give space to the big rocks. What are the very important things in your life? If you focus on the little things, e.g., the gravel, sand and water, then you won’t have time for the big rocks. It struck a cord. It made sense.

We all focus on the little things that we ignore the big things. There is so much stress in this society. It makes you wonder: was it always this stressful? How do you make yourself less stressed?

I know that I stress. I stress about my classes – yes, even on the first week. I stress about work. I stress about getting my permit test done. I even take on others’ stress such as my mom’s or my aunt’s. I see that are stressed and bam, I am too. I’m certain that I am not the only one who does that.

So from now, I’m going to focus on the big rocks. Stressing about things that I can’t control only gives me premature grey hairs….(Kidding, obviously.)

That’s what I took away from that workshop. I will be doing all the workshops from now until March. I’ll be helping out the facilitators, entering the evaluations and all sorts of stuff. I am now “Workshop Gal.” I should make myself a t-shirt..

I don’t mind doing this. I like doing this kind of work. I’m not sure the name. Perhaps student affairs outreach assistant? I’d like to do more stuff like the workshop. I want to make life easier for the students.

Other than arguing with the Wi-Fi – again, yesterday was uneventful.

Today: 

I had Beginning Reporting. Dr. Edwards didn’t make us introduce ourselves so bonus. He started lecturing. He told us to throw out everything that our English teachers taught us about writing.

Inverted pyramid, which I remembered from high school newspaper, is how you write a story – or column – in mass communications. You give all the big rocks then the gravel, sand and water. (See? The rock analogy works with everything!)

I can not wait until we actually start writing in all my classes. I love writing. I mean sure, I’ll probably end up writing three or four essays a week (please let that be real) but I can handle it. I do need to get a few things.

Such as:

• planner
• binder
• notebook
• pens
• sticky notes of all colors

That’s not including the stuff I need for my apartment. If my financial aid ever gets sorted out then I’ll get school supplies. Thus far, I am annoyed at financial aid. I need another document from my stepdad even though I am certain they never mentioned I needed the non-filing letter in the first place. I hope to get that sorted this week. Hopefully.

In other news, I am designing more tattoos. I’ll post them when I finish them. The picture featured is my tattoo. Yes, my first one! It was so worth it.

I better get off here before my Wi-Fi goes out. I guess it’s time to send an email to the IT department. This is getting ridiculous.

-K