Diversity Event

I decided to attend the "Roads to Activism: Traveling Mercies in Afghanistan, Kenya, Haiti, and Mexico" Diversity Event. The speaker was Aldo Magazzeni. He is the one that organizes this volunteer community service. This organization, Traveling Mercies, does projects that help build wells, some shelters, and water systems to around the world. It connects with groups like the Rotary, the Salvation Army, Voices of Women, and other local churches to help plan and implement their coming projects. Aldo talked a lot about the experiences he went through with all the different people that he met. He also said that he pretty much goes from place to place, asking the people what they need and then he goes and gets it for them. Between 2003 and 2009 he and his workers had built 14 water systems, all with the help of the people that inhibit the land. Right now he is trying to accomplish a third water system in Haiti. Overall, his speech was good and interesting. He made me want to join him in helping people around the world.

Twitter

My week of Twitter wasn't that bad. It was kind of exhausting knowing that it was an assignment and the posts had to contain content that was informative, so that was kind of hard for me. I did not really like Twitter because I don't really care what other people are doing. If I wanted to know, I could text them and see because I don't really want to know what everyone is doing 24/7. The one thing that would be nice is following a news paper or a certain magazine, writer, or critic because then you would know what is going on around the world with anything and everything. Another thing that could be of value of having twitter is to be able to keep in touch with your high school friends that you never see anymore. I know someone that just has all of his close friends on Twitter and they are always tweeting to each other about crazy stuff that has gone on. Another thing is to know how to do it so in the future if I need to do it for a job I will have an idea of what to do so it isn't brand new. Some things I learned about Twitter is that it could be very useful but at the same time it is kind of dumb. The only way to have a Twitter account is to have it set up on your phone so you can get the tweets right away and not later that night when they are less important. But by having it on your phone, one constantly gets messages from everyone that they decide to follow, which would be really annoying. Here is a link to my Twitter account: http://twitter.com/kirenev17. Here is a link to one of the articles I read about Twitter: http://www.commcognition.com/blog/college-students-guide-twitter-101/.

Me At My Best

There have been many times where I have been at my best. The one time that stands out the most to me was during my senior in high school. I was a member of the tennis team all four years of high school and every year I improved. I feel like I was at my best in playing tennis my senior year.

One thing that made me at my best my senior year was that I was on the varsity team. I was on it for three years in high school. It helped me get good experience by playing older and more experienced players. It also let me get comfortable with playing at a higher level of skill. I also think that it helped me gain skills by learning from others and playing harder people.

Another example of me being at my best was playing during the off season. I hadn't really thought about doing that until my junior year. I started to go to this camp with a few of the girls on my team and we had someone coach us and hit us balls. The only thing about it was that you had to pay, only five dollars but it was a lot for only one hour a week. I think that it really helped me get ready for the season and get ahead of some of my upcoming opponents.

Finally, the thing that made me feel like I was at my best was that I went to state. I played doubles with a girl in the grade below me. I think that we worked really hard to get to state. It was not the easiest thing to do. There was one time that I didn't think we were going to make it when we were playing in regionals. We went to state and placed eighth out of sixteen teams that went.

I think that having played a sport in high school really helped me become a better person. It lets you interact know people that you might not normally hang out with. It gives you more confidence and team experience. My senior year of tennis is the most fun I had out of all four years of high school and I was at my personal best, which made it even better.

Beloit College Mindset List

The Beloit College Mindset List was a very interesting list that was funny but confusing at the same time. One thing is true, "a generation comes and goes in the blink of our eyes, which are, like the rest of us, getting older and older." Time never stops but neither do we. 

Some of the things that I thought were confusing and not true is the fact that email is too slow. Iowa State uses emails like its their job. That's the way professors, clubs, and colleges communicate with the students. Another thing I found confusing was that the fact that Korean cars were all over American highways. Who knows what cars are made from Korea, besides the car experts. I even went around and asked a few of my friends to give me a Korean car that they see a lot; they couldn't come up with any. Those were just a few of the things from the list that I found confusing.

Some of the things that I thought were perfectly said was the fact that few students know how to write in cursive. It's true; why did we waste our time in third grade to learn cursive if we were never going to have to use it? Another thing that is true is the fact that you can do community service to earn money for college. What's the point of calling it community service if you don't just do it to help people? Another thing is the face that children have always been trying to divorce their parents. Why do all teenagers have to be so rebellious and rude to their parents? My step brother tries to be funny like that and it's not funny at all. Those were some of the things that I thought were extremely correct with our generation.

The Beloit College Mindset List has a lot of good points. The class of 2014 is a pretty fun and advanced generation compared to the past generations. It really shows how the world has changed over the years when you read this list. College is just the beginning for us and we are now starting to have some fun.