Food Will Bring Us Together

Food is a staple when my family gets together.  We are always eating at every family function.  My mom’s side of the family is Slovak and my dad’s side is Italian.  Slovaks like to eat, and Italians like to eat while they wait to eat.   Therefore, food is a must.  When there is food, people will gather together to eat and talk and catch up with one another.  I am very thankful that my family is so loving when we share a meal together.  Like all families we have our spats, and like the majority of Italian families we are very loud, which makes it seem like we are having huge fights, but at the end of the day we all love each other and we know it…there are no grudges.

I have always been very curious about why we only have the traditional Thanksgiving dinner one day a year.  Everyone always loves the food at Thanksgiving, but we never really eat it any other time of the year.  In watching all of the preparation though, it made me realize that so much time and effort goes into preparing a Thanksgiving meal and it is not something that would be easily done every day.  I also think that having Thanksgiving dinner one day a year makes it all the more special, as well as something to really look forward to every year.

It is important to my family to have food when we are together because the food is what brings us together.  Some people may be in the living room watching tv, some may be in the kitchen making the food or socializing, but as soon as it’s time for dinner, everyone congregates to the kitchen table and sits down together as one family.  It is a great feeling to be around the people we love and share a good meal with each other.  

A Peaceful Place

            A place to study should be somewhere that is peaceful and where you can relax.  This semester I am taking a performance class in Lyman.  In the class we have gotten several group assignments and have had to meet with our groups outside of class to work.  When my group would meet, it would be in the same spot each time.  On the side of Lyman (between Lyman and Earl Hall), there are rocks that are flat on top so people can sit and study or do work.  It is under trees so that if the sun is out and it is really bright that day, the trees will prevent the sun from beating down on you.  Now that it is getting colder outside though and snow will start soon, it is not too ideal to sit outside.  When the winter is over though and the spring comes, it will be nice to be able to sit outside to study again.  The area is secluded enough that you can block out the commotion of people around you, but it is not too secluded so that you will not be in the middle of nowhere on campus.  If you like to be outside and you like nature, I highly recommend that you try sitting down and studying here, or even just sitting and people watching or listening to music and relaxing.  It is a great place to keep yourself focused and not have your mind racing in a bunch of different directions and stressing about classes or anything else going on in your life…it is a place of peace and serenity. 

Calm, Cool, and Collected?

Stress is something that I face every day of my life, multiple times a day.  I have a really big problem with stress and anxiety and try to relieve these problems as best I can.  For my performance class, part of our class and homework is to do yoga to help with being focused and relaxed.  I found that doing yoga really does help to keep my mind in one place and not think about everything else that is going on around me and in my life.  Everything has to be dealt with sooner or later, but unless you are in the proper mindset to deal with those things, you will just stress yourself out even more. 

It is important to be relaxed and feel relaxed, especially when stressed.  If yoga isn’t really your thing, we also learned deep breathing exercises that coincide with yoga and the poses.  Deep breathing is good to do no matter where you are so you don’t have to get up in the middle of a test and do the downward dog pose.  When you feel stressed or feel that you will soon become stressed, do some deep breathing.  I do that when I’m stuck in traffic because I get really stressed and I will admit to having a small case of road rage.  Instead of lashing out irrationally when I’m behind the wheel, I take the safer approach of breathing deeply. 

If you are prone to getting anxiety or being stressed out, it is important to do deep breathing exercises regularly because if you familiarize your body with how to become relaxed when you are feeling stressed, your body will recognize that you are stressed when you are and will automatically know what to do in order to handle the stress and relax you.

Just Breathe - Anna Nalick

Inflating Inflation

I really don’t think that grade inflation is a good thing.  It has not been good in my own personal experiences and I don’t think that students should have that safety net of knowing that even if they don’t do well on something, their grades will still be okay because professors will just inflate them.

As I said in class on Tuesday, in my Junior year in high school I did not do well in math.  I would fail quizzes and tests and one time I went to my teacher to talk to him about it.  He had me sit down with him and he helped me correct the problems I got wrong and ended up changing my grade from a 32 to an 84!  I thought it was great at the time and I really took advantage of that.  However, when I got to my Senior year and had no idea what was going on because I had never actually learned what I had needed to the year before.  I did a lot worse in my math class senior year and realized that I could no longer rely on teachers changing my grades for basically no reason other than to raise my grade and make it seem like I’m doing better than I actually am. 

I really don’t think that it’s fair for the other students who actually try and earn their good grades for professors to raise other kids’ grades.  In my math class this year, there are a lot of kids who don’t really try to do well because they just don’t care.  I used to be like that, but now I am actually trying and it is paying off.  I have a B- in math, which is unheard of for me and I am really proud of myself because I know that I deserve the grades I am getting in that class.  When we get tests back a lot of kids in my class will ask if there will be a curve on the grading and I sit there thinking it’s not fair for their grades to be higher because they don’t care, they don’t try.  I think that grade inflation will encourage students to not try as hard in their classes because they will have in the backs of their minds that their professors will raise their grades even though they do not deserve it.