Finding Out What Matters Most

I appreciate the lessons learned and relearned throughout every day, week, month, semester, and year. I've always been the type of person (I think that most people are this way) that really loves the beginning of something new.
Take the beginning of a new semester for example. There is the onset of boredom that comes near the end of the summer when you have way too much time on your hands and you just can't wait to get back into the swing and busyness of things. Somewhere down that semester you wish that you had those long summer days back when you weren't committed to too many things for you to have enough time to complete.
I've hit that point I think.
But even as I write this, I've got a grin on my face. It's that grin that says "bring it on baby." As I mentioned earlier, lessons are learned time and time again. The stress and anxiety of having way too much to do for the little time that I've got pushed me to the point where I just had to sit down, prioritize what is really most important, work my tail off, and just let the rest of it go. Be gone baby!
It is refreshing from time to time to be pushed to that limit. To be pushed to the point where you're forced to take things back to the basics. A whole week of skipped classes so that I could participate in the final week of the New Testament Project that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is filming was well worth it, but came at the price of missing my classes. I just couldn't skip out on what I see as a once in a lifetime opportunity. Now it's taking work off on Monday and Wednesday mornings to catch up on schoolwork, campus food, quick workouts somewhere in the day to replenish some energy, and staying late in the library. I can do it--at least for a little while.
I am grateful though. For good teachers who help me get caught up again, strengthened focus, and a proper perspective that goes like this: God, family, health, and school/work.

My Day, My life: Monday

I wake up at 5:50 a.m. and try to crank out a workout before the day gets started. This helps me feel better, more awake, and is really the only time that I can exercise. Sometimes I do pushups, pullups, and situps. Basically anything that ends with "ups." Other days I go running or swim. When I get back my roommates and best friends are usually eating breakfast. We make fun of each other for a couple of minutes, giving each other a hard time about girls or how the other one is putting on weight. We laugh and probably wake up the two roommates still sleeping or the guys below us. From there I'm off to work with the campus electricians. Work there is interesting. I once turned in a time card that described my day as this: 1 hour safety meeting, 1 hour talking with Mr. R (my manager), 1 hour spinning in my chair, and 1 hour flirting with the secretary. Sometimes work is busy. Sometimes I follow the electricians around for four hours like their shadow.
I get off at noon and usually to to the Wilk where I try to get food that:
first- fills me up
second-is nutritious
Notice the order.
I'm not a big fan of being hungry.

Around one I'm hitting the books. I'll be in the library or the office of the professor I do research for. After cranking out the studies, or going to work for my professor (whichever is more pressing) I'll grab some grub at the Wilk again (around 5:00 p.m.). I don't like spending all my money on food but It is extremely difficult to find time enough to prepare lunch and dinner. In past semesters I resorted to not eating, but this semester I vowed that I would not starve.
Again, I return to the books. I'm an English guy so I've got a lot of reading. I could be here until eight or nine depending if I go home for FHE (if we're having it I will be there). I make it home between eight and nine to unwind with my friends for an hour or two. Ideally I would get to bed around ten or ten thirty. IT doesn't happen, but I've got the goal to get ready for bed at 10:00 p.m. Around then I prepare for bed, read the scriptures and then hit the sack to do it all over again.

Remember September 11th 2001

I was sleepy and had just gotten into the back seat of the car of the girls who I carpooled with. It seemed like any other day. I had gotten up early in the morning to attend seminary (an early gospel study class for youth of the LDS faith)and was about to make the 30 minute trip to school. We turned on the radio and the usual goofballs that control early morning talk radio were talking about something happening on the other side of the country. Looking back at the things they said, they jokes they made about what was happening, I wonder if they are ashamed of the way they handled that morning. I'm sure they had no idea about what was really unfolding. Neither did I. As usual I fell asleep on the way to school.
When I arrived at school, news was being shared in the corners of rooms. It was being tossed through the air. It was in our classroom and all around us. Remembering it now, I wish our teachers would have turned on the television and let us students see what was happening. Nothing we learned that day was remembered but we could have learned so much from the attack that was occurring on our country.
I remember nothing after that except brief pieces of news that I caught. Seeing a plane smouldering in a Pennsylvania field. Another smashed through the wall at the Pentagon. Two buildings that once reached to the sky--now mounds of debris. I remember seeing people falling through the air. Jumping from the towers. What did they think? How did they feel before they jumped?
The country was in absolute shock.
Ten years have now passed. Life, it seems, has gone on as normal. Do we remember as we should? Will we continue to remember? I hope that we do but I will not presume I can answer the questions I gave.

Oh Bearded One

It wasn't that long ago...I found out I was going to be an extra in a LDS church production. My heart filled with joy and I smiled inwardly. Yes! It was finally mine. Perhaps the most coveted pass at BYU. The "beard card!" Only a few months later would I realized the dreadful prospect of having a beard on a beardless campus. The eyes watch you as you cross Brigham Square. Brother Brigham's eyes gaze down from his statue, approvingly, for the man himself had a beard, but others seem in disbelief that someone would allow the natural man to remain so untamed. "So what's with the beard?" The most common question directed to me the past few months. I decided after a recent party I attended with friends from the Jerusalem Center that I might as well record myself repeating the same conversation over and over again. The secret is, however unlikely it may seem, there is more to me than this patch of hair spread across my face.

Now don't get me wrong, there re benefits. Like today, for example. Someone I didn't know passed me and said, "Cool beard man." I replied in the acceptable fashion "Thanks dude." My heart was touched. I also don't pass too many of my friends unknowingly anymore. Whereas before we might have missed each other while walking on campus, they now exclaim "Donny!" It's hard to miss the guy with the carpet on his face. Learning to eat, drink, really anything that involves the mouth, has been quite the experience. I think I use double the shampoo I used to.

When it all comes down to it though, it's been a fun experience. I'll still be excited to shave this bad boy off in order to avoid all that unwanted attention. "Does it get hot?" "No, not really" I reply. Still, I wish people knew that there is more to me than my beard.

Blog Post #6

this course overall was very helpful in getting me more comfortable with using technology. Besides my YouTube miniproject, I felt like it was reasonably easy to pick up the new skills. Probably the best thing that I learned was that you can become your own computer expert simply by doing Google searches for information. I think it would have been a little more helpful if we would have spent more time watching you show us how to do things while we worked on the same projects on our own computers. Though it is great to learn on your own, we may have been given too little guidance.

In the future I definitely plan on using the moviemaker (just because it's fun) Prezi Presentations, and blogger. I think that these are effective tools for a classroom and I plan on incorporating their use. I don't want to say what I won't use because there's always the possibility that I will pick up new technologies in the future.

Youtube video embed

As a disclaimer, I got it to work on PowerPoint, but it won't upload onto my blog...sorry.
I'm going to be honest when I say that this was the most frustrating project of the class. And it shouldn't even be a hard one! I've been working with powerpoint 2007. I finally got the video to work but then I had to upload it to a googlepresentation doc and now it will not work on my blog.

As far as copyright implications for this project, I felt crippled about what I could and couldn't use. I knew that I couldn't use things from sources that may have uploaded bootlegged or pirated content, but how in the world am I supposed to know if they pirated it or not? Is there something that clearly outlines what we can and cant use? I know that I can use a certain percentage for educational purposes and fair use, but even then I'm fearful of what that constitutes.

As far as potential problems, like with what happened with me, I finally figured out how to put the video onto powerpoint, but then I couldn't upload it to my blog. Another potential problem is that even though you embed the vid, sometimes it will not play for you. You have to check beforehand to make sure it works.

Here's my prezi mini project!

I learned that Prezi allows you to embed your presentations onto a blog! Didn't know that before. I also learned that it's relatively easy to create a Prezi in just a couple of minutes (not as time consuming as I thought).
Prezi would definitely be a good switch from the same old PowerPoint presentations that so many people use. It can help the student stay engaged. I could see potential problems if one were to do too much with the Prezi. It could distract from the lesson material.
I could use Prezi for:
1) General instruction such as historical context of the literature we are reading
2) Administration of quizzes or tests (could also use it for reviews)
3) I could assign students to prepare oral presentations using this device. To ensure that student's who don't have computers can still use the program, the assignment would be worked on at the school computer lab

Run, Dance, Clap Your Hands on Prezi