Time Flies.

Hey all-

Hope everyone is getting ready for finals and for summer! Last week was very exciting, we found out our co-leaders. I'm very excited for everyone, we have some good pairings. We also played a game where we had to guess famous partners by how the others were acting. My team won...of course. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO...Lauren? haha. Can't wait to see everyone for our last class until fall!

See you Wednesday!

It's about that time.

Hey all-

Last week we spent time reviewing how we felt about taking over our part of the class. I can honestly say that I am ready, we have grown a lot over the semester. We have an awesome group and every single one of us will be great. I'm looking forward to finding out who we are paired with and the students we will have under us. This semester flew by. I can't believe I'll be a junior next year. Can't wait to see you all Wednesday!

Taylor

Resources, Our Savior

Hey Everyone-

Hope everyone is ready for VEISHEA! Last weeks class was about how we could react in a given situation based on the resources around campus. This class was very helpful to me because, not only did it prepare me more for what I might encounter as a peer mentor, but also helped me learn about some cool resources I didn't even know existed. That is going to be a handy list to have. Again, being prepared for anything, and knowing that we have help in a situation really takes off some pressure. If it's something you don't know we have a great supporting cast as well as a campus resource that we could refer them to if need be.

See you Wednesday!

There's no 'I' in team...

Hey everyone-

Another fantastic class, the weather was absolutely perfect as well. We had a fun little activity right at the beginning of class, which turned out to be very difficult, but fun. This just goes to show that teamwork and plenty of time to plan are going to be key to the success of the class this fall. It is hard to just go into something without a direction and a purpose.

This ties together with everything we've been working towards, preparation, and being aware of what we want to do. I can see that we are all growing and I look forward to the rest of the semester with everyone!

See you Wednesday!

LPS/fun day

Hey all-

This past week in class we discussed our Lesson Planning Structures and some of the things that we can do as a class to be more effective. Though we didn't get to cover every section during class, I look forward to returning to the topic. Having an effective learning plan is going to make us more professional, believable, and reliable to the students.

We also had our scavenger hunt that lead us to Perfect Games for some bowling and arcade games. I wasn't sure what we had in store for us, but I had a lot of fun. We have a great group and we all get along great! I'm looking forward to more adventures with everyone and having fun with excellent friends and leaders!

See you all Wednesday!

Hmmmmm...WWDD. (What would Debra do.)

Hey all-

Our last class may have been one of my favorites so far. We had a discussion about situations that may arise and how as a group, we would deal with them. You never know what could come up, but having an idea of the protocol could be huge in how we handle the situation. I'm glad to see that as a group we are on the same page for the most part about how we are going to conduct our classes and deal with 'problems.' As much as I want next year to go smoothly for everybody, issues do come up, and I'm glad we are getting a jump on the situation.

Have a good Break!!

ISCORE

Hey all-

Friday we all attended ISCORE, Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity. I attended two sessions, the presentation on Latinos/as in America, and the 'What are you'?, presentation. Both presentations were awesome. The session on Latinos/as in America focused on the inequality and some of the hate towards this massive group of people. They also hit on how the media in multiple cases was stretching the truth to give immigrants a worse name. The second focused on the fact that many people are mixed race and may associate with more than one race, but they are often asked to pick one. They did a survey that I thought was pretty neat and you could take a lot from where they asked people to classify 6 people just off of appearance. They all said they were each only of one race, which may be due to the fact that we are used to picking only one. I just thought it was interesting to go and here some points of view that we might now otherwise get all the time. ISCORE was a great success!

Dealing with Situations

Hey all-

This past week we discussed a time when we were down right angry, and the reasons that we felt that way. College is full of stressful moments and at any one time someone could throw that final bit of fuel in the fire. Taking the time to remove ourselves from the situation and think about what happened can make us into happier and more positive people. When you are working in a group setting in a stressful situation it can be easy to point fingers and yell, but maturity is something we are all striving for. Being calm, or seeming like it at least, can make the people around you inspired to be more of the same. This just goes to show that once again, a positive attitude and a smile are highly contagious.

See you Wednesday!

Can you hear me now?

Hey all,

This past week we were emphasizing communication. The first thing I think about when I think about communication is talking, but this is not the whole 'shabang.' Communication involves many ideas and responsibilities of all the parties involved. Why talk if nobody is listening? Even though sometimes it happens haha. Good communicators are also some of the best listeners that I know. Growing up my mother always said I had very...selective, hearing. I just think it was because cartoons were more fun to listen to then cleaning the litter box or something like that.

In reality, communication makes the world move. From something as simple as a traffic light signal to a virtual meeting around the world. Communication is everywhere, obvious or not. As peer mentors, communication will be key to our success with the students as well as our leaders. Talking is something I can do, active listening, and making the person believe you are listening is something that I can work on.

See ya Wednesday!

Diversity at it's finest.

Hey all,

Last week in class we did some talking about the diversity of cultures and people on campus. I was well aware of the massive amounts of foreigners and the home grown corn eaters like myself. What really took me by surprise was when I recalled a conversation that i had recently had. At the same time I was talking to people from, Sudan, China, the US, and India. This was something that I didn't think about at the time, but during class I was taken back by the fact. Being from my little town of 700 or so, diversity is at a minimum. At the same time, I am very open and try to be as understanding as possible when it comes to cultural differences, which I think helps me adapt well if needed.

This is a very diverse campus, the differences should be embraced because they shed light into the future of where many jobs may be heading, globally.

See you Wednesday!

Taylor

Family Matters

Hey all-

This past week was another success at getting me to do some deeper thinking. With our discussion about what really matters in our lives and what we care about I was filled with a lot of thoughts. The thing that always surfaced no matter where I tried to take my thoughts was family. My grandparents are experiencing a lot of health issues lately. Since many of you don't know, I was born when my mother was in high school, my grandparents are whom i shared the first 5 years of my life with. For this reason I view them as more then grandparents but more like my actual parents, seeing them go through all the health issues is hard for me. I can't imagine what is going to happen when I don't have them there to go to, it will be like losing a parent. Among all of my thoughts of why religion, health, friends, and many other things, it is obvious that family is my top priority and I would be lost without them. They have raised me and instilled all of the other beliefs I have into me. They shaped the person I am. They get me through many tough decisions in life, even if they're not there. I just step back and wonder, would my family be proud of my decision? I've made it this far in life pretty successfully by asking that one question in critical moments. I hope you all have something in your life that you are proud of and truly love. There is no better feeling in the world!

Much love.

Debra and Rex's Session

Howdy ya'll-

Not sure why I started with the "howdy ya'll" I don't have a southern accent at all. Oh well. Last Friday I attended the session about social networking put on by Debra and Rex. Out of the session I learned various ways that social networking sites such as facebook and twitter are being used in classrooms as well as a means of communication among professionals. I thought it was interesting to see how in a short period of time, social networking has grown so large. It seems to be just a way of life for people my age since we grew up using technology, but just recently it is really starting to have more of an impact in the teaching and professional world.

One of the coolest things I remembered from the session was the application in which you could see all the different ways in which people are connected by clicking on their profile. I thought it was interesting and notice that most of the time people seem to always have a friend in common.

MBTI Discussion

This past Sunday we had a retreat for the Hixson Peer Mentor Program. The main focus of the dicussion was about the MBTI. MBTI is a survey given that can help you see what kind of learner you are. This can be helpful to know when trying to pair leaders and for us individually to improve study habits. The first part of the results tells you if you have a preference for extraversion or introversion. My result was that I had a pretty significant preference for extraversion, meaning i draw my energy from the extern and out things. The second sections was between Sensing and Intuition. I have a preference for Sensing which means i prefer to look at the facts instead of theory which is very true. Third part was between Thinking and Feeling. I have a preference for thinking which means i try to make the logical decision based on the situation. This doesn't mean that I don't care what people think though. Lastly was a preference between judging and perceiving. I was a far on the perceiving side as possible, which explains why I'm doing this post the night before I have to turn it in. This just means I like to be spontaneous and often work under pressure. I thought it was very interesting that a lot of the engineering students in the class like myself ended up in the ESTP category. Overall I don't think I changed too much from my freshman year, but it was a good refresher on the survey and the meaning or the survey.

Blog 1: ISLE

Recently I attended ISLE, which is the Iowa State Leadership Experience. It started off with a nice meal and a speaker. Afterwards we were allowed to choose which sessions we attended. The first I attend was a presentation by my physics professor about virtual meetings. A lot of the things that make virtual meetings run smooth were basically the same thing that make a face to face meeting work, only to a higher degree. The second session i attended was about reducing clutter in your life. She talked about different kinds of clutter whether it be physical items, emotional, or anything else. Third I went to a session on choosing a place to live. This session was just a group discussion, we threw out ideas of what we thought was important to look for in a place to live. Size, location, people, and climate were just a few. The final session I attended was my favorite. It was about finding a balance in your life. There seems to be a scale between everything in life, finding the middle is helpful to living a happy life. Taking time for yourself without being selfish and a lot of ideas like this. Overall I had a good time and enjoyed hearing from the presenters and thought it was well put together.