In this blog entry I want to talk about the closing of our Malaria 5k project and a final reflection of the course. I have to admit, when Professor Satkoski told us about a previous Malaria project that had a terrible turn out, it had me worried about ours. She told us about how a group did all this effort to put together a great event but didn't advertise enough to racers and only around 8-12 people showed up. I was afraid ours would turn out the same way. We did all this work, advertised on campus and nearby businesses and shops, but I felt we didn't hit the population that would actually care enough, or enjoy running enough to come out. But to my surprise we had around 50 people show up! It was a very pleasant surprise at that, to know our group efforts helped raise around 1,000 dollars to help out the families in need over in the African villages. Even my Social Problems professor showed up, who was the oldest guy at the event. I was very happy to see him, and find out that he placed in the top 5, and 1st in his age group. He won a nice dinner for him and his wife to Carrabba's. Even some students from my Social Problems class showed up, as my professor offered extra credit to those who showed up for the cause. It was a very nice turn out and I was very happy that our efforts made a difference in our community as well as in another one, a great distance away.
One of our fellow group mates works at NBC as an intern and he helped us gain some extra credit of our own by putting together a news report that actually aired on the news. It was very exciting to see that our project and event were going to be spread even further into the community. His news report is going to be included in the powerpoint presentation that we're going to put on for the class April 14th. I'm looking forward to telling our classmates how our project and event turned out, and maybe some of them will be interested in helping out in the future. I'm also very interested to see how their projects and events turned out, and how they affected those that participated. I hope they had the success that we were fortunate enough to have.
Other than the book we had to read, I am very happy about this course. The project we had to do, the movies we watched (especially the Last Lecture), and all the other activities we did, helped us get together as a class and talk about how to make a difference. I'm glad I got involved with the community. It's a great feeling to know that not only did you make a huge difference in your own community, but that you also made a huge one in a community on another continent. I made new friends, put together an amazing event that helped other people get involved and make a difference, and leave the project feeling great. I made a difference and had fun doing it. That's what it's all about.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Journal Entry #4
In this journal entry I am going to go over the Malaria Project my group and I are working on, what we're doing and how far along we are. My group and the Capstone group have joined forces to organize a 5k race to help raise money and awareness of families in Africa dying of Malaria spread by mosquitoes. In case you don't know, malaria is a fatal sometimes fatal disease, spread by mosquitoes, that affects 300-500 million people each year. People who suffer from malaria get very sick, high fevers, chills, achy muscles. Mainly flu-like symptoms. It is also said that every 30 seconds, a child in Africa dies from malaria.
Our 5k has a 15 dollar cover charge that covers the cost of 3 nets that we will send to African villages to help them sleep at night without being bit by mosquitoes. But that's not all. Clarke Mosquito Control has also offered to match each donation made at the 5k. Both groups have had their hand at tremendous efforts of getting the word out. We've made flyers that inside contain the registration form. That way people can sign up while learning about malaria, what they can do to help, and what our group is trying to do to help. We call it Two Classes: One Solution. We also put the registration form up online, giving us a chance to catch people who might not get a flyer.
The Capstone group has hit many of the places around town, from Fort Myers to Naples, trying to get people to help out with the cause. Brandon from our group met with an athletic director and together they set up the actual race, the course, arrows pointing the racers in the right direction and spots where volunteers will hand out water. We have also set up information booths around the FGCU campus that we sit at and hand out flyers and/or try to sell Malaria Project bracelets and coozies. Any type of donation makes a difference. We have booths reserved for us to sit at all next week. Hopefully these booths help spread the word around the campus and get other students involved. We had one kind gentlemen who bought a lot of stuff from us because he was doing a similar project with a group trying to raise money for families in Haiti. He knew how much each donation would help us. It's great when people come together for a cause that could help save the lives of other families who are in need.
I myself plan on going to help out with the info booth on Thursday next week. I also sat in on one last week with some members of my group as well as one from the capstone group. I am also going to mention the race and what were trying to do to my Social Problems professor who is huge on running 5k's. He also gives the class a chance at extra credit if they go out and participate in the local 5k's. So hopefully that gets some of my classmates out to help with the cause.
Journal Entry #3
I want to start this journal entry talking about a video we watched in class recently. Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. This "lecture" was amazing in my opinion. The way he talked about how you can help those around you WITHOUT repeating himself, how to achieve your childhood dreams and how to do it while benefiting others. The lecture really spoke to me. It was serious, comical and delivered important points without boring the listeners. Even the stories he told were full of excitement. I don't know if it's because his stories were through video and Paul Loeb's through words, but I found Randy Pausch's attempt at teaching us how to live and lead our lives a much more successful one. The virtual reality projects that Pausch went over and showed the audience were incredible. I really enjoyed listening to him speak of all the programs he helped install and instruct. I almost felt like Pausch would pull through his sickness and not die. He seemed too nice and caring to be dying. The fact that he WAS dying didn't affect him at all, which was equally amazing. He came out and delivered this lecture and didn't show any signs of regret, sadness or anything negative. He truly lived his life to the fullest. I also love how he brought his wife on stage and got the entire audience to sing happy birthday to her. He must have been a great husband and truly loved his wife.
Another thing I enjoyed about Pausch's performance, an aspect I think helped make his point a more effective one, was the fact that all his stories were personal. Most if not all of Loeb's stories are about his friends or people he is acquainted with. Not much of his stories are about things he's done, besides actually writing the book. All of Pausch's stories were about things that he's accomplished in life, how he changed other people's lives, and how he changed programs all around the world. Just another little additive that I think made Pausch's lecture a better and more effective one.
After listening to Pausch's lecture I really want to visit Carnegie Mellon and see for myself the programs that go on there. The virtual reality projects that he briefly showed during the lecture were just the tip of the ice burg. I would really enjoy visiting the school in person, witnessing the things he helped create and change, and see the projects that students work on. I feel Loeb's attempt at a "lecture" almost has a negative affect. After reading all his repetitive stories about other people, I don't feel motivated at all to go out and do something, something that Pausch definitely succeeded in doing.
The fact that Randy Pausch's video "The Last Lecture" has over 11 million views on YouTube only shows that huge amounts of people are being affected and changed by this professors words and insights. I wish I could have gotten a chance to meet this remarkable person before he passed. RIP Randy.
Another thing I enjoyed about Pausch's performance, an aspect I think helped make his point a more effective one, was the fact that all his stories were personal. Most if not all of Loeb's stories are about his friends or people he is acquainted with. Not much of his stories are about things he's done, besides actually writing the book. All of Pausch's stories were about things that he's accomplished in life, how he changed other people's lives, and how he changed programs all around the world. Just another little additive that I think made Pausch's lecture a better and more effective one.
After listening to Pausch's lecture I really want to visit Carnegie Mellon and see for myself the programs that go on there. The virtual reality projects that he briefly showed during the lecture were just the tip of the ice burg. I would really enjoy visiting the school in person, witnessing the things he helped create and change, and see the projects that students work on. I feel Loeb's attempt at a "lecture" almost has a negative affect. After reading all his repetitive stories about other people, I don't feel motivated at all to go out and do something, something that Pausch definitely succeeded in doing.
The fact that Randy Pausch's video "The Last Lecture" has over 11 million views on YouTube only shows that huge amounts of people are being affected and changed by this professors words and insights. I wish I could have gotten a chance to meet this remarkable person before he passed. RIP Randy.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Journal Entry #2
In this journal entry I mainly want to talk about the book we are reading for the class, Soul of a Citizen. First off let me say I like the point that Loeb is trying to get across. Being active in society and trying to make a better community for all of us would/could make us happier and a better person all around. But I do not like the tone he uses making this point. He makes it seem as though there is no alternative to making our lives worth while. Like there is no other way to be happy and the best person we can be, or like there would be a huge hole in our hearts or chunks missing from our soul if we didn't do something to help out our community. I disagree with this entirely. You can live a very successful life, have an amazing family and do everything to support them and just love your job, never once having done anything for society or spoken out against something you didn't like and still be perfectly fine. You wouldn't be affected at all in my opinion. But like I said before you can definitely lead that same life and be happier or less happy, having done something for society. I think it all depends on the person and the situation.
Apart from this I find the book very hard to read with all the repetitive stories and life lessons. He starts his stories different but they all end with the same moral or core value. I find it very annoying and makes the book very hard to get through. I almost find it as an oxymoron. Him preaching these stories almost makes me not want to go out and do something to change society. Being told over and over again to go do something to make a change or your life will be incomplete makes it almost counter productive.
However I do seem to connect with some of the stories he mentions throughout the chapters. There was one in particular about a young man who was wasting all his days getting high with his friends and not doing anything with his life. I do not by any means go out and get high, I've never even smoked once, but I feel like sometimes my life is missing something. My life gets really repetitive and boring every once and awhile. Wake up, work, class, friends, video games, and then sleep. My life is on too much of a schedule right now. I need change. I feel like I'm just stuck in a routine. I'm not saying I need to go out and change the world to feel like my life is going somewhere at the moment, but I am saying that without some change you may end up like the young man who wasted his days getting high and not doing anything to change it. Some people may find this change by voicing their opinions to other people about things in the community that bother them and fighting to get things changed. Loeb would agree with that. I partly do. I definitely think that this route is for some people and not for others. I don't think that you need to try and be active in society to make something of yourself and live an effective life.
Apart from this I find the book very hard to read with all the repetitive stories and life lessons. He starts his stories different but they all end with the same moral or core value. I find it very annoying and makes the book very hard to get through. I almost find it as an oxymoron. Him preaching these stories almost makes me not want to go out and do something to change society. Being told over and over again to go do something to make a change or your life will be incomplete makes it almost counter productive.
However I do seem to connect with some of the stories he mentions throughout the chapters. There was one in particular about a young man who was wasting all his days getting high with his friends and not doing anything with his life. I do not by any means go out and get high, I've never even smoked once, but I feel like sometimes my life is missing something. My life gets really repetitive and boring every once and awhile. Wake up, work, class, friends, video games, and then sleep. My life is on too much of a schedule right now. I need change. I feel like I'm just stuck in a routine. I'm not saying I need to go out and change the world to feel like my life is going somewhere at the moment, but I am saying that without some change you may end up like the young man who wasted his days getting high and not doing anything to change it. Some people may find this change by voicing their opinions to other people about things in the community that bother them and fighting to get things changed. Loeb would agree with that. I partly do. I definitely think that this route is for some people and not for others. I don't think that you need to try and be active in society to make something of yourself and live an effective life.
Journal Entry #1
So in class today Prof Satkoski told us to write something about our lives that is interesting. At first I couldn't really think of any stories in my life that someone else would consider interesting. But then I started thinking of when my dad about broke my nose completely off my face. Other people might find this interesting...
When I was 4 years old my dad broke my nose. I don't remember anything from that day and only a little bit from the next day. I've heard the story over and over again though. My dad was practicing his golf swing in the house (don't ask me why) and I was too, right behind him. I hit my golf ball right past his right leg. When I crawled past him (I guess I couldn't walk yet) he was coming down on his downswing. The club connected right on my nose and almost broke it completely off my face, it was just hanging there by skin. I was bleeding so bad my mom had to put me in the sink until the ambulance came. I must have lost a lot of blood. The only thing I remember from the next day is leaving the hospital with a band aid-like cast on my nose, going to Burger King on the way home and getting a Lion King happy meal toy. I still get nose bleeds all the time to this day and have a big crack in the bone of my nose. I also get really bad headaches every once and awhile but I don't know if that has anything to do with my nose being broken at one point.
Other than this incident I don't think any other notable things have happened to me. I haven't broken any other bones and haven't had surgery besides getting my wisdom teeth taken out.
As for helping out my community, I have done quite a bit of community service at the YMCA helping out children that were staying there while their parents were at work. I was in the IB program at Fort Myers High School until my junior year, so I had to do a bit of community service hours and I decided I'd enjoy working with little kids the best. I love little kids. My main jobs were setting up games for the kids to play, such as basketball, kickball, and dodge ball. Before they were allowed to go outside and play though they had to finish their homework, which was another one of my jobs, helping them with their homework. I consider this a decent contribution to the community and I can't wait to do more through the Malaria Project and the 5k race we have planned. With the 5k we plan on charging 15 dollars to enter the race, the fee will include the Malaria Project t-shirt. This will hopefully spread the awareness of the problem with malaria over in Africa. All the money earned is going to go to the Malaria Project, with provides families over in Africa with nets to help keep out the malaria infested mosquitos. We also plan on passing out flyers around town. I will probably be taking some to my job at Gap Outlet down by Sanibel and be passing around the information to the tourists and locals alike to help spread awareness. Hopefully this will help the word get out and spread as fast as Malaria does in Africa, and then we can all do something to help this problem get solved.
When I was 4 years old my dad broke my nose. I don't remember anything from that day and only a little bit from the next day. I've heard the story over and over again though. My dad was practicing his golf swing in the house (don't ask me why) and I was too, right behind him. I hit my golf ball right past his right leg. When I crawled past him (I guess I couldn't walk yet) he was coming down on his downswing. The club connected right on my nose and almost broke it completely off my face, it was just hanging there by skin. I was bleeding so bad my mom had to put me in the sink until the ambulance came. I must have lost a lot of blood. The only thing I remember from the next day is leaving the hospital with a band aid-like cast on my nose, going to Burger King on the way home and getting a Lion King happy meal toy. I still get nose bleeds all the time to this day and have a big crack in the bone of my nose. I also get really bad headaches every once and awhile but I don't know if that has anything to do with my nose being broken at one point.
Other than this incident I don't think any other notable things have happened to me. I haven't broken any other bones and haven't had surgery besides getting my wisdom teeth taken out.
As for helping out my community, I have done quite a bit of community service at the YMCA helping out children that were staying there while their parents were at work. I was in the IB program at Fort Myers High School until my junior year, so I had to do a bit of community service hours and I decided I'd enjoy working with little kids the best. I love little kids. My main jobs were setting up games for the kids to play, such as basketball, kickball, and dodge ball. Before they were allowed to go outside and play though they had to finish their homework, which was another one of my jobs, helping them with their homework. I consider this a decent contribution to the community and I can't wait to do more through the Malaria Project and the 5k race we have planned. With the 5k we plan on charging 15 dollars to enter the race, the fee will include the Malaria Project t-shirt. This will hopefully spread the awareness of the problem with malaria over in Africa. All the money earned is going to go to the Malaria Project, with provides families over in Africa with nets to help keep out the malaria infested mosquitos. We also plan on passing out flyers around town. I will probably be taking some to my job at Gap Outlet down by Sanibel and be passing around the information to the tourists and locals alike to help spread awareness. Hopefully this will help the word get out and spread as fast as Malaria does in Africa, and then we can all do something to help this problem get solved.
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