This I Believe Brainstorm

  1. Learning doing what you enjoy is more important then the grades you get
    • I am the middle child of three girls
    • My older sister is becoming a doctor, she graduated college with a 3.98 and a 99% on her MCAT
    • My little sister is incredibly smart and is looking at ivy league schools.
    • Both my sisters and my parents are interested in science and math, while I love political science and reading (things they don’t enjoy)
    • It was hard to feel recognized for my achievements because they were always achieving more.
    • I started becoming a cliche and rebelling because I belived that was what was expected from me
    • I went against my parents, wouldn’t come home/listen to them
    • I didn’t enjoy it but I thought that was who I was
    • I learned that my mom never wanted to study science, she loved history and English growing up but her controlling father said that was not a career.
    • We were able to bond over that. I learned that if you love something and stop thinking about the the grade you get, you will excel

2. Something about mental illness

    • talk about my town
      • appearances are not what they seem
      • meg and matt and recent
      • should be treated like any illness

I am going to keep a similar passion blog but expand it. I went to fitness classes and wrote reviews, but I plan to expand this to a general health blog. My goals are to address all of the things that go into being healthy as a student and how to stay balanced.

Civic issues:

  • political correctness (is it good or bad for society)
  • climate change (the reality behind our situation and what we can realistically do to make a change, alternative forms of energy, relate this back to our current political  situation and how Trump’s administration could effect this issue)

Final RCL

I found the ending of “The Circle” very unexpected. Eggers could have had Mae see the error in her ways and had her helped take down the Circle. Instead she went deeper into the mindset of the company: transparency in everything is necessary. The book made me rethink technology and how much of a hold it has on my life. It is off-putting that I will be shopping for something online then that same product will come up as an advertisement the next time I am browsing. The computer is tracking my online activity and creating ads it thinks will appeal to me. At first this sounds like a good idea, but at what point does this breach my privacy?

Final thoughts

Going into this semester I promised myself I would branch out and try new things. I knew that I liked working out with other people so going to exercise classes offered at the gym seemed like a good fit. I had always pursued this hobby through sports teams which made me feel unsure about trying dance, yoga, and spinning classes. However, I found that trying something new each week was exciting and something I looked forward to! I discovered classes that I loved and classes I didn’t, and that’s okay. It was an important experience for me to try something new and broaden my horizons.

Yoga

This week I picked my routine back up, or as much of it as I could and get back to the gym. I went to my first yoga class at Penn State this week. I have taken a few hot yoga classes with friends but I have never seen myself as someone who would enjoy yoga: I am very fast paced, I always have to be doing something, and I generally take on stressful tasks. All of these traits make it seem like maybe I should be taking some time to slow down and reflect, which is something yoga can offer. I think there is a stigma that only certain types of people can do yoga, but in reality it is kind of a group work out/destressing class. I don’t know too much about the types but here are a few that I know of from the yogis I have stalked on Instagram: Hatha (the class I took) is focused on slow and gentle movements and is a good class to take if you are also a beginner like me. Vinyasa is more focused around poses and can be varying levels of difficulty depending on the types of poses incorporated into the class. Ashtanga is a faster version of vinyasa, where you move from pose to pose quickly. For now, I think I’ll stick with vinyasa but maybe eventually I’ll try to branch out. I really liked the group setting because it seemed like everyone was trying it out but that may not be for everyone. For some people meditation is much more personal and they would prefer to practice alone. For me this is more of a social workout experience than a deep, soul searching reflection, which is probably more of an independent activity. I didn’t see yoga as a full workout, for me a workout needs to make you sweat and breathe really hard and I didn’t think yoga would make me feel this way. However, I got more of a workout from it than I thought I would. During the class I was sweating and after I felt sore. I was using muscles that I wouldn’t use in my everyday workout routine. We did a lot of stretching which I usually forget when I’m at the gym. While I do not think yoga will be the only form of exercise I do, I think incorporating it in for my overall physical and mental health will benefit my workouts.

Palmer Museum

What I noticed was the most prevalent was the changes in styles and themes in the art based on time. The first paintings I looked at were on the first floor. They were extremely detailed pieces that focused on religion. This theme of religion is important because the time represented is a time that religion was a leading factor in most people’s lives. The piece I looked at specifically had Jesus as the focal point, but many of the others had angels or crosses or other religious paraphernalia as the major theme of the art. It is very clear that the artists were dominated by the idea of religion. I wonder if the artists focusing on this in their art made people more interested in religion, or if people’s religion influenced artists in their work. The upstairs of the museum had artwork from more recent time and it was a lot less focused on one idea. There was a huge range of topics. Some pieces did not even have a topic and were just abstract. The artwork is more up for interpretation whereas in the earlier art there is a pretty set message the artist is trying to get across to their audience. The colors used are also interesting. In the religious art the colors are very realistic, but some of the later art has some unrealistic colors. Especially in the piece I chose to compare, the colors and image is all around a lot more abstract than the one I looked at downstairs. I think this represents individual freedom of expression. Artists used to be tied to governments and churches and would naturally make their art around these ideas. Today artists are usually free spirits who have the freedom to express their own views through art. img_4481 img_4486 

First thing to go

My passion blog is going to be a little different this week. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my blog, I typically write about a fitness class I went to that week and my view of it. This week I wasn’t able to get to a class. My fitness routine (and regular routine) has suffered lately. I have been unbelievably busy with exams, homework, projects, clubs, sorority obligations, sleeping, and being sick. It’s been a difficult week for me because I am a creature of routine and I tend to plan (and over plan) my schedule. I know exactly when I will be doing my homework, having meetings, and going to the gym every day because I write it down in my calendar. This week however, I was unable to stick to my usually plans and had to adapt. I couldn’t go to a single class, something I am usually able to find time for. I was barely able to make it to the gym (I think I went twice). For someone who is used to working out every day, not making it to the gym is something that makes my day feel very incomplete. I think coming to college I expected to have much more free time. Less time is spent in the classroom, but in reality I am feeling busier than I ever have. The workload is higher, I have countless organizations many of which have meetings a can’t even make it to regularly because they overlap with other meetings, and I am getting about 5 hours of sleep a night. I know most people are in the same boat. The transition is much different than expected. The first thing to go for me was exercise, as I’m sure it is for many others, because it seems to be the least necessary. Hopefully things start to settle down and I can learn to establish a new routine.

Oct 7

Butts and guts. For some reason I can never hear the word “gut” without thinking of middle aged men with beer bellies that go bowling every Thursday night. For that reason alone, I avoided going to that class to this point. But someone told me after you go, you can’t walk for three days and I am all about that. It was loud and crazy. The first thing we did was split into groups of three that we would stay in for the rest of class. The point of this was our instructor, a no nonsense but very funny girl, would give us three exercises and we had four minutes of the three of us rotating through them. Everyone always had to be doing a different one and you couldn’t stop moving. This does not sound that bad but it gets tough after 45 continuous minutes. The guts part came in at the end of every four-minute round. After each round we had to do a certain type of plank (plank with shoulder taps, plank with foot taps, plank with foot raises, etc.) and then we would continue into the next round of four minutes. Here are some examples of what we did during those four minute rounds:

–          Lunges

–          Walking lunges

–          Leg raises with resistance

–          Crab walk

–          Crab crawl

–          V-ups

–          Summo squats

(There was more but I forget)

                I definitely recommend going. It’s a really good full body strength work out!

The other class I tried out this week (although I have done it before with a different instructor), was the power remix class. Power remix is similar to Zumba I suspect, I haven’t taken Zumba, but I’ve heard that it is the more popular of the two here. I have no clue why. Basically it’s a workout dance class. The instructor gets really hyped up and blasts music and does some hybrid dance/squat/lunge/high knee-like movements. I was worried because I am not the most rhythmically gifted, but the dance moves aren’t super difficult to pick up. I would suggest doing with a friend though. The two times I have gone it has been with a friend and it makes it a lot easier because you can laugh at each other which is always great. They always play “Closer” at some point and I half groan, half cheer every time I hear that song at this point. The music is generally pretty good and you sweat WAY more than you thought you ever could dancing. I always think it’s so easy and that’s the exact moment I start pouring sweat and wishing I had asthma so I had a reason to be breathing so hard.

In the end I really liked both of them. Butts and guts was probably a little more my style but that’s personal preference. If you’re feeling like you’re in an exercise slump I highly recommend trying a class out. They make you feel great, you meet new people, and they are actually fun and new each time.

 

Tokyo 2020

Last week I joined the swim team. I never swam in high school or competitively at all (unless you count two years of hiding in the bathroom during swim team and faking injuries during meets in the third grade). I did it because I saw a girl wearing a club swim backpack and it looked cool. That was it. My roommate had been talking about it because she also had seen people around wearing some gear that made them look like you had to try out to be on the team (you don’t) and they were really intense (some are, most aren’t; they’re all nice though). So there I was blocking five one and a half hour (optional) practices a week out of my calendar.

I didn’t think I was going to be doing any swimming in college. I’m a lifeguard in the summer, so by the time August rolls around I’m pretty sick of the sight of any body of water. Because of this I brought nothing to do any sort of athletic swimming in. I spent an hour walking to any store downtown that looked like they would possibly carry swim attire: nothing. So fifteen minutes and $12 later I had Ubered to Dick’s Sporting Goods. Needless to say my Uber driver was very confused when I told him what I was doing. Still gave him 5 stars. He had good music.

Going into my first day I thought I would be nervous. But then I thought: I’m in a swim cap (yup) and goggles, if I suck I’ll just never come back and no one will know. Well I was pretty bad, but not the worst! They organize the lanes in speed order aka we are the chill end lane the injured people come to and the lifeguard watches a little closer. The coaches are relaxed and you can take as many breaks as you want to. Here is an example of one of our workouts (50 m is one lap, I didn’t know this)

Warmup: 300 m (6 laps)

Set 1 (this had a time limit for every lap that my lane decided to pretend didn’t exist) : 25 free style, 50 free, 75 free, 100 free, 100 free, 75 free, 50 free, 25 free, 50 easy (this three times)

Set 2 (IM): 8 75’s, odd freestyle, even 25 butterfly/25 breast/25 back

Cooldown: 200 m

Dryland: Usually squats, pushups, burpees, planks, balance drills, calf raises, wall sits, crunches

It’s fun and I highly recommend it. I’m definitely getting dope gear and pretending I’m a competitive swimmer and don’t spend my time gossiping in the slow lane. We do other things than swim too. We walk in homecoming, we do Thon, we have socials and potluck dinners. I didn’t think I would actually find people in a similar situation as me. Go try something new this week, you don’t have to be the best to be a part of it.  

Marathon Read

The marathon read was an interesting event, but it could have been organized differently. I feel like to get a full grasp of the event I would have had to go for longer or stay for a snippet of each of the texts. As it was, I went for thirty minutes of “The Hunger Games” reading. I love “The Hunger Games” books so I enjoyed sitting and listening to people read, however I think the event could have been organized in a way that brought more of the liberal arts community together. There were not that many people there and the people there seemed like they were there because they had to be. The people that read left right after they read and the people that were listening did not stay for very long either. This gave me the impression that if there was more to do people would have stayed longer. I wish the event was, at least partially, combined with another liberal arts event so that students could stop and listen to readers, but also do other activities. I think the event was meant to bring the community together and start the year by looking at different genres of texts from different time periods. I really liked this idea because there would be a text that interested everyone, whether you like poetry, historical texts, or fiction. The context is that this is the beginning of the year and it is a really great opportunity for students and teachers to meet and get to know each other and the liberal arts community better. As I said earlier, I think this could have been better accomplished by adding more events to attract a larger, more engaged audience. This being said, I was only there for thirty minutes and can only judge the event by that small snapshot.

Barre

Barre fit: a mix between yoga, pilates, and ballet. It seems like a nice relaxing way to spend your Wednesday afternoon. Not so much. Not to say I didn’t like the class because I did, I loved it, but I also love intense workouts. If I had seen the description above I would not have expected what came next (which was me being sore for the majority of the next 4 days).

The idea of this class was a little intimidating from the start. I’m more of a treadmill or organized sports kind of person. But part of the point of the point of my passion blog is for me to step out of my comfort zone and take advantage of things I didn’t try in high school. Barre fit is something I have looked into trying but never been able to find a place convenient or reasonably priced enough for me to be willing to go do.  

We all walked in and grabbed an individual barre and free weights and the music started. From there it was a whole lot of plies. If you don’t know what a plie is, because I didn’t, it basically is a squat with a French name. And it hurts when you do a hundred of them in a row. We did plies with our feet together and plies with our feet apart and plies with our feet pointed out. We did plies where we did a calf raise at the same time and plies where we just stayed in squat position for a full minute. And then we did it all again. After all that we held the bar and kicked our legs to the ceiling. I’m glad the room was so packed and I couldn’t see myself in the mirror because at this point my legs might as well have been made of lead. I expect I looked somewhat like Chris Christie auditioning to be a rocket.

The legs were hard but the arms were worse. I have very little arm strength. I was a soccer player, so I had no reason to need really strong arms. We used our weights and did some lifting to the beat of the music. It was going good I thought it was going to be easy, but no, my noodle arms caught up to me. I would have felt bad but looking around it seemed like most people were having a pretty rough time too, a lot even went to get lighter weights. Abs were last and definitely the easiest part. They were more of a cooldown and stretch version of abs which was a welcome surprise because my body was feeling a lot like a pile of jello at this point.

For a forty-five-minute class it packed a lot of punch. The music was awesome, the teacher was great, and I actually liked trying something I wouldn’t normally do. I hated/loved it and that is exactly how I would hope to feel after a really good workout.