Arboretum

At Penn State we are encouraged to get involved. Try this club, apply for this internship, go to these office hours. It is important to get involved because we go to such a big school, but why did you chose Penn State? I chose it because it was such a huge school with a community feel that I wanted. The arboretum encompassed that larger community feel that I was searching for. I saw students, mothers with their kids, elderly couples, professors, and for thirty minutes I felt like I was really part of this larger civic community. I felt like I was at home going to the park like I did growing up. The only thing snapping me back to reality was the sight of a crane and the hum of construction in the distance. But what else would you expect.

I could tell how much effort was put into making and keeping up such a beautiful place. From the fountain to the hundreds of labeled flowers it was nice to see the amount of care people were putting into a public place that is just meant for enjoyment. As soon as I sat down I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I hadn’t seen a building looming over me. As someone from the suburbs being in the middle of campus can sometimes feel like a city.

It’s important to civic life that people understand and support nature. I think that nature is something we take very much for granted because we trust it will always exist in the same state that it does today when studies show that is not necessarily the case. Having places like the arboretum at Penn State to encourage people to want to spend more time in nature will hopefully translate into us living more sustainable lives.

The Circle and Penn State

My first few weeks at Penn State bear many similarities to Mae’s first few week working at the Circle. One of the major commonalities we have is how involved everyone around us is. Coming to Penn State I immediately noticed how many club’s students are involved in. In my high school people would be involved in one or two organizations, but here it is unusual to not be involved in a large range of clubs, from sports to major specific to just interests. When I went to the involvement fair I was very overwhelmed by the number of options. I am getting emails constantly from teachers and clubs that are hard to keep up with. Mae is similar but on a larger scale. She starts off not as involved but the technological aspect of the Circle snowballs and starts to take over her life as the book goes on. Mae is thrown into a world at the Circle where all her coworkers are constantly at different events. Before she was even adjusted to her new position she was expected by her superiors to be going to events and when she did not she was practically reprimanded. I don’t think Penn State takes it to that level but there is some amount of pressure to be a part of a lot of organizations.

We are similar because we are both members of huge communities that we have to get used to. Most of the people at the Circle know each other and know their community well. There are a lot of people are from Pennsylvania here so they know people from their high school or older students from their towns and they have a sense of this community already. I am from Massachusetts and not many people from my high school come here so we share the fact we are both experiencing a very new, but welcoming community.  

Intro to passion blog

For my passion blog I am going to be writing about going to fitness classes and giving my thoughts on them. First off a little about me and my background with fitness. I am not going into this completely blind; I have always been athletic (soccer, skiing, basketball, track) so exercise has always been a part of my daily life. Coming to college I didn’t think I was going to join an organized sports team so I needed to find a way to work get a consistent workout. A disclaimer, although I do love fitness I have never been involved in group fitness classes (other than the occasional spin class with my friends) so this is pretty new territory for me.

I am most excited about trying the yoga, kick boxing, and barre fit because that’s what all the cool people I follow on Instagram from NYC seem to be obsessed with. Looking for a class reminded me yet again why I shouldn’t have picked to live in East, they offer much fewer classes at the IM building than the White Building and no surprise the White Building, like everything from East, is about a 15 minute walk. Magically I found a barre class that started right after my last class of the day. What I knew about barre was very limited other than Kendall Jenner and her squad do it, so I decided it was time for a good old google. What came up was a mix between Pilates, yoga, and ballet. First two I can work with, but I took ballet for probably two months before realizing why I was much better at soccer.

I’ll go more into what we did at the class and what I thought next week but for now I’ll tell you a plié feels a lot like a squat and stairs make my legs feel like cinder blocks.

Images and Education

 

Two of the images reminded me of the way I approach education. The first was the picture of the soccer players in a circle. I see education as a group effort where, when everyone contributes, more knowledge is gained. The classes I got the most out of in high school were those that the teacher put more emphasis on sharing our thoughts and opinions and less emphasis on getting the “right answer”. The other image that caught my eye was the image of the bridge. The arches in the bridge are going off at all different angles, they are not uniform. I think of learning that way because although we all need a sturdy base for our education we also all learn in so many unique ways and have so many differing opinions which should be celebrated instead of rejected. The education system often pushes students into a rigid way of thinking instead of letting them explore their own style.