12th post

Two classes ago I finally got the opportunity to present my final project for my final presentation in class. Unfortunately, my project went a great deal longer than I had originally planned. This is partially because I had so many experiences at LA that went I was presenting a point from my presentation I felt I had to incorporate all of my experiences which turned out to be very time consuming. I think that capstone night will be more beneficial for my presentation because I won't have to cram and decide which points to include and exclude. For capstone night I am going to print out my power point presentation and put them on display in a poster format. This way when people look at my project they can ask questions to me about which slides are the most intriguing to them and I can go into detail only about the slides people ask about, instead of going into detail about all 12 points.

11th Post

I have officially finished up my Senior Sem Project for the Spring term. This past weekend I was in North Caroline with family and was able to do a couple run through's of my slide show presentation. I am extremely happy I did that because I got very interesting feedback from my parents, grandparents, and even my siblings. They all said that my slide show was a bit repetitious at times when discussing to related topics such as failures and losing. They felt that instead of having two different slides one for failures and one for losing that I should combine those two topics to form one slide. This has helped me with my project because it was a little bit lengthy it took around 20 minutes for me to give the presentation and a brisk pace, but now I feel that I will be able to complete the presentation tomorrow within 10-15 minutes.

10th post

I am struggling currently with my slide on friends. I have thoughts on what I want to say but I'm having difficulties putting my thoughts down on paper. Right now I know that I want to explain why friends are so important, how they impact your life, and why you should choose carefully about who you hang around with. I also want to compare some of my old friends from back home with the new friends I made at LA. I know this seems immoral comparing people to one another, but I think it is important in order to emphasize my point that who you surround yourself with either restricts you from achieving your goals or enables you to reach them. I have many experiences at LA where I have gotten love and support from my friends both in school and in sports. Whereas, at home many of my friends were reasons I was distracted and pulled me further and further away from my goals and dreams. This portion of the project has also helped me realize how lucky I am to have such a supportive core group of friends here at LA. I've never really taken the time to think about how much they have helped me without them even knowing they were helping me.

9th post

I apologize for this late post I meant to do it a little before 5 o'clock but believe it or not I was so caught up in my presentation I lost track of time. I am currently working on my slide titled "dream big". This is by far one of my favorite slides I have done thus far in my presentation. As I was working on this slide it made me realize how many people are afraid to dream big because they are scared of other peoples opinions. I came to the realization that I'm not afraid to dream big, but I am afraid of telling other what my big dreams are so I always down play my goals in life. While looking for an image to help emphasize my life lessons about dreaming big I found a picture that has inspired me that I put into my slide show. The caption on the picture reads "If people aren't laughing at your dreams... Your dreams aren't big enough". I couldn't think of a more appropriate saying for this portion of my presentation and this picture change the way I perceive my own personal dreams and goals.This portion of my presentation has not only helped me learn a lot about myself, but it has also taught me a lesson. From here on out I won't down play my life goals and I won't be afraid of what other people think of them. 

8th Post

This week I have also finalized about half of my motivational power point presentation. I have put together about 8 experiences from LA that have helped grow as a person. Putting together a list of experiences from LA has been a very interesting because some of he oddest experiences I have had at LA have turned out to be some of the most memorable. This project is making it hard for me to come to terms with the fact that my final year at LA is actually coming to an end. It's giving me an opportunity to reflect on all of the people I have encountered, both students and faculty members, that have made an enormous impact on my life. This project has also helped me realize that some of my bad days or bad experiences at LA weren't that bad at all. I can remember some days where I thought that I hated this school maybe because I had a bad grade, or maybe a bad athletic experience that day. But now that I have a chance to reconsider the circumstances and the experience as a whole I have come to realize that there are far more worse things in life. I am actually embarrassed with how upset I was with the school because this project is helping me realize how much this school has done for me in the past 3 years. I am forever grateful for the experiences that I have had at LA and am dreading this final year coming to an end.

7th Post

This week I watched one of the most interesting TED talk videos I think I have watched this year. Believe it or not I actually watched it for my Spanish class, however, the video was in English. This TED talk was about language, and how language has an enormous affect on our daily lives without us even noticing its impacts. The speaker focused on the subjunctive tense of the English language, which involves the expression of possibility, such as could have's, would have's, and should have's. The speaker was of Vietnamese heritage and explained to the audience that in the Vietnamese language that there was no subjunctive tense in the language so people who only spoke Vietnamese didn't have the luxury of expressing the feeling of possibility. In the Vietnamese culture there were only definite's. For example in the English language someone could say "I would have a job if I went to college" or "I would've played in the NFL if I tried harder"; but in Vietnamese these sentence's would translate to something along the lines of "I didn't go to collage and I don't have a job" and "I don't play in the NFL". Because the Vietnamese language doesn't offer a way for an individual to express the different possibilities of life it's impossible for them to explore life and specific decisions in depth taking into account all of the different outcomes. In the Vietnamese language there are only two basic outcomes from any situation. I think I want to address this TED talk in my presentation because I find the concept of this talk very interesting. It made me realize and think about my life and all of the different possibilities my life has. The only problem is that of my seventeen categories I am not sure what topic this lecture would fit under.

6th Post

This week has been the most productive week I have had thus far in my project. I have finished the secrets to success by Eric Thomas and am now finishing up the rough draft of my presentation. I have 17 topics I want to discuss that pertain to multiple different aspects of life. There are many life lessons I have taken away from the secrets to success that I want to incorporate into my presentation. After reading this book it has changed the way I think about many of my past experiences at LA. Some experiences that I have had that I usually categorize as bad experiences have been revealed to me in a new light; and instead of viewing them as negative experiences I have discovered that many of them have made me who I am today. They were experiences that helped me grow and mature as a person and Mr.Thomas has been able to help me realize that. Now that I have come to that realization, my head has been racing with different ideas to use for preaching the lessons I have learned here at LA. There are too many to choose from!