5th post

Mr.Igoe, I apologize for not posting. I usually save my posts for the last three days because I like to break down my week into three different sections and I like to reflect on my week all at once. However, my computer had a series of malfunctions on Friday and I had to go take it to be fixed and just got it returned to me today. I tried to log in on another computer but couldn't remember my website name, it's in my favorites in my computer so I didn't have access to my blog. Anyhow, I am going to make up for it by posting 6 blogs this week if that is ok with you? I will make sure to talk to you in class about what happened tomorrow. Anyhow, last week was a fairley productive week. I am three quarters done with "The Secrets to Success" and reading this book has helped me immensely. I am learning how to develop my points in the same way Eric Thomas does. He presents the reader with a story that has had an impact in his life, then he explains to the reader what this experience taught him in vaguer terms, and then tells the reader how to apply the lessons to their lives. This is a unique approach to motivational speaking because even though the experiences Eric Thomas has are specific to his life, he is able to preach the lesson in a way that allows other people to understand and use in their own lives.

4th post

Now I have just finished up my midterm presentation. This presentation has helped me organize my work for this project a lot which will help me out with my time management struggles throughout the rest of the project. Setting up this presentation has helped me see the larger picture. This presentation will also help me get a feel for how I should present my final product. Unlike most products in my class, mine is actually going to end up being a presentation so I have an advantage; I can use this midterm as a chance to gain some experience that will help better my final project in a couple weeks. I'm excited to present next week, and I hope to get some feedback from the students in my class.

3rd post

I have just gone through a finalized my proposal for my senior seminar spring term final project. As I said before, I have taken out the long paper I was planning on doing discussing my experiences at LA and how LA has helped me grow as a person, and replaced it with a shorter paper on how my presentation went instead. Today has been yet another stressful day, I have yet again miss managed my time and have lots to do for this project before the night is over, so much for a relaxing Easter day. For the rest of the night I am going to refine my calendar a little bit, shift some due dates around, and write out more specifics. One thing that I am noticing about this project is that it is much more time consuming then I had originally planned for. Many of the videos I am watching run up to 2 hours long, and the book I am reading next week is 210 pages. I need to make sure I finish the book at the end of next week so I can continue watching motivational lectures online for the follows week, and then I can begin grinding out my final presentation.

2nd post

For my second blog post I want to talk about a drastic change I have a made to my project. I have decided that I am only going to give a motivational lecture opposed to doing both a lecture and a writing. I've decided to do this because as I mentioned in my last post, I just don't think I will have enough time to prepare both a writing piece and a presentation. I've also realized that my writing piece and presentation would have been extremely similar anyway, so basically I would be doing the same project twice. I also believe that my audience would get more out of an active presentation opposed to a piece of writing on a couple sheets of paper. I will be able to keep my audience engaged by providing visuals and concrete examples that they can relate to. But in order to incorporate a writing portion into this project I want to write a brief paper on how I believe my presentation went. In this piece of writing I will reflect on the lessons I preached and experiences I talked about in my presentation and how much of an affect I thought they had on the audience. This way, I will still have a writing piece in my project, but it won't be as lengthy and it won't just be a writing piece that repeats what I said in my presentation.

1st post

This week has been a huge struggle work wise. I have had many problems managing my time and working out the kinks in my senior project, and unfortunately blogging has slipped my mind this week because I have been so concerned about working out the specifics in my project; therefore, I'm going to attempt to do all 4 blog posts in the next half hour or so going through the major events this week.

One of my biggest accomplishments this weeks was deciding which piece of motivational work I was going to read in order to get more familiar with motivational speaking. I was stuck between Travis Roys Eleven Seconds, and Eric Thomas's The Secret to Success. I decided to go with Eric Thomas's book because I am a little bit more familiar with his works opposed Travis Roys, and I figured because success has been such a predominant theme throughout our senior sem class this year that Mr.Thomas's book may be more appropriate because it directly addresses the theme of success. I placed and order for this book earlier this week so it should be at school when we get back tomorrow. I plan on finishing the book by the end of the week so I am going to read 30-40 pages a day in order to meet that deadline.

One thing I am definitely coming to realize is that I have to manage my time more efficiently. This whole "senior spring" theory is a myth. I honestly don't think I've ever had so much in my high school career. When planning this project I had forgotten that I will also be receiving other work from my other classes.