4V vocab of the week!

Delayed Gratification

What does this mean? It’s the ability to resist the temptation for an immediate reward. We have been talking a lot about this term in my inquiry class. One thing we talked about is the marshmallow experiment. Which is when you put a marshmallow in front of a child for 50 minutes and tell them if they don’t eat the marshmallow in the 50 minutes then they get a second one. This had tested delayed gratification, whether the kids were able to ignore the marshmallow or if they ate it.

More Vocab!

This week we went over a lot of vocab in my media class. Two words we studied were semiotics and codes.

Semiotics: the theory of meaning

Code: a set of rules that enables us to understand the meaning of signs and symbols

4I My Hike to West Rock

West Rock

This week I decided to climb west rock with a few friends! I’ve always loved hiking and have wanted to go since I got to Southern! I went with my best friend, roommate, and a few friends we met in our building. We all got out of class by three so that’s when we went. It happened to be the perfect day to go it was sunny and only about 70 degrees so it wasn’t to hot! It only took a half hour to hike up and it was such an incredible view. We stayed up there for a while just taking pictures, talking and enjoying the view!

4A Delayed Gratification

Delayed Gratification

Every summer my best friend and I go to Florida together and stay at my aunt’s house. We normally go in July or August and its definitely hard knowing you have to get through the entire school year before leaving for vacation but its also worth the wait. Its worth the wait because while were in Florida we visit cool places, this year we went to key west. My favorite part of going is getting to see my family. My family is really close and since we only get to see each other a few times a year we always make the most of it when were together.

Do Americans really have no patience?

I personally am very impatient and I think most of our society is as well. Everyone wants to be the first one to have the new thing and be a part of the latest and greatest new thing, which brings me to technology. I believe technology plays a huge part in why Americans are so impatient in today’s society. It’s so easy to contact people through the click of a button. Today technology is so fast and widespread. You cant text someone and the receiver will get it within seconds. You can do a lot with the technology we have now, like pulling up the sports game on your phone or checking twitter Facebook etc. all these things you can do in just a few seconds. The way our society is most people do have a smart phone where they have access to doing these things. All of this does play a role on the patience most people have.

Aside from technology

I go shopping a lot and ill see people with a handful of items and once they see the line at the checkout they quickly drop everything and walk out. If I’m being honest I can say I’m also very guilty of that! Another example would be fast food restaurants, many people go because they don’t have the patience to buy the ingredients and make a meal themselves.

To wrap things up: I personally think most Americans value instant gratification. When some one wants something they don’t want to have to wait for it they want it then. Most people don’t have the patience to wait or do the work. I think a lot of people take the easy way out of things to get what they want accomplished quicker.

Article of the week

This week I read an interesting article called 'Willpower' “Resistance Training For Your Muscles. An interesting quote I got from this article was “people who exercise their willpower frequently often have better self-control.” So if we refer back to “do Americans really have no patience?” this quote is saying that if we really work hard at something we can train our self to have better self control and in this case more patience.

 

3A Good or Bad?

“There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” –Shakespeare

At first this quote was hard for me to understand but I think what Shakespeare is trying to say by this is that how you think determines if you see things as being good or bad. For example, if you get a 75 on a test that you tried you’re hardest on would you be happy or disappointed? Some people may be happy because they gave there all others would be upset because if they had studied or payed more attention they could have gotten a higher score. In other words depending on how you view things and think things out determine whether you see something as good or bad.

Growth mindset is when you are open minded and you want to better yourself where as fixed mindset is belief in fixed intelligence in other words your born with it. Therefore if you read this quote and you say to your self that you mostly think positively and always look for the positive sides of something then you would have a growth mindset. If your one that’s pessimistic and sees the glass half empty then you have a fixed mindset.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation also relate to Shakespeare’s quote. Extrinsic motivation occurs when we are motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an activity in order to earn a reward or avoid a punishment; it is the motivation we get from outside of us. Intrinsic motivation is our internal motivation. The motivation we have to do better and the love of learning. Intrinsic motivation would have to do with a growth mindset because you want to better your learning. Extrinsic motivation goes with the fixed mindset; you don’t really go above and beyond as someone with a growth mindset would.

3B Gymnastics = Life

Something I love to do in my free time is gymnastics whether I be watching it or physically doing it. When I was younger I'd always do cartwheels in my basement and see how long I could hold my handstand. My mom always pushed me to join a gymnastics class but I was always to shy, until fifth grade. In fifth grade I started going to New England School of Gymnastics and I stayed with them until this past summer.

When I was younger I did gymnastics because I found it fun. Don’t get me wrong I still find it to be fun but I noticed, as I got older it became a really good stress reliever as well. Once I got to freshmen year of high school I started getting more homework and with all the new changes I could feel myself becoming more and more overwhelmed. I started going to gymnastics more once I was in high school, which really helped! I loved being in the gym it was like my second home and the moment I walked in I didn’t have any worries. Everything had left my mind and the only thing I could focus on is how am I going to improve my skills today. My coaches were amazing and really cared about my well being. I could talk to them about anything and was able to be myself around them.

A lot of times when I get really stressed I tend to lose focus and can’t think straight. Whenever this happens I go to the gym to get away for a few hours. Then I go back to my work and complete anything I couldn’t finish before. For me going to the gym to practice always helps to clear my mind. Even though I’m not close to my gym anymore I’m still going to do gymnastics when I get overly stressed in college. Since it helps to clear my mind and think straight it will definitely help me academically.