The College Transition ~ What Writers Can Learn From Athletes ~ Playmaker~ Comp131

                After a couple of seconds the ever wonderful internet gave me a definition for a playmaker, “An offensive player, as in basketball or hockey, who executes plays designed to put one or more teammates in a position to score” (Dictionalry.com).  

                There are a couple of things to note about this definition. First is that a playmaker not someone who just watches out for themselves. They make and act on destines to help the team score. They are not a ball hog, ore the show of. The team is first and they are second. When It comes to academics it’s like pouting learning before grades. While getting good grades is important, the real goal of and education is just that, to become educated.

The second thing I want to take not of is that they execute play. They are not locked away in some library coming up with strategies. They are in the game giving it there all. Making decisions and then acting on them, is another ting the current student can learn from. Just deciding you want an A isn’t enough. Getting an A takes study time and hard work. There is a Japanese Proverb that says “Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare” (http://veryrandom...) Action without strategy is chaos and vice versa. For success in any thing you do you cannot separate these two key elements.

This is especially important for righter. You cannot wright a well thought out coherent paper with out for thought, and you will never wright any ting if all you do is think. Your team is the people you are writing for. Your job as a play maker is to inspire them to make choices that will not just change but improve their lives, but you also half to take action yourself. If you wright about how smoking kills people, but you are a chain smoker, is any one going to lesson to what you half to say.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/playmaker

http://veryrandomstreams.blogspot.com/2010/06/100-great-quotes-about-motivation-and.html

The College Transition ~ What Writers Can Learn From Athletes ~ Goals~ Comp131

Goals are important any athlete can tell you that. Whether it’s long-term or short-term, goals help shape our actions and drive us to become better than we are now. They are especially important in swimming. Swimming, like running, is one of those unusual sports that while you competing alone; you participate as part of a team. Relays are the only real exception. Baseball, basketball, football, volleyball, and most other spots it is essential to work as a team. You’re not allowed to volley the ball twice in a row someone else has to bump it. But in swimming if your dive is delayed or you mess up your turn there is no one there to save you. While how you do does affect your teems points, really it’s up to you how hard you want to work. That why goal setting is so important.

If you want you can goof of, your own sweet time with the work out, or even just skip practice. Yes you coach may yell at you but really the only one you have a substantial impact on is yourself. When I was on swim team I noticed there was a huge difference between the kids how wanted to be there and the ones who were forced to be there by their parent. Obviously the swimmers who were forced to come did as little work as possible. They didn’t what to be there so why try? But if you took a closer look at the other swimmers you would find yet another difference. While they all participated, for some reason, some of the kids would go above and beyond the requirements while others were satisfied with just doing what they were told. After talking to several people I realized that the difference was what goal they were focusing on.

Everybody seemed to have the same two goals. Get first place in the meet, and move up to a faster level. Sometimes there were more specific goals like; I want to get 27 seconds on my 50meeter free, but those were the two over all goals. When I talked to the swimmers who just did what they were told they were completely focus on either keeping up with the group they were in now or doing well in the meet. My conversations with the over achievers however, want a lot more like this. Yes I want to do well in the meet, but I really just want to move up a level. So it’s not just setting goals it’s which goals you’re aiming for.

            My last couple of months in swimming I had a friend who finally got tired of being on the same team. So he changed his goal from doing well in the meet to moving to the next team. Within two weeks he went form the middle of the pack to one of the more formidable members, and he continued to progress.   I had to leave not long later because I graduated, but I would be extremely surprised if he hasn’t moved up yet.

            Short-term goals are excellent to have because they can serve as mile markers on your journey to your long-term goals, they motivate you and give you a sense of accomplishment that everyone needs. But you’re trying to get to your long term goal. So maybe you should stop focusing solely on your project at work and start gunning for that promotion you really want. Yes, try to get an A on your paper but an A in the class is why you want to do well on that paper any way. Writers aim not just to have a well written paper but to inspire, inform, and entertain there audience. The big goal for beginners is to get published. So what have you been aiming for?

The College Transition ~ Does it Make Sense? ~ Comp131

            While I love to day dream, I am still a very practical person. When evaluating my surrounding some of the questions that tend to be most prominent in my mind are: What purpose is this supposed to serve? Does it accomplish its intent? What are it’s the flaws? And most importantly. Does it make sense? I am still in the process of adjusting to my new living arrangements here on campus, but I have found some things that, to me, just don’t make sense.

            Example 1 No. The first floor of my residence hall is class rooms, which is fine but it means every one living here either lives on the second or third floor. There are three stair cases in this building and one elevator. The staircases are on either end and one is kind of in the middle with the elevator on the other side of kind of in the middle. Which, for this U shaped building would be quite efficient… Would be. Two of the three staircases won’t open from the outside, and the other one and the elevator only open up to the inside of the first floor. So if you are covered in mud because it had been raining, which it has done a surprising amount lately, you still half to come in the building instead of being able to take you shoes of in the cement stair case. Or if you’re like me and just don’t want to be stared at by a bunch of students in class as you walk by, your just out of luck. To me the amount and placement of the stirs is wonderful but to halve half of them locked to the outside doesn’t make sense.

            Example 2 No. We have this beautiful court yard in the middle of our U shaped building. Most of the time it’s in the sun but in the morning and evenings its quite nice. They even have tables and benches to so you can sit and study/text or talk to your friends. They are even bright colors (I REALLY like colors). The problem is this is Texas and even in the evenings when the sun is not shining right on top of these benches it still could be 90 degrees, so why would you put metal benches out where they will bake in the sun and the heat most of the day. You don’t want to touch those tables 90 percent of the time nun the les sit on a bench, especially in shorts. I appreciate that they thought of that and it is an awesome idea but metal? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

The College Transition ~ Dorm Rooms ~ Comp131.02

            Like a lot of other college freshmen I am living on campus in the dorm rooms. Wow is it different. In more ways than I expected would. One of the more obvious changes is the amount of space. I used to have a large room back in San Antonio, in fact it was so large most of the time I didn’t use most of it. I had plenty of room to spread everything out, do some rather absurd art project, or even just lay in the middle of the floor. Here if feels like I’m living in a box. It’s not that bad really, but it’s going to take some time to. There’s my bed my desk my closet and a walk way. It is actually quite efficient. There is just enough room so you’re not cramped but there not any extra space.
 
           Another thing I’m getting use to is the lack of extra stuff, it wonderful and terrible at the same time. The lack of, distractions has greatly improved my attempts at studying, but once I’m done it feels like there is nothing to do. Not only is there not stuff to mess with but also there’s not nearly as much space to clean! It uses to take me an hour or more to clean my room, partly because I would always get distracted, now it takes ten minutes.
 
           Aside from that studying is different to. One I half to study, that’s new. And two there is someone else in my room. I'm one of those people who studies bets lying in bed or stretched out on the floor. Sitting at a desk, I just can’t manage to do for long periods of time. So I usually end up studying in my room. As I said before the lack or stuff has improved my ability to focus, but if my roommate is in there, it doesn’t matter what she is doing, I really just can’t focus. Something about having another person in the room with me obliterates my focus. It’s not a major problem now because we never seem to be there at the same time, but that might not be the case in the future, so I need to find somewhere else to study.
  
          One of the things I miss most about living at home is the food. I can’t randomly decide to make a sandwich or macaroni. Yes I have a refrigerator full of snacks, but it’s not a kitchen where I can make pretty much whatever I want whenever I want.
 
           There are other things to. One minute there will be a bunch of people just walking down the hall and then they're gone its rather spooky I know they just got to where they were going but still it gives me the creepy that I don't know where everyone is. I don't even know who most of the people on my floor not to mention the building. And there is always someone around, even if you don't know where they are at the moment. I can't stay up till three in the morning practicing because my violin is in the music building and I don't want to wake anyone up. Aside from school itself, the dorms are probably the biggest change for me.