Take Risk

Yesterday was full of taking risk! Working with others and trusting them with your life. Literally.

My Leadership Learning Community and myself went to USNWC for a retreat and it was pretty fun if you was to ask me. We did numerous of activities that got us to trust those that were in our group and to get along even through tough circumstances. For example the White Water Rafting, there were times that we were stuck between rocks and we all had to work together in order to stay safe. We did numerous activities that required us to work together and the outcome of the situation for us was really good. It made alot of us to step up out of our comfort zone and communicate with others in order to get the task accomplished.

I learned that I must take risk and do things that I did not want to do for my group. For example THE WALL, the GREAT WALL. The wall was an activity in which we had to get a number of our group members across the wall. The wall was plain, there was no holes or ropes to help anyone cross over. Being there was one example of where many had to take risk. I was one of the few who decided to cross the wall. At first I was going to be a base for those who crossed over but when alot of my team mates was cheering me on and was trying to convince me to go I said ‘What the heck” and went on. Took one for the team.

I am able to apply all that I’ve learned yesterday to overcome  obstacles and challenges that I will have to face in life.

I learned that sometimes you must put behind fear and take risk in order for the goodness of the team.

 

OMG 1st semester is almost over!

From reading my title im sure that you can tell that I am in shock because my first semester of college is almost over. It seems as if these months just flew past me. I remember my junior year in high school when I was first looking at colleges, going around to visit them and towards the end of my junior year I started applying. Then the beginning of my senior year, doing more research on the colleges that I liked and then making a decision on which one I was going to attend. I do not know how I made the decision, but I chose to attend the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

These past few months has been a true learning experience from my social life to in classroom teaching I can honestly say that I’ve learned alot. When it comes to my social life I learned that the things that people do their freshman year can carry on with them throughout their entire college life. Good thing that I know upperclassmen here that has helped me and guide me in the right direction so that way my reputation would not get ruined. I know that many freshman do outrageous things because of the freedom that is given when at college. The majority of people are used to living at home with rules and pretty much being monitored by parents. In college there are a few rules that everyone must follow but other than that students are given complete freedom and are free to do whatever they please. I’ll admit that my first few weeks of college was spent partying with my friends non stop but after a while I found my self settling down and focusing on my studies.

I did not only learn throughout my social life but I’ve learned in the classroom teaching too. How being taught in high school is completely different then what they teach in college. My first day in my classes my teachers haned out syllabus and the first thing that I said when recieving my first college syllabus was “WOW”. That was my reaction because it said that we had a paper to write that had to be 7-10 pages long. Being that I graduated high school without having to write a lengthy research paper I was nervous, not fully knowing what I was capable of but now I know. My professor told me that I recieved a 95 on the paper, which is an A.  I recieved an A on my first college paper that was 8 pages long, I was very proud of myself and my family was too.

I am still in disbelief that my first semester in college is almost over. That I’ve overcome writing my first paper, mid-terms and in two weeks I’ll be able to say that I’ve overcomed my finals too. This semester has been filled with plenty of football games, distinguished speakers and Association of Campus Entertainment (ACE) events. Here is a list of my favorite events so far: The poet Shanelle Gabrielle, the comedian Mike E., The J.Cole and We The Kings concert, and the distinguished speaker Erin Gruwell. I’ve had the opportunity to meet all of the people that were mentioned in my favorite events, something that many people could not say but I guess that is one of the perks of being at UNCP, a place where learning gets personal!

Cheerleading: It is a sport!

Is cheerleading a sport? Many say that cheerleading is not a sport but if you ask me I will say that cheerleading is definitely a sport. I was a cheerleader for the majority of my life, for twelve years. I first started cheerleading at age 5 and I believe that was the age when I first feel in love with the sport. It was something between the uniform, the pom poms or the excitement of the games that kept me involved and so  close for so long.

At the age of five I was cheering for Silver Hill Boys and Girls Club. Our colors were blue, white and red and out mascot was the bears.  I remember those days like yesterday. From our practices out on the dirt field and the saturday games. Last year was my senior year in high school and I decided that I was finished cheerleading. I still have a love for the sport but I believe that my time has come. I was considering trying out for the cheerleading squad at UNCP but I figured that I would wait and see how my first year in college goes. After viewing the cheerleaders and knowing their schedules I realized that I needed to give up cheerleading for a while and focus on my studies. One day I have hopes of becoming a cheerleading coach for the boys and girls club, a way to give back to my community and teach the young girls how to cheer. If it wasnt for my coaches over the years motivating me in every aspect of my life I do not think I would be in college right now. They taught me how to be a leader by making me captain of my squad. That position was a tough one because I still wanted to be treated the same way among my peers but I had to learn how to listen to the adults while instructing my team.

Throughout all of the squads that I have been on my entire life I learned that each squad is different the cheering styles, the way that they practice and the way that they handled games but just like they can be different they can be alike too.  All of the squads, well cheerleading in general require a lot of physical activity and it is very time-consuming. The reasons that I say that it is a sport because of the physical activity. We workout just like the other sports not just certain areas for example with soccer working out primarily the legs but we workout our entire bodies. From the tightness in our motions to the stunts that we pull our legs and our arms get full workouts. There is a quote that says “Football Players throw at 2 lb ball in the air, [And Catch It.] Cheerleaders throw a 100 lb girl in the air AND Catch Her.”  I love that quote because it can prove to others that cheerleading is alike others sports just like football except the fact that we don’t have balls we have girls.

My Thanksgiving

Today is November 25, 2010 a day of gathering among families also called Thanksgiving. My thanksgiving has been field with a wonderful meal and many trips to the store. Early this morning around 8 is when I first woke up and I could hear my grandmother in the kitchen preparing the meal. I went down stairs wondering what it was that she was fixing and it was mashed potatoes. When she looked and saw me standing there she said “I’ve been waiting for you to get up, do you want to run to the store for me?”. Which I looked at as a rhetorical question I had no choice but to say yes, I’ll go to the store for you. I wondered what would happen if I said no but knowing how she is, the same one that pretty much raised me she would’ve demanded me that I go to the store and there was nothing that I could’ve said. Well by 9 I was at the store and the store was crowded. I was sent to the store to get 3 items: marshmallows, ginger ale and egg nog ice cream. The store had the marshmallows and ginger ale but no egg nog ice cream. I called home in hopes of my grandmother telling me to get vanilla ice cream in replace of it but she said no try another store. So I went ahead purchased my items from the grocery store and headed to Wal-mart. When I first arrived in Wal-Mart parking lot there were cars everywhere but I didn’t have a problem finding a parking space. I went up and down the ice cream isle numerous times for some reason I could not find that egg nog ice cream and as I went to reach for the vanilla a few cartons behind I saw the light blue and white carton of egg nog ice cream. FINALLY!

As I was in the check out aisle almost at the register I received a call from my mother. She was up and cooking and need me to bring her an aluminum pan, that was ALL THE WAY on the other side of the store. I said alright and went to get the pan, within 2 minutes, walking to that side of the store I got another call asking me to go and get something else. Lets say I was in Wal-mart for a good while.Well my run to the store was all worth it. My family cooked big time. We had Ham, turkey, stuffing, rice, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, greens, corn pudding and for dessert there was pumpkin pie, lemon cake, banana pudding and last but not least EGG NOG ICE CREAM! After eating me and all of my family members were extremely full. We all sat around the house and relaxed watching the football games that was on tv. After a while we noticed that we didn’t have a newspaper and that was unlike us, especially unlike my mother and my aunt Victoria because they both loved to shop. We went around the corner to the gas station and they didn’t have a newspaper which was very weird she said that they sold out of newspapers within the first hour of having them. She also said that a lot of gas stations and stores around the neighborhood was out of newspapers and I was in disbelief. We went to almost every gas station around the area and we just gave up. Headed back home so that we could enjoy family time and play games. Overall my thanksgiving was wonderful. I have a lot to be thankful for!

Leadership Conference at UNCC

The Multi-cultural Leadership Conference was taken place in Charlotte, NC held by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The purpose of the conference was for college students to learn about personal identity and diversity. How there are still situations dealing with race, religion, sex and sexual preference. The morning started off with a check-in and a breakfast. We received a tote bag full of information that we would need for the day as well as a shirt, pad and pens. We were welcomed by the vice-chancellor of student activities, diversity and special projects at UNC Charlotte and the president of the diversity council of the Carolinas. They briefly explained to us the reason for them throwing the seminar and that was in hopes for us the future leaders of the country to learn about the problems that we are facing as far as race, sex, and gender preference and what we need to do to fix those problems.

The first session I attended was titled “To Be Black, or Not To Be Black”. The professor Doctor Edwards did a study on African Americans and the perception that others have on the race.  Even though we have an African American as President, racism still exist. He wanted to know why African Americans are fit with specific stereotypes like how the black man is irresponsible and do not care for his woman and kids while, the black female is independent and self-sufficient. He also wanted to know why African Americans are stereotyped with having attitudes. As far as the educated ones who went to college and graduated with degrees he wanted to know why they are considered “sell-outs” among their communities. He did research on the stereotypes and taught us that in order for the world to change the way that we are viewed that we must prove to them that we are greater than the stereotypes.

The second session that I attended was based upon Homosexuality and Religion. The title of the session was “Deeper Underneath It All: Further Integrating Homosexuality and Religion.” I decided to attend this session because this is a subject that I am sensitive about. Being that I am a Christian and was raised in the church. I learned that it will always be a war between homosexuality and Christians, but I feel as though homosexuality is the choice of the individual and they should not be judged. The presenters had some really good points and one point that everyone agreed on was that the ultimate goal was happiness.  That everyone wanted to be happy regardless or their race, religion, sex or sexual preference.

The final session was based on the story of Erin Gruwell from freedom writers. A person that I’ve had the opportunity to meet and her story was very inspiring. We did the “Walk the Line” activity.  It is an activity to prove that everyone can relate and have similar stories. You can look at someone and notice their outer appearance but you never know what they went through in their lifetime and this activity proves how everyone is alike. The activity can be explained like this: everyone in the room walked towards the line whenever they related to a statement that the speaker said. The statements were personal and they went from regular statements like “who lived in the same city their whole life” to more complex statements like “who lived in a neighborhood where prostitution, gang violence and drug problems were located”. For every single statement that the presenter stated, someone moved towards the line.

The Leadership Conference opened my eyes to a lot of the problems that are happening and how society is the cause for the problems. It taught me that something must be done and that it is in the hands of students. That we can start on our own campuses and in our communities.

As A Leader….

As a leader I know that I must develop certain qualities in order to become a better and an efficient leader. While in college I plan to use the resources given to me and stay in a Leadership program. Which allows me to attend seminars that teach me the things that I can do make a change in my community as well as how to get others involved.

As a leader it is my job to serve my community and help strengthen the community as a whole. If the community has a major problem dealing with hunger that when I/leaders should step in and create a project to feed the community.  Not just around the holidays but everyday.

As a leader I must learn how things operate. The cause and effect. Learn when to step up and lead as well as when to step back and follow. I must learn how to reach goals that I have set for myself and not get distracted by the average college life that can quickly drop my status as a leader.

As a leader I plan to use technology, my blog and twitter to reach out to others informing them of the community service that I will be taking part in and how they can get involved. As well as show them that I am not just a social individual online but social on campus and in my community.

As a leader I attend seminars which trains me and guides me to reach my leadership capacity. I have been on a couple of seminars and I can honestly say that each one motivated me to do research and teach others the information that I’ve learned.

At the end of my college career my resume will show things that I have done proving that I am a leader. I need to volunteer more and attend more seminars in order to develop my leadership capacity. I believe that by the time I graduate I will be an affective leader and will be able to say “As a leader I graduated college on the Dean’s list with an outstanding GPA”.

Chanel? Its already a brand name!

I have learned that it is important to have a brand. Every famous name has a brand whether its in the media or clothes, shoes etc. developing a personal brand for yourself or company is mandatory. I have learned that I must develop my personal brand through technology by writing blogs and engaging on twitter. Blogs have given me the opportunity to express my self and write about things that I normally would not. The different prompts have open-ed up my mind and has made me think about the things that I would like to write about. Especially the ones that deal with my future because it is very seldom that I just think about my future and the things that I’ll have to do to get me to where I would like to be. Engaging on twitter has been fun. I’ll admit that some of the things that I tweet about are not meant to be seen by professional figures but twitter has become apart of me. I like the fact that I can just tweet about pretty much everything and connect to my friends instantly. I still have a few question about using social media for example if my account is private how will my future employees view my profiles but hopefully my social life will not affect me negatively but benefit me in the long run.

I will continue to use twitter to connect with friends and others across the world. I’ve learned that I can get a career from social media and for that I will use it in my benefit. I might continue writing blogs as well, something like a diary. I will not write every week but maybe once a month to keep people updated and to express the different stages that I am going through during college showing how I am developing as a leader. My personal brand will show future employees why they should hire me !