Parkview #2 1/24/09

[As transcripted from my journal]

1/24/09 12:40pm

"Yesterday, Friday, I went to Parkview for the 2nd official time. Brandon was sick and couldn't make it. I had a short moment where I wanted to take the easy way out and just not go. It would save me the trouble of catching MITS buses and walking in the cold, I thought. I had to work from 10-1pm and after I ate at home I came back to campus at 2:15 to get some things done first (turn in course-add registration form and drop off keys to room mate). Activities time starts at 2:30pm and it was almost that time already. I also had several things that I could start on like the AT&T Challenge for CICS and mixing songs I would like to have done soon. I thought back to my freshman year in high school for a split second and remembered my hardcore tennis coach Mischler and how he said to 'stick to the path' & 'no shortcuts' & 'shoulda, coulda, woulda' (although his 'stick to the path' was literal, he would yell at us if we didn't stay on side walks to cut through grass to get some where quicker).

1st Official Parkview Nursing Home visit (1/16/09 )

[As transcripted from my journal]

1:15-2:45pm

"After several trips to Parkview Nursing Home here in Muncie IN last year (month or 2 ago), we had our first time with the residents today. I made up 1.5 hrs of work in the Nursing LRC from 9:30-11am and then I worked out until ~ 12:15pm. I caught the MITS bus and met a friend, Brandon, at the main station downtown. We hopped on the 1:00pm bus and arrived at Parkview about 10-15 minutes later.

Parkview Nursing Home

What's going on with this?
When our group got back from LT this summer, one person (Brandon) talked to me about an idea he wanted to run with. He feels like there are mainly two groups of people that don't receive enough attention or get pushed aside: children and the elderly.

This vision was to visit a local nursing home every week to let them know people care about them and that they are not forgotten. We would talk to them and listen to their stories and our own as well.

Projects

Here is a brief rundown on the current projects I am working on:

602 - Human Communications - practical communications in a seminar setting

• I wouldn't consider this a project, but I am working on my Theory of Human Communications for my mid-term exam during week 10 (currently in week 7).

630 - Research Methods

1. IBM's Symphony System620

• Design and conduct a research study of IBM's Symphony System in comparison with Microsoft's Office System. We will examine:

Week 6

Somehow it turned into week 6 already. Whew. I really need to push myself to shoot for at least posting once a week, since that is the idea of a blog, to consistently journal over time.

Over the past month, I would say I have learned more about human factors and business than I have since April 4, 1985. The way teachers conduct the class differs greatly from professor to professor. One professor conducts our meeting time as a seminar and it is ran nothing like a normal undergrad class by any means. Another prof runs it similarly to most undergrad classes I have taken. He has many stories and experiences he lectures on. Most of my other teachers fall somewhere in this range.

Week 2

Well, as you can see I haven't posted for a while. I think since my last post I have written several papers, read 300-400 pages, and have tried to figure out what exactly it is that I am supposed to be doing since there is a lot of confussion amonst my collegues as to what exactly we are supposed to be doing. I've pulled some late nighers staying up until 2:30 or 3:30am while I am still kinda sick. I would like to post several times a week but I have not been able to even think about posting and spend time doing it until now. I feel that I have been eating, breathing and sleeping CICS classes, homework and my graduate assistant ship (GA) in the Nursing lab for IT. I have had a few down times on the weekend to spend more time with friends and have down time but I don't really get that at all throughout the week.