My Alarm Clock

    There are only two weeks till the end of my first year in college. Now, I was considering writing about the progress I have made thus far during my college journey, but I’ve changed my mind. Instead, I will be writing about the most effective method for de-stressing while preparing for my finals. That method is cuddling my dog. But why is this method effective for me? Well, let me first start off by introducing my dog, Figgy Pudding. She made a small appearance in my March 25^th blog, but here’s another image of her as a reference...   

 Figgy is a nine-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. She’s very food and attention motivated. Most of the time, to obtain what she wants she will follow everyone around the house whining. Most of the time it’s annoying, but still funny anyways. When she does this though, I use it as a reminder or alarm to take a short break from what I’m doing. While writing my Rational Argument paper I’ve learned that this is a crucial plan to keep from burning out while working and maintain a productive period. 

    Breaks allow me to clear my mind for a bit and open it up to different thoughts and approaches to my writing. During break I also allow my mind to de-stress from the slight mental strain that I experience while writing. Sometimes it is difficult to watch the clock or respond to alarms on my phone. Yet, Figgy is persuasive and persistent which makes for an exigent alarm. So, while you are writing any assignment, be sure to take scheduled breaks and take care of yourself. This method also applies to studying or other time-consuming assignments.

Writer's Block

     This week I’m going to keep it short because if I’m being honest, I’m experiencing the one thing this blog set out to destroy. If it isn’t clear from my blog title that thing is writer’s block. Currently, I have a lot of other writing assignments going on such as an employee manual that I am creating for my work about how to use adobe software. I also have two essays for two of my classes that are both around 4-5 pages. I know that does not seem like a lot, since I’m sure others are currently writing final papers that are more pages. Yet, I tend to suffer from writer’s block pretty easily so I’m not surprised these few assignments have brought me here. 

    One of the writing assignments is for my Writing class, and it is the Rational Argument Paper I’ve discussed in previous blog posts. For a small summary and update though, my paper revolves around the argument that stress is not harmful or dangerous if one changes their mindset about it. Writing the paper has been eye-opening for me, since when I first began writing this paper I actually thought the opposite about stress and thought it is mostly negative instead of beneficial. Yet, I’ve been changing my mindset throughout this paper and have been trying to view stress as positive. This has been useful while writing all these papers I have. 

    My other writing assignment is a five page paper for my Philosophy class in which I need to respond to a philosophers thoughts on a given topic. The topic I choose was love. Since my topic is so broad, I’ve had trouble locating a source written by a philosopher to reply to. There are multiple different types of love and many different approaches to each of them. So, I feel like I’m facing a brick wall right now. As I’ve said in the past, one thing that helps with writer’s block is music. Therefore, my current plan in to listen to my go to song for concentration and doing my best to find a source and write down some thoughts. This may not be a method of solving writer’s block and lack of motivation for others, but for a reference I’m going to attach the song to this post. Anyways, I hope everyone had a good week! Wish me luck!

Maddy's Guide on How To Find A Job

     So, I figured this week I'd write about something relevant to myself that helped to inspire my Rational Argument paper. I know that I wrote about a few of my current stressors last week, but this week I'll talk about something I did not mention last week. That particular topic is about finding a job. For context, I've never had a summer job before other than being a nanny for two young girls. This summer though, since my internship is supposed to only last two months, my parents are demanding that I find a job to help pay for things. Nowadays with people not working as much due to COVID changing the motivation of workers, you'd think that finding a job would be easy. Multiple people are looking for workers to start as soon as possible because they need people. Yet, finding a summer job has proven to be difficult. I'll share why it has proven to be a challenge for myself along with how I am going about finding the perfect summer job. Also, attached to this blog is a video that I've been listening to a lot lately. Within the video are the lines, "used to dream of outer space but now they're laughing at our face saying, 'wake up you need to make money,' yeah." I relate a lot with those words right now, even though I used to listen to this song when I was fourteen. 

    First, I'd like to discuss three major reasons why I do not have a summer job yet. Those three reasons are lacking in experience, personal weaknesses, and no interest. When it comes to hiring a new worker, I've noticed that most jobs are looking for someone who already has experience. Perhaps this is so managers don't have to train someone as much, or so that the completed work has more quality. Whatever reason it is, this really makes me wonder what people are going to go for these jobs considering requiring experience shortens the list of potential candidates by quite a bit and keeps people like me who do not have experience from gaining some. Yet, all I can do as a result of this is try to submit a resume and see if they hire me anyways. 

    Next, in terms of personal weaknesses I'll admit that I am embarrassed by what I'm about to share. For some reason, I developed fears towards being on a phone call with someone along with starting conversations with others. I believe these fears stem from the overall concern that I am going to say something that I might regret or that I will mess up with my words. In my own head, I'm not the best when it comes to speaking to others so I try to avoid it. Yet, two important job skills are working with team members or customers along with answering and using the phone. To lessen these fears, I've tried to step out of my comfort zone and communicate with more people, but for know I'm just going to attempt to find a job that at least doesn't require using a phone to call others. 

    Lastly, I'd like to discuss why some jobs are not appealing to me. When it comes to finding a job, I want to find a job that I will not dread going to or want to quit a few weeks later. I also want a job that requires some skills that I already know. Unfortunately, not many part-time jobs include art, so I'm stuck choosing a random job that sounds within my comfort zone. Indeed has a good system in which it's easy to look up specific job roles, but I still have yet to find a place. So far, I'm thinking about either working at a flower shop or as a hostess if need be. We'll see where I actually end up though, In the meantime, my take away for those who may be looking into jobs as well is to find a place you are comfortable with. Overall, that is the most important factor, in my opinion, that should influence where you apply.

Can't Catch A Break

 

   There are days in which I feel like I am incredible busy, and honestly I've felt that way for a week now. Between getting an internship, taking on multiple projects, and classwork, I feel like I cannot catch a break. Even when I do take small breaks, they aren't calming because the stress of my current projects and tasks still remain. I cannot wait for this next week to be over since by the end of it I should have multiple tasks and projects completed and off my back. Just as one of my favorite song's quotes, "I got to keep on moving." For reference that song is called "Break My Stride" by Matthew Wilder. I'll attach a link to the bottom of this paper for reference. Also, I'll admit I do have this stress to thank for one thing, providing me with an idea for my Rational Argument paper in my Writing class.

    So for our Rational Argument project, we have to write about a chosen topic using mostly logos. As its name states, the goal is to make an argument for a chosen topic using facts and cited academic articles. At first, I'll admit that I had no clue what to write about. I was not sure if there was something I had motivation to currently write about and dig deep into. Plus, I wanted my topic to be something that multiple academic journal articles reference or are about. Having a lot of sources for a topic is helpful for gaining inspiration. In high school, I've written about topics that have very few information and online sources to reference. So, this time I wanted to be a bit more clever about my topic. Thinking deeply into my current problems, I settled on tackling stress. How I wanted to tackle stress though was another problem as stress is a commonly brought up topic that is not specific enough. Upon trying to shrink my topic of stress into a specific question, I figured I'd just argue why it is bad and unavoidable. Yet, as I began to start writing my introduction I wondered if stress is truly bad or if it has some pros.

    That's how I settled on my Rational Argument question of if stress can be good. I also figured that perhaps exploring a new concept would help me to strengthen my paper. If I could convince myself that stress is good, then that's a sign that my paper is effective. Since I now have an idea of what I am talking about, I have begun to plan out my paper along with starting a first page. Due to multiple other commitments I haven't gotten as far as I would've liked to, but this is a start. When it comes to writing and life as a whole, prioritizing is key to completion. The main task of writing is to develop a thesis or an idea, so focusing on building up the thesis should be prioritized and time should be spent towards areas that mainly impact the main idea. The history or the main idea is sometimes important in a paper, but most of the time there shouldn't be too much time used up to make that section stand out. A similar aspect applies to life in which people need to focus on their goals on the tasks that are the most helpful in terms of getting a person to their goals. 

Link to "Break My Stride" (lyrics video) by Matthew Wilder.

The image is a digital drawing of two of my characters braving the rain to symbolize how rainy the weather has been currently, FYI.

Reflection

    It has been a bit of time since I last posted. During the past couple of weeks, I decided to focus on my midterms, and fully enjoy my Spring Break. It is hard to truly relax when deadlines and commitments exist. Once in a while, clearing my mind is useful for keeping me from burning out and becoming overwhelmed. During breaks, I tend to cease drawing and writing to not only allow my hands to receive a break, but to keep myself from obtaining art block or writer's block as well. Of course, if I do have priorities to complete during a break I will get them done before their deadlines. As for this blog, I felt as though it was something I could get back to the week after break. Due to it being the week after the half-way break though, I'm going to take the opportunity to reflect upon my previous blogs. 

   When I was first creating this blog and planning a title for it, I wanted the blog's theme to be apart of all my blogs in some way. The theme I decided to go with was my writer's block, since I realized that this blog would be a great cure for my writer's block. If I'm being honest, being able to write freely in this blog has inspired me to write in my personal journal more often. Anyways, as I was saying, my goal by the end of this semester is to have multiple references to my writer's block sprinkled throughout this blog along with ways I manage it. This goal of mine has been going really well in my opinion, as it has sparked self-conversations and ideas in my posts. I feel that it also creates unison throughout my blog as a whole. This is not the only form of unison I have though, as I have also tried to keep the formatting of my blogs alike along with including similar images.

    Formatting in an important asset in making a piece of writing look consistent and clean throughout. If words are all over the place, the piece of writing becomes difficult to understand. Also, if the paper has paragraphs that do not line up and are placed strongly on the page, it makes a piece of writing uninteresting. Therefore, structure plays a very important role in making a piece of writing eye catching and understandable. I make sure that with all my blogs, paragraphs remain evenly spaced, and there are always three paragraphs in every post due to the reasons I listed previously in this paragraph. Also, I tend to keep my writing lined up to the left of the page so that it lines up neatly with the left side of images. Speaking of pictures, so far I've made sure that ever image posted so far had relevance and is an image taken by me to reduce copyright problems. Those are what I've kept consistent throughout my blog thus far. I'd like to add that I've included the picture of my dog being cute to hopefully give you motivation or inspiration as well to power through the rest of your second semester. 

Midway

 

    Well, it seems I have made it to the middle of my second semester, and what occurs during the middle of the second semester of college? Spring break! I am so glad that I will have a week off, because so far this week has been packed with work. Most of my midterms are projects, so I do not have to study or memorize a lot of information for tests. Yet, they do require lots of time to complete. It also doesn’t help that most of them involve writing, which is what I procrastinate the worst on. Yet, the feeling of a nice long break is offering me a bit of motivation. Plus, the upcoming break is something I can use as writing material for this week’s blog. So, with one week left until break, I will be writing about how I plan on filling my time during the break. 

    When it comes to breaks, the classic way to enjoy them is by going on a vacation with friends or family. Over the years, my family has gone on multiple vacations over spring break, except for when Covid-19 occurred. Now, with my brother coming home from college, my mom did propose the idea of my family spending a night or two in Chicago. If we were to visit Chicago, an item on the bucket list is eating at a Michelin starred restaurant. I'm actually looking online right now trying to debate which restaurant I'd like to try. Looking at these options though, I am laughing over the lack of food that chefs put on each plate. Now, I am sure some of those dish’s taste amazing, but I have no clue what is appealing about small portions. Perhaps they made portions small to allow people to try multiple dishes and to encourage customers to spend more money. The smaller portions do have me wondering if some of the dishes are overpriced though. 

 

    Looking at these dishes more, I wonder how much of an impact art has on the food world. Part of what makes a dining experience enjoyable is the appearance of the food. Looking at pictures, most of these Michelin star dishes have artistic designs due to the way the chefs apply sauces and ingredients, utilize fancy plates, and incorporate other creative touches. Some designs look more appealing and make more sense than others, but I wonder if part of the quality of the food’s taste comes from its unique designs. Perhaps it may be the inclusion of different flavors and spices that allow chefs to be more creative with their unique plating ideas. Diving further into this train of thought, it does seem plausible that some chefs take art classes at some point in their lives or learn about art in some way to help them with plating designs. Since cooking is so closely knit with art, should cooking be considered a type of art or method of expressing creativity? Personally, I’d say yes based on my current thoughts. Anyways, who knows if my family will go on this mini vacation to Chicago over break. What I do know is that I’m excited for break, and I hope everyone who will also be on Spring Break has a good and relaxing week! 

Image source: Photo taken by me a few years ago in San Destin, Florida, which is where my family went the last time we planned a Spring Break vacation.

Amidst the Chaos

  

    It is so difficult to find the proper time and inspiration to write, especially when life gets in the way. When the brain is overflowing with information, one would just assume that it means that one has more topics to write about. Yet, I have found this statement to be far from the truth. Whenever my brain is overflowing with information, there are so many options to choose from to the point where my mind goes blank when I try to focus on just one. I am sure that I am not the only one who experiences this too. So, how can one combat this dilemma? Well, this is what I am going to experiment with now. 
    Currently, the most important topics on my mind are an internship, a potential job, my art quiz, and the philosophy homework I still have yet to complete for today. All those topics are good areas of conversation, as I can go into detail about each one. For this post though, I'm going to try to only focus on one. That one being my art quiz, as I feel it is the topic that is weighing the heaviest on my shoulders. Art is my passion, as I've already discussed in my introduction post, yet when it comes to test or quizzes related to art or any subject I find myself in a bit of a pickle. I've never been good with timed tasks as they increase my levels of anxiety no matter how much time I have. Add a grade to that, along with multiple terms I have to memorize and understand, and you get a panicked Maddy. Whenever I panic, my brain becomes overloading with both information and stress, which results in all my memorized information going out the window. It doesn't help that matter how hard I try to study, some things are just easier for me to remember than others. So, what am I going to do to do better this time?
    First, I have decided to dedicate a specific amount of time to studying. Throughout that time, I will just dedicate my brain to the information I need to soak in. After that, I plan on taking a couple minutes of self-encouragement, followed by a couple minutes of relaxation to give my brain a moment to relax. What I've noticed in the past is that when I go into a test feeling confident, even when I get a bit tripped up I still preform better than when I go in feeling unconfident. I am sure that this method will work for me today, and I always encourage those around me to go into stressful events with confidence as well. Even when trying to write a paper when I have so much information on my mind because easier when I have a bit of confidence going into it.

Image source: Image taken by me while I was shopping with my mother and grandmother last weekend. It represents my mood for this blog so that's why it's the chosen image. Here is a link to the website for the towel as a reference or if anyone wants to buy the towel: https://simplyinspiredgoods.com. I am not being sponsored for this message for everyones information.