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Post by Birdgirl90 on May 20, 2010 10:14:26 GMT -5
After giving it some thought, I have finally decided to do a blog on here, and I wanted it to be something different than my real blog. So I have decided that this is going to be a survival guide for life.
So first an introduction, because all great books and stories and blogs have them.
My name is actually Meaghan, I am a Colorado transplant originally from the midwest, and I have lived here with my family for about five years now. I attend the local community college and live at home with my parents, paying my own tuition and trying to keep my head above the water. In my free time, I write, do improv comedy, and read.
Why do I feel I can offer advice?
Because.
Now let's get this show on the road, shall we?
Community College Advice #1. Never Eat the Cafeteria Food
I don't know how cafeteria food is in a four year school, or how it is in a typical high school (I was homeschooled all the way through), but I can tell you this - the food at my school sucks.
I mean, I've even gone across the parking lot to the gas station and had better food than that which I pay an arm and a leg for at the school. I know they try. But seriously. Get a freaking salad bar already!
I think what turns me off so much about the cafeteria food is that everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, is covered in grease. Even the stuff you wouldn't expect to be covered. I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich there, and the thing was dripping! I mean, who puts grease on grilled chicken?
And you have to pay through the nose for it too! I don't know how many times I've decided to walk over to McDonald's because I could get more food for less money than the cafeteria. The cafeteria makes you pay for the convience of being in the building, and it is not right at all.
Now, I will give them credit. The egg rolls there are delicious. You still pay through the nose for them (I think a veggie egg roll was like $1.50, and a chicken was $2.00), but they are at least good. I think they are probably the only decent thing in the cafeteria, to be honest.
Well, the potatoes are ok. But anything else is a gag pit.
So my advice? Don't eat the cafeteria food, unless you get an egg roll or potato. Otherwise, either bring your own lunch or go to one of the area places. I don't know how it is across the board, but the food places around my school actually have specials for students - show them your id, and you get a discount. And it does save you a little money.
Until next time, ~birdgirl90
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Post by Birdgirl90 on May 20, 2010 16:44:50 GMT -5
Creative Writing Advice #1. Always Save and Date Everything You Write, Even If You Think It's Crap
This is one of those things that took me forever to learn, but I was very happy once I did.
The trick with writing is to basically write all the time and then save everything you write. A lot of the time, people will throw out blurbs they do because they think it's crap, or they think it's too short, or they think it's insignificant.
This is not the case.
Save everything, even if it's something you wrote on a napkin or a post it note. And whenever possible, date it with the day you wrote it. This is a really good thing to do for multiple reasons.
The first reason you want to do this is because a lot of the time, the "crap" part of writing actually turns out to be fairly good. I don't know how many times I've been trying to break a spell of writer's block and have gone back through my previous stuff, only to find that the paragraph I wrote last year turns out to be the perfect prompt to get me writing again. Or how many times I've gone back, found stuff that is good for a rough copy, and been able to make it great through tweaking. Always keep the "crap". Always.
Another reason to keep and date everything is so that you can go back and see how much your writing has improved over time. This can be very encouraging when you are having one of those days where you feel terrible about your writing skill. By going back and seeing what you have written a year or more back, it can give you the confidence boost you need to keep writing.
You will always keep growing as a writer, and it's good to keep that on file somewhere.
And that's my advice for the day.
~birdgirl90
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Post by Captain Hygiene on May 20, 2010 17:32:31 GMT -5
Ha, you went the same route as me from schooling at home to community college, although I never left the midwest. That school's food was reasonably edible, though, but not anything more than that, so I typically brought my own lunches. Good times.
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Post by Birdgirl90 on May 20, 2010 17:38:59 GMT -5
Yeah, I've been there a year, and I've started bringing my own food. I mean, you can only eat McDonald's so much... How did you like homeschooling? What did you do after community?
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Post by afriendlychicken on May 20, 2010 18:03:53 GMT -5
May 20th, 2010. Just read Meaghan's blog and it had nice advice. Why do they put grease on a grilled chicken sandwich? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of grilling instead of frying? I never ate cafeteria food through my entire education. I ate Lipton noodle soup in elementary school and just skipped lunch in middle and high school. I've never been to college, but the lunches sound the same. I also put a date on everything, but it could be because I have bi-polar. I have a need to know. - afriendlychicken Nice blog Birdgirl90. One of these days I'll share my name too. Only a few know...bwahahaha. ;D
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Post by Birdgirl90 on May 20, 2010 18:11:05 GMT -5
May 20th, 2010. I am proud of afriendlychicken for dating his response to my blog entry. It makes me feel like I have done my job for the day. I plan on writing again tomorrow. You guys are awesome. ~birdgirl90
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Post by Captain Hygiene on May 20, 2010 18:17:50 GMT -5
How did you like homeschooling? What did you do after community? You know, it had benefits and drawbacks. I liked the one-on-one attention, and both my parents had degrees in engineering, so I think I got a strong grounding in the sciences. On the other hand, I think my education was less broad in some other areas than it could have been, and I had a smaller group of friends than I might have had otherwise (although we did take part in group learning with a network of homeschooled families). I went to the community college to get my core classes out of the way for an affordable price, and the Associate's degree I got made it much easier to transfer in to a four year school. I transferred to a university for my junior and senior years as an undergrad, and after that point was able to transition into grad school without any trouble. The big drawback to community college was that I had to cram in my major's classes once I transferred to the university. It was doable, and certainly more affordable, but I could have used a bit more grounding in the material, which I would have gotten had I started there in the first place.
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Post by ilmatto on May 20, 2010 23:29:07 GMT -5
Creative Writing Advice #1. Always Save and Date Everything You Write, Even If You Think It's Crap 05/21/2010 Yes that's good advice; there are times that I wish I had projects that I had written 15 years ago or so. Also maintaining electronic files; everytime I change from one PC to another, numerous times over the years, I have to make a concerted effort to get all of the files together for transfer to a new machine. These days I use one of those 500GB external hard drives but it wasn't always that easy. And you have to be careful about future readability of external media; I had to go through several ancient 3.5" disks recently using an old external drive to find and archive files. And who knows about the longevity of some older writable CDs, zip disks, those old backup tapes - it's a problem.
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Post by Birdgirl90 on May 21, 2010 16:47:35 GMT -5
Community College Advice #2. Don't Believe Everything the University Recruiters On Campus Tell You As Set In Stone
Alright, this is something I have been stewing on for a few weeks now. Here's what happened to me:
The week before finals for last semester, a recruiter for a four year institution I was considering transfering to after graduation was camped in the hall outside my biology class. Because she were there and I had time to spare before class, I decided to talk to her, just to get a feel for how things would transfer when the time came and what not.
What I got told was to not bother getting my Associates degree, because it wouldn't transfer, and I would have to retake everything, because most of the classes offered at my two year school didn't fit the criteria needed. Talk about a blow.
I had everything figured out - I was going to graduate with my Associates, transfer to a four year school to get a primary teaching degree, and then possibly work on a masters degree in education. Or something along those lines. So being told my Associates was going to turn out to be a waste of time kind of shocked me.
Smiling on the outside even though I was completely confused on the inside, I took the lady's card and information packets, and went to class.
Two flippin weeks later, it was still bothering me. Why would an Associates not be good enough? I started rethinking my plans, trying to figure out if I could even afford to transfer to a four year school in the fall, or if I even wanted to. My parents, seeing my distress and sensing that things were eating me, finally had a talk with me. And what ensued made complete sense, as my dad hit it on the nose: the idea of a two year degree not transfering was, and is, complete bullsh*t.
Which the more I think about, the more I think he's right. They are going to tear my credits apart anyway, trying to find the ones they want. If I am going to put that much effort into something, I might as well get a piece of paper that no one can take from me and that I can hang on the wall to prove that I put in the effort.
So here's my advice: don't talk to recruiters until you are ready to transfer or graduate. It's ok to go over to their tables and to pick up information, but don't stress out over it until you are ready to set the ball in motion. Otherwise, it will just make you doubt why you are going to school in the first place.
I'm sure there are exceptions to this, of course, because there always are. But for the majority, go ahead and get the degree. And if a school won't except it, they probably aren't worth going to after all.
~birdgirl90
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Post by Captain Hygiene on May 21, 2010 17:11:39 GMT -5
I only talked to community college recruiters/advisers just enough to get in and get course approval, I'm much more of a hands-on guy in figuring out which classes I needed. It was really only after I got into a smaller, closer knit department of a four-year school that I really felt helped by the staff. Like I said earlier, the Associate's really smoothed the transition process to my junior and senior years. I was able to transfer the program, and get a ton of lower-level requirements waived, specifically because I was transferring in with a degree. I wouldn't have been able to get the Bachelor's in two years if I had transferred the same classes in without a degree. That was Valparaiso University, for what it's worth, other universities will vary.
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Post by Birdgirl90 on May 21, 2010 17:39:02 GMT -5
I only talked to community college recruiters/advisers just enough to get in and get course approval, I'm much more of a hands-on guy in figuring out which classes I needed. It was really only after I got into a smaller, closer knit department of a four-year school that I really felt helped by the staff. Like I said earlier, the Associate's really smoothed the transition process to my junior and senior years. I was able to transfer the program, and get a ton of lower-level requirements waived, specifically because I was transferring in with a degree. I wouldn't have been able to get the Bachelor's in two years if I had transferred the same classes in without a degree. That was Valparaiso University, for what it's worth, other universities will vary. This makes me feel so much better about it, you have no idea. Thank you.
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Post by Birdgirl90 on May 22, 2010 15:02:27 GMT -5
General Advice for Life as a Whole #1. Never Keep Your Mouth Open When Riding Your Bicycle
Because it can have really uncomfortable outcomes if you don't follow this.
I went out with my family on Thursday to a paved trail that we hadn't really poked around before. My sister and I brought our bikes, and my parents walked, and it was really quite nice. The path went between these beautiful lakes and we were by part of the South Platt river, and it was almost as if the sky and water were touching as the sun started to go down.
As I said, it was gorgeous.
But there was only one problem: my allergies had clogged my nose and I ended up breathing through my mouth.
Let me share an equation with you:
May + Nice Weather + Large Bodies of Sitting Water = a TON of Mosquitoes and Other Insects.
I think you can probably tell where this is going, but I feel the need today to go into detail, so I'm going to tell you anyway.
So there we were, my sister and I being complete speed demons on our bikes, enjoying the weather, the location, the wind in our hair, when I felt something enter my mouth. And it didn't just enter, it pretty much slammed against my teeth and the roof of my mouth, leaving enough grittiness in there that I completely and totally freaked.
I spit it out, not even bothering to take the time to stop my bike, not caring what the older woman who saw me do it thought. I needed it out. Once it was gone, I could still feel it in my mouth, although I am pretty sure it was just my overactive imagination at that point.
I don't know for sure what it was, but I am almost positve it was a mosquito. I also later found out that my sister also thought she may have swallowed a bug, even though she wasn't entirely sure, which triggered more creepy crawly feelings in me for the rest of the night.
So the advice is as goes: when you are biking at fast velocities, always breathe through your nose. If you are allergy prone, bring a package of tissues along so you can keep your nose clear. Otherwise, you may injest some extra protein and calcium that you were not intending to.
~BirdGirl90
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Post by afriendlychicken on May 22, 2010 16:47:12 GMT -5
May 22nd, 2010
Did it have a sour aftertaste? If yes, it was definitely a mosquito.
Words too live by! I've swallowed so many bugs while riding a bike it's ridiculous. And, I also have allergies which are seasonal: Winter, Spring, Summer AND Fall.
Note to self: don't live in the rainiest place in America when you are allergic too mold.
I love your presentation of this. Looking forward to your next one.
- afriendlychicken
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Post by Birdgirl90 on May 22, 2010 17:43:21 GMT -5
Thank you! Yeah, it did... ew.
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Post by Skyroniter on May 22, 2010 20:28:41 GMT -5
Nice blog. You do improv comedy? Like in front of real people, not just a mirror? That takes nerve.
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