Meeting Deval Patrick

As fellow Presidential Scholars Angela, Megan, Katelyn and I stood beside President Burton, Governor Deval Patrick, Secretary Ian Bowles, Commissioner Philip Giudice, DCAM Commissioner David Perini, and Representative Ted Speliotis I felt a numbing sensation through my body. It was such a wonderful experience to be introduced to the crowd as Presidential Scholars. Governor Patrick announced Commonwealth Clean Energy Investment Program and Commissioner David Perini introduced and explained the new financing plan that will help the Commonwealth save thousands of dollars in energy costs. The crowd was enthused by the politician's words of reassurance and power as cameras flashed. I was so glad that my mentor was only a few feet away watching at the scholars represented NSCC. After shaking hands and introducing ourselves to Governor Patrick, Angela, Megan, Katelyn, President Burton and I took a picture with the Governor! It was such a great experience! I felt so honored to be a part of the event. As I told Joanne, I was beyond excited and nervous. As we were standing in front of everyone, I could feel myself turning red. My friends said I was not as red as a tomato so I was okay. :) I'm so glad that we were able to meet the Governor and that he spent time with students shaking hands and playing ping pong in the Student Life Lounge. I have never seen such a thing! After all the commotion was over, the girls and I helped clean up the event by putting signs away and keeping people away from the tables that were set up with coffee!

Altogether, it was a lot of fun! I cannot wait for the next event!

The Storm

I hope my professors don’t read this. If they do, im sorry, but I had to relieve myself of school life for one day of snowboarding. That’s because this entire season has been terrible for snow conditions. However this past week the most amazing double hitting storm came our way.

Tuesday brought about predictions of snow and rain for most of the northeast, however as most storms have been going, this one turned to rain as well. Except in the peaks of the White Mountains. Namely mount Washington and its surrounding peaks. By Thursday they had received a foot and a half of snow, excellent conditions for any snow enthusiast. By Thursday I decided it was time to cancel my weekend plans and hit the slopes. I drove up to a friend’s house to spend the night not knowing about the absolute devastation on the way.

As we got psyched (excited) for Friday’s 3ft of snow powder day, the wind started to pick up. Soon enough the power went out. It’s a good thing we had a wood fireplace, otherwise we would have froze.

I woke to a very rainy 5am sky. Trees and branches were everywhere. It was pretty bad, however not nearly bad as what lay in wait for me back home in Gloucesta. We however proceeded unhindered by the rain, lack of power, and tree filled streets. By 8am we arrived to the most epic day of snowboarding at Wildcat Mountain. While everyone else (and that includes northern VT) got rain, Wildcat received 3.5 FEET of snow. To make a long story longer, we had the most amazing day of snowboarding ever. That day was ranked the number one value of the Century. We paid 9 dollars to ski 8 hours in snow above our knees. I got stuck once and couldn’t see my waist. Thirty minutes later I was panting and sweating down the mountain.

Anyways, enough about the awesome time I had while the rest of you poor souls were studying math and whatnot. When I arrived back in Gloucesta I realized how amazing the storm had really been. In my opinion, only a few storms in the past 50 years have done more damage than this one. Outside my house once stood 2 huge (2-3 story) pine trees. They now lay across a nearby parking lot. The same is true for about 100 other trees in the area. All knocked down, roots and all, because of the extreme 85mph winds and supersaturated ground. Then there was the damage my amazing 4star motel received, (which I’ve been fixing ever since) roofing and trees everywhere. At least the vista motel is still intact. That can’t be said one of the motels on the backshore, whose entire roof came off (more business for us). All in all, the storm did some serious damage and left 229,000 residents without power. To bad for them, I had an awesome time snowboarding.

"All men are created equal"

As it is stated in the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal. Of course, women are too but back in those days women were out of luck with that one. Regardless of that fact, we are all created "equal".

What I have never understood about life is how as a human race, we can be so judgmental of one another. Be judge each other by skin color, sexual orientation, race, gender and religious beliefs. Did our founding fathers no say in 1776 that we were all created equal? Sure back then it may of been in a different context but words are words and they mean the same thing. How are be supposed to function in society if we do not take each other for who and what we are? Is it moral to judge each other by appearances and beliefs? Is it moral to judge someone if they prefer the same sex or if their skin is darker than someone elses? With the world the way it is today, economical crumbling, why not come together as one, all biases aside? Why is it so hard to forget the past and move on forward to the future?

In college I have seen change. I have seen myself and others around me grow into mature, intellectual, passionate people. What if one day we could change the world as students and try to take away the biases that still linger in our country today?

We are all created equal. No one human is greater than another. I believe that as students, if we work together, we can create a world full of freedom and pride of who we are and what we should be able to accomplish as a country and growing society. We have the power to transform ourselves and other around us into more accepting group of individuals. Why not start to make the change now while we are still young and still growing?

Forgetfulness

I'll be honest, I totally forgot that I had to write a blog until my mom reminded me the night before it was due. I was getting ready to fall asleep when my mom yelled, "your blog is due tomorrow!" Well thanks for telling me now when I'm in bed and I was walking around all night trying to figure put what I could do with my time before I go to bed. But it is my responsibility, sometimes I just forget. If I don't have the important thing written down on something that I check all the time then I'll probably forget about it, unless it's like a big test or 10 page paper that I'd be insane to forget about. Those things I can't seem to forget, not that I try or anything.

My parents use to say I forget because I want to forget, or I just don't care about things like school or chores. Then I would reply, no sometimes I just forget, doesn't everyone forget something sometimes? And they would reply with the familiar state that if it was a song, or artist that I really liked I would remember it, and make sure I didn't forget it. Which is half true. I'm not the type that needs to know everything about an artist to the point where it's considered stalking but if I'm curious about something I'll look it up and I'll usually will remember it because I made an effort to look it up. And with songs more often then not they just stick in my brain, whether I want them to or not.

Like I'll hear a song once and then I'll hear it again, and I'll be able to sing a few words and hum the chorus, which will lead my parents to think I've heard the song 50 times, then I'll tell them I only heard it once. They usually don't believe me. It's not like I want to forget the important things I have to do, it's just that I temd to remember the things that I like and in the hustle and bustle of life the things that I don't nessesarily like are pushed to the back of my mind, they're probably there I just don't think about them. Some people have the problem of procrastinating, I have no problem with that. I map out my schedule in my mind and figure out when I can get my work done. I do have the problem of forgetting until the last minute and then making it seem like I'm procrastinating but I really just forgot. I just have to rember to write everything down in a place that I always look, or write the important things down in multiple places and where I would least expect it and then be surprised and reminded at the same time! I think it all comes down to prioritizing, and once I get all my priorities straight, I'll have no problem remembering important things.

How to be thankful

I want everyone to try something that I tried earlier today. I was talking to a close friend of mine who I have met here at NSCC and she told me to do something to help me grasp hold onto my life. (Mind you, she is the most comedic person I have ever met and it was hard for me to take her seriously).

She told me: "I want you to step out of your body (not literately) and look at your life as an outsider. Look at your life in it's entirety and you will notice a few things. You will see things in a different perspective. Things are not always as they seem to be and sometimes you have to listen to the person whose on the outside looking in. You do not notice your mistakes, you do not think you are doing certain things wrong and you do not always see how your life can impact another's." Needless to say, she was right. (As always).

While I looked from what she referred to as the "outside" I noticed that I should be more thankful for my life. I saw some mistakes I had been making and realized that I need to make more of an effort to get things in order. I also saw the beauty in some of the things I have done and people I have chose to share my life with. I am incredibly thankful for what and who I have in my life at this moment in time. I am thankful for the opportunities that have come to me. I took so many things for granted and I took myself for granted.

For awhile I did not see what my life truly consisted of. I am considerably lucky for the life I have. In order to become truly thankful for what you have, you have to look at your life from the outside. From the inside, you see the black and white details and but do not always see the color of your life. It is color in your life that blocks out the gray, shady areas that may make your life seem dim. So take a step back, become thankful, and see the colors of your life.