Blog Assignment 1
About me
My name is Laura and I currently attend the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. In a perfect world my final destination would be as a third grade teacher in a public school. I believe I have always wanted to be a teacher. My mother, who taught in the Mobile public school system for 25 years, is my inspiration. My own third grade teacher, Mrs. Houston was also very influential. In a comfortable pleasant atmosphere of her classroom she created a desire in me to learn, experiment, and simply try very, very hard. Third grade was pivotal for me. It was a year of firsts: long division without remainders, cursive writing, new science and history facts, and the year I learned I needed glasses. These two women were not simply teachers to their students. They were confidants, energetic cheerleaders, and miracle workers. One day I too hope to be that same type of educator. While substituting in New Jersey I was given the nickname “Your Highness.” This was particularly amusing since my mother was called “The Great One” for many years by her students. Trust me, she really was an amazingly great educator.
I was born and spent half my life here in Mobile, Alabama. Then I lived in Wheeling, West Virginia for twelve years, Houston, Texas for two years, and most recently in Toms River, New Jersey for ten years. I moved back home almost two years ago and restarted my college education Spring 2011. This May my oldest daughter is getting married and next year my second daughter graduates from Auburn University in Early Childhood Education. For now I have the privilege to go to the same college as my youngest daughter, a business major. Time has flown by and I find it hard to believe I am old enough to have such accomplished and wonderful daughters! I have a super mellow cat named Nermal and a wacky dog named Phoebe. I have taught Phoebe many interesting tricks, but Nermal refuses all attempts to be trained. When they are especially amusing I send their pictures to facebook so my daughters won't have to miss them too much. I love animals and have always had some type of furry friend.
I am hooked on listening to audio books in the car. Now any drive longer than a few minutes is time well spent. Mystery, intrigue, and spy novels are tops on my list right now. I particularly enjoy a long day of geocaching once in a while. Geocaching, in a nutshell, is the employment of multi-million dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods. My main source of entertainment where I grew up in Cottage Hill was the woods across the street and I spent a lot of time walking, climbing in and swinging from trees, and fort building with my brothers and friends in those woods. Knollwood Hospital now stands in the middle of my old playground. So geocaching is a great activity for me. Currently I have two caches active in Mobile: the super easy “Rock on P&K” and the large sized “Rock A Bye”. This proves one is never too old to enjoy a good game of hide and seek.
I also enjoy making jewelry out of glass, silver, and crystal beads. Deciding on a single color scheme has proven to be too limiting so most of my pieces are a jumble of colors and textures. Bright colors make me happy and energized. If I had more free time I would dust off my sewing machine and whip up a few skirts, shorts, and tops, or start a new cross stich project. If any of my activities could be worked on from a chair on a remote stretch of beach then my casual life would be close to perfect! But for now I have a lot of learning to do in and out of the classroom. I am more dedicated and driven this time around. I want to be the same successful mentor that my mother and Mrs. Houston were to me.

Randy Pausch’s Time Management

Dr. Randy Pausch’s video Time Management goes far beyond common sense. He explains why managing your time makes sense and drives his point home by using his illness as the perfect example. It’s unfortunate how much stress I cause for myself simply by not managing my time more wisely. Last semester was my big eye opener and also my third semester back in school. By not setting clear hourly and weekly plans I slowly but effectively lost control over my ability to sleep enough, eat wisely, and exercise at all. Luckily my health was not adversely affected but I was highly stressed and miserable for over half the semester. That stress leached into my home life frequently causing too many misunderstandings and unpleasant moments. Even after grades were posted I had to admit that the stress I caused did not outweigh the 4.0 I earned in the end. I am currently making better more realistic plans and sticking to them as best I can. I appreciate the point he made about spending time creating a workable schedule saves time if not creates time down the road. Because once an opportunity has passed it quite possibly is gone forever.
I worked in lower management at a big box retail store for eight years. Learning to delegate chores, creating a plan of attack, challenging upward, and procrastination were huge hurdles for me to constantly face. To do lists were great but not effective if not ranked by importance. Unfortunately that fact was not made clear to me until now. I spent a lot of time working harder not smarter and I see that a little more clearly now. The four-quadrant to do chart was inspiring. This week I plan to re-evaluate not just by timeframe but by importance. Dr. Pausch suggests killing the television. For me that is the easy part. Killing more of the distractions will become a higher priority now. For starters I can’t imagine the time saved by not obsessively cruising Pinterest, Facebook, texting, and cruising the MSN homepage from top to bottom several times a day.
Tackle the big, difficult, ugly job first! Wise words and important ones, too. Too often I look for smaller tasks to complete while dreading one or two really difficult ones. Dr. Pausch states that the ugly thing should be first to be completed so the rest will seem much easier. If only I had practiced that last semester. While I can’t get that time back I now am a little better informed early on in this semester to make a positive and successful impact. It’s so true that we cannot find time but must make time and then use that time creatively and wisely. I definitely have a fair amount of strategizing in my immediate future.