Week 6 9/28/12

          In my body conditioning class, I showed everyone my floor barre technique and my teacher loved it. I practiced my dance for the primrose part in Nutcracker and Ms. Kristi helped me with my technique. My teacher continues to help me out because she was a former ballet dancer. There aren't many ballet students in this class so, she is happy to help me out.
          This week in my psychology class, we had to present our vision boards. I didn't get to present because there were so many people.I will present mine on Monday. Because I hope to travel in the future, I put New York and London on my board with clocks representing different time zones of the world. I put dancing pointe shoes on it because I would love to dance wherever I go. On my board I put a driver's license because I hope to drive soon. I'm tired of taking the bus.
          I have an essay to write and I'm not sure what the topic is. I was in my psych class Wednesday but not Monday because I was sick. My teacher was talking about a political paper with traits of presidents saying she explained it on Monday. I raised my hand and said "I wasn't here on Monday so can you explain the paper?" She said, "Well, if you listen and take notes you will know." I heard someone say something like "this is college." and this guy looked at me weird. She didn't ever explain the assignment. I'm going to email my teacher in hopes of getting the information I need to do the essay.

week 5 9/21/12

This week, I'm working on my dream board for my psychology class. It's where we see ourselves in 5 years. Our first formal paper on the personality study of psychologists is due on the 10th of October and I'm going to interview Cory. We have been reading out of the textbook and during the class we go over it, so it is not too exciting. In my body conditioning class we did this workout tape by Mary Helen Bowers called Ballet Beautiful. She trained with New York City Ballet and trained Natalie Portman for her role in Black Swan. It was really rigorous and hard but the outcome of a job well done was the reward.

     Last Friday I went to the Cedars of Marin. It is a program for mentally disabled adults. They do all kinds of activites like art and writing. It has a really happy vibe about it because everyone there is so kind and joyful that their love and happiness spreads to you. I'm excited to teach them dance and movement, but I am not sure when my first day is. I should be hearing from the coordinator about a start date soon.

week 4 9/14/12

This week in my psych class, we reviewed the definitions for chapter 4 and got assigned to read chapter 5. Our first essay is due for our mid-term, It's a paper on what personality psychologists do. I'm going to interview Cory for the paper because that is his profession. We also got assigned to do a dream board. My vision is having New York Times Square as the main layout, with a ballerina dancing on pointe right in the middle. On the left is a view of the world because I want to travel, and on the right down the road is England, where I want to continue my dance career.

        In my body conditioning class Kristi, my teacher, is teaching me how to properly land a phirouette. For the Nutcracker, we got our roles. My role is a magical maiden, in the beginning of act II. A big mouse for the battle scene which is the biggest scene in the show, and a primrose for Waltz of the Flowers. I'm really excited because I get to wear a real red tutu and perform en pointe.

Week 3 9/7/12

This week in Psychology I watched a documentary on the brain. I learned the hard intensive life of a potential Navy Seal. They are faced with tons of psychologically difficult tests, such as how they act in the face of fear, and how they can get themselves out of the most difficult test. one example is being underwater for 20 minutes with only 10 minutes of oxygen. Then the instructor tested them by tangling the oxygen tubes. We also learned about psychopaths with an antisocial personality. Despite the name, these people are social, but have no empathy. They like to cheat people out of anything and have no remorse. One out of 100 people have been diagnosed with this disorder. A type of psychopath is a serial killer and less than 1% of the population. When questioned if they felt remorse, they said no. 300 inmates got tested to see how they deal with failure; most of them had test results where there was no activity in the emotionail part of the brain when they failed. Studies show that the part in our brain that controls our empathy and emotion is normal size for anyone else, but for psychopaths theirs is 17% smaller then normal people, so they are less sympathetic in nature.