Motivation

Once again, it is that time in the semester when most students are struggling to keep up with end-of-term papers, presentations, and projects. With deadlines quickly approaching and work piling up, self motivation becomes a life saving skill.

As a senior, I have been reflecting more on my schooling and I now realize that one of the most important things I learned was how to motivate myself. This is a subject that most classes and teachers rarely discuss, but it is something that every student is expected to know. To truly learn , you must become actively engaged and personally involved with the subject. This can sometimes be difficult even with the most interesting of subjects. School is a full time commitment, but life can sometimes be hectic and keep you from being fully engaged in your schoolwork. It is times like this when knowing how to motivate yourself can make the difference between success and failure.

I began to develop this skill during my transition from high school to college. In high school, I kept myself motivated enough to get through my classes, but I was never able to become fully engaged with what I was learning. When I graduated high school, I looked forward to college knowing that I would be able to study what I was interested in. What I did not consider is that motivation and engagement do not simply appear just because you are interested in something.

I remember being excited about the material and assignments during my first year of school, but also experiencing that first disconnect between being interested in a subject and being willing to become fully engaged with it. Many of the assignments I did that first year did not end up being up to par with what I envisioned because, with everything going on in my life, I found it difficult to stay as dedicated to my studies as I would have liked.

After my first year, I decided to move to Manchester rather than commute. This decision was partly based on the thought that always having the school at a close proximity would allow me to work when I felt most motivated rather than when I was scheduled to attend class. This helped break the divide between my education and my personal life and allowed me to become more personally engaged with my schoolwork. Once I made that connection, I found that identifying the more personal meaning of my classes gave me the motivation to stay focused. Throughout the next couple years, I maintained that way of thinking so that the assignments and other challenges of school allowed me to get the most out of my classes and to develop the skill of self motivating.

Although I feel like I have developed these skills substantially over the last few years, it can still be difficult to find ways to get motivated sometimes. Even now there is a growing to-do list set next to me with things I had hoped to get done last weekend. However, I now know how to get all of these things done while staying engaged and dedicated to learning.

Men Who Stare At Goats

Men Who Stare At Goats tells the story of a group of "psychic soldiers" and their lives as part of a secret, ongoing military experiment. The story begins with Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a down-on-his-luck news reporter traveling to Iraq in the wake of a failed relationship. Along the way, Wilton inadvertently finds Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney) and the two set out together upon Cassidy revealing himself as an ex-psychic soldier. As they travel to Iraq, you learn the truth behind the secret military project and encounter some of Cassidy's fellow psyichic warriors (Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey).

Set in present day Iraq, this movie incoorperates many real aspects of American history and blends it with with the fictional history of a psychic division of the military to create a great setting for the story to unfold. Although the movie is shown mostly through the eyes of Wilton/McGregor, it is George Clooney's character that really stands out in this movie. Lyn Cassidy's "psychic cowboy" character comes across as genuine and familiar and he moves the story forward by revealing new clues about the past and future. As interesting and developed as the concept is and despite how strong the plot starts off, the movie is somewhat spoiled by weak plot and characters at the ending. Overall, the movie was a good watch, but could have been great with a more developed ending.

Not related to Media Writing but...

...Same-sex marriage was voted down by popular vote in Maine yesterday. I think it is appalling that we are even debating whether or not to give all of our citizens equal rights. Thanks homophobic America.

Stephen King On Writing

I have found On Writing to help me look at writing in a way that I hadn't quite defined before. King approaches writing almost as writing music or creating any other form of art. Also, he points out some writing strategies that I think helped my identify the problems with my own writing, for example, the section on using the passive voice or his multiple warnings about adverbs. I also loved his comparison of writing to telepathy. These are all fresh views of writing I had not deeply considered before. I think it is helpful that he uses examples to demonstrate how the techniques he describes really do improve writing. The most important section for me was his description of the "toolbox". This is an interesting concept and "knowing what tools to use" is something I will consider in the future when I write

Brown Bear Cafe

The Brown Bear Cafe is located in downtown Manchester and serves food made only with organic, vegan, and locally grown ingredients. As well as serving meals, there are baked goods, local produce and household products available. The Brown Bear also has a large selection of books including a section of local, independently published authors.

The Brown Bear has regular events scheduled including a daily "Open Mic Hour" where acoustic musicians, writers, and speakers can come and present their work. On the weekends, there are live bands, script and slam poetry readings, and "Game Night", where every Sunday people show up with their favorite board or card game and compete against others.

We hope to see you soon!

Hang Your Hat Microfiction

Painting: "Hang Your Head" by Lisa Rae Winant

He could feel the intense heat of the mid afternoon sun beating against his face on the open water. Deciding it was unwise to be at sea in such heat, he followed the rhythmic sound and sway of the ocean waves back to the shore. He felt the sand crunch beneath him as he rode the small, aluminum boat up on to the beach. Grabbing the few fish he had caught, he made his way up the beach towards his home. Although common in most places, the structure stuck out against the otherwise flat landscape. It reminded him of his old home back at the maquiladora, before the earthquake and the famine. He smiled thinking about the long journeys back and forth to the town with a boat full of wood and building supplies. He could not remember the last time he had gone back to the town and couldn’t even recall the last time he had seen other people, besides the occasional fishing vessel that would drift through. He was grateful for this; he chose this spot for this reason. He no longer wanted to be part of society. He no longer had any family, and certainly no friends, and had grown bitter and resentful towards the “development” he had seen in the town of his birth. He looked out at the ocean and thought about the stream that used to run from the maquiladora through the town: thick, green and flowing with rancid garbage. “You don’t need money and you don’t need society” He thought. “You only need a place to hang your hat”.

Understanding What You Eat

In the past six years, I have experienced much eye-opening turbulence in one of my closest and dearest relationships: My relationship with food. Over this period of transformation, I have gone from being a satisfied, care-free omnivore to an ingredient obsessed, organic loving vegan.

It’s hard to say when the change began. As a kid I was an extremely picky eater and an animal lover, so maybe it is partly in my blood. However, I can remember a point in my life when my food and I started to get a little uncomfortable. When I was sixteen I got my first job cooking food at a local restaurant. I figured there are sixteen year old Americans everywhere that flip burgers, how bad could it be? I soon found out it is a much dirtier job than it appears. Every day I cooked pounds upon pounds of meat, often coming home with clothes caked with grease and blood. At first this didn’t bother me; it was nothing some soap could not get out. However, the longer I worked there, the more I realized the raw meat on the grill in front of me was part of something once living. This became an increasingly disturbing thought as day after day I cooked and distributed what I now identified as once living flesh.

Eventually I left that job, but I continued to think about my food differently. I still ate meat, but I began to find myself hesitant and sometimes cringing in front of a once delicious meal. I began researching information about the meat industry and I was stunned at what I found. I forget how many billions of animals were consumed in the United States that year, but it was enough for me to make the decision to stop eating meat. This was a major change in the way I decided what I ate.

During my first year as a vegetarian, I found that the difficult part is not abstaining from meat, but redefining your relationship with food and deciding what it is that you DO want to eat. I never realized the amount of complex questions that arise from our food. What are the differences between GMO and organic foods? Does location matter when importing food? Are there non-meat foods out there that still cause suffering and death? How can one find adequate nutrition in an alternative diet? All of these were brand new questions I suddenly had to face.

Today I feel healthier and more at peace with my food decisions, but the point of this blog is not to ramble on about the history of my dietary choices (although perhaps I have). When I started working in that kitchen, it was the first time in my life that I caught a glimpse of the reality of food beyond what it looked like on a plate, and that really changed my understanding of food. My shift in diet did not mean I changed my morals or beliefs; it was about seriously taking into account this new information and applying it to what I already believed. So I would urge the readers of this blog to take some time to learn about the food you eat, where it comes from, and how that applies to the beliefs you already hold.