Livin' like Laken

This semester, my goal was to start getting more sleep, eat less fast food, and exercise more. I was successful in parts of my goal, but I am still working to reach other parts of this goal. I have been getting more and more sleep throughout the semester. At the beginning of the semester, I was sleeping 5.5-6 hours almost every night, with an exception of the weekends. Now, I am getting 7.5-8 hours on average every night. In order to achieve this, I tried to be more efficient with my homework and studying. At the beginning of the semester, I was doing my homework in bits and pieces, and in between I would eat, hang out with friends or family, watch TV, or find some other way to waste time. Instead of procrastinating and doing a little bit at a time each day, I tried to sit down and work hard for a few hours and get it done without wasting time. By doing this, I got my homework done in a shorter amount of time and still had time to relax or hang out. I kept a sleep log in an excel works

On March 27, I attended 3 presentations at the ETSU Boland Undergraduate Research Symposium which was held at the Millennium Center. Along with 3 friends, I attended the research presentations of Walter Dominic Espejo, Dustin Gilmer, and Sarah Zimmer. All of these students were undergraduate students working on research for their thesis. Each presentation was about 15-20 minutes long, and the students introduced their topic and discussed methods and results of their research. Espejo's research was about developing a carbon quantum dot that targets specifically cancer cells and could be used in the treatment of cancer. They developed carbon quantum dots that have a better compatibility biologically with the body than existing similar carbon dots. Gilmer's research was quantifying the success in research based on funding. Gilmer and those he worked with gathered information on the funding of each department at ETSU and about the research in each department at ETSU and compared th

On April 10, 2018, I attended a presentation at the Creative Writing Festival, which was held in the Reece Museum here at ETSU. The session I attended was the Fiction Writing Workshop with Mark Powell. Powell spoke on fiction writing and how to be a successful fiction writer. One of the points that he made that shocked me was that fiction writers cannot explicitly tell the reader how they should be feeling. The writer can't say "This is very sad." Fiction writers must evoke feelings in the reader by the tone they set in their writing. Writers must allow readers to experience the story as the characters do, so that the readers must figure out their emotions like the characters do. Powell talked about how a writer's real life influences and shows through their fiction works. I guess I had experienced how fiction stories can evoke emotions and get readers attached to the characters, but I had never thought about how writers achieve this connection between reader and stor

I got 34 hours of community service from the SRVL 1020-088 class this semester. The 6 other hours of community service that are required for the PHCSS program came from giving tours on campus this semester. I gave about 10 tours this semester, each lasting anywhere from 1-2 hours. When I volunteer as an Admissions Ambassador, I go to the Welcome Center and wait for the tour group to get done with their introductory talk by Corintha Duncan. Then, I introduce myself to all the tour groups, and I take my specific group on a walking tour of ETSU. We start at the CPA, and make our way down the street, passing many residence halls and class buildings, until we reach the Culp Center. We go inside the Culp Center and then we head towards the library. We also go inside the library. Then, we pass Rogers-Stout Hall, Gilbreath Hall, Brown Hall, and Ball Hall until we reach the Quad. We go inside Sam Wilson Hall at the Quad, and then we make our way back to the Welcome Center. I describe each of th

This semester I was enrolled in SRVL 1020-088, which is Introduction to Service Learning. I took this course as a requirement for the PHCSS program. In this class, everyone was placed at a non-profit agency to volunteer for the whole semester. Everyone was required to complete 30 hours at their agency site, as well as 4 hours at a group service project. There were many agencies that we were allowed to pick from in the tri-cities, and there were 4 or 5 group service projects that we could choose from.  I chose Girls Inc. in Kingsport as my agency placement. Girls Inc. is a non-profit after-school program for girls grades K-12. Girls Inc. has many sites across the nation, and their main goal is to "inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold." Each day at Girls Inc., the girls have a snack and free time to play in the gym or on the playground outside when it is warm. After that, they separate into groups to do different activities. One option is Homework Help, where girls