Today my son Logan was born. Another perfect baby with all his fingers and toes accounted for. He is so sweet, tiny, and cute. Thankfully we didn't have any complications with the birth and not too much to worry about with my wife's recovery after the labor. Unfortunately, I don't have the same amount of time to dedicate to loving on Logan as I did when my son Garrison was born, because I have so much time I must invest in my classes this semester.
This week, because of President's Day, we did not have class as usual. However, the homework still continues. One thing I have learned is that I crave structure to my writing assignments. The assignments that I have done better with provided a specific scenario to write for. The paper that I dread is also the one that needs to be finalized by Tuesday. I asked the folks in my group if there was a topic to concentrate on, but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to come up with something creative instead.
In the meantime, I'll just have to keep working on my accounting, finance, and business law classes. Well,...when I can pull myself away from my new baby boy.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Fleshing out the skeleton
This week in class we discussed how to improve our writing. Three groups of the class presented a chapter that was assigned to them which covered these three topics: planning and outlining messages, composing written messages, and enhancing visual appeal.
The chapter that covered planning and outlining messages went over deciding what the purpose of the message is, figuring out who the audience is, and creating the best way to organize one's thoughts so the message will be effectively compelling and easily understood. Although I vaguely remembered covering outlining in high school, reading about outlining was an excellent reminder of its importance and not just busy work that one's teachers assign. Usually I imagine my thoughts to be fairly organized, but with things as chaotic and busy as they are, outlining is a definitely a good idea for me to do, especially with the new assignments due in a week and a half from now.
Once the basic skeletal structure is in place, fleshing out the message is the next task. For me the most important part to keep in mind was keeping an agenda as part of the message. Even a simple sentence that introduces the topic is recommended except, of course, for really short messages. (I think that's why I am practicing on this blog posting with one.) The chapter mentions having an OABC structure (opening, agenda, body, and closing) as being quite effective.
The easiest chapter for me to read and thankfully the chapter our group was assigned to present was about enhancing the visual appeal of a document. The chapter was focused on the acronym HATS which is a way to remember to look at headers, art, typography, and spacing to improve the invite-ability to read the document. My portion to cover was on spacing - very easy and very important. Spacing allows the document to breath like a clean air filter in a car allows the engine to function more efficiently.
Our group did pretty well presenting our information. Other groups clearly had more time to work together on their presentations and it showed. One thing our group may have to work on is economizing our time. Although we don't have much time to get together to finalize things, we may need to initially coordinate a theme, individually work on our assigned portion, and finally put it all together using Google Docs or some other miracle of modern technology.
In the meantime I'll be practicing on the blog posts and personal assignments to improve my writing.
The chapter that covered planning and outlining messages went over deciding what the purpose of the message is, figuring out who the audience is, and creating the best way to organize one's thoughts so the message will be effectively compelling and easily understood. Although I vaguely remembered covering outlining in high school, reading about outlining was an excellent reminder of its importance and not just busy work that one's teachers assign. Usually I imagine my thoughts to be fairly organized, but with things as chaotic and busy as they are, outlining is a definitely a good idea for me to do, especially with the new assignments due in a week and a half from now.
Once the basic skeletal structure is in place, fleshing out the message is the next task. For me the most important part to keep in mind was keeping an agenda as part of the message. Even a simple sentence that introduces the topic is recommended except, of course, for really short messages. (I think that's why I am practicing on this blog posting with one.) The chapter mentions having an OABC structure (opening, agenda, body, and closing) as being quite effective.
The easiest chapter for me to read and thankfully the chapter our group was assigned to present was about enhancing the visual appeal of a document. The chapter was focused on the acronym HATS which is a way to remember to look at headers, art, typography, and spacing to improve the invite-ability to read the document. My portion to cover was on spacing - very easy and very important. Spacing allows the document to breath like a clean air filter in a car allows the engine to function more efficiently.
Our group did pretty well presenting our information. Other groups clearly had more time to work together on their presentations and it showed. One thing our group may have to work on is economizing our time. Although we don't have much time to get together to finalize things, we may need to initially coordinate a theme, individually work on our assigned portion, and finally put it all together using Google Docs or some other miracle of modern technology.
In the meantime I'll be practicing on the blog posts and personal assignments to improve my writing.
Panic! And not at the disco.
Our group along with two other groups presented their chapters. I must say there were good examples of quality presentations and good examples of nerves getting in the way of a quality presentation. One who opened their group's presentation was great; he pulled us in, kept our attention, and delivered his message. On the other hand the person who followed him was not comfortable in front of the class, who I can completely empathize with.
I had some good ideas of how I wanted to present the material. I knew the material that I had studied and explained to our group a few hours prior, but as soon as it was my turn to stand and deliver, I . . . well, it went so much better in my head. I don't understand why it is that I can handle groups up to about six, but as soon as I get a full room, I shut down. A brief comment is then the most I can typically handle. (It probably didn't help that my wife was at the hospital with contractions and such; nothing yet, but it was definitely on my mind.)
One of the presentation skills that seemed to give me a few pats on the back from our teacher was how I explained spacing being like the light through an air filter, how when an air filter is clear and airy the car functions better, just like a document that has adequate spacing. She knew I knew my topic, but I could not function like I'd hoped to. My favorite filler word "um" dripped from my tongue like the steady drizzle at the beginning of an April rain shower. I did not even realize it until I saw the comments from the teacher. Overall, it wasn't a complete meltdown, but I certainly have room to improve.
I suppose the presentation could have gone better had I prepared an actual set speech or an outline to follow instead of just the PowerPoint slide I had on the screen. Although, with something in my hands, I'm afraid I would have hid behind it and not engaged the class with more eye contact. I think the point of these exercises are to bring each and every one of the class into a discussion instead of spewing forth words from our mouths. There is just something about having one's teacher staring and measuring every action one does while giving a presentation.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
"If you are going through hell, keep going."
A brilliant quote by Winston Churchill
Why should I post something like that? Well, I feel I am at such a breaking point with stress that I don't know that I can keep going and keep my sanity. Days like yesterday feed the stress and discouragement that for most people would signal a reason to stop, slow down, or otherwise take a brief moment to catch one's breath. Spending three and a half hours in the testing center is bad enough without having to spend nearly six hours before hand studying and trying to understand the material that has been taught in my Accounting 310 class. I have no idea how I did on the test, but I'm pretty sure I did not get an A, B, or C. On top of that I have an angry ex-wife who I am in litigation with and the law office I get to cooperate with in order for them to represent me, a pregnant wife who is ready to deliver any time now, two children who won't talk to me and two children who aren't allowed to talk to me about anything other than the most minimal or shallow topics, not to mention what is going on with regular life and school work in general. I miss the days when I was 23 years old and all I had to deal with was school work, the part-time job I worked at to fund my days at school, and wondering if that girl liked me or not.
Anyway, this week in MCom we learned about oral presentations and creating visual aids. The visual aid part should be easy for me since I used to do that as a visual arts student when I was first at BYU and when I worked at the newspaper in Conroe, Texas. The oral presentation will not be quite so easy. I do not regularly seek attention and if I do, I prefer to have it either in limited quantities of time or with limited numbers of people.
So what? Well, on Tuesday I and my group get to present how to enhance visual appeal for business documents and visual aids. This should be fun. The trick will be coordinating between the members of our group so we can look more polished and prepared when we present instead of lost and uncertain.
Now what? Instead of waiting to be told what we'll be doing, I'm going to contact our group to discover if anyone has read the chapter, ask if they have ideas, and make a suggestion or two of what I think we could do.
Why should I post something like that? Well, I feel I am at such a breaking point with stress that I don't know that I can keep going and keep my sanity. Days like yesterday feed the stress and discouragement that for most people would signal a reason to stop, slow down, or otherwise take a brief moment to catch one's breath. Spending three and a half hours in the testing center is bad enough without having to spend nearly six hours before hand studying and trying to understand the material that has been taught in my Accounting 310 class. I have no idea how I did on the test, but I'm pretty sure I did not get an A, B, or C. On top of that I have an angry ex-wife who I am in litigation with and the law office I get to cooperate with in order for them to represent me, a pregnant wife who is ready to deliver any time now, two children who won't talk to me and two children who aren't allowed to talk to me about anything other than the most minimal or shallow topics, not to mention what is going on with regular life and school work in general. I miss the days when I was 23 years old and all I had to deal with was school work, the part-time job I worked at to fund my days at school, and wondering if that girl liked me or not.
Anyway, this week in MCom we learned about oral presentations and creating visual aids. The visual aid part should be easy for me since I used to do that as a visual arts student when I was first at BYU and when I worked at the newspaper in Conroe, Texas. The oral presentation will not be quite so easy. I do not regularly seek attention and if I do, I prefer to have it either in limited quantities of time or with limited numbers of people.
So what? Well, on Tuesday I and my group get to present how to enhance visual appeal for business documents and visual aids. This should be fun. The trick will be coordinating between the members of our group so we can look more polished and prepared when we present instead of lost and uncertain.
Now what? Instead of waiting to be told what we'll be doing, I'm going to contact our group to discover if anyone has read the chapter, ask if they have ideas, and make a suggestion or two of what I think we could do.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Triumphs and opportunities for growth
From a sentence parallelism stand point, the title fails as a correct example, but does express the events of the week for me. On the positive side, the review session we had in class was invigorating with how much I knew and how well I could explain it to one of my group members. I felt ready for the grammar exam. On Friday I did the second practice exam before I went to the testing center. I felt the actual exam was more difficult than the practice ones I had done, but I was able to prevail with a 93 percent. I'll take it.
On the other hand, my wife, who is carrying her second baby, went to her doctor and learned that the little one has positioned himself in an odd way that increases the chances of early labor the more he struggles. We may end up going to the hospital for an emergency C-section by this coming Saturday. To top off the stresses I'm feeling, my ex-wife, who I am in litigation with, sent me an email regarding the health of our four children she has custody of in California. As a parent, I worry about my kids even when two of them don't want anything to do with me. Not being in a position to help them is heartbreaking. To not be able to help my wife is also frustrating.
So what can we take from this kids? First, if you study smart and learn the material, the grade you get should reflect that. Second, stay in school and finish your degree. No matter how hard life may seem when you are young, it is guaranteed to get more difficult.
Now what? Live life one day at a time. Unfortunately, Accounting 310 requires a great deal of time and I have to plan way in advanced for that class, but still I can only do as much as I can. As for MCom, same advice--one day at a time, because I can only do as much as I can.
On the other hand, my wife, who is carrying her second baby, went to her doctor and learned that the little one has positioned himself in an odd way that increases the chances of early labor the more he struggles. We may end up going to the hospital for an emergency C-section by this coming Saturday. To top off the stresses I'm feeling, my ex-wife, who I am in litigation with, sent me an email regarding the health of our four children she has custody of in California. As a parent, I worry about my kids even when two of them don't want anything to do with me. Not being in a position to help them is heartbreaking. To not be able to help my wife is also frustrating.
So what can we take from this kids? First, if you study smart and learn the material, the grade you get should reflect that. Second, stay in school and finish your degree. No matter how hard life may seem when you are young, it is guaranteed to get more difficult.
Now what? Live life one day at a time. Unfortunately, Accounting 310 requires a great deal of time and I have to plan way in advanced for that class, but still I can only do as much as I can. As for MCom, same advice--one day at a time, because I can only do as much as I can.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Confidence building
This week my classmates and I took a grammar quiz on tense, numbers, and capitalization. My previous performances on the other quizzes inspired me to study quite a bit more than I had before. Scoring 23 out of 35 and 27 out of 35 on the quizzes was not a happy revelation that even though I speak and write English as my primary language, I do not know it as well as I should. Anyway, I was quite please to score 100% on the quiz this time. The difference seems to have been that I studied each topic until I understood why the self quiz answers in the book were correct or not correct. Now I just need to do that for punctuation, case, agreement, and reference.
So what? One of the things I learned from this scenario was that studying intensely a little bit each day is more effective than cramming it all in at the last moment. Now where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. Thanks Mom.
Now what? Well, considering I have a grammar exam coming up in a week and I really want to do well on it, I have a plan to study for an hour or two on at least four days prior to taking the test on Friday. So today, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and some on Friday before I take the exam.
Why should I care what grade I get as long as I know the material? Unfortunately, even though we shouldn't focus on getting good grades, it is the grade that reflects how well we are doing.
So what? One of the things I learned from this scenario was that studying intensely a little bit each day is more effective than cramming it all in at the last moment. Now where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. Thanks Mom.
Now what? Well, considering I have a grammar exam coming up in a week and I really want to do well on it, I have a plan to study for an hour or two on at least four days prior to taking the test on Friday. So today, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and some on Friday before I take the exam.
Why should I care what grade I get as long as I know the material? Unfortunately, even though we shouldn't focus on getting good grades, it is the grade that reflects how well we are doing.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Trepidatious first steps
For the past several minutes I have typed, erased, re-typed, re-erased, and typed again a jumble of words that were to be my inaugural first few steps into the blogosphere. I still don't know what I am doing.
One of the things that bothers me most about working on this MCom 320 assignment is that I know I will struggle to come up with something to write about. Each week I get to post an entry about what I learned for the week and answer the questions of "So what? and "Now what?" in some kind of coherent fashion. In order to comply with the assignment I will answer the questions, though I do not feel confident in my abilities. Maybe I will learn something and develop the skills to say things succinctly and not be misunderstood. In the meantime I will be thankful for the spellchecker software programs embedded in most word processing applications, because the according to the grammar and punctuation quizzes I took, I need help.
Generally, confidence is gained in doing, even if it isn't done well the first time. So I will write about something I have learned at least once a week as required and attempt to apply what I've learned. Who knows, I may even come to like it.
One of the things that bothers me most about working on this MCom 320 assignment is that I know I will struggle to come up with something to write about. Each week I get to post an entry about what I learned for the week and answer the questions of "So what? and "Now what?" in some kind of coherent fashion. In order to comply with the assignment I will answer the questions, though I do not feel confident in my abilities. Maybe I will learn something and develop the skills to say things succinctly and not be misunderstood. In the meantime I will be thankful for the spellchecker software programs embedded in most word processing applications, because the according to the grammar and punctuation quizzes I took, I need help.
Generally, confidence is gained in doing, even if it isn't done well the first time. So I will write about something I have learned at least once a week as required and attempt to apply what I've learned. Who knows, I may even come to like it.
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