Here at Mercyhurst it has been a rather uneventful Monday but a rather busy previous week and weekend. Most of the previous week was consumed in work for my final research paper for my Intro to Intel class. Luckily I had worked on it already in the previous weeks and it was rather manageable. College has so far been very much akin to my advanced placement classes in high school: do your work ahead of time and it is all very easy and mostly stress free. Work is only hard for those who fall behind or procrastinate. My friend across the hall had the same project and started working on it the day before it was do. He got it done on time but he didn't leave his room until dinner Sunday night and he wasn't totally finished until 11 at night! College is really only as stressful as you make it. If you work hard and work ahead it should be a breeze.
But one thing that is always at least a little stressful is public speaking. And that's exactly what my fellow Ambassador pledges and I had to do for at least 3 minutes last Wednesday and Thursday. I've grown comfortable with public speaking, so it wasn't a huge issue...but i think even the best public speakers have to have a few butterflies in their stomach before they speak! My topic was the history of Ambassadors itself and i felt that i did very well. We'll have to see what the Ambassadors say in the end but i feel confident at this point. The key to doing well is making sure you don't have too much or not enough information and to practice your speech in front of people as much as possible. The overall content of the speech and the comfort level of the speaker seemed to be the most important factors that separated the good speeches from the rest.
But despite all the work, there is still plenty of fun to be had at the Hurst...well except when the SAC cancels open skate at the ice rink! (Though for the record SAC rarely disappoints and I love most of their activities!) Whoever planned the event failed to notice there was a club hockey game booked at the same time as the open skate hours. To their credit they hoped to just push it back to after the game but when the game went into overtime they decided to scrap the whole event. It was disappointing both for my friends (especially my one friend Jess who was a former figure skater and had been looking forward to it all week) and all of the other students who didn't go to one of the many Halloween parties over the weekend. Parties aren't really my style so I was stuck with very little to do this weekend. It is a simple fact of college that parties are all around you and it all depends on how you react to their presence. Though one shouldn't be too quick to judge people who party or people who don't. I know many people on both sides of the fence and I would miss out knowing a lot of nice people if i only dealt with one side of of the spectrum. It's a personal choice that you should respect even if it is not the choice that you would make.
But that's enough of me rambling about the realities of college for this post! I'll be back with anything interesting I experience this week.
Thanks for reading!
Brendan
