FRO13 LC15

When I hear the word “meditation,” the first things that come to mind are images of traditionally dressed Buddhists and hippie yoga instructors. So at first, I had a little trouble seeing how meditation could fit in with everyday, American students. However, after the enrichment workshop, I recognize how misconstrued my ideas were. Seeing how the struggling students were being taught to take a step back every once in a while in order to let their minds relax and reboot, I realized that this could be a very useful thing for me to begin doing. I often find myself getting completely overwhelmed and stressed out, especially now with all the work that college seems to come with, and instead of allowing my mind to breathe, I continue to torture myself with all my worries. Though meditation might not make my problems go away, it might help me stay sane at the toughest moments and help me keep going even when I feel like I never want to study again. I will definitely try to take that step back every once in a while now.

It’s amazing that putting aside 5 minutes a day for meditation made such a big impact on the lives of students at Concord High School. At first, I thought the students wouldn’t get into the routine of meditating everyday. Some students were sniggering and shaking their heads at the thought of even meditating. By the end of the documentary however, I was surprised to see that the same students showed drastic improvements in school and had changed their personality and work ethics.

Although I’ve never meditated before, I can see how meditation can help with the stress and the workload that we face in college. Sometimes being in a rush to finish our work sets us back even further. We start to get tunnel vision and feel exasperated from keeping track of deadlines and jumping between homework and projects. Meditation might be a good way to slow down and clear our heads of the noises that get stuck inside. This allows us to look at the work we have from a different perspective and organize ourselves. However, meditation might not work for everyone. Every person has their own way of dealing with stress, whether it’s listening to music or just taking a nap. I will definitely keep meditation in mind and try it out in the future.

There are plenty of science experiments where people are divided into to groups, a control group and an experimental group. The control group was given some kind of fake treatment or nothing at all. The experimental group was given the actual treatment. Then results were obtained and it was shown whether the treatment did anything or not. In most cases the experimental group showed actual signs of improvement while the control group barely showed anything at all. During our enrichment work shop we watched a recorded experiment that unfolded called The Changing Minds at Concord High School. The students in the experimental group were given a chance to meditate for a few minutes a day while the control was told to do nothing. Overtime results showed that students who meditated significantly improved their results in class. How does this apply to me though?

Granted i see the benefit of this daily meditation, it doesn’t surprise me that people performed better in class when they did it; however, that fact that we were forced to watch this does not sit to kindly with me. The whole principle of wanting to calm our bodies down and keep them at rest is a good idea but in order to do something like this you have to want to do it not be forced to do it. I feel that i lost a bit of what the workshop was trying to give me due to this. Had i actually been given the option of going to it or not i believe i would have been more inspired in the project and possibly wouldve tried applying it to myself.

The Changing Minds at Concord High School documentary supplemented my already vast knowledge of the art of meditation in society. You probably wouldn’t guess that I frequently meditate for recreation to ease my mind. Okay, maybe you could if you compared what I’d like to consider a balanced social and academic life. Over the past 2 years I’ve actually used the practice of meditation in order to stay calm during the storm of college applications and the college transition. Not only does it keep me sane in times of sleep deprivation and stress, but it also gives me time to focus on my perception of the world. This documentary shows only the beginning of what I’ve experienced. Being someone who meditates well over an hour a week, I can totally relate to the leaps that these high risk students have made.

I’d recommend meditation to anyone, high risk or not. The few moments that you can take out of your day in order to calm the waves of your mind allows the sediment of your conscious mind to settle. It’s the experience that David Foster Wallace speaks of when he says “This is water.” We are the young fish who, when asked how the water feels today, respond with “What the hell is water?”

Out of the multiple topics my group  thought of, we choose leadership because it seems to be an important issue. Some feel that it’s essential for students to have leadership qualities. I personally feel that Baruch pushes students to become leaders. For example, I had to work on a New York Cares project. The project was simply amazing and a learning experience. I got to see the passion and dedication of being the group leader. It made me want to become a group leader for a project in the future. While working on the Baruch Times project, I realized how important leadership actually is. I wrote about the government shutdown and the role leadership played on it. The lack of leadership in the government helped the shutdown of the government. During my little time at Baruch, I look forward to developing more leadership skills being that it can make me a better person and leader.

Our group’s theme for the NYT project was “Change” or more specifically the overhaul of established systems. The theme resonated with many experiences the Baruch community, and the city as whole, has been faced with. The transition into autumn has brought about ubiquitous changes throughout the city. This year the city are electing a new mayor after having Michael Bloomberg in office for the previous three terms. For the people in this learning community, we are still adjusting to college life. From our politicians to our technology, we are seeing drastic changes in nearly every facet of our lives and perhaps even in ourselves.

My article is about a popular New York City restaurant, Tavern on the Green,  being relaunched by two Philadelphia natives with no previous experience in this industry. Right off the bat, this is an unexpected situation for many reasons. How could an NYC symbols be passed on the hands of outsiders? The new co-owners are totally revamping the styles of the classic restaurant. They plan to make it more casual and less expensive to cater to a larger and hopefully more loyal crowd than it’s predecessor. Don’t let the new laid-back  vision fool you, The co-owners have meticulously planned every last detail of their restaurant. The article follows them for an afternoon at a restaurant supply warehouse. You see them take into consider countless aspects of something as simple as a fork before they decide on a style that is worthy of their restaurant. The restaurant is set to open in January and will draw new faces in addition old patrons that are curious to see what the New York gem has become.

I was never the type to sit down and give myself a chance to take it all in.  I’m always in a rush, with a million things on my mind; a million things because I can never just concentrate on one, like for example I am currently thinking about my calc exam on Monday, the fact that I have to go to a Broadway Show on Sunday, this annoying kid who keeps texting me for the homework and I’m just like  “BRO IT’S ALL ONLINE” all while writing this blog post. I partly blame that on the rapid, impersonal nature of our lives and partly because I have the attention span of a peanut (probably smaller). Point is, after watching the documentary, Changing Minds at Concord High School, I have come to learn even just five minutes of relaxation every day will help me focus that much better and that no matter how hard relaxing will be at first, it will definitely help me out in the long run.

For our New York Times project , my group chose the topic leadership. Leadership is a key part of our every day lives and something we should all be striving for. In order to strive to become leaders, we must look at role models that not only affect us directly but also indirectly. For my personal article I wrote about Jerry Kill, the coach of the Minnesota College Football team, someone who I think is the prime example of a good leader and whose passion, diligence and authority is truly admirable. In the New York Times article, “A Coach’s Difficult, But Prudent, Decision” by Greg Bishop, Jerry Kill is described as the kind of coach who would “go through a seizure in a packed stadium and return to work as if nothing happened” (B12). Kill had promised since his first seizure in 2000, and eventual diagnosis of epilepsy,  that as long as his seizures did not affect his ability to coach he would continue leading his then-undefeated football program into victory. On Oct. 11^th 2013, for the first time, Kill did not attend a game at all for a seizure and since then decided to take time off to focus on his treatment and better manage his epilepsy. Besides being an inspiration to thousands of epileptics and anyone whose attended one of his games and a strong example to his players, Jerry Kill is also a dominant leader to his staff whether in presence or in absence. According to the article, “no staff in the country is better prepared to handle the absence, however brief or extended, of a head coach” (B12). Reading Jerry Kill’s story has inspired me to constantly push myself no matter what the circumstance. I now can see and understand how by simply pushing through and exceeding the expected limits (for example, getting up from a seizure as if nothing happened) can do more than inspire the people around you, it can inspire thousands.

In the wise words of the Wu-Tang Clan, “Cash Rules Everything Around Me.” Our group chose money as our theme, because nothing can beat that straight cash. Although money can be seen as artificial or not as important as love and all that other stuff  (HA), it controls the world and all jobs are dependent on it.  No matter what you do or how you do it, you know that money is your primary motivation. Our education and pretty much anything we indulge in at Baruch is contingent on money.

Balling

Politics isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Baruch, but our group did decide that there were issues with the way our college is being run. I personally pushed for this specific topic because extracurricular activities are very important to me and to see how reckless Baruch was with the scheduling of our club fair made me quite annoyed. This incident just added to my irritation with Baruch’s inability to coordinate FRO events and club hours. This lack of forethought looks exactly like Baruch’s previous great idea to require students to miss valuable interest meetings and club events to… watch a documentary. But I’m ranting now so I’ll loop back to my point: politics at Baruch are an issue that our group felt needed to be addressed.