Silencing the Critics

In sports, there are heavy favorites and there are heavy underdogs. This also applies to life. That is one great thing about sports, you can take the experiences and tasks that you go through and apply and compare how similar they are to a sporting event. My favorite sport is football. It is my passion and has been all my life. I can simultaneously compare my life to a football game, me being the underdog and the rest of the world being the heavily favorite. On September 1, 2007 you could have ask any University of Michigan fans who was the team the Wolverines were playing that afternoon, and you would have gotten the same response, “some no-name team from North Carolina.” That was somewhat true because the Mountaineers of Appalachian State University were not known at the time. The Wolverines are a Football Bowl Subdivision school, meaning they have a great number of students at forty-one thousand enrolled. The Mountaineers are a Division I school with an enrollment of sixteen thousand. Even though the Mountaineers knew they were the underdogs, their spirits never faltered because they believed in their selves and they knew when that whistle blew, anything could happen. At one o’clock eastern time, the Wolverines kicked off to the Mountaineers and history was made. It was a hard fought battle between both teams but no matter what Michigan did, they could not stop the Mountaineers spirits and pride and it was close the whole game. At the sound of the final horn of the game, you could look at anyone in the stands wearing Wolverine blue and gold, and there facial expression would tell you the outcome. Appalachian State shocked the world by beating the number five team in the country in their famous “Big House” stadium. This was truly a game that would make history not only in sports but in life in general. The picture titled “Silencing the Critics” is a famous picture of one of the Mountaineer players holding his finger to his mouth and pointing to his school’s name on his jersey telling the crowd the hush at the end of the game. Just looking at this photo gives you such emotion of what happened at the “Big House.” First off, the body language of the Mountaineer player is felt strongly here. He is excited and pumped but you can also tell it is not excitement from being shocked of the outcome. His teammates and he knew that they were going to win that game. His excitement is one of proving others wrong, thus why he is silencing the crowd. Pointing at the name of his school is not advertising, but is a symbol strongly saying that this win was one for the university and the community and it shows a sense of that Mountaineer pride. His teammates behind him embrace as if they been through war and battle and the victory was a sign that the war was over. It also shows the closeness of the team and how it was not one member of the team that defeated the mighty Wolverines, but it was the whole team that came together that made them victorious. Another aspect of this picture that stands out for me is the crowd. You cannot see their faces but you can see by their body language that they are stunned and it is as they are motionless because of the shock and do not know how to take it. The scoreboard is probably one of the most important parts of this picture to me. When looking at it, you can see Michigan Stadium as the title, and the name of the schools and the scores, Appalachian State University: 34, University of Michigan: 32. Feelings and expressions of this game will change throughout history but this picture of the scoreboard will always be unchanged and will always show when the underdog did not lay down and take it but fought back and believed in itself and brought down the juggernaut. Appalachian State University used the momentum from this game and continued to succeed throughout the rest of the 2007 season. They won the national championship not only once but three years in a row. The underdog changed rolls with the favorite and now the University of Michigan has seemed to lose their football swag ever since the lost to the Mountaineers. I like this picture a lot because it is inspirational because of the story behind it and when I look at it, I get that feeling of pride and fight and I feel as if I can do anything as long as I never give up and keep believing in myself. Many say that the Mountaineer signifying silence with his finger to the crowd is taunting, selfish, and cocky but I disagree. I think he is silencing the critics and the favorites in the world and anyone can take this image and use it as a symbol for the underdog. Maybe as underdogs in life, we should keep fighting and believing in ourselves and raise our finger to life as he did to the crowd, saying we did it and we knew we were going to do it all along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wal-Mart

Since I have been here at Pembroke, I have kept a job near my hometown, Roseboro. I worked at the Taco Bell in Clinton and I was only working weekends. It was a job but my hours were not good and my manager could no longer work with my schedule. I was stuck without a job. I put in applications everywhere and one day I finally got lucky. Wal-Mart called me and set up an interview with me. I went to the interview with a mind-set of that I was going to do whatever it took to get that job. At the end of the interview, I was overjoyed to find that I had gained a position. I am now a sales associate for the electronics department. I get paid above what I am used to, and a lot more than I expected  for a college student plus I am only 10 minutes away from Pembroke. So far I have loved it there. I have had to learn everything quickly because of the black friday sale last week, plus throughout my entire Thanksgiving break they worked me everyday for at least seven hours. They were so short of help that they needed me to work on the biggest day of the year. Everything went smoothly and I feel much more experienced now. The people in my department are nice so far but like any job, there is one man I do not care for much. He is a regular employee but he acts like he is a manager only because he carries keys around. He also makes smart remarks. I cannot stand working with him but it is a business and in order to get tha check, I have to put up with all types of people. I plan on staying there throughout college unless I transfer or something else gets in the way, it’s a steady job, and not that hard of work.

UNCC

When I signed up to go to the convention at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, I did not realize at first how educational and fun I would be having while there. We left on a Friday afternoon and took the long and boring bus ride all the way to Charlotte from Pembroke. We arrived to our hotel and you could sense the fun and excitement as soon as you walked in. Some of the other schools where there so it was fun to meet new people from new places. We started the convention on a Friday night by having  a fun night. karaoke, pool, food, movies everything was free. There UC building and to be honest, and  all of the buildings were extremely nice and I felt a warm and comforting atmosphere on the campus. That Saturday, the real convention started. We learned and discussed people who are different. This was very educational and helpful to open my eyes to all the different people out there and how they are just as important as me. There were special workshops set up all over the campus and I seemed to choose interesting workshops. I got to meet a transgender person and I also learned how to make a hard decision under pressure. All of the information they I gained from these workshops helped me look past differences and look at how the persons attitude really makes or breaks them. It also helped me except people with differences and now I feel as if I can make so many new and extraordinary friends. Overall the conference was good and I learned so much. Now the true test is fr me to accept the differences of others everyday. I will though because I could never allow what I learned to not be used for the better good. Not all people are the same.

Sports and School

All my life I have been involved athletically in some way, shape, or form. I always played recreational football, basketball, and baseball. I would always be the first one to sign up every year and I would always be so excited about leaving school and going to practice. I could manage my school work and sports, even at a young age. I would see many of my friends either get kicked off the team or fail their grade because they could not balance out school and sports. These same friends continued on the same path all throughout the rest of my years in school and today, they are all lazy dropouts. I was lucky to be able to handle a lot at a young age but they were not so lucky. I believe a little more effort is needed to be shown that we are wanting students to succeed academically before athletically. There is a reason why the word student comes first in the title “student athlete”. Kids are to be a student before they are an athlete but we are getting away from that meaning it seems. We need to form a way to help students deal with balancing out many things at once so they will not have to give up one thing over another. Maybe some kind of self-help of tutor service can do the job. Whatever needs to be done needs to be done soon so kids can stop having choose one over the other. Sports are what helps children get away. They take them away so their minds are clear so no worry or sadness is there. I played all my life and still continue to do so. I do not play any sport for recognition or money but I play because I love to play not for anything else.

My Salutatorian Speech

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the class of 2010, I would like to welcome you to our graduation ceremony and thank you for coming. I am sure most of you realize how important it is to graduate from high school and what a proud moment this is for me and my fellow graduates. Personally the thing I am most proud of is that I started something four years ago and tonight I have finished what I started. I suppose it may be more accurate to say that I started twelve years ago but either way, it is a great feeling to have finished. I am sure all my classmates are as pleased as I am, especially those who are finishing what they started 13 or 14 years ago. Of course not everyone finishes high school. The challenges of high school in the 21^st century and the distractions of everyday life outside of school can at times be daunting. Many of us leave school after 7 straight hours of doing class work with one hand and sending text messages with the other and go directly to an afterschool job where we earn the money to pay for our unlimited data plans. Others, spend countless hours, after school, practicing and playing in various sports and then hurry home to sit in front of a computer for countless hours writing papers and desperately attempting to beat Mayra Ramirez’s Bouncing Balls  score on facebook. In spite of these, clearly formidable obstacles, me and my classmates were always certain that we would graduate and when we thought about all the reasons we had to be confident there are two reasons that stand out as being far more important than any of the others.Our parents. Without Joseph Martin Brown and Tonya Wae Brown, my parents, I would not be standing here tonight. For as long as we have been getting progress reports and report cards they have expected to see them and they have expected to see good grades. They also expected us to conduct ourselves in a certain way while we were here. We have never had a conversation with our parents about “if” we graduated from high school or “if” we went to college but we can recall many conversations about “when” we graduated from high school and “when” we go to college. These things were expected of course. In all our conversations over the years, my parents and I am sure the rest of my classmatese parents  never expressed any doubts about us graduating from high school. That may not sound particularly remarkable unless you consider the fact that  some of our parents, including my mother and father, themselves never graduated from high school. Beyond that, some of  their parents also did not graduate from high school. Both my parents went on to finish their high school education through night courses. I know some of my classmates can say the same about their parents. My mother has even gone on recently to finish nursing school as a Registered Nurse. However, the fact remains that for 18 years they have provided for us, and supported us and lead usdown a path that some of them have not followed. Perhaps most importantly, they believed in us and because they believed in us, we believed in ourselves. And because my parents believed in me, I am the first member of the Brown family to ever stand on a stage at a high school graduation ceremony  If I could say only one thing tonight, it would be thank you, mom and dad. I want you to know how grateful I am to you and how proud I am to have you as my parents. And I want you to know that I will motivate your grandchildren, as you have motivated me, to graduate from high school and go on to college. And to all the rest of the parents of the class of 2010, I would like to say thank you for supporting your sons and daughters.  They would not be sitting here tonight if not for your love and motivation. So Congratulations on a job well done. Tonight is also your night because you all were apart of this long  journey. Without you, we would not be the successful graduates in front of you tonight, thank you!

Personal Brand

During Freshmen Seminar, we were required to write blogs and maintain a Facebook and Twitter page. At first this seemed stressful and a little too much but really it was a good thing in disguised. I have been doing blogs for four months and they have been extremely helpful. They have let me open up and put out what has been on my mind and what i have felt. This is very good because it is never good to hold back your emotions and feelings. I have also got to read some amazing post from my fellow Leadership Living Learning Community students as well as some of my instructors and professors post. Following people on Twitter has been fun and very suspenseful. I know that seems weird for Twitter to be suspenseful but I am always excited to see what the next tweet is going to be. Facebook has allowed me to explore the world of social networking and catch up with old friends and make some pretty awesome new ones. Even though these activities have been all fun, there has been a business part of it too. One of the main reasons fo keeping tweets, blogs, and post is to create our own personal brand. A Personal brand is kinda of like a reputation. It is something that sticks with you and can determine whether you are successful or not. My social networking work has set my personal brand sky-high. Hopefully when I apply for jobs later in the future, the employer will look at my work on the social networking sites and give me a job because they can sense pride, hard work, and responsibility from my post. That sounds crazy but employers really check things such as Facebook these days ALways remember your personal brand and never tarnish it. Doing all of these activities has keep my personal brand tarnish free.

Leadership Development Plan

Leadership is a very powerful word. Having Leadership makes someone very important, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad but either way, it is an asset. When pursuing leadership, you have to go through a lot of things to reach leadership to its fullest potential. That is why it is smart to have a plan or some kind of blue print. By setting yourself up an action plan for gaining leadership, you take some pressure off of you. My leadership development plan has helped me so far. Things such as community service and outreach programs  are major events on my development plan. Also planning out things such as study time, free time, and work are apart of my developmental agenda. So far, I am closer to having leadership then I was at the beginning of the school year and I really think it has something to do greatly with my leadership development plan. Having any type of plan helps you not just in gaining leadership, but in life as well. It is organizing and getting your life worked out right. Life is already full of speed bumps and setbacks so why add more roadblocks and hassle. Make it easier on yourself and the ones around you. That is another thing to remember when dealing with a leadership action plan. Remember the ones who are close to you and are a major part of your life. Any and everything you do affects them as well. Sometimes your plan works out the first time and nothing happens with your relationships but then sometimes, you gain leadership but you lose important people in your life. Always have a back up plan as well. Not all plans work the first time so always be prepared and ready for anything. Having a development plan will defiantly have you a leader in no time.

Empowering Successful Minds

Freshmen Seminar course is over but its effects are not. Coming into college, I felt alone and scared because I did not know what I was getting my self into. I always pictured college like the movies, parties, parties, and even more parties. I was heavily mistaken. Of course there is your traditional partying but college is more than that. It is about the educational experience you will be receiving while they are there. That had to be the hardest part about transferring over to college from high school. My classes seem harder and so does the work. Even though it is no easy ride for me, I get the task done and still have fun at the end. The Freshmen Seminar course is designed to help first year students make this transfer at an easier rate, no matter how long it takes. I think the course is really helpful. I myself was very nervous and scared entering Pine Hall for the first time ever but this class helped lower the nervous factor down quite significantly. The most important thing I took from the class was how to make a profile for me. Advertising myself is another term to describe what making a profile is. I want to be successful and that means that I am going to put this information to work so that employers will hire me plus I make a great number of profit and other types of incentives. The course has also helped me educational wise. I have learned how to accept college through Freshman Seminar so my grades and my work have looked spectacular. I am a more successful college student because of the course. Plus I had the best instructor there could be! I have enjoyed the class and enjoyed the experiences that I have taken from it. I would not have it any other way.

Twitter

When starting this Freshmen Seminar course, Mike Severy hence the importance of creating your self an image over the world-wide web. He acknowledged that this is what employers look for and that it could either make or break your career. Today’s society is based on technology and social networking. Things such as Twitter and Facebook have taken over and everyone uses them, even employers. Employers want to know your morals, the real you. So they snoop into your personal profiles and get to know you better. Twitter is a major one and can help your chances in receiving a job. I have followed two people on Twitter that have careers and interest that I am interesting in. Grant Imahara is a bio robotic engineer and this to me seems to be an awesome job. He designs robots for all places, even NASA. Dave Morin is the C.E.O. and co-founder of the company PATH. He has created this wonderful technology nd software and is now very successful.  This people are very successful and have careers in the technological field. I myself have thought about being a computer technician. I have always loved messing with technology and found it quite interesting to take a part and put it back together again. I have taken many advice and recommendations about careers from other people but now I can follow people who actually know about the career that I am interested in and have experience along with that. I have all this wonderful access because of the wonderful world of social networking. Twitter is also convenient by helping you keep up with your friends and relatives. Another key thing that I have learned is to never put anything inappropriate on any social networking site. This includes pictures, blogs, post, or tweets. Employers will find the bad things nd you will get denied for any position. Use Facebook and Twitter to help you but be cautious of what you put up there.

Fall Break

Officially, the first half of my first college  semester is done and I have taken my midterms. Overall I did fine, but like my old football coach used to say, “If better is possible, good is not acceptable.” This is the quote that I have to go by throughout college because if I am not trying to better myself, then I am wasting my time and money. I have all passing grades in all my classes so I am extremely happy about that. I am starting to get used to this college experience finally. I am meeting new people and making friends and also associates for the future. I am learning new things and experiencing new situations but I can honestly say that all the experiences have been beneficial to me and have helped better me. I have been getting more involved in the Leadership Living Learning Community as well and it is making me and my fellow leaders closer. I am very excited about my few days off for Fall Break as well. I am mostly excited because I get a break from all my hard work and studying. Instead of those tasks, I get to spend time with my wonderful and loving family. Since coming to UNCP, I never really get to see them as much as I use too. I love my family very much and we are extremely close. Even though I have been in college for almost four months, it is still hard for us to say goodbye every Sunday before I leave to come back to Pembroke. So I decided to dedicate my full fall break time to spending time with my family and catching up on time lost. I am also going to have to tie in there somewhere, homework and studying, unfortunately. College is going great. I am doing well in my classes. I get to go home for a few days to my family. Nothing could be better!