Get Organized: A tribute to Aristotle-Cleaning My Room

              Being the busy bee I am, I barely have time to clean my room. After almost losing my small dog in the clutter of clothes that laid sprawled out across my floor, I finally decided to clean it. Taking a little over three hours to clean the room it finally returned to normal, but it wasn't a walk in the park to get there. Before starting, I began to doubt that my room would ever return to normal. Negative thoughts were all that roamed my head and they didn't leave for quite some time. While cleaning my room the negative thoughts stored toward the back of my mind. They didn't quite leave but overall I started to become more optimistic. After I sorted the clothes, I began to see that there wasn't as much work to be done. By organizing the clothes I organized my thoughts and the light at the end of the tunnel began to shine bright. Finally, after working for three long hours the room was pristine. I was so proud of myself for pushing through those three tough hours of hard work to achieve my goal. I finally did it and nothing feels better that achieving a much needed goal.
              This task not only helped me achieve a goal but it changed my mind. It helped me realize how important it is to makes goals. If I didn't previously make a goal I wouldn't have had any incentive to finish cleaning the room. The goal forced me to divide my work and take on each section one at a time. My mind since the task has been setting more goals, even if it is just doing homework. For example, last night I wanted to make sure I was in bed by mid-night. To achieve this task, I made sure to give each subject a specific amount of time and attention so when mid-night rolled around I was in bed. To my surprise my goal was easily met and it wouldn't have been possible if I didn't practice making goals and dividing up the tasks by cleaning my room.
               After the amazing task of cleaning my mess of room, I found out a lot more about myself in general. I didn't know how determined I was to achieve a goal. I didn't give up when I began to get tired and hungry, nor did I just do a sloppy job and shove clothes under my bed. After accomplishing the task I now know how strong my will to succeed is and when given a goal to achieve I will fight to the finish, even if it is something as silly as cleaning my room.

Captured Thought: Is the Love Real?

                    In my medical technology class we often reference and watch House episodes to get a true ethical dilemma intertwined with a medical situation. House is a TV show whose plot revolves around a snobby doctor and his team of medical assistants. Together, the team assists hundreds of different severe illnesses amongst the thousands of hours they spend in the hospital. Since the majority of us are taking the class to get a sneak preview of what our future in a medical career has to offer, these videos surprisingly do the job. These videos provide us with how to deal with an ethical dilemma that comes with an illness. We all have to acknowledge our patients lives and situations outside of the hospital, and seeing the doctors in the show address these situations preps us with knowledge on how to handle similar situations in our near future.
                     One ethical dilemma that has stuck in my mind the best is the most recently watched episode, Spin #206. In this episode, a profession cyclist has caused himself an unknown severe illness by taking illegal drugs to become the best cyclist he can be. One of Dr. House's assistants finds it horrible that he has been cheating all this time and claiming national titles, while little kids looked up to him as their role model and inspirational athlete. The assistant takes matters into her own hands and questions whether or not she should turn him into the press. A fellow doctor at the hospital over hears her thoughts and tries to shed some light on the situation. He brings up the time when he cheated on his wife with a woman he thought he loved. He asks the assistant to think about all of the kids out there who see him as a role model and how bad it would crush them if they found out everything was a lie. The assistant rebuttals with the statement that the kids will realize they never loved him because he is a cheater. The Doctor adds the closing remark and states, "When you love someone, and then realize they cheated, it doesn't mean you didn't love them before."
                      In the late afternoon on a Thursday, this quote easily passed by me. But, it wasn't until nine hours later when I realized how true the statement actually was. We all have been through times in our lives when we were lied to. I wasn't until some time later when we realized we were being lied to. For example, Santa Clause. Growing up we all awaited Santa's gifts underneath the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. It wasn't long until we heard a noise downstairs, woke up, and tip toed down the stairs just to find our parents walking around with our presents from "Santa" in hand. Sadly, we had to learn that Santa no longer existed due to the facts being present and logical. But, just because the facts and truth was out, it didn't mean I didn't love and believe in Santa before. We all need to realize that just because something changes in our life, it doesn't change our previous memories. Once we all become receptive to change and allow it to not affect on how we look back at our past, we will learn to live with change, no matter how large the impact.

Best of Week: Creating your own Philosophy

             This week Mr. Allen brought up the topic of philosophy and how to make it your own. When he first brought the topic into our conversation I sat back in my chair thinking I already knew all I needed to know about philosophy, little did I know I wasn't even close. As the conversation progressed and a definition was set for the term, it became a fact that I was drowning in a sea knowledge that I had yet to come to realization with. The days following I kept questioning the true definition of philosophy and how I can pertain it to my life. I was lost until Mr. Allen shined light on the idea about his philosophy on education. He described how he came about his major web page for all of his students to access and learn from on a daily basis. He went into detail about how he feels kids learn best and how an idea and topic can always grow when given room to prosper. By removing a privacy lock on the site, Mr. Allen had given his thoughts and all he has to offer to all of us with high hopes that we too can carry his knowledge with us and make it our own one day.
              Given Mr. Allen's take on philosophy, it made me think about how I could pertain such philosophy to my life. I thought about all the activities I am involved in and came to thinking about Cure Club. I realized all along I too had my own philosophy on a subject matter and have never come face to face with it until now. I have been president of cure club for the past two years and one thing I have accomplished in the two years in removing the "points system" (when you get a point for going to events and doing silly little things just to be considered a member). My philosophy on the matter was, if a kid signs up to do an event it really means nothing if their heart isn't in the right place. We often volunteer for several events and I would rather have three kids cheering runners on and smiling because they are happy to be there, instead of 20 kids sitting down not caring and not getting the job anywhere near done. If a kid is passionate about an event or a cause they will be all in and will take it upon themselves to consider themselves a member or not. If Cure Club is the last thing on someones mind, then it wouldn't even make their applications for college and scholarships. Passion drives the heart to do what it believes is needed, but by bribing kids to do activities that require a lot out of you can not simple be replicated by offering them a point.