Survived first year!

I have officially survived my first year of CreComm! It was one hell of 9 months. I learnt a lot about myself and how hard I can push myself (creatively and mentally). At times coming to this point felt like it took forever and a day. This last month though flew by and now I can stay up to see those summer sunset, and maybe even some summer sunrises!

The things I plan to do with this summer are the things that kept me focused on the first year finish line. Concerts, camping, going to my cabin, the lazy days, and oh ya backpacking for seven weeks!

I swear everyone is getting tired of me talking about it but yes I’M GOING TO THAILAND IN 8 DAYS!!

It is something that my friend and I have been planning and saving for for over a year, and now it is happening in 8 days. It is almost as surreal as finishing my first year of CreComm.

I have stumbled on this video titled “Never Go To Thailand” and that is what I am going to share with you today, cause honestly the only thing on my mind is that plane ride at 8:30 am on April 27th!!

Something that always keeps me going is having something to look forward to, even if it is as simple as a friend hang out on the weekend or as big as a trip vacation. Having something to look forward to keeps my motivation up and it is my last tip for you this year.

 

Have a good summer everyone!!

My Montage

Here is my link of one of my many project I have just finished for second semester. Crazy that the year has only four school days left!

I spent about 5 hours shooting this one Friday off of school with two of my friends. I’d say they did this out of the kindness of their hearts, but I am pretty sure that me bribing them with beer helped too.

After shooting it the editing fun began, 5 or so hours worth! I actually really enjoyed this entire project though even though it took awhile.

I know I chose the right major. Can’t wait for Media Projection next year!

Thinking of You – The Maine

Not only for me but for them… (Raising funds and awareness for FA)

All of my cousins are an inspiration to me!

My cousin Leah Sommerfield has been travelling the world for almost a year now. She has had many adventures and stories that have filled more than a carry-on bag could handle. However, today I want to talk about her next and final adventure. She is going to be walking 1000 km across Spain, with her boyfriend, to raise funds and awareness for Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA).

Now you may be thinking why is she doing this. Well, two of my cousins, Chelsey and Brittany Sommerfield have FA. It is a degenerative neuro-muscular disorder that has no current cure. It has slowly taken away their motor abilities, such as writing, grabbing, and walking. They are 22 and 19, respectively, and both require a wheelchair and/or walker to get around.

When they were little though they could run and jump and play like anyone their age. It was the years approaching them being 16 and 13 that they noticed the changes. They were then diagnosed with the disease.

I wrote a personality profile on my cousin Chelsey for Journalism last semester.

When the assignment came it was hard. Listening to my cousin talk about some of her difficulties in an intimate and serious nature was different. I am used to a happy laughing Chels who, when she falls, laughs it off and gets back up. I didn’t realize the true strength that she and Britt both have until this assignment.

The Sommerfield family has been living with the constant adaptation to FA, and so I am used to hearing about falls that they take. The most recent was Britt falling and breaking her nose. (She is fine now and beautiful as ever no worries).

We all have made it our second job to help raise awareness of the disease that effects only one in 50,000 people. My cousins are two of three Manitobans that have been diagnosed.

I always wear a baby blue band around my wrist with the imprint “Fight Friedreich’s Ataxia”, so when people ask what that is for I have the chance to explain to them what it is like living with and being a family member to someone who has FA.

Chelsey and Brittany both have a tattoo on their ankles saying, “Not only for me… but for her.”

Not only for me… But for her. (photo credited to Brittany Sommerfield’s Facebook).

And I think this is the motivation behind the Sommerfield family. I am a proud cousin to all of my relatives. They are an inspiration to me. So I wanted to take this space in my blog to share Chelsey and Brittany’s story, and also share my cousin Leah’s effort in spreading the awareness 7067.60 km further than we could ever imagine.

So please, not only for me… but for them, if you would like to learn more about their stories and go the extra mile and donate to the cause click HERE!

(All of the proceeds raised will go to The Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA) to help find a cure).

 

Feeling a little philosophical today…

There is a saying that has been coming to mind a lot lately, “The only thing constant in life is change.”

Everything will always be slowly changing. Your body cells are always rejuvenating and the weather is ever unpredictable all the while the seconds go by on the clock to a new hour.

So why is it when things come to a close, or change noticeably, that it is such a shock to the system.

The season, at least on the calendar, is changing. For me I’m a year older. Some may be dealing with more personal changes. For the second years their school career is coming to a close. And for the first years their term long projects are coming to an end.

These are milestones, and ones that have prominence. Being uncomfortable with these changes is a normal reaction, but being able to handle and adapt to changes is in our blood. It is how we all got here. Without these milestones we wouldn’t be able to grow and learn. I think we have a mild “freak out” when it happens because we get comfortable with the subtle and unnoticeable changes. So, when they show themselves we don’t know what to do.

But, we do because we have dealt with it all along.

Remember that.

What a week..

IPP. IPP. IPP. Magazine. IPP. Magazine. Magazine. Sleep?

Right now it is probably safe to say those are the words that every CreCommer is mumbling after every sip of coffee and struggle they endure to keep their eyes open. 

This week in one word was… INTENSE!

First year CreCommers have been closing down the school each and every night working on their magazine project while the second year students were preparing for their Independent Professional Project (IPP) presentation. 

It is weird to think that only a few months ago the first year CreCommers met their magazine group for the first time and were maybe only fighting to decide on a topic. Now they are fighting tight schedules, strongly discussing word choices for magazine articles, and struggling to work with columns, all the while hoping that, at the end of this, a little bit of their sanity will stay intact. 

On that note my tip for the week is to have a support system.

It is something we heard on repeat throughout the second years IPP speeches. Their thank-you portion of their speeches were full of people that were their support system. 

It is always nice to have a set of people behind you when the stress seems overwhelming.

Someone who is there who understands you are not a crazy person when you lose your mind and start “cry laughing”. 

Someone who will listen to your story over and over and over and over and then over again and each time act as if it is the first time you have said it. 

Someone who will pick you up when you are down or push you when you seem to be losing steam.

Basically surround yourself with people that make sure you are continuously moving forward. If you don’t then this entire school thing may make you lose your mind.

 

AdWords..

For Ad class today we learnt about AdWords and how Google searches things for you. (Kinda interesting/creepy how Google searches check it out here).

AdWords in the simplest form can be answered by this, “When people want to search for you or your blog what do you think they type?”

You can set up an Ad for your blog and get a small cut of money for it. It is better if you run your Ad campaign though in times that correspond with your blog theme.

So for example, the theme of my blog is school and tips to surviving College (more specifically CreComm). This means the best time for me to run an AdWords campaign would be the beginning of a school year, so August or September, because that would be the time that students are frantically looking for validation that they will survive, or need some tips on how to do this college thing.

That is a short overview of what AdWords is if you want to set up your own campaign go over to Google AdWords.

Here are some of my campaign ideas:

– CreComm Survival Guide.
Samantha Sommerfield’s how to
Take it week by week here…
https://sommerfieldsurvival.wordpress.com

– Sommerfield Survival.
Survive 154 days of a CreComm year
Straight from a Red River student
https://sommerfieldsurvival.wordpress.com

– A college how-to guide!
Get student tips week by week
Easier than reading your homework..
https://sommerfieldsurvival.wordpress.com

– School assignments, lame.
Procrastinate, you already are
This read is easier than homework
https://sommerfieldsurvival.wordpress.com

– New college student?
Don’t stress out so much
Read this survival guide for tips
https://sommerfieldsurvival.wordpress.com

What do you think? Any stand out to you? What would be best to make me some more mula? Let me know!

Safety first then home time!

I don’t know how we did it but we managed to get up for 8am classes again. Kudos. After having that week off to sleep in I know that it was a challenge to get up for school again.

On Monday my class went to a school board meeting where we learnt about the property tax raise and what it means for homeowners in the Winnipeg School Division.

After it was done, at 8pm, a bunch of us went back to school to finish the article that was due at 8am. Our thoughts were, “Instead of worrying about handing it in in the morning why not finish it tonight and have a relaxing extra 30 minute sleep.” (The things we do to get an extra sleep in the morning I tell ya).

School that night was a nice little freak-out-while-eating-donuts-and-listening-to-music party.

As the time ticked along, one by one we started to finish our 400-450 words and leave to hand it in. But of course, to me, everything in the empty room was more entertaining than finishing the article. I finally buckled down around 9:50 to finish the piece by 10:45.

It was as good as it was going to get and I still had my sanity, so I called it a win. That is when it hit me. I am a tall blonde feeble girl with a laptop in hand about to walk 2 blocks to my car that is sitting alone in a parking lot off an alley at 11pm. Clearly I didn’t think this part through. So I called up SafeWalk.

And that is my tip for you guys this week.

CreComm can give you many late nights at the school. So if you are a tall blonde feeble girl or just want less anxiety than your already overflowing plate has provided, give SafeWalk a try.

No matter how foolish you feel about it SafeWalk is a program for a reason. There are creepy people out there and they like to come out at 11 at night.

In my experience it really helped, because on our way to my car we passed three ominous downtown characters. If I didn’t have the two guys there on each side of me acting as my temporary bodyguards my anxiety would have been through the roof as those characters eyed down my laptop.

The two gentlemen helped ease my worries about the Exchange District at night, and I felt like someone of importance.

As much as my friends laugh at me for being too paranoid about the situation, I chose to have a SafeWalk to my car for the first time and I am happy I did, and I encourage you to do the same if you feel the need.

It is better to be safe than sorry, right.

A Thousand Farewells by Nahlah Ayed

For Journalism class we just recently had to read the book A Thousand Farewells by Nahlah Ayed.

For those of you who don’t know, Nahlah Ayed is a foreign correspondent for CBC. She was born in Winnipeg but when she was six years old her mom and dad decided to get back in touch with their Palestine roots and moved their family to a refugee camp in Amman, Jordan.

Her book A Thousand Farewells profiles her life from those memories in the refugee camp to the challenges that come from being a foreign correspondent.

I just want to first quickly mention first how I normally do not read personal chronicle books unless I am invested in a that person in some way.

I prefer to watch documentaries or movie adaptations of non-fiction books, like Into the Wild. I am a very visual person and so reading this book was hard to do at times because I wasn’t invested in her story before reading (which is the only way I read non-fiction personal books).

Reading this book took a lot of time and was confusing because of the abundance of information that is thrown at you about the war and the people involved.

The Middle Eastern wars are not cut and dry as she mentions in her book. There is a lot of background to it.

For someone who hasn’t been following intently about the wars this book will seem confusing, and maybe it is because I am a visual person but I think the story could be well suited for a documentary. That way the facts and visual aspects can be integrated better.

That being said the stories that she has collected throughout her lifetime are completely unbelievable and are things you only hear on the TV but don’t think actually happen.

I really enjoyed how she told those stories without a filter. She would talk about all the things that posed as a challenge to her, like bombings outside of the place she was staying at to her, a mass grave site where people were looking for their love ones after a tragedy, and her cameraman getting beating by a mob in the streets.

Sharing these stories helps to show that even for journalists overseas the hazards of a war torn country is immanent. Her health even took a toll due to the “overwhelming stress” she internalized. A valid lesson and harsh realization for those who are wanting to be a journalist, like us CreCommers.

However, the structure of these stories is a little hard to follow at first. Ayed focus is on the wars that go on, and war grows and spreads, so she has to grow and move with it. Almost every chapter is in a new part of the Middle East, and the flow of the book is hard to get used to at first but as you continue you adapt to it.

After finishing the book I have had more admiration for oversea correspondents. I have always appreciated their initiative and this book solidifies that. They are immersing their lives but also risking their lives for the work that they love.

Countdown has ended!

I swear every day this week felt like Friday, and every day I woke up I was disappointed by the inevitable realization that it was in fact not Friday yet.

But today I woke up with no disappointment cause it is finally reading week!

Whatever you do with your reading week embrace it. It is a week full of empty hours that will be filled no matter how you intend them to be.

Remember: With great power comes great responsibility!

Want to catch up on your many much needed mental health days, awesome, that is my plan for the first couple days. If you choose to vacation in the mystical land that is the third floor Mac lab for the entire week, go for it.

The bast way though is to find a nice balance between work and personal life. It is just like the real world (I know weird eh?). If you work too hard all the time you will eventually hit a wall, and hit it hard. It is what a lot of people are experiencing right now with CreComm I find. We take in all the stress but don’t appreciate those moments of silence enough that allows us to breathe for a second.

Look at it this way. If you view school as a marathon coming at it with a sprinters point of view only works for the first bit.

The cross country running point of view has a long steady pace that allows them to pick up near the end. They appreciate their surroundings and have a foundation that will last them the eight month race.

Embrace those moments of silence and freedom this next week but balance it with some work as well.

Happy reading week y’all!!

Remember when there was a scheduled nap time? I miss that.

Sleep. What is sleep? They say you are supposed to get eight hours of it, but between the assignments or getting the cold… or maybe a mixture of both, who has time for that?

So here are some tips to get that energy back, and hey they are all in one place so you don’t have to waste anymore energy searching for them. Bonus!

1) Eat well

I know it sounds typical but honestly almost everything can be related back to what you put on your plate. Eating nuts, fish, and/or eggs can give you the protein you need to keep going for the day.

2) Tea Time

Green tea or chia tea it is plain and simple enough. Green tea is supposed to be better than coffee to keep you alert and with less the amount of caffeine.

3) Laugh

Laughter is the best medicine right? It makes sense if you look into the science behind it. It increases your heart rate which increases your blood flow. It also releases the happy happy joy joy chemicals in your body, they also go by the name of endorphins (one of the hand full of things I took from my time at UofW).

4) Move your butt!

It builds off of the increase of blood flow. Get up and move around for a bit. It will keep you alert and you’ll get a change of scenery as well.

5) Meditate

Breathe in and breathe out. Get all the excess thoughts out of your mind and rejuvenate your body. It gives you a peace of mind and increase your Alpha waves which help wake you up. When your Alpha waves are low that is when you feel sleepy. (This also is courtesy of  U of W knowledge). Now… ommm.

Some of my helpful sources for tip ideas:

http://www.oprah.com/health/Dr-Ozs-Beauty-School-13-Energy-Restoration-Tips_1/13

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20559973_last,00.html