Velocity stilts

Recently I discovered a great invention called Velocity stilts. These are stilts that will allow a person to amplify their athletic abilities. A bow-Spring system is used that gives the user the feeling of being on a trampoline anywhere and everywhere that they are. This allows the user to double their running speed by increasing the stride and up to triple their non Velocity stilt jumping height.

I am personally hoping to be able to purchase some of these in the near future for my own use. I would love to be able to experience these stilts and with a little bit of practice hopefully do some pretty cool stuff.I have watched a bunch of youtube videos and even a full TV show about them and they look like so much fun. Most of what I have seen is comparable to having a trampoline everywhere you go and since my trampoline recently broke, rust had eaten away the frame, I feel theses would make an excellent replacement.

At first I thought my size may make it hard to get a pair of velocity stilts but it is actually much easier than one would think because they come in so many sizes. The price is a bit more but I will do my best to acquire some as soon as possible.

Conclusion

So here we are at the end of the semester. I enjoyed this class a lot. It was fun, I got to learn many things. But I am severely disappointed in the participation this class has shown. Here we have a blog for us to put down our thoughts, our feelings, our ideas. And yet, for some odd, strange reason, few people seem to even care about what others have written. And comments are an even greater rarity.

Would it kill people to check out some of these posts? I see many titles that catch my interest that have no views at all. Why is that? How is that? Are people just lazy? Do they think, "No one actually takes this blog seriously, they probably are only putting something down without effort." If they are thinking like this, they are quite blind. Big posts, and even posts with pictures take time and energy!

But bitching about it now won't help. It's the end of the semester. And now, this blog will be left on the web, probably forgotten. Or maybe not. Who knows? The future will come, and as I always say, "Time reveals all."

New Job

I thought I had the skills. I thought my previous job at the Bedford Village Inn had prepared me to the point that a new waitressing position at the River Road Tavern would be easy, almost stupidly simple. But I was mistaken. When I walked out of my first day of training, I felt as if all my experience of carrying trays and filling waters at my last job came crashing down on my shoulders, crippling my spine. I was beat. 

As if memorizing 45 bottled beers wasn't enough to intimidate me, the pace of service at the Tavern immensely surpassed my level of comfort. Coming from the Bedford Village Inn, I was instilled with the knowledge that eating out was a special occasion and should not be rushed. I had been programmed with the idea that there was a substantial length of time between each course where it was perfectly appropriate to let people sit and converse with nothing on the table except a glass of wine. The Tavern played by a whole different rule book. The time between clearing the Buffalo chicken dip appetizer and dropping the Kobe burgers was non existent. A fresh beer needed to be placed on the table or at least offered when the contents dropped below half full. Time I previously spent sipping coffee was now spent making roll ups and turning tables at lightning speed. By the end of my first shift I thought I had made a huge mistake. What was I thinking leaving the Bedford Village Inn, my place of employment for two years where I could throw myself on autopilot to finish my shift and everything felt automatic. I had little hope that I would last more than a week.   

Two months later I continue to race from kitchen to table, trying to charm my way to 20%. While I'm still in the habit of steering people clear of beers with descriptions I’ve forgotten, I am much more comfortable with the pace and responsibilities of the Tavern. My progress within the few months gives me hope that I can eventually return to the calculated and collected state of mind I had at the Bedford Village Inn.  

college life

I felt so isolated and nervous, being in a college class not knowing a single person or nothing about it. At first, I didn’t think it was a good idea at all. Being a senior in high school, I had a lot more things to worry about than whether to take a college course.  However, my parents thought it was an excellent idea.

My freshman and sophomore year were not all that great. My grades were lacking at an extreme level and my attitude towards school was inadequate to say the least. I figured, that if I did well my junior and senior year, that would make up for my previous two years. I managed to begin to fulfill these goals but something inside me was saying that what I was doing was not good enough. My grade point average was not where I had hoped it would be. Thinking back to what Mom and Dad said, I knew I had to give this college class a shot. Turns out, eventually I ended up taking two.

The first class was English Composition at NHTI in Concord New Hampshire. The horrific thing about this was that it was a summer course. My last real summer as a high school student was being spent at a community college three mornings a week. It was pure torture. I had to write all sorts of papers. Some of the papers seemed silly. However, I finished off the class with a 94. I felt so content when this class was over because I knew I had become a better writer but more importantly, I knew I had the potential in me to go to college.

With four college credits under my belt already, I still wanted to strive for that extra mile and push myself. Senior year was just peaking around the corner and enrollment for classes at NHTI was now in effect. I have always had an interest with traveling and international affairs so I decided to enroll in Hospitality and Tourism. The class started out slowly because I was not accustomed to the professor’s method of teaching. The professor was a very nice and humble man. He always had a new story to tell to go along with the lessons. I found him very intriguing and because of it, class was rather enjoyable and has changed how I am as a student. I am currently still in this class, and every week, it becomes more and more fascinating.

As bizarre as it sounds, I have to take my parents side on this one. Getting a small taste for college life was an incredible experience. I feel a lot more mature from when I initially started. It also made me feel more prepared for college.

Midterm Stress

 It's mid January and all of a sudden your required to flashback to all the knowledge you have learned since August.  I don't know about you, but I struggle trying to think back to what I had for breakfast this morning, none the less what I learned back in August.  But, no matter what students do this every year twice a year until they finish their education experience.

Whether in college or high school, every year midterms and finals linger over students as a huge impact to the final grade achieved in every class. 

Talk about stressful.  Take one week, put all the classed you have taken over the semester and all the knowledge learned in those classes, and take a test on that material.  It is possibly the most stressful and haunting week throughout your school career.  Endless hours of studying, stressing and panicking over whether your going to pass or fail the test.  It's a student's worst nightmare and never seems to stop.  As soon as one exam week ends preparation for the next ones start the day after with the start of the next semester.

My question is why make students take finals and midterms when after the end of the material being learned a unit test is already administered.  Students are already tested to find out whether they know the material or not so why add the stress of testing them again.  But, this time add the stress of every unit learned piled into one unmanageable test compacted on with every other class doing the same exact thing. 

I'm not advocating against tests, but I am saying why assign midterms and finals when it is a well known fact students don't perform well under stress.  Finals place students under such stress with the lingering fact of a possible grade drop with a bad grade on the exams. 

Although a recap of material is beneficial to students, students should not be expected with all the different classes and knowledge they obtain every school day to remember every nitty- gritty detail all at once.  Finals are a recipe for stress and disaster because no ones memory can retain as much information as the exams require.

Puppy problems

My family and I have been debating on adding a furry little friend to our home. A puppy! At first this was so exciting! What kind would we get I thought. A little dog or a big one? From a breeder or a shelter? Every question possible crossed my mind. But when it came time to start making final decisions, my family and I could just not agree.

They wanted a big dog like a lab or maybe a golden retriever. But I had wanted the exact opposite. Big dogs are great... When they aren't yours. They make messes that no one wants to pick up, their fur goes everywhere, and don't forget they love to jump on people! That just does not sound like much fun to  me. I wanted a small dog, one I could put in my purse. Who doesn't love seeing that!?  Maybe a maltesse or a terrier mix. The decisions were endless. The fun of picking out a puppy was turning into stress. We also had to keep in mind that mittens, our cat is still a baby. What if mittens didn't like the dog we got? Or if they didn't get along? What would we do then.

Just when I thought the puppy situation couldn't get anymore difficult , it did. We had to the decide  if we wanted to wait til spring. Tranning a puppy in this freezing weather and snow won't be fun. We had a lot to think about.  Hopefully when the snow melts and the weather warms up, we can all agree on some type of dog. I guess the real question now is, truly what is better, a big dog or a small one?

SAT

SAT scores does not show your full capabilities. SAT answer sheets that we fill out with are graded from a computer. Other than the multiple choice questions, I believe that they should not use computer to grade. There is a section in math where it is not a multiple choice questions. But we still need to bubble in the numbers in. I think the people should look over that part and compare it to the real answers. It doest have a clear direction about rounding up and down. Because high school kids are used to rounding up and down in either math or science class, it is normal for us to round them. But there is no direction saying that we should or shouldn't. In my own experience, I put down 7.1 for an answer and I got the question wrong. The correct answer was 7.11. I had many questions like that where I rounded up and got them wrong. The answer itself was not wrong but because the computer only knows only one answer, I got it wrong. I don't think it is fair for anyone for just rounding up.

In the grammar section, they have a chart where they combine the essay score and multiple choice questions and match it. And where ever the point matches, thats the point you get. I don't think this shows your full capabilities. They should make the grade separate and add them later. You could have done really well on the multiple choice question but have gotten a 4 on the essay. The essay brings down the grammar section grade down even if you did well on the multiple section.

I hope they would grade the math section individually so that we can earn the points deserve. They should spend more time to grade because this is test is something that every high schooler takes in order to go to college. They should have more consideration in grading test like these because it depends on our future. Either we could pay more money to do this or they should just do this for us. It wouldn't be right for us to not get into a college that we want because we don't meet our SAT scores for a certain college. Every point counts so it could bring up our final score even though it's little points.