On the car ride home from Middlebury, my mom asked me a question that I hadn’t really thought about up until now. She said, “Was Middlebury easier or harder than what you expected going in?” After being accepted to Middlebury, I heard numerous stories from people all expressing their love for the school. Along with those stories, I also heard a few that talked about the enormous work load and the rigorous classes. My senior year of high school, I had an incredibly tough schedule. I took four APs as well as another class which was around the same level of rigor. After taking all of these classes and surviving, I thought that I was well prepared for what lay ahead.

Looking back now, I can see that I was wrong. I underestimated how tough it was going to be to receive good grades at a school like Middlebury. I am not saying that I did not enjoy this semester because I did; I am just a bit surprised as to how hard college really is. Even with my crazy work load, I would not trade my first semester experience for anything. I met a ton of great people and was taught by some of the best professors in the world. All in all, I feel incredibly blessed to have the chance to attend Middlebury and I look forward to what’s to come.

I just took my last exam after turning in all my essays on Wednesday and finishing up with Anthro on Tuesday, and now I am done! First semester has flown by; I can’t even believe how fast it’s been. I still feel like I’m figuring things out, but I think once the Febs get here I’ll realize just how much I have it down already. I did well in my classes, met a lot of really awesome people, stretched my mind, stayed active, and got involved. I just can’t wait to take more classes, meet more people, stretch further, explore more, and get even more involved!!!

When I signed up for DML this summer, I had just gotten back to the US after a year of being abroad, and I was struggling with the role of technology in US American culture. I came back and Snapchat was everywhere, my friends all had iPhones complete with a wide variety of apps that they used all the time, people were consumed by their social networking, and I didn’t get it. Instead of rejecting and isolating myself, I decided to put DML on my list of choices. After having this class for a semester, I don’t think I’ve changed much on my position and attitude toward technology, but I understand both sides of the debate better. I get how media helps relationships, how it gives voice to those who couldn’t be writers before, how it shouldn’t be meant to replace the face-to-face, and I realize that people have resisted every step of technology for all of history with the argument that it will make us less intelligent.

But I think that the rate of development of technology has accelerated to a point much faster than what was happening before. When written language was developed, it took hundreds of years for the printing press to develop, and then typewriters happened much later. The internet became a part of our lives just 20 years ago, and now it runs our society. The rate of technological development outruns our ability as a society to respond to it in a healthy way. I think that media affects our psyche by distracting us from ourselves and the people around us. It inhibits the development of emotional and social skills. Though it has a wide array of benefits: it is an amazing supplement to relationships and is a medium for negotiation, we need life, awareness, and intelligence as bases on which we can use technology to expand upon. That should be its role rather than serving as a distraction, time waster and an excuse not to master material. Technology should be a tool, but I think too many people use it as a key definer of their lives.

So.  The semester is finally coming to a close.  It’s crazy how time flies by — it honestly feels like yesterday I was arriving at Midd with my parents, not sure who anyone was or where I was supposed to go.  So much has changed.  Before I get into the bittersweet endings of the semester, I have a “fun” little experience to share with you all.

Things had been going great, and the end of the semester was shaping up quite nicely after a relaxing Thanksgiving break.  But I didn’t feel like myself all week.  After nearly fainting in the dining hall last Tuesday, I started to get nervous about every little thing.  Eventually there was no one thing making me anxious anymore – it became everything.  I felt lightheaded all week, and really didn’t feel like myself at all.  Which was terrible, because December is my favorite month of the year (Christmas + my birthday!).  As I struggled through each day, I couldn’t do much more than watch movies without feeling terrible again.  On Saturday night, I woke up in a full-blown panic attack, which has to have been the scariest moment of my entire life.

But why is this even on my blog?  Because technology saved me.  When I woke up, I immediately texted one of my friends, who came rushing into my room with three of my other hallmates.  We sat with our CRA for a while, and I texted my mom to let her know I had gotten worse.  Being the absolute saint that she is, my mother left Boston at 3:30 am to come and pick me up.  She got to Midd by 7:30 and packed up all my stuff for break to take me home.  I can’t help but be incredibly thankful for cell phones with this past weekend’s experience.  What would have happened if no one had been there to calm me down?  Would I have been able to make it a few more hours without seeing my mom?  I have no idea.  But I’m so glad that someone was able to develop a mobile technology that keeps us instantaneously connected.  Not only is technology fun, but it’s also really crucial for emergencies.

Not to leave my story on a bad note, I did get back home safely and have seen many doctors who are helping me through everything.  I already feel more like myself — and I haven’t seen the real Meg in quite a while.  Although it really sucks to be missing finals week and not to have had the chance to say goodbye to my friends, I’m glad that I got home when I did and was able to seek help.  A crazy end to a crazy fall.

So now, the wrap up for the semester.  This fall has been full of so many new experiences and opportunities, and I’m surprised we’ve made it this far.  Despite our often sleepy faces after our 3-hour classes on Tuesdays, I would say that this class has helped establish a community between the 15 of us.  I’m glad I had the chance to meet everyone, and I can’t wait to see what happens in our next few years at Midd.  Have a fantastic break, and Merry Christmas!  See you all in J-Term.  Until then, stay classy.

If I asked a random person on the street to define success, he would most likely say that success is purely hard work. In Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, however Gladwell explains that success is not as straightforward as most of us think it is; in fact, the factors of success is intriguing. He used fascinating examples and reliable data to back up his theories of success.

1. Why Oppenheimer succeeded and Langan did not

Chapter 4 of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers compares Robert Oppenheimer to Christopher Langan to show that IQ is not relevant to success. Even though they were both undisputed geniuses, Oppenheimer succeeded and Langan did not. Gladwell arrived at this conclusion by contrasting Oppenheimer and Langan’s background. Langan was from a poor family whereas Oppenheimer was from a better-educated family and this meant that Oppenheimer had more opportunities than Langan. For example, Langan’s family was so poor that he could only go to colleges that offered him a full scholarship. Even though Langan was brilliant enough to get a scholarship, his mum forgot to fill out a financial statement in his sophomore year, which led to the cancellation of the scholarship. This meant that Langan had to go to work without graduating from university. In contrast, Oppenheimer was born into a wealthier surrounding. He went to Harvard, and then did his masters at Cambridge. Instead of doing hard labor on the weekends like Langan, Oppenheimer travelled around Europe. As a young man he had seen much more of the world compared to Langan. Oppenheimer’s advanced educational opportunities enabled him to become a top-notch scientist. He developed the atomic bomb, making significant contributions to the war effort. Gladwell explains clearly how he came up with this theory, and presented a convincing case that IQ is not the most essential factor for a person to be successful, contrary to what everyone else thinks.

2. Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes

Gladwell investigated why Korean Air had such a high accident rate until 2000, when David Greenberg took over the operations. After careful investigation, Gladwell concluded that cultural factors contributed to communication problems in the cockpit. When Gladwell was listening to dialogues between pilots and co-pilots, he decided that the tone between them was generally indirect and uncommanding. In other words, those in a lower ranking position did not assert commands that were crucial to safety. This is due to their Korean culture, which teaches people to be more polite and give one’s utmost respect to one’s authority. This leads to statements like “I think pulling around would be a better option here” rather then “pull around here” by the co-pilot or engineer towards the pilot. Due to these indirect and ambiguous statements, there was a lot of confusion between the co-pilots and the pilots, leading to accidents. After 2000, when Korean Air hired Greenberg from America to control Korean Air’s operations, the average crash rate immediately dropped. This was because Greenberg told his pilots to use English and most importantly change their tone to a more commanding voice. Now, Korean Air is one of the safest airlines in the world. Gladwell had intriguingly explained that how the influence of the Korean culture played a significant role to the high number of plane crashes.

3. Joe Flom

To explain Flom’s success, Gladwell analyzes Flom’s background and the time period in which he was born. Gladwell investigates others who also had similar opportunities with Flom in order to explain Flom’s success. Gladwell used Alexander Bikel, as an example of how being Jewish back then was crucial. Bikel, like Flom, also wanted to be a lawyer. However, the top law firms on Wall Street rejected most Jews because the firms did not trust them. This made Bikel work at a second-rate firm, which at that time did what the big law firms did not do: mergers and acquisitions. Suddenly this business boomed and Bikel was right on top of this wave. Flom was also Jewish at that time; he took advantage of the boom in mergers and acquisitions and built a successful law firm. Gladwell also uses Maurice Janklow as an example of how being born at the right period matters. Janklow was the only one in his family who went to college then went to Law school. Afterwards, he acquired a paper printing business, which did not succeed. He had a decent family background and a good education, all the components that leads to success in business, but he couldn’t make an impact. Gladwell also investigated on Janklow’s son Mort, who became a successful lawyer. Gladwell explained that Maurice’s failure was purely because of bad timing. Maurice’s business did not succeed due to bad timing he started during the Great Depression, when the stock market and banks crashed. In contrast, Mort was born at the right time so that he had the advantage of having less people in the classroom, hence he received a better quality education; this all led to Mort building a successful law firm. Mort was born around the same years as Flom was, 1930, so Flom also had a more focused education. Gladwell examined Bikel and Janklow’s family to explain how Flom had the advantage of being Jewish and being born at the right time to build Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which was a successful law firm.

Gladwell explanations proved that the common myth, “success is just working hard”, is wrong. Gladwell brilliantly finds correlation between success and many other factors for example culture, birth period, parental background and opportunity. It is only a great thinker like Gladwell who could find out these correlations and deliver them to readers.

Recently I watched this show called Sherlock and fell in love with it. They also came out with a new trailer for Season 3, check it out!

My favourite character in the series, is Sherlock Holmes. What a cliche! Sherlock Holmes was a tall man, about six feet. He wore a black suit with a white collared shirt underneath. When he went outside, he put on an overcoat and wears a chauffeur’s hat. Occasionally he wore a scarf, depending on the weather. He had sharp eyes and a hawk-like nose sensed unusually well.

Holmes’ observation skills were no secret. It is one of his traits which intrigued me. He had human eyes; he saw what everyone saw. However, he came up with different conclusions. For example, in the episode “The Great Game”, the Police could not find any leads on the body. Holmes however could predict who the killer was and the daily habits of the victim. Looking at the victim’s alarm schedule on his watch, Holmes concluded that he has a daily routine. The buttons were stiff so the victim did not change the alarm too often, indicating a daily pattern that he follows. The victim also had a gun strapped to him, but due to his body condition, it was unlikely that he was in the army so Holmes concluded that he was a guard. Further evidence of his oversized uniform and hardly worn shoe sole also insinuated that the victim was a guard. Holmes found ticket stubs in the victim’s pocket, suggesting he worked somewhere in a museum or a gallery. Holmes decided to list out the museums and galleries beside the area which reported missing workers. One gallery reported a person missing, so Holmes concluded that the victim was from a gallery.

I was also fascinated by his knowledge foundation and his ability to apply it. His correct decisions were mainly based on his knowledge base. Throughout the series, Holmes was portrayed as a person who knew everything. In “Scandal of Belgravia”, Holmes was given a bunch of random letters and numbers, which he had to decode. At first, he gathered that this was a 747 flight leaving London Heathrow. The code was a seat allocation. He eliminated the possible airlines and came to the conclusion that there was a bomb armed in the 6:30 flight from Heathrow to Baltimore. The speed and precision of his delivery was nothing but impressive. People didn’t interrupt him when he was on a roll, because he just spewed out information. After his rants, people would be shocked at first, then impressed. The speed with which he utilized access his vast amounts of knowledge intrigues me. He was like a massive library with an efficient borrowing system.

What I found most intriguing is his ability to express his complicated thoughts. He had a unique brain yet he could express himself with logical coherence. When he explained the code to Irene Adler, he spent around 4 minutes explaining how he came to his conclusion. He didn’t breathe nor pause in the middle of his explanations; connections ran across his brain and he delivered that well. At first, people would be shocked at the speed of delivery, but later they would understand what Sherlock was trying to say. No one could understand what goes on in Holmes’ mind but he managed to express his thought process for everyone to understand.

Even though Holmes had an awkward personality, I found him to be the most intriguing character in the series. He was so passionate and confident that he was willing to risk his life, as shown in “A Study in Pink”, to prove his theory. Three suicidal cases occurred and police found correlation between them. Holmes traced one the victim’s phone signal and found the killer at the same time the killer found him. The killer gave Holmes same riddle he gave his other victims. The killer gave Holmes two pills and said one of the pills is harmless, the other poisonous; he invited Holmes to choose one, promising that he will swallow the other – otherwise the cabbie would shoot Holmes. Even though Holmes could have walked out and call the cops after realizing the gun was a fake, he still decided to play the game.

Holmes didn’t make any mistakes in any of the episodes shown. This was because he had accurate senses; his senses did not lie to him. If it weren’t for him, the police department would not have got anything done. Even Detective Inspector Lestrade quoted: “we couldn’t do anything without Holmes.” His alertness brought the world into balance; if it wasn’t for his alertness, the evil symbol Jim Moriaty would have destroyed the world. People like Holmes kept the world away from evil taking over, and that was what intrigued me.

The snow fall today reminded of the article by Bella English in the Boston Globe about snowplow parents. The term snowplow parents is a clever analogy for parents who are extremely over protective of their children and want to constantly clear any snow in their children’s path. More and more these types of parents are surfacing on the college level, and technology plays a role in their prominence.

In the article, English explains how snowplow parents are inserting themselves into their child’s lives at the college level. She gives examples of this intrusion such as one parent who called the dean of Boston University to complain about her child receiving a A- in a class. English continues by explaining the significance of the intrusion. By stepping into the lives of their child in such an aggressive manner, snowplow parents undermine the confidence of their child. Furthermore, the child will reach adulthood without understanding how to handle adversity because it has never been a part of their life.

Technology plays a large role in the creation of a snowplow parent relationship. With todays technology, it is possible to be in almost constant contact with your parents. Between text messages, emails, video chats and so on, people can easily maintain constant contact. The issue is that this constant contact pulls the student out of college life. It detracts from the college experience the student is supposed to receive. The student becomes reliant on connections to people and parents far away via technology and is less apt to succeed on his or her own.

I certainly have gone through a bit of a struggle with my parents upon going to college. They were very sad to see me leave their every day lives, and I know that if it was up to my mom I would have gone to Middlesex Community College five minutes from my house. Yet, over time my parents have gradually been able to surmount the difficulty of being apart. Now we text or call only about 4 times a week, still staying in close contact but not smothering me. I think the transition has gone as well as possible, and am grateful they are not full blown snowplow parents!

Sometimes I under estimate my ability to procrastinate. Except last night, instead of surfing Facebook or trying to eat my way out of my macro exam, I did something a little different. Something I’m a little more proud of. My friends and I started a blog. It wasn’t my idea but when we all took a break from studying to do a little free-write, I was pulled in. We all ended up staying up til the wee hours of the morning, writing, editing, and publishing content.

I never liked the idea of keeping a full time blog. To be honest, I still don’t. To me blogging is often tedious and I’m rarely exceptionally proud what I post. However, last night I was really happy with what me and my two friends produced. Maybe, blogging is just better when you and your friends do it together (excuse the lame blogging slogan). If you have a minute, take a look. My piece is called pocket aces. I hope you enjoy: http://towersandspires.wordpress.com/

SCR

I just had to rush down here to blog about this.

I have sat in the library for around 10 hours now and as I was using the last bit of energy in me… A voice started going through my head. At first I thought I was so tired that I started dreaming about Christmas songs. Quickly after I realised that there was a acapella group singing in the library, I sprinted away from my desk to listen to it.

As I stopped by the stairs where i could see them sing. It was the most beautiful thing I have heard in a while. For some reason it gave me the biggest chills and brought back many childhood memories to me. This force completely reenergised me. As I was rotting through my final paper of Immigrant America, as I was complaining only to myself of how miserable life is at this moment, the voices of the acapella group completely brought me out of that bubble. I was so in the zone that I couldn’t see the other 100 people also listening from upstairs. Damn, they must be feeling what I felt just now.

Now I feel refreshed. Tonight was going to be such a cruel night but the voices of those people made it 500 percent better.

Norris out.

guarantee yourself a favorable outcome, but you can give yourself the foundation for success.

I had a bad race today. It straddled a gate a minute ten gates into the course. I was talking to a fellow member of the ski team about mentality. I was uneasy before today’s race. I had had two days of slalom training prior. I was not confident in the sharpness of my skis. I felt incredibly unprepared. My teammate and I were asking each other about the way that we had felt before our good races. We both agreed that we felt rather carefree and simply excited to be skiing. Today, I let the emotions get the best of me and ended up with a bad result.

I’m a good ski racer. I’ve been doing this thing for way too long to be put down by one bad race. I just need to keep pushing forward and training like I always have.

All this applies to school. Finals may stress us out. But, just think about how much you have learned in this one semester. Think about how much you have grown as a person. I know that I certainly have. Good luck with finals. Keep Calm, Carry On.

– Murph