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

Today, at four in the morning I was checking my bags in for a 5:45am flight in Denver. The United website had told me that I qualified for two free bags because of my MilagePlus standing. Yet, there I was having to pay $60 for my two bags. I confronted the lady at the desk about this and she simply said: “No… Ya don’t”. After that, the man who took my bag slammed my ski bag onto the conveyer belt with brutish force. This upset me more than the $60 fee. Inside that ski bag are two pairs of skis valued at $1300/pair, not to mention the massive amount of time and wax I have invested into keeping them sharp and fast them and will continue to do so throughout the ski season. I looked at the man in astonishment as he turned toward me and all he said was: “Can I help you?” Are you kidding me United?

Angry and looking to vent, I turned to Twitter. I don’t have a lot of followers and I don’t have a lot riding on my Twitter account (so I think). Because of this, I sometimes use expletives in my tweets. As I waited in the astonishingly long security line, I had the following conversation with United Airline’s Twitter account.

To be honest, I did not expect them to respond to me. It definitely caught me off guard. But, unwilling to be caught off guard, I answered them and later filled out their form. I am very doubtful anything will come of it, but I was still slightly impressed that someone was taking the time to answer customer’s complaints.

If one were to look at my Twitter, you would find a lot of random humor and commentary that may not be very funny. I Tweet it because I think that it’s funny, hoping to maybe get a favorite or two. However, having a rather disloyal following, this happens rarely. I tweet because I can. I tweet because it seems to be less consequential than Facebook. None of my friends really care about Twitter. Nothing I tweet about really matters. I really only use the medium to follow sports, politicians, and news stories. Twitter is what you make it. I am pretty comfortable with what I have made out of my Twitter.

– Murph

During my Senior year of high school, I missed over fifty days of school between the months of January and
April alone due to ski racing. Throughout high school, I missed a almost unreasonable amount of school due to ski racing. Now, I find myself super stressed out because I missed two days of school. I barely finished my DML research paper and had to take a Spanish midterm via fax early yesterday morning and I have yet to start any of my readings for other classes (which are substantial). Yet, it also made me realize the importance of digital media in one’s ability to miss school.

Imagine missing school without the Internet. Imagine having to send Professor Mittell your essay via Fax. I had no idea how to use a fax machine. Someone at the front desk of the condo complex we are staying at had to show me how to use it. I have no real way of knowing if it actually worked or not. Being able to use tools like email are vital to communication between professor and student while they are absent. Bein able to conduct research online opposed to having to use hard copies of everything makes writing papers much easier and viable for the absent student. Being able to talk to fellow classmates via social media and text messaging is crucial for knowing what was discussed in class. None of this mattered as much during high school. Missing class was not as vital to your standing in the class as it is now. I rarely if ever did homework while missing school in high school. Now, I miss one class and I feel stressed out. It will certainly be interesting to see how this continues this winter as I miss more school for ski raicng.

– Murph

To be fairly honest, I have never really thought about the details that go into teaching a class before this year. I always just assumed that teachers showed up and taught a subject. I never thought about the goals that teachers had and the amount of planning that went into that class. Yet, as we have delved into the education sector of digital media literacy in the last couple of weeks, I have began noticing the material that my professors bring to class and imagine them preparing for that lecture days before. I have started to imagine my political science professor rehearsing his seemingly non-stop hour-long lectures. It’s almost artful.

Teaching at the Middlebury Union Middle School forced me to reflect on America’s current education dilemma.

Mrs. SantaMaria’s class was very exemplary of the modern American educational experience. It has clearly made strives as far as the introduction of technology goes (providing students with netbooks), but still has some flaws that alienate students from the full experience. The path to creating a more successful education system in America is making early pathways for students who seem disinterested in learning. Primary education teachers need to create more engaging material from a young age in order to develop a mindset in which students of all backgrounds are able to enjoy school. I believe that we have the resources to pull this off. We simply need to be able to create a structure that effectively funds and incentivizes education programs with a multitude of entry points. Overall, the experience was exciting and made me reflect on my primary educational experience greatly.

– Murph

Online language translators are centerpiece to my Spanish education. I mean, of course learning grammar is vital, but I would be lost while doing homework or writing essays if I didn’t have an online translator with me. Can you imagine having to dig through some massive Spanish-English dictionary to find a word? That would be horrible.

Yet, I often find myself asking myself how ethical translating tools like Google Translate. I mean one can simply translate entire paragraphs. It will be grammatically incorrect, but you’ll get the basic idea. I have found that it is important to use these tools in moderation and only search for single words or minor phrases in order to help me. It is yet another innovation that has made academia easier and its proper use will continue to be a dilemma for students and teachers alike.

– Murph

In today’s political landscape, opponents use subtle things like something someone may have written in a college newspaper or something that they may have said to a colleague twenty years earlier as grounds for an attack. Now, we have things like Facebook and Twitter where young people are able to say and do whatever they want without a thought of their implications on their future success. I can just imagine a future presidential debate where the moderator asks the candidate “On December 3rd, 2010 You tweeted: “F**kThis S**t, I’m gettin drunk.” Would you care to elaborate on that?”. Another potential thing is pulling up a tagged facebook picture from someone’s college years showing the candidate peeing in public while he was drunk. I mean, think of the vast amount of information people will have on politicians in the future that they do not currently have access to. All in all, it’s going to be hilarious to watch a candidate try to defend a tweet from twenty or thirty years ago. I know that I certainly have tweets that would offend some people and make me a rather unelectable candidate to some people. Do you?

– Murph

You get one shot at a course. You train in the gym all summer and fall for this one run. You freeski, drill, and train throughout the winter for this one run. You tune your skis for thousands of hours a season for this one run. You make one miscalculation and it’s over. Your day is finished. If you’re not weary, your entire season could be jeopardized. You make one mistake and all the money your parents have exhausted are wasted. This is the reality of ski racing. In what other sport, can all your preparation be so quickly foiled? You can ski to the best of your ability, but be foiled by the fact that you didn’t wax the right temperature wax. It is truly a brutal sport. But, I love it.

It takes a truly special type of person to be successful at ski racing. You have to a bit masochistic. You have to be willing to wear a spandex suit in winter conditions while wearing ski boots that are three to four sizes smaller than your shoe size. You have to be willing to accept that on any given run, you could catch an edge at high speeds and blow out your knee. You have to accept vomiting in the gym. You have to fight fear and be willing to push past your comfort. This sport is not for the faint of heart. Without it, I would not be who I am today.

Video of me crashing

I live for vomiting after a workout. I live for taking a gnarly crash and living to tell the tale. Most of all, I live for laying down a good run. Ski racing has taught me that “you can’t always get what you want”. It has taught me mental prowess. Above all, it has taught me that hard work trumps all. Without ski racing, I would not be at Middlebury. I would not be willing to push myself in the gym and the classroom. I may not be the strongest student at this institution, but what I lack in knowledge, I make up for in sheer ability to work hard. It takes courage to be a great ski racer. It takes courage to lead a great life. Ski racing has created the building blocks for my future success regardless of what my results are.

Thanks,

Murph

I grew up in a town of less than 10,000 people. We are a ski resort community who’s economic drive is tourism. The town is relatively racially homogenous. I had a rather privileged childhood in this town.

Despite Colorado being ranked 49th in education funding, our public schools had computers everywhere and required computer education classes from elementary school through high school. I had a Mac computer in my room from the time I was in third grade. I got new ones approximately every three years and got a laptop when I was a Junior in high school. I recall using Wikipedia and google to supplement my education from the time I was in third grade. I remember spending hours looking at various Wikipedia articles simply because I could. I took this for granted. I didn’t realize until I was in high school that not all students had this advantage.

I don’t know what I would have done without an internet connection and a computer growing up. If I was subjected to using the school’s computers or the library’s I would not have been as motivated growing up. A computer was as vital an instrument in my education as a classroom. The amount of research a computer provided me was unsurmountable. It has brought me to the determination that digital media literacy is a vital part of getting ahead in the contemporary world. Education is the source by which our future leaders will be created. Therefore, the employment of effective technology is a mandatory factor in the development of our society as a whole.

Midterms are over. I have written a total of thirty pages of essays in the last two weeks. I have taken two 2+ hour examinations and an in class essay. So my question is: what now? I almost feel bored that school is conventional again. I sit here in the library thinking that it was an unproductive day because I only had 90 pages of reading for PolySci, wrote half an essay for Spanish, and worked on my wiki during the day. Midterms made me stronger. Writing a five page essay does not seem like such a daunting task anymore.

I suppose it’s time to look to the future. We are only have five weeks until finals. Soon, the snow will fall and I will be skiing again. Soon, I will be getting back from a day of training at the snow bowl, cold and tired and wanting a nap. But instead, I will have to finish an Econ problem set and do some readings for DML. From hearing stories from alumnus this weekend, I have learned that this whirlwind will soon be over as the real world awaits us. It may be tough right now, but it is also so exciting. I have learned an incredible amount already and I look forward to learning even more.

– Murph

My father recently sent me this Op-Ed piece from the New York Times about the collapse of education in the United States. I found this article to be particularly interesting. As I was reading about how the United States has drastically fallen behind in almost every aspect of education, I couldn’t help but ponder about how I felt about the situation. As a American college student pursuing higher education, am I helping to sway this trend? Probably not. I am but a single drop of water in a rainstorm. The real problem resides in our society and its culture. We have become lazy. Whether it is reading Sparknotes or copying your math homework from a friend, academic laziness is rampant. Technology has largely contributed to this.

Digital media and all its aspects have given our youth a massive vice by which to procrastinate. Even as I write this blog, I am constantly tempted to open up a new tab and check Facebook. (Resist it! Don’t give in to your temptations.) On the other hand, technology also has a massive beneficial potential for education. It allows for asynchronous communication between professor and student. It allows for the use of calculating functions on programs like Excel. It has revolutionized the old status quo of doing everything from writing a research paper to coordinating schedules for working on a group assignment with a classmate.

I feel that the United States must take advantage of the beneficial aspects of education technology. Many of our schools lack technology and their students pay the price. We must reform our education system and make the development of well-rounded students our priority. I believe the key to solving the procrastination problem our students face is to make the benefits of using technology more rewarding (ie: making educational tools more fun).

I have two cousins in elementary school (3rd and 5th grade). They are very bright, but I fear that they are too attracted to playing video games and the internet that they may fall behind in the future. For the sake of our children and our nation as a whole, we need to revamp our education system. This starts with the revision of technology use in the classroom.