Although I’m a huge advocate for digital media, I’ve realized as finals week approaches just how much the media world facilitates our distractions.  The past few days, I haven’t been feeling too well so I’ve gotten my work done pretty early in the day and hung out in my room the rest of the time.  Every night, I’ve sat on my bed and thought about how much studying I could get done for finals.  I think about all the Chinese characters I have to memorize or all the Calculus formulas I need to learn how to use.  But then I see my computer sitting on my desk and remember that I can spend my night watching Christmas movies.  Or looking online for Christmas presents for my friends.  Or finding new Christmas songs to listen to.  Much better use of my time Likewise, I always find myself on my phone texting or Snapchatting someone when I should be doing work.  Or even when I’m sitting with my friends — if my phone buzzes, I automatically pick it up to see what notification I got this time.  There is digital media all around us, which is a great thing most of the time.  But at points when we need to focus, it doesn’t go away.  I’d definitely say one of the hardest things I deal with is having the constant notification reminder that something is going on somewhere else, but having to put my phone on silent and tune out of my media to focus on my schoolwork.  I definitely don’t want media to go away anytime soon, but I do wish it wasn’t so hard to get away from at the times when I need to.

I have recently noticed that I frequently use my phone as a way of escaping awkward or uncomfortable social situations. This came to my attention today when my schedule did not align with those of my friends, leaving me to eat lunch by myself in Proctor. Though I know  eating meals solo is not a big deal- in fact, most people at Midd have done so at some point or another- I cannot help but feel uncomfortable as I observe everyone else eat lunch with their friends. Somewhat unconsciously, I munched on my tomato, basil, and goat cheese sandwich while scrolling through uninteresting text messages and Facebook updates. Why did I feel the need to have my phone out a time like this? Why couldn’t I proudly sit by myself and enjoy my delicious sandwich? Perhaps I was trying to suggest to the strangers around me that I was simply too cool and too busy to have lunch with friends. Whatever the reason and however stupid it may be, in that moment, having my iPhone as my lunch buddy made me feel more secure.

For some spontaneous reason, I deleted my Facebook on Tuesday. Instead of planning to do it and making excuses not to, I just did it. Since this summer, I’ve wanted to retest my ability to stay off the site but made excuses like, “I’m going to a new place” “I need it for college” “I’ll be meeting tons of new people,” when actually I’ve been trying to limit the ways that technology negatively affects my day to day.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that Facebook is a great tool. During my travels, I posted a lot about what I was up to and caught up with friends from home on how college was going. It was a great way to share photos and experiences with the people I love from far away and was almost the only way that I kept in touch with people from home. Still, now, Facebook can be an awesome tool to make connections and to plan get togethers or events. But I want to test the experience of not having Facebook in college. I have a phone now and everyone who would contact me through Facebook has my number, as I have theirs, and any event that I should attend at such a small school like Middlebury I will hear about from friends or from other news.

Others may think that deleting Facebook is pointless. You can definitely control your use of Facebook so that it doesn’t interfere with how you interact with people one on one, but it also encourages social competitiveness when you do get online. I found myself making sure I was tagged in certain photos a couple weeks ago and then asked myself, “Why am I doing this?” The answer, though many people may try to cover it up with excuses or alternate explanations, is that Facebook brings out the materialistic side of all of us. The reason we want to share photos and get tagged is because we want other people to see what we are doing. I’m not going to lie to myself anymore. I was being superficial, and I don’t want superficiality to be one of my values.

Facebook, I think, is a tricky thing. It’s great for many, many reasons. I will miss out on those random Facebook encounters where people seek me out or vice versa due to some random connection, and then we actually share information and thoughts on which we can expand. I will miss getting random messages from people at home, but that just means I can either call them, text them, or just have a great conversation in 2 weeks when I see them next. Facebook is great for many reasons, but it also affects how we think and the things we care about. In deleting my Facebook, I want to see whether the benefits outweigh the takeaways. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. I’ve promised myself to at least make it till after finals.

I don’t agree, in principle with online education. It definitely has its place in expanding access to education and serving as a supplemental tool to help students graduate on time, but I think the value of teacher-student interactions is too high to give up. Our traditional education at Middlebury, however, has already incorporated a lot of elements native to online education. We turn in papers online, take exams online, and rely on online sources to complete assignments. I was thinking about this in terms of the end of the fall term. I have an online exam, a paper to be turned in online, and one paper that has to be turned in in person. If it weren’t for the paper that has to be turned in as a hard copy, I would be able to leave as soon as my last class ends on Friday at 10 AM. If the temporal structure (in terms of using Moodle for assessment, and turning in papers via Moodle) that most of my classes have started using were utilized curriculum-wide, I would be able to go home. But more importantly, uniformity would give students an equal and predictable expectation for their work.

The problem right now is that every class approaches media differently. One of my classes has no online presence whatsoever, while one of my classes’ homework is all turned in via Moodle. This means that every assignment I turn in is not just turned in on a different subject, but also in a different temporal form. I’m not incompetent so I can handle it, but it’s a distraction from the actual work. A standardized system would allow students to focus on content rather than worrying about what form each assignment has to take, not to mention the fact that it would allow students to plan their vacations more easily.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I don’t stress. It enrages my friends and family all the time. Some say it’s a curse, and others are jealous. To be honest, it has its ups and downs.

During the semester I’ll find myself pushing things to the last minute, not worrying about important deadlines and some serious matters. This at times will affect my academic performance. However, I get a nice advantage by not stressing during finals week.

While everyone panics and frantically tries to study for their exams, I stay relatively cool. The key is knowing what you have to do to get things done. I understand, with experience, how much studying I need to put in and how to prioritize. During exams I’m relaxed, and when I look over at my classmates, I selfishly smile to myself as I watch them in their frantic states.

Cruel, I know.

Now that my first college finals experience is upon me, I wonder how I will handle it.

So far, so good. Very calm. And I appreciate my lack of stress as I hear my hallmates freaking out on the other side of my door.

Good luck over the next two weeks my fellow DMLers,

Stay calm, cool and collected

I have found blogging books fun, especially the ones that you used to love but haven’t been able to read recently. There are some books in my life which I have read so many times that I know the plot inside out. In Middlebury, I haven’t had any time to read books for pleasure, so I wrote a list down of the books that I have read multiple times so I could review on them and learn from the main lessons again. It only takes a glance at the summary to bring all the old memories back. It is also fun to write about old memories (currently doing a piece on my old housemaster and have some other cool ideas).

Hope you guys aren’t too stressed out of the work load, we are almost there!

I have been going on and on about the usefulness and setbacks of technology in education and everyday life, but never really touched upon how technology helped me set an incredibly enormous life goal of mine: finish a marathon.

When I was in Italy, at the United World College, one of the requirements for the IB diploma was to complete the CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) part. As fun as it sounds, the vast number of things we could do to complete it almost made it difficult to choose what to do. Once I settled creativity and service, the best (according to me) part was left – and so many sports to choose from. I did volleyball, basketball, field hockey, orienteering but the best part came in the cold Alpine winter. We could do skiing! If that was not enough, we could choose between nordic (cross country) and downhill. I’ve skied downhill since I was 5, but I’ve never tried cross country in my life, so I took up a challenge. After weekends of running and skating on skis on tracks specifically chosen for cross country skiers, our supervisor gave us a chance of a lifetime (I say this because otherwise I might have never got the chance to do the marathon I will write about) – I was going to do a 32km (~20 miles) marathon on the Alps! Among hundreds of professional and recreational nordic skiers, here I was, only skied two weeks before jumping on this course, in the back, where the ‘Just for Fun’ skiers stood still waiting for the shot to start the marathon.

Now, the technology part. Although I have done a lot of sports, and still do, my physical condition and stamina could not help me go 1 mile, let alone ski 20 miles. I lost breath if I ran for a 600 feet, and here I was, sweating about how am I actually going to finish this course.

I put my iPod in the arm pocket of my ski jacket, my iPhone in the other pocket, put my earphones on, closed my eyes, and exhaled slowly. Here we go.
The other skiers quickly out-skied me, since my speed was nothing exciting either, and I was slowly on my way, people clapping and cheering me on, even though they do not even know who I am, giving me some hope that I might actually get through this. Coldplay songs ring in my ears, then Adele suddenly gets the shuffle turn, and then some random mixes of Eminem, Linkin Park, Lana, Oliver Dragojevic, Drake, Swedish House Mafia kept me going. The most random playlist I could create pointed my focus on the melodies, and my legs and feet went on automatic as I was slowly breezing past the falling snow and some other skiers, if I was lucky. I had gone 10 miles without noticing, and felt even more excited, pumped and sped up, as much as I could. After a while, no matter how fast I was going, I had skiers way past me, and some way behind me. The track was huge, in the mountain woods, and although I could see the tracks, I decided to check how much I actually have left. My iPhone pointed out that I was going on the right direction, only 17 miles to go, and a huge smile spread across my face as I suddenly regained energy to speed up a bit more.

I was going much slower than the experienced skiers did. An hour went by, and the first people have surely crossed the line by now, and here I was, dragging my body with what strength I had in my arms and my legs, and could not wait for the downhill parts, where I could gain speed without even trying. I was happy I didn’t fall during my adventure through the white snow spread on the ground. My iPod keeps surprising me with my favorite songs (disregarding the fact that I created the playlist), and guessing what Shuffle prepared next for me was my go-to game just so I don’t blank out and realize how far behind I actually am.

I stop for a cup of tea on the stands, have a brief chat with the people standing nearby, and get cheered on as I continue on.

’10 more miles to go’ displayed itself proudly on the screen on my smartphone, I put a huge grin on my face again, and continue my merry way. After a certain while, I couldn’t really feel my hands and feet, or my entire body for that matter, but the music, the map on the phone, and the people around kept me going. I skied, and was grateful my body was not holding me back, like it usually does in even less physically challenging conditions.

Funnily enough, the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ gave me an energy and mind boost, and ‘Yellow’ calmed my thoughts as I found myself actually singing out loud, waving at people, and completely forgetting about what I am actually doing (Automatic-mode again).
After almost 3 hours of non-stop skiing, I didn’t even need to check my iPhone to see how much I have left – I could see the finish line through the snow storm that had started 10 minutes prior to that moment. I decided to stop the music, and finally put my focus on the marathon. Ironically, I was almost falling before I reached the line, the exhaustion had just hit me. Like it wasn’t bad enough that the finish line was staying open just for me and a couple of people behind me. People already claimed first, second and third places, hours ago, and here I was, hauling myself like a snail.

I cross the finish line, and it doesn’t even feel as exciting as I hoped it would be. Maybe it was because the timer was blinking at 3:15 hours, or the fact that the person behind the finish line was impatiently waiting to hand me a badge so as to honor  me finishing this incredulous marathon. I grab the silver badge, and as slowly as I skied before, I took of my skis and sat down, glancing at the 20% battery on my iPod, and the turned off iPhone whose battery I exhausted 10 minutes prior to the finish. And then it hits me. I am overwhelmed with joy, pride and amazement at what my body and my brain did today. I didn’t care that it took me 3 hours and 15 minutes to finish a marathon which took the first placed skier only 45 minutes – I accomplished something today, but it wasn’t just me.

If it weren’t for the iPod and iPhone (not pointing out a brand here, any mp3 and smartphone would do), my focus would have been on myself, and exhaustion would have hit before I even reached to finish half the course. I took my free gifts and coupons, and joined the group for some good Austrian beer (which was obviously completely legal) and laughs.

As we packed our skis to go back to the college, after a 3 day marathon-prep and marathon-skiing trip, I fall asleep exhausted, and finish the 10% of battery that was left on the iPod. My marathon bib was then displayed in my dorm room proudly until the rest of the year.

And I overcame what I thought was my limiting factor, with the simple blessings of technology that I had with me that day. Apart from the bib and the badge, the only other thing that proves as a reminder of how much I could actually do is this photo (with not-so-ridiculously photogenic me crossing the finish line):

And now it got me thinking how I give credit to technology helping me cross that line, and rightfully so. I did something, through the easy access of entertainment products that are discredited everyday about how their entertainment values override their usefulness.

I had my first gig in two brothers tavern during halloween. I lucked out because the regular DJ couldn’t make it so the bar allowed me to spin for the night. I usually play house (tech, electro, deep, progressive) so I was very nervous when they asked me to play hip hop. I haven’t done much hip hop mixing before so obviously I was scared.

I found For One More Day engrossing. Even though I read it approximately a year ago, I still clearly remember the lessons it taught me. It was like every other Mitch Albom book I have read; it taught me important life lessons. Albom uses simple language to teach meaningful lessons.

This book is about Charley Benetto, a broken man living under alcohol. His life was full of regrets and eventually he tried to take his own life by drunk driving. He then became unconscious and started to hallucinate. He dreamt of spending one more day with his beloved mother and by the end of the dream his mother persuaded him to forgive himself. Afterwards he lived his life to the fullest and died with no regrets.

The life lessons of For One More Day us are truly intriguing. One of them is to appreciate what one has right now, and to also enjoy it. Albom always tells his readers this message. One doesn’t know how much that certain thing signified until that certain thing is out of one’s life. For Benetto, he didn’t know how much he loved his mother until she was gone. He regretted not being able to spend the last moments with her. However, he was lucky enough to spend one more day with his mother, and he gave himself a second chance in life. Appreciate what you have right now and truly treasure it in order to live your life to the fullest.

The other lesson taught by Albom is about accepting loves warm embrace, and sharing your heart and feelings with someone else. Doing this will make one a much more happier person. Benetto kept everyone away from his life and turned to alcohol. He tried to take his own life because he was so depressed and almost died from an accident. After forgiving himself, he decided to move next to his daughter and reconcile with his ex-wife, Catherine. He quit drinking and started to live a happy life.

Albom conveyed these life lessons well. Even though the language is simple and the sentences aren’t complicated, the reader still has to read every paragraph carefully in order to get the main message. This story seems random at first but after reading the whole book, everything comes together like pieces of an elaborate puzzle.

Albom choses to keep the reader guessing all the time in order to grab the reader’s attention. At the beginning, there isn’t concrete evidence that Benetto was in dream, even though Albom did make it clear that Benetto’s mother died. It compels the reader to guess whether Benetto was living, in heaven, or simply in a dream. Albom wants to grab the reader’s attention in order to let the reader think like Albom. This draws the reader in and also has the reader thinking more of the underlying message between the words.

I strongly recommend reading this book for people who are seeking to be happy. It is easy to read and hard to put down. I have become a new person after reading books by Albom and I try to live my life to the fullest. The lessons I learnt from Albom will be instilled in me whilst I live my Middlebury life.

Thanksgiving started out during fall in 1621, when Pilgrims and Native Americans gathered together to celebrate a successful harvest to thank everyone who had been involved. Our mentors and teachers also deserve a celebration; we need to be grateful of what they have done for us. My mentor is my godmother Karen. Even though I have only known her for a couple of years, she has already made a big difference in my life.

She is blunt and straightforward. She doesn’t just simply give her godson a present every year. She isn’t one to say sweet words when I am depressed. However, she does call me at least once a week to check in on me, letting me know that she cares. Her calls usually end with her criticizing me about what I have done wrong, which happens every week. Even though I get fed up with her efforts to teach me, at the end of the day I realize that she loves me and just genuinely wants me to be a more mature person.

In the summer of 2012, she helped me out of my misery by telling me not to ignore other people’s perspectives. It started out in January when I invited my best friend Charlie to Hong Kong. After all the anticipation build-up, he told me at the last minute that his parents wouldn’t give him the money for an air-ticket. I was furious because I have invited him to Hong Kong many times and every time there was an excuse, so I started to doubt our friendship. I blamed myself many times for wasting five years building this friendship so I started to ignore Charlie. Then, my godmother called me one day and I told her my story, expecting her to be sympathetic. However, instead of telling me how sorry she was for me, she scolded me and said I was being inconsiderate. I was annoyed at her for being so blunt but afterwards I did some self-reflection. Then I realized that talking to him would be the civilized thing to do. I approached him afterwards and we became friends again. If it weren’t for my godmother’s direct and harsh words, I would have never learned to think from other people’s perspective.

Also, she was the one who suggested that I take a gap year. A gap year is a big deal to everyone because it is the year to gain experience outside of school, and to take an early step forward in life. I thought she wanted to travel with me, so I was ecstatic about it; instead of us going trekking in the Andes or climbing Machu Picchu, she said I should gain work experience and improve my English before I go to Middlebury, but most importantly develop a better work ethic. I was reluctant to the idea at first but she absolutely forced me into it. Now, even though I still feel childish and unconfident at times, I still saw a lot of improvement in myself.

Although I have known her for only a couple of years, we have bonded through her genuine intentions. If it weren’t for her bluntness, I wouldn’t know the right thing to do. Even though she is neither intellectual nor polite, my mum thought that Karen should be my godmother because my mum understands that this is what I need to become a stronger person. For Thanksgiving, I would like to share a piece of my turkey with my godmother, for her fascinating ways of teaching me how to grow up.