Looking into myself!

Last week I went to the ISLE Friday session of Biofeedback. Before I went, I thought it was going to be about how your brain and body work together. Once I got there, however, I realized that it was definitely not what I expected, but it was, in fact, very interesting. Biofeedback is a resource available to all Iowa State students that can be located in the Student Service building. Once you go through the orientation, you can go in at anytime that they are open without an appointment and lie back in a lazy boy chair and practice relaxation techniques. These techniques help you think more clearly in high pressure or stressful situations (i.e. Exams or being attacked by a bear). I plan on going to the student service building and going through the biofeedback orientation, because in high school football before every game we practiced relaxation techniques to get us focused on the game. I really enjoyed doing this and I felt that it helped me tremendously to focus on my assignment and what I had to do.

On Saturday, myself and the other peer mentors attended the ISLE event with David Coleman, “America’s real life hitch.” I’ll admit that like most of us, I was reluctant to get up on a Saturday to go. Once we were there, however, I really liked it because he was funny and taught me some things about myself that I didn’t know. David touched on many subjects, including “what being a true friend really means” and “our weakest link list”. One of the main things about being a true friend is not keeping score (i.e. Buying a pizza and saying “you buy the next one”). I have always thought of myself as a good person, but in the “weakest link list” I sat down early and bounced a lot, which meant I had a lot of character flaws. Some of the main ones that hit home with me consisted of:

Road Rage

Swearing in public

Littering deliberately

Taking change when casher gives too much

Talking behind people’s back

Kelly and I are teaching chapter 3; “Our Roles.” I never really realized how different teaching is than from being a student. We as students tend to be extremely critical of our teachers, especially in hard classes. This chapter has opened up my eyes about the challenges of being a teacher, and this experience has helped me tremendously in preparing for next year as I take on my role as a peer mentor. With this experience, I will do my best to be an effective and fun mentor next year while guiding my students through their first semester of college.