*HA HA....I'M DONE!*

...but since YOU will have to take this class I guess I should give you some friendly words of advice. The class is wonderful and an excellent learning experience for your future in the workplace. You will learn many things that will make you stand out to potential employers while gaining worthwhile experience.

Our class had the opportunity to work with a homeless shelter called the Anderson Sunshine House to help them create a website to provide more information about the efforts they are putting in to reduce homelessness in Anderson County. Not only did I receive a lot of information about how I could get involved with the shelter, but I also gained excellent knowledge on how to create and maintain a website.

Coming into the class you should have an open mind. This will allow you to come up with many different ideas that could make the project all that it can be and then some. The class will not stress you out, but make sure you stay aware of your deadlines. Due to the fact that a lot of assignments must be submitted online, you should start ahead of time so that you can contact Mrs. Rogers about helping rectify the problem. This way you will not have problems when the due date arrives.

I thoroughly enjoyed the class and I learned TONS of information! I hope you have as wonderful of an experience as I did! :)

I would just like to leave you with a poem called "Within You Is The Strength To Meet Life's Challenges!" by Lisa Wroble.

"You are stronger than you think,
remember to stand tall.

Every challenge in your life
helps you to grow.

Every problem you encounter
strengthens your mind and your soul.

Every trouble you overcome
increases your understanding of life.

When all your troubles weigh
heavily on your shoulders,
remember that beneath the burden
you can stand tall,
because you are never given
more than you can handle...
and you are stronger than you think."

The Tragedy at Virginia Tech

The events that occurred at Virginia Tech was horrifying and tragic. I do not completely think there are ways to completely eliminate things like this from happening but I do believe people should pay more attention to the potential warning signs. I would prefer to be more safe than sorry. Someone may have felt they would have been making too big of a deal if they were to let the proper authorities know but you should always report something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Every college campus has there rules about guns on campus, but we have seen that there are ways around those regulations. In order to make situations like this occur less often, I just believe that campuses should actually enforce the rules and regulations they already have and ensure students that reporting strange activity is okay. As I said before, it is better to be more safe than sorry. I personally already take certain precautions when I am walking around by myself on campus but I know there are probably some warning signs I may be missing. You can just try to be more aware of the things going on around you.

My prayers go out to all those that lost a loved one, friend, professor, etc. in the massacre and I pray with all my heart that something like this may never happen again.

Moving along...

We are moving along quite nicely with the Anderson Sunshine House project. We are currently in the stages of finalizing a potential website for Beth Cribbe.

As a group, we will be working on ways to make the website the best that it can be. Beth Cribbe liked our design the best, so we will be incorporating the best points of every one's website design into our own. Personally, I will be working on finding the homelessness rates of upstate South Carolina and specifically Anderson County. Other than that, I will be helping the group in any other areas necessary so that we can make the website the BEST that it can be!

As we begin to meet next week, I will have a better idea of what I will be doing to help out with website.

Dual Coding Theory

Dual Coding Theory deals arose in attempts to describe how the mind processes information. Paivio's Dual Coding Theory mainly deals with how visual information is processed and stored in memory and gives equal weight to verbal and non-verbal processing.

According to the theory, the human cognition consists of two subsystems that process knowledge simultaneously, one processing the nonverbal objects (i.e. imagery) and one dialing with language (verbal). The two systems have different functions; the verbal subsystem processes and stores linguistic information whereas the visual subsystem processes and stores images and pictorial information. While the two subsystems can be activated independently, the interrelations and connections of the two systems allow the dual coding of information.

We use dual coding theory in everything we do. For example, when I was in the process of purchasing a new phone, I was thinking about how much I have liked the color pink since I was little so I chose the pink phone. Dual coding theory also has spilled over into advertising. Advertisers incorporate the fact that people like pretty, bright colors; they use this because they know consumers make personal associations with colors and are more likely to buy something they have positive memories of rather than a bland, generic color.

How Far is *TOO* Far?

Blogging is a relatively easy way to express yourself to an audience of millions of people so you should be careful about what you blog about. I feel that it should be okay to express your personal feelings about your job and how your day went as long as you do not use names or the name of the company. If employees were not allowed to do that, it is as if they have no rights to their freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment. Despite that, many companies have clauses that they have the employee signs that states that they may be penalized for using the company's uniform or name for anything other than work. If you don't use the company's name or anything affiliated with the company, I believe they should be allowed to express their opinions any way they feel necessary. A good deal of people find blogging therapeutic. By spewing about a bad job online they can receive comments from other people that may have a similar situation and they may not feel as if they are alone in the situation. All in all, people should be able to express themselves any way they want to without violating any ordinances their employers have in place.

In order to avoid any problems at all, try keeping a personal journal rather than broadcasting your hostility against people and your job on the Internet highway; too many people have access to the information.

*HEAVY SIGH*

The project is moving along slowly but surely. We continue to add ideas to incorporate on the website with each meeting. The agendas Crystal creates for us helps A LOT during meeting times. They give us a general layout of what we need to cover; usually by looking at that, we are able to remember the other things we need to cover during that meeting. We are going to continue to clean-up the main components of the website but our main focus right now is our proposal.

For the proposal, we are going to have to break it up in different sections so that we can get it done before Wednesday. Everyone is having *EXTREMELY* busy schedules before Spring Break so I don't really know how much time and energy each group member will be able to dedicate to their portion of the proposal. Despite time constraints, we will try to make this proposal as professional as possible.

Other than that, our group has been working pretty well in all arenas of designing the website and getting together to discuss ideas and future plans. Pray for us this last week before Spring Break; tests and projects are going to be *CRUCIAL!*

*REFLECTIONS*

This week we had mock interviews with our teacher. I feel that the mock interview was very beneficial. It will definitely help me in the future with finding a career and possibly gaining admittance to a graduate school. Angela even went into detail about how I could improve my interview by elaborating on how my major and career goals should intertwine with my minor. The mock interview also opened my eyes to potential questions my future employer will ask during the hiring process. I truly enjoyed the practice I gained from the entire mock interview experience. :)