Remote Team Project Meeting

I found the remote meeting to be very interesting. First of all, we are so blessed to have Google Docs and other document sharing. Our group used Google Drive to share information and documents with one another. It was especially useful while were putting our report together, because it allowed us all to work on the same document between meetings and perform each of our respective responsibilities.

Our experience with Google Hangouts was an interesting one. I personally ran into trouble with sound. I could hear everyone, but no one could here me. As I began to start messaging, something happened, and I could be heard. However, Kirk had a similar problem, but was never able to resolve it. Luckily, Hangouts allows for a message feature where we can type in messages to communicate.

Technology is amazing and has developed so much in the last few years. I feel this exercise was very useful, for the use of technology to perform remote meetings is growing. There will be a time that we will be working in group projects and may need to plan over the internet. This practice has made me one step more comfortable and being able to work in such a situation.

Of Course...Running

As many may know. I love running. So what better to show my enthusiasm for running than to post a blog to Runner's World Magazine. Below, is a blog post talking about BYU's very own Jared Ward. He currently is a professor in the statistics department and just recently qualified to run in the Olympics as a marathon contestant for the U.S. It is so awesome to have someone in our own neighborhood going to Rio de Janeiro to represent the U.S.

Jared Ward

Also, below is a survey to find out what our classes preferences, goals and ambitions are in relation to running.

Do you like running?

Lonesome

I had the experience to participate one of the best stake conferences I had ever seen. It was new and exciting. The stake president decided to focus on the music for the conference program. We had the amazing opportunity to sing primary songs as a congregation and watch as my ward choir sang "I am a Child of God" in ten different languages. It was definitely one for the books, especially since one of the speakers was a catholic who currently lives in my ward. However, what I want to focus on is a talk that was given, that really touched my heart. I guess it is because I really related to it. He talked about being lonely. The speaker explained his own personal experience, and how school was going great, he had a girlfriend, a nice job, and life was going great, yet he still felt lonely.

I found it so interesting that someone of his caliber could still feel loneliness. I then realized that anyone can feel loneliness and that it is okay. The problem is when you do not address it. The speaker shared his experience about how he handled. Basically, he asked the Lord's help and sought peace through the gospel. It brought a new light into his life.

I often feel loneliness, and I think we all do, even when life seems "perfect." However, the Lord is ready to help and to heal us. He can bring us peace if we seek it and we can be blessed with it. I am going to work more diligently to seek the Lord to fight loneliness, and to remember that I am never truly alone, but have the support and love of my Father on high.

Councils, Even Family Councils

All over the globe on the first weekend of April, there are families watching the General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day. This is a time where many members of the church gather to listen to the global leaders of the church as they begin to speak and teach on several topics. For this week, I would really like to focus on the talk given by the Apostle Elder M. Russell Ballard. He gave an amazing talk on councils and how they can be utilized in the family. I found it to be very eye-opening. I realized that a successful family needs to council together and that parents need to council together in order to plan and guide the family to success. I come a from a family that would do this often, but because it was so normal, I never realized how essential it is to having a successful family.

I may have a while before starting my own family, but I should apply this teaching exactly how Elder Ballard said. He told young single adults to meet often with roommates to plan the week, and create rules for the apartment. By meeting together often, we can verify that everyone is on the same page and address the needs or concerns of each person. This will help to create unity and respect in the apartment.

I plan to put this in action by talking with my roommates often, and working to create a better relationship with each roommate. I am lucky and have amazing roommates, but we can always achieve to be better, and I will do exactly that.

Stress to the Max

At the beginning of this week, I was stressed. I had projects and tests for so many classes happening all at once, and it seemed as if everything was due by Wednesday. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get it done. Fortunately I did, but that doesn't impact what I learned this week, or should I say relearn.

Last semester, I watched a Ted Talk that talked about stress becoming our friend. (I posted it on the class LinkedIn, if you haven't watched it you should). The speaker talked about how after ten years of experience as a health psychologist, she just realized that she had been teaching stress management incorrectly. She, along with many of her colleagues, have been teaching that stress is bad, end of story, and that we need to avoid it by the plague because it can kill you. She began to think, however, why we have stress and what does it do to the body. Studies were designed and conducted, and she discovered something fascinating. It isn't the stress that is killing us but how we are reacting to it. By simply changing our attitude towards stress and seeing it as something that helps us, we see negative health side-effects turning to positive side-effects. All it takes is a change in our perception.

We all live stressful lives, the thought of trying to avoid stress leads to failure. What we need to realize is that when we our stressed and our heart starts racing, and we start sweating, it is really our body preparing ourselves for life's challenges. We need to look forward and tackle our challenges, realizing that stress is our friend, and our bodies coping mechanism to help prepare us for our endeavors.

A Little Web Design Here, A Little HTML There

The past few weeks, in my Information Systems 201 class, I have been learning the basics to web design and how to use html/css in order to create a webpage. It was a topic that seemed difficult and daunting at first, but after starting to work through the material, I found it to actually be quite enjoyable. Being able to create something in the virtual world was so cool. After learning the basics, I was able to manipulate the pages, fonts, pictures, videos, etc. to be however I wanted them to be. I could place them in whatever order seemed pleasing to me. It was amazing.


I feel I may have found a possible new hobby. It is definitely a very useful tool, and one that I hope to continue to use. Just the ability to create something is so cool. It is who we are. We are children of an all powerful creator, and as his children, it is in our DNA to create. We live in a world with so much destruction, imagine if we started to create instead. We could turn the world around.


I now want to focus on being a creator, not just in the virtual world, but in the real world. I want to lift those around me. I find it funny, how we can learn so much from such miniscule things around us. From learning to create a webpage, I discovered that we are meant to be creative beings. We are meant to lift up and not tear down.

Preparations

This week was a busy one. It was also one of those weeks were you need to make preparations for everything. I had a couple of mid-terms, an interview for a summer job, a couple of dates, and so much more. What I most learned this week is how so many things in life require preparation, and how becoming a good preparer, can help you to be so much more successful in life.

I feel that most people, including myself, do give an honest effort to prepare before-hand. Where we suffer is preparing effectively. We go through the motions to say, "there we go, I did it," rather than, "there we go, I am ready." I noticed this for my interview. I had gone through questions before, I had practiced different scenarios, but the questions they had were totally different than I had expected and had caught me off guard. I should have focused more on questions specific for the position, and not just the general questions asked in just any interview. Also, test prep, is a great example. How many times do we quickly read through our notes, look at power points posted by the teacher to say that we study, and then are disappointed when we don't receive the desired grade? It has happened to me too many times.

Now, as for the future. I feel making plans and goals to become a more prepared person is needed. I need to focus on the quality of preparation, and doing it to actually prepare myself rather than to just check it off of the list. I am going to work having high quality studying and planning sessions during the week that way I am prepared and ready for the many adventures and challenges that life throws at me.