First of all, I would like to give a shout out to Momina for planning this, it really was great. Next, I have to say Stephanie Reda is going to be the best freshman ever! I absolutely loved her. We had a really busy day ahead of us and she was up for it and very easy going which made everything infinitely easier.
We started off by going to the biology 1 lab that I TA for, and she helped me with my job which is always nice. I told her about what it’s like to be a TA and how she could apply. She also got a taste of the bio 1 lab which was great since she’ll be taking it next semester. She was very good at the microscope.
Next, we had 20 minutes to get food. So we ran to the campus center, got food and even had 1 whole dining bucks left over. Then we ran into the other incoming freshman who were sitting at a large table with all their mentors eating. I kind of felt bad that she didn’t get to sit with them, but we had to be on our way to the tutoring center cause I had to work from 11:30-12:30. Again, being the best freshman that she is, she was ok with it and came to the tutoring center. Met some great people and got a taste of what the tutoring center is like: a bunch of easy going, fun nerds. We had a chance to talk about the program that she was interested in and what she was doing in high school and how AP exams were right around the corner and that she should kick butt on those.
Next, the poor girl had to come to physics II with me. I told her before hand that she should take physics for life sciences, then right before physics II started I said “remember when I told u to take the life sciences one? Well, now im going to prove to you why.” Physics was hard, as always. Then, I had permission to take her to the chem II lab. She helped me with my experiment, which was great again cause she got a taste of what chem II would be like as well. Then we took a walk around Lake Fred, realized that we are basically the same person and went to meet her parents around 5:30 (honestly, I didn’t want to let her go home). I had actually met her parents in the morning. They were waiting outside meeting room 5 to make sure she was ok. That is exactly what my parents would have done so I totally related to her on that level, and I also knew that my parents would have wanted the mentor I had to talk to them and tell them whats going on, so I did. Then we laughed about how similar our parents are. Anyway, I just love my freshman and I cant wait till she gets here next semester. 

On April 10, 2012, Richard Stockton College held its annual Celebration of Service. This event was located in the lower F Wing of the main campus building, and lasted throughout the day. This even gave students the opportunity to showcase the research, internships, and volunteer activities that they have recently participated in, or are currently undertaking. Dozens of posters and presentations were used to show passing faculty, staff, and students what interesting and captivation work is being done by the college’s students.
Many different forms of posters could be seen lining the hall of lower F Wing, including those for campus clubs such as Circle K, Water Watch, and Energy Corps. Also included were posters to inform passers about the college’s offered services such as learning access programs and counseling. There were also posters for Strategies to Develop Comfort in Social Situations for College Students, Coping with Stress, and Resources at Stockton. Posters created to bring current problems to light, such as a lack of physical disability accessible resources on campus (i.e. bathrooms, water fountains, computers, etc.), were also presented. Posters were also presented to raise awareness for Alternative Spring Break programs, Books without Borders, the Campus Kitchen, and the Children’s Museum in Jersey Shore.
Overall, Stockton’s Celebration of Service offered a great opportunity for these students to show off what they have accomplished, explain what they are currently involved in, and raise awareness of what should be done in the future. This event allowed for students and faculty alike to see what was, is, and should be going on at Richard Stockton’s campus, hopefully allowing us all to come together and make it a more beneficial and productive environment for current and future generations.

The other day I had the opportunity to see a presentation by Stockton’s very own Dr. David Lester. The presentation, “The “I” of the Storm: Understanding the Suicidal Mind”, is about his experiences and research about the mind of a suicidal person. I was excited to see this presentation because the topic was one that I was interested in and I wanted to see how my future teacher (for next semester) would be.

At the start of the presentation, Dr. Lester voiced his surprise at the turnout of people. He was really only expecting a couple of psychology students to show up so he did not have a microphone. This, I imagined, did actually affect how many students heard him. While he tried to speak up it was somewhat hard to listen to him even though I was in the middle row. Anyway, he started off with an introduction; what was the objective of this presentation, where he got the inspiration and the materials for this study, and how        he had compiled the information. Dr. Lester is fascinated by suicide and what goes on in the suicidal mind. He had published a number of papers on the subject but had not really come to understand what occurs in the suicidal mind. However, one day in one of his classes, a student came up to him and offered him her sister’s diary. Her sister had died from suicide a couple months earlier. He took the diary and ran it through a writing analysis program, and saw how she had felt about herself. Dr. Lester explained how even though the common thought is that suicidal people are very depressed; there is actually a lot of anger in them too.  She was very into her appearance and how if she was perfect, then she would be loved. That was another important word, perfection. She was constantly striving for perfection or wishing to be perfect, and in that way shut herself off from the rest of the world.  A month or several weeks before she died however, there was a change in her style of writing. She became happier or at least more at peace and talked more positively.  Dr. Lester used this example to show how the mood changes once the decision seems to have been made to commit suicide. He stressed how rare suicide was though.  According to him, only about 32,000 out of 380 million people in the United States die from suicide. This to me seemed very small compared to how suicide had been stressed in my health classes. The health classes as well as the media had given me the opinion that suicide was actually quite prominent.

Dr. Lester used several other examples, including other male and female diaries each with their own set of issues and writing styles. One man seemed to have suffered from an anxiety disorder increased by his living in constant darkness and having a major road by his house. The most interesting example Dr. Lester had though was two tape recordings from a young man who had committed suicide. One was taken before lunch the day of his death while the other was taken after. The first one showed him as a weeping emotional wreck but the second one showed a completely different person, calm and worrying about how his death would affect others. Dr. Lester’s analysis of the tapes was quite interesting as was the rest of his presentation.

Overall, I enjoyed Dr. Lester’s seminar and hope that he continues to do more research on the subject and show his findings. I would like to see another seminar with his findings in the future and hopefully more people will come to learn about this saddening topic and there will be a way found to stop it.

On April 10^th, 2012 the First Annual Celebration of Service was held.  The event was set up in the F-wing Atrium in front of the library.  Group of students presented their own or their club’s ideas and achievements in service learning and helping out their community in various ways.  On group presented Anti-Hunger, made up of many different clubs that worked in soup kitchen to help feed the hungry.  The Circle K club was there, showing their many achievements in service learning.  One group called Books Without Borders showed their work in collecting old books to send to less fortunate countries so they have the same learning opportunities as us.  The Eastern Service Workers Association was there, showing their work in preserving the livelihood of the working class.  There was also a poster their showing the work that was done by Habitat for Humanity in their alternative spring break.  There were even a few posters there about things at Stockton like how the school caters to people with disabilities, resources at Stockton, how to concentrate to study better, and how to deal with stress.  One fellow Honor freshmen, Angelica Pezzino, was presenting her service project which was the Celebration of Creativity Student Art Show through the Jersey Shore Children’s Museum. One section of the project is pre-K, daycare, and elementary school classes competing in an art contest to win a trip to the museum.  Angelica’s part of the project is the poster contest which is aimed more at college art students.  The winner of this gets their poster on the next issue of Jersey Shore Family and on the Atlantic Shore Living Website.  This project keeps creativity alive in schools in order to help children learn and become more interested in expressing themselves.

On Saturday, October 20th, I had the pleasure of joining some of the Water Watch crew for a Beach Sweep at the Atlantic City Beach. After waking up early to perform this bit of service (only reason I would get up early), we departed to Atlantic City. Once we got to the Trump Plaza we made our way behind that to the boardwalk and the area where everyone was meeting. Numerous other groups of people came to help as well. We sat patiently as we endured another two or three speeches stating the purpose of the group known as COA or Clean Ocean Action. Clean Ocean Action is a group that is not on Stockton’s campus.  The speeches basically thanked us, the volunteers, for coming. We were then handed a white garbage bag for plastic and recyclables, a black garbage bag for trash and a data sheet to fill out. The data sheet was supposed to be used as a tally sheet for what we found with almost all things you would find at a beach garbage wise. So off we went exploring the great unknown at the beach.

What I was met with was a disaster to behold. I am used to my beaches being for the most part clean. Garbage lay everywhere but it blended in the sand just enough that you could ignore it in your conscious if you had to. We slowly chipped our way across a small section of the beach and under the pier. This path consisted of a hellish mess of cigarette butts, pieces of plastic, Styrofoam, a dead seagull, and other random objects. I have never been at a beach that not only was this unclean, but somehow was hidden enough to not notice without closer examination.  We had almost the entire bag full and we had only just gotten to the pier. We also had to just write “over 100” in the cigarette butts and Styrofoam categories as there was just too many to keep track of.  This was the first realization of how bad the situation on certain beaches can be.

We wandered under the pier, a sight that I was not accustomed to. Moving from the bright sunlight to a relatively dark and damp place was both interesting and odd. It was here we made our major finds of the day; a couple pair of women’s underwear, three syringes, five used condoms, and a few pregnancy tests. While I was not relatively surprised by this find, I was still stumped as to why someone would feel the need to do such a thing on a beach and under a pier. Atlantic City is known for its hotels, why not use them? These thoughts were constantly running through my head as we worked our way through the pier. The really cool part of being under the pier is that when the waves crash into and under the pier, they look much larger than normal and they seem to be racing to you. I wish I had taken pictures of these waves as well as the marks they had made on the sand that hadn’t been disturbed by the incoming tide. Seeing that and collecting a few neat rocks and sea glass made the entire beach sweep an adventure.

After filling up our first bag and going to get another, we went out from under the pier and continued along the beach under it was time to go. Overall, we had filled up four bags full of the litter people decide is a good idea to either throw into the ocean or leave on the beach. While I understood that people threw garbage on the beach, I did not realize the magnitude nor how some items were so much more prominent then others. Seriously, people need to throw out their cigarettes butts where they are supposed to. Perhaps the businesses that are close to the ocean should make more of an effort to keep their beaches clean. Perhaps people shouldn’t do drugs or inject themselves on the beach. Perhaps people should pay more to their junk as well. These are all great possibilities to think about when enjoying a hopefully clean beach. The best thing to do is to support groups on Stockton such as Water Watch and volunteer to help them and their causes such as the Beach Sweep.

A few days ago, one of the students that I work with at the tutoring center asked me to go a dinner with her. She said her friend had given her two free tickets and wondered if I would like to enjoy a nice free Italian dinner. Baffled that no one else had taken her up on that offer, I said sure, thinking free food is great and now this is even Italian free food. So I agreed to meet her at 6 in the campus center.
Standing outside, I realized it was supposed to be a relatively dressed up event. Given that I had just found out about the dinner a few hours earlier and I was a commuter and didn’t have a chance to go home and change, I forgave myself for my lack of looking formal and instead showing up in jeans. Then I realized, it wasn’t just any dinner. It was a dinner for the HERO campaign. I had seen the Be a Hero stickers a few places around campus but I had never really given them much thought. There was a good crowd there. Then people started talking about the campaign and how it is about promoting having designated drivers in order to prevent car accidents and reduce death because of that. The founders had lost their son because a drunk driver had hit him when he was on his way home for his mother’s birthday.
It was an important cause, and the dinner was there to honors students that had worked hard to be a hero and to do the most in order to help their friends stay safe after parties or any events when they were having a good time. The founders emphasized that they were not there to discourage us about having a good time, but rather there to encourage us to make good decisions and plans in order to stay safe while having a good time.
The food of course was wonderful. Three different types of pasta and really good bread and some meatballs and some great salad. Overall, I was grateful I went and learned about this campaign and I hope they can grow and raise awareness at more campuses like they said they were planning on doing so.

Today I attended the Day of Scholarship. On my drive to school I was telling my best friend about it and she seemed very excited as well. She was telling me about how one of her friends from her singing group was presenting his project that he had been working on for a long time and that it had turned into this very big and complicated thing. Then she tried to explain it to me and with the lack of her science background, it turned out to be a really funny and confusing explanation. But she raised some interesting points that I had to go find out what this was all about.
The name of the project was Investigating Underwater Acoustics and it was about how sound could travel faster in water because the molecules are closer to each other and therefore sound can bounce off of them at a faster rate and travel faster. The presenter was explaining how that’s why in the old times when people wanted to hear when their enemies were coming in a war, they would put their ears on the ground because sound travels even faster through a solid material whose molecules are even closer and therefore the generals would be able to tell how far away the enemy is and how fast they are approaching. I thought that was really interesting.
Then he went on and talked about how at a certain frequency the wavelength of a wave is as long as the length between our two ears. At this frequency then, we have a hard time locating where the sound is coming from. In other frequencies, the wave lengths differ and we hear the sound faster in one ear than the other because there is a distance difference and so the waves reach one ear slightly faster than the other ear. This small fraction of time difference helps us locate sound and tell where they are coming from. But when the wavelength is as big as our face, then we get confused because whether the sound came from left or right, we heard it in both ears at the same time so we don’t know which way it actually came from.

On Saturday, November 17th, Circle K invited students to volunteer at the local Petsmart from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Our responsibility was to help the Beagle Rescue socialize their dogs with people, and provide them with increased stimuli. The dogs were extremely receptive to human contact and were pleased to have hours of attention. As volunteers, we conversed with potential adopters who had come over to see the dogs. We also worked to attract attention to the rescue, and hopefully provide these animals with forever homes.

Although the dogs were all beagles, they were extremely unique and independent. There were dominant dogs that howled throughout the event and others that remained quiet and introverted. The most profound aspect of the experience was meeting two crippled dogs, each with perpetual energy. Bonnie was born with a mutation of her front legs. This prevented her from walking on her paws; rather she began to depend on her elbows. Instead of remaining helpless, two year old Bonnie learned to walk and became quite active and capable of moving. In fact, I found myself being dragged around the room by her at times. Another dog that impacted me was a beagle with only three legs. One had been surgically removed, while the other back leg was hyperextended. This prevented walking. Despite this setback, the beagle was extremely full of life, momentum, and strength. She was able to wheel around the room on a dog cart, and greet individuals with her lively presence. These two dogs had overcome insurmountable difficulties and had defied expectations. Seeing these miracles in person made me both empathetic and humbled. Another dog named Jersey Girl had been surrendered that morning, and was already looking for a new home. I felt extremely sorry for the animal, which had spent most of her life in a crate. She was filled with love and patience, and would fit in perfectly to any family.

I am extremely pleased with my decision to volunteer with the Beagle Rescue. Before going to Petsmart, I had not known what to expect and was quite apprehensive. For eighteen years, I have struggled with intense allergies, primarily to dogs and cats. Therefore, I was reluctant to spend time with animals that could potentially give me an allergy attack. Ignoring my fears, however, I decided to take advantage of the great opportunity.  This day reminded me of my passion for volunteering. I will now search for additional opportunities with animals and wildlife, and may pursue a volunteer position in a no-kill shelter.

This is a blog about what it’s like to be a math and science tutor at the tutoring center in J-wing, the process involved with applying and what tutor training is like.
First things first, to be a math or science tutor, you have to have a passion for the subjects and be interested in helping other understand some of the complex ideas involved with these subjects. You do not have to know both math and science. We have all sorts of tutors involved with their own specialties. For example, I’m mostly a science tutor but I help out with math when I can, however there are people at the tutoring center that are far more qualified to help with math than me. The tutoring center is one of the friendliest environments at Stockton. Everyone is nice and willing to help. If you’re interested you have to talk to Luis Pena and ask for an application. Then there is an interview process and if you do well you’ll be hired.
Your first semester you will be working as well as going through tutor training. Tutor training is the most fun training you’ll ever have in your life. We talk about big issues that come up, do role play, draw and when you’re done you get to some arts and crafts. I’m going to keep this vague because I don’t want to give away the surprises of tutor training. But it’s not hard at all, its just fun. Meanwhile you get to start working at the tutoring center and you are paid. They are very flexible around your hours and I say that because I had a very filled schedule and they still managed to work around my schedule and give me the hours I needed. I think that’s a very important quality that they are willing to work with you rather than against you because it creates a comfortable and nice environment to work in. I personally love being a tutor and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in helping others. Some of the subjects we tutor include all levels of chemistry and biology, a whole ton of math and computer science, including statistics and business and economics related things. So stop in, we’re all the way at the end of lower J-wing.