A Day At Paul Smith's

             Today is a special blog because I visited a truly special place yesterday. I visited Paul Smith’s College and I saw some truly interesting things. I don’t think that there is any other college campus quite like it anywhere else in the country. There are a few colleges in northern New York State that someone could argue shares the same weather as Paul Smith’s, but no other college “lives and breathes” the Adirondacks quite like Paul Smith’s. The school exemplifies the Adirondacks so much, that the school’s full name is “Paul Smith’s College – The College of the Adirondacks”. This makes the school a perfect setting for anybody who is interested in the environment or outdoors. This is probably why Paul Smith’s is a renowned college when it comes to just about every field that pertains to the environment. Not only is Paul Smith’s a school for environmental studies, but it is also a school specializing in culinary studies. This among several other aspects of the school makes it a truly unique experience.

            My day started in a residence hall named LMS (short for Lydia Martin Smith). The hall is located very close to Lower St. Regis Lake (the lake that the campus butts up to). There is a trail that starts just past the far end of the residence hall that leads out to a peninsula that overlooks the lake. This peninsula is known as “The Point” and there was always somebody there doing something such as fishing, or even somebody doing homework. My room was made to house four people for the school year. I lucked out because I only had to share a room with one other person, so I had quite an amount of room compared to the rest of the rooms in the residence hall.

            My day began with my alarm clock going off at 6:45 am and a quick breakfast in my room, which consisted of a pumpkin spice bagel and a honeycrisp apple. Eventually after taking care of some things such as checking my e-mail and brushing my teeth, I headed out to my first class. The class was an FYS (first year seminar) honors class and it ran from 8:00 am to 9:25am. The class was located in seminar room 107 in the Joan Weill Library. I must take a moment to comment on how interesting the library itself was. Never before had I seen such a collaboration between nature and modern technology. The library was a giant building that looked like a combination of a computer store and a log cabin. From the furniture to the hulking beams overhead, the library just reminded me of simpler times, all while providing the modern commodities such as wireless internet and a vast selection of computers. Anyways, back to the class. In the class we separated into groups and each group discussed different books that they were assigned to read. The groups then came together and summarized their books for each other.

            Next, I walked to the closest building, which was “Pickett Hall”. I navigated my way through the hallway to room 102, only to find that my next class had been cancelled. I went back to my dorm room until 11am, when I walked back to the library for my next class. It just so happened that my next class was in room 108, right next to the room I was in earlier in the day. This room was different though because it was filled with computers that lined the walls all the way around the room. At 11:10am, the Statistics class began. We reviewed slides and completed several examples as a class. The class came to an end at 12:35pm, at which point I ventured to the dining hall for some lunch. The dining hall was quite remarkable due to the fact that it sat right on the edge of the lake, which provided one of the best views in any dining hall at any college. After lunch, I went back to my dorm and entertained myself until about five o’clock, at which point I ate some dinner in my room. At eight o’clock I did a work out in my room, showered, and then got ready for bed.

            I’d have to say that my stay at Paul Smith’s College left quite an impression on me. Other colleges no longer look the same, because they just can’t compare to the beauty and coziness of Paul Smith’s College. It’s just one of those places where you don’t just feel like a number, you feel like a part of the college.

(Lower St. Regis Lake located just outside my residence hall)

(My dorm room for the day at Paul Smith’s College)

(Room 107 in the library – First Year Seminar)

(The Joan Weill Library)

(Room 108 – Statistics)

Goals - Fall Style

          Five weeks ago I picked four goals to pursue throughout my stead here at college. Each week I have made progress, and this is yet another update regarding that progress. I can definitely say that progress seems to come more easily now that I have fallen into my routine and have begun to find my niche. I also think that the season has helped to improve my mood, because I love the last-year seasons and the holidays of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. There’s just something about it being cold outside, but being in the company of good people inside. But, I digress. Back to my goals and the progress I’ve made towards accomplishing them.

            I’d have to say that out of all my goals, I think I’ve made the most progress in trying to accomplish my goal to study for classes. I’ve already done things such as making flashcards, taking notes as I read, reading notes before classes, and flagging passages in books. I think that through the time that I’ve spent studying, I’ve now gained the ability to study when there are lots of distractions around me. Initially, because I never used to study, when I did study, I always needed complete silence and I couldn’t tolerate any distractions. Distractions used to throw of my focus and they made it very hard to regain my focus and to continue studying. Those days are over now, because I feel as though I can study in any condition, which has most likely developed just through practice. There is not a moment where my roommate is in the room and he is not blasting music, so I’ve had a lot of practice with studying in distraction-prone environments.

            My second goal, which is to be more open towards others and comfortable with myself, is progressing fairly nicely. Every day that goes by here at college, I find myself being able to talk and open up to more and more people. College seems to be a good place to try to accomplish this goal, because there are so many people here. I’ve found that I have unintentionally modified this goal throughout the progress that I’ve made throughout the year. This goal has basically become: talk to a new person every day. I feel like it would be a shame if I didn’t capitalize on the opportunity to talk to and learn from so many different people. The town and school where I come from are so small, that I literally knew everybody in my graduating class personally. So the larger numbers of people here at college presents more of a challenge because I know that I’ll never know everybody, and chances are that I’ll never even say “hi” to everybody. I think that talking to a new person every day will make my goal of being more open to others much easier to accomplish, and consequently, make me happier while I am here at college.

            I have also made progress towards accomplishing my third goal, which is to clear my mind of negativity and to focus on the positive. Like I talked about earlier, the season has helped to improve my mood, which makes it easier to relax, which then makes it easier to clear my mind and to focus on the positive. The season makes me think about the good times, rather than thinking about any work that I may need to do. The holiday season just makes me much happier, which then makes it easy to replace any negative thoughts with the good, cheery thoughts of the season. I didn’t have to do much this week in order to clear my mind of negative thoughts because the season has done the job for me, so I only feel better knowing that I didn’t have to do too much to make progress on this goal for the week.

            I suppose that you could say that I am one of those people who believe that their mood changes with the seasons. I love fall and winter, like summer, but usually detest spring. I think one of the best things about the fall season would definitely have to be the return of pumpkin spice-flavored foods, because I love most anything that is pumpkin spice-flavored. When you combine the fall foods, the beauty of nature, the holidays, and the start of sports such as football and basketball, fall is truly a great season; especially for accomplishing my goals. The fall season always reminds me of one of my favorite songs: The Thanksgiving Song, by Adam Sandler. It’s a funny song, but it really gets you in the mood for Thanksgiving, which I can’t wait for.

*(The video doesn’t show Adam Sandler actually performing the song, but the audio is there)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z27FKwupds

Doing My Best and Forgetting the Rest

            It has been around forty-five days since I have moved into my dorm here at Paul Smith’s College; forty-five days since I started my college journey. I look back at what I was feeling when I first moved in and what I thought after the first week, and I just can’t help but notice how much has changed since then. I am the type of person who craves a routine in order to function effectively throughout daily life. When that routine is disrupted, it makes me quite uncomfortable because I don’t know what’s going to happen next. All the uncomfortable feelings manifested themselves in thinking about home, and how I had a routine that made me so much more comfortable than I presently was at the time. Eventually, I fell into a routine here, and my college experience instantly became much more comfortable.

            I know that I talk about it all the time, but working out may have been the one thing that saved my sanity after coming here to college. I could probably be defined as a “health nut” because I really watch what I eat, and I work out every single day. The fact that I do these things is really just an example of my perfectionism, because no matter what I do, I usually think of a better alternative. For example, if I put chicken on a salad for lunch, chances are that later in the day, I will think, “Why didn’t I put turkey on the salad? Turkey is usually more lean than chicken. What was I thinking?” Now this may be a bit of an over dramatization, but it’s probably what will eventually pop into my mind at some point in the day. So for one thing, I was a bit uncomfortable when I didn’t know what I should eat while at college. Once I knew what all my options were, I became much more comfortable, which in turn made me happier.

            When it comes to working out, it can make or break my day. For a couple years now, I have completing the P90X workout program, which basically requires that you work out every day. I became so used to working out every day at home, that it quickly became uncomfortable being at college because I didn’t know where I could work out, or if I would be able to work out here at all. I guess you could say that P90X made me a little shy while working out, because I used to do the work outs by myself in the basement of my house. Having to work out in the gym was very uncomfortable for me, because there were so many people around, and I knew they were all sizing me up. Let’s face it, that’s what happens at the gym. Everybody sizes everybody else up, so me being 5’ 10” and 135 pounds means that people would automatically think that I really couldn’t do much of anything. I knew this was totally untrue, and maybe people weren’t sizing me up like I thought they were, but I became quite uncomfortable nonetheless. Eventually with the help of my dumbbell set, I figured out how to do my workouts in my dorm room, and those workouts such as plyometrics (jump training), yoga, and kenpo (mix of karate and cardio), which required more room, I began to do in the dance room.

            Needless to say, I fell into a routine that was a lot like the one I was used to at home, which made me more comfortable, and consequently happier. This is one of the reasons why I constantly say that working out helps me to “stay sane”, or other things like that. I was used to workouts driving my schedule, and I just couldn’t become comfortable here at school until that became the case again. When I think of my workout mentality and perfectionism, I like to think of something that Tony Horton says during some of the P90X workouts. He says, “Do your best, because that’s always enough”. This can be encouraging, because everybody is at a different level of fitness, so all they can do to get maximum results is to do their best. Ralph Waldo Emerson also has a famous quote along the same lines. Emerson says, “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.” That’s what I’m going to try to do in my workouts and in my college life. Like Tony Horton always says, “Do your best, and forget the rest.”

Progress v4.0

It’s been about four weeks since I picked three goals to pursue throughout my first semester here at college. Each week I have been steadily progressing towards accomplishing these goals in order to make my college experience more enjoyable. I feel like I am getting closer to fully accomplishing two of goals, while I feel like the other will take much more time.

            When it comes to my first goal of studying for classes, I believe that I am still making progress. This particular goal is one of the goals that I feel like I am coming close to accomplishing, because I have already made so much progress and due to the fact that I am beginning to have trouble thinking of different ways in which to study for classes. I now already make flashcards, take notes as I read, and flag passages. I haven’t particularly added to this list of studying methods, but instead I tweaked the way in which I go about studying. I used to study only when my professors suggested doing so, or when there was a test or quiz the next day. I have now begun to regularly study my material, rather than waiting for someone, or something, else to provoke me. I think this is a big step towards accomplishing my goal, because it has made me want to study, rather than studying only because I have to.

            I am proud to report that this week I have made progress towards accomplishing my second goal of being more open to others as well as comfortable with myself. I’m usually not a person to get caught up in small steps of progress, but I think that this is an exception because I didn’t make any progress towards this goal last week; which didn’t sit well with my competitive spirit and perfectionism. This week I made an extra effort to do things as simple as greeting almost every person that I walked by and just talking to people that I normally wouldn’t talk to. As with past weeks, I have also made progress with my roommate. I drove home on the long weekend and I dropped my roommate off in Syracuse at his sister’s house on Friday night. I also picked him up on my way back to school on Monday afternoon, which means that we were in my truck together for about eight hours. The best way to pass the time was to talk, so we did just that. We definitely learned a lot about each other, which personally made me more comfortable with my roommate, and with myself.

            The drive home and the drive back to school also provided an opportunity to make progress towards accomplishing my third goal; which is to clear my mind of negativity and to focus on the positive. When I was on the road alone, it really provided a great time to focus my thoughts because I didn’t have my iPod, so I drove several hours without music. While I was driving I found that I could more easily sort out my thoughts, because there was nobody else around (except for people in other cars). I drove out the homesick feelings that I felt after leaving home and, at the same time, embraced the happy thoughts of coming back to the Adirondacks. I think it can sometimes be hard to clear the mind at college because there is always somebody else near, which showed why driving alone was actually quite effective. I don’t think anything is as effective for clearing the mind as yoga is, but I now definitely think that long drives alone are definitely high up in the rankings.

            This week of progress has proven to be perhaps the most difficult because I’m starting to have trouble thinking of new ways to progress towards accomplishing my goals. This is just another obstacle in my way, and like other obstacles, I will get past it. A legendary quote from Michael Jordan comes to mind. He says, “Some people want it to happen. Some people wish it would happen. Others make it happen.” In my case, I have to be like Michael Jordan and make things happen, rather than waiting for them to happen. This attitude will help me accomplish not only my goals in college, but any other goals in my life.

Another Week of Progress

Well, it’s been another week, another seven days to work towards accomplishing the goals I set out for myself a couple of weeks ago. For the first time since I set my goals from The Happiness Project, I think I can honestly say that I didn’t make a good amount of progress towards accomplishing all of my goals. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made progress towards my goals this week, but I think that I honestly did not make much progress when it comes to one of my goals; my goal to be more open to others as well as comfortable with myself. I think that I’ve made large enough amounts of progress towards other goals in order to cover up for the spots where I think that I didn’t make so much progress.

             When it comes to my goal of studying for classes, I think I have actually continued to make progress, because I not only continue to study, but I study more frequently and using different methods. I still make flashcards and type out notes as I read through textbooks, but I now have also started to flag passages in books. By flagging passages, I can easily go back and access passages that I deemed to be important, or just a passage I thought was just plain interesting. Flagging passages helped me through my chapter of Flow, and although I didn’t have a physical copy of Geography of Bliss, I jotted down quotes that I thought were important or interesting. I definitely think that Geography of Bliss was a much more entertaining read when compared to Flow, which worked to the advantage of my new studying technique. It seemed quite easy to sift through Geography of Bliss, which I think is evidenced by the fact that I made so many flags with quotes. I think this even helped me to more easily understand the reading, so I think I definitely will continue to flag passages whenever I read through something.

            As I said earlier, I don’t think that I made much progress towards my second goal of being more open to others and comfortable with myself. I guess I just never really made a conscious effort to be more open, but I feel as though I wasn’t overly distant. I just kind of went through the motions without even thinking about being more open to others, which means that I will definitely have to make that much more of an effort to be open in the coming week. I don’t like admitting that I didn’t make progress towards this goal, but hopefully it will fuel me to make more progress next week.

            I think I actually made the most progress towards accomplishing my last goal to clear my mind of negativity and to focus on the positive. I think this just kind of happened by itself because I have become more comfortable with my college life, most likely due to the fact that I have just spent more time here. Spending more time at college means that I’ve ha more time to fall into my routine, which means that I generally have less stress and negativity weighing down on me. Part of my daily routine includes working out every night and an hour and a half of yoga every Thursday night. I find that if I think about my workout later in the day, then the negative thoughts don’t seem to be able to get to me. I actually have a quote from Flow that I referenced in an earlier blog that helps to explain one of the reasons why exercising seems to make me happier.  Csikszentmihalyi says, “In other words, with nothing to do, the mind is unable to prevent negative thoughts from elbowing their way to center stage” This is why focusing actually helps to make me happier and why I think I will continue with this goal throughout college, and likely even after college.

            One quote that I will remember while trying to accomplish my goal of being open to others and more comfortable with myself is a saying from James Bryant Conant, the former president of Harvard. Conant says, “Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.” I think this applies to me because this week I have kind of just been the turtle, not necessarily hiding my head, but definitely not sticking it out. This coming week I will definitely try to “stick my head out more often”, because it will almost certainly assist me in accomplishing my goal.

Reactions to the Happy Planet Index

I have recently completed “The Happy Planet Index” survey, which is like no other survey that I have completed before. This survey appears to take into account several factors such as happiness, environmental impact, and overall well-being. I think that I scored pretty well overall, but the survey definitely made me think about how I can possibly reduce my impact and better myself as a person.

            I actually found the survey to be quite interesting because it really intertwines with some of the topics that we have discussed in my natural resources and society class. In that class, we have talked about the amount of resources that people typically use, and I think that this survey reaffirmed some of the ideas we discussed. It confirmed the fact that people in “developed” countries definitely use more than those who live in “developing” countries. It was actually a pleasant surprise to realize that my ecological footprint is only 2.77 global hectares, or 1.54 planets. Now, I know you may say, “What do you mean, only 1.54 planets? We only have one you know?” The fact of the matter is that people in “developed” countries have a fairly large ecological footprint (the survey even says that people in the UK have an average ecological footprint of about 5.4 global hectares). The fact that my ecological footprint is almost half of the UK average is encouraging, and tells me that I am doing something correctly. 

            Okay, okay, enough of the gloating already. The whole purpose of this survey was to make me cognizant of my lifestyle, therefore making it easy to see how and where I can improve. I think that this survey was accurate in the aspect that it showed communication as one of my weaknesses. I am open to the fact that I should improve my communication skills, which I have evidenced in my goal logs (one of my goals is to be more open to others as well as comfortable with myself). I would have to say that in my opinion, college is probably the hardest environment in which to establish good lines of communication. This is because it seems as though friendships were extremely easy and seamless to make in grade school. College seems to present the other end of the spectrum, because everybody already has their identity and knows who they are, which seems to present more of a challenge when it comes to communicating with others. So when it comes to communication, I think that the survey was pretty accurate.

            Overall, the survey made me think about my lifestyle, which was a good thing, because nobody thinks about their lifestyle as they go through their daily life. I think that I live a fairly sustainable lifestyle for the most part, but at the same time, I realize that there is always room for improvement. Due to discussions in my natural resources class, I’ve known that those in “developed” countries automatically have a larger ecological footprint than those in “developing” countries, regardless of their efforts to (for lack of a better phrase) reduce, reuse, recycle. So the fact that my ecological footprint was higher than that of someone who lives in a “developing” country doesn’t make me rethink my lifestyle one bit, because I know that I do the best I can, and that’s all I can do. It does really make me think of how Americans compare to the rest of the world, and furthers my belief that the world really needs to change, and change needs to start now.

Talking about ecological footprints so much has made me curious as to the ecological footprints of certain nations. I found a list (even though it’s on Wikipedia) that shows the ecological footprints by country. I think it makes for a quick, but interesting reference that goes right along with the theme of the Happy Planet Index.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint