CaseY7FinalProject

December 5, 2005

Oops...it's been a while...I've basically wasted all of today, I have done nothing productive work-wise. The only thing I really have left to do besides my four finals is my English paper. I'm surprised how many kids from our class have their drafts finished completely. I must be feeling really uninspired lately. I'm at least getting there with it though. I spent a lot of time on it yesterday, which is good because before yesterday my paper basically really didn't exist. One of my best friends who goes to Northwestern goes home on Wednesday and I'll follow her home a exactly a week later. It seems so crazy I only have 9 more days here at Penn State before I'm home for three and a half weeks. Time flies!

CaseY7FinalDraft

November 28, 2005

First day back in classes and I'm realizing that I have a ton to do the next 16 days I'm here. I'm really nervous about the English project draft due Friday, I don't know when I'm going to have time to write a decent draft. I have meetings and random assignments here and there that need to be taken care of all week as well. I just want to be home and getting all ready for Christmas. This last stretch is going to be rough...off to work now!

November 27, 2005

Well I'm back at Penn State now, and I'm missing home already. The break went by so fast, but last night was by far the best night of break. I spent with all five of my closest friends, which was a rare occurrence even when we were in high school due to everyone's demanding schedules. We had such an awesome time chatting and laughing the night away. I feel like we never left each other which is amazing. We haven't grown apart at all yet so that's definitely a good sign. Now I'm counting down the days until I see them again. Just two weeks of classes and then finals (and writing my final English project) and we're home again for Christmas, my favorite time ever.

November 24, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm back in Pennsylvania for the holiday at my grandparents' house. I came home to New Jersey on Tuesday afternoon but left for my grandparents Wednesday morning. We're having a good Turkey Day here and I'm loving the time I spending here with all my family. I almost forgot how crazy we all were together. I just wish that I didn't have to go back into Pennsylvania to spend the day with them. I feel like I will not spend anytime at home this break. I just want to lay on my couch and sleep in my own bed!

November 21, 2005

I'm so excited to go home tomorrow. I am so excited to finally be reunited with all my friends from back home. We all have had different, exciting experiences the past 90 days we have been apart. It will be awesome to share everything and see how everyone changed.

CaseY7FinalProposal

November 15, 2005

I have so much work to do today and I have no motivation whatsoever to do any of it. My mind is wandering to visions of home (only seven more days of waiting!!!) and also to basketball. The Duke basketball season started last night and I am a huge fan. Tomorrow they take on Seton Hall, one of my best guy friends' from home favorite team. We're working on getting a little bet going; of course he knows that Seton Hall really has no shot at Duke it's fun to play along ;) Anyway, I have a Comm test tomorrow that I need to read millions of pages for and a research based paper due Thursday that I am only half way done with. Alright, back to work...

November 13, 2005

I've had a pretty good last couple days. This weekend was fun. Last night instead of going out my friends and I went to see the movie "Jarhead." I thought it was a good, intense movie. It reminded me of the book "The Things They Carried" because they both stress how once one has experienced war the war will always be a part of you. The mentality never really leaves. The movie really made me think, which is something I haven't done after watching a movie in a while.

November 10, 2005

Today was one of the most clumsy days I've had in a while. I tripped while walking to class like a giant freak which was really cool and then at the gym I was talking to one of my friends while cooling down on the treadmill, and I forgot to walk with the treadmill and basically almost killed myself haha. Oh well, I guess you'll have one of those days every now and then. I got a package from the kids I babysitt back home today. It was probably one of the cutest things ever. They sent me all my favorite food, cards in my favorite color, drawings of me they made, and some of their Halloween candy that they thought I would like. It completely made my day. I miss them soooo much. I never see little kids while I'm here and they were such a big part of my life back home. I cannot wait to see them over Thanksgiving break!!

November 8, 2005

So I've been really stressed out all day today. I scheduled my classes today after midnight. The times for the class I want to take are horrendous. After fooling around with the schedule like a crazed person all day I finally got it so its a decent schedule. I really liked how my schedule was for this semester, I was spoiled by it, oh well. I can't believe that it's practically mid-November and that I have to think about things like the Spring semester already. 14 days til I get to go home and see all my friends at least!

November 7, 2005

Link for classmates to read on my proposed topic:

About the BCS

Shows the direction of where college football is going...acknowledges the need for change, but is not addressing all problems.

CaseY7DraftProposal

November 3, 2005

Alright so I've decided that I definitely want to write my paper on the college football national champion selection process. Clearly, I'll need to focus on what the benefits are for having a playoff system. The idea of a playoff system is most definitely feasible and makes much more sense than the BCS, which is in place now. With controversy over the years, it will not be difficult to show the problems with the current system and why a new one is needed.

November 2, 2005

So I think I kind of have an idea of what I want my final project to be about. Since I'm really interested in sports and especially Penn State football, I thought of topics that would concern college football fans. The best idea I came up with is a paper on why the NCAA should switch to a playoff system rather than the BCS and previous systems they have used before. There is constantly a debate on whether this would be worth the time to create however there are many flaws in the BCS system and my paper would highlight them.

October 31, 2005

Today is Halloween which feels really random, it's also Monday which is really random too. I had an amazing weekend this past weekend. The Kanye concert was really good and exciting and the game Saturday was a good time too. Saturday night I dressed up in my Halloween costume, which was an '80s girl, and had such a good time. I just want to do as much of my work possible this week so I'm not stressing out the next three weeks before Thanksgiving and be able to enjoy myself as much as I did this weekend.

CaseY7FinalEvaluation

October 28, 2005

So this morning, I slept through two alarms, causing me to miss English class this morning. I'm so mad at myself because I really wanted to get my paper peer edited. I've been really good about getting up in time for all the things I have to do, so I am very surprised that I slept through it. I guess now I will just have to get my roommate and some of my friends to help me with the peer editing.

October 26, 2005

Not much going on for me this week. All my midterms are over and I did really well on them which makes me very happy. My classes are all light on reading this week which also makes me very happy. This has kind of given me time to slow down and just think about things. I've been talking to my friends from home and now I'm starting to hear stories about all their new friends and everything. It's so weird to hear about my best friend's new boyfriend who I don't even know. Haha how am I supposed to give him my approval if I don't even know him??? Oh well, I guess I still need to get used to the fact that my friends are also in college and leading different lives and experiencing new things without me...At least I have this weekend to look forward to with the Kanye concert and then the Purdue game!

October 25, 2005

So I woke up this morning when my roommate was returning from her class at 9:30 and she informed me that I better bundle up before I go out to class because it was snowing. I could not believe her until I looked out our windows and saw huge snowflakes flying through the air and some snow even sticking on the ground. I think there should be a new law saying that it is not allowed to snow before Halloween. This is crazy, I am not ready for snow. Snow does look pretty and is fun to play in on occasion, however I'm really not a big fan of the cold. I'm beginning to see a difference now between living in PA and living in Jersey. I called my mom to tell her that it had been snowing all day and she could not believe it either. Ahhh...at least the snow gave me a good excuse gave me a good excuse to take a nice little nap after having to trek through all the slush to class. Hopefully it warms up for the game this weekend.

October 21, 2005

Plagiarism is taking someone else's work, written ideas or thoughts, and attempting to pass it off as your own. Because of this one must be incredibly careful when using other sources to gain information or ideas, and make sure citations are correct.

October 19, 2005

Evaluative Argument

Late Retirement May Extend Your Life

In this article the results of a unique study regarding retirement is discussed. The article claims that retiring at the later ages of 60 or 65 helps extend your life, as opposed to retiring around the age of 55. It evaluates early retirement as being detrimental to one's life. The article claims the correlation of higher death rates with early retirement justifies this argument. I'm not sure how sound this argument is at it does not provide any reasons besides the correlation. A counter argument to this would be that early retirement allows one to be more physically active, and therefore improving one's health.

October 18, 2005

Evaluative Argument

New Diabetes Drug Poses Danger to Patients, Cardiologists Say

This article debates the value of a new Diabetes drug. The FDA is already on its way to approving the drug for public use however many doctors are still weighing the pros against the cons. While the drug will help those with Diabetes problems it also increases the risk of death, heart attack, or stroke by 2.23 times. Dr. Steven Niessen claims that the drug should not be put on to the market because he believes the risks the drug presents have not been taken seriously. He partially attributes this to the under-funded board the FDA has put together to evaluate drugs. He claims if they properly investigated and reviewed the statistics, they would see that the drug would cause more harm than good since heart attack and stroke can be much more deadly than diabetes.

October 17, 2005

Stigmergy is the ability of insects, particularly ants to relay tasks onto one another. One ant is stimulated by its surroundings to do one action, triggering another ant to do the same and so on and so forth. Eventually the task is completed as all the ants have communicated that there is a job to be done collectively.

October 14, 2005

Causal Argument from KevinShow

This article describes the causes for inflation increasing over the last few years. Consumer prices have been increasing due to an increase in oil prices making transportation expensive. Food was also named as a cause for increases in consumer inflation. This increase could have been caused by the warmer summers and longer growing seasons that the entire country has been experiencing. Retail prices, however, have decreased over the last year due to a decrease in property maintenance expenses.

Thesis: Inflation has increased due to high oil and food prices.

Explanation:With food and oil in high demand, the prices of these things have increased, and therefore lessening the value of the dollar.

Counter-Arguments:How have things such as natural disasters affected inflation and buying?

October 13, 2005

Causal Argument from StepK13

In an article at CNN.com it is said that 5%-50% of cancer cases had been misdiagnosed. The article describes that one of these causes for these misdiagnoses was due to the poor clinical sampling. Another cause was from the variability in lab practices and standards. To me this makes sense and I can understand how because of the differences in lab practices can cause a different diagnoses.

Thesis:Many cancer cases are misdiagnosed beacuse of multiple lab practices.

Explanation:Many clinics have different standard practices.

Counter-Arugments:Overall lack of knowledge about cancer may also contribute to this...Are there other limits to diagnosing, such as resource availability?

October 12, 2005

Wages Fall

This article examines the overall declince in wages in many different job markets. Immigration and outsourcing are listed as the prime factors responsible for this trend. As there is a greater supply of available workers, the wages companies offer are lowered because there is a greater population of people who are willing to work for less money.

October 11, 2005

Top Recruit Lists Penn State on Top

I believe this is a valid argument because now players are not only looking for success, but for teams that can help them gain exposure and fame. Penn State's fans this weekend were proof that players will receive the attention they want. For these reasons Logan-El is considering Penn State.

October 9, 2005

This weekend was absolutely amazing. Sleeping two nights in Paternoville paid off. Not only did I have amazing, front row seats for the game, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time camping out. Paternoville was a community in itself and during the day I made some new friends while at night I had tons of fun. My friend came up Saturday morning and I immediately got her to our spot in line. After standing for over 5 hours in line, we got our amazing seats in the stadium with my tent group. I can't even really write about the game, it was so awesome. I have been to a ton of Penn State games over the years, including Penn State's last night game against Nebraska, but nothing really compared to this. The student section was insane and the White-out looked really good. Penn State's defense can stop anyone really at this point. It's so good to finally be on top again after waiting so long. Last nights victory was so sweet. I had non-stop fun yesterday starting from the minute I stepped in line in the freezing cold. Seriously Paternoville and the game made this one of the best weekends of my life.

CaseY7FinalAnalogy

CaseY7AnalogyDraft

October 3, 2005

Ah the countdown has begun. 5 days until the highly anticipated weekend. My best friend is coming up from Georgetown Saturday morning for the game. I just secured her a ticket today, which cost me quite a lot of money even though I'm buying the ticket from a friend of mine who gave me a break on the price. I'm just really glad she is going to be able to experience this game and this atmosphere here. It's going to be an amazing time, especially as the hype grows and grows. One my good friends here at Penn State started to camp outside the stadium for front row seats last night and he asked me to join his group so I think I am. It works out that I don't really have to spend much time at the tent which is really nice for me. I went down by the stadium today and there's almost close to 20 tents there already. All the front rows are taken. It was pretty cool to just talk to all the other crazy people camping out and chat about the excitement of it all. I'm making another trip over there tonight just to keep the guys who are sleeping out there tonight company. Needless to say I am extremely excited for this weekend!!

September 29, 2005

Alright, it's practically this weekend now, but I'm going to write about last weekend here in my blog because it was a good one. Saturday morning at 10 am my mom and my sister came to visit! Although this required me to get up at 9, I was so glad to see them. My mom was anxious to see a lot of things they never see when they're here for football games, so she tried to make our first stop the Penn State All-Sports Museum. This is a place I really would have liked to visit actually because I'm so into sports and everything however I had been sick all week and started to feel it right when my family arrived. I felt horrible telling my mom and my sister go on and see the museum without me but I knew that if I wanted to be able to do anything with them the rest of the day, I needed to go back to bed. When they returned we all watched the Northwestern game in my room. My friend who goes to Northwestern was having a lovely time texting me throughout the first quarter. Since my whole family and I are hardcore fans, no one in my room was very chatty. We were all in bad moods as we watched Penn State play a sloppy first half, and my mom even began to question whether my sister and her should leave because I was sick. Luckily however, right when we were all about to give up, Penn State pulled out the win. That gave me such a burst of energy and suddenly I felt much better. My mom loved how you could hear the dorms errupt as Penn State scored the winning touchdown, you could tell she totally wanted to be a student here. Since I was feeling better we all went out for dinner which was such a nice change of pace. Just being able to have dinner like I would with my family as I would when I'm at home made me feel so good. The day which started off not too well turned out to be a great success.

September 27, 2005

How To Wash Your Hair:

1. Turn on running water.

2. Put head under running water, and using your fingers, move hair around so that all the strands are wet.

3. Squirt a quarter-sized amount of shampoo in one of your hands.

4. Put hands on head and move them around so that a lather builds and all strands are covered with shampoo.

5. Rinse by putting hair back under water, ensuring with your hands that all the shampoo has washed out.

CaseY7FinalDefinition

September 22, 2005

I just finished sending my mom an e-mail about what she needs to bring me when her and my sister come up on Saturday. My dad was originally supposed to come with them but he is all tied down by work. My dad is a crisis manager for J P Morgan Chase and the hurricanes really have him swamped. I'm pretty excited to see my family this weekend though anyway. I really miss my sister, so this will just give us some time to catch up in person. Telling her my stories ad problems online is just not the same, so seeing her will definitely make me happy. My family will also be coming up for the next two home games, but I don't actually get to see them when they come for games except for the half hour that I stop by to steal some of their food at their tailgate. Ah, I'm excited!

CaseY7DefinitionDraft

September 18, 2005

So I decided to blog so that I could take a break from writing my definitional argument paper...fun stuff. Let's see...This weekend has been a fun one. My family has season tickets for the games here but couldn't make it this weekend. I was originally a little sad because I wanted to see my sister and all but them skipping this weekend is probably best for me to adjust. I am going to see them three weeks in a row now, so that's definitely enough. I talked to my best friend who goes to Georgetown the other day and now she's coming up for the Ohio State game as well. I have no ticket for her yet, and I probably won't be able to get her one at all. Just being able to see her that weekend will be amazing. I'm excited to show her where I've been living and what I've been doing here. It's so weird to talk to her and think that she's in DC and I'm in the middle of Pennsylvania. Now I just need to figure out a time and a way to visit her at Gtown.

September 15, 2005

DuckysRach (5:19:54 PM): Hello. I'm in your English class. I saw people having convos about the project and saw that, you like myself, dont have one yet :-)

Nittany347 (5:20:18 PM): hey yeah i need to do that haha

DuckysRach (5:20:26 PM): Awesome

Nittany347 (5:20:57 PM): haha hmmm so lets see..have any thoughts about our final projects at all

DuckysRach (5:22:22 PM): Um.. not really.. my FYS class was talking about Greek life and like all the stuff you do to get in and if you dont get in how you might be treated differently..

DuckysRach (5:22:27 PM): did you have any thoughts??

Nittany347 (5:23:04 PM): ooo thats interesting actually...i really dont have many ideas yet..i was thinking something about sports but i have no clue what

Nittany347 (5:23:24 PM): greek life might be really interesting though bc you can find articles about the outrageous things they do

DuckysRach (5:23:41 PM): Yeah, thats what I was thinking

Nittany347 (5:24:15 PM): hmm i like that idea...im not sure i understand like what were supposed to do with our ideas though...like whats the purpose of our papers

DuckysRach (5:25:14 PM): Im not sure. I think that we have to make counter-arguments and do it like our narratives.. but I could be wrong..

Nittany347 (5:26:10 PM): haha yeah that sounds about right i guess...i think with greek life you could definitely provide counter arguements to it

DuckysRach (5:27:17 PM): Of course! I know that there's a lot of "stuff" to do with Greek life, and since I really dont know all that much about it myself, it would be interesting to research

Nittany347 (5:27:58 PM): yeah i dont really know much about it either, it would be interesting which is good bc we have to write such long papers on it...are you thinking about pledging at all

DuckysRach (5:28:52 PM): Um.. no prolly not, from what I heard so far, its really not my kind of thing.. but who knows... are you?

Nittany347 (5:29:14 PM): no im not either, i dont think theyre my thing either...they look so intimidating

DuckysRach (5:29:26 PM): Hehe:-)

Nittany347 (5:31:41 PM): hmm well i really like that idea especially since some of my friends are thinking about joining...

Nittany347 (5:32:04 PM): but i need to go do some espanol hw so do you think this is good enough for our first convo?

DuckysRach (5:33:07 PM): ok, cool. Yeah, i think its good. Ill see ya tomorrow then:-) Bye

Nittany347 (5:33:18 PM): alright byebyeee

DuckysRach (5:33:27 PM): byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeee

September 14, 2005

Uh oh, I see people are having conversations about their final projects. My sn is nittany347 if you're on and wanna talk about it, we could chat :-D ...more later

September 13, 2005

I am so tired today. College is taking a lot out of me. At home on school nights I would usually go to bed before 12 but here that's become really rare. Last night I was going to go to bed early but I had to watch the end of the Eagles game even though I really don't care about it because I'm from New Jersey and the Giants are my team. Anyway, this morning both of my classes ended early which was absolutely amazing. I came home and was able to take a nap! I was never really a nap person before but I think I'm definitely becoming one. Following my nap went over to the Library to take the tour which gets me extra credit in my Sociology of Sport seminar, which is good. The rest of the day I've basically just sat around, avoiding my work.

September 11, 2005

Remix of StepK13FinalNar

I was always a stubborn child. Whenever I didn’t know enough about something, I stubbornly determined that it was no good for me and that it was not going to be any fun. For as long as I can remember my parents always had to force me to participate in activities and events that they thought would be good for me. For example my parents always remind me about when I first signed up to play on a competitive and intense basketball team. I was in seventh grade and absolutely terrified of the older girls I would encounter and of the time commitment I had made. My parents almost had to literally drag me out of the house and into the car to get me to the first practice. A year or two later, basketball became part of my identity. It’s natural to resist something that requires so much dedication when you have no clue how you will fare or how fun it will be.

Despite my original accusations, my first basketball season was a lot of fun. While there were times were I was incredibly intimidated, the hard work in practice definitely paid off. Not only did I improve greatly as a player and therefore preparing me for basketball in high school, but I also made friendships that would last a lifetime. My coaches and my teammates were all amazing people, eager to help me with anything. This experience also made basketball the natural sport for me to participate in in high school.

Throughout my entire basketball career, I learned many valuable lessons that were all direct or indirect results of my participation on the seventh grade team. Playing basketball taught me how to be a leader, how to communicate better with others, and how to work with a team. Basketball made me feel as if I was an important member of my school, and not just some other student. In high school I also started to begin coaching seventh grade basketball. I feel lucky to have been able to girls who may have been in hesitant position I was a few years earlier.

If my parents had never pushed me and signed me up for basketball I might have missed on that great experience. Even now, though I am older, I still need to be pushed into something new or different. I still have not realized that it’s good to try something new and that it is okay to fail. I guess overall I just fear change. But life is about change and as discovered by Charles Darwin, only those who adapt and develop with change will survive.

I am now extremely grateful that my parents went through all of that trouble of dragging me to my first few basketball practices and put up with my whining. Hopefully I can translate this experience to help me strive for things that I am timid to pursue now.

CaseY7FinalNarrative

September 8, 2005

Hmm after reading The Diamond Sutra the first time I did not get much out of it. I had to go back a few times to try to get meaning from it. I guess it relates to Penn State, and every college basically, in that you come here as one person. In high school everyone knew you as a defined person already, but here in Happy Valley you can be liberated with all the new people and be whatever you want to be. You do not have to answer to preconceived notions about yourself that might have limited you or defined you back in high school. I'm somewhat confused about the part where he talks about how if mass amounts of people are liberated, no one is liberated, and I have to give this some more thought haha...tomorrow.

September 7, 2005

So I'm beginning to learn the distractions that come with college. I've attempted to write in my blog multiple times throughout the course of the day and each previous time I have been side-tracked in the process. It's crazy...Either I'll see one of my best friends from home come online, or my roommate will just get back from a class, or a friend will drop by my room, or someone wants to go get food...the distractions are endless. Dorm life is so completely different that learning to adjust to these changes and finding a balance between my social and academic lives will definitely be a challenge I think.

September 6, 2005

I can't believe we're into our second week of classes here at Penn State. My friend from home who is going to Amherst and I were talking about how bizarre it is that school has started in Chatham without me. It seems crazy that life is going on as normal there without me. Someone else is using my locker, someone else is using my parking spot, someone else is walking the halls in my place...However it is also weird that I'm living a totally different life here. I'm making new friends, taking new classes, and refering to my dorm room as "home." My sister is giving me reports as to what's going on in Chatham and I feel like I'm still somewhat torn between two lives. It's a very interesting transition we're experiencing.

CaseY7Narrative

September 1, 2005

Hmm, so today was an extremely long day for me. Even though I did not start classes until 11:15, I just feel like I've done so much today. After three hours of classes I had to head over to the bookstore and stand in a massive line to return some of my books and then I had to get right back in another huge line to buy some replacement books. Standing around by myself gave me some time to catch up with some of my friends on the phone. I had five incredibly close friends back in high school and now we're all scattered across the country, which is just really strange for me to think about. One of them is having a real difficult time adjusting to college life, and I really wish she could just experience what I'm experiencing here at Penn State. I'm so happy here right now. However, some of my friends haven't even started school yet, which seems so crazy because even though I've only been at Penn State for a week it feels like I've been here forever. I feel so much more comfortable around campus and meeting new people has become so much easier. Tomorrow's Penn State Football Eve! I bought my Dan Connor jersey for the games...hopefully he'll be able to play.

August 31, 2005

Hey, my name is Casey Cervenak and I'm from Chatham, NJ and now staying in Hastings Hall. Ever since I was born I knew I wanted to go to Penn State. Although my parents did not attend school here, we've had season tickets for the football games since before I was born. I've been coming to the football games for as long as I can remember, and the first 20 games I saw, Penn State went undefeated...However the last fifteen or so games, have not gone so well as Penn State has had a few down years. I still fully support Joe Paterno and think they will be able to turn things around this year. Not only am I a diehard Penn State football fan, but I am also obsessed with Duke Basketball. Sports have always been a passion of mine, and I've even taken up sports reporting. In my spare time I love to go to Long Beach Island, NJ and I babysitt like a crazy person. I'm really excited for Saturday's game and the whole Penn State experience that I will live over the next four years.

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