To be honest, I love Twitter because the celebrities have it and consistently update it. For instance John Mayer a week ago said, “My father said that if I wasn’t his son he would have no idea who I was.” Stuff like that isn’t headlining People Magazine. Status updates or “tweets” really could show ones personality, which is why I stalk celebrities on it. The funny thing is that I myself rarely use status updates and Twitter. I use facebook more because you could see your friends entire life on one Facebook page. Well… gotta go refresh facebook!

Jaime out!

My sister was sitting down stairs in my house in her usual spot glued to the computer chair. I was upstairs in my room of our three-story house in which one floor of the house overlooked the next floor. Our house is built in a way that the acoustics of people’s voices are heard quite vividly. This is probably what I like least about being home, the lack of quite that my dorm room offers me.

I was also sitting at my computer, when I heard my mother screaming my sisters’ name. “SARA, SARA,” I hear with a shriek on the top of my mothers lungs. For some reason my sister was not answering. So I hear a few more times “SARA, SARA!” I still do could not fathom what could be so important that my mother is screaming on the top of her lungs my sister’s name.

So I open my door and stand above the place where my mother is watching television. I then furiously for my sister ask my mother why she is screaming on the top of her lungs. My mother just looks at me and said, “Sara needs to clean her room,” as if it was the most important thing that needed to be done at this very instant. I then look at my mother as if she is absolutely insane and tell her that Sara needing to clean her room is not something to scream at the top of her lungs. This is when I had the epiphany that Sara NEEDED to go away to college so that my mother did not scream at her for such useless unimportant things. These are the things that I take for granted, quietness.

Academically I have not only been a part of the Living Learning community for one year, but I fostered a community conducive to this program as well. I have been a Residential Assistant for two of the three years that I have participated in this program. This close look at the Project Renaissance community has allowed me to see facets of the program that many people do not see. This realization and understanding of what the Project Renaissance community does for students gave me the ambition to take a closer look in what the program has to offer. Therefore, this analysis will first explain the academic effects that the program has on the Project Renaissance Living Learning Community. Secondly, the social and emotional effects of the program will be discussed. Third and last, the correlation between the participation in the community and the retention at the university will be talked about.

As written on the University at Albany webpage about the history of the program, “Project Renaissance grew out of the faculty-led program that established the University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in 1994. Those same faculty members began to consider a program for first-year students that would offer them the best possible orientation to a research university. The end result was Project Renaissance and its first 200 students in fall 1996,” (www.albany.edu/projren/info). The small number of two hundred students has almost doubled since the fall of 1996 to around three hundred seventy-five students. These students participate in different tracks that they are able to choose, loosely depending on their major. These tracks include: Arts and Humanities, Pre-Business/ Economics, Pre-Health, Pre-Law, Psychology/Sociology, or the General Program of studies (for those undecided on a major path).

One large appeal of the Project Renaissance program is the many General Education requirements it covers. Not only does it cover the lower level Writing Intensive requirement, it fulfills the Oral Discourse and Information Literacy credits as well. “In terms more familiar to Composition Studies, the college students developed greater rhetoric sensitivity, expanded their genre awareness, and acquired some of the conventions of academic discourse” (Mastrangelo 4). Although a large amount of General Education credits that are fulfilled, the project Renaissance program does so much more for the student than just covering credits.

The educational effects of the Project Renaissance program are astronomical to a student. The students that participate in the Project Renaissance program start developing their writing styles from early on. The students taking on the writing discourse, freshman year, allows them to learn how to compose essays earlier then the average student. “Together the college students, disciplinary faculty, and preceptors witnessed that even in the more educationally advanced college students, literacy is still an evolving ability at multiple levels. From the perspective of college writing helped energize the college students’ work on more academic writing projects, pushing their writing and thinking to more complex levels”(Mastrangelo 10). Students also take advantage of the research techniques that the program shows them through the assignments that are given. We wanted them to understand the distinction between the passive acquisition of literacy and the active process of learning, as well as the different ways in which these concepts are valued. We wanted our students to appreciate the role that literacy plays in oppressing and liberating individuals [Stuckey]. Powerful literacy, as our students came to see, involves both acquisition and learning [Gee 542]” (Mastrangelo 10). Knowing how to work in groups is one of the most beneficial aspects of the program. When students learn how to work successfully in groups, it not only beneficial for their educational future, but for the work force later on in life. Teacher of the program, Dr. Michele Forte says, “I would say that because of all of the general education requirements we cover, we teach basic, good skill sets that will help for the rest of their time at UA. “

The Living Learning Community gives students a chance to live together and engage socially. The students take one or more classes together, and are able to collaboratively study for exams in groups from their floor rather than seeking them out themselves. The engagement and interaction that these students participate in together allows them to succeed as a group. This method works for both introverted people and extroverted individuals so by people giving students set people that they could talk to, people that they do not have to find on their own to reach out to. According to Rollins College’s study on first year students, “Data from the First- Year Initiative (F.Y.I.), a survey administrated through Educational Benchmarking Incorporated, provided clear and convincing evidence that living-learning communities at Rollins are improving student engagement within and outside the classroom. Specifically, our data indicates that we are able to improve different models of student engagement by focusing on these areas” (Eck, Edge and Stephenson 2).

While the Project Renaissance program has both social and academic effects on the students that it fosters, the program is designed to create a smaller college experience in such a large University. This smaller class atmosphere demands the students to interact on a regular basis. This interaction creates friendships and the ability to work well in groups. The interaction also gives these students a set group of friends, which makes the transition from high school to college much easier on them. A study about the Project Renaissance program done by Westchester University indicated that the University at Albany stated, “Our goals included assisting students in grounding disciplinary knowledge’s in lived experience and encouraging students to see themselves as effective actors in a social context that extends beyond their individual lives” (Mastrangelo 2). The students that are placed in the same tracks and live with each other freshman year also tend to have more in common with the people they live with then just their classes. This allows them to bond, which in turn eases the stress of finding a new roommate sophomore year.

Another important social effect of the Project-Renaissance program is the relationship that the students develop with the teachers. With their relaxed, approachable personalities the teachers in the Project Renaissance program make it easy for the students to come to them. The office hours that the teachers hold in the residence halls allow the students to literally roll out of bed and go to talk to their teacher in their hallway. “It may indeed be the case that these more intensive models, with deep faculty involvement, are more effective in enhancing students’ experience and improving student outcomes” (Stasson 585). This system gives the students an extra support system in knowing that their teachers care to talk to them. This makes the transition from high school to college that much easier. As former student Ashley Nicoletti explained,

“The teachers of the Project Renaissance program really care about their students. I think that students prefer going to the teachers of these classes because they have so few students that they could spend the necessary time on each student individually. The teachers also become like a support system because they get to know each of us very well. I loved going to my teacher’s office hours because it made them genuinely happy when I showed up. I specifically remember one time that I was very sick and couldn’t come into class. My suitemate told my teachers that I really wasn’t feeling well. Right after the class ended, I received an email from my teachers asking me how I was feeling and told me to take my time with the work. Where else would you find a teacher like that?”

In addition to the academic and social benefits of the program, the Project Renaissance Living Learning Community advances the University’s retention rate. The program allows the students to want to come back to the university because of the relationships that they made through the Project Renaissance program. The University at Albany’s website indicates that students who participate in the Project Renaissance program have a 98% retention rate for their sophomore year (www.albany.edu/projren/info). In other words, 98% of the students of the Project Renaissance return to the University sophomore, which is a significant amount. Upon looking at other first year living learning communities, I have come to the realization that most of these programs have rather high retention rates. There is something about the program that makes the students want to come back to further their education and studies. To the average person, this makes the program appear extremely successful. Teacher of the Project Renaissance program Dr. Forte says, “The students are successful because of the small class size, the individual attention and the living learning aspect of the course.”
However, looking further into the success and retention rates of the first year Project Renaissance program, Leslie Saint-Vil, the Project Renaissance Program Coordinator said,

“It is very hard to measure the success of students because success has a large window of different things. There is something about the Project Renaissance program that gives students a push in the right direction. It allows them to become more sociable and make new friends. I only see and hear about the success of these students when they come and speak to me, otherwise I would have no way of knowing whether they do better as a whole or not. I do get numbers once and a while though. I do know that the lowest retention rate that was recorded is 87%, which isn’t a bad number at all.”

Despite what Leslie Saint- Vil said about the success rates of the students that participate in the program, with retention rates of returning sophomores as high as 98%, it is evident about the program that makes it successful.
It is also no surprise that a large portion of students that live together in the living learning community, live together all four years of their college career. The reason for this is that most of them have the same majors and are just so used to being around each other that they become immediate friends. Dr. Forte explains, “The students do stick together, some for all four years and some for not as long. The living learning community forces these students to be together so often, that are forced to get along or else class would be chaotic.”

Overall, the Project Renaissance program enhances the first year experience for almost 400 students a year. The education that the program provides allows students to become familiar with the college atmosphere and provides skills that are necessary throughout all four years of college. The social and emotional aspects makes the transition from high school to college that much easier with the forced interaction that the students have.

My sister and I

I suppose I will start at the beginning. At the mere age of eight I was forced into taking Hebrew lessons. My parents sent me to Hebrew school to fulfill the whispers of the Jewish neighbors and my nagging Grandmother. The status quo young Jewish girl went to Hebrew school, so my mother expected nothing else of her eldest daughter. My father really enjoyed the Jewish religion and was not necessarily religious, but he did have his Bar Mitzvah and knew how to read Hebrew. My mother could not care less if I went or not, but she was under such pressure from Jewish stereotypes that she did not really have a choice in the matter.

I am not very good at learning other languages, and this is something that I learned at the very young age that I started studying. Learning Hebrew was not necessarily my only problem with Hebrew school. The young boys and girls that were in my class were all very obnoxious to say the least. All of the girls at this young age, had Tiffany jewelry, shopped at either Gap Kids or Limited Too and their mothers seemed just as annoying as they did. When I was young I really did not care much to impress people, therefore I wore what my mother bought for me and nothing else.

These lessons lasted a decently long amount of time. I stuck it out because I knew that it was important to my parents and no one likes a quitter. I hadn’t realized how poorly I was actually doing in class, which met once a week, until my teacher Morah Fox suggested that I repeat the grade of religion. This being completely mortifying and totally against my character I decided that Hebrew school just wasn’t for me.

A few years later when I was eleven years old my mother decided to send me to a Jewish sleep away camp, in hope that I would find religion for myself. As it turns out this camp was the place for me. I loved the way that religion was taught because they presented it in a fun upbeat way. A way that wasn’t forceful yet was effective and enjoyable. At camp we played games, sang songs, had parties and best of all we were away from our parents.

The way that this camp is designed is that it is a kosher Jewish federation camp. There is no instructional religion class, but there are religious services during the weekend days of Sabbath were mandatory. Other then eating kosher and observing Sabbath there really is no direct religious teachings at all. The amazing thing about this camp is that there really is a Jewish undertone to everything that goes on at the camp. This is special because it allows the campers to take whatever they want out of the little things that makes them “Jewish.” This undertone is not so obvious when you are young because it isn’t in your face. I didn’t learn about the teachings and the little things that made me “Jewish” until years later, when I was reflecting about personal growth and the Jew that I am.

Another amazing thing about this camp is that since it is a camp for inner-city, underprivileged Jewish children, many of my fellow campers came from broken homes and poor backgrounds; lifestyles that were clearly different from my own. The camp provided as an additional Jewish service that the campers could study the torah if they pleased. The camp has Rabbi’s to teach the campers how to read Hebrew and experience the religious passage into man or womanhood called a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. The wonderful thing about this is that most of the campers that come to Surprise Lake Camp would not have the money to have this important ceremony had it not been for camp. Many people each summer get their Bar or Bat Mitzvah’s and they have a huge party up at camp with family and friends for free.

I was a camper at Surprise Lake Camp for four years. The first year that I saw this amazing ceremony that camp provided I decided that I wanted one but I also thought it would be right to wait until I felt like I understood myself in the Jewish community and not just to have the ceremony to say that I had it. Every summer for years I said, “yeah I really want to have my Bat Mitzvah but,” and added some excuse why I shouldn’t study to have it that summer. It wasn’t until I really wanted it and really found myself connected to Judaism that I actually had my Bat Mitzvah. There were a few things that I found allowed me to take these steps toward having a religion.

My cousins adorable children

My cousin really had an effect on the way that I view religion. Religion is just religion, just because one is more spiritual then the next should not make them an entirely different person. At that moment I decided that I wanted to have a part in my religion and have it make a contribution to my life as it did to Faiths. After that point I wanted to make it clear that I supported her lifestyle and loved her just the same even though she can’t share a bacon cheeseburger with me. I go over her house as often as I can and keep are relationship as close as we always were.

I then decided that I was almost ready to have this religious ceremony at camp after Faith and I had this discussion that changed my life, as I knew it. I also decided that I definitely did not want to embrace my religion on my own. I didn’t want to be the only “practicing” Jew in my house. I wanted my sister to embrace it with me. I wanted the two of us to stand in front of then entire congregation at camp and present ourselves as B’nai (which means more then one) Mitzvot together. I didn’t want to do something so major all by myself; I wanted to share this day with a person I love the most, which is my sister. I told my sister of my intentions and that I wanted her to so badly share this day with me. I did not want to be pushy, so I told her that when she was ready to do the ceremony with me to let me know.

I left it as that and then had it in the back of my mind for years, but almost completely forgot. This was until one day my sister looked at me and said, “Jay, I think I am ready for my Bat Mitzvah.” I looked at my sister and almost laughed because I knew that my sister was not the studying type, and why would she choose to optionally study. To be honest, this summer I didn’t really want to spend my entire summer studying. It was the summer after my senior year of high school and all I wanted to do was have a good time. My sister, gave me motivation to study, so studying I did. Hebrew is extremely hard, but with help from an Israeli friend named Anat I actually knew all the enunciations perfectly!

My sister proved me wrong because almost five months later and what seemed like an eternity; there we were just the two of us standing in front of the Surprise Lake Camp congregation and our entire family. It was thrilling, heartwarming and emotional. My sister did wonderfully; she spoke beautifully and really said her portion of the Torah with grace. As for me, I had the portion with the most chas and kas. I made the crowd laugh because I over emphasized my chas and kas.

This moment marked my entrance into womanhood. At the age of 18 I was finally a women! This meant to start planning future endeavors to define myself as Jewish women. A year after I became a Bat Mitzvah girl, I embarked on a journal to the homeland of Israel. That trip I could say changed my life. I have never seen such a spiritual, safe, and amazing, land. You wouldn’t think that a land in the Middle East with so much fighting would be the place in the world that I felt the safest.

If I didn’t find religion on my own, I would be an entirely different person than the one that I am today. I really commend my parents for raising me with choices, and letting me make important decisions on my own with little force or effort. Not many people can say that they know where they personally stand with their own religion. I am lucky because my own experiences lead me to find myself in Judaism. Some people wait their whole life to discover where they stand. I love the place that I stand in my religion and I am just always ready for the next journey that it will take me on.

I enjoy physically going to the movie theater rather then renting a movie because it gives it the element of being mobile and productive. The only thing that you are really doing is sitting and watching a movie, yet it still serves as something to do. There is something about the movie reel and popcorn smell, which brings a great big smile to my face. Although my friends think that it is rather pathetic, I would pass up almost everything to sit and watch a movie at the theater.

When coming to Albany clearly one of the deal breakers was how close the movie theater was to the school and if there was an easy accessible way to get to school and back from the theater. Luckily, the people who live in the Albany area have not one, but four movie theaters within a 15-minute radius of the school.

The first theater being the easiest to get to is Crossgates Cinema, which is located in the Crossgates mall. The Crossgates mall is about a five minute drive and a ten minute bus ride, making this cinema very easy to get to. The Crossgates Cinema is newly adding an IMax theater, which will make it the only IMax Theater in the capital region. This movie theater is two floors and 18 theaters, and has two concession stands, making it the biggest theater in the Region.

The two theaters in downtown Albany are the Spectrum and Madison theaters. These are about a fifteen minute bus ride or ten minute drive to get to. These theaters are also cheaper then the ones uptown by almost half the amount. There are also many good deals such as two for one and half off on certain days because they are privately owned theaters. These theaters are real small town theaters and give you the homey feeling opposed to the overwhelming crowded sense that the bigger theaters tend to have.

Lastly, my favorite theater is the Colonie Center Regal Cinema, which is located in the Colonie Center Mall. This theater although a tad more expensive, offers rocking reclining chairs, so that you could watch your movies in comfort and not sit upright throughout the entire movie. This Cinema has only 13 theaters, yet since this theater is not even a year old; every thing still looks and feels brand new. The thing that I like most about this theater is definitely the comfortable seats.

If you are ever bored one freezing cold Albany night, I highly suggest that you take a trip to the closest movie theater, bring a loved one and enjoy! The Albany area certainly has great movie theaters so take advantage of the IMAX Theater or the rocking chair seats!

So this is Oprah right after it was annnounced that Barack Obama won the presidential election in 2008.  I found this on people.com and I literally laughed out loud at her quote. Oprah said,”I cried my eyelashes off” on her reaction to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.  

When asked about why Oprah is endorcing Obama, “Because I know him personally,” Ms. Winfrey replied. “I think that what he stands for, what he has proven that he can stand for, what he has shown was worth me going out on a limb for – and I haven’t done it in the past because I haven’t felt that anybody, I didn’t know anybody well enough to be able to say, I believe in this person.”

I found this on NYTimes.com and thought that it was interesting.

I also hear that Oprah’s ratings went down when she publically announced that she was supporting Obama’s campaign. I think that is absolutely ubsurd because people should watch Oprah for the issues she discusses and not who she stands for politically.

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I will list things in order of importance… yey college life

-15 page paper on First year experience essay
-Study for American History Final
-15 page English assignment
-Broadcast news television package
-Photography project package
-Raise $1,000 for Toys For Tots for Res-Life!
-Presentation on the 15 page paper for class
-Blog every day
-English group project
-Finish all that I need to for my study abroad information

this is all I really want to do!!!

I found Stranger than Fiction to be a good mix between a drama and a comedy. At the beginning the movie was very slow moving, yet the mix between Will Ferrell’s dry humor and the organized, dramatic narrations intrigued me. It had a mysterious and thrilling storyline, which always left me wondering what the point of the movie exactly was. The editing and directing gives an interest view on the life of the main character, as if you [the viewer] is seeing into his life, though on details that do not physically exist within the film.

The film, which is the narration of the life of Harold Crick, an organized man who only gets through his day by day life using numbers and his wristwatch to maintain and structure his time. It takes the day that his watch breaks for Harold Crick’s life to be turned upside down. After asking a man for the time, which in turn is a different time, one three minutes faster than what is usually on his watch, his life is different. Not only this but Harold believes he life is being narrated, very accurately and with a better vocabulary.

While this is happening, Karen Eiffel, a renowned author, is having writers block. She can’t figure out how to kill the main character of her new novel. What neither Karen Eiffel or Harold Crick realize is that they’re apart of each other’s own story.

Will Ferrell the actor that plays Harold Crick, a character that is not exactly his usual role, gives the character heart. Will Ferrell, truly touches on the essence of an average person but is able to highlight the everyday ‘oh no, why they do that’ moments. Through the pure simplicity of his character, people are able to empathize well with Will Ferrell in this performance. With an all-star cast that included Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah, Dustin Hoffman, and Emma Thompson, this movie could have been much better then it was.

I thought that this movie was cute, but that really is the only word that I could use to describe it. I thought that the plot was very original and there are certainly not many movies like it out there, but maybe that is not such a bad thing. I love Maggie Gyllenhaal and Will Ferrell, yet their performances in this film did not really do it for me. I thought the movie was slow moving, yet there were parts that I would have loved to watch over again.

I am a big fan of these “Dramedys,” which is a mix between dramas and comedies, yet this one I think people could have waited to see on DVD. It is a shame because all of these phenomenal actors in the same movie should equal success. This movie did not really do that for me.

Understanding all that change does for a person; I still have trouble accepting it. Here I sit in my dorm room, running through all of the negatives and positives aspects about my change of setting for next semester. Today I have been accepted into my study abroad program for next semester. If I decide to go, I will be spending five months in another country. Although this is wonderful and makes me feel all different kinds of emotions, I can’t help but to think about all of the positives and negatives my new found journey to England will bring. Putting thought into why I have always wanted to travel in the first place, I cannot neglect thinking about my first experience traveling. This I suppose is entirely my mother’s fault.

All of my life my mother has been bragging about how great I was at writing. Mommy always made me correct her spelling and sentence structure. I thought I was amazing at it. My mother even told the entire family over a holiday dinner how superb I was at writing and that they should read some of my work. It wasn’t until the sixth grade when I realized that maybe it wasn’t that I was great at writing, but my mother just was terrible at it.

As the years progressed and High School came around, I thought it would be witty to actually become decent at writing, so that mother wouldn’t look like a complete fool when she still flaunted the ability that I did not exactly posses. I took countless advanced writing and English classes, had my Aunt who happened to be English teacher help with my sentence structure, and read book after book to recognize style and techniques of other writers. This helped a little, but thinking back on it, this did not really do anything to my writing; it just made me more aware of other writing abilities.

By my Junior year in High School, you would think that my writing improved drastically from the elementary writing style that my mother was so fond of. To tell you the truth, it really did not. I still had run-ons, incomplete sentences, and worst of all I had a very scattered thought process in this new and improved writing technique. This year, unlike any other, my terrible writing method actually opened new doors for me as a person. My writing actually did something for me that would stick with me for my entire life.

My life was turned when I showed up for my business class during the second semester of junior year. There was a paper hanging stating that there was a writing contest and the winner of this contest would win a free trip to California for a week. I thought that I had no chance in hell of ever coming close to winning. I didn’t even want to write an essay to try. Then I went home and my mother found this straggling piece of paper in my notebook. My mother, still thinking that I was the best writer in the entire world requested that I enter this contest that I was so convinced I wouldn’t win. So, just to prove her wrong I entered.

After my essay was in and I was sure that this free trip to California would never happen, I got a phone call. My then teacher called me at my house. She started the conversation with, “Congratulations Jaime!” I then inquired what she was talking about. She proceeded in telling me that me and one other person won this free trip to California. Imagine the bragging my mother did after that phone call. Mommy was on the phone not only boasting on how right she was about my writing, but also how proud she was of me.

This trip was the first trip I went on without my parents. After this trip, I traveled to England, Israel, and Florida. My current travel plans include most of Europe and Greece. I figure that while I am there I might as well take advantage of all the new places I could potentially go and all the new experiences that I could get while I am there.

I know that traveling will be almost dreamlike and unreal, yet why do I always continuously think about all of the negatives? I really can’t even bare to think about being away from my mother for five months. I also think that it is going to be scary to be able to do anything I want whenever I want to do it. Another negative about being abroad is leaving all of my friends. I finally have an amazing group of friends and I am just up and leaving them. Although both of my jobs fully support my endeavors, I feel as if that I have many responsibilities that I am going to be leaving behind if I go abroad. Even though all of these features seem minor, they are still aspects to think about.

It would be so easy to only think about the positive things that could come from this wonderful experience. Being able to travel for such a low cost is something that I will potentially never do again. Not taking this experience would be extremely detrimental to the person that I want to become. This experience would also further advance the person I already am.

People say that distance makes the heart grow fonder. Hopefully the decision that I have to make in the very near future will be one that changes me forever. My mother wants me to go so badly because this is just another one of the experiences that she wishes she had for herself. In fact, I have just made my decision! I am going to England! I have to go because if I don’t it will be something that I will end up regretting for the rest of my life. I will always think to myself that I had the opportunity to see the world and I stayed at SUNY Albany all because I was scared. Well that is not going to be me!