My Soulmate, Lillian Weir

Most people would think that their soulmate would be their partner or spouse. I know my soulmate is my Grandma. This totally shocked my husband, when I said that she was the love of my life and my soulmate. I completely believe that we were supposed be in eachother's lives. When I look in her eyes, I see myself and I know she sees a younger version of herself in me. I have her wrinkles above my nose, and her chicken legs. I have her blue eyes and thin feet.
I write silly poems and like to ryhme like her. I love projecting and crafting, although she is more creative than I am. We were both sick when we were little, many times with phenmonia. It is so hard to describe her, because she is the love of my life, my mentor and friend. I even have some of her negative attributes like worrying about everything, airplanes, illnesses, safety and rules. She was called, "worrywart weir" and I am teased for my constant anxiety about everything.

But even since I was little, she was my biggest fan and gaurdian angel. When I was sick as a baby she stayed with my parents to help care for me. When I had to have knee surgery she would put holy water on a picture she had of me to help me heal quicker. I think it worked. In her bible, she still has prayers that she wrote for me and I still have birthday cards where she wrote that I was her favorite.

I miss her more that I can express. My Grandma lives in Dallas in a nursing home and has severe dementia from Parkinsons disease. She is still alive but her soul is already gone. When I look into her eyes, I see an emptiness that breaks my heart. When I get to talk to her on the phone, she gets confused. I always pause and tell her I love her. I always, hear "I love you" back and then for a split second she is her old self. I miss my "old Grandma", the one who could not say I love you enough and knew everything about me. The one who was the kindest, most loving person, who put everyone else first. I used to wish for her to get well and for her personality and mind to return, but now my prayers have changes and I just pray that she finds peace soon, because I have mourned the loss of my soulmate.

Social Networking

I guess I am supposed to write about social networking, my feelings on it, where I have used it and what the implications are in academics. First of all, I was really negative about social networking, mainly because I did not know that much about it and that I am afraid of technology. This is because I am afraid of change, and technology is changing the world including academics. Social networking includes many ways of bring people and ideas together on the web. Whether is is blogging or wikis or podcasts or others ways in which people connect online. I have never had a blog until this class or knew what a wiki was. In the past I have read other people's blogs and like reading articles online as well as emailing, but that was far as I got. Now, withy my blog and my soon to be wiki, I can communicate with people from all over the world but mainly my friends that I want to connect with online that live far away.

Social netwokring online is great in society and for businesses. It does scare me a little with education because of the change it will bring into the classroom. The positive implications are that students can communicate with eachother, the teacher, other students from different parts of the country and their parents through class portals, online filing cabinets, E-portfolios and other ways in which they can connect. Podcasts can help teachers with lectures and review for class tests and missing class. And class wikis and blogs can help them connect for time convenience and other reasons. However, some of the negative implications are that if everyone is online people may not have a reason to go to class if they can get the podcast online for example. There are many colleges that have classes completely online, which I find unfortunate because students will miss working with eachother or knowing eachother in person. You can miss so much if you are just watching a video or listening to somone talk online. The class dynmics are part of learning and without that, I fear some of the learning will decrease.

I especially am concerned about online classes and online colleges or universities because my passion and future I hope will be in student involvement. Without classes on campuses students will have no reason to come to campus and therefore my job and future will not be needed. So much of education is on campus and involvement and without they will be missing something even though they will have the degree.

This weekend made me feel like I was in college again. I am the oldest 24 year old I know! I feel like an old woman. This weekend I had an actual sleep over with one my best friends and stayed up until 1am. This is huge since I am usually asleep by 10pm. We went out to dinner, talked and ate Wendy’s frostys at midnight. I also went to Sex and the City with my pledge class from my sorority. I always dread seeing certain people because we are all so different and seem to not have the much in common anymore after college. But it was actually refreshing to see people that I have cared about at different times in my life all in the same room drinking cosmos and talking girl talk. I have missed so many of them.

I of course finished off my great “college like” weekend wit homework and it really did feel like I was 18 again. It made me realize that I need to spend more time with my friends and enjoy life more. It is not just about work and school.

Darren...another movie that I loved was Sex and the City, I know you will never see that one either, but seriously trust me on the Sliding Doors movie(even you will like it, it is not too girly)