Sunday, September 30, 2007

Leaving September and Moving to October

This weekend was the final weekend in September. It was a very relaxing weekend. The last week of September was the most difficult week of school ever. Therefore, I was so ready to relax. I acutally went home on friday night and went to the high school football game verses our rival. Before the football game I went and got some fried chicken at the Walhalla Steak House, which has the best fried chicken in the world. I went to the game mainly because one of my students/friend plays football and I had told him I would go to his game. Unfortuantely, Walhalla lost the game. On Saturday, I cleaned the house, organizd school work and then watched the Clemson football game with some friends. It was a disappointing game but there was homemade ice cream and cookies involved which made the afternoon a little better. Afterwards, I went out to eat dinner and then watched the movie, ZODIAC. Not to ruin the movie or anything but I would not recommend it. So then Sunday came along. Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I went to church. The message was about living hard. Then I went by my parents house and ate lunch. I relaxed out on the hammock in the warm sun while gazing at the beautiful blue skies. There was a fire in our neighbors woods. It was supposedly started by someone throwing a cigarette out of a car. Then I went and played ultimate frisbee and football for a couple of hours. Ater frisbee and football at the park with some friends, I went to CRAVE. CRAVE is the student ministy provided by our church. I am on the youth staff there. I am in charge of pre-service. Today in pre-service we played spoons and some music and just hung out. I also run the screens at service. We are in a series called WAR! LIVE GOD LOUD! Tonight we talked about the Battle for our Worship. The service was AWESOME and that doesn't even begin to describe it. At the end of the night I returned home and prepared my materials for the new week. It was a great relaxing weekend to welcome the new month of October.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

INTERVIEW ARTICLES

I read three interview articles named "Acing a Dicey Interview Question: Why did you leave your last job?", "Abiltiy to Pull an All-Nighter can be as Useful as a B.A." and Four Tips for Acing an Interview by Phone." I found it extremely interesting that interviewers are also interested in the "soft skills" a student learns while in college. I found it interesting that the ability to listen to music, watch tv, instant message and do homework all at the same time shows good time management skills. Another "soft skill" is the ablilty to communicate through new technolgies; a skill learned by using myspace and facebook. The ability to do group projects can be considered team collaboration, which is another sought after skill. I will have to keep these "soft skills" in mind while interviewing and not just technical ones.

In the future I most likely and am almost certain that I will have to have a phone interview. This article recommend four tips for a phone interview. The four tips were:
1. Minimize distraction
2. Sharpen your verbal skills
3. Prepare in Advance
4. Follow up
They also recommended to not use a cell phone, to reschedule the phone interview if there are surrounding distractions and to keep a resume and cheat sheet on hand.

I did not disagree with any of the information I read. I found it very helpful and will probably use this site again to get future advice on interviewing.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Web 2.0

After watching the Web 2.0 video I am still a little confused about the idea. Unlike most people in my generation I am not the biggest fan of the computer. I do use it everyday of my life and know how to use it functionally. However, I am still pretty traditonal in my ways of giving information on myself, gaining information, and even paying bills and what not. I think the title of Web 2.0 pretty much just represents that the Web has been updated to another level. It is a level that we all have access to. Not only do we have access to read the information but we also have the abiltiy to post information. XML has given people like me who are not computer savy the abiltity to use the web in many ways. Web 2.0 can help or hurt a person entering the work force. It does expose your personal information for all to see. However, it also gives you a chance to publicize yourself to any potential employers. The video said that we will have to rethink everything. By this it means that everytime you get information from the web you have to make sure it is credible. It also means that if you were an employer you wound want to make sure the facts someone gives online of themselves is true. As a user of the web you would also want to make sure that you keep your life personal because if you give it any room to be exposed it will be. The main thing I think Web 2.0 means for a person is that if you are not computer savy currently then you will be left behind in this decade because everything in this age of time is web based.