South Park Leadership

South Park is a cartoon show on Comedy Central that is one of my favorite TV shows out there. Tonights episode they got in yet another jam with the internet stop working. It is even interesting even in TV shows to watch how leadership is used to solve different problems. Though in South Park the people act unintelligent most of the times, through someone stepping up and taking control of the situation the problem can be solved. This can obviously be applied to real life sitations as well in many circumstances.

Extra credit opportunites.

All of the extra credit opportunities in class that I have done have seem beneficial to me. The only problem I feel is the fact that you send out so many emails with such vague title names it is sometimes hard to find out about these opportunities. Also, I would work at my job from 10-5 and then by the time I get home I would have to change my clothes in order to go to class. So some of the opportunities I woudl not be able to do. Our group leaders would help us out some, but with having a busy schedule with work I can not read those emails from my group leader as well.

Final Class

I thought that this was a nice way to end the semester with a nice little ice cream party. It was relaxing to eat some ice cream while just listening to the lecture. It was nice that he did summarize everything and put some meaning into somethings that us students did not understand at the time. It was nice just to have one last time relaxing with some of the new friends that were made in our group throughout the semester. It would be nice if all teachers woudl have last days like this, and explain everything and just go out on a good note. Going out on a good note is always nice.

Wednesday's class

Movies are a hug part I think of everyones life. They are nice because they can make you escape reality for a little bit of time and feel free. They can give you ideas of what you would like to be when you grow up as well as give you some new dreams to dream about. A good movie overall can just make you feel better about yourself. After watching some of the clips that you played, it made me want to go home and watch some of those movies again also. It was also interesting to hear from some other people what their favorite movies are and why they love them so much. My personal favorites of all time are Shawshank Redemption, the Hurricane, Not Another Teen movie, Dumb and Dumber, American History X, and The Break Up with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Annistan. The Break Up has a bad ending but I am in three scenes in that movie, which is why I like it.

Monday's class activity

I thought Monday's activity was really interesting. Almost every person had theirs completely wrong and we got to learn some survival tips. One thing I found interesting though was the fact that when one person who watches shows like Man vs. Wild brought up reasons for his rankings, no one would listen to him. He woudl have gave our team a better score, but others looked at him as an idiot for not ranking water number 1. He does not have real life expertise, but watching shows like that, gave him knowledge, and I do not no why are group did not listen to him more, so we could have better overall as a team. Hopefully our group learned our lesson, and we will make better decisions in the future.

Stephen Curry

Stephen Curry is a sophomore basketball player at Davidson. Even though he is young the leadership he displayed while leading his underdogged Davidson team into the NCAA Elite 8 was incredible to watch. Every time he needed a shot to help his team out he was able to almost instantly. Just watching him on the floor you could see he was a floor general.
I think he was able to learn how to be a leader on the bball floor from his father, Dell Curry, who was an NBA player for many years. I watched Dell growing up and he always was a key member to the teams that he was on. One would have to think that Stephen had to learned these qualities from his old man.
Since Stephen is only a sophomore, it will be interesting to see if he decides to stay in college or head straight to the NBA. If he stays one would have to also think that his leadership will keep getting better and better, and Davidson will keep getting better and better then.

Leaders in the NCAA Tourney

While watching the NCAA tournament it is apparent that leadership and experience seem to go hand in hand. Purdue for instance, has leader, but not great leaders. Not one individual player seems to stand out from another player. Purdue mostly played freshman and sophomores and this seemed to hurt us when we played an experience Xavier. Xavier plays almost all seniors and juniors, and you could just see while watching them play on that when Purdue would make a run, that Xavier's leadership with its upperclassman, would calm down their younger players, and then be able to go on a run of their own. They basically had experience, and we did not. If you look at the bright side though, our young players are amazing players, and once that experience and leadership kicks with our older players, we should be one tough team to beat. Things will be looking bright in Mackey Arena for some time.

Spring Break leadership

Over spring break, many college kids are out on their own and no one really has a set plan execpt on the actual city you are going to . I myself, went with a group of 16 people, and once we got there everyone wanted to go to a different place on a different night. I wanted the whole group to hang out together, and since we were all getting into these arguments leadership was needed to get a decision made. I decided to step up and just say what we are doing. Then I woudl call a taxi to make sure that we had a safe way there and back, and once the taxi is on its way there is no way to back out of the plans. It was the best way to handle the situation, and I think to say it is the best way to get things accomplished, and we all had a blast to during spring break. We all stayed safe to which is also extremely important.

New group leader

Today my group received an email stating that our group leader Joseph Braun will be replaced by someone else. Joseph has worked extremely hard and did deserve the promotion that he has received, but I feel like he has abandoned our group in a way. He told us that he would be our group leader throughout the whole entire semester. Changing this late into the semester seems like it could be challenging to our group. We are so used to Joseph's leadership style that I hope that our new group leader's leadership style is similar to Joe's and that we can continue on.

Congrats to Joe on his promotion, and best of luck to our new group leader.

Kirk Weiser

Going into the presentation by Kurt I had heard from friends that he was absolutely amazing. They said that after you would hear him talk that you would feel like you could go out any do anything. Because I went into this with such high expectations I must say that I was a little bit disappointed. He was good, but I feel the first two hours of the presentation started out kind of slow and got me a little bit bored right off the bat. Later on though when he added a lot of humor to his presentation, you were able to pay attention more and then the information that he was giving us started to sink in. I feel that he gave some good examples of situations over how to motivate people and how great customer service and satisfaction. The examples with pictures made his stories all that much better. I do feel like I learned a great deal from him, but wish overall that the first part of the presentation could have been as good as the second half of the presentation.

class videos

I must say that I am a huge fan of the videos and comercials that we watch during class. It is always good to see examples of what good and bad leadership examples are. Even though some of them are kinda extreme, laughter is a great way to make sure that you have everyones attention the whole entire class period. With being able to watch these clips, everyone has been able to focus well, and when people can focus well they can learn a lot better. I can honestly say that this one of the few power hours that I have ever taken here at Purdue University that I have been able to pay attention the whole time, and therefore I feel that I am learning a great deal about leadership.

Tower Buildiing

I feel that some teams were at a disadvantage because some teams were clearly tipped off for what it would take to win. When we looked around everyone could see that some teams brought in pictures and props to go along with the assignment. Our team finished second to last (even though should have one for the most stable) and we were not even close to the groups that were at the top of leader board. The way I read the email was that you were only bring objects like boxes to build with. I do think that we did learn a lesson though because now we know that we will need to talk to former students of the class to find out what exactly you are expecting to win. For now I think it is safe to say we will not let a miss hap like that one happen again. I have always been a believer that you learn from your mistakes, and we have definitely learned from this one.

CSR 309 - Second day of class

I give a lot of credit to the students today who went up in front of the class to attempt to get things organized and accomplished. While they had failed, they did go up there and try which is something that I have to give them some credit for since I just sat in my seat and did not do anything. The part that was confusing to myself, was that none of my classmates just got up and suggested we all go home early. This is a late class and was expecting for someone to bring up that idea, then just have everyone leave all at once. We knew we weren't going to get your assignment done anyways, so if anyone would have suggested that I am sure that would have been a very popular suggestion.