Week #15- What's Your Favorite Sport?

I will start today's post by asking you all to do me a quick favor by taking this one question survey on what sport is your favorite to watch:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3QLY83M

Did you complete the survey? Great!

Now, my post for the week. I had the chance to watch my brother play baseball at Woods Cross High School yesterday. He had a great game. He had 3 hits and 4 RBI's. He also pitched two innings and struck out 4 batters. He made me very proud.

It was great to be outdoors to watch one of my favorite sports. I understand that baseball probably isn't the most exciting game to watch due to the slow pace of play, but I love it! Yesterday got me thinking, what is the most popular sport to watch?

My experience would tell me that in America one of the most popular sports to watch would be football. From my experience in Brazil, however, I would guess that the most popular sport to watch is soccer.

Whether you are an avid sports fan or someone who never takes the time to watch a game, I encourage all of you to get outside and attend a sporting event soon. BYU baseball and soccer are in session, take advantage of the opportunity to watch our athletes compete.

I know that watching sports can teach us valuable lessons about teamwork, determination, and hard work.

SPECIAL BLOG POST- Remote Meeting via Google Hangouts 

Yesterday Monika and I met with Brittany and Lewis in a video conference via Google Hangouts. This was the first time I had done a call of this nature. I have been using Skype for years, but I have never chatted with more than room of people at a time. I was blown away by how easy it was to get connected and that the call went so smoothly.

At first, I signed up for the freeconferencing.com website but it was asking for my information and I didn't want everyone in the group to have to create an account. I decided to give Google Hangouts a try and it was by far the most convenient in my opinion. My favorite feature about the three way call was that when Lewis would speak the camera would focus on him. He would be large while he was talking, but then when Brittany began to speak she should enter into the center of the picture and Lewis became small. Technology is great!

During our remote meeting we were able to assign tasks and talk specifics just like we are able to when we meet in person. It was incredibly convenient and worked wonderfully. Our call lasted nearly 25 minutes which is almost as much time as it takes for us to get to campus from our apartment in Mapleton. I definitely plan on utilizing Google Hangouts and this type of meeting more often when it comes to work or in group projects.

I am grateful for each member of my group. Lewis Bird is a stud, Brittany Hallam is very responsible, and Monika Peay is my best friend. You can find their blogs below:

Lewis Bird

https://medium.com/@lewislbird4

Brittany Hallam

https://brittanyhallam.wixsite.com/finepractically/blog

Monika Peay

https://monikavcabrera.wixsite.com/mysite

Week #13-Fresh Eyes

Today I wish to share an experience we had yesterday as Monika and I had the chance to work on a group project together. Each member of our team had put in a considerable amount of time in gathering the research, analyzing data, and preparing recommendations. We also spent time making graphs, and finding good pictures to use in our project.

Yesterday, we brought all of our research and findings together and put them into a presentation format. The powerpoint we made included all of our findings as a group, and Monika was responsible for a large part of the design process. After hours and hours editing Monika was starting to get a bit tired. She did a fantastic job helping with the format and design of the project but she was definitely tired by the end of it.

After taking some time off and watching the North Carolina Tar Heels knock of Gonzaga in the championship game I took the reigns and helped Monika finish the project. With fresh eyes I was able to make a lot of progress in a short amount of time. I was able to fix grammatical errors and fix a few parts of our project that needed improvement.

I believe that the key to my success was having fresh eyes.

The lesson I learned is that when you work on something for too long you start to become less productive. When writing a big essay or completing a big project, it is important to take a break. Coming back with fresh eyes will help you work more productively and identify mistakes that you may not have seen earlier.

I will continue to find study breaks as the semester comes to an end to make sure that my studies are effective and efficient.

Have you ever benefited from having fresh eyes?