The dreaded thesis...

It is a BEAUTIFUL January day, the sun is shining, its a balmy 8 degrees, and I am sitting in the library looking longingly out the window. How I wish I was outside enjoying this awesome weather, but instead I am sitting staring at a pile of books, a list of articles, and a blank piece of paper. Today is my day that I set aside for the dreaded thesis!

Maybe I should clarify, I really don't hate my thesis, or my thesis topic, but I hate having to make my brain write. I feel that writing should be fluid, free, and uncontrolled. This approach does not make it easy to write a large daunting paper that is my ticket to graduation!

I have given advice about overcoming the mental block of writing many times. (Don't worry this information comes from successful, phD bearing professors!) It is funny how hard it is to take your own advice sometimes. I've always encourage people to not force writing, just write. MAKE it a fluid, uncontrolled though process. Just start somewhere...

Maybe I just need to get outside, my best thinking often happens there. Actually, I think I should start just talking and recording my thoughts. I could transcribe them (good practice for later) and I would be operating in a fluid process..hmmm.

Any advice for writing out there? I am willingly accepting advice and suggestions!

[GET OUTSIDE AND ENJOY TODAY! RARELY DO WE GET SUCH BEAUTIFUL DAYS IN JANUARY!- love your resident outdoor enthusiast!]

Making it "girlier" for what?

Alright... I'm a little ticked off.  I might need someone to convince me to step away from the ledge. 

I'm sick of seeing media prints or commercials or even blogs now that feature women in sport with a sprinkling of "girlie-girl".  For example, back in the late 90s and early 2000s Nike began featuring print ads in magazines featuring women playing sports.  These images were accompanied by a small caption, usually saying something along the lines of "I paint my toe nails" or "I like pink." 

I recently just discovered a blog where a young female, who works in a male-dominated sector of sport, write about her opinons and thoughts on hockey.  So she appropriately named her blog "Pink Hockey Tape". 

Now... I acknowledge that women can wear, and like, pink without sending women ten steps back.  In fact, I really fricken like pink sometimes. However, why must we deliberately feel the need to express that hyper-femininity when we speak about sport?  Will I lose my "woman" card in society? Will I be considered a "butch" and be banished from all nail salons? 

So although this comes off as a rather heated feminist rant, what i'm trying to ask is why are we making it "girlier"?  What's fueling this?  Why is it so important? And what would it look like if we didn't feel the need to...

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go paint my bedroom walls pink and start a new blog called, "I love pink and sports and that doesn't make me a guy!"

*Note: I use some very stereotypical concepts in this to make a bit extreme...

Creativity vs Productivity

 Human beings are creative by nature-- so why do most institutions 'beat' it out of us?

Well my faithful followers, it was another early morning in my world, however I am happy to say that this morning has gone significantly smoother than Mondays fiasco!

I have been re-reading (...or reviewing) It's Not About Time by Pavelka for the class I G.A. for and today we completed one of my favourite chapters, "Finding Creative Outlets". To be clear, when I am talking about creativity I am not only talking about artistic, and musical creativity but thought creativity.

Go back and look at your kindergarden report cards (I can almost guarantee your parents have them somewhere...). A large portion of the items on the report card will have to do about creative outlooks, activities, ect.  And then we hit grade one...creativity exits, and productivity is introduced. Continue through high school...and we get accepted to college or university based on our grades. Welcome to post-secondary education where your professors expect you to be able to think, and be creative.

WAIT WHAT?

Did my entire education not just teach me to memorize, regurgitate, and NOW you want me to be creative? In my personal opinion, we as student, cannot be blamed for not initially succeeding in post-secondary class rooms. We have been taught to behave one way, and are now expected to behave in a different way. Granted, not all classrooms or school operate on this basis, but my point is even more validated by our careers. After we graduate, we then take jobs where in some instances, we NEED to be creative, and original, yet all we know is what textbooks and professors lecturing at us have taught us.

Take it out of the education system and into the sport system. Formal vs Informal sport experience. Formal sport teaches us to behave in certain ways when we receive a perfect pass, or which way to run when we are trying to get around a defensemen. Most of these 'skills' we learn in a controlled practice setting, remove the control and the majority of participants cannot accurately assess and make an on the fly decision. If we allow people the opportunities to explore informal sporting experiences they will be better equipped to handle game time situations. (When talking about informal sporting experiences in this setting I mean random [UNORGANIZED] games of pick up soccer, hockey, baseball, ect.).

The moral of the story is, start thinking for yourself. Stop listening to what people tell you, you should do and do whatever you want. Spend some time disconnected in creative thinking mode. Paint, draw, write, read, just do it!

Generation of "Yes" Parenting

I apologize if this entry comes from varying directions, and confusing thoughts, in my head they all make sense but I am not too sure how they will look on paper (or should I say your screen).

I had a very interesting morning. I was at school by 7:30 a.m. and had a class to attend at 8:30 a.m. So that left me about 50 minutes to sort out my day and sort out my messy disaster of a desk. I checked my mailbox and saw that I had some graded papers handed back to me, after reading those responses my head started to spin. While I do not disagree that they may have not been my best work, I found that the comments I received were about things that weren't in the listend "instructions/inclusionary items". So after sorting through the critical feedback I started re-working one of the papers I was preparing for this week. Only a few minutes later I had to head to class where my thoughts really started spinning.

Within 5 minutes of class beginning we had a few moments of a student experiencing what I would perceive to be extreme negative stress. What a horrible way to start a Monday morning! Now, don't get me wrong, the student did deserve some 'straight up-you screwed up' talking, but I feel they were met by a shit storm (pardon the language) of crap being thrown at them.  The student responded as one would expect a puppy being scolded too; head down, sit down, don't say much for the rest of class. The professor ended up apologizing to the student in the middle of class and outrightly said, they were in the wrong by placing so much stress on them at the beginning of class. This got me thinking more...

We currently live in a generation of "YES" parenting. According to Generation text: Raising well-adjusted kids in an age of instant everything By Michael Osit this is called Generation Text. These kids are growing up in a culture of:

• Technology-enhances, push-button, "get what you want it, when you want it" 
• Immediate access to the things they want and "need"
• Exposure to an excess of material goods and privileges
• Child centered families
• "Yes" parenting

While this might not be the generation of the student in University at the moment, some of them certainly have this "entitlement" personality about them (you would be AMAZED at what you hear when you are GA...). I can only imagine what havoc this will cause in the education system in years to come. If children aren't use to hearing an adult tell them no, or maybe not receive the marks they were expecting what is going to happen? Is the education system going to bow down more than they already have? [Do you know that it is basically IMPOSSIBLE for a child to be held back a grade level anymore?] Or are the children all of a sudden going to have this conflicted home life and school life? How are we prepared to handle these issues?

To tie all of these ideas back together, I was thinking about what happens now when instructions aren't clear? We usually discuss and come to some sort of agreement, or consensus about what is suppose to be included. What happens when you cause someone extreme negative stress? You usually (or at least should) buck up and talk to them about it, you explain why you were upset/reacted the way you did, and then the other person get the opportunity to talk about how they felt. What happens when these children grow up and don't follow or understand instructions? What happens when someone expressess thoughts that don't align with their own? I can usually spin things to have a positive outlook, but I am really struggling to see the positive responses the Generation Text is going to have.

Call me cynical, call me old school, I don't care. I believe in open and honest communication, and being able to handle constructive criticism (something even I constantly need to work on). I am concerned that future generations won't be able to handle any of the above...

After reading Peanut's post about Burke, her point about "DOing" something really resonated with me.  So I thought I would share a bit about my thesis experience as it aligns with this theme nicely!

I didn't actually think I would do a thesis.  I was afraid, to be quite honest.  And I also didn't think I had anything of value to really say and contribute the body of knowledge that exists in our field.  But as I pursued the idea of an internship I thought, "Why can't I do both?"  Why can't I contribute to the academic conversation AND "do" something?

So I did... (or rather... AM doing)

I found an amazing organization and group of women that i'm working with to help advance women in sport in some way.  Not only does my research feel fulfilling, but I know that what myself and these talented women are striving to achieve is a valuable example of "doing" work.

So thanks to women like S.B. who show us our actions can make a difference, I hope to do the same in any way that I can... however big or small!

Sarah Burke

The women's world of sports unfortunately lost a trailblazer in the advancement of women in sports; specifically skiings. It was very sad news to hear that Sarah Burke has passed away after sustaining injuries in a training run last week.

I was recently asked to take a survey on the 'news' and one of the questions was what do you not like about how you receive news; my response was that it is always sad and that we don't hear the good things going on in the world (or at least not often).
Sarah Burke was a very talented female skier. She was the first competitive free style skier, and lobbied the X-Games to include women in competition. She is a 4 time X-Games champion in the skiing superpipe, and lobbied the Olympics to include the skiing halfpipe in the games. (HuffingtonPost).
My beef with the news is if you go back to the years between 2007-2010 they talk about her success in sports (which by no means am I saying this is a bad thing!) but most don't discuss her incredible strength and drive to make females equal to men in the world of skiing!

Aside from the fact that the world lost a beautiful human being, the world of female advancement in sport lost a huge advocate that let very little stand in her way. When I read news articles, I am proud to be a female working towards the advancement of women in sport. I am also proud that there are other (highly prominent) women out there showing our younger generations that they can be advocates too. I hope other females athletes with potential to change our sporting systems step up to the plate and take over what Sarah can no longer do.

I guess what I am saying is I am challenging anyone reading this do get up and DO something. Be an advocate, heaven knows we need more of us out there! Take on the journey of being a positive role model to younger girls in sport.

Meet the Blogger

*Peanut suggested I post something about myself to "get to know me".  I think that's a pretty cool idea :)

Aloha bloggers! God, i've always wanted to say that!
I'm a 2nd year master's student at what Maclean's thinks is a sub-par university.
However, I think my educational institution has got some soul...
I like a lot of things... I like talking... I like learning... I like to laugh...
Hopefully my blabbering is entertaining in some way to you!
I'm more of a social creature... although I find science terribly fascinating. Problem is, I think i'm too dumb to fully grasp most scientific concepts.
I like sports, physical activity, leisure, movement, and recreation.
I love people.
So let's blog :)

Burnout- When Do We Go Too Far?

Today, in my Sport Development class we were discussing burnout amongst youth athletes. Lots of discussion was had about the idea of burnout and how we need to change our traditional view of burnout as personal failure (medical model) towards a failure by society. To clarify, the author of the article (Coakley) was trying to show that the youth shouldn't be blamed for failing, but the parents, and coaches should be blamed for placing increased pressure on these children.

This made be begin to think about my one day parenting techniques. I am going to make an assumption about my unborn future children and say that they will be involved in either sports or music, or something that they enjoy. This whole idea of burnout makes me wonder, how far is too far? As a parent you want to encourage and support your children to succeed in things they love, but when does your support and encouragement become pressure and undue stress on the child? Even as a coach, how can you be sure that you aren't putting too much pressure on your athletes?

I believe it is a fine line that we toe as adults engaging with children. In sport, we typically treat children and youth as mini adults, and we all know that they are not mini adults. As adults, we need to be cautious when we approach youth and children with 'goal setting', and 'training plans'.

As a sport developer, or coach, I feel that proper education is a step in the right direction. We need to be educating parents, caregivers and coaches on the proper way to interact with young individuals. We need to be educating them on signs of burnout and what to do if they feel a child is under extreme pressures from parents or other coaches.

Remember:

Welcome

Welcome to Confessions of a Graduate Student!


As the title suggests, I am a graduate student, and therefore have many thoughts, ideas, and opinions about the material I learn in class. Some may believe that learning only takes places in the classroom, however I would beg to differ that significant amounts of my learning occurs through discussion with my classmates (outside of class time)!


I intend to blog my thoughts on the daily happenings in my life, along with academic issues, and news issues that interest me.


Please feel free to comment, I enjoy being challenged to think in ways I wouldn't normally.