July 16

Week two is officially underway! The students have earned the trust and responsibility to walk to and from the residential halls and class. Some discovered CUPS (the coffee/food stand) near the CSE building, and entered class this morning with frappachino type drinks. Most of the students opted to eat at the Price Center today. I can kind of understand why, but free food at Cafe Ventanas, is still free food. As free food goes, it's not bad. I know they are getting tired of eating at the same place everyday, every meal. However, as our Cluster TA Tiffany put it, "When you go to college, you'll eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same place for a year!" Spending approximately $7 everyday for lunch for the next three weeks, seems like a lot to me. I don't mind the walk to Cafe Ventanas, I'm getting used to it. I know I don't have to walk back and forth several times a day, so my perspective is different -- but it's free! I would rather spend my money shopping or for activities. Between the coffee drinks and lunch everyday, I'd go broke really fast!

In class today, Paul, Ming and Tiffany showed the students how to use Adobe Photoshop and Preimer. Their project today was to make a postcard of their COSMOS experience. I was wonderful to see the creativity of the students and see how they are applying what they've been taught. I loved seeing their postcards. They had to explain what they did in their postcards to make it. I asked them to write down those concepts/techniques. We'll use this information for an activity this week.

I'm excited about this week. We're really into the "meat and potatoes" of the cluster. I'm going to do more on presentation skills this week. I hope to give the students lots of practice before the final projects and presentations. So many ideas, so little time...