Allison's CAS Blog

  On St. Patrick's day, I was called and asked if I could babysit two girls; one from my church, Hannah, and her best friend, Caroline. I immediately said yes for two reasons: I love hanging out with them because they are so sweet and Spring Break is coming up, so I need to save money! As I arrived, I was immediately welcomed by the lovely parents of Caroline and eventually Hannah's parents. They gave me an overview of the rules and obligations I would soon take in order to take the best care of them. One of the rules was to get ready for bed at 8:30 and for them to be asleep at 9:00. Another was to keep the dogs in their crates. After that, the parents were on their way to dinner. When I approached the girls, they were so excited to be playing and having a house without parents. They began their play by building a fort and playing veterinarian. They eventually became hungry so we headed upstairs for some pizza the parents ordered for us. Bluey was the main source of entertainm...

  Last Monday, Mr.Brewer assigned a project about maps to our Theory of Knowledge class. The project was to contain some sort of geographical map, in this case, a map of specific placements with meaning to represent our life. At first, I needed clarification of what I wanted my end product to look like. I had many ideas in my head of what to do, but it took a week to come to a conclusion on what I wanted to produce.  In the end, I came up with the idea of making a cutout of a human body. If you think about my map as the earth, the ocean is the newspaper and the land is spaces of pink. The newspaper represents the media and how it affects my whole way of being. In a literal sense, the newspaper holds the information the news source only wants you to know. I thought of this to be an underlying meaning for my vulnerability. Because the media has altered my perception of myself, the pink demonstrates how it has changed me in the specific places it is set in. For instance, the medi...

  The University of Alabama has been a big part of my family for many years. My parents received their master's from Alabama and I have many friends and family who have gone there or at least applied to the school. Because college is coming soon and it is time to narrow down my choices, I decided to travel to Tuscaloosa during winter break to scope out the school! This wasn't my first time visiting, however, this would be the first time that I explored the school with a student who attends the university.  Our first goal of the trip was to get a tour of the campus. Because she had a meeting at the beginning of the day and our schedule was tight, she gave my friend, Amelia, and me a ride around the campus. She gave a really good and thorough tour around the school and it was very helpful in regard to what I should be looking for in a school. Afterward, we got lunch and had to shop, of course. No matter what school I will end up going to, I will have to know the best stores!...

On Thursday, February 9th, I conducted an Environmental Club meeting. The meeting topic was to introduce recycling to Carrollton High School. I introduced some ways that we could implement recycling like getting a group of students to collect the bags every day and driving them to the county recycling center. The students who attended the meeting agreed and put out some sources that would be open to doing such. One club member stated to only recycle plastic bottles so It'll be easier to recycle. Students at Carrollton High School use a lot of plastic water bottles. The cafeteria also sells plastic bottles. We settled on the concept of setting out recycling bins that only accept plastic bottles so it will be easy to recycle. We will collect them every day, or as many times as we need to, and take them to the recycling center.  We came up with the idea of placing a QR code on the bin so there could be an incentive for the students who recycle. If students scan the QR code, they can s...

       On January 28th, I felt the will to help one of my friends who has been recently injured at the gym. Because she hasn't been to the gym in a long time and her injury requires long term recovery, I decided to help her with some workouts she could do while in that period of recovery. I invited her to come along with me to Sportsplex in Carrollton to get a workout in, but a workout that is simple, effective, and will lead her towards a safe recovery. Her leg was injured while playing volleyball this past October. Since I am a former volleyball player, I took it upon myself to empathize with her situation the best I could. I knew that it was hard to be physically active at this time so that one of the main reasons why I took time to help her.  We started with simple arm workouts. She wanted to be bold and go for bench presses. We both took turns spotting each other while the other was doing the workout. After about thirty minutes of weights, we made our way t...

       On January 11th, I got the pleasure to attend a zoom call with author and sociologist,  Dr. Mary Gatta. Some of her works include Waiting on Retirement, Not Just Getting By , Public Policy on Democratizing Access to Education for Marginalized Groups, and All I Want Is a Job! Unemployed Women Navigating the Public Workforce System. I connected with her through professor, advocate and former Florida president of American Association of University Women, Dr. Pat Dewitt. Dr. Dewitt is a family friend of ours and was open to conversations about future majors and career paths for me. She mentioned Dr. Gatta's name when I mentioned going into sociology. After a few days, Dr. Gatta reached out to me via email and wanted to set up a Zoom meeting to introduce ourselves and to have a conversation about possible pathways for my future!      The Zoom started by me telling her my interests. I told her that I am interested in human behavior, religiou...

       Just recently, I have gotten the opportunity to give back to people in the community for the Christmas season! At my church, we have a gift drive every Christmas. They're called Angel Tree Gifts. On the tree, there are little angel cutouts with a child's name on it, their size, and interests. Not too long before the drive started, my dad gave me 200 dollars for the holidays to give to people in need. I took it upon myself to grab an angel from the tree and buy presents for that child.      My friend and I decided to take a trip to Target because I figured that it was the best place to get toys and clothes! The boy I received the pleasure of giving gifts to was five-years-old. That lets me know what to shop for so the present could be age-appropriate. I decided to get a toy dinosaur, because who doesn't like those? I also bought a transformer monster truck along with some sweaters and a pair of shoes. It was really easy to do this kind actio...