"The world is but a canvas to the imagination." -Henry David Thoreau

I have been really enjoying all the creativity exercises that we have been doing in class! For example, with todays exercise with the brainstorming bubble map. It really made you have to think outside of the box. My center bubble was of course, unprotected sacks! My first row of bubbles ended up to be unfair, need lockers, Vanessa, and Aramark. By the time the exercise was over I had a whole truck full of creative words such as hesitant, nervous, unreasonable, organized, artistic, uncomfortable, etc. Then Dr. Morris really threw us for a loop when she said we had to create a statement using only the outside words of our bubble map! I looked at my outside words and froze. How was I supposed to come up with a statement using these crazy words? I mean one of my outside words was groovy!

My completed end statement ended up being: The student’s of Kutztown University are nervous, worried, annoyed, uncomfortable, and hesitant about leaving their personal belongings outside the Cub Café of the South Dinging Hall. These belongings include iPods, Macs, cameras, etc. What will I do with the absence of lockers? How can YOU fix this uneasy feeling to help groovy, fun and artistic me?

I was quite impressed by everyone’s final statement! This activity really got everyone’s creativity side running!

I also enjoyed one of my group member’s final statement: The solution to this giant problem is that the security of our belongings needs to be enforced by guards and/or police.

I especially enjoy her words giant and enforced. They really help pin point the main problem. If I am every stuck on ideas or writing something out I will use the brainstorming bubble approach. I found this creative activity very helpful and useful! Three members of protected sack group and I meshed ours together to create a new statement for our proposal.

Another creative activity I enjoyed was the activity where Dr. Morris provided us with one word and we had to write down the first word that popped into our head. Here are a few of my favorites that I wrote down:

Rage: Black Friday

Justice: Judge Judy

Peace: The Beatles

This was another great activity to get our creative blood pumping! Dr. Morris, once again, I am really enjoying these creativity activities! Please keep them coming!

One last note (haha literally): I enjoyed the music activity! I LOVE classical music and The Flower Duet is a beautiful piece.

Progress!!

On February 10^th, 2011 at 8:30am my group and I were scheduled to meet with Aramark in the Bears Den at the McFarland Student Union Building.  When the clock rolled around to 9am I began to sip my gingerbread latte impatiently.  Our group and I called Aramark and left a voicemail. We then joined the rest of our English Comp class in the library. In the library we worked on little details for our group, when we were meeting up next and such. We created a facebook page for our cause (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Practice-Safe-Sacks/125491284190760).

 When class was over we received a phone call from the Aramark representatives. We must have had our signals crossed because they were in the Student Union Building but in a different location. The people who were representing Aramark were a man and a woman.  We met up and then went to the upstairs of the Bears Den. We all introduced ourselves then began to ask them questions. They seemed nervous at first but once we got to talking they become more at ease in the conversation. They said their main concern for having bags in the dining hall was the stealing of napkin dispensers, salt & pepper shakers, plates, utensils, cups, etc. The upstairs of South Dining Hall has had ten thousand dollars of plates stolen.  REALLY? I couldn’t believe that! I also think that it’s really stupid for people to steal napkin dispensers. They do not mind when people take out fruit or cookies from the dining hall. Our team then suggested getting lockers in between the two double doors. The Aramark people liked our idea of putting lockers outside the upstairs of the South Dining Hall and were going to look more into it. The lockers would be the type where a person would provide their own lock to lock up their items. I personally think it is a wonderful idea! That way the student’s personal belongings will be more secure and less likely to be stolen.  Yay for progress!!

Practice Safe Sacks!

I am getting very excited about the group project! I really like all the members of my group and it seems that we work well together. My group chose to do our project on protecting the bags outside of the upstairs of South Dining Hall. At the upstairs of South Dining Hall you are not allowed to bring a backpack inside the dining hall with you. You have to leave it by a table outside or by the desk (where they swipe your card to get inside.) I am very passionate about being in this group because one of my close friends had her bag stolen. Inside her bag she had a Mac laptop, a digital camera, and an iPod. It is not a good feeling at all when you know something is stolen. The girl who had her laptop stolen and another friend of mine checked all the trashcans in and outside of South Dining Hall. We checked them just in case someone might have thrown away her bag. We found nothing. About fifteen minutes later we were at public safety filing a report of all of her stolen items. Luckily she had Lowjack for laptops (tracks the location of your stolen laptop when activated) on Mac and received her computer back a few weeks ago.  I’ve also know a few other people who had things stolen as well. Mostly the main reason to why you are not allowed to have a bag inside is because of students stealing plates, cups, silverware, etc. They do not care if you take fruit or a few cookies outside of the dining hall. But the bags are left outside unguarded and not protected for anyone to take. There is not even a security camera upstairs watching the bags. I think this problem could easily be solved with lockers or with a security camera.  So far my group and I have created a survey and each of us had twenty students fill it out. Tomorrow morning at 8:30AM my group and I are meeting with Aramark at the coffee shop in the Student Union building. Aramark is Kutztown University’s food services. Hopefully they can answer our questions about the protection of student’s bags outside the upstairs of South Dining Hall. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes! Hopefully we can solve this terrible problem of unprotected backpacks.