Blog Post 1

Get to Know Me!

Hi! My name is Isaac Evans, and I'm currently a sophomore at the University of South Alabama. I was born in Northport, Alabama, but moved to Daphne, Alabama at the age of eight. I graduated from Spanish Fort High School in May 2010 and received scholarship offers from several schools, but eventually narrowed down my choices to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of South Alabama. I have been very pleased with my education thus far here at South and am looking forward to another wonderful three years!

According to my mother, I've wanted to be a teacher ever since the age of two. I do remember writing my own lesson plans at a relatively young age and pretending to be a teacher in the privacy of my bedroom. I do not know why I have always been so drawn to the field, but in any case, I am, and so I eagerly await the day when I have a classroom of my own. Once I've completed my schooling, I'll be certified to teach 6th through 12th grade Science in Alabama, but even now I teach Bible Class to four through six year olds each Sunday, and I love it! My mother currently teaches 6th grade math and has taught Bible Class all of her life, and my father is a minister and an adjunct Bible professor at Faulkner University, so I suppose you could say teaching runs in my family.

In my time away from the classroom, I work as a cashier at Allegri Farm Market, where I also help with handling our Amish products and I do much of the computer work that needs to be done. I love my job there and find great joy in working with the general public. In my other free time, my biggest hobby is theatre - listening, watching, performing - you name it!

All in all, I cannot wait to see what this course has to offer me and I especially cannot wait for that fateful August day when I look at a classroom full of new students who are finally mine to mold and teach.

Randy Pausch on Time Management

In his video, "Randy Pausch on Time Management", Mr. Pausch gives an overview of tools to help us with time management. He finds our real problems to be stress and procrastination, and states that Americans should treat time as more of a commodity as we do money. Three of his rules for setting goals and priorities are to ask "Why am I doing it?", "Why will I succeed?", and "What will happen if I don't do it?".

One of my favorite quotes from Mr. Pausch is "It doesn't matter how well you polish the underside of the banister." He says this to make a point that you should do only things that are worthwhile and do them well. He also makes a point that one should always plan what they're going to do. Sure, you may have to occasionally change your plans, but you have to have plans to do that in the first place.

Finally, he gives instructions on To-Do lists. This section is shorter, but the two rules he speaks on are to organize the list into small tasks and to do the worst tasks first.

Sadly, Mr. Pausch died from pancreatic cancer in the Summer of 2008. He was a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University and inspired many students before his passing. Thankfully, he still can share his thoughts through the multiple lectures of his we have recorded.

What did I learn? Stay organized and prioritize my goals, and I'll be in good shape with my time. And eat the big frog first!