A Step Away From the Commotion

I ate my breakfast in the dining hall for the first time in a while. Usually, I just put stuff in packages to eat later, because I don’t like to eat too early. Today, however, I felt pretty hungry right after I showered, so I decided to eat breakfast earlier than usual. I got to the dining hall right after it opened. There was barely anyone there, so I ate by myself for the first time since this trip has started; it was nice to have some time on my own. Between my roommate, class, and friends, I’ve been around people almost constantly these days. Having a bit of alone time to start the day off was really refreshing and I think that this is something that I’ll do more often..

The main topic of today’s class was whether or not individual learning styles have any effect on the way we learn, or even if they’re really valid existences in the first place. It’s a common misconception that if someone is of a specific learning style, then they learn everything best when it is presented in that style, regardless of the content matter. If that were true, then auditory learners would learn geometry more easily from a verbal description of the shape than a picture, which is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. There isn’t enough evidence to support the learning styles theory, but the research that has been done shows that there isn’t much difference between performance after groups of people with different learning styles were given the same lesson and took the same test. However, certain topics are more easily understood when taught under a specific style; for example, charts would be useful for history, and a recording of a poem recitation would be useful for a literature class trying to understand meter. When people think about learning style, they actually think about their preference of being taught. I did believe that learning styles made a difference before this lesson, but I always hated it when people would use it as an excuse for why they didn’t do well on a test. It felt good to clear up all of the misunderstandings surrounding that topic, including my own.

After class I went to Target to buy some Tupperware. Basically, the dining hall is only open during certain hours, and I always get pretty hungry when it’s closed, so I bought Tupperware to put food in to eat outside of active hours. I also get cravings for cookie when I study, so I got those too. When we were standing in the cookie aisle, some lady who was trying to load 4 bottles of vodka into her shopping cart dropped one of them and basically just fled the scene. We were pretty close to the accident zone, so we had to kind of speed-walk away in case security thought we were the ones who did it or something.

I got back to my dorm at around 8:30 PM, which is when the sun was setting, so I decided to walk to the library because it was so nice out and I wanted to get work done. The evening air is totally different over here; back in Richmond the temperature is so bracing and harsh, but here it’s slightly warm and very relaxing. On my way to the library, I saw fireflies. The first time I saw them was when I played soccer on Tuesday, and it blew my mind because I didn’t really think that they existed. When I saw them today, it was still light out, so I could make out the flashing part of their bodies. They don’t really do anything that I can tell besides just flying around, but I’m still enamored with them.

The dorms under the light of the setting sun.

At the library, I went up to the 5th story bookroom and caught the final few dregs of whatever sunset there was. I was in that huge room all by myself, and the lights are all motion-sensored, so at any given time, most of the room was dark. It was a haunting experience to say the least, and I don’t think that I’ll be up there without someone else again.

The view from the 5th story bookroom.

I tried and learned a lot of new things today. I ate breakfast in the dining hall, and I had a meal by myself. My confusion about the validity of learning styles was cleared up. I explored a bookroom alone. I’ve enjoyed every day of my stay so far, but there will always be those days that just seem better than the rest; today was one of those.