Its time...

Future Me

My future. How do I see myself in three years? What college will I attend? What will I be doing in this exact moment? These are just some of many questions that make up my mind, regarding hard decisions I am still not ready to pick and choose. Do I just let life pick it for me, while I rest – no action is taken? Or do I prepare myself and work hard to find the ideal college and ideal courses, which reflect my personality and my interests? I’ll go with the second option, especially because I disguise, during some occasions, the fact of “letting life be” and not “distorting” was is necessary. Imagine if you just sat there and, when you realize, it’s already time to decide your pathway. The problem, then, will arise; and, due to the not enough time spent in research, there is a higher chance of your chose to be an indiscriminate one, based on pressure. What will you do if you were to be put in that situation? I would just crash and not know what to do; that’s why early preparation and research need to be done. One that will be provided by the Academic Leadership course, for example, is the vocational test: a test that helps those who quite don’t know what profession they want to exceed in. This is one of my biggest fears. Because I love many of my academic subjects and succeed in them, I don’t know which ones I want to focus. Although in American colleges alumnus’ can change their major courses if wished or disliked, they still need to have some kind of idea in mind of what one’s role might be. I fear that my choice will be an incorrect one, especially because I tend to change my mind and to get convinced quickly. 

I sometimes daydream and visualize the Future Me. This image includes the following: me walking out off a classroom, in an American college, crossing a hallway, in order to reach the known “dorm”. I, then, get my bicycle and pedal until a coffee shop, before reaching my homelike space, which is shared by one roommate. As I carry 2 heavy books, wear my nerdy glasses and look like a professional, I encounter my roommate and begin to socialize. Although this is a very rapid video-like presentation, it means so much to me. Knowing what I will be and what is my spot in this world is something I desire to know. I wanted to travel on time just to see me in exactly three years and then come back; that would alleviate the weights off my back. The knowing of this professional and successful me would make all the difference. However, that would take away the taste and bitterness of my last years in school, since it would exploit the desire of wanting to succeed.

The Academic Leadership course will aid and conduct us; however, all the hard work will need to be pursuit by us, students. Suffering is part of it, but that will be over when the emails of college acceptances pop out in ones Gmail. So, don’t need to stress, I believe. If I were in another school, I would, in the other hand, exclaim, “Worry about one’s decision, because time is ticking”. However, this school, International School of Curitiba, prepares us, students, for college; they all want us to succeed. That’s the main reason of why courses, such as the one cited above, are added to student’s curriculum. 

"One hears and reads a surprising number of sentences that describe leaders in general as having such and such attributes and behaving in such and such a fashion- as though one could distill out of the spectacular diversity of leaders an idealize picture of The Leader. Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find their strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage (FULLAN, Michael)."

Imagine yourself in the city of your dreams, working as the one thing you have been dreaming off your entire life. What happens if that smile of your face is simply ripped off? Imagine that you have just discovered that one mate of yours was manipulating you. He was using YOUR academic skills for his personal advantage; manipulation – quite a connotative word. You start pondering if that was his actual intention; however, you have to deal with the fact that the human mind is corrupted and can be sometimes evil. Are you alone by yourself? Lets say you are; but, due to past experiences and due to this one class during high school, you are an academically sophisticated, intellectual leader. Acting as such leader, you do not directly attack your “component”; but write about his confusing and how he misunderstood the related concept. This imaged scene has already happened; however, Mitt Romney’s “confusion”, regarding Diamond’s writings, only enriched Jared Diamond’s arguments, leaving a clearer analysis for his audience. “It is not true that my book ‘Guns, Germs and Steel,’ as Mr. Romney describes in a speech in Jerusalem, ‘basically says the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there. There is iron ore on the land and so forth.‘ That is so different from what my book actually says that I have to doubt whether Mr. Romney read it. My focus was mostly on biological features, like plant and animal species (…) (DIAMOND, Jared).” As seen, he was a strong of a leader and was able to keep his arguments together. This skill relates to the ability of interacting to ones community and sometimes the “problems” within it; something that will be explored by the Academic Leadership advisory.

 

"What bring my deliberations on these matters to a close? This book must end sometime- and now  I want to get something to eat. Am I free to resist this feeling? Well, yes, in the sense that no one is going to force me at gunpoint to eat- but I am hungry. Can I resist this feeling a moment longer? Yes, of course - and for an indeterminate number of moments thereafter. But I don't know why I make the effort in this instance and not in others. And why do my efforts cease precisely when they do? No I fell that it really is time for me to leave. I'm hungry, yes, but it also seems that I've made my point. In fact, I can't think of anything else to say on the subject. And where is my freedom in that? (HARRIS, Sam)."

I might be getting too excited about these views, and will slow down my pace; although it is something quite interesting and in which takes my mind away - out of the roof.

Relating back to the our future, this advisory will help capture and work with each's future: one that is designed by each and every one of us, individuals.

"The future is not something that is done to us, but an ongoing process in which we can intervene (2011).” Future; such an easy word to understand, isn’t it? Is ones future already defined? Should we seat and watch time pass by? Or should we sweat and fight for what we want to become? Academic Leadership advisory aims to aid those who want to pursue their dreams and who desire to explore such knowledge and skills, in order to reach what they intend to be and become part of. Don’t we all want to make a difference in the world? Becoming someone well- known; someone happy? Not only will this course strengthen my leadership skills, as well as it will apply the different forms of leaderships and academic courses. You, readers, might be asking yourselves how can pleasurable activities be something academic? One must be aware that everything can interlink with each other. For example, I am really amazed in such argument: do humans have free will? With that, I intend to interview and catch up on people’s opinions about this extremely deep thought. However, important thinker’s thoughts are also going to be presented and added to my portfolio. Take a look at the first minute and thirteen seconds of the following video, in which Sam Harris, an atheist, expresses his feelings:

As Harris wrote on one of his books, Free Will:

“How can we be free as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we don not intend of and which are entirely unaware? We can’t (HARRIS, Sam).”