Hey Everyone!
I'm Brendan turpin. Right now I'm a 4th year doubling in Cognitive Psych and Education. I'm a pretty easy going person who tries to take life one day at a time. My path in life is a little unclear at the moment, especially when it comes to what I'm going to do after graduation, tho I do plan on eventually returning to school to work on my masters in either cognitive development or Sports psychology.
Blog Assignment One
I grew up in Riverside with my Dad, Mom, and younger sister. My Dad showed me what it meant to be responsible, dutiful, and passionate about the things the you love, especially when it came to sports! My Mom showed me how to be strong willed and determined. And my sister is one of my best and closest friends. I can tell her anything with complete trust and confidence. All three have made such a strong impact in helping me become the man I am today, and I’m so proud to call them my family.
I went to a really small high school where I spent pretty much everyday playing baseball. The sport was my life and has remained such through the past 8 years. It taught me how to be competitive and, though it took for what seemed like forever, it taught me how to be a good sport and to lose gracefully, not hot-headedly.
Coming into college, I was the only person from my high school to attend here. So to say I was nervous was a huge understatement. But the people I met in my hall were so phenomenal and accepting that any worries that I came into college with quickly dissipated. I made such amazing friends that I know I’ll keep throughout my life.
Blog Assignment Two
'Right Now, I'm living at an apartment complex called Turtle Ridge. It's a small community that sits on the edge of Irvine and Newport. Every evening I go on a bike ride up along a street that intersects Turtle Ridge called Newport Coast. And every night, I'm completely blown anay by the view. It can be absolutely gorgeous!
Here, I tried my hand at using the rule of thirds by putting the tree in the far right column. I also faced the camera up, to capture a lot of night sky, rather than facing the camera at eye level, whihc I feel makes the picture more interesting!
Another thing I love about livign at turtle ridge is how beautiful of a community it is. It is absolutely covered in tree! Sometimes, I like to just walk around the community and admire the landscaping.
Below is a picture I took of a lampost enveloped by a pine tree. I tried to get as low as possible to get a different perspective. I really like how this picture turned out.
Blog Assingment Three
When I was a teenager, I was really into rock, and i still am. i mean any kind of rock - hard rock, alternative, soft rock - you name it and i listened to it. My favorite band at the time was the foo fighters. I absoulutely love dave grohl, as he is, essentialy, the closest thing to a living rock god that there will ever be.
A lot of my friends were into rock too. THo, I wouldn't say they had a big influence on the type of music I liked, since I was really into rock long before i became friends with any of them. But because we all shared a deep love for the genre, we did bond over a lot of the music we listened to.
As a teacher, I would use music through the ages to show the progression of musical tastes through the generations. So i could use music as a type of history lesson for my kids, to show what events were relevant at a given time and how it infuenced media.
Assignment Four
Growing up, I was never really into books. They just never caught my attention. It wasn’t until recently, actually, that I really got into reading. One book, though, that I really got into as a kid (in middle school I think) was called Infected, by Scott Sigler. It was an amazing Thriller about an alien invasion. The aliens operated at a microscopic level, disguising themselves as a disease that turned humans into murderers, effectively doing their work for them. It wasn’t a deep book with some sort of hidden meaning. It was just a book that I had a lot of fun with and found really entertaining. The first book that I’d really consider to have an impact on my life - and spark my current love for reading - was the book 1984, by George Orwell. Never had a book made me think as deeply as this one. It is my all time favorite book, as it is still applicable today. It takes place in a dystopian future, where the world has been divided into 3 superstates, with Oceania being the one at focus. The country is run by a government that has complete control over its citizens through surveillance and censorship. Only what the government deems true is truth. The book is basically a social commentary on what can happen when a government seizes hold of too much power. The book was the first ever to give me chills when I finished it and it really made me conscious about the political happenings that happen today. And because of this book, I absolutely love to read (which is also helped by the fact I can’t watch TV). I try to read a new book whenever I can and am currently reading Irene, by Pierre Lemaitre.
Assignment Five
I’ve played baseball my entire life. When I was a kid, playing baseball was all I’d ever wanted to do. So when I got to middle school, the first thing I did was sign up for the team. Now, I went to a teeny tiny, itty bitty, little school that was K - 12. So, this meant if you went out for the team, you made the team. So, in other words, we didn’t have a lot of really good players. In fact, there were only 3 people, myself included, who had really any experience playing the sport. Needless to say, 7th and 8th grade were not fun times for the team. I don’t really remember winning any games through those two years, and for someone like me, who is extremely competitive, that was a tough pill to swallow. But I did form some great friendships over those two years. And it just so happens that the players that played in middle school, all went on to play in high school.
Fast Forward to my sophomore year. Everyone from my middle school team now had two years of experience playing the sport (not to mention practice everyday over summers). Team that up with already established players from years ahead of us and we had ourselves a team. That year, we went further in CIF playoffs than we had before in recent history. That was the most fun I had ever had playing baseball (It was also my best year statistically). I had made so many friends and really got to know the upperclassmen really well. But the thing that I found the most helpful to our cause were the players from my years in middle school. The development that they had made over the course of 4 years was staggering and I really like to think that it was the support and camaraderie of their teammates that helped them thrive in the sport.