Sunday, November 20, 2011

Here We Go Again

Ok so here I am again writing yet another blog post.  I guess the worst part about this one is that I am writing it 15 minutes before it is due at 11:45PM on Sunday night.  It really looks like I have learned quite a bit about procrastination.  Anyways on the other hand we only have 8 actual days of class left.  After that it's exams and then our glorious one month break which I have been look forward to for so long.  I am quite enjoying college life so far but the sad part about this semester is that well I don't believe it was the biggest shocker of the way college life could be like for me.  I only had intro classes, and basically just lower level easier classes.  Next semester I'll be getting into calculus, chemistry, and physics and well I know that I am going to get a real wake up call to what the college world is like.  My dad is going to Iraq January 7 so the worst part is that I will be busy trucking my siblings from place to place so they have rides because my dad will be away and my mom will most likely be working late.  The absolute best thing about this semester is that I have established a good starting out GPA for the rest of my college life.  I am really excited to see that this GPA is higher than what my high school one was, and it gives me a sense of acomplishment.  It also makes me feel like I am doing well and hopefully I can keep up the perseverance and hard work throughout the rest of my college years.  I need to get away from this staying up late though especially when I have 8:00 classes like every day.  But thats why I can't wait for next semester because I will only have 8AM classes on tuesdays and thursdays.  Life is good right now and I am definitely enjoying the college experience.  I love how the teachers give us one on one time and how the classes are small.  I think this is really going to help me become a better college student that I would be if I would have started out somewhere like UT austin, or even Texas A&M.  I will say that I have no regrets from this semester as it slowly draws to a close.  I am also not looking forward to all the brutal studying I will be putting in for my exams which are less than a month away now.  With all this being said I am looking forward to finishing the last few weeks of this semester with a bang. Go bulldogs!

Monday, November 14, 2011

Last blog I believe?

Wow already the last blog? It went pretty fast, Iw ould say.  If you think about it, the blog was like the rest of the college semester, it went by a lot faster than I expected. I assumed it would drag on day after day waiting for that last minute of class, so I could just be done with the day.  I was completely wrong.  Here I am sitting here writing my final blog for my FREX class in the final month of the first semester of college.  After that first week things really started to get moving and it seemed like just yesterday I was dreading going to orientation and now already the first semester is done.  I guess that is also what I will be saying when I graduate here in 2014 and I move on to Texas A&M.  I will probably be saying "wow it seemed like just yesterday I was dreading orientation and now here we are graduating".   I will also use phrases like wow ain't it funny how time just passes you by when you don't think about it.  I will say that there are positive things I can take away from this first semester here at TLU.  I got a taste of college life and I know that I really have to take things seriously.  Studying all the time should not be a phrase taken lightly as I did in the past.  I now know it takes many hours of study and at best hopefully they are spread out overtime instead of just crammed in the night before.  Because I have the urge to do well in college I am really trying to absorb the information I am learning to the best of my ability and I already feel like I have learned more than in the four years that I attended high school.  I know that college really is a place of higher education and not just another stepping stone in my life of school.  It's far more difficult and complex than I thought it would be in the beginning and all I can say is that I'm trully glad it is for if it wasn't well then I wouldn't have the urge to actually try and make good grades.  I would just try and pass by just like I did in high school when I quickly forgot how to actually care about school after my freshmen year.  Hopefully I do not get that same symptom here in college for I really and trully want to succeed.  I know it'll make my parents happy and it will be a great accomplishment for me in general.  I really want to get the rest of my life to start off with a bang and I think that all depends on how I do now and in my future years as a student of higher education. 

Monday, November 7, 2011

LAST BLOG MAYBE?

Ok this is going to be a long week! I have two papers to right in our class, one being the Krost paper and the other being the study abroad so I can get it in early for extra credit.  I am not sure but I could have an engineering test this week which would really suck.  Another thing I am stressing about is that fact that I really want an A in my elementary functions class but as of right now it’s not looking like that.  I really need to crack down and study more so I can get a high A on the final exam which hopefully will bring my grade up.  In the golf world as of now we are in the offseason again.  I don’t believe our fall season was to our coach’s liking so we really need to be putting more practice hours in.  The semester is really flying by which is the exact opposite of what I expected college life to be.  The only bad thing is that everything is moving at such a fast pace that there isn’t much time to just slow down and rest.  Many study hours are involved just so I can make sure I get the grade I want on the exam.  Times have completely changed since high school from when I would just go home and maybe do a little homework and not put any hours in for study.  I would either just go out with friends or family or anything similar to that to pass the time needed to get by to the next day.  Too bad our blogs are almost done as I think this is either the last or the second to last or something like that.  At least advising week is this week so maybe my bundle will be a little less loaded just so we can get our classes for next semester out of the way.  I can’t wait to live on campus sophomore year I am so ready.  My commute gets worse and worse every day.  Hooray for daylight savings or whatever we’re in I really love the extra sleep! It’s going to feel like I’m sleeping in for my 9 o’clock Friday class every day now.  HOORAY!! The best news is that even when I live on campus next year I will still be close to family so everything will be good.  These college years are going to be good. 

Sunday, October 30, 2011

And then there was one month

So to put it into perspective most of us have spent so much time worrying about this first semester of college we are not realizing how fast it is flying by.  I decided to check how many days are left today and well there's not many.  We have less than a month and a half left to winter break which I am so excited about.  I mean come on we get a little over a month off to take a break from college life.  It's crazy it's like yesterday was freshmen orientation and we're already at winter break.  School is flying unlike the first week which seemed like it took forever.  I guess to me this means that I have gotten in the groove of things just like high school where the first day of freshmen year till the graduation of senior year felt like minutes.  It's good to know that I can keep my grades up while moving at such a fast pace.  In high school math classes it took a couple of days to go over a lesson.  In college math we go over a couple of lessons a day.  I completely prefer college math because for one there is really so much less homework than high school and two well I just happen to have a really good teacher.  It's funny I write this post now and well it's gonna feel like forever till winter break but when winter break comes it's gonna feel like today was yesterday.  It's weird how things work out when time flies.  You can't really control how fast it goes other than by not worrying about it.  When you don't worry about things as much time seems to move faster and in some cases this is good while in others it's bad.  When you are not worrying how long it's going to take you to get somewhere it's not bad but then again when you are not worrying about the time you need to spend on a term paper it's bad because then you'll procrastinate to the end and not give it your best effort.  The world just turns in circles that are uncontrollable and are hard to build a pattern around.  So in conclusion we have a month left of this first semester freshmen.  Let's try and do the best we can with it, putting are time into it, making the effort for at least decent grades, and giving back to your community, so that way when you go home for the winter you have a sense of worth and you can tell your families all about it.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Golf and Engineering

So last night I was told that I have a golf tournament this Monday and Tuesday.  This couldn’t be a worse time.  Next week is test week for me and our review days just happen to be Monday and Wednesday. BLAH! Also this means I have to do all my homework this weekend that I would be receiving on Monday and Tuesday which completely overloads everything.  I really wasn’t expecting to play this tournament, had no plans whatsoever, and then it was just dropped on me.  I guess the good news is that it’s a course I’ve played a few times before and I’m a little excited about playing.  I’m just happy I’m getting chances to play as a freshman so it’s kind of an achievement for me.  But the other reason it’s a terrible time for this is I just restocked  my golf bag with all new clubs and I am nowhere near as comfortable with them yet as I would like to be.  I guess this tournament is actually a good thing for the future that way I have some experience for next semester when how we do really matters.  This past week because of Dr. Rochin I have been studying a few engineering journals and magazines when I have time and I am just amazed.  The abundance of information about what I should be doing is amazing.  I think because he came to talk to us it made really want to try and broaden my knowledge on the career I want to pursue after college.  Plus I believe this will help me to get internships over the summer as maybe I will have a leg up on the people that don’t look at the items I am looking at.  Maybe looking these things up will give me ideas to discuss with whichever company I work for.  I am definitely going to continue to look items up because so far it has really helped me out to open up my eyes to the subject.  I mean I honestly only know I want to be an engineer.  Now whether that’s mechanical, electrical, civil, aerospace, or any others I have not yet committed myself .  I think the sooner I can commit the sooner I can really learn what I need to be learning here in college. 

Sunday, October 16, 2011

School's back

So I really enjoyed fall break just like every other student I assume.  The best part about it was that well I had no school and had just about no homework.  It was only a few things here and there like this blog but it really isn't anything to complain about.  I am NOT looking forward to waking up early again tomorrow morning for class at eight but I guess I'll deal with it.  These last few day of just about 10 hours of sleep each day have been amazing! Being able to go to bed with a clear head and not worrying about homework to turn in or even a test feels so great.  I guess my study habits have sunk in for the most part.  I have stopped studying just the night or even day before for several hours and spread it out over time like an hour a day for a couple of weeks.  This helps with the test and helps to better retain the knowledge even after the test so that when finals come around you still have it stored.  The thing I hate the most is the classes that I feel are my easiest I have the worst grades but the classes I feel are difficult I have A's. I attribute this to always trying to study every chance I get for the harder classes and not giving any of my time to the others.  From now on I will be studying for those easy classes just as much as the hard that way my grades will be the same acros the board.  I feel like I need to take advantage of the classes I'm in now during my freshmen year because I know they are going to only get harder as I go on.  I am expecting more homework and more hours of study as the years go on so I really need to take advantage while I can.  I am really looking forward to next year because my parents gave in and are going to actually let me live on campus.  This means that my 1 1/2 - 2 hour commute every day is going to be depleted and I am so thankful.  This will give me more time every day to practice golf and study for school and even be more involved in the community as a whole. I mean I live close enough that if my parents really want me at home I am close enough to where I can always visit on the weekends and even during the weekdays on special occasions.  I will never be to far away and I am glad they have finally realized that.  I am stoked to say the least about living on campus next year.  Another great thing about it is I have already found a roomate so the way I see it life's going to be good. 

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Eight O’ clock on a Sunday night and thank God I just remembered to write this blog.  This past week had some high points and a well only one low point so it was pretty good.  The low point was that my brand new driver broke on me after having it less than three weeks.  I mean mid-swing the driver just breaks, keep in mind I have had drivers for 5 years without breaking them so this is pretty surprising.  I would have been just fine with this if I could send it back and get it fixed but my coach tells me “we have to send it back so they can test it and make sure it wasn’t because I slammed it against a tree or something”. If this tests positive that I broke it against something well then I have to pay in the ballpark of $130 for the shaft which is really not want I want to do.  On the high points I found out I did good on all my tests last week and my grades are higher than I expected so I am really happy.  Also my girlfriend and I celebrated our one year anniversary this weekend so that was a good thing to.  I have noticed that I am starting to become more and more fatigued as the year goes on and I think that is because I am really not getting the sleep I should be getting.  At first not getting enough sleep was fine I could still be awake the next day no problem.  But it has really started to show in my workouts as I am not able to perform them as well when I first started which is not good because when you work out like this they should be getting easier when it’s the same thing over and over not harder.  I guess one of my main focuses from now on will be to try and manage my time better so I can actually get more sleep and be able to be more alert and focused in my classes.  More sleep I believe will equal better success and more happiness in the long run so it’s my goal.  Also another goal I have for this week is to get through it.  I am so excited about our fall break on this Thursday and Friday and if nothing comes up I will be at the coast by wednesday night.  The gulf is calling my name!