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.

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. 

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. 

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!

Stress...

“Stress is the emotional and physical strain caused by our response to pressure from the outside world.”  (Guy Slowik) Synonyms: Anxiety, Burden Pressure, Worry. Well since we are on the topic of stress or well I am at least let’s look at how it has impacted my college life.  First of all you don’t know stress until college, you may think you do but you don’t. High school had a bit of study here and there a few big assignments and some homework. Stressful Right? Wrong! I figured out that stress is when you think you are ready for everything but you realize you aren’t and well it hits hard.  This last week I discovered stress when tests came around.  Before that I was doing good in college turning all my homework in doing all my assignment and quite frankly I thought I was doing great.  When the studying started the stress set in.  I studied all my notes and for the most it was the first time since I had received them.  The problem with this was the more I studied the more I realized of what I did not know or understand from what I had received.  Something I thought would take a couple of hours turned into 15-20.  I lost a lot of sleep this week staying up till one or two or even three at night trying to get in all my study hours I needed after completing homework, golf practices, and mandatory workouts. It sucked going to sleep feeling like a failure because I knew that I still wasn’t ready every time I finally decided to hit the hay.  It was a wakeup call of sorts.  I hate this insane feeling of stress, the feeling in the bottom of my stomach that makes it turn, the worry in my head that I won’t do well, the burden of more and more study when I don’t have the time.  So I came to a conclusion in this matter.  From now on I’m going to listen to all the advice I have been told.  I’m going to put in 1-2 study hours a day if not more instead of just trying to cram in 12 hours the day before the few days before the test.  This way I won’t kill my sleep patterns and then when test week comes around I won’t have to worry about making time for all the other stuff I need to do such as my practices, my homework, and my workouts.  Stress is no fun and never will be.  Yes I know some stress is good stress but when you are going out of your mind trying to do 4 things at once just say you can stay caught up I think that’s the negative stress.  From now on I will try to be a good student and not stress myself out to much but can’t make any promises because I know how I am LOL. There was a positive out of last week though I can successfully say I did not bomb any of my first college tests. YES!! I plan to keep this up in the future just with a different less stressful approach.