Finals Suck!

I thought that the week before finals was bad, well I was proven wrong! Finals week is very stressful and annoying. Most people that I have seen are either studying very hard or they don't care at all. Some of the finals that I have to take as a freshmen are much easier then other people that I have seen but the stress of finals themselves is overwhelming. It almost seems that you can study as much as you want but you have a very hard time retaining any of the knowledge that you should know. You begin to get to the point where you can no longer cram anymore information into your head and you just need to go to bed. Sleep is probably the best thing that you can probably get during finals week because it ultimately helps you to retain more knowledge and it helps you remember things that you may or may not have studied in the past and besides it feels good to get a good nights rest.

Advice: What I have come to learn during my first finals week in college is not to party but to start studying for all of your finals a week or two ahead of time and take it in sections. When you do this then you are less likely to worry and also to get a good nights rest.   

OH NO FINALS!!!

Finals week is next week and just about the entire campus is stressing out for them. You can feel the tension in the air and everyone was comparing their final exams to one another. The interesting part about the week before finals week is that everyone wants to find some type of way to relieve their stress. For most of the people on campus they try relieving there stress by partying. I have been invited to a large amount of parties, on and off campus. It seems as though in order to escape from the immediate concern of finals, people look to use something to distract themselves from it. This type of method never really works for me because when I come back to the work, that I was avoiding, I feel more stressed than I was before because I have less time to finish doing what I needed to do in the first place. My old basketball coach would tell us that there is no reason to be stressed out if you know the material. This advice has helped me in the past because I feel less stressed and more confident when I know the material.

Advice:  Instead of procrastinating with your work, fight the urge to not do the work and just do as much as you can and be happy with what you know.

Deck the Halls

This week it final became December. I am so excited because I am already starting to count down the days until I get to go home for Christmas break. We are just about to finish up our final week before the stressful week of finals start and basketball is getting more and more time consuming because we are starting to have more games, some that are further away than I would like. Now is the perfect time to have a little bit of a stress reliever. This past Wednesday some girls on my hall decorate the hall to look like Christmas and I was able to watch as they did it. Watching them build this winter wonderland was wonderful because I was able to stop thinking and stressing about all the work that needs to be done and really think about the beauty of the winter time and of Christmas. Moments like these, make me glad that I live on my hall because it makes my day so much better. Go, Eagle Third Floor South! :)

            Advice: Take time out of your day to enjoy the simple things in your life because it could change your entire outlook and potentially make you appreciate everything around you.

Turkey vs. Fish?

This past week was Thanksgiving Break! It was so exciting to come home and see all my family. I was mainly excited for two things in particular; one reason was because I could sleep in my bed from home and the other reason was because I couldn’t wait to eat home cooked food for a change. I was seriously going through some type of withdraw from my bed from home. I don’t really mind sleeping on the beds in the dorm but it doesn’t compare to the twin sized bed that is so incredibly comfortable at my house, something about being able to roll around in your bed without the fear of falling off of it is very nice. The food was the next thing that I was missing terribly, other than my family of course. My family and I are vegetarians, so when it comes to thanksgiving turkey is not or first option as something to eat. Normally my mom will cook some amazing fish for all of us to eat and some delicious side dishes but this year it was a little different. This yea some of my family members that are not vegetarians decided to come over and join us for Thanksgiving. To appease everyone my mom decided to make cook the fish and bye some chicken pre made from the store. It was a very strange occurrence in my house to smell chicken when I opened up my refrigerator. The last time that I ever smelled meat in my house was when I was in middle school. Somehow my mom seemed to make both the fish and the chicken work well together for thanksgiving and everyone was very full and the end of dinner, even going into the next day.

            Advice: Even though something may seem strange and bizarre to you at first, don’t look to write it off at first glance, give it a try because you could grow and learn from it.   

Victory vs. Defeat

            This past weekend the Eastern Univ. basketball team, that I am a part of, went on a road trip to Ohio. The trip itself, going one way, took around nine to ten hours. It was weird to be in a different state that was so far away, just to play basketball. It almost did not seem real at first but once we got there and we started to warm up I almost couldn’t believe that we were actually here to play basketball. We were well prepared to play the first team that we were scheduled to play that day but we did not have the best start to the game. The other team kept the score pretty close the entire game but we ended up pulling it out at the end. This would mean that we would be in the championship game the following day. This time we could not have any rough starts or it could prevent us from winning the game the next day.

            The next day finally came and it seemed like a long time coming. Finally we are at the place that we drove ten hours for spent a lot of time preparing for and here it was, right in front of us. We started our warm ups but you could definitely feel as though we were kind of flat. This was a very bad thing because as basketball players, it helps to come out in warm ups hyped up and ready to play because you get the feeling that you can do anything you want, almost as it you are a super hero and nothing can stop you. One of our seniors stepped up and brought everyone together in an effort to get our together so we could win this game and it began to work. We started to take thing a little bit more seriously and it seemed like we were going to start out well. Unfortunately, we didn’t start out as well as we had anticipated. We did however keep fighting and we started to get back in the game, in fact we were winning at one point. Then at the end we started to lose our heads and make mistakes. Sadly, the other team began to capitalize on the mistakes that were made but we never stopped fighting and we never stopped working. At the end of the game we came with-in two points of beating the other team and the referees began to make some really bad calls. The game was lost by three points and it was time to go home.

            Advice: Never stop fighting for what you want and for what you believe in because it may turn out that one day what you really needed or wanted may happen for you.

Lucky Day!

         This week was one of the luckiest weeks in the year. On Friday it was November 11, 2011 or 11/11/11 and quite a large amount of people made a wish when it turned eleven o’clock with eleven minutes, making it 11/11/11 at 11:11pm. For myself I simply made a wish but, unfortunately nothing to exciting really happened. So, I wanted to see if anything really happened to anyone else on this day. I looked up the date 11/11/11 into my computer and I found a news feed that I thought was very special, especially considering that 11/11/11 was also Veterans Day.

         The article that I found was called born on the Eleventh Hour. This article talked about how a woman gave birth to her child on the exact hour that it turned 11:11pm. Her husband and her-self did not realize that he was born at 11:11 pm until the nurses began to get excited. The most interesting part of the whole story was the fact that the parents of this lucky baby were also in the military. The mother had retired but the father was still very active on the force. In fact, the couple met in when they were both in the military. God works in amazing was, and I pray that he will continue to watch over our troops until they are all safely home.

                Advice: I have noticed that coincidence are usually an act of God, so make sure to pay attention to them because you never know what may happen or where God is calling you to go.

Leaving So Soon!

This past week was very interesting. I live in a suite were there are three people residing in one room and only two people residing in the other. I live in the room were only two people stay in that room. There has been some underlying tension that has been building in our suit recently. I believed that it was from some issues that were capable of being fixed. So there was a meeting about some of the issues there were going on amongst us. Unfortunately, I did not realize how serious the problems that everyone was having had been building up so much. So it came as a surprise to me to find out that two of the girls from our rooms had decided that they want to move out. It came as even more of a surprise that the other two suitemates also had decided that they are planning on moving into another room on our hall. No one has moved out as of yet and a lot of the tension that used to exist is not really there anymore. Now I have been left as the only one that is not moving to another room. So, you could imagine how stressful this week must have been. One thing that kept me going this week was a song by Adele called Someone Like You,<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KTTECcPh_dA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>( You should check this video out;). This does mean that I have to find another roommate by next semester, which is another thing that I will add to my to-do list. OH the joys of life!

            Advice: When you are having an issue with nyone, talk to them about it before it is blown out of per portion and it becomes a bigger mess then it need to be.

Christmas in October?

This Saturday at Eastern University there was snow. Now normally if it was November or December it would be reasonable but the one thing I can’t wrap my min around is that it is still October! When I first heard that it was supposed to snow I didn’t really believe it. I thought that it was going to be like most screwed up forecasts that say that is going to snow but really it ends up that it is just rain. I was somewhat prepared just in case it did snow; I wore a scarf, hoodie, sweatpants and snow boots. When I walked outside of my dorm it was still just raining but not even a full hour later it had started to snow. Snow in October, who knew that this would ever happen? Anyway, it continued to snow all day long. It snowed so much that the power went out on campus at least three different times. This was mildly inconvenient but thanks to the really bright flashlight that I have I didn’t break my leg walking around in the dark. Thankfully, the emergency lights were on so that I could get some work done in the hall.

                Advice: Whenever you start to think that it is starting to get cold always go home and get your winter clothes because you never know what the weather will be like and you don’t want to wind up in the middle of a blizzard wearing shorts and flip flops.

Did you hear?

This past weekend was tryouts for the male and female basketball teams. Around thirty men tried out for the team and 17 women tried out for the women's team. I was one of these young women that tried out for the team but I was a walk-on along with five other girls, which means, that we were not recruited to play on the team. This past Saturday was a big day for the large amount people who were trying out for both the men and women’s team. There had been a lot of preparation leading up to this day almost since the beginning of the school year when preseason started. It was somewhat frightening to think that the moment that we were all waiting for was finally here. I personally, was a little nervous until I talked to my family and my best friend from back home who reminded me to do the very best that I can and not worry about the outcome because I did everything I could do.

            Saturday came and I remembered the advice that I had heard from my family and I tried to leave everything that I had on the court. That night, I was called into the head coach’s office to have a meeting with all of the coaches. As I waited to have the meeting with the coaches, all I could think of was that they were going to either tell me one of three things. One: that I was not going to make the team, Two: that I made the team or Three: that the coaches wanted evaluate me a little bit more. Out of the three of these options I was hoping that it would not be the third option because I really wanted to know if I had made the team or not.

            Finally, I was time to have the meeting with the coaches and they told exactly what I was hoping that they wouldn’t tell me, that they wanted to continue to evaluate me longer and that I should come to the next practice. After the meeting I sat down and really thought about what the coach’s had told me and realized that I should be even more excited that I get a second chance to make the team. So, I went to the next two practices and had another meeting with my coaches. At this meeting I was a lot less nervous because I know that I did everything that I could do. So, I meet the coach’s in the storage room while the other girls who made the team were trying one there gear. After everyone had left the head coach was about to tell me if I had made the team or not. Then suddenly, the assistant guy’s coach came in and began to have somewhat of a long conversation with him. At this point I was getting to be a little impatient because I really wanted to know if I had made the team or not. Finally, the assistant coach for the men’s team had left and I talked to the female head coach and the assistant coach and they told me that I had made the team! I was ecstatic and I couldn’t wait to call home and tell my family what had happened.

Advice: Whenever you are faced with a challenge, give your all at it so you will not have any regrets later on.

Are you SCARED of the Dark?!

Are you scared of the dark? I hope not because the power went out this week on campus. There was an accident were a car ran into a poll and the transformer on the poll blew up, on a road close to Eastern’s campus. When this was going on, I was in the gym playing basketball, with a few other girls and the lights went out in the middle of our game. The score board made a very loud noise and scared some of the girls half to death. Then the generator lights turned on and off and someone slammed the gym door shut, it felt like we were in some type of scary movie or something. We went outside to see what had happened and as we looked into the sky we saw the sky flashing orange and blue. I wasn’t really scared but I knew that I need to head back to my dorm before anything else happened.

 Oh! Thank you so much mom for getting me a flashlight because I was able to use this to head back to my dorm across campus when it was pitch black. I was also able to see in my room which was very helpful. The power was out for about two hours and a lot of people were very upset because they were trying to do their homework but there computer was low on battery. So I decided to read my book for class in the hallway, were there was some light that was still on from the back-up generators(never thought that reading a book would make time go by so much faster). All I can say is that I am glad that I wasn’t afraid of the dark.

Advice: Make sure to always carry around a flashlight and try and keep your laptop charged at all times because you never know what will happen.

Orientation

 Freshman! That is what i have been referred too lately. it seems as though all of the first year college students have been lumped together in one large group. Much like how we were lumped together on the first few days that school started. Hurricane Irene had struck the campus along with my home town, which had been evacuated day before. This was an awesome experience for me because it was like a terrifying ice breaker. For one I learned who most of the people who lived in my building were but at the same time there was a lot of flooding and the power went out many times in a lot of other dorms. When one of the Ra's( Residential Advisers) came by our room to tell my roommates and my self to go down to the first floor, I grabbed everything that i could think of to bring with me and left the room. when we got to the first floor I meet new people and had very interesting conversations with them. A lot of these same people i am still friends with a few weeks later.
Advice:
 Even though a situation may seem bad try and make the best of it because you never know what will come out of it.