The Ending

As my first semester of college comes to a close I am seeing things in a new light. I am doing things in a new light. Yet at the same time with all of these changes I have still managed to remain myself through them all. I have learned a lot since I have been here at TLU, both inside the classroom and outside of the classroom. My time outside of the classroom has been just as beneficial if not more beneficial to my life at this point. Things that were once there in my life no longer come easy, and I no longer have my dad to just get me or buy me whatever I want. I have learned the responsibility of money and saving money every chance I get. I have also learned the value of my hard work. Between working three jobs in the summer and generous scholarships, I was able to pay off my first semester of college without the help of my dad. Though unimpressive to some, this task wasn't easy for me and it required a lot of dedication on my part to continue working. Though it would have been easier to allow my dad to pay for my education, I didn't feel right asking so of him. Since I have been here, my maturity level has gone up and down and right back up. I'll admit it, I have done some really stupid things since I have been here and there is no undoing something once it is already done. And because of the fact that I cant undo things I try to live my life without any regrets because there is no use wasting time pondering over the woulda, coulda, shouldas' in life.

I always told myself that distance away from my family would do me well, that the time would put my relationship with them into perspective and I was absolutely correct. As independent of a person I am, it takes distance and time apart for me to comprehend how much I relied on my family without even realizing it. The distance with my family has made me grateful for them and has shown me how much I miss them. As I write this final post, for the first time since I have been away from home I began to feel a little home sick. Its a weird feeling, especially when its coming from me. Its one that I don't like to admit ever because I feel like it would show weakness in me to rely on a person or a group of people. The matter of fact is that my family however irritating they may be are my rocks and foundation.

Blogging Even for Dummies

So blogging right? Funny I know, but never in my life would I have thought I would be "blogging" or have a blog of my very own. You always see people using blogs on TV as a sort of journal that they anonymously vent their feelings to at the end of the day! And in response to their anonymous feelings, an anonymous follower would reply back with "get over it" or "you'll get through it." As much as I was apprehensive about blogging, it has been very beneficial to me. The writing that I have done through my blog has helped me transition into college and has helped me to open my eyes in certain situations. Sometimes we don't see things for what they really are until they are written down in front of us and we see them with our own eyes. My blog allowed me to reflect on a very important time in my life and in a way I guess you can say that it became my very own personal journal except without the anonymous part!

I viewed blogs as something only funny people were allowed to have. I mean who wants to read some dull, uninteresting post on the internet?  I don't know about you, but I sure wouldn't  So right off the back I was slow to get blogging in fear that I wouldn't be entertaining enough for the reader. The thing is I can make my friends laugh, but when it comes to trying to be funny it doesn't work out to well. So initially when I started my blog, my goal was to answer the question and hopefully have something funny to say along the way. Every now and then I'd put in a joke that I thought was good that went along with the prompt but for the most part I just wrote. As I picked up momentum in the blogging world my writing began to change. Instead of simply addressing the questions I began branching out and talking about my experiences. As I did this I realized that the required twenty lines of writing came easy and the words began to flow. My blog taught me to write, to start with an empty screen and to get started. Lastly my blog kept me in the school mind set. The blog helped me become more responsible with the due dates and taught me to be more independent inside and outside of the classroom.

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

Not everyone has a passion for what they do, some do things because they simply have to. I was always told that if a school is willing to pay for my college through a sport, take the offer. Today that is the athlete mentality on college. Depending on  what type of school you go to, they can offer athletic scholarships. A division one school can offer full ride athletic scholarships, division two can offer partial athletic scholarships, and division three can not offer any athletic scholarships, instead they give academic ones. Some athletes know that their grades are not good enough to get into school and some know that they can not afford college without a scholarship of some sort. Athletics have been a way out for minorities for a very long time and will continue to be their pathway into a better future. So fun is only a concept that some athletes truly know or merely remember. Now days with rising tuition costs, more and more people are going to rely on athletic scholarships to pay their way through college. So for many athletes we lose the idea of fun when it comes to playing because it becomes our job. We lose the feeling that we got when we were five years old just carelessly running around, having fun, and we become tied down and worried about how our play will affect our future. We lose the concept of fun.

I have friends who play sports in college and many of them have athletic scholarships that help them pay for school. For some of my friends they truly love the sport they play and would have played even without a scholarship. They play because they love the sport and have fun while playing. Others are playing the sport only because they are getting a full ride scholarship off of their talents. They simply play to get a good education and to better their futures. What ever their reason for playing athletics should be fun! When we look back and see how we got to where we are today, its because we had fun all those years as kids playing the games we liked.

Fun for the Young

From the perspective of a child who grew up with sports all around me; practice, competition, and winning have been apart of my vocabulary at a very young age. Even at a young age I knew the difference between winning and losing and the feelings that come along with each. The one thing that I remember more than anything at a young age was the concept of fun. As a child starting sports around the age of five my father always pushed me to have fun. You see at age five, fun is the only thing that mattered because if you weren't having fun you wouldn't play the sport long enough to realize that you might actually have an act for it. My father never pushed me into any sport that I didn't want to do, instead he would suggest things that I might be good at and as it turned out he was right.

I started off being a cheerleader, that's right a cheerleader. At age five I was introduced into the sporting world with a pair of pom poms in hand. You see my dad coached, my brother played football, so it only made sense that I was the cheerleader. Cheerleading I found fun and it was a way to make friends and meet new people and I did it for five years until I was about ten years old. After I reached the age where cheerleading became not so fun I moved on to my next sport, soccer. Soccer was more of a transition sport, one that got me out of the girl cheerleading phase and into the true mentality of an athlete. I played soccer for three years with a little basketball thrown in there, but soon enough with the coaching changes it also became not fun. Lastly I moved on to basketball where I have been since. I remember playing one season of basketball in elementary school and hating it! I played that one season and quit, so it surprised me when my dad tried to get me to play again in middle school. He told me to just try it again so I did; I played my next season at the local community center and fell in love with the sport. Not only was I good at it, but it was fun and it was competitive which I loved. Basketball was fun which is why I have stuck with the sport for so long and am now playing it in college. There were times in basketball that I just wanted to quit, and if it had been any other sport I probably would have, but basketball it just drew me in and captured my competitive side. I'm not saying that everything was easy, there were times when I would come out of games crying because I was so frustrated, but it meant that I cared. It meant that I wanted to work harder and do better so that I wouldn't have to feel the pain of frustration. It meant that I truly enjoyed the sport and had fun playing even during tough times.

Your Mistaken

Mistakes are an inevitable part of life that we all must go through; no one is perfect and no escapes the horror of mistakes! For the most part mistakes have little impact on our lives except the occasional embarrassment factor while other mistakes can cost us a great deal of trauma in our lives. Many of the mistakes that I have gone through in my life have resulted in embarrassment and self pity. Theses mistakes range from public displays of idiocrasy to answering a question wrong in math class. My mistakes have tough me to learn without being afraid to answer a question wrong and to laugh. Up until this point in my life my mistakes have not been detrimental  life altering events; instead they have helped me to grow as a person. They have helped me in the process of becoming more comfortable with myself and to accept myself flaws & all. My mistakes have also given me a more humble view on life. It has shown me that there is no such thing as perfection, yet we have to learn to live with other's imperfections.

Failures are a whole different story in my life. I have had too many failures to count; some small and some that really affected me. Some of my smaller failures include getting bad grades on homework assignments. My larger failures such as not winning a scholarship that would help pay for college really affected me. My larger failures in live have made me feel really sad and disappointed at myself. They have also cause me to reflect on my actions. For instance with the scholarship that I did not win, I thought about my essay that I turned in. I went back to a copy of my essay and thought about everything that I could have done better. Both my mistakes and failures have helped me to grow intellectually and have helped me to have a more open view on society. At times my mistakes and failures have hurt me and have made me doubt myself. Though failing is a part of life, it does not feel good and to many consecutive mistakes and failures can cause one to rethink themselves. Through everything my failures have helped shape me into the person I am today and I have no regrets because without them I wouldn't be who I am today.

The Ever Confusing Relationships

Ah relationships, the one area in life everyone is a pro at, that is until it comes to their own relationships! Half the time I wonder if people especially myself, knows how to have a positive, functional relationship. That's just the thing every relationship is disfunctional at some point in time. Some make it past the chaos of the disfunction while others perish in the mist of everything. Looking back I have had relationships die that I though would last a lifetime, but instead lasted only a few months. Relationships that I viewed as important at the time, I look back on now and realize that I was strongly mistaken. My family relationship is one that is difficult to describe and one that I prefer not to talk about. We have been through ups and downs that seemed life ending at the time. I reflect on the crap that I put my family through when I was to stubborn to listen to anyone else besides myself. You see, when your in high school though it sounds shallow, the only that matters is friends and fitting in. My senior year in high school, I guess you could say I was feeling a little (a lot) rebellious. I did things that pushed my family away that caused them to view me in a different light. I would stay out later than normal, hang out with people I KNEW wouldn't land me anywhere but in trouble. Yet I still did it because I was to stubborn and blinded by my own actions, thoughts and ideas of "fitting in." The thing is the relationships I had with my so called friends are no longer here, most lasted a few month then we went our separate ways. Now that high school has ended, I remain friends with two people that I use to hangout with. These two people are my best friends that helped me get through high school and ultimately helped me find what was important to me, so it makes sense as to why I still talk to them. The one thing I have learned is that my family means the world to me. They have caused me pain and I the same, but we always seem to be there for each other. I'm not going to sugar coat it and say my family is the easiest of  people to talk to because they aren't. They irritate me beyond words, but when I need something they are here.

Confident Yet?

Some people have an arrogantly high confidence about themselves, and others have a painfully low confidence to themselves. Personally, I have a confidence that wavers and changes. Some days, some weeks, my confidence is at a high, but other days my confidence diminishes. My confidence comes from myself and from how others view me. It’s one thing to boost yourself up and it’s another to have someone else boosting you up, increasing your level of confidence. With saying that, the opposite is true as well. When people bring us down, that tends to cause us to doubt ourselves, decreasing our confidence level. Though we say we shouldn’t care about what others think about us most do, or at least I do.

Through basketball, my confidence level has been ridiculed, dissected and has become intangible to me at times. In both sports and academics, to lose your confidence and to not know why or where it went is one of the worst feelings in the world. To be asked, “What happened to you, you use to be such a confident player,” will drive any athlete insane. To perform at a level of play that is below what you know you are capable of is painful for others to watch and painful to experience as a student athlete on and off the court. All we have now days is out confidence, so to lose it is scary to say the least. All the studying, all the tutorials mean nothing if you are not secure enough to sit down and truly believe that you can ace the test. So when we have a high confidence level how do we keep it; more importantly when we lose our confidence where do we go? For me it is as simple as believing the words that I say to myself. When my confidence is low I usually tell myself, “I can do this,” or “You’ve prepared yourself for this.” The trick is not to just say the words, but to actually believe the words that I tell myself! How do we know it works? For me when I truly believe the words I tell myself with every last fiber in my body, that’s when it will work. When I see my game or academics turn around for success that is my sign that I’m back! For any athlete or good student a loss of confident, just means we have to refocus and work harder. It means that we have to remember why and how we got to where we are today and remember that when push comes to shove we are good enough to succeed. 

Focus on Me!

As I became acquainted with my new way of life and my new surroundings, I am learning it takes more out of me to stay focused. At the end of the day in high school, I would ride the bus home and I would be done for the day. None of the loud distractions from fellow classmates just the quite, known convenience of my house. At home the distractions were limited to TV and texting, but those are simple distractions to over come. The biggest change from high school to college would be in lifestyle. In high school I had limited distractions and parents to keep me on track, but not so much in college. In college there is unlimited distractions and there is virtually no escape from them; I can't go home everyday after class to concentrate, its just not realistic. I am proud to say that the longer I stay in college, my focus is becoming sharper. I am slowly learning the go to places to study and what times are best to study there. For instance the upstairs library is my go to spot when I need to crack down and really concentrate. The library is the perfect place for me to study because it is open till eleven on the weekdays and it is always quiet. My next go to place is the classrooms on the first floor of Centennial Hall. At night time when the classrooms are empty they are the perfect place to close the door, creating quiet study are with plenty of room to work. With time my knowledge of the campus is slowly growing and with time I am finding good studying patterns to follow. Perhaps the greatest realization that I have come to while being here on campus is that I need to focus on myself and my studies. Everyone loves to hang out and have a good time, but at the end of the day my grades are the ones that will reflect how much effort I put into my assignments. As I go further into my first semester, I study more than ever before and I am alone a lot more. My time alone has been beneficial because it allowed me time to think about my actions, and it allowed me to realize that in order for me to be a successful student I needed to focus and spend more time on my assignments. In the end I hope my focus continues to become sharper and more focused because I need to focus now more than ever.

Focus

Now I'm going to be honest with you here, at the beginning of college my focus was everywhere but my studies. How to make friends, who to hang out with, who to eat with, what to eat, should I stay up this late? All questions that ran through my head within the first weeks of school and they didn't help me academically. As I found my way and I found my social niche I realized that I was worrying for nothing and that my real focus needed to be on my grades. Since the beginning of school I concentrate more on my studies and my grades and less on the petty social aspects of my college experience. Focus and concentration are one within each other and can be very challenging for me to accomplish. As the days and weeks drag on here in college, my mind fills with a constant to do list that seems to be never ending. With my to do list continuing to grow and not enough hours in the day, I struggle with staying in the moment. I plan ahead my next evening or the next class of homework that needs to be finished instead of just cracking down and completing assignments. As a person who likes the see the big picture first before focusing on the minor details, focusing on the current task at hand can be a challenge for me. When I finally do decide to concentrate on the small details, I sometimes over think the simplicity of them. In my mind the big picture is this huge complex diagram, and when I brake it down into small details I tend to over think and expect the small details to be extremely difficult when in fact they normally are not. Living in the moment is something that comes and goes and at times I live in the moment and I didn't even realize it until after the moment is over. For instance it was a Wednesday evening and me and my friends were bored out of our minds. Instead of studying for a Frex's test that we all knew we would have in the morning we decided to run around Centennial Hall. We ran, did cart wheels, and had chair races down the hallways of the dorm. In this moment of fun all my thoughts and worries went away and I was truly living in the moment. After the chaos of the night died down, I realized that I still had a test to study for, but for the hour of fun I can truly say that I lived in the moment. To live in the moment means to block out all other distractions and to concentrate only on the task at hand.

The Go To

The go to player, the person the ball goes to when the game is on the line, the person that steps up when his or her team mates need them the most! This player usually knows his or her role and knows that when the game gets out of hand, they are the ones that are called upon to keep the game close and lead their team to victory. In many situations, I have found myself as the go to person and in other situations I have found myself looking at others to step up. What I have learned as the go to person is that you may not know what you are doing, you may be scared out of your mind, and you may even not want to be the person others look up to, but for some reason you are! There were times where I loathed being the it player on the basketball court, it was easier to just give the spot to someone else. What personally got me to step up in tough situations is the fact that I am super competitive and I don't want to lose! With my competitive spirit in full swing the fears and the concern of all eyes on me fade away, and the game just comes to me. My role as the go to person in basketball has helped me in numerous situations in life. For instance my role in my family life sometimes required me to be the so called go to person at home. Raised by my father, there were times where he couldn't always be there, so I was needed to fill the void. There were times where I had to step up in cooking, take my sister to school, the doctor appointments, and practices. There are also situations in school that required me to step up. Many times "group" projects would turn into individual projects. It would be easy to say I'm only doing my half, but the reality was no matter who did what the grade would rely on both parts of the project. So in situations as such, I sucked it up and did both parts of the project. My competitiveness in life translates to competitiveness in the classroom and in order to compete in the classroom you have to have good grades. Another situation of being the go to person in "group" projects is when no one including myself understands the project or task at hand. It is very easy to give in to defeat and wait for other people in the group to step up. Instead of waiting I would have to step up in these type of situations and go to the teacher for help so that my group could get the project done. Whether it be on or off the basketball court, my experiences in sports have better prepared me for tough situations in life.

People People Please!

People here, people there, people everywhere! Its like I can never escape people and the constant buzz of life around me here on campus! Don't get me wrong, I love being involved and mingling with people, but for a moment of peace and quite I would die for. Campus life is always up moving and never ending, just like the people that walk the sidewalks and fill the classrooms. In my short three weeks here on campus, I have meet just about every kind of personality. Ive meet the athletes, the partiers, the computer helpers, the studiers, the student worker, the country folks, the super senior, and much more. As I am making my way into the fourth week of school, I am learning who I want to be associated with and who I should stay away from. Whether I like it or not,the people I associate myself with tells people a lot about me and I want the impression of my friends and I to be good on people looking in from the outside. The partiers are the people that will be the most tempting to me and many other students throughout our years here at Texas Lutheran. It is very very tempting to say forget the homework, forget the classes, I'm going to party! The reality is that I can't afford to party; I can't afford going out on the weekends when I have time consuming class work that needs to be attended to. I can't afford going out on the weekends when I should be working on getting better grades in the classroom and getting better on the basketball court. As I navigate my way through my first semester, I am learning a lot about myself, like how the discipline that I once praised for earlier in life seems to be slowly fading away when I need it the most. My self disciple got me to where I am today in every aspect of my life: school, basketball, family. Up until this point in school I haven't been the most disciplined, but I see that changing. I see myself buckling down and focusing on the real reason why I am here, which is for school and basketball. So here's to finding our way through the fog and coming out better for it.

Goals into Realites

When ever I think of goals, my mind always wanders to sport related goals. It is easy for me to see myself playing basketball because I have been playing for the majority of my life, so it is fairly easy to come up with basketball related goals. When it comes to making personal and life goals, it is a little more difficult because I don't like looking deep into my life. In order to make a life related goal, that means I have to critically look at my life choices in order to make a good goal. For basketball, my goals are to work hard, get stronger & more disciplined, and to work my way up to a starting position this season. As for my life goals, I want to do my laundry this week, eat healthier, pray every night, and be a little smarter about my decision making. For basketball I knew my goals and did not have to think about them before I wrote them down. As for my life goals, I had to think a little harder, but in the end they are all things that I wish to accomplish in both the short run and the long run. For basketball, I know I have a ways to go and I know that I have to work harder than I am now to accomplish theses goals. My life goals will be somewhat of a challenge. Doing my laundry on a weekly basis and eating healthier are the easier of my two short-term goals and should be done with ease. As for praying and making smarter decisions, I need to start doing theses on a daily basis and work hard to keep up the good habits & lose the bad habits. By no means would I consider myself a religious person, but I believe that praying is a good habit to maintain and is something that I feel is important to my life& is lacking in my life currently. My smarter decisions will come along with the praying and with a stronger mental game. In order for me to make smarted decisions, I need to be more disciplined mentally. With all of my goals, my mental toughness comes in to play; the tougher I am the more my goals will become successful realities in the near future.

Back to School

Well August has come and gone and brought along college, new experiences,and September. As my first two weeks of classes and a new life come to a close there are many things to tell and share. First off, when everyone says, college is the time of your life they aren't lying! Two weeks in and I love Texas Lutheran so far. The small campus and classes, the wit of our teachers and their ability to freely teach in class, and lastly the welcoming feeling that continues to radiate throughout campus even after freshman orientation is long gone! As I sit here and reflect I notice the challenges that I have faced thus far and realize that they will only get more difficult. Between the work load of my classes and basketball I will have plenty to balance as I make my way through the first semester. The more I stay focused on my education, the better my chances are to do well in all of my classes. My classes are a pain, but interesting which I guess makes up for the challenge of the class. My teachers are refreshingly enthused about there subject and actually like teaching; who ever thought teachers may have enjoyed their jobs! With all seriousness though it is nice to see people passionate about their jobs and to actually care about what happens to the students around them which is a major difference from high school. I have yet to explore the entire campus, but I have learned my way around and with the help of a few upper class men I have learned a few shortcut to and from my classes! I almost went into shock when I learned of the shortcut going to Moody. Instead of going all the way around Tschope Hall, we could just cut in between it and the resident halls and walla I was at Moody in a fraction of the time! Its little things like this that blow freshman minds and make our first year of college unforgettable. As I continue my college experience here at Texas Lutheran, these short cuts will become important and will be crucial to my time here.

The Mental Game

As an athlete, I know first hand that some days you can't help but to be mentally out of things. As much time and effort as we athletes put into preparing our body's to preform at high levels, if your mind set isn't right, then all of the physical training goes down the drain. The "mental game" to me means that when the going gets tough you are able to remain calm and proceed with caution. The mental game isn't always easy and doesn't always work out the way we want it to, but what sets us apart from others is the ability to over come mental breakdowns. Even the best athletes, writers, singers have mental breakdowns, but what sets them apart is the ability for them to accept the situation and to push past the mental lapses. Mental game is all about how we allow people to affect our mind set. The stronger and more disciplined we are mentally and physically, the more challenging the "mental game" becomes. The weaker we are the easier the "mental game" becomes and the easier it is for others to affect our mentality. At school, especially college, it is extremely easy to get distracted with friends, new relationships, parties, and new experiences. Whether theses experience be good or bad, they are all apart of the passage into a new time period in our young lives. The stronger our mental game is the less affect we will be with the bad college experience and the more likely we are to stay focused on the task at hand which is a good education. Not everyone is an athlete and not everyone understands the importance of a strong mental game. You do not have to be an athlete to understand the importance of a strong mental game; there are some athletes that do not truly understand the importance of strong mental game. In order to have a strong mental game it has to be a decision that you are completely dedicated to and if you happen to make a mistake you fix it and you try to be even more resilient in the future!