Semester Ending, New Semester Starting

So my fall semester at Texas Lutheran University is coming to an end and I'm hanging in there. I cannot believe I actually got through a whole semester of college, I am pretty proud of myself. But the semester is not over yet I still got finals and I have to study my butt off so I can end this semester on a good note. I have really enjoyed my time here at Texas Lutheran University I have met a lot of new amazing people and overall just have had so much more fun than I have ever could have imagined.  My classes were pretty difficult but hey it's college and it was nothing I could not handle. And my professors were great as well I was completely expecting them to not care at all about their students and grades but they are very helpful when it comes to needing help. My overall experience at Texas Lutheran has been great and I expect to come back next year. I have really liked it here and made a new family with my team they are truly amazing girls. This team has made my first freshman semester of college incredible. Well I recently signed up for my spring classes because, yes I survived my first semester of college and I am planning on surviving for plenty of more. I am glad I came here to play soccer. I really enjoyed playing with them and would not change it for anything. Well I was fortunate enough to have gotten all my classes when signing up for my spring semester classes, because most of my friends were not able to get all the classes they wanted due to them being full. Anyways next semester I am taking fourteen hours of classes my classes being: Composition II, Object - Oriented Design and Methods, Calculus II, Intro to Theology, and Advance Physical Conditioning. So this next semester I am taking classes that are somewhat hard but I should be able to keep with them being that I already know how it all works. I plan on doing better this next semester than this first semester because during my first semester I struggled with adjusting from high school to college and also time management. But now that I got the hang of this college stuff I plan to do better I am striving to do better because I really want to. I am really looking to this next semester, can't wait! Should be lots of fun! (:

Studying Abroad!?

          To be completely honest, I never really considered studying abroad because it seemed I don't know a bit out of my element and I just did not find it too interesting at first. But after hearing a couple of my older friends who have studied abroad talk about how much fun they had and how amazing all their experiences they got to have while studying abroad, I wanted to learn more about it. They urged me and gave me the idea to study abroad because they kept telling me to study abroad, to just do it. Well after hearing them talk about studying abroad, I then heard mostly all of my professors suggesting to study abroad and I started to wonder why?

          Through this process I have learned a lot about the study abroad program at Texas Lutheran University and I am glad I did. I talked to one of my fellow teammates from the soccer team, Amy Walls, and she definitely opened the idea of studying abroad to me along with some of my professors as well. Some of my professors talked to us about studying abroad and recommended it because we were young and we will never get an opportunity to travel the world for a low price due to the fact that our financial aid transfers and stuff. Amy told me that, "Being able to leave everything I knew behind and everything that was normal was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I met amazing people, got to see incredible things and had the opportunity to participate in two different internships that pertained to my International Business major. I got to work with international students in an admissions office and a marketing firm as well. I learned Dutch, got to go to Belgium and Barcelona for spring break, and took really interesting classes with people from all over the world. Overall I grew as a person and things I could have never learned by staying where I was" (Amy C. Walls Studying Abroad Interview). She basically explained how incredibly life changing this experience has been for her and hearing her say this has completely changed my views about studying abroad.

          I am now considering studying abroad because of a couple people. I just have to look into what study abroad program I want to do and where I want to go and when, I am still researching that. But overall I am looking forward to studying abroad and how it will change my life like how everyone is saying it changed theirs. I can not wait to go study abroad but I am not going to lie there is a part of me that is scared but what the heck you only live once so I am definitely going to do it. 

To Always Remember That No One is More Important Than The Team!

The TLU Women's Soccer team is circled up on the field right before the game.  During the huddle, we try to pump each other up and encourage ourselves to play for each other and to give it all we got.  The seniors or some of the upperclassmen say a couple of inspiring words to get the whole team hyped up to win and kick some grass.  We do this right before every game as a tradition for the team.  This picture shows us coming together as a team and gathering ourselves up to have a special moment as a team before the game because each girl is embraced and connected to each other.  During the season we did this traditional huddle right before each and every game and I feel like if we did not do this it would not feel right so I am glad we did. This little moment right before the start of every game truly makes me feel part of something more and special. This picture was taken at Texas Lutheran's soccer field during one of our home games against Southwestern. I was the one that took this picture because I was sitting in the stands watching my team play without me due to the incident that happened the previous game. It was definitely hard watching them play and not being to help them. I am not going to lie it sucked because they lost and I felt like I could have helped them a lot during this game. So I definitely learned from this mistake I made during this season and the only good thing I got out of it was this nice picture of my team huddling up and showing that they are a team. I love them, they are just something else!

Krost Symposium

A couple of weeks ago I listened to Daniel Solove's Keynote speech called, “Social Media, Gossip, and Privacy: A New Frontier” for Texas Lutheran University's Krost Symposium and it was held in Jackson Auditorium on November 3rd, 2011.  Solove explains how he started blogging in May 2005 and that's how it all started,  that's where his ideas about social media and technology developed.  During Solove's presentation I strongly agreed with his point of view on the process of employers hiring employees since this process could affect my generation in a bad way.  He stated that according to a study by Microsoft, 70% of employers rejected employees because of online information (“ Social Media, Gossip, and Privacy: A New Frontier”).   So he thinks that employers are not fair because it is wrong and these employers should warn employees about their hiring process (“Social Media, Gossip, and Privacy: A New Frontier”).   I could relate to this main point in his speech because I feel like it could happen to me and the rest of my generation due to the fact that we are “generation google” like how he explains it.   So I agree when he discusses that employers are not fair because the information on the internet should not affect if I get hired or not but at the same time this brings us to Solove's big advice is to be careful of what we expose online or what other people put about you (“Social Media, Gossip, and Privacy: A New Frontier”).   The way employers hire employees is one of the many impacts, in his speech, due to information on the internet that affects people's lives and opportunities (“Social Media, Gossip, and Privacy: A New Frontier”).

Solove, Daniel. “Social Media, Gossip, and Privacy: A New Frontier” Texas Lutheran University.

             Jackson Auditorium, 1000 West Court St. 4 November 2011. Keynote Address.

Soccer Season Ending! :/

Well soccer season is coming to an end soon which is bittersweet.  The reason it's bittersweet is because I do not want soccer season to end because I enjoy playing soccer with my incredible team but at the same time soccer has taken over my life. So I'm kind of glad it is ending because I want my life back, I want to have more time basically. While on the other I do want to keep going on long fun road trips with my team and keep playing soccer games but all good things come to an end. Well this season has been fun I met a great group of girls that are all amazing in their own little way.  As a freshman I felt like I learned a lot from my coaches soccer strategies to my team.  This team is an amazing little family and I love them to death. And I will miss the seniors for sure. I have had a lot fun with my new team and happy they accepted me into their team and took me in and showed me a lot of things.  I have definitely had some great memories with my team. Even though we did not win as much as we wanted to we had a great deal of fun playing together because we always played for each other.  Well it was a really fun season this team has definitely made my freshman year at Texas Lutheran University so much fun and amazing. And because of them I have so many crazy experiences.  I am glad I met these group of wonderful girls my freshman year they have truly contributed to my decision staying at Texas Lutheran University. There is only two more games this weekend and then season is over so please come support us this Friday and Saturday at one here at the soccer fields. Good season and I hope to end it with a couple more wins! (:

Steve Jobs

http://www.ijailbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/steve-jobs-apple-thank-you.png

I do not own this picture, I got this picture from this ^ URL.

I am a computer science major. The reason I chose computer science as my major because I love math and computers. The only classes that have anything to do with my major are my calculus class and my object-oriented class. Well the only classes that I think and feel are contributing to my major, but who knows. I know I want to major in computer science but I do not know what I want to do with that after.  I have no idea what I want to do with my computer science degree but what I do know is that I want to be somewhat like the great Steve Jobs.  He was someone I really looked up to, he was an incredible genius when it came to technology, like amazing!  He has influenced me and everyone in computer science/ information science a lot. He was a great innovator and inspiration to the computer science world. Because of him we have so many innovative revolutionary ways to listen to music and access different types of media and I thank him for that. I am very grateful I was able to see his awesome inventions that I now use, not to mention that I am using a macbook right now, but yea I appreciated his work ethic towards his costumers. He did everything he could to make his inventions better and faster for his costumers, he did it for his costumers satisfaction not the money which meant a great deal to me.  I really liked that about him a lot how he put his costumers need first. So I hope one day to be like Steve Jobs or at least work for Apple, that would be my ultimate dream because I like the way he ran his company with his costumers in mind and not the money. Which is why I think he was lots of the time very successful with his life.  But definitely he has been my tech geek idol and that's why when I heard he passed it really affected me because he has done so much for the computer science world.  I honestly could not believe it when I heard the sad news but he will be missed and his great innovative inventions will be too.  The computer science world truly lost someone incredibly talented but will always be remembered.Steve Jobs did a lot for the computer science world and I thank him for that! R.I.P Steve Jobs.

Learning From My Mistakes

Last week my amazing friends from back home in Del Rio, came to watch me play soccer here at Texas Lutheran University.  They came to support me and made me posters with my name on them, which made me feel pretty special because there was nine of my friends just cheering for me.  I had all these fans at the game just cheering for me. So they were really loud and rowdy before the game and during the game.  And it really meant a lot to me that they all traveled to come watch me play and come visit me.  So I really wanted to play really good that game for them and sure enough I started off the game great.  Twenty-six seconds into the game I stole the ball from one of the other team's defenders and got a shot on goal and almost scored but just barely missed so it was a great start. But then it all went wrong ten minutes into the game when I let my anger get the best of me.  The referee was making some bad calls, in my opinion, and it frustrated me to a point where I smacked talked him which caused me to get a yellow-card and then a red-card, which I am not proud of at all. But anyways I made a stupid mistake which did not only affect me but affected my team as well. I let my team down by making this mistake.  I hurt the team because I had to get ejected from that game and sit out the next game. And my team needed me this game and next game. Since I got ejected during that game I had no choice but to leave the field and leave my team playing down a man (woman) so they only were playing with ten players leaving them with a huge disadvantage.  When I had realized the consequences of my malice action it was too late to go back and change what I did so therefore I had to live with the mistake I made and deal with the consequences.  And it sucked not being able to help my team at a time when they needed me most, oh man I regretted what I did so much and I hated myself for what I did.  But obviously regretting what I did and trying to take it back wasn't going to make up for what I did, so I realized that I had to change and learn from this incident.  I learned that from now on I have to control my anger and think before I speak instead of just doing things out of anger.  I also have to keep in my mind of who I'm affecting when I decide to do something because it was really selfish of me to do what I did and I apologize to my soccer team for what I did and letting them down. I admit that I was selfish and I am not going to lie at first I didn't understand why everyone was so disappointed at me and saying that I was selfish for getting that red-card but now I understand, I agree and admit that it was very selfish of me.  Nevertheless I've grown from this experience and definitely learned from my mistake and don't plan on getting anymore red-cards forget that it sucks not being able to play and help my team! Well not only did I disappoint my team but my parents and friends too because they came to watch me play all the way from Del Rio and I only played ten minutes when they came to watch me play not pull this dumb crap. So I apologize to them too because it affected them as well. I realized that I effected a lot of people that day and I am sorry for that. I really learned my lesson to stop being so selfish when I decide to do something stupid because I don't only affect myself but I negatively affect everyone else around me.

Stressed...

So far it's been hard trying to balance soccer and school. I'm behind in class and I always feel like I'm behind no matter what. This last week was probably the worst week I had while at college. Since we were leaving early for soccer this last week I was going to miss Thursday and Friday so I had to finish my work ahead and turn it in before we left to Dallas and Arkansas. But it turns out that I didn't balance my time wisely so I didn't get to finish my second draft essay for my comp class, which has put me behind even more because my final draft is due this Wednesday.  I also didn't get to finish some of my object-oriented programming homework, so I didn't get to turn in part of my homework. Not to mention homework is a huge grade in that class so I basically messed up that homework grade. I finished my calculus homework. But stayed up all night doing all my homework that was due the next morning before we left. And while I was doing my homework in the early hours of the morning I fell asleep and forgot to set an alarm and didn't wake up on time to turn in my completed homework. I actually didn't wake up at all the only reason why I woke was because my teammate knocked on my door and woke me up at 8 in the morning which was the time the bus was leaving. It turns out we overslept! So we ran and took off to the bus but I didn't realize my bag was open while I was running so my sperry's (shoes) fell out. So I ended up losing my shoes on the way to the bus, almost got left behind, and didn't get to turn in my homework. Oh and on the trip I also accidentally threw away my own retainers. Luckily my great roommate saved me and did me the greatest favors and turned in my homework for me and looked for my shoes. She saved my life, even though she only got to find one shoe I was totally grateful for what she did for me. So thanks Katherine for being the best roommate ever! Totally appreciated your help this weekend. Well after all that got settled in the morning I still had a game that day and didn't do to great because I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, we lost. Anyways after all those bad incidents had happened to me I tried to put them behind me and just hope for the best the next couple of days. Well things got better for me as I hoped I finished my homework during study time at the hotel and I also got to score two goals in my next game and we ended up wining. The weekend for me was brutal but I learned a lot from it. I learned that I got to balance my priorities way better. I also learned that I can't let any bad thing affect me, you just always got move ahead and look at the bright side of things no matter how hard things get.

My Classes

So far really I have only noticed two of my classes that relate to each other and that's probably because my Comp class and my Frex class are linked. But other than those two classes the rest of my classes do not relate to each other what so ever.  I mean even at that my Comp class and Frex class do not always relate to each other most of the time.  I honestly have no idea how my classes are suppose to relate each other I really do not understand that concept because I'm taking a computer science class, a music appreciation class, comp class, frex class, and a calculus class. And all those classes at least I do not think can relate to each other.  But hey maybe later on the future they will or something. I know here at Texas Lutheran University they want us to get a liberal arts education and I partially agree with that because I want to get a liberal education but at the same time I'm just too lazy to take all those extra classes that I do not need for my major. Sometimes it seems pointless to me to take an arts class because I'm a computer science major and I feel like what I'm learning is not going to be useful to me in my major but other times I get so fascinated and interested in the material. In a sense I like learning in my music appreciation class but I do not like doing work or taking tests. But I do enjoy it a lot, my professor Mrs. Rodriguez makes it really fun.  I guess you can say I have mixed feelings about the liberal art's education that Texas Lutheran University requires.  I do not know like somedays I'm like yeah I want to take this class because I want to learn more about it and it seems so interesting but then I get lazy when I have to do the work, I know it's funny it just depends on my mood most of the time, but what do you expect I'm a girl.  For now I'm just going to take the classes I want and feed my big shaggy so I can have a more liberal education and as for the work I'm just going to have to deal with it, after it is college.  As of my feelings towards this liberal arts education here at Texas Lutheran, they are always going to be changing for me I guess but I'm just going to go with it and follow.

Hardest Change (for me) From High School to College

The hardest thing I have had trouble with while at college is probably time management.  I feel like I haven't been able to manage my time between homework, soccer, and friends equally.  I mostly always put homework and studying off until the very last minute so I guess you can say I'm a procrastinator when it comes to doing my class work, which is not good.  The reason for this is because I can't pass up hanging out with my friends, and since I'm my own parent now, I always decide to hang out and chill with my friends instead of doing work. All this freedom at college and always being able to see my friends everyday makes it hard for me to manage my time wisely. And soccer definitely makes it even harder for me to manage my time because most of my time is taken up by soccer and my friends because mostly all of them are on the soccer team, so that does not help my situation.  And if my time is not taken up by soccer and friends it's taken up by me being tired and sleepy all of the time because of soccer so I always end up sleeping instead of doing my work.  Most of the time I feel like there's not enough hours in the day for me to do all the things I want to do, I feel like time flies so much faster while here at college.  But I mean it is not like I do not ever do my homework or study because I do, it just happens to be very late at night and at the last minute. Which doesn't help because it affects me with being sleep deprived and if I don't get enough sleep I don't concentrate well in class and I also don't do good in practice so this time management is affecting me in all sorts of ways. So I'm learning little by little to organize my time and so far I've been more strict on myself about not joining my friends and doing homework or studying instead, and it has definitely helped me a lot.  I could see the difference right away because I wasn't up late at night doing homework like usual. Not being able to manage my time wisely has been the biggest and hardest change for me from high school to college.  Due to the fact that you are the parent now and are responsible for making wise decisions when it comes to making time for work. So if you want some advice when first adjusting college is to manage your time wisely. Like seriously it really helps to be organized and do your work first and then have all the time in the world to do whatever else you want.  That's my advice to definitely manage your time correctly to avoid any problems.

I'm a First-Generation College Student!

I can relate with chapter 5 in the TLU Reader because I'm a first-generation college student and I am also a woman like the author of this chapter. I agreed with many things she wrote in the chapter because I could relate to most of the things she wrote I especially could relate to her when she said, " The biggest issue for me was I had no idea what to expect about anything. I am sure to a certain extent all first year students feel that way.", and she was right all first year students feel that way because I felt like that and I had no idea what to expect which really bothered me. Not knowing what to expect really bothered me because I hated not knowing what to expect in college it scared me quite a bit. And my parents and my older brother could not help me through this situation since they never attended university so they could not give me any advice or any information on college. So it definitely made this even tougher for me and it worried me a lot more. But luckily I had a little help from my aunt, she was the only other person from my entire family including my dad's and mom's family that could help me with what I was going through, she attended and graduated from Concordia University. So throughout this process she tried to help me and explained to me all things college which helped my anxiety about not knowing what to expect at college. She also helped me a lot when it came to playing a sport while at college because she played basketball while at Concordia University so I was on the same boat. I made sure to take in all of her advice when it came to studying and not to party to much so I would be eligible to play soccer. My aunt helped me a lot but she could only help me with so much since college life changes and also since many colleges are different. So she could not help me with everything which sucked because it definitely made my anxiety come back when she had no idea about some of the questions I would ask about college stuff because she was the only person I could go to for help. But she always tried to calm me down and always reassured me that I could ask for help if I had any problems while at college but all I had to do was ask. So I made sure to keep that tip in mind if I had any problems because even though she helped me with some things I still felt like I was going into the unknown. But that's just part of the college experience you're never going to know exactly what to expect when going to college believe me it's impossible in my opinion even if you are not a first generation college student. And I learned that throughout this experience and I really would like to thank my aunt so much for helping me I honestly appreciated it because it made things way easier for me it would've sucked if I didn't have you there to help me. So thanks tia claudia! I appreciate you and I love you! 

My First College Soccer Game

 I do not own this picture this is from (tlubulldogs.com). It's from the TLU Athletics Gallery.


September 3rd, 2011, was my first college soccer game for Texas Lutheran University. Being a freshman, I was pretty nervous at the start of the game because first of all it was my first college game and I didn't know what to expect being that there was a big difference from playing at a high school level than playing at college level. And second of all, I was starting so it was extremely nerve racking but as soon as the game started all those nerves and butterflies went away. Throughout the game I noticed some differences between playing in high school to playing in college was that it was a lot more physical and the pace of play was faster. The pace of play was faster so I had to adjust to the pace throughout the game but I got the hang of it pretty fast. As for the physical aspect, I straight up was getting my butt kicked because I wasn't playing as aggressive and physical as my opponents. But I completely changed that and became more aggressive by the second half especially since we were losing at the end of the first half 1-0. During halftime I was upset because we were losing and all I wanted to do was help my team by trying my hardest to help our team win the game in some way. One of the girls on the team said something in the huddle that made me want to play better for the team and also motivated me to not only play for myself but play for my teammates as well, she said "Come on girls, let's play for each other!". After she said that I got this sense of motivation and determination to play even harder and with more heart the second half because I realized that this team was my new team now and I wasn't playing for my small town high school anymore I was no longer a queen (my high school mascot) I was a bulldog now and I was playing for something bigger now I was playing for my university, Texas Lutheran University. Two minutes after the second half started I ended up taking a shot from outside and ended up scoring and man it was a great feeling seeing my teammates happily run towards me and give me high fives. It was my first collegiate goal and I'll never forget it. Anyways the score was tied 1-1, ten minutes after my goal my freshman friend headed the ball and assisted my other freshman friend's goal which I found pretty cool because my freshman friends and I were all really nervous before the game because we didn't want to bad and we did okay after all. Well we were winning 2-1 but our adversary ended up beating us and scoring two more goals on us so we ended up losing a close game 2-3. It sucked that we lost because I felt like we should've won and I played my hardest out there and so did the rest of my team but I learned a lot for it only being my first college game. And as much as I didn't want to lose our first game we did but in order to learn how to win you got to learn how to lose and now we just got to focus on our next game and learn from this loss.