Thanksgiving

One of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions is what my entire dad’s side of the family calls, “Turkey Bowl.” During half-time of the first football game on television, everyone goes outside, splits into teams, and plays a game of two-hand-touch football. Usually my family spends Thanksgiving in Jacksonville, Florida, with my aunt and uncle, three cousins, and our grandma and grandpa. This year however, our Thanksgiving was spent at home. Although it was kind of lonely without all of the extra people around (and a lot colder), it was still a lot of fun to be able to see everyone. Also, since my boyfriend is from Massachusetts, he wasn’t able to go home for Thanksgiving and instead, my mother invited him to have Thanksgiving with us in Charlotte. Despite all of the changes to our Thanksgiving traditions, Turkey Bowl is one that still lives on. My mother was busy preparing our entire Thanksgiving feast from scratch, although we all helped, so she did not participate, but the addition of my boyfriend to the family roster made our teams even. The teams were me, my little sister, and my father, aka Team Domination, against my older brother, my little brother, and my boyfriend aka, The Champions. Needless to say, Team Domination, well, dominated.

Leadership

My weaknesses as a leader are probably the fact that I tend to be a lot less aggressive and a lot more submissive around people I do not really know and that sometimes I am not the most optimistic person. I feel like both of these are important traits to have because a leader needs to be seen as the most dominant and the most enthusiastic; that’s why people look up to and follow them. My strengths as a leader are probably my emotional stability and my tough-mindedness. I am able to keep my head in frustrating and stressful situations and I feel like I can handle them fairly well because I have had a lot of practice. I can always seem to put stuff like that out of my mind. Although it may not seem like it, and it may not be the most admirable quality, I am also extremely stubborn. I feel like both of these are important because you have to be able to keep a clear head to be able to make decisions and you have to be able to stick to your decisions and back them up whether they were the right decisions to make or not. I aspire to make a difference here by being an active member of Students Engaged in Aquatic Sciences (SEAS) and trying to keep my fellow marine science majors motivated to stick through the super intense course load and let them know that they can do it and still have time to have fun too.

Spirituality

I feel like religion, spirituality, and faith are all separate aspects of human beliefs that can intersect but still maintain their separate entities. Religion is a belief in a higher power that affects human destiny, spirituality is more how intact you are with your beliefs about life, religious or not, and then faith is just an unadulterated trust in someone or something, be it a religious figure or not. I was raised Catholic by my mother. My father is an atheist and none of his side goes to church but my mom’s side is pretty involved with Catholicism. I love being Catholic and the idea of believing in a higher power and just something greater than oneself. Before college, I was unsure whether I would keep attending church here at USC because I have always been a firm believer that God does not spite you for not attending church and that you are allowed to keep your faith close to you no matter where you are or what day of the week it is. When I got here I decided I would keep going to church because it’s just something I want to do for myself and I enjoy it. I found the Catholic parish and I attend church every Sunday at nine with my roommate. I feel like spirituality and faith are the more personal sectors of religion and they are unaffected by geographical location. I have heard that religion is a lot more intense in the South though. I mean, I’ve always grown up with it and I actually like how intact people here are in their faith. I believe that in order to live, you have to have hope for something in your life, or there’s no point. Faith is also extremely important. A belief in something greater than oneself, even if it’s just a simple faith in say, a sports team, is a beautiful thing and perhaps one of the purest aspects of the human race.

Relationships

I have formed a bunch of new relationships here at USC. Coming from Charlotte, you would think that I would know a ton of people but really I only knew one guy from my high school and then one guy from a neighboring school who happened to be my best friend’s boyfriend. So coming here, I knew I would have to make a lot of friends and I feel like I’ve succeeded. Having all of them there makes me feel more adjusted to college life. I really love my floor; we’re all pretty close. It’s fun just to hang out with them if I don’t have anything to do. Also, three of the guys from my floor are in my chemistry class, so I always have someone to sit with during chemistry and if I ever needed help, I know that they would be there to help me, no questions asked. Also, two of the girls on my floor, Bryn and my good friend Melissa, are marine science majors also and we’re all in the same marine science class. Melissa’s also in my lab and we’re in the same lab group. I always ask them questions when I need help. I love the group of friends I’ve become a part of. They’re really fun and they can always cheer me up if I’ve had a rough couple of class days or if I’ve been super stressed. I also know I can tell my roommate about any of my problems because she’s always there to listen. I met my boyfriend and started dating him here too. I am probably the closest to him and he’s really great. He always tells me that everything’s going to be alright and I’ll get through this semester just fine. This morning he really helped me out because I was absolutely exhausted from getting up at five am for my marine science field trip yesterday and I wanted to just skip Latin and history. He made me get up and go though because he knew I needed to attend them and stay on top of my work. Everyone here just keeps me really grounded and I’m really thankful for all of the people I’ve met so far.

Study Abroad

I have considered studying abroad. I am actually almost certain that I will sometime during my four years at USC, probably during junior year. If I do study abroad, I will probably go to Australia. Australia is a great place to study abroad in for Marine Science, since it is entirely surrounded by water, plus, it’s warm, so that is always nice. The only barriers I could possibly foresee would be fiscal issues or the issue of not graduating on time. My parents are paying for college and they told me that they would only pay for four years, and then I’m on my own. So if studying abroad would set me back a semester, I would never be able to do it. I think that it would definitely be a beneficial experience though. There would be a lot of in-field hands-on experience as well as cultural enlightenment. I definitely hope I will be studying abroad before these four years are up.

Mentoring-Week Three

My overall experience with Hand Middle School has been wonderful. Everyone has been very nice and helpful with whatever questions I have had regarding the mentoring or even just getting around the school. Aleyah has been a great mentee also. She likes to talk and sometimes even asks me questions. Mostly she likes to spend our time playing board games such as checkers and Sorry. Mentoring has also made me think about considering a serious career in child care. I think it is most important to cover why Aleyah should get involved and why it matters to have a successful academic career. It would also be important to cover tips on how she can accomplish these things. Three questions about involvement could be, “What kinds of things are you interested in? How can you get more involved? Why is it important to be involved?” Three questions about academic success could be, “How are you doing in school? What are your personal academic goals? How can you achieve them?”