Thanksgiving

    Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend! I know for sure I did. You really dont know how much you are greatful for something until you don't have it. The best part of Thanksgiving for me was coming home to my family. The moment i walked in the door, I knew I was welcome and had a great weekend ahead of me! With all that great turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and of cource, pumpkin and apple pie, you just can't go wrong!
    I think I was the most thankful for just being alive and well. We go to school and get so busy with life that we don't realize how lucky we are. We have great friends, a great education, and for the most part, great family to support us. Thanksgiving time really allows us to look back and see all of the blessings that we have. Coming home to an amazing dinner and sharing it with family is just priceless. It is definately not hard to be thankful for that.
   Don't feel bad if you get the Thanksgiving blues after the break. We do have finals coming and it will definately be a difficult week. Keep studying my friends because the first semester of our freshmen year is almost over! Get excited for the wonderful winter break! Merry early Christmas to all of you and I hope you all do outstanding on your finals. And remember...GO BULLS!

Work and Study

   Hello everyone and I hope you are all having a great weekend! This week I had to work :(. I'm sure more than one of you have to work and go to school. It is definately nice to have a cash flow, but sometimes work just gets in the way of either homework or just having fun. The best way to deal with it is to stay organized and have a balance. Balancing out work and play will definately make the colege experience a lot more fun!

   I am a Florida state certifed referee and referee all over Tampa. The money is great but because I have to travel so much, it tends to take alot out of my day. I constatnly have to deal with complaining coaches because apparently, the referee is always wrong. It is also very easy to get lost finding fields if you do not have good directions and punctuality is very important. So if you have a game to referee at eight in the morning, you are expected to be there at 7:30, and it sucks! On the bright side of things, I get to be around my favorite sport! When you are doing something you love, it usually doesn't feel like work.

  I manage to work and go to school through time management. I try to make sure that I get all of my work done accordingly so that I will have time to work and still turn in assignments on time. Often times, keeping yourself busy helps you stay on task. Finding a job these days is difficult, so consider your selves lucky! Have a great Thanksgiving and until next week, GO BULLS!

My Call to Action

    Hi everyone! I hope you all are having a great weekend! So this week I want to talk about my call to action for project three. Childhood obesity has become rampant in our country. Children are become sick wtih diabetes and will become more susceptible to heart disease if something is not done.  I plan on raising awareness about this growing issue and try to bring as many people as possible to join the cause.
    I plan on raising awareness, with the help of my sorority, Chi Omega, by getting as many sponors as possible. I want to raise money to build a playground for a small school in Boston so that they will have an opportunity to play and have recess. In the spring, I want to host an event called the Chi Omega Carnival for the Kids. For the small price of five dollars, you will have access to food, games, and other fun activities. This event will hopefully be held in the Marshall Center Amphitheatre and with the help and support of all of you, Chi Omega can be successful in getting these kids a great playground.
   I am very excited for my call to action project. I hope that all goes well with sponsorships and planning. If anyone of you have ideas for different sponsors or activities, feel free to comment! Anything I can do to make this event better and more successful will be taken into consideration. Looking forward to hearing all of your comments! GO BULLS!

One of Those Weeks

   Hi everyone, I hope you all had a great week! Unfortunately my week was not so great. Have you  ever had that one week that just didn't go your way? Well, for me that's exactly how it was. My spirits were so down and if it wasn't for my friends my week would have ended on a sad note. Always keep your friends close because they will always bring you up when you are feeling down.
   It started out at 7:30 in the morning when I had my math exam. It was definately way too early for to be taking an exam but, of course, I had to take it anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't do very well and my week went downhill from there. Then, I ended up losing my phone and looked everywhere for it to find it in the Marshal Center. I was so worried that I lost it because it is the only form of communication I have. Then, on Thursday, I forgot my umbrella on a rainy day and go wet walking back and forth to class. Thank God for Fridays! I saw my friends and they did all they could to cheer me up and I felt s much better.
   No matter how bad your week gets, call up a friend. They will always give you a shoulder to cry on. It's always important for you to have friends around because life does get hard and you can't always deal with everything on your own. With that said, have a great weekend and stay positive! Keep your friends close and cherish them! GO BULLS!

Home for the Weekend

    Hi everyone! I hope you all are doing well and ready for Halloween! I hope you all had the chance to go home at least once so far this semester. It is definitely nice to be away from home, but if any of you are like me, you still miss your family every now and then. Luckily for me, home is only an hour or so away and I am able to go every weekend or so. Recently, I haven’t been home in a couple weeks and I realized how hard it really is. So this weekend I finally went home.

    I am the only daughter and have two younger brothers so I am the first to go to college. My parents had a hard time letting go. I thought I wouldn’t miss them that much but as I as the weeks went by I realized how different life was without my family. So now, whenever I go home, it is like a big reunion for my family. There is always a loving atmosphere when I go home that I don’t feel when living on my own. Your family is always there for you and they miss no matter how busy they are.        

    No matter how big or small your family is, they miss you. They are thinking and worrying about you if you are not. It’s definitely hard to go home if you are so far away but a phone call always makes a difference. If you are able to go home try to go every other weekend or so. Your parents miss you and would love to see you back even if it’s just for a few hours. Don’t forget to tell your parents how much you love them. Small gestures like that will let them know that you do care and they will feel content when you leave. Home is where the heart is and no matter how far away you are, your family will always be there for you.

We Are Half Way There!

Hi everyone! I hope you
all had a great week and will have a great weekend. We, as freshmen, should all
be very proud of ourselves because we made it through the first half of our
first semester as USF college students! I don’t know about you all, but I have
experienced more in my first semester than I have in my four years of high
school. I have met some great people and made some long lasting friends.
Unfortunately, I have felt myself slacking just a little bit. So I decided to
write my entry on how to keep the school spark alive.

Surviving the first
half of the semester is a big accomplishment. I feel that I have grown since
the beginning of the year. So far, my grades are pretty high and I just
finished taking midterms for some of my classes, including the dreaded
chemistry. I haven’t seen my grade yet, but I definitely hope that three days
of studying will pay off. I have definitely learned to manage my time over this
first half of the semester, but I feel that it is getting more difficult. As the
semester goes on, more work is being given and campus life gets even bigger. How
do you balance it all out? Well everyone, my biggest advice is to not forget
why you are in college in the first place. Getting your education is the most
important part of your college experience. Yes, the semester is half over, but don’t
slack! There is still plenty of school left and you don’t want to mess up your
GPA. Keep doing all of the things that are balancing school and social life. Exercise,
eat right, and stay ahead of the game because the more you get used to doing
these tasks, the easier the semester will be!

So keep up the good
work guys. We are half way there! The semester will be over sooner than you
think and then you can finally say that you survived your first semester as a
college freshman. Good luck to all of you and I hope you live the college life
to its fullest. GO BULLS!

Campus Resources

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a great weekend so far. The weekend could never last long enough J. Well as you all know, chemistry has been a struggle for me and despite small improvements, I have been looking for other methods of to try and help me grasp the material better. Every week we do a chapter and homework online. I decided to take a look at my homework and see if I could get started. I took one look and thought ‘I can’t do this homework by myself’. I was sitting with one of my sisters and she told me to check out the tutoring center in the library. I was very skeptical about it because I wasn’t sure if they would be able to give me the help I needed. I thought ‘why not I have nothing to lose’.

                After talking to my sister I headed up and entered the tutoring center. It took only two minutes to sign up for it and I was in. The room was pretty big and I just took a seat next to a group of students who were actually doing the same home work. I spent two hours learning from everyone and was able to get all of my work done. When we all got stuck on a problem, there were students with higher levels of knowledge in chemistry and graduate students there to explain every step. Not only did I get help but I was also able to understand the chapter. Now that I understand, I will be able to study for the and do well.

                I found that campus resources can really be of help if you take the initiative to check them out. If your professor’s office hours are not convenient for you, there might be a tutoring session that will really benefit you. The more resources you use, the better you will understand the information. Take it from me! I hope you all enjoyed this little piece of information, GO BULLS!

Finding Your Passion

Hi everyone! It’s finally the weekend and Go Bulls! So this week I was sitting in my chemistry class and I just thought ‘wow I really don’t want to be here’. I wasn’t getting any of the concepts and I realized that I didn’t like chemistry at all. I am a biology/pre-med major and I realized that chemistry is going to be an ongoing learning experience throughout college and I didn’t know if that’s what I really wanted to do anymore. So my quest to figure out what my passion was began.

            My first step was making an appointment with my biology advisor just in case I decided to keep my major in the end and create my spring semester schedule. I went to see him and told him exactly how I was feeling. He started naming some options that I might be interested in.  He said I could go into other science fields that don’t necessarily require medical school. The one major that interested me the most was athletic training/sports medicine. I am athletically oriented and the idea of combining sports and medicine interested me a lot. My next step was to do more research. I went to on the USF website and began looking for more information on athletic training and even on other potential majors. I found an array of majors that are medically related and I found myself even more confused. I decided to talk to my parents because they have been in these situations before. My mom is a doctor and she told me not to get discouraged. It’s very early in the year and I should just be patient and keep trying. So I have decided that I will wait and see and if I find that I still can find my passion as a biology major, then I will reconsider changing.

            In the end, my biggest advice for all of you is to not be so quick to change your majors based on one class that just doesn’t interest you. You will come across classes on your paths that don’t necessarily make sense to you. Don’t get discouraged and keep working hard. You will find out that things will work out. Until next time...Go Bulls and have a great weekend!

Staying Focused

 Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week. I know I did :). I have found that staying focused becomes increasingly difficult as the semester rolls by. The home work load grows as well as responsibilities to organizations that I am involved with. How do I keep up with it all? Well, I am going to try my best to come up with some ways to stay focused on school and still be involved in school.

I think the best piece of paper than any professor can give you is the syllabus. It is really important to read through those syllabi and plan your weeks accordingly. That way you can get school work done and have time for friends or organizations. If you don't plan out your weeks you will find yourself putting school work second to friends and organizations. It might not be a problem at that very moment, but it will come back to get you when you are sitting the night before trying to get everything done at once. This leaves for potential errors and mistakes and in college you want to try to avoid those as much as possible.

You can’t forget why we are in college in the first place. You are here to get an education and everything else should be second to learning. If you have to, let your organizations know that you cannot make it to a meeting due to a test or a paper. I’m very sure that they won’t penalize you for that, if anything, they will praise you for your dedication to your school work. Most organizations have policies on keeping a certain GPA and study log hours so I encourage all of you to take advantage of that and use it as an encouragement for yourself to study.

College is a whole new experience and I know I want to make the best of it. We can’t forget that we are here to learn and enhance our futures. Organizations and clubs can be a part of that enhancement but we cannot let them take over. School work should always come first and staying organized can allow you to get the best of both experiences. Until next time…GO BULLS!

Tips on Staying Healthy

    Ok, so I had a really rough week and I feel like I should put up some tips on how to stay healthy as you all go through college. With all the stress that seemed to be bottling up, I got sick and found it very hard to continue at the pace that I was going at. I found myself putting things off because I just couldn't find the energy to keep going. I realized I wasn't eating that well and it had affected me physically. I thought that maybe I need to make healthier eating choices and eat smaller more often. Exercise is really a great stress reliever and can really make a bad day seem just a little bit better. Finally, sleep is extremely important. The minimum is seven hours and any less than that can be unhealthy and can have negative effects on your body. Simple changes can really make a big difference.
    I don't know about all of you but food is constantly in your face on campus. With the array of restaurants that surround us, it's easy to make the wrong choice. I recommend either bringing your own healthy choice or choose a healthier option on campus. For example, find a fruit that you really like and bring a little of it in a small plastic bag. This way whenever you get hungry you can pull it out and snack. It will save you money and keep you healthy.
    Exercise seems to be so difficult at times. I know how that feels for sure. A little bit every day will make a big difference in you health. Thirty minutes a day, whether it's walking, playing a sport, or just a quick run, you will find out that the day is smoother and that your body feels less stressed out. Try to bring a friend with you because this makes the exercise more fun and enjoyable.
    Sleep is so important. The optimum amount is seven hours and to many that may not seem like a lot. As a college student, I realize that we all have things to do and places to be, but not getting those hours can have major side effects. The body can not rest fully and will not be ready for the next day. Therefore it is really important to squeeze in those hours so that you can be well rested.
    I hope you all found my tips helpful. Comment if you have any other suggestions because I would love to try them! Until next week...Blog you all later :).

Theme for My Blog

       I was thinking about how I felt the first day of classes here at USF. I found it really hard for me to adjust the first week. No matter how many people tried to help me figure out my way, I still had to experience everything on my own. Coming into the fourth week of classes, I have had some crazy experiences so far and I feel that I should blog about them so that I can try to relate to other freshmen going through the same things. Every week I will blog about my experiences at USF and try to find articles and other resources that might make my readers' experiences better!
       One of the biggest decisions I made this semester was to join a sorority. A sorority you say? Ya, a sorority. Before any of you make rash conclusions, I actually did my research before I jumped into it. I am  Muslim girl who wears the hijab (head cover) so I was a little skeptical at first. Sororities are not filled with girls who love to party and drink but instead have a wonderful sisterhood and are so welcoming. They dedicate a great deal of their time to their national philanthropies and really emphasize doing what they can for the better. Recruitment week was tough but I was invited to join Chi Omega and accepted with open arms. So now I am  a Chi O girl! All of my sisters are super nice and truly love me for who I am. I spend a lot of time in the house and they do what ever they can to help me with homework. Chi Omega girls are beautiful and amazing so if you see one, SHOW HER SOME LOVE!!! If you ask me, joining a sorority has really boosted my confidence and they have become my family away from home. So I say go through recruitment and see if it's the right thing for you and you never know, you just might like it!