Relaxing Weekend

It seems as though it has been a considerable amount of time since I last checked in. The weekend brought the post spring break week to an end. The week went by much quicker than I had anticipated it would, but I am not complaining. Friday brought my trio of morning classes and then it was time to relax and move on from the recovery week. Tim, Justin, and I ran to the bank and then Tim and I went to the mall for a little while to wind down from the week. While there Tim and i entered Hollister to check on the sales. Upon exiting I had been asked if I would like to interview for a job. I had applied back before Christmas break and was not hired. This time it was not my decision to apply. I was approached by one of the managers and then received a phone call again from her today ensuring that I would be at the interview tomorrow. From the looks of things I am going in quite confidently to this interview. I was approached and asked to apply so if I do not receive the job, I will be upset and surprised. After the mall trip Tim and I drove up over to Bryan Park where we watched the Carolina women's soccer team, who won the National Title, take on a team from the new women's professional league. We came back and I relaxed for the rest of the night. Saturday was supposed to bring along with it a soccer game but due to some adverse field circumstances that game has been rescheduled. Mary-Neil and I spent the day together running around Greensboro and watching basketball. We each have a bracket in her mom's pool so we are having a fun little competition amongst ourselves to see who will do better. That was the extent of the day. I slept in until noon so once we were done at the mall and watching basketball it was considerably late. Sunday meant the arrival of my parents and finally, a soccer game. Mary-Neil spent the day with us as we went to get my hair cut, had my soccer game, and went shopping for some groceries for my dorm room. Those groceries were much needed since I have not had any since the week before spring break began. After all of those events we went out to dinner at the Olive Garden. As always, it was a delicious meal. It was great spending the day with my family and girlfriend all together. I also found out this weekend that I may have the privilege of having Mary-Neil go to the Outer Banks with me for a week over the summer. This was very exciting news and I am very hopeful that all works out and she is able to go. That concluded the weekend for me. My parents dropped us back off at the dorm and headed for Mooresville. Today I got up and went to class as usual then came back to my room to type my Freshman Seminar blog. Once that was completed I went to soccer where we played full field for the first time all semester. It was of course the day after I had played a game of my own. Since we won our game 10-0 and only played about 15 minutes of the second half it was not too bad. Then it was time for Freshman Seminar where we had another guest speaker. Afterwards Tim and I went to dinner at the cafeteria and then came back to my room and relaxed until my intramural soccer game. I had ti play keeper and my team is not all that string so that was interesting to say the least. Of course I got hit in the face and have a major headache now, but that comes with the territory. I got a good bit of work done tonight, including most of my BCN 102 quiz study guide and looked over my Junior Achievement material for this Friday. I am going to try and get some sleep before my eight a.m. dance class now. God Bless!!

Record Breaking Day

Arising before the sun again was as upsetting as it was on Tuesday. Little did I know, the day was going to turn out excellent. I went to dance at eight o'clock as usual where we had our exam and presentations of our dances. It went very well and I feel I did excellent on both the written and presentational sections of the exam. Afterwards, having risen before the sun, I returned to my room, and once again slept until noon. Dad called and asked me if I was going to the Carolina game at the coliseum and I had not made up my mind yet. When he called I was in the process of contemplating whether or not I was going to attempt to acquire tickets. His call was motivation to head for the game. I arrived at the coliseum, parked my car, and bought a 65 dollar ticket off of a scalper for 35 dollars. It was a steal, and I was in the gate. It was now time to relax for a while, by myself, and enjoy some quality basketball. I took numerous pictures and enjoyed the game immensely. I am looking forward to watching the rest of the championship run by my Tarheels and claiming that I went to a tournament game the year they won the title. After the game I headed back to school, changed my clothes, and headed for Urban Ministry to volunteer. I volunteered from six until nine then returned back to school. I got a quality spot in the baseball lot and was excited I did not have to walk too far to get back. As soon as I got in my room Mary-Neil called for me to park her car. I park her car for her on a regular basis and I am fine with that because I do not want her to have to walk across campus alone at night. Only problem tonight was that I had to park mine and hers car back to back. I parked it and returned to my room where I have been messing around on my computer. I am now going to watch some more basketball and go to bed. God Bless!!

Much Better Day!!

After my dreadful day yesterday, today was as good as anyone could have asked for. I had all five of my classes which was welcomed for a change. By having all of my classes I was able to keep my mind focused on school and not wonder of into thought about other things like I have been doing of late. It was a busy day that began with Communications. We spoke in front of the class about our favorite childhood cartoon and then discussed how to prepare our informative speech which will be given within the next few weeks. It was then off to take my BCN 100 quiz which I feel pretty confident about. After I finished Mary-Neil and I went and grabbed a bite to eat before I headed back for my BCN 102 class. After 102 I returned to my room and relaxed for a little while before going to soccer. Soccer was excellent due to the superb weather and great field conditions. We played a half-field length scrimmage and for the first time I actually worked up a sweat in that class. Once class was over it was time to head to Freshman Seminar and turn in the Virtual Community paper we have been working on for some time. For the first time this semester the class went by relatively quickly. We had a guest speaker and she did a great job of keeping us entertained and used a lot of class interaction to keep us focused. We all went to eat dinner after class and then it was back to my room where I have been ever since. I worked out on my own in my room for a little while and watched the Bobcats game. Tomorrow I will begin watching the NCAA Tournament intently until its conclusion. I am aiming for the top prize in Debby's pool this year. Almost forgot, yesterday I applied to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. I now have an application in there and at Chapel Hill. We will see what happens with those two applications and find out where I will be headed next year. I have not had the greatest experience here at UNCG and need a change of scenery. I am pleased that today was a better day and I now have to get to sleep so I can awake in the morning and have enough energy to perform my dance in class for a grade. It is going to be interesting, but I believe I have got the hang of it after a few minutes of practice in the Pit with Kendall this afternoon. Hope all is well. God Bless!!

The day began early, but it almost did not begin at all. Waking up before sunrise was not on my checklist of things to do for the day, but it happened anyways. Seven o'clock rolled around before I knew it and it was time to rise and shine for dance class. I was not at all ready to get out of bed so of course I fell back to sleep. I suddenly woke up and panicked at the thought that I had overslept and missed class. It was 7:40 which left me just enough time to throw on some athletic wear and walk to the dance building for class. After class, still being exhausted of course, I fell back to sleep. I did not arise until noon today and it was some much needed sleep. I am still quite tired of course, but none the less it gave me the strength I needed to make it through the day. After I woke I went to lunch with Tim and Mary-Neil where we were going to study for our nutrition exam while eating. We decided to come back to the dorm and study, but placing me within the vicinity of my bed today was not a good idea at all. I decided not to study, and laid back down in my bed for about an hour until it was time to go and take the exam. I did not study for the exam at all so I am sure the grade is going to be lovely. The way the day went, I really could care less about this particular exam. I have been studying for my BCN 100 quiz tomorrow though and look to get school back on track the rest of this semester after this rough start back from break. I have been doing a lot of thinking the past few weeks and it has been driving me crazy. I am just ready for everything to settle down so I can once again focus on my school work and try and get everything else on the right path as well. i know it is all going to work out and I have talked to numerous people about it today. the best advice i got was from my old roommate CJ Chavis. I talked with him for about 3o minutes today and he gave me some wonderful advice that has influenced my decision to try and get school back on track and not enlist in the military. It was that one conversation that really changed my plans as i had previously called my mom and told her I was going to enlist in the near future. I know that God has a plan for me and he told me to call CJ which was the best thing that has happened since all of this began bothering me some time ago. I thank everyone for their support and hope everyone is doing okay back at home. God Bless!!

Would'nt Change A Thing

Well, due to the circumstances, my blogging was put on hold temporarily while I was enjoying myself at the beach over Spring Break. I am glad to be back on and keeping everyone informed again but I am not excited to be back at school knowing that Spring Break has come and gone. All of the build up and suspense, then it suddenly comes crashing down once the week is over. To fill you in on the week I will begin with last Friday(the 6th). We had all been anticipating the arrival of our first college Spring Break that we could not stand it. We all left once we got out of class around two and reality set in for us. We were actually going to get this vacation underway after all. We got to the beach and had to open up the house. We did this as a team which made it much easier than I had anticipated it being. We got settled in and enjoyed a good nights sleep after our long day. It is ridiculous how anticipation and a car ride can physically drain your body. We spent the first day out in the beach enjoying the wonderful weather that we were blessed enough to have for the majority of our trip. Being the only one who had ever been to the Outer Banks i was not anticipating the warmth that we had on the first few days. We hit an astonishing 80 degrees on our third day. Needless to say we all got our fair share of sun. Being at the beach was relaxing and it felt good to have the worries of work and school pushed to the side for a little while. On Wednesday we all piled in my car and took the trip over to Ocracoke. Since it is a tourist island a lot of the attractions were closed because this is not tourist season. We made due with what we had and enjoyed our meal at Howard's Pub. We also went and ate at Pop's on Friday for dinner. I had been talking up the food there for a few weeks and was a bit nervous as to what everyone was going to think. To my amazement every single person thought that the food they ordered was the best they had ever tasted. Tim and Jay were going bonkers over the burgers they ordered while Kimberly ate her lightly breaded shrimp with excitement. Of course I ordered the famous Spicy Steamed Shrimp and split a pound with Mary-Neil. She loved them which made me very happy because she loves shrimp as much as I do and I promised her they would be the best she had ever eaten. Mary-Neil and I also went to Food Lion and got two bags of shrimp for dinner one night. It is just another one of those great qualities that we share, our love of shrimp. The week in whole was great fun. I felt like I was talking way too much because I was telling everyone about everything I knew of and on the island. I hope I did not get on any ones nerves. I have been going so long that when I get the chance to take new people to my second home I want to fill them in on as much possible. Unfortunately the week had to end but I made and shared memories with my closest group of college friends that will last me a lifetime. The thing that I took away from this past week that I have never taken away before is the quality time I got to spend with my girlfriend Mary-Neil Jackson. I will not trade her for the world and she made this past week my favorite beach trip ever just by being there with me. I know she reads my blog and I just want to tell you thank you for the amazing week you provided me with. I love you!! I am now back at school and it is time to try and get back into the swing of things. I have a busy week ahead of me and two soccer games to cap it off this weekend. I also have a double header the following weekend now because of the cancellations we had due to the rain. I am ready to get back out on the field and play. Hope everyone enjoys having the blog back up and running and I look forward to seeing everyone as soon as possible. God Bless!!!!

OBX Here We Come

The time has arrived when every student has those Friday exams that will drop their average considerably, but they do not care because SPRING BREAK begins post test!!! The day has finally arrived where we pack up the car and head to the beach. I can already tell it is going to be an exciting and memorable trip. The countdown has been long, agonizing, and sometimes just frustrating. Perhaps we began it a little to early. Who cares about all of that now. It is time to go to the beach. As for the past two days, they have brought the usual. Wednesday began with my trio of morning classes. The one difference was an unhealthy Professor Donaldson. This is the one teacher who will always have class and he did as usual. The difference was he was under the weather and my two Media Studies classes only lasted 25 minutes each. Seeing as how that was my busiest day of the week, it could not have been anymore convenient. Since I have also been feeling somewhat somber I had Marissa sign me in at soccer. Even when the class gets cancelled because of weather we still have to make the walk to class to sign the roster. Thanks to Marissa I was able to stay in my room and take a nap before Freshman Seminar. In Freshman Seminar we did the usual, absolutely nothing productive. We somehow manage to eat up every second of that class and not cover one topic that is of interest to me. We did some peer editing after my short nap was taken and then it was time to get the keys to the beach house from lat. With the keys in hand I could almost smell the salty air standing in front of my dorm. I still had two more classes to go before I could focus on the beach though. This morning i arose for my eight o'clock class with much ease. When I am ready for the time to pass it is very easy for me to wake up. I went to class, and then, what I thought was going to be a relatively slow day got busy in a hurry. After dancing for an hour I went to grab a bite to eat with Madison and Kendall. From the cafeteria we went to a speech on teaching and learning for extra credit points on our papers in Freshman Seminar. As soon as that ended I passed Kimberly on her way to the cafeteria, got her keys, got her car, parked it in my spot on Gray Drive, and Kimberly and I rode to get my inspection done on my car. It took about 45 minutes and then we had to hurry back so Kimberly could get to her class. Once we returned I sat in my room and studied for a little bit then put some music on my computer and went to dinner with Kimberly. After dinner it was time to go and volunteer. Originally I had planned on not going since i have been sick, but I really want to get my hours finished and now I have three remaining before I am done at Urban Ministry. I returned back to my room and grabbed a quick shower. I now sit typing this realizing that I have not studied enough for my communications exam in the morning. I believe I will get a start on that. I am one of those students described in the first sentence of this blog for those of you who are a little confused. More than likely this will be my last blog pre-Spring Break and during. I do not know how strong of a wireless connection I will be receiving at the beach so I may not be capable of blogging from there. I will let everyone know how the trip turns out and I will see some of you on the 15th for my soccer game. God Bless!!

Visit from Scott

For the majority of my life it seems I have spent every waking moment with Scott Low. Since arriving at college we do not have the opportunities to see each other as often anymore. This is a huge change for the both of us and when we actually get to spend some time together, it is always a great experience. To explain how much this kid means to me would take a book. It would also take a book to explain how much I miss spending time with him. I cannot imagine where I would be at in life without him being the friend that he has always been to me. Scott arrived Monday around four o'clock. I had a snow day on Monday so I did not have any of my classes. It worked out quite nicely as I got the leftover work from my busy Friday completed. Since it was a Monday there was not a whole lot of options as to what we could do. The student recreation center was closed and the entire city was primarily shut down. Scott, Tim, and i decided we would try and go get something to eat by taking Tim's car. Instead of a short trip to acquire some food, Tim was taught a lesson in karma. When you pull into a spot that someone is obviously trying to back into, you may get something in return. Tim, due to the adverse weather, had to turn his lights on. The unfortunate part of this was that he refrained from turning them off upon exiting his car. This led to the draining of his battery and a late night adventure in the baseball parking lot. Two girls drove by and offered us and ice scraper and a jump. Since Tim's car was positioned with the hood facing a natural area, there was no way for us to reach the jumper cables from their car to his. We came to the realization we could back his car out of the spot in neutral. Problem with that is that Tim's car will not go into neutral without being cranked. We ended up leaving his car, returning to my dorm room, and having pizza delivered to us. Why we did not think of that in the first place is beyond me. When you put Scott Low and Patrick Gordon together, the reasonable decision will not be made until a later time. We like to make things interesting before we make them easy. We ate our pizza, watched some TV into the wee hours of the morning, and called it a night. When we finally arose this morning we headed for the gym. We worked out for two hours and then returned to my room so I could get ready for my Nutrition class. We were on a two hour delay today so my dance class was canceled this morning and we was able to sleep in. When we got back to my room I decided no Nutrition for the day and we hung around just spending some time together. At four o'clock we drove to the mall where I picked up my passport for the cruise. I am now officially capable of leaving and re-entering the country so the Cruise is most definitely go. We spent some time at the mall walking around looking at stores and then returned to school to get something to eat before Scott had to leave. Once he left it was back to normal. I had an intramural basketball game which went horribly wrong and then the Make A Difference Meeting. Afterwards I returned to my room, listened to some streaming radio broadcasts on my laptop of some NBA games, played text twist with Mary-Neil and now I am about to got to bed and actually return to going to school. Tomorrow marks the fifth day since I have gone to a class. I feel like spring break has already begun. I get the keys from Lat tomorrow and know that the excitement level will really go up when they are handed to me. Hope everyone is doing well. God Bless!!

Weekend

Due to adverse weather my weekend took a last minute turn. Instead of returning home to work a few soccer games, I stayed at school for the weekend. It actually turned out to be quite an eventful weekend for continually being spur of the moment. Friday after class I returned to my room and was a productive as one can be on a Friday. I finished typing five papers for two of my classes. I have knocked out work that is not due until after spring break and that is a wonderful feeling to have. Friday around nine Jay and his friend Steven arrived and I was their host for thee weekend. They stayed with me in my room for the weekend and we had an amazing weekend hanging out together. Saturday began with a failed attempt to come back to Mooresville to do laundry. The machines at school that we can put money on our cards with to do laundry are out of order so we cannot currently do laundry on campus. We got approximately three miles into the trip and the pulley and belt in Stevens F-150 decided to give way. We had a small issue on our hands. We sat on the side of I-40 for an hour and a half waiting on AAA to come and tow the vehicle. Once we finally got the situation under control Jay, Steven, and I put the pulley and belt back on and we returned to school. We decided to take the rest of the day off and relax after standing outside in the freezing rain for three hours. This morning we woke up and decided to take Kimberly's car and head for Mooresville We successfully made it this time without any problems. Jay and I took Steven on a tour of Mooresville because he used to live there eleven years ago. He could not believe all of the change that had taken place since he had left. We headed back to school after Kimberly had finished doing laundry for us and the tour of the town was over. I am now sitting watching the snow fall in hopes that enough accumulates throughout the night that my classes will be cancelled tomorrow. Scott is also planning on coming up tomorrow and spending a few days with me. Spring break does not start for another five days but it feels like it is here already. I have one quiz,one exam and some volunteering to focus on before I hit the beach. As for my intramural basketball team, we have our first round playoff game tomorrow night so I hope that goes well and we advance. I hope I can get this illness I have come down with fought of before the week is over or I will not be a very happy camper. It is going to be a busy week leading into the break, but that will make the break that much better. God Bless!!