Its cold......too cold

So I was all set to go to Walmart. Me and Brandon Hosch walked all the way out to D lot, crossed the frozen tundra that is wartburg campus and made it to Brandons car. The only problem, it wouldnt start. Brandon got in and turned the key and.....nothing.....not even lights from the battery. His car was COMPLETELY dead. I now began to get nervous about my own car, a 2004 Jeep Liberty with over 120,000 miles on it. When I got to my car, the lights for the battery and the radio came on, but it failed miserably to turn over. I wasnt truly disappointed though, considering it was -20 out at the time. At least my car showed some life, I mean, Brandons was done for. Hopefully if it warmed up 20 degrees then it would start, if not grudgingly. It never even occurred to me that on Thurs I would not be able to leave campus, that I would get stuck here. I called my mom and told her about the situation, and if Thurs rolls around she promised that somebody would pick me up if it is still struggling. Luckily at Wartburg, Security can give you a jump if you need it, so if the time comes and it fails, I can always count on them. Whatever the case, Iam getting home somehow on thurs. I dont care if I have to go through the seven circles of hell itself, I will get leave wartburg, and I will go home......hopefully.

All or nothing

There here, finals, and I cant wait for them to be over. I feel very well prepared for all of them, like even the worst I could possible do would be a B, yet Iam so nervous. Everybody is talking like they are a big deal and how hard they have been studying, but I have been approaching them like any other test, except studying a couple days in advance, something I never usually do. Hopefully I can close out this year on a high note, with some confidence heading into next year. It already feels like break is here, and I just want to go home, but I have four tough days left, so I have to stay focused and hope for the best. Thankfully, I have only one final per day and after wednesday, my hard ones are all over. I just have to keep it up, to maintain the same fire I had all year, and I will be able to say I'am officially a college student, my trial by fire will be over. This semester at Wartburg has been a constant challenge. I have had to be on my A game all year to keep up, and to not let any big assignments get past me. Calculus has been by far my most challenging course. I dont know why, but Calculus is such a hard subject to grasp. Many times throughout the year I have doubted my own abilities in that class, wondering if Iam really cut out for Pre-Medicine. If I hold on, and even pull off a B in that class, I will be happy, because it has taken everything for me to succeed in that class. All throughout high school I was told how hard Calculus was to grasp, and even that I would not be able to handle it. If I pass this class, in my mind I will have silenced all those doubts. I will have taken my weakness head on, and succeeded. Just four more days left, its all or nothing.

Last full week

I really cant wait for this week to be over. When this week is done, I will be done with one class, and have three tests to take before hitting the dusty trail: one major calc test, and two normal non-stressful chem and bio tests. I;am really excited to get the week started, and to finish up my major IS paper and presentation. thankfully, iam nearly done with my paper and the presentation is shaping up to be unique and entertaining. As far as Calculus goes, all I can do is study and pray, nothing more, nothing less. Right now, it seems like I have too much to do, but I know that as the week progresses and I get more done I will start to feel better. To me, this is crunch time, this is when most college kids fold up and ruin all the hard work they have put in over the year with one last terrible test. These finals can completely ruin a persons grade, and I do not want to get my grade at the end of the semester and wish I had done better. With things as they are, I feel like I will finish the year with 3 A's and a B, but you never know what can happen. Overall, I will be disappointed if I dont finish that way, so Iam putting my best foot forward to get things done this week. The way I see it, with my current study/work method, i get to bed at 11, dont start working on stuff till after dinner, and still get everything done, so if worst comes to worst I can always stay up late, work in between classes, work after calculus until dinner, the list goes on and on. In summary, Im definitely nervous about the week, but that little voice inside me tells me everything will be just fine.

Cross Country end of the year football (and the pain im in)

On Saturday, at 8:01 am, the annual intersquad tackle football match between the upper and lower classmen on the cross country team began. Cross country athletes, going toe to toe on the frozen tundra of wartburg's football field fighting for glory, bragging rights, and in the case of freshman battling just not to sustain a major injury. All week long the trashtalking was going on (we didnt mean any of it, it was all in good fun), and my place on the underclassmen team was guaranteed. We knew the upperclassmen would take the biggest, strongest sophomores to even the lineups and on game day they selected josh hones and parker comentino, two guys you do not want to see coming at you full speed. When the game began, I took my spot on the line, as lack of real catching skills pretty much guaranteed I would stay there the whole game. Our line took some time to develop a rhythm, but when the first half ended and we found ourselves down by a touchdown (thanks to a score on defense by us), and with hope that perhaps the game would be closer than first thought. But as the second half got under way something happened, our line began to systematically dominate their line!!! Every play, we managed to break somebody free for a shot at the quarterback, and because of this the upperclassmen never managed to get an offense going. Then, we made huge plays on defense, one pick six, and a fumble recovery returned for a touchdown followed by a successful two point conversion put us up by 10 with less than a half an hour to go. The upperclassmen were appalled, they couldnt figure out why they could get nothing going on offense. The snowy conditions definitely helped us, as they constantly tried to air the ball out, to no avail. In the end, we won, thanks to three huge defensive touchdowns (one offensive) and big key stops, for the second time in the history of the tradition, the freshman/sophomore team won the football game. This morning, i couldn't put on my shoes without sitting, and it hurts not only to type this message but also to laugh, or breathe sharply, if you saw me walking you would think i had been in a car accident, but it was all worth it.

Benning Piece

In reflection on the Benning piece, it surprised me somewhat to see the classification of Wartburg among colleges from a religion standpoint. I always saw Wartburg as a rather religious school, with faith being a big part of students lives. In some regards it is, but overall the school does have a very secular feel to it. I of course like this feeling, the idea that you can be religious but not do so openly. Faith has always been a big portion of my life, but it is not something I like talking about with other people. For me, faith is deeply personal, and not something I talk about with others. I really don't feel that this is a problem in any way. Even among other aspects of life, my family has always been rather "keep to ourselves". We dont really have many people that we are good friends with, just ourselves. We are a very close family, and in some way I feel like we are different than other people, and maybe thats why we havent really met many people that we really "hit it off with". A lot of that has to do with the fact that we came from a larger city to a smaller town. People are so fundamentally different in small towns compared to bigger cities, so perhaps that is why we never really connected with anybody in small town Algona.

Being back.....

Now that Ive had a few days to relax and gain some better perspective, Iam excited to start this week. I didnt realize last week but there is very little time left until the end of the semester! I have one project, one big test, and everything else is business as usual. With not even three weeks to go, I can't believe that I will be back home sooner than I know it. This next week is going to be crunch time for me, I plan to complete my IS paper and get started on the final presentation. If all goes well, I will have the paper completed a week ahead of time with an entire week to revise. As far as my other classes, Calculus is hit or miss. Iam doing everything that I can, and right now all i can do is hope that I survive the semester with a B or higher. That is my goal, this class as been one of the hardest I have taken and at this point I just want it to be over. For Bio and Chem, from what I have heard there are no scary end of the year tests or projects, just a lab poster which my group and I just happened to complete last week!!! Getting away from Waverly for a while really helped me to get some much needed rest and recharge for the final push to the finish. If all goes well, I will finish out the semester with 3 A's, and probably one B, thanks to my horrible calculus skills.

National Meet

This past saturday, a lot of events collided into one day here at Wartburg. We had a nationally important football game, a basketball game, and the Division 3 National Championship Cross Country meet. I spent most of my time at the cross country meet, wearing a badge labeled "official" and herding people out of the starting area like I was cool. It did feel pretty cool, I felt like I was somehow contributing to the performances by directing spectators away from the start, thereby allowing runners to warm-up unhindered. I got so into it that I told one specific old guy to politely go to the side like all the others, when I did he just looked at me like I was an idiot and kept walking by me, eventually asking me what I was doing there. Logan then came over and told me he was allowed to go by because of his pass, the only problem was that his pass looked like all the other ones I was now told to clear out as well, the guy eventually said that he was in charge of the whole meet and I felt like a total idiot. Aside from feeling like a total moron, on one hand I was kinda mad too. 1) How was I supposed to know who the old geyser was? 2) Why didn't he mention that when I first said something? As if he assumed everybody knew who he was. Why did he just walk by me just a jerk? I obviously had an "official" badge on. Overall, I was mad, felt like and idiot, and decided to just forget the whole incident and never stop old guys ever again.