To The Class of 2018

Wow! I can hardly think six years into the future.  I can not imagine how the college experience might be different in that short amount of time.  Anyways...

Dearest Littles:

My college experience has been and will continue to be quite different than most all of the Converse (excluding Converse II) undergrad students.  The May before I came to Converse I got engaged, and later that summer we decided to get married after my first year of college.  If you have ever watched Say Yes To The Dress, Bridezillas, or Four Weddings, you might know some of the things and decisions that go into planning a wedding.  FYI, there is way more to it than you could even imagine.  Since we decided to plan a wedding while I was in school, I knew that there would be much more to college the first year than just studying and practicing.  Choosing to get married while in college was a huge decision, and while I do not regret it, I am not sure that I would recommend it to anyone besides the brave and determined.

I would warn all of you to be careful about any major, potentially life altering decisions you may make while in college.  For you the decision probably will not be to get married, but maybe to go out drinking on the weekends, having sex, changing majors, or even transferring to a different school (which I do not know why you would want to).  All of these decisions have consequences or major results.  If you go drinking on the weekends and are underage, and you get caught, you could lose your scholarships.  Having sex can result in getting pregnant, which makes college seem almost impossible to get through.  Changing majors or schools do not necessarily have consequences, they can effect the rest of your life.  And if you do decide to get married while in college, come talk to me.

If you only learn one thing from all of the upperclasswomen (I don't know if this is really a word, but I feel like it should be used at Converse), I would want you to learn to be aware of the decisions you make and how they could positively or negatively they could effect the rest of your college years.
Best of luck!

Another Blink Of An Eye 67 Is Gone

 As I was reading this blog prompt about time, a particular song came to mind.  At my high school graduation, our senior choir sang 100 Years by Five For Fighting.  If you do not know this song you should seriously YouTube it...it will make you cry.  In the chorus of the song it mentions "time to buy and time to lose" and these words made me think about what lengths people would go to in order to be able to buy time.

Many people struggle with juggling all the things they have to do in a 24 hour period, whether it be school, work, children, or a number of other responsibilities.  Personally, I do not typically struggle with procrastination (seeing what time this blog is being submitted, you might think otherwise but I normally do not wait this long).  What I struggle with more, is spreading my self too thin.  I have yet to discover how to avoid doing this, except for not committing to too much at a time, which is really subjective.  For example...right now I am a full time student, a leader at my church back home, a committed sister, and am planning my wedding that will be next summer...just to name a few.  I have had to somewhat give up my responsibilities at church, as I will not be at home every weekend because I am involved with so much right now.  This has helped me by freeing up some of my time and causing me less stress.

Another thing I struggle with is prioritizing my to do list.  If I needed to read a chapter of a text book and practice, I would practice first because I do not like reading.  Since I leave the thing I least want to do last (reading), I end up hating every minute I spend on it and it takes longer for me to complete.  I always get things done on time and am very organized but I leave the not so fun stuff for last.  When I do this Ido not have the "fun" (or at least more fun) task to look forward to. Sometimes I do read the chapter first, and it is so much easier just to go ahead and get it over with.

With both of my flaws with time management stated, I have two pieces of advice for the readers of this blog.  One, do not over commit yourself because in the end you will either run yourself ragged, or have to give up some of your commitments.  Two, do the not so fun tasks first so you can look forward to completing the fun tasks later.  If you do these two things, it will save you a lot of stress and trouble in the long run.