Fall 2022
My journey here at SIUE has been interesting. This first semester has been a lot about finding my place where I fit in comfortably. There has definitely been lots of turbulence along the way. I’ve had a hard time adjusting socially, academically and physically. While I knew the change would be difficult, I can’t say I expected it to truly be this hard. I made a habit of making and losing friends very quickly. I had a pretty good turnaround rate this first half of the year. The one real thing that has rung true anytime I really reflect on this time is the need for me to really slow down sometimes and think about what is best for me instead of what I want.
There was a lot of time spent with friends that wasn’t spent as effectively as it could’ve in relation to what I was needing to do like focus on soccer and class. I struggled at times turning it work and got VERY behind but caught myself up (almost) entirely in the end. My strength when it comes to writing often displays itself as storytelling, but I don’t have much to put into words for this page quite yet. There is a lot of my story that you could say is “unwritten” and this is most definitely going to be a work in progress. Enjoy a couple photos that sum of this first semester for me.
Spring 2023
At the time of writing this, we are in the second to last week of the school year. Compared to first semester, second semester has gone by surprisingly fast. While first semester was quite eventful for me, I sort of flew under the radar this semester and remained quite lowkey. I have A’s in all of my classes and haven’t struggled at all with late work. I made it a point to myself to thoroughly organize myself at the start of the semester and I definitely reaped the benefits. I have a whiteboard calendar in my room that I update weekly and I’ve started proactively using my planner that I barely used in the first half of the school year. I haven’t made much direct progress when it comes to my major as I haven’t had time in my schedule to take any real science classes yet, but I will start that next semester. I’m taking Introduction to Biology over the summer back home at UMKC to make some progress and I’m excited to get back into taking science classes after not taking one in a whole year now.
My goals and ideas haven’t really changed much. I’m still committed and dedicated to my academics, athletics, and community involvement. I’ve made progress socially in terms of who I associate with and how I manage my time with and without friends; and as a result, I’ve started to settle into my place socially and I’m quite satisfied with that. Before this year started, I never could’ve imagined that I’d be working with classmates at developing a mentorship program for middle school students, but I don’t think there’s anything else I’d rather do to be honest. Adding this program gives me more responsibilities to take care of, and it’ll force me to be even more on top of everything in order to be as effective in everything I do as possible. I’m excited for the summer and I can’t wait to get back to work in the Fall! Below are some of my favorite pictures from this semester.
