anahorvath.com

Category: Life

  • Summer Classes are KILLING Me

    We are now two (maybe, three?) weeks into my summer break and I feel like my online classes and physics class are destroying me. Wow. I may be exaggerating a bit, but maybe I’m not. Anyway, summer classes are tough.

    Personally, I decided to take summer classes through Colorado State University’s online courses so that I could get ahead with some of my business minor courses and other classes, since I intend to graduate in the fall of 2021.

    Currently, I’m taking an advanced writing class, microeconomics, and algebra-based physics. All of those classes add up to a total of 11 credits. Yay me… My two online courses started literally right after Allyson’s high school graduation which was on May 18th and physics started this past week.

    There’s always weekly quizzes and discussions for my online classes which take up a lot of my time, but I understand why the teachers and professors do that. It’s tough to be engaged and dedicated to an online class! For physics, I meet three times a week, for THREE HOURS. And on top of that, my professor hasn’t given us breaks during the days where he lectures for the entire time. I’m gonna need a break at some point. It’s so hard to focus for that long, let me tell ya.

    One of the hardest things I’ve noticed about all of these summer classes is time management. If I thought I was good with time management before, this whole summer class thing is REALLY testing that. I’ve decided that Mondays and Tuesdays will be dedicated to my online classes and then whatever other time I have will be dedicated to tennis and other fun summer activities.

    I really hope that I don’t regret doing what I’ve done. Summer classes will be crucial to my plan for my undergraduate degree but I also want to have a life and spend time with my family and friends this summer. We’ll just have to wait and see how this all goes! Have a good week everyone. 🙂 See you next weekend.

  • Another Year of Blogging!

    • CSU
    • miss Colorado
    • triangle mountain
    • Blogging

    Well my friends. Here we are again. Another year, another blogiversary. Yay for more blogging! Including this post, we have reached 247 posts, a lot of pictures and way over 10,000 views. For all of that and for all of you I say thank you. 🙂

    Thanks again for being here to read everything I have to say. Thank you for being here to listen to my rants and hear about my adventures and struggles and journey through life. Blogging really is just so much fun. If you’re bored and looking for something to do, I totally recommend blogging. There’s really a lot you can do with it!

    It’s crazy to think that little, high school freshman me started this off and here I am now, a sophomore in COLLEGE still writing for the same blog. I’m clearly boot-free by now (anyone been around since then? haha), still have my sweet little, wonderful doggies Marty and Boo, gained a feathery friend (was Bobo in the last Blogiversary??), learned that chemistry is super hard and NOT a favorite class of mine, and of course continued to spend time and love life with my wonderful family and friends.

    It’s crazy to think that this will be my last Blogiversary as a teenager too. The big 20 is coming up in October. It’ll be my golden birthday too! I’ve got two-and-a-half years left of college. My sister goes OFF to college this upcoming fall. I take the DAT for dental school NEXT summer. Life is happening so fast, wow. With that in mind though, it’s important to be thankful for what we have in the moment and cherish it all right as it happens.

    With that in mind, I hope you all have a wonderful week. I’m so thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to pick up blogging and share my life and thoughts will you all. Don’t forget to live in the moment and be thankful for even the little things. 🙂 See you next Sunday.

  • My First Year of College: A Reflection

    first year of college

    And just like that, I am done with my first year of college! Wow was that an experience! Here’s what I have to say about my first year at Colorado State University.

    It feels like I was just moving into my dorm. At first, living there felt like I was in a hotel but then over time, it began to feel more like my own living space (minus the fact that I shared the room with another person). People were always telling me that it was going to be hard to adjust but I really didn’t find it that difficult. I have always been close with my family and I kept myself busy throughout my time at school so I never really felt “homesick” or worried about my transition into college life and a more independent life.

    My first semester, chemistry was rough. I had the worst professor out of the general chem professors offered that semester and had to teach myself a lot of the material. Thank goodness I had a decent high school chemistry teacher. She saved me a lot throughout that class. I squeezed by with a B+ which wasn’t what I had hoped for, but was still incredible considering the amount of work and difficulty of the class.

    Second semester, chemistry was tough again but I really enjoyed my honors seminar on dance, my biology class, and my honors section of ecology. I had a wonderful professor for that class and it consisted of only eight other students, considering that it was the first honors section ever offered of that class. My schedule was extremely flexible and I really loved all of the free time I had in the afternoons.

    This first year of college, I really learned that if you take time to get stuff done right after class or in between classes, you can allow for more time to do the things you really want to do. The work you put into a class is the results you’ll get out. I studied my butt off this past year and I think that the work I put in really paid off. I’m really proud to say that I made the Dean’s List for both the fall and spring semester (as long as everything went well with my finals this past week!).

    Some of my favorite memories include getting cookies from Insomnia Cookies one night with one of my friends, going to get breakfast with my chemistry friends on a snowy Saturday morning, hiking Triangle Mountain with my roommate and one of my other friends, and the countless hours I spent studying and working on chemistry with my chem study group who I am proud to call my good friends. Ram Welcome, dinners with my floor, decorating my friends’ doors for their birthdays, trips to Torchy’s Tacos, and trips back home helped make this school year the memorable and amazing year it has been.

    I’m sad to be leaving Alpine Hall 375 but I’m so excited to see what’s next for me at CSU. This next year is going to be tough but so much fun. Organic chemistry, I’m looking at you! Thanks to everyone who helped make my first year of college the magical, fun experience it was. See you in the fall CSU!

  • Moms, This One’s For You: Happy Mother’s Day!

    moms
    Me and my wonderful mom 🙂

    It’s Mother’s Day again, woohoo! I just wanted to quickly give a shout out to all the wonderful moms out there. Thank you for being there for us. Thank you for being our best friends, #1 fans, tutors, nurses, and so much more. Moms, you truly are the best!

    I’ve been so fortunate to have my mom throughout my life. She’s an amazing, hard-working, beautiful person and I can’t imagine life without her. She is so strong and so determined and so inspiring and I hope that I can be half the person that she is at some point in my life. Mom, thank you for helping make me the person I am today. You’re beautiful, funny, and my best friend. (Also, sorry for posting this picture. I really liked it so I felt the need to post it, haha.) I love you so so so much.

    This post is going to have to be short because FINALS WEEK IS UPON US HERE AT CSU! Good luck to all my fellow Rammies out there. One final stretch here and then it’s summer time, well at least for a couple of days. I’m taking summer classes that start next Tuesday…

    Make sure to spend some time with your mom today. She should know that you love and appreciate her every day but today is the day to really show that love and appreciation. If you can’t be with your mom today, call her or Skype her or FaceTime her and let her know how much you love her. She deserves to hear it! 🙂

    If anyone else out there has finals this week I wish you the best of luck. If you’re already out of school, you’re so lucky. I wish I was in that position. I’ll be there soon though! Anyway… Have a wonderful week!

  • Dead Week Part 2: Finishing Freshman Year

    dead week

    This week is going to be a lot, so for my sake and sanity, I’m gonna keep this one short. Dead Week is here again! This time around I have a dance performance, two different speeches to prepare, a five-page paper to write, a practical to study for, as well as my three final exams to study for. Full plate over here!

    This semester has been a wonderful semester and I was fortunate to have so many wonderful professors and lab teacher assistants. The semester had its ups and downs (particularly my chemistry grade) but I’ve pulled through and challenged myself to overcome all the adversity I’ve faced. I’ve made it this far and I only have another two weeks to go so I need to dig down deep, find the strength to finish strong, and get outta here!

    My experience in the dorms has been interesting nonetheless and I’ve made a lot of wonderful friends on my floor, but I am honestly SO ready to go home for the summer and then live on my own next semester. I’ll get my own space and won’t have to worry about accommodating and bending my schedule to benefit others.

    Dead Week really is a lot about finding the mental capacity and strength to finish everything out on a good note and I’m praying that all of my finals and performances and speeches go well. If you’re interested in seeing my dance performance for my honors seminar, leave a comment and maybe I’ll post it in a future post! My honors seminar is about everyday movement and dance and this final dance is a fun project my professor has us doing.

    To those of you also dealing with Dead Week this week, you got it! Stay positive and finish strong. Stay organized and allow yourself some time to relax and get away from the books and papers. If you’re interested in reading my blog post about my first experience with Dead Week, I’ll link the post right here. I hope you all have a great week and I’ll see you next Sunday! (Haha, hopefully…)

  • Invisalign and Easter 2019

    First of all, I’d just like to say, HAPPY EASTER! Today is a beautiful, wonderful day and I hope you’re all spending time with family and friends, having a good time. This weekend has been another great weekend for me with family and it became a whole lot more interesting with the two pieces of plastic that I’m wearing in my mouth for the next three months. I got Invisalign!

    Saturday morning, one of the dentists my mom works with was willing to help my mom out and together, they applied these little buttons to my teeth that will help move my teeth around along with the retainers. In total, I have 14 sets of retainers that I will be changing every ten days and in total, the process should take three months, which is super cool.

    I had braces in second grade for about six months and then again in sixth grade for a year. Technically, I have a retainer that I’m supposed to be wearing nightly to prevent my teeth from shifting around so much, but it messes with my bite, so here we are with the Invisalign. That’s going to hopefully adjust the minor shifting that my teeth have done and give me a new retainer that doesn’t mess up my bite in the end.

    It’s been weird adjusting to the Invisalign (well it’s only been a day, but still) in the sense that I have to take the retainer out and then put it back in after eating or drinking liquids that aren’t water. I’ve always taken pretty decent care of my teeth, but I feel like I’m going to go into hyper-cleaning mode as a result of this, which isn’t a bad thing. Because I want to eventually go into orthodontics, it has been interesting to see the process for Invisalign so far and be able to experience some of the technology that I will be working with some day in addition to regular braces that most people associate with orthodontists.

    Now I need to go plan a quick little surprise Easter egg hunt for my sister before I head back up to Fort Collins… Thanks for being here on this Easter Sunday! I hope you all have a wonderful rest of this wonderful holiday and that you have a great week. See you next Sunday!

  • 10,000 Thanks

    10000 thanks

    This past Monday, this blog hit a big milestone in my opinion. We reached 10,000 views! To some of you, you may be thinking, “Yeah, 10,000 views, whatever. That really means nothing. Not that big of a deal.” That’s ok if that’s what you think, but to me, this was a pretty big deal. That means that people are reading this blog and what I write! And hopefully that means that you’re enjoying what I’m writing and feel inclined to come back every week. So for that, and for this week’s blog I’d just like to take some time to reflect on the life of my blog and say thank you, 10,000 times.

    I really never thought this blog would amount to anything to be completely honest. I started doing this all for myself to share my love for writing and put my thoughts and feelings and ideas somewhere I could look back on later in life but I never really thought that others would get on board.

    Disregarding my welcome post, my first actual blog post was published June 8, 2014 and it was about some tips for tennis tournaments. From there, I posted about a variety of things, that those of you who’ve been around a long time probably know about.

    I wrote about my two injuries, both to my sesamoid on the bottom of my left foot as well as my peroneal tendon subluxation and eventual surgery on my left ankle. During the two years I dealt with injury and wasn’t really able to play any sport at the level I was used to at the time, this blog and my website were a great place for me to put my energy and time into. I was able to share my thoughts and love for the things I do and love in life here and I think that my blog really helped keep me sane during that time of my life.

    I shared experiences from my numerous trips to New Mexico and also Omaha, Nebraska, New York, and most recently Hawaii. I’ve talked about all of my breaks during school from getting off of summer break, to spending time with family during Thanksgiving break, to the joys of winter break, and also spring break, which I recently came back from. Even just my adventures around Colorado are written about here on my blog, and those have been a lot of fun to go back and look through.

    This blog has been a place for me to share stories of times with my families and my sweet, amazing little dogs, Marty and Boo. And when Bobo, my green-cheeked conure became a part of my family, you all heard about that too.

    From the time I started high school, to graduating near the top of my class, you’ve been with me. From the beginning of my college experience to March 31st, 2019, you’ve been here too. From every goofy, random post about polar bears and my favorite foods to eat on rainy days, you’ve been here and listened to what I have to say and I really, really appreciate it.

    So thank you. Thank you all for being here to hear what I have to say. Thank you for sticking around, through good and bad posts and good and bad times. Thank you for hopefully enjoying what I write and giving me something to get excited for. Getting ready to post on Sundays has become one of the highlights of my weeks and thinking of post ideas has become a really fun part of my week too.

    So here’s to the next 10,000 views. I’m excited to see what’s in store for this blog and my website and the future in general! Thanks again for being the amazing people you all are. Thank you for taking a little bit of time out of your day to read this blog and spend some time with me. Have a good week everyone. 🙂

  • Spring Break 2019

    Just like that, another break goes by. I don’t get it. I’m at school for a week and it feels like five months. I come home for spring break and it feels like three minutes. Time flies when you’re having fun! And it also flies when you’re not worried about chemistry 24/7 (gotta love being a bio major for that one!).

    My spring break started last weekend after Colorado was hit by that interesting bomb cyclone. I got two snow days as a result of that one. Haha thanks Colorado State University and a big thank you to my biology professor for postponing our exam this past Thursday!

    There was a lot of tennis played and it felt so good to get back on the court again. I had the opportunity to watch my sister win her first match at 1 singles for my old high school too which was really fun. Go Allyson! 🙂 Hitting with my dad was really fun as always, and I had the opportunity to hit with some of the ladies at the country club my family plays out of.

    Being with my doggies again for a longer amount of time was also wonderful. And of course, being with my bird was also a lot of fun. All of the the animals in the Horvath household were happy to be with me again.

    I also babysat for two of the days during my spring break. Watching a two year old can be exhausting but man is it fun! Being with kids is just so much fun, even if they can be a bit too crazy and too energetic sometimes. It was really nice to make some money this spring break and it was also just really fun to hang out with a super adorable kid. He always makes me smile and I love that family.

    By the time my spring break was coming to a close, my aunt from New Mexico came to visit to celebrate my sister’s birthday a bit late and also just to spend some quality time together. It was a bummer that my uncle couldn’t get work off to also come visit, but I know that I’ll get the chance to see both of them again very soon, like in May when Allyson graduates high school. Woohoo!

    This past weekend with my aunt was spent eating (we ate SO much food, I’m not even kidding), more tennis, and good company. We went to Denver to get lunch at BurgerFi and I got to try their chili cheese fries which I TOTALLY recommend. My sister also gave us all a tour of Regis University, which is where Allyson has decided to go for college. The campus was super pretty and super cute. I’m happy she decided to go there. We also walked around Denver a little and got to show my aunt the new premium mall that was just built not too far from my house.

    Great weekend, great spring break, and just great people. I feel so lucky to be able to have the opportunities and experiences I do and be with all of the people that I am around in my life. Spring break may be over and that does make me sad, knowing that I have to get back to the books now, but summer will be here before we know it! Have a good week everyone! 🙂

  • Early Birthday Celebrations

    This weekend, I went home again. After my first lab practical and 300 level class exam, it was well-deserved, let me tell ya. In addition to that, my mom’s birthday is this upcoming Wednesday, and since I won’t be there for her actual birthday, I wanted to celebrate this weekend!

    It’s always good to go home and escape the food of college dining halls as well as the clutter and small spaces associated with residence halls. I have a very nice room at school but still, a change of scenery and a chance to get away is nice. 🙂 My dad and sister came to pick me up Friday night and our drive home was accompanied by a lovely snow storm and slow, slow, SLOW traffic on I-25.

    We eventually got home and I was greeted by my mom, grandma, Marty, Boo, and Bobo. There was a lot of good food. Woohoo! On Saturday, I spent a good majority of the day with my sister and we even had the chance to play tennis together again. Haha, it was funny to play with her again mostly because she’s been playing all winter, and the last time I really played was a month ago. She kicked my butt that’s for sure. I really am thankful to be able to play in a warm, indoor facility in the winter with some wonderful people, especially my dad and sister. Allyson and I played Mario Kart too which is always fun (especially Mario Kart 8 on the Nintendo Switch!) and I really enjoyed being with my best friend for a while again.

    Sunday was where the true festivities were. On top of grocery shopping for me, my mom, grandma, sister, and I went prom dress shopping for Allyson and also found my dress for the Miss Colorado USA pageant in October (yes, I’m competing again!). We meant to buy some popcorn while we were at the mall but that didn’t happen. Oh well, the Starbucks drinks were still yummy. The day honestly flew and before I knew it, I was eating ribs and salad with my family and a delicious salted-caramel, chocolate cream pie in honor of my mom’s birthday. And now, here I am back in my room at school preparing for another week at school.

    Only three more weeks until spring break and then before we know it, my first year of college will be over! Time sure flies when you’re having fun. Mom, if you read this post, I love you so much and wish you the best on your birthday. You truly are the best mom in the world and I’m so grateful to have you in my life.

    I hope you all have a wonderful week and are getting a break from the cold, snowy weather. Also, if you have an idea for a blog post, have any questions, or just wanna say hi, feel free to leave a comment or contact me on my new page up above in the menu. See you all next week!

  • When Things Don’t Go Your Way: College Exams

    college exams

    So this past week, I had my first exam for my second semester of general chemistry. I studied super hard for it and took several practice tests. My study group and I worked through any confusion we had and just like that, Wednesday (exam day) rolled around. During the exam, I felt super confident. After the exam, I felt super confident. Seeing my grade on Friday, I didn’t feel confident at all. Why college exams?! Why??

    It was truly devastating to see my hard work go down the drain like that but sometimes you work really hard and you don’t get the results you asked for or worked toward. From what I’ve learned, that’s a part of life! It sucks, but you have to learn to move on and not make the same mistakes down the road.

    Hearing all of my friends do well on the exam crushed me and honestly, after seeing my grade, I was feeling pretty down. One of the things I learned from this experience is that grades matter, but they don’t define you. This is something that high school teachers drilled into our heads but it didn’t sink in until now. A test is a test and I know that I have a better understanding of the chemistry material than was reflected by my grade.

    Also, from this experience, I’ve learned that it’s okay to not say anything about how a test went. If a friend asks about how it goes, it’s honestly none of their business. My grade and circumstances are my grade and circumstances while their grades and circumstances are their own thing. For myself and other people who have been in this situation, it’s important to understand that we are our own human beings and we all mess up in our own ways. The only people we can compare ourselves to are ourselves.

    So now looking forward to this next exam, I’m not going to bite myself in the butt for my last unfortunate performance. I’m going to study just as hard and take what I’ve learned from this experience. The only way to go from here is up with my grade in chemistry. This isn’t the way I planned to start off my semester in general chemistry II but it is what it is!

    College exams can be a real kicker and sometimes, you don’t know what you’re going to get. You do know that you’ll always come away from an exam with more knowledge though, regardless of the outcome. This not only relates to college exams, but it can relate to many other things in life. It’s important to remember that you learn from everything you do and it’s all about a growth mindset. Keep this in mind!

    If you’ve got an idea for a blog post don’t be afraid to leave a comment on my new page, “Contact Me!”. You’ll find this page in the menu above. 🙂 And even if you don’t have an idea and just want to say hi or ask a question, that’s okay too. Have a good week everyone!