anahorvath.com

Category: Life

  • 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!

  • When Your Dorm Room Becomes An Aquarium

    aquarium and ecosystem of my little shrimps and snails
    On the far right, in the last jar, you can see one of my snails saying hello. 🙂 If you look hard enough, you may be able to see a shrimp. They’re very hard to find, mostly because most of them are fairly transparent.

    So you might be asking yourself, “Did her dorm room flood?”. The answer to that is no, thank goodness. For my honors ecology class, we were asked to make five small ecosystems. We could do this in what ever way we wanted to using the jars provided. Other than that the only other rules were that the ecosystems are closed, meaning that the jars remain shut, and that we cannot use invertebrates.

    For my closed ecosystems, I chose to use cherry shrimp, ghost shrimp, and Japanese algae eater shrimp. I also used zebra nerve snails. For plants, I’m not quite sure what my longer plant is, but I know that the moss I got was java moss, which the shrimp and snails enjoy.

    Last weekend, I went home to set up my miniature aquariums and spent a lot of time at PetCo and online, doing a lot of research on all of my little fellas. Ghost shrimp are actually really cool, weird creatures and so are all of the other shrimp and snails I got. The project was due this past Friday and so when I came back up to CSU last weekend, I became a mother to 13 little snails and shrimp together. They were all in their little ecosystems and throughout their time with me, I tried to give them as much light as possible, so that the plants could photosynthesize and provide all of my shrimp and snails with enough oxygen and food.

    Unfortunately, my cherry shrimp and ghost shrimp passed away before I even handed in my ecosystems, but that’s ok, I guess that my snails will have more food and nutrients available to them. RIP Cherry and Ghosty Goo (name courtesy of my sister).

    The goal of this project is to create ecosystems that are self-sustaining and will support life up until the end of this semester. I’m not totally optimistic about how my ecosystems will do, but the process of making each little aquarium or ecosystem was really fun and insightful. I’m hoping I don’t kill any other shrimp and that I don’t lose any snails in this process either. We’ll see how this goes! Have a good week everyone.

    • Japanese algae eater shrimp
    • Cherry shrimp
    • Ghost shrimp
    • Zebra nerite snail

  • Back To School!

    • 2009
    • 2019

    What a wonderful winter break it has been! After five weeks at home, I am headed back to school tomorrow. There are no classes tomorrow, but I do want a little bit of time to get settled back in and get all of my textbooks and materials. And in honor of the big “challenge” going around, here’s me in 2009 and 2019. Ten years does fly by! Anyway, here’s a recap of my first college winter break.

    Over break, there are a lot of fun things that my family and I did. For one, we spent another great Christmas with family in New Mexico. This year we went to see the luminarias in my grandpa’s neighborhood and those were really pretty. Spending all of that time with family was just really nice and really fun. I always enjoy catching up with my aunt and uncle and sharing all of my accomplishments with my grandpa. We also had our annual Christmas morning breakfast at my great-aunt’s house and that’s always so much fun. The food is always delicious (ESPECIALLY her cheesy potatoes) and the company is always great.

    After Christmas, things winded down and we awaited the new year. My sister and I recreated Bob Ross paintings of his painting, “In the Midst of Winter” and that was really fun. Oil paint is so messy, wow! While we did spend plenty of time recreating his painting, we also spent A LOT of time cleaning up the paint from our kitchen table and ourselves. That stuff is hard to clean up, let me tell ya.

    In addition to unleashing our inner artists, my sister and I played plenty of tennis. We hit with our dad which is always a great time and I also had the opportunity to hit with some of the ladies at my club. It was refreshing to play against ladies with different playing styles. They challenged me and helped me adapt to become an even more well-rounded and educated tennis player. I’ve really loved growing with tennis, especially over this break. I really do love the sport! Allyson and I also had the opportunity to attend an open court at Denver Tennis Park, which is a brand new tennis facility right off the University of Denver Campus. We really enjoyed getting to play with other kids and show off our skills.

    I also had the opportunity to experiment with some stuff for my modeling. I am truly interested in pursuing modeling, even if I do not take it on as my full-time job. Recently, my sister helped me take a few new pictures and send some of my stuff off to new agencies. I’m excited to see what comes from these opportunities and how I continue to grow as a person from all of this.

    My sister and I also dogsat over both of our winter breaks and, oh boy, did that prove to be QUITE the job. Four dogs in one small house can sure make a BIG mess. We did enjoy our time with the four dogs, but oh my goodness, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to step foot in that house again. The male dogs fought frequently and it was a stressful situation to be in a lot of the time my sister and I went over to check on the dogs. Like I said though, we really enjoyed being able to help our neighbors out and I’m glad that all of the dogs are happy and healthy!

    And just like that, my winter break was over. Another Christmas and New Year celebration flew by and I now sit here writing this blog about how I go back to school tomorrow. Back to the grind! Have a good week everyone. 🙂

  • New Year’s Resolutions and Bob Ross Paintings

    resolutions

    I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I’d like to wish you all a very happy upcoming new year. 2019 is going to be a good one! My sister sure seems to think so considering that she graduates from high school. 🙂 For this upcoming year, there are a couple of resolutions I would like to make for myself. Most of my resolutions revolve around my personal appearance because that’s something that I really haven’t been happy with in the past. I’ve been working out really hard during my time at college and I have seen results losing around 15 lbs, but I know I can work even harder to really strive for the body I want.

    My first resolution, as sort of mentioned above revolves around my physical appearance. For those of you who have been around my blog for a long time, you will know that I dealt with foot and ankle injuries for two years and gained a lot of weight as a result of sitting for so long. I went from being a tri-sport, 125 lb girl to 160 lb person who felt unhappy and embarrassed with my appearance. For how active I used to be, I was disappointed with what I had become and I really wanted to change that. I personally feel like I became really unhealthy then, both physically and mentally, and I am still working to improve that.

    For this year, I would love to finally be happy with my body. With this in mind, the goal is to be healthy, not to lose weight. I’ve found that if I focus on the numbers, I become discouraged or frustrated and that puts me in a bad place. If I focus more on the various workouts I do and the foods I eat and an overall change to have a healthier lifestyle, I think that the changes I make will become more permanent and better for me mentally and physically. By keeping my mind happy and keeping workouts fun but challenging, I know that I can stick to this resolution.

    Another resolution I have is to experiment more with my clothing. I have a lot of really cute clothing that I’ve gathered over the years and I feel like my lack of confidence has prevented me from wearing what I really want to wear. I really like a lot of cute tops and dresses and I’ve never really caught onto all the short shorts and crop top stuff but I feel like my typical leggings and a t-shirt or sweatpants just isn’t what I want to wear all the time. CONFIDENCE is going to be key for 2019. I want to gain the confidence to be the person I know I truly am and wear all of the cute stuff I have!

    In addition to these resolutions, I would like to read more books this year. Getting ready for college and then actually starting college left me so so so busy and I feel that I missed out on a lot of reading this past year. I love reading and something that I’ve always enjoyed using as a way to relax. It’s important to step away from the screens and studying and take time to enjoy a good book and I’m going to make that happen this year!

    Now some of you might be asking about the title of this post. How do Bob Ross paintings fit into all of this? Well they don’t really fit into the whole idea of resolutions, but my sister and I just got done painting one of Bob Ross’s paintings. We followed one of his episodes and it was SUPER fun but oh boy, oil paint is MESSY! We still had a lot of fun and got some pretty cool paintings out of it. Maybe I’ll share a picture of those paintings when I get a chance. They’re going to need some time to dry and maybe then I’ll post it.

    Well I hope you all have a wonderful New Year’s Eve and I wish you all only the best in 2019!

  • Christmas 2018… Merry Christmas Everyone!

    christmas 2018

    Christmas 2018 is coming in quick! I tend to leave these posts a bit shorter just because the holidays are always a busy time and this year, my family and I procrastinated BIG TIME. I still have so much shopping to do for my family and our neighbors. AH. It’s fine. Anyway, I would just like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy holidays. I hope that you all enjoy time with family and friends.

    Let’s all make sure to remember the reason for the season and remember that this time of year is not about the gifts even though that does make the season much more fun. It’s more important to give during the holidays and make memories with family and friends. Thanks again to all of you for taking time to read my blog and check out my website. I really appreciate you being here and can’t wait to see where this next year takes us all! Once again, I hope your Christmas 2018 is wonderful. Have a great day! 🙂

  • Done With First Semester!

    By now, some of you are probably sick of hearing about my school life and all of the hullabaloo leading up to this past week. Sorry to disappoint you if that’s the case, but I promise, this is the last one of it’s kind for a while! Finals week was rough, but I made it and my wonderful five week break has begun! It’s really crazy to think about how fast this first semester flew by.

    It only seems as if I was at Ram Welcome (which is CSU’s big orientation before the first week of school for new students) was yesterday! I feel like was just moving in and honestly, I’ll be moving out of my room before you know it.

    This past week I only had two actual finals, which was SUPER DUPER nice. I had a final for my chemistry lecture and for my honors biology lecture. Both were manageable and even though I didn’t get the grade I wanted on my chemistry final, I still made the Dean’s List which I am extremely proud of. 🙂 I studied really hard and worked my butt off this semester to make sure I start college on the right foot and I can see that the hard work I put in paid off. It’s important to start off strong in your first semester of college (I’m talking to all of you high school seniors getting ready to go to college soon)!

    And what would finals week be without getting sick. Haha, boy did I get the rough end of it. The week before finals week, I was definitely getting sick and I COULD FEEL IT. My sinuses hurt and I was coughing and feeling cold all the time. I did all I could to not get sick during finals week, but that still didn’t keep the yuck away. Eventually, I got SUPER sick and the night before my biology final was a real fun one. Can you sense the sarcasm? We’ll just say that I spent a lot of time in the bathroom that night, and what really sucks is that I have a communal bathroom and I was also playing the “don’t wake your roommate” game. I spent a lot of time in bed before my biology final that same night and thank goodness I was feeling well enough to trek across campus then. Yikes. The stomach bug is not a nice thing.

    It’s been nice to be home the last couple of days and I look forward to the wonderful time I get to spend with family and friends over these next couple of weeks. Cheers to first semester and I can’t wait to see what college holds for me next!

  • Done With Dead Week

    dead week

    This past week was ROUGH. Wow. I had a 12 page lab report to write, a 10 page paper to also write, a genetics disease presentation to prepare, and a pile of chemistry homework to complete. On top of that, I have two finals to study for. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with dead week.

    For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, dead week is lovely name given to the week before finals in college. This is typically where final papers, presentations, and speeches occur so it’s awful. On top of this professors are all trying to cram in that last little bit of information to make your brains actually explode.  

    As usual, I managed to get sick the week before finals.  I think that’s stress-related and probably also ties into the fact that I’ve been running on very little sleep lately. This all seems so perfect with dead week. Being sick makes me feel like I’m dying sometimes because of all the coughing and sinus pain and throat pain. So much fun, haha. I’m ready for a six-week long break. At this point I know I deserve it and I bet many other of you college students out there can relate. I just need a long break from dining hall food, my dorm, and campus itself. I love my school and all of the people I’ve met but this break will actually save me from going insane. 🙂 Hopefully people can relate to this. 

    After my two finals are done, I’m done with my first semester of college! Oh my goodness, that flew by! I’m almost there and so are you college kids out there reading this! Best of luck to you all on finals. You’re all going to do so well! Stay healthy, stay strong, and let’s get this semester done!

  • A Much Needed Break

    A much needed break

    That was a WONDERFUL break, oh my goodness. I hope you all enjoyed time with family and friends this past week, and especially on Thanksgiving. I sure know I did!

    When I first got home from school last weekend, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Marty, Boo, or Bobo so excited. I’ve been home for weekends, but I think they could tell I was staying for a longer period of time, which was adorable. My mom, dad, and sister, were excited too of course! I really missed seeing them every day. 🙂 I love my family and I’m so glad I chose to attend an in-state college. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t come home on weekends.

    At the beginning of the week, I got back into the swing of tennis which was amazing. I played like I haven’t played in a few weeks so it was quite the scene, but I enjoyed it. Hitting with my dad and sister again was so much fun. Just in general, not having to think about chemistry and my typical pile of homework was FUN!

    As usual, my family and I went to New Mexico to spend time with my aunt, uncle, and grandpa for Thanksgiving which is always a great time. I’m sad we had to come back early this time around though. The weather was crummy yesterday and I had to be back to school today, so we drove back yesterday.

    The time I get to spend with family is always great though. Even though it’s short, we make the most of it. Thanksgiving itself was filled with A LOT of great food and of course, my favorite, pumpkin pie. I get a little too excited for dessert on Thanksgiving because I absolutely love pumpkin pie. I’m pretty sure I ate an entire pumpkin pie by myself throughout my weekend in New Mexico. My family and I played fun games, ate some more, went on a ride with my grandpa (he loves going out to see the airport), and caught up with my aunt and uncle.

    And of course, there was homework for me to do too. I had a speech to write, project to watercolor, and a gigantic post lab to finish for my chemistry lab. I got it all done, but doing homework over break really sucks. I can’t wait for winter break! There will be no homework for six whole weeks and when I come back to school, I’ll be in totally different classes. I’m pumped.

    Only two more weeks til finals and then it’s winter break! Once again, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and if you were on break, I hope you enjoyed that too. 🙂 Have a great week everyone, and remember to find something to be thankful for every day.

  • Thankful

    thankful

    Thank God this past week is over! Wow was that rough. All of my professors and TA’s decided this week was the best week to turn in papers and lab reports and also take exams. I’m SO glad it’s over.

    As we approach Thanksgiving, once again, I just wanted to take some time to talk to you all about the importance of being thankful. When I say this, I don’t mean that we just need to be thankful on Thanksgiving. Being thankful for EVERYTHING is important on a daily basis. There is so much that we take for granted from day-to-day, and that’s not how life should be at all. It’s a miracle that I’m sitting here writing this blog to you all and it’s a miracle that you’re sitting on the other end reading it! 

    Throughout the month, I’ve taken time to reflect on what I’m thankful for every day. I was really wanting to add this list up to 30, for each day of November, but I feel like this is something I’ll continue doing anyway. By taking time to recognize all the good in my life, I feel like there’s really not a lot I can complain about! 

    Here are 18 things I’m thankful for:

    1. It’s November! This year has really flown by.
    2. The fact that I get to help my mom volunteer at COMOM tomorrow.
    3. My mom who helps keep my teeth in good shape and a family that can afford dental care.
    4. Time with family, especially my health and ability to play tennis with my dad and sister 🙂
    5. Pre-dental club and wax whittling (I’m a dork)
    6. The fact that I can handle an honors section biology class. I’m also extremely thankful for Harry Potter and that entire world. In my honors seminar on children’s literature we are reading Harry Potter and I love it way too much. Proud Gryffindor 🙂
    7. Wednesdays. It’s almost the end of the week!
    8. Fun and cool lab substitutes for my honors section biology lab
    9. Fun emails from my dad about foxes creeping into peoples’ yards
    10. Weekends! Sleeping in is pretty great too
    11. Brunch with my roommate and honorary roommate (I say this because she’s in our room more than she is in her own)
    12. No more homework in my honors recitation! Good meetings with pre-health advisors are great too. I feel so much more sure of what I want to do in my life 🙂
    13. Discipline to study hard and hopefully do well on my biology exam (Thanks Mom and Dad!)
    14. My adorable sister who is so so so excited for me to come home (Me too Allyson, I can’t wait!!)
    15. My lab TA for chemistry. He’s a really good guy and he’s also not bad looking (haha). He’s helped me a lot this semester. 
    16. Getting an 85% on my chem exam! This last exam was super duper hard and a bunch of people I talked to failed the exam. I’m thankful for my abilities to study (once again) and go with my gut. Hard work pays off!
    17. BEING HOME! I missed my family and also my doggies and bird. 
    18. Showering without shoes. I’ve been showering in flip flops for the past 3 months and the communal bathrooms are pretty nasty. They’re cleaned daily and I’m so grateful to the cleaning staff (I couldn’t do what they do!) but the fact that a bunch of other girls use the same shower that I use kinda freaks me out.

    Even the little things in life mean a lot. It’s all about perspective. If you ever feel like your life sucks or you’re hitting a rough patch, find one thing to be thankful for. I bet you that someone in the world has it much worse than you do, so that’s important to recognize. 

    I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week and I hope that you all get to enjoy some quality time with friends and family. If you’re in college, like moi, and are on break, you deserve it! I don’t know about you, but I SOOOO needed this break. Honestly, everyone deserves this break. Have a great week everyone! Don’t forget to be thankful. 🙂

  • T-Minus One Week Until Thanksgiving Break

    Thanksgiving Break

    Man has this semester flown by! It feels like I arrived at CSU, blinked, and now I’m sitting at my desk watching the snow fall trying to not be stressed about all of the stuff that’s happening this upcoming week. I need it to be Thanksgiving break!

    This upcoming week I have a chemistry exam as well as a biology exam. On top of that, I have a paper due for my honors’ seminar (which is already done) and a lab report due for my biology lab. I’m feeling ok for my tests, but we shall see what happens. I would love to hold my A’s for both classes heading into finals. 

    So after this week, I’m on Thanksgiving break (woohoo) and then when I come back from that, I’ll have 2 weeks of classes and then finals and then WINTER BREAK! I’m so excited for college winter break because it isn’t the tiny thing I used to get in high school. Oh no no. In college, or at least at CSU, we get six whole weeks off! I’m very excited. I see a lot of tennis in my future. 🙂 

    I’m going to have to end this blog here today, because I have a lot of work to do. I hope this wasn’t too boring and I hope that those of you also getting ready to go on Thanksgiving break are surviving. Have a great week everyone!