My sister goes back to school tomorrow which means that I won’t have her at home anymore to keep me company. Life feels like it’s in a really weird spot right now. Everything is good but I’m still adjusting to life without college. I have no homework to do and I have nothing to study for. Talk about a transitional stage in life!
I’ll start dental school in the fall so I have about 8ish months to do whatever I want really. I’ve looked at getting a job so I can start saving some money but even then, I’m not quite sure what I would want to do.
Despite all of the uncertainty right now, I feel so thankful to have all of this time to take care of myself. I’ve been able to work out more, do more yoga, go for more walks with Boo, and just relax! In school, I never really gave myself time to relax so I guess I’m making up for that now. Like this past week, yes, I did work out and walk and stay active, but it really was just a nice, relaxing movie week! I watched the new Disney movie Encanto twice and then watched a bunch of my favorite Sandra Bullock movies. It was pretty great!!
For me, I think the biggest thing to remember in this transitional spot right now is that it’s a transition. It has also been really important for me to recognize that my life is not going to be like other people’s lives. I have my own plans and my own comforts and I will do what works best for me! Many of my friends are still in school and it’s hard to see them all so busy and productive while I’m at home. Makes me feel like I’m slacking! It’s hard to slack though, when you have no schoolwork to do. Some of my friends and people I’ve known from school in general have started working and some are even getting married now! I’m just at a different stage in my life than they are and that’s totally ok! I’ll just go at my pace and see where things go.
This transitional time has really given me and will be a great opportunity for me to continue to work on myself and I’m super excited for it. When you can, remember to take time for you too. 🥰 I hope you all have a great week and I’ll see you next weekend!
It’s official now. I am a Colorado State University alumni and a college graduate! Yesterday, I graduated from Colorado State University with a bachelors of science in biological sciences and a double minor in business administration and chemistry. Let’s go class of 2021!!
On Friday, my family and I went to an honors recognition ceremony for me being a graduate of the university honor’s program. The ceremony was pretty small, which we all enjoyed and I got a medal that I wore for graduation from it! There was also cake, and I joked with my family that the honors program does one thing right for certain- there’s always good food or good cake at every honors event. I was not wrong. While it was stupid cold and windy that day, we still braved the weather to go take a couple of pictures with my medal and some of my regalia around campus. After our chilly little photoshoot we went to lunch at a place I really like in Old Town Fort Collins called Union. If you’re in Fort Collins, first, I recommend going to Old Town. It’s so cute. Second, definitely go to Union. They have great food. I had a Monte Cristo for first time there and it was pretty yummy! Friday night, we picked up my aunt and uncle from the airport. My aunt and uncle came to spend the graduation weekend with us and a few days following! I’m very excited they’re here and I’m thrilled to get to spend some good time with them for a few more days!!
December 18, 2021 was a really good day. I woke up when I always do and from the moment I got up, I had to start getting ready for graduation. Yes, the ceremony was at 1 pm but I was at home already and line-up started at 11:30 for us, so that meant I had to leave by 10:15 am if I wanted to be there when I did. Around 10:15, we left and were just in time. I met with a couple of friends before the ceremony and just like that it was 1 pm, my feet were still doing ok (yes I did choose to wear open-toed three-and-a-half inch heels to graduation), and it was go time!
The ceremony was wonderful, despite the fact that I had to wear a mask the entire time. We all did. I’m just thankful that I had the opportunity to actually graduate in person. I worked too hard to not get to celebrate in person!! I saw some of my previous professors from general biology and organic chemistry at the ceremony and that made it a bit more fun too. And after the ceremony, I took more pictures with family and friends and then my family and I went to Ted’s for dinner back home!
It’s crazy to think that my undergraduate journey has now come to an end and that I’m now a college graduate. I’m incredibly thankful for all of the opportunities I had at Colorado State University and I am even more grateful to have met the people that I did. I complained a lot about the rigor and load I dealt with throughout university, but in the end it was all ok. I finished strong and I couldn’t be more proud of the work that I did. Not only that, but I finished a semester early. Pretty cool stuff. And with that chapter finished, I get to wait to start the next one now! Dental school, here I come!!
Me and my sister 🙂
I hope you all have an excellent week and a very Merry Christmas! If you also graduated this weekend or are graduating this semester too, congrats grad! We did it! Stay warm and stay healthy everyone! ❤️
For those of you who don’t know, I’m graduating from Colorado State University this fall! Needless to say, I am VERY excited. So, this past week, I had my last first day of school. Or at least, my last first day of undergrad.
I’m taking thirteen credits this semester in addition to tutoring anatomy eight hours a week. I’m taking human nutrition, pathology, genetics, and my senior honors seminar on the Cold War. Things were off to a pretty good start this week and I’m very excited to see where things go this semester.
We are required to wear masks within all university buildings and there was a vaccination requirement in order for us to take classes this semester (unless we wanted to be tested twice a week and fill out exemption paperwork). I’m just hoping that I can have a semi-normal graduation at the end of this semester and walk away with opportunities for dental school.
While this may be my last first day of undergrad and I’m considered a senior and “big dog” on campus, I’m really not feeling that. In my honors seminar this past week, a couple of the other students were mentioning that the senioritis is kicking in hard and it made me laugh hearing that again. I remember when everyone brought that up in high school and then, I could agree. Now though, I’m ready to kick things into high gear and just get going. I’m looking forward to a good semester and I’ll keep you all updated on how things go. For now, cheers to those of you also celebrating your last first day of school, have a great week, and go Rams!!
And just like that, we are at the end of another semester of school. Wow. I have now finished my last spring semester of undergrad school. Crazy!! I apologize for being gone for a while again, but with the end of school and so much going on personally, I needed to focus on much more. But now I can provide some updates!
My semester finished better than I would have ever imagined. My GPA for this semester was a 4.0 (FINALLY!!) which I feel I really really deserved. I had a really hard semester academically (mostly because my professors were awful but that’s another story) and I worked my tail off to make sure I knew what was going on. So that’s pretty exciting news! Summer has also started and yes, I am taking summer classes. The end of another semester just brings the start of another and it never ends haha. I just need to finish up three business courses this summer and then I will be done with my business minor!
On top of that, I turn in my application to dental schools on Tuesday. Pretty scary, but pretty fun news too. I’m applying to five schools: one in Colorado, two in Nebraska, one in California, and one in Texas. I’d be happy to go to any dental school I get into, but I’m personally really pulling for the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine. That would be nice and close to home.
In more random news, I can now squat more than I weigh. Yesterday I got a new PR and squatted 160 pounds. We’re getting strong out here, people. I’ve really enjoyed working out and feeling myself get stronger and stronger. It’s very rewarding.
Other than that, things have been pretty chill. It has been good to be home with my family and Boo and Bobo. I’ve been able to plant some very pretty petunias and pansies in my backyard with my mom. We even made a very cute little tribute area to Marty. It looks very nice. So in general, life is good! I hope you are all well and I hope to see you next weekend.
Remember that this weekend, is more than just a long weekend. Today and every day I am thankful and grateful to those who have served us and continue to do so. You should be too. See you all next weekend.
Hello everyone! I hope you’ve had a good weekend. Happy Easter by the way as well! As I write this, I’m honestly very tired mentally. When I say this, I speak from an academic standpoint. This semester has been not been easy. As some would say, it really is has not all been sunshine and rainbows. There are a lot of good moments and I’ve had fun, but I’m getting really tired of everything.
I’m tired of online coursework. I’m tired of communicating over long email chains with classmates and professors. If I never saw Zoom or Microsoft Teams again in my life, I wouldn’t be upset. I’m sick of not being able to interact with people in a manner where we aren’t concerned about social distancing or other public health protocols. More than anything, I’m so over going to school thinking I’ll be able to have more face-to-face interaction, only for things to be an absolute, unorganized disaster, resulting in me spending so much time in my apartment by myself.
I’m not here today to write and complain about all of the sucky things about being a college student right now, but I also don’t understand why it seems to be ok to be a bit more disorganized and chaotic now. Take my chemistry lab for instance. We’ve had several labs canceled not because someone is sick but because the materials for the lab aren’t ready or haven’t been shipped yet. We missed the first week of lab because the professor and TAs weren’t ready to begin lab yet. I mean come on!!! You had all of winter break to prepare for this course and it’s not the first time this lab has been offered as a course. There have been several weeks in this lab, where something doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to or it doesn’t work at all and my TA throws his hands up in the air, laughs, and then says he’ll send some data over email and that we can all go home. Then why did I just waste an hour and a half trying to get something to work?? Why am I even putting any effort into this lab if it ends up with me sitting back in my apartment reading through a bunch of chemistry papers that I can barely understand to talk about something in a paper on a topic that my TA doesn’t even understand. Absolutely ridiculous.
And I know, again, that this pandemic has been easy for no one. Again, it has not all been sunshine and rainbows! Things have changed so much and there are so many guidelines and regulations to follow and ensure safety and health of all. I fully understand that. I bet there are a lot of ways that the pandemic has affected how this chemistry lab that I’m in can operate. I think there comes a point though where you can no longer blame the pandemic on your inabilities to be organized and put-together.
This class hasn’t been my only issue either. I feel like I really tried to be an optimistic and hopefully person about these classes at first, but I quickly came to realize that it was not going to be all sunshine and rainbows with two of my other classes… They have been horrible disappointments. It feels as if I’ve learned nothing. It feels like my professors try but all the words they speak have no true meaning. The thing that bothers me the most about this is that I pay for this. I pay a good deal of money for something so low-quality. It’s embarrassing and more than anything its frustrating! I was so excited for these two classes, developmental biology and chemistry of addictions, and I couldn’t tell you one really important or exciting thing I’ve learned in either class.
Being online for most of my coursework and living alone (unless I’m just staying at home for classes) has been a very interesting experience and as much as I appreciate the alone time, it can be really hard sometimes. I’m pretty distracted most of the time, whether I’m working out or doing classwork or watching a show. It is hard though, when I’ve done all that I feel I can do for the day and I have no one to talk to and everyone is busy. I just feel lonely sometimes and that’s something I have not enjoyed one bit. We are social beings and being robbed of that has really taken a toll on so many of us. Sometimes I go on walks and it makes me sad sometimes to not even see another person on campus. Even just seeing another person can make you feel less alone, or at least that’s how I am. At least there’s someone else around, in your presence. And it’s so different to text a person or talk to them on the phone. Yes, it helps to know that another actual person is interacting with you but it isn’t the same as seeing them in-person. In my opinion, it’s the interactions that occur face-to-face that make things so much better and mean so much more.
More than anything, I pray for better classes next semester with better professors and I pray for better days ahead. I’m really looking forward to spring break which starts next weekend and I’m thinking that will help with some of this burnout I’m feeling. I know I need some time to recharge and I’m sure a lot of you out there do too! I know that the world will not always be sunshine and rainbows, but I know that I can make the best of every situation I’m presented with and recognize that most of life is going to actually be pretty good. Life sucks sometimes though, and in these times you really just need to truck along and remember that things will be ok in the end. 🙂 Have a good week everyone. I’ll see you next Sunday.
I go home a lot of weekends but I decided to stay at school this weekend to work on a group exam for one of my classes and something I’ve dealt with a lot this past week has been loneliness. Something that I’ve really had a chance to experience this past semester and this semester so far has been a lot of alone time. Sometimes I’ve found that feeling lonely is ok and sometimes it feels refreshing to be on my own. Other times, it doesn’t feel so good and I know I’m not the only person that feels this way, especially as we navigate this pandemic.
From time to time, as I said earlier, it feels really good to be by yourself. You have only you and your own thoughts to occupy yourself with. You have time to focus on you and you alone. You have time to take care of yourself and maybe really focus on something that needs to be finished.
Other times, feeling lonely makes you really sad. Even if you talk over text or the phone, it isn’t the same as truly interacting in person with another person. Something this pandemic has done is isolate people, whether you like that or not. We are farther apart from our friends and extended families. We are unable to interact in ways we have in the past. And even if you get a chance to be with others for some time, that time is so short in comparison to the time that you are by yourself.
Sometimes when I’m lonely, I feel like get in my head way too much. My insecurities take over and that makes me feel really yucky inside. I know that sometimes it’s okay to be sad but lately, I haven’t liked the feelings that loneliness brings up. To cheer myself up and feel less lonely, it really does help to talk to someone on the phone, even if you aren’t seeing each other face to face. It’s at least some form of interaction and I’m able to get some feelings and thoughts out of my head. I’ve also found it helpful to go for walks and workout. That’s a way to naturally make yourself more happy and free. I’ve found that trying to busy myself when I’m feeling lonely by cleaning or doing homework is only really ever a distraction and doesn’t work well for me. I might get stuff done but it doesn’t make me feel better often.
I await the day that classes are back in person completely. I wait for the days where we can meet with family and friends without much of a worry. I know these days will come soon and that there will be good things ahead for all of us. If you’re ever feeling lonely, don’t hesitate to reach out. You’re most definitely not alone. Have a good week and I’ll see you all next weekend.
See, I laugh because I think it’s funny that I have to go back for more school. 🙂
Back to school again! Don’t you all love another back to school post?! So my classes started this past week but we were fully online. The plan is now for us to transition into our hybrid and in-person classes. Fingers crossed it works, oh boy. I still have a few classes that are fully online for this semester but my university has hopes that with enough testing, we will be able to have a more “normal” semester. I really hope that’s the case!!
After being hope since Thanksgiving break, it’s going to feel really weird going back to living on my own. I’m used to have my food made for me (thanks Mom!!) and having the ability to do a lot of the things I like to do when I like to do them. I’m used to being able to go for walks with my dog often and not have to wear a mask every time I practically step outside. There will definitely be some adjustments to make as I get back into my school routine and I know I’ll make it work. I just hope I can deal with the loneliness part of things okay again. I’m really glad I have technology to help me there at least!
To prep for going back to school again, I did the usual- play some tennis and grocery shop. Not that tennis has anything with getting ready to go back to school, but it is a lot of fun! Lately, my mom and I have really good luck getting food from Target. I don’t know about you all but I really think that Target has improved their grocery department IMMENSELY. We can get a lot of the same things that we get from King Soopers (all-natural, no GMOs, etc.) for much cheaper and the quality is still really good if not better than what we find elsewhere. More reasons for me to love Target.
I hope you all have a good week and if you’re getting back into the swing of things, whether that’s at work or at school, we all got this. Stay safe and stay healthy and I’ll see you all next Sunday! 🙂
Things have been so crazy lately and it’s crazy to think that it’ll be Thanksgiving soon and before we know it, December! With all of this comes the switch back to online classes. Before this semester started, my university made the decision to fully transition to online classes to hopefully prevent more students from contracting COVID-19. Hopefully that works.
I’m all for fewer people getting sick, but I’ve really hated having to deal with all these online classes. I teach a class for the honors program at my university and that has basically been the only fully in-person class I’ve had this semester. It’ll be hard for me to transition to being online for that class and I can’t even imagine how difficult that will be for my freshmen. It has been a really weird semester for them already and so I can’t imagine what that’ll be like for them when we’re fully online.
I’m honestly really excited for this semester to be over. It has been a big odd ball, that’s for sure. I’m practically done with my anatomy class, considering that was a class that I could take at my own pace anyway. I just have my exam on the upper limb tomorrow and then I’m DONE!! My business law class will also be finishing up in the next week once I turn in the last two assignments. My only remaining classes will be my cell biology class and macroeconomics (blehhhh). Having just those two online classes will be kind of nice but I’m worried that I won’t be able to find any motivation to do work. We shall just have to wait and see.
If anyone else out there is switching to remote learning soon, I feel for you. It’s tough but we will get through it. 🙂 I hope you’re all staying happy and healthy. Have a good week!
I just had my first anatomy exam this past week and tomorrow I have my first macroeconomics exam. School is just chugging right along. It’s crazy to think that after this semester, I only have a year of undergrad left and then hopefully we’re off to dental school. I thought about that a lot this weekend and one of the things that I wanted to do was write a letter to past me and just reflect on how things were already so different from my freshman year. It’ll be cool to look back on this three-ish years from now too and see how different life is. It’s crazy to think about where I am right now and how far I’ve come! This post feels a lot more personal, so if you’re not here for that kind of stuff, I’ll get back to something else next week but this just felt important for me right now. 🙂
If you’re into these types of throwback-y posts let me know! It’s fun to relive memories! I’ve also thrown two pictures from freshman year in, so enjoy!
Dear Ana, I’m currently sitting in that really loud chair in your future apartment during your junior/senior/whatever-the-heck-we-wanna-call-it year as I write you this letter. You don’t know it yet, but you really like your apartment and it is such an upgrade from that homey little room you lived in freshman year. It’s been nice having no roommate, that’s for sure though. I remember how motivated and excited you were to beginning your college journey. You were so determined to be perfect in everything you did. You knew what you wanted to do and that has been one heck of a confidence boost as we’ve taken this journey that is college. When we first added that business minor, I started to think that might not be the greatest idea, but it hasn’t been the worst thing in the world. We’re just not a big fan of macroeconomics right now. 🙂 And then we decided to add the chemistry minor… Ana, you are so funny and a bit ambitious sometimes but we’re doing the best we can!!
Freshman year, you thought general chemistry was going to be the death of you but we actually learned that organic chemistry II was the bane of our existence. Yes, it sucked but we still survived! You thought that it couldn’t get better than your general biology courses, but I came to learn that physiology was actually one of the best classes I’ve ever taken and I’m currently really loving anatomy, despite the fact that there’s just so much to know. You were so eager to get into your more interesting, less general classes, and I feel like we’re definitely there now. Things are tough but they’re manageable and it’s helping make me a better student and more educated person.
I bet you never expected to live through a pandemic. That’s fully happening right now. Freshman year, the biggest thing you were concerned with was making sure no one found out that you were the one that threw up in the hallway that one night you randomly got super sick (cat’s out of the bag…. HAHA) and now I spend a lot of time cleaning and have to check to make sure I have hand sanitizer and a mask every time I leave my apartment.
The one thing I really miss about you, freshman Ana, was your confidence. We’ve lost that these past couple of years and I really miss the confidence in your silliness and just in yourself in general. We’re working on it now, but I hope we can get back to your energy and sureness one of these days. I remember that you were ambitious freshman year and little me, I just want you to know that we are exactly where we need to be. Maybe there were things you wanted to have accomplished by now that haven’t been accomplished, but I’ve come to learn that we are doing just fine. Everything leading up to this very moment has happened for a reason and everything is going to be great.
I’m proud of you for all you did and accomplished freshman year and I can’t wait to see what Ana another three years from now has to say! Keep your head up and stay awesome. 🙂
So I have a kitchen now and it’s something that I’ve really enjoyed using! And with that kitchen, I’ve been able to do a bit more cooking than I have in the past and I recently discovered that cooking and working with food is actually kinda fun!
In the mornings, I like to make myself avocado toast, scrambled eggs, or an omelet, and I also add some sort of meat, whether that’s chicken or some form of sausage. I’ve also recently discovered that cheese inside omelets is so good. I don’t know if that’s just a me thing or if that’s something that other people have also enjoyed, but I know that I enjoy it now! As far as how I make my eggs, I have an egg cooker that does all the work for me. Yes, this may seem like I’m not actually doing the cooking, but I still prep a lot of stuff to make sure I get my eggs just how I want them that morning. It’s a very handy, helpful little appliance. 🙂
As I’ve grown in my cooking and food handling abilities, I’ve learned how to cut a variety of different things, my favorites being avocados (I just really like avocado) and mangoes. Mangoes were a bit tricky in the beginning but I think I’ve figured out a system when it comes to cutting those. I was not aware of the flat seed in the center when I cut my first mango and I wish you could have all been there to see my reaction. I thought to myself, “This is one strong mango!”, “Is my knife broken?”, “Maybe I’ll follow the hard parts of this mango as best I can but just cut around…” HAHA. After about ten minutes of struggling with my first mango, I washed my very sticky hands and proceeded to watch at least three videos on how to properly cut a mango. We’re good now. The internet is a great resource for learning how to prep food and make things and I’ve definitely taken advantage of it.
Also, I apologize for the low-quality picture but this was the first breakfast I had in my apartment and I was pretty proud of it, even if my poached eggs were a bit overdone. It still tasted good. 🙂 Something I haven’t made yet in my apartment but I’m excited to make is pasta. I’ve made rice and that has turned out pretty decent so far but I’m really excited to try out this yummy whole wheat penne and spaghetti I have. I have some sauce and sausage I could put it with and I feel like either the penne or spaghetti could be really good. We shall see!
If anyone has anything easy to make and yummy that they recommend I try, let me know! I’d be happy to try new things out and eat some good food. Who doesn’t wanna eat good food? Have a good week and I’ll see you all next weekend!
