Category Archives: Schoolwork

Comprendo español, ¿no?

Hola! Me llamo Samantha. Yo soy estudiante en Rock Valley College. Soy de St. Louis pero vivo en Rockford con mis padres. Tengo dieciseis años. Me gusta bailar y cantar. Bailo en su mayoría swing y lindy. Yo he comenzado a ensenar swing el año pasado en escuelas. Canto en la banda llamada Jacquelyn. Mi asignatura escolar favorita es psicología. Trabajo en la librería de mi universidad. Tengo una hermana, Allison, y un hermano, Nate. Mi hermana vive en St. Louis con su esposo, Daniel. Mi cunado y mi hermana se conocieron en la universidad. Mi hermana tiene veintiun años. Mi hermano vive en la universidad de Whitewater en Wisconsin. Su compañero de cuarto es nuestro primo, Eli. Mi hermano tiene diecinueve años.

An Important Lesson

Photo on 9-11-14 at 2.29 PMSo the other day I failed a quiz. Completely and utterly failed it. For me, a competitive spirit, that was hard. I took one look at the statistic questions and knew I couldn’t do it. In my defense, the teacher hadn’t even assigned homework on the material covered in the quiz. So I sat there and turned my mind towards the questions I could answer. “God, calm my nerves” was my prayer. Fighting back tears I tried to do what I could until my professor came over and said, “You’re out of time.”

The funny thing is, I have don’t think I have ever failed before. Not in school. Not in anything. Sure, I’ve messed some things up, but I’ve never failed. One of my job interview questions was “tell me about a time you’ve failed. What did you do about it and what did you learn from it?” I didn’t really have a good answer. I guess I do now. Well, I failed a test because I didn’t do the homework because it wasn’t assigned yet. I studied like crazy. And I learned to ALWAYS overachieve. Okay, maybe not overachieve, but work hard.

Honestly, I think this failure was a good wake up call. A call saying “Hey. Yeah, you’re smart but don’t slack! You can still mess up. You can even fail. But you can get back up again.”

Starting College

So I had to work before my first ever college class. It was funny. My sister, the fashion designer, asked a few weeks ago if I had my outfit picked out for the first day. I sure had! Don’t I look great in my work tee shirt?

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Anyway, when I say my first ever college class, l actually mean my first class ever. It’s hard even for me to believe I had never been in a class room setting before — unless you count drivers ed. Consequently, my first day of college was also my first day having classmates, professors, PowerPoints and everything else that is typical in a classroom.

I love it.

I love not having the highest and lowest grade. I love going to school and coming home instead of having them be the same thing. I love taking notes. I love studying with people. I love having the option to procrastinate. I love seeing people everyday. I love forgetting things. I love remembering things. I love it all.

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I’m sure my freshmen spirit will wither away, but in the meantime I’m enjoying it all.

Wait… Christian and Evolutionist?

This is actually a research paper I wrote last year, but with the recent talk about the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, I thought this would be fitting to post.

Many people know I’m a Christian. In fact, I would say, every person that has had a conversation with me knows that. Growing up in a strong Christian home, I accepted Christ into my life at a young age and I have gone to church every Sunday. I remember loving Sunday school and Veggietales and worship songs and flannel graphs and the rest that comes with being a church kid. But I also remember something else about going to church. When I was young, that something was a sort of haze. I didn’t really understand it, but I knew it was there hanging over everything. It was in the demeanor of others – something in the way they treated my family. It was some sort of cold attitude. It would get heavier and heavier until my family would leave that church and try another. Continue reading