Christmas Break

I am already counting down the days to Christmas Break! All I got to do before break is two presentations, a paper, and take two finals.  It will be nice to have almost a month off from school to spend time with friends and family.  I also will be able to celebrate my birthday with my family since my birthday is on the 21st so I will be home.  On December 22nd, I am going to visit my high school and do a panel with other classmates of mine on how college life is going for us.  We will be doing that in front of the senior class to get them ready for college.  There will be a student from several colleges that include, Wartburg, St. Ambrose, NICC, Hawkeye, Winona State, Iowa State, and Northern Iowa.  I thought it was really helpful last year when the class above me did that, so I knew that I wanted to be one of those people to help the class below me get prepared for college and what to expect.  This break will give me time to sit and relax and spend time with friends and family.

Coaching Authorization

This weekend I am taking coaching authorization classes at Hawkeye Community college.  The course is two "power" weekends, starting December 2nd through the 4th, and the December 16th-18th.  The class starts on friday night at 5 p.m. and goes till 10 p.m..  Saturday and Sunday are suppose to go from 8 a.m. to 8:15 p.m..  On Friday, I arrived to class late because I was not sure where the location of the class was. Then on Saturday and Sunday instead of going to 8 p.m., our class instructors let us out early at 6:30 both nights.  That helped a lot because it was starting to be a long day sitting in a classroom.  In our class we learn about Coaching Theory, Ethics, Anatomy, and Care & Prevention for Injuries.  Once I am done with this class on the 18th, I will have my coaching license so I'll be able to sit and watch practices.  I am hoping that I can be an assistant at my high school this summer for baseball, and then next winter take the basketball job that I was offered at Hudson.

Thanksgiving Break

My Thanksgiving Break has been really busy so far and it will get even busier.  I had Thanksgiving at my Aunt's house on Thanksgiving day for my mom's side and spent the whole day there with my family.  On Friday I watched football most of the day while my mom and sisters went shopping the whole day, they even went shopping all Thursday night. On Saturday I went to my girlfriends family Thanksgiving and got to meet her whole family that is on her mom's side.  It was a fun day as I got along with everyone well and we spent the entire day there.  On Sunday, I had Thanksgiving on the Kuennen side at my grandma's house and all of my cousins were home so her house was packed.  The food was amazing at every place I ate at.  I had a great break and am so thankful to have an amazing family and girlfriend to spend it with.  I cannot wait for Christmas break and being able to see them again.

Morning workouts

On Tuesday we had our first morning baseball workout of the winter. We usually have our workouts at night from 8:30 to 10, but now that football is done we moved our workouts to the morning at 6.  I had to get up at 5:40 to get ready and head over to the "W."  This workout was by far the hardest we have had, as we did 6 suicide sprints, and while you were not running you had to do push-ups, mountain climbers, planks, and push-up holds.  It was a very tough workout to do at 6 in the morning because I felt like I was still half asleep.  Once we were done with our sprints, we had to lift weights, and my body was so sore from the sprints that I was exhausted.  I hurried and got all my lifts in and once we were done, without any hesitation, I climbed right back into bed and slept till 11.  It did not help that during our workout I had a very bad headache, so now I know that the next time I workout I am going to drink a lot of fluids to keep me hydrated.

Being with friends

This weekend I was able to see some of my friends that I have not seen in awhile.  We met at my friends apartment at Hawkeye and just hungout watching the Iowa State game and telling stories from high school.  There were about eight of us at my friends house and we all spent the night together.  We watched movies the rest of the night before we went to bed.  The next day we woke up and had breakfast while watching the Iowa football game.  I always enjoy going down to Waterloo and visiting my friends because most of them either attend Hawkeye or UNI.  I usually plan to go down and visit once a month or so.  I know that I'll for sure visit and hangout with them during break.

Iowa State Upset

Last week the Iowa State Cyclones were hosting the Oklahoma State Cowboys for a chance to become bowl elgible for the second time in three years under Head Coach Paul Rhoads.  Their chances were not very good since they were playing the number two team in the nation in the Cowboys who were blowing people away with their high powered offense as they were 10-0 coming into the game.  I myself did not think Iowa State had a chance, and many Iowa State fans did not either.  But they were playing at home so they had that advantage going for them.  I watch the game with my friends as Oklahoma State jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead in the second quarter. The Cyclones were able to respond back with a touchdown of their own to make the score 10-7, but the Cowboys scored on their next possession to take a 17-7 lead at half.  The Cowboys started out the second half with another touchdown to make the score 24-7 and many had thought that they would finally pull away and blow the game open.  But the Cyclones kept battling back and were able to tie the score 24-24 late in the 4th quarter and forced overtime after the Cowboys missed a potential game-winning field goal.  In overtime the Cyclones scored first but the Cowboys answered with a touchdown of their own.  In the second overtime the Cyclones intercepted the first pass from the Cowboys and all they had to do now was score and they win.  They did just that as they scored a touchdown on the third play in the second overtime with practically the whole crowd rushing the field.  It was a monumental win for the Cyclones as it was their first win over a top 5 team ever.  They are a program on the rise.

Penn State Scandal

This past week a horrific scandal took place at Penn State University involving a former Defensive Coordinator molesting young boys.  This took place about 10 years ago, and on Saturday the news about it just came out, as the Athletic Director and Vice President were arrested for perjury charges.  Due to what happened, Penn State fired there legendary coach Joe Paterno, who was a coach at the university for 61 years.  Paterno has the most victories of any Division I football coach with 409.  Paterno had first said that he was going to resign at the end of the season, which I thought was the right thing since he is in his last year of his contract and is about to be 85 years old.  What I did not think was right was the way that he was fired.  After all of his devotion to the university where he donated millions of dollars, you would have thought that the Board of Trustees would talk to him in person about the firing, but no they left him a note at his door step with a phone number on it that he had to call and the Board fired him over the phone.  Now after all of the devotion and service that Paterno has done to the university, you would think that they would have the dignity to tell him in person that he was fired.  Not telling him in person was one of the reasons why students started to riot on downtown State College, Pennsylvania.  A lot of the students were mad that they fired Paterno over the phone and that they didn't let their loved Coach finish out the season, especially coach the last home game which is this weekend and is Senior Night.  Students even supported Paterno at his home and are still doing that today.  Now the main question for Saturday's game will be how the football team reacts and plays without their coach being on the sidelines for the first time in 61 years, and how the fans react as well.  This is a terrible situation going on right now and it will probably still get worse, as I'm sure there is more information out there that we don't know about.

Winter Workouts

Baseball is now in a new season for us as we just finished the fall season a few weeks ago, and this past week we just started our winter workouts.  We workout every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at the fieldhouse in the W at 8:30 p.m..  Once football is done, we hope to be able to do our workouts in the mornings on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Our workouts consist of us doing dynamic/strength workouts in the fieldhouse for about a half an hour.  We do different dynamic workouts each day.  Once we are done with our dynamic workouts, we then head up to the weight room and lift weights.  Everyday we lift we have different lifts to do with diferent sets.  Our main lifts are bench press, incline bench, hang cleans, front squats, back squats, and bent over rows.  We also do smaller lifts such as bicep and tricep curls, lunges, step-ups, etc.  Our lifting usually takes about 45 minutes to do, so in all our workouts are about a hour and a half long.  So far the workouts have gone really well as I continue on getting stronger for our baseball season.

Trick-Or-Treating

This past Sunday while I was home, the area towns and Lawler had trick-or-treating going on for the kids.  Lawler usually has games for the kids to do before they go trick-or-treating at the fire station, and then once that's done the kids go around town and get as much candy as they can.  I went with my girlfriend Regan and her 4 younger siblings around Lawler, and they all got there buckets filled with candy, and the buckets were even overflowing!  They even decided to share their candy with me so I practically got a bucket full of candy and I didn't even go trick-or-treating.  Then once we went to most of the houses in Lawler, we went back to Regan's house which is in Jackson Junction and we got new bags because we were going to St. Lucas to trick-or-treat there.  We got to St. Lucas a little late, but there were still houses handing out candy.  Once we went through St. Lucas, we went to Regan's grandma's house so her grandma and grandpa can see the kids outfits.  They also gave us all sorts of food, and her grandma even sent me a bag a goodies back to Wartburg with me.  Overall, it was a fun day spending time with Regan and her family and going trick-or-treating with them.

New Phone

This past weekend I finally got a new phone.  The one I had originally, I had for two years and was starting to not work.  The phone I had before used to slide, so it had a keypad on it, and after about a year, some of the keys on the keypad were not working, so I had to use the regular keys on the phone.  Then lately, the vibrate on the phone was not working, so it was time to get a new phone.  I was not home when my whole family got new phones, so I had to wait and activate it until Monday at the U.S. Cellular in Waverly.  I had it activated on my way home to watch Turkey Valley play in the playoffs.  I got the Samsung Mesmorize which is a smartphone, so when I got home I played with it a lot to see what it all had for apps.  It is a touchscreen phone that has a swipe method to text where you just swipe your finger across the screen to the certain keys.  After using my phone for one week I already love this phone.  The only negative with this phone is that I have to pay $30 a month for internet access, and the battery on the phone only lasts a day and a half.  But other than those two negatives this phone is great and I am looking forward to using it for the next two years.

Fall Break

Fall break could not have come at a better time for me.  I had two exams on Wednesday that I had to take, and I knew that once I was done with them that I can go home for the week, and also watch my high school play in the playoffs for football.  They won their first round game and they play again tomorrow night so I'll go back for that.  On Thursday I went out to eat with my mom during her lunch break, and then visited Turkey Valley and my former teachers, then went to my girlfriends house and carved pumpkins with her family.  Friday I spent the day at home and mowed lawn.  Then later in the day I went down to Cedar Falls to celebrate one of my friend's birthday with a bunch of my classmates that I haven't gotten to see much since I've been at Wartburg.  On Saturday I had to work the concession stand at the football game, and after that I came back home and spent the rest of the day with my girlfriend.  Then today, Sunday, I am spending time with my family before I head back to Wartburg for the week.

Social Change

When I look at the Wartburg College Social Change, I see myself in the Community Building section.  I participate in and play in baseball at Wartburg, and being part of the team requires us to get involved with our community.  Already this fall our baseball team has been involved with two community service projects.  The first one was towards the beginning of the school year when we help out with a 5K run at the Boys Scout Camp.  We helped direct the runners where to go throughout the course.  The next project we did is that for every home football game, our team works the concession stand.  We have 15 or so players work every home game and split the group in halves with one doing the first half and the other the second half.  The main reason I see myself in the Community Building section is because I did a lot of comunity service while I was in high school, and I look forward to doing even more while at Wartburg.

Outfly

Outfly finally happened this week! I  heard of all of the stories about what happens and to be able to finally experience it was awesome.  The OrangeExceleration staff came running through the halls pounding of the doors declaring its Outfly at 6:30 in the morning.  At first I wasn't going to go outside to hear the President declare its Outfly since it was really cold out, but Christine forced me to go so I put on a bunch of warm clothes.  When we went towards the victory bell we saw a large group of people standing and a band playing.  Then the President arrived on a horse drawn carriage dress up in a Harry Potter outfit.  Him and Rex came onto the wagon and declared Outfly for the day.  Once they did that I went back to bed for a few hours.  Once I woke up I knew I had a bunch of homework to do so I started working on that.  I had to write a paper and study for a test so I was in my room the whole day instead of enjoying Outfly.  The positive thing about it though was that I don't have classes on Tuesdays anyways, so that meant that I would have a four day weekend since I also don't have classes on Thursday. So for my part of enjoying Outfly I went home this weekend to see my family. 

Baseball in the Cold

Throughout my life I always played baseball in the summer, starting in May and ending in July.  When I came to Wartburg I knew that I would be playing in different seasons then I'm used to.  I knew that I would be playing in the fall and in the spring and that the weather would not be as warm as it is in the summer.  So far this fall the weather has been great, a lot of hot warm days and not many cold days.  But this past week was different.  I played in my first 40 degree baseball game, and I can tell you that was the coldest I have ever played in.  I had to bring a jacket, gloves, and a stocking cap to keep me warm and even that wasn't enough.  It was windy during the game so it made it feel like it was 30 degrees out, and then later during the game it started to rain so that made it even worse.  Every time I caught a ball my fingers went numb and I couldn't feel them for quite some time.  Experiencing this game gave me a heads up on what to expect in the spring as it could be the same type of weather in March and April. 

Coaching

Last week while I was sitting in my room I received a phone call from one of my former baseball coaches at Turkey Valley.  He called me to see if I wanted to be a basketball coach with him at Hudson High School.  He told me that I would be the Head JV coach and would just have to coach the JV and can come to Varsity games if I wanted too.  I would also get paid without having to sign a contract.  It was an exciting conversation that we had and I told him that I would let my parents know and would think about it and let him know later in the week.  When I told my parents they were happy about the news but they told me that I would have to find two weekends out of my study time to get my coaching authorization since I didn't have one yet.  They also said that I would need a car to drive back and forth to practice and that I wouldn't get home from practices and games until very late at night.  We also weren't sure how it would fit in with my baseball schedule.  So after two days of thinking I called my coach and told him that I had to turn down the offer since I wouldn't have any time to get my coaching authorization and wasn't sure how it would work with baseball.  I also told him that I wanted to see how my first year at college would go and see if I would have time to fit coaching in with my schedule.  He was very understanding and told me that I would have plenty of other opportunities to coach and that I should get my coaching authorization right away.  I told him I would and that if he ever needed an assistant again in either basketball or baseball that I would accept his offer.  It was very exciting to know that at 18 I can be coaching already at the high school level and I know that I have coaches who will be looking to ask me for a job.

Homecoming at Wartburg

This week is Homecoming week at Wartburg and as a Freshman I don't really have a clue as to what is going on during the week.  I see events on the schedule, but I don't know what any of them mean.  I can tell you that the Homecoming events that we had at Turkey Valley were way different than what we are having here at Wartburg.  At Turkey Valley, each day we would dress up to a certain theme, and also have a list of activities to do during the day.  Some activities we did were Minute to Win It games, Dodgeball, and also Turkey Valley's Got Talent.  We would have the King coronation on Thursday, and then on Friday in the afternoon we would have a bunch of activities to do and also have a pep rally.  Then at halftime of the football game, the Queen would be crowned.  Once the game is over then we have our Homecoming dance. The Homecoming court would take pictures after the game, then about halfway through the dance, the court would have a grand march where the candidates would be announced.  The King and Queen candidtates would dance together, and then they would dance with their parents.  Once that is over then everyone else can continue to dance until it ends at midnight, and then that is the end of the Homecoming festivities that we have for the year.  It'll be interesting to see what Wartburg does later this week to see how it compares to Turkey Valley's Homecoming.  It should be exciting to be a part of.

Having a Great Roommate

When I was accepted to Wartburg College, one of my biggest questions about it was about how good of a roommate I'll get.  I had to wait all summer to find out, and in August the answer finally came.  I had a good idea of who I would get since my baseball coach was lining me up with another baseball player.  I was right with who I would get as my new roommate was Jon Heinsman from Waterloo.  I talked to him a few times on Facebook before we had to move in, and I finally got to meet him for the first time when we moved in.  It took us awhile to get to know each other, but since we were in baseball we were able to hangout all of the time and got to know each other more and more each day.  As of today we are very good friends who have a lot in common and our friendship will only continue to get stronger through the year.

When Will Outfly be??

When I arrived at Wartburg, I heard about the many traditions that it had.  One of the traditions that I was told about was the tradition of Outfly.  Outfly is scheduled by the President and the student body president.  It is a day when Orange Exceleration Staff wake people up at 5:30 in the morning screaming Outfly and everyone meets at the victory bell when the President declares that it is Outfly.  This means that there are no classes for the whole day and you can do whatever u want for the day.  Whatever day Outfly occurs on those classes will be moved to Friday.  This year Outfly hasn't occurred yet, and many are wondering when it will be because we are at Homecoming week already.  Usually Outfly is before Homecoming so many thought that it would have been last week, but it wasn't.  Others thought that it might have been today since there were no Homecoming activities today, it wasn't.  So in my honest opinion I believe that Outfly will be sometime next week or it will never happen.

Being a Minnesota sports fan for 2011

Since Iowa doesn't have any professional sports teams, I go up north to Minnesota and cheer for three professional teams in three different sports, the Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota Twins, and the Minnesota Vikings.  I have been a fan of those teams my whole life and never have I experienced a season as bad as this year for all three teams.  First I'll start with the Timberwolves who have been rebuilding there team ever since they traded away their franchise player Kevin Garnett.  In the past two years the T-Wolves have had the worse record or one of the worst in the NBA, and this year wasn't any different.  They finished with the worst record and only won a league worse 17 games out of 84.  They do have young talent that will eventually emerge and make the team a threat, but I don't see them making the playoffs anytime soon unless something dramatic happens.  As for the Twins, they were coming off of a 94 win season and were the Central Division Champs!  But they lost in the American League Divsion Series to the New York Yankees.  Coming into this season many believed that they could make a run for the World Series, but many of the starters were injured and they started out slowly to begin the year and had to battle back.  At one point in July they were only 5 games back but too many injuries hurt the team and they fell apart to the second worse record in MLB.  By the end of the year they had mainly rookies in their line-up as most of the starters were injured.  For the Vikings this year has just been dreadful to watch.  They weren't expected to do much this year, but no one thought they would be this bad.  In their first three games they blew a 10, 17, and 20 point lead at halftime and lost all three games by less than 5 points.  Then this week they lost again to a team that also had no wins so overall they are 0-4.  So being a Minnesota sports fan right now isn't going the greatest, and like most people, I'm already looking forward to bounce back seasons next year.

First Baseball Scrimage

This past Thursday I played in my first baseball game at Wartburg.  It was just a scrimage between us players, but we played it like a real game.  The coaches split the teams up evenly as there is a black team and a grey team.  We will play 12 games in the fall, on Tuesday's and Thursday's we play 9 inning games and on Sunday's we play to 7 inning games.  Thursday was game one with the coaches there evaluating us.  I am on the black team so we were the home team for the game.  I didn't play the field right away, but I did hit when my name came up in the line-up.  My first at bat was as good as it gets as I laced a line drive to left center field for a single.  What a better way to start the game.  The next part though wasn't great as I was picked off while at first base.  I think the excitement of getting my first hit got in my head to much and I forgot to pay attention to what was going on on the field.  It only got worse from there as I struck out my next at bat.  During my last at bat though, I came up with the bases loaded and I hit a deep fly ball to left center field that brought in a run so I was credited with a sac fly.  I then had to pitch the last inning of the game and I went three up three down in the order.  So overall I went one for two hitting with a sac fly and an rbi, and pitching I didn't give up a single hit or allow a runner to reach base.  All in all it was a great first start to my baseball career at Wartburg and I hope to build on this performance and continue getting better.

My first Iowa football game

My first Iowa football game that I ever went to was the best Iowa game I have went to so far.  My cousin was getting recruited by Iowa for football so he got four tickets to the game and brought my dad and I along as well as my uncle. Before the game started we got to eat brunch in the indoor practice facility, and then got a tour of Kinnick Stadium.  During our tour we were able to go onto the field while the players were warming up, and then got to walk by the locker rooms and see all of the championship trophies Iowa has won.  Iowa was playing Penn State that day and the legendary Coach Joe Paterno who has the most victories of any coach in college football history.  We had great seats too, as we sat in the third row in the corner of the endzone.  Iowa dominated the whole game and won easily 24-3.  After the game we went out to where the players come out of the locker room to see if we could pictures with any of the players.  We managed to get pictures with two players, Fred Russell who was the starting running back, and Robert Gallery who was the starting left tackle and a second overall pick in the NFL draft.  It was funny because the two players were complete opposites.  Fred Russell was only 5'8", while Gallery was 6'8".  So to one I looked really short, and the other really tall.  So to this day I can say that I got to stand next to the second overall pick in the NFL draft, and get a picture with him.  By far this was the best Iowa game I have been to only because I got to tour Kinnick stadium and see an Iowa victory, but also because I got a picture taken with an NFL star.

50 Years in the Making

I have many great memories from my high school career that will last with me for the rest of my life, but none stand out more than making it to state in basketball for the first time in our school's history my junior year.  In the 50 year history of Turkey Valley, no basketball team, boys or girls has ever made it to state.  The farthest a team has gone into district competition is the sub-state final, which three teams managed to do.  Our run to state that year was magical as we got hot at the right time.  Before district play began, we had won eleven straight games, but our last two games didn't go so well as we won a very low scoring game and then lost our last game before heading into districts.  Even though we weren't playing the greatest our spirits were still high because we knew we had a chance to make something magical happen.  We won our first district game by a large margin as well as our second game.  In the district final we played MFL who we had beaten twice during the regular season, but going into halftime we trailed them by ten points and thought that this might be the end of our run.  We were wrong as we came out of the half shooting lights out from the field and by the end of the third period we were only down by two.  The fourth quarter was ours to have and I made two straight three pointers to give our team the lead for good as we ended up winning by ten.  We were moving on to the substate final to play Dyersville-Beckman who many believed would win outside of our school.  The game went back and forth the whole way with no lead getting bigger than five points.  With two minutes left though, we were trailing by five pionts, but we scored buckets on back to back possessions to get within one and held them.  So with 15 seconds left we had the ball and one of our seniors make the biggest shot in Turkey Valley history to put us ahead by one with 6 seconds left.  But we still had to make a stop as Dyersville got the ball back with plenty of time, but they dribbled the ball off of their foot with .9 on the clock, so all we had to do was get the ball inbounds. We did but we got fouled with .2 left so we just had to make one free throw to end it.  We made one and purposely missed the second, and when the buzzer sounded we all stormed the court in mass celebration as we were going to state for the first time in school history.  We made it 50 years in the making and were heading to Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines with a sea of red.  I will never forget the last few moments of the substate final game as I can easily picture everything that went on and how magical it was celebrating, it was the best experience of my life so far.

Dealing with long Distance Relationships

When I came to Wartburg I knew I would have to deal with a long distance relationship.  I have a girlfriend who is still in high school so I won't be able to see her as much as I used to when I was still in high school.  It has been hard to be away from her for so long, but things between us have still been going great.  I'm only 40 minutes away from where she lives so it is an easy drive for me to go back home and see her and she can be able to handle to trip down on her own.  We have been able to make this long distance relationship work because we skype each other every night, text as much as possible, and we try to see each other every weekend.  It'll help a lot when we have our breaks at Wartburg because I'll be at home during that time so I can see her.  My girlfriend has 4 younger siblings who all enjoy my company when I'm visiting them, so I not only get to see my girlfriend but I get to play with her younger siblings who always have something for me to do with them.  When this past summer ended we both we're sure how this long distance relationship would work out, but so far it has been able to work out for the both of us and we hope to continue making it work out for us.

College Athletics

I chose to attend Wartburg for many reasons.  It has a very nice campus with many new buildings, a great business program, and it's not too far from home.  Another reason I chose to go to Wartburg was to have the chance to play college athletics.  I wanted to play either basketball or baseball at the next level and Wartburg gave me the best chance to do that, so in the end I decided to continue my baseball career.  It was hard to pass up on basketball, but I knew I would be very busy playing two sports.  The basketball season would play into the baseball season, so I would miss the beginning of baseball.  I do plan on playing intermural basketball in the winter during my off season from baseball.  We started baseball this past Sunday for our fall league and will continue playing until the end of October.  It has been an overwhelming start so far in the first week.  My first practice was six hours long because I had to go the pitchers practice and the position player practice.  Now the practices are only 4 hours long for me which is still a lot for practice because it takes away my study time.  It's been hard to get used to, but we'll see how this fall goes to see if I want to continue playing baseball or just focus mainly on my academics. 

First Day of College

When I arrived at Wartburg for the Orange Exceleration I was beginning a new chapter in my life.  High school is over and done with and now it is time to move on and and begin my college career.  The Orange Exceleration was a great way to help freshman students get used to college life.  It helped me out a lot because I was not sure how life would be like away from home.  I got to meet new friends at the orientation and also get used to staying in a dorm for a long period of time.  It also helped to have the IS classes because they gave you a heads up to what college classes will be like and how long they will be.  When the first day of classes arrived, I was expecting my classes to right away go to work and begin what we will work on for the rest of the semester.  Was I wrong! My first class was Macroeconomics and all we did in that class was read the syllabus and talk about the history of economics, and the class was only 30 minutes long.  After that I had Lifetime Wellness and in there we just read the syllabus and introduced ourselves and that was it, so class was 20 minutes long.  I was thinking to myself that those two classes were a great way to start off college.  Then in the afternoon I had my IS class, and accounting, and both of those were the full length but we just talked about what we were going to do during the semester.  The only homework I had was to read, so overall the first day of college was fairly easy for me, but i know it will only get harder from here and that's what I'm going to have to get ready for.  I'm also going to have to be able to manage my free time wisely and know when it's time to study and when it's time to be with friends and family.  College is going to give me a lot of challenges and I'm going to have to be ready to take them head on in order to have a successful college career.