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Last First Week of Class/Pre-Season

I decided to hold off on posting last week since the following week would be pretty similar, and I am preparing for weekly posts at least through my season to talk about each game as they are happening.

Personal Updates

I started with my last first week of classes for my undergraduate experience these past two weeks, and have had 3 out of my 4 classes, with the first meeting of my fourth class tomorrow. I am enjoying my classes so far, with my decision-making class and entrepreneurship classes holding the lead as my favorites so far. They are both very different classroom dynamics which is what makes it hard to pick a favorite. The decision-making class has a lot of the books and studies that I have encountered over the last year on my reading journey, so it is really right up my alley as far as my interests go. The entrepreneurship class is not something that I necessarily knew much about going in, but it also has some crossover with books that I have read, and we have interesting guest speakers in every class which will make it fun and exciting to go to class. The third class I have is about financial investments which I think will be a bit boring but still helpful as I go on to a career likely in the financial realm. My fourth and final class is a religion class about the history of Jesus which I am also excited for.

Football has been going pretty well so far. I have managed to stay relatively healthy throughout camp and into our preseason. I had a minor ankle tweak and some other minor injuries, but am largely pretty healthy, and I hope to continue pre-habbing so that I can try to avoid any injury as much as is possible in this violent game. We have our first game this coming Saturday at Lehigh which is really exciting as I have not played in a football game since November of 2019, and in that game, I dislocated my elbow with only a few minutes left in the game. That definitely is not the way that I want to end my football career that has spanned over a decade. My primary goal this season is to stay healthy and actually be able to play in all of our 10 games, and then a secondary goal is to play to the best of my ability as I feel that my training and preparation over the last year has put me in a position where I will be playing my best football ever.

Finally, another main component of my life has been the reopening of my eating club which has been great. It is a bit intimidating showing up and not really knowing everybody and who is in what year and on what teams since a lot of the interactions with the past two classes have been entirely virtual and it is much different seeing a real human being instead of a face on a screen. It is also exciting because it is an easy opportunity to make a lot of new friends which is one of my goals for this year. I am trying to really buy into every aspect of my life this year which means I am taking my classes very seriously, football very seriously, and with those things, I think my social life may have to take a bit of a hit, but I think that I will have to step out of my comfort zone to try to make friends with various people that I come across.

Books/Podcasts

I have continued to slack in the book department this past week as my readings for classes are taking up the lion's share of my free time. It is probably a more than a book a week that I am reading for classes anyway, so it is hard to squeeze in additional reading for fun when there is so many other things that are vying for my time. I am midway through a book about body language that I am reading for fun, so I may try to just finish that up so that I do not have too much time between starting it and completing it. 

I have managed to keep up with my podcasts which I suppose is not all that different from listening to an audiobook, but I do feel like it is less emotionally and mentally taxing and I do not have to be as plugged in. With the podcasts, I am able to walk around or do other things that require minimal attention and not miss out on what I am trying to get out of the podcast, whereas with an audiobook I feel like I have to be a bit more locked into what is being said so that I can get the most out of it. Perhaps once I get into more of a rhythm with game weeks and my classes I will find some free time to get into more reading for pleasure.

Gratitude

In this week's gratitude post I will say that I am thankful for the delicious food that I am able to have each and every day at my eating club thanks to the support of my parents. This past year of living at home and elsewhere, I often found myself purchasing all of the food and cooking my own meals which, while is sort of a necessity of life, is definitely not something that I am missing now that I can just show up to a dining hall and order delicious food that somebody else will make for me. I also am appreciating just how much work needs to go into all of the organization of getting the food, preparing it, and cleaning up everything since I have the administrative window into the ins and outs of our whole club's operations. I am definitely going to enjoy every day that I have of this opportunity for the next year since I know once I graduate I will have to go back to the adult way of buying all of my food and cooking for myself. 


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