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Stetson

This week we played Stetson and ended up winning 63-0. I had a lot of improvement from week 1 to week 2 and it has definitely helped to boost my confidence going into our game against Columbia next week which will definitely be our toughest opponent so far.

Personal Updates

This past week there was a pretty significant amount of change in my social life. I am not sure what sort of impacts this will have on my future moods or how I go about allocating my time, but I think that I may be affected in some other areas of my life due to the changes. We had the first of several larger events of the year at my eating club this past weekend which surprisingly went decently well considering our officer group has not had a ton of responsibility in that way yet. I am excited for the remainder of the semester because I know that we will continue to learn with experience.

As far as my physical health, I am pretty satisfied after last week. I thought I may have gotten plantar fasciitis due to both taping my ankle and wearing an ankle brace in an already tight cleat for my game on Saturday, but after some rehab, I am feeling much better. Additionally, my ankle is feeling probably the best that it has felt since I initially hurt it. I need to remember to continue doing my rehab and exercises for these minor injuries with the somewhat lofty goal of being completely healthy going into a game. A lot of little injuries such as jammed fingers, hyperextended joints, and sprained ankles/knees tend to hurt a lot initially, and then decrease to a dull sort of constant pain that lingers for the entire season with repeated bumps. I think that proactively trying to get ahead of these minor injuries will improve my performance in games and also give me a better quality of life during the season.

Books/Other

I have continued the process of keeping up with my readings so far in the semester, which is something that I never managed to do in my previous three years for class. I definitely am seeing the benefits of this discipline because I feel much more prepared for all of my classes and am managing the workload much better. It is a little bit sad that I am not finding time for starting new books, but I am confident that if that is something I want to prioritize, then I should definitely be able to squeeze in some audiobooks while I am doing other things such as walking to class, cleaning my room, or doing my morning and night routines. 

Recently I have been filling this time with podcasts and have done a good job of keeping up with those. It is only about 4-5 hours of content per week that I am listening to, which is less than half of that time in actual commitment because I tend to listen at a faster speed. I do have probably close to 10 audiobooks that have been on my list that I would like to get through at some point, but I am not sure if doing these during the semester is the best idea. I also have to contend with starting to put in work for my thesis. I know that in the long run, I will be much happier with life in general if I am able to finish my thesis sooner rather than later, and the earlier I can start the better. It is more likely that I will mentally opt to do work on my thesis rather than listen to an audiobook when I have the time just because most of my "found time" is currently being occupied by podcasts. I know that once I put a dent in my thesis and even finish it I will have significantly more time to dedicate to reading, let alone once we finish our football season and I gain an extra 30 or so hours a week. 

Gratitude

For this week's gratitude post I want to say that I am thankful that we still have the ability to go out and gather on campus this semester thus far. It was definitely uncertain going into this year as to what the situation on campus would be and how they would regulate social interaction. It has been going pretty well from my perspective as far as trying to keep case levels low on campus which has meant that we are able to gather socially at meals,  around the club, and on nights out. This is definitely something that could change almost at any time if there is somehow a serious outbreak on campus, but I do not think that it is super likely due to over 98% vaccination rates among students, and the fact that our campus is relatively isolated and everyone is constantly testing.

These various gatherings are great ways for me to get to know a lot of the members of my club and others on campus which is something that I would really like to do, and yet struggle because it is sort of awkward to talk to younger students that generally are already situated comfortably in their friend groups. I think that now that my social situation has undergone a change I can start to actively work and maybe have a strategy for meeting new people. This could maybe help to evolve and will definitely help me to make new lasting connections and take advantage of the limited time I have left at this institution. For the time being I will try to continue to seize the opportunities I have to meet new people while they exist, and make the most of these various events and gatherings, because they may not last.
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