Last night some of my friends and I decided to take a break from studying and go to the mall to clear our minds of biology and calculus. We walked around the mall for a little and then sat down to a nice dinner. When arriving back on campus, I saw tons of girls in my hall getting ready to go out for the night. I was extremely confused. Finals were at least 36 hours away and people were trying to get in one more crazy night.

It was surprising to see how little some people cared about their studies. Personally, I know I haven’t started off the year like I wanted to, but I realized I needed to make a change in my priorities and have changed my ways. But even before, I still would not have even thought about going to a huge party during finals. I am proud to say that I was in bed by 11:00 o’clock last night. I am proud to say that I got a good nights rest and feel like I am preparing properly for finals. I don’t feel that I need to go out to show my coolness status.

My roommate has not come to this conclusion yet. I will say she has gone out less than at the beginning of the year; but she was one of those girls last night. She came back and started to get dressed to go out and millions of thoughts went through my head that I should’ve said to stop her but I didn’t. Its not my job to make sure she accomplishes what she wants. I am not her mother.

It’s been over 20 years since the SMU Mustangs have gone to a bowl game and the pride keeps on showing from the team and fellow students.

From the mid-1970s to 1986, Southern Methodist University was punished for its “under the table” payments to players. SMU was accused of paying their athletes to come to the school. They were sentenced to the “death penalty,” the most severe punishment placed on a Division 1 team. The NCAA canceled the team’s 1987 schedule and SMU decided not to field a team in 1988. Before the “SMU Football Scandal,” the team was one of the best in the country. Winning the 1935 National Championship, 10 Southwest Conference titles, 11 bowl appearances and one Heisman Trophy winner, they had gained the claim to being one of the best. But beginning in the 1970s, the NCAA scrutinized SMU by placing it on probation five times and then finally banned from the 1985, 1986 and 1987 bowl games, also being cut out completely in 1987. Since then the Mustangs football team has not returned to their glory…until now.

In the past two years SMU has had 1-11 seasons, but this year that all changed. Starting my freshman year at SMU, I knew that the football team was not great; I thought I was going to see another disappointing season. That all changed when SMU won its third game. I decided it could actually turn into a good season. Now here I stand, proudly backing my mustangs, to the first bowl game and the most wins in a season since 1984. Currently SMU is ranked first in the West Division of Conference USA and has a 7-5 record for the season. Kate Hairopoulos says in her article for the Dallas Morning News, “SMU, coming off its second straight 1-11 season, has improved by six wins from 2008, the best single-season improvement ever at SMU.”

I am a huge fan of Christmas. I absolutely love the holiday. I cannot wait for the end of Thanksgiving, so I can start listening to the music and watching the movies. But I personally do not believe people should jump the gun on the holiday. I can’t stand walking through shops or sitting at restaurants where they play Christmas music before Thanksgiving. I think we should at least get through one holiday before we start the next.

A few weeks into my freshman year at Southern Methodist University, I couldn’t believe that they had already opened a Halloween USA costume shop right next to the campus. Halloween was more than a month away and we hadn’t even gotten through Labor Day yet. Though Labor Day and Memorial Day aren’t as big holidays in some people’s minds; they still exist and are treated as most national holidays. It was completely insane. I couldn’t see why anyone, college students or not, would need a costume this early. It is incomprehensible to me.

Walking through Michael’s – The Arts & Crafts Store on Homecoming Weekend, only a week after Halloween, they already had Christmas trees, lights and decorations hanging all over the store. I couldn’t even begin to describe the frustration I felt. It is obnoxious that we can’t even get through one holiday before we begin thinking about the next. As one of the biggest fans of Christmas, I can’t wait for “the most wonderful time of the year,” as some call it, but I want to finish my Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing before I prepare my next holiday meal.

For my persuasive essay I am considering writing about how parents should tell the adoptive child that he or she was adopted. Not telling can lead to bad relationships between the child and the adoptive parents or worse behavioral problems with the child. My father was adopted as a baby and though technically I wasn’t, I feel like I am missing part of my family. I feel like part of my true history is missing. So I felt like writing about something that I had a close relation with and that I could connect with through personal experience. The audience for my essay would be adoptive parents who are debating whether or not to tell their child. I found an article about a boy who burned down the house of his adoptive parents when he discovered on his own that he was adopted so that he could go search for his biological parents.

As most all Facebook users have already played and become addicted to these games where you have to try and take care of things. Farmville, Happy Aquarium and Roller Coaster Kingdom are three examples of these games that I have played. Now I will say I have become addicted to my fish, my crops and animals and making sure my amusement park isn’t going to shut down. When my fish get too hungry I worry about them and if my crops wither I’m scared that I’m not taking good enough care of them.

I remember as a child playing games like these, except they were mostly for taking care of dogs or cats on a little hand-held device. Giga-Pets were very popular when I was in the 3^rd grade. I remember when I asked for a puppy for Christmas one year, my mom gave me a giga-pet instead of an actual dog. When she gave it to me she said if I could keep my giga-pet puppy alive, then I could have an actual puppy. It was used as a way to teach children responsibility. But now as a young adult with these Facebook games I feel like I’m being taught again how to be responsible. I feel like Facebook is trying to tell me that I am not responsible enough yet to take care of things on my own. I feel like being 18 you should know how to be responsible or not and know how to make the decisions that with either help or hinder your future.

As Halloween is this Saturday and most everybody is rushing to get their costumes, candy and finalize the decorations for their homes. Most college students are just getting costumes and deciding which party will be better. While I was shopping for costumes with my friends, we all kept asking the same question; why are girl’s costumes so slutty? I always said the same response, a quote from the movie Mean Girls, “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” My friends and I all wanted to find something that was cute, that people would know and that wasn’t too trashy. All the costumes we tried on though were very tight and short. Also the costumes only look truly flattering on the models in the pictures, usually most girls can’t pull them off like the models can. This is because these costumes are made for the certain type of girl that American thinks is the most beautiful: big breast, skinny waist and long legs.

I don’t understand why our costumes have to look this. They are somewhat demeaning; not to be a huge feminist or anything, but we do costume designers assume women want to look like sluts? What’s the point? Its not going to make us look any better, in some ways it will make us look worse. I just want to be something cute and that will make me look good instead of showing my assets off to the world.

Pushing for Success (edited version)

Five hours a day, six days a week, forty-six weeks a year: the schedule of my life. I was a competitive swimmer. Even when friends had told me that I was wasting my time and I didn’t have enough time for fun, I knew swimming was one of the best choices I ever made. It gave me some of the greatest times of my life. Though getting up at 4:00AM was not my favorite, I loved the sport and the way swimming made me feel.

My dreams crashed one day, 5 years ago. A few weeks into the season, I started feeling a sharp pain in my shoulders whenever I took a stroke. At practice one day I stopped, got out and asked if I could stretch because something just did not feel right. My coach helped me to stretch out my shoulders for 5 minutes before I got back in and finished the practice, still feeling slight pain. A few days later the pain came back. This time it felt worse. I began to slow my strokes down. I stopped doing my favorite stroke, butterfly. It felt like hundreds of tiny knives were being stabbed in my shoulders if I did more than 1,000 yards, which is barely a warm-up.

At meets, I began having to drop events because it was too painful. I remember crying to my mother during a meet because I had to scratch out of the 100-yard butterfly. I felt like the one thing I loved most in the world was being taken from me.

My parents decided it would be best if we went to a doctor and discover the reason my shoulders were in so much pain. The doctors told me I had loose ligaments. My shoulders and back had not built enough strength because I was still growing. For the pain to completely go away, I would have to wait until I grew but for now I was to stay in physical therapy trying to gain as much strength in my back and shoulders as possible. When my coaches heard the outcome they “wanted” to try and help in anyway they could but swimmers who were actually going to succeed were the priority. I felt like I had gone from the star of the show to a chorus girl no one would think about.

My dad was not happy with the coaches’ attitude. He told me I had a choice, I could stay with my current team or we could find another program. I remember sitting in the black-leather chair in my dad’s office, crying, trying to decide what would be the best decision. My dad and mom both kept telling me the same thing, “Sweetie, we know it’s hard and that you don’t want to leave your friends, but you aren’t getting the proper attention you need from your coaches. We want you to have the best experience you can with swimming and the coaches need to help you with that; if the coach doesn’t pay any attention to you, how are you supposed to improve?”

I decided it would be best if I changed teams even though it was not easy leaving some of my friends. I switched to a nationally ranked YMCA team. The first day of practice at my new team was terrifying. I spent the whole day at school fretting about how it would be. My mother picked me up from school and we drove to practice in complete silence. I remember her parking the car in the lot and asking me if I truly wanted to switch teams. Slightly nodding and saying shakily, “Yes, I want to do what’s best for me,” I opened the door and got out. She followed. After meeting the head coach and getting a tour of the facility, he introduced me to the coach of my training group and the kids that would eventually become my second family. I remember being bombarded with question like “Do you know so-and-so?” and people just being so welcoming that all of my fears disappeared. I knew I had made a decision that would make me better in more that just my swimming.

I stayed with the new team for the rest of my year-round career. They taught me to fight through pain and never give up. I started feeling less pain and attending more practices because I could handle it. The new me, in swimming, was able to fight through anything. This past year, I was lucky enough to get the chance to get my National cut and go with the team to Ft. Lauderdale for the YMCA Youth National Championship. Even though I had to miss my senior trip to stay home and train I was rewarded with an amazing time with some of the greatest people I have ever met.

Though the pain never fully went away, I still enjoyed swimming because of the experience and friends I get from it. Even today as a new freshman at SMU, not a part of any team, I still would prefer to swim over running on a treadmill for my work out. My shoulders still hurt when I swim, but I keep going. I keep swimming because I love the sport and the way it makes me feel. I don’t want to give up when the smallest obstacle gets in my way. I want to be able to show the world that I can succeed through thick and thin. Jack Dempsey said, “A champion is someone who gets up, even when he can't” that is what I did and want to continue doing for the rest of my life.