It's Been a Minute
Well someone asked me the other day what I have been up to or if anything exciting has happened in my life recently and I told them nothing really. Things continue to move forward just as they always seem to do and just as they always seem like they will but I realized there are a lot of different things that have happened recently that I would be remiss if I did not write about to share with others or to remember for myself for the future. Here are somethings that I should have said when I was asked what has been going on lately in my life.
Since my last post I have studied like crazy for the GRE which is an exam that is needed to be admitted in to many schools. I had tried to apply to a school that I wanted to go to because it is closer to home and is cheaper than other schools and it has the program that I need. This school is the University of Utah. Well I had taken the GRE before when I originally applied to go there and I heard back about a month later and their answer was I was almost good enough but I didn't really have that high of a GRE score so they suggested that I retake it and resubmit my application. I actually drove up to SLC to talk with the Admissions Advisers about this, hoping that they might be able to just let me in if I showed that I was interested enough. It didn't really change their minds so I set out on a lengthy endeavor to do better on the GRE. The GRE costs $205 to take which is really expensive in my opinion. I was determined that if I was going to spend that much money on it again I was definitely going to put in the time and get the score that I wanted and that more importantly they wanted. Thank goodness for google right, I googled how many hours should be spend studying for the GRE in order to get x amount of points improvement. They said that in order to get 5 points improvement 80 hours of studying was needed. That's a lot of time and I needed more than 5 points, I needed 8 points. I figured that I'm probably a little bit better at retaining and applying things that I learn than the average person taking the test so I decided that I would just go for 100 hours instead of 120. I had 5 weeks till the test and that mean that if I studied 4 hours a day, 5 days, a week, for 5 weeks I would get the 100 hours that I needed. Thankfully my job did not require a whole lot of me during that time because I was able to study quite a bit while I was at work helping students. Also I feel like helping students was very beneficial to me as well. Well at the end of the 5 weeks I had accomplished my goal of 100 hours of studying and practicing. It was one of the hardest things that I have had to do with my free time when i could have been doing a lot more fun things I spent the time challenging myself to become better and working towards a worthy goal. Well I took the test on May 27th and when the 4 hours was up I got the score back minus the writing score which I really didn't care to much about and I had gotten exactly the score that the admissions advisers had said that I needed to get.
So though I may have stated before that I will possibly be going to Oklahoma State University I have sense decided upon another path, that being the University of Utah. Some people might think this is strange especially for me but I do feel good about this and I feel that I will grow a lot from the experiences that I will face in Salt Lake City coming this Fall.
Well other things that have happened in my life that are worth noting is a camp that me and 2 of my friends did. My friends and I are all going to be gone after this summer so kind of as a last hoorah we have been trying to go to all the national parks in Utah. That is quite a feet if you know how many national parks there are, and also we just don't want to go there and check it off the list we also want to got through a rigorous hike in the park. Actually interesting fact these friends initially went on the first hike the day that I took the GRE for the second time and so on the way back from taking the test I picked them up from their overnight hike into Zions from the West Rim. They were tired and sore and it was a lot ride back but it definitely was an experience for them. Well a couple of weeks after that hike they went on the next national park we went to was Bryce Canyon. Bryce is one of the most beautiful places that I have been and its just 1.5 hours away. We spent the night at Duck Creek campground, and the next morning set out for our wonderful grand adventure. We had decided to do what is called the Fairyland Loop which is 8 miles form start to finish. I didn't think it was going to be to bad but the last part of it was all up hill for probably about 1.5 miles and that was the hard part of it. I learned that day that life is going to give you hard times and you can't get upset or mad about it you just keep pushing forward and eventually there the end will be and you have come out better for it.
Since my last post I have studied like crazy for the GRE which is an exam that is needed to be admitted in to many schools. I had tried to apply to a school that I wanted to go to because it is closer to home and is cheaper than other schools and it has the program that I need. This school is the University of Utah. Well I had taken the GRE before when I originally applied to go there and I heard back about a month later and their answer was I was almost good enough but I didn't really have that high of a GRE score so they suggested that I retake it and resubmit my application. I actually drove up to SLC to talk with the Admissions Advisers about this, hoping that they might be able to just let me in if I showed that I was interested enough. It didn't really change their minds so I set out on a lengthy endeavor to do better on the GRE. The GRE costs $205 to take which is really expensive in my opinion. I was determined that if I was going to spend that much money on it again I was definitely going to put in the time and get the score that I wanted and that more importantly they wanted. Thank goodness for google right, I googled how many hours should be spend studying for the GRE in order to get x amount of points improvement. They said that in order to get 5 points improvement 80 hours of studying was needed. That's a lot of time and I needed more than 5 points, I needed 8 points. I figured that I'm probably a little bit better at retaining and applying things that I learn than the average person taking the test so I decided that I would just go for 100 hours instead of 120. I had 5 weeks till the test and that mean that if I studied 4 hours a day, 5 days, a week, for 5 weeks I would get the 100 hours that I needed. Thankfully my job did not require a whole lot of me during that time because I was able to study quite a bit while I was at work helping students. Also I feel like helping students was very beneficial to me as well. Well at the end of the 5 weeks I had accomplished my goal of 100 hours of studying and practicing. It was one of the hardest things that I have had to do with my free time when i could have been doing a lot more fun things I spent the time challenging myself to become better and working towards a worthy goal. Well I took the test on May 27th and when the 4 hours was up I got the score back minus the writing score which I really didn't care to much about and I had gotten exactly the score that the admissions advisers had said that I needed to get.
So though I may have stated before that I will possibly be going to Oklahoma State University I have sense decided upon another path, that being the University of Utah. Some people might think this is strange especially for me but I do feel good about this and I feel that I will grow a lot from the experiences that I will face in Salt Lake City coming this Fall.
Well other things that have happened in my life that are worth noting is a camp that me and 2 of my friends did. My friends and I are all going to be gone after this summer so kind of as a last hoorah we have been trying to go to all the national parks in Utah. That is quite a feet if you know how many national parks there are, and also we just don't want to go there and check it off the list we also want to got through a rigorous hike in the park. Actually interesting fact these friends initially went on the first hike the day that I took the GRE for the second time and so on the way back from taking the test I picked them up from their overnight hike into Zions from the West Rim. They were tired and sore and it was a lot ride back but it definitely was an experience for them. Well a couple of weeks after that hike they went on the next national park we went to was Bryce Canyon. Bryce is one of the most beautiful places that I have been and its just 1.5 hours away. We spent the night at Duck Creek campground, and the next morning set out for our wonderful grand adventure. We had decided to do what is called the Fairyland Loop which is 8 miles form start to finish. I didn't think it was going to be to bad but the last part of it was all up hill for probably about 1.5 miles and that was the hard part of it. I learned that day that life is going to give you hard times and you can't get upset or mad about it you just keep pushing forward and eventually there the end will be and you have come out better for it.
I hope you enjoy the pictures they definitely don't do it justice but they provide an idea of what we did. It was a great day, not to hot and we took probably 3 maybe 4 hours to do it. It was a great learning experience for me and something that I'll apply every day.
Another thing that has happened most recently in my life is my nephew's 3rd birthday was on the 24th of June. It was also the same day as a family reunion that my sister and I were strongly encouraged to attend. What a blessing that was to be able to go up and spend some time with Family. A.J. and Choryn had just moved a couple of weeks before and so this was the first time that we were able to go and see their new place and spend some time with them. This really taught me the importance of family in my life. It had only been a couple of weeks but it was still great to see them, and though it had been a couple of weeks it seemed like just yesterday that we had been talking and I think that is because of the connection that we have with each other. My parents weren't there but we were still able to have a great time, though we did miss them being there. The bonds that we have as siblings was not reliant on our parents pushing it. It was reliant on the love that we have gained for each other through the years. The family reunion was great as well, we didn't have mom and dad as a buffer zone but we were still able to have intelligent conversations with our Aunts and Uncles and really see what was going on in their lives. I wish I could post pictures but Choryn has asked me not to.
Other things that I have done recently is Frisbee Golfing, early morning temple trips with my sister, and spending good quality time with my friends. All of these activities have helped me grow more and more.
Well it might not be as interesting as other peoples lives, its my life and I love it. Till next time yall have a good one.
Comments
Post a Comment