Capstone Conversation

One of the best Capstone Conversations I've been able to go to so far is definitely the Winning Game with Adam Carroll. This gentleman wrote a book about how to manage your personal finances and get to a level where you no longer have to worry about money. He started out in college acquiring a lot of debt on his credit card and when he got out of college he realized this was going to be a serious problem for him, so he and his future wife spent two year living very tightly in order to pay off the debt he had acquired. After two years he had paid off every cent he owed and began working on building his wealth. He began investing in stocks that were constantly increasing no matter the market and he also began making his money work for him. He now has the ability to go to his stockbroker after finding how much a car they want costs and telling the stock broker to sell a portion of their stock so they can buy it. That's amazing.

I hope to achieve this level of personal finance stability where I can go out for a night on the town and not worry about whether or not I'm going to be able to cover dinner. I'm planning on working on my financial duress right now by looking at scholarships and making a challenge to myself to apply to one every single day if possible so that I have a high chance of getting the money that's out there to be had for students like me.

Personal Challenge

So, Personal Challenge. This is something I kind of like about Capstone but at the same time I feel it might be a nuisance as well over the next couple semesters. I feel like I'm going to keep having to come up with personal challenges that aren't actually challenges to me just to fill this requirement to Capstone. Maybe I should actually sit down and take the time and look at what I want to accomplish at this university and what I want to accomplish in my professional career. Everyone says they want to impact the world but really doing something takes time and effort. My personal challenge this semester was to learn Arabic, and my definition of learn meant writing and reading the language. I feel that I've actually accomplished this challenge to its full requirement. I can fully read the language, and it no longer looks like random marks on a piece of paper, but it's also not to the level where I can read fluently. I can write it really well, and my calligraphy is slowly increasing as well. I'm actually proud of myself for completing this one cause in the beginning my progress seemed very bleak. Assalamu Alaykum

Hot Cookie Friday

So Hot Cookie Friday's are kind of a cool thing to do on Fridays, I usually go after all my classes finish around 2 and I finish in the gym around 2:45 so on my way back to Capstone I usually get some cookies and get then I go to Gibbes and pick up my lunch. The first time I went to Hot Cookie Friday they gave out 2 cookies instead of the 1 like the last one I went to, PLUS they had milk at the first one and I got the shaft on the second time I went because someone literally used all the milk before I had the chance to even try to get some. I hung around the Study Shack the first time I went to it and it seems like a very relaxed place to get work done plus there are a plethora of people to help you in case you need some information about the capstone program. I'm going to try to go to more social events next semester like the News and Views that the Vice President hosts so I can kind of be a current informed citizen than living in the bubble I'm in right now. But! Who can go wrong with some good cookies man? I think the man who discovers how to cook cookies and still have the edges soft like the center of the cookie will be a billionaire one day

College Update

College life continues to become a thing I'm getting used to. I spent the past Sunday traveling around the area to the different off-campus housing places with some of my floor mates who may be my roommates next year. I've definitely picked the Woodlands as my favorite because the 4 bedroom flat that we toured looked like a 5 star apartment, it had a island in the kitchen and all of the bedrooms had their own bathroom and walk in closet, I mean talk about living in luxury just to go to college. The Woodlands also had a very nice clubhouse with a built in movie theater, pool tables, gym, rock wall, and very sizable pool. My next on the list was The Retreat because it has that aura of living in a house. We looked at a 3 bedroom model and from what I saw it seemed to be the same size as the flat we looked at by Woodlands but the thing that made it drop to #2 was the distribution of the bedrooms where most of them were on the second floor and only one on the bottom floor. I feel that the separation of the floors will create a wall between my roommates living in the room. However, I'm excited to live off campus and truly live on my own and cook my own meals and work a job and study hard.

Breaks

Breaks are good. Breaks are actually amazing. I was wondering about this the other day how the school organizers in the early years of higher education came up with the ideas of breaks or if they even had breaks and if not who lobbied the organizers to create breaks for the students. I know in the past system that students would often live with their professor in the same household so who decided to talk the professor one day and just say "Yeah I think we should take like a week off man" and the professor was like "Yeah, doth be on to something here".

Anyways, my break has been nice. I actually haven't done any homework like I was planning to do to get ahead but I did get some new duds which is awesome. I'm glad to come back home and see my dad and sister who I haven't seen in almost 2 months and I think I've missed my dog more than anything which is just funny to me but I love him. Been working on my paper slowly but surely, 5 pages is more than I originally thought but I'm grinding through it. I'm nervous to see some of the grades from my midterms but I'm excited to come back to school. Anyways, until next week.

Goals

I have a really hard time maintaining goals. I want to blame it on the immediate feedback world we live in where we want instant results instead of working on something for a long time, and that's definitely how I see some of the things in the world. I just want the results now instead of working for them even though I know I'll cherish it even more if I take the hard work and time to get the results.

I see myself doing this when I go to the gym or when I'm studying for a test or practicing guitar or anything that takes a while. I see the other people in the world with the results already and I want that but I forget to realize that they spent time learning to do those things or get to that point in their life rather than getting it immediately like I want it. I see myself also becoming envious because of this inability to take the time, I want a good job and money but I'm envious of those driving these high profile cars and living high profile lives and again I forget to realize the work they did to get there so I'm trying to keep myself in check to achieve those goals.

Adjusting to College

So far I think I'm doing a pretty good job so far at adjusting to this college thing, the only major problem I seem to be having is getting up on time to go to my early class at 8:30. Today I did myself wrong by convincing myself that it was just conversation day of Arabic and I didn't need to go because we weren't learning anything new. However, we always learn something new sure it may not be a new letter or new short vowel marking or any of the other confusing stuff in that language but it's practice and it's hearing the correct pronunciation of words from a native teacher. I got lucky this time around and our teacher canceled on us at 7:20 AM this morning so I got lucky but it made me realize the rationalization I'm coming to in my head that sleep is more important than education, and while I certainly agree that in certain situations it's better to sleep than to study more but this morning is not a situation I condone.

I'm maintaining good grades in all my classes which is something I'm proud of, I'm hoping to achieve a 4.0 GPA this semester to give myself a good foundation for the next 4 years cause I remember being in Highschool and having to pick up and try to get back up from where I put myself initially so I definitely think I'm taking a step in the right direction. Anyways, off to work some more and then bed early so I can actually make my 8:30 class tomorrow.