Personal Narrative: The Hawkeye Spirit

The most meaningful and challenging experiences in my life have been through sports and the 4-H club. They have instilled the values of perseverance, confidence, and teamwork within me. I feel that my peers and others could learn valuable life lessons through participating in these organizations. They are not just clubs, but a guiding light for life. For example in sports I have had the opportunity to play on both losing and winning teams. This has given me a different perspective of looking at things. I now realize that even if you fail or lose that is no reason to give up, you still have to get right back up. Just realize your mistakes and errors. Then come back the next time, mentally and physically, ready to meet the challenge. To often in life youth and adults alike fail at something and automatically think that they cannot do it, and give up. Instead of just pushing themselves to run another lap, lift another set, study for another hour, or learn another theorem. Imagine a world if the early American settlers had given in to the British, if the North had given in to the South after the first loss of the civil war, or if Michael Jordan had given up after being cut from the team in high school. People just need to learn to have perseverance and believe in themselves. 4-H has been a series of stepping-stones for me. When I first started out at age four I was shy and afraid to do things that I had not done before, but now I have blossomed into a confident and outgoing young man. I no longer fear getting up in front of large groups and speaking because of the experiences I've had in public speaking events. In addition, 4-H has given me the chance to develop myself as a leader. Over the years I have held various leadership positions on the club, county, and district levels. Also, 4-H has given me the chance to go into the community and help people by leading youth in workshops, assisting the handicap and elderly, and also learn from what others have to teach. In both of these organizations I learned the need for teamwork. For example last year my football team went 0-11 and the main reason because of that was we were not a team.

Over the course of two years, I was able to create bonds and gain long lasting mentors from these experiences. In this program, I did case studies on sexual health, neurology, and public health. With these case studies, I was able to practice leadership skills and investigative thinking along with my peers. Through the Emory Pipeline Program, I also learned new technology within the medical field and how the new technology aided our local hospitals. These experiences opened doors for me to explore what my career calling was.

An experience that I have had that will influence my academic work and goals at Colorado Christian University is my transition from military life to civilian life. When I joined the Air Force I was 18 years old, fresh out of high school, and without much life experience. I joined the Air Force so that one day I would be able to pay for a college education and so that I could experience the world more than I was able to do in my small town of Gladewater, Texas. The Air Force taught me so much about myself and really shaped me in to the person I am today. I deployed twice overseas while I was in the Air Force and less than a year before my first deployment my daughter Kenzie was born. Leaving her for that first deployment was the hardest thing

In eighth and ninth grade, I was on the volleyball team. I learned and developed the ability to work with a team and contribute to the balance of everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. I also was on the track team from seventh through tenth grade. I competed in triple jump, an individual event. Through this, I learned how to be independent and acquire skills on my own. The clubs I have been in are FBLA, DECA, NHS, FCCLA, Willard Paws Club and Foreign Language Club. Being part of FBLA and DECA and competing in events have greatly improved my communication and business abilities. I understand what it means to be professional and respectful. NHS has showed me how important it is to give my best effort with everything I do, to

As a child, I was enrolled in the Gifted and Talented program, which is the Texas version of Advanced Placement courses. The Daughters of the American Revolution gave me an award for a genealogy project and my team was the only one in the district that made it to the Odyssey of the Mind state-level competitions. I also competed in numerous spelling bees. Between drama class and the National Honor Society, my middle school and junior high school years were busy, but fun. In my junior year of high school, I was informed that I was in the Who’s Who high school edition. I worked after school and enjoyed volunteering at the hospital in the cancer center in my free time. I found myself inspired by their courage and it helped to keep me grounded in my priorities.

Throughout my high school career I have been involved in several different activities, from track team, student government, office assistant at Alliance Academy middle School to an after-school program called BUILD (Business United Investenting Lending Development) and it is a program that has had the most influence on my high school self that has helped me grow as a student and as a leader. It is a college access program aimed at under-resourced high school students that offers an opportunity to develop a product, raise funding, manufacture anf sell a product in order to learn the skills of an entrepeneur. As a member of BUILD I was able to attend college tours, receive academic support throughout my four years of high school.

Over the four years that I have spent at Good Counsel, I became part of many activities. Each helping me evolve as a person and become stronger yet. Simple lists could be made of every activity that I have ever been involved in but it could never express to a person what I have learned and how it helped me to grow. Every environmental club, science club, political science club, service work, and S.A.D.D. club I was part of had a very special message to deliver to me. Whether the message was one of responsibility, or a life lesson, I grew from it. The Political Science club opened me to many new experiences. It allowed me the chance to attend the Model U.N., where I was asked to address today's top world issues. This club was very beneficial to me because I was exposed to topics and ideas that I had not previously been able to discuss or learn about in a classroom situation. The science club allowed for me to experience extra educational situations as well. I took part in a hovercraft competition, which was very educational while also allowing me the chance to work with others for a common goal.

Currently on, campus, I am involved in Family Court Mentoring: a program that teaches high school students from the general St. Louis area life skills, such as how to manage anger, make friends and plan for the future. This is in the same vein as my last major service trip: volunteering for Outreach 360 in Monte Cristi. This by far was one of the most revelatory programs for me. Not only did I get to work with amazing kids, I gained a better understanding of the opportunity disparities prominent around the world. Family Court Mentoring, for me at least, was just trying to continue the service that I was a part of in the Dominican Republic and bringing that to the St. Louis community.

There once was this dog named Carl. Carl is a special kind of dog though he can see the past which is weird since we are all reborn with new memory i guess he can see what things were like back in his other lives.Carl was a full blood American Pitbull. One day his owner took him to the underground fight club. As Carl’s first fight is underway, he starts getting overtaken by the other dog. Meanwhile, they give the dogs a break as he was getting out of the ring he suddenly had a vision of a black panther taking down a tiger which is a much larger opponent. He realized it was not just a random black panther it was himself in another lifetime. As the vision went on he studied the way He fought the tiger and figured he could use some of the same things he did in his past life, to win this fight.

In high school I was also involved with many organizations and I feel like this process is going on again now that I am in college. I have joined a few different organizations and not all of them ha...