It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Thursday morning NOLA received a little surprise! I woke up and I did my usual routine in getting ready for practice when my roommate asked if I had looked outside the window yet, it was snowing! As much fun as it would have been to practice in the snow, I was hoping practice would be inside that day, thankfully it was. The last time New Orleans had seen snow was four years ago; it was definitely a sight to see. This week has also been finals week. I have had three finals so far, and I only have one more to go! I am anxious to get back to Fort Worth. I leave on Wednesday so it is almost time for me to go back home for Christmas. My first semester of college has been a lot of fun though it was challenging at first. I was able to learn a lot about time management and responsibility, while still having fun at the same time. Right now, it feels a little weird because the majority of students have already left to go home and the campus is a little deserted. Anyways I am extremely excited about the break and I am eager to spend time with all of my family! 

 

P.S.

I hope you have wonderful Holiday! 

Thanksgiving and more...

Thanksgiving went extremely well and I was able to see all of my family minus two cousins, who were at football games. It was great to be back with my family again. We had our usual tradition of everyone coming over at about two and then everybody goes around to say why we are thankful. I was just happy to be there. Then we got into the good stuff. We had our Thanksgiving feast and after that, it was time for some football! Thankfully, both the Cowboys and Longhorns took care of business. Since I was back in town for a couple days, I was able to hang out with some high school friends I had not seen in awhile. Shortly thereafter it was time to go back to school for the last week of classes! The last week went pretty well, but I ended having to take a couple of tests and some quizzes on Friday. Oh, I was also able to be apart of Deuce McAlister’s shopping spree and I helped two kids shop for their Christmas list. The event was a lot of fun we had 35 minutes to shop then they ate for 30 min and later they went to a build-a-bear shop. I went to the Chi Alpha Christmas party on Friday and we had a white elephant gift exchange, which is always fun. Now its time for FINALS, but I am not too worried about them. I will be glad to get them over with so I can get back home, but I am just taking it one day at a time.

FTW Football...

The Whole Crew

SPC Champs!

These past two weeks have been great! First I went home last weekend to go to my little brother's championship football game back in Fort Worth. My two cousins are also on the team, which made it even more fun for me. My cousin also committed to play football at LA Tech, which is only about 5 hours away from Tulane! Anyways they won the game 41-34, it was intense and they pulled out with the win in the 4th quarter. Our family didn't even get home until about 3am because we were watching video of the game at a family's house right after we won. The next day my brother received his acceptance letter to Georgia Tech so I think he was on cloud nine that weekend. When I got back from FTW I had lost my voice from Friday's game and I could barely talk. Though as always I enjoyed being back in Fort Worth and seeing all my family again! School has also been going pretty well. I have done well on a couple tests and I have been able to balance my time with track practice and school. I have two tests coming up this week. So far I have done a good job preparing for them; however, I can't help but think that Thanksgiving is only a little over a week away! My littlest cousin Drew also turns 16 today, which makes feel kind of old. It makes me think how fast time goes by too, but it's exciting at the same time to see everybody grow. 

Good week, but an interesting weekend

I did not have a single test this week, which was nice. It was also our rest week for Track & Field so I did not have practice on Wednesday or Saturday. I also meet with my academic coordinator to get a feel for what classes I will be taking in the spring and when exactly I will be taking them. Halloween was on Friday and a lot of people were excited about it, though I didn't really care too much for it. There were a number of things going on that night, but I went to the BCM's Halloween party and played some games for a little while then went back my room. Everyone was dressed up and my roommate went as Michael Jackson so I wasn’t sure if should be concerned or not being his roommate in all, ha-ha.

   I ended up leaving pretty early because I had habitat for humanity the next morning. My brother also had a football game that night and if they won they would go on to the championship, I received a text late that night that they had won, which was exciting. I then immediately bought my plane ticket for Friday so I am pumped about the game and going home to see my family. I woke up at about 6:30 for H4H and we left at about 7:00 to go to the site. One of my good friends, Stephen K., was working on the site with me so we had a good time working together on the house. I met some new people that were in our group as well. There was also this eight-year-old kid named Corey who was pretty cool and he made us all laugh a lot. We ended up finishing around 3:00 so I went back to my room to take a nap. That night was also the Texas-Texas Tech game so I woke up at around 6 to grab dinner before the game. The game was amazing and though Texas had not performed as well as they should have in the first half, I knew they would put it together in the second half, which they did. Anyways-long story short, the 4th quarter Texas is up by 1 and Tech has the ball with about 1:38 left in the game. The last three plays of the game were insane: 1st the ball is tipped in the air off the Tech receiver and it seem as if the Texas Safety has intercepted the ball to end the game, which at this point I was going crazy. However, the ball went through his legs and hits the ground making it an incomplete pass. The 2nd play the Tech QB throws it the wide receiver at about the 10 yard line right on the sideline and he manages to stay inbounds to score the touchdown. Unbelievable! The 3rd play Tech has to kickoff from its own end zone, but it didn't really matter because they intercepted the Texas lateral. It was a well-played football game and it definitely had my heart racing the whole time. Immediately after the game I went straight to bed. I didn't even want to think about what just happened, ha-ha. The next morning I met Stephen to go to his Church, which I had never been before. I enjoyed it and we all went to lunch afterwards, which was fun. Overall, this weekend was strange but it was without doubt good one.

Who knew October would be so busy...

So far the month of October has been an eventful one. First it was homecoming, which was a lot of fun. My mom came in for the football game and we made our way around New Orleans. It was good to spend some time with mom. This past week I have been pretty busy with exams. I am pretty confident I did well, but who knows. I have a lot of exams this week as well. It has been good learning experience though to learn how to prepare for college exams. Though I can't complain because I am enjoying my time here at Tulane and it seems I getting more acclimated each day. I am also now officially a Green Wave Ambassador, which leads tours to prospective students and parents around Tulane. It should be a lot of fun. October has been a good month, busy but good! So overall Life is good or shall I say Life is Beautiful...

P.S. The Texas Longhorns are #1 baby!

Cowboys game and everything else...

Well I am fresh off the cowboys loss yesterday so I am still trying to figure out how the heck that happened, especially to the Redskins (I mean come on)!! Other than that I am enjoying learning more and more about college life. I am starting figure it out, I think? Though I am struggling at times to get my laundry done. I am also really enjoying the people on my floor, I feel blessed that the people who surround me are people I really like, which makes a world of difference. Homecoming is this week and I am really excited about that. Army here we come! My mom is also coming down for the game so I am extremely excited to get see my mama, ha-ha! These past few weeks I have been able to get plugged into some neat groups around campus and I have kind of figured out which ones best suit my abilities, which is cool. It has been a challenge to manage everything and I still don't think there is enough time in the day to get everything done; but overall things couldn't be going better and I am learning more and more about Tulane everyday!

Back in Business...

By tomorrow I will have officially been in school for a week, Hoorah! It has been a very productive yet busy week. I have been going to class early in the morning (8 AM!) then going to track practice in the afternoon. College is very different from High School. I find myself always trying to balance my free time and constantly checking my calendar on my phone to see what need to get done. I have also tried to see how many times I can eat at Bruff in one day, so far the most I have been able to go is 5 so we'll see if I can beat that, ha-ha. Anyways, the campus looks great though one of business school buildings received some cracked windows, but other than that everything looks just as it did before. My flight back was a funny story because my dorm neighbor, Tim, and I were on the same flight back to New Orleans and he had purchased a shuttle ticket to get back Tulane from the airport in advanced and I was going to just get a ticket at the airport. So we are in the shuttle line after getting our bags when a man comes up to now three of us asking if we were Tulane students. He then directs Tim to his shuttle line since he already purchased a ticket and takes myself and the other student to his stretch suburban that already had some other Tulane students back to Tulane. Now on campus, I unpack all my stuff to organize my room again and by the time I am finished; Tim is just now getting into his room. Oh and his shuttle that took forever and my stretch suburban were the same ticket price. 

Gustav

Well I got to experience my first evacuation this week and I have to say it was kind of cool. I was originally going to drive with my roomate to his home in Covington. However, I got out of class even earlier than I expected on Friday so I started to look at flights. I went ahead and booked a flight back to Fort Worth because I would be able to see my little brother and cousins' football game that night. I ended up taking a cab to the airport and luckily three other girls asked to share it with me so I didn't have to pay for a whole cab ride myself, which was nice! As I watched more news coverage I was feeling pretty good about being back in FTW, though when I got in town it almost felt as if I had never left. My brother's football game was exciting to watch and they won 26-20. My little cousin who is a sophomore had a huge sack, which was well worth my trip alone. Then on Monday I watched all the news coverage of Gustav and I was glad to see it was only a category 2 and not worse. It was definitely crazy, but I was pleased to see how well New Orleans was prepared, especially Tulane, for the storm. I am excited to get back on campus on Sunday and I am glad we only had minimal damage to the school! Thankfully God was watching over Tulane and the people overseeing the campus. Now I am just enjoying the rest of my time here in Fort Worth until I fly back, I will also get to see another one of my brother's games so I am pumped about that. I hope that all of you are safe wherever you may be and you're enjoying your unexpected vacation.

Move In-Day...Its finally here!

I left Fort Worth Friday the 22nd and got to New Orleans late that night, yet I still had time to eat at Red Fish with my family. Move-in day was about three days ago and it went surprisingly well. I got all my stuff organized and I sadly didn't do a lot of the moving myself, my mom and my grandmother actually did most of the moving...I was getting my room key, ha-ha. I am not sure where my grandfather went. Anyways it was fun organizing my room and getting everything together. I also finally met my roommate, Rob Russell; I was relieved to find out that he was real good guy so thank God! Lately I have been doing a lot of orientation stuff, which has been fun a lot of fun but some of it can be monotonous. I got all my books for class and they were pretty easy to get. It was good to meet new people again and I also got see a lot of people from orientation as well. Though when I was actually standing in line for my room key, I was talking to girl from Virgina who knew my cousin's girlfriend...small world, huh? I thought so. Other than that everything went well except I had to say good-bye to mom and the grandparents that was a little rough, but it was all good. I guess classes are about to start, I am hoping that is when the fun really begins, ha-ha.


             Books!!                                                                      Driving Down


                "Nana"   TEXAS!! Mom

 

                                        

  

           I will post some other pictures later....  

 

Guatemala

I haven't written in awhile, but I just got back from Guatemala on Saturday. I went with my church, Christ Chapel. It was a lot a fun and I got learn a lot about the Guatemalan culture, it is extremely beautiful there. My brother went on the trip as well so that was neat. I also met a lot of new people on the trip and developed some new friendships, which was cool. It was really cool to see God working through people outside of America. I also was able to finally use some of my Spanish in a real conversation, which was exciting to do. Overall the trip could not have gone better and I thank God for why it went as well as it did. I hope you enjoy the pics...

cool view from the boat

mountains

Andres and Pedro

Things to do...

Things to do before Move-in Day

-Read The Reluctant Fundamentalist

-Make last minute accomodations with the roomate

-Start packing...I have heard it takes atleast a month to do!

-Give Tulane any improtant documents for school

-Get some rest

-Make a check list so nothing important gets left behind

-Possibily read the Reluctant Fundamentalist for a 2nd time

Just a start...I will think of some other ones later 

Grad. Pics

Family Friends
my football coach

< Coolest Minster ever
high school teammate

< my cuz
graduation cap

< cuz, grandpa & uncle
coaches & friends

Orientation

Well, I just got back from orientation yesterday and I had a great time. I met a lot of neat people, which made me even more excited about Tulane. My roommate for the weekend was a guy named Ian from Nashville, TN, so I was lucky that he was a pretty cool guy. I definitely feel that I made the right choice picking Tulane. The campus was beautiful as always and figuring my schedule for the 1st semester was painless thanks to my advisers. I also got a lot my questions answered and I learned about some new things I need to do before August like summer reading, though I thought I was done with that when I left high school, but the book looks like it should be a good read and I'm not too worried about it. The first day of orientation was fun with check-in and meeting new people, but I enjoyed the 2nd day even more because I think I felt more comfortable, plus I had more sleep. After leaving on Monday, I am anxious to come back in August for move in day on the 23rd. Tulane is going to be great and I couldn't be more excited.

I'm Garrett...

Hey guys welcome to my blog. I just finished with High School graduation a few weeks ago. It was a strange feeling leaving the school I had been going to for 12 years, but I am really excited about Tulane. Summer has been going pretty well, I have a job as a waiter and I'm trying to prepare for track all the while trying to maintain some down time to relax before college. Orientation is a week away and I am looking forward to it, it should be a lot of fun.

Coming Soon!