I can’t believe that this is the very last blog I’ll have to write for the year. The first semester of my college career has gone by so fast it’s incredible. We’re down to just two weeks of class, final exams, and we’re done. I feel like high school went by so much slower than college. Its probably because classes only meet two or three times a week instead of everyday, or the fact that we have so much work and we are constantly doing something so we don’t have down time. Anyway, in just three more months I’ll finally go into Blue Phase in the Corps of Cadets and I’ll finally be considered an upperclassmen cadet. It’ll seem even faster because one of those months is winter break.

Speaking of break, I might as well talk about my Thanksgiving break just to have something to write about. My break was pretty normal. Like everyone, I saw a ton of family. Every day we went over to another family member’s house. I saw all of my cousins, uncles, and aunts. I’m Hispanic, so we have a really big family. We all got together one day to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Then we got together again for Thanksgiving dinner at my house. My dad had surgery on his hand so me and my sister did most of the cooking. I prepared the turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. I thought all of that alone was a lot of food, but along with what I made, everyone that came over brought a dish or two of their own. After our feast, we all just relaxed and watched movies and played games until two in the morning. Besides family, I also got to see a lot of my friends from high school. A bunch of us got together and had a movie night. We ate pizza, shared college stories, watched movies, and just chilled, like old times. I also got to play a lot of tennis with my best friend. Something that I missed the most was playing my piano. I’ve been playing for the past 12 years, so after these last few months in college, I’ve been on piano withdrawal. I annoyed the crap out of my sister with how much I played when I got home. I also went to see Rise of the Guardians, which was an awesome movie. I don’t care what anyone says, Dreamworks makes the best animated movies and I will never be too old for them. The funniest part of my break was when I first got home. My friend Lindsey gave me a ride home, and as she pulled into my driveway my dog ran outside. I was so excited to see him. We both got out of the car and the first thing my dog does is run right by me, run around the car, and starts jumping on Lindsey. He didn’t even notice me! Im thinking “missed you too, pal”. But once he said hello to her, he noticed me and ran over.  He’s known me for a while so he probably gets more excited to meet new people!

I was actually having a pretty good week. I was finally doing pretty well in all of my classes and I was caught up on all of my work. I got an 80 on my chemistry test, which is a MAJOR improvement from my last grade. My spirits were high knowing that we only have 5 more days of school before we finally get to go home for thanksgiving break. And then the game happened. We were actually doing pretty well, considering the fact that everyone said Florida State was going to crush us. Yeah, we were down most of the time but we were managing to keep up, and not letting them get too much of a lead. Finally we got that touchdown and we were ahead of them. Everyone was going crazy thinking we might have a shot at this, we might actually win. And then they let Florida State get by and score a touchdown. Ok, its not totally hopeless. If we get another touchdown and the extra point we could win by 1. But no. On the final, most important play of the game, Logan Thomas decides to throw one of his famous interceptions. We lose. Not the way I wanted to celebrate the final game of the season, but whatever. After that interception I just wanted to get out of the cold, go back to my room and fall asleep. However, that didn’t happen. My night was about to get so much worse. Just as Im about to exit the stadium gates, I hear a voice yelling “all Air Force ROTC freshmen get over here now”. So of course all my Air Force buds and I head over. They then proceed to telling us “thank you so much, you have just volunteered to clean the entire east side of the stadium bleachers”. Of course, this was the largest section of bleachers in the stadium. You’ve got to be kidding me! So I spent the next 2 hours picking up garbage, and you know what I learned? People are disgusting! You’d think people would throw away their own freakin trash, right? I mean its not that hard. You just take it with you and throw it in the trash can on your way out. There are at least 4 of them by every single exit. But no, they just throw it or leave it on the ground under their seats. It was a disgusting mess. Nachos and cheese, chicken wing and turkey leg bones, drinks and bottles of alcohol, food, wrappers, dirty napkins, dip cans, you name it. We had to pick up everything. But that’s not the worst part. I actually found a dirty diaper and an empty condom wrapper! Are you freakin kidding me people? Just…NO, you don’t do that! That’s vial!

                We didn’t finish cleaning until 2:15 in the morning. I checked weatherbug and it said that it was 34 degrees. When my buds and I got back to the barracks, we went straight to the showers, closed the entrance curtain, turned on all the shower heads and made a sauna. We were all completely sore, especially after that morning’s workout for Air Force PT. Thank God my first class isn’t until 1:25.