Happiness.

What do you think of when someone asks you "are you happy?"  A simple three words formed into a question -theoretically should be pretty easy to answer.  However, as I am sure most of you know that is not the case.  One thing that always comes to my mind when someone asks me if I am happy is what are they meaning?  Is it one of my close friends who I truly know wants to hear how I am doing or are they just trying to be polite and could careless about what is going on in my life.  A simple question brings many complications and questions to my mind.

What made me think about happiness was the last couple days.  I am loving life back at SLU.  Everything seemed to be falling into place - my major, friends, volunteering, clubs, just life.  However, I always get this feeling that something has to happen since I am feeling so good.  For those of you, who know me I bet you would say I am a pretty outgoing person and I try to make the best of the situation and be happy - well at least I hope you see that in me.  Last night was the first APO (Alpha Phi Omega) meeting of the semester.  APO is the service fraternity that I am involved in on campus.  Since there are over 300 hundred members, the club is divided into what we call families - or smaller groups.  Having families always everyone to get to know a smaller group of people and become close with them.  I am in Alpha family, and every family has a family head every semester.  This semester my family basically picked me out to be the family head - they told me what while I was abroad they decided I was going to be family head.  I am really excited to be family head this semester, because Alpha has become the best family in APO - we are all very close and have a lot of fun together.  After the APO meeting last night I was extremely high on life - there is something about APO that makes everything seem okay - I think that is partly my family.  They are all so great. Anyways, besides APO everything with my major is coming together - I am becoming more involved within the department.  I have been understanding most of my homework and the class lecture and staying on top of the readings and homework.  Life has really been great, and I want everyone to feel the way I have been feeling the last couple of days! Find that thing - anything - something - that is your niche and run with it.  Everyone deserves to be happy - everyone.  Please get involved on campus or in your community even if it is just one little thing - anything.  I know you don't think you have time and you should be focused on school, but seriously you will grow more as a person being involved in an organization then just studying and partying away.  Trust me on this one.  I know I am only a Junior in college, but I think you can trust me to get involved - I don't think you will regret it!

On a sadder note - my Grandma was admitted back into the hospital yesterday.  Like I said something always happens - but this does not mean I am not happy.  I just ask all of you to pray for her - I would really like the doctors to finally figure out what is going on so my Grandma can get better.  I love you Grandma and know that you are in my prayers everyday.  Please feel better.

An Alpha get together :) Some of the best memories.

Alpha family photo at our formal dance!

Here are a couple songs I listen to when I am not in the best mood and they always bring a smile to my face:

Move by MercyMe

This Life by MercyMe

Sweet Redeemer by Steve Angrisano

Let me know what you think of three Jesus songs.

God Bless. Paz y Amor.

A New Way of Thinking

Hello readers,

It has been a while since I have last blogged and my apologizes for that, but life has been a little crazy lately.  I was enjoying the last month of summer vacation by working and seeing friends.  I have been wanting to blog for awhile now and I am finally getting around to it.  Over the last month or so I have had a lot of random thoughts on what to blog about, therefore this blog might be a little random and unorganized.

Let's see where I should start... I am back at Saint Louis University ready to take my Junior year head on.  This semester is filled with science and math (Chemistry with lab, soils, environmental seminar, GIS, and stats) along with my lonely theology class.  As most of you know I am an Environmental Science major with a focus in Biology and Geoscince, but that might change.  The more and more I have thought about it the more I wanted to focus on hydrology and sedimentalogy.  But that issue is a for another blog.  So far everything is great at Saint Louis.  Since my three best friends at SLU are no longer here this semester (two went to Spain and one transferred) I have been hanging out with a bunch of different people.  Like I said in an earlier blog - I love meeting new people.  But that does not mean I don't miss them - Steph, Kelsey, and Scott.

Something I have learned in the last week is how important faith is.  Not just my personal faith but the faith I share with my friends.  Since my Catholic faith is such an important aspect of my life it is great to be able to share it with friends.  Now, I am not saying I will not be friends with people who do not share the same faith as me - that would just be wrong.  But I do know I have a stronger connection with my friends that have a religious background as well.  One of my best friends is not Catholic, she is Lutheran and I can tell her anything.  There is something about knowing your friends share a similar faith that brings comfort to you - at least in my opinion.  I also believe that since coming to SLU my faith in God and just the Catholic faith has grown stronger - faith is about the journey and mine has just begun - I can not wait to see what the future entails for my relationship with God.

Well after chatting with Kelsey, one of my best friends who is in Spain, I have decided to talk a little more about school and what is all going.  I am pretty nervous but excited for my classes this semester.  It is going to be a lot of work, but I think it will go very well.  Confidence is the key - in my opinion.  Anyways I have a wonderful opportunity this semester to be a TA for the introduction environmental science lab with one of my favorite professor from my department.  The first day of the lab I was pretty nervous, but I really had nothing to be nervous about.  It will be a wonderful experience and it will help refresh the concepts I learned two years ago.  Along with taking a bunch of classes at SLU I have decided to join a couple new clubs on campus - I want to become more involved (one of the reasons I took the TA postion).  I have not been to any of the new clubs meetings yet - Just Earth (tree hugger club) and Students for Life (Pro-life group).  The first meetings are this week and I will keep you guys updated on how they are going - and if I will stick with them throughout the semester.

The more and more I have thought about my career and what I want to do with the rest of my life I really think my calling is to volunteer for about two years after college and then hopefully go to grad school!  I really want to go to graduate school for hydrology.  I can not express my love for water enough.  I don't know exactly what I want to do with water - I have thought about working for a non-profit organization and promoting safe drinking water in countries or cities that have water issues.  I have also been thinking about working on the preservation of coast lines - so many options! I am really excited about taking my soils class and who knows maybe that will be something I am interested in.  The future is so open - I will just see where life takes me!  But I know that what we need is someone to fight for water!

I know my last blog was about friendships, but I would like to restate how important friends are. However, a friendship is a two way street - do not let someone not give anything back to you.  If you put effort into a friendship make sure people are putting effort back.  Trust me it can be very draining on a person to put yourself out there numerous times and not have people put anything back.  One thing I have noticed over the past couple of weeks is how it is so easy to become friends with someone new, but oh so difficult to just let the friendship die.  I have seen it with one of my best friends - she is going through a difficult time in a friendship right now.  It is extremely hard to let a friendship just die.  To all my readers out there - make an effort with friends - show them how much they mean to you.  And if you are really not feeling a friendship, be honest with them and explain that to them so they are not waiting around for you to make the effort.  Honesty - got to have it and love it!

Well I think that is all I have on my mind for right now.  I am sure I will think of more soon and keep you all updated.  Please enjoy.

A couple pictures of friends - they mean the world to me.

God Bless. Paz y Amor.