lauren_wappelhorst

Making Tough Decisions

After four hours of studying for my Spanish test last night, I had to accept that I am in over my head with my Spanish class. I have been behind in the class since the semester started. I went to Chile last semester, but I am not up to a level of advanced Spanish yet, not at all. At first I thought I just needed time to adjust, but it is not worth stressing this semester over. I am going to keep up with my Spanish tutors and practice writing and building vocabulary. However, my advanced Spanish class is not about building vocabulary and working on sentence structure. I am expected to be at a level that I am currently not at. I pay attention and work hard, but I have a lot to learn. I have decided to drop the class and spend the semester focusing on growing in my Spanish. I can still write papers for my teacher and practice dialogue, but I won’t have to worry about falling behind in my class. I can move at my pace and then this summer I plan to do another intensive Spanish program. The problem I ran into is that I had zero background in Spanish before the semester. Yes, I learned a ton, but I was learning from scratch. I had to waste weeks understanding different tenses and how to conjugate, so I am not into complex sentence structure. Also, I feel like I am coming across hundreds of new words all the time and I need to sit down and actually focus on memorizing them. I was really nervous about Spanish at first, but I know that with the help of the teachers I will be able to conquer this language.

Cross Your Fingers

Applications for peer mentors for next year have already been turned it. Cross your fingers, because I am reapplying. It’s a year commitment, so I couldn’t do it this year due to study abroad. However, I hope to be a peer mentor next year. I was part of the first year engagement program last year, and I had an amazing time. The University of the Incarnate Word has worked hard to get a grant these past three years for an almost big sister/big brother type program. EVERY single freshman here is assigned an upperclassman. I think I have mentioned this before, but they help you get involved and answer any questions that you may have as a new student to UIW. It’s really exciting, though, because first year engagement is going to be in charge of orientations this year. Usually Admissions is in charge of summer orientations, so this will be a new experience. However, it should be amazing, because incoming freshmen will get such a better understanding of what the first year engagement program is. Usually you don’t meet your mentor until school starts, and some freshmen students can be too intimidated to ask questions. No one likes to feel like they don’t know what is going on, so some students go through never asking things they need to know. Now freshmen will be meeting people in the first year engagement program the second they step foot on campus this summer. I am hoping this just makes the program even better. I am so sad that I won’t be part of orientations this summer, but I am going to focus on learning Spanish. However, it should be an amazing summer with lots going on here on campus. PLUS, everyone will get excited for football all over again! I know I missed the first UIW football season, but I will change that!!

Faith Sharing Group

I am really excited and nervous, because tonight will be my first attempt to have a faith sharing group within our hall. I put out a survey when I got here a couple of weeks ago, and I had some girls interested in having a prayer group. My heart leaped, because, honestly, I was not sure how they would respond. However, I have talked it over with supervisors, and tonight will be the first night. Of course, I am clouded with the worry that no one will show up. I have been thinking that for the past hour or so as I prepare. However, I stopped and realized that it is not about me. It is about God. Everything I do should be for the Lord, not for me. If no one comes tonight, that is fine. I am opening up my door to create an environment where residents can come together and pray. If no one comes, we can always try again next week. I am just so thankful to be back here at the UIW campus where I truly feel that my faith life is being strengthened. I actually ran into a teacher the other day who is trying to come up with a model where students who are focused on faith and academics can live together in community. I think that is such an incredible idea that could really be a reality here at UIW. Today walking to class a saw a couple of my friends from campus ministry sitting out on a stoop playing praise and worship songs between classes. It was beautiful. I loved experiencing the faith people had in South America, but here I can join in on the worship as well. The language boundary didn’t bother often, except when it came to my faith. I wanted to join to congregation for prayers, and I just couldn’t. I know that might be a superficial way to look at praying, but for the time being there is no other place I would rather be growing in Christ than here at Incarnate Word.

Sick Day

I whine a lot when I am sick. This is something that I noticed throughout today that I truly felt bad about. I don’t know if this is really the most exciting subject to blog about, but whenever I get sick I feel so connected to campus. My friend Erica spent the night with me last night taking care of me, and she even drove me to the gas station at 3am to get crackers and water and sprite. I don’t know what happened, but I caught some sort of horrible stomach virus. Just awful! Then this morning I emailed my teachers to let them know what was up. They all emailed me back saying they were praying for me and offering to help me get caught up on anything that I missed. I LOVE going to a small school, because the teachers make the effort to show that they care. Then I had friends dropping in all day checking on me and bringing me water and soup. I haven’t left my room all day and yet I have not wanted for anything. I felt so miserable today, but I felt so loved at the same time! I have some stuff to catch up on, but I feel well rested and plan on going back to classes tomorrow.