Introduction into a Regular Joe's Life
Hello all, my name is Zach and this is a story all about how my life got turned upside down. i.e college. I started out college believing it would be easy, like most people I imagine. Then I realized I was dumb and knew nothing and actually had to study for exams. It wasn't until my junior year that I really figured out how to college. I have a dual major in mechanical engineering and computer science that I will be completing over 5 years, I'm currently in my fourth, unless I fail something, then I'll probably just drop one of them and graduate. My biggest accomplishment last year was keeping a reasonable sleep schedule, which made me realize that sleep is actual important for being able to retain information. Over break I went on a road trip to Yosemite National Park, which was literally the most gorgeous place I've ever seen in my life filled with some incredible and interesting people. It was a good mental break from the stress of life. Here's a picture of me taken by a complete stranger because I went alone, his name was Paul
meeeeeee
I will enjoy literally any movie and there are too many of my favorites to list out here, but I can say my favorite TV shows are, in no particular order, The Office, Psych, and Parks and Rec. In terms of what I want to do with my life, I would like to move out to California and live near both the mountains and the beach, where I will be working as a software developer. My whole goal in life is to do what I love, but due to the fact that one doesn't get a full time salary for climbing up mountains, unless you're Alex Honnard, I will move to the mountains in order to hike on the weekends and work on the weekdays. I originally wanted to move up to Colorado as that's where some of the most beautiful mountains are, but I realized I dislike the cold, therefore California would be a much more enjoyable place to live. Hiking is one of my favorite hobbies!!! I go to the Wichita Mountains, which are in my opinion an incredibly underrated mountain range, every weekend just to go hiking/climbing. I usually only climb if I can get one of my friends to go with me. Here's a picture of a Bison 10 yards away that I ran into on a trail
Bison not too Happy I Stopped to Take a Picture
I also loves cats, dogs, and most animals, although I do not have any in my apartment, because I would not have the time to take proper care of them, there are two apartment cats that me and my roommates feed. They do this really adorable thing where they will just look into our apartment and wait for us to feed them. Here's them doing that
Meow
Then once someone goes out to feed them the black and white cat, her name's chicken, will run away until we go back inside, and the black cat, his name's nugget, will let you pet him the entire time. They are my chicken nuggets. Thanks for reading or at least skimming my incoherent rant about who I am and who I want to be.
Your introduction sentence really made me laugh Zach. I am in the middle of my 5th year here, and I had the same struggles as you did getting to college. It took what felt like forever to figure out how to college. Just in time to finish it up it seems like. I actually grew up in Lawton just south of the Wichita mountains. I totally agree, going out to the mountains was one of my favorite things to do when I lived there. Also, those are some awesome looking cats, I bet they are great friends.
ReplyDeleteGood luck on the finishing of your degree Zach, I actually am curious now if we have had any of the joint AE or ME classes together, such as thermo or interactive engineering design. Really love the choice of favorite shows, all good watching options. You ever watch the show Chuck? It reminds me a lot of the Psych sort of humor, with the added bonus of being about a tech guy so plenty of solid nerd jokes tossed in for good measure.
ReplyDelete"To college" definitely needs to be a verb, Zach! I went and worked for a couple of years before deciding to go to college, and the skills I learned working were what actually helped me succeed in college (and even now, I get more good ideas for how to improve these classes by reading the Harvard Business Review than any other magazine... the world of work has a lot to teach us about maximizing our potential to DO things). And those apartment cats are so cute: they definitely know what they are doing. Humanz must feed us! I hope that mountains will get to be a part of this class for you: they are such an incredibly important part of the Indian landscape both for real and in stories. In the Ramayana, Rama is going to go to the land of King Janaka where he will meet the love of his life, and that is a place, Janakpur (City of Janak), in the mountains of Nepal; it's about 75 miles from Kathmandu, which you may have heard of!
ReplyDeleteWikipedia: Janakpur
Wikipedia: Kathmandu
... you could use this class to take an imaginary trip there! It's not like REALLY going to Yosemite, but it can still be a fun trip of the mind!
Hey Zach! I absolutely agree with your life motive of wanting to do what you love. That is so important. Everything that I do in life is because it makes me happy. I hope that you are able to have a successful career in software development. I can barely turn on my computer! I also really enjoy hiking. I try and stay outside as much as possible because it just makes me less stressed. Which part of Colorado have you been to? I try and go every year. I am in Ventura, CA now. There are so many mountains, but with the fires that happened, it is impossible to go hiking.
ReplyDeleteHello Zach! I think it is great that you have just adopted the neighborhood cats. That is how it always starts, but soon they will be on your couch and you wont know how you ended up with two cats. I feel like a lot of animals do that, they pick you instead of you picking them. I think it is awesome that you went on a roadtrip by yourself! One of my goals for this year is to do more solo travel and I love National Parks so maybe I will give Yosemite a try!
ReplyDeleteWhat's up Zach. It was nice to get to know you a little bit. Pretty cool to hear you enjoy to hike and have you future life structured around what you love which is nature and the outdoors! Cali I think is a great fit for you and I think it will be the place you live out the rest of your life in happiness. Good luck in finishing up this next year and getting your life started on the west coast!
ReplyDeleteAhoy Zach,
ReplyDeleteMan, the Wichitas really are under-rated. They may be small, but they've got a lot of heart and soul to them. I feel you on how feel on getting to college and realizing you really aren't as smart as you thought you were. It is, overall, a bummer. I'm glad we both got this far, and hey, maybe we'll both end up in California!
Hi Joe!
ReplyDeleteThere's also cats in my apartment complex that my roommate and I feed! Sometimes there's up to six cats at the food bowl at a time! We've tried to get them to come inside but they aren't very friendly sometimes. I also love the outdoors and love hiking and hope to go to Yosemite some day!
Hi Zach! I definitely agree that the Wichita Mountains are underrated. I just went rock-climbing there with some friends this past weekend and had a lot of fun. I have always wanted to visit Yosemite and am glad to hear that it’s just a beautiful as the pictures. Best of luck to you in finishing school and finding a job!
ReplyDeleteZach, I absolutely love your blog post. It is so real and I feel like it totally embodies what a lot of us are going through and it was honestly pretty refreshing to read! It is great to know that you have learned "how to college" and that you are so close to graduating. I also love the photo of the bison! Where I live there are so many and I love to see other people who appreciate them. Thank you so much for sharing and being so real!
ReplyDeleteHi Zach!
ReplyDeleteFirst off I really like the design of your blog and I think your use of personal photos makes your introduction page a lot more relatable! It’s really neat that you went to Yosemite National Park! I’ve been once and I totally agree that it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I hope you have a great semester and I look forward to revisiting your blog throughout the course!
Yo Zach. I love Alex Honnold and his crazy rock climbing antics. I agree with your love of the Wichitas, such a beautiful and underrated area. Just be careful around those bison. They can be 1500 pounds and you'd be helpless if it thought "Hmm I think I'm gonna run in the direction of that person for a second." Congrats on getting plenty of sleep, I'd love to learn your secret!
ReplyDeleteHi Zach!
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate when you say your life was turned upside down by college. I also really like your background picture! I will tell you that California is an amazing place to live. I go there almost every year to visit family. California has a lot of variety in the amount of activities to do as opposed to Colorado. I love the names for the cats! It is so cute. I enjoy reading your blog more!
Hey Zach! I totally related to you when you said the college turned your life upside down. I believed that life at OU would be easy but man after the first week, i felt burdened. But hey lets get through his together and stay strong. I love our cats, my family also owns a cat, even though she hates me I love my cat.
ReplyDeleteHey Zach! I'm pretty sure we've run into each other at some point.. I'm also in the AME department, so I understand pretty well how bad the tests can get. Maybe we will see each other in Willoughby lounge sometime and play some pool. One of my roommates likes to go hiking in the Witchita mountains too, he says it's a lot of fun. Best of luck in your majors!
ReplyDeleteHi Zach! I really enjoyed reading your introduction post! Especially the part about how you have apartment cats named Chicken and Nugget. And I also completely agree with you that sleep is such an important thing in college and it's crazy how actually getting enough sleep can everything feel so much better! I look forward to reading more posts from you and good luck this semester!
ReplyDeleteWhats upp Zach! I love how you started the post. I died laughing. LOL. I also love Colorado and the mountains. They are the most beautiful things on the planet. I am also a big fan of The Office. It is single handedly the best sitcom to ever be created. My roommate is also a Mechanical Engineer and I know how challenging it can be. But keep pushing and you can graduate with flying colors!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Zach! I was actually the opposite when I started college. I took so many AP classes in highschool that when I got to college, I was like wow; I sleep so much more than I ever did before. My feelings completely changed after my freshman year of college. Your majors sound really difficult though because I have friends with a computer science major that stress out all the time. The office and Parks and Rec are some of my favorite shows for sure! I wish you luck in the class!
ReplyDeleteHey Zach!
ReplyDeleteYour intro was fantastic! I completely agree on doing what you love in life. If I could I would probably travel the world and do all sort of activities like hiking, scuba diving, horseback riding, bungee jumping, and much more! But you know we have to work in order to do those things, but hey at least you've got a plan on how you want to! Sometimes we all need to travel to a place alone for fun, makes us decompress. Also, it is hilarious you named the apartment cats chicken nuggets!
Hi Zach!
ReplyDeleteYour picture reminds me of Badger from Breaking Bad! Mechanical engineering + computer science is a lot of effort! Ambitious and admirable. I encourage you to stay the course, but don't kick yourself if you have to drop one. I decided a long time ago that I would rather do one thing to the best of my abilities than perform two tasks at a mediocre level, but that's just me. If you are capable of doing both, cheers and good luck!
Hello there Zach,
ReplyDeleteWow our humor is pretty much the same hahah. I love all the same shows, I have watched Parks and Rec 4 times now... I may have an addiction. Also totally understand the whole college thing. I went to a small hick school where they did not teach us much. Coming to OU was a shock. I hope you get to live your dreams and move to California and hike on the weekend. That would be a pretty cool life.
Hi Zach! Graduating with two degrees is very impressive, and maintaining a normal sleeping schedule while doing that is even more impressive. I have been to the Witchitas a couple times and I definitely agree with you. They're no Rocky Mountains, but they are still good place to go hike. The picture of the Bison was awesome as well. Good luck with this semester, I look forward to reading some of your stories.
ReplyDeleteHey Zach!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely laughed at your last paragraph where you mention the cat's names. I love it. You sound like a very busy guy! I can't imagine double majoring, especially in those two fields. I can barely do one! College is rough but it sounds like you're makin out okay so far. Best of luck with the last year (hopefully!!) and I hope you get to move to California!
Hello Zach!
ReplyDeleteI had similar experience when I came to college I didn't think that it will be hard and I thought it would not be that bad. The first semester I got to know that I cannot do what I was doing in high school and after that I started taking everything seriously. I like to sleep and hate waking up it just sucks and also love to travel. Good luck with your semester I hope you don't have to drop any classes.
Hi Zach! Wow those are both hard majors! I totally get what you mean. I didn't really learn how to college until my junior year either. I'm a night owl so keeping a normal sleep schedule is pretty hard but I'm glad you achieved that! Those cats are so adorable! I found a kitten outside my apartment once and tried to keep it as my "outdoor pet" but I never saw her after that day. I would've snuck her in but my roommate was lame and would've ratted me out. Right now at my parent's house there's some strays that we've been feeding. We've been trying to get them to come to use but they're too scared. Anyway, I hope you have a good rest of your semester! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteHey Zach! I can relate to the desire to be near mountains and the beach, that's why I am doing everything in my power to move up to Oregon once I graduate. I am jealous of your Yosemite trip, that is a place that is definitely on my list of places to go. And I do agree with you about the Wichita Mountains, it is very cool and has some awesome trails. Once it starts (and stays) getting warm I will start camping up there on my days off from work.
ReplyDeleteHey Zach! Nice to meet you, man. I know all about how college can flip your world upside down. I am returning to finish my last two classes after four years! So, learning how to organize my time has been a struggle. I’m glad you’re hitting your stride!
ReplyDeleteParks and Rec is my FAVORITE! Well, one of my favorites. I love all of Ben Wyatt’s lines, he’s so relatable!
We have feral cats outside of our house that we feed too. I actually ended up adopting one of them somehow. She just walked in and claimed me haha.
Good luck!
Hey, Zach I defiantly agree with you that I was not prepared for the amount of work I would need to put into my college classes compared to high school. I had to take a break so that I could come back around and be more focused so five years is a very reasonable time frame for a double major. I read that one of your favorite TV shows was Psych. I was obsessed with the show when it was on and still enjoy watching reruns!! The Yin and Yang episodes are by far my favorite. Good luck with your classes this semester, it is almost over!!
ReplyDeleteHi Zach! I loved getting to read your introduction. I think it's crazy that it is week 12, and I am still meeting new people through this course! I wish I could pick up on your sleep schedule. Ever since freshmen year, I have been lacking sleep, so I am hoping as I enter the real world next year I am able to get back onto a reasonable schedule! Hope your semester has been going well!
ReplyDeleteHello Zach. Nice to meet you. Best of luck with both of your majors. That sound really difficult. I have never been to Yosemite but it is somewhere I would like to go. I like your cats. their names are really funny. I also do not like the cold. I also like hiking, it is a lot of fun to do.
ReplyDeleteHey Zach! I hope you are doing well. I commented on your blog back in January, but I decided this week to see how your blog is coming along. Since you like hiking, have you gone to any new hiking trails this semester? It is finally getting warmer. I am so happy that winter is over. I know that I really miss going on the trails in Oklahoma.
ReplyDelete