Hey everyone,

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and an equally as good weekend. As for myself, I had a very good holiday and was able to spend some time relaxing and not worrying about school. With only three weeks left in the semester, I've spent a lot of my time looking back on these past few weeks and just feeling in awe at how much I have accomplished.

To give you guys a brief backstory, a few weeks ago I decided that I could no longer go about my days the same way I had been. At the time my days consisted of me spending a good half of my day in one of the freshmen towers in my friends' lounge. From 3:30-10 I would sit in the lounge with my friends and try and get some homework done. I say try, because what would usually happen is we would goof around and not really get much done before parting ways with "let's study again tomorrow" as our last remarks. While spending time with the girls was fun, I quickly began to pick up on how little things started becoming big problems to me, and before I knew it, I became very nit-picky and critical of every little thing. Next, I began to notice my attitude was changing. I was grouchy and irritated, and the final straw was getting my grades back and noticing that, instead of improving, they had been getting worse. In an effort to change my attitude, save my friendships, and improve my grades, I made the hard decision to stop going over to my friend's place and study in my own room. For a while, the girls were very confused and obviously offended. Many times they would complain to me that I "never hang out" with them, and I could just do my homework with them. However, deep down, I knew that this change was something I needed to make.

Stay with me, there is a point to this story.

After deciding to study in my own room, on my own, I began to notice a change. First, I began to meet more people. For weeks, I had only gone to my room to sleep, and in doing so, I actually missed out on getting to know any of the people on my floor. However, when I returned to study and do work, I actually met more people on my floor (and building). This alone made me feel so happy and confirmed that what I was doing was the right thing. I'm not saying that the girls were holding me back, but I know that if I did not make the decision to leave that I would not know as many people that I do now. Next, after meeting more people, I began to do better in my classes. Now this one is the most obvious one, but let me rephrase this: I went from believing I had a 3.0 gpa to having, at least, a 3.5 gpa. This was huge. I had made such an improvement in my grades that when the girls would complain about my lack of time with them, I would just shrug it off. I did not want to spend my time arguing with them about why I no longer wanted to study with them, as I saw no point. Additionally, and the last thing to change, was my attitude. I noticed a positive change in how I acted around the others, and I no longer found everything to be an annoyance. Unfortunately, the biggest downside to all of this was that I no longer feel like I'm part of the group. It's a really poor feeling, but I know that if the girls want to be friends than they will put forth an effort, too. I won't go into more detail regarding them, but I will say that I feel like this has changed the dynamic of our friendship. Out of all the girls I do feel like I am the least "part of" the group, and while it stings at times, I remind myself that the people I have met have made this change worth making.

As such, as part of my reflecting, I have found that I am trying new things and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. In high school I was the quietest, most introverted person you would probably see (not meet, because I didn't talk to many people). But in college I have really been pushing myself out of my limits and trying to do as many new things as possible. In addition to distancing myself, one thing I did that was new was spending a holiday with people I didn't know very well. Now, as odd as that sounded, it's not what you think. Originally, my grandparents were going to fly out and spend the Thanksgiving holiday with me, but after the death of a family member they had to cancel plans. This left me without anyone to celebrate with, except the girls who didn't really have a plan. I will skip the details explaining how I ended up spending thanksgiving with a friend on the floor below me, I will say that it was something I never thought I would have ended up doing. I ended up leaving the girls and spent the holiday with a friend and her family, and I do not regret it at all. I was nervous at first, because I felt very intrusive, but I soon realized that with how nice and welcoming everyone was, that there was truly nothing to be nervous about. The food was very good, and my favorite dish, as well as most interesting dish, were the purple sweet potatoes. I never knew that sweet potatoes could be purple, but apparently they can be! They were so good that I even got seconds. I wish I got the recipe.

Out of all the things that I have pushed myself to do, spending Thanksgiving with a local was one of my favorite things. I don't want to say that the girls hold me back, but I am certain that the opportunity would not have presented itself had I not decided to spend more time in my own building. A part of me wishes I had left them sooner, as I know things would be different if I had spent even more time on my floor. Of course, it's important to mention that I haven't only had thanksgiving with a local, but I actually had dinner at a local church with some other friends. I don't talk about religion a lot on this blog, for reasons of my own, but I will say that I have been more active. I have attended another mass, began reading devotionals, and the Thanksgiving dinner at the local church was a nice addition to all of the other things I have been doing regarding my faith. I think next semester I will try and make it a goal of mine to go to Wednesday student masses, as a part of me wants to meet more people with some similar morals. And then, just today, I was fortunate enough to go on a new hike. This time, I went to a place called Maunawili Falls. The hike itself took about an hour, more or less, both ways, and at the top there was a waterfall that one could jump off of. I didn't want to jump, as the fall was a lot higher up than that of Waimea, but chose to appreciate those that did. In short, the hike is one that should not be done without proper shoes. I wore my Nikes, and even still they did not save me from sinking in inches worth of mud, slipping on wet rocks, and keeping my feet dry when wading through rushing water. You don't need to buy hiking shoes, but I would not suggest one wear slippers. It would be a poor choice in shoes, and you increase your chance of losing a shoe (or two).

Besides all of that, I have really enjoyed the past few weeks and hope the rest of you have, too. I haven't taken too many pictures, but I took some from today's hike that I'm hoping you will enjoy.