Author: admin

Reflecting on My Blessings

Can we all agree than January took forever? I mean, from a college student perspective, it felt like I did so much in that half a month we were at school.

It only took me half of February to realize I’ve been slacking on my blog game. I haven’t even updated about my January RA stuff! Well, I’m going to remedy that right now.

For January’s door decs, I made party hats to celebrate the New Year!
For my bulletin board, I gave students the opportunity to share some of their favorite songs. It was a big HIT 😉

Now, I have to brag for a minute. I am blessed in so many ways (can I get an Amen?!) and being given this floor was just one more blessing! My residents are the absolute sweetest. They always come through on interactive things, like this bulletin board. One room on my floor has been giving back to others, and I just wanted to share that love with all of you. In December, this room hung candy canes on their door, free to any who wanted a little Christmas cheer. This month, they have hung free valentines on their door for people to take.

I mean, c’mon! How much sweeter can it get?

Something that being an RA has taught me is to always count my blessings. I encounter so many different types of people at college, but being an RA gives me relationships with people I never otherwise would have. They help me to truly appreciate what I have been blessed with, and I hope I never take it for granted.

I challenge you this month to reflect on your own blessings. What has God given you? How can you show your appreciation?

Tune in next time to see some ways I’ve been showing my appreciation to my residents.

Identity Crisis

Heading into the new year, almost everyone makes at least one resolution. When making mine, I try to stick to a meaningful one. This year, I was having trouble thinking of one. As I was scrolling through Instagram yesterday, it hit me.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a very introspective person. I’ve kept a journal from a young age, wandered off into nature just to be, and zoned out during life more times than I can count. Nothing has changed on that account; I am in my thoughts more often than not. The more I go out into the world now (college, making new friends, etc.) the more I realize I don’t really like who I’ve allowed myself to become.

I’ve changed, naturally, but I’ve allowed my true identity to become hidden behind a slew of imposters. I’ve allowed myself to believe the lie that my identity is found in what I do. I believed my identity could be found my role as a volleyball player, in my GPA, in who I was or wasn’t friends with…Those ideas only lead me to heartache.

In truth, my only identity is found in Jesus Christ, and I know that. However, in the past couple of years specifically, I feel that isn’t true in practice. I have gotten so caught up in comparison, drama, feelings ~noise~ that I’ve forgotten and strayed from who I am. A daughter of the King.

And so this year, my resolution is to find strength in my true identity. It doesn’t matter where I live, who I know, what I post, or where I go. The only thing that matters is who died for me and my acknowledgement of that fact.

Here’s to not going through the motions, not pouring over social media posts and pictures only to discover and rediscover insecurities in myself; instead, I will choose to pause. Focus. Pray. And worship the God who put me here. Realize I don’t need anything else but Him.

So this year, I encourage you to take a step back. If you are guilty of comparing yourself or your life to others, especially through social media, you are being unfair to yourself. We were all created uniquely. We are not meant to have all the same experiences, look the same, or think the same. Our Creator did not intend for this to be a world full of people who were the same. I am different from you and we should embrace and build on those differences. They are what make us amazing.

Here’s to 2020.

Love, Reagan

Growing Pains

Hello all! I am currently one final away from Christmas break, which is extremely exciting. However, because of my position as an RA, I stay at school until the end of finals week and the dorm closes to check out all my residents. I thought you should get to see the door decs and bulletin board for this month’s programming…

All of my residents are gifts!
The Giving Tree: Inexpensive or FREE ways for students to give back to their communities.

The months of November and December have brought with them a season of change. Of course, they are part of the most stressful time of the year for college students everywhere because, one word- finals.

No, this year was different. In the past month and a half, a huge role model in my life here at the university has gone on to different things. She was more than my supervisor. As some of you know, I moved onto campus on August 1st of this year, 24 days before the first day of class, 10 days before fall athletes would move in, and 23 days before everyone else. This woman fed, trained, and entertained 8 RAs for that amount of time every single day. She became our mom away from home. As the semester continued, she checked in on us as a group every week. And then she checked on us individually every week. About a month ago, out of the blue, we were told she wouldn’t be returning to the university.

I was heartbroken. 4 of the 8 RAs quit the day we found out. Students began to pass around a petition to sign to show that the students were angry. We went a week with basically no one in charge of us. The only word that could sum up that week was chaos. Incidents were happening left and right in the dorms and us RAs were having to deal with them essentially on our own. In the midst of all that, the RAs were expected to deal with the students, put on our programming events, put up our door decs and bulletin boards, keep up our grades, get over the loss of our supervisor, and keep a smile plastered on our faces. By far, that was the hardest week of my semester, and many other people’s.

I think we can all agree that those of us in college are at a weird stage in our lives. It looks different for everyone, but basically we are in a battle between being a kid, being a student, and adulting. We are the “in between.” Honestly, it’s a weird stage. Handling that week (that felt like a month) was what I like to call a growing pain. It was hard. It was weird. It was unfair. I didn’t like it. But I made it through.

I know that these “growing pains” won’t stop happening. After all, what is life about if not growth? We are constantly learning and growing, and yeah, sometimes it’s gonna be painful. Sometimes, it won’t feel like it’s worth it. But it’s not impossible.

I still miss my supervisor like crazy. In fact, it’s one of the things that makes me emotional after only a few seconds of talking about it. But things happen, life happens, we grow.

And it hurts.

But afterwards, we stand a little taller and we’re a little stronger.

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Spooky Season

I call this “Spooky Season” for many reasons. The obvious Halloween time but also, some recent activities in my life can only be described as spooky. For instance, the way my bank account is looking at this point in the semester…

Tears for being a broke college student aside, I wanted to share how my door decs and bulletin board turned out for this month. As an RA, we update our door decs and bulletin boards on a monthly basis. For October’s door decs, I decided to use different Halloween themed scrapbook paper, stencil one of four classic Halloween symbols on them, and then outline in purple glitter. Here’s my results:

For my bulletin board, I was originally planning on doing a 3D pumpkin patch, but after a few mess ups, I went in a different direction…

I know all of my stuff is Halloween themed, but if I’m being honest, Halloween is definitely not my favorite holiday. So of course, I added some fall touches to my room decor.

My “Hello Fall” sign on my door!
A cute reminder to be thankful that hangs right next to my desk!

And of course, the day I finally get around to posting all of my fun fall decorations, it SNOWS! I can see snow on the cars outside my window so I guess it’s a sign that I should go ahead as scheduled and put up my Christmas tree on November 1st…too soon?

You Mean I Can’t Do It All?

I am so guilty. Guilty of trying to do everything on my own. Guilty of bottling all of my stress up and exploding eventually. Guilty of either being too scared or to prideful to ask for help. But I’m working on that. Last week, I went through one of the most stressful weeks of my life, and it humbled me.

Those that know me can attest to the fact that I am a perfectionist. I want to be the best. This trait has manifested itself in my life in many ways, but one of the most prominent is in school. Growing up, schoolwork came very naturally for me. Senior year things started to get a little bit harder, but I thought to myself, I got this. Freshman year of college had maybe, oh, a few challenging moments, but I got through it. I was fine. (My life motto should really be, “It’s fine, I’m fine.”) And here we are, sophomore year.

I was so excited coming into this year. I changed my major and am finally extremely passionate about what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I came into this school year in several leadership positions, I was in a better and more positive mindset. I’m taking more hours, I’m planning events, I’m carving out time to do office hours for two different leadership positions, AND my room is clean. Well, all that is, until last week. My graceful handling of my life and juggling of all my extracurriculars was going just fine until my perfectionism began to catch up to me.

I had three week’s worth of homework assigned to me in one weekend with a test the first class period of that following week. In Microeconomics-which let’s just say, is not my strong subject. It really doesn’t sound that bad once I type it out, but for my brain, nothing was clicking. I was a mess. If I wasn’t in class, I was sitting at my desk attempting to talk myself through my homework, crying a few tears in frustration, and showing all the signs of a mental breakdown. I was at my breaking point.

AND I STILL DIDN’T ASK FOR HELP. Luckily for me, God blessed me with some amazing friends that I don’t deserve. They saw me struggling, although let’s be honest, it was obvious, and helped me. It wasn’t anything huge. But as soon as they did it, I calmed down. I started thinking things through. And I did it.

With the help of a cherry limeade. Sometimes, it’s the smallest things.

My point is, ASK FOR HELP before you get to the mental breakdown point. That’s something that I’m working on for myself. Personally, being the “nerd” growing up in school, I viewed asking for help as a weakness. I thought I should be able to figure everything out on my own. I’ve slowly been learning that God didn’t put us on this earth to do things alone. We were made to need God and other people. The older I get, the more I find myself needing more of those things. So ask for help. That can look like asking for help with homework or asking your friends to go do something because you need a break.

Believe me, I’m the first person to think I can do it all. And it won’t be the last time I have a mental breakdown because of that. But the truth is, we can’t do everything ourselves. We all need a little help sometimes.

We’re All in This Together

September is already here and classes are in full swing. Coming off of freshman year, sophomore year is a whole new ballgame. I am very involved this year again, being the Student Government Association secretary, a Resident Assistant, and a member of several clubs on campus. I stay very busy, but it’s a good busy.

As many know, I changed my major about two weeks before school started. I was a Business Administration major with a marketing concentration but have sinced decided that my passion is working with kids. For the past two summers, I have been blessed to babysit four wonderful kids and watching them learn and grow just over the summer is such a happy thing for me. As I was sitting at the kitchen counter with the youngest of these kids (3 years old at the time), we were working on sign language. I took a sign language class this summer and taught the kids I babysat a little of what I would learn every week. As I watched the youngest spell her name back to me in sign language, it hit me how fulfilling it is to help someone learn and be successful. That moment was the defining change in my mind.

I am not the only person who has an internal struggle about what they want to do with their lives. But last year, it seemed like I was. Everyone that I talked to had some moment in their lives that helped them decide that they were going down the right career path. I had never experienced that moment, and became very frustrated with the classes I was taking last year. But I didn’t change my major, because I wasn’t confident in what I would change to and didn’t want to lose what I had already started as far as business classes.

This summer, I had that moment. So I’m here to say to all of the high school seniors, the college freshmen, sophomores, or even juniors that you will have a moment at some point. I would say to be on the lookout for it, but mine hit me out of nowhere. When that moment comes, and you make the switch, you will know immediately if it was the right decision. For me, I was able to immediately enroll in a lower level education course. It’s already my favorite class. I come to class so excited and eager to learn. I leave barely able to contain the happiness I feel about choosing this career. And that’s how I know it was the right choice.

So if you’re anything like I was and you feel lost and unsure about if you’re making the right choice, maybe take a step back and evaluate not just with your head, but with your heart, if it’s what you want to do. Check yourself: do you feel that excitement when you think about it? Are you eager to start on it? If not, I encourage you to explore some other topics outside of the classroom to find things that are fulfilling to you and make you feel that excitement.

One last thing, talk to someone about the struggle. I talked to my friends constantly about how I felt taking the business classes. When I told them I thought I was going to switch to elementary education, they supported me 100% and were so encouraging. That was another reason I knew I had made the right choice. If you talk to people about it, they can help you figure out what things you enjoy doing and they can help guide you and encourage you when you need that reassurance. Remember, we all go through this.

Here We Go Again

I have officially been at college a week already! For the 2019-2020 school year, I am a Resident Assistant. This week has been full of all sorts of training to prepare me for any situation that might come up and lots of bonding with our fanastic group of RAs. We’ve had a lot of fun this week, but I know all of us are ready to have our residents here!

Week 1 of being an RA and I’ve already learned a lot and made so many memories. So much training ensued including Title IX, Step-Up (bystander) and CPR and AED, along with a test this morning to see what we learned. We decided themes for each dorm and more specific themes for each floor. We made door decorations, wall decorations, and we decorated bulletin boards. We checked each and every room to make sure they were in shape for the residents coming our way tomorrow. And tomorrow they will come.

My floor decorations had to be within the ‘camping’ theme of the whole dorm, so my residents get little RVs with their names on them.

We start our day not so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7:15am tomorrow to get prepped for check-in for our fall athletes. The day will be spent moving in our new residents and helping with whatever needs done around campus. We’ll have our first floor meetings and get to meet the first round of our residents. The real test comes with duty.

All of the RAs make door decs for each other and a few of the ones on my door are pictured here.

Myself and another RA pulled duty for the first weekend and will therefore be keeping watch over the dorms until the wee hours of the morning. Wish us luck…

One of my wall decorations to help students find their way around ‘camp.’

Overall, I’m super excited for this year! So many changes occurred this year and I’m ready to take on being a Sophomore. The first day of classes is still a couple weeks away but I have to say, here we go again!

Sweet Summertime

I’m back for the summer, along with college students everywhere!

A collective sigh of relief has probably gone on around the country for college students. Being home, or at least done with school, is a happy, happy time for us.

Coming home made me realize something, though. I have a lot of stuff. Like, a lot. As I unloaded my car into the living room, I had a mini panic attack at the fact that I was going to have to find a home for all of the stuff that was living at my dorm.

On top of that, I realized how much stuff I have in general, because I don’t really have any room for the things I brought back. It’s probably time for a purge…

I’m sure that there were a few things in the pile of stuff that I could’ve gone without, so I thought I’d share some things I didn’t need for those high school seniors (or their parents) who are going to start buying things for college .

  1. A Lamp – It’s always a good idea to check the measurements of your dorm, along with any features it may have. My dorm desk actually had a built in lamp, so technically, I could have definitely gone without it. Not all college dorms are the same though, so make sure to check.
  2. So Many Pillows – This seems to be more of a girl thing, but believe me when I say, you’re going to wish you had less pillows. They look nice when the bed is made, but let’s be honest here…. how often will that actually happen in college? Plus, they take up a lot of space and collect dust and dirt when you throw them on the dorm floor.
  3. Blankets – For many of the same reasons you don’t want all the pillows, you should try to limit the amount of blankets you bring. You really only need your comforter and one extra blanket for in case you get cold. Usually, your dorm room will probably be sweltering, unfotunately.
  4. Shoes – Okay so obviously you need shoes, but shoes take up a suprising amount of room. Try to limit your shoe choices to ones that you wear regularly or you know you will need for an event. If you still want to bring more, consider buying a hanging shoe organizer to conserve space.
  5. School Supplies – While yes, you will need school supplies, you probably don’t need as much as you think you do. Try to have a method planned out about how you will organize your schoolwork and separate classes before move-in day. I had a binder and notebook for each class. I also had 5 extra notebooks and 3 packs of notebook paper. Not necessary at all. If you want to buy supplies in bulk, consider leaving the extras at home instead of lugging them to your new one.

I’m sure there are many more things I didn’t need, but these are the basics that pop into mind. Obviously, every dorm is different and every person will have different preferences. I know I saw all sorts of lists of things I would/ wouldn’t need for college, but it turns out I know me best. You won’t fully be prepared until you experience it for yourself, but I hope these tips are helpful.

Now, I have to get back to unpacking…

Busy Bee

This might be weird, but I am happiest with a busy schedule.

For a lot of people, being busy just means stress. While it sometimes does for me too, I walked out of a meeting today feeling motivated. Having a full schedule is actually a good thing.

Why? A full schedule keeps you active and interactive with people, which is actually very important. Being active with people during my day just helps me to feel so much more involved in school and in the lives of people around me.

I am a planner by nature. I love to have everything written out, color coded, and highlighted if extremely important. When my planner is full of meetings and my to-do list is overflowing, that is when I am the most productive. I don’t know why, but it just is that way.

I know the end of the school year is quickly approaching for many of us, so I wanted to send a little encouragement to current college students, high school seniors, and anybody else who might need it.

Get involved. Being involved is going to be one of the best things that ever happened to you. You meet new people, have experiences you never otherwise would, and you can impact others.

At the beginning of this school year, my university put on an activities and clubs fair where we could walk around to sign up for different clubs. I signed up for a number of them and being involved in those has led me to many friendships, as well as involving me in things I wouldn’t otherwise consider.

So incoming college freshman, sign up for the clubs. You don’t have to do all of them, but you might find that you’ll meet your people there.

For my busy self, I ended up getting involved in things for next year that I hadn’t really considered before connections made through other clubs.

Next year, I’m going to be a Resident Assistant, which basically means I’m in charge of a floor of one of the dorms. Before being involved with ResLife, I would NEVER have considered signing up for that. We have to come early, we are responsible for the actions of our residents, and we have to go through a lot of training for potentially bad situations. But, I decided to step out of my comfort zone.

Next year, I’m also going to be the Student Government Seceretary. It’s not a huge position, but it means I am on the Executive Board for SGA, and therefore am in charge of a lot of things on campus. I’ll be adding these to my plate next year, on top of all the other clubs I’m currently involved in.

The moral of this story is, GET INVOLVED. And if you’re school doesn’t have something you want to be in, start your own club! I promise you, being involved makes your school experience at least 10x better.

Unplanned

Yesterday evening I had the privilege to see an early screening of a new movie, Unplanned. This movie comes out on Friday, March 29.

Whatever side you’re on, abortion is a hugely talked about and disputed issue. Both sides have so many reasons for thinking their way is the right way, which results in a lot of fights, hurt feelings, and sometimes even the loss of relationships. Whichever side of the debate you’re on, I highly recommend you go see this movie. The sad thing about it is that it is based on a true story, the story of Abby Johnson. It becomes much more real when you put a face to the cause, as one of my professors would say.

Abby’s story is incredibly hard to hear. I believe her story is relatable to many women out there facing this, and that’s part of what makes the movie and her story so sad.

Why is it so hard to watch? Reality. Reality slaps you in the face from the first 15 minutes of the movie. Unplanned shows the truth. And many people are unprepared to face it. Many choose to ignore it, excuse it, or simply are too naive to realize. As Abby herself says, many women really are that gullible. The sad truth of today is that a lot of people will believe what you tell them provided it sounds reasonable and you might have something to back it up. But is it factual? Is it true?

Unplanned is a rated R film, for violence. That says a lot right there. I was sitting in a theater full of people, and there were tears streaming down my face. This movie broke my heart. It broke my heart because this actually happens, because people don’t know, or they do and choose to push it to the back of their heads.

Again, I highly recommend that you go see this movie. It doesn’t matter which side of the debate you’re on, it’s just one of many women’s stories.

My own opinion? I am pro-life. Unashamed. I have heard and come to despise the saying, “My body, my choice.” Why? It’s not true. It is not you who is dying. It is not your body being torn apart limb by limb and sucked into a tube. It is not your body being chemically flushed out of the only home and safe place you have. It is not your body, so why should it be your choice?

Psalm 139:13-16 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”