I would advise any who is going to commute to school to make sure their car is checked and maintenance. I bought my '97 Ford Taurus GL right before school started it had seemed to run fine. So it's Wednesday morning the day before my first big test and my car just dies on the highway. I'm sitting and wondering how could this be and I had been ignoring the blinking battery light. I figured I could get it towed to Car-X and be in and out with no problem.

I was wrong I had came in at 8:00 my class was at 10:00 and I didn't end up leaving there until almost 5:30. I made sure I emailed my teacher and she was nice enough to let me make it up on the following day. Back to my point about keeping your car up to date. If I would've paid just $60 in preventive maintenance I would have saved myself time in frustration. I ended up having to pay $370 for a new battery install and a new radiator.

As a commuter living so far away I've started riding the bus. I normally fill my gas tank up at the beginning of the week about $35-40 worth. When I catch the bus I'm paying $4.50 round trip.  $40-13.50= $26.50 in savings and total for the month about $106.

I've learned over the years that there are good influences as well as bad. I've tried many times to separate the two and sometimes it's harder than you think. Tv influences my thoughts on the current election. I've learned that some stations have a biased viewpoint when speaking about a presidential candidate. Nbc/Msnbc tend to be pro-obama and the fox stations tend to highly favor mccain. I've tried to listen to all sources of media to get an overall view of each presidential candidate. Most younger students feel like it's not important to vote and I use to feel the same way until we entered this crisis then I started paying attention. I haven't made a decision but I'm sliding towards Obama because his college tuition grant/tax would give students around $4000 I believe and with rising tuition rates any outside money is a plus. McCain seems to be a step behind Obama and it has been showing in the polls. I'm looking forward to the last debate tonight and I feel whoever comes out of this the strongest will win the election in November.

In terms of personal influences I have a lot of those. My mom is one of my biggest role models and and she works so hard to provide the best for me. With her drive instilled in me I know I will be able to go far. Every coach I've ever had has influenced me in some form or fashion. I believe by being an athlete at such a earlier age you learn life lessons that stick with you forever. You learn leadership , teamwork , dedication , commitment , time management as well as making new friends. The coach I couldn't forget is Coach Jackson. He's the one coach who had the faith in me to be a star. I played offensive line all the way through pee-wee and my last year our star running back had got hurt. They were having tryouts so  I decided to give it a try. They wanted to make me a quarterback but I couldn't remember the signals . I tried out and was awarded the spot as the feature back and sole team captain. That's a moment I'll never forget because without him I may not be the man who I am today.

*Views about politics and my pick to be the president are my own personal views and not those of the college or anything or anyone associated with the college. 

Well I'm sitting here listening to Coldplay and one of favorite songs comes on.It called warning sign off their "A Rush of B-s to The Head". It made me think about my situation at school. One thing about college is being held accountable for your own actions. Well I recently received an early warning report from one of my teachers. This is basically telling you that you aren't doing well and the report contains details about how to change that. So upon receiving this I realized that I have to turn things around. It wasn't because I wasn't studying or that I'm not smart all I needed to do was change how I study. I realized waiting until the test comes then cramming isn't very successful. I now study my notes every day and things seem to be working out. It only takes about an hour or two which I used to spend online or playing videos games. Setting a schedule of days has also been helpful for me and it leads me to not do anything wasteful when I should be doing something that's important. I came to the point in my life were I really have to grow up because trying to find a job without a college diploma is extremely hard. I had to sit out a spring semester and trying to find a job or at least a good paying job is nearly impossible unless it's backbreaking work. I commend those people but that isn't my future and if I keep slacking then I will soon run out of chances. The college has given me that second chance and I really can't afford to blow this wonderful opportunity or I'll end up in a place, I don't want to be doing something I don't want to do.

            I think transferring schools was the greatest thing I've ever done. It has allowed me to really “buckle down” and work on improving my grades, a year of weightlifting and I don't lose a year of eligibility. It's nice being able to go to school leave then all I have to do that night is study. Don't get me wrong I love and miss football but that's just the way NCAA guidelines work. To keep me in the football mentality I decided to participate in the school's intramural flag football. We play on Thursdays and it's a lot of fun. We've only had one game so far (one being canceled due to Hurricane Ike) but my team The Agents are 1-0. If you'd like you can follow our season by going here

”http://msj.edu/view/athletics/intramural-sports/fall-2008---thursday-flag-football.aspx”.

You don't have to be an athlete to play because I would say there are just as many athletes as non athletes. There are people that have never played football ever to people who've played up through high school Gender doesn't matter either there are girls that participate as well. I've done pretty well scored a TD but one of the best things about it is that it keeps me in shape. It's easy to come in as a transfer or freshman like myself and not know anyone so when your out there playing your naturally making friends. It's always good to be out and meeting people and even though i'm pretty introverted football is a good icebreaker.

Since this is my first blog of the year I'll start it off by talking about how I got to the mount. The mount was on my short list of schools that I wanted to attend to play college football. I ended up going to Thomas More College in the fall of 2007. I got a chance to play as a freshmen and that was all well and good but something was missing. I had a talk with a close mentor about it and he asked me the question “if you can't see yourself being happy there for four years then maybe it's time for a change”. So after two semesters (summer/fall) I started looking at other schools. I had a lot of colleges recruiting me but they were far and I realized I wanted to be closer to home. So I made a schedule of the colleges I wanted to visit and when I would visit them. The mount was first so I visited the school and after leaving after my visit I knew I wanted to be here.

While walking around campus people who had no idea who I was were helping me get to the places I needed to go. The campus and all the facilities are tops compared to other d-3 schools I've played at or visited. You can feel a sense of family and as a commuter thats rare. Most people believe you have to live on campus in order to be a part of the school but I've been able to be a part of the intramural flag football team (I will talk about this in a later blog). I find you get more out of your college experience by getting involved. I mean your paying for a good education might as well get the most bang for your buck.

Going to school in-state saved me a lot of money and also gave more money in terms of state grants. Going to a private catholic college isn't cheap so anything to help pay for school is a big help. I applied early so it put me in the best situation to receive the most money possible from fafsa.