Farming for Strength.

This has been a draining week. Unexpectedly went home last Thursday, seven hour drive. Step practice every night til 11:30. Waking up for 8 o clock class next morning. Every morning. Tests every week. Guess you just gotta keep on pumping and going. Found out my big brother last night in ATO. So happy to have the Honors Program's own James Cochran as my big bro. It's gonna be great spending time with him in years to come. Step Show and the Halloween Carnival are coming up, so two big things I have to get ready for.

I really enjoyed the speaker last week. I could relate to him a lot better than some of the other speakers we have had in the past. Although he didn't talk about values very much, some of the students in our class probably have never been exposed to agriculture. I think it was a great experience for them. One thing that interested me was how the crops are a little different up here than in northwest FL. We mainly grow cotton, peanuts, and some corn. We are actually the top peanut producing county in Florida. I never heard him mention peanuts. Another thing is the rate of subdivision growth here in North Alabama especially over near Huntsville clashing with availability of land to farm. I wonder how much that really is affecting farmers in that area?

A Man With a Plan

I LOVED the class with Ross Berry, CEO of Shoals Hospital. He is a prime example of what it means to work hard, and you will be rewarded in life. The way he started the class comparing the two guys and how one had everything going for him yet screwed it up, then one guy who didn't have quite as good background succeeded in life as a business man. Turns out the man with a not so good background was Ross. I love hearing success stories because it shows that an individual's hard work and determination can make a difference in success and one's future. Not the help you receive from someone else, or just because you are in a bad situation and think it's not possible. Mr. Berry beat the odds and statistics of young men in that category.

Values with a Sales Pitch.

These past two weeks has been crazy. I am determined to not have an 8 oclock class ever again. Staying up late for Step Show plus waking up early is not a good combination. Anyhow, school is still going great. Homecoming was amazing because my family came up and I got to spend the weekend with them. Plus it was my parents first ever college football game! UNA won 41-0. Hopefully we will do that good this weekend against VSU so we can at least get second place in the conference. High hopes lead to great things. I'm also hoping to get to a volleyball game soon too, plus I'm ready for basketball season!

Fall Break is near, and I am extremely thankful for that. Driving 7 hours home to Florida to spend the weekend with my friends and family is such blessing. Grade wise, I am still doing fine with all A's. We have a mandatory 5 study hours required of us in ATO monitored by our scholarship chairmen, Christian Beyens, who happens to be in the Honors Program too. I think that is a great idea to keep our GPA up.

As for the speaker, I think it was just a sales pitch. All he talked about was the values his bank had and how they were used. Didn't really teach us bout the importance of those values or why they used them. Just all the great things about his bank. That made it kind of hard to pay attention. His five values he thought were essential to banking and how good his business is were people, community, strength, service,and convenience. All those are good values, but he used them as a sales pitch for his bank, not teaching values.