Being a Longwood student means more than just taking classes and getting a degree

This blog post couldn't have come at a more perfect time. I have this list in the back of my agenda of potential blog posts and as I looked at it in between classes today I decided I was going to write the post I labeled as the struggles of a college student, specifically a Longwood student. Now don't just stop reading there as you think this is going to be a post for the sole purpose of complaining about how hard college is and blah blah blah, because it's not, I promise. For those who don't know me, I am very involved, constantly running back and forth, and I am almost never in my apartment except to sleep. Between classes, work, and my many extra-curricular activities I am constantly going, which is how I like it. Lately I've been stressing a lot about the actually student aspect of being at Longwood, not the work and extra-curricular aspects, but the thought of somehow graduating in a year and a half has really been putting a ton of stress on me. I still have 33 credits to take in two semesters along with a 120 hour internship requirement that I have not fulfilled. Longwood puts a lot of emphasis on internships, which is one of the many things that drew me into Longwood when I was in high school. It is a great way to help get your feet in the door after graduation. Recently though I have thought otherwise about this internship requirement. I no longer want to work in the my field of study so why find an internship in that field? Academically this is my current struggle as a LU student but there is also a lot more that I've been dealing with that today seemed to all find it's worth in my life at Longwood.
Longwood is a relatively small school, many students are actively involved on campus in one or more organizations around the community. Myself, I am actively involved in three organizations, have a part time job at a residence hall, and recently went inactive from my fourth organization. I do believe that our campus involvement is one thing that makes Longwood unique. Longwood works to build "citizen leaders" and I truly believe that our university does a fantastic job at this. Two of the organizations I am involved in work towards leadership and bettering the community. I put my all into every organization that I join, I run for leadership or officer positions, I attend all the events I can, and put in all the time that I am able to give, and I do all this not expecting anything in return except for self-growth on a personal level. I don't walk around Longwood expecting people to know my name because I am involved, I walk around Longwood hoping that somehow I will be able to make a difference in the community. While I talked earlier about the "struggles of a Longwood student" this to me isn't a struggle, working for others, this is a blessing. This is the blessing of being a Longwood student.
Longwood has two secret societies, one of which being CHI. CHI represents Longwood spirit, and they are represented by their motto "service to the whole without seeking honor for thyself." CHI is Longwood, and it is a constant topic around campus. Today when I opened my mailbox I saw a letter and as I looked down the return address read "CHI, Longwood University." I immediately thought this has got to be a mistake. I would never get a letter from CHI. It wasn't a mistake though, it was letter addressed to me recognizing me for my service and work here at Longwood. My life as a Longwood student is complete. I never would have expected to get a letter of such sorts but as I read it I was extremely thankful. This morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I was in a horrible mood, I was mentally and physically drained, but this letter gave me the energy to continue to do what I do best, and that is keep going. As I stated I never expect to be thanked for my work, I don't do it for the recognition (as I wrote in an earlier post), I do it to help others and to grow as an individual, but receiving a letter from CHI was quite possibly the greatest feeling as a Longwood student. Thank you CHI. Thank you for recognizing those who deserve it, for being there to watch over Longwood and recognize those who don't get recognized, and be a constant representation of the spirit of Longwood. Thank you for my letter because it could not have come at a better time. While my work at Longwood is not done quite yet, I finally know that my work at Longwood is worth it, and in ways for more than just personal growth.

Be yourself, and who you are meant to be

I've had many conversations recently with people about how to accept yourself for who you are. I have been the one to tell people when they are down and lonely that yes we are all different and we all have our problems, but no matter what we need to be ourselves. I have also been the one on the other side of the conversation that needs encouragement as well. I believe that college is a place to find yourself, figure out who you want to be, where you want to go, and what you want to be known for after you graduate. While that may not seem like much, that is quite a lot to figure out during the short four years you have, but some how most of us are able to figure it all out eventually. For me I have gone two and a half years not knowing the answers, but just recently I think that I've discovered some of those answers I've been looking for. However, these answers didn't come without a few bumps in the road.
Both last semester and this semester have seemed to just be constant struggles. I've had my questions about my choices since coming to Longwood, questions about where I want to go after, and most importantly I've struggled with acceptance. I don't tend to open up to people during the low points in life. I often time sugar coat the low points with the high points naturally as most would do. Why tell people about the bad when you can tell them about all the amazing things happening in life? I do though find that the low points are really what help define us as individuals, and sometimes talking about them and reflecting on them are really what help us grow and discover the answers to the questions we ask ourselves. Those points in life are what define you for who you really are.
After having a conversation with one of my close friends a few days back I realized that I don't need to keep this from my friends anymore. This conversation was centered around her, but in reality, it probably helped me more that it helped her. If these people are really my friends then they will stick around, they will be there for me when I need them, and they will for some odd reason accept me for who I am. I'm awkward, I'm weird, I'm emotional, I'm loud, I'm a talker but enjoy silence, I'm Kylie. I've learned to accept myself, and I've learned to let others accept me for who I am. If I can't be myself around my friends, then guess what, they aren't friends. They would just be people that are taking up space in my life. They don't deserve to be in my life. That may sound aggressive, but it's the harsh reality of it all.
Society is harsh. Much of the time people are pressured into being people they aren't just so they can "fit in." I'd say that elementary and middle school has probably changed quite at bit since I was there, but I can speak from experience that all I ever wanted to do was find ways to fit in with the people that I perceived as the "cool kids." Why though? Why change who you are to fit in with the people you think are cool? While this is how I felt in elementary and middle school, I can say that college, while vastly different, has it's similarities. I've leaned much about acceptance since coming to Longwood and I really hope that others have leaned what I have leaned. Longwood has given me the opportunity to truly be myself and find the friends that let me be myself. Don't ever let today's society change you because you don't think you're allowed to be who you want to be. There will always be people who look at you differently because you're not like them, but ignore them. Find the people that look up to you for being yourself. Find the people that accept you for you and the people that will bring happiness into your life.
With that being said a quick shout out to the ones that actually stick it out through it all. To the ones who accept me for my awkwardness and my pointless late night talks, thank you. Many times people don't realize what they are thankful for, but recently I've done a lot of thinking about what I am thankful for and my friends are by far towards the top of my list. So to you my reader, be yourself. No matter what your age may be, what your social or professional status may be, be yourself. There is no more happiness to be found than the happiness you will get from being yourself, and what will come from that happiness.

a SEAL isn't just an animal in my eyes

I've come to realize that a simple four letter acronym can mean so much more than the words it represents. S.E.A.L. is much more than Student Educators for Active Leadership. S.E.A.L. is a family, a group of now 26 members who are there for each other. A group of members who stand up for what they believe in. A group of members who work together for a common cause. A group of members who recognize that yes we are all different, but we indeed accept each other for who we are and by no means treat anyone otherwise. I've come to finally see how much this group of individuals means to me.
Last night we welcomed nine new members into our family and this being my second initiation as a S.E.A.L. it really reassured how much I love this organization. Not only has it brought me life long friends and taught me countless lessons, it has helped me realize who I am. S.E.A.L., while we may tell everyone that we are a leadership organization on campus, we are more than leadership. We work towards selfless service, towards a bully free campus, towards building leaders out of those who don't believe they can lead, and towards so much more. We are an ever changing organization, we do not have one set type of person that we accept and we do not have one set sole purpose.
As we welcomed in nine new members yesterday, it warmed my heart to know that we are able to continue to reach across all demographics around campus, and to know that we will remain a loving organization who accepts each other for who we truly are. What is S.E.A.L. to me? It is my home. I mean what can I say, Tuesday is the best day of my week. I walk by the Amelia room and all the S.E.A.L. memories just flood my head. They say you find yourself when you're in college, and S.E.A.L. let me find myself and be myself. They let me figure out what type of leader I am, they let me be my awkward self, they accept me for my weirdness, and most importantly I accept them as well.
With that being said, thank you S.E.A.L. I thank you for always being there, for teaching me so much, for being my shoulder when I need one to lean on. S.E.A.L. has given me so much, including my best friends, and I could never pay this organization back for all it has done for me.

"I have insecurities of course, but I don't hang out with anyone that points them out to me."

I challenge you to...

One of my all time favorite songs is "Bleed Red" by Ronnie Dunn, and the lyrics have really resonated with me these past few days as I traveled back from Jacksonville and spent my first day back in the 434. The basics of the song are that we in reality are generally the same. We are all humans, and we indeed all bleed red when it comes down to it. As I spent my week in Jacksonville I learned much more about refugees and the process than I ever thought I'd get to know. Refugees are very different from both legal and illegal immigrants, however many people don't recognize this distinction. 

Much of the American population just clumps all foreign populations into one category and slap them with a stereotype and call it a day. After my week in Florida, this breaks my heart. I worked with refugees both young and old and even heard some of their stories and they by no means deserve to be treated as something other than human. While they may have a different skin tone, speak a different language, dress differently, and may not know their way around American traditions, they still earned their entrance into this country. In order for an individual to be considered a refugee they must flee their country due to political or religious persecution where they fear for their lives. The process of being declared a refugee isn't an easy or quick process, and heck they may not ever get placed into another country, but when they do they face the many difficulties of being dropped into a country they likely know nothing about. 
Hearing an example from an immigrant herself and as I stated above, in today's society in America it isn't uncommon for people to just throw a label on non-English speaking foreigners. I am fan of challenges. When I reflect on experiences, both large and small scale events, I challenge myself to learn from them by creating these opportunities to grow. After my week in Florida working with these populations that I've never before had the chance to interact with, I challenged myself to an abundance of different things. In relation to my favorite song, I have challenged myself to rid my mind of stereotypes. This is very broad, and probably very difficult as we are raised learning stereotypes, but it touched my heart this past week to hear Hind's story of her one experience in a grocery story where a complete stranger treated her like she was trash because she wasn't American. The society that we live in today is very un-accepting. American's in my eyes tend to be very selfish and I want this to change. There is no reason for anyone to clump another person into this bubble of hatred just because of their nationality. Obviously there will always be individuals here that shouldn't be, but unless you individually go around and ask everyone for their story and their paperwork than you will never know who is who. 
To bring this to a conclusion, because I know that I could continue to talk in circles about this forever, I challenge you, whoever you may be, to get rid of your blinders. I challenge you to give everyone you come across a chance. Learn from them, acknowledge that they too have a story just as you do, and fully understand that they too bleed red, and they deserve a chance. I have already begun to accept the multitude of challenges I face after my week in Jacksonville, and I hope that at some point you too will be able to have an experience that brings you as much joy as my experience brought me throughout this past week. 

"How we walk with the broken speaks louder than how we sit with the great."

Dear Jacksonville,

Today was an inspiration. I can already tell y'all that today will be one of the most memorable days of life. To give you some background, I am spending my week in Jacksonville, Florida working with refugee populations on an Alternative Break experience. You would think that a bunch of college students wouldn't choose to spend their spring break in Florida on a substance free service trip, but man is the stereotypical college student idea wrong. We are a group of 12 college students who are making life long memories doing service for a community that seems to have the biggest hearts and most open arms. 

Today was our second day working with an organization called Lutheran Social Services, where today we traveled to the Center for Language and Culture. We had the most amazing privilege of meeting an individual named Hind. I could write for years about that hour and a half we spent with her, so bare with me as I try to gather my thoughts about this touching experience. Hind is an immigrant from Morroco who in just a short period of time opened up to this group of 14 strangers explaining her life and her intellectual input on being an individual in a new country who doesn't speak the language. Hind spoke from her heart which in today's society isn't common. It seems to be that we tend to have a bias towards others, and we don't truly love life for what it is or acknowledge the true meaning behind situations, therefore the true meaning is clouded but judgement. 

I sit here and I try to discover words to describe the words and emotions that Hind lent to us, however it's hard to grasp my thoughts around it all. Hind had us imagine a situation where we were all thrown in China with an emergency and we were unable to speak the language. This was the beginning of our discussion. We were put in the shoes of those who we are working with all week. Obviously we are unable to fully understand the concept unless we have truly been there ourselves but in all honesty this was a breaking point. This point is where the conversation sparked. We continued to discuss refugee and immigrant populations and Hind began to share her story. Hind simply put into perspective how we can be the world for one individual even though it seems that in this world one person can't do much. I left our conversation today a different person. That says a lot about a time period that was less than 2 hours. I have a different outlook on the simple things that I seem to take for granted each day. 

Lately I've been questioning my life and where I will be going after college but today I realized that I know. I realized that I want to be the smile that can change someone's world. I want to be the one who is is passionate about my work. I am challenging myself this week. I work everyday to find a new challenge that I can work with after the week and today I challenged myself quite a few things and I look at these challenges with an open mind, and with the knowledge that they aren't going to be easy to accomplish but I can get there. If I have strong perseverance like Hind than I too can get to where I want to be. 

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."

Dear Recognition,

We are raised in a society where recognition is always promised. Whether it be for getting straight A's in school, doing the "right thing at the right time," being an outstanding individual in some aspect of life, or so much more, we were raised to expect recognition when we do well. Recently I've realized how much of a disadvantage it is to be raised in a society where we learn to expect recognition. My university claims to build "citizen leaders," and I do believe that Longwood does a spectacular job at building these leaders, but recently I've noticed that some people (including myself from time to time) expect recognition 24/7. To me this isn't what a "citizen leader" is, we shouldn't expect recognition, we should be able to lead and serve our community without hoping to gain something out of it. We all have our signature lines at the end of our emails, we post statuses when we earn awards, we expect phone calls and texts when we achieve a large goal in life, but this shouldn't be what life is about.
Recently I have come to realize that life should be selfless. Our human nature is to be better than the next guy, and the recognition we receive is what feeds that want, but how do we overcome that? To truly enjoy life we don't need our family to tell us every single day that they are proud of every little step we take throughout the day, we don't need to get an entire day dedicated to us for simply getting up out of bed to go to class or work, we need to learn to be selfless, we need to learn to be proud of ourselves and accept that others aren't always going to see the good that we've done. Recognition is detrimental. In all honesty, I am realizing this because I think recently I've been expecting this recognition for everything that I do in my crazy, hectic, busy life, and I haven't received it. However, as I have realized this I have grown a lot, I've come to understand that life isn't always going to be full of happiness and butterflies. While I write this I realize how hypocritical I am, as I am a huge advocate of giving recognition, yet I believe that we shouldn't expect recognition. I always give individuals recognition when they deserve, but I find myself not receiving this recognition when I think that I deserve it.
I don't always get a pat on the back for getting an "A" on a test, a nice note for being a good friend, a friendly text for posting a new blog post, but I still seem to get decent grades, I'm still a good friend to those who mean the most to me, and I still post blogs on a regular basis. I challenge you my reader, to become an better person as I hope that everyone becomes a better person every day. But please don't only become better because you are expecting for people to come and pat you on the back for it. Be the best friend you can be without expecting your friends to be at your door praising you for your kindness. Be selfless. Be conscious of your decisions, and don't expect recognition, because you're not going to always get it. Part of life is being there for others, doing your best and succeeding, and life doesn't always come knocking with awards, pats on the back or gifts, but I promise you, you are thanked. You may not receive the recognition you want but I guarantee you that others are thanking you with out physically showing you. Dear recognition, I hope that one day our society doesn't expect to see you at our door everyday, I hope that you become a rarity. I hope for this because a selfless society will be a better one.

"It's not easy to find someone to see your best."

Dear Life,

It isn't uncommon for me to find myself at least three times a week looking back at old pictures and reminiscing on the experiences I've had. Just 10 minutes ago I was looking at pictures from 2010. These past few days I've been doing a lot of reminiscing, and it's got me to thinking, what has gotten me to where I am today? What are the events in my life that fully impacted who I am today? I think that recently I have realized that I don't yet know what my passion in life is. But I do however know that I want to help others. As I have thought recently about how I will be able to help others, I realized that I really need to step back and recognize what has helped me arrive to where I am in life. So I write this post "Dear Life," as I sit back and fully recognize why I am where I am in life and accept the life that I am living.
I'm sitting here racking my brain on the life events that led me to where I am right now and I'm drawing a blank. But by a blank I mean, I think of these events that don't seem like too many events, but I think  the amount of them holds the true fact that these are indeed the events that shaped my life. There aren't many events in the early years of my life, but I think that's for the better. I contemplated laying out my lifeline but I've realized as I try to write it out that no one but me and those individuals involved at those specific times will ever understand the impact that the events had on my life. This past weekend I started to tell some one my "life story" and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I realize that the life story that I told her, is not what I wanted to tell her. There is so much that has impacted my life and thinking about the things I said during that short period of time, those are not what I want to be known by, what I told her was probably about 10% of my life story and part of me wants to run back screaming to finish my story. I don't expect anyone but myself to fully understand where I am in life, and what led me here, but as I move forward in life I challenge myself to recognize these life changing events as they happen. I in turn, challenge you, whoever you may be reading this, to look back and realize what has gotten you to where you are today.
I leave you with one note on my life. The one note that seemed to be the most devastating and influential one of my life. I lost my father when I was three to cancer. My family changed that day. We lost the man who brought us together. We lost the man who would always be there for us. We lost the man who loved us unconditionally. We lost the man who vowed to be with his family through thick and thin. And 17 years later, I can say while we lost a man that day, we gained a guardian that day as well. Just about every event in my life was shaped around this day. I am in college now because of him, I fight for who I am because of him, and I sure as hell push through everyday of life because of him. Because I know that I may never know when life will be taken from me. Sometimes I worry that I too, like him, will have a life that will be cut short. I live everyday and every second of everyday with the intentions of doing good. I want to be able to look back on life and say that is me, I lived life for Kylie and the Kylie that I built through all my experiences is one that I am proud of. So Dear Life, I face you head on. I look back at everything you have given me thus far, and I look into the future to everything that is waiting for me and I am prepared. And mostly importantly, I recognize my purpose and how I got here. Dear Life, I accept you.

"Because someone we love is in heaven, there's a little bit of heaven in our home."