Tag Archive for 'Alex'

Ya’Ke Smith is my hero.

Published by Alexzandria Siprian on August 25, 2011 in Alexzandria. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Welcome back, friends!

Back to another year of classes, traditions, inspiring moments, and all-nighters. Get excited!

I am officially a Junior in college! Can you believe that?! So crazy! I’m super excited because I made really great grades last semester and I want that to continue to happen. I’ve spent the summer waiting for that feeling of motivation to consume me, and just when I thought I had it, I get to my dorm and I feel motivation-less all over again.

Yesterday, just like we have every year before the first day of classes, we had our Mavs Meet Convocation. I’m not gonna lie, I never bothered to go in my first two years at UTA – but I wish I had. This year, however, I made my way over to the Convocation, and it was awesome! The key note speaker was one of our professors, Ya’Ke Smith. His address to the students of UTA was incredible and inspiring. No lie, I felt like I was in church. Haha. There was even a point when I said, “Testify!” in response to his appeal. He talked about how you can’t gain true success without struggle. I’m like – oh my goodness, that makes so much sense! He said, “Success without true struggle is nothing more than a gift. And if you give me something, you can take it back.” I just feel like I now have one of those golden nuggets of life that people talk about. Haha.

I feel like I’ve found my motivation.

Ya’Ke was a first-generation college kid, just like me. He has had plenty of struggle in his life, and I have too. I can look at him and listen to his story of success and know that I can also be a success story. Professor Smith talked about how the key to success is in our own hands. Basically, we’ve got to get up and go for it! We’ve got to move, strive, ACT towards our own success.

This year, I’m going to do work and strive towards my goals and my success. There are going to be a lot of trials and hard times to face, I’m sure. But those struggles will mean that my success will be genuine. And mine to hold.

I’m ready.

Happy Birthday to the GROUND!

Published by Alexzandria Siprian on March 1, 2011 in Alexzandria. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Hola todos! (Hello, everybody!)

Not too long ago, I received an email from my Spanish adviser in the form of PowerPoint that said something along the lines of: “Class registration is right around the corner!! Schedule an appointment with me so you won’t end up like this guy!!” (There was a picture of a man that was jumping around yelling…I think it’s really a picture of a film director that was yelling “ACTION!” or something, but we’ll pretend like it’s a student shouting in anguish due to procrastination.) And I thought to myself, “Yeeessss….I love this part.” Call me a weirdo, but I really get a kick out of scheduling my classes. Anyway, I figure since it’s about that time, I ought to make a blog about it. Here are some pointers when it comes to scheduling classes in college.

1. Don’t assume that your eligible day to register is the same as the official registration date.

Like I said, I enjoy scheduling my classes, so last semester I had my schedule planned out and set up in my “enrollment shopping cart” (get it?) even before the official registration date. However…I am but a puny sophomore, therefore I don’t get to register for my classes until a week or two after the upper classmen. (Did I mention we have about 33,788 students at UTA?) The day I got on my MyMav (kind of like UTA’s Facebook for scheduling/financial aid/school announcements) to register, I found that I wasn’t going to be taking astronomy this semester. :| There’s no pointer for this one; there’s nothing you can really do about that, just…just….yeah.

2. If you depend on financial aid, sign up for at least 15 hours.

Chances are, you’ll be taking College Algebra with some old coot who teaches you approximately NOTHING the entire semester, and you don’t want to ruin your GPA, so let’s go ahead and just drop this class – OHH, wait. You only have 12 hours. Drop down to less than full-time, lose financial aid. If you start off with one more class worth 3 credits, you’ll have room for error.

3. Look at the dates!

When you’re getting ready to schedule your classes for the next semester: WATCH OUT FOR THE DATES! Maymesters, Wintermesters, and Summer Sessions are all mixed in with the next big semester’s classes on the catalog. Keep an eye out! Otherwise, you’ll find out 5 days after Christmas that the entire winter break, you’ve been enrolled in College Algebra and your final exam is the next day. It happens.

4. Avoid Overscheduling.

Just because you’ll only be taking classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays doesn’t mean you’ll be studying all day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Especially if you have a job. No, you won’t have any spare time, and YES. You WILL become the most lazy person in the world. You’ll have 5 classes in one day. You’ll have class from 8am to 7pm. You’ll overlook the day of your birthday and have classes all day that day and won’t be able to do anything for your birthday besides convince your Spanish class to sing “Feliz cumpleaños” to you as a practice in pronunciation. Nope, not even free pancakes at IHop. Because that ends at 10pm and you bombed your last exam in Statistics, so you’ve got to do corrections so you can get those 5 extra points to get your grade up to an F+. *sigh*…

5. Schedule with friends.

Don’t try and fly solo, man! Get some of your friends to take a class with you. That way, when your birthday comes around, you can have someone to copy notes from. Trust me, it’s genius.

Is today my birthday? Yes. Did I have class all day? Yes, and still one more to go. Did all of the other things talked about in this entry happen to me? ….We won’t go there.

Razzle dazzle, man. Razzle dazzle.

-Alexz

“That was actually pretty cool, what you just did…”

Published by Alexzandria Siprian on April 26, 2010 in Alexzandria. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

WOOHHOOO!!!

I had a super-long weekend….guess what I was doing….

STUDYING!!!

“Whaaaaat?? Alexz studies??”

Yeah, that’s right! I studied aaallll weekend. I even skipped a super-awesome concert with super-awesome artists including David Crowder and Francesca Battistelli! I did go to Maverick Mania on Saturday, though, and I got to show one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world [Grace Minor] how awesome UTA is. She’s coming here next year, and she and I and Caitlyn are getting an apartment together! Woohoo! Anyway, back to studying. I studied every day this weekend. I was a little more lenient on Friday so I could kind of have a break from the week. Anywho, here’s what I got accomplished:

I wrote a rough draft for my book review in History.

I started and finished my Spanish lab work which most people do a little bit every day to not take forever.

I read two chapters for a History quiz [big deal for me, because it takes me forever to read! Not because I can't read, but because I'm easily distracted. Ha.]

I wrote a character analysis for my Acting class.

And I studied for a test in Spanish! [Which I'm pretty sure I beasted on.]

Quite a productive weekend, no? :) I feel great about it.

ANYWAY…If there were a moral to this story, it would be this: College is nothing like high school, as far as studying goes. Reading is required. You have to study to do well.  It is time consuming. It is your purpose as a student.

That’s all for now. :)

-Alexz

[By the way...I got the title for this blog from Night At The Museum 2. Watch iiiit. :) ]

“Lately, the weather has been so bipolar that consequently, so have I.”

Published by Alexzandria Siprian on February 16, 2010 in Alexzandria. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Yessss….

Since the first time I saw Caitlyn creating a MavElite blog, I craved that opportunity to write great things to be published on the world wide web! I know I could just get my own blog, but…eh. It would make me a regular blogger. With this, I’m a MavElite blogger. Yessss….

Allow me to introduce myself to you, world. I am Alexzandria Siprian, or Alexz. I am pretty much the most outrageous person you will ever know. “Outrageous”. That’s my new word to describe myself. I used to use words like “awesome” and “nifty”, but those have begun to be thrown around too often, and the uniqueness in them is fading. Therefore, I am the most “outrageous” person y0u will ever know!

Anyway…So, UTA has been going through some pretty outrageous weather, lately! We got snow on Thursday. It snowed ALL DAY!! Aah! I was overwhelmed with joy! Let me tell you something about myself that nobody noticed until the snow showed up: I love snow. I’ve been randomly yearning for it since aboouuut October last semester. I did not expect it at all, but when I woke up Thursday to my roommate telling me there was snow outside the window, I FREAKED OUT! I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to get out of bed!

I took over 200 photos that day. From frolicking in the snow with Caitlyn, to the epic snowball fight that my Lipscomb friends and I had at the “Secret Destination”. [It's dubbed as the "Secret Destination" because we're not too sure if we were allowed to be there or not...] We were supposed to go sledding, but the snow was too thick! Isn’t that outrageous?! The snow was too thick in Texas to sled! Ha!

We still have some snow on the ground, and I’m not going to waste one minute while I have it here. When I see a spot of snow, I automatically run towards it with the demeanor of a child. I especially love the spots that nobody has yet walked through. I run through them with my arms flailing and I squeal because I’m just so derned excited!!  I’ve developed this…not obsession, but something like that…where every time I walk past a pile of snow, I grab a handful and chunk it at somebody. Usually, I chunk it at my friend, Julian [or Joose]. I would chunk it at my friend, Rob, but he throws back and he has no mercy. [Rob and Joose are like my big brothers. I'm with them all the time. You'll hear more about them later.] On my way to lunch at the Connection Cafe [or as I call it, "Connections"] I grabbed a chunk of snow and carried it with me through the UC. When I got into Connections, I threw it at Joose. Hahaha! He says I’m addicted to snow. He’s right. Haha.

Oh man, I have so many stories to tell about these few days we’ve had with the snow! I wouldn’t want to bore you, though. Because I, for one, know that too many words makes anything boring. For me, anyway. Most of my friends love to read. When I go with them to Walden Books at the mall or something, I always complain, whining: “Tooooo mannnyyy woooorrddss….Come oooonnn! Let’s goooo…fooood cooouuurrtt or sooomeetthhiinng, pllleeasseeee!!!” Haha. Continue reading ‘“Lately, the weather has been so bipolar that consequently, so have I.”’