Active Listening

         

        The first person I had a close conversation with was Cole Jenschke from Angelo State.  I know him pretty well and we had a great conversation about college life.  We talked about everything, school work, sports, and how we are going to prepare for finals.  We first started talking about how I am running track and how that is going.  I am in the four by one and we are advancing to the finals before nationals and have broken the school record two times.  Then we talked about him and his friends winning the intermural basketball championship. He was saying how the other team was much bigger than them but did not play as a team like Cole and his friends.  I was really happy for him because there were a lot of people and teams that played in the same league.  He said that they were the underdogs and that no one thought they would even have a chance of getting to the finals and then they came back a won it all.  The conversation then steered towards school work and studying for finals next week.  It seems that we both have tons of homework since we are taking sixteen hours both semesters.  We thought that we had a lot of homework in high school, but that is not the case.  College classes have us doing so much more work in class and out.  Also, we agreed that the tests are so much harder.  In high school, we could study the night before and make an A, but now we must study like an entire week before just to make a decent grade.  This being said, we are both very nervous about our finals.  I explained that I am scared that I will make a bad grade on my chemistry final and he said that he was most worried about his history final because the teacher makes them take so many notes and has so many questions on the test and a few short answers.  Cole and I are really good friends and talk about a lot more than these few things, but this is just one conversation that we had this week and we talk all the time so it is mainly things that are going on in our day to day life.  I am always glad, and it makes my day when I get to talk to Cole even though it is hard with our busy schedules.

        The second person that I had an interesting conversation with that I really focused on listening to be my mom.  I love talking to my mom and hearing about things that are going on in Fredericksburg.  I really miss home and talking to my family makes me feel like I am there still in some form or fashion.  This conversation was more business than just what was going on in good ol’ Fred.  We talked about scholarships for next year as well as the bills that are going to be rolling in next year.  These two things are very important as you might already know.  We need to get as many scholarships as we can, and we need to know as soon as possible how many scholarships that I am going to get in order to know and plan how much money we are going to take out to pay for the rest.  I was telling her all of the scholarships that I have already applied for and others that are in Abilene that I am going to apply for.  Then she was explaining how many scholarships are available for me to apply for in Fredericksburg.  I have applied for quite a few in Abilene, but there are plenty more that I might be able to get in Fredericksburg if I just apply.  All this scholarship talk led to us discussing how much college was this year and how much it is going to be next year if I get some of the scholarships I applied for.  We talked about the different type of loans and how much money we could and could not take out.  All this talk about money and scholarships became boring so we switched it up and started talking about stuff going on at her work.  She works at one of the banks in Fredericksburg. She explained to me how she is excited I will be working with the bank this summer. I worked for the same bank last summer, and it was a blast. I learned many new things. My mom then started to say that she was looking forward to us having lunch together on our lunch breaks. Listening to my mom made me miss her so much. We got a lot closer that summer, and I am very grateful for that.  Overall it was a productive conversation with my mom.

I did not get the opportunity to get
a picture with my dad since it was over the phone,
but here is a great pic of us!

        My third conversation was with my dad about my grades and my coming back home to work for the summer.  My dad is not super talkative most of the time, but today he seemed to want to talk a lot more Thursday when I called him.  And I did not tell him about this being for class because if I had he would have hung up on me and not answered my calls.  Anyway, we started talking, and it leads to him asking me how my grades were.  I was telling him that I have all A’s and on B because my chemistry class is very hard, and I cannot seem to get my eighty-eight up to a ninety.  He was disappointed, but he said he would really like me to get it up to an A because I had all A’s last semester.  My dad gave me an inspirational speech about how he believes in me and knows I can make all A’s.  it has really helped me lately to get me motivated to get my homework done before it is due and have everything in order.  From doing my homework early to study a few more hours than I used to.  I am really trying to get that last A so it is easier to get into nursing school.  Then my dad started talking about when I am coming home and how they miss me and are excited about me coming back home.  I then informed him that I am so happy to be coming home and can not wait to be with all of them again. He then asked if I had any plans for a summer job, which of course I did.  You see, my mom works at the bank and they have a few different buildings that do different things and I told him that I talked to them about being in the filing part of the bank to create and organize files.  He was glad that I had been thinking ahead and getting things done like a real adult.  It really felt good that my dad thought that I was being responsible and more adult like.  We had a little moment almost about me growing up and doing the right thing and those little moments that we connect on an entirely different level does not happen very often so it was pretty special.  I love talking to my family whenever I can because I live so far away and do not get to visit that often so every little phone conversation is special to me.

I then got to talk to my little sister Leslie who is in sixth grade.  I was talking to her about middle school, which is defiantly the years that you find your friend group, learn what real homework is, and start growing as an individual person.  This being said, I try to help her in any way possible because I already went through all of this and she can learn from my experiences and mistakes.  I asked her about school and how her grades were going and who were her friends and if she is thinking about doing any sports.  She says she really likes school and all of her classes.  She even likes most of her teachers except one and that’s because that teacher gives the class a lot of homework.  She is making great grades, all A’s like her big sister did.  She also has made a lot of friends and a bunch of them are in her classes as well.  She is thinking of doing volleyball but is not sure about any other sports.  I think she should do track as well because I love track and ended up being pretty good at it and I think she could be good and enjoy it too.  I also talked to Leslie about dance.  She is part of a dance company and is one of the best in her group.  They travel places and dance in the different competition.  She is really good and has won a lot of medals.  She was telling me about her last performance and how she only did ok as an individual, but her team got second out of fifty-three teams.  I am really proud of her because I was in dance, but the team I was on never did that well.  They are the “team to watch for” according to the local newspaper.  My sister and I are very close, and it is weird to be this far away from her for such long amounts of time.  It is really hard sometimes and I miss her very much and enjoy every second of our conversations.

The final person that I did my listening report on was my suitemate, Cossette.  I have now known her for almost nine months and throughout that time, she has become one of my better friends.  We talk almost every day and yet I never get tired of our conversations.  We always have something to talk about whether it be about our past or something that just happened that day.  This time though we were talking about how in two weeks we are not going to see each other for three months.  We will most likely go the entire summer without seeing or talking to each other in person.  You see, she lives in Fort Worth and I live in Fredericksburg and those two towns are about five hours away from each other.  That is a really far drive to make just to talk to someone that will be on the same campus the following fall semester.  Having said this, we probably will not see each other as often as we are used to because we will not only live in separate rooms but in different dorm buildings.  This is far different than when we lived in the same suit and she was just a door away from me.  All I had to do to see or talk to her was walk through the bathroom to her room.  We talked about how we should hang out next semester so that we can keep our friendship alive.  Like how we could go get lunch at the café or go study at the library, or even just go look at the prairie dogs at the park together.  I guess that I am just going to really miss Cossette and we are going to have to make time hang out instead of just being able to go into each other's rooms at the end of the day before going to sleep.