On my own, here we go

Well hello there again glad to see you back on The Swagtastic Voyage! Since my last blog, I've gotten all situated at Texas Tech and kinda gotten into a bit of a groove already. Classes are goin pretty great, the teachers are really cool!(p.s. to all you high school kids out there, everything teachers tell you about college is a lie! teachers do care and they're not jerks!) Although its not very fun waking up at 7:30 every tuesday and thursday to make it to my 8 a.m. Political Science class i'm finding a way to make it through! This past weekend Tech had their 1st football game! Me and Katelyn were so excited to go to the game we'd been talkin about it all week and we couldn't wait! The day of the game was pretty awesome 1st I painted myself and we went tailgateing, then we watched Tech take down SMU for a Red Raider victory! Even though it wasn't pretty a win's a win and we'll take it ;)

Granted we both ended up with HORRIBLE sunburns, the fun was definately worth it. That next tuesday, myself, Katelyn, and gool ol' Gavin got invited to put on a workshop at the Amarillo District camp. We were all pretty excited since it was our 1st invite of the year and we were thrilled to be there! When tuesday rolled around we loaded up into Kate's car and drove up to Stinnet for the camp, about half way there I rubbed my face and realized something, "I forgot to shave!" I yelled out. we ended up stoping at some gas station somewhere, where I found a one blade razor for 50 cents there.Yikes! Let me just tell you that was the most painful shave of my life but I gotta do what I gotta do for the members :) Speaking of members the Amarrilo district had a great bunch of them! They seemed to enjoy our workshop on non-verbal communication, and I know we had an even better time sharing it with them!

It was pretty late by the time we got done with the camp and we were all very tired, trust me 3 extremely sunburned people stuck in official dress for 5 hours is NOT very comforting. So when it came time to figure out who had to make the 3 an a half hr drive back to Lubbock, why don't we take a wild guess who got stuck with it.....ME! Most miserable drive of my life, but definately worth it to spend a day with those students.
2 days ago on friday, the 3 Techies me, Katelyn, and Gavin traveled to Austin for our Phase 3 training and board meeting. What a trip its been so far! As soon as we got ino Austin I came down with a horrible fever and had to skip out on dinner that night to try to sleep it off. Didn't work. I woke up the next morning with the most excruciating pain in my stomach and throat, and to top that off I was still pushing a 102-103 fever :/ I rushed myself to the toilet where I empties the little contaminants my stomach was holding and tried to drag myself to breakfast. The moment I walked to the lobby of our La Quinta hotel, Daddy Blaze took one look at me and said, " I think you need to sit today out", and I agreed. I made my way back to my room and once again tried to sleep it off, but the pain in my throat continued to get worse. I finally stumbled out of bed and dragged myself to the bathroom to take a look at my tonsils. I nearly fainted at the sight of them. They were so red and swollen that they were touching, they had huge blisters on either side of them, and everytime i coughed or spat it wasn't saliva coming out of my mouth...it was blood. Not only was I spitting blood, but I was as pale as a ghost, I knew now that I couldn't take any chances. I was starting to get really delerious so I immediately grabbed my phone and called my uncle who lives in the Austin area and told him my situation, he rushed to my hotel as fast as he could, took one look at me, and knew it wasn't good. He called Blaze to let him know my situation and Blaze concerned about my healty released me to him, thank god he did. My uncle didn't wanna take any chances so he took me strait to a hospital where I was seen immediately. The nurse ran my temp. at about 103, swabbed my inflamed throat and quickly put me in a bed to lay down. Exhausted and drained from everything that had happened I quickly fell asleep. After some time passed, i'm not sure how much exactly a doctor came in to give me the prognosis. He told me that I had a bad fever that I poorly treated(sorry had no access to meds!) and it caused blisters to form on my tonsils and swell them up, when these blisters became too large to expand they popped, causing all the bacteria and infection to right back down my throat into my body. Sounds pretty painful huh? Believe me it felt 10 times worse! The doc gave me some steroids right away to make the swelling go down so I could properly breath and get some fluids and food in my body. He then released me to my Uncle and gave me a few prescriptions to help my pain and the infection. I've been in bed since then and its still up in the air whether I make it to the Board of Directors meeting tomorrow. I'm glad though that my Uncle was so quick to help and I thank God that it wasn't anything too too serious and that we caught it before it got any worse. I'll just take it day by day from here and hope it gets better. Pray for me y'all!

-Patrick out.

Summer of Dreams

Well summer came and went like of whirlwind of such velocity that it seemed as if I hardly had time to stop and breath. Even my own high school graduation was cut short, as I had to jump in my truck as soon as my diploma was handed to me to drive to Anna, Texas for State Leadership Camp to start my new journey as a Texas FFA State Officer! The week of State Camp & State Degree Check seemed as if it was a month or so, with all the stress and early mornings we(the incoming State Officers)had. It wasn't til I slapped myself in the face and looked at my calendar did I realized we were only in the 2nd week of June! Before I knew it I was back in my Chevy truck driving to Cedar Park to pick up good ol' Daylon Koster for our Blast Off training in Weathorford, Texas. As we all started arriving we didn't know what exactly to expect from this training, as the all wise Blaze Currie kept our Blast Off trainer a mystery to us. We had about an hour before our trainer and Blaze arrived in the FFA truck to begin our training, so the team decided we'd do a little exploring ;). The Texas Star Ranch where we were staying was one amazing facility! It had a huge pool, basketball and tennis courts, its own baseball diamond with dugouts and all, and of course our favorite part was the couch room, which was a huge room with a bunch of couches and a huge projector to watch movies on! After our little "tour" we knew it was gonna be a great week! Blaze and our Blast Off trainer Kris Elliot arrived, and it was down to business from there. Throughout the week we went through many workshops and learned about various strengths each of us had, by the end of the week I felt as if I was a new person, Kris really helped our team get one step closer to becoming true leaders.

After a few days of being home in Eagle Pass, it was once again time to hop in the truck and travel to a new destination, this time though it was for possibly the biggest week of my life, Texas FFA State Convention! The week was filled with thrills and excitements, being able to be behind the scenes and actually see how state convention was run was an experience I will never forget. Before I knew it, it was thursday morning and time to give my election speech, I walked on stage as candidate number 5 and gave my speech to the best of my abilities. I suppose my pick up line jokes and rap swayed the delegation in my favor as I ended up making the State Presidents run off! There aren't many words I can say to explain the feeling I had standing up there on stage doing what I love in front of 12,000 FFA members and guests! Things didn't turn out exactly how I wanted as I didn't make the travel team, but now that I look at it I'm happy the way things ended up. As convention came to an end I couldn't do anything but smile. Smile at the fact that I'd accomplished something I'd only dreamed of, smile at the fact that I'd made my parents and friends proud, and smile at the fact that I was truely happy at where I was in life.

The rest of the summer included going to a few more FFA events inculding Ag Teachers conference and a few district camps. My summer of dreams concluded with me moving into my dorm with my best friend at the greatest college in the world; Texas Tech University! This summer was just one step in my new life journey, even though it was probably the best time period of my life, it's time to close that chapter and begin a new one, and I know for a fact that the next page of this book of my life will be just as exciting as the last. Patrick out ;)