Thanksgiving!!!!

In McAllen, Thankgiging is a huge deal, esspecially for the Granchelli family. I look forward to that Novemver 28th more that I do to any other day of the year, well maybe a tie with December 25th. We consider tthanksgiving a necessary and beautiful holiday in the sense that we are a catholic family and pay our respects to the lord for all we are blessed with, we are also very close as a family and we are very very thankful for one another and our families well being. Anither reason why it is such a special time of year is because it is a time of family gathering where every one of our nine family members get to come home and enjoy the company of one another and do some of our favorite activities that we grew up doing. The boys ususally go on several huinting and fishing trips, watch football, cook the turkey and BBQ, and talk about guns and sports and cool stuff we've done recenstly. The girls usually go eat, go shopping, and prepair all the sides of the giant meal to come. Then when the day of Thanksgiving comes, we all spend the day together, watch the football game, play games and have the greatest day of the year, ending it of course with a major fiest!!!

Changing my point of view

As iv mentioned before, when in first arrive, i felt out of place and some what alienated amongst the other students in which i now live with. I was completely different from all of them and i couldn't find anyone with any common characteristics as me or my way of life.
At first, i thought there was no way i was going to get along with alot of these culturally different people. It seemed as if they didn't seem too friendly towards me, but it turns out they were probably feeling the same culture shock i was. Although i have made friends with people of all types, i'm not going to lie that where i came from, we made fun of those rich, pretty boy, private school kids, and never gave them a chance to let us get to know them. And when someone of different culture or nationality, we never really gave them a chance either. But now that i'm in there shoes, i decided that the only way i was going to enjoy my time here for the next four years was to make peace with everyone. And now im happy i did. I have great friends from all over and of different lifestyles and elasticities and am happy to be able to experience a little bit of it all through them.

Friends in Low Places

At first i was a bit conservative when it came to picking my "crowd" here at Trinity University. Mainly because I felt like i was out of my environment here, not knowing anyone, and the people i did know seemed either strange or different to me. As I began to think about my good friends back home, i was beginning to think i would never meet anyone who i could trust or be myself around, or who would get my sense of humor, or listen to my kind of music. But recently i have acquired a few good friends here, all from different backgrounds, and Ive realized that its better to go out on a limb and not limit your friendships. Now that i find comfort in my friends here at Trinity in addition to my original friends, i feel, that i have that upper hand in that i can enjoy people and have fun no matter where i am and now I'm not categorized in any certain crowd or type of stereotype, because I'm seen as the guy who is friends with everyone. Yes its true, I can never replace my life long buddies that i grew up with, but i know they will always be there for me and no i always have the opportunity to open doors to my future relationships and opportunities.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

subscribe to my podcast(iTunes)
subscribe to my podcast(RSS)

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Mixture of Cultures

Mixtue of Cultures

Coming from Mcallen, Texas, i thought i knew all there was to know about culture variety considering Mcallens geographical location of being only a stones thow away from Mexico. I had only seen the tip of the iceburg about cultural diversity. When i came to trinity University, i was surprised to see so many different colors, ethnicities, and types of people from all over as opposed to out 90% hispanic population and a few white/caucasion faes here and there as it is back home where i felt as if though i was the minority.

Now that i have had some time to feel the real effects of having a truley divers environment, i have had the privaledge to truly appreciate everything diveristy has to offer. The different lifestyles, personaalities, point of views, languages, religions, music, and culture in general is overwhelming to me and feel as if i was wrong to feel out of place at the beginning and ive relized that to me they were the different ones at first and they probably saw me as the different one. Now we both see eye to eye and realize we are experiencing Americas true nature as a mixed nations where everyone is equal and equally different.
subscribe to my podcast(iTunes)
subscribe to my podcast(RSS)

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Moving from a small town to a big city

I knew it was coming towards the end of my senior year in high school. But the fact that there was no way around leaving McAllen, Texas, which seemed to be heaven on earth to me and my friends, and going on to perusing our life dreams which involved gaining a high level education from a university. McAllen doesn't have the cream of the crop when i comes to universities, so we had this idea that we all needed to move out, preferably "up state" where the good schools are. So we used our grades and football to get our scholarships to high ranked universities all over the state.
Most of us are happy with our choices for the most part. There always seems to be at least one flaw where ever you go. Mcallen's immediate flaw was the lack of good university's, so i came here to San Antonio, one of the biggest cities in the U.S. to most people that's a good thing, but to me that is this university's one and only flaw.
The first difference i noticed upon my arrival was the huge buildings and complicated freeways. it will be tough to adjust to this new "city" environment coming from a somewhat rural place like the valley. Just as i started to feel out of place and started to question my judgment on this decision to come to Trinity, I started to become close with the football team, classmates, and people in my hall and realized I'm not the only one experiencing drastic changes. Meeting people from out of state and even international students, i accepted the fact that they were feeling the same uncertainty as i was and even though i couldn't get up and go hunting or fishing whenever I wanted to, i could make new friends and learn to enjoy this different life style. At least for the time being here at trinity.
The conclusion that i have made in order to succeed is, "when in Rome" is to never change whop you are, but simply adapt to your environment.