All I Want for Christmas is to Poop

I've been afflicted with constipation again. Tomorrow will be two weeks since I've had a relieving bowel movement. Honestly, I've been so busy with work, my trip to Taylor's, a Disney adventure this weekend to properly deal with it because I haven't really been home long enough to where I can safely take laxatives. I barfed a few times last Tuesday and again on Sunday. I think it was because my belly wasn't digesting my food quick enough for it to have room to go all the way down. I've mostly only been eating one meal a day since Thursday because if I eat more, I don't feel well. My stomach is in such discomfort and even my anus and rectum are giving me false BM alarms.  I drank a mug of warm prune juice this morning, but so far no luck. I'm going to drink another mug of warm prune juice before I go to bed tonight. I have a morning flight to Texas, but I'm desperate. If I have to shit on the plane, so be it. I warned my friend, Veronica that I'm bringing laxatives with me. I hate the feeling of having to poop, but not being able to relieve it. It's so bad that I'm wishing for an early period to shake my pipes up a bit.

I'll Likely Be Graduating with High Honors

UCF distinguishes top academic performers at graduation in the commencement program with asterisks and on official transcripts. Hopefully, I'll have some special cords and stoles to wear at graduation, too!

• Summa Cum Laude for those students in the upper 2.5 percent.
• Magna Cum Laude for those students in the upper 5 percent, but not in the upper 2.5 percent.
• Cum Laude for those students in the upper 10 percent, but not in the upper 5 percent.

UCF uses the average GPA over the past two years in the College of Business Administration (CBA) to calculate the top 2.5%, top 5%, and top 10 % of GPAs in the CBA. I currently have an overall GPA of 3.955, which qualifies me for Summa Cum Laude honors because it's higher than 3.911 cut off. As long as I can pass my last class next semester with an A or B, I'll graduate Summa Cum Laude in the top 2.5% of students in the College of Business Administration. Heck, even if I pass my last class with a C, I'll graduate Magna Cum Laude in the top 5%! As of October 2014 the CBA had 7,765 undergraduate students. Below is how I rank among my peers. Pretty damn impressive if you ask me.

Christmas with Taylor 2014

After work on Friday, I drove down to visit Taylor and celebrate Christmas. Damn, I missed that girl! We wasted no time in opening up some wine and opening our gifts from each other.  Oh, and I passed our friendship turd back to her. After adding something to it, of course. I think the red button looks great!


We talked for another hour, and then Kenny, Taylor, and I went to P.F. Chang's for dinner.  We are two very classy ladies, so it should be no surprise that we took advantage of the chopsticks and became walruses for a photo op.

By the time we were done eating dinner it was 10:30pm, so we went back to her place and went to bed.

I left around 6am for a 9 mile run. Even though I had a paper with turn by turn directions with me,  I still had no idea where I was because I'm not familiar with the area.  It was a great run. I ran 9 miles in Sunrise, Florida, on Sunrise Blvd as the sun was rising, so that was kind of special.  Kenny had already left for work by the time I got back and Taylor was already up getting ready, so I didn't get any extra sleep. After I took a shower, Taylor and I went to a flea market she wanted to check out. We followed the flea market with lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, which was my first time there. It was delicious!  We took our cheesecakes to go and ate them at her place before we left for the Phillips, Craig, and Dean concert.

We took a great photo by a Christmas tree before the concert.

When the show ended, we went back to Taylor's place and recreated a selfie we found on Pinterest. It was outrageous and hilarious. Memories were most certainly made while trying to recreate it.  After that nonsense, we went to bed. 



We slept in Sunday morning, and went to Publix for some baking supplies before going to church at 1pm. After church we went ice skating! I had forgotten how much I love to ice skate. It was great fun. Once we made it back to Taylor's place, we did some baking and took some selfies while we waited for things to bake. Once we finished baking, selfie taking, and listening to Christmas music it was time for me to head home. We're hoping to see each other in January.



Finished Fall 2014 Semester Strong

I earned an A in all three of my classes! The A in Real Estate came easy. However, portfolio analysis and supply chain didn't come as easily. I needed to score a 94% on my portfolio analysis final exam in order to pass the class with an A. I scored an 82% and an 81% on the first and second exams, respectively. Given those low scores I figured a 94% on the final would be asking a lot of myself since I hadn't performed that well on an exam all semester. I did get 100s on all of the in class exercises and on the group project, so I must have understood the material to a certain extent.  I somehow managed to pull out a 94% on the portfolio analysis final exam to barely pass the class with an A.

My supply chain final was difficult. I didn't know what to expect going into it because I got a 76% on the first exam and a 97% on the second exam. I taught myself everything from the textbook. I needed a 153 out of 180 to bring my overall grade up to a 93%,which is what it takes to pass the class with an A. I scored a 145 out of 180 on the final. The professor gave a 7 point curve to bring my 145 up to a 152, which put my overall grade at 92.95%. Technically that's an A minus. Thankfully, my professor rounded my 92.95% up to a 93% and gave me a full A for the course!

With hard work and a little bit of luck, I passed all three classes this semester with an A! My current UCF GPA is 3.905 and my overall GPA is 3.955. I know I still have one more class to take before I graduate with my B.S.B.A. in Finance, but currently I've passed all except two of my classes with an A. I passed one with a B and another with a B +. Someone needs to pinch me because I never in my wildest dreams thought I would do this well in college.

Running and School

I ran the Space Coast Half Marathon on Sunday. I knew going into it that it wasn't going to be a good race for me. My period graced me with its annoying presence the day before the race and my stomach was not in the mood for 13.1 miles. Though I will avoid porta potties when I can, they actually are life savers and don't really gross me out anymore. The hardest thing was squatting with fatigued legs to avoid contact with every surface. My training got derailed by my wicked stomach pain a few weeks ago, so my longest run before the race was 6 miles. I used the race as a training run and ran the first 7 miles straight with only walking at water stops. I did three and one intervals from mile 7 to mile 9 and then I walked the last 4 miles to finish in 2 hours and 54 minutes. The course was beautiful, but my race was anything but pretty. I'm looking at it as a solid 9 mile training run. The space shuttle bling was out of this world! I'm looking forward to the OUC half marathon this weekend and hope to have a solid 11 miles during the race. The following weekends will prove tricky to find time to train because I'll be visiting Taylor, be at Disney celebrating my sisters' birthday, and then I'll be in Texas. My focus is still on the Disney full marathon in 39 days, so I'll be packing my running gear, and saying no to alcohol, going to bed early, and waking up early to get my mileage in.

Oh, hey, it's finals week already. That came out of nowhere. I took two finals today. The grade for Supply Chain was muted, so I don't know what I got on my Supply Chain final yet and I got a 90 on my Real Estate final, which means I passed Real Estate with an A!  Today, I took a final for the last time in the main campus, college of business testing lab. That was a bitter sweet moment walking out of there knowing I'll never have to take an exam in the that testing lab again. I have an in class final on Monday at 1pm, and then my semester will be over!  Next semester my class is at Valencia West campus, so Monday will be my last time on the main campus for class. I remember being intimidated by the thought of going to main campus. It's huge. It's where students go to graduate. What if I can't? My fears were quickly calmed. I will be walking out of my final exam on Monday with a new found confidence. I can do anything I put my mind to. My peers are not necessarily better than me. I out performed them during most of my college career. I don't know if I'm still one of the top 20 finance students at UCF, but I was in that ranking at some point. In fact, I will no longer underestimate myself.  Hard work pays off and it's a liberating feeling to see the fruits of my labor. Now, my mindset is: What if I can? I can and I will!