Setbacks are a fact of life.  It’s life’s way of saying, “Whaddaya gonna do about it?”  There is no easy button (sucks, right?), and unless you’re that guy from Men in Black 3 who had an infinite foresight to see every possible outcome for any given situation, then you might not see it coming.  But even that guy had to make decisions, because whether or not you know what might happen, it doesn’t excuse you from making the decision.  Life is made up of the decisions we make, according to the situations and the setbacks we are dealt.

As a student, I know all about setbacks.  For example, I go to my classes, and at some point there’s always something that I have a hard time understanding.  We’ve all been there, you’re in class, the professor asks a question to everyone, and for what seems like an eternity it’s just dead quiet, until at some point either someone just says something vague that kind of relates in order to break the silence, or the professor starts giving away the answer.  So, what do you do about it?  Well, l’ll tell you.  It’s the same thing you do with any setback:  you keep your head up, just like Tupac says, and you learn from it.  In this instance, that could mean being better prepared for class, or letting your professor know if you don’t understand something.  You see, that’s the beauty of St. Mary’s, you can actually talk to your professors.  They care about you at this school, for example, when they comment on the blog, that’s pretty cool.  The setbacks you face as a student here can quickly be put behind you, just by utilizing this resource.  It’s like having a 1-800 professor hotline, it’s brilliant.

This brings me to a setback that I’ve just had recently.  This past Tuesday, I injured my knee.  I’m on the St. Mary’s soccer team, and at one point I jumped to hit the ball with my head, and in mid-air I bumped into a player on the other team, and when I came down my knee hyper-extended.  As you can guess, it hurt, a lot.  It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt, almost to the point where I passed out from it.  They took me to the bench where I had to wait for the game to end for them to take me to the hospital.  Now, this was the kind of pain that could have scared me off of sports for a long time, but as soon as the pain subsided a little, all I wanted to do was get back out there and keep playing.  Setback or not, I didn’t want to let it stop me.  That’s just how I am.  I have my father, and Dragonball Z to thank for that.  Seriously, when I was a kid, I wanted to be just like Goku from Dragonball Z.  He was the kind of guy that wouldn’t let any setback stop him.  He was the good guy, you know?  He was the hero.  He was so determined and hardworking, and awesome.  So, moral of the story:  be like Goku.

As I leave you this time, I’d like to share another quote from The Lord of The Rings.  For those who have not yet read the ‘My Story’ section, I think The Lord of The Rings is the greatest thing since the invention of pizza, so you should expect quite a few Lord of The Rings quotes this year.  This one is from Gandalf and Frodo talking in the mines of Moria.  Thank you for reading and see you next time!

Frodo:  I wish the ring had never come to me.  I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf:  So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.