Autobiography

Howdy, my name is Campbell Fletcher. I was born in College Station, TX on June 3, 1993.  As a young child, my family moved all over the state of Texas as a result of my dad’s job; therefore, I have lived in too many towns to really call one “home.” My dad works for HEB Grocery Company as an upper level manager, and my mother has been a teacher for the past 23 years. She currently teaches kindergarten. I have two siblings. I have an older brother named Michael who is 26. He was my roommate during my freshman and sophomore years at Texas A&M.  I could not have asked for anyone better to live with. I also have a 17 year old sister, Emily, who just started her senior year of high school, where she is a varsity cheerleader and volleyball player.  My sister and I rarely got along when we were younger, but all of that changed when we were teenagers.  Three years ago, when I was a senior in high school and she was a freshman, I was driving her to a doctor’s appointment about 45 minutes from our house.  When we were about 15 minutes from our destination, I fell asleep at the wheel and wrecked my mom’s minivan on the highway. No one was injured, thank goodness, but I was very hard on myself, because I ran the car into a traffic barrier on her side.  The accident was unfortunate, but it did draw me and my sister closer together.

            When I am not busy wrecking my parents’ vehicles (yes, I also back into my dad’s brand new special edition MINI Cooper that he had less than three months), I enjoy researching, looking at, racing, and all other aspects of vehicles in general. I am a University Studies, Business major. As soon as I graduate school, I hope to get a job somewhere (anywhere) within the auto industry. I have been obsessed with cars since I was in 6^th grade, and it is my lifelong dream to be the test driver for the Ford Mustang. 

            The University Studies degree plan requires you to have two concentrations (minors).  My first concentration is geography. I chose this because it comes naturally to me, and I really enjoy learning about it. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I went on a trip as part of a student ambassador program for People to People. I spent 10 days in New Zealand and 7 days in Australia, and traveled all over the continent. My travels in Australia and New Zealand really got me interested in geography, because of the vast variety of landscapes. My second concentration is psychology. I never thought that psychology would have been something that I would be interested in until I took Psychology 107 with Professor Smith.  I enjoyed the class so much that I decided to stick with it! Psychology studies the way that people think, which I think, is something very important in the business world. I believe that knowledge in this field will be invaluable when dealing with unhappy coworkers, or customers trying to make decisions about automobile purchases.

            I look forward to the concepts that I will learn in organizational psychology, specifically because I feel they will be very useful for future employment in the field that I have chosen. I believe that everyone who plans on getting a job should take this class, because it can provide insight and make it easier to deal with problems in the workplace.

My take on Individuality

Well...after studying for countless hours for my first semester of final exams here at Texas A&M, I feel that I need another study break...So here goes...

When I started this blog, I had no expectations, standards, or due dates. The only reason I started it, is because I was bored and I wanted to express some of my thoughts and emotions through my writing. After posting my first two entries on Facebook, some of my friends responded by texting me and telling me that they really enjoyed it. (I really hope they were being honest and not just being good friends Haha!) So what am I getting at here??? I probably still wouldn't be sitting here writing anything If I had been told by some really close friends that my writing sucks! 

There are many qualities, talents, and characteristics that define the person that I am; some of them apparent, others not so much. If I had to name my top five, I would say that I am outgoing, nice, funny, hardworking, and a strong Christian! If you asked the same friends who responded to my first two entries, they would probably say the same thing! As I said before, these along with with many other traits, define the person that I am! I don't try to follow anyone else because I know that I would not want to be following a life of imperfection! There was only one person that lived a perfect life, and he died 2000 years ago, besides it's far more fun to make your own mistakes! I actually encourage you to do the same; otherwise, life gets boring! 

If anyone were to ask me why I wouldn't want to be like someone else, I would have a very simple answer for them...I have family and friends that love me for the individual I am. As I started this by saying...my friends support me, because they love me and they believe in the things I do. They are not giving me false hope, because they care for my feelings. If my writing had really sucked, I would have expected them to tell me. The mixture of talents, characteristics, and imperfections are unique to me and me only! I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to play basketball like Michael Jordan, or be able to write an entire series of best-selling books like J.K. Rowling...but the truth is... I am perfectly happy with the blend I have!

 Just some food for thought: Individuality is the basis from which the world grows, where would this world be if we all did the same thing? 

Psalms 139:14 says: 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonederfully made
your works are wonderful 
I know that full well.

Money Money Money!

There are many things in this world that I wish I had. Anyone that has been around me for more than a few minutes knows that I love cars (Ford Mustangs in particular). I can go on and on about how I would love to have one of these, simply because they have been an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember.  When I really think about it, my Ford Explorer gets me where I need to go, it's reliable, I can seat quite a few people when I need to, and it's a whole lot safer than some low-to-the-ground sports car that I would probably get too many tickets in anyways.

So what am I getting at here? There are many things in this world that people long for that they don't need. Media and popular culture these days revolve around money, possessions, and social status.  Many young children (and adults) are, at times, given the wrong perspectives of what are and what aren't necessities for life.  If you think about it, all the extras are just things to try and further peoples' happiness. Food is considered a necessity; however, spending $10 or $15 dollars everyday, by going out to eat is absurd. Some of the same things you can buy at a restaurant can be eaten for just fractions of the cost by staying home and cooking it yourself. I would know because I am a college student! I'm not saying that it's not o.k. to go enjoy yourself every once in a while, but if you save $5 dollars a day by eating at home, that's $150 dollars a month that could be spent on other things! 

Every Christmas, my old high-school youth group would get together, and do a gag-gift exchange; however, this last Christmas my brilliant youth leader decided to do something different. Instead of the $10 that we were normally supposed to spend on crap that would get thrown away, he had us all bring $5 but didn't tell us what it was for. When we reached our final destination after caroling at houses, he finally told us what that $5 was for. For the $125 or so that we had collected, we donated it to a charity that provides clean water and farm animals to villages in Africa. Although the reactions to gifts of Justin Beiber dolls and snuggies are funny, we felt so much better to know that kids in Africa weren't dying because we ridded the diseases from their water source by providing clean water to them and their families.

I wrote a minute ago that it was o.k. to treat yourself to special things every once in a while; however, we are truly blessed much more than we stop to think sometimes. I am fully guilty of this, because here I sit with a smartphone that probably just distracts me from more important things most of the time. It's just that we have so many possessions that are a waste of money most of the time. Even though we live in America and are one of the richest countries in the world, we long for more than we could ever possibly need! After all as you have probably heard..."He who dies with the most possessions...still dies!" Just something to think about!

Communication

I still like to keep in touch with many of my friends back home. There is only so much a person can do to keep in touch, without making the 2 hour drive to go and see them.  I have grown immensely, personality-wise, in the last couple of years. What this has done (and I am not afraid to admit it) has wholly changed the person that people see today. (Many of you who are reading this now, know exactly what I am talking about). I used to be the quiet  at the back of the class; however, now I am the one talking and making everyone laugh whenever I am around my friends or peers.

What I am getting at, is that by living so far away from my old friends, it is so hard to keep our friendship as strong as it would have been, back when I lived there.It is so hard to convey my emotions and personality through text messaging and Facebook! Don't get my wrong, these are extremely convenient ways of talking to people long distance (and even more so wasting countless hours of time, normally when I need to get something important done). Although these forms of communication are very, very convenient, they are often destructive to a person's personality that should be seen.

Back home, I could talk to someone for hours and still have them as interested in what I was saying as the minute I started; however, if I try messaging someone on Facebook or texting them, very crucial elements of communication are lost and their attention can only be held so long. I bet if you really thought about it, you didn't realize how often you actually use your hands, tone, volume and many other things to define your personality.

I believe that face-to-face communication, defines the person that I am today. I have learned some very good communication skills from both of my parents. My mom is a teacher and my dad is a manager of a big company. I really couldn't imagine my mother trying to teach her kindergartners through text messaging, or my dad trying to tell his employee how to do something through Facebook, because it's overly absurd.

Just something to think about!