This blog originally started by a means to pass the time while I healed my broken foot. The first-ever post, titled The Break tells that story. In a nutshell, I signed with Winthrop University, trained all summer to get ready for my freshman year of college soccer, broke my foot the first week of preseason camp at Winthrop, and then had to get season ending surgery. I used the blog to vent about my life being turned upside down.. being on crutches for the first few weeks of college, going to rehab every single day, etc. However, writing about my day and my personal thoughts became very fun for me. I began to take pride in my descriptions of the world, as I viewed it. I started out with a simple domain name on Google’s Blogger service, but then realized that I had quite a few readers. I decided on the name Stellar and Stoked, referring to life (even though I learned it could be crazy and unpredictable) as something stellar and something to be stoked about, and now write about my life quite frequently.
A means to pass the time has now turned into a nice way for me to express myself, indefinitely, and is there for anyone to read it.
However, just as life is proven to do, my blog is constantly changing shape and taking new form and consisting of new content. Through my Freshman year at Winthrop, I underwent a total of three surgeries (a hernia surgery and a screw removal surgery after my initial surgery in August of ‘08) and left me with a huge hunger for success at the end of the year. Over the summer of ‘09, it was like I was going through the same thing with soccer as I did the summer before. I had redshirted because of my broken foot, and would again take on the Freshman role, only as a redshirt in the Fall. I had more to prove than ever and came into preseason camp as a finally healed player. However, this didn’t last for long. After starting two preseason games, I once again fell into the injury trap and for the remainder of the season saw four critical injuries, including a cortisone shot in my foot. After battling through another season in the training room, rehabbing and just hoping that my body would cooperate, I was forced to layout my priorities. Although soccer is a HUGE part in my life, and playing Division One soccer has been my goal since I was very young, I decided that I needed to give my body a rest and remove it from all the stress that it was going through.
Through all my injuries and time on the sidelines, I innately picked up my academic performance. And with the exposure to surgery and the diagnosing of my injuries by the sports medicine staff, doctors, and surgeons, I developed a huge yearning for the medical profession. Around Christmas time my Freshman year, after my second surgery, I developed a real sense of the medical profession and learned that I wanted to someday, become a doctor. I could totally see myself working in hospital, or in a private practice, working with people, consulting patients and families, etc. Fortunately enough, my love for science correlated exactly with the core foundation of medicine, science itself.
After being injured for a second year in row, I thought long and hard about my future. I decided to go back home to Georgia, and become a University of Georgia Bulldog, leaving my teammates at Winthrop. However, as a Georgia student, I will now be able to focus more on my studies and extracurriculars.
My goal is to be a successful undergraduate at UGA and then receive acceptance to medical school. But furthermore, I ultimately hope to just mature and learn while I’m in school and be thankful to have the chance to get a college education. I want to experience life to the fullest, without taking anything in my life for granted.
I hope to document just that in the writings and media posted on my blog.
Cheers!
- Jacob
