Capstone integration Niuafe 4/25/22 The root beliefs that I came here with at Notre Dame were to pray and never let anything big or small in my journey ruin who I want to be. As an early enrollee, it has been nothing but hard times through these couple months of college. I have run into countless experiences of stressing over-exhausted workouts, understanding lectures, and adjusting to a whole new environment of people. In this first week, I experienced a load of essay assignments that was due at the end of the week and in upcoming weeks. Let me remind you that I should still be in high school for the time being. I have never been so challenged in my life of school and football because of the higher demands you are given here. I had questioned myself over and over every day if I was worth being at the university. I just reminded myself that I have come too far to just give up on all the hard work I did to get here. Every day I was being tested on my faith and strength to push through the hard obstacles that were given to me. In the first week of Moreau, I learned that we live up to stress and we should take the time to focus on relief. Such as taking those little moments you have off to reflect on your day and how it can be better. There have been times when I stressed so much on school and football every day because of worrying that one assignment won’t get done or that the next da6 workout is going to kill me. I took notice that reflecting on myself and clearing my mind off of all the stress and release really helped a lot. In the second week, I had learned that Hesburgh was a well-respected and reluctant man to get what he wanted. Reading his story helped me realize there are no limitations to what you want in life, if you really want it you just work for it. Just like in my everyday life I work so hard to be a great student-athlete to learn at a high level and compete on the field. I have been challenged to make sure that my stats class is in the direction of getting what I want to be. That is being a business manager of some sort and leading in a stockbroker industry. If I really want it I will work my but off no matter how hard the stats class is. In the third week of Moreau I had found sister Alethias's quote outreached of saying “We try to suppress the thought of death, or escape it, or run away from it because we think that’s where we’ll find happiness,” she said. “But it’s actually in facing the darkest realities of life that we find light in them.” As I read that quote I had been through times of darkness and felt lonely with no way out of it. The beginning of college of me was the darkest for me because of being away from my family for the first time. Being away from my family affected the way I was every day and it wasn’t a good effect at all. But fighting my darkness of being away from family only made me stronger as a person and able to see the brighter side of things. In the fifth week, I learned that my mom sees me at my best when I take on challenges that I don’t think I can do. For the fourth week, I have learned that don’t choose a major that doesn’t make you happy. These two weeks are pretty similar to me because I feel like the major I chose does make me happy in the future just not now and that I can get through my major only if I challenge myself. The best way to learn more about myself is a challenge and coming to this university gives me new challenges every day. In the sixth week, I have learned that there are many things that don’t go our way but it is how we are going to act towards with. God gives and provides for those who don’t lose faith in the hard or good times. I have been in those moments of losing sight of faith but God has always provided for me every day. That is being able to do everything I do right now like walking, waking, see, smelling, hearing, tasting, and living. These things many people don’t have so I must be able to be thankful for it all and act with love towards it. In the seventh week, I understood that we are together not on an island. I have put myself in a hard position of not getting help from others when I needed it. Such as getting help from my writing and rhetoric professor when I struggle with having a stronger writing skill. As time went I opened up and ask for help from him, In that time I have been able to access my highest strength of writing now. In the ninth week, I learned from Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez that solidarity is to help those who don't have a voice for themselves so they can be heard by everyone. I have been in moments when I was the one who wasnt able to be heard but i was helped by a stranger that is now a good friend of mine in my stats class. He's helped me grow to be the one that was confused and not able to speak upon for help in the class but he encouraged me to. He has shown me to become a greater person to others that go through what I have gone through. The tenth and twelfth weeks were similar cases that I learned, such as the separation of racism in the world. These two things that I learned were very intriguing to me because I grew up with no such racism around and as well of being at the University of Notre Dame. I say this because I don't think racism isn't born in the world it is taught through the community or persuaded by politics. I am a dark-skinned Polynesian but many see me as African American when I hang around anyone of my friends. I walk around and feel like no different from any person I meet every day in this world. People need to see through the skin and know that we all bleed red and we all are born to love not to hate. All in all, my mission is very similar to everything that I have learned here in Moreau and I am truly glad that I can relate to all we have learned. Work Cited Graham, R. (2021, May 14). Meet the nun who wants you to remember you will die. The New York Times. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/memento-mori-nun.html