Long Road To MMA (featured in the Press Enterprise Newspaper) May 14, 2009

For further reading check out: http://www.pe.com/sports/breakout/stories/PE_Sports_Local_S_karakhanyan_mma_14.3ed3b28.html

And After a great fight, lasting 3 rounds, Georgi "Insane" Karakhanyan defeated Alber Rios, taking the featherwieght title.

If Pro is a No Go

By Breanna Armstrong

 

So you are a senior collegiate athlete that is just about to graduate? Either you’re going to be signed to your favored pro team or you’ll have your degree and job offers will be thrown at your feet! The “real world” should come as second nature, right? This is usually never the case for any college graduate. After the graduation cake is all eaten, what comes next for the typical college athlete who has just entered into the working world?

 

According to Sports Illustrated, “You have a roughly one in 12,000 chance of becoming a pro. The average career lasts in the vicinity of five years.”

 

So now what? Sure if you don’t make it pro after graduating there’s always that degree to fall back on. But research has clearly shown that making the transition from college athletics to the "real world" is a difficult, frustrating and oftentimes painful experience for student athletes. The reason for this is, unlike most traditional students, athletes are focused on practicing and competing in their sport well into their senior year. This significantly reduces the time available to participate in career fairs, campus interviews and other programs designed to help them find gainful employment. But how does one begin to transition from an athlete to business?

 

CBU alumni, David Odien, thought the same thing after he played three seasons on the men’s soccer team at California Baptist University. The coach recruited him while he was playing soccer at MT. SAC. He graduated in 2003 and after graduation, David explained, “For me, like many student athletes, athletics was a huge part of my life. I decided that I would coach soccer because it was what I knew. I coached at the high school level for five years while looking for a solid career. It was a tough transition for me and I luckily found Athletes to Business.”

 

“Athletes to Business is a privately owned company dedicated to coaching, counseling and placing highly talented student athletes into the corporate world. Working in harmony with educational institutions and America’s top companies, Athletes to Business helps student athletes make a smooth transition from the playing field, to their vocational field, and find rewarding employment.” Said Odien.

 

Odien first heard of Athletes to Business from a friend who had used their services to start a great career after college.  “After speaking with Athletes to Business, I became extremely excited and passionate about helping student athletes who were struggling with the transition from College to Corporate.  Then an opportunity opened in the Inland Empire for a Career Coach and I quickly accepted the position.”

 

Odien and other career coaches meet with the students during their Junior and Senior year.  “We sit down and discuss the importance of making good decisions their first year out of college.  We then help them use all of our resources to position themselves to make these decisions.  We work on their resumes, we help them with interview preparation, and we can help them set up interviews with corporations they are interested in.”

 

Athletes to Business has helped many student athletes transition and prepare for life after college.  “A2B” is working on almost every college campus in California, including Point Loma, Westmont, UCLA, UCR and many others.  They have helped many students on each of these campuses, and many of these students are 2 – 3 years into their careers and are extremely happy with the guidance that A2B provided.

 

For Odien, “A2B has provided me the opportunity to have a positive impact on my students lives.  It has enabled me to become a positive mentor and resource for  many great people.  It is an unbelievable gratification to see students that we with successfully transition from the playing field to the working world.  The positive feedback and gratefulness we receive everyday makes this opportunity that much more exciting.”

 

Athletes to Business is not just offered to athletes but to all students looking for guidance into the working world after graduation. It is important to develop a career consciousness early on and therefore Athletes to Business is open to anyone who is looking for guidance and help in finding and preparing for their career.  They provide help with resume development, interview preparations, and if the student is interested in Business, they can be set them up with high quality interviews with great corporations who are excited about seeing them.

 

This program has changed many students’ lives and provides a very practical transition into the working world. To get involved with this successful program, visit: www.athletestobusiness.com or to contact David Odien, an Inland Empire Career Coach, you can contact him at: dodien@athletestobusiness.com

 

Only you can choose your future, and Athletes to Business will be there to help you to reach for your goals. 

I am Living out of my house!!

Some people live out of a few suitcases, some live out of their cars and some people live out of their dorm rooms. Going back home to my parent's house in San Clemente this spring break, I realized that I was living out of my house.

Let me put this into a better perspective for you... I am literally living off of three piles of clothes in my unrecognizable room. My room has been taken over by my mother... who insists on keeping her clothes on my once very used desk.

My place at the kitchen table has been replaced with my sister's wedding invitations, and I am constantly trying to remember what channel is MTV. Is it channel 42 or channel 49? Everything in my house is kept in a different place and therefore, the only thing that I can think of is this is how it feels to live out of my house. 

Even my city feels different! There use to be a Pinky Wear apparel store down the street from my house in the same shopping center that has always been there. But alas, as the theme of change takes over my spring break, Pinky Wear has closed down. A disappointment in my wardrobe purchases for sure.

Everyone in my family is going crazy with planning my sister's wedding extravaganza. My entire family is on edge about the smallest things. For example, when my aunt rsvp'd for the wedding and included all 5 of her children in the count, my mom practically blew a gasket on my dad, bringing up the fact that kids were not invited and that she was never invited to their wedding. 

But nevertheless, planning this fantasy, over the top, dream wedding for my sister has brought all of my family members together. And then there is me. The only underaged maid of honor in the world, who supposedly has to plan this unforgettable bachelorette party for her sister. Everyday someone in the wedding party asks me the update on the party planning. And everyday my response is less and less. I am just trying to maneuver around my house, and trying to get to know it once again, nonetheless plan a bridal shower, a bachelorette party and a joint bachelor and bachelorette party. My brother in-law-to-be's best man is a marine, who doesn't have a clue about party planning either. I just want to fit in with my family again, and provide big time for this wedding as they all have.

It's even to the point where my family has these inside jokes and even though I have no clue what they are laughing at, I always try to catch it on the coat tails of the joke... It's quite humiliating really. 

My spring break was like an easter egg hunt, I was discovering not only my house, my city, my maid of honor duties but my family all over again. 

ONE LOVE, Her Love, love her

Three days ago my Grandma would have been 90 years old. It will be five years on March 28, since she has passed away. It will be five years that my heart has not fully been restored and it will be five years since I have loved whole-heartedly. 

I know that I have discussed my Mimi in previous blogs, but this particular blog is solely devoted to her. Mimi was unlike any person that I have ever met, or will ever come to meet. She loved so hard and with every second of her life she devoted to those who loved her in return. 

Mimi was diagnosed with Alzheimer's when I was a little girl. She lived with us all of my life and was therefore more like a mother to me without the discipline. :) We would get into all kinds of mischief together and because of her dementia, play time became more and more because as I grew older,  she seemed to be growing younger. Now understand that this is not "The Curious Case of Marjorie Frampton" by any means, but as the Alzheimer's took over, so too did the failure of her memory. 

There was never one second in my life where I questioned the love that this woman had for me. If there was ever perfect love one this earth, it was hers. Her unselfish, patient and everlasting love. As a young teenager, I remember going to her room to check on her and finding her writing her letters to each and every one of her relatives and friends. She would just be sitting at her desk, content in her own company. 

She was the funniest lady that you will ever meet. Even at the age of 84, she was "sharper than a whip." as she would say. Because she was an amputee of one of her legs, Mimi was confined to a wheelchair for the last quarter of her life. But as my mom says, who never parted from my grandma's side, "She never complained, not once, she would be patient and said that the wheelchair gave her character." Even in the most frustrating times, she would never complain or play the blame game, which would be so easy for most to do. 

Instead she would make the best out of it. She would let us have rides on the wheelchair, play shopping cart around the house with it, and her most famous joke of all, "If anyone hurts your feelings, tell them that I'm going to roll over them with my wheelchair!" It was just comedy to see this precious little old lady have the most outrageous things to say.

Life without her has been hard. Really hard, still hard every day of my life. I was the happiest, carefree little girl when she was in my life. And after she passed, I would struggle to find happiness. I still do. I am having a hard time finding that happy little girl that I once was, I guess that when my Mimi passed, I grew up. 

But I have found growing up to be too hard, too difficult and virtually impossible. I have discovered that one really never does fully grow up. It's just a matter of how someone reacts to situations that defines their "maturity." I have been struggling so much lately because I feel that I am trying to wrestle this fine line of who I am. 

I don't need others telling me who I am, and I have learned that I need to stop listening to others. It's about me and my heart and how God speaks to me. I found my self almost screaming at the top of my lungs in tears today begging God to show me love... this love that I have no idea about. I relate any kind of love to the one that my grandma gave me unconditionally.  I thought I knew what love was, what contentment was, what being a grown up was, but what I failed to do was to let another person determine my thinking. 

I can't put my happiness in someone else's hands. That's something that I will never do again. For it is only God's hands that can fill me. Because if you are doing it for God, your heart will always be content.

I am so sick of thinking that I am depressed and having others suggest counseling, I am just more than ready to be free and dependent on God. I wish that this blog could solve all of the problems that I have addressed but for now, I know that I need to leave this open, and determine the answers on my own.

Mimi's love has set the bar high, in many ways I think that I have the same love that my grandmother had. I just wish that she was here so I could ask her how she dealt with someone she loved not loving her back. I wish I could ask her how she handled hurt. Because when you love so hard, hurt comes at such a heavy cost.

For now all I can strive to be is like my grandma... Because her love lives on in me.

One Love, her love, love her

Not Just Another Mom

"Octo-mom", native of California, rightly owns up to her media given nick name as she is a mother of 14 children. Originally she had 6 kids and recently she had octupletes! Nadya Suleman is truly the  super mom of California. 

The Suleman family has been flourished with media since the octuplettes were born. The media has been obsessed. Productions like US magazine has covered the family in almost every issue of theirs since the "octo-mom" discovery. TMZ of course, has even found a way to cover the family in a negative light. Exposing their insufficient funds all over the internet as well as their news show. The family really has not been able to take a break and enjoy themselves since Nadya gave birth. 

I think that the Suleman family should be able to enjoy their privacy especially in this very important time in their lives. They should be able to enjoy the small moments that has been taken over by the media. The media should in my opinion, back off and let this family, living under such unique circumstances, live their lives. 

I think that having 14 children is as difficult enough as it is and having the media there to capture every moment seems to present a more challenging surrounding. I can only hope that the Suleman family is adapting to their new family and are having an amazing time as new parents of 14. 

Personally, I know that I could not be in the same position, but from a Christian perspective I support the Suleman's multiplication to our planet. For advise, I would strongly suggest that they make special time for each of them as they are growing up.

Cheer Nation

This is my cheer squad at California Baptist. I have been a cheerleader for almost a decade and I have been dancing since I could walk. I love being apart of something that encourages others. It takes making one person smile at a game or a competition to make all of the hard work that I pour into this sport, worth it. 

I never thought in a million years that I would continue doing cheerleading in college, but after my best friend that I cheered with in high school convinced me to try out for the team, I had to do it.

It's a very time-consuming sport, and naturally, as with any women's sport, it's very emotional as well. But I am loving it so far! I have learned so much in just this year that makes me not regret taking on this "part-time" job. On top of that, I love the girls, I would have never met them if it wasn't for cheer. I am so entirely thankful for all of them.

We are a competition squad and we have an entire list of competitions coming up. Our next one is next Saturday. If you want to check us out any further go to www.cbulancers.com. 

I need Africa more than Africa needs me

I need Africa more than Africa needs me. There is not one day that goes by where I forget about the friendships that I made with the most amazing people that I have ever met. There is not one day that goes by where I do not feel grateful for the life that I am so blessed to live. Not one day goes by where my heart breaks for the things I saw in Africa. My heart smiles with the things that Africa taught me. 

To Africa, I am just another visitor to Malawi's broken land. I am just another "azungo" [white person] who came across seas in hopes to save lives. Though I loved so hard in this place where love is rarely shown, to Africa, my story is just a dent in this chipped away picture. I can only think is there a day that goes by where Africa remembers me?

I went to Malawi, Africa, the most HIV/AIDS infested country in the world, with a missions group from my high school in the spring of 2007. It was my heart to aid in the support of HIV/AIDS. I held faultless babies that had this disease, I saw the innocence in their eyes. I played and hugged and loved children who were left on the streets by their parents for death. I went deep into the "brush" to teach and pray for these communities that had been out-casted because of their disease. I have danced in the the middle of 500 people from different tribes. I have never had a better time in my life. I have taken some hard soccer balls to the face, those kids know how to play! It was all worth it for a smile for even a small moment.

I took a suitcase there, and took a heavy heart full of memories home. Africa taught me so much about myself and my heart. Without Malawi, the is no me, there is no heart... I am so blessed to live the life that God specifically chose for me. Why me? Why not Blessings, this little precious baby who was infected with HIV/AIDS, that I held and cried over for hours. Why couldn't she live my life? She is more worthy than I am. 

Africa has taught me to not take any moment for granted. I have taught Africa that there is love in America and there is a heart to serve. My lesson learned was far more valuable than I could ever teach Malawi.

 I will go back to this land that has taught me everything.