My College Life

Hi, my name is Thomas Daya. I am a freshman at the University of Arizona. I was born in raised in New Jersey so I am very far away from home. At home I have a great family, great friends, and the most amazing girlfriend (whom I’m going to marry). Its tough for me being all the way out here away from the people I love and things I love to do. I live in a dorm with a roommate that I met when I first came down here. My roommate and I get along, I guess, but there are a lot of things that bother me. Its tough living with someone you don’t know. I am actually having a tough time of adjusting here. A large part of college is partying and I’m not into that. That’s not who I am any more and I don’t like that. So I mostly workout, do my schoolwork, and play hockey. School to me comes fairly easy and everyday I am done with classes no later that 3am and start the earliest at 9am. Some days I start later and end later. Generally I have 2 to 4 classes a day. I am taking 17 credits. I have 5 different classes. Here in Arizona I am proud member of the Arizona Icecats, which is a club Division 1 team that plays in the ACHA (a league). The hockey I play is very competitive and the team is selected rather than anyone just making the team. I am currently the youngest member on the hockey team and am actually playing. Most kids on the team are between 20 and 24. Hockey is my life and takes up most of my time here in Arizona. If I didn’t have hockey I wouldn’t still be at this school, I would have went home. I am quite homesick and haven’t been home since August 14th and I won’t be going home till November 20th. Usually I’ll have practice almost everyday and from 4:45pm to 7:30pm. It takes up a large part of my day. I do my homework before and after hockey. Also, everyday I go to the gym to work out. On the weekends I have hockey games. So far we have traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, Rochester, New York, and Lubbock, Texas. To Arizona and Texas we traveled on a bus. For every game we must get dressed up in suits or dress pants, jacket, and tie. Its pretty cool traveling with the team because people often think that we are professional hockey players! It was a two-hour bus ride to Phoenix, Arizona and a long 12-hour drive to Texas. It was brutal. For the bus rides we take coach buses. However, going to New York we flew. It was awesome. I really enjoy the road trips because it is cool traveling with your teammates. I really enjoyed going to New York because my family, friends and girlfriend drove up to see me. I was so happy. This upcoming weekend is our first home games. I am so excited; the stadium we play in holds around 6,000 people. I hear a lot of people attend our games. Being a part of the team I got some free equipment and apparel, and everything with the team is paid for. As of right now our record is 5 wins, 1 loss, and 1 tie. We play about 30 to 35 games per season and hopefully this year we’ll got to nationals and possible win. I cant wait to go home to New Jersey I really miss my life there (my girlfriend, my friends, my family, my car, doing all the things I use to do).