This conference was a pivotal point for me in my college career and outlook on life in general. I have thusfar been so undecisive on what to major in and more or less way too stressed about my future. I'm a planner; I like to know what I'm doing, what it's helping me learn, and where its going to take me. I believe that every expereince matters and I could not wait to see what TOLC had in store for me. I attended TOLC in January of 2015 after I started working for Texas A&M Outdoor Adventures and was encouraged by some coworkers to go and learn what the outdoor industry is all about. 

One of the many lecturers I listened to at this conference was named Laura. Laura is the Outdoor Adventures Coordinator at Sam Houston State University, where this conference was hosted, and she shared a life changing story with me not even knowing it was going to also change my life. As I was vicariously living thorugh her words, I realized that it doesn't matter what an even has in store for you, its how you open up to it, to life. She made me fall in love with the outdoors and I cannot thank her enough for that. The outdoors is a constant reminder of life and it has metaphors around every corner. 

Laura talked about her hardships on the Alaskan River with her husband and what those misfortunes meant to her. This story really touched me in a realistic way; I was hearing about a real person who shared in a real experience and she still threw metaphors in there to teach her audience life lessons. I'm pretty sure I wrote down everything she said and you better believe I'm keeping those notes for the rest of my life. Whenever I think about certain aspects of her talk, I get to go back to my notes and relive her experience and what they meant to her and apply that to my own life. The outdoors welcomes us and challenges us and each challenge is important and crucial to that experience. Nature and all of creation means everything to me now and Laura is on of the first people to truly open my eyes to all of its beauty.