1. I miss Provo...pretty much everything about it.
2. I am a current workaholic, hoping to earn enough to afford a study abroad next Spring to London. Wish me luck!
3. I am in the middle of possibly changing my career path--again.
4. I miss conducting choir every Sunday morning.
5. I miss my nieces more than anything.
6. I decided Chemistry is just not for me...and that's okay.
7. I am seriously depressed that the last and final Harry Potter movie will be released in less than a month. I feel like I am about to experience the end of my childhood/adolescence.
8. Everyone is getting married, therefore I am slightly obsessed with wasting time poring over potential wedding dresses, engagement rings, boquets, etc, just have no idea who the groom will be, but that's not a big deal, right? That'll come later...just a minor setback.
9. I absolutely love being home with my sisters, just missing Annie here :/
10. You can't beat California weather, seriously :)
...I had so many clever/possibly witty things I wanted to blog about, but at the moment, none come to mind...So we will have to settle for a slightly less intriguing story that may provide you with a moral for the day.
It was a dark and stormy night in Salt Lake City...just kidding...I honestly don't remember, I know it was night time, but I'd guess it was probably moderately warm and beautiful because this only happened a few days ago and we've had great weather here lately. So I went up to Salt Lake late one fateful night planning to finish my Mastering Chemistry homework.(the bane of my existence currently...) For those of you who are wondering, "What in the world is Mastering Chemistry?" Allow me to explain...It is the most ridiculously time consuming invention ever created for college Chemistry students. It does help us learn the concepts thoroughly, but only because we have to do an assignment every night, and each one takes about 1-2 hours. It's ridiculous. Anyway, so I figured I would get to Salt Lake around 10pm, and finish my homework before it was due at 12pm.(hmm...is midnight pm? or am? I think a.m...) Reasonable, right? Well it would have been, except karma attacked me whilst I was attempting to finish it.
Time out for explanation...Every single Mastering Chemistry problem (and there's a lot) can be found on the internet. For each question, someone somewhere has always posted it to a chat board and received help to find the right answer. I resort to this method of finding solutions when I am completely and hopelessly lost as to what to do...it's foolproof. Never fails me. Possibly cheating? I don't really think so because on homework you're allowed to use any resources you want, as long as you learn the concepts.
Back to the story...So as midnight was drawing near and my computer was threatening to turn into a pumpkin (or something like that), I got stuck on a problem and resorted to the "Yahoo! Answers" boards to find my solution. Unfortunately, I clicked one that looked legit, but turned out to be infected with a virus. As I realized that I had about 25 minutes to finish the rest of my hour long assignment, my computer started to tell me I needed to do all sorts of things. My home screen no longer resembled my home screen. It had lots of little threatening pop-up boxes. A fake scanner started running and looking back on it now, I guess this is when it was wiping out all the documents on my computer...unfortunate...
Luckily, Jim had done the same thing recently to his computer, so Christi knew the anti-virus solution. They helped restore my computer and there was basically no harm done...Except that now I am afraid to ever cheat on a homework assignment ever again. And all my pictures and documents have disappeared off my hard drive :(
So there ya go...lesson for the day...just do the work, don't try to cut corners on your homework. It's really not worth all the stress of a computer-life-threatening virus on your hard drive.
Well, according to my few, but faithful readers, I have been majorly slacking on my blogging for the past month. (This post was started a month ago so we will say 2 months now...) My apologies, friends, but sometimes life throws you curves and blogging just has to take a backseat to the more important things of the time. In this case, my life got pretty unpredictable almost exactly two months ago when my oldest sister went in to surgery to have her gall bladder removed. It was supposed to be an outpatient same-day procedure...haha, oh the irony...basically, you just need to know that Christi was in and out of hospitals, doctor's visits, bedrest, excruciating pain, nausea, and basically, dying for the next month or so waiting for the doctors to figure out what they could do to fix her internal issues.
Now, it is important to note that Christi is the mother of two
adorable little girls who
I actually recently blogged about. But you have to realize that they are ages 2 years old and about 6 months. You can imagine feeling as awful as Christi felt this entire time and still trying to stay up through the nights with the babies and comfort the girls........bottom line--she didn't.
That's where I come in! It wasn't really like I was the only one helping out, Annie and Mom were super helpful too, but I think I was up in Salt Lake about 3 or 4 nights a week for the last month and a half of Winter semester to stay up with the babies and help feed them their bottles, comfort them back to sleep, etc.
Who wouldn't want to wake up at 3am for that face though, really? :)
Thusly...
10 Life Lessons Learned:
1. I want to have my life a little less planned so that I can on a whim be available to go help someone who is desperately in need.
2. I am never having children if I am still trying to do school. Ever. There is just not enough time or energy in the day to be a full time mom and do well in school if you take too many credits. I have a whole lot more respect for the girls in my classes who bring their babies with them and attempt to take notes, listen respectfully, feed the baby, and comfort them at the same time. I don't think I'll be giving any dirty looks to that distraction in the corner of the room anymore. They have my sympathy :)
3. Never pick up a 6 month year old without a burp-rag on your shoulder...seriously...It doesn't matter how many times they've spit up already...they will never cease to amaze you.
4. Kids understand a lot more of what you're saying than you think they do. It was amazing how innocently ignorant Tori remained when I told her time and time again to hurry up and finish her lunch, but as soon as I mentioned the park in a casual conversation she was the most obedient angel you ever saw.
5. Lack of sleep can change everything about a person. I think I can blame my apathy from my previous post on the lack of sleep I experienced for this period of time. My college life in Provo stopped mattering as I worried about the girls, Christi's health, how my mom was faring, etc. Suddenly school and social life here seemed like the least important thing.
6. Explosive Diarrhea? It exists. Who knew? Props to the people who had to WASH cloth diapers once they'd been soiled. I have never been so appreciative of disposable diapers.
7. Contrary to popular belief, disliking vegetables is NOT a learned behavior. Riley seriously gagged on every vegetable baby food we tried to feed her. She knows where it's at, that one. Fruit all the way.
8. Avoid playing tennis with two year olds running around the courts, no matter how great you think your aim is...I may or may not have raised a tennis-ball sized bump on Tori's head accidentally...
9. Once kids have been taught to clean up their messes. Do. Not. Clean. Up. Their. Messes. I got myself into a lot of trouble when I put away one of Tori's puzzles before she was done with it. I never knew a two year old could make me feel so guilty with her little eyes showing a world of betrayal and hurt newly introduced to her.
10. Do not teach children to play with their food. I didn't realize how literally Tori would respond when I suggested that the 4 grapes on her plate might be a family. Needless to say...she would not eat one grape for the next two weeks. Sorry Christi, my bad 0:)
I feel like for the past week or so I have been in a state of apathy. I wish I knew what exactly it was that has put me in this state of non-emotion. It's strange because all of a sudden I have gotten really passionate about the book I am reading in my writing class. It's the novel East of Eden, written by John Steinbeck and it's a retelling of the fall of Adam and Eve in modern day California. It is so great and very insightful! I am loving it so much and it's reassuring me that English is the right major for me. So while I have been reading reading reading and been so excited thinking and talking about the novel, it's like the emotion I use for every other part of my life has been sucked out of me.
Maybe I'm burnt out after having an incredibly crazy week of midterms and essays a few weeks ago. Maybe I'm worried about my sister and her surgery and my nieces. Maybe I'm exhausted from work. Maybe I am just in a funk and I'll be out of it before I know it. Maybe I need a change of scenery to meet new people and go out of my comfort zone a little more than I'm doing right now.
I don't know what it is.
All I know is that today:
-I stood up after eating at the Cougareat and buttoned my entire coat only to realize that I had buttoned it wrong. There was an awkward bump in the coat from the missing button at the top and it was all crooked. However, I didn't even think twice about it! No feelings of embarrassment. No looking around awkwardly noticing that the guys at the table next to me were snickering at my expense. (I realized later that this must have been why they were giving me weird, semi-flirty looks and giggling like girls...) But there was no emotion. None. I simply unbuttoned all 6 buttons and slowly rebuttoned them all before turning to head on my way to class. It took me like 5 minutes of thinking about nothing while walking to class to realize that normally I would have been rather ashamed to have done something like that in public and I might have even blushed. In this state of apathy, however, these small embarrassments turn into nothing. It's not that I all of a sudden have the self-confidence to not care what anyone thinks. It's more like I just don't want to spend the energy thinking about what other people are thinking.
...and...
-I walked around campus for 2 hours today before noticing that about every fifth person I saw had a bright blue balloon tied to their wrist. Where I would typically stop someone and just ask them what was with all the balloons, I hardly noticed them and I still feel no curiosity as to why our campus was randomly infested with balloons today...
I don't think I like this apathetic mood I am in. It's atypical for me. I very much enjoy being passionate about things and getting excited about life. Does anyone have any ideas to help get me back into the emotional swing of the super-exciting life of a BYU college student? Please?
...at least I'm not apathetic about being in a state of apathy right? I cared enough to blog about it :)
Don't get me wrong. I believe in following the prophet and all that jazz...haha I'm just kidding, that sounds sacrilegious . I do fully believe in listening to and acting on the counsel of the prophet because I have faith that it comes straight from the Lord. It's just that I feel like I have no problem theoretically supporting something, and then I am shocked to find out how difficult, but rewarding something is when it's actually put into practice. Missions have been on my mind a lot lately for some reason...who am I kidding? It's not a random thing...it's been on my mind for over half a year now.
It's just strange because I had no problem being happy for and supporting my older brother when he left for the Philippines for 2 years. Sure, I had my times when I missed him, but it was a quick fix to think "He's doing what the Lord wants him to do, and he's helping the Filipinos come to Christ." There was almost a sense of pride and happiness when I would tell my friends in high school about my brother who was serving for two years in a foreign country to share the gospel.
I feel like missions are just like any other commandment or calling in the church. You never really understand how difficult it can be until you are personally affected by it. I understand that missions are the most difficult and rewarding experience for the boys who are actually out in the field. But I think the friends and family left at home sometimes have as difficult a time of it as they do.
Having some of my best friends leave last year to go serve for two years was and still is one of the hardest experiences I've ever had. Sure, it goes up and down. Some days it's like they aren't even gone, but other days it feels like the only thing I want to do is study all day in the library with them and then go eat dinner together and hang out for the rest of the night like we used to.
I don't know why it's been so tough. It's not like I haven't experienced separation from my best friends before (i.e. Freshman year of college) but I think the fact that our only communication is in the form of written letters has something to do with it. I guess it makes sense why the church mandates that stipulation, but still...it's a challenge for the people left at home worrying and missing their missionaries.
On the other hand, I feel like I have grown so much as a person these last 7 months without my best friends here to be with me every step of the way. I have had extra time to discover new talents and interests that I have. For example, I never knew I liked to bake, but I guess I do! Having people who are dedicating their entire lives to the Lord right now is also a very inspiring experience. I feel like I want to be the best person I can possibly be so I can tell them about what I learn about the gospel and how I am growing to be better everyday. Not only do I work harder because I know that they are working super hard out there, but I think about how excited I am to show them my life here I've made for myself in Provo while they've been away.
So see? It's a love hate relationship. I really hate that my best friends are ridiculously far away from me and practically in communicado, but I love that their examples inspire me to be better every day! It's so confusing...but day by day, I am coming to terms with the fact that I don't think I'll ever really get to a point where I am completely okay with them being gone, and that's okay. I just need to live my life as best I can and look forward to when they'll be back with me again :)
We've all done it. I won't pretend I'm exempt. Every one of us has experienced the humiliation and the shame that accompanies the intense confusion when one tries to enter the bathroom of the wrong gender. It has been a while, however, since I have witnessed one of these precious moments since most of us here at BYU have particular restrooms we like to use and have gotten used to the location of the doors.
But while I was spacing off procrastinating writing my paper about Herman Melville and his commentary on American Society, my eyes wandered to a secret bathroom on the fourth floor of the library! Now, just as I was contemplating the shock of finding a second bathroom on this lovely floor, a boy walked up, put his hand on the door of the girl's restroom and then quickly jumped back as if burned. He looked around quite confusedly for a moment, and then proceeded to hang his head in shame and enter the boy's door.
...poor guy...
In his defense, the girls' side has 2 doors! Why would anyone do that? It's as though they intended for people to get confused by their poor design. I propose that bathrooms never have two entrances, that is just ridiculously and unnecessarily confusing...come on, people, really? Give us a break...will ya?
Haha, he just walked out of the bathroom texting...trying to play it off totally cool...nice one, guy. I saw it...don't worry :)
Consider the lilies of the field--how they grow, how they grow. Consider the birds of the sky--how they fly, how they fly.
He clothes the lilies of the field. He feeds the birds in the sky and Hewill feed those who trust Him and Guide them with His eye.
Consider the sheep of his fold--how they follow where he leads. Thou the path may wind across the mountains, He knows the meadows where they feed.
Consider the sweettender children who must suffer on this earth... The pains of all of them he carried from the day of his birth.
He clothes the lilies of the field. He feeds the lambs of his fold and He will heal those who trust Him and make their hearts as gold. He clothes the lilies of the field. He feeds the lambs of his fold and He will heal those who trust Him and make their hearts as gold.
Now, it is important to note that Christi is the mother of two
adorable little girls who
