gadgiation

I'm not a big crier, but I cry at the end of things. I cry when best friends move, I cried when Jerusalem ended, I cry when I realize a phase of my life is over just as soon as it began. 

It's the nostalgia. I am its queen. I think about all of the people, places, and experiences that passed and I just can't help but cry. So many memories and I didn't even realize when they were happening. So many people come and gone and all of them changed me. So many classes, so many research papers, so much learned. So many roommates, so many laughs, so much bonding. 

And my major. My beautiful, life changing major. As Jennie said, we will always be able to use our major no matter where we end up because our major is about life. Our major is about people, families, and communities. Our major is about communication and learning how to be an influence for good. My major changed my life. 

There is no possible way to explain how much I have loved my college education. I love my campus, I love my people, I love my classes. I love remembering how hard it sometimes seemed, not just school but life in general. I remember nights where I honestly could not imagine how life was going to work itself out. I remember actually referring to my future as a black cloud and laughing at how cliche that sounded, but not knowing how else to communicate the totally unpredictable state of my life. 

I love being able to look back knowing that everything worked out. I love that I will always be able to look back at my college years and have good memories of people and places. I love the way my life has happened. I'm so excited for the next adventure.  

:)

Mother's Day

My mother always encouraged my creativity. She taught me how to sew. She was eager to help me learn. She signed me up for everything she possibly could. She let me explore the world and decide the person I wanted to be.

She selflessly home schooled me. She gave so much of her time to make sure I got the best education I could. She found the greatest writing class, an amazing math tutor, she found classes to teach me more about the world than I ever could have imagined. She planned activities to get me really involved in the learning process. She encouraged me to read the classics. Through all of my complaints she patiently pushed on, helping me learn to love learning. And through it all we were able to laugh. We formed inside jokes about our ridiculously Christian grammar books. We tried to hold in laughter as my first (unsuccessful) math tutor had me perform "exercises." We were able to form such an amazing relationship. She gave me the opportunity to travel the world, learning about peoples and cultures.

The amazing quilt she made me

I have watched the way she opened her home to others. Those who are friends, those who were strangers, or those who needed a helping hand. And as I've gone through my major, learning about the family, I've learned how truly knowledgeable my mother is. She did such an amazing job raising her family. I have never met a stronger woman. I have never met another person who has been met with so many trials and who has come out stronger and smiling. I have never met another woman like my mother. 

She has given me an amazing example of what a woman should be. She is hardworking and caring. I honestly have never seen a person more dedicated to their goals than my mother. She never, ever, pressured me to be "beautiful" in the sense of the world. She never put an emphasis on clothing, looks, or weight. She gave me an example of the importance of caring for your body. I never heard my mother make a negative comment about her appearance, and that has influenced me more than she will ever know. She always reminded me of what was most important. What matters is how you treat others, how you prioritize your life, how you serve those around you. She has always encouraged me to be my own person, and she has always celebrated and embraced who that person is. I love my mother.  

Engagement Pictures

Camera shy doesn't even begin to describe it.

I honestly fear having my picture taken. I try to hide behind the tallest person, pull out an over-sized hat, or, better yet, offer to take the picture.

All things considered,  I guess you could say that engagement pictures were my worst fear. So much pressure. You mean we're sending one of these out to how many people?? I wanted to die.

I almost did die. You guys, my wardrobe hated me. My hair hated me. My face hated me. The super awesome jeans I had bought specifically to look awesome in pictures no longer looked awesome. 

My dearest roommate Jennie is an amazing photographer, so we grabbed her for engagements and bridals. The best part of this is that Jennie and I both have super chill, do-things-when-you-feel-like-it personalities, so with this flexible schedule, I had managed to put off the pictures twice before, and I was borderline trying to do it a third time.

Luckily a quick swap of under-shirts and a pep-talk from the photographer herself fixed things, and I managed to pull myself together.

And I prayed. You guys, I actually prayed. I was so nervous about being in front of a camera.

But I needn't have feared. Everything went perfectly. We came across the most random and beautiful locations. The colors were amazing. Spencer was awesome. Jennie was awesome.

I am super excited to be able to share the pictures with you, but for now you'll have to be content with a peak at my ring :)

Click here for happiness.

I am the luckiest

I did the math the other day. I have spent 98% of my summer in a basement.

In short, the summer didn't exactly go the way I planned. When I pictured August rolling around I pictured it bringing perfectly-tanned skin and a new found love for fishing with it.

But alas, here I sit, skin as pale as ever, no new hobbies, and a little less energy than I would like to admit. "Chronic tiredness" is not a term I was expecting to describe the summer.

The thing that gets me is that other people have been enjoying summer without me. If I don't get a summer, shouldn't no one get a summer? My family visited my brother in the Caribbean during my Spring finals week. My sister and her family went sailing. Friends went off to foreign countries for studies abroad. People walk around the grocery store giving proof of sun exposure with their swim suit lines. Instagram has been full of pool side glories and spur-of-the-moment Vegas trips. As we speak my parents are on their way to a Norwegian cruise, and in less than a week Spencer will be off to do the same in Greece.

I am jealous.

Somehow I feel a sense of entitlement. I have been in school for a straight year. This means I deserve a vacation, right? Other people got to go home for Spring term, other people had weekend cabin getaways and California road trips. I have weekends, I have days without class, why have I not had these things?

But slowly, ever so slowly, life has been coming into perspective. Piece by piece I have been coming to see the world around me in a little different light. 

Like the awesome trip I have planned for December - I get to go to Morocco and Portugal for three weeks. How many people get to spend the dead of winter on the beaches of the Mediterranean? In less than two weeks I get to move into an amazing apartment with three of my best friends in the world. I have been lucky enough to pull enough work hours this summer that, for the first time in my college career, I won't need to work to make it by. I am surrounded by people who love and care for me and who perform endless acts of service for my benefit each day. I have everything I could ever need, and more than some people could ever dream. I am the luckiest.  

The cornerstone of this epiphany came in the form of a slideshow. My friend Olivia shipped off to Zambia on a service trip. Upon returning home she showed us her pictures, going through one-by-one telling us the stories behind the faces on the screen. Eventually she came across a picture of two men holding pick-axes while standing on stone. She explained that they were stone cutters. In the morning they rise with the sun, go to work cutting stone down to pebbles, return home for a few hours sleep, and start the routine again. Each day, for the rest of their life, this is what their day will be like. I took a moment to imagine what their homes must look like, what their average meal would consist of. 

And that is when it hit me. I thought to myself, "I could be a doctor, if I wanted to be." I sat there in silent shock as the reality sunk in. Never before had I truly realized the possibilities before me. If I wanted to be a doctor, I could go to school and learn the arts of the trade. If I wanted to be a teacher, I could learn how to manage a classroom. If I decided I wasn't content with the way my country was being handled, I could run for government. In that moment I realized that the entire world was at my feet, all I had to do was choose a dream and start working towards it. 

And now here I find myself feeling sorry? Sorry because I wasn't able to spend a little more time at the pool. Sorry because I wasn't able to live every adventure. Have I become so ungrateful for my life that I cannot be content with what I have? 

No. I will stop being sorry. I will start realizing how many amazing things make up my life. I will be grateful

And to start, I will go on sitting in my chair, reading through my notes, working a little bit harder to achieve my dream.

July 31st

I don't talk about Harry Potter much. It's one of those things that's a part of my life, but it's a part of everyone else's as well. You can try to tell someone that you are the biggest fan of the series, but they will always think their fandom outdoes yours. 

I am sure that my Harry Potter story is similar to yours. I've read the books a million times. My pages are dog-eared to pieces and the spines are withered. I've memorized the inflections of Jim Dale's voice and can predict the next words. I know the characters, main and minor, from their appearances in the books to the histories that never made it through publication. I have dreamed up my own Hogwarts experience, and I have my explanations for why Muggles never notice the disappearances at King's Cross station. 

Harry Potter has always been magic to me in my own special way. My imagination ran wild with these books and my childhood memories would never have been the same without them. At first it was difficult for me to accept that others thought their Potter experience was greater than mine. I knew they couldn't love these books the way I did, their connection could never go as deep. 

But as I have grown I have come to realize that this very concept is where the true magic lies. Within each one of us lies a Potter story of our own. In some way or another these characters touched our hearts, and as such we are each a part of the magic.  

And with that I wish a very happy birthday to Ms. Rowling and Mr. Potter, the individuals who introduced my generation to the true meaning of magic. 

via

Tender Mercy

The thing about my History of Creativity class is that I never went. There were two reasons for this: 1) I never remembered it because it was only once a week, 2) it was so incredibly boring. It was like 2.5 hours long and honestly every person who actually went spent the time watching Netflix in the back or reading a book. Wildly disrespectful? Yes. But it's the truth nonetheless.

One week in particular I had a test for another class and made a conscious decision not to go to History of Creativity. As it came time to make the trek from my apartment to the testing center I decided to do something I have never done: check the line conditions.

I don't know how it works at other colleges, but here at BYU we take the majority of our tests in one building. This is awesome, expect for weeks like midterms and finals when everyone needs to take tests and so everyone congregates to the testing center. Lines become ridiculously long and, as you wait, you seem to forget everything you've crammed into your brain. Conveniently, the center has some video cameras set up so you can check ahead and see how long the wait is.

As I was exploring this feature I saw a link to a list of all the tests I had that semester. Sweet. Let's depress ourselves a little bit more by viewing a complete list of all the times we need to stress this semester.

Depression aside, I clicked. As I was strolling casually through the list, my heart stopped. According to the site, I had a Creativity test that week, the very next day in fact. There was a week to take it, and it ended the day before our next class period.

Somehow this test had failed to make it from the syllabus to my planner. Had I not randomly decided to check the testing center lines, and had I not found this random link and then decided to click on it, I would have shown up in class the following Thursday to find my TAs collecting the take-home portion of the test. I would have died, in other words.

I guess I just have a hard time believing that these things are chance. There is no way I randomly did all of these things I'd never done the same day they led me to discover my test.

Right??

Smiling like a fool

In all honesty, I don't think I could be happier right now.

I feel like it's compensation for how crappy the past few months were. Cause seriously, last semester was rough. 

But life in general has been on a serious upward path lately, and the past few days have been especially amazing. 

Let's review:

1) Remember my gym? Everyday we have a workout of the day along with "prescribed" weights. If you are not able to lift as much as is prescribed, you can scale it down. But, if you are cool enough to do all of the prescribed weights and movements, you get the honor of writing "RX" next to your name and time on the board. It's like a rite of passage. 

Well, I have been going to this gym for quite sometime now, and yesterday I got my first RX! It was one of those awesome moments that totally validated all my hard work at the gym and my dedication to the whole 30. I was so pleased with myself, and when I got home this was on facebook:

So much happiness. And, just for the record, the whole 30 went amazingly. I have a whole lot to say about it so I will save it for another post.

2) I took a class this semester called History of Creativity 2. I took number one a few semesters ago so I knew what to expect: a horribly big project worth 200 points, which is more than the final. I was super stressed about it all semester, but luckily Spencer is a TA for a different teacher's HOC class so he helped me out with an idea. 

In the end I wrote my own version of A Modest Proposal. In case you are not familiar with the pamphlet, it was written by Jonathan Swift in the 1700s when Ireland was having economic troubles and children were too expensive to feed. Swift wrote a satire suggesting that parents eat their children as a solution to the problem. I went off of this, and took the issue of modesty on campus, specifically the debate over leggings as pants. I suggested that, to put an end to the debates, we cut off all the women students' legs. 

I wasn't sure I had done a very good job. If we're being honest, I didn't start it until the day before it was due, and I wrote it in a bit of a hurry. The semester-long project took me a total of about 2.5 hours, and I was afraid it would show. 

But no fear, the grades were posted today:

I am absolutely delighted! And so, so grateful.

3) In case you haven't already heard, our video went viral. Remember yesterday when I told you we had 4000 views? Well, check out the view count 24 hours later:

Yeah. Twenty-two thousand. 48 hours after the video went up. 4,000 to 22,000 in 24 hours. What?? My roommates, apartment 83 (the prankers), and I had an interview today with a news channel called Right This Minute which broadcasts to 50 major cities none of which are in Utah, unfortunately. It is seriously so crazy. Who would have thought?? It is just so awesome to know that so many people are getting the same joy out of this that we do. 

4) It is so much more than the things listed above, the rest of it just can't be defined as easily. I am so happy with my job, my Spring term class is going to be amazing, and everything just seems to be going right. I am completely content with my life. 

So, to all of you reading this, I hope that your life is currently treating you well, you deserve it. 

:)

one-zero-zero

Day 18: a drink

I will let you interpret the story for yourselves:

Dear readers, this was a drink of celebration. For today I reached 100 followers.

I love you all. 

I love you all so very much.

:)