Finally

After spending the last 9 months practically married to my computer, I think I'd be content to not look at a computer screen for at least another week, but I promised someone a post so here goes.

Freshman year of college is officially over. Finished my last take home final today. All my stuff packed up and out of my apartment, but despite me being home for about 24 hours now, it's all still residing in the suburban. Most likely until after this crazy next week is over. Let's just say after hardly eating any cereal at all at my apartment, it was one of the first 'meals' I had upon my arrival home.

The past nine months were some of the hardest and most fun months of my life. Basically all you post-college folk already knew that. That's the way everyone's freshman year is. So how 'bout instead of telling you why it was so hard and so fun I instead describe the colorful characters that entered my life.

Movie-Quote Generator:
Had a movie quote for pretty much any activity we did. And then always expected me to guess what movie it was from. Most quoted movie: What's up Doc? I'd send some of the quotes your way but I could never remember any to quote back at her, let alone guess the movies she was trying to quote.
Besides being a good movie quoter she was a pretty good dish doer, keeping us all sane and in good eating sanitation. Most importantly she was a good listener. From stories of the day, to why my life was hard, just about anything. Even at 1 am when she had a test the next day, she'd listen if I needed her to.

Surprise Hugger:
Roommate #2. Hailing from Maryland, this girl had an ever ready smile. She could brew the fastest cup of hot chocolate every time Roommate #1 and I were having a rough day. She always had a bright good morning, before I had even found my voice in the morning. And she will forever and for always be held in my memory as the surprise hugger. Come in the door, get a hug. Turn around in the kitchen, get a hug. Run up on you from behind on campus just to give you a hug. Not to mention she was a good apartment decorator. If we started to go into all her saintly qualities we'd be here forever.

Branching out from apt. 276:

The Brain:
When someone starts to use Econ analogies in relation to whether or not to sell back your textbook....you know you've got a brain on your hands. When they consistently come back with phenomenal chemistry test scores that make you beam even though you're not their mother, you know you're in the presence of a genius. Besides the fact that she constantly reminded you you weren't a cookie cutter...

The Rapier:
Those quiet ones will always surprise you. This girl had a wit sharper and faster than a rapier. Most of the time her voice wasn't heard, but on the rare occasion that she would share her genius you could find us all rolling on the floor laughing, and someone running to get her newest joust on the quote wall.

The Hand-Shaker:
You haven't shaken hands until you've had the pleasure of shaking this girl's. I don't know what it is, but her handshakes are pretty magical. I would know, I shook her hand at least 10 times per day. There were many other titles this one could have gone by: Fashion Expert, Business Women, Soon-to-be World Traveler, Loganite.....just to name a few.

The Advicer:
I would have given her the title of Mother Theresa, but she probably wouldn't have liked that. Always full of advice, big smiles, a plethora of pep talks, and the best hugs around. She could not only turn my frown upside down, but usually my whole day. It's a good thing she is rooming with the Quote-Generator so there will be no way that I can be completely anti-social entering my sophomore year.

No complaints about how y'all look in this picture. It's the only one we've got.

There were many, many other wonderful personalities that made my freshman year so fabulous, unfortunately my bedtime is quickly approaching. Just know that you are all loved and appreciated.

Lastly I wanted to share a few gems that the above mentioned would appreciate:

Friends Never Say Goodbye

(Inspired by the last movie I watched in 266).

Don't forget that You've Got a Friend in Me

And last but not least, only those of you who've seen a glimpse of my brief acting career will understand:

Sing along version so you can all join in. :)

It's been fun, much thanks to the great and supportive cast of characters. Love you guys.

I love eggs. And ham.

I'll just have you know, this blogging thing is addicting. My next post quite frequently occupies my thoughts.

Today, biggest thing on my mind: What should I do with my life? A woeful cry I hear echoing frequently around campus. My thoughts on that: the answer should just come to me already. I've spent enough time thinking about it, I have a great desire to DO something, so come on already!

For those of you who I don't get the opportunity to speak to on a regular basis (and those of you who don't pay attention when I do speak), here is the background story: Came to college pretty positive I was going to be a nurse. Took some classes, they were fine, but I couldn't see myself being a nurse day in and day out for the rest of my life. (I may or may not like to tell people to just toughen up and deal with it, I think most patients would prefer a slightly more compassionate approach). Nursing knowledge sounded fun, duties not so much.

So I became an Open Major. And took a Career Exploration class. I liked it, loved my teacher, learned a lot, read plenty of great articles, BUT nothing fell into my lap. Biggest thing I did realize: (maybe y'all knew this already and just neglected to tell me) I've got to do something I'm passionate about. Grinding through boring workdays for the rest of my life does not sound appealing. At. All.

So what am I passionate about? (Feel free to leave your personal opinions about that in the comment section.) I love hunting, playing sports and teaching people stuff.  Maybe not necessarily in that order...I don't know.

The problem that still remains: I'm scared of taking the jump and making a decision. I know you can change your mind and all that. But like I said, I'm impatient, I just want to KNOW already, I don't really want to do this exploring thing anymore. Two things happened the other day that reminded me that making decision and trying something is always better than remaining in limbo. The first was a great lesson I had in Book of Mormon the other day. We were discussing Ether 12, specifically verse 6 where it states, "...faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." Decisions like these are not supposed to be easy. As I looked back on my life I realized that, even though it is difficult in the moment, the Lord has never let me down in the past. The path my life has taken thus far has been extremely guided by His hand, and because He is a perfect unchanging God I know I can rely on that same guidance in the future. But I have to do my part, there needs to be some action involved. The second thing that it reminded me of was a story from my childhood. I read this book so many times I could probably recite it to you, and there was also a certain someone who was constantly reminding me of it when there were things I didn't want to try. The line that came to me was this: "try it, try it and  you may. Try it and you may I say." I don't know whether I will like any of the career paths or majors that are on my mind, but if I don't try it how will I ever know?

Currently I'm working on it. I've narrowed down a couple majors, I've made a plan to talk with a few professors, I'm trying my best to be patient and have faith.

After reading this long post, with no pictures to keep you entertained, feel free to leave any ideas in the comment section. Advice, thoughts, pretty much whatever your heart desires; I'd be delighted to read it. Thanks for bearing with me through this self contemplation. It was a lot more helpful for me than you, most likely.

Craters

I don't really know what is normal to blog about...but I'm just giving you a heads up that there will probably be posts about what's going on in my regular day (warning: what I mean by that is I might give you about every detail of the day, so just prepare yourself) and also past stories that I just want to tell...because I love to tell stories. A lot.

Today started out pretty average. Walking to class, called my mom to see how my little sister was after she had two teeth pulled. This wasn't your average teeth pulling, it involved multiple shots and Loritab. These suckers were like the teeth from Mars. Their roots were wrapped around her upper jaw bone. I have never seen anything so gnarly in my life.

My sister has two giant craters in your mouth.

I went to class, and then the temple before I realized I had forgotten to ask my mom about a big doctors appointment she had the day before. I called her back up only to have her tell me that she was planning on having a complete hip replacement because it was just bone  rubbing bone in her right hip. I was a bit speechless to say the least. But she is very excited for the prospect of being pain free, and I am pretty excited that I might get my jogging partner back. 

Then I went to the doctors for another appointment to try and remove a very stubborn plantar wart. I wouldn't care so much except it feels like I have a boulder in my heel when I walk around everyday and I'm pretty tired of it. We already tried over-the-counter medication, putting acid on it and using liquid nitrogen so this time we went all out. 

 And this was the result, a nice big crater in my foot. Currently I would like to chop it off because it stings like crazy what with all the burning and cutting he did on my heel. But hopefully that will fix it up and I can get on with my triathlon training and just walking around campus in general.

I just liked the magnifiers he wears. Photos courtesy of my mom.

The real highlight of my day was drooling over this:

Finish finals, buy one of these. Those are the two things occupying Syd's head.

The Art of Catching Grapes and Other General Conference weekend Adventures

Emily will probably shoot me if/when she finds out that I wrote about this.

That's 14 grapes that she caught in her mouth, folks.

But hey, it was a highlight of my weekend.
Among other things, like:

Going home because there was nothing in my fridge. And getting overfed while I was there. We had a bridal shower for my cousin Anne, which was a lot of fun. And then more family over for ice cream after the Priesthood session. Whenever 30+ people are over at my house you know that copious amounts of good food will be had. 

And this:

I couldn't breath, so I mowed the lawn looking like a bandit. In my Red Hat, of course. 

Last but certainly not least...there were good amounts of spiritual uplifting to be had by all. Conference weekend was awesome!! All of the talks had bits and pieces of what I needed to hear but I especially liked Elder Scott and Elder Eyring. I won't say that those were my favorites, because I don't think you can really pick favorites when it comes to Conference. Check it out!

And I guess this wasn't really the weekend because it happened today, but:

Melanie and I successfully changed her extremely flat tire. In under 7 minutes. I enjoyed it, anyway.