Holidays, School Papers and Life

First of all, in case you are wondering why I am doing so many "spiritual" posts, it's for my New Testament class. The idea is to help build other people's testimonies by sharing our own. It's part of my grade--I have to have twelve total posts for that class by the end of the semester but I'm not doing it just for the grade, I really feel like it's something I would want to do with or without the grade incentive.


I'm soooooo excited for the upcoming holiday season!!! This is my favorite time of year by far! I love the music, the food, the decorations (for both Thanksgiving and Christmas), and, of course, the gathering of all of the people I love the best! My aunt and uncle from Arizona, who I rarely get to see, are coming to spend Thanksgiving with us this year and it's going to be so great! I love it when they come to visit us or when we go to visit them--which unfortunately doesn't happen very often anymore. And then for Christmas, my sister Brooke is coming to visit (she is living in California right now)!!! I am definitely ready for her to move back, but that's not gonna happen till summertime unfortunately. Also, I know it's pathetic, but I started listening to Christmas music before Halloween. It's just so great and there isn't really any Halloween or Thanksgiving music that people normally listen to, so I supplement that lack of holiday music by listening to Christmas music--my favorite holiday of all!!

School, as usual, is extremely stressful! I have written six papers in the past week and I still have five more to write in the very near future. I guess I only have myself to blame for a lot of those because most of them were late so I had to do them all at once, but still, that's a lot and I am not a fan. However, I am a fan of only having one Physical Science lab left!!! We have lab once a week and in them we do about six experiments that elementary school students could do. Then we answer questions about the principles the experiments demonstrate. We then have to type up a summary of the experiment and the answers to all of the questions we had to answer plus more teaching applications (which means more experiments that can be used to demonstrate whatever principle the original experiment was demonstrating) which we have to come up with. And we have to do that with every single experiment we do so it is TONS of typing! Especially consdering how many papers I have to do without counting these. That is why I am so excited for my last lab! It's fun to do some of the experiments, but it's a lot of typing and I don't like typing. Another assignment that has been hanging over my head is the group poster project I have to do for my Geography class. We started it like two months ago and it is due next Friday. I will be so glad when that is over as well!! We have to hang our finished poster in the Wilkinson Center and be there to answer questions that anyone has about our topic. I am not looking forward to presenting it, but the sooner we can present it, the sooner I get to stop worrying about it!

This is probably about the most boring blog ever, but I don't really care because this is my life right now and what else am I going to write about? I like my life, even though I do complain about it a lot. I have more good happen to me than bad, but I just tend to focus on the bad. I need to work on changing that. One good thing that I found out today was that my brother David made the basketball team at his school!! I'm so proud of him and am way excited to go see his games! I love my family! They're awesome!

Tithing

Tithing has always been something that has been emphasized in my house growing up and is still emphasized. I haven't always been the best at paying my tithing, but I do try. There was one time when I was in ninth grade and I was trying to pay for our ninth grade Lagoon Day. I had enough money to go, except for my tithing. If I paid my tithing I wouldn't have enough to go to Lagoon, and there wasn't enough time for me to make more money because we were going the next day. I finally made the decision to pay my tithing and after I had prepared the money I owed, I found five dollars in my room that I had forgotten about. I felt really blessed for paying my tithing--even though the blessing was simply having enough money to pay for the trip to Lagoon. Since then, the power of paying tithing has been manifest many times in my life. Recently I have been having money problems because of unexpected school expenses and losing my job. My last paycheck was all that I had to cover any food I needed while at school and I didn't (and still don't) know how long it will be until I find a new job. But I decided to pay my tithing and I ended up getting approved for an overdraft on my bank account whereas before, when I still had a job, I wasn't approved. A lot of my money problems have come from having to pay insufficient funds fees to the bank when a forgotten about insurance payment of $1.10 came out of my account unexpectedly and I didn't have the money to cover it. Really pathetic, I know, but such is my life at present. Now that I have the overdraft protection I will no longer have to pay the $15 dollar fine every time I go negative. I know that I could avoid that anyway simply by being a little more concious about my money, but I have proven to not be very good at that so this has relieved a little stress from my current situation. I love having lessened stress! And I know that this lessening of my stress in many times, not just what I have said here, has come from paying my tithing.

The Chaos of Life

Life has been crazy! My PE class is now over, my Physical Science lab only has two more weeks left, and the rest of my classes seem to be aware of my extra time and are assigning me more than ever! Lucily, one of the biggest assignments I have right now will be over and done with by tomorrow at 1! And that is my last paper for that class! However, there always seems to be bad that comes with the good. Because of the economy, the restaurant where I have been working has had to close, so I am once again looking for a job! I hate looking for jobs. Hopefully, I'll get one soon and then I can go back to having a little order again! Also, I voted in my first presidential election on Tuesday!! That was fun, but I'm not entirely satisfied with the way various offices have been filled. Well, as is probably apparent in this blog, my thoughts as of late have been very chaotic and I'm sick of it! I'm definitely ready for Thanksgiving break!