The Life of the Unemployed

So, I graduated from BYU a couple of weeks ago. That was cool :) However, what was not cool was that by doing so, I basically quit my job. My job at the library was a student job and since I am no longer a student, BYU decided to give me the gift of being unemployed along with my diploma. How thoughtful. Don't get me wrong, it will be great fun to get a "real" job, but until the time comes when companies finally realize I am indispensable to their success, I'm out of luck. My job this last little while has been job searching. That's not fun.

Good Day, Sunshine

Finally!!!! I can see the sun and feel a little warmth! I spent part of the day today in my backyard with my cousin painting our beam for our family room and I actually got a little sunburned!!!!! It's not like I was out there for forever either! This is glorious. Sure, I'm not the biggest fan of sunburns in general, but this one is the first of the season plus, it's not too bad--at least I'm not feeling anything but warm yet :) We did a lot of work today and now I'm actually at work, but it's been such a great day!! I had a sleepover with my cousin last night. This morning we went and bought New Moon. Uncle Ken came and installed our new bookshelves and we got them all decorated and looking cute. We dusted the upstairs. We painted the beam. And we saw a lot of sunshine!!!!!!!! I love it.

New Semester, One Month Gone

Basically, I hardly ever post ANYTHING!!! I should be better at that :) You'd think that when something actually happens and/or changes it would give me reason to write, but no. I apparently never write. :) Here's a quick recap:

Kami and Brooke both left for their missions!! Brooke is in Plano, Texas and Kami is still in the MTC in Argentina--in a few weeks she'll head off for Uruguay!! They are both doing great! Things may not have started off all that great for them emotionally, but things have really started to pick up. Brooke has already had one baptism and she has at least one more this month! As for Kami, they send the missionaries in the MTC down there out tracting on Saturdays and her first time out (which also happened to be her birthday) she had a really great experience. She was scared to death and nervous to be in a place she had never been before and have to speak Spanish to them after only having spent about a week studying it at the MTC. They took a bus to the middle of Buenos Aires and the first thing she hears when she gets off the bus is a Dire Straits song playing in English. For anyone who doesn't know, my dad was a HUGE Dire Straits fan so that of course helped her feel a little more at home, but then she says she literally felt my dad grab her hand and heard him say, "Let's get to work, Princess." Yeah, I can't quite read or tell or hear that story without tearing up yet :). Things have gone uphill for Kami since then. She says she felt him with her that whole day and I'm sure he'll be with her for her entire mission--he always talked about how much he loved his mission and how he would love to serve another one! He was so excited for both Kami and Brooke when they got their calls and was also excited they would be speaking Spanish. I'm sure he'll help both of them out on their missions from time to time :)

I finally finished last semester! I know I have written about how awesome all of my classes were--which they were--but they were seriously never-ending! I've never had near as much homework as I did last semester! Good thing I wasn't ever able to add that english class I was trying to get into! I might have had to drop out from stress :) The stress was already enough to make me change my major--I am now majoring in Home and Family Living and I am loving it so far. This semester I am taking: Family Finance, Basic Clothing Construction, Critical Inquiry and Research Methods, and Strengthening Marriage and Family. Surprisingly, I am loving all of them! Even my research class :)!! Who'd have thought? I've never liked doing research, but I'm still really enjoying it!

And finally, the last thing I can think of right now that needs to be updated--I got a new calling! I was a Primary teacher (teaching the 4-5 year olds) and that was fine, but now I am the assistant YW camp director! I'm sooo excited!! I always loved camp when I was in young women's and I think it's going to be so much fun to help with it this summer!

Other than those things, my life has basically just been the usual boring. It's still fun though:)

My Wonderful Father

My dad passed away Sunday night at about 11pm. It was pretty unexpected. He had gone in last Tuesday for Gastric Bypass surgery which went really well according to his surgeon. He came home from the hospital on Thursday. We all knew going into that surgery that there was a chance he could die, but not a very big one--seeing as how his surgeon has done over a thousand of them and never made a mistake. When he came home we all assumed that that meant he would recover and he would be able to live a better life because of it. But on Saturday he started having extra pains and his wound began oozing green stuff. After the convincing of my mom, ex-bishop, and a nurse in my ward he finally agreed to let us take him to the hospital. By the time they got him to the ER he was completely unresponsive. The doctors at the ER were able to bring him around then and they said they had to get him into surgery right then or he would die and he nodded his consent. The repair surgery (to repair a hole in his intestines) went well, but the surgeon said that living through the surgery isn't the hard part. People usually die after this surgery because of pneumonia or heart failure. After the surgery he was given medication to paralyze and sedate him so that he wouldn't cough or anything that could mess up what they had done since they had to leave his wound open. Then it was just a balancing act--giving him different medications to help with blood pressure and other things and pushing fluids and trying to get the right amount of everything going in and out. At one point he was hooked up to twenty-three IVs with a whole lot of things also coming out of him. but eventually he slipped into a non-medication induced coma and then flat-lined. They worked to get his heart going again for twenty minutes but then we told them to stop. That was Sunday night.

But I know that it was the right time for him to go. I've felt really peaceful through this whole thing and through all the tears. He left on probably the greatest spiritual high of his life. In the past few weeks he has been through the temple with my two sisters who are going on missions, seen my brother married in the temple, and had the peace of knowing that my oldest sister is finally married to a very great guy. I don't think he'd ever been so happy. He was excited for the surgery too. He went into it knowing that if he was supposed to live, a drunk could do the surgery and it would be fine, or if he was supposed to die, he could have the best surgeon in the world do it and die. He wasn't able to do too much in his state of health prior to the surgery and he knew that if all went well he would be able to have a much better life and be a better father (not that he wasn't already awesome) and if it didn't he would be better in the spirit world where he could still help us--where he could go on the missions with my sisters and help all of the rest of us through life.

My classes rock. I get to read a lot of kids books, do little kid dances, and create a picture book based off of a kid's song. Basically, I like homework. Everyone should be jealous :)

Update on my family: Zach is married and on his honeymoon, Brooke is leaving on Oct. 7th on her way to her mission in Dallas, Texas, and Kami received her call to Montevideo, Uruguay and will be leaving on January 7th and going to the Argentina MTC! I am still doing nothing, but at least I am having fun in the process.

Tonight wasn't the best night ever since I went to the football game and we lost 58-24 to Florida State, but attending the game in and of itself was still fun. And it's bound to get better tonight since I get to go home in 35 minutes and watch Wednesday's episode of So You Think You Can Dance, which I am completely addicted to. Yes, it's that bad. It's just like Kayla and Kupono's Mia Michaels dance last season :)

1st Day of School

So here I am at school--sitting in the library on my computer. I always get really enthusiastic at the beginning of a new school year and this year has been no different. I got up on time, got ready, and left for school planning on being an hour early in order to get everything situated (such as my locker and creating pages to take notes on for each of my classes). I got to the library at about 8:00 and expected to have to hurry to get everything done before my 9:00 PE class only to find that I'm much quicker at getting things in order than I anticipated. To fill the extra time I decided to check my schedule online to make sure I have the right room number written down on my paper schedule and discover that my 9:00 PE class doesn't start until the second block--that is, it doesn't begin until October 21st and here I am at 9:00am on August 31st with nothing to do until I have to work at noon. I don't have any homework to work on since I haven't actually been to any classes yet and I can't even look at what I have coming up because I don't have a syllabus for any of my classes. Maybe I'll go watch Arrested Development in the LRC :)

Reset

I've decided that the reset button can fix almost anything: the computer, the internet, my cell phone, etc. Summer is like a reset button. I get completely stressed out and tired during the school year, but I'm ready to go again. Even with the stress of paying tuition and buying books I'm excited!! My classes for this upcoming semester sound like so much fun for the most part! They are: PE (where I actually get to go to an elementary school and teach PE), Children's Literature (which is the one I'm most excited for!!!!), Math (which I could do without, but it's okay because it's basically my only really academic class and it's even just teaching you how to teach math to elementary school kids), Rhythm and Dance, Art, Music, and Drama in the Elementary Classroom. Yep, I know, my schedule rocks. I'm also trying to add the advanced writing class for El Ed majors but so far I'm not having much luck. If I am able to add it, it will bring my credit hours up to 18. I'm a little nervous about that seeing as how the university won't even let you go above 18 credit hours. But I think I should be able to cope since my classes should at least be interesting. And if I'm not able to register for the writing class, I won't have any classes on Friday!!! Plus, I only work on Mon, Wed, Thurs, and Sat so I would have Fridays completely free!! The only problem I have with my work schedule is on the Saturdays when there are home football games. I bought my all-sports pass! and working on Saturdays makes it hard to go to the games. I'm crossing my fingers that someone I work with will be willing to cover for me so I can go!!!! It's going to be an amazing year! Or at least that's the way I'm thinking right now! We'll see how I feel in a month or so. :)

I find it really ironic that I almost change the background for my blog more often than I post on it. But, what ya gonna do? I'm not much of a writer and my life isn't all that exciting--so there's not much to write about anyway. The reason I'm actually writing something now is because of upcoming events in my family. None of which have to do with me. There are two upcoming weddings and two people going on missions. I hardly ever date so the weddings definitely aren't me and I'm still just 20 and therefore, not old enough for a mission. Shayla and Zach are the ones getting married and their fiances are, respectively, Dana and Danielle. I am sooo excited for both of them!! Zach and Danielle are getting married on September 18th and Shayla and Dana don't yet have a date. Kami and Brooke are the ones going on missions. Brooke already has her call--to the Dallas, Texas Spanish speaking mission!! and she leaves on October 7th. Kami hasn't turned in her papers yet but she is going to soon! She's just waiting on the rest of her dental work and her physical. I'm so excited for them!!!!!!!!!! I'm also a little sad because they are all going to be leaving me and I'll be stuck home with David and McKay--who I love, but sometimes I just need a girl around. Me and mom will just have to "cha-cha" without them!

In other news (this one actually has a little bit to do with me surprisingly), the two desks that I work at are splitting. I'm pretty frustrated with this development because it means that most of the people I have been working with I will no longer be able to work with. I really like my co-workers and a lot of my favorite people will be working at the LRC desk while I will be working at the Circulation desk. However, I will be able to get to know some new people! Since most of the people decided to work at the LRC desk, Circ has to hire all the new people. I like getting to know new people so it should at least be fun in that way--plus I still get to work with some of the old people too :) Speaking of the LRC, I recently discovered the existence of the LRC blog. It's called LRC: the blog and I was reading it the other day and one of the posts made me laugh uncontrollably. Cheryl, one of the people I work with, wrote it and she was talking about checking headphones out to people and how they follow you from the computer, to the drawer where the headphones are stored, and back to the computer again almost every time. She called it the headphones tango. It was really funny, although it might not be that funny to anyone who hasn't witnessed the spectacle approximately 500 times.

EFY

A couple of weeks ago I got the opportunity to go to EFY at the University of Utah as a counselor. It was AWESOME!!! I went to EFY twice when I was the age to go and was really sad when I couldn't go anymore because I was paying for my trip to Central America instead. But the EFY office called me up and asked me to be a counselor! It was really cool to actually be paid to go to EFY--sure, it's more work than just going as a regular person, but you still get the amazing experience! The theme this year is "Be Thou An Example" and the session director was Brad Wilcox. I believe he was actually the session director for one of the years I went as a participant, but I'll have to look that up to be sure. He is such an amazing speaker and SO funny!!! There were three teachers for the various classes (which I thought was a little weird because when I went to EFY we had twelve or something--although the BYU sessions are a lot bigger than the U of U sessions) Brother Diamond, Brother Smith, and Sister Welch. They were really good! I loved their classes when I was able to go. Plus, Brother Diamond was from England so he had a cool accent :). I had twelve girls in my group and there were two other groups in my company--one other group of ten girls and one group of 16 boys. My co-counselors were Matt and Amelia and they were so much fun! Amelia was actually a girl I went to high school with! One sad thing about Matt though was that on Tuesday (which also happened to be his birthday) he got sick and had to be sent home. Which is sad enough on its own but that also meant that me and Amelia had to control all three groups without too much help (although one of the building counselors took over the boys' devotionals so we didn't have to worry about that). But one major problem came on game night. Our group was meeting after dinner to walk down to the institute building but three boys weren't coming. And, being girls, me and Amelia couldn't go into their dorms to get them out. We had to track down a guy counselor to go in to get them and, begrudgingly, they came out. But then on the way down they started running away from the group to go back to their rooms and I had to chase them down and stop them. Then, when we were at the institute building, we discovered they were gone again. We had like half of the coordinators/building counsellors trying to find them and eventually they showed up. But aside from that we didn't really have any problems--even those boys were really good most of the time, not to mention funny. Also, one of my girls had a birthday while we were there--Baylee--that was fun. She's so cute! And I know this is random, but it's one of the things that sticks out the most to me--the dances were SO hot! It's really quite disgusting if you stop and think about it because not only was it hot, it was humid! And just where do you think that humidity was coming from? Answer: the massive amounts of sweat coming off everyone in the gym which consequently had no air circulation whatsoever. But it was still fun--although I was still glad when I had dance duty which meant that I got to go and guard the exits for the building and get out of the stifling, disgusting heat. I'll try to remember to upload a picture of my group, but I haven't put it on my computer yet

Another Blog Assignment

I am taking another religion class this semester from the professor I took New Testament from last semester. This time it's Doctrine and Covenants but we still have the blogging assignment so I will once again be writing blogs for a religion class. I gained a lot from this experience last semester and, while I do not like writing in general, am looking forward to writing them again.

But other than that piece of information, here's a few updates on my boring life: This past week we celebrated four family birthdays--Kami, Shayla, David, and Alexis' birthdays. It was great! For Kami's birthday we did a little bit of pampering and I got my first pedicure!! It was wonderful!!!! It comes highly recommended. We finalized our dates for our annual St. George parade of homes trip! We are going on Febuary 12th-16th and I am sooo excited!!! The only problem we didn't realize was going to be a problem is that it's the same weekend as our Stake Conference. Hopefully my mom can find someone to take notes for her so she doesn't miss the messages! Me and Kami also found out that we have some major kid-proofing to do in our bedroom. We had one of the kids she nannies take a nap in our room and he ripped the covers of some of my favorite books and threw the contents of my jewelery box all over the room--along with some other things that got messed up. Anyone who knows me knows that my books are some of my favorite things. My brothers David and McKay especially know this because they have returned books to me with the covers worn out a little or with some of the pages a little dirty and they know how mad I got at them. I was so mad I almost cried when I walked in and saw the ruined books. I began the task yesterday of taping them back together as seamlessly as possible since I can't replace them but they still are not looking too great. (You can tell I have a strong opinion on something if I keep going on and on about it--especially if it's something that most people wouldn't consider that big of deal.)

On a happier note I love my new job!!! Given my love of books it's not surprising. I work at the circulation desk and the LRC desk. The circulation desk is where people check out books and the LRC desk is where people go if they need to check out a movie or CD or something--they're kept behind the desk so we have to get them for the people who need them. I love it!!! I just finished the library new employee training so I've already got a 10 cent raise!! The pay wasn't that great to begin with and it still is less than I was getting doing early-morning custodial last year but the other benefits of the job definitely make up for that in my opinion!! At least this job has something to do with what I want to do for my future career.

New Start

So it's Christmas Break and I have been totally revitalized!!! I haven't had to deal with the stresses of school at all and it has been heavenly--but that doesn't mean I don't want to go back! That means that I am ready to go back and I am very optimistic. My classes shouldn't be too hard and I finally got a new job!!! I just had an interview and was hired today to work in the library at BYU as an access services desk clerk. I had no idea what that meant at first but basically I'll be the person who checks people's books out for them. I'm way excited! I start on Monday. One really great thing about it is that they are building my work schedule around my class schedule so I don't have to worry about that! And this job will give me some experience in my preferred future field!! I finally feel like I'm ready to take everything on!! Hopefully I don't sink back down like I did last semester!

Explanation and Lessons Learned

I know it's probably a little weird to have so many blogs on spiritual subjects, but I must say that I believe every word I've written on each subject. I hope people aren't bored by them--I had to write them for my New Testament class, but I will probably be continuing to write them (although not quite as often) because it has really helped me to strengthen my testimony to write them. I love the gospel and I want to live it more fully in my life and writing about it helps me to live life the way I want to.

This semester is coming to a rapid close (as I can tell by how much work I've been doing the past few days) and I just want to step back and look at what I've learned. Lesson number one: don't procrastinate. It's really hard to write six blogs and nine papers in three days. Lesson number two: make the most of my opportunities. I am only now realizing what amazing professors I have. It's making me a little sad to have to leave their lectures behind even though I will probably have just as good of professors next semester. Lesson number three: being stressed out doesn't mean I have to skip out on activities with family. I have had a huge work load lately and it's made me hide away by myself in a room and it wasn't until a couple of days ago when I spent the day with my sister that I realized how much I was missing out on. I just need to schedule myself better so I can more fully participate with my family.

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!

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!

The Beginnning of the Blog

Blogging is something I never thought I would get in to. But I suppose that now that I have one, I might as well make use of it! But bear with me, I hate writing and you can probably tell why by reading my blogs!

A couple of weeks ago I started my second year at BYU! It is awesome (except for the impossible work load of course)! I'm majoring in Elementary Education but in order to get into the actual program, I have to fulfill all of my GEs and some other ones set by the El. Ed. department. So I have a bunch of classes that I'm not particularly interested in right now, such as: Physical Science, Geography, a class where we learn how to teach PE, and Child Development. I do actually like the classes and I always have, but they're just not my favorite things to study. I especially hate the homework for these classes. The other classes I have are New Testament and a class on C. S. Lewis. I LOVE these classes! They are so interesting and the least stressful of all of my classes because they aren't required for my major. Even though I have to read around 100 pages for each C. S. Lewis class period--more or less. At least it's fun reading unlike the textbooks for Physical Science, Geography, and Child Development.

Also, I am currently working at a restaurant called Max & Cheese which is Alexis' favorite restaurant. It is a restaurant that specializes in kids so they have a fun kid's menu and toys and puzzles and games in the middle section of the seating area. It's really fun and I really like working there. Except for when people stay for an hour and a half after closing time eating and talking and playing while we wait to close down.

Other than school and work I personally don't have much going on in my life. One exciting thing though is that our remodel is getting close to finished! My family is remodeling our garage into a family room because we want more room to have people come over and have fun and the garage was just a place we stored all our crap. Now, we got rid of the crap and moved the stuff we need into a new shed we built in the back. It's going to be so great when it's all done!