I finally get to write again. Yay! Writing is so sporatic this time around because I never seem to have the time. Weekends always fill up and before you know Sunday is over and I haven't written yet. It is kind of a problem. Maybe it will get better, maybe not.
This past week was quite busy, especially for only being four regular school days. I took four midterms, wrote a paper, did many homework assignments, and still managed to find time to play around and enjoy life. It was great. I think I am back to almost being the way I was at the beginning of high school - I study a ton now. A lot more hours than I ever did freshman year or senior year of high school. I enjoy it and it keeps me going. But there has to be a balance somewhere. Haven't found it yet. I swing from social to student with no buffer or break. Not the easiest switch for me. I have finally started to volunteer at a Rehabilitation Center and that has helped so far. Next semester I definitely will be working as well and volunteering and having a social life and taking many, many classes. I just do much better with life being busy. I am able to study better, focus better, sleep better, eat better, enjoy life better, you name it better. I will have to be able to correctly schedule everything out in order to have that all work out.
This past week we had 80s day on Friday. It was a blast. I got a lot of cool questions and a lot of interesting stares. A lot of people even told me that they would like to join in on the fun. I guess it could be hesistantly be termed a success pending reviews of the next few Fridays. Lora had some good games to play from the New Games book, some were kind of dorky or very special, but they were all fun. Kickback to EFY days and that social recreation leadership class (or party planning class). Also, went to a game night, watched some Psych in preparation for Psych Day this upcoming Wednesday and such.
Well, doing well on tests is definitely a blessing. Good grades are required for all the different programs or career ideas that I have been looking at. The problem is that instead of narrowing my choices, it seems to only make them wider and wider. I was able to do really, really well on a biology midterm this week. I thought everyone else did very well too, but when I got to class I learned that was not the case. Daniel Farnsworth was kind of disappointed because he had did the same as he did on the first test and he was not happy with the results. He dreams of being a pediatrician and has dedicated his whole life to working towards that occupation. I, on the other hand, don't really care one way or the other. I feel like God gave me these smarts as a talent and I am responsible to use and fully develop them for the greater good. I thought the test was relatively easy and can understand the material much better than I was giving myself credit for about a month ago. I am able to make sense of it and explain it in simpler terms. Shouldn't I use that to become a doctor or something in the scientific fields? But then the same goes for liberal arts classes, I can do very well with little effort or stress. I work hard, true, but I can understand and comprehend it at a different level than a lot of other people seem to be able to. I just don't know what to do. I guess the obvious solution is that I need to use the brain that God gave me in getting as much education as I can so that in the end I can serve as many people as I can. But there are too many pathways to to take that would fill such a desire. Lawyer, doctor, counselor, psychiatrist, and the list could go on and on. I guess I could even now add engineer to the list because all my friends seem to enjoy it and love it so much that it has opened my mind up to it. On second thought, not really. I know I don't really want to do business. Not engineering. Not English. Not a fine art like music or graphic design or whatever. Not math. Not economics. That crosses many things off of my list, but doesn't seem to narrow it nearly as much as I would wish. I will keep praying about it and hoping to stumble across the path that I am mean to take soon. In the meantime, I'll keep doing the best I can with what I have been given. You never know what might happen.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
We will miss you Anna...
Well, life will never, ever get boring. Things fly at you at a million miles an hour whether you are ready or not. There is not time to slow down, take a breath, re-evaluate, and change tactics on something. It all has to be done midcourse. It keeps life moving fast pace and exciting.
The main thing to be on my mind this past week is the passing away of a dear friend. Anna Flowers. Or in reality what I call her is Great Grandma Anna. She pretty much adopted our whole family anyway. Anna is honestly one of the best people I will ever have the privilege of knowing. She contracted polio at a young age many years ago and although it didn't kill her, she lost the use of her legs. She was restrained to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Did she ever let that get her down though? NO! When I met her, we had moved into her ward. We would always run by her house and drop off food or treats or provide company for her. She was a constant guest at family events such as Christmas, Easter, birthdays, and even normal Sunday family dinners. She always fit right in. We even constructed a ramp for her so she could get up Grandma's step to the front door and into the house. She was never without a smile. Not once, no matter the pain, exhaustion, misery, or disappointment she faced. She truly accepted each day as a gift from God. You were instantly her best friend if you would take the time to talk to her and she never forgot it. She would always send birthday cards, money, treats, give you ice cream, hugs whatever. While on a mission, she wrote me faithfully every week. She was the only one who did. In fact, if she was stuck deathly ill in a hospital, she would write me three letters the next week. One to make up for the one she had missed, one for that week, and one to say how sorry she was and how much she would always love and appreciate me. They were always beautiful cards as well. Home made on her computer. They were always given the "From Anna's Card Studio" clipart image on the back. I don't know how long she spent making each one, but they were exquisite. Each picture and word was well thought out and placed with precision and care. She could find a valid reason to compliment you and express her gratitude for just about everything - holidays, simple service, the fact that it was Tuesday, a simple concert or sacrament meeting talk. It didn't matter such small acts meant the world to her and she would write faithfully to you about them zealously describing all the beauty and joy she had received at those moment in time. To receive such a card or to talk to her in person was always an uplift. She was the perfect example of facing adversity with grace. If there is anyone that I know in the world who deserves to be frustrated at life, it would have been Anna. She was stuck in the wheelchair, constantly sick with ravaging diseases, suffered from immense amounts of pain, and slowly day-by-day lost her independence. She never once complained though, not that I ever heard or that was even suggested or implied. She put on a smile, thanked the Lord for such a great day, and went about whatever activities she could manage. Every time that I was around her or thought of her, she made me want to be a better person. To not complain about the trivial and mundane aspects of life, but live with gratitude and perseverance and understanding. To always remember how much God truly loves and cares for each one of us and have perfect faith and trust in that relationship. To show that same love back to God in every action, work, word, and thought. To love others with true charity and no judgment. She was and will continue to always be in my mind - an angel in human form. She is surely an angel now and doing wonderful work for our Father in Heaven. I can only imagine the joys she has at being free from her crippled and troubled body and able to be the lady and person she always wanted to be. I will continue to strive to follow her example each and every day of my life. To become more like her. She is Christlike in every facet and meaning of the word. She is one of the role models that I will try to follow in life, in attitude, in demeanor, and in charity. I love you Great Grandma Anna and look forward to seeing you whole in the future.
I don't think I can really write anything else after that. Lora and I will be going home this next weekend in order to attend her funeral. God gave us the blessing of having it fall on President's Day weekend so we could go. Suffice it to say, everything else this week has been pretty normal college life. A lot of fun, a lot of work, a lot of happiness and smiles, and also a lot of stress. No movie this week in order to remember Anna with a minute of silence. Hope you all have a great week and I will write next time from sunny Arizona (so far it has been snowing all day here...)
A few quotes I find appropriate:
"To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." Albus Dumbledore
“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.
GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.
PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?
GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.
GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.”
The Savior's Words Comfort Us in Death
President Thomas S. Monson
"From [the] majestic world of spirits we enter the grand stage of life to prove ourselves obedient to all things commanded of God. During mortality we grow from helpless infancy to inquiring childhood and then to reflective maturity. We experience joy and sorrow, fulfillment and disappointment, success and failure. We taste the sweet, yet sample the bitter. This is mortality.
"Then to each life comes the experience known as death. None is exempt. All must pass its portals.
"To most, there is something sinister and mysterious about this unwelcome visitor called death. Perhaps it is a fear of the unknown which causes many to dread its coming. . . .
". . . [The Savior's] words to the grieving Martha and to His disciples today bring comfort to us:
" 'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
The main thing to be on my mind this past week is the passing away of a dear friend. Anna Flowers. Or in reality what I call her is Great Grandma Anna. She pretty much adopted our whole family anyway. Anna is honestly one of the best people I will ever have the privilege of knowing. She contracted polio at a young age many years ago and although it didn't kill her, she lost the use of her legs. She was restrained to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Did she ever let that get her down though? NO! When I met her, we had moved into her ward. We would always run by her house and drop off food or treats or provide company for her. She was a constant guest at family events such as Christmas, Easter, birthdays, and even normal Sunday family dinners. She always fit right in. We even constructed a ramp for her so she could get up Grandma's step to the front door and into the house. She was never without a smile. Not once, no matter the pain, exhaustion, misery, or disappointment she faced. She truly accepted each day as a gift from God. You were instantly her best friend if you would take the time to talk to her and she never forgot it. She would always send birthday cards, money, treats, give you ice cream, hugs whatever. While on a mission, she wrote me faithfully every week. She was the only one who did. In fact, if she was stuck deathly ill in a hospital, she would write me three letters the next week. One to make up for the one she had missed, one for that week, and one to say how sorry she was and how much she would always love and appreciate me. They were always beautiful cards as well. Home made on her computer. They were always given the "From Anna's Card Studio" clipart image on the back. I don't know how long she spent making each one, but they were exquisite. Each picture and word was well thought out and placed with precision and care. She could find a valid reason to compliment you and express her gratitude for just about everything - holidays, simple service, the fact that it was Tuesday, a simple concert or sacrament meeting talk. It didn't matter such small acts meant the world to her and she would write faithfully to you about them zealously describing all the beauty and joy she had received at those moment in time. To receive such a card or to talk to her in person was always an uplift. She was the perfect example of facing adversity with grace. If there is anyone that I know in the world who deserves to be frustrated at life, it would have been Anna. She was stuck in the wheelchair, constantly sick with ravaging diseases, suffered from immense amounts of pain, and slowly day-by-day lost her independence. She never once complained though, not that I ever heard or that was even suggested or implied. She put on a smile, thanked the Lord for such a great day, and went about whatever activities she could manage. Every time that I was around her or thought of her, she made me want to be a better person. To not complain about the trivial and mundane aspects of life, but live with gratitude and perseverance and understanding. To always remember how much God truly loves and cares for each one of us and have perfect faith and trust in that relationship. To show that same love back to God in every action, work, word, and thought. To love others with true charity and no judgment. She was and will continue to always be in my mind - an angel in human form. She is surely an angel now and doing wonderful work for our Father in Heaven. I can only imagine the joys she has at being free from her crippled and troubled body and able to be the lady and person she always wanted to be. I will continue to strive to follow her example each and every day of my life. To become more like her. She is Christlike in every facet and meaning of the word. She is one of the role models that I will try to follow in life, in attitude, in demeanor, and in charity. I love you Great Grandma Anna and look forward to seeing you whole in the future.
I don't think I can really write anything else after that. Lora and I will be going home this next weekend in order to attend her funeral. God gave us the blessing of having it fall on President's Day weekend so we could go. Suffice it to say, everything else this week has been pretty normal college life. A lot of fun, a lot of work, a lot of happiness and smiles, and also a lot of stress. No movie this week in order to remember Anna with a minute of silence. Hope you all have a great week and I will write next time from sunny Arizona (so far it has been snowing all day here...)
A few quotes I find appropriate:
"To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." Albus Dumbledore
“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.
GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.
PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?
GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.
GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.”
The Savior's Words Comfort Us in Death
President Thomas S. Monson
"From [the] majestic world of spirits we enter the grand stage of life to prove ourselves obedient to all things commanded of God. During mortality we grow from helpless infancy to inquiring childhood and then to reflective maturity. We experience joy and sorrow, fulfillment and disappointment, success and failure. We taste the sweet, yet sample the bitter. This is mortality.
"Then to each life comes the experience known as death. None is exempt. All must pass its portals.
"To most, there is something sinister and mysterious about this unwelcome visitor called death. Perhaps it is a fear of the unknown which causes many to dread its coming. . . .
". . . [The Savior's] words to the grieving Martha and to His disciples today bring comfort to us:
" 'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
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