Awake My Soul

How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes,

I struggle to find any truth in your lies.

And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know.

My weakness I feel I must finally show.

Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all.

But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall.

Lend me your eyes I can change what you see.

But your soul you must keep totally free.

Awake, my soul.

-Mumford and Sons

[I'm utterly in love with everything about this song.]

Revamping!

So, I'm going to attempt to make my blog more presentable. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Wish me luck!

If it looks terrible as you're viewing this, give it time. It will look amazing. *crossing fingers*

Oh yeah...my blog...

Sorry everyone. (And by "everyone" I mean the 2.7 of you that probably read my blog.)

I haven't written in a while.

School has been craaaaaazy. It's been good, but craaaaaazy. I'm taking 16 credits, 15 of them English courses. You know what that means? I get to read lots and lots and lots. Now, don't get me wrong, I love reading as much as the next English nerd, but it takes a lot of time. I really like my classes and professors, though. I'm learning a lot. Mainly:

1. I'm SUPER scared to become an English teacher. I'm taking a Teaching Literature class and the talk of lesson plans, teaching, and the future of young developing minds freaks the demons out of me.

2. Equally, if not more so, I can't wait to become an English Teacher. I've had some pretty remarkable teachers in my life. While it is scary to think of teaching, I can't wait to have a classroom of my own with students that I can share my passion for English with. I want them to get excited about learning, like my teachers did for me. I hope I'm as awesome as they were/are!

3. Writing is more therapeutic than I thought. I'm also taking a Creative Nonfiction Writing class. It might be my favorite class. An ongoing assignment for that class is keeping a writing journal. We do a lot of writing exercises that help improve our writing style and content. I'm finding out a lot about my self by doing the exercises. Some exercises we just have to write, no thinking, just writing. I'm astounded about some of the things going on in my head that I never knew were there. I can tell this class is going to be a good outlet for me. I'm going to learn a lot about this crazy head of mine. Who needs therapy when you have a pen and paper?

4. I don't really like Realism. What can I say? I'm a hopeless romantic. Now every realist piece I read, I just prepare myself for everyone dying or losing everything, that way when only half of the characters do, it's not so depressing.

5. Ping Pong makes you sweat. Who knew? So, I said I had 16 credits and 15 were English. Guess what the last one is? Yep, you guessed it. Table Tennis. It's everything I hoped it would be.

So, I've learned more things than this, but those are the ones that come to mind right now. I love my major. I love my friends. I love this school.

I'm happy.

Heavy Boots

I just finished reading the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

And it was beautiful.

I absolutely love his writing. This might be my new favorite book.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.”

“Well, what would happen if a plane dropped you in the middle of the Sahara Desert and you picked up a single grain of sand with tweezers and moved it one millimeter?” I said, “I’d probable die of dehydration.” He said, “I just mean right then, when you moved that single grain of sand. What would that mean?” I said, “I dunno, what?” He said, “think about it.” I thought about it. “I guess I would have moved a grain of sand.” “Which would mean?” “Which would mean I moved a grain of sand?” “Which would mean you changed the Sahara.” “So?” “So? So the Sahara is a vast desert. And it has existed for million of years. And you changed it!” “That’s true!” I said, sitting up. “I changed the Sahara!” “Which means?” he said. “What? Tell me.” “Well, I’m not talking about moving that one grain of sand one millimeter.” “Yeah?” “If you hadn’t done it, human history would have been one way…” “Uh-huh?” “but you did do it, so…?” I stood on the bed, pointed my fingers at the fake stars, and screamed: “I changed the course of human history!” “That’s right.” “I changed the universe!” “You did.” “I’m God!’ “You’re an atheist.” “I don’t exist!” I fell back onto the bed, into his arms, and we cracked up together.

“Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are.”

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

An amazing book, for sure. I think I felt every possible emotion while reading it, and I love that in a book. It made me think about life, death, love, family, and the strangers that live around me.

As Oskar would say, "It kind of gave me heavy boots."

But I'm okay with that.

Summer

At this moment I'm sitting in a room. It's my room, but it feels less like mine now that I've taken down all my pictures and things of that sort. I'm getting ready to move out of the glorious Jones Hall. While it wasn't the most glamourous place to live, I think I'll look back and remember the amazing times I've had while living here rather than the constant stench this place upholds. My summer has been unforgettable! Here are some highlights:

- Waking up (ridiculously) early to go to SOAR
- Free pie nights at Village Inn
- Bear Lake
- Bringing Maeby into the family. What a great dog.
- Sharing my love of food with Sierra
- Going to Manti Pageant
- Never earning The Stars at post meeting
- Laying around listening to music instead of being productive
- Gossener's milk. 'Nuff said.
- Third Retreat
- Going to Salt Lake for Beirut as well as the Pioneer Day parade
- TACO TUESDAY
- Volleyball nights
- Closing A-Team Banquet
- Disco skating (That one time I went...)
- Newsies
- Floating down the Onieda River
- The Preston Rodeo
- Night fishing
- The best birthday EVER

Those are just a few that stick out to me at the moment, but there have been so many good times. I have some of the most amazing friends on this planet. I love my coworkers, I love my ward...I feel extremely blessed! Thank you to everyone that has made this summer so fan-freaking-tastic. :)

Picture time? I think yes.

My favorite girls. And Jo.



Riding the saddle...



Bear Lake



Milk.



Shooting at Third Retreat



Bring it on, school. BRING IT.

Attention!

I now own a slight variation of this treasure:



And I got it for $2 at DI.

Wondrous.

Come What May

Decisions: Sometimes they suck.

All I'm going to say is that I know the Lord loves me and as long as I include Him in my decisions, I'll get through it.

I'm at peace with my decision. I may struggle with the consequences. It's not going to be easy in any sense of the word.

But He loves me.

And that's all I need to know.