Sunday, September 12, 2010

Love

50 questions

My casual addiction, stumbleupon, has brought me to yet another wonderfully inspiring website. It's based on a book called "Live What You Love," and it has 50 questions to ask yourself in order to help yourself discover what you really love. So I've decided to answer these questions, here for you, today. Or perhaps I'll expand this into multiple posts. Or even a whole blog! Hmm...the possibilities. Well, I'll start with the first question for now:

  1. How do you really feel about what you are doing right now at this exact moment?
At this exact moment, I'm sitting in my Sunday clothes with my laptop on my lap typing up this post. I also have Facebook and the wonderfully inspiring website open in other tabs. It's 9:36 pm on a Sunday. Now, how does this make me feel? I'm pretty indifferent about it. This skirt is extremely comfortable, but my computer is getting low on battery, so I should probably go downstairs to my room and plug it in. Right now though, I'm comfortable. I'm not disappointed about what I'm doing, and I'm glad that I'm writing on my blog. I should post more, as I'd probably get better at it. I used to write in a journal, but it's been hard for me lately. There's either too much to write or not enough. Especially the not enough...so then I go into my thoughts about my life and it all goes downhill from there. So what I'm doing right now is good. I could probably be out socializing with my ward, but I don't know what they're doing. I prefer doing this. So what I feel right now about what I'm doing at this exact moment is pretty much indifference, with a slight joy from doing something productive.

Ok. So mentioning my ward reminded me. Today, my bishop got up and said that he's excited for the fall and for our ward as it currently is (all of the college kids left in the past couple of weeks). Then he challenged (or was this a commandment?) all of the guys in our ward to go on a date this week. He knew that this caused many men to panic, but they need to do it anyway. He mentioned how he'd recently spoken with a bishop that set the people in his ward up. He also said that if people didn't start going on dates, he'd have to follow in that bishop's footsteps. Now, I'm not sure if this was a joke or a threat. Bishop Calvert can be pretty serious sometimes. It's just funny how much dating and marriage get mentioned here...more than at BYU, if that's possible. 

This may have something to do with all of the single 30-somethings.

nah.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Happiness

"Men are, that they might have joy"

Once upon a time, I was suspended. This was a new experience for me, and I didn't really know what to do. I was extremely happy at school (which actually contributed to the bad grades...shh), and I really didn't want to go home, where I had few, if any, friends. I spent the entire summer wallowing in misery, half-heartedly trying to make something of my pathetic existence. What was the point in trying if I had failed so completely?
Last Monday, I was wandering the non-fiction section of the library when I randomly picked up a book called "The Happiness Project." Since I was so unhappy, I figured I might as well give it a go. I checked it out, went home, and started reading.
Wow. This book was wonderful. It's about this woman who isn't particularly unhappy, but she wasn't exactly happy either. So she decided to spend a year trying to do little things to make her happier. Her year inspired me. It took me two days to finish the book, and while I was reading on the second day, lying in the grass behind my house, I got an unexpected phone call from Dr. Staheli. I was just plain shocked for a while...a few days actually. It wasn't a big deal...but it kind of was. For me, anyways. I've always wanted to be in Singers, and I could have been in it if I hadn't been suspended. I was both sad and happy...kind of a weird combination. That night, I went to the library again and picked up Brandon Sanderson's new book, which was 1000 pages long. A good way to spend the rest of my week, I figured. He's become one of my favorite authors. Well, the book itself was alright, and Wednesday was mediocre. Sonic did have 1/2 price cream slushes though. Those things are heavenly. Thursday was ok, and Friday...well, I went to Brandt's football practice the whole time and replied to a rather offensive letter I received from a missionary that day, then found out my dear choir friend, Rachel Lynn Brown, got into Singers. I was, and am, overjoyed. She really deserves it, and she is a wonderful person. It made me so happy that she got in. Saturday was three hours in the hot sun at Brandt's first football game, in which he was awesome. That night I watched BYU's first game of the season, which we WON!
Now, none of this is particularly awesome. In fact, some of it could be just plain horrible. However, this past week something changed within me. Something is not the same (sorry...). I became happy. Now, I can't really say any of the aforementioned things made me happy. They made me happier. No, what made me happy was what always makes me happy: God. I decided to put my trust in God, and to give up some rather terrible habits of mine. In return, He made me happy. And I've been beyond wonderful ever since.
This past Sunday, I actually talked to people at church. Weird. And this Saturday I'm going to the Air Force - BYU game! So excited.
Oh yes. One of the best days I've had in a while was when I got up at 6:30 in the morning (I usually get up at ten. or later.) and went and worked for a one day thing. I was in the best mood.
So I've decided to get up early every day and go jogging. Or walking. God has blessed me immensely, and everything is so much clearer. A week ago, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Now, I have goals! I've made decisions about what to do. My main goal for the future is simply to get back to BYU, and get into Singers next fall. This goal brings a few other things into focus...such as the big marriage issue. I hadn't really known what to do about that, since most people in my ward are over 28, but now I really don't want to get married until I get back to school. This is big for me. It makes me less depressed over being alone.
Oh! And. I'm not sure I want to major in Math Ed anymore. Sad, I know. But my new major...it makes me so excited. There's a problem with it though, and that's my grades. Those buggers. It takes good grades to get into this major: Mechanical Engineering! Yay! I'd looked into it before (multiple times, actually), but either my parents or the guy/girl ratio scared me off. The thing is, what I think about in the shower (I have it from a good authority that what you think about in the shower is what you should major in) is inventing. My creativity, as discussed before, comes in the form of the sciences. I've come up with some awesome inventions in my time...and I would love mechanical engineering. To design airplanes...that's my dream. T'would be wonderful.

Oh! And I bought THE most awesome toy today. Buckyballs. Check them out.

I'm happy.

:)