Mediocrity

One day, I would like to find something that I am really really good at.

For example, I had always felt like I had at least some kind of particular talent in music. I knew I wasn't the best, but I had a little something. Well, yesterday I went to a modern dance class that Stephen accompanies for, and he made me play the drums. I felt like I was doing ok, but then he'd stop me and show me something to do. And I'd feel like an idiot! He was so good! Granted, he is a composer and a music major, which gives him every right to be amazing. I guess that now that I'm around him a lot, I just don't feel like my musical talents are as great as I once thought they were. He overshadows me by a long shot, which is totally fine, but....yeah.

So, now I'm just trying to find something to be good at. The problem is, I'm thinking its going to have to be something new, and you don't start something new and start out being phenomenal. It takes time. So I guess I'll have to just do what the scriptures say and build and develop my talents.

Curveballs

Ah, the things life throws at you.

Sometimes, it's not what you expected, but exactly what you needed. I love it.

:)

Good Intentions

Do you ever start out in a situation, with the best of intentions? The things you do are what you believe are the best you can do, according to the given situation, and the information that you have about it. Sometimes, however, another person in the same situation may have done something completely different. Or, there is another person involved in this situation, and they don't think that the choices you made were the best that you could have done. This is what has happened to me as of late.

I was dating (I'm not sure if we really were, but for the sake of convenience, I will say that we were) this guy in my ward, and I liked him a lot. I knew that I probably liked him more than he did me. I could deal with that. It seems to happen to me a lot, actually. At any rate, I was pretty sure that he liked me to some degree, or he wouldn't be spending time with me. Things seemed to be progressing pretty well, for a bit, but then some things happened, and we disagreed about some things, so we took a step back. I was unaware that we had changed that much, but I was going to let him take the lead in wherever we went. However, sometimes I get impatient, and I pushed it. One night, I must have pushed it too far. The next night, he seemed distant and almost irritated with me. I decided that instead of me trying and him not, I was simply going to sit back and let things happen as they may.
The next night, he worked late. I waited for a call, half of me not expecting a call, and the other half desperately hoping for it to come. A call did come, but not from him. It was my home teacher, and he wanted me to go dancing. Well, this is where I had to make a choice. I could go out with a friend, or I could sit and wait for a phone call that I was pretty sure wasn't going to come. What choice should I have made? I'm not sure. But I chose to go dancing with my friends. Well, as we were leaving, the guy that I was dating came out of his apartment and saw me leaving with this guy and a few other girls. Well, to make a long story short, he got mad, he accused me of things, I accused him of things, we sucked at communicating, and now he practically refuses to be in the same room as me (which is rather inconvenient seeing as I'm at his apartment a fair amount).

I guess all that wasn't too needed, but it made me feel better to write it. Either way, to the point of this post: my good intentions. In everything I did, I was not trying to hurt him. Heck, I liked him, why would I want to hurt him? However, to me, he sees everything I did as a scheme to be mean or spiteful. It's not true! He accused me of hanging all over another guy (the home teacher) the next day at church, which said a lot about how I saw me and him (the guy I was dating) and what had happened between us. However, I wasn't doing that to try to affect him in any way. I don't yet have many friends in the ward. I was simply sitting with a friend. I was pretty sure that me and this guy had finished dating. That's where our conversation the night before had led. I saw no reason to sit by myself at church and pine over him and be depressed about things that I can't change. In all honesty, I usually find a way to end a relationship, get over it, and be ready to be friends very quickly. I was tremendously affected by our angry and mean conversation the night before, but I realized that I had two choices: I could choose to be angry at him, or I could choose to see it as a simple misunderstanding between friends, that could be resolved and we could be friends again. I chose the second.

However, he chose the first. He is still mad at me. He says that he's disappointed, which I know also translates to mad. I tried to make amends, but to no avail. I think the problem is that he refuses to understand that I did have good intentions, all throughout everything that happened. Almost nothing I said or did was meant to spite or to hurt him. I don't know how to make him understand that, and to see my side of things.

What I have been thinking about a lot lately, as he obviously is not ready to forgive me anytime soon, is whether or not he ever will forgive me and decide that we can be friends again. I don't know him well enough to have seen him interact with someone who he had had a fight with, or someone that he had forgiven for something. I don't know if he is one of those people who take weeks, months, or even years to forgive someone.

All I know is that I hope that it can be sometime soon, or that he can at least be able to tolerate me. I always feel so bad when I go to his apartment and he goes somewhere away from me, but I was told not to worry about it and to keep coming around. Even though I have been told that, I still wait and hope for the day when we can all live in peace and harmony...haha ok cheesy! But fairly true.

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Grammatical errors like this one drive me absolutely insane. Maybe because it's part of an ad, but seriously people, get someone to proofread your stuff before you put it out there for the world to see.



Lose does not equal loose.
Their, there, and they're all all separate words, with separate meanings.
To, too, and two are also different.
Your and you're are completely different.

The other day in my dance class, a girl had a shirt on that said, "My library is better than your's!" Wow. It was some kind of promotional fun run or something for a library, but you'd think that especially in a library, someone would notice that that is a contraction, meaning, "Your is"....which doesn't exist. Come on, people. Give me a break.

Rush, rush, rush....take a moment to breathe.

Lately I feel like all I ever do is rush. I'm rushing to get to class, to work, to get my homework done, etc. It seems like I've always got to get to something, get something done for something else, or something to do for someone. Wow, that was a lot of some's....anyways. I feel like my days are so jam-packed full of things for me to do, and usually its something that I don't necessarily want to do, but I have to. Or I feel obligated to someone. Either way, I need to find a way to make time for myself, other than when I'm in the shower.
Another thing I've been thinking about today is something we talked about a little in Sunday School. We were talking about how we let worldly things take precedence over spiritual things, and I made a comment about how sometimes I get so frustrated with myself, because I can spend all day thinking about the test I just took, or the date I went on the other night, or some other stupid thing, but I never stop to take a moment to think about Christ or the gospel. And you would think that I would, going to a school like BYU. I guess that's just one thing that I realized I need to work on.
So, the goals are: 1) make more time for the Lord, and 2) make more time for myself.
Good goals.

I've found it!

I've finally found what it is that I want to do. And when I say that, I mean that I've always known that this is what I want to do, but I just don't know how to get there.
When I started at BYU, I always told people that I wanted to be a Zoologist, and they would respond with, "What do you want to do, work in a zoo?" Actually, yes. More than anything. I want to work with animals! I've always known that I want to. Does that mean I have to major in Biology? I hope not. I really hated all my Bio classes....does that mean I'll have to start taking them again next semester? I do not know. This is so frustrating. But here's some of the pictures that made me remember why I want to do this so bad.

Home

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic, so here are some pictures of home for your viewing enjoyment. :)


This one is one of my favorites. I took it down at the dike road, just over Hayden Lake.


Another one of Hayden Lake. It's my favorite lake at home :)


This one isn't necessarily my favorite, but it's a good view of the mountains, or at least the best my camera could do.


My house! Apparently they've done a lot to change it since I've been gone, and I can't wait to go back to see how much it has changed.


These are my dogs. I love them! The big black one is named Ike, and he's my brother's dog, and the little one is Sadie, and she's mine. They're great fun :)

I took all these this summer, after I realized that I may not be living at home ever again. I'm growing up....weird.

Beginnings

I have found lately that I hate beginnings. I do not like the beginnings of semesters, especially. What I find makes this most apparent to me is my dance classes. I get so frustrated having to learn the basics! I just want to already have them down and be able to move onto the things that I can actually use (except, of course, I can't actually use them until I have mastered the basics). Perhaps the most frustrating of this category is my Social Dance class. Currently, we're learning the foxtrot. My class is full of freshman boys who are almost all shorter than me, and not only is it really hard to dance with someone who is shorter than you, but its also hard to follow the lead of someone who's got their arms on you like a dead fish.

Now, I do not in any way claim to be a great dancer. I'm not. I do know a slight amount about ballroom styles of dancing, but very little. I just learn fast. And it's so frustrating to be bogged down by these people who don't understand that you start on your right foot and you step slow, slow, quick quick. It's really not that difficult. Except for the poor girl he's dancing with, because she's trying desperately to follow him, while he's a completely lost cause.

I guess what I've decided, although its pretty impossible, is that I wish that I could simply skip 180-maybe take like a 2 or 3 week course that teaches everything from 180, so I can move on to the real deal. I can learn the basics quickly. I know how to push myself and practice effectively so that I gain the correct muscle memory, and then I move on. Maybe I'll find a partner who is a) tall, b) talented, c) a fast learner. I know it's a lot to ask, but maybe, just maybe, there's someone out there wishing for the same thing.

Once again, this blog has gone exactly the opposite way that I had planned it. I didn't want to vent. I wanted to talk about beginnings. About how they are so frustrating, because you have that awkward phase where you don't know anything. This isn't just for school, by the way, but for just about anything and everything. I wish there was a way to just skip to the good middle part where you really know what you're doing and where there's that understanding and cooperation.

But I suppose its like that old saying, from people and from the scriptures (more or less). You can't have the bad without the good, and without the bad, you would never appreciate the good. So perhaps if I skipped to the really good middle part, I just wouldn't realize how good I have it, because I wouldn't have had the awkward beginning to make it that much better.

Once again, its one of those things that you don't really like, but you know you have to go through it because it will make you a better person. It's worth it.

Expressions

I find it hard to express my feelings through words. That's one thing this blog has taught me. However, I have found one way to express myself, although it is probably less effective than my writing. That sentence didn't make sense to anyone but me. Anyways, what I'm talking about is music.

When I"m playing the piano, I feel like I'm creating my feelings. I've heard it said that music is what feelings sound like. Took the words right out of my mouth.

However, seeing as I'm not the most talented artist, I usually find it easy to express my feelings through the songs of another. Perhaps this is why my itunes collection is so extensive. It may not seem extensive to others, but some of my most played songs seem to reflect me quite accurately. For example, my number one played song is "Belief" by Gavin DeGraw. Here's a few of the lyrics as an example, I suppose.

Belief, makes things real.
Makes things feel, feel alright.
Belief, makes things true.
Things like you, you and I.

Builds from scratch.
Doesn't have to relax, it doesn't need space.
Long live the queen and I'll be the king.
In the collar of grace.

like you stood by me, I will stand by mine, stand by my belief...

I absolutely love this song, as evidenced by the fact that I've listened to it almost 150 times. And I love it for more than just the lyrics. I can't even describe how much I love it.

Now, it's not just through lyrical songs that I express myself. I find that often, I feel the most...connection I suppose, to songs without words. For example, my number 2 played song (137 times) is "The Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major", played by Yo Yo Ma. I don't know what it is about that song, but it is just....me. Every measure of that song is who I am, what I feel, what I do, how I act, what I think, and so much more.

The most frustrating part about this form of communication is that I never feel like I can adequately express how much it means to me. I feel a deeper connection to music than I do to most human beings. I think the only thing/person that I feel closer to is my Savior. And the best part about that is, I can use music to communicate my love to Him. Often times, when I feel like I just have to talk to the Lord, but I can't find a way to do it in words, I'll just sit down and start playing the piano. I don't even have to speak, but I know that the Lord is understanding what I'm feeling through the expression of my music. It feels like I'm praying. But not only that, its also Him talking back to me. I communicate to Him through my music, but He also communicates to me in a way that I could never describe.

I often find my blog posts go completely astray of what I originally intended on writing when I sat down to write it. However, I'm satisfied with the direction that this one went.

Pressure

Why is it that once you know you have someone watching you, things get so much harder to do?

I'm pretty sure this applies to just about everything. For example, when I was in Israel, I volunteered to play the piano in sacrament meeting. I had a song picked out that was right at the top of my skill level, so I worked for weeks on this song to learn it well enough to play it in church. The day came that I was to play, and I had it down pretty well. I decided to ask someone to listen to it to tell me if it was good, and I did worse than I normally did, when they watched. I decided to ask a few other people. Still did poorly. Perhaps my worst performance was later that day in front of the 300+ people in the auditorium waiting for me to finish this piece that I had so meticulously practiced, only to completely botch it when it came time to put all my hard work to use.

I feel that way about this blog. It was so much easier to write when I thought I didn't have an audience. It's bittersweet though, because every time I wrote before, I always hoped that someone else would read it, maybe just stumble upon it blog surfing and think it was good. But, the other day, I was informed by a friend that my blog was being read, and now....I can't write. It's almost like writer's block, but it's just the pressure. I've never been a particularly splendid writer, but I always wished I was. Having myself as an audience made me feel great about my writing, but now I just feel like I have to set a higher standard or something. I know people don't expect blogs to be professional pieces of literature, but I read other people's blogs and wish I could be as articulate, witty, or make as great connections as they do. Now, I'm not saying that I don't want an audience. I do. And I appreciate feedback. Perhaps one day I will find my own words to be an accurate representation of myself.

As a final note, I wish I knew where things stood. Enough said.

Patience

I have so much to hope for, so much to look forward to.

I hate being patient.

A New Month, A New Chance

Ah, September. The beginning of a whole new season. What can I do with this season this year? I'd make a list of goals but I'm too lazy. Perhaps....to be persistent? To be a good student? It seems I make the same goals every year but I always end up not doing my readings and getting average grades on tests.

However, I feel like maybe I've turned over a whole new leaf this semester. Megan is getting married, so I'll no longer have a roommate who I can cling to at church. I have to make friends in the ward. And I'm excited about that. I've also got a new job that I'm very excited about. Perhaps these changes in myself and my life can translate to everything else I do? I hope so. I want to be a good student. I want to get good grades.

I think most importantly, I want to find something that I love. I've really been hoping that this semester, I will find something that I want to major in, something that I want to do, something that I love. I feel like I have started everything new, not taking any classes that I would normally have taken (with the exception of my dance classes and religion classes). Perhaps I will find something that I love. What if I don't? Then what? I try another branch of study? And another? And another? I feel like I'm never going to find anything. However, I am trying to be optimistic and hopeful that I will find something (or someone, haha) to love this semester. I actually feel fairly confident that I will.

Once again, I love life. And I love that I love it. I suppose I am more or less making a list of goals, and another one of those goals is to truly love life, even when things aren't necessarily going exactly the way I want them to. My Heavenly Father has a plan for me and He knows what He's doing, although I may not always agree with what He chooses to put in my path. I have to remember that what He does, He does for my own growth and learning. It's difficult to have that kind of perspective, especially during hard times, but I am going to try.

Another goal is to find someone to serve. Whether it be through a church calling (although I do not know yet what it is, I have a feeling that it's going to be a Relief Society Teacher) or some other way, I would like to find some time to be more selfless. Speaking of church callings, I feel quite conflicted about the whole ordeal. I feel like I want a music calling (something like a pianist), but at the same time, I feel like it's my time to take some responsibility in the ward and do something that will require more of my time and effort. I am not going to have any time to myself this semester!

I kind of like that idea, though.