Crazy....

Hey I just got here

And life is CRAZY

But here's a blog post

So love it maybe?

Ha okay I can't believe how busy I got in such a short amount of time! That's a senior year of college for you I guess. Weirdly enough, despite having no free time and stressing about a hundred things at once, I am just a happy kid. You know when you just feel good? Life is hectic but at the same time it is just so good and I just have this happy feeling all the time. I just feel like this is going to be a great year and I just have that feeling that there are some really good things to come. It's kind of a fun feeling to have.

Classes are classes. It's still a little soon to tell how they are all going to be, but for the most part I think I will be okay. Minus my FCD capstone class. Family Life Education (FLE). It's going to kill me. At SVU the Family and Child Development major doesn't require a senior paper like most of the other majors do, but it does require a "senior capstone experience" aka, a class from....you know where.... Okay, so the class itself doesn't seem like it will be too bad, but it's all that's required with the class that is freaking me out. We don't have to write a senior paper but we do have to write a bunch of little papers and a research paper. The biggest part of the class is a presentation that we have to give toward the end. I hate presentations as much as the next person, but this isn't your typical 15-minute presentation that you make a powerpoint for and present to the class. We are required to give an hour long presentation/workshop/class to a group of people in the community. Terrifying. It's an FLE presentation so it is ideally supposed to be given to some kind of group of parents or people with family life needs. I haven't done much with it yet, but I am planning on contacting the local Head Start program and setting up a presentation for the parents of the kids at the Head Start. Now besides the obvious stresses of giving a super long presentation in which your professor is critiquing your every word and movement and determining whether or not you graduate, I am even more terrified for this whole thing because of my audience. This isn't like a presentation to my classmates in which half of them are asleep and the other half are too focused on what they will say in their presentation to listen to mine. I am going to be asking real parents with real questions and concerns and problems to give up an hour of their day to come listen to what I have to say. If people show up it's because they are legitimately interested in what I will be talking about and are hoping to gain something from it. That's some pressure. They are going to be looking to me, some 20-year-old college kid who has next to nothing when it comes to interaction with young kids, to give them valuable advice and principles to apply to their parenting. What do I know? The even scarier thing is exactly what I will be presenting about. What bigger job do people have than properly parenting their own children? None really. And I'm supposed to tell them how to do it? Ummmm......yeah you could say I'm freaking out a little bit. But I know it will be good for me. Let's try and think positively.

In other (much more exciting) news, I am now a member of the SVU tennis team!!! I could not be more excited. I have missed playing tennis sooo much. I thought about trying out my freshman year, but then I pansied out and never did. This summer I decided that I might as well give it a shot so I called the coach (Deidra Dryden) and talked to her about it. We talked a couple of times but I ultimately just ended up walking on the team. We started practice on Monday and I am loving it. I'm really terrible and I don't know the other girls very well yet, but I am still having fun and can see that it is headed in a good direction. We have our first match on Wednesday, but I don't think I will be playing in it. From what I understand, our matches consist of two doubles teams and two singles teams. So only 6 girls actually get to play in the match. We have 10 girls. So I'm not 100% sure what that means for me other than that I can be pretty sure that I won't be playing in every one. But hopefully (probably) some. I absolutely love Coach Dryden. I don't know her that well yet but I can tell that she is just an incredible coach. She kicks our butts but I feel like I have gotten better in the last 3 days than I did throughout my 3 years of tennis in high school. I really wish that I would have started my freshman year because I think I could be sooo much better by now, but I also know that I probably couldn't have handled it when I got here two years ago. I'm better at managing my time now than I was as a freshman and I'm just more comfortable in everything now than I was. Even bigger than that is the fact that I physically couldn't have handled it my freshman year. I am in ten times better shape now than I was two years ago and I can guarantee you that if I was in the same shape now as I was then, I probably would have  ran walked away crying yesterday when Coach Dryden told us that we would be ending practice with a "puke drill." Instead, I saw it as a challenge and while I was absolutely exhausted by the time we were done, I felt sooo good. It's definitely a nice change. 

One last piece of news. On Sunday, Imari and I were called to be the Gospel Principles instructors. Ahhhh!!! When our first counselor text me Saturday night and asked if he could meet with me before church, I immediately knew I was getting a calling. I also knew it would be a semi-big one since it's the beginning of the semester so everything has to be redone. I thought to myself "Anything but teaching. I can handle just about any calling, but pleeeaaase don't let it be teaching." Of course that's what I got. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? I'm trying to laugh along with him, but I am freaking out. I've never taught before and Gospel Principles is generally the class for the less actives/investigators/non members. Which means I really don't want to screw it up. So yeah, I'm terrified, but it will probably end up being good for me too. 

Okay, that ended up being way longer than I planned but there it is for you. Those are the highlights of my life right now. I'll keep you updated.

Oh Shenandoah...

Oh hey there. Remember me? I kind of forgot I had this little guy honestly. But I decided I should probably get back on top of this since I have such an exciting life! Okay, that's not entirely true, but it is kind of a major time in my life, so it should probably be documented. I feel like there's probably a lot that I could write right now, but let's start with a quick rundown of what has happened since we talked last.

I finished up my summer classes at BYU. And....I passed them all!! I even got A's (well, A-'s). I was super impressed with myself considering what a slacker I was this summer. It's super hard to focus during the time of year that you have been programmed to spend playing all your life. Somehow I got through it (with a lot less boating than I would have liked).

After my summer semester was over, I had about a week before I had to leave for Virginia. I spent most of that time just catching my breath and having a ridiculously short summer vacation. It was nice to just stay at home with my family without any worries for a minute. I just love that place and those people.

On August 21st, Kenzy and I hopped in her big, white truck to begin our long trek across the country. Somehow I got roped into driving all the way across the country to get back to school, rather than taking a quick plane ride. I'm still not sure how that happened.  I wasn't thrilled about doing a 30+ hour car drive instead of a 5 hour plane ride, but I was doing it with one of my best friends which makes just about any situation soooo much better. And we did have a good time. It was a long drive and I got restless, but it was fun at the same time. It's crazy that I'm old and responsible enough (in theory) to take a road trip across the country with my best friend and no adults. We are the adults. Except I'm really not at all. We made it in one piece though and made really good time. And let me tell you, I have never been so happy to see this cute little town.

Getting back to Buena Vista, Virginia honestly felt like coming home. It's confusing to have two homes, but so nice at the same time. I leave one and go to the other, and am so happy either direction I'm headed. The first two years I was a little apprehensive and less than excited to get here, but I was so ready this year. By the time we got to West Virginia, the landscape was starting to look like my beautiful state of Virginia, and I honestly almost cried a little. It's weird how a place can grab your heart so quickly. It didn't take Virginia very long to grab me and for me to lay claim on it as a place I will call home for the rest of my life (even if I only spend 3 years here total). Sorry if that was cheesy, but I really just love this place so much!

Once we got back here, we started training to be orientation leaders for the new students coming in this fall.  This week has been crazy and exhausting with training and check-in and orientation, but it has been sooo good. I love when I get the opportunity to share my love for this university with other people. I have met some wonderful new people and have gotten to know some of my fellow classmates a lot better. I don't want to go into all the details of this week (they would probably be boring to you), but it has been a great one! I'm so happy to be back here.

Sidenotes:

The heat and humidity here are absolutely ridiculous here right now! I cannot even describe it to you. It's bad. We are supposed to get some of hurricane in the next 24-48 hours and then hopefully the humidity will die down a little bit.

The fireflies are out in full force. The early evenings are magical! I love them sooo much!

Imari and I each bought a $3 cactus at walmart the other day. Mine's name is Carlos.

When my bishop and his wife found out I was still in their ward, they were both so genuinely excited that it made me want to cry. They are the sweetest people and I know they are sincere when they tell the members of the ward that they love them. They really do. And we love them back.

Elder and Sister Crowther not being here is mostly the worst thing ever. Getting done with sacrament meeting today and not getting to walk to the back of the chapel and talk to them for a while almost made me cry (man I'm an emotional kid these days!). It's going to be hard not having my best friends here. We did get to go have one last game night with them at their house in Logan before we left. That was sooo much fun! And I won every game of Scum that we played! Whooo!

For anyone who is wondering, Willard is still alive. Love that little guy.

Okay, that's enough useless information for now. I will try to keep up with this better than I have been from now on. Have a nice day. 

Home Sweet Home!