End of the Second Week of Grad School

I did it! I survived the first full week of grad school + working full time! Last week had Labor Day, so it wasn't a full week.

The first couple of days were pretty overwhelming coming back to school. I hadn't been in school for three years. Isn't that crazy that I graduated three years ago!? I felt like everyone in my classes already knew what they were talking about, and I didn't remember all of the terminology from years ago. I felt like a lot of things were really over my head. It was also really difficult having such long days (still is, but I am getting used to it). I start working around 8 every day, take breaks for my classes, but then work until around 6. I also am really used to the luxury of not having homework. Now that I have it, I have to be a lot more careful with scheduling my time. So, things are kind of challenging, but things are also starting to feel more comfortable and familiar and are falling into place.

I am really loving my classes. I love learning and being in class and learning from the professors, who are seriously so incredibly knowledgeable and impressive. I get really excited to do my homework for my sounds class because I am a nerd and find phonetic transcription to be a super exciting thing. :) Although I can't say I love every page of everything I have to read, I do love learning about language from so many different perspectives and being able to see connections. I love having classmates who have different perspectives and personalities that I can learn from and build relationships with. I also find campus to be quite lovely. I feel like although things have been much more stressful and difficult than I am used to, I have also had so much happiness in just my two weeks of school. Walking on campus makes me happy. I love the environment here.

I feel like there are many challenges ahead of me in grad school, but I'm kind of just taking things one step at a time. I have a calendar that helps me remember when things are due and when I have happy plans with friends. I am happy to be in grad school and feel like I have learned so much in just these two weeks! And this makes me feel really grateful.

Life is pretty cool.

25!

Tomorrow I turn 25. I'm excited and think it's going to be a fabulous year!

I want to spend my day being as kind as I can and helping others have an amazing day! I want to have lots of fun with people I love.

I also remembered a blog post my friend had written of 24 things she had wanted to do when she was 24.I want to do that. So here it is, my list of 25 things I want to do while I am 25:

1. Volunteer at least three times in the community
2. Be brave
3. Host a dinner party
4. Take horseback riding lessons
5. Visit or make specific plans to visit Nashville
6. Go to Disneyland
7. Perform on my flute
8. Improve my piano skills to the next book level
9. Hike more often
10. Send snail mail to at least eight people (snail mail is the best!)
11. Participate in my classes in graduate school (rather than trying to just be a listener)
12. Do well in my classes in graduate school
13. Learn Spanish
14. Go to the temple at least once month
15. Write thank you notes (messages, emails, etc.) every week
16. Read
17. Take pictures
18. Learn to cook at least 5 new recipes
19. Be me
20. Even though I'll be busy starting in the fall with school, make sure I have time to be there for friends and to help
21. Overcome a bad habit
22. Audition for a musical
23. Love more
24. Go skiing!
25. Keep my room and kitchen clean

I may change a few of these, but I am so excited! Those last two were hard to think of, but once I thought of them, they felt perfect. 

Like Dessert

So, I was just eating some raspberries--one of the most amazingly delicious things on the earth. Eating raspberries just makes me happy. I'm pretty sure that it's just like eating dessert to me. It got me thinking about last fall. I was participating in an 8-week health challenge. One of the rules was that you could only eat dessert/sweets one day a week. This was very doable, but I do have a bit of a sweet tooth, so some days I really wanted something sweet, so I found non-desserts.

For me, several fruits can satisfy my sweet tooth. Raspberries definitely can, along with peaches and strawberries and mango and pineapple. Sometimes apples and oranges can. I just really love fruit, so it makes me pretty happy to eat it.

Something else that is like dessert to me is sweet potato. I just would cook up a sweet potato like a baked potato, and then I add a bit of butter and whichever spices I'm in the mood for, and it is heavenly. Squash can be eaten similarly and is delicious.

Avocado is not as sweet, but it is so good to me that it is like dessert. I'm pretty sure I could be happy about eating good avocado daily.

One thing that I also love is smoothies. I have a Ninja blender, so it chops things up pretty well. I would typically add lots of fruit and sometimes some greens and sometimes milk, and I would have a heavenly smoothie. One day, I decided to try to make a new type of smoothie. Yum! I used a little milk and added frozen fruit (I think I used  a blend of fruit from Costco). I then added just the littlest bit of vanilla. It ended up tasting like really good ice cream, but it was so much healthier!

I just was thinking about how my sweet tooth can totally be satisfied by healthy deliciousness and how that makes me happy!

Rough Weeks

I just wanted to say right now that I am very grateful for rough weeks.

I love how I learn a lot from them and how, not every time but fairly often, people will randomly reach out to me on those weeks.

Rough weeks sometimes become the best weeks.

Angels Among Us

Alabama sings a song called Angels Among Us. When I was possibly around the age of 9, I was in a singing group. In this singing group, I was first introduced to this song. I think we sang it at a Christmas concert. This song touched my soul, I believed it, and I loved singing it.

I seem to forget about this song, but then it will pop up, and I remember. The song came on the radio this morning, and it was what I needed to hear today.

I particularly love this line:

And ain't it kind of funny that at the dark end of the road.
Someone lights the way with just a single ray of hope.

Even though there is a lot of sadness in the world, there is good too. I know that Heavenly Father watches out for us. I hope that I can help others and be someone who can light the way with hope.

Here's the song. It's just the words, nothing exciting, but it is just a wonderful song.