2012 in review

Sometimes I start to feel like the years of my life keep passing by faster and faster... The older I get, the more I realize that life is truly a gift, and even if seemingly "momentous"events happen, each day we should strive to find beauty in the little things. I know this is starting to sound like one of those mormon quotes that mormon Mom's plaster on their mormon kitchen wall, but I guess I'm for real kinda having one of those realizations as I type...

So looking back on the year, it has been good to me. I am alive, healthy, have amazing friends & family, and a steady income. What more could make me happier?! In retrospect, this year has truly been good to me.

One of my best friends got married 

One of my best friends had her baby

Went to Arches National Park for the first time ever

Discovered the best place in Provo...The Chocolate 

Got 35 stitches in my face from an Intramural soccer game

Drove down the Portland coast 

Ran another 1/2 marathon---Through fields of Lavender

Got braces for a few months 

Went to Yellowstone

Graduated from college 

BYU Alum

My brother Derald got married 

Reunited with my trainer (and a disastrous hair experience)

Best Halloween Costume in a while

1st time trying peeps for s'mores (actually tasted better) 

Finished working at the MTC, and took a new job at a charter school in Salt Lake City. 

Rode a Carousel for the 1st time in years

Broke 100 in bowling

New Job

Hello! I'm realizing how hard it is to consistently keep up the blog when I now lead a very busy life! I have recently taken a job in West Valley, teaching at a Charter school. The School is in a very low-income area and provides me with very unique opportunities to work with kids in grades 7-9. In Utah that is apparently called "Junior High." I'm learning things like how important it is to LOVE what you do! It is a different mentality to be in when you are working full time. The leisure life of being a college kid is over. Onward and upward. Here's to doing hard things, practical application, and being a problem solver! 

Listened to an absolutely incredible motivational speaker the other day. Our entire school had an early dismissal so that teachers could go listen to an extraordinary teacher named Ron Clark. He has been awarded Teacher of the year and has his own school in Atlanta Georgia. He has done amazing things with kids in under-priveledged circumstances and he is renowned at raising test scores. 

His focus was on bringing passion into the classroom, and focusing on the positive. Something he emphasized a lot was the importance of staying positive and seeing the potential in each student. I was so inspired to become a better teacher through his words!!! I teach reading comprehension, and it is definitely a challenge, but I am learning so much each day from these kids, that I wouldn't rather be doing anything else :) 

here and now.

I am coming to realize more and more in my life, that things never turn as you think they will. Sometimes I really wish I could just fast forward and see what will come of my life, but I know that would serve no purpose. The hardest thing about life is facing the unexpected. You don't know what is to come, and yet we try to think that we have to know everything now, and figure everything out now. Projections are important and effective in decision making, but I also think there is so much to be said about the becoming process. Half of life is the journey in getting to where we want to be. I know this is sounding like a really cliche message, but I really feel that this is especially applicable to me right now with how things are going in my life. You cannot expect to know things faster than time and circumstances allow. Realities need to be faced, and situations need to be approached with possible solutions. We shouldn't try to fix things that aren't broken. It is important to cross bridges when we get to them, and build them in the mean time when we seem to be stuck in a difficult circumstance.  These are a few words that keep coming to mind from President Monson...

"Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with friends and family. One day each of us will run out of tomorrows.

This is our one and only chance at mortal life—here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now.

 “Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.”