Good Things Are Happening!

After months of worrying about financial aid for Winter semester, today I opened my email to find a delightful surprise: a Pell grant that covers tuition entirely and a subsidized Stafford loan that I can live off of for the next 4 months. This means I won't have to work while student teaching! Yay!

Also, my friend Ty Trejo in my ward invited me to open for his show on December 15th! So, I'll be playing a song I wrote earlier this year on my guitar, and as I sing, Ty will be joining in on the piano. He also invited me to sing some harmony vocals to his original songs. So, I am incredibly excited about this. I love music. And I love singing. It's nearly impossible for me not to feel happy, even on the crummiest of crummy days, if I'm singing to music I love.

As far as the cd recording goes, I am currently wrapping that up, now that I can afford to. I have half of the vocals completed now! I'm actually hoping to have the vocals all recorded within a week from now. Fingers crossed. I was going to go in this morning, but my voice was hoarse. So, Thursday we shall try again. My goal is to have the cd mixed and mastered before Christmas.

And lastly, I am going home for Christmas!!! Yay! I miss my family. There's just something about being with family for the holidays that makes life ten times more meaningful. Working at a job where I speak with strangers everyday on the phone. Living far away from all relatives, Utah,...when everyone I love lives in England, Massachusetts (thank goodness for spell check, b/c I definitely did not spell that correctly on my first try...my second try being me clicking on the spell check's correct spelling option), Texas, Oklahoma and so on. And spending most of my time worrying about MY life. My car, my rent, my job, my schooling, my bills, my crushes (or the lack thereof), my everything. Buying a plane ticket tonight with my mom on the phone suddenly shifted all my thoughts from me to my family. And thank goodness for that.

So, this past year, and especially these past few months have been rough for me. But, things are now looking up. Good things really are happening!

Let Us Be Writers!

Are we losing the ability to express ourselves in writing? Just look at the upcoming generation of youth. With all the texting that goes on and its associated acronyms, and with all the hours spent in front of a screen, be it a laptop, a TV, a cellphone, an I-pod, a kindle, an I-pad, are they dooming themselves to a life of horrible communication skills? I mean I think of the time spent in front of these screens as time NOT spent interacting with other people. As an important form of communication, writing is an art that needs to be nurtured, developed, encouraged.  And, I'm sorry but Facebook just doesn't cut it. When I say writing, I'm not talking about typing up a one sentence blurb or comment on how much you love Justin Bieber, or how disappointed you are that you're going to miss watching your favorite reality TV show tonight. No Sir, I am talking about writing about thought provoking ideas. I am talking about developing the ability to analyze and decipher the world in words, be they typed up, written down, or even orally expressed.

There is something beautiful that happens during the whole process of writing. --We were talking about this at FHE last night at Brother Tucker's house. (He's the first counselor in my single's ward bishopric)-- You see, when you take the time to write down what you're thinking, experiencing, or feeling, you somehow, during the whole process of putting it all in words, come to understand better what is actually taking place, what you are actually thinking, experiencing or feeling. You, in the act of writing, are forced to truly clarify your version of reality for yourself.

It's always a funny experience for me to try writing in my journal about something or someone I am mad at. As I'm getting those childish, one-sided, and often selfish feelings in black and white, I see them for what they are:     childish... one-sided... and... selfish. And I begin to realize more what it is that I need to fix.

Also, as we write about our most spiritual and meaningful experiences, they are captured in black and white as a reminder, as a reference for us to return to in the future. How many amazing experiences have I had with Heavenly Father that I have failed to record? I guess I'll never know...I can't remember them all.

So, this is my goal...I want to start writing more. I want to keep this blog more updated. I want to write in my journal every night. I want to record those special and spiritual experiences as soon as they happen. I know that through writing, I can also open up another line of communication between myself and God. As I write my way through problems and questions, I know He will help guide me to an answer.