paper break

"Embrace each day with an enthusiastic welcome!" - Elder F. Enzio Busche

Yeah, I needed that today. Yes, it is in fact 1:47 in the morning and yes, I am still awake and sitting at my kitchen table writing a paper (well, technically taking a break from writing a paper at the moment).
But you know what? I'm thrilled. Life is awesome. I get to be in college right now... do you know how many people would love to be where I am right now but can't for some reason or another?
I am blessed. Everyone is blessed; you just have to take a step back and recognize the blessings. This day will be good... because I'm alive, and if that's the best thing I can find to say about some days in my life, then it's fine because that is still incredible.
Life should be filled with enthusiasm. Always.

The world didn't change, I changed.

I've learned a lot this past week or two. I may have fallen behind in my school work and not paid enough attention in classes, but life lessons have been learned, and sometimes it's okay for the other things to fall by the wayside for a bit.

I made a friend recently who has changed my view of world. He has taught me through his example what it means to be completely committed to your values and your standards. A lot of the people that I am surrounded by in my life know what is right and do it because that's what you do... not to say that they don't believe and are amazing people, it's just that they have never had to question their motives for the way they live their lives. But my friend has had to change his life around, and he has completely thought through every thing he does and consciously made the choice to live the way that he does. He has made me question WHY in pretty much every aspect of my life, and I've learned so much about myself. I can't rely on any other person to reason away my actions. I have come to KNOW what I believe and understand how those beliefs relate to my actions... Yeah, my whole perspective and approach to life has changed a bit. I'm loving it.

Also, I've been trying to understand and accept the Lord's timing in my life. Sometimes I just don't understand why I can't just know right now what I'm supposed to do and where I'm supposed to go in my life instead of trying to figure it out along the way. Things happen in life that are so frustrating and disheartening, and it's hard to see the purpose behind them. So I've been trying recently to just accept that I don't know everything and that God does. He has a plan for me, and it might not make sense to me right now, but it makes perfect sense to God and that it is just what I need. Having faith in His hand in my life and His love for me is what will help me to get through trials. Here's a video that we watched in my Living Prophets class yesterday and it was just what I needed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMwKxmTLaCs

"Don't demand things that are unreasonable, but demand of yourself improvement." Yes, yes, yes. Amen. Hallelujah. The End.

The time has come.

There is a time in everyone's life when she just has to throw on some sweats and a tie-dye t-shirt, throw her untamable hair on top of her head, listen to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, find a cozy corner of the library, and buckle down and write her term paper.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is that day.

The joys of reading days.

Hello world. I'm alive. Mostly.

Yesterday was the last day of classes for the semester. Celebration.

Today was one of the reading days; those blessed days when you're supposed to have nothing to do except sit and study your head off for finals. Finals start on Saturday.

Here's how today was supposed to go: go to work, be productive, work on some take home finals, do a decent amount of studying, go to a ward party, and then chill for the rest of the night.

This was a great plan. It wasn't overly busy, just the right amount of school work. Sadly, this is not how today actually went.

Let me just give you a little look at what I did today:

Worked all morning. Success. This is the only thing that went as planned. 

At noon I settled onto a computer to start my paper, but then got a craving for Chinese food.

I proceeded to drag my roommate to Rice King to watch me eat said chinese food. She had already eaten, so she sat there studying Spanish while I ate. It was delicious. Definitely satisfied that craving.

By now it was 2:30 in the afternoon and I was back in my apartment, ready for action. Then what was supposed to be a 30 minute pre-studying nap turned into an hour and a half sleep-fest. Don't ask how that happened. My day was quickly slipping away from me. I couldn't handle anymore distractions. I REALLY needed to get working on these things.

So naturally from 4 to 6 I sat and watched my roommate cook chicken and I plotted and chatted and did other generally unproductive things.

Needless to say, it is now 11 at night and I have no idea where my day went or how I possibly came up with so many ridiculous ways to procrastinate my studying. And naturally I am writing this blog post instead of attempting to get a little bit of headway on my work. 

Such is the life of me, your typical, procrastinating college student. I know I will end up studying my butt off and I'm pretty sure I will do decently well on my finals, but I just like causing myself more stress by procrastinating things until the last minute. Yeah, how fun.

Wish me luck on finals. I'm going to kill them.

Jennie out.

Cleaning.

Somedays I just get into a cleaning mood. These cleaning moods come at the most random, inconvenient times. Like the middle of the night or when other fun things are going on. But once I'm in the mood, I just have to go with it. I have to clean until everything is done and be as productive as humanly possible. I'm a little bit obsessive compulsive, so that doesn't help things at all. Essentially, this is how I felt today:

This picture is from this blog. It's one of my faves. Please check it out and laugh hysterically at it.

Yes, indeed it was one of those days. Positive outcomes: My room is completely clean and dusted and sparkling (not a creepy vampire way). My clothes are all folded, put away, and organized by color. I finally hung up my new poster (Yeah, it's a Rocky quote. No big deal.) I rearranged all of my posters and my room's looking fly.
Negative outcomes: I did absolutely zero homework today. Blast! I need to get on that.

It's been a successful day.
And now for some inspiration:
"Going one more round when you don't think you can, that's what makes all the difference in your life." -- Rocky Balboa

End of semester things.

Apparently I don't believe in sleep. Especially not this last week of school.

What with projects and papers due this past week and finals coming up next week, sleep just doesn't happen. I really just don't have time in my life to sleep. Or eat, most of the time. Eating and sleeping. It's really terrible, because I feel like those are two essentials for life. However, when the end of the semester comes, I do away with them. I propose that school is not more important than my life necessities... but try telling my professors that.
Monday may or may not have consisted of me staying at the library writing a paper until 1:30 in the AM (I'm leaning towards may). Tuesday was me staying up until 2, writing the same paper. Wednesday was the turning in of a semester long creativity project and a paper. Then staying up until 5 in the morning, yeah... you heard me: 5 am. Thursday was me turning in 15-page research paper, group presentation, and turning in another paper. It was great news.
On a positive note: My group presentation went surprisingly well. We talked about adolescents and gangs, and had an ex-gangbanger come be our guest speaker. A+ if I do say so myself.
Another positive: I was so incredibly blessed this past week. I haven't felt tired one bit. Seriously, when one gets 2 hours of sleep in a night, you expect her to be exhausted the next day. However I have been so blessed as to not feel tired even a once during work and class and reviews.
Another positive: at the finish of this very long week of final projects, we had a Chinese Murder Mystery date. Details are forthcoming. Don't even worry.


So I've come to the conclusion that teachers think it's hilarious to assign semester long projects that are due the last week of class (aka 1-2 weeks after Thanksgiving). They do not actually intend for you to work on these projects all semester. They just want to make you have a mental break-down the last two weeks. They assign these projects in the syllabus and briefly mention them the first day of class and then don't talk about them again for months until 3 weeks before they are due.

The student thought processes on semester long projects:
September: "Do we have something due at the end of the semester? Eh, that's months away. No need to worry about it now."
October: "Our teacher mentioned something about a project in class today... maybe I should figure out what that is.... Nah! That's not until after Thanksgiving, that's not for two months!"
Early November: "I finally read the assignment description for that project, it seems like a lot of work. I should start that or something."
Mid-November: "I really will start that project over Thanksgiving break! I have so much free time that weekend! I'm totally going to get it all done!"
Thanksgiving Break: "Nom nom nom nom!!!!"
Monday after Thanksgiving: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! That project is due in one week!!!!!!! I'm going to freaking die!!!! Oh no! And the project for this other class is due. And the one for this other class!"

Professors who assign semester long projects just think it's wonderful to give you a false sense of security and then BAM make you realize that you fail at time management. And their class. These professors know well enough how college students work, I mean I'm sure at some point in their lives they were college students too. They know how procrastinating works and they know it is inevitable. Yet they continue to assign them and I continue to get no sleep for a week straight while I do a semesters worth of work in that one week.
I don't see the humor. Maybe I will once I get some sleep.