A Busy First Week

Provo Library from stephanieandsuch.blogspot.com

After the interesting shower incident described in the previous post, my week continued to be a series of welcome backs to the real world. I got a call from Edelman PR in California and was offered an internship.
After a day of thinking about it I accepted, which means I can officially graduate from college this year!
I also started all but one of my last BYU classes this week: History of Creativity, Principles of Marketing, Issues in International Communications, Pearl of Great Price and Trayectoria de la literatura de hispanoamerica- in other words really hard Spanish lit. I start advanced social dance on Monday. I've never been a huge fan of the first week of school. Partly because I have to spend money on overpriced textbooks, but mostly because every single professor goes through the syllabus and then gives us a lecture on why we need to do work because we are in college. Honestly, I think it's a complete waste of time. My Pearl of Great Price professor even went through the learning outcomes and the teaching philosophy behind it, including how the college's accreditation process works. Sure it's good information, but I don't think it will really change a student's motivation to learn something, just saying. Anyway, I can officially celebrate having received my last syllabi lectures.
Todd and I also went and got a library card from the Provo Library, and I discovered there's a treasure trove that I haven't been taking advantage of for the last four years. I'd forgotten books existed outside the world of textbooks, histories and literary criticisms. Todd and I checked out a new bestseller called "The Walk" to read together, and I got "The Outliers" to read for Relief Society book club. I haven't gotten that excited about being in a library for a long time.
Finally, to start off the New Year I got a raise at work and started an exercise plan. We'll see how it goes.

New Years Resolutions

New Years is often a time when people decide they need to fill their already busy lives with things they've felt guilty about not doing. It's not that those things are particularly essential to their lives or their happiness. It's just they see other people doing them and feel they should too. I used to be the exact same way. However, after having a lesson in church on needing to simplify our lives in order to be happy, I have a very different list for myself this year.

1. Yoga in the morning. I realize this is something many people would do because they feel guilty about not doing it, but it is something I enjoy and often give up because I feel there are other things I have to do.

2. Time for myself.

3. Have real conversations with people, one at a time.

4. Focus on what I'm doing at the moment and do it "like crazy" (There's a story behind that one.)

5. Make sure the people I care about know I care.

My PR professors would tell me these goals need to be broken down into specific, measurable objectives for them to be accomplished. To a point I agree, but the main point of these goals or of any resolution, really, is to make sure my life is going the way I want it to, and sometimes the best way to be happy and to get done the things you really need to, is to just say "no" every once in a while, or maybe a lot, because saying "no" doesn't belittle anything. It only increases the worth of the things you decide to say "yes" to.