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Just posting so I have something new to say for once. Actually, there has been some good news in the last few days. I got two wonderful pieces of mail -
1 - A letter from school informing me that I have been awarded TWO scholarships for spring semester!! A few months ago, Emporia informed my adviser that they had set aside some scholarship money for the Utah cohort and we all were encouraged to apply for it. I figured everyone would apply (there's only 30-40 people in our group) and I wouldn't get anything because I've never really worked in a library (apart from part-time at the school - but that's not my number one responsibility) and so many other people already know what it's really like. But I must have said something the committee liked. Both scholarships amount to just shy of $1000, which is nice. It's less that I'll have to pay back, so YAY!
2 - I received a Christmas card from a lady I knew on my mission. She's a member of the Church, but her husband wasn't - but now she's informed me that he got baptized! This is super exciting because I knew them both from my first area, but then I actually got to work with them in my second area. This lady is just the nicest, super faithful-est person you'll ever meet (and she's a fantastic artist - she's done artwork for book covers and she gave me a print of one that she had up in her house that I said I liked! I still need to get it framed. This isn't something you just get a cheapie Wal-Mart frame for, either). Her husband was the type that got along well with the missionaries but just didn't see the point of religion, but he was so funny and so snarky - I loved him to bits. And now, he's baptized! DOUBLE YAY!
I finally got my room organized with all my new Christmas goodies. I find myself now pining for the day that I will have my own place and not just living in a room in my parents' house. With the position that I'm in now, it's just not feasible to rent somewhere. There's really no where out here to rent. Plus, my parents need someone to watch the place while they're in town, which is pretty much all the time, though they pop in for the weekends and when my sisters are out of school. Honestly, it's more like I'm house-sitting, which sounds better than "I'm still living in my parents' house," but still - I'm working toward getting my own place. If I were to have my own place, I feel like I know what I want in it and how I want it organized. Shoot, between what I have here now and stuff I have in storage, I could fill one room with bookshelves and have my own library! (Well, it'd really be a library/office, but you get the idea).
I kind of don't want Christmas vacation to be over, but at the same time I miss working at the high school. Depending on how my schoolwork load is (I'm taking three classes now instead of the usual two), I might get put in charge of another play. I wouldn't mind doing it again - I had a ton of fun with the Christmas play. It's good for the kids to have something to do out here other than schoolwork. They don't have a whole lot of extracurricular things to look forward to. And if there's one thing I've learned this year is that, in order to be happy, you have to have good things to be excited about. You can't just trudge through all the crap you "have to" cope with - whether it's boring, everyday stuff or bad situations you somehow find yourself in. Even a small event like a visit with a friend or a new movie that you want to see can bring you out of the dumps (well, it did for me this year). You can just about convince yourself that the bad things you're dealing with don't matter as long as you have something good to look forward to.
Well, that's me waxing poetic and philosophical for the evening.
1 - A letter from school informing me that I have been awarded TWO scholarships for spring semester!! A few months ago, Emporia informed my adviser that they had set aside some scholarship money for the Utah cohort and we all were encouraged to apply for it. I figured everyone would apply (there's only 30-40 people in our group) and I wouldn't get anything because I've never really worked in a library (apart from part-time at the school - but that's not my number one responsibility) and so many other people already know what it's really like. But I must have said something the committee liked. Both scholarships amount to just shy of $1000, which is nice. It's less that I'll have to pay back, so YAY!
2 - I received a Christmas card from a lady I knew on my mission. She's a member of the Church, but her husband wasn't - but now she's informed me that he got baptized! This is super exciting because I knew them both from my first area, but then I actually got to work with them in my second area. This lady is just the nicest, super faithful-est person you'll ever meet (and she's a fantastic artist - she's done artwork for book covers and she gave me a print of one that she had up in her house that I said I liked! I still need to get it framed. This isn't something you just get a cheapie Wal-Mart frame for, either). Her husband was the type that got along well with the missionaries but just didn't see the point of religion, but he was so funny and so snarky - I loved him to bits. And now, he's baptized! DOUBLE YAY!
I finally got my room organized with all my new Christmas goodies. I find myself now pining for the day that I will have my own place and not just living in a room in my parents' house. With the position that I'm in now, it's just not feasible to rent somewhere. There's really no where out here to rent. Plus, my parents need someone to watch the place while they're in town, which is pretty much all the time, though they pop in for the weekends and when my sisters are out of school. Honestly, it's more like I'm house-sitting, which sounds better than "I'm still living in my parents' house," but still - I'm working toward getting my own place. If I were to have my own place, I feel like I know what I want in it and how I want it organized. Shoot, between what I have here now and stuff I have in storage, I could fill one room with bookshelves and have my own library! (Well, it'd really be a library/office, but you get the idea).
I kind of don't want Christmas vacation to be over, but at the same time I miss working at the high school. Depending on how my schoolwork load is (I'm taking three classes now instead of the usual two), I might get put in charge of another play. I wouldn't mind doing it again - I had a ton of fun with the Christmas play. It's good for the kids to have something to do out here other than schoolwork. They don't have a whole lot of extracurricular things to look forward to. And if there's one thing I've learned this year is that, in order to be happy, you have to have good things to be excited about. You can't just trudge through all the crap you "have to" cope with - whether it's boring, everyday stuff or bad situations you somehow find yourself in. Even a small event like a visit with a friend or a new movie that you want to see can bring you out of the dumps (well, it did for me this year). You can just about convince yourself that the bad things you're dealing with don't matter as long as you have something good to look forward to.
Well, that's me waxing poetic and philosophical for the evening.
