Hard Times

Ok, now that I've reviewed last year, I think it would make sense now to jump in to the events that have occurred so far this year. To be honest (and why wouldn't I be honest in my own blog?) it has been a tough couple of weeks for me. For the first couple of days of the year I was still spending Christmas break at home with my family. We had a fun New Year's Day, and decided to go see Avatar as a family. The theater was crazy and many of the shows were sold out, but we managed to get tickets to a showing, and my sister Lauren and I stood in a huge line to get into the theater. This was my second time seeing the movie and it just solidified my opinion that this is the greatest movie of 2009. My family seemed to all like it as well.

After the fun at home, I had to return back to BYU for my final semester as an Undergraduate! I was excited to get the semester started and work on several goals that I had set for myself (aka New Year's Resolutions). Unfortunately, when I got back to Utah, my girlfriend called and broke up with me. I don't want to dwell on this too much, but it was a difficult thing for me to deal with. I have a tendency to blame myself for everything that goes wrong in my life so I had a hard time accepting that I wasn't the one at fault and that it was truly the reason she gave- that she isn't ready for a relationship at this time. There are two main things that are getting me through this tough break up. One is the hope that maybe someday I can start dating her again once she is ready to be in a relationship. The other is my friendship with Kevin.

Kevin has really been there for me at this time and I am so grateful for his kindness and friendship. He has taken a lot of time out of his busy schedule to hang out with me and get my mind off dwelling on the break up and the potential things I did to cause it. We have had many fun experiences in the past couple weeks. First of all, we went and saw Sherlock Holmes and it was really good! It was a great, fun movie that was a fun puzzle to figure out. A highlight for me of the past couple weeks was when Kevin and I went to Salt Lake to eat at The Roof restaurant and see the Joseph Smith movie. This had been a goal of ours for quite some time but it seemed that something always interfered with our plan. Well, I think we finally broke the curse by doing another thing that we always talk about- playing the Lost board game.

The food at The Roof was incredible and the Joseph Smith movie was even more incredible- it really showed me the huge sacrifice that Joseph Smith made to help bring about the great church we have today. Another fun thing that Kevin and I did was go to the IMAX theater at Jordan Commons on Monday to see Avatar. Yes, this was the third time I saw the movie, and I was still just as impressed seeing it a third time. It was the first time Kevin had ever been to the IMAX theater, so it was a fun experience, and I think he might have liked the movie.

I just can't express how lucky I am to have such a great friend who can help me through difficult times. Besides the fun we've been having, I did start school and it seems like it is going to be a good semester. I have only three classes. One of them is a fun class- Music Appreciation. I love music and I wanted a more laid back class for my last semester so I could focus on my two harder classes. My other class is a Psychology class called Personality. The teacher is Dr. Slife, who I had last semester, and he is an incredible teacher. He manages to make these really complex psychological concepts easy to understand.

The final "class" is actually doing research in Psychology for a professor here at BYU. I had a lot of difficulty finding a research opportunity, which scared me because I need it to graduate. I signed up to work with a certain teacher, but he e-mailed me and said that he isn't doing research this semester. I signed up with a different teacher who e-mailed me the same thing. In desperation, I got an e-mail from the psychology department about a research opportunity, so I jumped at the chance and ended up getting on a research team with this group and I'm excited about it. It will take some time this semester, but it should be fun.

Besides that there isn't much more to say for now. I am setting a lot of goals right now because I need things to work on to get my mind off the sad things I'm dealing with, and I need to improve in many areas. I'm hoping that I can lift my spirits this semester and become a better person at the end of it by working on several goals. I feel more hopeful this week than I have the previous two weeks, so that is encouraging to me and I'm hoping this positivity will remain with me.