Changin it up!

This semester started out great and not too busy...mainly because I wasn't working at all yet. I realized that I kinda liked having that free time to read my school books and being able to keep up with the work and such. I haven't had to scramble around the night before and try to cram everything into my brain for the next day. Yesterday was my first day back to work since before Christmas break. Things were great and I didn't dread the time I was there...probably because in my mind I already knew it was my last day. That's right, I quit! I am no longer an employee at Sports Authority. It sucks though because I loved that job and it really was perfect for me, but I've just had so many conflicts with it in the past that I couldn't handle anymore, and it potentially was going to cause more problems with my rugby schedule once we start traveling. I didn't want to be a pain for them. The plan is to take off work for this semester and then see if they will take me back in the spring. I'm hoping I can get the job back there and then transfer down to the Orem store. It will make things so much easier having a job down here in Provo. Especially since I'm planning on taking classes this summer. I can't decide whether or not to take both classes in the summer or one in the spring and one during the summer term, and then work the whole time too. Gah! I hate all of these decisions. Plus, I have to figure out where I will live and all that stuff.

On a more positive note...We recently had a practice where my coach said if we didn't know exactly what position we were supposed to be focusing on, to come talk to him. Well lately he's been throwing me in all sorts of positions so I just wanted to hear from him what he wants me to focus on. He basically told me I'm the top pick for scrum-half and to focus everything I have into that. Talk about a holy crap!! I was pretty excited to hear that, but at the same time was doubting my ability. Confidence is something I've lacked in for a long time and I'm going to need to find some somewhere and fast if I'm going to pull this off! Haha. It'll take a lot of practice that's for sure, but I just need to keep my head on straight and I'll be able to do it. It's going to be one fun season :)

Life as I know it...now

New Year, new semester...Just for the record, I hated last semester with a passion! I didn't have many classes that I enjoyed being in, and if I did enjoy the class it was mostly because of the people I sat by, not the material I was supposed to be learning. None of them interested me that much and I had a really hard time trying to get through it. I went through that period of life when I questioned everything I was doing...was I in the right major? Would I even be able to pass the national exam when all was said and done? Was I digging myself into a hole with everything that was on my plate? Was I still that same person I used to be, the one that everyone likes? Yeah...I had a lot of soul searching and it wasn't that fun, but I am really glad that I stuck it out with my major because I couldn't see myself doing anything else. I love it too much. But after all of that I honestly wasn't ready for this next semester to start...

...But surprisingly I love this semester so far!!

I'm taking it easy with classes for my major and I'm taking a few more general education courses. So it's a lot less stress but it's still going to be a lot of work. I think I can manage it though :) I have orthopedic rehab, upper extremities, and clinical..wow, those are the only ones I'm taking for my major! That's less than I thought haha. I'm also taking Living Prophets to finish off my religion credits and then Astronomy!! That class is fantastic. I love it so far and we get to mess around with the planetarium every cla

ss period. It's sick!

Rugby has been going well too. We have just been doing a lot of conditioning and occasionally we get our hands on a ball. It's hard for me to get stuck in right now though. I ended the season pretty sick and I'm starting it back up being sick. It makes it so hard for me to perform at my best. It's like a hit or miss if I have energy that da

y or not and it makes me so frustrated that I can't just be myself 100%. Hopefully this one won't plague me for that long. I may have to give in and see a doctor haha.

I would say work has been going well...but wait, I haven't even been there since December 11th? Yeah it's been a while. I'm supposed to go in next S

aturday, but I'm just thinking through a lot of things now. A lot of people keep telling me to look into the Orem store or just look for a different job that's closer to home...I'm scared I'm getting too used to not working right now and that when I do start again it will throw off the balance I've created. We'll see though. I think I can manage it

though. No worries!!

OH!! My roommate Jessica went into the MTC this past Wednesday. She's serving in the Dallas, Texas spanish speaking mission. We are going to miss her a lot, but we know she is going to do so much good for those people in Texas :) Good luck Jess!

Sorry for the long post!

New Year...

Christmas break is always a weird one to come back from to me. It takes forever to get to and then it's here and great and you have such a wonderful time, but it goes by so fast. Then New Years comes and we welcome in a new year and then BAM! School the next day. What the crap is that? And the concept of bringing in a new year is so weird to me. It's not like anything really changes in a day. You're basically doing the same stuff, you just tack a different number onto the end of the date and call it good. Oh well, it is what it is.

So Christmas was kinda blah with the sickies and all, but it

was also really fun to be with family again and to see the magic of Christmas still alive in my sister's kids. Things could have been better yeah, but it was perfect still :)

We all left the day after Christmas for home, and for me...Oregon! I got to spend the week leading up to and including New Years with my friend Janelle and her family. The adventure began on the first flight that lasted four hours. Apparently the guy next to me ended up in Texas when he was supposed to Denver so they were trying to get him to Oakland quickly. Question, how in the world does that happen? Aren't their words on your ticket that tell you where you're going? haha. Anyways, he was pretty upset I guess you could say and planned to just drink the next four hours away. I think he downed 7 bourbon bottles and had a Red Bull with vodka to top it off, and only peed once! Pretty successful I'd say. I fe

lt bad for the ten year old kid that was sitting next to him on the other side, and his parents. After that, I stopped in Oakland for an hour or so and then got on a plane to Portland.

Being in Oregon was a lot of fun. I got to meet a lot of her family and see a lot of cool things. We ate at a little tea house, played games on the wii, played a lot of card/board games, went shopping, and stayed at an awesome beach house for new years!! It had the beach right outside the door, a hot tub, pool table, juke box, and a pinball machine. Not to mention the big screen tvs, the crows nest, and awesome bunk bed rooms!! Oh

, and the company was great too :P haha. We went on the beach a few times despite the fact it was fa-reezing!! We found a group of rocks to jump around on, and I guess there was even a big starfish that got stuck on them but we never found it. All in all it was a great trip!

Oh Christmas Day...yuck

Yes for Christmas morning, getting up super early with Julia's kids, feeling the santa magic in the air, and opening up all of our presents!! We did all of this and had a great time just being with the family and seeing all of the kids get really excited about their toys. They got some pretty cool stuff! But my dad and I unfortunately got a gift we weren't expecting, or wanted at all for that matter...

So our whole family got sick this weekend starting with my mom, then Aiden, Landon, and Julia, Tim got sick yesterday, and then my dad and I got the worst of it today. I had gotten a sinus infection from my mom early on while everyone else got the 24 hour flu. It wasn't until today that we got that sicky too. I felt fine opening gifts and stuff, but after that I was upstairs in my bed for a good portion of the day. I came down every once in a while, donning my plague victim mask, and hung out with the fam, but I just couldn't stay for long. I'm feeling pretty good now, just my stomach is upset a little still. I think I'll be ok though as I fly out tomorrow to go to Oregon.

But yeah, Merry Christmas to us!!! Despite the sicknesses, I'm glad we got to come and spend time with Julia, Tim, and their kids. Hopefully the next time we see them a sickness will not be involved in our visit! I hope you all had an awesome Christmas Day :)

In the famous words of Strongbad...IT'S OVER!!!

Christmas break is here! I never thought this semester would end...it just kept dragging on and on....BUT it's over :) This finals week was different than past ones. Maybe it was because I didn't really care about my classes much so the grades weren't that important to me, or maybe I finally learned how to manage panic! It's probably the first one. I don't think I did that bad on them though...I guess the final grades will tell all.

One thing I am truly grateful about the end of this semester is the change of clinical assignments in my athletic training program. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED working with the women's basketball team here at BYU, but I did not love working with my clinical instructor that was in charge of them. Let's just say she hasn't developed very strong communication skills and it's caused a lot of trouble for us. Not even when my partner, Tyler, and I approached her did she acknowledge the issues. She would just come in the next day and act like nothing was wrong. She also liked to lie to our faces because I don't think she can handle confrontation. Man up and say it to our faces!!! I would rather hear it from her than hear about it from someone else or read how she rated me online later that night. Anyways, Tyler and I are both done with her and moving on to bigger and better things. We both got transferred to high schools, me at Lone Peak, this next semester and I'm pretty excited about it. I'll have a ton more freedom there than I did on campus and the clinical instructor is really chill and willing to work with my crazy schedule. Bonus! I'll let you know how the new site turns out.

In other news, my really good friend Emily got married right before I left for break. I was honored that she asked me to be a bridesmaid and that I got to take part in her wedding. It was fun hanging out with the other bridesmaids and trying to figure out what we really should be doing during the reception, or trying not to freeze our ta tas off when we took pictures outside right after her wedding!! haha, good times. Thanks Emily for asking me to be a bridesmaid!


Also, my "little sister" Kalani surprised me a couple of mornings ago with the news that she is pregnant!!! How crazy awesome is that?! What a week it's been...And now I'm in the beautiful 80 degree Texas weather hanging out with my sister Julia and her fam bam. We are all coming here this year for Christmas and it should be a lot of fun :) My friend Keilani is down here too at the same time and it would be really cool if I could see her too while we're here. After Texas, I'm off to Oregon to spend the week with my friend Janelle and her fam bam for New Years. Lots of traveling and lots of fun!

Struggling...

This semester has been THE hardest one I've had thus far. Who knew getting into your major would be so time demanding and frustrating! I have super early classes everyday, I have clinical that eats up three or more hours of my life everyday, there is no space for me in my classes for my major next semester, I don't know if I should take spring or summer classes, I don't know my assignment yet for next semester and I need to in order to prepare my classes, hardly any of my classes really interest me all that much, I'm tired all the time, rugby takes up a good portion of my life as well, I'm out of town a lot for rugby, I currently am working diddly squat at Sports Authority and not making very much, I have a lot of expenses regardless...the list could seriously go on and on as to why this semester is so rough.

But here's the thing! I wouldn't trade any of it and here's why. I love the people that are in my semester of my major. We got along so well and so fast and we love helping each other out. I love my clinical assignment now and the girls that I get to hang out with everyday. My instructor is also really good at teaching us new things so it hardly gets boring. I also get free clothes from it so who can complain about that? I LOVE LOVE rugby and would never trade it for anything. I often think about what my life would be like if I had never joined and I can honestly say it would have been boring and sucked. Well, ok it wouldn't have sucked but it would have been bland. My job at Sports Authority has been one of the greatest jobs I've had thus far. I wish I could work there more and make the money that I need to, but I'm ok with it right now. I'm glad I kept the job there so that I could work more if I wanted to, and when I want to. The people there are so fun and great that it doesn't even matter that I'm making a half hour commute to work. Earlier I listed off a bunch of really negative things about this semester that have been driving me crazy, but really they are all blessings in my life. I know that if I just put all my trust in the Lord that things will work out. Everything happens for a reason right? Sure does :)

So a quick everyday life update...This last weekend my team and I traveled to Palo Alto, CA to play in a rugby 10's tournament. There were two pools so we entered two teams to see how good we could do and to gain more experience for everyone. We played some really good teams and had a lot of fun. I went in a lot as scrumhalf and it was AWESOME!! I got a few good hits on people, and they got a few on me haha. Even a nice try zone pole got a good hit on me! Anywho, so both of our teams were seeing a lot of success and doing really well. Turns out we did so well that we played each other in the championship game! Haha. So basically we went to Stanford, handed them a good butt whooping game (47-7 loss for them) and then turned around and took first and second at THEIR tournament. haha. It was a great feeling. So yeah, it was a very successful weekend for both teams. Our second team consisted of a lot of our new girls and they did SO well!! I was so impressed with how they played and held their own. I'm so proud of them!
This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to see Lady Antebellum in concert with my friend Janelle! It. Was. Awesome!!! They are such good performers and sound so good live. The girl in the group has some interesting (questionable?) dance moves and we loved to make fun haha, but it was seriously so good. We got there pretty early so we ended up pretty close to the stage, but we had to stand there for hours!!! Playing go fish/war/games you make up while standing can get interesting haha. At one point in time, Janelle left to go to the bathroom and I stayed to save our spots in the crowd. While there, the girls standing to my right got into a fight! It was so funny...but not at the same time. Fighting is wrong. Haha anyways, the girl in the front was mad because she felt like the girl behind her was pushing her and it got all heated, f words were flying, there was a little pushing, but that was it. No fists today! It made for an interesting evening though. To add to the evening, as we were trying to leave the venue and get to our car, we realized we couldn't...because there was a train blocking our way! Somehow and for some reason a train just stopped on the tracks and we had to wait a little bit for it to start up and move off the road. It was great.

Still alive...

I can barely believe it but I've managed to stay alive through this past month of school. Between work, rugby, school, clinical, and the tiny moments of eating and sleeping I was wearing myself out. Every sparing second I was doing something that NEEDED to be done. These past few weeks I realized I needed a change in my life or my grades were going straight down the poop shute. So I had to cut something out, and unfortunately work is at the bottom of my necessary list. I had full intentions of just quitting at Sports Authority, but the managers and I decided to try something out. So currently I am still employed there but I'm only working there a night a week. Hopefully this frees me up enough to bring my sanity back...

In other news...My coach switched me to play scrumhalf which is kind of like the quarterback in football. Yeah, talk about the scariest position I've ever played! My first game playing is tomorrow so we'll see how that goes...