Road to Improvement

What up Pikachu?!

I'm usually not self-conscious enough to identify some of the personal flaws I have in this life.  Often, I'm rather absent-minded about the issue and end up offending people I did not wish to offend.

I decided to attend the atonement class for Sunday School again this semester.  I liked the way Dan and Coleman taught it during the Spring and Summer, but this time, we actually get the manual.

While most people here at BYU don't have serious issues with drugs and addictions, there are habits that could prove to be detrimental if done in excess.  This is just me generally speaking.

The more I think about the atonement, the more links I can draw to principles and doctrines.  Having the atonement being in the center of the Plan of Salvation is beginning to make more sense than I first heard it from a religion professor here at BYU back in freshman year.

I am formulating a plan to become a better person.  I'm not holy, but I'd like to be a better person than I am right now.

On the to-do list this week: take 2 tests, get new contact solutions (dang smudges), and get ahead in homework, etc.

14 more years of schooling to go...

ಥ⌣ಥ

A Month Later

The ultimate struggle good vs. evil.  The Catnorak!!

So, it's been a month since the semester has started.  As of now, I'm okay with the progress I've made academically, but there's still lots of room to improve.

I had 3 tests this week and I only took 2 of them.  I'm going to take the last one for my MMBio240 class on Monday night.  That means I will have to skip FHE for the week.  Oh well, I gotta do what I gotta do.

I was able to watch 2 sports games live this week!  Got a free women's volleyball poster and paid for watching this Friday's football game!  I think I should start collecting the soccer team posters just for fun.  Even though I don't like to work 22 hours a week, but it sure has its perks.  The best part?  BYU won both of the games I watched.

Looks like the food artist has stopped.  I guess I will never figure out who did it.  It's okay, I don't think I'm ready for anything romantic right now anyways.  School takes precedent before any of that shenanigans.  ;)

I attempted to figure out my graduation plan.  If I want to get both of my minors and finish all my premed courses, I will not graduate until the end of 2014.  However, if I just want to walk out with a bachelor's degree, I can be done by end of 2013 easily.  Since I do plan on going to med school, I figured it's probably better to take longer before I graduate.  After all, I would still have to take extra classes if I just wanted to go to PA school (which is an alternative by the way).

Life...has been kind to me for the most part.  I have good roommates and a decent ward.  More importantly, I have a supportive family and friends.  They'll keep me going for some time before I burn out.

ಠ⌣ಠ

New Beginning

How snugly!

Well, it is the beginning of a new week.  I am looking forward to it already.  I have 3 tests this week...which will be interesting as I try to take them.  The semester is getting busier already!

Looking at my notes from church today, I realized that I haven't been to the temple for over 3 months!  That's not good at all.  I would love to go, but I need to plot out my time better.  I can see some opening for Thursday afternoons and Saturday evening, but other than that, it'd be difficult.

One thing I felt I should do while going to the temple again is going through the endowment process and review the covenants and words said during each individual ordinance.

The point of interest in today's notes came from Moses 1 in the Pearl of Great Price.  It mentioned how Moses beheld God and saw Him face to face when His glory fell upon him.  Similar accounts of heavenly visions stated that the person knew not whether he was in the body or spirit when he beheld the things God had shown him.

Why is that important?  Well, when Moses saw Satan after seeing God, he noted that he was beholding the Fallen Angel in his natural state with the naked eyes.  Here's a lesson we can take from Moses's experience: if you are awake, chances are it's not from God.  Also, we great blessings seem to come with great trails.  Good luck comrades, you'll need it!

I'll let you all know how I survived next Saturday and Sunday.

☜(⌒▽⌒)☞

Changing Season

Worst game ever!

This week has been productive for the most part.  The first part of my week was somewhat slow, but I managed to get homework done and stayed somewhat ahead of the schedule.

The first FHE was fun.  I liked the combined group activity consisted of multiple mini-games.

In the world of work, I was rather relaxed.  There was nothing too complicated to handle, especially when Simon was around to guide us along.  On my independent contracting side, I haven't done much this week because of the amount of homework I had to finish.

The latter part of my week was more action-packed.  Once again, someone decided to spell out my name with food items and this time it's with tortillas.  I wonder who did it.  While I appreciate the thoughtful acts, it's kinda bothersome to know who was behind all the silliness.

The end of my secular week was marked with the most awful football game I ever watched.  BYU totally sucked against Utah.  They played like a bunch of middle school boys.  There were SEVEN turnovers and a measly 11 yards from rushing.  Apparently, BYU's offense doesn't know how to catch or carry the ball.  The game ended with an embarrassing 54-10 blowout.  What do they do during practice?  So much for independence...

Anyways, I'm still waiting for a few things before I decide on my next course of action.

(╬ ಠ益ಠ)

Stand Your Ground

Yes!  You have feet!!

This morning, when my roommates and I opened the door to go to church, we noticed that there were Milanos on the ground and they spelled out my name for some reason.  I thought it was a nice surprise.  Although, I wasn't sure why, or more importantly, why were they on the ground.

Today was the first time I taught gospel doctrine class.  Most people said that I did a good job.  I sure hope so because I felt I could have done a better job.  Well, I only spend about 2 hours thinking and looking up stuff for the lesson the night before, so if I ever get a chance to teach again, I'll know to spend more time on it.  The good thing was I was right on time!  :)

My lesson was focused on the 2 Corinthians in the New Testament where Paul taught about tribulations, forgiveness, godly sorrow, and reconciliation to God.  One of the most important reminders when reading the epistles is to have the Spirit with you because many of the letters were not written by Paul himself, but scribes who drafted what Paul said.  In other words, ponder the words before taking them at face value.

One of the better inspirations I've received today at sacrament talks today was from Rachel when she said that the time while single was the best time to do some self-improvement.  This was a great point that would be further emphasized at the CES Fireside by Sister Oaks.  I also learned, thanks to Andrew, to why Jesus refers to us as His friends since He became our spiritual father through the atonement.

I received a calling this semester.  I'm supposed to be a FHE dad!  I've never done it before, so we'll see how that goes...

Once again, I had a little friction with a few people that my coworker knew.  I'm not going to go into details on this one because I had my faults, but people were simply not good enough to back up their dissing with facts, so they called me a tool instead.

I ended up feeding the Milanos on the ground to the ducks at the duck pond near Heritage.  I figured some creatures would appreciate the goods even after they hit the ground.

The take home message for me at the fireside was that I should focus on my career, but don't eliminate the opportunity to move on with life (i.e. marriage, family, etc.).  As for Elder Oaks remarks, I thought it was great that he pointed out we needed a balance between being tolerant and firm to the truths.  Too often, especially when I was in the mission field, I've seen missionaries who were either one way or the other and never found a fine balance between the two.  In other words, we want to be what Alma described as firm but not overbearing.

I figured out why my wired network wasn't working and it's utterly stupid and confusing.  At least it's working now...That's all for now, catch you next Saturday!

&_&

The Unseen Stress

Wrath is my name also.

It is said that the first few weeks of school are the most frustrating and stressful period.  Whether or not this is true, I think I felt the effects of it unknowingly until after the fact.  This week had been filled with inconveniences and silly annoyances that brought out the wrath in me.  Saying that I'm irritated is a great understatement.

The most notable folly was the water outage in the beginning of this week.  Somehow, the construction crew must have broken something and rendered the residents here at the Riviera without water.  The anger was misdirected at the management, but who could blame the residents?  Many of us here depend on the little things that need to run smoothly in order to complete their days.

Invisible sniper spies...hate them.

Although this brought us greater appreciation for water and realize how blessed we were to have running water, it almost threw off the "groove" of things.  There were further inconveniences that involved a friend's mother and the laundry room, but I won't go there.  All it matters is that I apologized after I went through "rage" mode.

Oh yeah, the Internet is being retarded again...  and the fact that BYU lost the game against Texas Longhorns was plain aggravating.  Gosh, sometimes I think I should stick to watching women's soccer.  At least they are cute and they win.  :v

Were there anything good that happened this week?  Of course!  I was given the opportunity to teach a lesson tomorrow in Sunday School.  I worked 24 hours this week and I'm allowed to go over 20 hours for this semester.  I get extra money!

Also, I understand everything in my class so far even though I have a test this coming Friday.  My uncle is now an associate professor in a tech institute in China.  Not to mention, I was able to send out letters to my missionary friends, including the newest addition, Marie!

Life is a mixed bag of awesome and crappy.  Well, we'll just have to see what happens.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

First Fall Fast

Hmm...they look strangely similar.

After some careful considerations, I've decided that I'll do 2 entries on my blog a week.  One on Saturday and one on Sunday.  Since school is becoming busier, I cannot spend time writing down things daily.  I knew this was going to happen.  Anyways, my Saturday posts will now feature things I encountered during the week, sort of like a weekly summary and spotlight.  My Sunday posts, hopefully, will be more spiritually-tuned.  The best part?  You get to see random pictures.

This morning, before we headed over to church, Ryan (my roommate) asked me and Taylor how long we've been members.  Why is this significant?  I seldom encounter people who ask me that question.  Having Ryan asking that reminded me the road I took to come to this point of my life today.

I was baptized 4 days before my 18th birthday and came to BYU in June of 2007.  From there, I studied for a year and went and served a mission in England.  After some crazy events and drama, I ended up back in BYU where I'm studying in hopes to go to med school in the next 2-3 years.  I've had my trails and I think I've overcome most, if not all, of them so far.  Each person I met has taught me something in life, especially those who I grew close to on this campus.

I bore my testimony for the first time in a few months.  I felt the Spirit fairly strong when we sang the hymns today.  With the new semester and new people to work with, the opportunity seems limitless.  I'll observe and see.

So what's new this semester: independent contract for ChaCha, 14 credit hours, 21 hours of regular shift...  Perhaps I'll get a calling or two to add to the load.  We'll see.  So, stay tuned.

（´-`）.｡oO( ... )

New Month

Since school is going to take up a majority of my time, I've decided that I should not update my blog daily.  Instead, I'll update it weekly and most likely doing so on Sundays.

I know that some of you actually pay a visit here daily, but I'll have to disappoint you from now.

Look at the bright side, I may have quality posts for once.  Anyhow, thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you all on Sunday!

:v

Assessment

So, it's the last day of August and I realized that I've kept a daily update for 2 months now.  Most of the times, I don't have anything impressive to record on this blog, so I end up putting up a boring narrative of what happened during the day.  I haven't been doing a good job with insightful materials on my weekend posts either.

I went to my morning class and went straight into work for an hour and half.  There were some issues, but I was glad that I could help the newbies to get the job done right.

The only person outside of work that I had a conversation with was Shannon.  Since she's a close friend I can confide in, I generally find it easier to talk about things.

I did some homework before my night shift.  Surprisingly, everything went fairly quickly.  I felt productive because I finished a few projects Steve had given me that evening.  I also had a candid talk with Jacob about my own work ethics.  Well, let's just say the flaws he pointed out would make 99% of the employees there hypocrites.  He had legitimate points, but I've found myself doing less of those things since the last 2 weeks.  I'm glad that Simon and Steve has been giving me projects to keep my busy.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to focus as much.

Anyways, I like it when people throw their critiques plainly and directly at me as long as they are credible.  I have mixed feelings about Jacob to be honest.

Onto other assessments, I realized that I could apply to my major this semester, so I'll ask the advisement center tomorrow.  There are much for me to look forward to in the future.  I sure don't plan on working at the same place throughout my college years.

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