Thanksgiving Week

Little things can make your day

This past week had been the much needed break for me.  This semester has been stressful, but manageable.  While I had my rest, I also worked many hours, especially Thanksgiving Day, which resulted me working for over 16 hours with double pay.  It feels good to have earned a pay period's wage in one day.

The long hours were made better because of great coworkers.  You may wonder why those people were there with me.  The truth is, most of them had family here in Utah where they could come and go.

On the flip side, there are many things that I'm grateful for.  The question now is trying to be happy.  I can be grateful for life's many conveniences today; however, I'm not so sure if we could equate gratitude for happiness.  Perhaps I'm just thinking too much or most people have the natural gift of being happy with what they show gratitude toward. As the status quo stands, happiness?  What's that?  I don't need people's garbage about how happiness is a choice.  Happiness is only a choice when there's something non-superficial and non-generically laughable that you care about and is quite pleased with it.  Whatever that is, I hope I'll find it.

I've been told that I should go home for once.  The sad reality is that if I want to be able to pay for my expenses, I can't go home and miss out on the pay dished out during the holidays.  Life is rough, so I'll have to deal with it.  This is primarily the reason why I don't show any sympathy towards people who haven't gone home in the past year or so.  Wanna know the last time I spent time with family, etc., during a major holiday?  It was back in December of 2006.  The last time I was officially home was January 2010.

Luckily, my roommates returned around late Friday and Saturday.  The only other person that was with me during this time was Jonathan.  Fortunately, he had family and places to go.  So, we did wind up cleaning the apartment and marvel and its cleanness until the rest of the crew returned from their trip.  Since everyone was so busy with their families, it was obvious that I didn't make too much contact with people over the phone and whatnot.

But look at it this way.  It's only Thanksgiving.  The real kicker is when Christmas break rolls along.  What am I going to do then?  I don't know.  I'll work for 38 hours a week during the last 2 weeks of break.  It's gonna be a major bore-fest!  Such is life...what can you do?

I hope the rest of my BYU career will offer something for me to do during future holidays.  Although, I highly doubt any new development will happen in the near future.

A Week in the Life

I'm not sure what's happening here

Let's see, I'm trying my hardest to remember what happened this past week.  It feels like nothing special happened.  At least, I feel like nothing significant happened.  I did go to the Nickelcade with my roommates, though.  It was a good way to relax.

I generally don't regard sports news as something worthy of mentioning in my blog, but I suppose they are big deal to other people.  In that case, the biggest highlight in BYU Sports this week was probably the women's soccer now in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.  It was a historical landmark.

The basketball teams and the football team, on the other hand, didn't do so well.  In fact, they were horrible, but let's not dwell on the negative.

Academics went okay this week.  I did pretty well in my Chem223 test.  That was unexpected because it was a free response exam.

I've been writing streams of consciousness during church talks this Sunday.  I'm still deciding if I actually had insights or just plain trolling in my mind.  Either way, 3 hours of church is really long, especially when you haven't had much sleep the night before.  Fortunately, my mood has improved over the last couple of days, so the stress isn't getting to me right now.

I can't say I have much good news to share around here as most of the major information on the Internet has been somewhat depressing.  As Thanksgiving approaches, I hope there will be some heartwarming moments in your lives.  Me?  I'll be working a lot.  Gotta make a living somehow as a poor college student.

Stressful Bliss

They are so fuzzy that I'm gonna die!

Remember how I've been in a foul mood for the past week or two?  Well, there were some leverage this week even though I had 4 tests to deal with, one of which I decided to put off until tomorrow.

The cynicism, for once, was getting on my nerves. After almost having a meltdown and being able to talk to authoritative folks about the situation, it turned out what I really needed was some downtime.  Nevertheless, I appreciated the fact that there people willing to sit down and listen.

This past Wednesday, I decided to skip my morning classes to get myself ready for my Chem223 exam.  While it seemed like a bad move, I felt a lot better afterwards because I didn't have to deal with my classes and getting up way early to prepare to head out.  It's amazing how stress can wreck your life if you are not careful.

Other interesting moments in the week including a discussion with my cousin which turned into a bitter exchange of words.  I'll admit that I'm not always the most tactful person, but it's difficult to deal with a biased 19-year-old girl who thought she knew everything.  Ironically, the encounter made me appreciate my mother a lot more.  I've had unkind opinions of her, but I failed to realize that she's improved much since she came in contact with the Church, albeit she chose to leave it.  Maybe when it's all said and done, I am the most biased person around those circumstances.

On that note, I had a good conversation with my Uncle Eddy as opposed of the depressing attitude I had with him last week.  Despite of the fact that what I have in life is less than ideal, I've been failing to highlight the good things in life.

Sometimes, I need to remember my own words: I'm not the man I want to be, but I'm not the man I'm used to be.

This weekend at work was awesome!  We had Tucanos for dinner!  My coworkers and I have never ate so well.  A lot of this had to do with the joint-effort of George, Simon, and some other managers of other departments in easing the tension between the production crew and rest of the broadcasting personnel.  It's a long and complicated story, but which organization doesn't have its strife?  In other note, it was a game well-played by BYU and some humorous moments were captured on-screen.

Sunday was more like the Sabbath it should be this time since snapping out of the abyss.  There were some very good talks during sacrament meeting (I don't often compliment the speakers due to my critical nature).  At any rate, I am a lot more content than I usually am.

Next stop...get past the MMBio441 test.  A class I no longer care due to the toll other classes have got on me.  Taking that class made me realize how much I didn't like molecular biology.  Although, I'll still finish the minor just because there are other aspects of it I really enjoy.  One thing is for sure, I don't like research that much, especially knowing about other people's research.

Reevaluation

I'm defeated,...for now!

It's been another crazy week.  I can't believe I have 4 tests this week.  I'm not sure how I'm going to handle it, but it'll be done.  I have to spend more time on homework and projects.  I actually submitted my ORCA grant proposal.

Besides school-related obstacles, I had some enjoyable moments at work.  Mainly the free food and the fact that I got paid for doing live games.  Props to our women's teams because they are doing so well in their respective sports.  The football team isn't doing the greatest, but they have been playing tough opponents this season.

The Tech Retreat for work was all right.  My schedule didn't permit me to stay longer than I'd hoped.  Nevertheless, I got free food.  That's all it matters.

My girls, FHE daughters, made comments about my health habits.  I admit, my eating and sleeping patterns aren't exactly the best right now.  It's a wonder how I've managed to stay in shape and look okay.  Sometimes, I wonder I drink so much.  I gotta curb that somehow.  Other than that, I was glad Tyler and I could offer them some service earlier this week.

There was also a CES Fireside tonight.  It gave a new perspective about how to be happy in life.  I noticed a few issues in regards to the way I handle my personal life.  In short, I had a nice discussion about it and decided to do better and make some changes.

It's a short post, but my mind is boggled with assignments and tests.  Wish me luck!