Good Ol' Alexander Graham Bell

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

This quote has given me direction and hope in my life, especially this last school year when picking a university, a major, housing, and what to do in just everyday moments.

This year, everything seemed to be falling into place. The day I submitted my application to BYU-Idaho, they sent me my acceptance letter. When housing opened, I was able to find three girls who were just like me, even though I knew nothing about them from a first glance. I had a degree in place for Interior Design. My grades were doing well. Everything seemed great.

But then Interior Design closed on me for this year. That doesn't just happen. Majors don't just close for one year. The one major I wanted for the one year I was coming. As stated by a speaker in Stake Conference today, "I don't believe in coincidences anymore. Everything happens for a reason."

I knew I needed to go to BYU-Idaho, but I didn't know what major to go into. For a while, I felt so completely lost in my decisions with college that I almost just wanted to not do anything with college decisions for a long time. So I did. I took a break from thinking about majors, about registration, about everything. Even with school right now, which probably wasn't the best idea. :) But hey, I have senioritis. It counts as a good excuse, right? :)

Anyways, these past few weeks have kind of tossed me around everywhere and have made me realize that, "Guess what? You're going to be out on your own in a few short months, and you aren't doing anything about it. Get working on it!" It all started when my roommate emailed me and told me she was so excited for college this fall. It made me realize that this might just be real. I might just be actually on my own this fall. Graduation meetings, emails from BYU-Idaho have made me start thinking about college again. Majorly.

I realized, with registration for classes and majors starting on June 4, I needed to quickly start narrowing down my choices of majors so that I had time to think about it so that it wasn't just spontaneous in June.

My mom told me to make a pros and cons list of any major that I even considered. Ones that didn't even appeal to me, but ones that I thought I would be able to do or have a future in. I honestly didn't think anything would come of it. I really didn't. But after some persuasion, I finally broke out a pen and pencil and wrote down some majors that I could see myself possibly going into.

Music
Web Design and Development
Graphic Design
Elementary Education

With music, I knew it was either piano or violin, and I could be an organ minor. I started listing off pros, and there were a lot. I thought I had found my major right there. But then I started listing cons, and was surprised to find that there were a lot more cons than I thought there would be. The list of cons surprisingly got to be longer than the pros and I stopped there because there were a lot more cons that I could think of. It's not that I don't like music, I really love music, but the cons that would come from having to practice music, memorize, learn theory, perform in front of people for a grade, I realized it would be like being in the Piano Festival all year long. That would not be fun. At all. If I was playing music simply because I love music, it would be different. And it was then that I found that I could be in a symphony composed of non-music majors and I wouldn't have to go to so many music classes. I could play music simply because I love it.

So it wasn't music.

I started on the Web Design and Development pros and cons list and only had a few pros, and the cons started running onto the page faster than I could write them down.

Same thing for Graphic Design. I really had thought beforehand that that was what I was going to do, but something wasn't clicking. I didn't realize that it might just be the major itself that I wasn't supposed to go into until I made my list. Pros were great, but the cons list started growing by leaps and bounds, which really surprised me. I honestly thought I was just in a pessimistic mood, but the next major I did the list for really surprised me.

I started doing the Elementary Education major list, and started with cons, since they were tending to be longer than the pros for the rest of them. I honestly could only think of about 3 or 4 cons and they weren't even that bad. I was forcing myself to try to think of something I wouldn't like about that major, but I finally gave up on the cons list and started on the pros. To my utter shock, I got a full page of pros, and more were spouting out of my head. I had so many pros start coming to my mind that I completely stopped writing and shouted, "I think I've got it! I think I know what my major will be!" At that moment, my mom smiled and was probably dying to say "I told you so" for making a pros and cons list.

When the door for BYU-Idaho opened, the Interior Design door closed. When the door of music and graphic design closed, Elementary Education's door opened wide open for me.

Everything seems to be going more smoothly ever since I've looked into Elementary Education as a possibility.

I would love teaching little kids, especially Kindergarten to 2nd grade. Can you see me as an Elementary school teacher? I sure can! :) I hope that if that's what I do, I can do it well. I could still bring my musical education into the classroom and even some graphic design elements for my bulletin boards, project outlines, I could buy SCHOOL SUPPLIES!!, write the kids names on the cute little sticker things on their desks, etc. I am sooo excited to do that!! SEOP's, reading to kids, and simply teaching them the simple things in life. My elementary school teacher's were my favorite people and I loved going to school because of them. I hope to someday be an inspiration for students and young kids in my community.

There is one catch that I've found though. If I taught somewhere, I would want to teach in Utah, but I'll only be certified in Idaho. I could easily transfer to BYU, but there's something that seems to be tugging at me, like I'm supposed to go and stay in Idaho for a reason. I hope to get my Bachelor's degree at BYU-Idaho and go into teaching later that year or a year or two later either in Idaho or in Utah. We'll just have to see how my life goes these next few years. :)

Don't look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that you don't see which ones have opened up for you. Keep your eyes open all the time.

Live. Love. Laugh. Grow.

<3

It was the worst of times, It was the best of times.

Guess who is excited to graduate? This chica! 43 days exactly until the glorious day of May 30--the day where my freedom from high school begins and my life will begin to take off (hopefully in the right direction (: )!

I went to Disneyland this past week for spring break with my family and had an absolute BLAST. It was my second time there and my family's first time, so I got the honor of showing them around the park. :)

As much fun as Disneyland was, the most exciting thing so far of my life happened while standing in line for the Grizzly River Run (yes, I know, that ride is in California Adventure, but I link those two together as just the Disneyland park). My phone buzzed telling me I had a new email, so I turned on my phone to look at it while we were waiting in line. I looked and saw it was from BYU-Idaho and the subject line said, "Scholarship".

I GOT A FULL TUITION SCHOLARSHIP!!!

No longer will I be worrying about how the cheese I will be paying for tuition, fees, textbooks, a super mucho expensive laptop and food, but that was a huge relief! Not many people get a full tuition scholarship. When I toured the campus, they told me I would probably get around a half scholarship, so that's what I planned on as the maximum. But a full tuition! That's $3,500 this year that I won't have to save up! That's a whole lot of money!

Then my parents surprised me, not only were they already paying for my housing, but they said they would also be paying for most of my meals when I go up this fall. I thought I would be in charge of my own food, but they will be! That just covered another $1,500 or so this year. Already, that's about $5,000 that I was planning on having to spend that has now been erased. That's a lot of money that I will be able to save and have in my bank account for the second year of university. If I keep my grades up, it will determine what scholarship I get for the upcoming years, so wish me luck this fall. :)

That was one of the greatest weeks of my life. Disneyland. Sea World. And a full tuition scholarship.

Life is going great.

Until.....

I get back home and realize I have hours of homework. Did I do it? No, of course not! Who does homework over Spring Break? Not I. I didn't think it would matter, it was just homework that we probably wouldn't even be turning in. So I ignored the growing mountain of paper on my desk for another day or so.

I went to my piano lesson on Monday to my favorite teacher ever, Marilyn Larsen. :) I love that woman so much! She is honestly one of my best friends. We tell each other anything and everything and I love having someone like that I can talk to for just a half hour each week. Anyways, I went to piano and NAILED my three songs that I had been assigned. I only had them for two weeks, but I got them down pretty well, or at least the part she assigned me. :) In case you're wondering, no, the songs were not Hot Cross Buns, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or Three Blind Mice, but were Arabesques by Debussy, Fantasie Impromptu by Chopin, and Claire de Lune by Debussy. All three are each SUCH amazing pieces. I love them so much. I will post YouTube videos of them on the end of this post.

However, after piano, things started going downhill. I went to work to get my work schedule and when I was getting my schedule, I saw that I was scheduled to work that night. 45 minutes earlier. I stood there in shock. When was the last time I ever worked a Monday? Only on holidays! I went home, frustrated because I had HOURS of AP Statistics homework as well as AP English, Medical Anatomy & Physiology, and Government homework. I knew I wouldn't be getting home until about 11 or so.

There went my day.

I got to work and it was SO slow. Luckily my manager saw how stressed out I must have looked and asked if I had homework and would like to go home. I nodded my head vigorously, clocked out and flew out the door, but I ran into a friend and fellow employee who I ended up talking to in the parking lot until about 7:30. I talked to him for 2 hours. It was a great talk, but I was really wanting to get home.

I didn't do my homework when I got home either. I was SO worn out just by rushing around everywhere and cleaning up after my trip (unpacking, laundry, etc.) that I just laid on my bed and fell asleep, the worry of everything piling up in my mind.

So have I had a great day today? Not particularly in school, no, but tonight will be the greatest. :) I have tickets to the Utah Symphony with my parents and they are playing John Williams music! Star Wars, Harry Potter, I don't know what else they're playing, but I am soooo excited!

Anyways, I wanted to share my good fortune this past week with you guys! I am so excited!

Live. Love. Laugh. Grow.

P.S. Here are the videos to the music I'm learning in piano:

Arabesque I by Debussy

Claire de Lune by Debussy (I love the middle part! I love all of it actually, but I love the middle part the most! And the end. That part is good too.)

Fantasie Impromptu by Chopin (try following the music it has on the video. if you keep up, that's pretty good.) :)