To The BYU Admissions Office

Unabridged and unedited since the day I submitted it. Here is the essay I wrote to convince people that I deserved to be at BYU.

Although I have learned much throughout my fourteen years of formal schooling, some of the most valuable knowledge that I carry with me I have learned through failure.  In high school I failed time after time academically and spiritually.  I tried to fight back using the wrong tools and further failed.  When I arrived at BYU-Idaho, by my standards, I failed in the classes I attended.  I failed to maintain a strong relationship with my family.  I came home for a semester and failed financially at saving enough money for the next year at school.  This pattern continued for about another year. I was surprisingly accepted to attend the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies in August of 2007 and would attend in January of this year and I made a decision.  I decided I would go there and be successful. I promised I would figure out why I was supposed to be there and I would take something more from there than just a few small souvenirs.  I didn't quite know how to prepare for this semester abroad; I wasn't sure what to study and what to read so I didn't do much.  In February, I was sitting in a classroom in Jerusalem and I realized that I had not kept my promise.  I hadn't figured it out, why I was there and what I needed to do.  I had failed, again. So I changed my focus to love.  I made everything I did revolve around love.  Love for my friends, my teachers, that country, those people, the gospel, my Savior and my Heavenly Father.  Everything immediately became harder, but because my motivation was love I knew that I wouldn't fail.  And I didn't.  I learned that if I was driven by a desire to serve others through the love of Christ, I could not fail.  That is why I'm applying to transfer again.  I am motivated, not by money or praise but by love.  I love the school, I love the career I'm pursuing and I am ready for the challenge. I know that if I'm given the opportunity to attend this school I will not fail.

I had forgotten how powerfully I felt at the time that I wanted to be at BYU. That is probably in my Top 5 of things I have fought relentlessly for in my life, until I got them.

Why No One Tells the Truth About Anything

A conversation a while ago sparked another viscernifestation of mine. This one is brilliant. The discussion started talking about an incident that occurs often in my life and I'm sure in the lives of many other people: you have a discussion with someone, they ask you a question either simple or complicated, and you lie. You deemphasize, downplay, and flat out lie when you answer.
I started wondering why people do that. I thought about myself and the questions I answer with lies. Questions like:

How are you liking teaching?

How do you like where you're living?

How are you?

And lies like this: 

Oh, it's great. 

It's a good place. 

Good, how are you?

Okay, sometimes those are the truth, but a lot of the time they are not. As I was talking through this with some people close to me, I wanted to figure out why we tell those lies. Why did I start answering questions like that? Where was that habit rooted? 

I realized that most recently it came from the reactions I would get from people as I was giving honest answers to those questions. 

I told the truth and then started noticing a pattern in the reactions I was getting from people. They were surprised (read: uncomfortably shocked) that I didn't LOVE teaching and that I wasn't raving about how prepared I felt and how easy it came to me. Every time I said something other than "GREAT!" about where I lived or how I was, those I was talking to become visibly uncomfortable. Often pining to change the subject. 

I suppose subconsciously I decided that people didn't want to hear how teaching was really going. Or what I actually felt like that day. I don't know what they wanted but they didn't want to be uncomfortable so I started changing my answers to the short ones seen above. 

And it worked! No one was ever uncomfortable again! Kidding. But people stopped giving me that look that says, "pleasestoptalkingpleasestoptalkingpleasestoptalking."

You know the look. 

Instead they nodded politely, as if pleased with how content we both were lying to each other. So here is some not lying for you.

Sometimes I really don't like my job and I really don't want to go to work. 

Sometimes I get frustrated with my house and that it doesn't have what I think I need. 

And sometimes I'm sad/mad/irate/frustrated/annoyed. 

But so is everyone else, and so are you, and you should just stop making that uncomfortable face and say something nice to people who tell you the truth. 

A Book I Read

Don't take this as any sort of announcement. I had been told that this book had a lot of good adult life lessons regardless of whether or not you had a baby. So no, I am not having a baby.

And those recommendations were right. This book was full of insightful research and ideas about how to live a happy life, and a life that benefits not only others' personal growth, but your own growth as well.

Pamela (I like using first names rather than last, when referring to authors after I've read their books) reflects on breaking tradition and what is gained and lost when one chooses to do so. I think the loss part is okay. Some might think they can go through life and never lose anything and only make gains, but in my long 27.67 years of wisdom it's that in every gain there are some losses. But those losses can have positive influence and you and those around you.

By flooding her opinions with research, Pamela is so convincing in her notions about making changes. You should always be searching for the best things for you and those around you. Seeking them out will make you a better person and make life more enjoyable.

Amen, sister.

Here is a link to buy the book on Amazon.

God must feel like a teacher.

"What do you do?"

"I teach high school."

"Oh, wow, how's that?"

"..."

If I put together a top ten list of most common conversations I've had in my life, this would be number one. And it would be exactly the same, exactly the way I wrote it, every single time. 

Teaching is hard to explain to someone who doesn't teach. I say that in the present, as in, you must be currently teaching in order to understand teaching. I believe that former teachers, remember a lot about their teaching experience, but I also think it's a bit like birthing a baby. Most of the pain is forgotten/covered up with the cuteness of the baby and/or modern medicine (or in the teaching case: anti-depressants). 

Being a teacher means you are partially responsible for what 200+ other human beings do while they're under your jurisdiction. The measurement of your work is hardly ever based on something you worked on by yourself and then presented to someone else. You are measured by how well other human beings can do what you've taught them to do. Which means your success and satisfaction in your job is based on what these 200+ other human beings do on a daily basis. I say this because if all I did all day was plan glorious lessons and then hand them to someone else to teach and then went home, I think I would feel pretty satisfied with my work about 88% of the time. However, that is not what I do. Therefore, my self-satisfaction rate is at about 19% on the daily.

I struggle each day to cope with the fact that I don't have total control of what my students choose to do, yet I, as well as others, still base my job performance and my satisfaction with my career on what those students choose to do. Which I shouldn't, right? I should know that I put in my best effort for the day and that's all I can really control. To that I say: ah ha ha ha...ha...HA! It's harder than you think. When they don't turn things in on time. When they don't do their in-class work. When they choose to SnapChat instead of study. When they don't care for their grade for 8 weeks and then beg for mercy 3 days before the end of the term.

I understand that students have circumstances that don't allow them to do things on time or that schoolwork really isn't what they should be worried about. I have those students, I know them and I sympathize that. And a majority of my students are not the ones I'll talk about next. I'm talking about the ones who just "don't." There are no other words that would describe those students better. They don't. They don't care, they don't want to, they don't work, they don't try, they simply don't. Regardless of the reason why they don't, they still don't. Now, how can I be okay with what I do when they just plain don't? Should I say don't again? Don't.

Well, let me tell you how. I had a vision a few days ago. Okay not really a vision it was more like a discernment. Maybe manifestation sounds better? Let's call it all three. In my viscernifestation I learned something.

You've been Walter Mitty-ed!

The first time we saw this movie I left the theater feeling like I had just experienced something incredible. The only problem was that I couldn't figure out quite what that something was. Obviously I'd experienced the movie itself, but the movie made me have some other experience that I couldn't identify or describe. I think I'll say the word experience one more time just to push you over the edge. Experience.