Returning the Blog

Hey everyone, not sure quite why I feel the need to apologize for not logging in two and half months. See the problem is that even though I like blogging and enjoy leaving my thoughts and life for others to see, it's just not something that I think immediately of doing, I always think, 'I can just do it tomorrow' and suddenly weeks go by. *shrug* We'll see if I can get down to at least once a month and we'll see where I go to after that ;).

Things since February have been crazy. I've reneged on my decision to transfer away from BYU-Idaho. I know this basically makes my entire last point moot, but I climbed out of my funk that I was in and realized that I didn't want to base major, life decisions off of a slightly depressed state. That being that, everything I said in my last post is still true, but I realized and discovered many good points of staying and a few negatives to transferring home, one of which would be not graduating as quickly which I really want sooner rather than later.

This last semester was easily the worst I've had in the five I've had. The funk I was in lasted until the beginning of March and let's say that the damage to my grades was not as recoverable as I hoped. I could leave it as is and graduate but, after this fall and a couple of retaken classes everything will be back to it's normal place and I won't have lost time in my overall progression.

I spent the weekend after school got out earlier this month in Salt Lake seeing family and attending my two friends TK and Jillian Sheppard's wedding. It was an absolutely amazing service and I wish them all the best! My time in Salt Lake went way too fast though and I didn't get to see nearly everyone that I would have wanted.

After my 18 hour drive home I spent the first week just de-stressing which involved relaxing and sleeping in, catching up on some reading and also visiting friends here that I didn't get a chance to see over my three days of being home at Christmas. This week I decided to finish getting my self settled in and ready to tackle the summer. I started at the end of last week to do some job hunting. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped at first.

A good friend however might have an amazing opportunity for me with a paid internship at the software company where he works for the summer. It would be a full-time job with good pay. Couple that with a part-time evening job and I should be able to scrape enough money this summer to not have to work this coming semester. *crosses fingers* That's the hope anyway. Nothing is set in stone, there's still a few steps of getting approval from his higher ups but it's looking promising and I'm trying to stay positive about it.

So wednesday and yesterday I spent almost the entire day cleaning, sorting, unpacking and settling into my room. I got rid of a large trashbag of stuff and now my room is clean and settled. It's so nice, especially since I never really got moved in to my room this last year of school and I feel more at home now. Might have something to do with actually being at home...

Yesterday I called Kelly at the Applebee's on College and Metcalf, she was one of my old managers at the Shawnee location. I called to see about getting an evening job there. Let's say that she's awesome and I must have been a decent server because she basically told me over the phone that I was hired. Plus Kevin, the regional manager for all the locations in the KC area was there. I knew him from when he did his own manager training at my first Applebee's, he told Kelly to definitely hire me. It made me feel pretty good. I start Monday for a day of 'training'. Luckily I already know most of the menu as well as the computer system so it'll just be a matter of learning their restaraunt and especially table numbers and whatnot. I'm confident that it'll be just fine. I'm a quick learner and I'm not worried about it. I do need to find a pair of black, non-slip shoes since my dad stole my old ones...

Tonight was really fun, I went with Mike and some of his friends from work, and Megan to the Power and Light District downtown. It's such a fun place! For those of you who've never been, it's an outdoor pavillion area with bars surrounding it and dance areas and all sorts of awesome things like that. So kind of a small, outdoor mall for bars. We spent the night dancing and having crazy fun. As the only non-drinker in the bunch I was uh... designated... to be designated driver. :) The thanks for this was that those I drove paid for parking, my cover charges and food and (soft) drink. I thought it was a great deal.

I'm not sure why I'm still up at 3:21AM writing this, but I got home about 1AM and after browsing facebook and youtube I'm still not overly tired. I think I'll get some light food and watch some Scrubs and see if that winds me down. Anyway, love you all, hope you all have an awesome weekend!

College Decision Woes

So, I thought I would announce it on here first, and make my first real post on my new blog something of actual importance. There is a very high likelihood(dependent on admission) that I will be transferring to KU (Kansas University) for this coming fall semester. This is a decision I've definitely not come to easily, and has caused a lot of stress. However through prayer and a lot of personal reflection I think I've made the right decision. The future is of course always up in the air, so nothing is definite, but the chances are high.

BYU-Idaho is an amazing school, and I've had experiences that I would have never had without coming here, experiences that I wouldn't trade for anything. There are so many friendships I've made here that I will treasure forever. I wish that I could keep all of the benefits of BYU-I with me when I go, but unfortunately it's not going to happen.

However, let me vent about Rexburg for a moment. I hate this city. Having to drive thirty minutes to get to a Best Buy or a Chili's is really annoying. Everything here is overpriced, they gouge us on everything. The 'dollar' menus here are all $1.39 or higher. The best place to buy anything is Wal-mart which depresses me. The roads never actually get cleared. They plow down to where there's about two or three inches on the road still, which then quickly becomes solid ice, and then they spread this weird reddish-pink clay stuff on the roads instead hoping that it'll actually do something. I don't mind cold weather, I'm accustomed to it actually. It gets colder at home, with humidity, which makes it worse. The fact that I can't drive on cleared roads is what bothers me a lot.

This next thing I'm going to say is not meant to offend my fellow mormons. But sometimes I feel like I'm living in an episode of Leave it to Beaver. There are plenty of exceptions, but for the most part being around some people here make me feel like I'm going to get high off of a sugar overdose.

There's of course something to be said about the small town 'charm.' In my opinion, however, small town charm is meant for vacations and short periods of times. I miss living in a place with history, people, culture, nuance, diversity and so on. I miss the busy traffic of the highway, I miss a faster paced life to which college here doesn't really compare. Here I'm busy, yes, but not fast paced busy...more like drudgery slow that makes me want to put a bullet in my head.

Last but not least, the 'honor' code. Apparently having honor means that I can't be treated like an adult. I don't have the freedoms to be home when I want to or the trust that I can behave myself with members of the opposite sex when not in public. Seriously, college is a time meant to prepare you for life. I had more freedom and responsibility in high school. I feel like I've taken entire steps backward in my personal development because of this handicap. I'm a returned missionary, and a twenty-three year old man, I feel like I can live my own life, making my own decisions. Seriously, if I wanted to, I have a car and could go anywhere I wanted to with a girl, -if- I wanted to. What is the 'chastity line' for again? I can stay up until three or four in the morning and get horrible amounts of sleep, what is curfiew for? Don't even try to tell me it's for 'lessons in obedience.' That's what the commandments are for, the scriptures say so.

So now I've covered the positive side of Rexburg(amazing friends and amazing religious opportunities), and the downsides(read above), now I'll cover the positive sides to KU. The negatives are basically the opposites of BYU-Idaho's positives except that there are amazing people back in Kansas too.

KU provides me with an opportunity to stay close to my family, who I would love to spend a lot more time with. It provides me with the chance to live at home if I wanted to and commute, with midwest gas prices being lower is still a plus in terms of cost. Going to a Kansas college will provide me with a better career start with Kansas City internships or even Kansas Certification if I decide to teach still.

I would gain all the benefits that I feel that I'm missing in Rexburg(my rant of Rexburg above). There's also a chance of me procuring an academic scholarship from KU with my current college GPA.

All in all, I don't feel like this has been a bad choice or experience, like I said earlier I wouldn't trade what's happened these past two years for anything, and also, nothing is concrete yet, but I do feel like it's time to move forward in my life, and I feel like this is the best decision to make right now.

Not-so-presidential Inauguration

Hello world. I've decided to also succumb. Heaven knows much of my family and many of my friends have blogs now. I decided to give in. We'll see how it goes. I used to have a blog on xanga, and it fizzled shortly after returning from from my mission. Hopefully this one will stay on a little bit longer. I would always have hoped that facebook would turn into a blog of sorts, but it never really included the part that a blog needs...the part where you blog.

So, anyway, I promise no consistency when writing this and not even always the news of my life, but I will attempt to at least post somewhat regularly to give news, thoughts, reactions, and opinions of events in my life and of the world, going off the age-old internet assumption that anyone actually cares. But hey, you're reading my blog so you get to hear what I think. :)

Anywho, I might get back to this later today and post something of substance...after I finish my homework...yeah...homework...