I am SO SORRY!

WOW! I haven't blogged in a long time! It wasn't until my roommate asked me if I had a blog that I decided I needed to blog again. So let's see what's been going on...

For starters, I've decided I want to get my Masters in Social Work and work for LDS Family Services or some type of agency that deals with mental/emotional illnesses and substance abuse problems. The more that I've gotten involved in my course work the more that I've realized I really love helping people in a one-on-one situation. Of course I would still like to be a teacher, the best way to help people from having to go to these social service agencies is to help them during their adolescence. I love working with youth and interacting with their personalities, but I yearn for the opportunity to be able to sit down with each one of them and have them discuss their concerns with me. I'm not sure that is what a teacher is primarily there to do. The more I think about it the more I want to get into counseling. So I think that's the route I'm going for right now.

I am almost done with this semester, which means that I have about a month left until Finals start. blah. It's gone by so fast. It's been a great winter though. Not a lot of snow, I haven't fallen, well I think I almost slipped once, but I caught myself. The weather has been really warm the past few days and during the last month. My roommates are great and we get along really well. I mean come on, we introduced ourselves to the ward by dressing up as huge stuffed fruits. Pretty crazy right!? It was a lot of fun though and definitely broke the ice for the semester.

I bought four little Glofish for the apartment. Gus Gus, Char, Starla, and JeWesGi... Gus Gus is actually a girl and is pregnant... but yeah I don't know if she will ever have babies. We'll see. They are cute little things.

I'm planning on staying here in Provo during Spring/Summer and working full-time. Hopefully I'll get to go home after the Stadium of Fire in July. I need to go see my fam and be in the heat before it ends! Hopefully I'll be able to catch some tornadoes when I go home.

I went to an Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting for my class a month ago and it was one of the best experiences of my life! Seriously, so good. I had so much faith and hope in the individuals who were there to get help. You can see that they really want to change how they are living their lives. Their families have been torn apart and they have lost everything because of their addictions but they get together every week and talk about how they can rely on their Higher Power and how they can help each other overcome their problems. I have complete faith that if they continue in the path that they are on they will be successful.

I also got to volunteer with RAH which is where we go to interact with adults that have disabilities. That was such a good experience too! I've always had the mindset that it's bad to stare at people with disabilities, or it's mean. In all actuality, they don't even realize what I'm doing! Of course, some of them know when you stare at them, but they are just people! As soon as I walked in there was a woman who said, I love BYU! I went and asked her if she was a BYU fan and she said yes, that she was. There was another woman who was sitting beside me answering questions about Presidents Day and she said that the current President was Thomas S. Monson, I had to laugh, but it was so cute. It is amazing that all of these adults with disabilities were once children and now here they are grown up still with the same disabilities. The only thing that has changed about them is their physical appearance and age, on the inside, they a re still the same. I loved interacting with them. It made me less afraid to be around them now and helped me to realize I need to treat them just like everyone else I meet. They need to be loved too and they have hearts to give love too.

I think that is about all of the exciting things I've done so far... I'm sure there will be other things. I'll just have to remember to blog.

Jessica