New Years Resolutions

Usually I'm not one to participate in New Years Resolutions, as they are usually goals that people set with the intention of good, but fall off it after two weeks, and I hate doing things halfway. If I'm going to make a goal, I'm going to see it through, which is why this year, I've thought hard about what I want my goal to be for next year, and I've decided on what may seem like an impossibly hard task. Here it is. I am going to train for and finish a marathon.

Even when I look at what I just typed I laugh, because I never could see myself having enough strength, endurance and mental ability to run 26 miles at one time. But I've made it my goal to train at least four days a week until I can complete 26 miles, and when that happens, I'm going to run in a marathon and hopefully finish it within 5-6 hours.

I've already started training, and let me tell you, it's already hard. I've managed to go from my two miles without stopping to four miles, so I've made some progress, but this is all about pushing yourself, even if it makes you feel like you're dying. For me, a marathon is mostly mental ability with some leg strength.

The hardest part is getting up and doing it. The rest will fall into place once you're moving.

I feel like if I have control of one aspect of my life, and control of my body, everything else will be less significant and hopefully I'll get some more control of who I am and who I want to be.

When did Christmas change?

When did Christmas become so commercial? Even as a little kid, I can remember acting out the nativity scene every Christmas Eve with our family friends and taking baked goods to the widowed in our church. When did that sort of thing become less common? I think one of the reasons I can't be as excited for Christmas is because I know that it's turned into a big commercial holiday, instead of celebrating the birth of Christ and the meaning of family and being grateful.

I'm making it my own personal goal to remember why we celebrate Christmas this year and hope that it will make me feel like I'm back in my childhood. I'm going to enjoy my limited time with all of my family and remember to be grateful for everything.

Winter Break

I've tried blogging before, but as I'm more dedicated to writing here more often, I'm hoping that I will be able to keep up with this.

My first fall semester at BYU-I is finished, and I'm off for two weeks for Christmas and New Years. This past semester was a mix of good and bad emotions. I met so many people that I am really quite attached to and who will be close friends forever, and I also met many people that I didn't get along with. It took a while to get it, but that's just part of life. There's always going to be people that don't like me, and people that I don't like. The hardest part of college was realizing who were my true friends and who weren't. And a close second behind that, having to say good bye to the true friends.

Sometimes you can't know for sure who would really do anything for you, or as I like to put it, jump off a bridge with you. This semester was an eye opener. I learned a lot about some of my friends that proved to me that they weren't who I thought they were. I never realized how lucky I was to have such a close group of friends in highschool. I never had to worry about catty comments from the girls or gossip or even backstabbing. Once well into the semester, I realized how much it can actually hurt to have someone talk about you, and how much it completely changes your perspective on someone once you know what they've been saying about you. It's hard to look at them the same. I wish I hadn't known, in a way. It would've made things much simpler. But then, would I have looked naive?

I'm hoping that I'll be able to continue to grow as a person and find myself as I go through this next semester. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it - I think it'll be one of the best experiences yet.