July 29, 2010

Thursday

I’ve been a BYU graduate now for over 3 months, but I still don’t have a very good idea what I want to do with my life. There are so many questions unanswered in my mind. It’s kind of funny that I have less of an idea of what I want to accomplish now than I did when I graduate from high school. This entire past year has been a struggle to feel some direction, any direction. I pray, day after day, formally and in my heart to feel Heavenly Father’s influence and plan for me. And quite honestly, the fact that I haven’t felt like I’ve received an answer is discouraging. Is it just that God doesn’t have a specific plan for me? Does He not care what I do? Am I just not looking or listening properly for answers?

I had so many plans great plans before I started dating Daniel: a mission, dental school, perhaps living abroad. But then, of course, I fell in love with Daniel and he ruined all of my plans! J I think he was worth it! But, that being said (or written, as the case may be), I have no plans leftover! My dream of going to dental school still exists and stirs occasionally; but the dream is often silenced with thoughts of duty to family. I am now a wife and I imagine sometime in the relatively near future, we’ll start having kids. And, obviously, I’ve always wanted to have kids and be a mommy. But I am afraid that won’t be enough for me to feel fulfilled and accomplished. I’m afraid that I’ll hit a rut, that I won’t spend my days in worthwhile ways. I think it would be wise of me to figure out some sort of occupation for myself, even when we have kids, that I could do to get me up and going, to help me feel like I’m contributing to the world in good ways. Something I could do at home … or not …. Either way is fine with me. Plus, I’ve always wanted to feel fully prepared to earn a living, just in case I need to.

I feel like I have a lot of options before me, mostly for going back to school. And, of course, I’m thinking of taking fitness as a career. But nothing really feels right. I can’t decide what I would enjoy most, what wwould be the best fit, what I would feel most fulfilled with, and what would work best for me and my family.

It seems slightly ridiculous, but this has been troubling me for a while. I guess I’ve just never been one of those people who feels so passionately about one thing, even to the point of making their career out of it. I used to love playing the piano; but, of course, I didn’t study that because it’s not practical. And now I don’t play that much anymore. I like to work out and take care of my body; but somehow doing fitness doesn’t feel like what I’m supposed to end up doing either. Plus, I think I’d have to be more highly motivated to do fitness: finding and keeping clients, maintaining business, etc.; and I’m not sure my personality coincides well with that business. I’ve always thought of going into the dental field; it provides flexibility of schedule and a busyness that I could work well with. Plus, I wouldn’t be tempted to be lazy about it like I would being a personal trainer. Recently I’ve also been considering nursing … but I don’t know about that. The problem with these last 2 is the amount of school I’d have to do … and then what happens to having kids?

I think about just filling my time with volunteer projects or other projects of my own and developing new talents and learning lots of new things. And I love all those things; but that doesn’t seem like it would be completely satisfying either.

I don’t want to spend every day all day watching movies or reading or scrapbooking, as much as I love doing those things. It doesn’t seem like it would be a very satisfying life, even though I would be doing things I like doing. 

 July 12, 2010

Monday

So, life has been busy. Dan and I have both been working and going to see exciting things here in DC. We went on a tour of the monuments the week before Independence Day, we watched fireworks on 4^th of July from Iwo Jima Memorial (which was cool, because the fireworks were shot over the monuments), we went Kayaking on the Potomac. Of course, I feel like I don’t have to write much about these things because, first of all, I’ve already put them on the blog, and secondly, I know that I’ll probably be scrapbooking these adventures this coming school year in my spare time.

I do feel badly that I don’t write much in my journal anymore, though. And everytime I sit down to write, I feel a renewed desire to write everyday and be good about it. But that never happens. I don’t know how to get back into the habit. It used to be so easy for me to sit down and write. Don’t know what happened.

Plus, I don’t feel like I have all that much to write. The internship is going well. It’s slow a lot of the time because they don’t give me much to do, but they do have me teaching classes now. I taught my first class a few weeks ago, Core +1, which is a class dedicated to strengthening the core muscles with the addition of either the top half or the bottom half. I also team taught a spinning class with Adrian, which was definitely an adventure, because I didn’t (still don’t) feel very comfortbable with taking spin class, let alone teaching one.

Also, I started the internship not being paid, and now they pay me to fill in for people when they are taking work off. That is exciting for me, I didn’t have to look for another job. Although I’m not getting as many hours as I would like, but I guess I can’t do it all. I’ve started looking for a job for this coming year when we return to Provo, but it’s hard, because I don’t exactly know what I want to do. Should I continue pursuing fitness and look for a job in that field? Or should I take a more safe approach and look for a job as a lab tech? it’s just all so confusing.

Daniel is enjoying his work too. Except for that they don’t have him do a whole lot either. So we are both spending a lot of time doing random other things than work when we are at our respective internships. After this summer we are both going to have to make some big decisions about our futures. If Daniel accepts a job with Ernst and Young Transaction Services, we are coming back here after he graduates. And that’s not preferable for either of us.

We’ve been having a great time here. Martina is such a nice lady! We’ve invited her for dinner and family home evenings, and she has invited us for dinners and desserts. She lets us use her things a lot, and she’s just so nice. We really love her! We feel very fortunate about how everything fell into place for us to come here … so I’m convinced that God wants us here for some reason. We are learning a whole lot.

I really love this ward, too. It’s such a contrast to last summer’s ward. I feel so much more welcome here. Every Sunday, someone else comes up and introduces themselves, and it’s just a great ward. I think Daniel and I are also making an extra effort to get to know people and to be involved, more than we did last summer. But still…

The only bummer is that our apartment is definitely not the best. We are excited already about going back to our Provo apartment! Isn’t that awful?

Anyway, I think I’m going to go do something else now. I’ve been getting lots done today, almost everything on my list (clean the bathroom, tidy the house, do the dishes, pay Julie for Mary Kay, look for a job, work on the budget, write in my journal J, call Nauvoo Visitor’s Center …). I need still to call Grandpa and write out a menu for this week, and make dinner. Plus, I really would LOVE to get some scrapbooking in. I’ve been doing a lot of that, and I’m finally done with my Family Road Trip to Nauvoo, and FINALLY working on my Spain trip … about half way done!