[Outer] Inner Dialogue: Of Finals, Reading, and Friends

I've been doing a lot of reading on other blogs lately (ok, one other blog mainly) and neglecting my own. I apologize to those of you who may happen to think the things I say are interesting. I just realized, while typing this, that I am writing in a way more congruent with the way I have been reading things rather than the way I write. I don't know if that made sense to anyone or not.

Finals are coming up. I took two today. One went really well, and the other...not so much. I really don't mind finals as much as a lot of people do. Particular tests will stress me out, but the experience as a whole I find rather soothing. I'm a pretty good test taker and I love the hustle and bustle of all the studying and the cramming and the late nights. Oh, I'm insane.

I have been dying to read. Almost literally. It has been such a long time (summer) since I've read anything at all that wasn't required or online amusment. I want to pick up a book and read! A really good one. For some reason I'm feeling a desire to read some sort of weighty classic (and that basically never happens). I need intellectual stimulation. Maybe I'll go tomorrow and get a library card at the Provo library.

I try not to make this a blog about my friends. That is more of what I use livejournal for. Being all angsty or adoring or both. I am confused, however, as of late. I have been trying really hard to make friends in my ward. To my delight, it is working! It started with knowing and talking to only a few people, and now they are just piling up. The problem comes when I try to balance my time between the friends I already have (those four girls who I love) and the new people. It seems like I overbalanced to the ward side and now I'm having trouble getting re-involved in the loop of the others. Sometimes, I actually feel quite out of the loop. I do not know what to do about this.

I don't want to end this blog on kind of a sour and whiney note, so I will go on with two happy things.

Marriage prep is over for the semester. I'll be honest, sometimes I thought it was boring and the topics were rather pointless. Now that it's over, though, I realize how much I really have learned and grown. At the beginning of this year, I didn't see marriage in my near future at all. I was planning on going on a mission and that was that. I didn't even have a real desire to get married and frankly, the whole idea scared me. I wanted it to happen someday, but someday could wait. Sometime during the semester, the idea of a mission started to feel uncomfortable and not sit right with me. I'm not saying no one should go. I admire you if you do go, it just started not feeling right for me. Now I've reached a point where the idea of being married is so amazing and wonderful to me. I want it more than I ever have wanted anything in my life. It will all happen in the Lord's time, but I have grown! (Possibly more on this at another time).

My family went to a Christmas parade in downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia (about 10 minutes from home and where my sister is currently living). Because I love my family and think they're beautiful (my family), I decided to share the pictures that my sister Laurel took.