I am happy!

Tengo un trabajo excelente con amigos buenos. Tengo mi vida, mi salud. Tengo una guitarra. Tengo dos semanas más o menos de escuela. Tengo novio que me ama. Tengo mi Dios. Tengo una família fantástica. Tengo las escrituras. Tengo tantas cosas que me da felicidad y tengo que estar más agradecida. Voy a tratar empezando hoy día. Y voy a tener éxito!!! **fist pump**

I love Christ's words.

Today's readings: 3 Nephi 12 and 13.
Today's song: "This is the Christ" sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Youtube is down right now, otherwise I'd post the link. But look it up and listen--so beautiful and powerful.

love,
jean.

hum.

My mom commented that I haven't posted in awhile (which, in reality, means just a week, ha) and I realized nothing is really going on in my life at the moment. But maybe I'll write about mundane things just because.

I'm kind of depressed about this job hunt thing. Yesterday I applied to 11 places and I just finished a couple more applications this morning. It's really just depressing. Getting into the medical field (and almost any job nowadays) all depends on who you know, who can get you in. I had that in, when I interviewed last month. But alas, they were dumb and decided not to hire me even though they just barely hired someone else... when I only have 2 weeks of school left! Gah! I'm calling them today to see if they have any other openings but I know they won't. And I hate it.

What happens if I don't get a job? Honestly, I have no clue. I mean, I won't be able to afford living. What do I do? Move back home? No way. But it seems the only option. Oi vey. I guess I could apply to other non-medical positions just to live until I get a medical job. Sigh. We shall see.

In other news... well, there really is no other news. My apartment is starting to drive me crazy and I think my mental sanity will break soon. I don't know if I'm strong enough to handle it. And I haven't been able to sleep for practically all semester so I'm tired all the time, like today. And yesterday. And the day before and the day before and the day before... I don't get it, I'll be so tired but it still takes me at least an hour to fall asleep. Which means I'm only getting 6 or less hours of sleep every night. I know it's not healthy, I get to bed at a fairly decent hour, but when you can't actually fall asleep, there's a problem. What do I do? I'm almost contemplating taking allergy pills just because they make me so drowsy. Ha!

General Conference this weekend. Hopefully it'll rejuvenate me.

Happy 51st Birthday, 엄마!

Today my mom turns 51. But you look at these pictures and tell me how young she looks. :) She is beautiful.My mom is a happy person. She is a friendly person. She goes out of her way to make people feel welcome, comfortable, at ease, etc. I know you know this if you've ever visited my house. She'll stuff you to the rafters then send you home with more food in your hands. She smiles and laughs a lot and enjoys life. I love laughing with her. She is hilarious. :)My mom is a spiritual person. She has a great relationship with God. She loves the scriptures, she loves prayer, she loves the Gospel. She shows it in how she treats people, where she puts her priorities, and in her faith and optimism for life. She always got us to read scriptures every night when we were growing up, to do family home evening no matter how busy or cranky we all were about it, and to pray before leaving for school even if we were about to miss the bus. She taught us Gospel principles and how to lead good and honest lives. She always works so hard in her callings and in helping others. She is an amazing example of how I want to show God my love for Him and His children.My mom is smart. She speaks two languages, well enough to do translation jobs. She became a real estate agent all on her own. She has street smarts--I watched her barter in Korea once and was amazed at her skills. She raised three kids and sent two on missions. She knows how to cook with the best of them. She loves to read and does so as much as she can. She emphasized the importance of education in our home and I am forever grateful for the discipline she taught me.My mom loves her family. One example I think of is when at church a few weeks ago, the lesson was on Abraham and how he had to sacrifice his son, Isaac. When asked if she could sacrifice my oldest brother, Ted, her eyes immediately filled with tears. That's how powerfully she loves my family. Even talking about a hypothetical situation floods her with emotion. I know she would do anything and everything for us, for me. She wouldn't even hesitate. She is what a mother should be. But she does it in the best way. She doesn't feel the need to brag about us or show off or do things for us so that we don't learn. But we still know how much she loves us and I am so grateful for that. She still takes such good care of her first family too, my grandparents and aunt and uncles. She's always thinking about them and putting them first. She is so selfless--I don't know if I could ever be as good as she is.Happy Birthday, Mom, and thank you for all you've ever done, still do, and will do for me. You are the greatest and such a good example to me. I love you so much. :)

I am feeling accomplished

I have been feeling a little down lately so I am going to write things about myself that I am happy about. Power of positive thinking, right?

**I ran 9 miles on Wednesday.
**I finished my histology paper today which took probably 30 hours to write. It's a week early. I planned ahead so I'd have time to study for my genetics and psychology midterms next week. It feels good to be a good student.
**I started Easter packages for my missionaries and finished a separate one and sent it off for a special someone whose birthday is next week :)
**I've been sticking to my budget and even going a little under it.
**I've got visiting teaching scheduled and it's not last minute.
**I am good at both of my jobs. I am working hard and I enjoy it. I have great jobs.
**I decided to spend time in my scriptures every day for the rest of forever and so far I'm doing it.
**I am feeling like a better cook.

talk about a full day. i should be heading to the library but i wanted to take a minute and just SIT. so that's what i'm doing.

i've been blogging a lot lately. march madness.

today was my first 9 mile run day! and i did it!! and i did it in good time!! i was super happy about that. sure my right foot started hurting about mile 4 and after mile 5 i was bummed i still had 4 more left but i perked up around mile 6ish and then my friend sean honked and yelled at me when i had just a mile left and i was in a tank top and shorts and it felt like summer and i really did feel good. :)

only 4 miles left! heck, only 2 left for training. i'm getting so close!!! i think i like the long runs better than the short runs even. and i feel great after that 10K on saturday. i think it really helped me get my faster muscles going. i'm making way better time now and feel faster which is super great. i love racing!

but then i had to rush to the store to buy food for dinner group tonight (tofu casserole--it was really good! and garlic bread, salad, green beans, limeade, and mint choco chip ice cream. green... for st. patrick's day... hopefully you gathered that). and i was just going to get st. patty's day cookies for the holiday but smith's didn't have anything! so i went to macey's, which had some things but not much so i just got green ice cream. but then i got caught in traffic heading home and by the time i arrived i had less than an hour to cook. i thought i was fine b/c i had glanced at the recipe and the casserole only took 30 min to bake. but i didn't know i had to cook the sauce for 10 and that the prep for the sauce would take way longer than i anticipated. so i texted my dinner group to come 10 min late... but dinner still wasn't ready... i ended up being like 25 min late. but they were all chatting, nobody was in a rush, so i think it was okay.

i'm kinda ticked though. my roommates disappeared to the back and even after getting the text that dinner would be late they didn't come out once to ask if i needed help. but they ask for help all the time! and then my gosh, only when one of them sees me running downstairs to borrow our neighbor's oven holding pans of garlic bread in my hand does she ask "um do you need help?" but i didn't respond and kept running out the door. b/c i was kinda ticked. this was when i was already 10 minutes late, mind you. i don't know, it just seemed super inconsiderate. i didn't really appreciate it. heck, i came back and was still frantically running around the kitchen and none of them asked again. so dumb.

but i'm trying to let my runner's high continue through the night so even though i have a huge paper ahead of me, i'll try to be content with things.

Julie B. Beck

She spoke a fireside I went to last night and I am so glad I went. It was a question and answer session, which I usually am not a fan of, but this time everything was so relevant and so good for me to hear. I loved how she answered every question with a scripture. It's not her thoughts, experiences, or doctrine. It's God's doctrine that she's using to help us. I think that's so important. Here are some things that I learned/would love to share:

--Motherhood is an essential leadership position for women. We are half responsible for the plan of salvation. We all should be mothers and we all should prepare to be mothers even if we are scared that we are inadequate or scared that it won't happen to us. We need to prepare for it no matter what, even if it will hurt if we don't become mothers in this life. She talked about her counselor (I forget her name) who is not a mother but has prepared her whole life to be one and is a spectacular woman because of it. And I'm sure she's mothered just not directly, to so many people.
--Moroni 7:40: Hope. Losing faith and hope affects your decisions and actions in everything, in your relationships with people. So don't lose it! We should be hopeful about marriage and having children. We have every reason to be! And I was thinking, even if we can't get ourselves to have faith and hope in people, because let's be honest, we all let each other down sometimes, we can at the very least have faith in our God. We can know that He will always take care of us, even if a relationship doesn't work out or we lose a loved one or things don't go the way we planned or wanted. In the end, He will still always be there and we can always count on Him. It's so reassuring to me. I always feel so much better after I remember how much I can depend on Him.
--D&C 125: how to treat the men in your life. :) She said that it's tough to be a man in this world! Expectations are convoluted how they think and feel they should act. We need to be there for them as much as they are for us. And this prepares you for marriage. (Yes I realize it sounds like she only talked about marriage and having children which may sound silly or trite but I am realizing more and more how big of deals they both are and how important it is to prepare for them. No it doesn't mean we're all marriage hungry or baby hungry but it means we understand the importance and sacredness of both things and are taking them seriously.)
--Someone asked how she knew she wanted to marry her husband. This was cute. :) She had him stand up next to her and they talked about how oh, it must have been their similar tastes in music that brought them together. He said he liked country. She said she liked classical. Ok, it must've been their taste in movies! He likes thrillers, she likes Pride and Prejudice. How about books? Nope. Other interests? Nope--basketball versus what she likes, which I can't remember. But then they said that while you won't love all the same things and that you'll disagree on some things, you need to agree on the important things and then you'll be okay. She talked about how she knew they were on the same page regarding their testimonies of God and this Gospel. He was a worthy Priesthood holder who fulfilled his callings and loved his family and was trying to do all the right things. And that is what mattered the most. And then they said that now she has been to countless basketball games and he has learned to like classical music. :)
--How do you know when you're doing well? If you're feeling the spirit, doing good, teaching the gospel. It isn't about outward measures or comparisons.
--Missions are working the hardest you've ever worked in your whole life. To the women: go! But if you're going because you can't get a job, you're bored, you don't know what else to do in your life, then stay home. Sister missionaries have a reputation for being either the very best in the field, or the very worst. Don't go unless you are going to be the very best of the best. If you're going to be babysat by your companion and waste everyone else's time, don't go. (I thought this part was awesome :))
--Someone asked how she came to have such a great knowledge of the scriptures. She said that it was very simple. One day she just decided that every day for the rest of her life, she would spend some time in the scriptures. No time constraints or chapter constraints, just some time. And ever since then she has learned from the scriptures. I want to do this as well. And to really study them. I want so badly to have that kind of knowledge as well, to be able to remember immediately where I can read about certain topics. Hopefully this will help!

That was a lot. But it was all so good! Something I gathered from everything too was that whenever I'm being cranky or in a bad mood or depressed or overwhelmed or whatnot, it's because I've lost perspective for the time being of what I'm doing on this earth and what is important. It's when I've gotten so caught up in the trials of my life that I forget what they are ultimately for, what I am ultimately for. When I go to a fireside like this, or hear an inspirational talk, or somehow get a jolt of reality, I realize that I haven't been doing all the right things. I haven't been looking for ways to help others or reading my scriptures faithfully or praying sincerely or thinking about my family and friends and what I can do for them. The part where she talked about how you know you're doing well--it helped so much. I realize I need to do that more, mentally ask myself every day if I'm doing good, teaching the gospel (if only by example), feeling the spirit. If not I'm going to have to figure out how to get it back. That's the only real and true way to happiness.

I mostly wrote this to get my thoughts out, and put them somewhere I could come back and remind myself everything I've felt. But hopefully you've gained something from this as well. :)