New Year, New Post

So here's one New Year's Resolution I should probably make: update my blog every once in a while! Yup, this is my first post in... well, too long. Lots has happened since then!

I won't fill you in; I'm starting fresh with 2011.

But first, a few pics from Christmas Break! (These are the later ones that didn't make it onto Facebook. I have dozens more if you're interested!)

Hanging out in the New House (SOOO many movies- what else can you do when it's cold & dark starting at 5:00 pm?)





Hiking/Scrambling Ice Box Canyon with Chris & Joseph. River Road to the Slickrock Bike Trail in just over an hour of near-vertical ascent. At points, we had to use ropes, NRS strap-belt harnesses, or climb on railroad spikes someone pounded into the rock. Awesome!




Christmas Eve Nazarene Feast ("hippie food" courtesy of yours truly ;)






Slush & Shanghai: a Hazlett Holiday Tradition








A fun visit by the 5 crazy Coleman cousins :)







Snow on the red rock (view from the Sand Hill where we went sledding & even got the Andrews' van stuck!)





Two cutest baby sisters. Check out Holly's dance moves! ;)







New Year's Eve party w/the Singles' Branch








I have rather goofy (but attractive!) best friends ;)









And a very cute baby sister who loves to play outside in the snow with me!

So basically, LIFE IS GOOD! And I love being home.

BYU Winter semester classes started today, but I am kind of not missing it at all. I needed a break from school and the Provo bubble, to be honest. Now I am excited to spend time with my family & friends at home for a few weeks before heading out into the wilderness to explore a potential career option and get some real-world experience.

Besides, see what I would have had to leave behind?

Divided

I am divided at the moment. I am loving school right now, the awesome "study abroad" program I am participating in called "Integrated Natural History- Utah." We are camping, writing, studying, and exploring all over Utah, learning about the history, the people, the science of the state. I am enjoying spending time with my new friends and getting to know the state in which I grew up.

However, half of me longs to be home when I hear about how riverguide training is going. More than half of me, actually. I see pictures, hear stories, and think about my long-time friends establishing new friendships and inside jokes and experiencing the river together, and I have to admit that I feel a little left out.

Although I have grown up rafting, I have never really felt that I "belonged" to a group of riverguides. I've always felt too young, or I missed out on training, where everyone begins at the same level and grows together. Jumping into the middle of things, I always feel a bit like a well-kown stranger. It's an odd feeling. And this year, once again, I am missing out on the crucial beginning point. Still, I know most of the guides from last summer or beyond, and I cannot wait to go home on June 11th! I feel at home with a paddle in my hands, with stars above my head. I even miss the cocky boy scouts and hot, dusty lunches. Most of all, I miss my close friends who are finally guiding this year, and I want to be there with them.

But then again, I am having a great time with Laura, Annie, Erin, Greg, and all my other INHUT friends. I have climbed mountains, eaten ants, canoed in the hail, listened to a coyote, dug for trilobites, talked with Shoshone natives, eaten too many tortillas, gone to church with ranchers, and stayed up way too long talking about life. We will only be together for another few short weeks, and then INHUT will just be a memory. I only have so long to enjoy it.
This is where I am divided: to live in the moment, or to long for another?
My mom gave me some words of wisdom when I talked to her on the phone last night: "There is fun happening everywhere, but we can only be in one place at a time."

This place, this time, are mine. I don't want to rob this moment of its fulness by putting myself partly in another. I can fully immerse myself in river guide culture when I finally pull through that red-rock pass and see the glinting lights of Moab beneath the purple glow of the LaSals, but until then, I am a member of this group, of this moment. Fully.

Well, almost. Home is where the heart is, and my heart roams the red rock canyons. :)

Shoulds

I've been wondering a lot lately about the shoulds of life. As a college student, there are so many decisions to make, so many directions my life could take- and so many voices telling me what I should do.

According to my major, I should zero in on all the classes that will make me qualified and help me graduate in 3.2 years in order to become a productive contributing member of society. According to my minor, I should somehow squeeze 18 credits worth of classes into an already full schedule. According to typical BYU stereotypes, I should meet a nice RM this semester and we should get married by this time next semester. According to leading doctors, I should drink 8 oz of water, sleep at least 8 hours, exercise 1/2 hour daily and eat a balanced diet. I should also keep the apartment spotless, spend time serving others, cook all my own food, buy organically, keep a year's supply of food handy, read scriptures daily, stay current on my first aid certification, schedule 3 hours/credit hour/week for each class, recycle, do every assignment and everything else anyone asks me to do, keep the commandments, keep in touch with my family, take time to do the things I love, and somehow find out who I am in the midst of all this. (actually, it's not "finding out" so much as "creating"- not a single moment of discovery, but an ongoing process. Nice tangent. Now, back to wondering about shoulds)

The thing is that I've done the calculations; I've tried to do it all- and there just isn't enough time in a day. I have to pick and choose to do some things, and leave the others for now. That's why I haven't done laundry or cleaned off my desk in ages (although I should soon because I'm just about out of clean socks). Of course, there are some basic shoulds in my life that keep me safe, happy, and on the right track- keeping the commandments, keeping in touch with my family, taking care of myself, preparing for the future, and taking time to do the things I love- but beyond those, how do I decide what I should do?

When I have to choose between two good things, how do I know which to pick? It gets a little blurry because most of my shoulds are good choices; the decision just depends on what's important to me and from whose perspective they are coming from. For example, my Life Sciences Academic Advisor will freak out when I tell her I dropped Chem 107 to take a guitar class, but my employers will be happy because guitar is a marketable and fulfilling skill when it comes to Cisco entertainment. Sleep is important as a general rule, but staying up an extra 15 minutes or so to relax and read the scriptures is definitely worth it.

What it comes down to is this: I don't always have to always do what I "should"(I couldn't even if I wanted to!). I just need to figure out what is important to me, what shoulds will help me grow and be happy and achieve my goals in the long run, and then just do it.

Life is not "one-size-fits-all." It's custom-designed by each and every one of us. And in the long run, it's just good to know that as long as I choose from "good should"s, everything else will work out because God is ultimately the tailor of this custom-fit life of mine. :D