The Realm of the Pachyderm

Around this time every year, it's kind of nice to take a step back and look at the year that has just passed. 2008 was certainly monumental in the history of our country, but I haven't really taken inventory of what these 365 days have meant to me specifically [ok, technically it hasn't been the entire 365, but I don't care].

For one thing, I finished my first year of college. College was one of those beautifully mysterious future events that I never thought I'd see come into reality [another one of those examples was turning 20, which I'll do in about 3 months], yet 2008 brought the completion of that first year. It's been a pretty tumultuous time since then. In the beginning of '08, I had just changed my emphasis within Theatre Arts Studies to Directing. Now, at the close, I've recently changed my major to English. In between then, I've taken a slew of classes all across the board that have provided me with an eclectic, if not cohesive, education thus far. I've studied everything from Asian humanities to folk dance to adolescent psychology to Spanish conversation, and still I feel this voracious need to continue expanding my horizons. I look very forward to this next semester.

As far as non-school related happenings, I've devoted a large portion of this year to reading, an activity I let fall by the wayside a bit last year. I've made time to read a number of novels and short stories like Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, The Body, The Shawshank Redemption, Tis, My Name is Asher Lev, and so on and so forth. I've found that what my life sometimes lack in adventure and sparkle can be found in the pages of books. It may have been to my benefit at times to lay aside my reading and study a bit more, but I've found that my imagination wouldn't let me focus unless I read one more page, one more chapter.

For the first time, I gained a niece. Melanie, John and Trina's daughter, was born on May 29th. It's been so fun to watch our little family grow baby by baby. I've loved being able to be so close to Bonny and her boys, and now having Melanie as our latest addition has been great. It makes me excited to have kids of my own some day, although I know not the day or the hour [hahaha].

As a whole, I've had a good year. There'll always be time to go back and stew over things I could have done better or not done at all, but I choose in this moment to be grateful for the blessings 2008 has brought to me instead. I hope to always be this grateful to Heavenly Father for blessing me so abundantly, even though I know there'll be moments [try days, weeks, months...] where I grumble and sputter about "how hard I have it". All I can say for right now is that I'm looking forward to 2009 with the greatest expectations and hopes for things to come.