Hello family and friends.
I am writing because @ben_wagner (as I refer to all of my friends by their Twitter account name these days) is a motivational speaker and suggested that in my fit of anxious, post college graduation life, I should be writing something... anything... to help me get through the next few months of summer in Provo.
It is a shame that I stopped writing in this blog at the end of October. So many wonderful experiences happened in the second half of my study abroad. One experience in particular was Thanksgiving with Ben, Andrew, and Sarah in Edinburgh. We stayed at a hostel, hiked Arthur's Seat, went to the National Gallery, and saw fireworks at the winter festival going on in the town square. I've never felt more thankful on a Thanksgiving in my life.
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| Hiking Arthur's Seat |
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| Clique at the Castle |
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| Thanksgiving dinner at the cafe JK Rowling wrote in |
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| View from Edinburgh Castle (that is Arthur's seat in the distance) | | | | | |
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Some other noteworthy events were the week of finals and my mom visiting. Finals week nobody slept or left the flat. I got sick because I literally got 3 hours of sleep in 3 days. However, it was one of the best weeks of the program. Everyone went a little nuts and we all spent more time together (as if that were even possible).
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| We stole some icecream from the kitchen and took caffeine pills |
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| We were ballin' gangsta style in our Jazz attire that night. |
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| Coke challenge. Best/worst idea ever? |
My mom came for a week and I tried my hardest to get her to all the really great tourist spots as well as the places I loved the most. It was tiring... but so fun. I had no idea how I was going to show her everything I loved and experienced in 3 months in 6 short days. We took a tour to Bath and Stonehenge one day, and the other days we usually went to a cathedral, museum, and a play at night. I can say with overwhelming assurance that my mother is officially in love with London now too. She bought too many books and went crazy over the Royal Wedding.
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| First day we went to Abbey Road |
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| At Windsor Castle |
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| Stonehenge... it was lovely weather this day! |
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| Lots of bridges, I can't remember which one this is. Man, I miss that LA gear coat. haha |
Post London was really rough. It is hard to go back to Provo, work, classes on campus, and not being around all of your friends. The first month was torture and on more than one occasion I cried myself to sleep every night. I felt like I'd gone through a terrible breakup and my heart was broken. I still get a little depressed when I think of how sad I was when I got home. Then school work and graduation plans came up and soon I was really busy. I graduated in April and it was a major accomplishment for me. I'm so grateful for the experiences and fine education that BYU afforded me for the last 5 years. I never realized my school spirit until it was too late. Lucky for me I got to experience Jimmermania in my last semester of college.
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| Commencement with good friends! Ryan, Henna, Dean, Me |
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| St. Tate (one of my professors in London) and me! Nothing beat seeing St. Tate taking pics of me from the podium as I accepted my diploma. |
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| False advertising (there's nothing in that diploma cover) |
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| Me and Mike <3 |
For those of you who don't know, I will be going back to England in August to nanny for the amazing Crockett family and hopefully get some writing done. My dear old roommate Martha called me a couple of months ago and asked if I had any interest in going back. My reply was to not even let her finish her sentence and that I was already emailing her brother. I will be living about an hour out of London in a little village called Odiham (google earth it... it's tiny). I am very excited to spend a year back in the place I love (and I don't even need to create a new blog!). More details about that adventure when it actually comes about. Until then I'm doing my best to not get anxious or sucked into feeling depressed by Provo. Good thing I have good friends, family, fantasybachelorette, and Twitter.
Peace to all of you.
