you think i'm pretty without any makeup on. you think i'm funny when I say the punch line wrong. i know you get me...

I wish I could say it another, stronger way, but I AM THE LUCKIEST, most blessed girl in the world. I have the best family and friends a girl could ask for. Most importantly, in just 6 & 1/2 weeks I will marry my best friend, the one I love, the one I laugh with, the person who knows what I'm thinking and what I'm going to say before I say it.

It's been a year of growing for me and just enjoying life. It has been so wonderful, and has taught me so much. My time at CSPC was annoying at times, but very valuable in the end. I was confronted with diversity everyday... so much more than JMU. I saw all different types of people walk in and out of there. They were happy, sad, angry, rarely happy. I had to suck up my personal emotions and just purely help them feel like they were in the right place.

I've met so many new people, and they have enhanced my life in so many different ways. Mostly, I've become more open=minded, less conservative, more adventurous, more willing to sneak back into my house at 6am just because I was livingggg my life and enjoying good times with friends. Like, really...who cares if I have to make up the sleep another time? Afterall, Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but rather the moments that take our breath away.

The highlights of my year include the snowpocalypse of 2010, being stuck in 7764 with 5 hilarious guys and learning so much more about how guys think...and also about how they are actually more normal than you think. They wake up and brush their teeth, and drink coffee, and read the paper or turn on the news. I guess I always thought they woke up, maybe took a shower and ran out the front door, without coffee or breakfast. Little did I know! Ofcourse my birthday weekend was so memorable I can hardly explain. I get to spend the rest of forever with the love of my life. I am so blessed to be able to share the rest of my life with such a wonderful man. Then...there was making the decision to go back to school. Not just that...but I have started taking classes and have realized that I was never really dumb or stupid in regards to science...I just never gave it a chance because it took me more than a second to process it and understand. Plus, others telling me I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever being good at it. News flash those of you who didn't believe in me... I believe in myself and guess what? I am loving every minute of going back to school and learning all about the body and chemical reactions, and our biology, etc. I believe in myself...that I can do anything that I want to do if I put in enough effort.

Again, I've truly learned a lot this year. You know... in college I always knew I could do things...but let's be honest, you could slack off and still get by most of the time. But in the real world...the out of college world... you really do truly have to believe in yourself. Not just your ability to achieve good grades. You have to be able to interact with people, not put yourself first all of the time, accept people for who they are, deal with difficult situations, and decide that no matter the circumstance, you deal with it, good or bad, and you don't just sit there asking why you got dealt that hand of cards. You can take most any situation and come away from it having learned something valuable about yourself, or about others.

....ahh, I just got really sleepy..more late

The true test of my character.

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.

The profundity of this year was unremarkable. The twists and turns, the ups and downs. It was truly a roller coaster of life & I'm glad to have finally gotten off of it. I'm back on solid ground and as happy as can be. A year ago I was a person who was practically unable to accept change, but a year later, so much has changed. It started with Argentina. What an incredible trip, and although it sounds cliche, it was the time of my life. To be exploring a new country with friends by my side, and being able to speak spanish everyday was just so valuable that I cannot put it all into words. I learned so much about myself while abroad, and so much about the world around me.

I am glad to be off the twisty-turny roller coaster of life, but the truth is, life is in a lot of senses, quite the roller coaster ride. I like to think that the true test of one's character is the way one acts in the face of adversity.

I for one would not hesitate to measure my own character in that way. As I start to write a new chapter in my life, it is amazing to me to reflect on all that I have come in contact with in the last three years of college. The narcissism amidst the plentiful amount of altruism was shocking. I find it hard to completely understand how people could flip-flop from one to the other so quickly. As Aristotle would say, Virtue is the mean between two extremes...and what is more is that he would say virtue is habituated from a very young age.

more later..