For Hire

On April 21st and 22nd, I became an official college grad.

(mature, college graduate and lovely, mature parents)

okay, for realsies

On the morning of the 21st, I woke up to a new voicemail message. My adorable nephews, Cougar and Beckett, were serenading me with the most beautiful "Happy Graduation" song (kinda like the happy birthday song, but way better). When I called my sister Brielle back (who was their fantastic voice coach, by the way), she sneakily told me to go outside. Half expecting to either get showered with water balloons or see some chick pop out of a cake, I hesitantly opened the door and peeked outside. There was nothing there. So I walked out, closed the door behind me, and took a look around. Still nothing. It wasn't until I went to head back inside that I saw this baby, starin' me in the face:

My super thoughtful sister made me a sign for my front door!!

This is where the "unrealness" started. I knew I was graduating, but it still didn't really feel like it. And even after two months, I still don’t think it’s quite hit me yet that I’m done with school. It just feels like summer at the moment.

Back to the exciting graduation ceremonies. Truth be told, the ceremonies themselves were extremely boring and fairly uneventful—oh! Other than me walking across the stage, turning around when I heard a professor call my name, getting my ginormous sleeve caught on the railing (during the process of the aforementioned turning around), subsequently attempting to walk down the ramp, and almost biffing it in front of thousands of people because my sleeve was still securely caught on the railing. No biggie. Though I must say that my near stumble had nothing to do with my three-inch heels. I rocked those things!

The whole atmosphere of graduation was actually really fun. Before commencement on Thursday we all lined up (in the freezing cold outside) and filed into the Marriott Center (through the sweet depths of the building, mind you) in a sea of blue caps and gowns. We were all chatty and undoubtedly obnoxious in the eyes of the "organizers" who tried to keep us in single file lines--to no avail. Maybe that was us sticking it to the man! YEAH! And yet, it's pathetic if that's the best we could do. Oh well. We were BYU graduates, for crying out loud. What do you expect?

It was funny to see how many gowns still had serious wrinkles in them (naturally I spent over an hour ironing mine, like any reasonable person would), how many girls wore crazy heels in crazy colors (this was the night I wore flats, so HA! Though they were bright yellow so . . . I'm only a half hypocrite), and how many caps had really tacky things written on the top of them (like "I love BILLY," for example--precious).

We were lucky to have a general authority, Elder Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, speak to us at commencement.

He is a wonderful, wonderful man, but the tone of his voice is just so smooth and melodic that there was no escaping that exhausted feeling before I nodded off to sleep a few times. I looked like a total tard, I'm sure, with my head bobbing down and whipping back up when I realized I'd fallen asleep. I was hoping that no one would notice, but then the girl next to me, Kaley, leaned over and whispered in my ear. "Did you just fall asleep?" she asked. I nodded, yes, feeling guilty until she said, "That is awesome." Excuse me, what?

Once I had my little cat nap during the first 20 minutes that he spoke, he said some great things that were worth documenting. So of course I did just that. On my phone. So it probably looked like I was texting. Awesome.

He gave us a list of things to do after graduating from college--keys to success, if you will. Here they are:
1. Establish a set of principles to guide your life
2. Don't make exceptions to your standards
3. Be loyal--to campus, parents, loved ones, and Jesus Christ
4. Live so that the Lord can guide you to where He wants you to serve--live His commandments and be obedient to his teachings
5. Serve others
6. SMILE. Enjoy life. You will soon learn that everyone has problems and nobody cares about yours. So keep them inside and smile. Remember a good sense of humor.
7 Don't complain. Life isn't always fair, but there are marvelous opportunities if you know how to find them.
8. Always have a church assignment.
9. Go to the temple. Keep a current temple recommend.
10. Use the Savior, Jesus Christ, as your example for life. Never make exceptions to that.

And here are the rest of my notes and thoughts I jotted down about what he said:
There are many who will look to your righteous example, so remember righteousness and conviction. Do not let anticipated negative consequences deter you from doing what's right. You will never go wrong if you trust the Lord and his promises, no matter how difficult the challenge. As you worthily seek His help, He will guide you in your life. Do what is right, let the consequence follow. Be an influence for good. The end.

All good things, right? Right!

After commencement ended, my parents, my gramma, and I went to Magleby’s for dinner (after dodging--literally--some serious traffic due to a handful of street lamps falling into the road after a microburst). Can I just say that Magleby's has some of the best rolls. I can't even explain them. And my turkey and avocado club was great, though it was a little light on the avocado, which I thought was weird, since it was one of the few ingredients in the actual name of the sandwich. Meh, whatever. The fries were pretty wonderful too, but those rolls. Dang. Really tasty. (Sorry. I have no pictures of any of this and I'm not really sure why.)

After dinner we all met up with my sister Brielle to go to the Carl Bloch exhibit (no photos of this either, dash it all!). I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about Carl Bloch or recognize the name, but he did a lot of paintings that the Church uses in chapels and on teaching manuals and such. It was a great exhibit and they had these iPad tours to go with it for a little extra dinero—amazing. There was so much great information on that thing that we ended up being there for over two hours to get through it all. It was great. I’m pretty sure I just went home and went to bed after that, but I may have done something else that was equally exciting.

The next day was convocation (the smaller ceremony that each college has—my major is in the college of humanities). I got a massage that morning (which felt a little like I imagine rolling over a pile of large rocks would feel, but it hurt so good), watched an angry-girl gymnastics movie (Stick It rocks!) to get me all pumped up, then got ready for the day and donned my cap and gown.

Actually, I take it back. I didn’t don the cap because it was in my best interest to put it off as long as possible. That cap was my worst enemy. Who designed those things anyway? They look awful on everyone, for one, and on top of that I had some serious battles with it because my ears were having some major sticking out issues. And I don’t even have big ears! Not cute.

But, much to my surprise (because I guess I wasn't that cooperative of a subject), Gwen (Bree’s mom) got some great shots of me! Some of them are amazing—don’t take that the wrong way, friends. They're not amazing because my face is in them. I just really like the look of them.

funny, funny

Brielle and Bri-dawg, being all supportive
my pretty gramma

my cute parentals

After the ceremony, my parents, my gramma, Haley, and I went to Iceberg for a milkshake (chocolate peanut butter. Yes, please!) and fries (with fry sauce, of course). And that was followed by a gathering up the canyon with some extended family. Good day, good day.

daddy with his ginormous ice cream cone

On Saturday, my family threw me a BBQ. A couple days after when I told my mom that I was writing a few letters to missionaries she asked if I’d mentioned my lame BBQ, haha. I think she thinks it was lame because it was basically a family gathering that didn’t have much to do with me at all. Oh well! There was amazing food and amazing company. Loved it. Overall, it was just a happy weekend full of close-to-home adventures. It's too bad we don't have any pictures, huh family? That's usually my job or Kiera's job, but she wasn't here (dang it!) and it was my party, so I was busy . . . *cough* . . . family . . .

Here's a special shout out to my favorite middle sister Kiera. I REALLY wish you could've made it. And if you were there, we definitely would've had more pictures. Just sayin'.

Thank you to all of you who came to my graduation (and endured the boredom), called to wish me a happy graduation (I loved your voicemails!), sent me a thoughtful card (I set them all up on my dresser), or gave me a gift. I really do love and appreciate all of you.

(P.S. Sorry the fonts are SO messed up. I cannot fix them and it's getting really, really frustrating, so I'm giving up. Maybe I'll fix it later . . . but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.)