26 Days and Counting

I have been hone for 26 days officially. My semester ended on the 17th of December. I have been enjoying time with my family. It is the weirdest feeling, my coming home until I leave. I have been living my life on a semi-permanent hiatus. I am all prepared to leave on my internship to Saudi Arabia. I have clothes, and my suitcases. I just need the visa and I will be there.  I have had copious amount of time to ruminate on my life plans among other ventures. I went from the "prestigious" title of college student to shopping buddy to my mom. The adjustment has proven difficult. My most recent discovery is that I have the propensity to have a purpose. Some kind of mental exercise to help distract me from the obligatory waiting associated with international visas. I never thought I would miss having class or any of the work that corresponds with being a student. It is kind of shocking to say I miss my 30+ papers and over a thousand pages of reading. I miss teaching English. I decided to have a project for myself so I thought I would get a jump start on learning Arabic. Let me just say this for Arabic: If you want a mental exercise learn this language. There was an article I found that said to be completely fluent in Arabic one must use it for at least three hours every day for seven years that's right I said 7 years. It takes the life time of a second grader to learn this language. During my studies of different languages which include Spanish, German, and French. (I am no where near fluent in any of them) I have mostly learned Indo-Germanic languages. Which since they have similar roots can be easier for someone who speaks one of those languages as their primary language much easier. English has borrowed some words from Arabic. Arabic has a different grammar structure. A different alphabet. A different everything pretty much. My goal is to not completely embarrass myself and to be able to communicate at the very least that I want to understand. I think it is really important that as a visitor in someone of another country I should put forth the effort to communicate in their native language. I know I probably won't be more advanced than the average kindergarten aged child but I can try.  Here is to a new year of trying new things!

On another note: My visa is at the embassy in New York waiting to be approved. All prayers would be appreciated!

Internship Teaches me: Patience is a Virtue

Being patient is so unbelievably difficult! I have been waiting for more than two months for my visa to leave for Saudi Arabia. I haven't heard from my boss in almost two weeks. Needless to say I am kinda freaking out. Patience has never been a strong point but it is obviously something I need to learn. I have learned patience is a necessary part of life.

All good things come in time. I have friends who are currently serving missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and many of them have had to wait a very long time for visa if they are serving internationally. I can now to them in a way that I couldn't understand before. I want to leave and get to work on this internship so badly. I will be working in a school being a co-teacher of a class of children between 3-8 year old.I will also be participating in setting up a special needs education program. There will be the first educational conference in February that I will be able to contribute to. I am really passionate about what I am doing and I can't wait to start. My waiting will make me appreciate my opportunities so much more. I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn and experience. I just wish it would come a little bit faster.

I am very lucky to have a school that wants me so to work for them. They have the United States embassy and the Saudi embassy in New York City involved. They also hired an immigration lawyer. I know that everything that could possibly be done is being done. I am here and now letting the fate of this go to the Universe and God. What happens is meant to. I have done all that I can. :)

Treat Others as You Want to be Treated

I am currently studying sociology. And if I have learned anything of personal value that I plan on applying to myself it is: People matter and how you treat people shows the kind of person you are. Life is crazy and rather short all things considered. Life is run by people. Expectations are set by people. The system is set up by people. People govern other people. If we, mankind, forget the value of people we lose some of our own value. We are fickle, emotional, crazy yet lovable beings. We far too quickly forget that other people feel just as deeply about things as we do. We feel misunderstood because we mope in our own little corn of reality. By researching people I have found that life and it's problems are repeated in every life on this planet. The circumstances might be different but by the end of life we all go through hard things, we all have to make uncomfortable decisions. Everyone gets hurt whether physically, emotionally, or mentally.

Since most people acknowledge this shouldn't we try to work around it? Shouldn't we try our hardest to spare others the pain we have already gone through? Or is mankind really so selfish that we want all people to feel the pain we have and are willing to let others suffer so that we feel justified?

Thoughts like these have been swirling around in my head since mid term. It breaks my heart to see people getting hurt.

I have found that people justify their actions so much that they don't think they are doing anything wrong. They are willing to tear down the character of the person being hurt by their actions. They get defensive when their actions are questions with genuine curiosity.

I have seen this repeatedly through out my entire life. During elementary school all the way to the present. And the problem is only getting worse. People are becoming so individualistic and self focused that they can't see beyond their own reasons.  And I think that is one reason why there is so much conflict and so many communication problems.

Self reflection is healthy. Please consider if your actions have hurt anyone. And then commit to get better. It doesn't need to be a complete  self demolition to rebuild.

I know I am not perfect at this. My blunt, kind of over the top personality offends many and people don't understand what I mean. I now am committing to fix this. There is so much good in the world, that should be the focus. I don't want to be the reason someone is hurting. If I have hurt someone it was not intentional and I hope you can forgive me.

Please, Join me. And look beyond yourself.

Timing

I was having a rough day. I had a fight with someone I care about yesterday. BY the end of the argument I was doubting myself. I felt like I had no value. Fighting and conflict are ugly. And they ruin things. I avoid it at all cost. I am an argumentative person yet I hate conflict. The irony is astounding. I am a walking contradiction. But this video made me smile and realize I was being too hard on myself. That no one person or conflict should make me feel that way about myself. I needed to hear this now. I am guessing anyone who reads my blog does too.video link
People need to remeber their value.
Peace and love,

Sarr

The Cake Analogy

The past few months I have been thinking about a lesson I learned when I was 13. The example went like this. A really nice cake with beautiful piping was presented on the table. It was a few days old and was starting to go stale. It would have still been really good. Our teacher asked us if we wanted some of the cake, we responded positively. And she threw it away. She went into another room and brought back a better, fresher, more elaborate cake. The teacher just continued the lesson talking about how hard work and diligence pay off, and not to settle for something good when you can have something great. This has been the life lesson for the summer. Don't settle for okay grades. Don't accept with mediocre relationships. Put forth the effort to be amazing. When you do all that you can that is when you succeed. Anything worth having is worth working for. I have officially decided to work at school and my relationships. I will have my cake and eat it too.
                               

School and Other Shananigans

Hey World,
 It has been months since I have blogged. Life came up and well blogging was the think that had to go. Over the past 5 months the following has happened:
My friend Annie got hitched.
I worked at Children's Hospital working on Hereditary Cancer Databases and assisting with research.
I took Sociology 111, Child Development online. I almost failed my Child Development class. Long story short I proved my professor wrong muahahaha.
I went to Arizona to visit family on vacation.  I love my family.
I met people who I plan on having in my life for a long time. I had friends who I have grown apart from.


I am now on my Junior year at BYU-Idaho. I am taking Sociology of the Family, Sociology of Religion, Sociological Explorations, Race and Ethnic Relations, And an Ethics class that they call Foundations Capstone. The first four classes are the hardest combination of classes in my major. They are all really demanding classes that involve a lot of reading and essay writing. I am excited for the challenge. I do believe the stress may be the end of me though. I am looking into graduate school currently. I want to go into Child Life. This is the school I really want to attend for my schooling.  http://www.apac.org.uk/  As you can tell from the URL it is a school in the United Kingdom, they have some of the best international training programs. These next few semesters will determine if I can get into their program. Most of the training takes place over weekends so I will be able to work during the week.  Yay monies! I hope it works out. :)

Going to Sleep and Other Adventures

Last night, I was laying on my air mattress bed at my cousins house; I am staying with them until my friend's wedding. I was trying to fall asleep. It just wasn't going to happen. So I just started thinking... and thinking and thinking. I am turning 20 this year. I am going to be two decades old. A lot has changed in 20 years. I am gonna go out on a limb and guess even more will change. Some of it I see being for the better. I realized last night that with almost twenty years under my belt. I don't have a ton of experience but I have enough to get by. I have adventured and traveled more than most people my age, which I am grateful for. I think it has made me into a more understanding person. I have been able to meet people and to learn from what they have told me. The national average age of deal for women is 78.2, that means I am 25.5754% through my life. If I happen to live an average life span I get 58 years left on this Earth. I am so excited to be able to learn and see where I end up. It is just crazy to me to think that I only get almost 60 years.  I know people who are 60 years old. And to think I have that much time left just kind of blew my mind. I strongly think that life is short. We have so much to learn. We never know when our time will be over. Today, when I found out about the bombing at the Boston Marathon, I was shocked. I was sad someone thought that it was a good group of people to go after. I think no one has the right to end another person's life; even if I think they really do deserve it. I hope Boston becomes safe again. I am really glad so few people died. Everyone needs to be careful, we have gotten a little to complacent.
Stay Safe!

Sara