Soph Slums

Here I am on my 3rd hour of 5 on my Wednesday night class-span. Yeah, so can I say worst idea ever for me, a girl with the attention span of a goldfish, to sign up for 5 hrs straight of just 2 separate classes. Bad call, but I've learned my lesson, so I'll scrape by and not do it again! While I've been sitting here half listening to my professor talking about his buffet he went to this afternoon that isn't settling, I've pondered the conversation Syd and I had the other day on the way to campus. We often talk about life goals and what we want to do with our post-Provo days. I came to the realization that I want to be a conversationalist for a living. The only problem with that is it cannot support me in the U.S. and strangely, there is no conversationalist major at BYU. How come the world doesn't have monetary value for things like that? How come I can't survive off being a good listener? My entire life I have enjoyed listening to people's stories and life experiences. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it. That's a talent, right? Some other people have talents like...brains. Yeah, I don't have that one. I realized in middle school that my elementary years of scholarly excellence had passed. As my peers began to exponentially pass me, I realized I needed to find my nitch in life. I am currently enrolled at BYU and can now recognize my place on the brains totem pole. At BYU I lay in the bottom left corner of the density curve. I recognize that it takes a few "me's" to make the people in the tiny right corner actually be in the right corner. I am okay with that! I'm glad I can help! It is just a bummer that things like being a really happy person, or extremely HILARIOUS, a good listener or intuitioin don't get recognized enough for financial support. In order to go work in health care or even just to care for people, I have to have extreme brains to get extreme grades (at BYU) to do what I want with my life. Most people are invigorated through getting good grades, doing well on a test. Well folks, this is coming from a student who has not exited the BYU testing center with a single A (regardless of the endless hours of studying and homework to prepare), not everyone thrives off of good grades. Granted, I'm sure that if i could get them, I too, would thrive off of grades. I just do not have the extreme scholarly potential that the majority of BYU students do. I have accepted that. I find joy in working, responsibilities, fun little service projects and giving hugs. I enjoy giving and receiving hugs from anyone and everyone! I'm a very huggy girl. I like things like that. It was always so funny to me, more towards the end of high school (when my perspective had pretty much doubled from that which it had ever been), when I would hear people only talking about school or crying about B score they recieved on a test (sawweeeey syd :D). I just wanted to shake their shoulders and say, "Come on now, that is no rason to cry, there are other good things in life aside from good grades!" I know that advice like that isn't readily accepted though. I value things of less 'prestige' than most. In life I have always had the internal battle of feeling 'mundane' or 'boring'. I struggled to find my self-confidence, because i had what appeared to be nothing cool about me. I understand now, and still sometimes I struggle with, the fact that I do have cool things about me, they are just not external. My talents can't be seen. Yet, I love them just the same and develop them. Thank goodness I was blessed with some bit of persistance. It's getting me through college. :)

It's what has kept my nose above the water at BYU. Welp, just some food for thought. Sidenote: Despite what I've written in this post. I am very appreciative for my opportunity to be at BYU and I have loved it so far! I am appreciative that my parents are able and do pay my tuiton each semester. I know I was accepted to BYU for a reason (not being grades haha). I know this is where I am supposed to be. I have learned a lot of life lessons in and out of class and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now. (I do have a problem with religion classes...they're really hard...I hope they're not grading spirituality, because if my religion classes reflected my spirituality I'd be a son of perdition! hah) xoxo