I'm a big kid now....wow.

When I was sixteen I was going to go to college, go on a mission, and then attend law school. By the end of that I figured I'd be 28ish and have a family. I'm one for four right now. I have no more desire to practice law, the mission never felt right and I haven't met the lucky man yet. But there's a plan right? For the last 23 years of my life I've always believed He had a plan for me. Yet here I sit at one o'clock in the morning, on the roof of my apartment in my SUU sweats I bought as a freshman with no life plan. None of the jobs I've applied for were even interested in interviewing me, the only home I have to move back to is in a city with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, I still haven't passed that stupid math class, and I feel like all of my friends I graduated with already had their life plans or are having jobs fall into their laps. There is a plan for me right? Right? Bueller?

Commencement

I have attended and worked at commencement for the last three years. I always thought it was a nice thing but not that big of a deal. The fact that you were done was the big deal. The only desire I had to walk and partake in the commencement exercises was so that my family could see. I want to set the example for Michael and my mom loves that kind of stuff. Then due to circumstances beyond their control the family couldn't make it and I lost all desire to walk. I knew my friends wouldn't let me skip out so I put on a pretty dress and some heals and went. It actually shocked me how much I loved it. I never really understood ceremonies for ceremonial sake but being at commencement, having that huge celebration (and I know what goes into from the event standpoint) just made all of my trials and accomplishments during my time here at SUU so real. One more class this summer and I will be a college grad. So weird.

A Weekend to Remember

This weekend was Crazy!!

Friday was the day we've been counting down to for 4 months...Brian Regan. He came, he sold 3000 tickets and we ate about $20,000 totall which I'm quite happy about. I see it as subsidizing the student discount and creating a definite wow factor on campus.

This is me in front of 3000 people thanking everyone for coming...


It was terrifying. But he was great! The crowd loved him and his touring manager gave us rave reviews for our production. Here's a picture of him at our show taken by one the University Journal photographers:


Then Saturday night was the 61st Annual Tbird Awards, which we were also in charge of. Run throughs in the Randall Jones theater all day, and then Lo did my hair. Came out mighty fly if I do say so myself.




Then we held a reception for the finalists and their guests at the Alumni House, this is me with the girls from StAB:


After the reception we got the awards show underway. The activities VP and StAB are ineligible from winning, since we put it on it would look sketchy if we won. Well, in the middle of the show Cody gets up to podium and asks me to come on stage. He presents me with these beautiful flowers and talks about how much I've done this past year. I wasn't going to cry, until he did. Jerk.



At the end of Tbird Awards we gave it one last go as an EC to get a normal picture of all four of us. In failing, I realized that this is a normal picture for us. Love them.



Just two short activities from being done....

Michael Spencer

Two blog posts in one day....I know, epic for me. But nothing motivates me more than my little brother, meet Michael Spencer Burt:


I was the youngest until he came along, we were instantly besties. I realize this is an awkward photo but what kind of 11 year old boy is photogenic?

Today I found out some boys in his class were writing really mean things about him on facebook. Come on people! We're talking about 6th graders, why do they have facebook in the first place?! It breaks my heart, I've been emotional all day about it because he is truly amazing. I get that he doesn't get along with his peers, but you have to understand the options are few. In El Centro you're either very well off or very poor, and when you're the child of two school teachers and you don't speak spanish, you don't have many kids who want to be your friends in the first place. I get that, I grew up with it, but I didn't have to in the digital age. He has no self esteem and I pray every night that he sees himself as his Father in Heaven does. I wish he knew how awesome he was. So if you're reading this, do something to cheer up that awkward kid that just needs a little self esteem boost, I'm sure their older sister would be eternally grateful.

Feet

I have a lot history with my feet. The go everywhere with me. When I was little they braved that hott El Centro asphalt on my way to Allyson's house because I was too stuborn to put on shoes. They've been all over California, Arizona and Utah. They've been to Boston, Manhattan, St Louis, Chicago, Dallas, Albuquerque, and Ensenada. They've been in the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. They even still treat me right after I rocked to hard to Hannah Montana and broke one, or after I decided to go ghost riding and one got ran over. I love my feet, I'm ocd about my toe nail polish being chipped, they have to look like rockstars. So when I had the chance to go barefoot for a day as part of the Toms Shoes "A Day Without Shoes" campaign I couldn't wait. So today is the day my feet to explore campus barefoot. I think they're pretty happy about it.

Transition

I've always thought that the sole purpose of transition training was for the incoming not the outgoing; that was until today. Today we met as the outgoing Executive Council and the incoming Executive Council. All week I've been thinking about what I wanted to say to the newbies, and it made me emotional, ALL week long! The new EC was up in the offices asking questions here and there, and that definitely didn't help my emotional state. Then this morning we got up to the cabin and really started delving into things. We talked about the basics of the job but also what we wish we would have known going in and what we haven't quite finished. It's hard to explain why it was so amazing but I feel like it just washed all my crazy emotions away. I saw the eagerness in their eyes and fatigue in ours. For the first time since the thought of leaving and graduation crept up on me, it finally felt right.

Getting to reminisce about everything we've accomplished this year made it feel like all the stress, all the missed classes, all the sleepless nights, were worth it. We left SUUSA better than we found it, and we gave it all we could. As Cody said on the ride home "At the end of the day we can hang our hats knowing we did a good job."

What will I miss most you might ask? I love the look on the student's faces when they're truly enjoying themselves. I love creeping random people's pictures on the StAB facebook page and finding pictures of people at one of my activities in a album call "College Memories." I love the look on my event directors' faces when they realize the difference their work is making. I love the late nights in the offices, the pirate dice, and the gator adventures. But what I will miss the most can be summed up in one picture:

I'm not ready!!!

I was driving in the California desert on Saturday between Blythe and Vidal Junction (for those of you who know the drive, you know how bleak this is) when I had a really intense moment. I had gotten a really witty text from Michael Conrad Hunter. I was just laughing to myself and thinking about how downright excited I was to be back in Cedar after a week in El Centro. I was thinking about the AMAZING people that would be there waiting for me, and then I had the thought: "It's all gone in six weeks." I graduate six week from last Saturday and I will never live with all these people again. I've said goodbye to a lot of people as they graduated, transferred, and left on missions; but I was always still here and there were always people to keep me going. I was always a student, and I knew what was coming next. It was at this point I started hysterically crying in the car by myself. I have no plans, and as much as I would love to move to some random city in this great country and have a new adventure, I've had it so great here that I don't know if I have the courage to do that. I'm not ready!!!