Reunions

This weekend an old roommate of mine, Jessica Kenney, came up from Provo to visit. So we got together everyone in Rexburg who lived in Carriage House 307 with her and had lunch together today.
We had Tara and I, and we are still living together (which I LOVE), Alison, and Emily, who is married and now has a 3-week-old baby (Hannah), and of course, Jessica. I am always nervous about reunions because I always worry if we'll still have anything to talk about since we're not living together anymore...or that we'll realize that we never liked each other...or something else just as ridiculous. Haha. I don't know why I worry about these things, but I do. But this went well, we caught up, laughed, all those good things.
And last night I ran into a friend who was in my ward my freshman year, and my FHE brother, and he also served the last six weeks of his mission in my ward in Germany, with his wife (sorry for the crappy syntax there). We chatted for about twenty minutes, maybe more, and it was really nice to talk to him and get to know his wife a bit more. Nothing but happy.
But somehow I always end up super pensive after these things happen and all I want to do is lock myself in my room for a few days and read and write afterwards... which is no good today because I have a date in three hours (bringing my college dating tally to the enormous number 8).
I think the reason I become so pensive is because I realize how much I love these people. Even people who are in my life for a matter of weeks, sometimes even days, sometimes even hours...I often take from them new paradigms, lessons, experiences, and on the occasion heartache. But if I've taken anything from any person in my life, chances are I'll remember them permanently (so far as I know...I'm not too old yet...). I just love people. I love what they do for me. Even when it's negative.

On the reverse of that, we went laser-tagging last night, and my ex-fiance is the general manager of the place where we went. I almost threw up from all the awkward tension in the air. So that was not the best reunion ever. Someday I hope he and I can have a pleasant reunion, though.

Pre-Professional Conference and other things

Today I presented my creative nonfiction piece called "How I Became the Most Confident Woman on Earth" at our school's pre-professional conference. We usually get guests, a poet and a novelist to come speak to us, and we have little classes about available careers for English majors...because we need that much help with it. So I talked with representatives from BYU, ISU, and USU about grad school. I haven't thought too much about grad school before this semester...but since I'm graduating in 6 months and have no idea what else to do...I'm thinking about it. I don't want to give the impression that I'm only going to grad school because I have nothing better to do. I just need to be doing something progressive...and this is the only thing I can make happen on my own so I'm going to do it. Probably. So now the question is...BYU or USU? BYU has the program that I want (MFA in Creative Writing) but USU is USU. :)
Today I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns for my literature class. It was intense. It's about two Afghani women who through circumstances beyond their control they are forced to marry the same abusive man, and how they learn to love each other through it all. It's by Khaled Hosseini, who wrote The Kite Runner, so it's contemporary and very graphic. Really made me see war differently, that's for sure. But it's beating around in my brain filling all the empty spaces with characters and heartaches that need to be told. I wish I had the guts to forego my homework and other obligations and just write for a whole day...week...month...life...
GC was pretty much the best, last weekend. I was able to go home and go to the Conference Center for the Sunday Morning session. I'm very blessed that way.
Tomorrow I am going to throw an Oktoberfest party tomorrow. It's kinda stressful but I'm really excited. :) Oktoberfest is AWESOME!! So I'm pretty excited about that.
Of course there has been a lot going on at school...thus why I haven't written for so long, and thus why this is going to be ending pretty quick here. Sometime I will catch up on all of the important stuff. For now, I am going to delve back into reading, which I never really stop doing...
And someone remind me to sometime post my creative nonfiction piece eventually. :)