10 remotely interesting things that happened to me last semester

Okay.. there are more than ten. It's fine.

1. This cutie came home from his mission

2. He visited me

3. BFF Thanksgiving

4. I got hit by a car

5. I visited him

6. I visited him again/ Real Thanksgiving with his wonderful family (I didn't get any pics with the fam cuz... I'm the worst. Hopefully you are satisfied with pics of our super romantic sunrise watching hot chocolate date)

7. I got the best grades I've gotten since Freshman year of college
8. Roommate Christmas Party

9. I went to Colorado to see my people! (But I lost all my pictures because Tyler's brother, Kyle, tried to jailbreak my phone and something went wrong, and it lost all the new stuff)
10. And get my hair done (Also no pictures because I just don't take selfies like I used to)
11. I visited him again to celebrate New Years/our 3 month anniversary


His family was having family photos taken since it would be one of their last chances before Kyle left for two years on his mission. I tagged along, and his sweet mom had Tyler and me get a couple shots taken. That's great, cause now we don't have to pay for engagements! Ha, I'm kidding.

12. We drove back to Provo together with Kyle in tow to be there for...
13. Merrilyn's homecoming!

Last semester was filled with a lot of school work and group projects, frustrations at teachers and a long distance relationship, and I rarely found myself with enough motivation to work out, but it had its moments. And lots of life lessons along the way. As always, I feel compelled to share one with you.

Recently I feel like I've witnessed and been involved in a lot of arguments and been surrounded by more contention than I would like. I hate fighting and I hate having bad feelings toward people and I hate feeling like someone has bad feelings toward me. I usually do my best to avoid and/or resolve anything of that variety that comes my way. Sometimes they are avoidable; sometimes they're not. And although unpleasant, I have definitely learned a very important lesson in the last couple weeks.

The lesson I learned is this:
Not everyone is the same as me.

You would think I would have figured that out by, like, middle school, but apparently it is a concept I have yet to fully grasp.

Not everyone has the same value system as I do. Not everyone cares about the same things, and not everyone treats the things they care about the way I would treat things I care about. Because of that, I can't hold anyone else to the same standard that I hold myself.

I am learning some hard lessons in making judgments about people, and how that affects the way I treat them. I am learning just what a narrow perspective I truly have of the world and of people. I can only know what I can see, but there is so much more information influencing the decisions other people make than I am capable of understanding or even knowing.

It is a lesson I seem to have to relearn over and over again, not to make judgments about the decisions of others. It is not my job, or my place. My job is to treat people with kindness unconditionally regardless of how I perceive their physical appearance, social standing, their financial situation, their IQ, or their actions, EVEN if those actions have hurt me in some way. It's hard not to think of the world and those around you only in terms of what you can see and what you know, and I'm tying to break that habit.

Aside from that, life is good, and I promise to update more soon.