Les Mis [Christmas] Day

I'm not even going to try and act like I wasn't excited for Les Miserables the movie. I was over the moon. In the last week I may have talked more about that movie and my plans for seeing it than I did Christmas festivities. I made a shirt just for the movie. And a pretty awesome one at that.

Christmas day is always spent with the Hatch family. So I told all of them that I was going to the movie and whoever wanted to join me was more than welcome to. We ended up with a group of about 14 of us who went. We all got our tickets the day before and then went down to the movie about an hour before hand to wait in line. And the following picture was taken right as we told my grandma we would have to wait an hour in line. 

Funny story about my grandma. She has Alzheimer's (not the funny part of the story) and loves going to the movies. Well my grandpa didn't want to go to the movie and she normally doesn't do anything without him (and vice-versa) but like I said, she LOVES the movies. So I said she could come and be my movie buddy. She was so excited all day to get to go to the movies. She kept asking when it would be time to go. When we finally left to go I was freaking out and super excited. On the drive over she kept laughing at me and telling me I was wearing her out! And then we got to the theater and stayed in a line outside. That was when we told her we would be in that line for an hour. She was a little upset at that detail. And thus one of my new favorite pictures was taken.

The movie was AMAZING though. Lived up to all of my expectations. I laughed. I cried. I bawled. It was great. And I came home and bought the soundtrack (in addition to the Broadway soundtrack I already listen to on a near daily basis). After coming home I also told Wyatt (who had had to work) that I would be his date to go see it as soon as he has time. Any time this week works for me!

And I can't forget to include these two. Sometimes they let me be a third wheel with them and it's just great. Hope everyone else had a great Les Miserables Christmas Day too!

Take a Chance

Remember in October how I went up to Utah? Hung out with all my old friends? Caught up with everyone? It's ok if you don't remember.

While I was there, I had a couple of things happen to me that kind of gave me a little push. A much needed push. The first thing was that I went to a lecture with Kenzie. It was during an hour when like everyone was in class or working, so I went to this class with her. The second was a conversation that I had with a friend. We hadn't seen or talked to each other in six months and while catching up he laughs and says, "You're exactly the same...(blah, blah)...you still don't know what you want." A year ago that comment wouldn't have bothered me. Heck, six months ago it wouldn't have bothered me.

But when he said this it kind of stung.
Because it was true.
And that really bothered me.

So I decided I needed to take some steps in deciding what I want in life. I needed to start applying for different things that I had interests in and see what opportunities may come my way. So I have started doing that. And one of those applications led to a final interview with Teach For America. Now I just have to wait until the first week of January to see if that will be an option for me.

Now lets go back to that first thing that happened in Utah. That lecture. It was given by a lady who had her MBA. Now, I have considered getting a masters before, but I just had no clue what to get it in because there is no way I am getting one in Math. I have zero interest in mathematical research (although I will admit some of my professors had really cool projects, such as the double bubble theorem). But listening to the lady speak, an MBA became more and more attractive to me. So I started researching.

Long story short, six weeks later I took the GMAT and kicked its butt. Seriously. I could not have asked for a better score. I don't think there is a person in the world who would have been dissatisfied with the score I got. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration. 1 or 2 people would have been displeased with themselves. And now I am just finishing up my applications to a couple of schools (trying to decide whether or not to apply to a couple more as well) and then it will be a waiting game for that one as well.

So basically, my trip in Utah became a little life changing for me. Especially since these different opportunities have the potential to take me anywhere across the country. Pretty big deal.

Now I just have to see what happens and be open to anything that may change my plans. Because if there is one thing I learned in the last couple years, it is that life changes very fast and while goals are necessary, you need to be flexible too.

Date Night

Don't let that title fool you. My date night lately has been these two kids.

Being the one in my family who doesn't have a boyfriend and who doesn't have a job that typically requires me to work the weekend evenings, I usually end up spending Friday night with my favorite youngest brother and sister. But we usually just stay home, maybe go get some dinner (tacos for me and Noah and Mickey D's dollar menu for Taya), and watch some sort of movie [or two]. Well last night I needed to get out of the house. My stresses of the last several weeks were finally over [more on that later] and I wanted to do something. And so we went to the Temple Lights!

They humored me and went to the musical concert that started at 7. But we only lasted there for two or three songs because a) it was freezing and we weren't really prepared for that, b) we were standing, and c) we wanted to look at the lights while everyone else was watching the show! So we looked at half the lights then went into the visitors center to see all the nativities (we found 4 from Germany, and Noah was shocked that I could read the German Book of Mormon...haha, apparently I have a really good fake accent and he doesn't know that I have the first line of the BofM memorized), and then watched Luke 2, and finished off with the rest of the lights.

These 2 can drive me crazy sometimes [a lot of the time], but when we do things like this they are so sweet. Noah was the one who really pushed us to watch Luke 2 and I am so glad he did. And then driving home we didn't listen to the radio....we sang our own Christmas songs! Apparently we don't know many words to many different Christmas songs. We kept going back to Rudolph! But it was a fun night and I loved seeing the Temple Lights again!

Side Note: An older couple at the Temple asked us where Dillon High School was. Trying to explain that it is a fictional high school in Texas from a TV show helped me realize for the first time how weirdly obsessive my family can be with that show. But we don't care. "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose! Rogers Forever." It's become our family motto! And by the way, I have become a fan of Connie Britton's (Tammy Taylor's) new show, Nashville.