Finish Line

*NOTE: I can't get blogger to upload my photos, so I'll try again later.

Well, I guess it's official. Last week, I received my final grades at BYU and I passed all of my classes. In fact, out of all my classes, my lowest grade was one 'C'. The rest were A's and B's. Definitely not bad (especially for me!). Now I know that I'm done.

During and after graduation, I was actually pretty anxious about my grades. I kept worrying about my finals and all the "what ifs" that went through my head. What if I don't pass a class? What if I somehow missed a GE credit? What if.... I've even been having dreams the last few nights about suddenly remembering a final I hadn't taken yet that was due by 5pm. Haha. I just couldn't believe it was real, that I was actually graduating.

Family
I think the best part about graduation weekend was having my family all stay at our apartment. My brother, Jared, Lanita, his girlfriend, my sister, Kim, and my mom all fit in our little living room (slash dining room slash kitchen) for one night. It was so fun! Plus, Shauna's dad got to come from California and he and her grandparents and brother all came to the commencement and then joined us and my family after for Hawaiian haystacks at our place! We had a great time with all the stories and the laughs, we played some games... It was just great. It didn't even matter to me that I was graduating, I just loved having all of the family here with us.

Commencement
The commencement was just surreal. I got dropped off at the ASB and quickly disappeared into the sea of blue caps and gowns in the parking lot. As I got to my line, I noticed Stephen and Alicia were there! That was a great surprise! So I got to chill with them. Soon after I got there, the color guard marched by with the dignitaries closely behind, and the processional started. As we were walking, I kept struggling with my white stole because of the wind. Just as we got to the top of the pedestrian walkway, I glanced up to see the BYU TV video camera coming right at me and right at that moment, a gust of wind blew my stole off, and as I was messing with that my cap blew off just as the camera crew was walking right by me! Haha. I really hope that I was on live TV at that moment. I should've been recording it at home...

I loved the talks at commencement. Pres. Uchtdorf's especially made an impact on me with his three things to do after graduating: Use your time wisely, continue to learn, and always seek the Spirit of the Lord.

Convocation and Reflection
Friday, April 24, was the day of my college's convocation. I would say that during this time, getting to see some familiar faces and listening to the speakers addressing their talks directly to us, the engineers--that is when it all became real to me. I knew I was graduating, I knew it wasn't fake. I knew as I looked on the stand and saw some of my professors that I would probably never see them again, I knew that soon I would be walking away from BYU. And I was sad! Somehow, inspite of the testing center, the homework and exams, the frivalous GE's, and the long walks up hundreds of stairs every day, somehow I was sad. I am going to miss it. I'll miss the opportunity to begin secular classes about science and engineering with a prayer. I'll miss the clean (more or less) atmosphere. I'll miss the enlightening classes about my religion, about the Bible and about the Book of Mormon and the book of Doctrine and Covenants, etc. In short, I'll miss BYU. How could four years go by so fast!

That's enough for now.