Graduation

The time has finally arrived. I am officially a graduate of Brigham Young University. The journey that started Fall 2004 has reached its climax and come to a wonderful end. I began the endeavor planning to finish with a degree in chemical engineering. However, a strange series of events brought me to the history major, where I have learned to write, analyze, evaluate, and inform. The process was accompanied by a lot of dancing and a little bit of singing to get me through the rough parts. All in all, I feel like it was a major success. All the good days, the bad days, the unbelievable semesters of work and study are gone. Something that seemed so surreal and available to so many people, but not to me is now mine. Mission impossible=Accomplished.
Now, on to graduate school. Salzburg, here I come!

Senior Citizens and Social Skills

So, an update on the 101 year old woman who needs a friend... She's fantastic. Her name is Alice and I adore her. I've gone to visit her twice now, and both times I have left feeling uplifted and empowered. Andrea(a good friend) and I were talking about some of the things Alice has lived through, and we made the following list:
World War I
World War II
Vietnam
Korea
Feminist Movement
Great Depression
Blacks receiving the priesthood
JFK assassination
Landing on the moon
invention of the television
development of the automobile
It only took us a few minutes to make the list, and there are a lot of things missing (obviously there are more than 11 world events that happen over the course of a century). In any case, when I went to visit Alice last night, we talked and enjoyed each others' company for a short hour and didn't even talk about one of those events. In that time, Alice brought up the growth of the LDS Church in Southern California, the 'invention' of Disneyland, and a few other things that I had just accepted as existing somehow forever. Alice helped me understand that there are so many questions to ask and so many answers to seek. I learned from her the art of social skills and how to enjoy the simplicity of a conversation without outside distractions. Her age may or may not be a contributing factor to her wisdom and patience, but I am appreciative of that wisdom and patience nonetheless.