Oh, University, How You Have Taught Me

Yesterday Mama Bird and I met with our wedding planner and worked on more wedding things. We now officially have a cake (yay!) and are busy working out all the details of the flowers (oh my, and there are so many). What progress we have made! Tomorrow marks 6 months until J and I are meeting at the end of the aisle in my parents' front yard. Whoa.

Today is big too. I have my last "academic" college class. (I have one more tomorrow but it's a potluck!) I turn in one of my final projects today... And then have a paper to write tomorrow and Friday. Then I will be a college graduate!

Four years ago I didn't have even the slightest of ideas about what college would hold. Three years and six months later (I am graduating early!) my life is amazing and so far beyond where I ever expected it to be.

Me, just three and a half years ago, with three of my closest friends from the dorm.

My accomplishments for the past four years astound me. I have done so much more than school. 

And have grown exponentially (outside of the academics). 

1. I was brave enough to join a sorority although I was sure that I would never be able to fit in. 

(and I made some of the best friends I have ever had)

2. I made the best friend I've ever had. 

She is amazing... A genius, a comic, a listener, an advice giver, a kitchen lover, my little sis, 

AND my maid of honor!

3. I learned how to be confident in my convictions, even in the face of a multiple Ph.D. professor who wouldn't stop heckling me. 

4. I met the man that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. 

5. I learned to live on my own and make a cozy, one room home for myself. 

6. I've learned to love the kitchen and everything I can make, create, and invent there. 

7. I endured a serious depression, but picked myself up by the bootstraps while learning to find the little light and joys inside of me.

8. I learned (through all the sickness and heart ache) that my Popsicle is the most amazing man to walk this planet... And that my Mama Bird is a rock of a woman that pulls our family together. 

9. I've learned how to gain weight and how to lose it. 

10. I've learned running makes me who I am. I love the rush of finishing a long run and the escape I get in jogging along the streets of any city I visit. 

With all that I've learned here at UCSD, I am now on to a career where I will learn more about myself professionally... And to marriage, a journey that will teach me bunches about J and I!