I JUST FINISHED MY LAST FINAL EVER

And I also paid my last cent to SUU for my cap & gown. Apparently you have to die or be about to give birth any second to get out of walking here at SUU. I guess I spent the last cent here for myself anyway, I may end up donating a lot more money to the SUU fund to get Kelly through if we end up staying in Cedar.

I am done. I was going to say officially done, but I suppose that comes with commencement and the diploma. But I have done all I can do. Woohoo! College-graduate Dani!!! I should throw a party.

My College Career is Coming to its Close.

That's right, I am one in-class essay away from my bachelor's degree. I think it's funny I paid so much for something known as my "B.S. Degree."

But really, college has NOT been B.S.--except for maybe Sight Singing. I know this is an important class, but I was already very good at rhythm, so I didn't learn that in that class. I did learn to identify the intervals and chords played on a piano, but when it comes down to the singing part, I am an utter failure. I was told, "Sing a Perfect Fifth." So in my mind I hear a perfect P5 and then told my voice to do it and out came--ugh, something between a Major Third and a Perfect Fourth. I really cannot sing. I think the instructor finally figured out that it wasn't that I didn't know it, but that I really am just incapable of singing. He B.S.ed my grade accordingly. My first B, soon to be followed by three more semesters of Bs in Sight Singing. And I was grateful for them all. Seriously, to me that class was "Hey, what do you weigh? ...Oh, 100 pounds? Ok, in three weeks you must bench 700 pounds or you fail. Excellent! See you in a few weeks!" A good friend from high school used to say "If you can talk, you can sing." That may be the case, but it doesn't mean you can sing well.

Fortunately for you, surviving Sight Singing I-IV isn't what I'm here to write about today. I'm here to write about my overall college experience. I've taken some really crappy classes, like History 2700 and Arts Retrospective, and I've taken some really amazing classes like Hitler and Nazi Germany, World Military History, Ancient Greece--(okay, everything taught by Dr. Ping), Music Theory, Ballroom Dance, and Band, but sometimes even better than the classes I knew were going to be amazing were the classes I took that I thought would fit into the "just okay" category and ended up being incredible: Nutrition, Dance 1010, Popular Music in America, and Honors 4010.

I have been pushed and stretched in ways I couldn't have imagined back in high school. I have done things that scared me to death, and I have even done them well. I played Mozart's Concerto for Clarinet. I wrote and did a presentation on Synesthesia to a class of the smartest people on campus, and was brave enough to do it on camera, too. I worked a very nice camera that I never thought I would dare touch and edited a video of a classmate's presentation. I wrote my massive senior thesis on the brave individuals in Germany who risked their careers, educations, reputations, families, and lives to commit treason to stand against Hitler. And now it's being published. I have witnessed nearly every friend meet someone, start dating, become engaged, get married, and many of them have babies in a shorter amount of time that I have been dating Kelly. I have lived with impossible roommates and resisted every temptation to wail on them with a bar-of-soap-in-a-sock, tear the labels off their canned food, throw away the dishes I always washed for them, say those horrible biting remarks that so often pop into my head, or color on their faces with a Sharpee while they were sleeping on the couch with various frat boys. I witnessed my best friend give up everything he owned, every plan he made, even the love and respect of his family because he believed a few words I said about Jesus. I have postponed my wedding to send him 6,000 miles away to help others experience the change in their lives that he was able to experience only a year before. I have turned down numerous marriage proposals. I learned I have Synesthesia (that's right, normal people don't think words have colors). I learned the merits of indexes, prayers, and the occasional break with a bowl of Cap'n Crunch and an episode of "The Office," and the worthlessness of excuses, always following the crowd, and complaining. I discovered I am a better writer than I thought. I learned the value of other's thoughts. I have made friends, dealt with loss, and learned the insignificance of myself. I have become more confident. I have grown.

I have become somebody.

Scary Stuff in Cedar City

On Friday night, Janalee, Emily, and I all watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Afterward, Emily fell asleep and then stumbled into her room and went to bed, and Janalee and I kept talking. Around 1:30 AM, Janalee and I heard something by the door and then the doorknob rattled. At first we thought it was our other roommate, Shannel, coming home. (She's not around much, ever since we caught her stealing our stuff. I wish she'd come back, though, because I think she has one of my skirts, my 4 GB flash drive, and a bunch of my makeup--but that's another story.) Then whoever was moving the doorknob stopped, and Shannel never called us or rang the doorbell or anything like she normally would. So Janalee and I got a little scared. Who could be trying to get in our front door? I thought it sounded like something one or more of our friends might try just to scare us (*cough* DerekBryanKateBeckyRandyMikeJonEtc. *cough*) But still, who knows? Then we unfortunately remembered Shannel's window was unlocked and also situated right next to the front door, so we grabbed a phone and a frying pan (just in case! Better safe than sorry! I would personally have preferred a baseball bat, but we don't have one, and a frying pan worked fine in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc.) We managed to lock the window and tried to see the front step, but the angle was wrong. We were just a little too creeped out to go to bed at this point, so we talked longer and then Janalee dragged her mattress into my room and slept on the floor. The next morning we ate breakfast and wondered who could have been on our porch last night, so since it was hours later and daylight, we opened the door and GUESS WHAT!

There was a baby on our porch.



Just kidding. What really happened was a paper fell to the ground. And on that paper was a reminder that our ward was going to the temple and meeting at 3:15 at the church. Yeah. The Relief Society president and a guy from the Elder's Quorum were out on their razor scooters late last night delivering flyers and when they stuffed it between the door and the frame, they must have grabbed the doorknob and jiggled it. Yep. Pretty much Janalee and I fell over each other in laughter at this point. Then we got dressed and went to the temple.

NINJA!!!!

NINJA!!! In honor of today: The Day of the Ninja






P.S. This is awesome



P.P.S. Paul Simon used to look like what my dad used to look like:


Paul Simon



My Dad, Kevin, and Me-the-baby.