Time to catch up on my semester...there are no pictures

Hmm… so it looks like I have not blogged for a while.  I will try to improve this.   I have had a busy semester but unfortunately it has not included my camera.  I have done so many things this semester when I thought oh I should take a picture of this, but then alas I realize my camera is sitting in my closet at home.  So then I try to take a picture with my camera phone, but since I don’t have an iphone (see Ghana)  the picture quality is not that great.  And without awesome pictures to share, I have little motivation to blog.  So I have not blogged this semester but I figure it is time to catch up.

August started off with Leli and I going to Washington D.C. it was tons of fun, I am glad Leli came out and played with me. (I do have pictures of this)  Leli and I received Jr. Ranger badges at all of the national monuments and parks we went to…when the ranger was willing we recorded the swearing in process.

After Leli flew back home, I went and cleaned out my house since my renter broke their lease and left….I don’t enjoy being a landlord.  Then I flew out to Utah just three days behind Leli.   Kelley picked me up at the airport in my car (which I missed terribly) Kelley had been living in my apartment for the summer while she attended summer term at BYU.  We then drove up to Ann’s house and went camping the next day up in the Uinta’s it was beautiful and so much fun.  I might have a picture of that too.

Then I drove down to Provo, and started running again, because it was time for the Grand Teton Relay.  This was my first relay and I loved it.   It was so much fun.  I didn’t sleep a lot, but my teammates made the experience one of the highlights of my summer.

After the awesome race I went back down to Provo to help with the MPA student orientation.  The final part of the orientation included a white water rafting trip on the Snake River, so for the second weekend in a row I drove up to Wyoming and slept under the stars.

It was finally time for school to start and I had signed up for 18 credits, plus I was going to work 20 hours.   I quickly started to miss the slow simple pace of my summer.  I really enjoyed having a summer off and having time to think.  It was painful to see my life get busy again.  So after following the counsel from some wise friends I started to simplify my life. 

September was a month of cutting back.   By the end of September I was taking just 9 credits, and I was much happier with my life (I had to keep my jobs since I still had not managed to rent my house yet, so I had a mortgage to pay!)   Luckily because I took such a heavy course load last semester, and took a spring term, having a lighter semester did not have any influence on graduating in April.  So everything worked out.

This semester I have thought a lot about time and how we choose to spend it.  Yesterday I had a good conversation with my mom about how it is often difficult for women especially to figure out how to best use their time.  Because there are so many opportunities available and so many ways to do good, it is often hard to decide what to do.  I think this is a problem men face too, but I don’t think they are as susceptible to over-committing themselves as women, (I am reading some books on the male and female brain that explains why this is the case, but that is for another blog post J )  The point is women often have a hard time choosing the best things, from all of the good things we have to do. 

I know I run into this problem, and it is honestly because I like helping people.  I help someone with something and then suddenly find myself in the thick of things running the project!  And I am often surprised that I am even in situation.   So I have been working really hard to choose the best things in my life and focus on those things, and letting everything else go.  It has been a painful semester as I have let some things go that I was really interested in, but it has also been an awesome semester because I have found myself doing things that I really enjoy, and have not had time for before because my life was so busy.

 I am looking forward to my final semester because I have made a promise to myself to not take on any new projects, and to just finish the ones that I am currently committed to, and I get to give up one of my jobs! (Which is fine, because I finally got a renter in my house too!!!)  I am looking forward to getting comfortable to this slower pace, and really focusing on the best things for me!

Oh What Do You Do in the Summer Time.....( this is a meditative post with no pictures, so you don't really have to read it :))

This summer has not been all about my social venture.  But before I tell you what I am doing, I will give a little history of my work life and summer.

Summer of 6th grade I got a full time babysitting job, all summer long.  It was pretty cool, I just had to watch one kid, and it was good pay.  I liked the idea of working all summer

Summers of 7th and 8th grade: didn't work... other than random babysitting jobs.

Summer of 9th grade: decided I liked the idea of having money so applied for my workers permit and got a real job that summer.  Plus I had to pay for my contacts, and EFY, so I needed real money...Got a job as a sales girl at a beach shop on the boardwalk.   I was so excited!  But I quickly learned I hated retail work, I hated watching people spend large amounts of money on unnecessary stuff.  I hated rearranging the displays.   I hated everything about the job.  But I stuck it out, earned the money I needed, and happily heralded in Labor day and the end of the beach season.   

Summer of 10th grade: we moved that summer, so I could not get a job.

Summer of 11th grade:  I was determined to find an interesting job, and to not subject myself to the awfulness of retail ever again.  My mom suggested I become a camp counselor at our local nature park (San-Lee Park).  Sure I figured, hanging out with kids in the woods sounds like more fun that retail.  So I applied.   Unfortunately they typically did not hire high school students for this job.  But in the interview I put forth a convincing argument on why I should be hired, plus my brother, Mckay, was applying for the job as well, and I think they wanted him, so I slid in on his coat tales.   I LOVED working at a summer camp.  It is the best summer job in the world.  You basically play all day and get paid for it.

For the next three years San-Lee Park was my summer job.  Loved it so much I decided to major in outdoor recreation in college.  Loved my major, but did not realize I was now sentencing myself to no more summer vacation ever again, ever.   Because you see if you are a recreation major, summer is your busy season.  I would take my vacations in the Fall, or the Spring, but from June - August, I have always been working 40+ hrs a week.

Flash forward to now: 


With the decision to intern for myself this summer, it quickly dawned on me that I was going to have my first summer "off" in over 14 years!  As I thought about this during the crazy month of April, as I raced through my over scheduled semester, the thought of a summer off seemed like pure bliss.  But at the end of May as the reality of what I had signed up for this summer hit me, the thought of 12 empty weeks seemed terrifying to me. How would I fill this time?  How would I be productive?  What on earth was I thinking when I didn't get an internship!?!!

While I spoke some in my last post about how I was filling some of my time,  my "internship" is not taking all of my hours of my summer.   This summer I have decided how to learn to not be busy.  I like  being busy, this is why I sign up for 21 credit hours :)   But I decided this summer will be a practice in slowing down.

I wrote down some goals that I would like to accomplish during this slow summer.  These goals were mostly centered on things that I felt I was missing in my life.

1. Go to Girls Camp!  This is probably the greatest irony in my life, I chose my bachelors degree, and first career because of the awesome 7 years I spent at Young Women's girls camp.  But because of that career choice it then meant I could never go to girls camp, because I was always working.  With this summer off, I could go to girls camp, so my mom and I were level leaders for the 1st year campers.  It was fun, great weather and great girls.  We were infested with cockroaches, but after experiencing the huge African cockroaches, I could handle the puny American variety.  I also got to use my canoe skilz and rescued two swamped canoes from the lake. (see my college education was not a waste.)  Camp was fun, and a great opportunity to serve.

2. Running-  I started running when I came home from my mission, and actually I kept with it pretty well, until I went to graduate school for the first time.  That was such a traumatic experience, that running fell by the wayside, and while I would "go for a run" every now and then, I never got back on a set running schedule.  I wanted to run again.  I like it, and it helps me think, so this summer I was going to run.

3. Studying the scriptures-  When I was on my mission, I had two dedicated hours of scripture study every day (1 hour personal study and 1 hour companionship study.) I loved that, other than serving and teaching the wonderful people of Taiwan my scripture study experiences were some of my most precious experiences from my mission.  I have never been able to have that level of scripture study again, because life just got busy and I didn't have two hours.  But with this summer off I could immerse myself in the scriptures again, for long periods of time, so I decided to try to get back to my mission level of study.

4. Weekly temple attendance- When I lived in Washington D.C.  I had a funny work schedule where I would have a five hour block off in the middle of the day, (I worked from 6:30 am-9:30am  and then from 2-7pm.) The schedule was kind of annoying, but I started to go to the temple once a week in the middle of the day.  I really benefited from going to the temple once a week, and was a little sad when my life got too busy to make that a reasonable goal in my life.   But again with this summer off I could go back to my weekly temple attendance.

So now that I am at the half-way point of my summer off, I have to say I have really enjoyed living slowly and working on my goals.  I am figuring a lot of things out about myself, who I want to be, and who the Lord wants me to become. And I can run 5k with out stopping! (I am working on 8k now.)  I really am grateful that I have been given this gift of time, and even if I don't end up creating an amazing social venture, (although that might still happen) I will always cherish this summer I had off, because I probably will not get another one for a long while :)

My Summer Job....

So folks have been asking me what am I doing now that I am home from my world travels.   Well I came back to Sanford, NC to start my summer internship.                                  

This is for Kelley,  This is our favorite restaurant in Sanford

This job is not your typical summer internship.


 So a major part of my grad program is the summer internship.  I spent all Fall semester trying to figure out what type of internship I wanted, I even applied for some, but I just was not super excited about doing an internship.  Over Christmas I thought about why I didn't want to do an internship, and I realized I didn't want to have "more work experience"  I had that, I wanted to have a really meaningful experience this summer.    So I thought about that some more.

By the end of January I had determined what I wanted to do this summer was to try to start my own business, I have always thought it would be a fun thing to do, but am a bit too risk adverse to really take the plunge.  But the summer between my two years at grad school seemed like the perfect time to try.  I mean if it failed I had the safety net of another year at grad school to regroup and figure things out.

So in February I flew home and pitched the idea to my parents.  Would they let me hang out at their house over the summer, while I tried to start a business.  They agreed, and I jokingly told everyone my internship was Development Director for the Barrow Foundation.

So in June I started my "internship"  (The last two weeks of May were filled with family events, before we all scattered again.)

So what is my business?  I am trying to start a social venture that will help minorities in China have an opportunity to get equal access to employment.

What is a social venture? It is basically a for profit business whose mission is to solve a social problem.
Here is a video that explains the concept:

I have loved learning about social entrepreneurship while in school this past year.  It really feels like a good fit for me.

This summer has been a learning experience so far.  I am teaching myself the ins and outs of Chinese law, and learning about shipping, and factory relations.   I don't know if I have made amazing progress this past month, but it has been an interesting experience.    I have learned other things this summer, that I will blog about later.  But so far my summer job is going well.

I went to Great Britain Too!!!

So after Ghana some friends and I arranged to have a seven day layover in London on our way home from Ghana.  It was so much fun.  Why? you ask well because first of all it is England!!! and I kept having these little literary moments when I thought oh my goodness this place I read about in books my whole life really does exist.  And it happened all the time, from the moment we got off the plane, took the Heathrow express and where did we end up?  Paddington Station!, and guess who was there?

Paddington Bear of course, I did not have any marmalade for him :(

 Then on our way to Scotland, our train left from Kings Cross Station.  You all know what that means, We took a little detour on the Hogwarts Express!

I always knew I was magical.

 When we were wandering the streets of London we came across Drury Lane, unfortunately we could not find a muffin man, I had ice cream from a French pastry shop instead.

But my favorite moment was in the British Museum.

This is Oliver in front of the British Museum 

 I walked into one room and it was set up like library from the 1700's and I felt like I was inside a Jane Austin book.  I couldn't help but smile.

 I liked going to England and Scotland, it felt like coming home, not just because of all of the familiar literary references, but I just felt like these are my people.  I also liked it because it was cool, I could wear my jeans again, and even needed a jacket.  How refreshing after Ghana.   But the reason I loved England and Scotland was because I went there with the two best travel companions I could possibly think of.  Oliver and Matthias.

Everyone should take a trip with Matthias and Oliver.   Here are the top ten reason why.

10.    They are guys so they always insist on caring your luggage for you.  It was very nice.

9.     Oliver arranged for us to stay with his mission companion who lives outside of London.  It was         awesome having a home base for our week of wandering.  (Unfortunately I did not take a single picture of them, but they were an awesome family, one of my favorite parts of the trip actually.)

8.     Matthias is super organized, and helped us keep track of all of our papers, tickets ect.  

7.     They are willing to work with Ghanaian airport employees at 1:30 in the morning who won't let you get on the plane because they cannot read your electronic ticket.  Oliver manged to get us onto the plane.  But there was a brief moment when I thought.  I am going to be stuck in Ghana for ever!!!!

6.     They will protect you from all of the dangers you find in Scotland and England

5.   They are excellent tour guides every morning they had an agenda laid out with places to see and the most efficient way to see them.  It was great.

4.    Oliver has mad map reading skills, and can get us about most anywhere.  There were moments when I thought we are completely lost, then we would turn the corner and be right where we were suppose to be.

3.     They go see Les Mis with you, and even seem kind of excited about it.

2.   They make you soup when you are sick in bed.  ( I came down with a cold my last day in Ghana, I felt awful on the plane on the way to London (there was one moment when I thought I might have malaria, but it wasn't it was just a cold, and no sleep), anyway by the time we were in Scotland it became bronchitis and it hurt so much to breath that I spent a day in bed, while they went to Stirling. They took very good care of me.)

1.    They make you hike up Arthur's seat even though you spent the whole day in bed, it hurt to breath, and you were going up the ancient volcano at a snails pace.  It was totally worth it when I made it to the top, and it was something I really wanted to do.  I am glad they came and got me out of bed and made me do it.

The sun setting from Arthur's Seat.

Thanks for the great trip guys!

So....For those who didn't know... I went to Africa!!! (Ghana)

So in 10th grade I had a French teacher, Mrs. Wilson, who had been an exchange teacher in Senegal.  She taught us all about West Africa.   I fell in love with Africa, and I wanted to go.  So I kept learning French, I hated French.    I went to college and kept learning French, hated it the entire time, but I knew you needed French if you wanted to be useful in Africa.  My final year of college, I went down to BYU, my major had an African study abroad in Zimbabwe.  I wanted to go really bad, but the $3000 to go seemed to high of a price to pay especially since I planed on going on a mission that summer.    I wasn't too worried, the chances of getting called to Africa on a mission were pretty good, I mean I had a minor in French!   Those of you who know the rest of my story can all laugh mercilessly at me right now. Those of you who don't know my story...I did not go to Africa, I went somewhere that absolutely was not Africa or French speaking.   So I figured my chance to go to Africa was gone.   Fast forward ten years.  I am in grad school and they have an Africa study abroad program, and I went.  

Six of us rushed through our final exams,  and went to Ghana a little early to go live on an African Island.

 This is my island Pediatokope.  

 I lived with a family,

 slept in a hut

 and carried water for my shower on my head! (I don't have a picture of that but here I am with palm nuts)

 I was adopted by my family I have the family bracelet, and my name is Ohwee.(I don't know if that is spelled right)  It means first born daughter, because I am their first white daughter.

This island did not have running water or electricity, and there were deadly malaria mosquitoes, cobras, black mambas, and crocodiles on the island.   So here is my bed that protected me at night.   And my water and flashlight.

The water was really important, because it was very very hot on the Island, but I loved it.  Here I am singing an African song with my family at night.

We were sitting under a solar powered light that is the only light in the village once the sun goes down at 6pm every night.

It was an awesome experience, but I was excited to go back to Accra and stay in hotels with running water, and air conditioning for the rest of my stay in Ghana.

Our first day in Accra with the entire study abroad group our bus was robbed, and I lost my backpack with my iphone.  So I got to visit a Ghanaian jail.  (and I wish I had taken a picture of the jail, because it looked like a cell from Andy Griffith, with a criminal sitting in the little cell, who waved very happily at us from his cell.) But here I am in front of the jail, with everyone else who lost stuff.

While I was in Ghana we worked on two consulting projects one for the Perpetual Education fund for the LDS church, the other was a market analysis for IDE.  I was on the market team, so I learned a whole lot about okra.   It was fun to go to Ghana, here are some highlights.

We swam under a waterfall, awesome experience!

I pet a crocodile...not entirely sure why I did this.

But the best part of the trip, was I got to spend three weeks with some of my favorite people.  I love everyone in the MPA program.  

The most surprising thing about Africa, was I found out I enjoy Asia more than I do Africa.  It was a little sad, to realize this, but also confirming, that I am going in the right direction.   Loved my African experience, but I think the only way I am going back is if I can go on a safari and white water rafting down the Nile, and I want to go to Egypt, but as far as saving the world....well Asia here I come!

After Africa  I went to London.  The next post will be about the adventures on the British Isles!!! spoiler alert,  it was fun.    If you want to see more pictures, visit me on facebook.  That is where all of the Ghana pictures are posted. Also if you want a day by day blow of what I did in Ghana.  I will refer you to this blog  Andrew is a great story teller, takes great pictures, and unlike me, blogged every day.  

A quick catch up on the past 3 months (this is a long post)

Jenny at the beginning of the semester

Jenny at the end of the semester

It has been brought to my attention that I have not blogged in a while.   This semester has been busy, I for some odd reason thought it would be a wise to take 21 credits.  Now as I am nearing the end of this semester, I would like to inform everyone, that 21 credits is not a good idea, don't do it, it makes your life no fun.

But there were some happy moments in the semester I got to celebrate Ann's birthday with her family, I don't have a good picture of the experience but it was a happy, fun moment in my semester so I am writing about it. Here is a bad picture of her party.

we ate yummy cupcakes, it is a good picture of the cupcakes

Moving on to February... Hailey had her birthday, and I went to that party too.  I don't have a picture of that birthday, but I have pictures of the birthday present I gave her.
First a little back story.... Kelley and I use to go to the Ballet every once and a while, it was a lot of fun, but Ann never got to go, because she was out west and we were in NC.    So while I am out here, I wanted to have some cultural experiences with Ann.   So I was so excited when I saw BYU was going to do Cinderella, so Hailey for her birthday got a day at the ballet, with her mom, aunt, and great aunt!   We had a lot of fun dressing up, and meeting the ballerinas before the show.  Unfortunately Hailey got sick, so we had to leave half way thorugh the performance, but it was still a lot of fun.

.

Hailey and Ann with the fairies

Everyone before the show

Hailey, Ann and Cinderella

By mid-February, we had a mini spring break, (5 days off including weekend) so I decided to go home to pitch my internship idea to my parents.  It was so wonderful to have a few days at home, and the weather was beautiful.  I will talk about my internship in future post, but I will tell you all it is exciting.  

Back to school.  Towards the end of February I got a little introspective.  It was around this time last year, that I had a complete break down, because I was certain I would be stuck in my old job forever, and I would never get into grad school, and I would be stuck in Sanford my whole life.... I sat on my mom's couch and cried for a good hour..... I look back at that now, and even though this semester is crazy and not a lot of fun, I am so grateful I am here.   It is the right place for me right now.  I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father, who does bless us in the best possible way, sometimes we just need to be patient and wait for the best moment for the blessing to happen.

That being said, March started and with it started the favorite thing I am doing this semester, it is not even for a class.  It is for a student program I volunteer with called grantwell.  Our team was given the job to teach grassroots philanthropy to the student body, so in March we started the Be a Philanthropist Campaign.  We are giving  away close to $10,000 in mini-grants to organizations, and students with great ideas.  It has been a lot of fun, because we did everything, from the logo and web design, to the marketing, to the implementation of the program.  It has made this semester fun, and has kept me going during the dull classes of Accounting, Budgeting, and International Management (thought that class would be fun, but it is not fun at all.)

Also in March I had a birthday, I spent my birthday weekend with Ann's family and had lots of fun with everyone.  I went back down to school on my actual birthday, and my friends in the MPA program threw me a surprise Pi day party (my birthday is on Pi Day)   They had me go into the MPA lounge right at 3:14pm  (We were in class at 1:59, the traditional time for a Pi Day party)    and totally surprised me with a party, it was a lot of fun and totally unexpected.  I don't have any pictures of it though.   

The semester is wrapping up, and I am ready for it to end, because as soon as it is over, I am going to Africa for 3 weeks, and then to England, I am so excited for both trips.   To celebrate the end of this dreary winter, and the start of a exciting Spring I went to the local Holi Festival  at the Hindu temple in Spanish Fork.  It was so much fun.  We basically all listened to music, and threw chalk at each other, but it was a great stress reliever and a fun break in this crazy semester here are some pictures.

This is the best shot I have of the size of the crowd at the temple.

This is our group before we participated in the big color throw,
 I know we are covered in chalk now, but we had not entered
 the crowd yet, It gets worse!

I didn't take pictures of the big one,
 because I was busy throwing chalk.

This is a smaller color throw

Here we are after the big throw, it was fun, I am ready for Spring now!