Getting Nervous

I leave in a week, and somehow I still don’t have a VISA. I am getting real nervous that my VISA will never come and my dream of going to Africa is going to be squashed. Maybe this is why I refuse to start packing. The reality just hasn’t set in yet. So if you all want to pray that my VISA will come sometime this week that might be helpful. Also volunteers to pack and clean my room for me are welcome!

I don’t even know how to explain how I feel about this upcoming adventure. I am super excited, but scared and nervous at the same time. I know that it will be an amazing opportunity, but I am so scared and sad to leave my life here. I love my life and am real worried that things will have changed by the time I come back. I feel like the years that I am close with my friends are dwindling. It is inevitable that we are all going to grow up and move away.

Life is changing all around. For the first time in a long time I did not go to school at the start of a new semester. That was really weird for me, but also welcomed.  So here is to life changing and hoping that my VISA comes!

Ashley P! 

Goodbye 2012!

It looks like twenty twelve has come and gone. And here we are at 2013. It is pretty crazy to think that another year is here. 2012 was a great year in my book.  A little bit of everything was mixed into my year. There were happy time and sad times. But all in all it was awesome!  

I think the biggest accomplishment of the year that sticks out to me, is that I am done with all of classes. It seems so weird that I am graduating from college, I still feel like I could just be starting high school, but am not complaining.

Always an Aggie! 

The first big trip I went on this year was my cruise! And boy was it a good time! I am so blessed to have the wonderful friends that I have. We went to Mexico and had a grand ole time. Only probably is I want to go one another cruise so bad! Anyone want to join in?

Cruise Group! 

Shopping in the Markets! 

San Diego Temple! My favorite! 

Mostly my year was full of activities with my friends. I do believe I even jumped into Hyrum Dam with all of my clothes on. The best part my possibly have been when I saved Kenzie’s life as she was dying of a charlie horse in her calf. Here are just a few pictures of highlights from my year! 

He is We! VIP tickets! Best concert of my life! 

Froggy Hunting! We have the best ideas! 

Four Wheeling in Afton! 

Jumping off the Bridge at First dam! 

Camping over Memorial. We did sleep in a car...

Shelby's Wedding! 

Love these girls! Us at Debra's Wedding!

In August, I flew off to New York to see Summer Jones who left me alone all summer! It was great to experience the city with a good friend, but the best part was going up to the Church history sites and seeing where it all began.

NYC

The Sacred Grove is amazing. I love it! 

Niagara Falls! 

The last big trip of the year is when we decided it would be a great idea to drive all the way to Canada! The drive was fine except that part where I thought I was invisible and could drive over anything I wanted to on the freeway. The Calgary Temple was amazing!

No worries I just ran that over. 

Canada!! 

Calgary Temple! 

2012 was a great time, but I am even more excited for what 2013 brings. I honestly have absolutely no idea where I will be in a year. There are lots of possibilities and I look forward to figuring my life out. So here is to a great 2013! 

Ashley P! 

My Own Worst Enemy

I think it has been said by many that we are our own worst enemy. I would have to completely agree with that statement. We are harder on ourselves than anyone else. And if you are like me overthink everything. Why do we do this to ourselves? I think that might have to do with that fact that we truly understand what we are capable of like no one else does. We can only lie to ourselves for so long before the truth catches up with us.

Mostly, I am just a pro at overthinking everything. I will stress myself out to the point of sickness. It is rather ridiculous. But that is just me. I really wonder if other people do this as much as I do. To make myself feel a bit better I am just going to pretend that you all do as well, and if you don’t please don’t tell me about it, because I think that might just make me feel worse.

So my new goal until I leave for Africa is to stop thinking, haha, well not completely. Just mostly. I obviously do not plan on making all decisions with no thinking involved, but I am going to make decisions and not rethink them over and over again. Once I have made a decision it is a done deal and what ever happen happens and it will be good.

Ashley P! 

Hello Again!

I haven’t blogged in a while so I thought I might write up a post. School is officially over and I passed all of my classes! I was a little worried for a while, but I pulled through. I did get my first C ever though which is a little sad, but I think I will get over it rather quickly. At least it was only one C and not two of them.

Mostly I have just been workin, workin, workin so far! I only have a couple more weeks to work before I leave to Africa and I am trying to make as much money as possible to hold me over for three months. I am doing pretty great and I am writing up at least twenty audits a day which translates to some pretty decent money if I do say so myself.

Ashley P! 

Finals

I keep waiting for someone to blog, but no one ever does. I really need to find some more blogs to follow. So since no one else if blogging, I guess I will take this opportunity to say some things about my life. Finals are this upcoming week and to start things off I took my first last final tonight!

Warning, the following may contain appalling information, but hey that how I like to live my life. So in my economic systems class, my teacher decided to give us a 100 questions true or false take home final. If you ask me that is just plain rude! Who wants to answer 100 true and false questions? I mean sure I could have taken the time to look up every single answer in my book, consuming my whole night. But really why on earth would I do that when I could do what I did!

I decided it would be a much better idea to run a random number generator on a calculator simulating 100 answers proving me with either a one or a zero. On the numbers I got a one on I answered true and the ones I got a zero on an answered false. It honestly took my five minutes to answer one hundred questions! It was the best thing ever! I am really excited to see how I performed on this final.

Yes, I sure did document this for the future children! :) 

Now you may be thinking, is the girl freakin crazy? Well truth is I probably am, but I had a very good reason for doing this. Really, I was just using economic theory in my everyday life. As it turns out I really did learn something in college. See my professor is allowing us to drop our lowest test score including the final out of the three tests throughout the semester. I have scored pretty well on these prior tests and figured the amount of time I would have to spend actually answering the questions correct had no marginal benefit or basically be a sunk cost. See if I missed more than 12 questions all time spend on answering the test questions would have been totally pointless. Me knowing myself with true or false questions figured the likelihood of this is pretty high as I always seem to second guess myself on them. See this way I get to tell people that one time I basically flipped a coin to answer all the questions on my final and if for some reason I do score higher than my previous test then that is freakin awesome!! See it’s really a win win situation!

Now I just have to write a Russian paper for my Russian final due Monday and hit up three finals on Tuesday and I am pretty much graduated from college! Which has not hit me yet! College was easy, now on to the hard part, real life.  

Ashley P! 

Econ Blog Post

So I had to write a blog post for my econ class and thought I would share it here. So enjoy!

Are the vices of creative destruction really killing the entrepreneurial spirit, our capitalist system is built on?  Keynes argued early on that entrepreneurship would be one failing in the capitalist society. In a recent Inc. article called America: No Longer the Land of Opportunity found here: http://www.inc.com/naveen-jain/5-things-our-president-should-do-to-support-entrepreneurship.html  American innovation is addressed. It notes that American innovation is just not at the same level as BRIC countries such as Brazil, China, and India.

I see this problem facing America. Yes, we are attracting bright and intelligent individuals to be educated in the United States, but there is no incentive for them to stay around and utilize their skills. What can we do to fix this problem? Naveen Jain offers five steps he thinks will bring America back to the land of opportunity.

I really like his 3rd idea or step that he presents. By show casing innovations on a national level it creates excitement among individuals to be recognized for their hard work. Also seeing the success of other will give discouraged innovators new hope.

I don’t know what all the answers are, but Naveen Jain presents some great ideas to start with. Do you have any idea to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in America again?

Ashley P! 

December!

The month I have been waiting for has finally arrived, December is here! Now let us just hope that it is as good as I have been dreaming of. It probably won’t be, but hey a girl can wish right! With only a week left a school though I really can’t complain.

I wrote a to do list today, which actually is not too terrible. If I can crack down a get some things done this weekend I am home free.  However, I always think I will be real productive and get things done, but who really knows. Here is a list of everything I need to get done this weekend:

With only five things on my list it really is pretty manageable. Plus, I have already started working on most of the things. So here is to having the best December thus far in my 20 years of life! 

Ashley P!