Math, and math, and math….oh my!

~ Laura ~ 2 Comments

Years ago, I took a solemn vow that I would never, ever, take a math class in college. That was a prerequisite for the major I would choose, and wouldn’t you know it? I’m taking three math classes next semester.

Ha.Ha.

Yes, God does laugh when you make plans.

The three classes are: macroeconomics, quantitative analysis for businesses, and intro to financial accounting. And yes, they’re required for my business management degree.

I’m not sure what to expect besides math (and lots of it). Math was never my favorite in high school, and I did not go beyond the required three years (Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2). I wasn’t actually bad at it. I don’t know what it was about it that made me dislike it. I would just get frustrated and end up in tears when my parents tried to explain some concepts to me.

So I’ve been thinking about these classes….

I still don’t know what to expect, but I am planning on taking full advantage of the free tutors on campus if need be. The teachers at BC are also excellent at doing their best to help students succeed, so I know I can always go to them with questions. And I’ve been planning to break open the old textbooks at home to brush up before I head back. We’ll see if that happens…..

Otherwise, I’m really looking forward to this next school year. I’ll have a car, be president of RRL, and really be challenged by my classes. I’ll have all my goals to work on as well. We’ll see what I think once I’m actually in the middle of it 🙂

Goals (or things I should be doing instead of procrastinating)

~ Laura ~ 7 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post a list of goals for quite some time now, and am finally getting around to it for this blogging challenge. Yay for kicking procrastination outta here!

Of course, your goals totally depend on where you are in your life. Mine are rather varied, and specific to my Catholic college life. I know writing these out will help me be on top of things and accountable this school year when I look back on them.

These are things I’m going to work at this next school year in no particular order:

  • Cut down my non-school-related computer time to 1/2 hours or less on weekdays.
  • Find a morning routine that works and stick with it. Include prayer, work out, shower, and breakfast before 9am classes.
  • Exercise a few times a week and eat as healthily as I can (haha with caf food).
  • Get enough sleep. This means going to bed by 11pm on school nights.
  • Go to Mass 3 times during the week.
  • Go to adoration once a week.
  • Go to confession once a month.
  • Pray and sidewalk counsel outside abortion clinics most (hopefully all) Saturdays.
  • Read at least 4 non-school books (2 per semester, some Catholic).
  • Treat my days like work days. Be on and going from when I get up (around 7am) to 5pm so I can have time in the evening to relax and spend time with people.
  • Write 5 articles a month for Live Action.
  • Write 3 shorter blog posts on here each week (including 7QT and WIWS).
  • Find a professional pro-life job for next summer.
  • Babysit around Atchison.
  • Think about writing a book.
  • Meet lots of new people.
  • Find creative ways to save & make money for college.

I’ll plan to post a monthly update on my goals to make sure I keep myself accountable. How cool will it be to look back and see how far I’ll have come?!?!

This is what I’ll tell myself when I feel like procrastinating

P.S. I’m sure new goal ideas will come to mind, so I’ll just edit them in when the time comes.

Find Your Purpose

~ Laura ~ 2 Comments

Some people can relate pretty much everything back to their favorite tv show or book series. Me? I can relate most things to the pro-life movement. Why? It’s my passion. It’s what I read about, it’s what I work for, and it’s what I think about quite a bit of the time. Of course I don’t spend my life consumed by it, but it is my cause. How did I get here? I noticed recently that I don’t write many things about my personal life on here. So today (and this week) I decided to start sharing more of that with you.

I found my cause a couple years ago, but it happened slowly.

Growing up, pro-life issues were not things I knew much of anything about or really talked about. At all. I do remember going to some sort of pro-life rally or protest in Sacramento when I was around 9, but I don’t remember what it was for. I do clearly remember seeing graphic abortion signs, and to this day know which one in particular people were carrying.

Fast forward to January 2011 when I went to my first Walk for Life. It was an experience unlike anything I had ever been to. It was inspiring and moving. I had never had the experience of being part of a movement like that – something bigger than myself. It’s hard to describe. To know that you are walking for a cause, for the truth, with thousand of other people? That’s pretty powerful. To this day, going to marches and pro-life rallies never ceases to inspire me and sometimes move me to tears. That day I think something was planted in the back of my mind.

January 2011 is also when I got my Facebook account and shortly after found Live Action and Life News which I started reading. My eyes were opened to a whole new world I had known absolutely nothing about.

I was working for Sears at the time, and quit that job in June 2011 after a terrible experience (a whole other story). I didn’t know what I was going to do, and needed a job. I applied to the usual – fast food and restaurants – but didn’t get anything. I got to the fall and just decided to wait and see what would happen. I would like to say that I had a moment when I just threw it in God’s hands, but I don’t really remember. Something better was in the works…

In the fall of 2011 someone I know introduced me to someone who introduced me to people at Live Action. The rest, you could say, is history.

I started working for Live Action in October, and it all snowballed. I went to the International Pro-Life Youth Conference in November 2011, wrote my first blog post after that, and later started writing for Live Action. Now I’ve worked for a couple different pregnancy centers, and multiple pro-life organizations.

This all happened in the span of a couple years, and let me tell you: I could never have imagined being this uber pro-lifer. Just a few years ago, I knew nothing about abortion and related topics. But everything fell into perfect place. And it’s not because I planned for this to happen.

In college I’ve met many different kinds of people, but one thing I’ve noticed is that not too many of them are extremely passionate about anything in particular. They come to college to get a degree, and la la la. They don’t really know what they want to do. I’ve noticed this about all sorts of people in other aspects of my life as well.

I don’t get this.

As someone who feels rather strongly about pro-life issues, I am convinced that this is what I was meant to do. We’re all here for a purpose, right? This is mine. Or at least part of it. I cannot imagine now not being like this, but am fully aware that many people are not. Why? I don’t think they’ve found their purpose yet.

So this is my message: If you’re one of those people, start exploring things NOW.

High school is the perfect time to start finding internships and making connections. If you’re older than that, you’re going to need to hit the ground running. Like now. Learn how to have integrity, and always give your best effort. Get summer jobs. Ask your teachers questions.

Don’t know what you love yet? Start with the process of elimination. Make a list of tons of jobs and cross out the ones you know you don’t want to pursue. Pray about it. Talk with a friend about your strengths and weaknesses, and how those will play into your future (your parents would be good at that too). Talk to people you know whose work looks interesting. Go to work with them. Read articles.

We were all put on Earth for a reason, and if you haven’t found that reason yet, you’re wasting time. Quite frankly, you’re wasting your life. God handed you a specific set of talents and gifts, and it’s your responsibility to figure out how to best use them. If you don’t, you’re basically throwing them in God’s face and saying “Thanks, but no thanks”. You’re missing out on some serious joy too.

One of the greatest joys in life is being confident in the fact that you are doing what God wants you to be doing. It’s beautiful. And it just feels right. Do you have what it takes to get there?

Find your passion. Find your purpose.

7 Quick Takes – Vol. 22

~ Laura ~ 9 Comments

— 1 —

Summer weather is the bomb, especially in California. We had a week or so of terribly HOT weather around 100, but it’s been in the 80’s now. And thank goodness, I’m not pasty KS pale anymore (and have a slight swim suit tan)! Yay sunshine!

No, I don’t look like this. I eat my Doritos, not roll in them.

— 2 —

I’ve been washing my hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar for a week (approximately, I think) and it’s totally fine. I did run out of mousse, though, so my hair has been weird. Once I go get some more, I’ll be able to judge for certain if I’ll stick with this. For now, the verdict looks like it’s in the affirmative department.

— 3 —

This week Jen (host of 7QT) announced that she had a crazy idea to post every day next week to try and get back in the swing of blogging. So I decided to join her! Check back every day (starting Sunday 7/22) for a new post 🙂 And if you have a suggestions, feel free to let me know!

— 4 —

I made mini pretzel bites earlier this week, and YUM! Thanks to Pinterest, my family and I enjoyed extremely splendiforous and oh-so-simple bites of goodness. I’ve attempted pretzels before, but they ended up weird after you boil them in baking soda water. For this recipe, you make the (super simple) dough, then dip it in water with baking soda and just bake them normally. I’ll definitely be making these at school.

image201307130002

— 5 —

I am so excited to be getting a car! Because of very generous relatives, I will be able to bring a car back to school and make it my very own. At the end of last school year, it was a dream in the back of my mind that I would be able to make my own trip to Walmart (haha), take people places, and mostly be able to go outside the abortion clinic without having to worry about having enough cars. But I never even considered that it could be a reality. Well, it is! Now I’ll have a guaranteed seat! It’s not going to seem real until I’m driving it to school, but my-oh-my. I am so excited.

— 6 —

Today I sent in my third huge check toward my college education. And now I can in all confidence identify myself as a poor college student.

#CollegeProblems
Want to run to Sonic? Let me check first.

Ouch! It’s rather terrifying, but I know I’ll get by. I’m earning my degree in quite the literal sense by actually working to pay for it unlike this guy. That article was rather awesome.

— 7 —

I’m done with day 22 of Jillian’s death workout! Only 8 more to go. This is by far the best work-out video I’ve ever done, and makes me sweat like no other. It feels so good, and I feel so much stronger already. I can actually do traveling push-ups, crazy jumps, and all sorts of other weird stuff. I’m never going to be ripped like people who’ve posted before and after pictures online (ew) but I know I’m in better shape. And when I work out better, I automatically eat better. Now I have to think about how to keep this up 😉

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

What’s up with all these Catholic “no’s”?

~ Laura ~ 4 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve gone to daily Mass. So today I got up and went to the church of many issues where one of the priests has rather edgy (as in not completely orthodox) homilies.

Today he talked about how the church is so full of “no’s” and how negative it really is and gosh darn it, shouldn’t we be exuding rainbows and butterflies? Okay, I added that last part, but you get the picture. He quoted the verse “I came that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10) and the quote “The glory of God is man fully alive”. Both of those are beautiful quotes, and ones which have depth far beyond the surface that he scratched on. He kept going on about how depressing our faith is.

I really wanted to stop him afterward and ask “Father, you were talking about how our faith is all full of ‘no’s’ but isn’t it also about some of the most beautiful ‘yes’s’ too? Isn’t that what the ‘no’s’ lead to?” But he was nowhere to be found when Mass was over. Darn.

So I thought about it more. Sure, being Catholic means saying no to many things. For example, being Catholic means saying no to (among many other things):

  • Abortion
  • Artificial birth control
  • Gay ‘marriage’
  • Intimacy before marriage

But, wouldn’t you know, God created us for far better things. By saying no to those things, we say yes to:

  • the beauty of the lives of each and every person
  • family sizes determined by God
  • balanced family lives lived out through natural law
  • pure and holy marriages centered on God

A truly authentic Catholic life shows the beauty of God’s ultimate design for the human person. He designed us to love and to be loved, and all of our “no’s” exist to lead us to Him. If we said yes to every human passion and appetite, we would be just like the rest of the world. But us? Us Catholics are different. We’re unlike the rest of the world because Jesus set us apart  to be the light of the world.

Instead of pushing aside these important topics, we need to confront them head on and live up to them. We need to show the world that our lives are different because of the yes’s these no’s lead to. And we are better because of it.