Change

Perhaps the thing that intoxicated the nation during the Obama campaign was the single word change. I know it has recently intoxicated me. I'm starting my fifth year at BYU. I've been in Utah all of my life sans a mission and a study abroad. I find my life filled with the same dilemmas and monotony that I've faced for years. I am craving change, needing change. With graduation looming in either April or June, I fortunately will find my entire world about to undergo a complete transformation.

Recently I've been reviewing graduate schools for next Fall. This prospect has breathed new life into my soul. After a rough scholastic summer caused by fostering and growing the non-profit Student-Provo City Alliance and working for Dean Thompson, I feel acutely aware of my possibility of failing in my goal: attending a top 10 graduate school. I find my GPA higher than the average for top MBA programs, and within the given percentiles of all but the 4 most exclusive law schools. If I can pull off the coup of doing well on both the LSAT and the GMAT, I may just be able to pull off the coup of getting into a top 10 law school and business school at the same university. The past few days I assembled my top-, medium-, and lower-tier universities and have begun researching each school. Of course, if I get a job offer, this work is unnecessary for at least a couple of years. But if I don't get a quality job, and don't get into a top school, I don't know particularly what I'll do. That possible "change" scares me half to death.

But with such a sizeable and significant transformation, I have felt renewed incentive to work, to accomplish, and to achieve more in the next six months than I have in the past three years. I do this all the while undergoing significant emotional and mental stress. For example, T and I broke off our engagement two months ago. I am still, very emotionally raw. I went on my first, post-engagement date last night with someone else. Although it was fun and could lead to a second date, it did renew a lot of feelings for the person that was noticeably not there. I don't know which direction that and all of the other routes of my life will go, but it will, I pray, change me and those around me for the best.