Ultimate Friends

So I watched my sixth grade end-of-the-year elementary ensemble video today with my little sister. WOW. Talk about throwback! I forgot how incredibly high my voice was back then. It's a little scary. I'm surprised I never broke any glass with my squeals.

Yeah...Wow. Baby me was pretty adorable.
I'll admit, I got pretty involved in watching the video. I might've sang along. I might've yelled at the TV screen. I might've cringed at the "oohs" we were singing. And I also might've cried...
My favorite part, however, was listening to my final speech. I was chosen to give a little speech on "what ensemble means to me" during the awards ceremony of the concert (yes, I even watched that part. So sue me). I was captivated by my little whiny voice proclaiming how much an elementary singing group had meant to me. I loved recognizing the definitive Kaila flavor my writing had even then. My favorite line could've been pulled off of a page of my blog: "I met so many new friends when I went to Ensemble. Of course, Mr. Dennis is the ultimate friend, always ready to crack a joke or make us all smile."
The phrase "ultimate friend" really got me thinking about how much my teachers have meant in my life. I can still remember every single teacher I've had since Kindergarten, and I can point to where certain habits, interests, jokes, and sayings have come from.
Seriously. My teacher's voices still haunt me.
When I'm running, literally running, late for 8 am class, and I'm running past weird looks and stares, I hear Mr. Dennis's voice in my head: "Better to be thirty minutes early than one minute late".
When I'm curled up in a ball on my bed, one sentence away from giving up, and I yell at the world "I can't do this anymore!" I get slapped back into action by Mrs. Holcomb's voice telling me, "Can't is not an option". So I get up and write one more sentence, then one more paragraph, then on and on until the essay's done.
When my friends ask me, "Where's it at?", I reflexively respond with "10 cents. Don't end a sentence with a preposition", and I answer their confused looks with "it's alright, Mrs. Sweick will buy us a pizza party with the money." Sure, no one gets it, but I do.
When I hear someone mispronounce the word "potable", I smile and remember Mrs. Smith's inside joke with us about how even news casters screw up the word, but we never would.
Over and over again, I hear their voices in my head.
That's why I think my little sixth grade self was spot-on when she called Mr. D an "ultimate friend". My teachers have truly proven to be friends through the thick and thin. They have seen students instead of statistics, seen potentials instead of points, seen futures instead of failures. They are the people that make my #collegeprobs possible, for are they are the people that helped me get into college in the first place. They got me into BYU, and their voices in my head will help keep me there.
So pro tip high schoolers: be thankful for your teachers. They do more than any of us will ever know.

A Thousand Years (Not the Christina Perry Song)

So two Sundays ago, my stake president (aka the leader of the church in the little area that I live), gave me some great advice that I think everyone can benefit from.

One thing a lot of people hate about college is how much it can change from year to year. In high school, every year was pretty much the same for me: same friends, same lunch spot underneath the same spider-dropping tree, same AP teachers, and same extracurriculars. The sameness from year to year was part of what made high school so amazing. Tuesdays meant Showtime rehearsal from 3-5 pm, 30 something people twirling, traipsing, and tripping through music and dance. Wednesdays meant Mutual with Marsha at 7 pm (Mormon Standard time), either at the stake center or the Walnut Building. Monday mornings meant walking from seminary to school with the Mormon kids, then spending an hour or two in the library doing homework and just chilling. Most weeks were the same, most weeks were predictable, and I loved it. It was honestly the traditions and routines that helped keep me sane throughout high school. 

Then BAM! Cooooollllleeeeegggggeeeeee

College is weird because it's impossible for any semester to be similar to another. There's constantly this huge turnover of people at college. People quit school, go home for the summer, switch schools, take gap years, go on missions, study abroad, go on humanitarian trips to the Philippines, take internships in Africa, whatever. The friends you make one semester could very easily be gone the next. Moreover, even if you are lucky enough to make friends that will stick around, it's likely that you will all finish school at different times, depending on you and your friends' majors and careers. And, if you go to a big school like I do, if people move to different housing locations, you may never see them again if you don't make a conscious effort to seek the out.
All of this can equal some serious frustrations. Like, why even bother to make friends if you'll be friendless again in three months? What's the point? 

What I was challenged to do on Sunday, however, was this: "act upon this land as if for years". That little phrase comes from Doctrine and Covenants 51:16-17. If you want to read the whole thing, go here. Although this advice was originally directed to a group of early Mormon pioneers, it applies to us college kids too. We may have only four years, four months, or four weeks in a class, dorm, or ward, but we can choose to make the most out of the time we have. We can make friends, learn new things, build relationships, and make a difference. It's our choice. If we cram our mental calendars with finalities, what meaning is there to our lives? We live a life full of endings but very few beginnings. We spend our lives waiting for what comes next but then never really living life.
So my advice? Put down roots wherever you go. Pretend like you'll be wherever you are right now for another decade, and see how that changes the way you think and live.
You might even get some good friends out of it.