Week Two of Operation: Prepare for London.

Tonight's topic: Personal Safety and Precautions. In general, I'm not at all afraid of something happening to me in London (picture of BYU London Centre at left). We talked about terrorism tonight, and to be honest, I'm more nervous about getting sick and landing in the hospital than having a bomb go off when I'm on the Tube or the bus. (Knock on wood, I guess.) Having been to the majority of large cities in the US, I'm not nervous about navigating my way around London or dealing with the crowds and new people. So in short, I see my (healthy) lack of fear as a blessing; more than one person kind of freaked out tonight during the prep class because they're afraid. Obviously, I know there is danger, and I'm not going into this blindly. I'm just a strong believer that you take as many precautions as you can and be smart, and you should be okay. Along with that, things do happen, but it won't be because of something stupid I did. I can't control other people or situations, only my reactions to them.

Totally tangential to my brief mentioning of blessings is school. After spending four hours online Sunday night looking at graduate schools and different programs, I have only this to say: I'm so grateful for the education I'm getting at BYU for the price I'm getting it. All of my top choices--Boston University, Georgetown, Yale, Bryn Mawr, Smith--run into the tens of thousands of dollars for graduate school. I'm also looking into schools overseas (read: Britain) that I hope to attend through the Marshall Scholarship. This is a huge undertaking, but I'm going to give it my best and see what happens. Several projects that I've wanted to begin for years are coming to the forefront now, and all happen to coincide with exactly what I need to have a competitive application.

I guess what spurred on all this forward thinking was stake conference on Sunday, during which I realized that I had so many opportunities right now to take advantage of; I have no ties (meaning boyfriend/potential husband, haha) to hold me in Provo, let alone the United States, so I decided to stop waiting around for something to happen and make something happen instead. The decision of what to actually study is going to be the hard part...