My Reflection of A Tough Year...

I know it is not the new year yet, but I decided to give a reflection of what I feel has been a very difficult yet rewarding year. I will try to start from the beginning of the year...January 2010 and try my best to show all the ups and downs and everything in between.

January 2010
I was still attempting to get over two deaths that had occurred the year before. Heather passed in October of 2009 and Sister Wilson passed in December 2009. I was starting a new semester trying to be distracted from these deaths. I had also learned that my good friend Ryan was leaving for the war in that time too. I had work, school and dance and winterguard rehearsals to keep me occupied but having a "Heather" show proved to be both healing and tiring (it was titled as "Starting Over"). Our memorial show to Heather was what allowed me to get out of bed everyday. We (Urban Expressions Winterguard) were very hard at work since our première show was in the middle of January and we were only half way through our show. We managed to finish just in time for the première and made numerous changes throughout the rest of the month to prepare us for tour! We literally were starting over.

February 2010
This was the start of some health issues. I was having severe pains in my abdomen and feeling the emotional effects of a finished memorial show. Our first out-of-state tour to a California regional proved to be successful seeing as we received the gold medal in our division, but we did not stop our hard work. Every member was sick or injured or both and most of us were working, going to school, teaching and performing. We were sweeping every Utah show and had an undefeated month in January and February but it was evident that we were exhausted.

March 2010
In the end months of February and the beginning months of March, I came down with an illness. I could not speak and whenever I was asked a question in rehearsal, someone else had to yell out my answer to the staff since I could not be heard. Rehearsals were in full swing and everyone was still tired. We did not have any free weekends from rehearsal or performances and were rigorously preparing for our second California trip to compete outside of Utah once again. Amongst all my illness and craziness, I had received some amazing news. My friend had decided to be baptized which came as a shock since he had expressed no desire in getting baptized until 2011 at the earliest. I received the news as I was walking out of the doctor's office and made a phone call to him to hear his story. It made me feel better even though my fever was sitting steadily at 101. After many long hours, Urban Expressions (UEX) placed second in the California Power Regional giving us the 17th place spot in the entire world in our division (you need to make 15th or higher to make finals).

April 2010
After coming off of our high of second place and 17th place respectively, I feel ill again with the abdominal issues returning in full force (no fever, just a lot of pain). At this point, all of UEX is injured or ill or both, including all our staff members, but we had one goal in mind...to be undefeated in Utah and jump to the top 15 by the time World Championships comes around. We went to the Utah State Championships and continued or first place streak by remaining undefeated in the entire state of Utah, averaging second in the region and still sitting in 17th place in the World putting us .2 points away from 15th (yes POINT 2). We headed out to Dayton, Ohio only three days after winning state (exhausted mind you. All of us slept the entire plane ride from our lay-over in Denver to the Columbus airport and the entire hour and a half drive to the hotel from the airport). We had a packed schedule the whole time we were there too. Our only time off was the night we arrived in Ohio. All of us were in bed by 8pm and out like lights the entire night. My abdomen was still hurting but in winterguard and dance, you just suck it up and "get er done" so to speak. Wednesday was a rehearsal day with a 10 hour rehearsal to ensure our success. That evening we watched other groups in our division perform and realized what we needed to make finals. Thursday was our preliminary performance determining with groups would move onto semi-finals. We knew we would make it and came in 17th place advancing us to semis (top 32 go to semis) still being .2 behind the 15th place team. That night we rehearsed until everything was perfect, all fifteen members, rehearsing sick and broken (physically, mentally, etc). We knew what was expected of us and rehearsed past our exhaustion point. Friday was the day we would find out if we made finals or not. We performed and had what was our best show. I was selected, along with four other UEX members to receive our division award and represent the team. We placed third in our division (4 divisions with 8 groups in each division) with our highest score of 87.5. But we did not know whether or not it was enough. Cory was frantically calculating scores trying to determine if we made finals. Meanwhile, the five of us representing the team were stopped by one of the judges, who hugged us and said "Congratulations. You are the first Utah team to ever go to finals. Nice job on your 14th place finish! Yup, we jumped three places in under 18 hours! But we had no time. We immediately packed everyone into the car and drove the 45 minutes to the next venue to make our call time about 90 minutes after finding out we made finals. We were on a high but not done yet. We didn't care at this point if we dropped to 15th place because we had just made history. We did our final performance and jumped one more spot to 13th place, the highest placement of any Utah team at Worlds!! We were happy and very tired. We had a victory dinner that evening where my stomach problems returned and didn't go away. I was very sick. At first, everyone thought they were stress related. Gretchen was in the hospital with kidney stones, Morgan was running a fever, Kerisa was recovering from her illness and Tom was trying to prevent his thumb from breaking any further. We did what we had to and now we could recover. I got home and finished up the semester out looking for a job since I was no longer needed at Craft Supplies USA. I had made the decision to go summer semester before our successful trip to Ohio and had spent the rest of April gearing up for summer school.

May 2010
The beginning of May was another trip back to California but this time, with my family. Disneyland before summer semester as amazing and so much fun. A nice stress reliever. The only problem were the slight stomach-aches I received here and there. I returned to Utah to go back to school only a few short days later. I spent most of my summer with my best friend Brian and tried to spend my first summer in Utah looking for a job and going to school.

June 2010
Nothing of huge importance happened except the finals for my first block classes. I get sick yet again in June and took all my finals with a fever of 103.8. My teachers were impressed that I received such high grades on my finals with such a terrible illness. After that illness passed, I had an episode involving my stomach. I was at Brian's grandma's house having dinner when I could no longer eat. I was starving one minute and full the next. I was in a whole lot of pain...so much pain that I could not walk. Brain ended up carrying me from the floor next the the kitchen table to the couch so that I was staying warm (he did not like the fact that I felt cold to the touch and was extremely dizzy). He wanted me to stay over offering his room and said he would sleep on the couch to make sure I was comfortable. After two hours, I felt well enough to drive home, but once home, the same episode happened again. The doctor I went to could not figure what was wrong with me.

July 2010
I was into the swing of second block summer classes. I spent fourth of July only a few feet from my apartment and had a quite evening. I was still trying my best to figure out what was wrong with my poor stomach as the episodes continued every once in a while. The end of July was difficult since Heather's 33rd birthday would have been July 31st. Many of us silently celebrated her life even though it was less than a year since her death.

August 2010
Another very difficult month. My stomach pains were in full swing and I was trying to finish up the semester with another round of finals. All during this time two things had happened. First, I had an infection in bladder (thought to be the cause of my stomach pains) that was very frightening to me. They went away quickly and the stomach pains stopped for a bit. A few days after the discovery of an infection, Sara died. Chase, the person who informed me of Heather's death started the phone conversation with "you are gonna hate me because I always call with bad news..." I knew something was wrong. In under a year another friend was gone. I went to Sara's funeral and tried to comfort her grieving mother who was my director and another mom to me. Sara had worked with me when I first started my teaching career at 19 years old. Many of us gathered outside the funeral home realizing our lives would never be the same again. Heather passed on October 10th, 2009 and Sara passed August 10, 2010, exactly ten months from each other. A week and a half after the fact my best friend went back to California. For a moment I felt alone. Two weeks after Sara's death, I started Fall term, with a heavy heart.

September 2010
I was into the full swing of things but still reflecting on the difficult month that preceded. I was excited to start some new projects and start teaching yet again! I met Lindsay some time ago but we reconnected in our modern dance class. It was then that we made a connection and I got to teach (briefly) an amazing group of girls! They worked hard and had great success throughout the fall season! It kept my mind off of things for a long time. I was starting to become happy once again! I was able to continue contact with Brian and Ryan and was relieved everytime Ryan contacted me since he was out on missions every two weeks. I had more reason to follow my dreams now that Heather, Ryan, Sara, Brian and Sister Wilson were not close by. I was doing everything for them now.

October 2010
This was both a trying and exciting month all in one. I had a meeting with my advisor and realized that with a lot of hard work I can graduate sooner than I thought. However, this may mean carrying up to 18 credits each term (maybe more). It did give me great determination to plug through school and keep going. The year anniversary hit of Heather's death. I had been in contact with Chase and Cory and all of us had our own ways for celebrating (since 10/10/10 was a Sunday). I was having a difficult time realizing I had spent a year without my mentor and still had many more years to spend without her. Regardless, I was encouraged by her family to follow my dreams. I listened to a lot of music from "wicked" (Heather's favorite musical) and got the courage to audition for a very presitigous dance company. In the past they took 24 people. This year they were looking for only 16 people. I was told I would have made it if they were going to for the usual 24 (even if they were taking 20 I would have made it)! I then proceeded to tell others of this endeavor and decided I could spend a year getting so much better at what I do...and I felt that Heather was with me more during that time than anything else. I went to her facebook and wrote the following..."I didn't make it but something tells me you would still be so proud of me because I tried! I love and deeply miss you Heather."

November 2010
November was a time to focus. It was past midterm point but preparing for finals in every aspect of school. I was stressing out more and more as finals grew closer and closer. I was excited to have Thanksgiving role around though. That meant the holidays were in full swing! My parents came into town for the holidays and I was happy to see them. I also found out that, as of June 2011, I am going to be an aunt to baby Sekaquaptewa! I enjoyed Thanksgiving and worked on Black Friday!

December 2010
1-19: I started teaching winterguard to Springville High School and did various other work for other high schools. I am excited to see what each school is able to produce. I busily started my finals routine...you know, where I stay in my room all day except to work and go to school. I didn't sleep a lot even if I got everything done early mostly because my brain decided not to stop running a million miles a minute. I spent so much time preparing for and taking finals. I did not have a life. I am pretty sure my schedule went something to this effect...teach, school work, study, and repeat. Once finals were over, I ended up sick (again).
Now: I am preparing to head back to Oregon to spend my birthday and Christmas with the family. After spending some much needed time in Oregon, I get to fly back to Utah and think about the upcoming year. I won't have a job as of January 1st and will start school on the 5th of January.

That is all for now.