Looking back, and ahead

My first semester at ORU is finished, and on top of that, 2012 has come to an end, with very little to show for it all on this blog. So much has happened everyday since I moved to Tulsa, but I am so, so bad at remembering to type it all up here.
That is one of the things I plan on working hard on this next year. But before I get into all my goals for this next year, it's best I sum up this year.

This time last year I was a third of the way through my first work experience in a professional setting, interning at DHS. Since then I have finished my internship, finished at Clackamas Community, moved 2,000 miles away, and now have finished my first semester as a university student, with a 3.0 gpa I might add!
In Tulsa I volunteered at a shelter, for abused children, once a week. It has been a great way to get involved with the community, and reminded me of my fond memories of my internship. In late November I put in an application to get a job there, but will not hear back until after the New Year.

When I met my roommate, I quickly found out she had been to Africa last summer. I told her that Africa had been a life long dream of mine, but I didn't know if I would ever get there. She told me to at least try to go with the school's missions program. It seemed impossible to me at first, but now....it's happening!! :)

I made some fun friends, some do crazy things with me like making dancing music videos, others go on random late night pointless car drives the way I love to do, and one of my favorite past times is going with a big group of buddies to get Mexican food and sneak it into the theater while we go watch scary movies. One time when our movie going group got Mexican food, I had to wait 10 minutes for the chicken to cook, so I got a 5lb burrito for free!
I found a super great church in Tulsa that I simply LOVE! They will be opening a new building next year, and I hope to get involved there.

For Thanksgiving I got to see my cousin Ian, and stayed in the great state of Texas, which I loved by the way. I could easily see myself making Texas my permanent home down the road. Silly, but one of my favorite things about Texas was that every single time I turned on my blinker to change lanes, people slowed down and easily let me in. I was taken back by it every single time! In Texas I got to visit a church I grew up watching on tv, Eagle Mountain church, and I also ate gizzards for the first and last time.

The weather in Tulsa is phenomenal so far, it was 80 the first week of December. But I am told January is the coldest month, so I am in for a treat this New Year. When it gets cold, it's not only super cold, but windy. It makes it so cold it's painful.

Well there's a snippet of my year! My goal for this next year is to journal WAY more. Let's hope it's a goal I can attain!
This next year my goals are that I need to find a job in Tulsa, I want to volunteer more at the children's shelter, get involved with my church, fund-raise all the money needed for Africa, go to Africa, join the ORU Zumba group, join the ORU Spanish club and get better in that language, write more of my stories that I hope to make into books someday, and I want to read more. Yes Mom, you read that right, I want to make myself read more. Reading is such a chore to me, I hate it! I only do it when required to. I want that to change.
Achieving all these goals will make for some fun blog posts. Let's just hope I can keep up the ambition to accomplish all these goals, and the memory, attention span, and desire to write about it all.