Here's to the Happiest of Holidays...

It's December 20th of 2014, and I am sitting in my living room reminiscing about all of the beautiful moments I have been blessed enough to experience just in this year.

Now, please believe me when I say I had the intentions of mailing a Christmas letter out, but the way my bank account is set up....the odds were not in my favor. So, I will take this oppurtunity to utilize the infallible gift of the internet.

This year has been filled to the brim with fun, adventure, blessings, heartaches, and above all God's grace. As most people know, (I hope!) I made a transition into this big, huge, open world all by my lonesome. I moved to the lively, (among other things) town of Seaside, right outside of Monterey. Nothing had ever brought me near as much humility as when I first saw the sign reading "Seaside...Population 35,000." In the moment, everything I had ever known seemed to be changed in the slightest way.

Moving in was quite the adventure, and if you need to be caught up on that short portion of my year, click here.

My little Seaside apartment is one of my favorite places in this world. It is my own haven to come home to everyday--it is perfect. However, the seven a.m. construction, and washers and dryers always being broken is getting pretty old. However, it is home. My wonderful roommate Dianna is also such a joy;

room·mate

ˈro͞omˌmāt,ˈro͝omˌmāt/

noun

1. Having a sleepover with your best friend.....every night.
2. 
   

Living on my own has opened my eyes to things that I would have usually turned a blind eye to when living under my parent's roof. For example, dishes? I think I will buy paper plates. Lights? Hmmmm....do you really need them to get ready in the morning, because I think that the PG&E bill says otherwise. Laundry? How dirty is that t-shirt actually? These just skim the surface of things that living on my own has changed about me.

My eveg view...

School! What a privilege it is to be here, obtaining an education. Ahhhh! This semester nearly killed me. I enrolled in eighteen units, and thought frequently throughout the semester back to high school, when I thought I knew what a "hard" assignment was. Just to recap my finals week, in total I wrote thirty eight pages worth of essays-OK. I am still alive, I promise. 

Starting at Cal State University Monterey Bay, I knew I was going to be an Elementary Educator-at this time, I also knew everything else in this world that I needed to know-everything. Like most things in life, that ideal, the only thing that I knew for certain going in to college, changed. CSUMB requires that students, both upper and lower division, participate in a "Service Learning" class. So, that is a two to four hour class in addition to 30 cumulative hours in the classroom (for me, as a Liberal Studies major) per semester. The minute I took my first step into the kindergarten classroom, I knew that it was not where I belonged. I was unable to feel connected to the students, had no idea how to even approach the Common Core curriculum, and holding a conversation with someone who is still learning the alphabet is made for people with far more patience and tenacity than I. 

So for three weeks, I sat in the library on campus and went through every career choice that I thought would be suitable for me; and when that got old, I questioned why I came to a University if I had no idea what I wanted to do. So many students struggle with this, and I am sure that even some of my dear home town friends are facing the same struggle. Out of all that confusion and chaos that I seemed to have brought upon myself, I realized that time is going to pass regardless of what major I choose. College is so much more than a piece of paper that you (maybe) get at the end of four years of tireless lectures and redundant essays. College is a journey and if you don't slow down to take it all in, you will miss little moments that can make your life so damn incredible. So, I don't want to teach elementary, but I want to impact peoples lives. I don't know where this leads me right now, but I am going to keep on trudging. 

We are really just that phenomenal. 

On the topic of incredible moments, I was honored enough to become a sister of Theta Alpha Sigma Sorority this past fall. Becoming a part of this sorority has meant the world to me, and I would not trade a single moment of it for anything. My Sisters have provided me a home away from home, and that I will never be able to repay them for. It has been a huge blessing being welcomed so warmly by a group of absolutely incredible women. We are a Catholic (Christian) based sorority and it has been a lot of fun going to new churches around Monterey with my sisters. As well as being a Catholic (Christian) 

sorority, the philanthropy behind Theta Alpha Sigma is Women's Issues. We focus really heavily on domestic violence awareness, as well as many things. This keeps me very involved on campus, and I love being surrounded by a body of like-minded women. It has truly been an experience of a life time!

I am eager to head home and embrace my dear best friends, hold my sweet mother, joke with my sassy sister, and laugh with my dad. In all of this--all of the fun, all of the new adventures that are at my fingertips, all of the scrambling to make Christmas presents from what seems like air, I find it easy to slip and forget the one true reason for Christmas. Without God's grace, I really believe I would not be where I am, and doing as well as I am today. 

I praise God for these moments I am given to live. What a blessing to continuously be having the time of my life.

From my home to yours, I wish you a safe, warm, and blessed Holiday season.

With love,

Jessica

Isaiah 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.