the curse of makbule

last summer, some friends and i went to lagoon. there, i determined that i would win the biggest prize at the park, a giant plush puma, which i decided would be named "makbule." i knew that with enough money and persistence, i could win the game and imagined what a cool story it would be to tell as makbule hung out on the back couch during movie nights.

despite all of my confidence (and $20+ in quarter tosses) i didn't win the darn puma. and i was kind of surprised by the failure, actually. i had imagined the awesome blog post i would write. it was going to be so cool.

as some of you know, i applied to texas a&m's graduate program of animation for this coming fall. it was such a cool story: i had a film background, learned some computer animation, miraculously pulled together an application in the midst of a busy semester in the byu lab, successfully took the gre without any time to study, and slid my application in barely under the final deadline. i felt pretty smooth, ferris bueller-like.

they said they had received my application and would notify me around the "end of march or early april."

for the past three weeks, friends and family have been eagerly asking me if i have heard from them. as i was beginning to wonder if i missed some new method of notification delivery, i saw their name on an envelope as i was bringing in the mail through the cold rain this evening.

it was a very thin letter.

as far as rejection letters go, it was relatively blunt.

the curse of makbule continues. i had imagined writing a blog post (title chosen and everything) about how exciting it would be, yet how hard it would be to leave all the friends and wonderful things i have going on here. i looked forward to being in a singles ward in texas (or would i go to a family ward?), of making new friends and hopefully teaching sunday school there, of being really lonely and dearly missing my friends and movie night and hpbc and wondering if i had really made the right choice to leave everything but trusting that i had. not to get carried away, i mentally sketched out what would write if it didn't happen, too. just in case.

well, i'll be here for a while longer, now. which means now i need to think about what to do with the hpbc once we finish the series (although, with the way work is going, it's going to take us a while to get through "the deathly hallows"), continue to plan movie nights, consider getting a season pass to one of the snowboard resorts, and search for the new path in my life.

this morning on my way to work, i was listening to some old conference cds. my all-time favorite talk came up, the final talk given by elder maxwell. in it, he shares lessons learned throughout his life. the line that has always stuck with me is "never go back to the hotel."

recently, i've been learning (or noticing) that president hinckley was right, "things will work out." our plans don't always go as we plan, but they do keep going, and often better than we planned ourselves.

at the moment, i have no idea where i'll aim next. but, at the start of this year, i commented that i was excited for the unexpected things this year will bring. it's barely april and i've already had the chance to meet the cinematographer of some of my favorite movies and am currently on the set of danny boyle's newest movie, one of my favorite directors. these awesomenesses don't solve my question, but they do remind me that surprises and the unexpected do happen, big and small.

never go back to the hotel.