My Purpose

What is my purpose in life? What do I want to be?  How do I want to live my life to the fullest?  All of these questions roll through my head on a daily basis!  Most days I am overwhelmed by the thought that I only have a few months left at being a high school student and I will soon be heading off to college, cramming more knowledge into my already overflowing brain and get a good job.  All in all I have my work cut out for me. 

First things first…I have to graduate high school.  That in itself is a challenge.  I have had a lot of fun memories here in this school.  I have met a lot of different people and have gotten to know other a whole lot better.  I have made better friends and have gotten closer to my other friends.  It is hard to imagine that I am looking forward to getting out of high school, going away and possibly never seeing the people I have become so close to.  Know that I will have to meet new people and make new friends is a very scary thought.  Even though it is frightening it is exciting at the same time.  The thought of meeting people that are from all over the country and possibly the world is really cool!

               College.  What a scary thought in itself.  Knowing that I will be moving away to a different city/town and away from my family is exciting!  Well maybe not but…it’s terrifying!  No matter how you put it or how you try to get around it you know that you are going to get home sick at the very least.  Where I want to go to college at is about four hours away.  Orange City, Iowa home of about 6,000 people; this town feels a lot like Aurora size wise.  It is also home to Northwestern College a private Christian college that enrolls about 2,000 students each year.  A big part about choosing a college where I want to go to for the next four years of my life was how big that college is.  Northwestern is a small campus but it is just big enough.  The community surrounds the college and is a big supports of any and all activities.  Knowing that I wouldn’t be going to a college where the community is separated is a big relief.  The campus is full of trees and grass it wouldn’t be going to a college where everything you see is cement.  Also on their campus they have kept their original college building but they turned it into the admissions building.  I was impressed to see that they have kept a part of their past with them as they add new and better building.  Northwestern also has an amazing basketball team.  Even though the coach has every right to brag about how well they do in the past seasons he is a very humble and down to earth.  He is a Christian man how is respectful and kind to anyone he meets.

                Going to college means that you should know what you are going to as a career.  However, not everyone knows that just yet.  Or they go to college with a plan for the future and they take a couple of classes and all of that changes, even if they are 100% positive that they aren’t going to be one of those people that do that.  I really hope that I will not be one of those people.  I have a plan for my life and I want to make the most out of it.  I want to go to college to become an accountant.  I have always like dealing with numbers and I really like how you know right away if something isn’t going to work out or if you made a mistake somewhere in your figuring.  I am taking a couple of accounting classes in high school now and I really like them.  I think that becoming an accountant for be a fun job to have and I want a job where I like and have fun in.  Being in a job that isn’t fun would be awful.

What is my purpose?  As I have explained I want to take one step at a time and not try to get overwhelmed by everything that will be happening in my life in the near future.  Take it a day at a time and things will work out well and hopefully be not very confusing.  Graduate.  Go to college, and become an accountant.  It seems like an easy enough plan…or is it?

Where Are You?

Where am I?  I am from the great state of Nebraska.  The good life, home of the cornhuskers.  I am from the state where on game day for the cornhuskers the Memorial Stadium is just a sea of red.  I am from a place where a weed is the state flower (Golden rod).  I am located in a state where all you see on either side of the interstate is corn and bean fields.  My location is in the center of the United States and my state’s outline closely resembles a gun.  I live in a rural setting and I enjoy it too.  I am from the state where some people believe we still live without power; and our only means of transportation is a horse and buggy.  I am from a state where the original Runza was made and has been enjoyed for quite a while.

I am from a small town.  Where the community members will rally and cheer you on to victory every game night.  The community is very much involved in High school sports and loves to go to each team’s games whether they are away or on home turf.  I am from a town where small businesses thrive and are growing.  Farmers are joined at the hip with the local cooperative.  My town supports people like me who want to achieve small things and go on to live big lives.  I am from a town of about 4,225 people.  People know each other and care about what is going on in their lives. 

Where am I from? I am from a power house of a school.  Where it doesn’t matter if you are in athletics or arts you will fit into to some sort of group and make great friends.  I am from a school setting where being a “band geek” is a good thing.  Where the teachers know you by name.  You aren’t a number or what’s-his-bucket or what’s-his-face.  These teachers will call you out in a crowd of people by your name.  I am from a school where the guidance counselors are just that; a person to guide you through your whole high school career.  Our guidance councilors take the time to get to know you personally and they really want to know how you are doing.  They do this to each and every student in the high school.  The school where I am from pushes you to be the best you can be.

Where am I from?  I am from a loving family. A family that is easy to forgive and forget.  A family that will help you when you need it, but will also let you figure out problems by yourself.  I am from a family that will support me in anything I plan to do with my life.  They will be my crutch or band-aid when I fall down.  However they won’t just let me lay there and get stepped on by people walking by.  No, they are the family that will pick me up, dust off my back side and get me going the winding and twisting trail better known as life.

I am from the middle of nowhere…literally.  I am from the country, I always have lived out there.  Being from the country is like living in a totally different world.  Out here it is open and peaceful.  It’s not crazy and loud.  Most days you can hear either one of two things, a song or the wind blowing.  I am from clean air and bright stars.  Where on a clear night you can see the faint dusting of the Milky Way.  I am from a home where your closest neighbor is about one mile away if you’re lucky.  Where my backyard ends where the neighbors fence begins.  I am from a house of green doors and old barn buildings.  I am from where no one really puts up X-mas lights because no one comes around to admire them.  The people who do put up their lights are the brave ones because they have to climb up to their high roofs.  I am from a neighborhood of farmers.  We work the land and raise crops for a living.  I am also from cattle raisers.  No one better understands cattle than us.

I am proud of where I come from and I wouldn’t want to change any of it.  Where I have come from has made me the person I am today.  If I were to change any place that I have come from I would be a different person.  The places I will go in my future will also shape me as a person too.

Who Am I?

Who am I?  In just that little question there are so many ways to answer it.  I don't even know where to start to tell you the truth.  The beginning looks like a good spot I guess.  I am Amanda Johnson.   I was born December 31, 1994, Grand Island Nebraska in the middle of a blizzard.  I am a daughter to Marna Johnson and Russell Johnson.  I am a sister to my older brother Ray.  To my friends I am...well a spastic, energetic, easy going, fun loving, kind and caring person.  I am a determined individual who has been through and witnessed firsthand what a divorce can do to a child and a family.  My life is centered on God and knowing that I can depend on Him anytime and anywhere makes me feel secure in my surroundings.  However I have many things that are important to me.

 

Here is my lovely Deep Map poster and as you can tell my main picture on it is one of a basketball and hoop.  Basketball is a very important sport in my life.  Not only is it my favorite sport it has allowed me to meet so many new friends.  Basketball has also taught me that if things are not going you way not to over react over it and get on with life.  Not everything you want in life is what you are going to get.

If you take a gander at my map you will notice words written across the top and bottom.  They read “A day without laughter is a day wasted”.  I love these words because not a day goes by that I don’t laugh.  Laughing is good for the mind and soul.  It makes you feel so much better to laugh something off than stewing about it.  Anyone that you ask that knows me knows that I laugh…a lot.   

 I have some words on the lines of my basketball they are track, basketball, softball, gymnastics, mother, and brother.  I have four sports on the lines are because being involved in sports is a must for me.  I have to be active at all times it seems otherwise I’m bored out of my mind.  Also staying in shape and feeling good makes me feel good about myself.
          I am a family girl, a girl who on a typical day enjoys spending time with her family.  Joking around and laughing represents a special time to remember.  Without my family encouraging me in everything I do I would not be the kind of person I am today.  So having Mother and Brother on my basketball symbolize there importance to me.

 

We have a lot of tradition in my family; one of them is making sweets around X-mas time.  This is my favorite all times traditions.  The reason…. I eat myself sick of all the sweets just lying around on the countertops, tables and the oven.  I have a major sweet tooth, there’s no denying it either.  Every year a day or two before our family Christmas dinner, the one where everyone in the whole family gets together, I get together with my grandparents and make all sorts of wonderful things.  My favorite would be making the pffefernuesse cookies.  These cookies are no bigger than my thumb but they taste so good.  When I’m cooking I don’t really follow the directions of the recipe.  I tend to just dump a little of this and a little of that in a bowl and call it good.  Well one time I looked at the recipe to see what it called for.  I miss read the amount of how much salt to put in and I kind of double the recipe in that one mistake.  So instead of having only 100 small little cookies I had to cut and bake 200 small little cookies.  Needless to say I stated reading the recipes from then on.

 

"I Run To You" by Lady Antebellum is a song that best describes my life.  Not only does it talk about all the trials of life and all of the hurtful things that go on too.  I also talks about running to someone you feel safe with.  For me that person is Jesus Christ.  As I said before my life is centered around the Lord.

Well there it is… a little bit about who I am as a person.  You may like me or you may not.  I am what I am and no one is going to change that.