1. My Faith
     First and foremost, my faith is 100% everything I am. It is everything I need to be built on, and right now it's not where I want and need it to be. Yes, I am in love with Jesus Christ. Yes, I am in love with my church. But right now, I know I am not as close to Christ as I should be. Now, no one is ever as close to Christ as they should be - but I feel like before I can focus on a guy, or dating, or a relationship I need to put all my focus on one particular guy (Jesus Christ). I need to make frequent dates, spontaneous ones, even, to spend time with Him, and I need to strengthen our relationship in order for all the other relationships in my life to strengthen as well.
     Secondly, college guys aren't known for they're chivalry or their unfaltering love for Jesus Christ. And I have lots of things on my "non-negotiable" list and my #1 which is 100% NON-negotiable is that I want and need a guy who could never love me more than he loves Jesus Christ. I am not willing to spend time with guys who I KNOW cannot lead me toward Christ. And even if I find a guy out there who is capable of change, and capable of becoming a true man of God - HE isn't ready to date and has a better relationship to work on than one with me.

2. My personal goals and dreams
     While I am NOT one for putting aside my own hopes and dreams, I do know what it's like to love someone. And when you love someone you really don't see putting aside your hopes and dreams as a bad thing - you actually WANT to put aside your own dreams to create new ones you and you're significant other can work towards together. And I'm sorry, but putting aside all the things I want to accomplish for myself is not happening.
     At my age all the guys (worth dating) are leaving for their missions or returning from them. I see all these girls who are in serious relationships which are working towards marriage, or are already engaged or already married. And I do want that for myself, I do. But even more so, I want to live a life and have my OWN experiences. I want to be so full of good things and work toward good things and know that I achieved good things all on my own. So when I do find a guy worth dating, I won't feel as if all the good things in my life are because of him. I don't want my one and only good thing to lay in the hands of a person I'm merely dating.

3. My education
     Of all my hopes and dreams, my biggest is to finish my education - but also, to never stop learning. In a few weeks I will be entering my second year of college and right now, soaking in everything I learn and pushing myself to become a better student is everything to me. I want to get my bachelors degree and then my masters and hopefully, one day, a doctorates. And I obviously won't be single through all those years of school, but for now - I need to keep an eye on what I really, truly, want to achieve.
     Going to school doesn't hinder my love life, but it is 100% more important to me.

4. Traveling
     TRAVELING, TRAVELING, TRAVELING. I've been to FOUR states and ONE island. That's it. And even if you hardly know me, you will find out soon enough that I am so in love with London, England. It is my dream to travel Europe and to visit beautiful places and learn morsels of beautiful languages and to experience true culture. And one day, I want to do all these things with the love of my life. But before that, I want to do all those things by myself. I want to be alone for my first true traveling experience so that I can create my own stories. I saw this quote the other day that read "I want wings, not roots" and that seriously could not be more true. I don't need to root myself to places or people, right now. I want to be as free as I can be, and feel that way too.

5. Finding out who I am and becoming who I want to be
     My name is Vinissa, and some days I'm not happy with who I am. Not on a serious level, or a depressing level, but on a "I could be better" level. And everyday I work to better who I am. And some days, I don't even know out who I am. But at 19, I don't think I need to. I think I need to run head first into experiences and let myself soak in my circumstances and along the way I can pick up the little clues, and hints, leading me to the person I am; which I hope to be synonymous with the person I want to be. So before searching for a guy worth dating, or one who passes my non-negotiable list, I'm searching for myself. I'm creating a non-negotiable list for myself.



     And there's my list, 5 things more important to me than searching for a guy. And I'm sticking to it... but, should a guy who loves Jesus Christ, pushes me towards my dreams, cheers me on during the weeks I have huge exams or papers due, won't clip my wings, and gives me space to figure out who I am, yet never gives up on the person he knows I can/want to be, comes along - I'm all ears.