The Little Joys of College

There are many things I enjoy about college and being on my own. Though the big parties and changes are great, moving out has brought me to love and appreciate several little things in the college life. For example....

1. Frozen Grapes
This wonderful snack was introduced to me by my dear friend Davi, who was introduced to them by her dear roommate Rachel, who probably was introduced to them by her mom, and so forth. I am now happily addicted, as it is a cheap food that is good for you and yummy!!! WOOT!


2. NAPS
Oh my goodness. Naps. I love them. I would die without them. Being a college student gives you the WEIRDEST sleep schedule...so we often take naps in between classes and during any free time we have. It's how we roll. We fall asleep anytime, anywhere. We're pretty much pros at falling asleep in random places, just to catch a few winks.

Also, that picture cracks me up every time :)


3. Laptops
This one is pretty much just a shout-out to my parents, for getting me this fabulous laptop....I wouldn't survive without it. Basically...if you don't have one in college you will end up living at the library because all assignments and some quizzes and such are online. Plus we have a bajillion papers to write. Just sayin. So thanks, mom and dad!

4. Good Roommates
They are so nice to have. It's great that we get along so well and we talk about anything and everything. We also are absolutely goofy...for instance: last night we cranked up the soundtrack from Wicked and sang the songs at the top of our lungs while Nikole ran around with a popcorn bowl on her head. I love them.



5. Redecorating...whenever and however we want!
So a couple days ago, the roomies went to DI to go buy stuff for our apartment (I was at work, so I couldn't go) but they ended up getting some posters for our drab little kitchen. We then spent a few hours rearranging the furniture and putting up ridiculous posters. Our very favorite is a poster that stretches from the floor to the ceiling, of Karl Malone...and it has a ruler on the side so you can see how tall you are. Karl is now our mascot, and guests must salute him when leaving our apartment.

Just click it.

Story of my life <----

See the title.

Temples

So this last week has been one of the craziest since I've been here, and this coming week promises to be even worse! But I really like always having something to do here, as opposed to my senior year when I would just sit around on my butt saying "Mooooomm.....I'm boooooredd!!". Now it's quite the opposite. There's so much to do here that I want to do it all and I can't! Oh well. It's fun.
This past weekend was great though, I went to the Payson vs. Salem game on Friday night and saw some old buddies from high school which was fabulous. Saturday I went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple with Kassie, Nicole (not to be confused with NiKole), Alena, and Brianne. It was SO SO SO nice to go to the temple after such a hectic week....stepping into the temple just was so relaxing....ahhh.... :) After doing baptisms, we went up to Salt Lake and walked around Temple Square a little bit, and then went to the Gateway Mall to get food and just chill. Great girl's day out.

Strangest Sunday

Somehow, this Sunday turned out to be one of the most eventful days/nights of my life. It started out like any normal Sunday....

8:00 am -- Alarm goes off for church
9:00 am -- I wake up for church :)
11:00 am -- Church (which was good, I met a few people and got sustained for my new calling of being on the Communications Committee/Ward Photographer...and just normal churchy things)
2:30 pm -- I get set apart by the bishop
2:45 pm -- I sit down to watch the Goofy Movie with Jenna
2:27 pm -- I discover my sandwich maker is broken, and I laugh heartily at the culprits
2:30 pm -- I use said sandwich maker anyways, and enjoy some grilled cheese sandwiches while watching the movie
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm -- I take a much-needed Sunday nap
7:30 pm -- Jenna and I go to ward prayer, where I meet a few more people
7:45 pm -- We go over to one of the boys' dorms with a big group of people to watch a movie...which turned out to be the Swan Princess, much to my delight. We also ate from their never-ending bag of popcorn. (Seriously, this bag is like those big black leaf bags. Huge.)
10:00 pm -- We look out the window and see all these cop cars on the road by Heritage, so we decide to walk down there and see what all the commotion is...turns out two girls from Heritage were hit by a car, and they may be fatalities. We still don't know details as far as who they were or if they're ok... But the cops were there from around 9:30 until about 11. We then decide to go tunnel singing, since we're over there anyways.

Now here's where the night got interesting.

11:00 pm -- Jenna and I get back to the apartment and plop down in Sophie and Nikole's room. (Sophie's already in there.) Nikole walks in, obviously upset. Apparently a CERTAIN roommate (who, for these purposes, will be called Sally) was uncomfortable with the fact that Nikole occasionally spends the night at a friend's house, so she went right ahead and talked to our RA to "see if it was against the Honor Code" without even talking to Nikole about it first!! (And just to clarify, Nikole and a group of her best friends have been having sleepovers with each other for years at this house, and yes, there are a couple males involved. They do everything together...they even formed a band a few weeks ago :) But she never knew this was against the Honor Code because she wasn't doing bad things or even doing it on campus. Just a group of besties hanging out at someone's house.) So the RA went to the Head RA, and they're going to talk to the Honor Code office about it. This is worse than it sounds. The Honor Code people take their job very seriously, and if they feel the Honor Code is being broken, serious measures will be taken. Nikole could very easily lose her scholarship, and if worse comes to worse, she could even be kicked out of the school. At the very least, she's going to have to deal with interrogations from all sorts of people (RA, Honor Code, etc.) But seriously. Sally couldn't have just said something like, "Hey, I'm kind of uncomfortable with you sleeping over there" ? It would've fixed everything! But no. She had to make a huge deal out of it. And it's putting a lot of stress on Nikole.

Anywho, we're sitting there talking about it, and we decide we need to get away from our two psychotic roommates. So Nikole, Sophie, Jenna and I grab our wallets and shoes, lock our doors, and walk out of the apartment.

11:20 pm -- We decide to go to Chase's apartment (Sophie's brother) in Orem to go vent and relax a little bit. We get over there and tell him the story and all of the things that are driving us crazy and he helps bring a little sanity into our lives. Thank you Chase.
12:20 am -- We walk out into the parking lot of Chase's apartment buildings, and we see this car in the road right behind the trunk of ours. We don't think much of it, and start to get in our car. However, a guy gets out of said car, and says, "Is this your car?"
Us: "Yes, sir!"
Guy: "Oh. Well, it just got a boot put on it."
Us: ".........*nervous giggles*...Seriously?"
Guy: "Yeah."
Us: " WHY?!!??!"
Apparently it's a permit-required parking lot, but WE didn't know this because 1, the sign was hidden behind a tree; 2, it was midnight so we weren't really thinking about it; and 3, No one ever told us this bit of information!! The dude was actually pretty nice about it, but it still cost $50.00 to get the dang boot off the car. And like good roommates, we decided to split it 4 ways instead of making poor Nikole pay the whole thing. And the most ironic part? We all told him "thank you" as we got back into our car, all $12.50 poorer. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Wow, this has been one crazy day! Could it get any better??" Just wait. It does.

1:00 am -- We all decide that we're hungry, dang it all, and since it is now Monday, we drive over to Denny's to eat. Thank goodness for cheap good food. We sit there and plot out pranks to pull and drown our sorrows in pancakes, quesadillas, and hot chocolate.
2:00 am -- We drive back to Heritage Halls, but because this is BYU, naturally there is nowhere to park!! After looking at all the different parking lots, we eventually have to go up to the conference center to find a parking spot. We park the car...AND THE KEY IS STUCK IN THE IGNITION!! We literally collapsed in the seats of the car, laughing our faces off, because seriously?! What else could go wrong?! Finally, we manage to get it out and begin the long walk back to our apartment, entertained by Sophie's imitation of a black man.
2:30 am -- I go to bed.

And all I wanted was to go to bed on time for once.

Gotta love college. I love my roommates!! :)

My weekend...and the few days following

Let's start with Friday, shall we? After class and work and such, me and my roommates Nikole and Sophie went to the mall to do a little shopping. (Sophie also wanted to get her eyebrows waxed, which she did, but that's besides the point.) We didn't really end up buying anything, but it was fun to wander around the mall and look at the ridiculous things that people put on sale...for, example, these shoes in the picture below. They have frilly little lace socks attached...not very flattering.


So we get back to the dorm, and we start to get ready for a dance that was happening at 9. (It was only 7 o'clock.) However, 8:15 rolled around, and with it came a wave of laziness and cravings for junk food. Nikole muttered something about "why can't we just stay home and make brownies or something?" which elicited the first "GIRLS NIIIIGHT IIINNNNN!!!" from Sophie. This phrase was repeated at increasingly louder intervals throughout the night. Jenna decided not to conform, and went to the dance anyway, but Sophie, Nikole and I got into sweats, made brownies, and watched a chick flick.

Nikole, Jenna, Sophie, and myself

All right, on to Saturday. After staying up until around 3 the night before, I woke up relatively early to go to Denny's with Kassie and a couple guys from Virginia that she knew. (By the way, Denny's is great for a cheap breakfast! Only 2 dollars!) So we did that, and right after we left, Kassie's friend Parker called her up and wanted to know if we wanted to come with him to Costco to go get samples. We figured we had nothing else to do, so we agreed. We Costco-d it up until around 2, then went back to our dorms to do our own thing for a while. Later that night, Me, Kassie, a friend named Scott, and some other friends all went to Comedy Sportz. Little did we know the surprise we were in for! As we walked up to the door, Kassie punched me in the side and said, "Is that KIRBY??" I looked up, and there he was, in all his glory, Kirby Heybourne. He was a guest star for the night. Also, while we were sitting in the room, we also noticed that the guy sitting a row over looked suspiciously like the mission president guy from the Best Two Years. Me and Scott made a bet on if he was or not (me betting against), so we went and asked him, and sure enough, it was! I owe Scott ice cream. Anyway, it was a hilarious show, we met Mormon celebrities, and we played night games after! Not bad for a Saturday's work!

Kassie, Kirby, and myself

Life at the Y

So here I am, sitting in my roommates' room....as me and Sophie update our blogs and Nikole works on her new videogame. (Which features pineapples, skeletons, and demon hamburgers that will viciously send you back to the start if you touch one.)
We've been having a grand old time here at BYU, rife with adventure and mystery. For instance, tonight we needed to make something with chicken. So we stuck it in the frying pan, and poured whatever we could find from the kitchen onto it. White wine vinegar, garlic salt, parsley, butter, onions, etc. Then we mixed it with good old Parmesan Pasta Roni and viola! Good Food! And then, just to spice things up, we got some Strawberry Mango Crystal Lite, and put random juices from the fridge into it, like apple, orange, and something else that I forgot. Drat. But it was de-lish. Oprah should have us on her show for Top 10 College Recipes.
Also, my roomies and I went and saw Eclipse at the dollar theater a couple nights ago. While Sophie stared intently at the screen, Nikole, Jenna and I laughed until our abdomens were sore. Great fun.

The College Life

So...I figured I may as well try to keep this updated while I'm in college. Here goes.
Today is my 2nd day at BYU! I'm living in Heritage Halls, with 5 roommates named Jenna, Sophie, Nikole, Holly, and Amy. Though they all definitely have their quirks (who doesn't?) I love them! They're great and easy to talk to which is good. There are two of us to a room. We also have a kitchen and a "living room" and a bathroom. Yay.
This semester I am taking 14 credits due to requirements for a scholarship. I have class every morning and then I work every day from 1 to 5. So my days are pretty packed. The classes I'm taking are: Book of Mormon with Marsh, American Heritage with Kimball, Career Exploration with Buell, Biology with Gill, The Living Prophets with Newell (who, by the way, is the narrator for General Conference so he's pretty cool to listen to haha), and a guitar class with Green. So far I'm liking most of my classes and professors, though I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a rough time with Am. Heritage and Biology....oh well....it'll be an adventure for sure!! More later. Peace.