Week 2

The weather is getting better but that hill on campus is still treacherous. On my busiest day I go up and down that long climb 2-3 times. That doesn't seem like a lot but when you have to hike literally to the TOP of campus twice, it becomes a personal victory. My only motivation to keep going is seeing the beautiful Rexburg temple.

This week it predicted snow on Wednesday, but it never came, all it did was rain and rain. There are always clouds in the sky and my roommate from AZ isn't used to waking up everyday and seeing the sky overcast and cloudy; just feels like winter to me. 

 I have decided to make it a personal goal to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead every Tuesday morning because I don't have any class. I went for my first time this week and although it took me a good half an hour to walk there it was worth it. The temple is beautiful and as soon as I stepped onto the grounds I felt an instant peace come over me. I was able to walk right in, do confirmations and baptisms and be done in about an hour. As I walked home it was cold outside and my hair was wet, but I didn't feel the cold much. I am so grateful that I will be able go every week.

  

Also on Tuesday we went to devotional and listen to Elder Christofferson speak. He wasn't this AMAZING speaker and he didn't talk about anything out of the ordinary or profound, but the feeling I got when he entered the room was powerful. I know he is an apostle and a man of God and as he shared his testimony of Jesus Christ I felt the Holy Ghost confirm to me that every word he spoke was true. 

The rest of the week went good and I got all of my classes finalized by adding yet another online art class. It's crazy that I started out with 11 credits and am now taking 16.5! For right now I think I have a pretty good handle on spreading out my time between the on campus and online classes. My favorite class currently is my English class. My teacher is having us write personal narratives and teaching us the difference between "Showing" and "Telling" in our writing.

This is an example I did in class:

"Telling"

I grew up in a yellow house with white trim and lilac bushes lining the driveway. Big tall shade trees in front and back with a tire swing and a trampoline. Watermelon decor covered every inch of the kitchen. The family room had a couch, a TV, and  two computers side by side in the family room. My room was long and rectangular with my bunk bed at the end.

"Showing"

I grew up in a faded yellow house with dirty, now off-white trim. Lilac bushes lined the driveway that only bloomed for a few short weeks in the spring. Big shade trees in the front and back yards that had thousands of leaves that got sticky with sap and stuck to our shoes and feet in the fall. We had a tire swing in the back, along with a trampoline and an old, broken, and rusty swing set. I still remember birthday parties, picnics, with the neighborhood kids, and playing in the back on those long summer days. 

Watermelon decor covered every inch of the kitchen so when we invited friends over they would come in and always try to count how many melons there were. We did an official count once; more than 100 watermelons in our small kitchen. The kitchen also held a bundle of memories. Family dinners, birthday cakes and songs, family and friend game nights, art projects, late night homework. The kitchen connects to the family room so in a way I guess the memories spilled into that room as well. 

The family room was just that a room for our family. It was our place of play, of family night, and watching movies with all our bedding, pillows, blankets around us. We built forts with chairs or moved the couches to put a big bed sheet over the heater vent to make a cave. As kids we felt lucky to have two computers side by side where we spent hours mastering computer games like sonic, pinball, and peggle; we got quite good. 

My room was in the back of the house and was more rectangle than square like the other rooms. For such a small room we packed it full of two dressers, a desk, a toy chest, a dollhouse/bookshelf. and a bunk bed. My sister and I shared the room and my art projects, clothes, school papers mixed in with the barbies and baby dolls. I'm not clean when it comes to my room, but everything had its place.

The imperfections all around is what made my house a home.

* * *

This class had made me really take a step back and remember my childhood from a now "adult" perspective. We had another assignment this week to write about "Eating". That was the whole prompt and I guess with all of this self reflection on my childhood I just applied that to eating as well. (Below is what I wrote in class)

EATING

I would say that eating is like a love hate relationship. Mostly love. I grew up in a family of not picky, but particular eaters that are that way because of my parents. In general I will eat almost anything. I have always loved the fresh fruits and veggies and I eat most cultures of food except for sea food. 

Why not sea food?

It all has to do with what we grew up being served in my house. I never grew up eating ANY seafood, therefore I don't eat it now. 

For me this is similar in the case of Salad dressings. My dad is not a big fan of most dressings so I never tried them and my mom never forced me to try them because they are to her considered and "extra". Looking at just this one instance I realize that many of my eating habits as a child and even now have a lot to do with my dad. My mo generally cooks the meals and because she loves my dad she doesn't cook many things HE doesn't like to eat. Things that are "white, creamy, or cheesy" are usually the things he doesn't prefer. Therefore foods like Alfredo, Mac & Cheese, Potatoes Soup, and Carousals were never served for dinner. 

On the opposite end of the scale we eat a LOT of Mexican foods. WHY? Well because my dad really likes Mexican food, he went on a mission to Argentina, and as an added bonus my mom loves Mexican food as well. This has caused me and my siblings to also grow up loving all sorts of Mexican food both the traditional and the Americanized. 

* * *

Speaking of food, the eating situation is really working well. JB and I share food and we eat dinner together every night and lunch most days. On Sundays all six of us eat together. This week we had a variety of meals and JB and I are starting to get the hang of the "planning meals for the week" thing. This week we also had some bananas from some of the other girls go BLACK. So what do you do with old bananas? You make AMAZING banana bread muffins of course! They were SUPER good and made our Wednesday 10X better as we braved the cold. 

On Friday JB and I had a friend from High School over for dinner and games. We had a really fun time playing Pictionary and rat slap with cards. We decided on brownies and ice cream for dinner and pizza for dessert. Crazy, I know, but we had so much fun we decided to make it an apartment tradition to do it again on every last Friday of each month. 

On Saturday we went to the General Relief Society broadcast at the I-Center. It was so neat to be in a place surrounded by other sisters in the church and to be spoken to directly by the General RS Presidency as well as the Prophet. I love that man and how he can be a funny old man to serious and sincere at the same time.

Church gets a little more interesting and more like a ward every Sunday. I am starting to recognize faces and remember some names. We got our family home evening groups so we will see how that goes tomorrow. This last week for "Ward" Family home Evening we drove  out to the sand dunes and had a bonfire and roasted marsh mellows. It was kinda fun except for the fact that it was COLD out there and we all got tons of sand in our shoes. When we got home one of our girls tried to vacuum out the sand from her shoe and the vacuum started smoking REALLY bad smelling smoke. We opened up the house and pushed the vacuum outside. it took a good half an hour for the smell to finally go away. YUCK! We made sure to put in a request to get it fixed. The maintenance man fixed it for us....but we are too afraid to try it so it just sits in our corner. 

That's all my adventures for the week. 2 down 10 more till Thanksgiving and 14 more till Christmas.

LUV YA!

Week 1

Monday-First day of school!!
My first official day of college was AMAZING!! I wore my Lion King shirt as a dare from JB and kinda rocked it;) I found all of my classes easily and felt super cool when I was able to direct a fellow freshman to a building (he was at the completely opposite end of campus!!). I got to come home in between my classes for 2 1/2 hours for lunch and then back up the hill. I had Book of Mormon and American Foundations in the morning and English in the afternoon. My teachers are all very nice and funny in their own ways. I absolutely love my English teacher! She doesn't wear shoes during class and because the first day was basically reading the syllabus she let us go a half an hour early! It was HOT HOT HOT!! Where is all this cold weather I was warned about?
That night we squished all six of us into a five seat car and drove to the bishops house. That drive was one to remember, lol. We made it safely and spent the night meeting people in the ward. The six of us started a volleyball game and met so many people in the ward when they came to join in. It was a great casual icebreaker activity and we all had a fun time.
Tuesday
I guess The cold weather rolled in while I was sleeping in. I had no classes Tuesday and when I woke up it was cloudy outside. It decided to start raining when I did my laundry that morning and then had a break when I went to the store. We dressed in our Sunday best and headed to devotional around 2pm. It was so neat to listen to the speakers and to be able to go to something so spiritually uplifting every Tuesday. When we came out of devotional it was raining a little again. We only live about a 8-10 min walk from campus but that amount of time for the weather is nothing. We started walking in a sprinkle which turned into a rain. We were about halfway there when the girl I was walking with says to me, "it can get any worse right?". Almost immediately after she said those words it poured buckets! We were already soaked so what could we do but laugh at the irony of what had just happened.
We got back to our apartment to find girls walking around the parking lot in running shorts and tank tops in the rain!!  I had two friends stop by from my seminary class this last year in Yuba. After they left we waited for the rest of our roommates to come back from campus. Everyone was home except one. We knew she should be home anytime and when we looked outside to see if she was coming the rain began again. I don't know how to describe rain that was heavier and harder than the buckets that were poured on us on our way home but that is how much rain came down. It was like hurricane weather and we could see that so much water was coming down that the whole parking lot was a puddle in a couple of minutes! The one missing roommate came running home about 1 minute after it started soaked to the bone!
We stayed inside for the rest of the night and at about 6pm I looked out the window to see a beautiful double rainbow that went across our entire apartment!

Wednesday
I had the same schedule as Monday but it was COLD vs the super hot Monday. It wasn't raining but it was cloudy and windy and at lunch I came back home for a second jacket.
In my Book of Mormon class the teacher asked us if anyone had gotten engaged over the past two days. No one had but it was scary to think that it is so common for people to get married here that it was real possibility.
The number of people who are married and who have kids already is still such a foreign thing to me.Almost every day I see some girl or boy pushing a stroller around campus or walking their baby up and down the halls. I did get the chance to go to a new class today in the beautiful Hinkley building. It was a class designed for K-6 teachers, but it is a basic how to teach art to kids class. It was really fun and I hope I get to add it to my schedule.
My English class was fun as always. We did short presentations on something that we are passionate about. People brought things like a soccer ball, a guitar, a paint brush, a book, sheet music, etc. Then they had to tell why they were passionate about this object. I brought my sketch book and shared that i am an artist and planning on majoring in art; possibly graphic design. Before each student came up my teacher said where they were from. There are about 6 kids from CA, a couple from the east coast, Washington, Texas, and then there were 4 from out of the country! They were from Canada, New Zealand , Peru, and Mexico.
When we came home from school we saw that the bishop had dropped by a pizza for us while we were gone! He is so awesome! Later that night we went to an apartment meeting with everyone from the third floor and got to know each other, eat doughnuts, drink hot chocolate, and just hang out.

Thursday
I got to sleep in because I only had one class during the day. It is my Child Nutrition class. I really enjoyed it, but yet again it makes me realize how young I am. There is a boy in my class who looked like he could be my age. When we shared things about ourselves he told us that he is married with FOUR kids! His oldest is 6yrs old!!!! There are two other people in the class who have young kids as well, and I'm sure a bunch of others that are married.
I have come to find that there is a very different scale of how "old" you are here. It is not based on age but on things you have accomplished in your life. The first is graduating from High school. This means you are fresh out of the water and as freshman you come with no knowledge of what it means to live on your own. Then there are the "engaged girls" who have either waited around for a while or got caught right up by a returned missionary. Somewhere in between those two are the girls who will date every boy and their roommate because "forget college" they just want to get married! On the other end you have the "returned missionaries". Some have had a little schooling before and some don't, but once they come back from their mission it doesn't really matter. These boys have now ALL been labeled as "on the hunt" for a girl to marry. It is kind of awkward if you are a girl who does NOT want to be "hunted" because the boys are all OVER the TOP friendly anyway and are very confident because they just spent the last two years of their lives talking to anyone and everyone who would listen to them. Not all of them act this way but are all labeled as so if they want to be or not. Then you have the "Newly weds". They walk everywhere linking arms and holding hands and meeting after class and posting pictures on Facebook and telling everyone how happy they are to be married. I know everyone goes through that stage but everyone around them just wants to tell them to SHUT UP because they are so annoyingly happy! Then you have the couples who are expecting their first baby. Walking around campus with pregnant people in high school was quite awkward but not really out of the ordinary. Here it is similar but different because you know that this couple is already married and made the decision to start a family. And last you have the married with one or more kids. These people, both men and women, can be seen walking around campus with strollers and baby bags, riding bikes with baby seats, and sitting with kids in the hallways. Now that i'm not used to yet. I do have some respect for thsese parents working so hard in school and supporting a growing family. Of course it also makes me seriously think about if I would want to go through that myself.

Friday
I only had one class today because my English teacher decided to go out of town so we got the day off. having gone to school for a whole week now makes me feel so much more confident. I got to spend the day with my roommates and we had a blast. I went grocery shopping for the first time all by myself, with my roommate, and I think we did alright. ;) That night we hung out and watched movies like Thor. It was a late night but was worth it. It is so fun every day to find out what things we all have in common and the different ways that we were raised.

Saturday 
Today was a day of homework and rest from the busy and tiring week. We didn't do a whole lot but I didn't feel like I had to be doing something. It is nice to just have a place that you like to come home to and feel safe and welcome.
The pictures of food were just two of the yummy meals we have made for dinner. Omelets where you use anything you have leftover in the fridge and Frozen veggie mix with Top Ramen. I figure if I have a whole case of Ramen then I should try to use it when I can RIGHT?? The cookies are the leftovers from the one's we made for the girls next door. We made a BIG batch and gave them some in return for the cookies they made for us.

The week has been great and I'm ready to take on another!

Day 3

First Sunday at college, in Rexburg, and in a student ward!
We woke up and BH made everyone waffles for KJ's Birthday. We had no problem getting up and ready for church because it doesn't start until 11 am. We met in the Snow building which is the closest building to us. The snow building is the preforming arts, music, and dance building. we met in a concert hall for sacrament meeting and a dance studio for both Sunday school and Relief Society. It was the last two classes because the dance studio we were in had all of the walls lined in mirrors so anywhere you sat you were looking at yourself and everyone in front and behind you. The classes were so slow and Sacrament meeting was SUPER quiet. I'm guessing that was because there were no kids or babies.
After church we took a walk around a little of campus to warm up after sitting in that FREEZING building (I guess that's why they called it the Snow Building haha). When we came home we got lunch and changed into comfy hanging out clothes. Unfortunately about an hour after church two guys from our ward stopped by to tell us about sharing rides for the ward activity the next day. I happened to be the only one dubbed dressed enough to answer the door (which means I was wearing pants not running shorts). Two of the girls were actually in the room but were not seen or heard once the door was opened. As soon as I closed the door we busted up laughing. From then on I was made the official door opener. We were visited the same day by the ward clerk, and then again by the girls next door. We played scrabble, watched movies, and made tacos/fajitas for dinner together. We had so much fun just being together and getting to know each other. I love these girls already!

Day 2

Saturday morning was full of more freshman orientation and seminars. I went to a presentation about education with JB and KH in the Hinkley building. It was pretty good considering the fact that i'm not planning on being a teacher....but who knows??
After that we met up with our I-team and got lunch. We ate as a group which was fun because we got to talk with all these new freshmen from around the country and some that were not even from the US! It is crazy how many people I met from CA but had never even heard of their town.

After lunch we got our own personal tour of campus from our I-team leaders. They showed us all over campus and then we headed over to the heart building to attend the "Spirit of Ricks" show. They put on various skits showing all of the activities at BYUI.

Once we were done on campus we came back and finished unpacking and organizing the apartment. That night we hung out at home and got visited by the bishopric. They were so nice and brought us cookies to welcome us to the 37th ward!! We also got visited by one of my roommate's sisters who also brought us cookies! Then the girls who live in the apartment next to us brought over MORE COOKIES!! Luckily they were all very good cookies. Such a good day:)

  

  

  

              

Day 1 - The Move In

BYU-Idaho is very pretty in the fall. The trees are full of leaves, the grass is always green, there are hundreds of flowers covering campus. The buildings are BIG and sometimes all look the same. It is easy to get lost inside or outside the buildings. As I have walked around campus more and more I have started to realize each building, although daunting in size, is unique and beautiful in its own way.

We got up and packed the car at JB's sisters house early Friday morning. We were hoping to beat the rush by leaving by 7:30. We all squished into the car (H and Jhad to share a seat) with food piled around us. As we drove we got stuck in traffic for what we thought was for construction. It was s l o w moving. As we sat in the long line of cars we watched as cars drove past also piled full of stuff. We knew where they were headed and it was fun to see all of the different licence plates. we also looked at several people read our car which was written on with window paint by AH. We got up a little further we realized that there had been an accident and all cars were being directed into the right lane around it. Then not even a mile up the road we saw the real construction and we were all ushered into the left lane.

Once we got the the La Jolla Apartments we got the key and immediately started unpacking. KH, one of my new roommates, and her parents were already there and they helped us unpack. They had driven from Arizona! JB and I with the help of our moms and she sister brought up everything to our third floor apartment and set up our stuff in the back bedroom. Mom stayed to help me unpack enough stuff to give her three empty boxes back and have her help me put my bed together.

And then the left.....

It was bitter sweet for everyone but JB and I were excited and waved happily as our moms drove away. We got right to work unpacking, finding places for things, hanging up shower curtains, putting out garbage cans. etc.

 KH left with her parents and KJ showed up with her mom a little while later. BH showed up next with her parents. It was fun to finally meet in person the names and pictures we had stalked on facebook for the past couple weeks. They were all nice and it was though we already knew each other. SF, who we hadn't found on fb, showed up last with her grandparents. The adults talked to each other and helped unpack. The families came and went and at some point it was just JB and I alone in our new little place. I was putting things away in the kitchen when I realized why this didn't seem real yet. I was just playing the ultimate game of house like we played as kids. I was setting up house and finding the proper place for all of the mix matched cups and bowls. The cupboards and fridge had real food this time and all of my clothes were now in my new room ready to be put in their new drawers. 

All six of us made it back in the afternoon and we decided to go to one of the activities they had planed for us on campus. We went to the conference center and sat along the back wall to listen to Pres, Clark. he gave a message about stewardship and how that was to be our goal here at BYUI.  The room was packed with students and parents and it was such a good feeling to know that I was in a room of people who at that moment were just like me. Just sitting in that room made me feel like I was apart of something far bigger that myself. 

After the meeting we met our I-teams and met on the field  for some games and to talk about the message we had just listened to. It reminded me of a youth conference but with people from all over the US. There were kids from Virginia, Florida, Alaska, Texas, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Ohio, California, Washington... It was so cool! All six of us stayed together as a group which was nice so we knew five other people in the group. 

After the games we returned to our place to keep unpacking. We all met again at 7 to walk over to the talent show with our I-team. The talent show was amazing and so fun. There were singers, dancers, a magician, a juggler, pianists, a beat boxer,a violinist, and even a ukuleleist! We all had a great time, it was fun to go with our apartment girls. We made it back and all got ready for bed. A pretty rewarding first day.