the ups and the downs

Here I am... a week into my adventure and slowly but surely learning that it's nothing like what I expected. There are things that I like more than I thought, and things that I don't know as much as I thought.

1. Making all new friends. It is soo tough. When we first got here (we meaning me and Courtney), we thought we would just find all these new friends and have a new life. We learned after a week of working working working, we still barely have any friends and are still working our tails off to get new ones.. particularly boys because....

2. Finding new friends. A couple days into the journey, Court and I decided we have truely found the girls that we want to spend our time with. Their names are Tessa, Peri, and Macall. All from Utah, yes we came this far to make friends with more Utahns :) These girls have their heads screwed on tight and they have their fingers screwed on correctly... meaning, they have their priorities and standards in the perfect place and they aren't WEIRD. Some of the girls here are so wack that you just want to smack their little perky little faces

from left to right we have me, Court, Macall, Peri (p.s. her real name is Perpagillian), and Tessa

3. DRESS CODE!! Ay yi yi, so much more strict that I ever imagined. We can wear shorts... on Sundays we wear skirts and dresses.... oh- but everything has to go PAST our knees. Got dress coded twice for that. Also, we have to be lookin' our best so, no athletic shorts in the dining hall- even if they are past your knee length basketball shorts. It's been quite the battle. I had no idea that boys get so turned on by knee caps.

4. I plan to buy myself a ukelele and become good at it. I learned a song at the PCC the other day. "You are my Sunshine". My very first song. The man that taught us was actually really really nice!



5. I love Courtney Ingalls with all my heart. We get separated for a few hours a day and it is the most painful part of this journey. We never ever spent time together in high school and I have spent the last 15 days with her and LOVED it. Such a cute girl. Such a great example.

more things to come on a later date. we are off to a "marriage conference" dance to meet future husbands! only at byu
oh... did I ever mention that here, we strongly advise to have study groups.. ya you might learn a little but you can meet your future companion (a quote straight from my biology teacher)

bugs. asians. and easy mac.

oohhhh byuh college life.... where to even begin?
We arrived Friday morning, and 2 hours later I had gotten in trouble for not following honor code. Are you aware that at BYU your shorts don't go to your knee... they go past your knee. Boys apparently get very turned on by knee caps. Something that I was completely unaware of.

Next item of business, this place is asian nation. A lot of these people are from Hong Kong, Japan, Fiji, Tonga, Africa... all over. How crazy that I am the minority in this situation?! Never had that happen before. It has really opened my eyes to how lucky I am. Yesterday in Sunday School, we went around and said our name, where we are from, and what we want from Christmas. I felt so spoiled as I heard people say "all I want is to go see my family." "all I want is to be able to talk to my family on the phone" "all I want is to see all of your smiles." "I would like a Book of Mormon that is in english" "I would like to be able to understand what everyone is saying so I can laugh with all of you" "I don't really think I need anything" WOW! I am sooo lucky!! It was just a given for me that I am headed home for Christmas. That is a dream for some people. Seriously, just counting my many blessings.

Now for the bugs, we have just decided to make them our friends. Places they love: our beds, table tops, and walls. When you get to the point where you are killing bugs on the screen of your laptop and think nothing of it is when you know you have been around these little guys quite a bit. Breakfast is not served in the cafeteria here, so Sunday mornings we don't go there, so by after church you are SO ready to eat yummy food in our lovely cafeteria... well me and Court were completely unaware that on Sundays and Sundays only, the cafeteria is closed from 2-4.... we happened to get there at 2:04. awesome. So we decide to head over to our little community kitchen at our dorms that no one ever uses and cook up some easy mac and cheese. Now, let me tell you why no one uses this kitchen. You walk in and see bugs. You might as well be greeted by bugs. Crawling ALL OVER the countertop. As you decide to snoop around and look in all of the cupboards, you run into dried up who knows what kind of food. little mini ants are of course eating at this as well. Then just for kicks, we look into the oven and BUGS AND BUGS AND BUGS come crawling out of the thing!! They must have been stuck in there for ages. Gross, right? Needless to say, we finally pulled through and ate in the cafeteria.

I'm having fun. Classes start on Wednesday and things won't feel quite so much like efy. If this place has taught me one thing, it is how lucky I am to have the family that I have and the means that we have. I am very very fortunate to have sanitary things and have life come so easily for me.
Until next time, much love from your very hot, not air conditioned friend :)