Windsday

I did not procrastinate as much as yesterday; in fact I finished both my bio assignment and my Music paper. The 'best of youtube' podcast did keep me busy, but it was for a good cause (this blog, of course!). There's some really cool stuff, so keep your eyes out.

Today: I posted my blog. That was done soon after bio; I started it during class (taking dutiful notes, of course) and finished up right after. Anson and I grabbed lunch at the cougareat, and then I had to go upstairs to meet with my freshman mentor.

OK, quick rundown. Freshman Mentoring is a new program started this year for freshman. Freshman sign up for a 'bundle' during each semester, where they will be with all other freshman. Also, they are assigned a 'freshman mentor' to act as a kind of guide; someone who they can ask about things they don't know about. Someone to help widdle freshmen stay in the loop and on top of things. My mentor's name is Brent, and he seems pretty chill.

We had to cut that kind of short, though, so I could go to my bio review. There's a test from today to Friday for all the material we have covered so far, and so of course we had a review. After it was over, I still had a good hour and a half before I had my music class, so I decided I might as well go take the test while I had all that information fresh in my mind. The testing center is pretty intimidating, and I got in on a good day i.e. there were only 20 other people in there. No line, and the people at the desk were really helpful (and even let me borrow a pencil because I forgot one). The test was ridiculously easy-I am not overstating when I say that he gave us 5 of the answers to problems on the test during class. A quote from him: "Yeah, this one is number 2 on the test, so remember that." The other 45 questions were easy, and I finished in under 25 minutes. Then, they have this really cool thing where you can see your score right after you finish: you just head towards the exit and there's a TV with the end of your ID number and the score you got. For anyone who didn't see my Facebook post, I got a 100. Unscaled or anything. Boo. Yah. I was feeling pretty good, needless to say.

I got myself a Jamba Juice on my way back to the apartment; Pomegranate Pick-me-up. I got all my stuff together and headed to music early. There were two beds that were opening up today in Heritage, so I wanted to be sure and get it. Though I started off well, I clicked on the wrong option by accident and it cost me the time I needed to reserve the room.

To make up for it (I guess??) I spent the next hour and a half learning about Mozart; we even watched scenes from Amadeus and a production of The Marriage of Figaro, which was pretty cool. However, after an hour and a half of classical music, and then moving on to Haydn, I got pretty tired--I almost dozed off a few times. That class finally ended, though, and I got home and finished the paper. I won't make any comments as to the quality, but for anyone who knows my aptitude in writing, I don't need to.

Side note; on my way back from the testing center I saw this view:

Looked like a storm coming on! I was really excited, because, again, it's the desert.

During music it actually did rain; it lasted for a good 20 minutes, I think. So much rain!.....

This is the result of me trying to covertly get a picture of the rain on the window while hiding my phone behind my laptop screen. Ignore the student in the foreground; turn your focus instead to the ridiculously overclouded view through the windows. Unfortunately, you can't really see the rain on the window. You'll have to take my word that it was there.

Anyways, after I finished my paper I had myself a nice little nap. Woke up ~9:40, spent some time looking at Best of Youtube stuff, and had some dinner. That's pretty much my day. There's another one coming tomorrow, I can feel it!

Also, bios coming soon.

A Bunch o' Stuff

So, I didn't post last night, and I'm trying to make for that. Quick story: I was getting sleep deprived. Long story: you know that feeling you get when you don't get enough sleep and so you're really close to snapping at the smallest thing and your idiot roommate (who will go unnamed) who decided it would be a good idea to interrupt someone who was juggling uncooked eggs and the resulting mess got all over the floor is being an idiot and you wanted to go to bed an hour ago but there was a cute girl over so you wanted to put on a good face but in the end you realized that you were worse than being a third wheel you were more like 4th or 5th and at the same time realizing that if anyone said one word wrong to you you were probably going to try and snap their head off? Yeah, that was me last night. I ended up going to bed by 11, though I initially was going to go to sleep at 10. Of course, the majority of my roommates were still up past 12:00, which is really great when someone's trying to sleep. Luckily, I had the smart idea of turning on Pandora to my Secret Garden station--helped me get right back to sleep.

But I digress. Rewinding to cover the whole day: I got up close to 12 in the afternoon, which meant I missed the devotional, which I was a little bummed about but it turned out the devotional wasn't that good anyway, so I can comfort myself that I didn't miss out on too much. I got ready for my BoM class at 2, but hung out with Trent and some of the girls from our FHE group with before I went to class. Class started out...well. Apparently we were supposed to be assigned a quiz that day (to be completed online), for which I was SOOOOOO not prepared. There were these readings that I hadn't even looked at yet, and it would have been bad. Luckily (or perhaps it was a bit more than luck), my most kind, generous, benevolent professor decided to postpone it to next week, which gives me time to do those readings. *phew*

After BoM I grabbed a calzone from Freschetta in the cougareat (it was garlic chicken; it was actually pretty good). I ate it as I walked back to my apartment, and then started working on my music paper. Of course, when I say I started working on it what I mean is I found out that hulu finally made an app for the iPhone, and then my roommate told me that all the office episodes are online, so I had to check that out, of course. In the end, I didn't get too much done, but it's getting done today, I promise. And of course, I have to explain my video: it was overcast yesterday. Yes, there were actually clouds. AND it drizzled. For a few minutes. I thought that was amazing (because, you know, it is the desert and all)

After that... well, see the beginning.

That was my Yesterday. Now, to follow up on a promise I made on monday-I'm going to post the pictures from the scavenger hunt. Just as a bit of an explanation, a picture scavenger hunt has two components: identification and replication. Each participating group will go through and identify 10 objects and take a picture of them. Then, they will hand off the camera to another group, who now have to find those same things in order and take a picture of them. In our case we played using the ground floor of the wilk. My group won (i.e. we were the first group back after having taken the second round of pictures). The pictures on the left are the first ones,and then on the right are the ones that we took. Not to brag, or anything, but I think we did a pretty good job.

-The other picture to this is missing; this is the one my group took. I don't know if I'll be able to fine the other one.

Mondays...

So, it's monday again. I'm really tired so this will be short and not necessarily gramatically correctical. Or splelling-whise. Annywayses, I had bio this morning (which is kind of what inspired this video, the fact that my bio teacher has an alpaca farm and llamas are like alpacas).

Bio, then lunch, then home to chill, then a nap, then music class (there were no rooms opening up, so that was sad) then after that we had FHE with our FHE group; we did a picture scavenger hunt and it was cool. I'm tired right now so I don't really feel like explaining or posting the pictures, but I'll probably do something for that tomorrow. Did I mention, that, I'm, tired? This is my shortest post yet. Cool. At least there's a video.

It's been a week!

So. Here I am. 7 days in and nothing much to show for it (except this wicked cool blog, and this video which one of my roommates just showed me). I just finished my first paper of college (...yay!). The prompt was on how biology applies to computer science. Fun Fact--writer's block does not go away when you go to college. Which is really annoying when it's 12:30 and I'm trying to make my posting deadline (which is essentially just to make sure I get it in before anyone wakes up to read it).

Soooo making up for yesterday--after hanging out with the Vaughns I came back and worked on the windows update yada yada... I ended up going to the creamery with a bunch of people (new people and some people I already knew) and just kind of chilling; we talked, got to know each other, etc. then came back and played egyptian rat screw (which is a really hard game to play with two decks). I didn't actually start, but slapped in with four other people left and ended up with the majority of the deck (never discount scout camp training--it has left me with reflexes like a cheetah). After that I came back and tried posting but then ran into all the problems listed from yesterday's post.

Today: it's Sunday today! And that means Church. I am in the BYU 186th ward, in the BYU 4th stake (gotta love Utah).

A shot of the program, as proof (the hymnbook had imprinted the name of the stake, but I didn't get a picture of it)

Sacrament meeting was essentially sustainings followed by two student speakers who gave 5 min. talks, and the first and second counselor of the bishopbric spoke. I got good notes, but don't feel like putting them on here. Then (and this threw a little) we split up into elder's quorum and relief society. Luckily, the record-changing got through so I was on the attendance list in elder's quorum. The bishop led a good discussion as we waited for the stake president to come and set apart the new EQ president (and presidency). Our president is named Ben something or other, which is unfortunate because I can't very well call him President Ben, but I can't remember his last name. Oh well. I am excited for home teaching assignments, though; it will give me a chance to meet even more people. Oh, and I guess I should reveal what my calling is: I am the ward choir pianist and I'm wicked pumped. I didn't really know what to expect from my calling, but this is pretty good: I don't have to be in charge of anything, or anybody. All I have to do is practice and play the music that the choir is working on, which I love to do. Also, it gives me the chance to play accompaniments, instead of just straight hymns. The only sad thing about it is that it means I can't sing in the choir. 'Tis a shame. On the upside, I met the choir director just prior to ward prayer this evening; her name is Autumn and she seems pretty cool. I can't wait to get the choir up and started. With the 8 weeks we have left, I think that should give us time for at least two or three musical numbers. Finally, I got this great picture of the sun on the mountains as I was leaving Bowen for my apartment. Enjoy!

A little lost

Perhaps I was a little overeager in titling yesterday's post as "Lasy *insert day*" because today was a very lazy day for me. I woke up at around 10:30 this morning, showered, and made myself an omelet. After that, I waited for a call from the Vaughns (old family friends) who were planning to be in the area (by which I mean BYU campus) sometime in the afternoon. While I waited for them I worked a little bit on this assignment for bio (though I still need to do a lot more for it). I also went over to the bookstore to see if they had a windows 7 pack I could buy (the version I had before wasn't ever activated; it ends up that was the cause for all the problems I've been having with this computer). I got it bought (after some considerable help from my dad) and started, and then the Vaughns showed up. I met up with them and we grabbed some ice cream at the creamery. The reason I put this video up will be readily apparent to anybody who knows Marty; otherwise, it's still funny if you happen to know Lost. the weirdest thing is how different Marty looks. The last time I had seen him was when he was still in Boston, and he was a lot shorter/younger looking (thinking about him I am somewhat reminded of the present day Matt Zielonko). Here are some pics:

Wow, sorry about the blurriness; totally didn't realize until just now

From left to right: Marty, Brooke (a cousin of the Vaughns), Me, and Katie (Marty/Katie's dad took the picture)

After meeting up with them I came back and finished the windows 7 installation and activation. So far it's working great; got all the programs I need reinstalled, and I'm working on updating my iPhone (so far it's working great; it's gotten way past what it's done before)

.......okay, now fast forward an hour. long story short, I need an antivirus program to connect to the network, and the virtual network pass needs renewing every week; apparently right as I'm trying to update a blog post. What this is means is that since I just installed a new OS I've been needing to get an antivirus program, so I couldn't just renew the connection. I had to get another copy of mcafee (Dad you'll get an email, I think) and install it; but, and here's the kicker: right after I install it and get the network up again my computer CRASHES. THEN AGAIN. THEN A THIRD TIME. Needless to say, I'm kinda FRUSTRATED, especially since I have church at 10:30 tomorrow. I'll finish news about today tomorrow. I need to get to sleep. oh, and my iphone still isn't updaing. BIG surprise. I hate iTunes.

Lazy Friday

So today was pretty uneventful (compared to my others days). I woke up this morning at 8:20 to this really annoying and consistent banging sound coming from the water pipes, but I didn't have time to investigate because I had to go to class. I met up with Katie and Kayla (from my FHE group and also in my bio class) and we headed over. The class, once again, was boring. He tried to demonstrate 'inert energy' by bringing kids up to the front and having them act as water molecules at varying energy levels--something to do with hydrogen bonds and all that good stuff. Katie fell asleep at some point in the lecture, and I would have joined her were I not attempting to write the essay that's due Monday. After bio I came back to the room and made myself an omelet (which actually turned out pretty good), then chilled until 12:30, when Tutu arrived bearing gifts of clothing my mom had ordered before I left and had shipped out here. With her was my cousin-I-had-not-seen-in-a-long-time Kea. She's out here for EFY next week, and it was kind of strange because the last time I saw her in person (I think) was at her baptism. Tutu took us out to lunch, at this place called Chuck A Rama--essentially just a big buffet. It was pretty good.

Here is a picture of Kea and me (I'm the haole), sitting at a booth inside Chuck A Rama

This is a plant unique to Utah (as far as I'm concerned), called a smokewood.

After that I came back to the apartment, watched some hulu, had a nap, and did random stuff. I tried updating my iPhone again, but as always, my computer crashed. It then crashed four times more as I tried to turn it on, because, you know, it really loves me. In lieu of spending too much time on the computer I picked up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies again; I only got part way through it but it's still a good read. That's pretty much my day. I'm meeting with some old family friends, the Vaughns, tomorrow, who are up for the weekend from Arizona. I'm wicked excited to see them again. I'm also kind of tired, so I'm going to go to bed. Good night!

Why?

I promise that the relevance of this little clip will become apparent, as soon as I get through the main part of my day.
Today I had an appointment with Kerry Hammock, who works in the academic advisement center and who works with people with their majors. I went to him to get advice on various majors, in the hope of actually declaring a major, which was made extremely easy by the fact that there is only one program that is close to what I want to do, so I chose that one: Computer Science. I officially declared my major, and figured things out at the phys/math advisement center with regard to which classes I should take for the program. Another noteworthy tidbit was that, it being Thursday, all the EFY kids were really easy to identify because they were dressed up (which I felt sorry for them for because it got pretty hot this afternoon). After that I came back to the apartment and kind of chilled until 12:30 when Foster and I went over to Erin's apartment for lunch (we had set this up tentatively, Erin and I--we were at EFY together last year and so we figured that we should hang out. That ended up turning into lunch, with whatever roommates were available). I brought my ukulele, because Erin is more skilled than I am--see this link for proof (Erin is the 2nd from the right). We had pizza, and it was really neat. Then it was time to be off to BoM--all the way across campus :( The class was cool, though. Our professor is really into going really deep into the scriptures; it was funny listening to him describe how he thought Nephi would have geeked over Laban's sword and played with it like my brothers would a lightsaber. After I came back from that I watched some hulu and did some reading for bio tomorrow.
Then, at around 7, the girls from our FHE group invited us to go hike the Y with them, which it ended up only Tim and I went with them. It was a ton of fun, though it was pretty steep and the air got rather thin near the top. Even so, we made it up and back without accident: here are some pics: (the whole collection is here)

Here is the Y from a side view, about .06 miles from the top

I did the best I could with this picture, what with the sun behind everyone

This is the coolest thing; on the way back down we saw this snake by the side of the road. I could see it wasn't a rattler, but I wasn't sure it wasn't poisonous, so I didn't pick it up.

And that's my day. Tune in next time for more adventures of, well, me! (Do people actually read these things?)

Insert creative title here

I don't know that this is necessarily indicative of my state of mind, merely that it is now 11:30 by the time I am writing this and as I promised myself I would post daily I need to get it done by 12:00.

Aaaaaaaanyway, here I go. Today was my second class of biology, and boy was it a doozy, I am completely kidding. Today we 'learned' about experimental design (which has been pounded into my head since 6th grade), and in the second hour continued into 'chemistry', by which I mean we reviewed what atoms are. Whoop-de-do. The only entertaining part was when the professor, bless his heart, was explaining atomic structure, and one student asked him a question that threw us hard into particle physics, and he had absolutely no idea what to say. Of course, there were enough of us who were well versed in nuclear decay, but by that point everyone had kind of lost interest anyway. After bio I came back to the room and again tried to update my iPhone to iOS 4.0, but again to no avail. It was such a failure, in fact, that after trying to back up for a half hour and having my computer abruptly turn OFF for no apparent reason, I found that upon restarting my computer no longer had iTunes installed. ... ....cool. I have now come to the conclusion, using the experimental techniques I learned at bio today, that iTunes hates my computer. After it failed drastically, it was time to grab some lunch, so I decided to try out this whole 'meal plan lets me buy food using my ID card anywhere I want' deal at the cougareat. Anson came with me (one of my roommates--I'm planning on doing bios on my roommates at some point--with their permission, of course) and we got some good food. I had a hawaiian pizza, he had a cheeseburger. Pretty good deal altogether; with 8" pizza and drink it only cost me $6.something. After that we ambled over to the library with the intent to explore it; we did wander around, but we quickly lost interest in the library in favor of this miniature of the campus, and decided to come back home before getting any more lost. Just as a side note, the library has five, that's right, FIVE, floors. Two below ground, and three above. A little intense, I think. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures, for which I am sorry. I'll get it some other day.

After that excursion, I was feeling tired so went to take a nap with a good hour and a half left before my music class. I ended up waking up because my roommate Foster (again, bios coming later) had a friend over to help set up something on his computer for their chem class. It's not every day that you wake up to hear someone say: "wait, you should install java, too, you're going to need that. Oh, and update adobe while you're at it." Could swear I was still dreaming for that brief period when I was coming out of unconsciousness. Not so.

Made it to music 202 early; not because I'm an eager freshman (though that is certainly a factor), but because newly opened rooms are released every monday and wednesday at 4:00 pm, and my fall/winter housing is wayyyy off campus. I saw this morning that there was going to be 1 bed released in heritage for guys, so I was so ready to snatch it up. I got to class, got my internet going, then just kept hitting refresh over and over. Then, the crucial moment; at 4:00 it released the bed, I clicked on it, and........it said that there were no rooms left. So that was a disappointment. Things picked up though, once class actually started. We spent an hour on Bach and Handel, and listened to some of their more famous works: Brandenberg concertos, some cantantas, and of course the Messiah. One notable thing that happened during this part was the interesting tidbit Prof. Aussie shared about his 5 year old daughter: in his house Disney is not allowed, but he claims that his daughters are Austen freaks. To prove the point, he told us about this time when his 5 year old daughter had made a mistake, and he was trying to comfort her, to tell her that everyone makes mistakes and no one is perfect. Her response to that: (quoted from him) "nobody is perfect except for Jesus and Mr. Darcy." We then shifted focus from aural works to visual works in the same time period; the Rococo movement. Some highlights from the ensuing 70 minutes: "Boucher's paintings are essentially just mounds of pink flesh" (paraphrased). Another good one was the time we spent discussing Fragonard; or rather, that our professor spent discussing Fragonard. His reference to the Menage-a-trois that was implicit within a painting was quite interesting. Also, I have to make a correction: my professor is NOT british. He is something even better: he's an AUSSIE! I have to admit, never in my wildest imaginations (though, as some of you will be quick to point out, my imagination is not that good) would I have thought that I would be shown paintings of nudes on my third day of college...at BYU. Well, I guess you learn something new everyday (though it certainly wasn't experimental design).

After that class ended I came back to the apartment, looking forward to the dinner we had planned for our FHE group. First was interviews/callings from the bishopbric, which started at 7:20 (and made me worried because we were supposed to be starting our dinner at 7:30). It worked out, though, because the girls were already down there and being interviewed, so we didn't lose much time or favor, because we were done interviewing shortly after they were (I can't yet tell you what my calling is, but it's pretty great. Later in the week, I promise!). The girls in our group are Courtney, Katie, Dezzy, Melissa, Kayla, and Amy. We made french toast and chocolate chip pancakes. It was amazingly good.

This is the best picture I have; Trent (again, another of my roommates) took it.

We had set up the table and everything before we interviewed, and we actually got the food prepared pretty quickly. I ate either 5 or 6 pieces of french toast, and then had a plate sized chocolate chip pancake (see video below). As we were wrapping up, Trent pointed out that the sun was setting and that it might be cool to go watch it. We walked off towards it slash towards the bell tower, but surprisingly there were trees in our way. So instead we just made ourselves comfortable on this water feature/man-made waterfall and chatted amongst ourselves. People started going back in small groups in gentle increments, until the only two left were Katie and me (if anyone out there is a grammar freak, can you please advise as to whether this is correct as a direct object, or rather it should be the subject?). Luckily, no ill fate befell either of us and we both made it back to our apartments alive (contrary to Amy's fears). Then that leaves me at 11:30 and trying to write and publish a blog entry before Thursday. Oh well. 12:30 is close enough. Until tomorrow! (by which I mean later today!)

Freshman 15?

One of my goals in life is definitely not to be trapped in a tiny room and do nothing except eat food.... wait, isn't that the definition of college? Apparently my near family seems to think so. My Aunt and Uncle donated a large array of foodstuffs for yours truly, and it is quite impressive.

Now, I know what you're thinking, and yes you are correct: the contents of that box are not all food. (At least, I'm not at the stage where paper towels look appetizing to me). Though, you will be able to see the cupcakes, the cinnamon rolls the bagels, some more rolls, and an orange (and hidden are two separate plates of cookies). There's also a giant bag of candy. :) yum

So the question is, does my family overestimate my metabolism, or is the reason they were so excited for me to come out to BYU because the after effects of the recession are still hitting them hard, and they need some diverse sources of protein? *quickly looks over shoulder* Well, the cost is clear for now, but I'll be on my guard. I have to make sure I stay as skinny as possible by doing lots of ..excercise, and ...running-------maybe I'll just take my chances and eat food and write blog posts. Oh, and there are these 'class' things I keep hearing about.

Anyway. Today has been pretty good; I slept in later than I did yesterday, ate breakfast with my new dishes and cereal :) and had a leisurely morning until 11, when I went to the devotional, which was awesome. I think this is a testament of how great a fit this college is for me: there was a musical number at the devotional, and it was If I Could Hie To Kolob, my absolute favorite hymn. It brought the spirit it so well. I actually recorded most of it on my phone, but haven't been able to figure out how to get it from my phone to my computer (iTunes, as always, is no help whatsoever). After the devotional I was able to pick up a surge strip from the bookstore, which is really nice considering the location of the outlet in my room: it's right behind the desk, and I have to lean way over to reach it. With the surge strip I don't have to awkwardly reach it any more, and it becomes a lot less annoying to take my laptop to classes. Also, I can charge my phone at night while keeping my laptop plugged in.

My next class was at 2:00; I had BoM 121 with this pretty cool guy Bro. Daniel Belnap. He talked about the syllabus, like the teachers of my other classes, but then he actually dove right into the material. We got through 1 Ne. 1:1, analyzing it in full, and then we were out of time. As I walked back from the JSB I saw this view and had to take a picture of it:

Well, that's pretty much Utah in a nutshell (notice the conspicuous Y on the mountain).

In other news, the 4.0 OS is out for the iPhone, but because iTunes HATES my computer, every time I've tried to install it so far it's either crashed my computer, or just stopped working.

In other other news, (I apologize for putting things out of order), one of my roommates (Trent) came up to me this morning with this cool piece that's a duet and is essentially a variation on chopsticks. He knew the harder part, so we got together and and played it; it was really fun.

One last note before I post this; another one of my roommates is talking rather loudly on the phone, and he just said and great Utah form, "Oh my word!"

Okay, so I can't think of anything else.... so, yeah. Bye!

midnight hour update

An update before go to bed, because I know I will forget some things and it's easier to not have to write them in with tomorrow's post. We had an ice cream social within our ward (which is everyone from Broadbent [guys] and Bowen [girls]). After that, we were told what our FHE groups are and we gathered in them and did fun little games (I realize now that the point of EFY is to teach us group games and ice breaker games). We continued socializing as so, and then terminated our socialization to engage in various activities. I went back to the apartment and then found out that there is a piano in the basement. Upright, ivory keys, but a little plunky; even so, the room it's kept in has great acoustics. Yay foresight for having brought my piano books! Practiced, and played around a little, for a good long while, I kind of lost track of time (that's what happens when I don't have a watch, I don't keep track of the time). aaaand speaking of which, It's 1:30 my time, so I need to get myself to bed. Until tomorrow! (or later today?)

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

So my question is, how do you begin a journey of 2,358 miles? Apparently, you go to providence. My journey of epic proportions began yesterday as I left my house for good, and drove to the Providence RI airport. I'll give you the quick rundown: waited for two hours, then boarded a plane to Chicago midway (dur. 1 hr 20 min).

There, I waited an hour and a half, then boarded another plane headed towards Salt Lake Cit (dur 3 hr 40 min). Arrived there local time 21:20, which is home time 23:20, got out and met my grandparents; by the time I got my bags and got into the car it was already Monday for me, but still technically Sunday in Utah. Anyway, got to the campus, got my room key and all that good stuff (thanks to the lady who was there at 11:00 at night). Got in my room and absolutely crashed.

Of course, the nice thing about being 2 hours ahead of everyone else is that 6:30 feels like 8:30 to me, so I was able to wake up thereabouts and get all my stuff packed away and steady. My first class today started at 9:00--like any good freshman I start with Biology. Dr. Todd Robinson is my teacher. His class rules are actually really fun: If anyone's phone rings, the offender in question must hand their phone back to the person behind .them for them to answer. He hates people reading newspapers, but he's completely fine with people playing games on their computers...during class. His words, not mine. Also, one of my favorite things about him is this direct quote: "hopefully, by the time we're done with this, you'll realize that Evolution is a tool that God used to design the world." Also, he owns a farm. Of alpacas. He probably talked about alpacas for a good 20 minutes straight. Actually one of my favorite people in the world right now. Another highlight of the class: out of the ~120 people here, two guys are returned missionaries: one went to the Netherlands and el otro a Veracruz Mexico.

I love this being the summer term: there is virtually no one else on campus, for this usually being a 34,000 person school. It's really easy to get acclimated to my three classes. I even headed out this morning to get my books and an ethernet cable from the BYU bookstore, and grabbed an ID card on my way out of the Wilk. As I walked outside, I was struck by the ultimate Utah view clear skies and ground, and MOUNTAINS:

My day continued, of course, (I want to make sure anyone reading this will know as much as possible): I met with this guy my grandmother knew from when she worked here, who also went on a mission with my mother, he was pretty cool and set me up with some information. I then met with this guy, Nate Evans, who is the son of the Boston Mission mission president and his wife. We got ice cream and chatted; he is pretty chill. After that I had just enough time to set up my wired connection in my room (with the help of OIT--I was having problems with the java applet it was trying to get me to download). I say just enough time because right after I got that set up my grandparents (my mom's parents) picked me up and brought me to lunch at this place called Pizza Pie Cafe, which has a pasta bar, a salad bar, and a whole ton of pizzas, including something I'd never seen before: desert pizzas. After lunch they took me shopping for all sorts of necessities; dishes, food, etc. Got back with about a half hour to bring it all in before heading off to my next and last class of the day: Music 202! I append an exclamation mark because the guy teaching the class is BRITISH! Imagine Mr. Cook (who, to be fair, I never had) and have him teach but with an emphasis on music, and you'll get this guy. I sat myself down next to a 25 year old senior and then Mr. British guy spent the next 50 minutes reviewing the syllabus, then let us go. I love college. Annnnnnyway, I came back here and have been writing this up, dealing with my laptop's failures (which I attribute to iTunes) and have finally finished. We have an FHE activity in an hour, it's an ice cream social, and I'm excited. Anyway, I will be able to post all about that tomorrow (as I promised I would). Until then!