Day one

Here's a bit of history for you all. In the mid 1800s, the fledgling mormons lived in Nauvoo, Illinois, which used to be a swamp before they drained it and settled it, soon becoming the largest city in the state (yes, bigger than Chicago back then). Of course, the world hates us X) so they were driven out (again) and eventually found their way out to Utah.
The real question is what they did with the swamp they drained. The answer? It comes back to Provo every fall in the form of >6000 freshmen. I swear it's like walking through mud, except the mud has faces and it's moving all around. I think I'm really just making a reference to the viscosity..HI IT'S ME THE BLOG AND I'M UPDATING AGAIN WOW LOOK AT THAT. I must be turning over a new leaf or something...or I am just putting off going to sleep (Huzzah!).
Today I woke up at ~8:00, ate breakfast, and then headed off to my first class, computer science. It's a great feeling you get when you go a half hour early to your first class only to realize you're in the wrong building. Luckily, I was able to find my way to my real class just in time for it to start. Happily, it only lasted 50 minutes (unlike my 2 hour classes in the summer). I went straight from the Talmadge building to the JFSB, where I had my first class of Music 201 (again with the Aussie. I love that me defeating freshmen mentoring worked out so well :D). Then I had a break, during which I found Bethany and met some of her roommates, then I went to the bookstore, where I saw 8 people I knew, including Mike M. from my home stake...had lunch with him but it was really relaxed, mostly because we didn't feel like waiting a bajillion hours for restaurant food. To say that the cougareat was packed is like saying the pacific ocean is damp.
Then, at 2:00 I had linear algebra, where I connected with an old EFY acquaintance, and found out that Dan Blake, also from my home stake, is in my class (except that he's older than me-I'm pretty sure Joe (EFY kid) and I were the only freshmen in that class. OOOHHH YEAH). After that I came home and napped... was woken up at ~7:00 for our ward FHE activity--I finally was able to meet all of our FHE family (redundancies aside) then hung out with them for the rest of the night. I met tons more people. (muahaha)
yep. bye

WoWZ3RS!

I would like to tell you a story. A story about a youth, yearning for his home-away-from-home and how he finally returned there.
So on Tuesday I finally was able to get back to campus, but not to stay. No, I was there to train as a Y group leader for the New Student Orientation (NSO) that ran from Thursday through Saturday. Training was fun, and then I hung out with Katie (who is de bomb) and helped her move in and stuff. Went home and was bored, then went to sleep, then woke up
Wednesday I moved in. It took my Kelly grandparents' truck and some tricky maneuvering once in the parking lot on campus, but I got most of my stuff in (the other stuff I had forgotten :/ ) Unpacked in a matter of an hour and a half, or so, then went over to find Courtney and Dezzy who were also moving in. I also was able to meet most of my roommates on Wednesday, which was neat. then stuff happened.
Thursday I woke up at 7:20 so I could be ready for Freshmen at 8:00. NSO on Thursday consisted of spending two hours on Helaman field, a devotional thing at the Marriott Center, then the cougar walk which was walking around campus and spouting information to the freshmen. I got a lot of sun, and was also really dehydrated, ended up getting a headache later that day... then some other stuff happened and then we had this tradition of honor show where they essentially talked about the honor code. 'Twas good stuff.
Friday I got to wake up early again (whoopee) and go to a devotional at the Marriott Center with the freshmen. After that we let them loose to go look at their individual colleges/majors. After lunch we retrieved them and took them through this exhibit in the JFSB, called Education in Zion, just about the history of education in the church in general, and then BYU in specific. Then we broke, and were supposed to have this activity later, but it got rained out. Imagine that. Saturday I woke up again to go to the temple; I was mistaken for an RM while I was there, which was interesting. Later that day I ordered my textbooks, and hung out with people. I also had something like a three hour nap to make up for the lack of sleep I'd been getting the previous few days. That night was the Saturday Night Finale for NSO; I went for the dating game, which just proves that BYU is a marriage-obsessed environment (not the fact that they had the game, but the attitudes of the people involved in it). After that was Divine Comedy, which, as always, was AWESOME.
Sunday
Today was neat; my new ward has church at 11:00, which is like the perfect time for churchiness. I'm now in the BYU 118 ward, and I've already met most of my new FHE group; needless to say, they're really awesome.
I'm tired of this, and am going to go meet more people. (There's a lot of those here)

Lions, Atlantis, and Zerg, Oh MY!

This is kind of an overlap, but it's a short post anyway. I just felt like putting in a few things I've done this week since I came home. And I was able to fit them all into the Wizard of Oz catchphrase ::D
Thing number 1
Lions. Yeah, I know I already talked about Lion King, but it was amazing. End of story
Thing number 2
Atlantis; Stargate Atlantis, that is. I've been watching it. Only have about a season left.
Thing number 3
The last item of the title, and the subject of the *amazing* video above. Starcraft 2. I have family who loves me; on Thursday my uncle picked me up after he was done with work, brought me home for dinner and to game ::) Actually, the dinner was quite good. Fun fact: Western-Asian fusion=Mexican. We had some kind of chinese beef, which was westernized by the wraps we put it in--add a little lettuce, some tomatoes, and viola! a viola! Just kidding. It was more like a burrito than a big violin.'
Oh, and I had church today. I was debating whether or not to go to the singles' ward, or my grandparents' ward, until I found out that the singles' ward started at 9:00, and my grandparents' ward started at 2:00. Easy decision there, for late sleeper here :)
Also, Kaylee from firefly is in seasons 4 and 5 of Stargate Atlantis. That makes me very happy.
ummmmmm Oh, shout out to BK who starts college tomorrow. Sucks to be him XP
Things
Sauce
ZOMBIES!
Good night.

Head hung low

Good! Now that their attention has been diverted by the amusing movie, I can breathe a sigh of relief from having to defend myself from the raving *hordes* of blog readers that have been coming up with assassination plots to punish me for my inattentiveness. Oh; they're starting to pay attention. *ahem*
HI! OVERWHELMING POSITIVE PERSONALITY
and cut to blog
LAST TUESDAY:
It was a day full of studying. I studied for/did my take home BoM final. I probably did some fun stuff as well, but that was a wicked long time ago, soooo sorry :\
LAST WEDNESDAY (the beginning of the end): I resolved my BoM final; ended up with an 89.85 (rounding please BYU?). Spent a good portion of the day studying for Music 202 Final. I also did a lot of packing; I put together all my kitchen stuff and other things I didn't think I would need over the next two weeks (including all my extra contacts :\ Good thing my natural eyesight isn't terrible *cough* Trent *cough*). I also had to drain off my meal plan, so I went to the creamery and spent some 50 bucks on assorted items (with the intent that they would help me in the future: flour, batteries...good stuff like that).
LAST THURSDAY (the end (?) of the end): Trent was the first to leave the apartment. It was sad(ish. Kind of. Ok, not really). I bought him lunch so I could drain off the rest of my meal plan; ended up with $3.48 left. I went from that lunch to take my Music test; ended up getting a 90% (yay!) which made me happy (yay!) and redundant (yay!). That was the day I left. My dad and brother came out to Utah that day and picked me up. I said goodbye to all my dear friends (and some frenemies as well (just kidding. I don't have frenemies)) and then left them all in the dust 3:)> It sure was good to see them again. That night we ate dinner at the Kelly's house, and had fun with all sorts of relatives.
LAST FRIDAY: We woke up in a lazy fashion, and went over to Tutu and Gdad's house. I brought my 3 bags of laundry (I didn't economize on space; all that were in the bags were clothes. I just stuffed them in. So sue me). Tutu is awesome because she does a whole bunch of laundry for me (Thanks Tutu!). I don't really remember what happened the rest of the day; we probably did fun stuff.
LAST SATURDAY: woke up early in the morning to go ballooning! And boy do I mean early. Pics are up on facebook (as of last saturday :p ). By 12 we got back to Tutu and Gdad's house, and loaded up for our EPIC TRIP OF COLORADOness. *background:* The reason my dad and brother were able to come out to Utahland was because my dad had a conference in Keystone Colorado, so got his company to pay for the airfare. Following will be a departure from day-to-day retelling of events.

DE TRIP: We spent our first day driving north and east towards Vernal, Utah. We got there and booked our hotel for the night, then went and spent the rest of the day at Dinosaur National Park (pictures also up on facebook). Didn't get to see any dinosaurs; there was a severe lack of Chrichton-y occurence. Stayed in Vernal that night, had a really nice breakfast and went to church at 9:00 (so I was up early again). The ward we went to weren't really that used to visitors (we could tell). Then we drove and drove and drove and got to Keystone sometime that afternoon/evening; had dinner at this nice pizza place and crashed for the night. Monday saw us doing fun things; we went minigolfing, went to see Inception (which I really, really liked. Talk to me if you want to hear my thoughts. I don't feel like padding this post any more than necessary), and took a chair lift to the top of one of the mountains they have up there (considering that at the base of said mountain we were already 9,321 feet in the air, you can be sure that it was pretty high). Monday ended and Tuesday came; we went kayaking in the little lake there in the resort. That was also the day that my dad gave his speech, which he did while Grandad, Logan, and I were Kayaking. We spend most of the day driving back, but took a *little* detour to see Arches National Park. Now, that place is amazing. Absolute feats of nature. However, it was quite hot that day and the 3 hours we spent in the park were a little bit of overkill. Pictures will be up soon (along with pictures from my Grandad's camera from the trip. The most efficient way of sharing those, that I could come up with, was just to put them on facebook. So that will happen).

We got back to American Fork at around late:atnight and crashed.

TODAY (for me. For all those people I left back east, it's already tomorrow. Except that for them it's today, just not today. Comprende? :)

Last time I have to get up early for a while (I hope). Got up at 7 to go to the Timpanogas Temple; our timing was really good. We got in right before another ward did, so we only ended up being there not even an hour (which is good). Came back and worked on some stuff; Tutu and Grandad needed a new computer so we went shopping for that (and I went with to get a new wireless mouse. Mine had been inadvertently left in the hotel. In Colorado. Yeah.....). Came back and were setting it up; the best thing about it is that I get their old computer. Granted, it's a desktop, and kind of old, but it allows me to finally use Ubuntu without having to worry about lost functionality or loss of Stargate Atlantis. Also, it means I have two computers for the fall ::D As we speak, Ubuntu is installed and Evolution is busy downloading all my emails from the server. Then, at quarter to 1:00, Tutu, Grandad, Great-Grandma (McQuivey), and I all piled into the car to go see Lion King in Salt Lake. It. Was. Breathtaking. The issue you run into with a show like that is that the story is so well known, so to distinguish one's self, you have to focus on other features of the production. This broadway group did so (as anyone will know if they've seen a production) by using amazing costumes. Simply amazing. Words fail to describe the awful intensity of the costumes; and I am using the composite meaning of awe-full. (For those of you (you know who you are) it was full of awe). And the music was great--we could see the two setups of congas from where we were, and it was great during a musical number to be able to look over and just see their hands all over the drums. Before leaving, though, we said our goodbyes to Dad and Logan, as their flight was leaving at ~4:00. They're probably home by now(ish). After the show, we stopped by Olive Garden. 'Twas yummy. Then, we came home, and Logan and Dad were of course not here. And I've been chilling. It's been great. Then some part of my subconscious suggested that I finally get down to this blog thing... and I agreed because that part of my subconscious threatened to stab me with a knife if I didn't; Oh, wait, that was inception. Silly me. But wait, it's done!

Except for right now, it doesn't make much sense because I'm not actually in college, and the blog is supposed to be about college.. Oh well. Time to retire. And publish this. And hope there are still people who will read this kind of garbage. Especially since it's soo long. I know I wouldn't really want to read it. Boooooring.

Bonus for all of you who read to the end.

Ein Duetsches Requiem y L'Histoire du Soldat

lame excuse and then CUT TO THE BLOG:
So I don't really feel like doing a play by play of my week since last monday, so I'll just go with highlights.

Last Monday for FHE we went to Bridal veil falls (where Trent and I went on our double date the week before) except this time, we actually climbed the waterfall. It was probably the most frightening thing I've ever done, but I stuck through it and got to the top in one piece (actually a little bit more than that; the water added some extra mass). We found another way down than actually climbing the waterfall down, but that path was very dusty so my shoes were a total mess after that (I haven't worn them since then).

The main thing I did last week was stay up late and sleep in. Since bio lectures were over, I didn't have to wake up so early, so I developed an extremely healthy pattern of reading webcomics until CENSORED in the morning, and then sleeping until near noon. Needless to say, I didn't post that much :P.

I took my Bio test on Wednesday; it was only 25 questions, and so my one wrong answer cost my 4 points, which was annoying, but meh. I can't complain, seeing how it is the only class right now that I have an A in (which is ironic, because today is the day that we are supposed to be studying for finals tomorrow and Thursday, but my concentration is all like meh so I decided to do something productive and finally do a blog post).

Thursday was actually a departure from my laziness^theextreme; I got up early and went swimming, then on the way back I decided to stop by at my *favorite* place ever, the freshmen mentoring office. There's a whole long story that I don't really feel like getting into, regarding my bundles and changing them around, but the end result is that I applied for special permission to not take my bundle, but to substitute History 201 with Music 201 which is better than plain history, and helps me towards my music minor, as well as a bunch of other good arguments like that. That made me happy. Another productive thing I did that day was beat Ocarina of Time (w00t!). Also, I picked up my Ukulele and played around, which was fun; I especially worked on Izrael Kamakavivo'ole's Somewhere over the rainbow (which was funsauce). I also rewrote my BoM essay (which, conveniently, was due that day) and turned it in. Here's hoping I have some degree of success with it (remember that 'A' I was talking about earlier? Yeah, I need one for BoM, too. Which reminds me; I need to study for that. Scott Albright, where art thou?). My Friday was wicked chill; with no Bio (still) and no Music (because it's Friday) I slept in again and started playing Majora's Mask. At some point in the day I went down with Dezzy to get tickets to another HumorU show that they were doing; instead of doing stand up comedy, though, this time they did a "movie mocktacular." Explanation: they picked three movies that were produced by BYU, but that were wicked old and somewhat cheesy (read: hilarious to make fun of). And that's exactly what they did. They played three short movies from '77, '66, and '69, and had commentary on them. It was a bit scripted, but it was enjoyable.

Saturday rolled around, which was awesome by virtue of being Saturday I don't remember doing much--I slept in again (now this is just getting old) and played both majora's mask and battlefront (on my DS). I did do something somewhat productive, though; I imported all the songs that I would need for my Music ID test come Monday onto my computer, so I wouldn't have to waste time later doing so. The culmination of Saturday, though, was the Divine Comedy Alumni show that evening. Divine comedy is like HumorU, but better. Instead of stand up, it is skit humor, and I loves it. Two especially great skits they did were parodies of musicals; they did the Marriott School Musical and Latter-day Miserable. After the show I hung out with Melissa and Katie, but then Melissa had a 'date' with her 'study partner', so Katie and I just hung out, which vas cool.

Sunday came the next day, as it generally tends to do, and it had me at the piano all of sacrament meeting. Ward choir was performing two musical numbers; luckily only one of them was accompanied. However, the day before, Tatiana had asked me to fill in as pianist for sacrament, because everyone else was unable to. So, that meant I was not only playing for ward choir, but three other hymns. And that's not even counting prelude and postlude music. It went well, though; I pulled it all off. I was kind of falling asleep in priesthood meeting, but then sunday school woke me up because my amazing teacher Taze baked >100 cookies. It was yummy-making. That afternoon our ward went on a walk to the temple, which was cool. Many pictures were had by all. (also, sorry about not having pictures, but I'm just going to put all my pictures from my phone onto facebook after the term is over. It's a lot easier on me). I also studied for my music ID test. That evening saw me and two other individuals working on our bio presentation for the next day (which has an interesting story attached to it). Monday morning is the day of our bio presentation, so I set my alarm to 8:00 so I can wake up and be there with plenty of time. I woke up, sure enough, but someone was in the shower so I decided to just wait in my bed for them to be done. I woke up at 9:02. Class starts at 9:00, and our group was supposed to go second. I rushed, you have no idea how much adrenaline was going through my body. I literally made it into the classroom right as the first group finished their presentation. If it wasn't for my bike, I would have been in a lot of trouble. Miraculously, I made it. Best thing about it was the perfect 50/50 grade we got. I felt like including it here, so you can see the awesomeness thereof:

After bio, I came home and studiedstudiedstudied. I broke for lunch in the cougareat, just so I could get out of the house, and ran in to Mike Marcasciano there, which was neat. He was on his way to take a physical science test, and I was actually studying for my test as I ate (I brought my laptop). The moment of reckoning came...and I did horribly. Out of 26 questions, I probably got 5-6 wrong. The worst was the first example, which was actually part of Wozzeck, but since it didn't have the Sprechstimme singing, I dismissed it. It was bad. The result is that I havetohavetohaveto do well on my final. At this point I'm aiming just to keep my head above water--somewhere around B-, B territory.
But ignoring that annoyingness and moving on; we had our last FHE last night, the whole ward together. It was alright; really good food and decent desert, followed by a slide show. I don't know if anyone else knows this about me, but for some reason whenever there is a slideshow or some such thing at the close of an event, I am severely under-represented. In this 15 minute slideshow, I was in some three pictures. This isn't new; far from it. It happens all the time, in fact. Maybe it's just something about my vampiric nature... :X''' Whatever the case, that was that. I was bored after that, until I found out that Stargate Atlantis is on Netflix instant queue. That made me veryvery happy. I watched it. Then I went to sleep. Then I woke up. Now it's today. Now I just sound stupid, so I'm done. Bye.