The First Year

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Unstuffing

Posted by Braden

And now for the unloading of the 34 boys after we'd shut the door. It took substantially less time and is vaguely (or perhaps not too vaguely) reminiscent of clowns getting out of a car at the circus:

The Stuffing

Posted by Braden

I don't know if this will work (I just copied and pasted the code for "embed this video" from Facebook), but this is what I've been up to lately: 5,534 lbs in a 5-cubic-yard room. Amazing!

Dreamy Athletes

Posted by Brittany Karford Rogers (BA ’07), Associate Editor

Known for good pizza, Brick Oven, Sini discovered, was also a place to spot the men’s volleyball team. Enjoying a pie after a home game, she and her friends recognized some of the players and were fortunate to be accompanied by one of her roommate’s aunts.

“My roommate’s aunt is like a scholarship person who knows everyone who’s in sports at BYU,” says Sini. “And she told the players to come talk to us.” In fewer words than Sini used, he was beautiful—though the players are “all pretty cute.”

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Squeaky Clean

Posted by Laura

Something that I have learned my freshman year of college is that there isn't enough time in the day. You can have a very productive day, look at your clock and realize that it's past midnight, and still have a list of things you want to accomplish before going to bed. A lot of my classes this semester involve memorization, and I have found a new study method: if you put your papers or note cards in a plastic baggy and then tape them somewhere in the shower, you can get in vital study minutes that make all the difference. Now I can take a long, relaxing shower and still feel like I am not wasting my time.

I think every college student has different methods of multitasking while studying. I have seen people eat while studying, listen to music while studying, walking to class while studying—some have even tried to master the art of sleeping while studying. I guess everyone has their methods, but mine is squeaky clean.

Waging War

Posted by Elise

Once upon a time there were two cunning and mischievous roommates, both named Elise. No one knows what prompted their actions (boredom, most likely), but one dark and stormy night they kidnapped and held hostage the two flags that hung in their guy-friends’ apartment. The prized spoils were tacked to the wall and ceiling in the two cohorts’ bedroom, beyond the chalk line of honor that prevented the boys from retrieving their hostages.

The initial kidnapping set in motion a devious and elaborate plot to capture the Elises’ prized DVD collection and use it as collateral. The girls counterattacked by stealing keys, cell phones, name tags, and their foes’ collection of DVDs. The war escalated to include chases, wrestles through doors, decoys, betrayals, and alliances. Finally the UN intervened and suggested (for that’s really all the UN can do) that the two parties call a truce and return all POWs. The troops were sent home and the treaty was sealed with a pinkie swear. The war was finally over.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Paper Shortage

Posted by Trevor

Before coming to college, I bought myself a ream of plain white copy paper. After fall semester, I think I had used up all of about 10 sheets. Up until the beginning of the second semester, maybe about 15 sheets. But since starting my animation class, I have finished off my first ream of paper and started on the second. This class is eating up all of my paper! For example, for a near 10-second animation of a bouncing ball, I used 58 sheets. I later did some research and found that the average Disney animated film uses about 2.5 million sheets of paper for the finished film (which doesn't include concept drawings, trashed drawings, thumbnails, storyboards, background drawings, etc.). If this does end up being a career, my employer had better be the one supplying the paper, because I'm sure not buying it!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

The Day Will Come

Posted by Laura

As I walked out of my apartment one day this week, my roommates were watching the end of the movie The Best Two Years. It was at that part in the train station where he fulfills his companion's promise, "The day will come when you will have a fluent conversation with someone in the new language without even realizing it." As I was walking up to campus, there was a car that pulled up next to me and the passengers asked if I could explain where the JKB was. Without even thinking about it, I was able to direct them in the right direction with ease. On the rest of the walk to the library, I thought about how I had just spoken fluently to someone in the college language, and I felt so proud of how much I have learned and accomplished while attending BYU. The first couple of weeks, I had a couple of cars of people pull up to me in a similar manner, asking for directions. I would usually use the excuse that I was a freshman and told them that if they kept driving straight, they were bound to find it. I think I have gained more confidence in my campus navigation skills.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Living in a Pigsty

Posted by Braden

My apartment is not often very clean. My room is spotless; our kitchen is filthy. My roommates care less than I do about keeping everything in it's place and washing dishes immediately after they've been used—and one of them sleeps on the couch in the kitchen more often than he sleeps in his bed (literally; four of the past five nights he's been asleep in the kitchen when I come in for breakfast in the morning). Normally, living in dirtiness like that would drive me crazy! But it just doesn't seem worth it to try to change four other boys' living styles to accommodate my own, so I changed mine—I just never spend time in the kitchen. If I'm home, I'm in my room. When it IS mealtime, I go in, heat up my food, find a chair, scrape off a few square feet of the table to use, eat, put my food away, wash my dishes, put them back in my cupboard (I always use the same plate, bowl, cup, fork, knife, and spoon), and go back to my room. During that brief amount of time that I am in the kitchen, I try very hard to not pay attention to how filthy the kitchen is. Likewise with the fridge and freezer—I use one little corner on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and I keep my burritos in the back right corner of the freezer. Our fridge started to smell terribly from all of the old food the boys had left in it from previous meals, so one day they decided to clean it out. They found five Tupperware containers full of rotting food hidden throughout the fridge. Not starting-to-go-bad food—food already fuzzy and blueish-green.

Like I said, normally, living in such a way would drive me absolutely crazy. Instead, I retreat to my isolationist attitude of letting them live the way the four of them prefer to and finding my own little space to use that I keep separate (little pockets in the fridge, my own dishes, my own clean room, etc.) It's not the ideal way to live, but knowing that this is a temporary arrangement makes it all better. If these guys were my family or more-permanent roommates, that would not be so good, and we'd have to find a way to reach a long-term solution. I'm just really banking on the fact that my wife is going to be as compulsive about keeping a tidy house as I am!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Hunt

Posted by Brittany Karford Rogers (BA ’07), Associate Editor

All six tenants of Sini's apartment decided to room together as sophomores, and the hunt for off-campus housing began. Knocking doors all over the south side of campus, they decided on Park Place. “The place we found looks like a Russian subway station to me,” says Sini, “but the once I saw the inside, it was all right.”

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

We Are "That Team"

Posted by Laura

Tonight was our team's final game in the intramural basketball season. We had so much fun this season learning from each other, celebrating each other's victorious moments, and laughing at each other's major air balls. The girls in my ward are awesome and I am so glad that I was able to be on the team. As much fun as it was, when it comes down to winning, I think we ended up being 0 and 6. I guess some would call that a consecutive losing streak, but someone has to be the team that loses in a game. We just happened to be "that team" all season.

Tonight was our best game yet. It was a nail-biter to the bitter end; we ended up losing 36–38 in the final 20 seconds, but we'd also made the best comeback our team has ever seen. After the first 10 minutes we were losing 2–16, but we slowly fought our way back into the game. I guess those coveted intramural-champion T-shirts will have to be won another season.

Monday, March 22, 2010

How Many Freshmen Can You Fit in a Closet-Size Room?

Posted by Braden

Yesterday, we fit these 28 manly men and one woman . . .


. . . into this 1 x 2 x 2.5–yard entryway between two apartments:


Why did we do it? Because we could. Because it was there. Because we got to talking one day--when five of us got in each other's way as we were walking in and out at the same time--and somebody thought out loud, "I wonder how many boys we could fit in here if we really tried?"

So Saturday night I collected a bunch of boys and we really tried. First we made two rows of boys and loaded them in. Then we tossed a boy on top. Then we loaded another couple rows of boys. We tossed another boy on top. We shoved some more boys in the entryway. Then we shoved a third and fourth boy on top. Then we found a way to fit a boy in under the legs of the other boys. Then we ran out of boys, so we grabbed a girl and stuffed her in there as well. Then we shut the door, for closure's sake.

We all climbed out, and the couple-dozen girls in the hallway, who'd been watching and taking pictures, counted as we came out of the room like clowns out of a clown car: "1, 2, 3, . . . 27, 28, 29!"

My, what a beautiful thing! It was tight, for sure. In fact, I couldn't move until after 12 of the boys were already out. And it got pretty hot in there. But think about what we were able to do! We had 5.8 boys per cubic yard! And these weren't little boys either—we had a lot of rather big boys in there!

Here are a few photos of the loading process:







The sign on the door of that last picture was absolutely true: "Warning: Contents may be very hot and extremely habit forming." (It's a phrase from a Blackjack pizza box.)

Much fun was had by all . . . but we're not satisfied yet. We think we can fit at least 33 if we pack a little more intelligently, fit a few more between the boys' legs, and save our littlest people for on top. So we're currently working on plans for an encore performance: bigger, better, and even more manly than the first extravaganza!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Theoretical vs Tangible

Posted by Braden

I was asking my math professor a question today during his office hours, and we got to talking. He was really surprised to find out that this is my first math class since high school (partly because it's Math 343, and partly because I've been doing so well in the class). Then I got a letter this week inviting me to the Mathematics Undergraduate Recognition Dinner, "based on the recommendation of [my] professor." (I'm excited for it—they're going to have free food and a "mathemagics" show!)

My professor said that I should definitely get a math minor, like I'm planning on doing, and maybe even a math major, since it comes so easily for me. I don't think I will (I just need a degree; experience and results in the places I work will be what actually get me places), but it was nice to hear. And it's true that I do prefer the computational part of science. I find the manipulation of numbers to be really satisfying. Studying inferential statistics in my high-school AP statistics class was really exciting, too.

While optimization in mechanical engineering requires number-manipulation out the wazoo, I find actually working with physical parts to be frustrating—everything is so inexact and variable! It makes me wonder every once in a while if I'm really in the right major, but I think I am. I'll just select a job or branch of mechanical engineering that deals more with computer models and simulations and have somebody else go through the pain of actually creating the tangible representations of my models. Unfortunately, to get my undergraduate degree, I need to go through those pains myself as I take all the classes on manufacturing and machining—gross!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Good Steak Dinner

Posted by Mitch

Last Saturday I cooked a great dinner for two girls: bavette steak with golden potatoes and beurre rouge. It took two hours, but it was well worth it.


To top that off, one of the girls made an excellent angel food cake with raspberries. It was a delicious meal! I know that it's not typical, but it just goes to show that with a little brain power and a few extra bucks, great things can happen at college.

Licking Rocks!

Posted by Ashley

WOOT! I am finally done with my physical science lab. We had our final today. It consisted of identifying a total of 30 rocks and minerals. We also had to identify properties and how they form. For some of the rock and mineral samples, we actually had to lick the rock and rub it against our teeth. That was really disgusting—what if someone was sick? Although it was very entertaining to watch people's faces after tasting the salty rock. I can now name 15 minerals, 8 metamorphic rocks, 11 sedimentary rocks, and 10 igneous rocks. I still don't understand why I need to know all these rocks to become an elementary teacher, but oh well, it's done now.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A Sini Specialty

Posted by Brittany Karford Rogers (BA ’07), Associate Editor

Sini won’t brag, but others say her meatballs are the best. “I don’t even have a recipe for them; I’ve made them so much I know what I’m doing,” she says. “I always put leaves of onions and oats in mine.”

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Stealing Spring Break

Posted by Braden

BYU doesn't have a spring break, but my friends and I felt like we needed one—so we created one. One of my friends has very nice grandparents who own a cabin in the middle of nowhere in Northwestern Utah, by Grouse Creek. So 10 of us went up there for the weekend and had a blast!

We made a menu and took a trip to the Creamery, where we asked the very cooperative cashier if she could please split the bill by 10 people. Between the people from Utah, we were able to produce enough sleeping bags to complement the accommodations at the cabin. On Friday we packed up two cars, said a prayer, and drove away from Heritage Halls at 6 p.m. I drove one car (Heather's) and Kyli drove her own. While traveling, we listened to a combination of songs from three different iPods and ate muddy buddies, Doritos, snicker doodles, granola bars, and oranges. What's a vacation without excessive amounts of junk food?

Now you have to understand, this cabin really was in the middle of nowhere. We lost cell phone reception an hour before we got there, and the nearest gas station was 35 minutes away, as far as we could tell. Friday night we chopped wood for the weekend (we felt so rustic and manly). We watched three movies, went horseback riding, rode the four-wheelers, played board games, and just chilled. Kyli's grandparents were so funny, too! As her grandpa was driving a few of us in his truck, he told us about how he enjoys fly-fishin' in the "crick." It was awesome!

On Sunday we made breakfast, packed up, drove an hour, stopped at a chapel, went to church, then got back in the cars and kept on driving to get back home in time for ward prayer! What a fun weekend!

Monday, March 15, 2010

Study or Fly-Fish?

Posted by Mitch

I was able to go fly-fishing today with my roommate. Fly-fishing is one of my top-10 favorite things to do; after all, I come from National Geographic's no. 1–rated town to live in for sportsmen.

The Provo River is kind of dirty, but just casting was enough to make me content. Sometimes I get so tired of school. Let's just say it doesn't take long for me to wish I was out doing things I enjoy so much more. Unfortunately, school is necessary.

I think today was a grand start to a beautiful fly-fishing addiction here in Utah. I hope it doesn't take too much time away from my studies.

Lucky Duck

Posted by Ashley

I can't believe how fast these two semesters have gone by. Seems like I just arrived at college, when in reality I will be going home in less than two months for summer break. I have been thinking about how lucky I was to get such great roommates.

I didn't know any of them before I came. At first it was really hard because three of them knew each other and the other two knew each other. So I was the only one who didn't know anyone. We haven't had any serious issues or fights. Actually, I don't remember any apartment fights. The only issue we have had is people not cleaning up their messes. I haven't had to worry about people stealing my things or eating my food. We all get along great and it has been a fun year.

Having roommates that I get along with so well has made the transition of living on my own a lot more easier and enjoyable. I will be living with three of them again next year. And I know we will be friends for life.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

I [heart] Provo

Posted by Ashley

I love being here at BYU. We have so many amazing opportunites, like going to a temple that is within walking distance, attending the live CES firesides, and being in the same room as general authorities and the Prophet. Last Saturday I got to go to the Draper Utah Temple open house. This was the first temple open house I have been to, and I absolutely loved it. The temple was so beautiful and incredible. I can't wait to be able to attend the dedication (another exciting opportunity). I never even imagined some of these things would ever come true for me.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Sneaky Subconcious

Posted by Braden

As late nights and busy days increase, I give my body less and less sleep, and my body is finding sneakier and sneakier ways of getting the sleep it needs anyways. I take precautions: to keep from falling asleep in class, I sit in the front few rows, never slouch enough to get comfortable, and eat sugar before and during class. To prevent sleeping through my alarm clock, I use my own recorded voice on my cell phone alarm in conjunction with my alarm clock and watch alarm. My subconscious recently discovered a real devil of a trick, though—it convinces me that even though I can hear my alarms, they're not important.

I don't know how to explain it, but somehow, within my dreams, I just know that that alarm isn't really for me. It's to help wake up somebody else. Or it must have been left set from the previous day. Or school has been canceled today, so I don't really need to get up. Or somehow, within my dream, I earned the right to sleep in a little longer with no negative consequences. Or time won't really start again until I acknowledge the alarms, so if I ignore them long enough, I'll get extra sleep without losing any time. Or even though it's terrible to sleep in, if I do wake up, then all these people here in my dream with me will die when I hop out of that world and into consciousness.

I think that's all of the excuses that it has come up with so far. It doesn't happen every night, but it does happen a lot of the time--maybe 2 of every 3 nights. In a way, it's sort of exciting to wonder what new way I'll think up to trick myself into sleeping a little longer. In another way, it's really terrifying. I never know who's going to be smarter: the unconscious me that's sleeping, or the unconscious me that's scheming. And me making it to class on time is in the balance!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Laundry Day

Posted by Brittany Karford Rogers (BA ’07), Associate Editor

Laundry day is the day Sini runs out of clothes. “I realize, ‘Oh, I have no underwear, it’s laundry day,’” she says. She can’t wait to have an apartment with her own washer and dryer. In Heritage, it seems like someone else is always using one of the two sets of machines. “I have to remember to run down there every 40 minutes.”

Monday, March 8, 2010

A Thorough College Education

Posted by Braden

As part of Student Development 358R (a class for resident assitants), we learned about effective methods of communication and how to handle crucial conversations. To do this, we made a case study of a specific conversation that our teacher happened to have recorded: the proposal scene of Pride & Prejudice.

From Darcy and Elizabeth's encounter, we learned the importance of stating your intentions, recognizing when another person feels uncomfortable or threatened, and some good general dos and don'ts for proposing to somebody someday.

I'm fairly positive we all paid much closer attention and learned more that class period, watching scenes from a chick flick, than if we had covered the same material in typical textbook-style fashion.

Friday, March 5, 2010

In Need of a Haircut

Posted by Ashley

.I was in real need of a haircut to get rid of my split ends. I mentioned this to my roommates, and one of them said she would cut my hair.

I'm not sure why, but I agreed. I trusted her, I guess, and I knew she wouldn't give me a mullet or some other interesting hairdo. Plus it was free, so who could pass that up?

We went to Wal-Mart and bought hair-cutting scissors. That night my roommate cut my hair. She gave me a trim and some layers. The next night she decided she wanted to give me more layers and I agreed. So now I have my own personal hairdresser who lives the next room over, and good news: I am living with her next year too, which means free haircuts for another year.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Enduring to the End

Posted by Laura

This past week we hit the halfway point of the semester. For me, this semester has gone by so fast, and it is a reminder to me of how short the college years really are. If you don't take advantage of this time, it will be very easy to look back with regret.

It's crazy to think that I will be done with my second semester of college soon! I made a chain for our door to count down the days until the end. I think the second half of the semester will be a lot harder than the first because there are no more breaks from here on out.

I feel so young still, but looking back, I have this great feeling of fulfillment from how much I have accomplished at BYU. I can now make my way around campus without stopping every couple seconds with a confused look on my face. I now know how to prepare myself for tests and how to take good notes that I can read again later. I can now budget my money each week and plan meals for each day. I have learned so much in the classroom, but I also have learned so much from having more independence and living in an apartment. Life is good.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Fake Spring

Posted by Braden

The other day I walked around campus in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip flops. It was February. February is supposed to be cold and windy and miserable!

Instead, I saw boys shovel off the last bit of snow from the basketball court to start shooting hoops, and the newly uncovered sand volleyball court was once again being used! Students went outside voluntarily to study, and not once all day did I see a heavy coat being worn!

It's like the weather is taunting us . . . it's luring us into a false sense of security that spring is finally here, and then BAM! It's going to dump a few feet on us. I just know it is! And I'll be mentally ready for it, because I know it's coming!

In the meantime though . . . why waste perfectly good spring weather? Tomorrow is going to be another T-shirt day!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The Saga of Finding Housing

Posted by Ashley

My roommates and I found what we thought was the perfect place to live next year (see this post on Feb. 9). We waited and waited and waited to hear if we got the contract. We finally had to contact the management again, and they said to wait another week. When we called back the following week, they informed us they wouldn't take us because they only wanted tenants who would sign full-year contracts or spring and summer contracts at that time.

Why didn't they tell us that before? They said they'd hold our applications until the end of summer. Uh, HELLO! We would like to find a place to live—we can't wait that long.

So my roommates and I got up early on Saturday and went and stood in line at 7 a.m. in hopes of getting an apartment at the complex that was our back-up plan (a place we weren't too excited about, but we need a place to live). As we moved closer to the front of the line, the manager informed us that there were only two completely empty apartments left—and we were the third group in line. The complex assigned six to an apartment, and the group in front of us only had three people. If there was a half-full apartment available, the group in front of us could take it, leaving us with the last empty apartment—and allowing the six of us to live together.

The manager went to check, but came back with bad news. There weren't any apartments with three contracts still available, so the group in front of us would take half of the last empty apartment.

We were bummed, but we decided to continue waiting in line. We're lucky we did, because the manager was wrong: he came out later and told us there was one apartment that still needed three people, so the group in front of us could take those spots. After waiting for five hours, we got the LAST full apartment.

What a day! We decided to go to Brick Oven to celebrate (it was my first time there). While we were eating, Cosmo showed up and we got a picture with him. It was a great Saturday.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Self-Guided Tour

Posted by Brittany Karford Rogers (BA ’07), Associate Editor

While visiting her home ward in Sandy, Utah, Sini’s roommate signed all of her roommates up to help clean the Draper Utah Temple—then undedicated and open to the public—without their consent.

“We loved it,” Sini says. “But I was dusting—there was no dust. They clean it every night.” After cleaning they were free to walk around on their own. “When you go on a tour, it’s kind of fast,” Sini says. “We got to spend as long as we wanted.” They lingered in the celestial room. “You know, it’s cool to get to see the whole temple, because usually you don’t—baptisms, that’s all I can do right now. It was fun to be there with our roommates and do that kind of thing. It was really neat.”