Malallory's Musings

Ladies and gentlemen... You've waited. You've wondered. And now, the moment is finally here! That's right, Mallory has returned from her blogging hiatus! *cue raucous applause*
...
Well, I'm happy to see me again, anyway.
I'm not positive what to tell you all about, so I'll just start typing and see where I end up. That usually works, even though I normally end up writing way more than I originally intended. Meh, let's just do this.
So I'll start with the logistical stuff that isn't really that interesting but everybody wants to know about anyway. I'm living in an apartment right off the southeast corner of campus this year- it's about a ten-minute walk to get to my closest class, so not bad at all. I'm living with the same girls as last year, minus Julie who got hitched this summer. More on that later. The girl who took her spot is named Sarah and she is such a sweetie. She's a year older than me, and she's studying to be a music teacher, so she does lots of vocal performance and choir and such. She's always singing, which is great because it makes me feel justified in my own inability to stop singing. Ever. She's from St. Louis, MO and she lived in this ward duing spring/summer, so she knows everybody. Our ward is the BYU 63rd ward (haha... I know.) and we meet in the varsity theater in the Wilk (the student center), so we get to have sacrament meeting in a movie theater. It's pretty rad- very comfy seats, which makes it very hard to stay awake since it's kind of dim in there too. :)
I'm really enjoying my classes this semester, for the most part. I'm taking Math History, Spanish 206, Linear Algebra, World Literature I, and New Testament I. Math History may sound like possibly the most boring thing ever invented, but it's actually really interesting and fun, and I'm not saying that just from a math-geek point of view. Well, not completely. We've learned how to do stuff like use the number systems of ancient Babylon, the Mayans, Japan, etc., and we each have these little topics we have to research and present to the class- I have to do mine this Wednesday- which is really good practice for us future math teachers. I also learned how to make magic squares, which are these grids of numbers that add up to the same sum in any column, row, or diagonally. It's supa-cool. I was bored in my lit class once and made one that was 25x25. Yes, this is fun for me.
Linear Algebra is a bundle of contradictions. First of all, it's actually called "Elementary Linear Algebra," but they just put the word 'elementary' in there to make it sound easy when it's actually very difficult. Second, my professor is hired to teach us, but he doesn't do a whole lot of that. He attempts the whole "helping them to teach themselves so that they truly understand the concepts better" thing, but fails at it so most of the learning we do has to be from extra studying out the text- which brings me to contradiction 3: we're 'encouraged' not to study from the text, but have homework out of it using their versions of notations and certain problems we haven't even talked about in class. And finally, even though it's my least favorite class, I still actually like being in class because my professor is this old guy from England (he pronounces 'theta' as 'thay-ter'. This alone is enough to make my day.) who usually is off in his own little math/cricket universe and likes to give us wicked hard homework and then after we've stressed over it for two days decide to get rid of some of the problems and extend the due date. Sigh. But it's managable, and I'm getting by.
World Lit is really more of a Western Lit class because that's what my professor knows and likes, which was a little disappointing because I was anticipating reading things like "The Tale of Genji" and "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and "Arabian Nights," but whatever. I do like the class, and it's not very much work other than just the reading. Lemme tell ya, there are some very nerdy people in that class. My dad would cringe to hear some of the conversations we have and jokes we make... because they usually involve Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Shakespeare. (Speaking of Harry Potter, just yesterday I put a post-it note on my bedroom door that says "Dumble." If you get that, gold star for you. If you get it AND think it's funny, you win a trophy. If neither, see me after class.)
Spanish is fantastic, of course. My profe is a grad student again and he's super funny and a really good teacher. I love Spanish so much. The people in my class are really great too, and I knew a few of them from my class last semester, which made things a lot nicer in the beginning.
Finally, New Testament. I have Brother Parker, from whom I took the 2nd section of Book of Mormon last year, and I'm going to be taking New Test II from him next semester as well. He's great, and Somers, Krista, and Cate are in the class with me which is super nice. That man is a veritable gold mine of memorable quotes too; I'm always writing them in the margins of our study packet. :D
As for employment, I currently have a luxurious, glamourous, and infinitely rewarding job at the Provo McDonald's. Ughhhh... well, it's actually not that bad, especially since I'm used to the craziness that comes along with McD's customers and employees. A good half of the people who work there are Mexican too, so I get a lot of practice in my Spanish comprehension, and I've had to take food orders in Spanish on more than one occasion. I've found it's actually easier to understand them in Spanish than if they try to speak English really badly. I'm planning on quitting in a couple weeks, right at the end of classes, so I can study for and take my finals and then get another job on campus for winter semester since I have to bike to work, which would be less than enjoyable in the snow.
My roomies and I have not been partying nearly as much as we did last year (hey, we were freshmen), so there's not as many crazy pictures to share. The ones I do have are in the little slideshow on the right side of the blog ===> named "And some more pictures." Creative, grammatically correct title, I know. I would suggest clicking through the slide show backward since the first gajillion pictures are from last year. Some of the things we have done are go 80s dancing, go to a haunted house with our FHE group, hang out with the boys in one of the apartments in our ward- they've become our main dudes, affectionately dubbed The Coventry Boys. One weekend Somers and I went with Mack to her hometown for "Payson Onion Days." Stupid name, but it was really fun. We had amazing snow cones and went to the parade, and got to see her and Dustin's families again. Another time Mack and I went to her sister's place for dinner and to play with her little niece Kylie, who could probably give Georgia Archibald a run for her money in smiley-ness. They bring her over here quite often, which makes me ridiculously happy. I get so baby-deprived out here. I've also been going to BYU hockey games with Julie quite often, because her hubby Alan is a goalie for the team and she gets us in free. I'd forgotten how much I love hockey, and any of you who know the laid-back, easy-going, calm and collected version of me would be in for a surprise if you saw me at those games. It unleashes a crazy person inside me. The only one there shouting louder than me is Julie. :)
Speaking of Julie, before the semester started we all went down to Salt Lake for her wedding, which was amaaaazing! She was so gorgeous and happy, and it was a great day. Between watching her come out of the temple and the reception at Alan's place we spent the day at the mall in SLC, not buying anything but enjoying ourselves in Barnes & Noble and some fun foreigny-type furniture places kind of like an even more expensive version of Pier 1. I also decided that at my reception I am NOT having those little chocolates with the imprint of the temple on them that taste like wax. Nope.
In more recent news, I got to spend Friday evening with my best lady Megan! She came down to my place for the hockey game against Utah State, in which we lost but fought valiantly, and then spent the night here. We went out to eat at the creamery, caught up on each others' lives, and strolled around campus. It was very nice.
This isn't very big or exciting, but it just happened so I have to tell everyone about it: twilightsource.com, my main place for information on Twilight (run by the people who run my 2nd home mugglenet) is doing this daily drawing on twitter for twilight prizes and I WON YESTERDAY!! I got a message from Andrew (who runs MuggleCast, by the way) this morning, and I won a limited-edition "Team Jacob" Burger King crown. Not a very great prize, and I kinda wish I had won later on when the prizes get better, but I'm still super-stoked. Really, the best part of it all was I got to talk to Andrew and my name was on the main page of twilightsource. I feel unjustifiably cool right now, I gotta tell ya. I mean, how often does anybody ever win these online drawings? Pretty much never!! Sometimes it really does pay to be hopelessly nerdy. Plus, now I get mail. Mail is the best thing ever.
Yes, mail is great. And I've been quite the diligent little missionary-writer this semester. Besides having three cousins on missions, there's also Steve Johnsen, and about a gazillion guys from our ward last year who are all gone this year, plus some of Mack's friends who I've become good friends with. I especially love writing to the guys who are in Spanish-speaking missions because we write to each other in Spanish, which makes me feel quite special. Alan Miller (aka Little Alan), who practically lived at our place last year and is our collective best pal, is in Allentown (HA!) PA, speaking Spanish, and he writes the best letters. He sends us really funny pictures too. I love having missionaries.
Halloween was really fun. I had to work Saturday night, but my awesome manager that night Deysi was dressed up as a vampire and she let me put on some zombie makeup. It was great. Friday morning I put on my marionette costume and went to classes, getting a lot of looks along the way. I was one of perhaps 5% of the people on campus who dressed up. We had a fiesta in my Spanish class- we watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" in Spanish and ate traditional Dia de los Muertos food. Best class ever, hands down. The other classes were just the usual. My friend in 'spanol dressed up as Carmen Sandiego, though. I enjoyed that. That night we watched "Gremlins" over at the Coventry boys' apartment. Matt, one of said boys, just got his halo off recently from when he broke his neck this summer at Lake Powell, so there was much celebrating in the vicinity. We call him "Mattycakes," actually. :)
Well, I do believe that ought to be enough for enough. I'll try to update more often so I don't end up writing these novels, but we all know that doesn't usually happen the way I plan. I love and miss you all! If you want to write to me (nudge) or stalk me or whatever, my new address is:
760 E 820 N, Apt #306
Provo, UT 84606

Buh-bye now!

Okay, so I'm a lazy layabout and I didn't do any more blogging for the past... very long time. But I'm back in business for the present, although I'm not making any promises about how faithful I'll be in the future.
Well, school is done for the year. I'm back in loverly Minnesota until the end of August, and it feels great to be home. I can't help constantly appreciating how many trees and lakes there are here. Minnesota really is beautiful. School was good. I didn't get straight A's, as plenty of people here have been asking about, but I'm okay with that. I did the best I could, so even though I didn't get to keep my scholarship, I'll just keep moving along. My roommates and I have become really good friends. We all get tired of each other every now and then, but we got through the whole year without a real fight, which I think is something to be proud of. All of us except Julie (who's getting married in August!) are going to be living together in an apartment near campus next year. We're all very nervous and hopeful about who our mystery roomie will be. Our two main worries are that she'll either be a crazy or that she won't feel like she fits in with us since the rest of us are already so close. I'm sure it will all turn out well, though.
I made a lot of other great friends too, mostly in my ward. It was especially hard saying goodbye to most of the guys I became friends with, since most of them are leaving on missions this summer and I won't see them again for at least 2 years, if ever. Next year we're going to basically have to start over meeting guys, since almost all the ones we know will be gone! Anyway, our ward really was amazing, and we had tons of fun together. I won't even try to go through all the things I've done this year, but among them were endless dance parties, lots of movie nights, hiking in the mountains to these natural hot-springs to go hot-tubbing in (I still can't get the sulfur smell out of my swimsuit!!), dress-ups, concerts, picnics, snowball fights, building an enormous tent in our kitchen that we kept up for about 3 weeks, sleepovers, helping Mack (McKenzie) with a wedding video and then going to the reception with her, Fiesta Thursdays every week at lunch time, crazy-fun ward activities, temple trips, and getting locked in the storage cages with Cate for a good 20 minutes by our heartless, traitorous roommates. :D I've had an incredible time, and I'm thoroughly convinced that BYU is the best school in the entire wooooorld. Where else could you have the ridiculous amount of fun I've had without once seeing a drop of alcohol or any drugs or even swearing, along with the amazing education we get for such a cheap price? Answer: nowhere.
So yep, now I'm back in gorgeous MN, and I have a job at glamourous McDonald's. It's not exactly my dream job, but it is a job, which frankly is more than I expected to have at this point. I've been walking and exercising with my mom every morning, which is nice, and I've been going to bed earlier and trying to eat healthier too. Hopefully I can carry those habits with me when I go back to school. It is a little weird to have to answer to my parents again, and to not be able to do pretty much anything I want whenever I want. At school, if we felt like running around on the sidewalks at 1:15 am, we just did it, and our only worry was to make sure somebody brought a key with them. We slept when we felt like it, we left whenever we wanted (which was a lot easier since most places we ever went were walking-distance, and cars were available if needed), and we did pretty much any crazy, goofy stuff that popped into our heads. But I really don't mind. Truthfully, I'm in need of some laid-back, slightly-more-structured down time for now. Plus I'm READING for pleasure again, which is the best feeling in the world. I've missed it so.
Well, that's all I can think of for now. Hopefully I won't go on another many-month hiatus again. Buh-bye now!

Hello mostly ladies and perhaps a few gents,
So yes, I realize it's been several weeks since I've updated anything, and I place the blame solely on the fact that I am *gasp* in college. So I'll start off with the date since I'm sure that's what most of you have been bugging my mom about the most.
The date was so much fun! Dustin (McKenzie's boyfriend) and Sam (her best friend) sent us on a scavenger hunt, with all these clues for us to follow all over Provo! It was great. We ended up at Wal-Mart, where they meet us in the doorway wearing these goofy sunglasses with the tags still on, then we went shopping for a dinner. We brought it back to Sam's apartment and cooked it up and watched several episodes of The Office, which was a blast. Then we went to this ice cream shop called Sub Zero, which is kind of like Coldstone only they mix the cream and then freeze it with this liquid nitrogen thing... it's way cool. So, it was a very fun night. :)
To sum up the past few weeks, I basically work my tail off during the week and then waste pretty much the entire weekend partying and goofing around. My calc class is so much work, and it's super hard, but I'll survive (hopefully). The testing center is probably the scariest place I have ever been, not because of the way it looks but because of the potential doom the entire establishment dangles over your head the minute you walk through the door. My lifestyle management class continues to be a phenomenal waste of time, but at least it's two easy credit hours. My BOM teacher continues to be completely hilarious, she's definitely my favorite teacher even though there are other teachers that are better at their jobs. Econ is still mind-numbingly boring, but my teacher is really good. He just has the most uninteresting subject to teach imaginable. Aaaaand... physics. My teacher is still incredibly geeky, but the classes are way fun because a) the demonstrations are awesome and 2) I sit by Cameron and Taylor (who's from the Anoka Stake!!) every day, and me and Cameron pretty much play games and do puzzles the whole time. It's so much fun. Make of that what you will. ;-)
Me and Somers have been going to the temple every week, which is so nice. It's amazing to be able to just walk down there and pop in whenever we feel like it. The fall leaves are sooo pretty, and this past Friday we brought cameras and took tons of pictures on the way back.
My roommates are pretty much amazing. We have so much fun together, and we just fit together perfectly. We were talking a few days ago about how lucky we got with roommates, because we are absolutely crazy about each other. We've heard some other dorms getting into some tiffs, and we've met a lot of other girls that we've liked, but probably wouldn't have clicked as well with. Our basement buddies are really awesome too. Our dorms visit teach each other, so Somers and I were over there this week visiting one of them, and we ended up spending like 30 minutes afterwards gossiping about boys with the other girls. Our Relief Society president is in that dorm, and she's the cutest thing on the planet.
As for the weekends, a sampling of our activities on weekends would be:
-going to the Love You Long Time concert in 80s getups (I LOVE that band!!!)
-The stake Halloween dance
-Watching movies
-Going to Dustin's house to carve pumpkins and then play sock hockey at their church gym with a bunch of their little siblings
-Staying up insanely late
-The ward water party, which was waaaay fun and involved an enormous slip-n-slide and lots of bruises. :)
-Sleepovers in the kitchen on mattresses, and playing the "ha" game on each others' stomaches.
-Playing pool with the Broadbent boys
-Running all over campus
-Cleaning check (bleaugh), which we passed. Yay.
-Homecoming funness.
-Dressing my roommates in clashing clothes and taking pictures. :)
-Seeing Kung Fu Panda at the varsity theater!
-Spur-of-the-moment parties with whoever.
Aaaand I'm probably forgetting other stuff but that probably gives you a general idea. Basically, I love the weekends. I love BYU. And I love you guys! I made you another video with a buncha pictures from various shenanigans. Enjoy!
P.S. Just saw the new Half-Blood Prince trailer today!! It was fantastic, and I nearly had a seizure. I watched it six times. Please watch it. Go to mugglenet. Seriously, it is So. Good. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so change of plans. I'm actually not going on my date tonight. My cousin Riley called me last night (while we were watching "The Village" at our friend Jackson's apartment by the way- we really enjoyed ourselves.) and told me that he was leaving for his house today around noonish, and asked if I wanted to come. So I called Sam, the guy who asked me on the date, this morning and asked if we could reschedule, and he said that he was just about to call me anyway. He had gotten the dates mixed up, and it was actually NEXT Saturday that whatever-it-is-he-has-planned is, so the rescheduling was actually a good thing! So the moral of the story is, things work out. Usually. Sometimes. And sometimes they don't and you end up embarrassing yourself, but not this time. :)
The Fall Fest last night was actually not that fun, so we left early and went to Jackson's apartment to watch "The Village" and eat ice cream. I loved it, but of course the end made me mad. I hate it when they leave things hanging. Grr. But anyway, it was really fun. Jackson played guitar for us while we were scooping ice cream, and he's actually really, really good. Like most guys who tell you about how they play the guitar and all just like to talk about it, and then they want to play for you and it's not that great. But he's reeeeally good. We had fun with that. Then when we came back to our dorms from his apartment we sat outside and talked and sang songs. We're a little silly, but it's a great time.
I just thought I'd tell you all about that so I don't get certaaain peeeeople pestering me about how my date went this week, since I won't go until next Saturday. Later, loves!

Hey all!
So I'm incredibly busy here in Happy Valley. My calc class is sooo hard, and I have my first exam on Monday, so I'll be studying like crazy for that sucker all weekend. But I'll also be having some fun too- my roomies and I are watching a movie tonight and then going to this Fall Fest thing down at the student center, which should be fun. It's supposed to be a kind of carnival-type thing. Then tomorrow-get this- I'm going on a date. IIIIII know. I go my entire high school life without ever ONCE being asked on a date by a guy from my school, and then three weeks into college I get asked out by a guy I've talked to all of 3 times! He's my roommate McKenzie's friend, and I think we're going to double with her and her boyfriend. I'm not sure what we're doing or when quite yet, but I'll tell yous guys about it next week. Also, if I can get a ride over there I'll be going to my cousin Mitch's farewell on Sunday, but that's not a sure thing. It basically depends on if my other cousin Riley (his brother) who's here can drive me. So it should be fun, besides the homework part.
I have my calling now, and even though it's not announced yet I'm going to tell you anyway since it has no effect on you whatsoever- I'm going to be teaching Sunday school. I start the Sunday after next, and I won't be teaching every week (I don't know yet exactly how often). That'll be fun times. I spoke in Sacrament meeting last Sunday, and I went first, so I was the very first person besides the bishopric to speak in our church! It was really nice to have it over with too, because now I probably won't have to speak again for another 6 months! The FHE groups take turns being in charge of Sacrament meeting, and we're group number one. So since there's 12 FHE groups, our group won't be in charge again for another 3 months, and then different people from our group will have to speak anyway! WOO! But it went well.
So for my lifestyle management class we have to wear pedometers for 14 days, and on average I've been walking about 18,000 steps per day! I'm so dang HEALTHY! :D
My roommates and I have been having sooo much fun together! I absolutely love them, and we all get along so well! We constantly have giggling fits, and on weekends we totally go nuts. We're pretty much crazy about each other. There's been some boy involvement too- McKenzie already had a boyfriend when she got here, Julie got a boyfriend about a week and a half into being here, and Krista has a kind-of-boyfriend who she just doesn't want to make it "official" with. PLUS poor Somers has this guy who really likes her, but he's super annoying and forward, and incredibly PERSISTANT, and no matter how strongly she hints he won't leave the poor child alone! AAAND Caitlin has some interests in a friend of Krista's and Julie's who comes over here a lot- he's really cool. And there's a guy in my physics class who sits by me every class... and he's really cute... and we have a lot of fun together... but that's pretty much it.
So my math teacher has been throwing out the dorky jokes like CRAZY lately, and I thought I'd share a few with you. Some are actually funny, and some made me want to cry with the realization of what category of people I was placing myself in by picking this major.
Professor Belnap: I assume you all know that the earth orbits the sun in an elliptical path. The sun is actually one of the two foci of that ellipse.
Student: What’s the other focus?
Prof. Belnap: That’s Kolob, actually.
Professor Belnap: …and then that makes the whole thing a perfect squares. Now what happens to a perfect square?
Student: It gets translated!
Professor Belnap: … “So you just do the operator twice… (d^2)/(d^2x) is just the notation, it doesn’t mean anything different.”
Class: ………
Student: That’s a terrible idea!
And the most HORRIFYING one:
Professor Belnap: "The curve shows the path travels along the plane, and it doesn't have to be a regular Cartesian funciton- kind of like it's showing the path I make as I walk across the room. So there can't be a break, because I can't just teleport across the room... this isn't Star Trek!"
Some geeky kid I can't stand: "Yeah, but if you WERE teleporting in Star Trek, your atoms would still follow the same path, so technically you would still be following the same continuous curve!!!"
Me: *Please kill me.*
And my Physics teacher is a TOTAL geek, but he's great, and I absolutley love his class. We have the coolest demonstrations! But he always messes up what he's trying to say, and we have technical difficulties pretty much every day. My Book of Mormon teacher is SO much fun! She's this 60-year-old lady who's a complete fruit cup! She's nuts! Here's a few gems from her:
Professor Hallen: Oh yes, and the cherub had the sword that pointed in four directions, so I better… there. Oh, he looks like Kung Fu Panda!
Professor Hallen: So I’ve been buying reading glasses from the dollar store for years and years, and yesterday I got an upgrade! These are from Wal-Mart, and they have rhinestones. Don’t you think I look scholarly?
We "sing our opening prayers" every class, and she used to be a soprano in choir (like 30 years ago) so she likes to sing super high descants along with the hymns at the top of her lungs... she completely cracks me up, I love her.
So I made a little video with some pictures of my dorm and my room mates. I took a bunch of pictures of campus too, but I didn't include them because I figured you can just look online at campus if you don't know what BYU looks like. =) Here ya go!

SPOILERS~SPOILERS~SPOILERS~SPOILERS~SPOILERS
I almost forgot about Twilight! Naughty, naughty Mallory!!
Okay, so my grade for Breaking Dawn: *insert spitting noise here*
The ending was awesome, and I enjoyed Jacob's perspective. But this book pretty much took everything I DON'T like about the Twilight series- Stephenie Meyer's indulgence (meaning she can't not write about something she thinks of, and she puts in all her own personal fantasies which are a little over-the-top), Bella's whineyness, everybody else thinking Bella's some heroic martyr who is just soooo self-sacrificing and brave, really repetitive and superfluous descriptions, everything being just the BEST possible or the WORST possible thing like that that anyone anywhere has ever experienced, and pretty crappy writing quality- and multiplied it by ten. I mean, the punctuation alone in that book needed some s-e-r-i-o-u-s work. Stephenie's an amazing storyteller, but her writing leaves much to be desired.
And, okay. Bella's sex addiction FREAKED. ME. OUT. Me, Megan, and Jordan were seriously worried about our future personalities after reading the island. And Bella's tranformation was just plain gross. It did not add a single thing to the story. It was just Stephenie Meyer being overdramatic again and putting crazy stuff in there that were so unnecessarily and frankly, creepy and sick.
Buuuut... I loved Jacob's perspective on stuff, and I LOVED the ending- her endings are what really make these books great, and the Volturi make the story pure awesome any time they show up. I did enjoy reading the book, but I only read it again to make sure of my opinion of it. I'm probably not going to read it again for many, many, many years.
And some people say that Twilight is the next Harry Potter, or Meyer is the next J.K. Rowling!
HA!
WRONG!!
Harry Potter is just completely in a league above Twilight. Like it's not even possible for there to be a competition between them. I can read Harry Potter an infinite amount of times (I've read the first one 16 times) and it will never lose any of its enjoyment. And I realize new, special little things she threw in there every time. The Twilight books just aren't that kind of quality, and they certainly didn't have the 10 year of meticulous prior preparation that Harry Potter had. So, sorry. No contest.
I'm currently reading the now-legit leaked pages from Midnight Sun off of Stephenie's website.
Um, can we say deeelicious?
I believe we can indeed.
THIS is what gets us addicted to the series. Edward. The high concentration of Edward in this one- not to mention finally getting his perspective- is nothing short of amazing. This one I could read a good six or seven times before it began to lose its luster for me. I have read Twilight 4 times; it's still my favorite book of the series. New Moon is my favorite ending, though.
Oh, and Renesmee? Are you FREAKING SERIOUS! Someone get the vampire child abuse police on Bella RIGHT NOW!
And I forgot- I loved the wedding. That fantasy area I had no problems with. And Bella as a vampire is so much less annoying because she isn't constantly worrying about other people's physical safety. I think becoming strong must have made her finally realize how stupid her worrying was.
So yep. That's my jurisdiciton, biased as it is. Whatever. I'm not even going to bother finding a new obsession for the present- getting good grades needs to be my obsession for now. But Harry Potter always has that special corner in my heart- and Mugglenet still gets checked multiple times daily. =)

Hhhhokay. Hi. Where do I begin? Um, I'm in college now. I moved into my dorm on Wednesday. It already feels like home- not HOME home, but you know. Like the same way the bedroom in my Grandma's house where I always sleep feels like a home. Or the couch in Megan's living room where we frequently waste tragic amounts of time. Or Mr. Lev's classroom where I had AP Bio, env. science, and spent tons of time after school in environmental club.
Aaaanywaaaay, I'm pretty much settled in now. I'm in an apartment-style dorm with 5 other girls, split into 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. I love my roommates already, but I promise none of us got up in testimony meeting today to tell everybody so. It's bound to happen at some point, but we at least resisted this first time. The girl in the bedroom with me is McKenzie and she lives really close. She's SO nice and very friendly. Julie and Krista share another of the rooms, and they already knew each other. They're very bubbly, and they know how to get the dance parties going. :D In the other room is Caitlin and Somers. I've only seen Somers once because she's in Idaho with her family right now, but I've spent a lot of time with Caitlin and she's a fun time.I've been busy busy busy these past few days with orientation stuff. I've found all of my classrooms and I feel moderately comfortable getting everywhere I need to- during the day, anyway. Night time is scary because I can't see the mountains to orient myself, and everything looks different, but luckily I've always had groups to go with after dark. My orientation group has been super fun, and I've made some friends within it. Yesterday there was a dance in Brigham Square, and it was great. I saw Scott from the St. Paul Stake there and we chatted a bit, but neither of us have seen Jonathan Thibadeau yet. He's around here somewhere... among these thousands of people... somewhere...... :) Anyway, after the dance my bud Jake had an after-the-dance dance in front of his dorm, and pretty much everybody from Heritage Halls came and we had a good time. I was so BEAT afterwards.
My new Bishop is hilarious. He kind of reminds me of Chad Erickson. Hee. His wife led Relief Society today, and he came in halfway and their bantering cracked us up!
Happy Valley has really got my head spinning. It's aptly named, I can tell you that. Everyone (well the vast majority) is so FRIENDLY and there's none of the usual social barriers that exist among people who've never met. It hasn't mattered one bit that I didn't know a single person when I got here. For example, here's my best story of the week:
So on Thursday I didn't go on the tour with my group because they don't do me much good, and then at noonish I went to this field to meet up with them for lunch and the rest of the day's doings. I was just standing around looking for my group and waiting for them to come into the field. I was wearing my Pickle Pack t-shirt, which I'll explain since I bet all of .5% of the people reading this will know what that is. It's this shirt with a pickle on it that shows you're a member of the Pickle Pack, which is a fan club for this podcast I'm obsessed with called MuggleCast. "Pickles" is kind of a lame but fun catchphrase/inside joke of the people who listen to or host the show. Anyway, I'm standing there by myself and all the sudden this girl I've never even SEEN before runs up to me and starts jumping up and down shouting, "PICKLES PICKLES PICKLES!!!" It took me a minute to understand what was going on- imagine if that happened to you- but once I did I was so excited! She was a member of the Pickle Pack too and neither of us EVER expected to meet someone else who knew what it was, so we were super psyched. We talked for a while and then got each other's numbers so we could talk later. That's one of the "codes" of this group of people... if you see someone wearing a Pickle Pack shirt, you MUST say hello and then be friends. It's very Mormon-like in that sense. :D So yep- I made a friend by wearing a shirt with a pickle on it.
I'm super nervous about my Honors Calc II class now, because I found out we don't get to use calculators- not just on the exams but AT ALL. AHHH!! I'm not positive I'll survive it. But I'm still determined to be a math teacher, so I'm giving it a shot.
Oh, and I met a guy from the Anoka stake today who's in my ward, and two guys who live in Utah now but used to live in Burnsville. So that was cool. I think I've actually danced with the guy from Anoka at one of the dances, but I didn't say anything about it in case I was wrong. I have to say, BYU boys are so much easier to be around than the ones at Forest Lake High School. You don't have to smack their heads for swearing or plug your ears during their dirty jokes. They're just GOOD, which I'm totally not used to.
All in all, I absolutely LOVE BYU. This place feels like it was meant for me. It's weird not being unique anymore. I've always been kind of the top of my class, and most of my friends were from AP classes and such. I felt nerdy around many of my friends because I liked school and, not to be snotty or anything, but I was really good at it. And I was one of the only Mormons in high school, and my standards singled me out a lot. Plus I was kind of famous for being a Mormon. It was like the second thing people would mention when introducing me: "This is my friend Mallory- she's a Mormon!" But here EVERYBODY is really smart, and likes to learn for learning's sake instead of just doing what was necessary to (maybe) pass a class. I'm surrounded by Mormons, and I have to say the dress code is like a breath of fresh air. It really does feel good. So I've stepped into this bubble where there are thousands of people I fit in with perfectly- Mormon, peppy, enthusiastic, smart, pretty nerdy sometimes, friendly, and raring to go!! Okay, so the constant happiness does get a little annoying, but if that's my biggest problem with the people here, then I'll take it. After all, I'm a pretty optimistic and happy person myself- I just didn't realize how much MORE so some people were.
I've always felt like I'm an adapter- I get used to new places and situations really quickly and without it phasing me much. I WAS a little homesick the first night right after my family left- I went into the shower to cry a little bit so people wouldn't come and ask me what's wrong (I HATE that- there's nothing worse in the world than attention when I cry, so I usually avoid crying quite well) But I slept it off and in the morning I was over it. I still miss everybody and I think about you all the time, but I'm not sad. Just wistful. I wish I could bring you all with me. Wanna come live in my cinderblock? (Actually my dorm is a lot nicer than I expected. we even have actuall walls for 3 of the 4 walls in my room and in the kitchen and bathroom, and everything works, and we have walk-in closets. And I have way more space for my stuff than I anticipated! I actually have EXTRA closet and drawer space. Wild, I know.)The vacation in Montana and Utah was lovely as well. My cousins are pretty much the bomb, and I'll just leave it at that.Oh, and you know that "freshman 15" thing? Not gonna happen for me. I'm walking soooo much, and I'm actually eating less than I usually do both because there's less time to do it and because I have to watch my budget. But I do have a new addiction to strawberry frosted shredded wheat. I've eaten it every morning except today. :DI'll update soon, probably next weekend after I've gone to all my classes and I get a chance to relax a tiny tiny bit. Love you!