Introductions

Hello, I am a new freshman at BYU, and this is my blog. I decided that since I can't seem to keep a journal regularly, I'd try a blog that acted like a journal. Maybe, in this technologically oriented society, I'll post on this more often than I would write in my journal...we'll see. That's not actually too hard, I only wrote in my journal basically once a year, so I've got alot going for success...

So, first entry:
I'm through the first week. It was stressful, what with trying to juggle homework, school, and all-around household stuff. It's so weird having three hours between classes. My high school kinda prepared me for that: they had arena scheduling and off-hours. But even so, I never had a three hour block where I had to go home, eat and do laundry...that was weird the first time I did it.

Even weirder is putting things like "laundry" and "shopping" into my student calendar/schedule! It's weird to think "K, I have English, then I need to go home and cycle the laundry. Oh! And on the way I need to pick up eggs..." Nothing could ever prepare you for that! My mom would tell me to go pick up milk, but I never had to think about what I needed from the store and how I was going to pay for it, or when I was going to find the time to take a big shopping trip. (And it's not just food, I had to go get superglue the other day to fix my shoes...normally I'd just have to go find it in the garage, but there was nothing to find here!)...It's a VERY new experience for me. But a good one for when I'll be a mom, juggling three-five different schedules. (Just watch, now I'll have 7 kids, since I said that...)

High school also doesn't prepare you for cooking for yourself. In fact, nothing does, except living on your own. Even if you helped in the kitchen at home, like I sometimes did, cooking for 6 people and cooking for 1 are two very different things. I already have way too much tomato sauce that I've been trying to come up with creative uses for...(lettuce, chicken, ranch dressing, and tomato sauce would seem like a bad combination, but it's not too bad, like an Italian style taco salad...) I took cooking classes in high school, which helped with knife skills and cleaning and such (though I managed to cut myself twice in two days on a knife; I think my roommates knife is out to get me...). But those classes, like most recipe books, still dealt with more than one serving stuff. And nothing ever really taught me how to freeze stuff, so I hope the raspberries, clementines, bananas, and garlic are ok in the freezer...Grocery stores don't really help too much either: they sell things in bulk for cheaper. For a college student on a budget, you can either blow your budget getting just enough food for what you need or you can go bulk and throw half of it away (or freeze it, which is what I've been doing). The convenience stores near us are better at catering toward college students (as that's pretty much all their business) but most of them are expensive, as well. You'd think Wal-mart© would get the hint and put a branch that dealt in low-cost, smaller items and put it two blocks from campus...but that wouldn't make as much money, kinda like I'm not doing now, either, without a job...

Another thing I wasn't prepared for was all the walking. High school had walking, but it didn't take 15 minutes to get across campus, uphill quite a bit of the way. I've done more walking in the past week than I did all summer! Maybe they should have a "College Preparedness Class" where all you do is walk around town for an hour...
And roommates! Wow! Family life does not prepare you for roommates! They are so different! I love my roommates, but I'm still not sure how to bring things up like chores and meals and such with them...with my brothers, I'd just say "it's your job to clean the bathroom this week" but with a roommates, almost a complete stranger, who is an adult in their own right...how do you say "your turn" to them? Luckily, I got pretty laid-back roommates who can still get stuff done...and they're older, so they're kinda set in their ways. All I have to do is follow along, which I don't mind.

You know what the weirdest thing is though, well, apart from being in a ward where I'm sure half the boys are 2-4 years older than me and looking for potential mates, but the weirdest thing is not being super accountable for class...I was late today, and my professor didn't say anything, and I wasn't the only one late. As long as you do the work, some professors don't care if you miss class. This isn't true for all of them, but it's weird to be completely on my own, not that I'm going to purposely ditch all my classes now...sleeping in was a mistake. I'm going to have to change my alarm again...

Alright, well there's my first post. I just want to say that college is really exciting and I'm glad to be out here! It's just different. I don't mean to sound whiny, just frank. Things are improving...I now have two study groups and a new friend, who's already been over for a movie night ("Leap Year" is an awesome movie!). I can't wait to see what the next several months have in store! I've already learned so much! (Like how to put the © symbol in Blogger© and write a program in Java!! and how to navigate Utah streets; so much easier than home, where all the streets in a row are named the same thing, whether or not they connect!)

Well, this is me, signing off (hehehe) until next time!