So NSO was a much bigger deal than I had originally thought. NSO is like a 3 day adventure that starts in the morning and goes until pretty late at night, and longer if you ended up making plans with new people later.
Me and my roommates left our apartment at about 9:30. Check-in went from 8:30-10:30. I figured it was a show up and just let them know you are here. Turns out, you had to wait in a huge field, Helaman Field, and wait until 10:30 when the cannon sounded and things got moving. We walked over to a huge pavilion at one end of the field. We went through the check-in lines. I was assigned to be in Purple 4. After wandering around the field for a good 10 minutes, I finally found Purple 4. We started a game of Ultimate Frisbee, which is apparently one of the most popular games to play around here. Must be a Utah thing because I am getting sick of people always wanting to play Ultimate. Anyways, the cannon sounded and my Y-Group leaders, Jenna and Spencer, started to herd us out of the field and towards the Marriott Center.
Once the few thousand new students and Y-Group leaders were seated, the President of the university spoke for a few minutes as well as the leaders of a few organizations on campus. Then we watched a video about the history of BYU. From what the video taught me, this school was always meant to be here. In the early days, there were a lot of struggles getting the school up and running, keeping it going, attendance, financial trouble, so many things that easily could have ended the school. A select few were called by Brigham Young for special tasks to keep the school going. Those people did incredible things. This school is very special to the Lord and all who have ever been here.
After the Convocation, we were given lunch and free creamery ice cream for lunch. My Y-Group sat outside the Wilkinson Student Center, the "Wilk", to eat our lunch and play some get-to-know-you games.
Now begins our tour of campus. On the schedule, it listed a few things that would be going on over the next four hours. I did not know that the tour was a 4 hour thing. I thought you showed up a location and got the tour of a desired location. No. We walked around for 4 hours. In and out of tons of building, up stairs, in basements, in crazy places, seeing things, watching things, it was so packed with stuff, I doubt I can remember it all. It'll take some time wandering around campus to figure things out.
After we had dinner on our own, my Y-Group met back up at a creepy statue by the Wilk. We walked back to the Marriott Center for a show by "David Betterman". Pretty cheesy, but we had to learn about the Honor Code. They even have three angles pop up at random when people have to make a choice that is questionable and they have the catchy little jingle about how "That's against the Honor Code, that's against the Honor Code..."
Here is when the coolest part of day was. Every year when school starts, they gather all the freshmen in the football stadium for a class picture. We were to follow the cones and arrange ourselves in a giant Y. If you go to byu.edu you could probably find the picture and the time-lapse video of us making it happen. All ~3500 of us. We were all given matching shirts and filmed from a distance the entire time. It was really cool. The picture was followed by a pep rally of sporting events to come in the next few weeks. You can't see me, But I am right in the middle of the Y, right below that hole or portal to get out. It was really cool!
