I'm trying to take more pictures

So I was told that I should be trying to take more pictures if I am going to be doing a blog. So here are a few pictures I took as I was going about campus today.

This is my Book of Mormon class right before we got started. 

So on the bridge I walk across to get to campus, some one glued googly eyes on the bridge. I noticed a few more of these in random places today.

These are a few pictures I took around campus today. This place is really pretty. Could not have asked for a better day to walk around campus and enjoy the end of summer. I even did my homework outside.
There were people everywhere today. The bookstore is re-branding and calling itself the byustore. They had a ribbon cutting ceremony and everything. People have been in there every minute that it has been open so I don't know why they were making it some big event.







Part of the "new" store thing was a ping pong ball drop. They dropped 500 ping pong balls and if you caught one you got some free thing from the byustore. I almost caught one. I waited right underneath the thing that was going to toss them. At the last minute, the lady doing it rotated her little cart thing and threw them in the opposite direction. Well with a few hundred people crowding in the area, I didn't stand a chance to get one. Some guy caught like 10 and started to throw them but I still didn't one. Bummer.

This is that bell tower that scared the heck out me a few days ago. It's pretty loud and goes off every half hour. 

Here is also a picture of my favorite building on campus. The JFSB, Joseph F Smith Building. This building does a lot of the English, social sciences, humanities, that sort of stuff in this building. I have my Book of Mormon and my History 201 in this building.

Jessica came for a visit!

Jessica McCubbins is one of my best friends. She was down in Provo with us today for a little visit. Jessica will leave for her mission in October and will be dearly missed.

Today was a really easy school day. I had a Geology class from 9:00-9:50 then Anthropology 101 from 10:00-10:50. Geology was pretty cool. There were about 30 of us in there and the teacher seemed like a nice guy. Anthropology was a different story. I showed up to the classroom which was really an auditorium. My high school's auditorium was about the same size. That class was FULL. I think there were about 600 people in there at least. The teacher was a really weird dude and almost put me to sleep. It was really boring...
After my classes ended for the day, I started to work on some errands. I was able to drop that boring art class and was instead able to pick up another history class that sounded like way more fun. I went to the book store to return my two big sketch books. Jessica came along with me while Jenna was in another class. After that, the three of us just hung out and did whatever. At one point, we went over to University Mall and just looked around. We went in this one store that had really cute and fat little birds in this "living art" display thingy. These cute little guys were hopping around and chirping up a storm.

I got my phone really close and took a picture of them.

Tonight I also did my first load of laundry. It was really slow going. I didn't want to leave my stuff alone just in case something were to happen. Just because it's Provo doesn't mean things are totally safe. I ran two washing machines with lights and darks. That  took about 40 minutes. Then I put them in the dryers. Those took like 75 minutes. Oh well, I like playing games on my phone. 

Classes Begin

This morning I got up around 7:30 and started getting ready for class. I even went and bought something that wasn't a t shirt to wear. My first class was at 10. I thought it was at 9, so I got up a little bit earlier than I needed to. Anyways, I started college the same way I started high school; by going to a religion class as the first class.
My Book of Mormon class was in my favorite building on campus, the JFSB (Joseph Fielding Smith Building). It is only a few years old and has some really cool architecture on the inside. On the outside, it has a huge window running the length of the building so we can see the mountains. I went inside and found my class. There were about 60 of us wild freshmen in there. A religion class at BYU is like an amazing seminary experience, but it happens every day. All of my high school classes were about an hour and a half long. My religion class is only 50 minutes long. Bummer too, it's a really cool class.
After that class ended, I had 1 hour until my next class started. Brother Traeger had mentioned a book in his lesson today, so I went across Brigham Square to the HBLL (Harold B Lee Library). I wanted one simple book by C. S. Lewis. Shouldn't be too hard to find right? Yeah no, it was really hard. First, I went to one info desk on the main level and asked how to check out a book. After that lesson from a super nice lady, I found the crazy code needed to find the book. Then I went to 3 other help desks trying to find what wing of the library had the book. Then I had to find the section, the number, the author, pretty much every way to classify the book was in this code that looked like gibberish. I wandered through about 6 aisles of bookshelves before I found it. I learned that BYU carries just about every book known to man in just about every language. This makes it really hard to find a book. Didn't think finding one book would take me 45 minutes.
Next I went to my Writing and Rhetoric 150 class. I fancy myself to be a pretty good writer and I have a good use of rhetoric in my papers already. Everything we talked about today was so incredibly easy! Some of the others were having some issues here and there but not me... For once. School has always been easy enough for me, but writing and understanding writing have always been my strongest suit by far.
In my 40 minute break between classes, I ran over to old Heritage to check my mail. I finally got my letter from Darick!
Next up was my drawing class. It was so boring I caught myself falling asleep a few times. I'm going to try to drop that class and pick up a pottery class instead. Much more in my element there. I have never been great at 2-D art. 3-D is my thing. I think I'm pretty good at it.
Classes today weren't that bad. I'm glad I have nice sized breaks in between. Tomorrow should be a little harder. I only have 2 classes on Monday and Wednesday that are 10 minutes apart. Nice thing is is that I'll be done by noon. Yeah I really think I want to drop the drawing class. The teachers changed the supply list and added a bunch of extra items he never mentioned before. Glad I already bought everything (sense my sarcasm here).

BYU End of NSO

The last day of New Student Orientation was here. The last day mostly dealt with specific majors and the late-comers to BYU. I didn't really need to go to anything that day.

Even though this was only a few days, ago, I honestly don't remember most what I did during the day. In the early afternoon, me and one of my roommates walked over to campus to take a walk-through of where our classes are going to be. It was kind of crazy all day.

In the evening is when things got fun. For the NSO finale, the had Divine Comedy perform. Divine Comedy is what lead to Studio C and all the actors on that show started out at Divine Comedy. Stacy, from Studio C, was sort of like a guest performer. It was really cool to watch it live, with a few hundred other people. It was so crowded down there, me and about 300 others couldn't find a seat in a crowd that rivals the size of stake conference. They were really funny and it was all good and clean humor. They will perform a few more times during the year and I will be there for sure!

Sunday was nice and relaxing day. My floor and the floor right beneath us are in the same ward, with a few floors from one of the boy's buildings. Church was really weird from what I am use to. There was the usual chatter as people got in and sat down. As soon as the bishop stood up, the room went silent. It stayed that way for a good while longer too. No kids or babies making any noise. Later in the evening we had Ward Prayer in the first floor activity room. Never done that before. After Ward Prayer, we had a floor meeting (I'm on the 4th floor). We did a few little get-to-know-you games and just went over some floor business. Then our RA (Resident Assistant) Michelle, told us about this thing called Tunnel Singing. Every Sunday night at 10, people meet under the bridges and sing hymns. Most people do it as loud as they can. There were several hundred people there. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. Singing hymns in a tunnel with a few hundred other students. After a few hymns we would just stop and kneel in prayer. This place is just amazing.

BYU Day 3

Instead of going to NSO, my mom and Gam came down to Provo and took me shopping and out to eat. We went to Mimi's Cafe then went grocery shopping. While at walmart, we were walking down an aisle towards the back of the store. My mom pipes up and says, "Hey, isn't that the Studio C guy?" I turned around to get a better looks, and oh my goodness, it was Matt Meese! I ran over to him, talked for a little bit, and even got him to take a picture with me! Highlight of the week right there.

BYU Day 2

New Student Orientation
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!

BYU Day 1

On Wednesday I packed up all my stuff and moved down to Provo to attend BYU this school year.
It was really weird to be putting all my stuff in boxes and preparing to leave home for the first time. It's not like going away to camp. This is a huge life changing moment. I'll go back home and live there during summers, but living at home is not going to be the same again. Some of my sisters were in denial about me leaving home. It's not that bad, I'm only about an hour away, a short train ride, or even a phone call.
Wednesday morning I loaded up my Jeep and drove down to Provo. My dad drove his car and my mom rode with me in my car. It isn't easy to describe how it felt. Empty I guess works. I love my mom and dad so much, and here we were, going to drop me in a place full of thousands of strangers for me to live on my own.
We drove up to Heritage Halls and I jumped out of the car and went to the check-in spot. I got my keys and learned the rules of Heritage Halls. Then me and my parents starting taking all my stuff up to my room. Next came the unpacking. We quickly got my things in order and even met two of my roommates.
After moving in, we ran to walmart to do some minor grocery shopping. I only got a few things because I was going to see my mom again on Friday. Mom thought I should have a nice dinner for my first night in so she bought me a steak and some potatoes.
All too quickly the time came to say good-bye to mom and dad. Not gonna lie, it sucked.

Later in the day I decided to walk around campus and start to figure out where things were. I walked out of the building, past the bell tower, across the bridge, and then wandered around campus. On my way back to my apartment, I noticed a cool looking building right by mine. I went inside. I was shocked and intrigued by what I found inside. Imagine killing every animal in the Hogle Zoo and putting on display. There were some cool animals in there, but a lot of it is taxidermy. As I was walking past the bell tower later that day, I mean I was right underneath the thing, the super loud bells sounded and scared the heck out of me! I was really loud. Every hour on the hour it will play part of the chorus from "Come, Come Ye Saints" followed by the strokes for the given hour. Before I knew it, I had been walking around campus for 2 hours.
After I cooked myself a wonderful steak and baked potato, there was a Heritage Halls social thing going on outside. There was a contest to build structures with cardboard, mini golf, food, dancing, and people EVERYWHERE. I'm not crazy about crowds so I didn't stay a very long time. It was fun enough. It would be more fun at the end of the year when we aren't strangers anymore.
Day 1 at BYU was quite a day. It was a huge milestone in my life and I know I won't soon forget it.