I'm Finally Here!

Greetings from my new stomping grounds....Rexburg, Idaho!

I am so very excited to finally be here!

Years of counting down.
Months of preparation.
Weeks of friends leaving.
Days of getting ready.

Today I finally moved in.

Finally.

My family and I left for Rexburg on Wednesday morning, and honestly, I'm surprised that everything I have here at college fit in our car all the way up. We arrived around 2:30 on Wednesday to our hotel, and were able to unpack and settle in for a few minutes. We then decided to check out the bookstore, since it would probably be pretty busy the next few days. Unfortunately, we weren't able to check out my books since they were reserved, but we decided to still walk around campus. And it was awesome! It felt like home! There was such a down-to-earth feeling, and you could TOTALLY feel the spirit super strongly. I knew I was right where I was supposed to be!

So, then we caught up with some old family friends who now live in Rexburg, since their dad now teaches at BYU-Idaho, and they told me that whenever I wanted to come for dinner because I was homesick, or even just to see them, I was more than welcome to. That also really helped.

After going and eating frozen custard (super super good!) and doing a few other fun things with my parents and Steven, we finally went back to the hotel and decided to call it a night before the big moving day.

The next morning, I woke up bright and early and got ready to go. The rest of my family took a shower and then we were able to go have breakfast in the lobby. Although there were a lot of foods that looked really good, I was so excited/nervous that I didn't really have an appetite. We left after eating, and arrived on campus at about 8:40 or so. It was slammed with students! However, it seemed quite calm and organized through all the new students checking in. I have a dorm key, a mail key, a BYU-Idaho lanyard, and several other things for moving into my dorm, including a list of dates for meetings with my housing manager. Pretty exciting huh?

After about 10 trips back and forth to the car for each of my parents and Steve and I, I finally had all my stuff in my apartment, however, I now had to move everything in. That was the long part. Hanging up clothes, setting up my desk, organizing my school supplies, getting the bathroom set up, etc. etc. It took longer than I thought it would, but with the help of my family, it wasn't too bad. After setting everything up, I picked up my textbooks, which, for 5 or 6 things, only cost me a whopping amount of about $35. Pretty insane, right? This semester, I have spent only about $80 or so on ALL of my books! I like this place! :)

Alright, so after setting stuff up, my parents and I wandered around campus, taking care of some student stuff, such as purchasing my ticket for the big I-night activity tomorrow night (dances, games, dating games, comedy, etc.) as well as a few other things, but I realized there wasn't really anything for them to do anymore. I was moved in, and now the student things were starting. I couldn't really see the point of them being there, as hard as it was for me to realize that. I think they caught on too, because shortly thereafter they said, "Well, it has been fun, but we might need to start heading back home and we don't want to be driving when we're tired and it's dark." We went down to the car, and I brought my box of Kleenex with me. It started drizzling a little bit as we walked toward the car, and my mom gave me a hug and started crying. She told me to have a great time and to be safe and to be good. At first, it wasn't too bad, I didn't cry at all, but then my dad gave me a hug and told me the same thing. I didn't cry at that either, but then I gave my mom another hug, and I lost it. Then I looked at my dad, who, doesn't cry a lot, and he was wiping tears from his eyes. THAT was hard to see. I knew then that I was really going to miss my family. And Steve? Steve just sat in the car, wondering why we were all crying. :) It's good he didn't cry either, that would have been REALLY hard. When my family drove off, I stood and waved goodbye, tears running down my face (or were they raindrops??) and this man walked by and said, "You need a picture of them before they drive off. You won't see them again for a while." I smiled and nodded, but then I started crying again after he passed, realizing he was totally right. I wasn't going to see them for a long time.

Thank heavens for Skype. And email. And cellphones. :)

My parents left, and I went back upstairs. My roomies were still unpacking, and pretty soon afterwards, their parents also said goodbye. It was kind of a big day. Physically and emotionally.

But...

I am on my own now! It's super fun! And really exciting!

And yes, mother, I went to bed before midnight yesterday. I actually went to bed at about 11 or so. Pretty good, huh? :) Tonight, I think we'll be trying to go to sleep at about 11 at the latest as well. I think we've agreed as roommates to be asleep by 11 at the latest, just so we all have the same bedtimes. It also helps that my roommate that shares my room has the same time of classes as I do every day, so we can help each other wake up and get ready for school. That will help. Or at least I think it will. :)

We woke up on time to shower and get ready to go today, which I was pretty happy for. I'm glad I have roomies who actually WANT to wake up and WANT to go to bed on time and they WANT to know where I am, but without being in my face about it. It's kind of like having parents, but not. :) It's awesome!

So, after my parents left, we went to the first BYU-Idaho devotional for new students! And we met in the huge auditorium in the new BYU-I Center, where it honestly looks like the General Conference auditorium, just without the big organ pipes in the back. Instead, there are some pillars or blocks on the wall or something, I don't know. But to sit there with all these people who are here for the same reason, it was amazing! President Clark spoke to us and welcomed us to BYU-Idaho, and he is AWESOME! Simply awesome! He was funny, he is a great speaker, and he--aaahh!!--he is just great! He kept me entertained for an hour--which is hard to do. :) I love hearing him speak, and I can't wait for devotionals. I was truly overcome by the spirit, and I knew instantly that I was in the right place. I am doing what the Lord needs me to do--whatever it needs to be. :) President Clark also said that if we are living the way we are supposed to, we will find our eternal companion here at BYU-Idaho. Is that scary enough? Welcome to college! :)

I LOVE BYU-IDAHO!

Although I haven't made a ton of friends yet (yes, it's been a whopping two days), I absolutely LOVE my roommates! They are so great! They are so kind, and caring, and loving to everyone, and we share a lot of things--except maybe food. We do share a little bit, but most of what we have is for ourselves. :) Erin was such a sweetheart today though! She gave me like half of her cold medicine just so that I would get better. How nice is she? Pretty awesome! :) So either I was sounding really bad, or she's just really nice. Or both. :)

But I am now unpacked completely, and I absolutely love it! I love the girls in our surrounding apartments, even though I don't know most of them, and I totally love campus. I walked around today to find my classes and I found all of them, even though most of them require some sneaking around to back doors or going through weird stairwells and hallways. It's kind of an adventure though! I love it! And I also saw Brother Gardner, a man in my home ward who moved to Rexburg to teach Religion. I stopped and talked to him for a few minutes as well. That also helped. And the gardens today? OH MAN. So pretty! I found another entrance by the Benson building and there is a waterfall and gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous bushes, trees and flowers! I wish I could show you! Oh, wait. I totally could. I'll have to take my camera with me one of these days. :)

I'm sorry this post is so long...I keep wanting to finish it, and then some activity or something happens, and I'm dragged away yet again. So, this post will be covering my full two days as a BYU-Idaho student. :)

After finding my classes, I came back to my dorm, sweaty and just worn out. Colds do that to you. I felt fine, but my throat really burned from walking out in the heat for most of the afternoon, my nose hurt with using the same tissue for over a couple of hours, and my head was starting to pound. I found my way back to my dorm, and met my roommates. We lingered around for a few minutes, waiting for 5:30 to roll around so we could go to our housing meeting. They both ate dinner, but I wasn't quite hungry yet. Another thing that's really weird is that you don't really have the same meal times. Like, at home, you have meals together, or at least with one other person. Here, I have eaten breakfast, (lunch has been covered so far), and dinner by myself. It's a little weird. I don't mind it, since I get to kind of think about my day in quiet, but it's much different than I'm used to. Anyways, 5:30 came, and we went down to the housing lounge with the rest of our hall, and had a meeting. It wasn't the most exhilarating thing ever, but the meeting had some good stuff to know (maintenance requests, when mail comes, etc.). We had cookies afterward, so that made it all okay. :) After the housing meeting, we went back up to our dorm and I had some dinner. It was about 7:00 at the time and we had to meet our I-team at 7:30, so I had the oriental chicken salad I had as leftovers from dinner with my family on Wednesday night. It was super good.

At 7:30, we met up with our I-team underneath the sky bridge, and headed to the gardens. Each person in our group said their name, where they came from, and why they were going to BYU-Idaho. It turned into kind of a testimony meeting, but not really. I know that doesn't make sense, but the majority of the kids in our group said they came to BYU-Idaho because they knew that was where they needed to be right now. I even said that. And as we sat there, by a pond and surrounded by gorgeous trees, the spirit was so strong. I love that here! There is such a different feeling on this campus than any other in the world! Even the apostles talk about how much they love BYU-Idaho, even to Provo and Hawaii. There's more of a "down-to-earth" and "cheerfulness" about the kids who come here. We're not here to academically prove ourselves--BYU-Idaho is a disciple preparation center--a place where we come to learn and grow spiritually and mentally. I love that. Love it, love it, love it. :) But the funny thing is, we were trying to seclude ourselves from the rest of campus by retreating to the gardens, and this guy came along in the gazebo next to us (I don't know if he knew we were right there--we were kind of tucked into a corner) and started blaring these bagpipes. :) It actually made it even better, for me. He played "Praise to the Man", which, if played on the bagpipes, always get me. I love it. He played a lot of spiritual songs, as well as a few other that are well known on the bagpipes. As annoying as people thought it was, I actually enjoyed the random bagpipe man. :)

After concluding our meeting with our I-team, we headed down to the Hart Auditorium where the New Student Talent Show was being put on, and let me say, it was HILARIOUS!  Usually, talent shows are pretty boring, or kids try out when they really aren't talented or what they think is a talent usually isn't. There was a lot of guitar playing/singing by girls, and most of them actually wrote their own song. One girl, honestly, it was amazing. She wrote such a cute song called "Maybe Me", that when she finished, and even all through when she was singing, boys were shouting, "Maybe it is me!" or, "I love you!" or other random things like that. It was today that I realized that I need to branch out and just totally be me. So when people were doing the wave, I joined in, shouted and cheered, and even talked to the kid I didn't know sitting next to me. It was awesome! I clapped, cheered, shouted, and stood up and danced with the kids around me. I felt totally independent for the first time in a long time. Anyways, back to the talent show. Some kid played All of Me by Jon Schmidt, and he did really well, there was a clogger, a flag twirler, and this AMAZING kid that did beatboxing. Usually I don't find it that interesting, but he was SUPER good. He gave us a beatboxing 101, and even with that, most of us couldn't do it. He was amazing. Really, that's the only word I can use to describe him. :) He even acted like he was tuning a radio, and sang snippets of songs or sounded like the radio announcers, and even did the weird tuning static sound. I don't know how he did it, but it was really awesome. :)

After the talent show, we walked back to our dorm and talked for a few minutes together, but then got kind of bored. Erin left to go hang out with her many guy friends she's already made ;), and Kristen and I talked and got to know each other a little better. We found out we both like old movies and we also really enjoy action movies, like the Bourne series, or The Italian Job. But we also both really like the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. So that's what we watched tonight. We each popped a bag of popcorn (Mom: the kettle corn was actually really good...), and watched it on Kristen's laptop. It was so much fun! We finished the movie around midnight, and Erin came in and said, "The neighbors next door are having a popcorn party, do you guys want to come join? There are some guys there...." Needless to say, Kristen and I went to the party. I think we both felt a little left out, since we didn't really know their names and we kind of joined the party near the end. I don't know--it was a little awkward, but I think we'll have more parties with them in the near future--they were really fun! I think there was actually one RM there...he was pretty cute, but I don't know his name or anything. The other boys were definitely freshmen, and I think they were roommates. There were about 12 girls there and 5 boys or so. It was pretty fun! We sat and went around the room telling one pet peeve we all have, awkward stories, stories about dates, and a lot more. There were some pretty funny stories, let me tell ya. :)

Curfew was at 1 tonight, and so we made it back in our dorm by about 12:50 or so. Technically, girls in Perkins are allowed to be inside the Perkins gates by 1, but we don't have to be in our apartments. We could stay over all night if we really wanted to, but then it just gets complicated. I think we're all just trying to be in our apartments by curfew.

I don't think we really did anything after the party, but just change into our pajamas. I decided to catch up on blogging and so here I am. 1:40 in the morning and I think I've just about summed up my college experience so far. I will post pictures either at the end of this post if I'm feeling up to it since I actually haven't uploaded my pictures on my computer yet, or if I'll do that on another post with simply just pictures on it. I don't know. I'll get around to it.

But here's to a great school year! It sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun!

Oh, and Rexburg is already getting kind of cold. In the mornings, it's freezing outside. Enough that you want a warm jacket, and you don't want to take it off until about 10 or so at the earliest. Usually, it's pretty warm during the day, but it hasn't been super hot. It's been a good temperature so far to deal with. At about 7 or so at night though, the sun starts to set and it starts getting really cold again. So, we have just a few hours before it is time for a sweater or jacket again. :)

I'll post pictures in another post, but for now, I think I need to go to bed, or join Erin in the kitchen for a midnight (or rather a 1:40 am) snack. :)

Live. Love. Laugh. Grow.