Meet Billy

Before I talk all about my first day of school - actually I probably won't do that at all because it'd be very long and only interesting to me - let me share this one story about the picture on my ID card.

Apologies to those who've heard this story before.  But when I find a funny story that people enjoy (or at least I think they enjoy it.. that's what the grimace means right?) I tell it several times because hey, I'm not that clever that often.  And true to my upbringing, if you have something good: WEAR IT OUT.  Those shoes can actually last two years longer than you think.  Just because they're five shades dingier (yet simultaneously five shades more faded) doesn't mean you can't still USE THEM.  What?  You have a new pair of shoes?  Great.  Those old shoes can become work shoes.  You already have a old pair of almost-but-not-quite-worn-to-dust work shoes?  Great!  You have a NEW pair of CUTER old work shoes!  Or better yet, move them into the little room that holds all the preparations for the last days when the earth blows up and all the shopping centers have burned in sinful materialistic flame.  Because then no one will care if I'm wearing that striped shirt that is "so adorable" but also makes me look like a lumpy dough bag.  Although if I did come down to me to repopulate and all I had were these storage clothes, the future generations would be screwed because any man, desperate or not would take one look and say, 'oh no dough bag'.  He may reconsider but probably not before he gets hit by an asteroid.

So dear readers, prepare to hear this story over and over and over again, every time we meet someone who hasn't heard it yet - and there are about 7 billion people in this world - until this story is memorized, can be recited backwards letter by letter, and is past the point of even the redeeming powers of duct tape.

I'll try not to drag it out, because really it could have started a year ago, when I took a math class so I could work at the Y.  I'm again taking this math class, because I went back to Cedar before it ended, taking an incomplete.  A process which in and of itself could out the Odyssey to shame.  Basically, I had to get a new ID card.  Ok.  Shouldn't be that hard right?  Riiiiiiiiiight.

And it begins.

The search for a new card led me to the library, where a very helpful sign said, "ID Cards" with an accompanying arrow.  Perfect.  So I followed the sign through the library, around a desk, around a corner, and to a door with another sign.  This one read, please go to the front desk to get your ID card.  Well ok then.  I retraced my steps.

"Hi I need to get a new ID card."

"Well what happened to your old one?"

Thinking that honesty would be the best policy and already expecting a charge anyway I answered, "Oh I lost it forever ago. It's been at least a year."

The man at the desk stared at me and said, "Well since you admitted you lost it that almost makes me want to charge you the fee for a new card.*"  And then he laughed awkwardly like that would diffuse the weirdness of his statement.  It didn't.

Knowing that class would be starting soon, I impatiently told him I didn't care about the charge but to just tell me where the heck to go.  He sent me out to another office, where I paid and they sent me back to socially awkward man so he could take my new ID photo.

Now really I should have just waited.  Waited for a different day when I hadn't come straight from swimming or at least for a day when I was wearing make up.  But since I'd already paid the d-a-m-n charge I followed the man back through the library, around the corner, and to the door that originally denied me access.  Here Mr. SA* kind of muttered, "there's a mirror if you want to fix your hair."  To which I replied, "what? Don't I look good?"  I think he still might be red.

I stood on the little x and started to smile because I was told the camera would click on 4.  It clicked on 2.  Apparently it was a new camera and no one knew how to work it.  Here's the result.

 

I know.  I know.  I could have retaken it but I was super late for class and really, it kind of captures my feelings about the whole adventure.

So meet (as my family calls it) Billy.  As in, Billy BYU.  My pained looking alter ego. Destined for all things awkward.  I'm sure he'll be in lots of stories this year.

Do you know how often I use my ID card?  For about everything.  I'm ashamed every time.  In fact, even having this up on the screen is scaring the other people in the library.  It's scaring me at least.  

School rocks.

*I asked him later what I could have said in order not to pay and he stammered out that sometimes if the card gets stolen they don't charge.  I think my card will be getting stolen VERY soon.

Just A Little Gish In A Big Pond

(I've been waiting for months to use that one.  Brilliant eh?)

So here goes.  It's my final night at home and where am I?  In my bed of course.  With ice cream melting and First Aid Kit playing and it turns out I'm a lot more of a home body than even I realized.

Tomorrow I'll move into the top floor of a house, converted into the tiniest independent "apartment" I've ever seen.  Seriously.  If my cousin Dara* who lived in downtown Manhattan ever saw this place even HE would curl up and die.  And this is the guy who paid like 50,000 buckaroos for a half bedroom apartment.  In the words of my dear roommate: "it looks like an abandoned nuclear warfare zone.  But it has potential."  Well that's ok then.

I tried to move in today but guess what?  There are girls still LIVING there.  Which means, first of all, that the $25 cleaning fee I paid up front is not being used to clean the practically decaying carpet (held together only by the dead skin cells of twenty bajillion footsteps I'm sure) and is instead probably supporting the landlady's I don't know, diet coke addiction.  (Provo gets pretty cray cray.)  It also means that I'm expected to move on a SUNDAY.  Sin.  siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnn!  What an ox in the mire situation.  I may have to start counting my steps.  How could you BYU?

In the occasion that I survive the nuclear warfare zone and my lungs don't immediately turn black and flee from my body I'll start classes on Monday.  I'm terrified.  The idea of walking into a building I don't know, into a classroom I don't know, full of people I've never seen before in my life throws me back into the anxiety I used to feel (okay STILL feel) walking down the halls of high school.

I KNEW good ol' suh.  I would recognize faces in ever class, in every hall, in every study room.  And even if I wasn't friends with them, there was a lot of comfort in the familiarity.  I knew SUU.  I knew all of my nutrition professors, was friends with those crazy charismatic fun kids in leadership spots.  So comfortable.  So easy.  Which is exactly why I'm transferring of course.  Time for me to step out of my comfort zone.  Time to grow.  To better myself in a way I don't think I could have accessed at suh.

But the terror remains.  Let me give you a little demonstration ok?  SUU's graduating class last year: 1700.  BYU's graduating class: 6800.  More than three times bigger.  oooohh-KAY.  No BiG dEaL.**  I'm starting all over.  New track for classes.  New program to apply to.  I know.  I know.  I'll be fine.  I really do know this deep down.  It's what keeping me from crumbling and living in the basement for the rest of my life.  I'll be ok.  Good.  Great even.  But it doesn't make me any less nervous in the awkward about to move and restart interim.

So come Monday***.  It's going to be just a little gish in a big pond.  Swim little fishy.  Swim your frickin' heart out.



*Google him.  He only is the number #1 analyzer (read RICH) in the beverage industry.  It's fine.  I rock at Jenga.  We're totally related.

** very Very VERY big deal.

***I'll be blogging a LOT more than in the summer.  I seem to blog best when I'm putting off homework out of pure obstinacy.  Which I'm sure you'll be grateful to hear.  Tell me you're grateful.  I get so dang vain about this blog.  Telling me you like it strokes my ego like you wouldn't believe.   (I'm talking to you lil catie poo meyer.  Makes my day every time.  Seriously.  I'm pretty much your loyal blogging servant over here.)