My College Years BYU

Well, down to BYU

Even after two years of college, BYU provided me with some definite firsts.
BYU gave me my first bad roommate experience.  My first apartment was interesting.  All the girls were nice BUT there was definitely some experiences I could have done without.
One roommate would cook when she was stressed.  When I mean cook, I mean using EVERY dish in the apartment.  More than once, I went to sleep with the kitchen cleaned and woke up to disaster.

I also remember getting my valentines chocolates from my dad.  I looked forward to these every year and in the box there was one particular chocolate I saved for last.  Sadly I noticed that my chocolate stash was diminishing faster than I was eating and my favorite chocolate was eaten.  Yes, one of my roommates was a clepto.  It was sad and I'm only now realizing that that might be where all my EFY CDs went.  That's right.  I went to EFY 3 times.  I don't have any of the CDs anymore.  Anyway, it was hard being her roommate for those reasons, but I found out at the end of the year that she had some pretty serious problems and now I feel pretty bad that I couldn't see past her faults and be a better friend.

Most of my other roommates during my BYU tenure were great though.  Everyone has their quirks and you learn to deal with it.  No biggy.

I continued on my path into Dietetics.  I loved my classes.  One sad note.  If you remember from my BYU-Idaho post. The reason I went into Dietetics was because I loved how food interacts with the body to make things work.  So imagine my disappointment when the classes that I thought would by my favorite were taught by a professor that I really didn't understand and didn't really enjoy.  I never understood how he tested or what he expected.  No matter how I studied, his questions were confusing and left me second, third, fourth guessing.  It made those classes frustrating rather than fulfilling.  Other than that, I loved my teachers and my classes.

The hardest thing about dietetics (then and now) is that nutrition is a topic that EVERYONE has an opinion on.  There is a lot of mis-information out there.  Plus, people seem VERY resistant to change their eating habits, myself included.  After doing my internship I have decided that if I ever work in my field I would want to work in an out patient clinic where most of the people are there to learn and change.

I know a lot of people do dumb things in college.  Dumb and funny.  Most of my dumb things are shortcomings that I prefer not to think about, hoping that I'm better than I was.  Everything else I did weren't really dumb.  Just silly fun.

I did a lot of fun things.  My favorite BYU activities included going to Divine Comedy (Such a funny group), going to Denny's at 3 am with my roommate and our neighbor, riding the ski-lift at Sundance, lot's of Leatherby's icecream, football games, hiking Mt Timpanogas, marathon Settler game nights (I will not play Settlers even today.  We played that much.) and ... that's all I can remember for now.

One thing I'm SO glad I did in college was to take classes I liked that were outside of my major.  That's how I ended up taking a Shakespeare class.  I needed a general English credit and it looked interesting.  I LOVED it.  I took an organ class and then private organ lessons.  I wish I had taken more piano lessons because no matter how good my piano teacher was, learning from someone knew could bring me different perspective on music.  When I was a senior at BYU, and able to register first, I jumped on the chance to take art classes that I normally wouldn't be able to take because I am not an art major and the classes fill up quickly.  I took Book Binding and Calligraphy.  I loved both and I use both skills still.  College is SO pointed these days.  It makes me sad because I think it's a time in our lives where we can easiest explore our interests.    

I worked two jobs at BYU.  The first was a catering position.  We worked EFY dinners, the cougar club pre-game parties, and the Cougar Club game snacks.  This was great because it meant we got to see most of the last half of the football games free.   The second was as a secretary for the Statistics department.

I learned several life lessons.
1-Always be honest and don't be too afraid of confrontation (something I'm still afraid of and avoid), especially if it's with someone you see often.
2-Honesty requires tact, and tact can save a persons feelings and a friendship.
3-Try to think about other's feelings before you do/say anything rash (something I am still working on).
4- In conjunction with the above, try not to do anything in anger or frustration when your own judgement is marred.
5-You find friends in the most unlikely places and circumstances.
6- Be true to yourself.  Sometimes it's hard to make life decisions and no matter what others say or think, you have to do what you feel is right.  It may not be easy and it may be stressful, but it's your life and in the end YOU are responsible for your decisions.

Choices I made in college that affect my life now are my career path, of course.  If I went back now, I might have chosen differently.  I LOVE the health care field, but I lake the stomach for some things (like treating pressure wounds).  I'd probably have done radiology tech or something along those lines.

Another choice was to marry my husband, but that's for another post (sorry, if I fooled you with the teaser).