Up All Night

As I finished my last final of winter semester 2004, I felt relief and joy that I successfully made it through my first year at Brigham Young University. I had various experiences that required profound personal growth, but despite those bumps, I had made it. Now I was off to the worst part of finishing my first year at Brigham Young University, saying goodbye to my friends.

Ciara, Aimee, Kelly, and I ordered a pizza and ate on the grass outside of Chipman Hall, our residence the past eight months. We reminisced about the dance parties in my car and all of our other exploits the past year and we planned how awesome our condo was going to be next year. Around ten o’clock, Kelly and Ciara announced that they needed to get back to packing up their dorm rooms and preparing for our trip to Salt Lake City tomorrow; however, Aimee and I decided that packing could wait; we had until tomorrow afternoon to clear and clean our rooms as we both were staying in Utah. 

We deliberated how we should spend our last evening as freshman, and then snuck over to Merrill Hall, where the boys in our ward (a Latter-day Saint church unit) lived. We phoned our friend Andrew and talked him into going on a walk around campus with us. As we reflected on the ups and downs of our year we walked by the library. I had spent countless hours inside eyeing the large hill outside the periodicals window rather than studying. It seemed like the perfect hill for rolling.

I suggested this idea to Andrew and Aimee, and they agreed to humor me. Giggling, the three of us took turns reliving our childhood and the blissful carefree attitudes we had enjoyed when children. However, my skin began to feel itchy, and as I looked at my skin and clothes, I noticed that they were green. Apparently, the grounds crew sprayed the grass for graduation in attempt to compensate for the dull brown grass that is barely recovering from the long Utah winter. We laughed about it as we walked back to our residence halls to shower. The fake green grass was a memory I would treasure.

Me, Andrew, and Aimee. Not sure why I look so evil.

The Salt Shaker Incident

During my freshman year, our marching band and jazz band had the opportunity to perform at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. We participated in the music festival and during the half-time show (with Diana Ross and Tina Turner—which was a surprise). In addition to the performances and parade, we had structured free time, as well as planned meals around San Diego at places like the Hard Rock Café. 

At one of the dinners, my friends Ruby, Sherry, Melissa, Sarah, and I got the brilliant idea to relocate the salt shakers to the women’s bathroom in the form of a smiley face. After lots of strange looks from women entering the bathroom and lots of giggling from us, we made our way back to the tour bus. A short time later, our band director strode grimly with the restaurant manager by his side towards the bus. We looked at each other slightly nervous, but we figured we technically didn’t do anything wrong, so we had nothing to worry about.

However, our nervousness increased as Mr. Barton ordered us off the shuttle bus and to gather in a circle around him and the restaurant manager. Mr. Barton looked at all of us disappointedly, and started speaking, “The manager tells me that five of the restaurants salt shakers have disappeared. I don’t think I need to tell you how disappointed in you and embarrassed for you I am. We will stand here until those who are responsible return the salt shakers.” 

In unison, Sherry, Melissa, Sarah, and I looked at each other in panic. We had been caught. The one time (okay probably not the only time, but still…) we decided to do something stupid, we were caught. However, we knew what we had to do. As one, we turned around and walked back to the restaurant, our heads hanging in shame, thus missing the stunned looks on the faces of our fellow band members. We trooped into the bathroom and soon returned with the salt shakers in question. As we handed the salt shakers back to the manager, he was the only one able to maintain a straight face. His coworkers had smirks on their faces, and Mr. Barton’s hand covered his mouth as he tried to maintain a stern composure. We quickly scurried back to the bus where we were greeted by the sound of laughter. No one expected us to be culprits and found it amusing  that we were caught in our rare act of mischief. 

On the ride back to our hotel, we penitently made up songs expressing our remorse for our deeds to the primary song “Nephi’s Courage.” I can’t remember the words to that song, but I do remember the words to another one of our creations, “I Hope I Marry a Missionary.” Interestingly enough, this song made it into  a girls’ camp songbook compiled by a girl in my ward three or so years later. I hadn’t realized that it had spread that far, but here are the words:

Sung to the tune of “I Hope I Become a Missionary”, another Primary song:

I hope I marry a missionary

When I have grown a year or two

I hope by then I will be ready

To cook and clean and raise little missionaries too.

(I think there was a second verse, but as this was composed almost fourteen years ago (December 1999), I find it impressive that I even remember the first verse.)

Favorite Book

I love to read. It was quite a drag when I was at BYU because I didn’t allow myself to read during the semesters. (Maybe I should implement that policy in grad school. I might would actually get stuff done.) However, my sophomore year at BYU was rough, mostly due to a very bad attitude, and I needed a release from the pressure of school and my living arrangements. My friend Karen offered to let me borrow her Harry Potter books to find that break. Up to this point, I had been avoiding the series because I felt that if I read them then I would be conforming to the norm, and for some reason that really bugged me. (Although I had seen at least the first two movies at this point.) Anyways, I relented to my stance against conformity and started reading the first book. I immediately fell in love. I borrowed the first two books, then bought books three and four before the end of the semester. At this time, I had a hard time waiting until I had enough money to buy book five, then I had to wait until book six came out. However, I guess this is better than having to wait for all of them to come out like those who started at the beginning of the series.

Then the next school year, Bethany became my roommate. She was a walking Harry Potter encyclopedia. She quoted Harry Potter frequently and perfectly. When the last  book came out, we showed up at Walmart at midnight to buy it. I then proceeded to read it in the next twenty-four hours, not allowing sleep, flirts, bridal showers, nor rodeos interfere with my reading. It was actually kind of pathetic. That same month, I also dressed up as Fleur Delacour for the Order of the Phoenix premiere. 

Kellie as Ginny Weasly, me as Fleur Delacour, and Kelly as Herminone

After the summer of 2007, I felt a bit empty because there were no books to look forward to. However, once I graduated and moved into my own apartment, I had plenty of time on my hands without homework, so I started rereading all of the books, something which have done more times than I care to mention. I actually finished reading the series again last month. Now I have discovered fanfiction, so I guess I have a new venue to fulfill my need for all things Harry Potter-related.

The Tale of the Curling Iron

One of the events that stands out the most from my middle school years involves a curling iron. Random, I know, but it is true, and it led to some crazy drama, which middle school girls can do best.

There was a swimming pool in the middle of our middle school. We often would swim during our gym hour, and being a seventh grade girl, I felt the need to try to look presentable after swimming. So I brought my curling iron. I’m not sure how my hair got dry enough to curl, but I know I had my curling iron. It might have been just for my bangs. They were pretty impressive. Here is a picture to prove it (although I wish I could have found my school picture, it shows the “awesomeness” of my style much better):

Anyways, true to my typical blond nature, I left the curling iron in the dressing room after swimming. I remembered it later, but the curling iron had already disappeared. I was quite devastated, and there was probably a dramatic fit thrown. I don’t remember all of the details. I kept checking the lost and found, but it never showed up. Desperate to maintain my amazing bangs, I ended up buying a new curling iron. 

The next week when we went swimming for gym class, I saw one of my classmates using my curling iron. Horrified, I exclaimed, “That’s my curling iron! I want it back!” I eventually wrangled the curling iron back into my possession, and thus started an epic battle for a curling iron that was nearing the end of its usefulness.  The girl who took my curling iron even threatened to take me to student court (a peer mentoring and conflict resolution group composed of ninth graders in our middle school), among other bullying tactics from various members of her “posse”.

My friends and I immediately started to plan our defense tactics and made grandiose plans; however, nothing ever materialized. When the girl her friends realized that I wasn’t going to back down, everything fizzled out and I didn’t hear another word about it. It was kind of disappointing after all of our plotting. The most interesting plot twist was the fact that the main instigator and I became good friends in high school. Oh the dramas of middle school.

Chicken Pox

Up until the fifth grade, I had only missed one day of school. I prided myself on that fact, and the fact that I had earned four perfect attendance trophies. I was a pretty healthy kid, but even on the days I felt terrible, I still put on a brave face and drug myself to school. So you can understand my dismay and grief when I started noticing the first signs of chicken pox right before Christmas.

 I had a Christmas concert right after those first signs, and I threw a tizzy fit until my mom allowed me to go. This angered my grandma, who accused my mother of irresponsible parenting because I was contagious and was going to kill all of the babies in attendance. I do not recall any babies dying that winter. However, my mom did make me stay home from the ward Christmas Party, which made me absolutely furious, even though by that point I clearly had the chicken pox. I felt bad because it was my last year to participate, but I did survive.

At first I was mostly upset that my perfect attendance record was shattered, but then I realized that it was kind of nice to just hang out at home, especially since I didn’t feel that terrible, other than the relentless itching. I think I went back to school the day before Christmas break, which really didn’t make sense, but my five days were up, and being the overachiever I am, I wanted to get back in the grove of things as soon as possible (despite the fact that very little school work is every completed the day before Christmas break).

After this experience, I was much more relaxed about missing school. At least when I was sick; I still wanted those perfect attendance prizes after all.