It's called "Heritage" for a reason

Here's a funny story: I was in my room one night at the beginning of the year, when I hear a knock at the door. Monica opens it, and I hear a guy's voice saying "Are all your roommates here? Get them all out here." I go out into the hallway, and two guys I've never seen before are standing in the doorway. One is super excited about something, and the other is kind of hanging back. The super excited one says "You guys live in the coolest apartment on campus? Do you want to know why? Sixty years ago, my grandma lived in that room right there, and while she was living here she met her husband, my grandpa. Last year, we had a really good friend who lived in that room, and he got married while living there too! Whoever lives in that room is getting married this year!"

What can be learned from this story? 1) One of my apartment-mates is getting married this year (the room in question was the middle room, which is not the one I live in. Thank goodness) 2) There are no boundaries between strangers at BYU and 3) My building is so OLD!!!!!

60 years ago my apartment was bringing people together, and it was probably old and disgusting back then. It's quite funny how run-down they are, especially compared to New Heritage (which used to be Deseret Towers) and Wyview (which used to be married housing). The appliances are the worst. My microwave is incapable of popping a bag of popcorn. One night Monica and I were eating dinner with another apartment, and their stove caught on fire. It spontaneously burst into flame. They put it out with a fire extinguisher, and since a fire extinguisher only has one use before it has to be replaced, when the stove caught on fire again a week or two later they had to use wet rags to put it out. Another apartment in my building had a stove fire as well. Since the beginning of the school year our bathtub drain didn't work, which meant that if you wanted to use that shower, you had to be prepared to take a mud bath as well. Our other shower is reminiscent of the showers in a locker room, which is not what you want to come home to after work. THANKFULLY maintenance came yesterday and fixed the drain, so I got to take a REAL shower last night. It was so beautiful.

Despite all the issues and general grossness of my dorm, I would not want to live anywhere else. I love love love having a kitchen, and my own little apartment. I'm close to everything on campus. We also have the prettiest outdoor scenery.

Here's another story: During New Student Orientation, they had a big party at the Wilkinson Center, including a performance by BYU's DIVINE COMEDY (have you looked them up yet?), and Monica and I were going over. We took a wrong turn, and ended up walking by the guy building from our ward (our ward is made up of two girls dorms and one guy dorm) just as three guys were walking out. Monica and I were like, "Hey we're from your ward!" and they said "Cool, walk with us!"We asked where they were from, and one of the guys, Tyler, replied “Texas.” With that fatal word, our fate was sealed. Monica and I were so excited to find someone else from Texas, we started talking solely to him, and ignoring the other guys (but we became friends with them later.) The three of us went to the Divine Comedy show together, and hung out a couple more times that week, along with another guy we met (at a sanctioned church get-to-know-you thing) named Blake (who is in to all the same books and Monica me), but the ultimate test of friendship came the first Friday night, at the Carnival. It was kind of a lame thing, but they had two blow-up bounce-house slides and a Tea-Cup Ride. Oh, the tea-cup ride, or as it’s really called, the “Exciting Tubs of Fun”. It is the most horrific and exhilarating ride I’ve been on in my life. That was the bonding moment. We-a group of about 9 people-went on it twice, and felt so sick afterwards. We then went to play hide and seek in the Tanner building, but we felt too awful to play for long, so we went back to the boys apartment and watched Psych, in an ingenious way. Monica and I couldn’t actually go into the apartment because it was past 12, and we couldn’t watch Netflix in the lobby, so we put the laptop on a table in the apartment and pulled a couch up to the door, so we weren’t breaking either rule! Over the last two months, the four of us have just grown closer and closer. Tyler frequently refers to our kitchen as “his” kitchen, which houses “his” couch. He and Blake are always over. At least one of them is always still there when I leave for work. We have other friends too, like Tyler’s roommates, but these guys are our brothers (the actual family relationships we’ve worked out are more complicated, and much weirder, so lets just say that we’re all brothers and sisters). In fact, we’re going to watch an opera tonight in the Fine Arts Center! There’s always so much to do here.  

Side note: Tyler was upset that I didn’t mention him by name in my last post, so hopefully he’s happy now (also, were there enough digressions in this post?). 

Quick test update: My Book of Mormon teacher dropped a question on the test, so I’m going to have like a 97!!! I made a B on my Humanities test, and a 95 on my Greek and Roman Literature test. And I have no more tests for a while!

Emily <3