8:25 PM
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Hello mostly ladies and perhaps a few gents,
So yes, I realize it's been several weeks since I've updated anything, and I place the blame solely on the fact that I am *gasp* in college. So I'll start off with the date since I'm sure that's what most of you have been bugging my mom about the most.
The date was so much fun! Dustin (McKenzie's boyfriend) and Sam (her best friend) sent us on a scavenger hunt, with all these clues for us to follow all over Provo! It was great. We ended up at Wal-Mart, where they meet us in the doorway wearing these goofy sunglasses with the tags still on, then we went shopping for a dinner. We brought it back to Sam's apartment and cooked it up and watched several episodes of The Office, which was a blast. Then we went to this ice cream shop called Sub Zero, which is kind of like Coldstone only they mix the cream and then freeze it with this liquid nitrogen thing... it's way cool. So, it was a very fun night. :)
To sum up the past few weeks, I basically work my tail off during the week and then waste pretty much the entire weekend partying and goofing around. My calc class is so much work, and it's super hard, but I'll survive (hopefully). The testing center is probably the scariest place I have ever been, not because of the way it looks but because of the potential doom the entire establishment dangles over your head the minute you walk through the door. My lifestyle management class continues to be a phenomenal waste of time, but at least it's two easy credit hours. My BOM teacher continues to be completely hilarious, she's definitely my favorite teacher even though there are other teachers that are better at their jobs. Econ is still mind-numbingly boring, but my teacher is really good. He just has the most uninteresting subject to teach imaginable. Aaaaand... physics. My teacher is still incredibly geeky, but the classes are way fun because a) the demonstrations are awesome and 2) I sit by Cameron and Taylor (who's from the Anoka Stake!!) every day, and me and Cameron pretty much play games and do puzzles the whole time. It's so much fun. Make of that what you will. ;-)
Me and Somers have been going to the temple every week, which is so nice. It's amazing to be able to just walk down there and pop in whenever we feel like it. The fall leaves are sooo pretty, and this past Friday we brought cameras and took tons of pictures on the way back.
My roommates are pretty much amazing. We have so much fun together, and we just fit together perfectly. We were talking a few days ago about how lucky we got with roommates, because we are absolutely crazy about each other. We've heard some other dorms getting into some tiffs, and we've met a lot of other girls that we've liked, but probably wouldn't have clicked as well with. Our basement buddies are really awesome too. Our dorms visit teach each other, so Somers and I were over there this week visiting one of them, and we ended up spending like 30 minutes afterwards gossiping about boys with the other girls. Our Relief Society president is in that dorm, and she's the cutest thing on the planet.
As for the weekends, a sampling of our activities on weekends would be:
-going to the Love You Long Time concert in 80s getups (I LOVE that band!!!)
-The stake Halloween dance
-Watching movies
-Going to Dustin's house to carve pumpkins and then play sock hockey at their church gym with a bunch of their little siblings
-Staying up insanely late
-The ward water party, which was waaaay fun and involved an enormous slip-n-slide and lots of bruises. :)
-Sleepovers in the kitchen on mattresses, and playing the "ha" game on each others' stomaches.
-Playing pool with the Broadbent boys
-Running all over campus
-Cleaning check (bleaugh), which we passed. Yay.
-Homecoming funness.
-Dressing my roommates in clashing clothes and taking pictures. :)
-Seeing Kung Fu Panda at the varsity theater!
-Spur-of-the-moment parties with whoever.
Aaaand I'm probably forgetting other stuff but that probably gives you a general idea. Basically, I love the weekends. I love BYU. And I love you guys! I made you another video with a buncha pictures from various shenanigans. Enjoy!
P.S. Just saw the new Half-Blood Prince trailer today!! It was fantastic, and I nearly had a seizure. I watched it six times. Please watch it. Go to mugglenet. Seriously, it is So. Good. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11:03 AM
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Okay, so change of plans. I'm actually not going on my date tonight. My cousin Riley called me last night (while we were watching "The Village" at our friend Jackson's apartment by the way- we really enjoyed ourselves.) and told me that he was leaving for his house today around noonish, and asked if I wanted to come. So I called Sam, the guy who asked me on the date, this morning and asked if we could reschedule, and he said that he was just about to call me anyway. He had gotten the dates mixed up, and it was actually NEXT Saturday that whatever-it-is-he-has-planned is, so the rescheduling was actually a good thing! So the moral of the story is, things work out. Usually. Sometimes. And sometimes they don't and you end up embarrassing yourself, but not this time. :)
The Fall Fest last night was actually not that fun, so we left early and went to Jackson's apartment to watch "The Village" and eat ice cream. I loved it, but of course the end made me mad. I hate it when they leave things hanging. Grr. But anyway, it was really fun. Jackson played guitar for us while we were scooping ice cream, and he's actually really, really good. Like most guys who tell you about how they play the guitar and all just like to talk about it, and then they want to play for you and it's not that great. But he's reeeeally good. We had fun with that. Then when we came back to our dorms from his apartment we sat outside and talked and sang songs. We're a little silly, but it's a great time.
I just thought I'd tell you all about that so I don't get certaaain peeeeople pestering me about how my date went this week, since I won't go until next Saturday. Later, loves!
1:11 PM
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Hey all!
So I'm incredibly busy here in Happy Valley. My calc class is sooo hard, and I have my first exam on Monday, so I'll be studying like crazy for that sucker all weekend. But I'll also be having some fun too- my roomies and I are watching a movie tonight and then going to this Fall Fest thing down at the student center, which should be fun. It's supposed to be a kind of carnival-type thing. Then tomorrow-get this- I'm going on a date. IIIIII know. I go my entire high school life without ever ONCE being asked on a date by a guy from my school, and then three weeks into college I get asked out by a guy I've talked to all of 3 times! He's my roommate McKenzie's friend, and I think we're going to double with her and her boyfriend. I'm not sure what we're doing or when quite yet, but I'll tell yous guys about it next week. Also, if I can get a ride over there I'll be going to my cousin Mitch's farewell on Sunday, but that's not a sure thing. It basically depends on if my other cousin Riley (his brother) who's here can drive me. So it should be fun, besides the homework part.
I have my calling now, and even though it's not announced yet I'm going to tell you anyway since it has no effect on you whatsoever- I'm going to be teaching Sunday school. I start the Sunday after next, and I won't be teaching every week (I don't know yet exactly how often). That'll be fun times. I spoke in Sacrament meeting last Sunday, and I went first, so I was the very first person besides the bishopric to speak in our church! It was really nice to have it over with too, because now I probably won't have to speak again for another 6 months! The FHE groups take turns being in charge of Sacrament meeting, and we're group number one. So since there's 12 FHE groups, our group won't be in charge again for another 3 months, and then different people from our group will have to speak anyway! WOO! But it went well.
So for my lifestyle management class we have to wear pedometers for 14 days, and on average I've been walking about 18,000 steps per day! I'm so dang HEALTHY! :D
My roommates and I have been having sooo much fun together! I absolutely love them, and we all get along so well! We constantly have giggling fits, and on weekends we totally go nuts. We're pretty much crazy about each other. There's been some boy involvement too- McKenzie already had a boyfriend when she got here, Julie got a boyfriend about a week and a half into being here, and Krista has a kind-of-boyfriend who she just doesn't want to make it "official" with. PLUS poor Somers has this guy who really likes her, but he's super annoying and forward, and incredibly PERSISTANT, and no matter how strongly she hints he won't leave the poor child alone! AAAND Caitlin has some interests in a friend of Krista's and Julie's who comes over here a lot- he's really cool. And there's a guy in my physics class who sits by me every class... and he's really cute... and we have a lot of fun together... but that's pretty much it.
So my math teacher has been throwing out the dorky jokes like CRAZY lately, and I thought I'd share a few with you. Some are actually funny, and some made me want to cry with the realization of what category of people I was placing myself in by picking this major.
Professor Belnap: I assume you all know that the earth orbits the sun in an elliptical path. The sun is actually one of the two foci of that ellipse.
Student: What’s the other focus?
Prof. Belnap: That’s Kolob, actually.
Professor Belnap: …and then that makes the whole thing a perfect squares. Now what happens to a perfect square?
Student: It gets translated!
Professor Belnap: … “So you just do the operator twice… (d^2)/(d^2x) is just the notation, it doesn’t mean anything different.”
Class: ………
Student: That’s a terrible idea!
And the most HORRIFYING one:
Professor Belnap: "The curve shows the path travels along the plane, and it doesn't have to be a regular Cartesian funciton- kind of like it's showing the path I make as I walk across the room. So there can't be a break, because I can't just teleport across the room... this isn't Star Trek!"
Some geeky kid I can't stand: "Yeah, but if you WERE teleporting in Star Trek, your atoms would still follow the same path, so technically you would still be following the same continuous curve!!!"
Me: *Please kill me.*
And my Physics teacher is a TOTAL geek, but he's great, and I absolutley love his class. We have the coolest demonstrations! But he always messes up what he's trying to say, and we have technical difficulties pretty much every day. My Book of Mormon teacher is SO much fun! She's this 60-year-old lady who's a complete fruit cup! She's nuts! Here's a few gems from her:
Professor Hallen: Oh yes, and the cherub had the sword that pointed in four directions, so I better… there. Oh, he looks like Kung Fu Panda!
Professor Hallen: So I’ve been buying reading glasses from the dollar store for years and years, and yesterday I got an upgrade! These are from Wal-Mart, and they have rhinestones. Don’t you think I look scholarly?
We "sing our opening prayers" every class, and she used to be a soprano in choir (like 30 years ago) so she likes to sing super high descants along with the hymns at the top of her lungs... she completely cracks me up, I love her.
So I made a little video with some pictures of my dorm and my room mates. I took a bunch of pictures of campus too, but I didn't include them because I figured you can just look online at campus if you don't know what BYU looks like. =) Here ya go!
4:39 PM
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SPOILERS~SPOILERS~SPOILERS~SPOILERS~SPOILERS
I almost forgot about Twilight! Naughty, naughty Mallory!!
Okay, so my grade for Breaking Dawn: *insert spitting noise here*
The ending was awesome, and I enjoyed Jacob's perspective. But this book pretty much took everything I DON'T like about the Twilight series- Stephenie Meyer's indulgence (meaning she can't not write about something she thinks of, and she puts in all her own personal fantasies which are a little over-the-top), Bella's whineyness, everybody else thinking Bella's some heroic martyr who is just soooo self-sacrificing and brave, really repetitive and superfluous descriptions, everything being just the BEST possible or the WORST possible thing like that that anyone anywhere has ever experienced, and pretty crappy writing quality- and multiplied it by ten. I mean, the punctuation alone in that book needed some s-e-r-i-o-u-s work. Stephenie's an amazing storyteller, but her writing leaves much to be desired.
And, okay. Bella's sex addiction FREAKED. ME. OUT. Me, Megan, and Jordan were seriously worried about our future personalities after reading the island. And Bella's tranformation was just plain gross. It did not add a single thing to the story. It was just Stephenie Meyer being overdramatic again and putting crazy stuff in there that were so unnecessarily and frankly, creepy and sick.
Buuuut... I loved Jacob's perspective on stuff, and I LOVED the ending- her endings are what really make these books great, and the Volturi make the story pure awesome any time they show up. I did enjoy reading the book, but I only read it again to make sure of my opinion of it. I'm probably not going to read it again for many, many, many years.
And some people say that Twilight is the next Harry Potter, or Meyer is the next J.K. Rowling!
HA!
WRONG!!
Harry Potter is just completely in a league above Twilight. Like it's not even possible for there to be a competition between them. I can read Harry Potter an infinite amount of times (I've read the first one 16 times) and it will never lose any of its enjoyment. And I realize new, special little things she threw in there every time. The Twilight books just aren't that kind of quality, and they certainly didn't have the 10 year of meticulous prior preparation that Harry Potter had. So, sorry. No contest.
I'm currently reading the now-legit leaked pages from Midnight Sun off of Stephenie's website.
Um, can we say deeelicious?
I believe we can indeed.
THIS is what gets us addicted to the series. Edward. The high concentration of Edward in this one- not to mention finally getting his perspective- is nothing short of amazing. This one I could read a good six or seven times before it began to lose its luster for me. I have read Twilight 4 times; it's still my favorite book of the series. New Moon is my favorite ending, though.
Oh, and Renesmee? Are you FREAKING SERIOUS! Someone get the vampire child abuse police on Bella RIGHT NOW!
And I forgot- I loved the wedding. That fantasy area I had no problems with. And Bella as a vampire is so much less annoying because she isn't constantly worrying about other people's physical safety. I think becoming strong must have made her finally realize how stupid her worrying was.
So yep. That's my jurisdiciton, biased as it is. Whatever. I'm not even going to bother finding a new obsession for the present- getting good grades needs to be my obsession for now. But Harry Potter always has that special corner in my heart- and Mugglenet still gets checked multiple times daily. =)
3:51 PM
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Hhhhokay. Hi. Where do I begin? Um, I'm in college now. I moved into my dorm on Wednesday. It already feels like home- not HOME home, but you know. Like the same way the bedroom in my Grandma's house where I always sleep feels like a home. Or the couch in Megan's living room where we frequently waste tragic amounts of time. Or Mr. Lev's classroom where I had AP Bio, env. science, and spent tons of time after school in environmental club.
Aaaanywaaaay, I'm pretty much settled in now. I'm in an apartment-style dorm with 5 other girls, split into 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. I love my roommates already, but I promise none of us got up in testimony meeting today to tell everybody so. It's bound to happen at some point, but we at least resisted this first time. The girl in the bedroom with me is McKenzie and she lives really close. She's SO nice and very friendly. Julie and Krista share another of the rooms, and they already knew each other. They're very bubbly, and they know how to get the dance parties going. :D In the other room is Caitlin and Somers. I've only seen Somers once because she's in Idaho with her family right now, but I've spent a lot of time with Caitlin and she's a fun time.I've been busy busy busy these past few days with orientation stuff. I've found all of my classrooms and I feel moderately comfortable getting everywhere I need to- during the day, anyway. Night time is scary because I can't see the mountains to orient myself, and everything looks different, but luckily I've always had groups to go with after dark. My orientation group has been super fun, and I've made some friends within it. Yesterday there was a dance in Brigham Square, and it was great. I saw Scott from the St. Paul Stake there and we chatted a bit, but neither of us have seen Jonathan Thibadeau yet. He's around here somewhere... among these thousands of people... somewhere...... :) Anyway, after the dance my bud Jake had an after-the-dance dance in front of his dorm, and pretty much everybody from Heritage Halls came and we had a good time. I was so BEAT afterwards.
My new Bishop is hilarious. He kind of reminds me of Chad Erickson. Hee. His wife led Relief Society today, and he came in halfway and their bantering cracked us up!
Happy Valley has really got my head spinning. It's aptly named, I can tell you that. Everyone (well the vast majority) is so FRIENDLY and there's none of the usual social barriers that exist among people who've never met. It hasn't mattered one bit that I didn't know a single person when I got here. For example, here's my best story of the week:
So on Thursday I didn't go on the tour with my group because they don't do me much good, and then at noonish I went to this field to meet up with them for lunch and the rest of the day's doings. I was just standing around looking for my group and waiting for them to come into the field. I was wearing my Pickle Pack t-shirt, which I'll explain since I bet all of .5% of the people reading this will know what that is. It's this shirt with a pickle on it that shows you're a member of the Pickle Pack, which is a fan club for this podcast I'm obsessed with called MuggleCast. "Pickles" is kind of a lame but fun catchphrase/inside joke of the people who listen to or host the show. Anyway, I'm standing there by myself and all the sudden this girl I've never even SEEN before runs up to me and starts jumping up and down shouting, "PICKLES PICKLES PICKLES!!!" It took me a minute to understand what was going on- imagine if that happened to you- but once I did I was so excited! She was a member of the Pickle Pack too and neither of us EVER expected to meet someone else who knew what it was, so we were super psyched. We talked for a while and then got each other's numbers so we could talk later. That's one of the "codes" of this group of people... if you see someone wearing a Pickle Pack shirt, you MUST say hello and then be friends. It's very Mormon-like in that sense. :D So yep- I made a friend by wearing a shirt with a pickle on it.
I'm super nervous about my Honors Calc II class now, because I found out we don't get to use calculators- not just on the exams but AT ALL. AHHH!! I'm not positive I'll survive it. But I'm still determined to be a math teacher, so I'm giving it a shot.
Oh, and I met a guy from the Anoka stake today who's in my ward, and two guys who live in Utah now but used to live in Burnsville. So that was cool. I think I've actually danced with the guy from Anoka at one of the dances, but I didn't say anything about it in case I was wrong. I have to say, BYU boys are so much easier to be around than the ones at Forest Lake High School. You don't have to smack their heads for swearing or plug your ears during their dirty jokes. They're just GOOD, which I'm totally not used to.
All in all, I absolutely LOVE BYU. This place feels like it was meant for me. It's weird not being unique anymore. I've always been kind of the top of my class, and most of my friends were from AP classes and such. I felt nerdy around many of my friends because I liked school and, not to be snotty or anything, but I was really good at it. And I was one of the only Mormons in high school, and my standards singled me out a lot. Plus I was kind of famous for being a Mormon. It was like the second thing people would mention when introducing me: "This is my friend Mallory- she's a Mormon!" But here EVERYBODY is really smart, and likes to learn for learning's sake instead of just doing what was necessary to (maybe) pass a class. I'm surrounded by Mormons, and I have to say the dress code is like a breath of fresh air. It really does feel good. So I've stepped into this bubble where there are thousands of people I fit in with perfectly- Mormon, peppy, enthusiastic, smart, pretty nerdy sometimes, friendly, and raring to go!! Okay, so the constant happiness does get a little annoying, but if that's my biggest problem with the people here, then I'll take it. After all, I'm a pretty optimistic and happy person myself- I just didn't realize how much MORE so some people were.
I've always felt like I'm an adapter- I get used to new places and situations really quickly and without it phasing me much. I WAS a little homesick the first night right after my family left- I went into the shower to cry a little bit so people wouldn't come and ask me what's wrong (I HATE that- there's nothing worse in the world than attention when I cry, so I usually avoid crying quite well) But I slept it off and in the morning I was over it. I still miss everybody and I think about you all the time, but I'm not sad. Just wistful. I wish I could bring you all with me. Wanna come live in my cinderblock? (Actually my dorm is a lot nicer than I expected. we even have actuall walls for 3 of the 4 walls in my room and in the kitchen and bathroom, and everything works, and we have walk-in closets. And I have way more space for my stuff than I anticipated! I actually have EXTRA closet and drawer space. Wild, I know.)The vacation in Montana and Utah was lovely as well. My cousins are pretty much the bomb, and I'll just leave it at that.Oh, and you know that "freshman 15" thing? Not gonna happen for me. I'm walking soooo much, and I'm actually eating less than I usually do both because there's less time to do it and because I have to watch my budget. But I do have a new addiction to strawberry frosted shredded wheat. I've eaten it every morning except today. :DI'll update soon, probably next weekend after I've gone to all my classes and I get a chance to relax a tiny tiny bit. Love you!
10:34 PM
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Well, kids, this is it. Tomorrow morning my family and I are waking up at the buttcrack of dawn (4 a.m. for you more gentle-spoken folks), piling into the van, and heading off to follow the sun. We'll be in Billings, Montana for 5 days, then we'll be going to Yellowstone to camp overnight. Then we're going to Utah to visit the family until it's time for me to move into my dorm and begin life as student of BYU.
W-O-W.
I've been in a kind of panicky state for about two weeks now, not so much from nervousness about college itself, but because every time I see something or someone I love I start thinking, "What if this is the last time I ever see them?!?!" I feel like I shouldn't even blink for fear of missing something I want to remember. And the more I try to hold onto the time, the faster it darts past me. This is not a new sensation (which is a great song, by the way). I felt the same way sporadically from the time we found out we were moving to Montana to the time we found out we didn't have to, during the entire last month or so of high school, during my trip to Costa Rica... it always happens in exactly the same way, and yet it always floors me a little bit. I'm a very nostalgic person; the very idea of relinquishing memories appalls me. That would be why I'm such a packrat- you can ask my mother about that one.
So, as I'm currently in a fit of heightened desperation to cling to all the people, places, and things I'm attached to, please excuse what I'm about to say, which I am certain will be corny and cliche, yet true.
I love you all so much. You may not have noticed, but today at church I was kinda staring at people a lot. I urgently felt like I had to ingrain your faces into my mind as much as I possibly could. Some of you have practically raised me, and I've seriously contemplated kinapping many more of your children than I think you'd care to know about. I LOVE Minnesota, I LOVE my ward, I LOVE my friends from school and everywhere else. Thus far my life has pretty much been charmed, and I've known and loved some incredible people. You probably know who you are. And if not, then I haven't done my job properly. Thank you for being unbelievably cool people and for making the last 11 1/2 years full of pure joy.
Whew. I really did just exceed my own mushy record. But I meant it, I promise.
So... see you in no more than 8 months, I trust. I may or may not come back for Thanksgiving or Christmas- it's likely I won't be back for both of them, though. I'm going to leave that one up to fate for now. Don't be strangers! My new address will be:
80 Penrose Hall
Provo, UT 84604
Stay beautiful! 
7:30 PM
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So this is my new blog. Well, it's actually my old blog with a new title, layout, and all the old posts deleted. I'm re-jumping on the bandwagon with the blog thing, just like I did in 9th grade when bloggin' was the thing to do. I figure that since I'm leaving for college very soon, I can use this to keep people back home or wherever they happen to be updated on my amazing and fascinating adventures.
As far as current events go, I just returned from girls' camp yesterday. I went as a leader this year instead of a youth, which was a little weird but considerably more enjoyable. The girls were great, and I had a good time doing the little leading that I actually did.
Me, Dad, and Karrine went to see The Dark Knight today, and I LOVED it. I felt a little overstimulated and punch-drunk as I left the theater. I'm more used to swordfights, spells, and charisma in my movies than guns, fast cars, and explosions.
Then my daddy and I went laptop-hunting. I would be so lost on this without him- I wouldn't even know where to start!!
I am WAY psyched for next Friday, when Breaking Dawn comes out. Me, my best lady Megan, Mom, Karrine, and my favorite church ladies are going to the midnight release, and I cannot wait!! Speaking of Twilight, I neglected to mention that the best part of camp was having Angie read Twilight to us in the tent before we went to sleep. =D
Other than that, I'm slowly working through sorting and packing my belongings in preperation for leaving. I'm scared out of my pants, but I'm still really excited. And I'm really, really tired of people asking me if I'm excited/nervous/ready for college. They mean well and all, but it gets very old. Just like when I graduated, and I couldn't escape from people asking me where I'm going to college and if I'm happy to be done with high school. They're the kind of questions you don't really care about when you answer them. I'm not an enormous fan of small talk, though I'm very good at it even if I don't know the person I'm talking to. Me and my polite skills. That's why I never say, "Fine," when people ask me how I am. I like to shake things up a little with some fun adjectives. My favorite is splendiferous.
I'm already getting too wordy, and this was just supposed to be the sort of "introductory" post. This may develop into a problem. Not that it's ever stopped me before. Until next time, lots of hugs and love!
