How to Survive College

My sense of humor has changed as I’ve grown older. I suppose you can chalk it up to maturity, if you believe that I’ve grown more mature. The following journal entry, I thought was hilarious when I wrote it, as a freshman surviving BYU and living in an apartment with 6 girls and ONE BATHROOM. Also, remember that we were living in Provo and attending a no-drinking, no partying type of school where fraternities and sororities did not exist. Not exactly your typical college experience.

December 9, 1999

How to survive as a freshman college woman:

• Have pimple popping parties
• Don’t give up when the first five pizza places are closed
• Study through osmosis
• Keep a steady flow of Martinelli’s on hand
• Read the text in line for the test
• Hold ice cream pow wows with extra chocolate and caramel sauce
• Email your roommates before you use the bathroom so they’ll know*
• Create yourself a superhero alias**
• Feed the ducks
• Run up and down the bell tower stairs at night
• Write backwards on the outside of neighbors’ windows with a white board marker***
• Make sure everyone understands that a giraffe says ‘rawr’
• Change your voicemail message weekly
• Make documentaries of yourself (preferably dancing like water)
• Visit Taco Bell with frequency after the guys have been kicked out
• Spy on boys; get spied on by boys****

*Do you realize it was 1999? We thought it was cool that you could rent a computer from the school for a semester and have it in your bedroom. Sweet!

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**Example aliases: Teqwita, Goddess of the Trees; Matrimonial Blizzard; Snow Princess

***This also required sitting on your roommate’s shoulders to reach the window

****I don’t even remember this, but it’s in my journal so it obviously happened