Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven.
-William Wordsworth
I chose this quote in honor of my generally happy spirit and happy/lighthearted journal-writing style that prevailed during my freshman year at BYU (2005-2006). You will notice that on my journal entries I rarely used capital letters. This was because I liked (and still do like) the aesthetic of all-lowercase. Especially with my name: aleatha. So nice like that, don’t you think?
I haven’t proofread this much. I’m sorry if the font size varies. And I do plan to write out my entire college experience. However, this is the year I kept the most detailed journal, so it’s probably going to be the longest. It’s about 10 pages on Word.
Freshman Year
As mid-August 2005 came around, it was almost time for me to start my first semester at BYU. I had been working as a secretary/customer service rep for the Manhattan Parks and Recreation Department. The job was fine, with nice people, but the excitement of starting college in a new place with completely new friends (I didn’t know a soul at BYU; had no relatives there) was making the job totally boring. On my last day at work I wrote in my journal:
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
happening:
1. it smells like someone puked in this office
2. last day in this office
3. headache
4. i walked a lot at lunch and i’m all sweaty
5. i know i have a ton of stuff to pack but i can’t think of what it is. i can’t think of anything i need to pack.
6. bad nutrition
7. just wanting to get out of here
8. I HATE WAL-MART
9. i want to go to Lawrence TODAY. i want to spend ALL OF MY MONEY
I have destructive feelings. A very large number of them.
It is a today thing. Tomorrow I will be very happy because I won’t have to work anymore.
This entry shows pretty vividly how I felt that day. I was itching to leave, excited about going West. Whenever I feel unsatisfied with my life I do things like eat junk food and spend money. Bad, I know.
I remember the days after I quit my job, but before I left for BYU. I would get 10-11 hours of sleep each night, and upon waking up my kitty, Juliette, would be snuggling with me and I would lie in bed for several minutes, looking at my room, loving my kitty, thinking about leaving it all. I remember feeling cool and light-hearted, yet nostalgic.
My dad, Mary, and I drove to BYU on Tuesday, August 23 and Wednesday the 24th. When I got there the desert environment hit me hard. I had trouble staying hydrated, and got headaches easily. It was also hard to walk/breathe because of the high altitude. But I was so excited. I wrote this entry during New Student Orientation:
Friday, August 26, 2005
i love college. i love my major.
i love that this university has the largest free foreign/art film showing/discussion program in the entire world. i love that i’m seeing an Iranian film tonight, and will probably see one foreign film (at least!) per week. i love that they have weekly lectures about language, literature, and philosophy, including speakers from this university and speakers from around the world, including a walt whitman scholar! i love that the building for my major is new, has tons of glass and natural light, arches, a courtyard, etc.
That first week I got lots of comments about my clothes. I didn’t like it. I began to worry obsessively about whether what I was wearing was modest and appropriate or not. Now I realize that I was being perfectly modest, but for some reason the comments threw me off. This was probably my first disillusioning experience with Utah Mormon culture. Everyone seemed much more preoccupied with their own appearance and the appearance of others than in Kansas. Sometimes it was under the guise of promoting modesty, sometimes not.
I was very lucky to have a kind, considerate, normal roommate. We got along very well and never had any problems. We had a few other friends on our floor (actually the whole floor was very tight-knit) and did everything together (since we never got asked out).
Here’s me at one of our “Wild Parties.” The bottle has sparkling cider in it. I did my own war paint.
The first time I mention homework in my journal is in this entry:
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
today i read about 250 pages.
the iliad is gorey and manly.
Haha! I did like the Iliad. I liked it more when I read it a second time in another class, however.
My first BYU crush (not serious- more a kind of giggly fascination) was on a boy in a few of my classes. I think the only reason I had a crush on him was because he was an enigma to me, so I ended up thinking about him a lot. This is what I wrote about it:
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
BYU is so enlightening. i never knew people could be so intelligent and also be insanely crazy about football (enough to pay extra money to get awesome seats, and enough to make football analogies to the Iliad that aren’t cheesy). aaagh i really like him, he is so cool to talk talk talk to but football is always lingering in the back of my mind. i mean, he is CRAZY about football. not just normally enthusiastic. he’s also crazy about basketball and soccer and frisbee and everything like that. help me understand.
This entry kind of stems from my personal resolution that I would never marry a man who was obsessed with sports or video games, because I’d always seen guys like this and thought: repulsive. This guy really mystified me. I never went on a date with him because I’m pretty sure he didn’t know I existed. I can count the number of BYU dates I went on (before I met my husband) on one hand. The sad thing is, I went on far more dates than any of my close friends from freshman/sophomore years. And I must say, we were all quite attractive, so I don’t know what the deal was. Everyone had told us about all the countless dates with countless amazing, cute, Mormon guys we’d have at BYU…it never happened!
The reason was most likely because our ward was made up of three DT floors of freshman girls, and 1.5 floors of mostly returned missionary guys. I’m serious. The ratio was really bad, and for some reason they put all the RMs on the same few floors at DT. There were literally 5 or 6 guys under the age of 19. The rest were 22 or older. Mostly older. You see, the kind of returned missionaries who live at DT are usually the kind that are socially awkward and have no friends to room with when they get back. And they never make more friends, so they keep living at DT. Most of the guys in my ward were about 6-7 years older then all the 18 year old girls. Our ward was really awkward. Not much dating happened.
On Tuesday, September 13th, 2005 I climbed Y Mountain with my FHE group. I remember it was hard to breathe. We began at sunset, and saw the city lights lighting up the dark valley when we got to the Y.
Monday, September 19, 2005
the ‘utah poufe’ is a strange hairstyle, commonly found in these parts. it involves teasing the hair in the back or front of the skull into a round, tumor-like bump. it is said to enhance one’s beauty.”
That October I went to the LDS General Conference in Salt Lake City. It was a nightmare and I had a horrible time, despite seeing President Hinkley and loving him even more after seeing him in person. This is what I wrote:
Sunday, October 2, 2005
general conference: look at all the mormons! over 30,000 of them in like two city blocks!
what i have decided is that i do not want to live in utah permanently, nor a big city nor a mormon city.
and i cannot describe the feelings i feel when anti-mormon people yell at me. they say sarcastically (i’ll pray for you) and scream and yell that i’m going to hell anyway because i belong to a church of liars and sex maniacs. (?)
why mormons? do they protest muslims? catholics? unitarian universalists? maybe. who knows. they’re so pushy. i am not pushy– to a fault. i can’t understand why a person would want to be pushy. they make me cry. i don’t know why. a combination of frustration and hurt feelings caused by misunderstanding. i don’t try and “save their souls”–why should they “care” about mine? yuck. making me cry is not a good way to make me listen to your point of view.
what i have decided also is that i am very afraid of security: metal detectors, guns, no-you-can’t-walk-here, people going through my stuff and finding things i’ve done wrong, people telling me that my barcode doesn’t work. i found out randomly that backpacks aren’t allowed. i asked a security person “what can i do with my backpack?” politely, and holding up my backpack submissivly, and she said, pointing to it, “that is not your purse”. and i said, “what. can. i. do. with. it. ?.” and she directed me to the bag check thing which was on the other side of the building and which caused us to be late. then i set off the metal detector. then we had to find our seats “quickly and quietly”. and when i went back to get my backpack at the end, they had stolen my water bottle. so i had to buy a new one and it was “dasani” water, and they put salt in their water. so it tastes like tears. gross.
the second time, it wasn’t as bad because i didn’t bring my backpack (i had brought it the first time because i had thought it would be harder to steal) I HATE CROWDS but the second time was more pleasant because we knew sort of what we were doing and we got there early because i didn’t have to check in my backpack. it was nicer, but i don’t really think i’ll go again for a while.
actually sitting in the conference center was amazing and cool, with the huge organ and all.
but i prettymuch hated everything else.
This was my first experience with outright persecution, and also one of the first times I’d ever been in a big city, responsible for myself and having no one to show me around. I hate big cities and crowds. Even when the crowds are not persecuting you it still makes me so anxious.
On October 4th, 2005, I turned 19. I remember it was a rainy day and that made me so happy. It was hard living in a desert when I was used to the frequent thunderstorms and humidity on the prairie. My entire dorm floor (Deseret Towers S hall, 7th floor) surprised me with a cake and a birthday song. They gave me a paper hat; all of them were wearing hats of some kind. It was fun.
I’ve always had the superstition that the day after my birthday will be a bad day. It started in 3rd grade when, the day after my birthday, I brought my sunflower seedling (just a little green whisp of a plant) to class for show and tell. The teacher, bless her heart, accidentally broke the seedling (bent the stalk in half) and I almost cried. I had a horrible day, and as I was reflecting on it, I remember that last year I had had a horrible post-birthday day as well. So on the day after my 19th birthday, I was naturally dwelling on Things That Were Bothersome:
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
i am really worried:
1. if i understand the concepts in american heritage really well, whycome i got a C on the test?
2. today one of my teachers said that a G.P.A. isn’t reflective of knowledge, but rather a student’s ability to do whatever it takes to get good grades, a.k.a. problem solving skills and work ethic. then i started wondering what i could do to get good grades, and then i started wondering why i wanted good grades, and now i am confused. am i lazy to not want good grades? i just want to learn things. i’ve never really cared about grades, but now i don’t know.
3. i need to do ten hours of service for american heritage, and i don’t know what to do because i don’t have a car and i’m scared of serving people. honestly. i would rather pick up trash in the city park in the winter time than actually serve real people. aagh and i was supposed to start this a long time ago. what if i don’t get it done and i flunk american heritage and have to take it again??? i also have to read a 200-page book in a couple weeks and write an essay about it. aaaaaaagh at KSU all i had to do was show up at the lectures and listen and i’d do ok.
4. what if the latin class is too hard?
5. what if i break my heart and cry?
6. i really want to be a vegetarian again NOW!! i have been non-veg for about a year and a half, and i feel sick. i want to go back. today i had a chicken salad sandwich from a vending machine and i picked out the chicken. it was mean nasty ugly. it is nearly impossible to be a vegetarian with a meal card. i’m going to try it as hard as i can. i still feel sick from that chicken salad sandwich, and my hands smell like onions and BLECH mayonnaise.
7. ever since “safety week” i consistantly feel very unsafe. it’s a good thing i suppose but nevertheless i worry a lot more and it doesn’t feel good.
8. i feel inadequate and i’m too scared to talk in class
one last thing:
i’m so busy with school work that i don’t have to think about what i think about the honor code dress and grooming standards!
i don’t have to feel guilty for thinking a guy with long hair is cute and breaking the honor code, and i don’t have to feel guilty for mentally judging/criticizing people whose shirts or pants are too low.
i don’t like the honor code dress and grooming standards.
Ok, so those last few statements show that I did, in fact, have time to think about the Honor Code. Really, that and “Safety Week” were two of the most pressing topics on my mind for my entire freshman year. “Safety Week” included a required seminar in which a police officer told horrifically detailed violent rape stories that made me suspect every single male I came in contact with for at least a year, including my home teachers. It was horrible. I couldn’t meet or talk to a guy without having near anxiety attacks caused by the fear that he was plotting to rape me. I really think they could have handled the seminar more delicately. I remember one girl in the audience actually fainted during one of the rape stories: it was that horrific. She was just sitting in her seat and suddenly slumped over. It caused quite a stir. Really I think they went a bit too far with the details….
In mid-October I started doing service hours for Rural Housing Authority (kind of like Habitats for Humanity). I loved helping build the houses. It felt good to feel sore and tired after working on Saturday mornings. On my last Saturday there, I met a boy who just wouldn’t stop talking to me…about the WEATHER! Yes, we talked about the weather, and IT WAS FASCINATING! I’d always loved talking about Kansas weather to non-Kansans, and here I’d met a Californian who loved talking about California weather to a non-Californian! We talked for hours and then he asked me on a date. My first date at BYU! He was a freshman like me, majoring in economics. I actually went on two or three dates with him, but nothing romantic happened and I lost interest. After Christmas break, he saw me and tried to hug me, but it was really awkward because I rarely hug people and wasn’t expecting it, and besides, have you ever tried to hug while wearing backpacks? I never saw him again.
Around this time I started going on regular hikes in Rock Canyon, the canyon trail park behind the Provo temple. I absolutely loved it. Occasionally I saw bighorn sheep, and once I saw a little field mouse. I loved the yellow aspen leaves in the fall: we don’t have those trees in Kansas.
Me with the aspen leaves.
On Halloween day I started working as an early morning custodian for the administration building. It was from 4:30-7:30 am. Because of the aforementioned Safety Week, I was petrified of walking to work in the dark. So I had to call the BYU police every morning for a “Safe Walk”. But after working a few days I met a co-worker who was in my ward. I asked him if he would walk with me. Strangely enough, I felt safer with him than with the police officers. He actually drove, so I got a ride to work every day. Every morning, however, I felt kind of queasy. I actually threw up a couple times at work, and also got several bloody noses. In the daytime I was, as my friends put it, a walking zombie. I grew to hate the people who worked in the administration building for smearing frosting and crumbs into the carpet and leaving food in their trashcans over the weekend, so they stank when I emptied them on Monday. I was half asleep as I worked. The two things I did most often were plug in my vacuum cleaner, and unlock doors. One time I was so tired that I almost tried to “unlock” an electrical socket, instead of plugging in my vacuum. Luckily I caught myself in time and escaped electrocution. Oh, how I hated that job. One of my bosses was a man who would say things that made me uncomfortable, like, “Aleatha, you’re so quiet. You’ll make a good wife/woman someday.” Also he told us NOT TO TAKE THE CANDY in the jars on other peoples’ desks and tables. But one day he came to see how I was doing, and took a piece of candy! I was so mad. After that, I admit, I took candy whenever I felt like it. It was meant to be taken; not someone’s secret stash or anything. It’s sad how much a piece of candy made me feel better. The only thing I liked about that job was that when I was done at 7:30, I would go straight to the cafeteria and eat a HUGE breakfast with eggs, sausage, hash browns, cereal, juice, etc. It was practically lunch time for me. That job was so horrible, it got to the point where I would start crying when my alarm woke me up at 4:00. I quit in Februrary.
Over Thanksgiving I met an internet friend from BYU-Idaho, who was a real-life friend of a friend of my roommate. It was fate! Haha Anyway, he was a sweet boy who played the mandolin and had a lot of enthusiasm. We went hiking, which, for him, meant scrambling up cliffs. That was actually really fun, and easier for me than hiking. He was a lot of fun to be around; his enthusiasm was catching. We had a lot of common interests, especially literary.
Here’s what I wrote about it:
Saturday, November 26, 2005
aaaaaaaa i met t– the daffodil boy, and p–
we made a pie in d–’s kitchen and then we went hiking and we climbed up a cliff type thing. it was like a ladder of rock tilted at a 75 or 80 degree angle from the ground. it was so high and awesome and i want to do it again and again.
and then we went back to d–’s kitchen and made a dinner type thing and t– played his mandolin
and then p– collected most of the couch cushions in the entire building and made one giant pile and everyone was running up and flipping into them but i didn’t want to. i don’t know why i loved climbing that cliff type thing but didn’t want to jump into a pile of cushions. i am just a mystery girl i guess.
then p– found a shopping cart and had people push him around while he was sitting in it and stuff like that.
That’s me waving my hand at the top of the cliff we climbed.
The semester closed and I went home for Christmas. I got pretty good grades. Actually, I failed the American Heritage final but still did ok in the class. To get home, I flew for the first time. What do you know, I hated the airport. Crowded+noisy+busy+security=ugh. Over the break I sewed a lot. I also went on some dates with an old friend, and I really started falling for him. Hmm. I also bought a laptop with the money I’d made doing custodial work.
Here are the resolutions I wrote for the new year:
January 1, 2006
i will point out that the newspaper for this weekend had several ad pages for wal-mart and stuff, and in those ads were primarily pictures and prices of exercise equipment and apparel and organization tools such as plastic boxes and lable makers.
this fact really made me feel obligated to make something of myself.
i hereby solomnly declare the following:
resolved: to do my schoolwork with at least 75% of my grandmother’s perfectionist spirit.
resolved: to become obsessed with Latin
resolved: to go hiking all the time i am not studying or working or sleeping or eating.
resolved: to obtain compassion for everyone
resolved: to not slack off in my sewing class (again the perfectionist spirit thing)
resolved: to stop whining about BYU and just attend my excellent classes and foreign films without trying to think about the problems i have with the culture there.
resolved: to download “lady come down” which is a song from the movie version of “the importance of being earnest” that makse me very happy
resolved: to not break my new laptop
I got back to school for my second semester, which included biology, Latin, and Comparative literature II (Civ class). A few days in, I wrote this:
Monday, January 09, 2006
biology is going to be extremely annoying. the teacher is obsessed with teamwork. so much so that he has been teaching biology as a part of a team for twenty years, and also he feels like he has some sort of obligation to prepare our generation to solve problems together. he wants us to do several group projects so that we can be better prepared for the workplace later in life. and he uses teamwork vocab. like we are all “team players”. and so he wants each class to divide into groups of three students. this would work out great, except he set each class limit at 25 students, which is not divisible by three. so, since i am not a “go-getter” i am in a group of two. we can’t have groups of four, he says. so me and my partner have to do more work because of his mistake (which has probably been going on for years) instead of less work in a group of four. and the nature of the group assignments makes this extra work a big deal.
I soon dropped that class.
Over the next month my more-difficult-than-last-semester classes plus my sleep deprivation plus never getting asked out on dates started to equal me being in a full-blown romantic dreamland crush with Old Friend from home. It got pretty bad. Eventually, with the encouragement of a friend, I bought him a really personalized gift and wrote a long love letter, and sent it to him. The day I got my reply (negative) I lied on my dorm room floor and listened to really brooding classical music for a few hours and was sick with shock. Later I was giddy, then swooning again. It lasted for a while. That was the first time I remember my heart actually being in pain.
For Valentine’s Day, a boy in my ward asked me out!!!(!!!) Yes, he was an RM. He left a message on my answering machine that went something like: “Hi, this is J–. I’m not sure who you are but I need a date for this group date and you were recommended to me”.
RECOMMENDED??!?
What the heck does that mean?? I mean, it’s not like any of the other guys in the ward could “recommend” me as a good date, because none of them had ever asked me out. Anyway, we went on a fabulously underplanned date at the Nickelcade, a place where the set you loose to play hundreds of arcade video games. Sounds like my kinda date, huh? Actually it wasn’t that bad and the guy was a good date. He just didn’t talk to me after that.
Here is a funny entry I wrote that describes the personalities of each of my friends:
Thursday, February 16, 2006
if my friends and i tried to build something together, this is what we would each say
n–: ok guys! we can do this!
e–: robin, you’re doing it wrong *grabs object away from robin*
r–: emily! stop it! let me do it! you’re so mean to me!
m–: you guys, we shouldn’t be fighting with each other. it’s not nice.
aleatha: you guys are so LOUD whine whine whine
Here is me with most of my friends. We would be roommates in our apartment during Sophomore year.
I loved my Comparative Literature class this semester. I thought the teacher walked on water. He was so inspiring, and I loved his testing style: a learning experience, not a knowledge dump. But all this admiration came crashing down one day. He was handing back our graded tests. This class had about 11 people in it, but I guess he forgot who I was, because he didn’t give me back my test. Instead, he told the class about my test, using my name, and said that I had written a good essay but stopped about five pages too short. He said something about how I “fell off the horse,” and he chuckled. I was so embarrassed. He put my test on the front table, and when class was over I sheepishly snatched it and walked out. I don’t know if he ever realized that he had belittled me in front of the class while I was there. Even if I wasn’t there, that was very unprofessional of him to say that. I still do not like that man.
The semester ended well, and I drove home to Kansas with my dad. My friends and I already had an apartment set up for the fall semester. I set to work sewing lots of dresses and trying to find a summer job.
