Starting at BYU

There's a very good reason that I haven't blogged in almost a month: I started college. And I've been crazy busy trying to get adjusted to that.

I did a pre-fall-semester Honors program called Late Summer Honors. About 150 of us incoming freshman participated, and we all took a week-long class that got us one credit hour of honors credit. I took a class called The Mathematics of Secrecy, where we learned how to use math to break codes. It was quite interesting and I really liked it.

I'm living in Helaman Halls now. My roommate, Nikki, is from Portland, Oregon, and we're fantastic roommates. Portland and Boulder are basically twin cities when it comes to hippie-ness, environmentalism and general weirdness. We have the same level of tidyness, basically the same sleeping schedule (or semblance of one), and we both study quite a bit. We get along really well, and I really like her.

I went to New Student Orientation, which was fine. We've been put into "peer mentoring groups" based on our freshman bundle, so mine is full of kids in my Honors American Heritage class. They seem nice. We did a bunch of tours of campus and stuff, which wasn't very interesting, since I had done all that with Late Summer Honors. I did hike the Y as part of NSO, which was quite fun.

My classes are great. American Heritage Honors is quite interesting, and I'm lucky to be in an honors class with about 40 people, rather than the non-honors American Heritage classes, which have hundreds of people. Last night I read a talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks about religious freedom in government for the class, and it was absolutely fantastic. I love how everything is taught here in a religious context and how religious insight augments our understanding of what we're learning.

I'm also taking a class called Great Works in Science. I haven't been to it yet, since I added it on Tuesday and it only meets on Mondays, but it looks quite interesting and I'm very excited for it.

My Honors Book of Mormon class is great. I still can't believe that reading the Book of Mormon is a school-required thing; it's really nice! Sarah Katherine is in that class, and it's nice to have someone I know in there.

Accounting 200 is really interesting. People keep laughing at me when I say that, but I'm really enjoying accounting. I think what we do - interpreting data, basically - is fascinating and loads of fun. That's my biggest class, with 600 people.

I also have Finite Mathematics, a course designed for and now required for all business majors. So far it's pretty easy, but we'll see how it progresses.

The girls on my floor are all really nice and I really like them. The food is fantastic. My feet hurt from walking so much. Everyone here is really accomplished and attractive and nice.

And I'll try to blog more often now. :)