I Do Believe They're Trying To Marry Us Off...

...and it has me quite weirded out. I can deal with the idea that people who come to BYU have a ridiculously-higher-than-normal marriage rate. We are, after all, a people who strongly emphasize marriage and generally marry young (I, of course, shall be the exception). You put this many college-age LDS singles in the same area, we're going to have a few romances here and there. I can deal with the fact that some people come here specifically to look for a spouse. In fact, I can even deal with the idea that BYU has achieved the status of Meat Market and has an unofficial motto of "A ring by spring or your money back!"

But never before have I had reason to suspect that this was anything but natural, as I do now. Evidence says that they're trying to instigate marriages. They're working to make sure you get that ring by spring, because they don't want to give you your money back. They've already spent it on your wedding reception. And who are they? Anyone and everyone who's been at BYU for more than two years. Anyone even remotely connected to the leadership.

It began with the upperclassmen leaders in my orientation group. You would expect the advice of upperclassmen to run along the lines of study habits, time management, fun ways to tick off campus police, etc., in addition to a small segment on dating. No. They gave us dating tips. Showed us good places to go for a cheap date. Everything--everything--is placed in the context of dating.

This would be understandable had it stopped there. They're in their early twenties. They're at BYU. Of course they're obsessed with dating. It didn't stop there, though. At the official Friday Night Extraveganza (aka Make All The Idiot Freshmen Do Embarrassingly Insane Things For Orientation And Film It For Blackmail While They Think They're Having Fun), they had us doing, well, quite a few fun things. See the alternate activity name. I noticed that they like to make us be very touchy. The activities were pro-handholding, pro-linked elbows, pro-shoved-up-against-as-many-people-as-possible. And very, very pro-sitting-on-people's-laps. At this point, I just kind of shrugged and observed that the normal college student was apparently a bit more relaxed with touchiness, particularly cross-gender touchiness, than the average high school student. I had not yet detected the conspiracy. I should have clued in when the official activities were shoving us as close to each other as they could.

It was, however, Monday night's ward activity that opened my eyes to the anvil-sized clues I'd been so blissfully dodging. Keep in mind that this activity was planned by the adult leaders, including the last surviving member of the Relief Society from the church in the time of Peter, James, and John. Seriously, she's ancient. I wouldn't normally point age out, but in this situation, it means she would normally be the last to set up an activity that was anything remotely like indecent according to an ancient method of reckoning. After all, in her day, men would stand on the outside of the sidewalk so that if anyone on the building levels above threw their trash into the street, it wouldn't splatter the lady.

Anyway, the activity was a bunch of games which we rotated through. The relevant one was a relay race. Be prepared to be indignant, Maren and Berit. (Others, too, but they moreso than the others I've told about my blog) For the first part of the relay race, we had a spoon attached to a yarn. To win, we had to thread it down the front of our shirt, out the other end, and pass it on to the next person, who repeated the process. The possibility for embarrassing situations when we're trying to shove a clumsy thing like a spoon down our fronts, especially when we're all tied together via yarn and yanking said yarn around like relay-racing maniacs, is rather high. The second part of the relay involved holding a toothpick in your mouth and using the toothpicks to pass a lifesaver from person to person. Toothpicks are short. And we were arranged male-female-male-female for this event. The leaders are specifically trying to put us in situations where we're going to be thinking about girls instead of term finals. They want us to be within an inch and a half making out with the nearest hottie! Granted, thinking about girls and window shopping and all that isn't necessarily bad. In fact... ah, nevermind. We'll do that rant another day. And not online. ^_^ But I do feel kind of like I'm being herded to the slaughter. I will think about girls by my own choice, not because someone told me to, dang it! I refuse to be tricked into trying (key word) to get a girlfriend just because there's a conspiracy designed to inflame my already active hormones! I shall become a college social recluse yet! Mwahaha!

--Paul





DISCLAIMER
I am exaggerating the situations. Slightly. Taking a few things out of context, etc. I just needed a good rant, and the basis of a good rant is being able to present things in such a manner that there is no bias in the information whatsoever--at least, no bias other than the ranter's. The Monday night thing, though, was definitely weird.

Getting Oriented

One of the first things you have to go through at college is, of course, orientation. Here you get to walk around the campus in 85 degree weather, listen to people give you information you already got from the literature they sent to their prospective students, and even learn some valuable things and meet new people. And, of course, you get bottled water with your lunch. Water bottles are a good thing to have when you live in a dorm with no sink. Here, orientation is a three-day event, concluding tonight with a huge campus activity/dance.

When orientation first started, I was fairly pensive. On my way to the first meeting, I passed one of the student volunteers--upperclassmen who help with new student orientation. He was asking random people in the crowd, "Do you know where you're going?" I was still an emotional wreck from having my world uprooted, so I decided to take the question out of context. I wanted to ask something along the line of, "Do you mean physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, educationally, economically, or metaphysically?" I just kept quiet. It didn't really matter which he meant, though, because my honest answer is still "No, I do not."

Not knowing where I'm going generally freaks me out.

I've had time to calm down, to look around me, to find out what I'm doing here. I still have absolutely no idea where I'm going, but I'm less panicked about that. Everything I've seen since then tells me that this is where I'm meant to be. My roommate is someone with whom I can get on wonderfully, the campus is already starting to feel like home, my schedule is alright, and the very focus of the school feels like what I've been looking for. I've finally found out what I'm supposed to be doing, and that knowledge is the best thing I can have right now.

I'm finally getting it. When we all came to this place called Earth, we were given a vague idea of where we'd end up. Very vague--it's definitely not enough to get us there. But we were also each given a path, and we don't know how that path gets us to our destination, but we know it does. The important thing is to just keep moving, and trust the pathbuilder, because He's a lot smarter than we are.

So, thanks to all of you who have been pounding that into my head. It's finally sinking in.

You guys are the greatest! :)

Well, Here It Is

I plan on using this thing to keep in touch with my friends. You can thank my roommate for the idea. I never seriously considered getting a blog before now, mainly because I normally do all my philosophizing and whining in my journal or at the lunch table. Unfortunately, I've lost the lunch table option. Funny how graduation does that. That lunch table was the one place in the school that was always on my side. Even the Creative Writing classroom turned on my once or twice. The lunch table, however, was always able to rejuvenate me. You guys were there, you always had something interesting and insane to say, you always listened to my brain dribble. It was a haven.
Because I don't want to lose the opportunity to ramble to friends, I'm bringing it online as a new sanctuary. I could just copy and paste random prose and email it to all you guys, I suppose, but I'm too lazy and too enamored by efficient systems. I'll email everyone about this soon--I'm assuming that if you're reading this, you got an email already. Try to leave comments, even if it's just "I read it" so I'll know some of my friends are paying attention. And hey, if you want to make me read your stuff as well, start a blog and tell me. I'd love to read it!

I'm not sure I'll get to whine as much anymore, though--I've escaped the public school system and am in a private college. My shock and pleasure at this most fortunate turn of events will probably last some time. I might even turn into an optimist if it lasts long enough! :)