Life in College...

Gallon of milk...

$2.99... Box of cereal...

$5.99...

Tuiton for a semester of school...

$15,000...

Required books for the semester...

$900...

Surviving college...

Priceless.

In college there are some things money cannot buy,

For everything else, there are student loans...hopefully.

Hopefully? Why hopefully? Because I am hoping to get a college loan so I can survive. See "Surviving college" has two meanings:

1. Surviving the semester with all of the studying, tests, and homework
2. Surviving, literally. On a college budget, it feels that we may waste away because lack of food and sleep.

I am struggling to do both! You may be asking why the Roon Child isn't getting enough to eat. The answer is simple, and congruent with the introductory piece. No college loan. Yes, I was approved for my loan over three months ago, which seemed at the time to be the hard part. It was most definitely not however. Getting the money is the hard part. The approval happened in less than a week. After that it has been nothing but a litany of phone calls (on my part) and a litany of excuses (on their part) I am down to $3.87 and I live in NYC. You do the math.

If you look at the date when this was posted, you might notice that it is Saturday night. You might now be wondering why I am updating my blog on a Saturday night. I will repeat. I have $3.87 to last me until...I get my loan...which could be in a week, or maybe the day BYU has a decent football team. (in other words, it may never happen) So, to say it explicitly, I am home because all my friends are out doing things that cost more than $3.87. I decided to stay home, find crumbs that I may have carelessly dropped at a previous time, and update my blog. To describe the feeling of this night I thought I would quote Melissa..."Wha-hoo!"

The Kayaking Experience

Kayaking in the Hudson River anyone? It has been quite the transition from Utah where snowboarding, wakeboarding, skiing, hiking, mountain biking, soccer, and many other outdoor sports, are commonplace, to Manhattan where skyscrapers are everywhere you look. The difficulty of this transition was alleviated by an opportunity I had to go kayaking in the Hudson River. My excitement was soon abated when the kayaking guy brought out this huge orange section of foam and placed it around my neck. I felt like I was sticking my head out of a mattress. Or even better yet, I felt as though someone was taking a picture of a large painting with a hole for people to stick their head through to complete the picture. The reason I say that is because these paintings allow you to stick your head out but you really don’t know what is going on and everyone is just laughing at how funny you look.

Of course when I was actually on the kayak, I soon forgot how funny I looked in the “personal floatation device” and concentrated on how stupid we looked, rowing in circles. If you notice in the picture above we are not exactly rowing in syncopation. We decided to further humiliate ourselves by racing one of the other kayaks. It was “neck n’ neck” until we started the race. By this, I don’t mean one kayak blew the other one away, quite the contrary. I would like to compare the race to chickens running around with their heads cut off. I have never seen this phenomenon, but I am sure it doesn’t resemble organization in any form. I bet if we didn’t have the expression about the chickens we could use the comparative phrase, “we look like first time kayakers trying to race in the Hudson River.” It might not be as catchy, but I am sure the image is still created.

After being in a state of confusion and disorientation and realizing that the path we should have taken was a straight and narrow one, I realized that I had a great “story” for a singles ward testimony. I could share a 20 minute story of the kayaks and then in the last thirty seconds I could relate it to having direction in our life. Of course it might not be as compelling as the favorite hiking anecdote, but I could give it a try.

After a while we decided to explore a new region but as we tried to get there, our kayak seemed to want to go back to the dock. I looked up and saw people watching us, so I decided we should look like we did the move on purpose, and head back to the dock. After getting out of the kayak and orange foam, I became relieved because I didn’t have to be humiliated anymore. At that moment I realized I had been sitting in water the whole time and the back of my cargos were dripping. I then swallowed my pride and just walked home like a penguin (literal) and with my tail between my legs (figurative).

Columbia University

I have been asked to update my "blog" (A word which I hold in the same esteem as "fluff" and "toot") and so I decided to write about the reason for which I came to New York. Now I know many of you may be thinking, "He already wrote about Seinfeld" or "He mentioned the singles ward...twice" Just to clarify these misapprehensions, I did come to the New York to further my education. Which has been greatly needed after a 9 month state of mental atrophy (which the length of this period could definitely be argued).
Between visits to "The Restaurant" and the singles ward I have found time to attend class and study the material. In fact graduate school has actually been quite enjoyable. I love my classes and my professors. The campus is amazing as well. The pictures above are libraries. Did you know the Ghostbusters' library scene was filmed there? In fact I found myself one day wearing my snowboarding backpack with the drinking water-tube extended from my arm-strap and pointing toward danger secured in my left hand. For those few minutes I was indeed a Ghostbuster. You have to realize with a rigorous studying schedule, you have to do things like that in order to maintain sanity. (I also realize one could argue that this type of activity is a direct result of insanity)
However, school is much more than just studying at the library and putting the ear-hook of your glasses in the corner of your mouth in order to appear intellectual. I have found many opportunities to meet new people and go out in NYC and have a good time. Of course, having people over to my apartment is difficult because it is about the size of a pack of gum. Really! My apartment is tiny. I only buy one box of cereal at the grocery store because if I bought two I would have to rearrange my furniture to fit the second one in. This is the first time in my life where the expressions "Welcome to my humble abode," and "Two is company three is a crowd" have actually been used and meant literally. But these types of situations are what college life is all about! Right?