Review: Sophomore Year, 2002-2003

Once again, excitement was this in the air as I made the lengthy move from Orem to Provo. This time around, I was living with three high school friends and two girls I didn't know. Rachel and Pica were back for more and Allison joined us, along with Karen and Heather.

And we had fun. So much fun. We flirted and had boy trauma of all kinds (okay, let me qualify that- my roommates flirted and had boy trauma. I still wasn't quite sure how to actually flirt). Allison became our next engaged girl pretty promptly, engaging herself to our FHE brother (it can work, kids! Just stick at it!).

We spent good time together. We had meals together and invited people over for dinner and had roommate bonding time. Pica and I built a massive fort in our living room and we watched a movie it.

Rachel had spent the summer in Belgium and to celebrate her return and her birthday, I figured out how to make a LoveSac, which thing she had been known to covet and which we affectionately referrred to as the "puff pillow." Rachel and I shared a great downstairs bedroom with a spiral staricase and our own bathroom, and we arranged our room so there was a cozy little corner to put the puff pillow, along with assorted other pillows (non-puffy) and blankets in. We called it the Nest and it was a coveted place for studying. Our friend Ashleigh spent many a night sleeping in the Nest.

Alas, the fun and games came to an end for me when I abruptly decided, rather last-minute, to go live in Nauvoo, Illinois for Winter semester. So I vacated our apartment and packed everything I thought I might need for the next four months into some rather large suitcases and flew to Nauvoo with 99 other students, none of whom I knew at the time.

I then proceeded to have what was unconditionally the best semester of my college experience. All three of my roommates were freshmen, making me the wise, sage older roommate. It turned out that they were Orem girls, too, and we knew a lot of the same people.

I loved the people in Nauvoo and I loved the place itself. I have always had a fascination with the history of my church, and Nauvoo plays a very significant role in that history. I walked over those streets many, many times. I sat on the banks of the Mississippi river and watched the sun set, I learned story after story about the people who lived in Nauvoo, I sang in the choir and crocheted until yarn came out of my ears and attended the temple, right across the street from the building where we lived, and held American History review sessions and made wonderful friends.

At the end, we all piled into buses and drove across the country to Pennsylvania and New York and Ohio to see the other places that we had learned so much about. This year, I was very sad to move home.