Welcome to the Big League

I never wrote any missionaries in high school, I didn’t even write my own brother, (sorry, Andrew).  But at BYU, writing letters is the biggest sporting event for single women.

RECRUITING:  Girls, especially freshmen girls, have to be recruiting their missionaries all year long.  The more guys they are friends with now, the more missionaries they can write next year, or if they’re really lucky, next semester.

CONDITIONING AND PRACTICE:  The goal is to send out as many letters a week as possible, so you must condition yourself to keep writing through hand cramps by remembering,  “pain is weakness leaving the body.”  Whatever your decoration style; stickers, stencils, or just goofy sketches, you have to hone those skills before you can put them in the game to play.  You have to know at exactly what time the mailman will arrive and how much postage it takes to get to every country in the world.  When you’re in the 4^th quarter and the letter score is tied between roommates, there’s no time to call your mommy and ask her, you need to know your stamps. 

GAME TIME:  It’s all about the letters.  Each one, depending on how far it traveled, gives you more points in the minds of your girlfriends.  MTC letters are sort of worthless, but Belgium, Australia, Peru, now those are what you read over and over again in front of your roommates as they are trying to study.  You giggle and sigh and then offer if they would like to read your letter while they wait for theirs.

SHAKE HANDS: If a girl is lucky, she can play in the Big League for about three years.  But once all those missionaries come home and they’re done shaking hands and back to bear hugs and dating, girls realize that the game is still on and the number of letters doesn’t deem the winner.  The one who gets a ring on her finger first takes home the trophy.

 

3:21

Last Friday, I was walking through Brigham Square and heard the song “Everything” by Michael Buble being played over the speakers.  This was not the first time I had heard this song, but it was the first time I really had a chance to listen to it.  “And I can't believe, uh that I'm your man, And I get to kiss you baby just because I can. Whatever comes our way, ah we'll see it through, And you know that's what our love can do.”  Lyrics like these are enough to make any girl melt.  And with that tune and Michael’s voice, you’re sure to find puddles of women all over.  All love songs have so much rhetoric.  I’m not sure about the guy perspective, but girls everywhere just listen to these songs over and over.  Michael’s tool is his words and the effect is thousands of girls lost in their imaginary worlds with Prince Charming for three minutes and twenty one seconds.  He obviously uses pathos to get that emotional connection with his listeners.  Even if a girl hasn’t had that kind of relationship, we have all seen enough chick flicks to know that we want to be “everything” to someone someday.  

WITTSAT

Most people come to college thinking they need dedication and hard work to succeed.  Some kids go even as far as taking multiple AP classes to give them the “step up” they think they will need.  These people soon realize that college is about only two things, none of which is taught in any AP class: acronyms and stairs. 

As a Freshman, finding your way around campus is difficult enough because the it’s so much larger than our high schools.  But to make things even worse, no one even knows the names of the buildings, just their acronyms; the JKB, the JSB, the JFSB, the MARB, the HFAC, and the CB are among the many.  I just started to wrap my mind around them all when I went to a retreat with RHA where I learned about OTMs, NRHH, and IACURH.   Do we really come to college to get too lazy to say complete names?

The stairs here can be sort of ridiculous.  One or two are fine, but when the time comes that you find yourself at the field house with your laptop in hand and a bag full of books and you look up at that mountain of stairs, you will wish you took more PE and less AP classes.