So today started out like any other day, which shouldn't have lulled me into complacency like it did, as Saturdays have never been ordinary since I got back. Anyway, I slept in, did laundry (at which time I ran into Jared, who is another RA, but he'll come into the story later), read my textbooks like a good little girl, and generally lazed about.

Then, Sariah texted me. "Do you want to come hike the Y with us?" she writes, and I, never having hiked up to the Y and feeling like a complete nerd because of it, agreed happily. Even more happily, Jared came along too. Here's us--

So in order, Jared, I, Sariah, Sariah's old roommate Kristi, and Sariah's new roommate Christine (our photographer here) hiked the Y today. It was warm, very dry, and very fair, and over all, very comfortable. The only problem was that it was grueling! It was harder than I ever would have thought to get up that silly mountain, not that I consider myself to be especially fit or expert in the art of climbing mountains, but still. I hiked all over North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kansas mountains all summer. You'd think I'd be able to handle this no (or at least very little) sweat! Ugh. I had the excuse of moving from sea level somewhat recently, but it was still discouraging. We got there, though. I have proof--

Here's the north end of campus. Just above the pretty black-eyed Susans is the Marriott Center and the bell tower, and just above and to the right of that is the stadium full of people for the UCLA game (which we won, 59-0. Woot! BCS!). Every once in a while, we could hear the announcer's voice drift our way on the breeze, and the crowd cheering was very loud at some points. We figured that they were cheering the many touchdowns. Beyond all of that is the vast freshwater Utah lake, which makes East Toho look like a swimming pool, though it's still not as big as the Great Salt Lake.

That's the news. I forgot to tell you that our sink exploded in the middle of the night on Tuesday. It was severely backed-up and smelled like sheer nastiness. So I tried to call emergency maintenance, but they didn't answer, so I called the police. For a few hours, the resulting handyman had our kitchen torn apart, and not even his 25-foot snake could clear it. Finally, another dorm, Heritage Halls, started flooding (some silly freshman hanging clothes on the fire sprinkler head, most likely), so he had to leave, but I took a picture--

It was actually even worse before he was done, but it was weird being the plumber paparazzi, so I contented myself with this. He finally fixed it the next morning, but I was gone, so I don't know what kind of heavy equipment he resorted to in the end. It was desperately exciting, though.

Well, that's all for today in TAAOA. Take care!