Promoted

Well, a long time ago I promised a post about my new job...I'm sick of studying for the night (but still kind of want to hear what song the library will play to kick me out in 20 minutes) so it seemed like the perfect time!

As you probably know, I've been an employee at the BYUI Admissions Office since Fall '09 and it's been a HUGE blessing in my life.  Not only am I able to bring in some dough, but I've also met some fantastic people who happen to be some of my best friends, and I have a whole family while I'm at school.  I love how well everyone gets along and how the adults in the office (okay, we're all technically adults so I mean the non-students) are so friendly and willing to listen to us and joke with us.  Enough about that though.  I have whole other blog posts about it.  This one is about my new job.

Until this semester I worked at the front desk.  This entailed giving tours to prospective students and manning the phones.  I answered general questions about application types, deadlines and the like.  When people had unusual circumstances or I didn't really understand their question, I would transfer them right over to one of the counselors.  Well, you guessed it...I can no longer transfer the calls as I am now one of the ones receiving the hard calls with no good answer.

Now, I deal with all students who are looking for an exception to university policy.  Sometimes they have legitimate reasons and sometimes...not so much.  I get to listen to the student's side of the story and hear out their situation.  If they submit an appeal, I represent them in the appeals committee and present their case.  This committee is basically all of the full-time admissions counselors.  One of them was talking to us the other day about how cool it is that we get to be a part of that committee.  And it really is!  I've only gone once so far and I won't lie, it's intimidating.  After hearing the case, we get to vote on the appeal and I have just as much of a vote as anyone else in that room.  That's big time pressure!!!

Most of my time is spent receiving appeals and talking with students and/ or their parents on the phone trying to figure out the best options for their situation.  The hardest part of the job is when you want to help someone, and you just can't.  There just aren't good options for them.  Or, if you have to tell someone their appeal wasn't approved, or that they were denied to the school, or that they can't come back to school for whatever reason.  It kind of sucks, to put it lightly.  I don't enjoy being the bearer of bad news.

Sometimes it gets a little chaotic.  We are talking to people who walk into the office, taking phone calls, live chatting online, and answering emails.  When there's a lot going on it's hard to remember each person's story and give everyone the attention they need.  I feel bad when I neglect a live chat because I get a phone call.  Some people are really good at doing both but I canNOT focus on two situations at once and try to type one thing while listening and absorbing another on the phone.  It just isn't going to happen.

The transition isn't as hard as I was initially expecting it to be.  I still double and triple check what I have to do because I don't want to be the one to ruin someone's chances for BYUI, but I'm getting the hang of it.  I'm sure that in a few...months, I'll be just as good as when I worked front desk!  Oh, and I still give tours because they switched the tours from front desk to counseling last semester.  I'm glad I don't have to give those up completely, but it is one more thing I have to worry about.

OH WAIT!  One more thing.  In a few months, when applications are being turned in at a higher rate, I might get to help process those and actually admit students to BYUI.  My job just keeps getting cooler.

The Kimball building.  My home for 15 hours each week.

The inside...my office is down the stairs and on the right.

I love BYUI!  (And if you look reeeeally close, you can see Whitney and I at the bottom of the U)

UPDATE!!! 5/9-- So today I actually was promoted!!  Pay raise and everything :)  I am now a "lead student."  When I asked my boss what this meant he said he wasn't quite sure yet, but he'd find some stuff for me to do.  Sounds good to me!

I Hate Pretzels

I really should be doing homework right now.  I'm already going to be up until midnight as it is.  Why do I enjoy procrastinating so much?  Well, this story needed to be told, so here goes.

While in Peru we attended a birthday party for the grandson of one of the ladies we worked with.  As a gift, we printed out some pictures of the baby and mother to give them.  In order to do this, we loaded pictures onto my flash drive and then took it to a shop in Cajamarca.  The store owner charged me wayyyyy too much for the pictures and, as a result, Ricardo got into a little heated argument with him and told him we were never coming back to their store again.  That's all great, except about a week later I realized I left my flashdrive at the store....crap.  I figured it was long gone and the angry store owner probably snatched it for himself thinking "stupid American girl...muahahahahaha." 

About six weeks passed and one day, while we were near the store in Cajamarca, I decided to go back to the store and check to see if, by some miracle, my flashdrive was still there.  It has a few things on it that I really wanted, though nothing of so much importance I'd die without it.  To my utter surprise, the store owner had kept my flashdrive for over a month hidden behind a picture frame in the store!!!!  WOW.  I was soooooooo happy to have that little thing back.

Fast forward to today.

I'm sitting in the library, grimacing about all the assignments I need to finish and tests I need to study for when I go to get my flashdrive out of the bottom of my backpack.  Usually, I keep it in my purse, but sometimes I throw it in the front pocket since it's just as convenient.  I go to slide it open and put it in the computer but it's stuck.  It's usually a quick slide out but not even a strong push is doing anything.  I take a look inside and see a few little salt grains.  What the heck?!  So I start shaking the flash drive, thinking that I can shake out a few grains and everything will be well.  WRONG.  I practically shuck out an entire salt shaker of salt!  I got it to the point where I could slide it open and shut, but I could hear it grinding the grains inside.  If I hold it up to my ear, I can hear salt flying up and down. 

Where, you might ask, did this salt come from?  I think it's from the pretzels I've been snacking on the past week.  There must have been a hole in a bag one day and the salt all went and sat at the bottom of the pocket, right next to my flash drive.  I must have sounded pretty funny to the computer help desk people when they asked what they could help me with....

So now I have to take it to a store in town and see if they can salvage any of my information.  After all that I went through with it in Peru, a baggie of pretzels has to be it's downfall?!!? 

My life is so awesome.   

Dating and Diamonds

Tonight I went on a roommate date with Brittany to a Diamond Rio concert.  They were SPECTACULAR.  They were spot on the entire time and I loved every minute of it.  I did realize something though.  I'm glad it was a roommate date and not a real date.  I don't think I like real dates to concerts like that.  Here's why.  I'm not a screaming, jumping, excited person at concerts.  I love them and I love listening to the music, but that's it.  I'm perfectly content to sit in my seat quietly and listen.  I don't care if other people want to scream and wave their arms, but I generally won't.  I feel like when I go on real dates to concerts, they probably think I'm not having any fun...but I really am!...well, at least I'm probably enjoying the concert, no promise that I'm enjoying the boy :P 

We had great seats!  Well, as great as you can get in the bleacher section....they were against the wall.

Charming Ladies and Dashing Gentlemen

Another semester has started which means another classy party thrown by my very favorite BYUI boys!  I can't remember if I blogged about the last party so I'll post a picture from it to remind you how awesome that one was.  It was the first Classy Clarke party and it was such a hit, they've been throwing them ever since.  It's a party filled with food, drinks, and lots of class.

Last year

With our new roommate, Cindy!

Special thanks to Hannah (another new roommate) for letting Brittany and I borrow dresses.

Travis stood in for Noelle so we could have a Peru reunion picture.

PS- remember how two months ago, this was our version of getting dressed up and fancy??  I love America!

I Met a Boy!!

Well, okay, not really a boy.  More like a man.  Actually, it's two men.  This story gets better and better!  And it's about to get even better than you first imagined.  Remember how much I love my job?  Sadly, there aren't many perks to it.  Yesterday was one of those days where there most certainly was a perk though.  Here's what happened.

I'm sitting at my desk when an official looking man comes in.  He starts talking to us and basically says "Elder Oaks and Elder Nelson are going to be coming here in 5-10 minutes and we need some students to hold the doors open for them.  Would any of you be able to help?"  WHAAAAAAA?!?  Good thing it was a slow day at the office!  So I got to go to the front doors of the Kimball building and hold open the doors for two apostles of the Lord.  That doesn't just happen every day.  That doesn't even happen every lifetime!  And Elder Nelson even shook my hand.  What a great day at BYU-Idaho :)

Elder Russell M. Nelson

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Is This Real Life??

What the heck am I doing back in the US of A?!  Sometimes I still act like I'm in Peru...and that's not a good thing.  Someone needs to remind me I can't wear t-shirts two days in a row, and to bed the night between.  Someone needs to remind me socks should be changed every day and not every four or five.  And someone needs to remind me that chacos are not acceptable footwear for church.

Besides the few hygiene things, I think I'm doing pretty well!  I do have the urge to say "chau" to people as I leave and sometimes I want to bust out a Spanish phrase, but I usually refrain.  Instead of being seen as trying to fit in, I think people would think I'm trying to show off.  Little do they know, I have absolutely nothing to show off....unless you count my beautiful tan.  I don't mind showing a little skin here ;)

In other news....I'm all moved into my NEW apartment.  New as in new for me and new as in no one has lived in these apartments before.  They're spacious and wonderful.  Did I mention they have air conditioning?  This will come in very handy this summer.

School is going well for the first week.  I spent 5 hours doing homework at the library today.  Good sign for the first Saturday of the semester.  I have a feeling it's going to be a little crazy around here.  I'm enjoying my classes and what I'm learning despite all the reading assignments and homework.  I just need to remember I'm a student now and not a tourist.  This is serious business this school stuff.  Someone needs to remind me of that. 

Missing BYUI

On Sunday there was a CES fireside broadcasted from BYUI.  I’ve been waiting YEARS for them to come to BYUI to do the broadcast and the semester I leave is the semester they decide to do it there.  Sadly, we missed the first 10 minutes of the broadcast because we didn’t get out of the birthday party on time.  I can’t even express how heartbroken I was that I didn’t get to see the choir sing or the special music number or wide shots of our beautiful auditorium.  I wanted to see that little piece of home soooo bad.  I wanted to find my friends in the audience so I could say I saw them while in Peru!  It was not meant to be.

We got there right as Elder Perry started speaking…although all we could hear was the Spanish translator over him.  I was so conflicted as to what to listen to because you could faintly hear the English at parts but it took just as much concentration to pick that out and block out the Spanish as it did to try and listen to the Spanish and figure out what it was talking about.  I picked out works and phrases, sometimes stories, but overall I didn’t get much of the flow.  I’ll need to go re-watch it sometime. 

I had an epiphany while watching the broadcast though.  I am so blessed to know what the prophets and apostle’s voices sound like!  People all around the world have to listen to a translator and don’t get to hear them speaking their own language.  I get to hear their words exactly as they mean them to be…nothing gets “lost in translation.”

The closing song was great as we got to watch the choir sing and pick out our friends and roommates.  Oh goodness, I love BYUI so much!  And I miss it!  I can’t wait for Spring when I can go back and have “normal life” again…although this break is quite the adventure and I’m sad it has to end.

I registered for my spring classes this morning and it was a piece of cake.  I had my mom helping me back home as well to make sure I could get all the classes I wanted.  I’m glad the freshman days are over where it took 10-20 minutes to get one class to add because so many people were jamming up the system.  

So, what’s my schedule looking like?  Let me tell you.  I’m taking Advanced First Aid, Program Planning and Implementation, Anat and Phys II, Exercise Physiology and Confectionary.  Plus I’ll be working 14 hours (maybe more if they make me…but 14 is good for me haha) a week and hopefully have a calling I enjoy.  It’s going to be one crazy semester and I think I might be crazy for taking Anat and Phys II and Exercise Phys in the same semester since they’re both really tough classes, but you gotta do what you gotta do…and I gotta graduate soon!