Dog BYU days are over

Dear BYU,

Man, have you taken me for a ride the last 4 1/2 years. I was a little apprehensive to jump onboard with you at the beginning, but in no time I realized youwere full of many perks.

Probably one of the biggest ones being that I learned that I was now in charge of my life. I decided everything! So naturally, I stayed up till at least 2 am every night freshman year with some of the best friends I have ever made and made a verb out of the noun vending machines. Yes, we "vended" every night and ate ice cream cones and loved every minute of it. We had shower parties. I met miss Lindsey Tipps (pictured below) at the Cannon Center everyday for wraps and yet she STILL called me everyday and left a voicemail to let me know she was on her way. And for some reason I listened to every one of those voicemails.

Ok so maybe we did more than eat at the cannon center together. I think those pictures say it all though. Love this girl to death, I couldn't have asked for a better best friend!

And don't worry, we can be normal too.

Melissa Barnes (pictured below) and I enjoyed Waffle Wednesdays together and made some of the best dessert waffles you have ever seen or tasted.

As you can see, freshman year can be summed up in two words: friends and food!

Sad to see the dorm life go I enjoyed my sophomore year at Liberty Square. Some highlights include:

I broke my wrist snowboarding for the first time.

I took a roadtrip to Vegas for Thanksgiving with roommates.

I also wrote a missionary every week. Never thought I'd be that girl, but I was. I worked at the Cannon Center with one of my roommates Trish. Sort of embarrassing. I slept on a lovesac my roommate Tia contributed to the apartment 5 nights out of one week even though my bed was down the hall. I actually did my homework and my reading. All the time. Probably because of the all the roommate drama I had to get away from! Luckily it was one bad year of drama and we all stayed friends. :) Then I enjoyed the fun of BYU in the spring time and loved every minute of it. I even took guitar!

After I left Utah, I went to New York for a month and was in the Hill Cumorah Pageant with some cousins. It was one of the best experiences I've had thus far in life!

Junior year came and things started getting a little more low key. But at least there was minimal drama! I realized I had nothing to do on Saturdays so I cleaned our apartment at Condo row every Saturday. Why I am telling you this, I don't know. On a whim, I decided to take Japanese for no reason and I don't regret it at all. The 4 o'clock hour was awesome everyday because of it. I got the privilege and honor, that I never thought I would by the way, of seeing Jesse Croskrey in his blue onesy.

He was a great friend when we met and has been a great one ever since! Two of my roommates, Rachael and Ashley, got engaged. I still wrote a missionary. Naturally, I was lonely on days. I almost thought I was going to live alone during the whole Summer, but then last minute got three random roommates that ended up being the most awesome girls ever. We brought our mattresses out in the living room for the best slumber party of my life one night. And left them there for days.

We had dessert nights and went 80s dancing.

We even jumped into a random pool after hours with our clothes on one time! We were pretty crazy.

We had roommate prayer and I'm convinced that's why we loved each other so much! We laughed pretty much every day and have a quote wall to show for it. I worked at Seven Peaks and my boss was my friend and peer (prior to working) and I am not afraid to admit it. But I got to go to Seven Peaks for free all Summer and it was baller.

Senior year I dated my returned missionary. It didn't work out. I became part of the 90% of those relationships that don't work out. It happens. But I still took trips to:

Idaho

California

and Arizona

It was legit. I took 2 classes (Human Development and Strengthening Marriage and Family) that changed my life. Anyone and everyone still at your lovely school should take them. Seriously. I actually lived in my apartment the second half of the year and enjoyed getting back into the dating world. Then I decided to put myself out there and went to Africa and did development work. We used our hands and our hearts to create social change. I had some amazing experiences I will never forget and learned what the important things in life are. That love is all that really matters. I was so happy that summer.

I extended an extra semester because I was too afraid to leave you, BYU. With lots of my friends graduated/married I had to go random with living and was scared. But I ended up with 3 of the best roommates ever and boy do we know how to have fun!

I wrote 80 pages worth of papers to make my last semester with you eventful and busy and here I am. Done.

Well, BYU... I just wanna say thanks for the ride of my life. We had our ups and downs. Although every year was unique, there were some common trends. Thanks to the extra independence, I dyed my hair for the first time because of you. And enjoyed many hair colors and lengths through our years together. Like so:

Daring dark brown

Devilish red (maybe this one was a bad decision)

Blonde shortie

I also went to the Jazz games every year with Linds. We even got shirts! And I finally remembered to pay attention to the score after the first few games we went to, so it didn't seem like I only went for the photo shoots.

I took voice through most of my time with you. I participated in tons of voice recitals, even two with my good friend Angie, but was stupid and forgot to take pictures at those ones! Despite the nerves, I had a blast at these recitals.

My cousins were with me through it all. Oh how I loved all the many cousin adventures and nights we had!

And I stuck with these girls. I love them to death and couldn't be more grateful that I had them for the 4 1/2 years.

When you and I first met, BYU, I looked like this:

And now I look like this:

I may not look any older, but all that matters is that I learned a lot and grew on the inside. Right? So thanks. For everything. You will be missed. Wish me luck in the real world.

Love your favorite Cougar for life,

Megan Elizabeth

PS. Thanks for the degree. I'll be sure to hang it up on the wall somewhere special in my future home.

Seriously?

Okay so it might be odd I'm posting about this, but I just can't get over it...

How on earth did my friend Rach produce such a flawless child??

Not that I think anything less would come from Rach, she's gorgeous too! Like mother, like daughter.

Now lets just pray I have kids half as cute as hers!!

See ya Kronos, Y-time, whatever you wanna call it

Well, with finishing my degree at BYU came my final days as a Stat 121 TA. I will say that I am sorta sad that I can't still be one now that I'm not a student! This job had many perks and funny moments. Some may include, not in any particular order:

1. The flexibility of when to work and where to work. An hour here, an hour there... at home, in the lab, in the library at the ease of my laptop. Awesome.

2. Wearing that stylish XL vest I got to wear in the open lab (on very rare occasions I ended up with the medium, and who knows where that small went that I got to wear when I first started working there. Some small girl probably hid it somewhere... curses), with my bent name tag. Probably bent because of my doing. NBD. I wish I had a picture of myself in this garb to show you all... oh wait, no I don't.

3. Doing homework and getting paid for it. On a few occasions I was literally alone in the lab!

4. Always knowing someone that was taking the class. There were friends, cousins, ex-boyfriends, you name it... everyone takes that class. I even got to grade homework for a couple friends and write secret messages for them on the assignments.

5. Making friends in the lab. There were definitely the regulars that I got on a one on one basis. Then there were the others that I helped a number of times and would later see me around campus and say "do I know you?" when I had no idea how I knew them. Then they'd ask, "did you take stat 121 this past semester?" and I'd say "oh no, but I was a TA for it" and then the "ohhhh, that's it, you helped me a few times in the open lab!" Sometimes it still didn't click for me and that's when I felt like how teachers do when they have a million students who know them and could never forget them, but the teacher can't keep everyone straight.

6. Funny student responses. Oh man, there were a number of occasions that I laughed so hard I almost cried because of some of the stuff these students came up with. There are so many I can't remember, but here are some examples:

a. Spinning off some crazy answer and then writing "statistics doesn't even make sense anyway!"

b. "Ahhhhh, it's almost 11pm (the deadline), sorry!!!!" - sorry, but that is not the correct answer to the definition of p-value.

c. "My professor didn't go over this very well, so I don't know the answer" - tell the professor, not me (don't worry, I just thought that in my head)

d. Coming up with an experiment about how chewing gum helps you make free throws - what the? A lot of students got reeeeally creative on that assignment.

e. I had this exchange in the open lab with a few students: "I just can't say whether the p- value is less than .05 or not..." "well if it's greater than .025, but less than .05 then it's....." "ooohhh, then it is less than .05"

f. probably the best one of all time: there is the dreaded written assignment near the end of the semester where the students have to follow the 4 step process and at the bottom of the assignment one kid wrote "The Trevor Company Homework Productions 2011. Any reproduction of this material is strictly prohibited and is subject to many harsh retributions. Can't touch this." - I have to admit I gave him extra credit for making me laugh so hard haha

7. That time a student used a homework problem to hit on me. The assignment had to do with job grade among men of different marital status and one question was about job grade among single men, where he so casually threw in "well you know, I'm a single guy...". Better luck next time Cassanova. Let's not forget the time a freshman was getting pretty flirty until he found out I was a senior and said "Aw dang!" You might wanna hide how you feel a little better next time buddy. He proceeds to tell me about this senior guy friend he has and asks about the statistical chances of me and that friend working out... oh brother.

All of this aside, this isn't to say that the job was total bliss! It is hard to repress the 5738459735 times I got kicked off of Statsportal while trying to grade. Statsportal, you will not missed in the least bit. I also can't forget the days in the lab where I got asked the same question 100 times. For the record, the mean of the sampling distribution of x-bar IS equal to mu. See for yourself.

Now I'm on to a real job in the real world. I start working at Chrysalis on Monday working with individuals with disabilities. I am pretty excited! Hopefully this job brings just as many perks and funny moments. :)

Quote of the day

So I have a new niece. I just love her, she is a cutie. Her name is Tess Elizabeth - after me, of course - ya know, Megan Elizabeth. Okay so not really after me, but I can still like it right? But that's besides the point. Don't be fooled, the quote of the day did not come from her. She's not talking yet, give her another few weeks. However, today was her blessing day, so my family and my sister's husband's family combined and we had a feast afterwards. Since there were a lot of us, Bennett and Liam sat at their own little table to eat. After a bit, Bennett started running around and Liam was trying to find him. Once he found him, he yelled out, in his cute 2 year old voice:

"Bennett, EAT YOUR DINNER!"

The best part about this is not only is he not the parent, but he's the younger one. What 2 year old even cares about that? Apparently Liam.

Moral of the story: if you're ever around Liam, be sure to eat your food.

And some pictures for your enjoyment from the occasion:

Liam is so incredibly happy, he is giving you a full view of his dinner in his mouth. Please forgive him for that.

As my sister would say, "what a ham!"