The first two weeks

Dear Family and Friends,

I can hardly believe how fast things are moving here at BYU. It feels like yesterday that I drove out of AZ, but in reality it has been three weeks. I have been busy to say the least but it has been good.

I began the semester believing that this semester was going to be a break from the whirlwind of the previous three years. While I am taking less credits then I have ever taken before and not working I am as busy as ever. I have three pretty intense classes which consume the majority of my time: ECON 580 (mathematical economics), MATH 314 (multi-variable calculus), and HONRS 300 (writing my honors thesis). When I am not working on a project/HW from one of those classes I am working as a Research Assistant for Dr. Frank McIntyre. He teaches economic development and I have signed on to work for free… not the best idea for starving students, but hey the experience is what I really need, food can come later. One perk to working with Frank is that I now have an office on campus! It is amazing how much more I can get done having a home base on campus. Needless to say this has not helped my social life, but hey one thing at a time. (yes, you guessed it I am actually in my office on a Saturday morning writing this little note as a distraction from the other responsibilities which need attending)

Besides classes I am the Co-President of the Honors Student Advisory Council (HSAC) and have been busy with responsibilities associated with that almost every day. Along with Hal Boyd, the other half of the presidency, I am in charge of leading the executive board in creating, running, and managing activities for the honors students. Along with activities I am working with the honors director to alter the way in which HSAC is run. We are looking for methods to increase student involvement in directing where the honors program is going and how it will get there. It is a lot to take on but we have made some good progress so far. Since this year is the 50th anniversary of the honors program we are also planning some major events for the year. The most pressing being the alumni kick off homecoming weekend. The Tanner’s (for whom the business school building was named) are both alumnus and will be speaking after a dinner hosted for the honors alumni. So far my biggest concern with that is who I can ask on a date to such a formal/important dinner… poor girl, whoever it ends up being will have to have some major self confidence and be able to handle herself with older people.

I am also finalizing my application for the Marshall Scholarship. I received institutional endorsement, along with three other students from BYU and will now enter the national competition October 1st. I have never spent so much time and energy on one writing assignment in my life. Nor have I prayed so hard that I will be able to connect with my audience through the written word more than I have for this scholarship. I have submitted essays to the committee on campus and received them back bleeding with all the corrections that need to be done. On more than one occasion I have been inches away from calling the whole thing off and just walking away from it. This is more stress than I can handle at times… and is not conducive to productivity. Every time I start to think about the revisions that need to be done, the complete re-structuring of essays, and the competition I am going up against (last year over 800 students received institutional endorsements from around the nation while only 30 were chosen as scholarship recipients; most coming from ivy-league schools) I retreat to either watching TV or picking up a computer game (something I haven’t done in ages)! In short if any of you need something more to pray about your prayers are whole heartedly welcomed in this instance. The Marshall Scholarship would fund two years of study at an university in the United Kingdom, including housing, living stipends, travel to and from the USA, tuition, and much more. All in all it amounts to nearly 200,000 pounds or approximately $130,000. If I win the scholarship I would finally be able to let go of the anxiety associated with paying for school and concentrate on enjoying the experience.

As if the above wasn’t enough to keep my going from dawn until dusk my thesis advisor just gave me a pamphlet for an international conference on Managing Sustainable Development of Rural Economy in India, indicating that I need to apply to the conference as a presenter. So if I can fit it in somewhere I have to go through the mounds of data we collected this summer and pull together a coherent abstract by Tuesday for submission and a full paper by October 15th. Don’t worry, it’s nothing big, I mean half of the data is still being translated, but hey I can pull it all together and give some general statement about our findings and how they will be presented by Tuesday (Lord help me). On the bright side is will provide me with a free trip to India in January for the conference, if my paper is accepted… and I am still alive. I apologize for the full page of ranting. Some things are just better left out on the page than kept inside.

(Parental advisory warning – If you are squeamish about medical needs and/or injuries I recommend skipping the next paragraph.)

In an attempt at balance – even if highly skewed - I planned on spending some time socializing yesterday evening at Progressive Tumbling with a group of friends. Unfortunately within a few minutes of our arrival a man going off the trampling into the foam pit missed the second jump and ended up breaking his leg about an inch above the ankle. I was the only one that had any idea of what to do. I entered the pit, stabilized the leg, told the young boy running the register to call the ambulance, and started assessing the victim. Mike, the man with the broken leg, had a pretty bad compound fracture on his right leg which had fortunately not broken the skin. His ankle and foot were offset in toward the medial side about an inch and a half while his foot was actually pointed laterally to the right with his leg straight forward. I stayed with Mike for the full hour that it took for EMS to arrive, assess, provide drugs, backboard, and finally extricate him from the foam pit. I felt like I was back in my element. One of the EMTs even stopped and looked to me for instruction. When I gave him a half smile and laugh his retort came, “Well, it seems like you have some experience and that you know what you are doing.” One man helped, no new girls met, and one heck of a confidence boost.

Now that I have taken some 10-15 minutes of your time I hope you had at least a laugh or two. May the Lord bless you and keep you. If you are bored look around you, there are plenty of people who need help… let’s just hope they are physically intact/unmutilated.

David