Day Off From Everything....

Going with the Governor's order that all state employees work 4-10s, I now have Fridays off. To be honest, I think this is the first Friday that I have been at home just chillin and watchin cooking shows (nothing is on at 2:00PM in case you haven't had the leisure to check it out, so you're not missing much!) Earlier today I met Jon up on the BYU campus and got my official spouses card! How exciting right? Well, I'm not a converted Y fan yet (I vow it will never happen) but I am excited to have a free gym. However, it made me ponder on some serious differences between the good ole U (the REAL school ;) and the Y
1) What is the deal with gym issued shirts?! I hear it's an improvement from having to buy a uniform but still, who wants a stinky used shirt?
2) Posters around the school about dress code, hair length, and clean shaven
3) Prayers at the beginning of intramural sports (not that it's a bad thing)
4) Housing! What a nightmare! I don't think there is anywhere else in the world that has men's housing, women's housing, and married housing! And trust me, there are not a lot of married options--if it's nice, married folk probably aren't allowed
5) Men having an electric shaver on hand before intramural games or tests
6) Men with mustaches (it's making a point, but it's ugly!)
7) I realize I was only campus for short time, but it seemed like there were less minorities. I could be completely wrong on this one, but just a thought.
8) No one walks on the grass
9) Two old friends running into each other, only to find out they are getting married three days apart
10) No smoking! (The behavioral sciences building, where MOST my classes were, was a smoking haven right outside the door. I would always have to hold my breath to get past)

Evil Landlord

So, Jon and I moved to Provo the end of June. We moved from a rather spacious, nice apartment in Bountiful to a mediocre, very small apartment in Bountiful. When we went to sign the contract, the manager was slightly chaotic. I tried to read through the whole thing very carefully so that I wasn't signing anything I would later regret. I was slightly bummed when she said that the rent was going to go up in July and now tenants had to pay gas/electric. It had previously been included in the contract. Still, we decided it was a pretty good deal and signed. We had come to the conclusion that we had a pretty good deal. It's small but it has a dishwasher and sometimes our neighbors fight in the parking lot which makes for some exciting neighbor watching! Well, last week our landlord (who shall now be called the evil landlord) decided to drop the bombshell. Please notice the timing on this, after school has started and ALL married apartments (because there aren't many anyway) in Provo are full. They left us a note stating that we now had to pay a $25/mo communication fee, as well as $25 for a parking sticker. I was so mad that night that I could hardly stand it. It's not even the fact that our landlords are completely breaching their contract and trying to rip everyone off but where is the integrity? It makes me more mad that we're being taken advantage of than that we are starving students and that same $25 a month could go to a date night, groceries, car insurance, gas, phone bills, etc! Well, the story is much longer and aggravating and crazy but I just thought I would share my landlord woes. My lesson learned...Request a contract in advance so that your future landlord isn't staring you down while you try to quickly read for loop holes and crazy ways your crazy landlord can try to rip you off.