Christina

When I first started going to BYU I was intending to be a film major. I wanted to be an actress in film and so I figured 'I have the talent for acting, I need to learn about the business'. Yeah, that idea fell apart pretty quickly. I was overwhelmed by the talent of everyone else and I am not really one for trying to sell myself all the time. I am not 'arty'. Also, I realized that to work in that industry you don't really need a degree in it, so I decided to change. I went through the catalog and found all the majors I thought would be interesting. I then took an intro class for each one and picked my favourite. I ended up enjoying Neuroscience the most and so that was my decision. As much as I loved Neuro I had always had a love for writing, so although I had a new major I was still taking writing classes (of course, film classes dropped off the face of my planet). So it was Fall semester in 2003 and I was taking a creative writing class. The only version that I could fit into my schedule was at 8 in the morning. I rode the bus, so I made sure to always take the early bus so I wouldn't be late - of course that meant I was EARLY. I wasn't the only one who was early - there was this one girl who always came early. But not only was she early, she was also ridiculously perky. Here I was, trying to sleep on the desk for the last few minutes possible, and she would breeze in, smiling away and saying 'Hi everyone! how are you?' I thought it was a little irritating. After getting to know her a little better over the semester I found out that she was that stinking perky because she worked at 4 in the morning.

The next semester rolled around and I was in a Biology class, and who do I see in the same class - annoying perky girl (Christina). We were both so glad to see at least one person we knew, so we started sitting together. Then we found out that we both had no class right before, so we would hang out in that time. We totally hit it off and became really good friends. I mentioned that I was looking for a job, and she told me they had openings at her job (yeah, the 4am one). I got hired and started right away. It was so early that I had to ride a bike down to the school because the buses don't go that early. Then, as the end of the semester rolled around we decided we should live together. And we realized our majors were very similar so we signed up for all of our classes together. We had a great time for about a year like this - maybe not quite that long. We eventually realized that was too much of each other, so we moved to different places and by that time she had changed her major so we weren't in all the same classes together. We still worked together though. We lived together again after that for my last semester in school and then a few months after I graduated while I was figuring out what to do with my life.

That is the living together history. But we did so much fun stuff together. We went sky diving and bungee jumping together. We did the FuddRucker Challenge together. We went on road-trips to Disneyland and to Vegas. We stayed up until ridiculous hours girl talking. This is the only girl that I have ever shared a room with (I am not counting sleepovers and stuff). She is an amazing person and I am so lucky that even though we didn't start hanging out while we were both in that English class that we had another chance in Bio.

I don't think I can ever word strongly enough how much I love Christina. She is one of my best friends in the world. We can go for a long time without seeing each other, and then when we do, it is just as comfortable and normal as ever. We always talked about how when we got married we would have to make sure our husband's liked each other because the poor guys would have to be spending a lot of time together (still working on that one hon but I just can't find a guy that likes Matt - haha jk).

From her I learned that it is fun to do things that you don't feel comfortable doing. I learned that it is good to do things that scare the crap out of you (every once in a while at least). I learned that a broken heart can mend, and bounce back better than ever. I learned to be confident. I learned to be social and outgoing. I learned that doing things when I don't want to can still be fun. I learned how to be a good friend. I learned that talking it over can solve a lot of problems. I learned that it is better to just come out and say something uncomfortable instead of beating around the bush (I still have to work on that though). I learned so much from her and I still constantly do. She is definitely one of my favourite people ever. :D