Kyra’s officially away at college! We drove out to BYU this week to drop her off and get her started on the next step of her life.
She’s living off-campus in an apartment complex called The Riviera (motto: “Live the Riv”). It may sound like a vacation resort, but it’s not actually quite that nice. What is nice, however, is that it’s right across the street from campus– which makes it a nice walk as she heads to classes.
When we arrived, no one else was in the apartment. She has three other roommates, and one of them had apparently been living there during the summer and left a note for the others saying she’d be back on Saturday. Her name is Kira. (Yes, Kira and Kyra.) The others are Kennan and Anna. Kira’s stuff was scattered around one of the two bedrooms, and she had tons of cookware and utensils in the kitchen. That meant we could take home a few things, like the colander we’d brought, since no one really needs two colanders!
Here’s the first set of boxes in the empty room:
And a little while later, all of Kyra’s stuff:
It’s funny how few things a college student has. Later in life you find out that it takes a tractor-trailer to haul all of your things to a new house. But for now, simplicity is great.
After a bit, we had her room all set up nice and pretty:
We decided to go out to dinner, and Kyra chose the Olive Garden, which is right nearby.
They have a new deal where you get a second dish when you order certain entrees, so both she and Laralee were able to score a take-home dinner for free. And everyone knows that free food for a college student– especially delicious Italian fare– is a big deal.
Laralee and I had made arrangements to stay with our friends up in Herriman (about 45 minutes away) and just as we were leaving, Kyra’s roommate Anna appeared. She’d been living with a friend for a few days and was going to move in that evening. Anna gave us the news that Kennan is a friend from her missionary days, and they’d been planning to room together. Oops. That would’ve been good to know before Kyra had spent all that time moving into the empty room! Now she had to move everything over to the other bedroom where Kira’s stuff was. Fortunately Kyra’s pretty easygoing, and it didn’t bother her too much.
We came back to Provo the next morning for freshman/parent orientation. All of the incoming freshmen were gathered on a practice field on campus:
There were nearly 5,000 of them… that’s the same size as the entire student population at UMR when I went there! However, BYU must be accustomed to huge numbers of students like this, because they processed everyone very quickly. Kyra was assigned to a “Y group” of about 20 other students, with one leader who was a sophomore named Molly. All of the students headed off for campus tours and whatever, while the parents were treated to some workshops and discussions with titles like “How to Help Your Student Be Successful” and “Your Daughter’s Experience at BYU”. While they were good, there weren’t really any surprises. Moreover, the presenters kept saying things like “be sure to tell your student… yada yada…” and I mentioned to Laralee that it’s basically too late for that. We’ve had eighteen years to teach Kyra what she needs to know to be successful, and cramming it all into her head on the first day of college isn’t going to be much help.
After a busy day, we met up again at Kyra’s apartment (still no one else there– Anna had gone out to work or something) and chatted for a bit. Here’s Kyra relaxing a bit and deciding not to attend the big freshman dance that night. No surprise there.
There wasn’t really anything else for us to do, so Laralee and I gave Kyra big hugs, wished her luck, and left. That was that. Of course we’re worried about a few little details, but all in all I know she’s going to do a great job at BYU and have an amazing experience.