Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The HFACian

We've all seen them. Straying from their sanctuary in the Harris Fine Arts Center, the HFACian will stand out amongst the rest of the zoobie nation because they're clad in something your second grade teacher would wear, if your second grade teacher was also a drag queen. To help them stand out even more they're usually mid-performance of a Shakespearean soliloquy or belting out an aria from The Magic Flute as they're walking to their only non-liberal arts class (religion or generals credit of course), or as they're dining in the Cougareat just to show all of us mainstreamers how against the grain they are as white, middle class, college students.
But as shocking as it is to see them littered amongst the rest of us pop-culture-cult-followers, it will nigh send you into cardiac arrest to step right into the epicenter of the artsy savvy. On the off-chance that you do walk through the HFAC, (usually to buy a ticket to some show for desperate extra credit for some humanities/civ/arts & letters general class) be prepared. These students are too aesthetically cultivated to have to "study" like the rest of us, (who have a major that we plan on making money off of one day) so instead, they are required to just bask in eachother's humanistic vibes all over the place.
You'll be the only one not carrying an instrument case, or a portfolio case, or an easel, and you'll most likely be the only one wearing pants.

Monday, November 2, 2009

The King of Helaman Halls

Ah, the freshman year at BYU. Most of us are thrown from our comfortable pedestals of high school popularity and home-cooked meals and into the figurative swamp full of awkward introductions and a small dorm room that really doesn't feel like Home until November. Walking up the hill to campus, you avoid eye contact with all these unfamiliar faces that are supposedly going to become your best friends. Suddenly you hear loud, rolling laughter behind you, making you jump about a foot in the air. Who dares disturb your gloomy silence? Why, it's the King of Helaman Halls!

Somehow this kid, though he's only been in the dorms one week like everybody else, knows every single person in Helaman Halls. He knows them each intimately. He's made out with 70% of the girls. He's made hilarious videos at 2 a.m. with 45% of the boys. He is the King!

His appearance changes every year. You'd think The King would consistently be a hottie, but I lived in a kingdom under the rule of a less-than-conventional-looking czar--and yet he still had nearly every female subject wrapped around his pinky toe.

Unless you are also a member of his Round Table and thus know an impressive amount of BYU students, try not to walk with him for too long on campus. You will be left feeling lame and unpopular. On the plus side, all those people will have seen you with The King and will assume that you're the Bomb!