California

I went down to California with my cousins during the second to last week in August. It was grand and smelled just like home! Even the people reminded me of home and I was soo happy! I made a few new friends on the pier and got to walk on the beach. There was a lot of shopping, but the best place in the shopping centers (The Grove, The Fashion District, and other huge shopping malls) was the three story Barnes N' Noble! I was seriously in heaven.

Since I'm not going to go home until this Christmas, it was nice to leave the small confines of Provo and BYU campus and be around normal people again. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're some righteous people at BYU, but sometimes they all just get on my nerves with their self righteousness and how they treat people they don't know.



Being in California was exactly what I need. I hiked the Y a week before with my FHE group and that's when it hit me. I needed to get out of Provo. I was sitting on the Y and thinking to myself and looking at the extent of my existence here in Provo, from point A (my casa) to point B (campus). It was the most depressing thing to see how my life seemed to revolve around those foci, that something in my brain clicked and I knew that if I planned on surviving the next four months in Provo I needed to get out of it. I love Austin so much and the people there that I just needed something that was close to that environment, and California fit that profile perfectly.



I enjoyed my time with my cousins and also realized how much I dislike spending money and shopping all the time. My favorite part of California was talking to people that didn't go to BYU and that weren't from Utah. It's just so refreshing to be around people with different perspectives and backgrounds. I guess I also just felt at home because they were people of color all around me! It's still a bit of a culture shock being surrounded by so many white people, coming from Texas and it's huge diverse population. Anyway, I just want to confirm that California rocks. Especially the areas that I was in - Whittier, LA, and Santa Monica.