BYU and the Ragin' Invasion

A couple days after coming back from vacation, BYU sponsored a Campus Showcase event to help employees understand the resources available to them around campus. The University mission and goals were displayed, and associations across campus demonstrated what's available to students after graduation. There was a lot of food brought from all of the dining services and catering across campus (maybe more scrumptious that I had previously remembered campus food to be). And of course, all employees had a chance to take a picture with Cosmo!

So here I am with the Alumni t-shirt that I won in a Blinko! game and our strong, creepy mascot.

Taking my free t-shirt, I headed back to work, totally unaware of the tempest of giggles and poses that awaited me - and I don't mean the BYU cheer squad.

EFY has officially begun and has swarmed every resource on campus. You cannot leave the building without having to avoid awkward teenagers reciting EFY cheers or pick-up sports games to pass the time waiting for the next workshop. I'm now under the impression that 15 year-olds have never been taught or taken the time to practice accurate frisbee throwing. I've had to duck and maneuver from many a rogue frisbee and football on my trips to and from the office.

This is not the only cause of concern for the rising generation. For some reason, EFY boys think that they are being uniquely funny if they open up office doors in the Wilkinson Student Center to thank everyone for the wonderful job they are doing, or knock on the window to wave hello. Little do they know that that happens at least twice a day, for every four days that an EFY group is on campus. So I'm positive that by the end of the summer I will be telling these kids that I am not having a good day as long as they are knocking on my window for half of it.

Yet... I feel bad for these poor little EFYers. I can relate! I was actually here, on BYU campus in 2001, to attend EFY myself. I remember that in every clique of young men, there's always one who hasn't quite reached puberty and is significantly shorter than the other boys. I remember how girls make fools of themselves doing what they THINK will impress the young men. I remember having to link arms with particularly sweaty young gentlemen. Utah is hot! I remember...

Thus I try to avoid going outside, commenting to EFY kiddos' comments, or randomly jumping into their photographs of BYU scenery. I will let them live in their naive world where they believe the whole campus belongs to them... because someone did that for me not too long ago and I didn't grow up to be half bad, right?