First time away from home

I had to write a paper in my writing and reasoning class about a person experience. So, for everyone that has been asking here is a more in depth detail of what has happened. Plus, it's due friday so if you see something wrong before then let me know! haha :)

The first time I had ever been away from home occurred less than two weeks ago. I had never had to say goodbye to my parents knowing I would be away for an extended amount of time. I had never been to an airport, so the entire airplane process was very unfamiliar to me, and the fact that I was in a town that seemed foreign to me didn’t help. BYU-Idaho was my top choice for the school I wanted to attend. Little did I know that I would feel the way I did when I began to venture out on my own.
I graduated from high school in June of 2010 hoping that I would be prepared for college in January of 2011. Waiting seven months to start school again seemed strange to me because I wasn’t used to long breaks. The longest break I had ever had form school wasn’t even three months. However, the time I spent out of school and working gave me time to prepare myself a bit and gave me a little taste of the “real world.” Most high schools tell their students that they are preparing them for college, but in my opinion, they don’t.
High School encouraged me to go to college to become successful but looking back now the classes I took and the teachers I had didn’t prepare me very much. High School was really easy and didn’t take much work to be successful. College is also different than High School because most students like myself was still living with their parents and not really out on their own. I chose a drastic change going 2,000 miles away from home but that was my decision and I was sticking to it.

When I left the airport in Cleveland, Ohio I didn’t know what to anticipate. I found myself sitting on an airplane for the first time more nervous than I had ever felt in my life. I debated on getting off the plane but knew that I had to toughen up and get on my way. I had a layover in Las Vegas and I had never walked through an airport before so the whole process was pretty new to me. I was surprised at all the random stores they have in airports and things that I saw; a jewelry store, a store that only sold crocs, they even had slot machines. I thought to myself, really? What am I getting myself in to? People always called me sheltered and boy were they right, but I was okay with that fact until I had to experience it all on my own.
Fortunately, I met a lot of nice people on my journey throughout the day and I was able to find everything just fine. I think that the people that work at the airports find it fun making you walk half way across the airport to find your next flight. I maneuvered my way through the airports by looking at the giant walls of computer screens and I managed to find the gate for my next flight. My flight to Las Vegas was the worst because it was four hours that seemed to drag on forever. Plus, the farther west I got, the earlier it got so it seemed like I wasn’t getting anywhere.
Once I got to the gate to go to Salt Lake City I checked with the attendant to make sure I was in the right place even though the sign said a different city. She said I was in the right place and ripped up my ticket and gave me a different one. I then found out I would be sitting waiting for a while because my plane was running late. I was excited to get a window seat on my flight to Salt Lake City to be able to see the beautiful mountains as we were landing. I had never been in a valley that I saw mountains around me everywhere I looked before. I had always made fun of people for never seeing snow, but I guess I had never really seen mountains in the winter time either. I was getting anxious for the final part of my trip to arrive in Idaho. In a new place I was ready to get to campus and see what everything was going to be like.
I soon figured out Rexburg was a lot different from my hometown. Roads were different and it took me a while before I could navigate myself to the places I had to go. The first time I ventured through town I got lost. Note to self: don’t call my parents when I’m lost, they don’t take it well. It turns out S 2nd W and W 2nd S make a big difference. In Ohio the roads go East or West or North and South and don’t have the same name like this road did. Even when I got to campus and had a map I was still confused but with time I knew where I was going, thankfully. A lesson that is usually hard to accept is that everything doesn’t always come easily regardless of how much you would like it to.
First day of classes went pretty well and I wasn’t too shocked to see that I already had homework; I knew I was not in High School anymore. I learned quickly that getting my work done shortly after it was assigned would be the best way to go. Procrastinating always gets the better of people especially when they have a big workload. The first week of classes went well and I wasn’t clueless as to what was going on yet, always a plus!
I had gotten to know my roommates by this time and not too many other people. Finding out that my roommates were easy to get along with and live with made things a lot easier. I met people here and there but that was one thing that seemed hard to conquer, nothing seemed to click. It seems like all of the people that I met were married and lived off campus. I got pretty homesick and started questioning what I wanted to do. I asked myself if I would get over this little bump in the road or would I find out that what I thought I wanted wasn’t really what I wanted at all.
I knew with time everything would come together as it always did. As people always say time will tell. I felt much better when I found out that my former Stake Young Women president was in town visiting her daughter. We got together for a couple of days while she was visiting and it made me feel much better to see a familiar face from home. After I got to know more people it made me feel more confident and that I belonged here, knowing that there were others that felt the same way I did. My first night at Family Home Evening helped with meeting people, also. Most of the people in my family are in their first semester and some in their second but we are all basically in the same boat.
Even though things get tough at first it doesn’t mean to give up and go back to what is easy. Stepping out of my comfort zone helped me so much and trying to find the best of my situation. It is so helpful to pray for guidance and call upon friends or family to help during a rough time. The scriptures are also a good tool to use for reassurance. A scripture that always helps me is, “Ask and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Always knowing that I have a loving Heavenly Father that is always there for me regardless is the most reassurance I could need, and that through the Holy Ghost I can receive guidance of what I should be doing and remain on the right path.