Saturday, August 15, 2015

The time has come.

  Today I moved into my new dorm room where I will live until next year, which is very weird to think about. This morning was super busy because I had to get new tries before I left, so I had a early morning but late start. I finally get on the road and I thought I would be a lot more emotional about it but I wasn't. I only cried once a little in Nephi because the song "Don't forget to remember me" by Carrie Underwood came on and I thought I was going to lose it! My dad meet me at my building and he helped unload and move everything around in my room which was super helpful. Well he stayed for about an hour then left and we hugged, and we both cried a little. But it really hit me when I looked out my window and saw walking to his car, I called out "bye dad! I love you" he turned around and said "I love you too" and that is when I started just bawling, I completely lost it. My dad is my best friend and he travels a lot but I always see him so it is just so weird to think that I won't be able to see him all the time or my sister. I am just grateful my roommate isn't even here yet so I get the room to myself so if I start crying it won't be that weird! I am also very lucky that I have one of my best friends from when I was younger down here with me, cause if not I probably wouldn't have known anyone. But overall today was a success, it will probably hit me harder tomorrow when I wake up and my dad isn't here to make me breakfast.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Mississippi

 So I have spent the last two and half days here in Mississippi in this little town called Columbus. Man it is so crazy how different a place could be when you live in the same country. Some good and some bad. As soon as I got off the plane I thought I was going to die because it was so hot, like hot as I could barley open my mouth and breathe cause it hurt so bad. So I already knew that it was going to suck with my hair and that I probably shouldn't even put on makeup on because I would sweat so bad or do my hair because the humidity just made it curly. Second they have bugs I have never even heard of! In Utah we have ticks but they aren't that common, well here you have to watch out for them all the time. They also have like "deer flies" is what they called them and we they bit you if hurts. For those two reasons, I do not understand why people live down here! But I guess they get used to it and they probably don't know anything different. But the second day was the most eye opening. I wouldn't say that my family is super rich, but we do have nice things and are able to go do things. I grew up having really anything I wanted, but down here I would be classified as privilege just because of how poor it is down here. My dad's friends were telling us that more then half of them live on welfare and don't work which to me is crazy! There is a lot of African-American people who live down here but they are a ton of white people too. They would tell us how it is still kinda segregated which is mind blowing because I guess living in Utah you don't think that people are still like that but they are. And may I point out that I did not see one Hispanic person. So people were giving my dad such weird looks. Our last name is Martinez, but I really don't look that Hispanic but my dad does. Apparently not a lot of people graduate high school which is weird because I used to think that basically everyone does. This trip really made my look into my life and made me realize just how lucky I am. It makes me so grateful that I had the opportunity to not only go to high school and graduate but to go to college.

 I love history, and Columbus has such rich history. (everywhere in the south does) The town was a hospital town back during the Civil war, so it wasn't burned down during the war. So there are buildings that date back before the Civil war. When you go down the old main street you can still see all the old hospitals. Fun fact the first memorial day was celebrated in Columbus! These ladies went and decorated all the graves of the confederate army but also the union soldiers which I think is amazing! So we got to go see a lot of the graves and most of the confederate soldiers were unknown which is just so sad to think that they lives were just forgotten and no one really went looking for them or it was just too hard. Tonight we went to like the best restaurant, which obviously they had a lot of fried chicken. But it was amazing, definitely not like food in Utah.
"Friendship cemetery"

Old Main Street