A general tale of Bridger's life

I typed the following entry for my journal but I decided it would be benficial to post for you guys:

Life at college, I rather think, would be almost exactly like high school except for the fact that I’m living on campus. This means that not only do I suddenly have 14.0 credits of a private university on the line, but I have to clean, cook, deal with roommates and a singles ward, and basically take care of my own life. Who’s cruel idea was this anyway (I rather regret to say that it was mine)?
My three roommates, Christian, Conley, and James, are, in my personal opinion, the best possible roommates I could have had. Conley is almost exactly like me, James is at least tolerable, and Christian doesn’t really cause any problems. There are always those little things that annoy me—James loves to play music on his CD player in the kitchen whenever he’s home, Christian will talk on the phone in our room at 2 o’clock in the morning, and Conley is so knowledgeable that I rather feel dumb when I talk to him—but overall, they are quite good. I’ve learned that with roommates the main thing is to pick your battles. I kept quiet over the messy half of the room and Christian’s phone calls so that I could (politely) suggest we close the door when we sleep during the night (this is essential since Conley and James apparently neglect to hit the snooze button on their alarms when they decide to sleep in an extra 5 minutes. It was driving me NUTS).
I’ve grown attached to my bike in the few weeks I’ve been here (literally; sometimes after pedaling up a large hill it feels like I won’t be able to dismount). This also means that, instead of at home where I would be delighted to see frost, rain, or snow, I now dread it—when I open the blinds in the morning I immediately picture myself in that weather, pedaling down University Avenue, avoiding splashes from cars.
I work at Macey’s about three days a week. I would love to work less, and probably could, if I was willing to cut my budget. I have an elaborate budget drawn up on Microsoft Excel: all I need to do is enter in my paycheck and excel takes that amount, divides it into how much per week, and lets me decide how much to allot for food, savings, extra, and other things. Usually I spend about $15 a week on food (of course, after I raid the family’s pantry). If I manage to stay under that amount, I can put that money toward other uses (like today, for example, where I purchased a pair of inexpensive fleece gloves [one finds that fingers bear the brunt of a cold wind while riding their bike]).
It feels rather weird to have only 4 people living at your “home.” It feels weirder for me to have to decide what to cook every night—usually, at about 6, I simply walk into the kitchen, open my cupboard, and decide what to make. I have a shelf devoted to Hamburger Helper, but I try to always have spinach with every meal. I also eat a lot of fruit—mostly apples. That is, when I can find my stuff in the fridge (today I came home and found, to my dismay, that one of my kind roommates had rearranged the fridge and, in the process of doing so, and untwisted my package of hot dog buns, resulting in rock-hard buns). I’ve also learned to be very wary about where I keep my stuff and who I let use it. One morning James asked to borrow my milk for his cereal since he was out; I obliged and found it a quarter empty that afternoon. Once, when I was trying to fall asleep, some guys from the apartment above us came down and asked for vanilla extract. James told them to basically look for it in our kitchen and if they found some they could use it—and of course I was squirming horribly in my bed, because I darn well knew that I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO HAD VANILLA EXTRACT. Sure enough they used quite a bit of it.
The usual problems that pervade men’s apartments prevail in ours, but to a lesser degree. Today the garbage was so full when I came home that I had to put it into three bags in order to take it out to the dumpster without it spilling everywhere. Our sink is perpetually full of dishes, but we trade off washing them pretty well.
And, of course, I still have school (trade off the trimmings of college life and it seems rather dull). I think I’m keeping up well. The main problem is that right now, I’m not really sure how hard tests will be. I’ve already found out that some classes are super easy, and some are not (*cough* Computer Programming *cough*).
But the thing I’ve learned most while living here at Wyview is that I would probably die without the gospel. When I come home to find only Conley watching a movie on YouTube rather than a mom waiting for a hug and detailed description of the day, it sort of stinks (particularly after you got a ‘0’ on an assignment, you tripped during class changes on the steps of the JFSB, and you answered a question wrong in front of your 200-person computer science class because you couldn’t hear the professor). But, here at my apartment, I go into the bathroom, turn on the fan, go into the bathroom’s closet, close the door, and pray to Heavenly Father. The results really are incredible; I don’t notice them day by day but when I look back over weeks and months I notice how much He helps me and guides me. Unfortunately, my dear journal, it is now nearing 4 o’clock and I still have a pile of homework, dinner to make, dishes to wash, FHE to attend (Conley is insisting on making “Peanut Butter Cup Pie,” which sounds delicious but under my circumstances I would be content with making brownies, which takes 5 minutes rather than 3 hours), and I would like to be in bed at a reasonable hour. So I guess it’s goodbye for now.