I Did Not Get

any monetary compensation for writing this post.  I say that now, at the beginning, because by the time you are done reading this post you wouldn't believe me if I said it.

I was never a fan of BYU (Brigham Young University).  There were a lot of reasons, some of them valid, some of them distinctly petty.  My dad wanted me to apply to ten schools to make sure I had "plenty of options".  I did not apply to BYU.

Then I met and married a man who had gotten his undergraduate and master's degrees at BYU, a man whose dream in life was to someday be a professor at his alma mater.  I crossed my fingers, and married him anyway.

We get the BYU magazine in the mail quarterly, and when you factor in that I am addicted to reading and Devin decidedly is not, you can probably figure out which one of us reads every page of it.

And, in an ironic twist of fate I find myself beginning to respect BYU as an institution.  And we all know where respect leads: love.  Yes, it's true. I'm starting to think BYU is one cool place.

So Awesome: BYU has a student run ad-lab developed by one of the professors in that field, because he felt that his students could learn better from real life experience than from running simulations. The lab is completely self-sustaining.  His students have won awards nationally and internationally, and are regularly hired by top advertising agencies.  (They have done ads for Butterfinger, UNICEF, Apple, Nike, Volkswagon, Burger King, to name a few you might recognize.)  Watch their Dorito ad.

Then watch it again because it's just that funny.

So Awesome: I hope this isn't a confusing transition, because I just talked about the ad- lab, but here is a promo that a BYU student made for the school's library. It was not made by the ad-lab, a student comedian made it.  Can you tell which famous commercial he is spoofing?  Watch it:



Then watch it again because it's just so funny.

So Awesome: And, last but not least, the students are just good, hardworking, service-oriented kids.  They know how to have solid clean fun, too.  Here you can see them winning the record for the world's largest water balloon fight.  They stole the title from the University of Kentucky.**



Good job, guys.  I guess I have to apologize for any less than glowingly loving statements I might have made in the past to or about BYU.  I'm sorry.  Can we be friends?


**The University of Kentucky stole the title back a month after that video was shot.  Apparently they really wanted that one.

I would like to repeat that I did not get any monetary compensation for writing this post.  The ideas and opinions expressed in them are my own.  If you have trouble viewing the videos, click here to come to my actual blog.