Oh Cupid tree, oh Cupid tree

Here is an email correspondance I had today with a friend at Brigham Young University. Hope it makes your valentine's day as hilarious as mine.
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He wrote:
My RA suggested that i send you a valentine - because valentines day is about as big as Christmas around here. I told him that he didn't really understand and that you would probably laugh me to shame, but he insisted -so consider yourself valentined. Happy valentines day.

I wrote:
Aaaaaw, how cute. And yes, I laughed you to shame--had to read it to my roommates. They laughed too. Happy Valentines day to yourself--watch out for those cupids; we can't have you falling in love before your mission.>> Kristina

He replied:

I don't mean to bother you anymore but i am walking around campus dumbfounded...seeing as this is my first BYU valentines day. You mentioned cupids, there were about 5 of them standing outside the student center todayyelling "We love love - welcome to the love house" and there was another (infull attire of course) in the quad area inbetween the library and studentcenter with a boom box playing love songs, and he was screaming "happyvalentines day." There are of course hearts flying around - people arewalking around handing out little paper heart - heart cookies, papers,valentines, chocolate hearts, even walking hearts with legs - (very tacky).
The best was in Statistics...The quiz question concerned a table thatdisplayed the data from a survey of boys and girls, asking how many thoughkissing on the first date was OK. The question was something like. "Giventhe above distribution, conditional for boys, what percent thought kissingon a first date was OK?" - it was something like 57%
I guess the upside is that the library will be a tad quieter because everybody will be out on their dates :)

I replied:

WOW you just made my day. I am currently happily mired in reading all about gender in rural Kenya and juxtaposing the BYU picture you just painted with the picture of a girl who does 11 hours of household chores a day and scored high enough on her primary test to enter the country's most prestigious senior high school, but might not be able to becuase her father would rather marry her off for the dowry (which would allow him to build the family a new house) made me laugh for about FIVE minutes. I am thinking about the absurdity of existence and there is a certain hilarity in the intense variety of the human experience...kissing on your first date vs. birthing 8 children with a man you've just barely met out of necessity for running the family farm...
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