Humans of USU: Dally Mortensen says Logan changed her life
The Utah Statesman interviewed Dally Mortensen, majoring in communicative disorders and deaf education from St. George, Utah.
Utah Statesman: We found you laying on the quad. Where is your favorite place to nap on campus?
Dally Mortensen: I don’t nap a lot, but my husband was napping in the basement by the YETC … education building. There are some couches, they’re not very comfy but that’s where he napped today. I don’t really nap on campus.
US: Before you were married, what was a dealbreaker for you when dating?
DM: They had to make me laugh. If they didn’t, I wasn’t interested.
US: How did your husband make you laugh?
DM: He’s just very comfortable with everyone, he’s just himself, he’s kind of crazy and I just like to keep to myself and I don’t go out of my way to be crazy. I was embarrassed the first couple of times I was with him just because he was so crazy but now I’m not embarrassed because I’m used to it and I kind of like that, how he got me out of my comfort zone.
US: How did you guys meet?
DM: We went to the same high school but I was a freshman, he was a senior, so that didn’t work out. But after he came home from his mission, we had the same college history class together and we were in St. George so we went to Dixie.
US: Would you say the rest is … history?
DM: Oh yeah, for sure.
US: What is your favorite thing about Spring?
DM: Just the flowers and the green. Up here it’s just beautiful in the summer and the springtime, and the sunshine. I just love it.
US: If you had to trade lives with anyone who has ever existed, with whom would you trade and why?
DM: I’d want to be a writer. I like the 1800 period, so Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austen.
US: What’s your favorite book, then?
DM: Jane Eyre.
US: What is your weather prediction for March?
DM: It is going to be sunny. It’s not going to snow again, and it’s just going to be beautiful and it’s going to start getting green, and flowers. That’s what I’d like it to do. I hope it doesn’t snow again.
US: Do you have any big summer plans?
DM: I have spring break plans. We’re going on a cruise to Jamaica, Cayman Islands. We are so excited.
US: What experience has changed your life?
DM: Other than marrying my husband? … Probably coming here to Logan. Just because I feel like if we didn’t, because my whole family lives in St. George, that’s where we’re both from. so we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make our own family to rely on each other and it’s like our home here now, we love it in Logan.
US: What did you eat for lunch yesterday?
DM: I had a caesar salad, it was delicious. My husband made it for me. It was the best thing ever because I hadn’t eaten all day.
US: What is your biggest fear?
DM: Lizards. I am terrified. I really think I have a phobia. I am so scared of lizards.
US: Did you ever have a bad lizard experience?
DM: I don’t know, I feel like it all started with “The Parent Trap” when the lizard went down into her mouth. And then St. George is just overruled by lizards and so we just had lizards on our windowsills and gross huge ones. I felt like at one time I was surrounded by lizards. So since then I just freak out, even baby lizards I just can’t handle.
US: You know their tails come off if you pull on them, right?
DM: Yeah but I don’t want to get anywhere near them.
US: Did you have any other fears that you overcame? How?
DM: I’m not very good with speaking with authoritative figures like teachers, deans, you know what I mean. I feel like through my major I’ve had to, if I want to get letters of recommendation. I’ve gotten a little bit better at getting out of my comfort zone and talking to people and being more myself, which I’m not very good at.
US: If you could give advice to other people who feel the same way, what would you tell them?
DM: Just that you have to, if you want to be remembered or go places or get into grad programs, anything, you just need to be remembered. You need to go out of your way to do things like that. You have to if you want to go anywhere with your life.