it is what it is.

likes

2011-06-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

i am off to canada today to visit jenlee and see some bears. i don't know why i love canada so much, but i'm itching to get across the border. it's too bad they don't give stamps in your passport.

i have a problem that i developed- the need to go on constant trips. my need will be fulfilled for the rest of the year.

june- canada
july-oregon
august- san francisco
sept- sacramento (cait's wedding :) )
oct- new york CITY
nov- la
dec-la

i like that list. although i wish israel or turkey or greece or england or peru were on it. next year.

now, on to some other important stuff.

i just went to hip hop class last night. oh goodness. we popped, locked, and dropped it too many times and i loved every second.
i also had tennis lessons yesterday and i love those.
i am doing insanity and it is insane and i love it.
jimmer held the door open for me last month and i'm pretty sure everyone thought we were dating at costa vida. maybe i dreamt that part? but we did walk in together?
i branded a calf.
megan and i WILL go to jimmy fallon in nyc in oct. he will probably want us to come sit on the front row.
i love visiting teaching.

j. biebs

2011-03-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

i went to go see never say never with a month or so ago (but a teenage girl came along so it's not weird). very.good.experience. how can you not enjoy a movie that you get too sing along to without anyone getting mad? not too long after, a bunch of us were having a very serious conversation about him. my friend catherine said she did not like him (joking, of course) and i asked her to tell me why she didn't like this adorable, canadian, teenage singing sensation (minus his music). here are some things we came up with...

1. hangs out with ludacris, who is a bad influence. okay, this might be true, but if i could be friends with luda, i would. especially if he put me in a joking headlock.
2. he looks like a girl. who can blame him for being prettier than most girls?!
3. he's too flirtatious. well, duh! there's nothing to worry about though because he comes from a good, christian upbringing. his gpa will keep him in line.

that's pretty much all we came up with. now, on another note, i found the 13 reasons why you should give him a chance.

1. he's not part of the disney machine

2. he's a grass roots success

3. he is really talented (and bilingual!)

4. 16-year-olds can be good musicians too!

5. all teen idols go through an awkward hair stage

6. he's charming, but not douchey

7. conan and bieber have a ~thing~

8. he's into animal rights

9. “bieb”- it's just fun to say.

10. it's pretty cool to see a 16-year-old hanging out with usher and ludacris

11. his new CD is good!

12. he doesn't like Uggs

13. you can't fight a good pop song

a picture a day

2011-01-18T18:12:00.000-08:00

i've never taken new year's goals seriously, but this year i have changed hallelujah! even though it has taken me until just a couple days ago to write them down. one of them will require me to take a picture a day. i am late, of course, and missing many photos from january, but i figure it will be okay from now on. i'm excited because i think it will renew my zest for life and make me remember all the quirky, beautiful, sad, funny moments that make it so great.

1-3-11: just outside los angeles in the el cajon pass on the way to utah. i have never seen snow like that in southern california. when we left that morning there was snow on the hills just 10 minutes from my house. never!

1-14-11: two of my co-workers who were both dressed in black. the one on the right is our computer intern who just got offered a part-time position. when i asked him if he was excited, he said, well, let's just say i'll either skip or run home today. so great. he sits just a few desks away from me---one day he told a couple of us girls that his friend asked him why he worked for a non-profit. he replied, if you saw the girls i sat next to, you'd know why. he brings continual joy and laughter to my life at work.

1-15-11: just a miss america contestant with mickey. i wish i spent the 15th of january doing this. i missed taking a picture this day. this one will definitely suffice.

1-16-11: cole, tess, jenni, me, tim - i love asia, peace signs, tim's squinty eyes, and asians.

1-17-11: martin luther king day at byu. we had some leftover donuts which we were quite excited about.

i miss summer but i still love snow

2010-11-30T19:25:00.000-08:00

i decided to change one of my outlooks on life. i love winter! i went to seattle a couple weeks ago for FUN and it rained a few of the days. i liked it. then i came back and blizzards and 5 degree weather started taking over this place. i finally realized that i like those too. i dont like how it gets dark at 5 pm, but i'll get used to it. now, this does not mean that i don't LOVE summer and the sun and miss the water and heat.

camping at hobble creek manor=sleeping inside the house and taking lots of pictures

camping in spanish fork at a saweet, secret spot.

cabela's with my random and wonderful family. my brother pushed me around in that wheelchair cause i thought i was dying.

apparently they almost tipped over, but that just happened to be my grandma's favorite part. i always knew my adventurous side was from my grandma.

summer didn't turn out exactly how i expected- definitely did not end the best. boys and being sick will sure do that to you! but, winter is here and christmas is in less than 24 days, which means i get to be with my family. life is sure a wonderful blessing.

moab + fenny

2010-11-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

my dear friend fenny visited america this summer for a month. she got to go to dc, colorado, utah, and la. she flew into la and stayed with my family, while my wonderful friend staci showed her around la. thankfully she came to utah so i could spend some time with her! she was a secretary/teacher at my school in taiwan and helped me so much. i also stayed with her for a few weeks at her house. her mom took care of me- her family is so great and the last time i spoke to them over skype, they were trying to set me up with some taiwanese boys so i would move back. probably not going to happen, but it was sure nice of them to try! anyways, im so glad i got to see her- we went to moab and stayed at our friend rachelle's apt in salt lake for the weekend.

MOAB

lindsay, my roommate from taiwan!

cool taiwanese pose.

the weather started getting really crazy- this picture shows my new haircut

the lightening was so loud and pretty scary. we ran the ENTIRE way back from delicate arch. it started pouring the second we got to the car.

this shows the weather a little- i legitimately thought i was going to be struck by lightening.

this was at about 7 at night- it looked like it was 2 in the morning. creeepy.

i love this because it shows exactly how fenny is- she just decided to take a picture of me eating my breakfast. or her plate of food or a bunch of plants outside my gma and gpa's. plus, those pancakes and strawberries look sooooooo good.

my cute grandparents and fenny.

bear lake

2010-11-27T20:37:00.000-08:00

okay, this was a million months ago, but it is still important. first time at bear lake=success. we slept on the tennis courts (see below), went tubing, i did a triple back flip off the tube and into the air about 10 feet off the tube, sailed, read, talked, played, died from hypothermia in a glacier lake thingy, played tennis, ate a raspberry shake, made and ate the best vegetable tacos ever, celebrated our pioneers on pioneer day, lit smoke bombs and sparklers with all the little kids, went hot-tubbing, and i'm sure much more.

charity's cute little niece who hung out with us almost the whole time.

bloomington lake. so refreshing. okay, it actually wasn't refreshing.

the homestead.

marcell the shell with shoes on

2010-10-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

this is one of the cutest things i've ever watched. hopefully you'll watch it when you're having a bad day because then it probably won't be bad anymore! but then i really just hope you're not having a bad day. i hope you're having a good day and this makes it better.

Harry Potter

2010-09-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

i finally got my chance to be Harry Potter. i awoke last Saturday and dressed in my finest robes, much to my roommates suprise. read here for a enlightening explanation:

http://www.unitedwayuc.org/blog

i had many little children following me around. one little boy stayed with me the entire time. another told me she was my biggest fan. we were interviewed on video (seriously) and many could not stop their cameras from taking pictures. being a celebrity is hard. your eyes start to hurt from all the flashes.

arizona

2010-09-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

i got to see lake powell and the grand canyon in one weekend. woo hoo, lucky me! seriously though, they are b-e-a-utiful! we stayed at jacob lake, went on a really cool hike with horrible nats, saw the GRAND canyon, ate some good mexican food, sang a few good celine dion songs, and swam in lake powell.

horseshoe bend. really, really cool.

this mexican restaurant in page, arizona had a shrine to laura bush. apparently, she had come there and they had her take a picture with every single person there. this picture did not capture all of their pictures on the wall.

this is the invention we came up with to get rid of the nats- undressing and swinging your clothes around your head.

there is a painting in the mexican restaurant that looked exactly like this. we thought it would be appropriate to recreate it right at the grand canyon. spencer and lisa=lovers, katie=dead eagle, mallory=baby deer, charity & tess=frame

after the weekend was over, we convinced spencer that a weekend with 6 girls is the best way to travel.

cutie pie.

there are some more great kodak moments but of course i do not have them.

summatime

2010-08-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

summer summer summer. last year i had an early summer with no job, waiting to go to asia. then i worked the rest of the summer in a foreign country, trotting around to unknown places each weekend. this summer, i'm working full time. i wish summer was forever, but i guess it really doesn't make a ton of difference when i'm not going to school!

outdoor movie on the capitol lawn. it was actually pretty neat-o to have the capitol building all lit up behind you.

a little guitar in the car. you've got to keep yourself entertained...

oh, dinner on the balcony with wonderful roommates from the past who are almost all married and pregnant (okay, only one).

my little boys. how i adore them.

colony reunites once more. we can't get enough of each other. really.

what is with the guy in the background!? haha. included in this picture are 3 of the greatest people ever.

STEWART FALLS...i feel a need to go on this hike all the time. i don't exactly know why, but i do love it a lot. it is always so beautiful.

i look like an idiot in this picture, but andrea just looks too precious to pass up putting it on.

WINCO. it provides many entertaining possibilities.

i'll have everyone know, sam REFUSED to put his feet in the picture. i still have no idea why.

portland

2010-08-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

i went to portland for 4 days for work. i'd been there before, but i really noticed this time how beautiful that city is.

i am sitting in an elevator shaft. it just so happens to be where a woman died as well. they made the restaurant really creepy. we had to go in twos into the bathroom because it was so dark.

keep portland weird.

i look stupid in this picture, but the important part is the voodoo donut sign. tons of weird donuts- the shapes and the toppings. some were a little inappropriate, but i won't say anything further.

this one goes out to the parking lot garden.

the rose garden. it was really peaceful and just as beautiful.

a friend i met there who is lds had a cousin who was living in portland for the summer. he took us there one of night. it is an incredibly beautiful temple. i can't wait until i can see it during the day.

some words of wisdom for one lance armstrong.

the most incredible bookstore in the world. really. i bought maybe 8 books and it cost me 19 dollars. i could have spent forever in there.

the window displays were so pretty. that might sound lame, but really, there were tons of cool displays.

some of the fun people i met.

go to portland. this is not a paid advertisement.

lots of balloons

2010-08-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

since i was a little girl i have wanted to go to the hot air balloon part of the freedom fest. it is way early in the morning, but so worth it!

i want a cabin.

2010-08-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

so this cabin trip happened a loooong time ago, but oh well. my friend, fenny, from taiwan is in america now and she kept stressing about getting time to see everyone. she would tell me she wished she could buy a house so everyone could just come and be together. duh! i want one too. but, i'd rather have a cabin.

it was great to be there with cait and mags. good food, reading stories, a long cold run in the morning, a late night creepy walk by the river, basketball, playing school, golf, swinging, frisbee, and milkshakes.

michael's birthday

2010-08-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

of course it included dancing, cake, other treats, nice people, and michael.

graden is very into dancing.

michael's buddies.

who wants to go to burley?

2010-08-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

a lot of catching up to do...

oh boy, i got to go to burley. im so lucky. my dear friend morgan was headed off to the mission field so i had to pay her one last visit. especially because she's from burley.

this is her backyard. i had a good laugh about it. the snake river, windmill, cows, and horses.

burley! morgan lives on the outskirts of town on the highway. we made sure to drive into town to see all of the highlights. the fairgrounds, albertson's, and the lone hotel proved the best highlights.

it was great to be there altogether again. these are the same girls that were with me in thailand! oh the fun we had there....

i can't forget this wonderful moment. morgan told us that we needed to drive 7 miles exactly before we would see the freeway entrance. so we drove exactly 7 miles and NOTHING. we drove a couple more and still nothing. there were no businesses anywhere to stop and ask so we did the only normal thing and stopped at a random house. turns out the freeway entrance was 18 miles. haha. 18!!

famous blogger

2010-07-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

i wrote a blog post on the united way blog. this means that i am famous, in case you were wondering. here is the link: http://www.unitedwayuc.org/blog/ or you can read it below!

A study done by the Kaiser Foundation (featured both in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times) describes the immense hours youth spend on media related items each day and the unhealthy effects it is causing. Tweens and teens are spending 7 hours and 38 minutes on average each day. That equals out to about 53 hours a week. It’s hard to even figure out how that is possible when these same young people are in school until 3 everyday. Some of the researchers thought they were “consuming about as much media as humanly possible in the hours available.” This heavy media use is leading to many different behavior problems, obesity, and lower grades. Now imagine how much longer youth are spending consuming media during the summer!

One girl from the study argues with her mother constantly about the need for technology. Speaking about her mother she informs the researcher, “back in her day, they didn’t have that stuff. I feel like it helps us open up and learn new things…instead of sitting around at home being bored.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I love technology. My grandpa continually uses the fact that computer games are good for his brain as an excuse, so it seems it has some positive effects. It isn’t that technology and media are bad, but there are so many other worthwhile opportunities and social interactions to be had!

AND now that it’s summer, there are even more great opportunities. I’ve come up with some ideas to start to entice you (both youth and adults).

· Find a new hobby- inline skating, volleyball, basketball, photography, creative writing, reading (it is fun!), cooking, biking

· Go swimming! If you don’t have a pool, there are plenty of public pools and summer passes are usually pretty cheap. OR you can turn on the sprinklers.

· Garden- this might not sound like too much fun, but I promise that from experience, it can be so thrilling to see a little seed turn into something you can actually EAT!

· Spend more time with your siblings and parents- play games, take walks, go to the park.

· Exercise! Go on a hike, run, go to the gym, or find other inventive ways.

· SUMMER OF SERVICE- Come to our projects or do service on your own! Tutor someone, help a family member, senior citizen, stranger, or think of another way to serve. You can find more out about Summer of Service on our website or look for our group on Facebook, ‘Summer of Service 2010.’

Here are the links to the articles for further reading:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/20/business/la-fi-youth-media21-2010jan21

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html

big eyes.

2010-06-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

Although embarrassing for me, I think everyone should see this picture...

I miss Taiwan, for obvious reasons. My friend Kelly, in the bottom right star, took me out to dinner one night and told me she had a surprise for me afterward- she was very excited. These photo booth pictures were it- how lucky am I? The machine somehow magically fixes your hair, puts makeup on you, and makes your eyes double the normal size. I think I look a little bit like an alien.

this is the place.

2010-05-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

the other week, maggie, cait, and i went to 'this is the place' to help with a service project. wow, that place is so pretty. after the project two very nice people took pictures of us. the field was full of dandelions and the sun was setting. it was good for the soul.

frolicking. i think maggie is having the most fun.

how perfect is that shot??

cait, the ballerina.

a very nice stranger took this picture.

this is the place!

st. george.

2010-05-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

I love st. george. seriously though, so so much. i think it is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

the pretty pretty rainbow on the way to st. george. i'm very thankful it was NOT raining down there. the weather was quite perfect.

see that sun?? right now it is snowing and i wish i could see the sun.

happy as a clam, except for the fact that i am not in asia traveling.

jen told me that i could suck some sort of juice out of the middle of the flower and she was right!

here is everyone that went minus jen who is taking the picture and another set that were back at the house. the best surprise was bethany (who i worked with and went to jerusalem with) who i did NOT know was coming.

so beautiful!

i rock climbed up this wall. super easy.

i love jen lee. the boys really liked trying to climb up the walls.

haha, i just love this picture. aren't they the happiest of friends?

we are best friends, can't you tell?

scrambling required?

just scrambling...

we went to this river/stream place that my friend knew about, but he forgot to inform us (or maybe he didn't know) that the water was zero degrees. i was forced to go in to my knees, but no further. instead, i just wandered around while andrea put mud on her face and jen took pictures.

matt actually got in the water- so did ben and ed. crazy boys.

here we all are again with jen trailing in the back (behind the camera, not the one with no shirt on).

after all the hiking we went 4-wheeling and swimming. there might have also been a synchronized swimming show. the house was great, the scenery was beautiful, the food was so good, the company was fun, and church was uplifting. jen, andrea, and i shared a room that had 3 beds in it and had lots of wonderful laughing attacks and possibly a small concert at 3 am. i want to go back right now and breathe in that fresh air and sit and watch the stars.

life motto.

2010-05-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

love it.

anne frank.

2010-05-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

I went to the Anne Frank exhibition at the SLC library the other day. Anne's dad was the only one to survive- when he got the journal entries of Anne's he didn't have any idea all of these feelings and ideas could have been going on inside Anne. I think children have so much more to offer than people ever realize. I hope I have children like her someday who are brave and good and thought-provoking and interesting.

How many 14 year olds come up with things like this?

'I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.'

'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.'

'The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.'

'Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?'

shawn.

2010-05-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

My 'little' brother went to prom the other week. He is too young. Sadly, he doesn't look it anymore when he is almost 6'3''....What a babe!

Dreaming...

2010-05-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

I'm going to St. George this weekend and whenever I think of southern Utah I think of this painting by Maynard Dixon. It is at the MOA and I've probably looked at it approximately 200 times. I want to be sitting there on my lime green lawn chair watching that sky and not worrying about time passing by...

I love asia

2010-04-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

My sidekick while traveling, Kami, posted a wonderful, little selection of pictures from our trip. She missed me a lot once I left :) I haven't posted many pictures from that trip and have shown only a few people anymore than what's on here....She was a good, little (literally) companion and it was fun to roam around Asia with her by my side! We became much more bold as the trip went on and it was fun to see how we changed because of it. I still wish I could go back...

http://kambam.blogspot.com/2010/03/little-miss-lisa.html

I'm not a student anymore...

2010-04-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Even though I am not a student anymore, Cosmo still tugs at my heart strings...

Back to America...

2010-04-09T16:37:00.001-07:00

Hmmm....I will not lie. I did NOT want to come back. And, I will also say that I would go back traveling in the blink of an eye. After a month of traveling, planning things out the day before or even the hour before, I got so used to it...in fact, I really, really liked it. I do not like that I have to come back to reality, but I still doooooo. I planned on moving back to California, but there was 1 job in Utah that I decided would make it worth it to stay. So, 5 days after I got back, I got the job (at United Way). Scary, since I thought I had a month before deciding anything! The Lord doesn't work on my timetable though. I get to work with volunteers and help make the volunteer programs of partner nonprofits more successful. I also get to work on tons of service projects and hopefully get lots and lots of people involved. I'm a bit nervous, but this is something that I love and have always thought to be so important...so, it will be great. I'm still feeling a little bit returned missionary like. haha. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I feel kind of awkward and uncomfortable with most people. It helped that 2 weeks after I got back, my family surprised me and came to Utah for their spring break. I got to play lots of basketball with my brothers, games with everyone, go running/gym with my gpa and brother, go to conference with my two youngest brothers (who have never been), eat lots of yummy food, visit other family, run around the neighborhood on easter with bunny masks on delivering treats to widows (it was as ridiculous as it sounds), and hug my brothers lots and lots. Now, my sister will be up here in a week!

My 16 yr old brother is 6' 2 1/2" as is not done growing. His arms are disgustingly long, BUT they work great when it is freeeeezing outside. I really love my brothers.

Conference center babyyyy. Some really nice family sat behind us and took the picture afterwards. They told me about 5 times how sweet and cute my brothers and I were with each other. HA! I sure tricked them.

Just the precious little family in blue. Just look closely at Baci's smile.

Megan LOVES to get these shots of me. She is tricky. But, I did spend lots of time holding that cutie's hand. Better than any other boy.

He is a giant. and I am asian.

Lao

2010-03-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

So, I am not so good at blogging. I figure that I have my journal and that is probably most important. Plus, I have to pay to use the internet. One dollar an hour is just too much...

Lao was beyond beautiful and so much fun. We met a million travelers in the capital and hung out with them, rode bikes, watched the sunset, ate delicious food, stepped in the most disgusting sewage drain on the planet, met the senior service couples, and stayed in the nastiest guesthouse on the planet. On the way to Luang Prabang, via the VIP bus that was the grossest bus ever and had a bathroom that was so small I couldn't even step inside, we met three Israeli boys. We spent the next week with them and they definitely managed to keep me entertained. Lots of cards, laziness, bike riding, eating sandwiches on giant baguettes for one dollar, waterfalls, horribly steep hiking routes, and temples on every corner. After LP, the boys, Kami and me went to a small village in Northern Lao via a pick up truck for 3 1/2 hours (where I might have been sitting on a tiny, wooden chair in the middle that would regularly fall over causing me to hit people). No electricity, no internet, freezzzzzing cold showers, and a wonderful hammock. The village is right next to lots of hill tribe villages so we hiked to some of them while passing tons of cows and water buffalo. We hung out with a lot of the villagers and somehow we ended up going to pick vegetables with them. Really, we watched them pick these weeds from the rice fields that they apparently eat. I could have stayed in the village forever, but that would not have been responsible so we left those adorable Israeli boys and traveled 2 days and 500 hours back to Thailand.

Here is one of the little girls who went to pick vegetables. She could not stop smiling when I threw her on my back.

So many little babies are completely naked and I think it is hilarious and somewhat adorable (not in a creepy way!)

Sunset over the mighty Mekong. It is amazing to see how necessary this river is to the survival of the communities that surround it.

I know I look awesome.

Here is Kami and I if you couldn't figure it out. That scenery in the background is not photoshopped if you can believe it.

Here are my favorite Israeli boys.

This guy was ridiculous. We got to the waterfall and he was making this big scene taking off his shirt. He was so happy. When I went to get my picture taken he would not move and I spent 5 minutes trying to coax him off the rocks.

Here is a lovely scene from our bike ride in the capital city. Worak here somehow managed to break the chain off the bicycle. We spent an hour trying to fix it and it never worked. When I say we, I mean 4 Laotian boys who ended up making the chain worse.

Thailand

2010-02-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

Thailand. I went to three main area in Thailand. Northern, southern, and Bangkok. This awesome professor from BYU came with his wife and three students. They were so fun and it was definitely nice to stay in some places that didn't have cockroaches or lots of mold or dirty beds. We visited with lots of organizations that are doing some pretty incredible things. It is amazing to meet people who dedicate their entire lives to serving...especially in some remote area where they don't expect anything in return. Yet, they really do get extraordinary gifts in return and are so happy. Sadly, I don't have a picture of all the girls, but just imagine some great looking faces. After they left, I stayed down on the beaches in southern Thailand. I know, poor me. I think everyone in the world needs to take a trip down there. Just stay out of the bars.

This is the white temple. I know, creative name. It was pretty creepy actually. I mean it was really cool looking and everything. Just trust me on this one. There were some weird murals inside.

After the girls left, they gave us a bunch of junk- shampoo, soap, lots and lots of food, etc. We felt very homeless. We carried around about 4 huge plastic bag for a couple days. We had no idea what island to go to, but don't worry we figured it out. It just took a taxi, bus, stranger, passenger boat, pick-up to get there. And boy it was worth it.

This is a sign for the island we ended up at. It was about 80 percent muslim so there was barely strict alcohol laws and people wearing more clothes. I'll have you know that I counted 4 people with one-piece bathing suits. seriously. There were ten times more girls who were topless (not an awesome surprise) and men who were wearing questionable speedos. The zebra one was my fave.

Here is the sunset on Koh Yao Noi. Seriously incredible.

So we met some boat driver and we got him to take us to an island that had no people. And he delivered. We had about 4 hours on a perfect white sand beach and perfect clear water. Don't worry though, check out what our captain changed into or rather took off once we got there.

Yea. Those awesome undies are just his underwear. He proceeded to tell me that he has no wife and his children don't live with him so he was looking for a girlfriend. He asked me if I had a boyfriend and I told him I left him at home to work and pay for my trip. I'm not sure he realizes I am not looking for a 50 year old boyfriend who wears blue underwear on the beach.

Another blog to read...

2010-02-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

I've been in Thailand for almost 3 weeks now and I love it. I've been on the beach for 7 days now and I especially love that. I have even put on sunscreen multiple times each day to avoid wanting to die. But, of course, I have still become 20 shades darker...oh well! If you have any reason to want to see some pictures since they have been a little difficult to post, let me know and I will send you a link. Don't be shy.....

If you have any desire to read more, here is Kami's blog. I've written all the details in my journal and she is better at the details on her blog. The link is on the side of my blog.

I miss home a lot! and probably you if you are actually reading this!

More Myanmar **

2010-02-04T08:11:00.000-08:00

We went to the Shwedagon Pagoda one night in Yangon. It was the most ridiculous 2 hours of our trip thus far. These monks came up to us and talk to us forever. We weren't sure what the rules were exactly, as we both thought different things from past experiences. We felt super uncomfortable because they kept joking and sort of flirting. haha. They were giggly and we could not control our giggling. We finally got out of the situation and then they came and found us as we were trying to take one last picture. They asked for my email and have emailed me twice so far. One of them said we should meet again, but where we would go, I would have to pay because monks cannot. WHAT?? It was way strange. Either way, they were funny and our experience was definitely unforgettable.

Here is that last picture we tried to take. This is what happens when you trust someone else to take a picture. They cut out the only thing you want in it. They Shwedagon is incredible, but you will not get to see it because the man cut it off!

This is what Bagan looks like! I seriously couldn't believe I could be in someplace like this. Climbing through ancient temples with flashlights. The sunsets and sunrises were to die for.

This is at the top of Mt. Popa, an old volcano outside of Bagan. We are with some French friends we met. I love them- they were so interesting and fun. We spent a couple days with both of them. I'm pretty sure I'll be taking a trip to France just so I can visit the incredible places they live! This trip also brought my first encounter with monkeys. terrifying. We are walking up the 750 stairs to the top surrounded by monkeys. One mommy monkey was holding her dead skeleton baby and almost attacked me as if I killed the baby. I swear I did not- but, she did not believe me. The burmese ladies had to run over and move it away with their brooms. I attached myself to one of them for awhile after. Now I have no good feelings towards monkeys, which is just too sad.

This is some kid who decided to be our tour guide through one of the temples. We kept trying to ditch him so we didn't have to pay him money, but he would not leave. He was great though. At the end, he pulls out about 20 different bills- from ALL over the world: Trinidad and Tobago and Uzbekistan to name a couple. We gave him a crisp one dollar bill to add to the collection.

Here is Ubein Bridge. It is the longest stilt bridge in the world I believe. AND, I was terrified walking across the whole one hour it took. There is rotted wood and holes in the wood. Yet, there are tons of locals who seem to care less that the thing looks like it is going to fall down any second.

The three men here are called the 'Moustache Brothers.' Look them up. Seriously. They perform this comedy routine inside their house every night but Sunday. Before one of their performances at Aung San Suu Kyi's house, they drew straws to decide which brother would say the joke about the govt at the show. Par par Lay drew the straw and made the joke and 2 days later was in jail for 7 years. After the movie 'About a Boy' came out (where they mention his name), he was released. They are so proud of their fame and continue to have this show, only in English since they are banned from speaking Burmese in their shows. They continue to talk and inform anyone who comes about the govt. They are great examples of continuing to do something they believe to be so important. They said the govt. would just put them all in jail so they would stop doing the show, but tourists and Americans will get too mad, so they don't.

This is a fisherman on Inle Lake. It is a sight of rare beauty. Seriously though. We rode a boat out and saw hundreds of houses, all on stilts. Temples in the middle of the lake, floating GARDENS, beautiful weather, jumping cats, houses on stilts and mud piles, etc.

We had a random day with nothing planned so we walked (which we do very often). We kept walking and ended up in this village way on the outskirts of the small town we were staying in. We walked up to this little monastery where all these boy monks were working. One of them came up to us and motioned for us to take pictures and then just took us on this random walk through the hill, into a creeeeepy cave, to a reclining buddha, and then next to a cave where he picks up some snake skin. I pretended to go into the cave and that monk was not having it.

We got a chance to do a short internship with CARE Intl. We got permission to go into the Delta region where cyclone Nargis hit really hard. One of the towns had 40,000 before the cyclone- after 5,000. It was quite overwhelming to hear their stories. We got to go into villages and ask questions, visit with the people, see the work CARE did. I learned sooo much- it is really quite fulfilling to learn so much after college is over! We spent the night in CARE housing on a mat on the floor. One of the days we had to take a 2 hour boat ride just to get to the village! The picture above is of our CARE supervisor of sorts- He was super awesome and loved to talk. As we were driving on the most horrible roads I've ever experienced in my life in one of the remotest areas in the world, I hear the Star Wars theme song. I start laughing and trying to figure out where it is coming from. And then he pulls out this gigantic office phone from his backpack. It had a huge atenna and he just talks on it like it was no big deal. Kami and I were dying in the backseat. It probably doesn't sound very funny but I promise it was!

Here is one of the groups of women. They have a commitee where they try and continue to improve their community. They told us it would be another ten years before their community was anywhere near like it was before.

Here is the crew. CARE put in latrines throughout many villages and gave pigs and ducks to women headed households. (you can zoom in and see one of those pigs!).

Myanmar was a dream trip. It exceeded all all of my expectations and more. I've made dear friends for life and will never forget the things I saw there.

Share the gospel!

2010-01-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

So before I decided to go to Taiwan I was also planning on going on a mission. After some talks with the bishop, Taiwan was where I was supposed to go. He said I could share the gospel and make the same kind of impact in peoples' lives...that is if I tried. Now that I'm traveling I realize just how much you can share the gospel. Who cares if they don't speak your language! I collected a bunch of Thai pass along cards and they are like candy. Plus, they are free! Taxi drivers, strangers, teachers, etc. Anyways, just sayin, share the gospel. It has never been one of my biggest strengths, but it is kind of fun to work on it.

Kind of a random post and I plan to write more, but no pictures yet....AND everytime I get on the computer I forget my journal. I would remember nothing without that thing. ALSO, I am with a professor from BYU who is pretty rad. He brought a few students here and we are staying in a super nice hotel, which is a really great change from the super cheap, dirty hostels :)

Myanmar

2010-01-26T01:43:00.001-08:00

So, I have been traveling for a couple weeks now and it has been one incredible, strange, exhilarating, confusing, educational, fascinating, and beautiful. I went to Thailand first, then to Myanmar for a couple weeks, and now I am back in Thailand. It is pretty exhausting to have the kind of experiences that I have been each day. These kinds of days come once every year and now I am having them on a continual basis. I have met amazing people who are doing amazing things with their lives. I've already been able to see the amazing work NGO's have done in some of the poorest places in the world- and have had the opportunity to take part in some of that work- visiting villages in the middle of nowhere and sitting in the homes of strangers who treat you like you are family- handing out prosthetic legs to people who could not even think about the possibility of having a leg beforehand- visited monastery schools and sang ridiculous songs to the children who of course sang along or rather, mumbled along- helped with English classes with some of the most giggly and fun students- AND lots and lots of listening and learning from some truly incredible human beings. Myanmar is a strange country and there is quite a lot to talk about. Maybe I will find time later, but I am not checking the internet very regularly so we will see. I will try my hardest. The first day I went to the one small branch in the entire country. I talked for awhile after church with a sister named Janet. About an hour into the conversation she told me about her baptism and how she had to be carried into the font because she has a hurt hip and leg. As they pulled her out of the water she thought she had actually died because everything looked so different, so much more beautiful. After a few more minutes of conversation, I discovered she was actually the first member baptized in Myanmar. She invited about 15 people over to her house to learn from the first set of service missionaries who went to Myanmar. Everyone says she is quite the strength. She is too poor to come to church so she can only attend one Sunday a month. The taxi costs 6 usd each time.

Sister Janet is on the far right. Adorable Sister Alice is the other woman.

I don't really have much pictures loaded so I can't show you any, but I will soon enough! I miss home a lot, but everyday has been an adventure and such a learning experience so I am taking advantage of everything I can.

Kami schamy

2009-12-23T00:21:00.000-08:00

The girl on the right is my best friend and I think she is a babe and I also love her A LOT...even though she is strange and runs too much. And because she is willing to pick up my stranded sister in Idaho. My grandma will love her for that forever.

The point of the post however is the girl on the left. I figure she deserves a picture on my blog because I will spend the next 2 1/2 months by her side. We met in our nonprofit classes, were on the NMSA board together, went to a conference in Indiana together, and did the fundraising for Special Olympics this past spring. She is pretty great. She served her mission in Thailand and works at the MTC- well not anymore since she just graduated!! We have already planned loads of stuff for our trip, will be making rules so we don't drive each other crazy, scripture study in the morning (haha-individually) but we figure we will always want the spirit with us so this is the most important, exercising in the morning so we don't die, giving out lots of pass along cards, working with a bunch of nonprofits, visiting 5 or 6 countries, meeting loads of awesome people, seeing incredibly beautiful places, and having a pretty ridiculous, indescribable, relaxing, crazy, fun couple of months. More details to come....

Scaring kids

2009-11-30T23:56:00.000-08:00

This picture is great for many reasons. How great are those two older people completely asleep while they are with their grandchild. Good thing I was on that train to watch over the kid. More importantly, this picture represents/reminds me of all the children I made cry while in Taiwan. I am up to four as of today, but I'm sure there will be at least one more. While on the train this kid was smiling happily, playing with his grandpa. Then he caught a glimpse of me and froze. His grandpa was smiling at me and I just smiled at the little guy who then proceeded to frantically grab his grandfather, tear up, stand up, and turn around. He stood like this for the rest of the trip. His grandpa looked at me with apologetic eyes and tried to get the kid to turn around, but with no avail. I just tried not to laugh hysterically. I'm really glad I did not make my usual crazy face which is what I usually do when I see the cute little asian kids-Who knew this American face of mine would scare so many?? I'm hoping my confidence isn't lowered too much by this. Usually parents and kids love when the Americans will talk to them and they push their kids over to us so they can use their English. But, there are those who have never seen one (American) so we are a bit too scary for them. Oh, the joys of being a minority.

Oh my gosh.

2009-11-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't written a blog post in a long time, but I have just been dealing with some stuff, so we will leave it at that. Also, I lost my camera. lame.

So, I seriously never thought this would happen to me. Take that back...I've never in a million years even had this thought cross my mind.

I walked down to my kindergarten class, which is in the afternoon, today. I LOVE these kids. So I see my student Peter, age 4, walk into the school and he is wearing a red shirt. His face and arms are the exact color of his shirt. I freak out inside and the secretary sees him too. His head, face, arms, stomach, chest, and back are burning hot. The secretary talks to him and finds out his grandma gave him wine. It seriously looked like he was going to die. He also smelled nasty- alcohol nasty. He said he didn't want it, but his gma just told him to drink it. Oh gosh. Here in Taiwan, most grandparents live with their children. They watch their grandchildren during the day and take care of them. The cultural gap in grandparent to child to grandchild seems a lot larger than in America. The grandparents speak Taiwanese, the parents Chinese, and the kids English (or are at least learning it much more). I think the grandma gives him a little wine before he goes to bed. I know, way weird but maybe it is like giving your kid cough medicine to sleep (I think I've heard of that somewhere?). Both are bad, but people still do them. Sad. So, the secretary holds up her fingers and asks how many fingers she is holding up. He knows so we figure he isn't too drunk and that is about all we can do.

So the kid peed four times within 1 hour and a 1/2. Every time I asked a question he would just look at me for like 20 seconds and then answer. He asked to draw the high speed train on the board so I sad okay to see if he could do it. He walks up and drew two wheels and then just stood there and said, 'I forgot.' I told him to stand up (he was sitting on the floor) and he lost his balance and hit his head on the chair (not too hard). So I took him outside to the secretary where we continued the sobriety tests. poor little guy. He was only light red by the end of class so that was good. He totally knew he was acting strange and at the end of class he said, 'I came to school today and act a little crazy, teacher.' Yes, you did Peter....not your fault though.

haha. Here is Peter - don't you love that you cannot even tell he has eyeballs...

Don't mess with me.

2009-10-20T09:07:00.001-07:00

So, I might be taking tae kwon do. It is all in chinese and I do not really speak chinese. However, I think this makes it more fun. Our coach is awesome. His coach/owner of the studios is also awesome...They yell at the other kids, but never at me. haha. Don't worry, I do not take advantage of this, I just try harder so they won't have to yell at me. When my roommate Arwyn and I first went I'm pretty sure the other kids had no clue what to think of us. One kid and I did not quite see eye to eye, which led to fights (literally) every class. One of us would tease or kick each other and then the other would fight back, resulting in me picking him up. Of course, my shining face won him over and now he loves me (love is probably too strong a word, but we are definitely pals). All the kids finally got the courage to tell me their names and I think there is only one girl who is a little scared to talk to me. She just giggles whenever I talk to her...I think it might be because she does not understand any of the ways I try and communicate with her. I think I should also state that I have two coach crushes. Many people might not understand what this means. It simply means I love them because they are so great. nothing more. If we ever tip a little because we can't find our balance, they just say, 'drink beer,' motioning to their mouths. I hope they don't really think we come to class drunk.

We had our first belt test tonight and it was hilarious. We walked into the studio and literally everyone started to whisper and stare at us. All the kids who are at our studio were now the popular ones who were friends with the Americans. I felt like a piece of meat...c'mon, I'm just a middle-aged white person. Now imagine already being nervous to take a test in front of tons of parents and students (many black belts), but to add to this, everything is in chinese. I mean, our coach told us the chinese and I knew it when he said it, but this other guy was awful at speaking chinese. I understood nothing. But, thankfully I did remember the order so I really only messed up once....only because I did not know I was supposed to go so stop thinking I'm horrible at this whole karate thing! Apparently all the coaches turn into devils during the test...my coach showed me devil horns to tell me that this is what he becomes on test day. I motioned to him that this was not allowed and of course, he obliged. The owner of the studio, Mr. Low, was sitting next to us when we sat down and he kept saying, 'very good, very good, no problem.' He loves saying, no problem. It is 2 of the 10 english words he knows, which I think is the reason he uses it so much.

I'm pretty sure I look like a hobbit.

Watch out. I think I have a pretty solid punch now so ADAM, be careful next time I see you because I might beat you up!

My name is Michael Jackson

2009-10-13T08:17:00.001-07:00

Our school has two locations. When they first started as a school they had a smaller building a few blocks away from the present school. They now have kindergarten at the smaller school, which is where I teach every morning. I like being able to teach in both buildings because it allows me to leave every morning and actually get outside when some days it can be difficult. I will need to soon share pictures of those kids because they are beyond adorable.

Anyways, I get back at lunchtime every day and there is a group of students that are always eating lunch. So, of course, I go hang out with them for a little bit each day. Everyone is obsessed with Michael Jackson here, as are these 5 year olds...which means I do Michael Jackson moves for them. They now call me Michael Jackson more than my real name. I guess that isn't a bad trade off, except for the fact that the school probably wouldn't let the real Michael Jackson teach a bunch of kids. Just saying....

I love the reaction I get from them every day. Sometimes when I show up at the door, they pull out their fake guns and start shooting me and the other times they are hugging my legs and blowing me kisses. The other day they would not stop getting up and hugging me. I don't know what drugs they were on, but they seriously would not stop. I had 3 kids in the front hugging and little Owen comes behind me and is hugging my bum/leg. He proceeds to ask me if he can kick my bum. I'm trying to process what he asked me because it really makes no sense (the kid loves to hug me and kiss me if he can) and he can't even reach my bum with his foot. Don't worry, he did not kick me, he KISSED me on my bum. hahahahhaa. I thought I was going to die from laughing so hard. I don't know what gave him the idea that you can kiss bums, but he thought it would be okay. I don't even think he realized that it would be weird...he is just such a sweet little boy. Either way, I thought it was hilarious. However, I hope that kids do not continue kissing my bum because it is a little weird.

I had taken a bunch of pictures of them from a field trip the other day, but I lost my camera so I lost the pictures......But, here are a few, plus one taken from another teacher :)

Little Owen (the bum kisser) and Brandon. These are the sweetest of the group. They give me hugs every day. (That is a the peel of a pomelo fruit on his head. Kids do it all the time here.)

Winnie and Julia. Today I told Julia that my mom's name was Julia and she had the biggest smile I've ever seen. She would not stop talking about it the entire day. I teach kindergarten in the evening as well and I have a very interesting student, Peter. He speaks english pretty well and he is very articulate. Winnie was getting picked up by her mom and came over to me and my class to say hi. After she leaves, I tell my students to say goodbye and Peter says, Winnie is sooo beautiful. haha. He is 4. I have no clue where he has learned this language, but it is pretty funny when he comes up with this random stuff. But, I do agree, she is a beautiful little girl.

Julia again. She has the greatest laugh on the planet except for maybe John Gibbons. Please excuse the way I look...I think I woke up about 5 minutes before the picture was taken and it was the hottest day EVER.

Carson=personality. I love this kid. He is sweet and energetic and funny. And, who can resist a kid with a bucket hat and an apron.

Angelica. She is such a cute little girl. She is the daughter of the director of the school so she is around all the time. Don't you love the closed asian smile eyes!?

These are most of the kids. Our director, Frances tells them to pose in the most hilarious ways. They have to tilt their heads and put their little peace signs up.

Perfect Saturdays

2009-10-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

This is very long...which I am okay with.

First Saturday:

So, a previous blog post might have shown my love for BYU football. I was quite devastated that I could not watch the BYU/OKLAHOMA game, so when I found out that it was being broadcasted on BYU tv on Friday at 7 pm (Sat @ 9 am), I was happy. I sat in my little bed with my BYU attire on and watched the whole game on my laptop.

Then, we met up with a bunch of friends and went to a waterfall about an hour away from my apartment. FYI...it is not very comfortable to ride a scooter for 3 hours in one day. But, it can be really fun. The drive was incredible...the hills are so green and we were driving up windy, hilly roads.

After getting back we went into Taichung and had curry...yummm.

Here is part of the drive up.

When we hiked down to the waterfall there was this monk meditating. It was so beautiful.

I tried climbing up the waterfall, but there was so much moss. It looks way easier than it was...there was a rope higher up that you could use to climb, but you had to get to it which was the hard part. I did not give up though :)

See! We all slid down together and maybe I got kicked in the thigh...hard. But, it was funny.

Second Saturday:

My friend Kim is serving a mission in Taipei and just happens to be at temple square...so I called her to get a tour (mostly so I could hang out with her). We took the train to Taipei, which is always great. I love train and bus rides, especially long ones. Yes, you might think I'm being sarcastic, but this is not the case. I love looking out the window, taking 5 minute naps here and there, listening to music, reading, practicing chinese, etc. The temple was great as usual- Kim, or Sis. Chang took us to the second level of the church office building so we could see the temple. She told us to look out and think about why it was special to us. I thought about how amazing it is that so many temples are in the middle of the city (LA and Taipei)...you enter the grounds and there is silence. The spirit is automatically present and seems to wash away the outside. I realized the somewhat significant parallel between your home and the temple grounds. I've always hoped that my future home would be somewhere that you can walk into and feel the spirit...that it would be a happy, comfortable, and loving place. I need to always make sure that I'm living the life that would help me to have a home like that.

After the temple we went to the Chaing Kai-Shek Memorial. wowzers. It is beautiful. There is a giant memorial, reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial (which I have never been too, but those pictures online reminded me of it :) ) There is a main building with the statue of the first president of Taiwan, who was a pretty awesome guy, and a museum below. There are two other huge buildings on the site that are also beautiful. In the museum, an older man walked up to my friend Janae and started speaking to her in Chinese. They seemed to be talking about me and my friend, Wendy. We started speaking to him and I could not understand any of his English. I felt so bad cause I just kept nodding and smiling, feeling like an idiot. I tried really hard to understand him because he was so nice. After a few minutes, his accent seemed to clear up and I could understand everything he said. There is a lot more to the story that I will keep to my journal, but lets just say that it was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had in my life. Heavenly Father really does put us in the right places at the right times to help us learn and grow. The man's name was Charles Lee and he continually told me in our conversation that, 'To live is to learn.' That is really easy to forget! I love to learn, but sometimes my life can get so busy that I forget to put that extra effort to really learn new things. I figure learning how to teach can keep me busy...along with tae kwon do and learning Chinese so here's to learning! After the memorial we went to the Longshan Temple. wow, it was pretty. There were so many people praying and monks all over the place. I love seeing temples on almost every street, although this one was much bigger than most. After the second temple of the day we went to Snake Alley/Huaxi night market in Taipei. It was nice to just relax and walk around, except the fact that I might have had to really go to the bathroom and those are not easy to find around downtown Taipei.

Here is the little group from the day, including Kim and her super cute companion. I look funny in this picture, just like every other picture I take here.

That is me, in case you didn't remember what I looked like...

This picture is to show how the temple is right in the city and of course, right next to a gas station.

Longshan Temple. People love their incense and candles. It was so smoky.

Here are all the offerings because of ghost month. My favorite are the 7-11 type snacks. They put out so many random kinds of food....it kind of made me hungry, but I thought it might not be a good idea to take the food.

I loved watching these people pray. There are hundreds of people praying so reverently as if no one else is around.

The man, Chiang.

They sure love him here. I highly contemplated buying this little treasure.

Here is my pal and I. The guy is still a professor at the age of 85 and was a scientist for the rest of his life. He had me read a sort of paper that he wrote about the necessity of love in the relationship between China and Taiwan. It reminded me of Israel and Palestine as well.

So there was this exhibition of art at the museum. Every piece was made out of real flowers or leaves or some kind of plant. It was so funny...and a little cool in its own special way. I actually liked this one, mostly because it was made of daisys and was a pretty dress. Most of them had creepy birds and trees.

Here is a video of this super random band playing, Hey Baby, which they play at every BYU game. I've been to this memorial twice and they were there both times. The sound is not so good and please notice the boy in the midriff in the back.

Third Saturday from heaven:

I got to sleep in! Well, that means until 8:30, but it is better than 7:30 every other morning....just the life of a hard-working teacher. Some friends and I went to the morning market in town. It was so nice...all different kinds of stands and people. I bought an incredibly soft pillow, which still has not helped with my horrible sleeping problems that have developed here in Taiwan, but it is still nice to have something soft. Then we went to a bbq at one of our secretary's orchard (not where she lives). It was on the outskirts of our town, so there were much fewer buildings. She had a small house and a sweet, old, handmade basketball hoop, along with a fishing pond. We played on bikes, fished in the pond (where I caught 2 fish and cooked them right after- I ate it right of the bone. yum.), ate incredible food (which they did not stop cooking the ENTIRE 5 hours) including ROOT BEER, which was bought at Costco , and went on a walk through the hills to a bridge and tunnel. Besides the fact that I seriously could not cool off, the day was really relaxing and wonderful.

These asparagus were at the morning market. The big ones were about 2X the size of my thumb in width- about 4 normal size asparagus put together. mmmm.

I liked these chickens particularly because they still had their mohawk in tact.

I walked so close to this bag I nearly stepped on it. I jumped quite high when I realized they were huge toads. what? There were also a bunch of eels and other creepy stuff. Sometimes I do not understand the Taiwanese people.

The basketball hoop and hill behind the orchard.

These little guys were so cute. They are the twin sons of one of our secretaries. The one of the right was so smiley the whole time.

I love Fenny. She is one of our secretaries, but really just my friend. Plus, she majored in English and speaks like an American.

The bridge. super exciting. This bridge is part of a bike trail- when we got to it, someone mentioned that we should high five the bikers as they went by. You see, in America this would seem like a normal thing to do. Not in Taiwan. I high fived like 50 people- one guy gave me an actual handshake as he was riding his bike by us. It was mostly just the younger people that understood what I was doing with my hand pointing, open palmed, at them.

Palm trees on the walk.

I suggest to everyone to have your saturday's be perfect as well. It is like a present every weekend.

I don't know how it happened...

2009-09-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

So, when I taught my beginning kindergarten class (as in they don't speak any english!) for the first time I thought I was in big trouble. I left class for the first couple weeks not knowing how to tackle the problems they had. One has a handicap where he can't walk super well...he walks on his tip toes so it makes it hard to jump, walk, run, dance, etc. He is also really sensitive and had a really hard time listening. Two of them would scream out random English words constantly. One would roll all over the floor and completely not listen. They grabbed my chest, butt, hit me, etc. It wasn't too fun to say the least. I tried a lot of different things and some worked and some didn't. I would have to send them out to the secretaries for discipline because they didn't understand me. I kept hearing how horrible the twin boys' behavior is from the secretaries.

But....

It happened! They are incredible, cute, sweet, loving, precious, smart, fun, and they behave (at least most of the time!). I had to write it down or else I would seriously not believe it. And I think it is not a phase since it has been pretty great for a month now. They speak a pretty amazing amount of english for 3 months and I get to deal with their behavior instead of pawning them off to the secretaries.

We have so much fun. They are like this cute little family. They give hugs to me every day and to each other when someone gets hurt. They laugh like nobody's business. When one of the kids misbehaves, I can't explain too much because they wouldn't understand much, so I tell them it was not good to do it and have them sit in this chair away from everybody else. I walked Lion over to the chair the other day and told him to sit down...but I realized the chair was right next to a table and I knew he would play with the table the whole time. So...right when I told him to sit down, I realized the chair was next to the table and moved the chair a couple feet away from it. It was straight out of a movie. He sat/fell right to the ground. I screamed because I thought for some reason he would be hurt, but he just gets up and looks at me strangely. The whole class realizes what happened and we seriously laughed for 5 minutes. I hope I explained that well enough. Although they are so little, I forget they understand a lot. I love how we think the same things are funny.

Yesterday in class we were gluing some shapes on a crown and a pincher bug crawled across the table. They all screamed so loud and started freaking out. I had to think fast and capture the bug before they fainted. When I finally did, they all laughed at each other for being scared.

Here are some pictures of my cute little students:

The many faces of Evan...

This one is definitely my favorite. This kid is so cute and so small...I just want to eat him. He walks around saying, 'I am small.' And he sure is...seriously tiny.

Hahaha. I keep this wig in my classroom at all times. It is perfect if ever class gets boring (very rare, of course) or if I want the kids to laugh. Also, this is Peter...he is new to the class. The other day (only his second day in class) I brought a bucket into class. He walks up to me and says, 'Teacher, what a beautiful bucket.' What the heck? I didn't even think this kid spoke english. I laughed so hard. I didn't know buckets could be beautiful. hmmm, something to think about.

Okay, click on this picture. Parents don't really care about their childrens' baby teeth, but this is definitely the worst I've seen x 5. The teeth that are missing did not fall out...they are rotting away. She is still so cute.

This is Joy. Seriously, how cute is she? Gosh, look at her cute little hair! She is quite clingy though...sometimes I have to pry her off my leg. She is also super smart.

And this is how ugly Joy can get. haha. I told the kids to make crazy face and she pulls out this one. It kind of frightened me, but not enough to not take the picture. priceless.

I think this might be a funnier picture. Sometimes when the kids are making crazy faces, they make asian eyes?? What?? It's so funny. I'm not sure they realize they already have little almond shaped asian eyes.

I tie my kids up with jump ropes when they are bad. Don't judge me.

Twin brothers love each other.

Beetlemania

2009-09-20T07:26:00.001-07:00

I don't get it. Really. The kids here LOVE beetles. We have show & tell every Friday. The kids love sharing their crazy asian trinkets. Not once, but twice, beetles were brought in for show & tell. The latest ones were 4 x as big as the first one.

I was brave the first time. Don't worry, I was seriously freaking out. My kids were loving it. Thankfully, I survived.

What the?? These ones didn't smell very good close up. They do look pretty cool. It is kind of sad. Kids put them in a tiny box that is filled with these little shavings. That's it. You can't even see the beetles because they are buried in the shavings.

I did not hold this little guy. Aragon told me it bites. I was not taking any chances.

Haha. Larson HAD to have a kissing picture after he saw mine. I sure like this guy. (the kid, not the beetle).

2009-09-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

Red Sox and Yankees, friends on the front of a hat in Taipei. Jae, we can actually be friends!

byu FOOTBALL

2009-09-06T02:56:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend. Okay, not really.

All I can think about right now on a sunday evening is how I missed the BYU/OU football game. I've spent the last hour trying to find clips, reading stats, and even got a bad virus (cleaned up, hopefully, by a wonderful roommate) when I clicked on some dumb link. Then, I realized how I am going to probably miss every game. During my last BYU football game as a student, last touchdown of the game, I got to go down to the field and shoot the cannon. How sweet is that? Either way, I am really sad that I can't go to the games or even watch them.

Favorite things about football games, besides the game, which I do watch so stop thinking what you're thinking, at BYU:

1) Cosmo. I know, pathetic. But, I just love the cougar.
2) The cosmo videos at the end of the 3rd quarter. Lame, but still great.
3) Tiger's Blood snowies. Mmmmm. Although, I don't like the bees that hang out at the flavor dispenser thingys.
4) Trying to find a ride to the game. Probably one of my favorites was Seth taking me on the motorcycle and then going back to the apt. to get Megan to meet me. All after backpacking for two days. Oh Seth...you are the greatest. My other favorite, even though it wasn't me, was my brother and his roommate getting picked up by the girl's soccer coach on a golf cart. haha.
5) The fight song. My mom used to sing it to me to wake me up and I did not like it then. But, now I sing it by choice. Rise and shout, baby!
6) Seeing my grandpa at the games, during halftime, in his sweet orange hunting beanies.
7) Friends...I miss them so much, sappy, I know, but I don't care.
8) Not studying so I can go to a game...I graduated, so I guess it didn't matter :)
9) Wearing blue

Dress up anyone??

2009-09-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

Man, I LOVE my first grade class. They are full of energy, crazy, spazzy, annoying (haha, I actually love it), and loud. I usually bring in objects for them to write about...one day, I brought some of my own things...clothes, towels, hats, bags, shoes, etc. They are obsessed with putting on everything. They are a happy little bunch.

Aren't they the cutest things in the world?!

Jason, ready to go fishing or hunting...

William...in my pajama shorts. haha.

Becca, using a tae kwon do belt as a scarf.

haha. I LOVE this kid. He put on everything I owned and brought to class on his body. All the kids were laughing so hard.

Belinda in all her weirdness. She can sure make some crazy noises.

Emily doesn't like taking pictures. At least I got this one of her looking like a crazy psycho.

Becca...has clothes on under the towel, don't worry.

William also has clothes on underneath the towel.

I did reading assessments this week with every student and it was interesting to see how different everyone was. We read this book where a kangaroo accidentally spilled milk on her friend and splashed water on another friend. I asked them what they would do if that happened to them and 5 of the 7 said they would be really mad or would tell the teacher. There were those 2 though that said they thought it would be funny and they couldn't figure out why they should be mad. I wish all kids would have answered that way...I loved how I expected those 2 to say that as well. They are such good natured kids. All of them have to go to school for about 9 hours every day, if not more. They don't spend much time with their families and therefore, most of the disciplining has to take place at school. And, most places in Taiwan, you are allowed to hit students when they misbehave. Don't worry, I'll never go there...I have hugged them a few times though when they are bad in class. They secretly love it.

Next week is all about dinosaurs. I'm excited. I know it is bad to lie, but I might have told my students that I have a pet dinosaur. He/she is a little taller than me. I seriously did not think they would believe me, but they TOTALLY do. They ask me almost every day about it...and to make matters worst, they have told a bunch of other students in the school. I get random kids coming up to me and asking about my dinosaur. I try not to go to into it, but I have told them that I will bring it to class in October. This should give me sufficient time to figure out how I am going to bring an extinct animal to class. Don't judge me.

Taipei: Take Two

2009-08-30T03:57:00.000-07:00

I love that I have a temple to go to that is only 3 hours away. Two months ago, I had a temple that was 3 minutes away. In some ways, it is easier to go to the temple here. You have to make a plan to go, but in Provo those plans could change too quickly. I also really love being in a different country and going to the temple. They only have 2 baptism sessions in a week...both on Saturday. So, when we got there, it was pretty crowded and they only have one changing room for girls. So, we sat in a room upstairs in the temple with other people who were waiting. One of the women played the piano and we sang hymns. The woman only could play a couple songs, so after she stopped, one woman (in broken english) asked my roommate and I to start singing songs and then they would join along. This means we do a duet, while they try to figure out where they start singing in chinese. Lucky for me I have a superstar voice (not). It is also really hard to remember the english words while everyone is singing chinese. Sometimes we would resort to singing in chinese...even though I am positive we butchered it. Either way, it was just really peaceful and beautiful. I love how music can touch peoples' souls.

There is a big office building and church on the temple grounds. When I walked into the church before going to the temple, the first person I saw was my good friend Kim Chang. She is fabulous. We stared at each other for a good 10 seconds and then started laughing. Seriously a blessing. While walking to the temple from the train station, I was talking to my friend Vivian. She is only 17 and said to me how she wanted to go inside the temple one day. I told her she should try her hardest to do just that because it is so worth it. When we were at the temple, she was going to have nothing to do, until I saw Kim. Sister Chang gave her a tour and talked to her more about the church. I also got Sis Chang's cellular digits so I can call her when I am back in Taipei. She is a temple square missionary, but is also a proselyting missionary. It is so wonderful to see people here that I have known before. It's like a little piece of home.

This is Janae, Me, Fenny, and Vivian.

We went to a huge night market afterwards in Taipei and found this little guy. He was for sale...for about 75 US dollars. Weird.

Okay, I think this is one of the weirdest things I have seen here so far. I saw one of those machines with the claw that you can grab stuff with (which are also impossible to win at...even though I have won a couple times in my day) these things in it. I regretted not taking a picture, but luckily I found another store that was selling them. It is fake bread. Don't worry though, it smells like bread. What the ?? People buy this stuff and I have NO clue what it is for. I love it though.

Here is the cute little group. Colin was also there, but he ducked when the picture was being taken...so I hit him.

What should my fingers do in this picture??

2009-08-16T08:33:00.001-07:00

This is the hardest class I have. I know, when you look at them you would never think it. It is mostly because of one of those twin boys. BUT, it is getting better through lots of trial and error. (The picture is missing my other little girl student, Joy).

This is Evan. Except he says his name is 'Eban.' He is THE cutest child/little elf at the school. He is pint size. It is quite cute. He is OBSESSED with the word saturday and the color blue. He will just yell out my name as loud and high pitched as he can while also screaming saturday. I have no clue why he has this obsession, but it can be pretty cute (and maybe sometimes loud and overwhelming). They sit on mats during class sometimes and I hand out these tokens...he will only take the token if it is blue and sit on a mat if it is blue.
I have no clue why they do these random poses with their fingers in a V or poking their face. It is strange. Most kids here do not know how to smile, but this little one sure does...and it melts your heart.

This is Harry. He is so funny. He always comes into class all solemn. After a few days, I started asking him if he was sad or happy. He usually says happy in a quiet little voice, except for this one time when he looked extra sad. He just looked at me and said, 'teacher, i'm sad.' Talk about breaking your heart. Now, to prevent this boy from being sad in class, the second he comes into class, I pick him up, throw him over my shoulder, and spin him around. He giggles so much and is happy the rest of the class. At the beginning of class now I make crazy faces for the kids because they, for some reason, get a huge kick out of it. They make crazy faces too, but are quite bad at it. Crazy faces means you do not look cute, but these kids still do. When I took my camera out they never wanted to stop making crazy faces into the camera.

This is Jessica. Now that she knows the words, 'I want,' she screams them at the top of her lungs. She is quite the little helper and always pulls my shirt when I am setting up class to ask (in body language) if she can help set up the board. She also has the worst teeth I have ever seen in my life. seriously. Most of them are gone or almost completely rotting away. Parents here don't really care about their childrens' baby teeth. The boys always bump into her and she gives them a dirty look...it is so funny.

This is Lion. Yes, Lion. He is one of the twins. And boy does he know how to do the macarena. It is adorable. I also have no clue what he is doing in this pose. Kids do the most random stuff here. Also, his glasses are so cute...especially when he takes them off and cleans them on his shirt. haha.
This is Justin. The other twin (the naughty one). Again, I do not understand this hand positioning thing...fingers in the mouth, really? Either way he is still cute. Whenever he hits someone else, I take him aside with that kid and I tell him it was not nice. After the three words I speak to him, he starts crying. I have no clue why because I definitely do not act mad and he is not the one who was hit. I'm still trying to figure him out completely. I think he just needs a lot of positive attention.

Here are the little devils. Too bad they are so adorable.

Churchy church

2009-08-16T07:40:00.001-07:00

Many of you probably thought I moved over here to escape church...but I didn't!! jk. lame joke. I love church. We go to the international branch that takes a 15 min walk, 40 min bus ride, 5 min walk. The average time from start to finish is about 6 1/2 hours for church. The branch consists of about 10 teachers, a senior missionary couple who are SO wonderful (they work in the mission office), the mission president and his wife, the ap missionaries, 5 families that have 2 kids each, and a few other people. The average attendence is probably 30. Just a little different from BYU.

When I went to church the first time, the first person I saw at the front door was my friend Kristy! Now she is back from her mission, but it was fun to see her every sunday for a little bit.

Today, two members of the stake spoke so we needed translators. One of the ap's who is a native chinese speaker translated (he does not really know english...my guess is they thought it would help him improve). It was so funny. The woman speaking would say something and if it was too long the missionary would start making scared, nervous faces. His eyes would get big and he would make this funny smile...and you could tell he was trying so hard to figure out what to say. Basically I got out that the talk was on 'grateful.' I will try and remember to be. The woman was so cute though. She was nervous because she didn't know english. I feel bad sometimes because they feel bad that they don't speak english...which makes no sense! I should be the one who feels bad (I do, don't worry) because I invaded their country.

That's me!

This a nice little full size view of church.

This is the branch president's son. Oh my goodness is he cute. When I sing songs to him he cannot control laughing (and not because I sound bad...) and it makes me laugh even harder...it is way contagious. His mom says he just LOVES music.

Look at that face. I wish I could just have an assortment of children to play with at my every whim.

She has got attitude, personality, and a super cute face.

Here is Kristy and I...darling.

I'm a Spy

2009-08-16T04:24:00.000-07:00

I am an official resident of Taiwan. When I got here I had to take a picture, similar to a passport picture. EXCEPT, they touch up your face so you look like a different person. It is so funny. I laughed so hard when I saw the photo. When I got my resident card, there was no mistaking that I look like a spy...especially with that hologram thingy over my face.

Typhoons are not good...

2009-08-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

I take back the last comment. Turns out this typhoon was not so great.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6789924.ece

It has killed people in the Phillipines, Taiwan, and now China. I stayed inside for 3 days- church and school canceled. It can be pretty claustrophobic/horrible sitting inside for 3 days, reading the news, feeling sad for the families, and celebrating your bday (do not ask how old i am)... I'm grateful that all I had to deal with was claustrophobia and super crazy wind/rain howling through the night and day, while there were so many others who were trying to save their family members. This is definitely not what I expected when I heard that a typhoon was coming and we would have no school...Please pray for the families and people over here.

What the??!!!!

2009-08-06T04:30:00.000-07:00

Ummm, here's the deal. One of the secretaries just came up to our place to tell us that tomorrow is TYPHOON DAY. That means no school, but we still get paid. How lovely... I've never had a free day off of school. I think this could be pretty great.

I've been....

2009-08-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

groped. I know, not what you expected. And don't worry, it was from a child. I figured not everyone would want to know this, but I did not want to forget it.

One of my possessed twins hit his brother. So I took them aside to talk to them and he just started balling...before I even said anything! He snuggles up to me like he wanted a hug so I patted his back (I know, not super sympathetic, but he had just whacked his brother for no reason). Then he takes a step back, stares straight at my chest and grabs it...totally on purpose. I just knew he was possessed. Don't worry, ten minutes later he full on grabbed my butt. The same little angel has now pulled my hair and hit me twice. Yet, he still wants to hug me all the time. And, if you can believe it, they are finally getting a little tiny bit better in class.

Oh the joys of teaching. I just have to keep reminding myself that all those years I worked with special needs kids, I would get much worse. There is nothing like getting choked, thrown to the ground, punched, kicked, or slapped across the face so hard it makes you cry automatically. haha. It is a good thing I still LOVE kids. Most of them are fabulous :)

I like Taipei.

2009-08-04T05:11:00.000-07:00

The temple! For some reason, before I came here, I did not connect the fact that there was a temple in Taiwan. I figured the closest was in Hong Kong, meaning I couldn't go to the temple for over 6 months. But of course, I am again mistaken and there is one a mere 2 1/2 hour trip away. AND, it is beautiful. So they only have two times that you can do baptisms every week...saturday at 10 am and 1 pm. Let's just say it is a teeeeeeeeeeny tiny temple. We went with our branch and took a sweet bus up there. A few of us girls went and did baptisms while the rest either went around the city or went to the other part of the temple.

That is where the adventure started. The changing room/shower/bathroom was the size of a mouse hole. With 6 people there, it was overcrowded. We only had one place to change, so it took us awhile to get everyone in and changed. The font is 1/3 the size of a normal font and I was afraid I would hit my head because I'm too tall! haha. We sit about 3 feet from the font so everyone is nice and close...which I like. The confirmations were all in chinese and I could barely hear if they were saying my name. The faces on those getting baptized were so beautiful. For most of them, it was probably their first or second time going to the temple and they all looked so nervous. I realize more now how much I take the temple for granted. Everytime someone got out of the font, they would mop up the water with this little sponge mop. haha. If they didn't, the place would have flooded because it was so small.

We ended up not taking any pictures before because we just wanted to get into the temple, which sadly was a bad idea. We left the temple and it was raining SO hard. The kind of hard where you do not stay dry after 1 second in the rain. We ran hugging each other under umbrellas to the stake center trying to wait out the rain. We then ran across the street to this tiny tiny tiny shop that shouldn't have fit all 6 of us. The rain never stopped and so we decided to head out to find food while the rest of the people finished up at the temple.

Don't worry, the day gets better. We finally found a place to eat and one of the roommates wanted to go to 7-11 to get a poncho. I dropped her off to the 7-11 that was right next to the restaurant (which we found out later was not a 7-11). After about ten min she hadn't shown up to the restaurant. She couldn't be found in the store which I thought was 7-11 or the real 7 that was next door to that. We all figured she went to meet up with the bus. So, we headed back in the pouring rain and met up with everyone else. Except she was nowhere to be found. We all got in the bus and waited as one person ran to the restuarant to see if they could find her. He came back with nothing. So then the senior missionary and branch president left (still pouring) to try and find her. By now it had been an hour and they couldn't find her. So, all 12 or so of us split up and searched everywhere possible. We found lots of missionaries around the temple, policemen, a couple people got a taxi to search, but still nothing...over 2 hours later. I, of course, am the biggest worrier on the planet. seriously, it's horrible. I probably thought up the most horrible things that could have happened. We thought she might have just gone to our next destination, Taipei 101, but she ended up not being there either. Since it was almost 4 hours later and she had not been found, they called our apt. She had just gotten home...She couldn't find us and didn't see us in the restaurant so she took a train back. I am definitely just glad nothing that I thought up in my brain happened! Either way, it was funny (in the end), and I was still wet, 6 hours later.

Taipei 101, if you didn't know is the tallest building in the world!!!! Don't worry, I had no clue until someone told me while I was there. Kind of pathetic. There is a building in Dubai that is taller, but it is not yet finished, so it doesn't count! Let's just say, pictures were not the easiest thing to take because of the height. Because it was raining, we didn't go to the top...but, I definitely will before I go.

Here is the temple, via the internet because if you didn't read anything above, it was pouring rain.

Here is my image, much worse...but, I'm sure you get the idea.

Here is me hiding under an awning- sadly this is the only picture I have with the temple. I'm not too worried since I'll go a few more times.

This is a nice little close up of my face and a sign. We didn't have much room to work with under the little awning thing.

Here is the little store. haha. It was so tiny.

Don't I look so sweet?? haha, I take too many pictures that look like this. I'm probably the only one who thinks it is funny. Except for Jen most likely.

Here is the little restaurant we ate at, soaking wet. They probably had to mop the whole place after we left.
Here is me and 1/4 of Taipei 101. I might have gotten on the ground to take a picture of my friend and the men standing around me were laughing at me. Don't they know the value of a good picture?? C'mon.
The whole building! (It's not really sideways like that).
I took a quick stop in NYC.

Here is the whole thing again, except for it's night (in case you didn't notice).

Asian waterpark...

2009-08-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

I figured this would be the first picture you would want to see of me- because of my attractiveness level, but anyways...here it is. Me in all my glory.

How much better looking do people look in swim caps? Tons. Actually, I didn't think I would like them, but they're great. Zero fussing about hair.

Just us girls with our cute swim caps. I seriously loved them. Especially when Lindsay would put all of her hair right on top.

No clue what these statues are for. But, they are rad.

Here is an up close shot of the asian version of Barbara Bush.
Okay, I'll be honest. My favorite part of the water park was the spandex and speedos. I probably saw 5 boys total wearing normal swim trunks. Otherwise, it was these bike short spandex looking things or speedos (and not too covering). Most of the little kids were wearing these little swim caps with ears or swimming outfits with wings. haha, it was so cute.

When we finally got to the water park, after the 30 min scooter ride, and the very long and semi- steep hill to get up to the park, we were all drenched in sweat. Fine, not a pretty picture, but an honest one. So...it felt so incredible to actually be wet with water. The slides were great and the waves in the wave pool were huge- nothing like the wimpy water bumps at seven peaks. The lazy river was not just cement and a few lame water spraying things. It was dark by the time we went on and there were tons of plants and little waterfalls. The frogs out were really loud and there were these asian/mayan inspired sculptures and what not. It was so relaxing.

One of my favorite parts was when i was on my friends' back going over one of the tsunami style waves- I fell off onto this guy's lap and then another wave came and set me right back into him. haha. I was laughing so hard- boys here don't really touch girls so I'm sure it was awkward for him- which makes it even better.

Another favorite was how entertained the people were with our screaming. Everytime we got on a slide we would scream and the people would errupt with laughter. I guess taiwanese people just don't scream...I love how me being myself is enough entertainment for them.

Storytime...

2009-07-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

For the past couple weeks I have been trying to figure out what level my first graders are at and what they have already learned. During writing today I told them to write a story about anything they wanted- it just had to be at least six sentences. This is what I got.

Aladdin found a genie. The genie is big and it is blue. He gave Aladdin a wish. He wished to have a kiss from a princess. The princess wanted to give a kiss. Aladdin and princess are happy.

One day there was a princess named Miss Lisa. She is very pretty. And she is smart. But one time she saw a prince. And the prince saw her. They are very happy so they got married. (This one is my favorite...such a simple, lovely story).

One day, teacher wanted everyone to draw a fish. Bing's mother go to buy fish. Bing looked at the gray fish and Bing yelled, you throw away fish! Mother sayed we need to cut fish so we can eat it. Bing and mom go home and everyone eat fishes except for Bing don't want to eat fishes. Bing is sad the fishes shirt is gone. Bing looked water inside fishes and drawed it. Tomorrow teacher wanted everyone to show fish. Emily draw two red fishes. Belinda draw yellow fish and Jason draw five big fishes.

One time there was an ant. The ant was small. The ant's name was Max. Max liked to eat ice cream and candy. Max was eating the ice cream and candy. A person ate the ice cream candy, and Max.

One day there was a princess named Miss Lisa. She played outside and saw a tiger. The tiger wanted to eat Miss Lisa. Miss Lisa said, You are crazy! The tiger ate Miss Lisa.

Six dollars

2009-07-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sure any college student knows or remembers how buying food wipes out all of your money. It is the worst...that first grocery shopping trip that costs you 100 dollars. So I went to the grocery store today with only 250 taiwanese dollars, not realizing that it was only about 7.50 american dollars. I only spent 6 american dollars in the end! I got 4 bananas, a box of crackers, 2 HUGE carrots, an onion, a plum, a carton of grape juice, a loaf of bread, and mango popsicles for six dollars. Not bad, eh?

I like being a teacher.

2009-07-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

Hopefully I'll still love it in a couple of months...

* I love little Cooper who moves his mat to come sit next to me. He tries to hold my hand and kiss me. He also says, "I lub you." It melts my heart. I also started calling him chunk sometimes because he is chubby and he repeats it to me and it makes me laugh so hard.

* I love how Jason CANNOT sit still in his chair. He now sits in a desk right next to mine. He loves it. The other kids are jealous and when he was absent for the week on vacation they fought over who would get to sit there.

* I love the one angel student in my smaller kindergarten class, Jessica. I think all of the other children are possessed, but she is always sweet and smiles at me even though she doesn't know what I'm saying. haha.

* I love that Emily brings a snack EVERY DAY to class and walks around to every desk placing the treat on it instead of handing it to each student.

* I love when Lori does the hokey pokey and she puts her right and left hip in- it makes me want to die she is so cute. I will get a video of her doing it and you will understand. I also love when they put there nose in and they scrunch up their little faces.

* I also love how Carol giggles all the time and would be perfectly happy to just sit on my lap all day long.

* I love this huge mat that they have which I put into the shape of a house when they are being good. They are obsessed with it- all we do is sit inside and say our numbers and sing the alphabet, but they cannot get enough. The second they see me touch the mat they are screaming at me using any english word they can think of.

* I love when Yvonne comes to class with a mask on her face because she is sick- everything she tries to say is all mumbled.

* I love how much my first graders love our secret handshake and pokemon cheer.

* I love that my kindergarteners discovered group hugs today. One of the kids was sad so I asked if she needed a hug. I hugged her and all the other kids came to hug her too and we ended up having a dog pile of hugs with everyone laughing.

* I love how Cindy can also not sit still and can never stop dancing. She has got some moves, let me tell you.

* I love how often my students will say something to me and I have NO clue what they are saying.

* I love how Dream takes care of Rex (who we think has autism). She puts her arm around him and sits next to him when most of the other kids ignore him.

* I love how Emily and Jemmy come to class all tired and solemn and by the second hour they are seriously crazy.

* I love when I say something in Chinese to my students and they bust up laughing- they apparently do not realize how much I have to hold back from laughing at them whenever they speak english.

* I love how much my first graders are obsessed with four corners and red light, green light.

* I love when they say, Good morning Miss Lisa.

* I love how Dream and Stanley chug their water so they can have me sneak them cold water from the spout, which I do gladly. In Taiwan, they believe you should not drink or eat cold things when it is hot. So the secretaries fill the kids' water bottles with luke warm water. sick.

* I love when my first graders want to tell me something so badly and they can't think of how to say it in english so they ask me if they can ask another student. (The kids are not allowed to speak Chinese). So they whisper in the person's ear and they all try to figure it out by explaining it or drawing it on the board.

I am excited to love even more things.

Kaohsiung (Gowshung)

2009-07-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

The wind was so strong that I couldn't just take a normal picture because my hair was out of control. so I just worked the camera instead. You can see I also have a little coconut as a refreshment. mmm. Okay, it actually wasn't that good, but it was better than nothing.

This is the stadium they built. Super rad.

They have random stuff set up everywhere for the games. I am not sure what this means, but I particularly love the lips floating in midair.

This little girl is Ariel. We asked her if she spoke english and she definitely did. She talked to us for awhile and after she left her parents were beaming with pride. They were hugging her and talking to her. Most parents force their kids to talk to us- some are too scared. I think they probably think I am going to bite them.

I love trains. They are smooth and comfortable. And of course, they have rad squat toilets also.
This is a view over the ocean and the peninsula is where our friend goes to school. so lucky.

This was at the temple, which overlooked the ocean. But, they have them everywhere. Every neighborhood has a god that protects them...so, there is one in every neighborhood. There is a fire in the middle and people throw in fake money. I wish it was real because it would be funnier.
These are some of the teachers- minus the kid on the top left who was the random guy we met from Idaho.You can see how the shrine is just in the middle of everything.

Here is my special tree on the hike. Really, I just saw it twice, but i did think it was cool.

Here is one of the views from the hike. Every view was SO incredible.

So windy. I was a little afraid of falling off the cliff. I didn't so don't worry.

I will limit my posting of funny sign pictures, but this one is too funny. what the heck? It didn't make any sense to where it was.

ahhhh. so pretty.

This was the super awesome firework show. It looked like a mini Nile river in Cairo.

Here is me and my little Sunny. You can click on the picture and see how wet we were from walking home. haha.

What a dream. Sunny and I left on Friday night and found our way to the train station for the first time. I love figuring out how to do something where no one speaks your language and people are constantly staring at you- seriously. I have now made four children cry. Either the kids LOVE you or they are scared to death of you. So we found the right train and went to Changua where five other teachers live. We got some super delicious food and then woke up the next morning at 6 am. Awesome. We went to the train station again and took a train to Kaohsiung, where the world games are going on right now! Our friend Julia goes to college down there and came with us to show us around. We met athletes from all over the world- acrobatic gymnasts from Great Britain, Dragon Boaters from Ukraine who tried to get us to drink with them (they were super loud and funny), artistic rollerskaters from Germany (seriously), tug-of-war team from Switzerland, and some people from France, Canada, Scotland, etc. We went to the new stadium there built for the games that is all solar powered. There was supposed to be a typhoon coming in and the wind was crazy. Suprisingly, this was great because it meant somewhat cooler weather. (Don't think that we all still didn't sweat a ton).

We then went to lunch at this taiwanese place and met up with Julia's friend Charles who was hilarious. He was our little tour guide the whole day. He took us to this beautiful temple up on a hill overlooking the ocean. There was also this building built by the english next to the temple. so pretty. His school is on a penninsula that goes into the ocean- the views on all sides of the hill were breathtaking. While we were up there, this guy yelled out Americans and we stopped and talked to him. Seriously, this world is so small. He just happened to be from Idaho, mormon, and 23. random. He is studying chinese for a couple of months in southern taiwan...he stays with this cute taiwanese family every weekend. The mom, Candy, thought Charles was our tour guide so she asked if he would mind if they joined. haha. I told her no, but they could still come of course. So we left at 6 that morning with 7 people and ended up with 12. After this we went to his school where part of the games were going on. We walked through this tunnel that went to another part of the city. We walked to the bay and got on a ferry that took us to another island. The other island was SO SO pretty. There was a huge street market, the oldest temple in the city...for the goddess of mothers.

As we were walking down the street, this asian guy yelled out to us- poor sunny- he looks asian so everyone asumes he speaks chinese. Some of the Ukranians were there and wanted him to come translate (ukr to eng to chi??). So we went over and they just shouted the whole time, laughing. Some 50 year old just put his arm around me and laughed- had I not decided to abstain from alcohol, I think they would have been happy to get me drunk. Then it started to POUR. Every one ran underneath the awnings and waited it out for 5 minutes. The wind was soo strong- I got knocked over an embarassing amt of times. We walked down to the ocean which had black sand and I ran straight into the water. I sure love the ocean. The waves were crazy because of the wind. I kept asking Charles if we were going to die from a typhoon and he would just tell me no and he would protect me. haha. Important to note that at this point I had 8 or so blisters including one blood blister in between my toes. o gosh. We hiked up this hill that was so incredibly green and beautiful. There was this old fortress that the Japanese bombed and tons of trees and beautiful stone paths. On the way out, the sun just happened to be setting over the ocean. I miss ocean sunsets- they are incredible. Charles finally let us take a break and watch the sunset. He made us leave and we walked through town and onto the ferry. We ate a delicious dinner and I got to go to the bathroom in the greatest bathroom ever. Almost all bathrooms in taiwan have only squaters- super awesome. It was this squater toilet in dirt with this old wood door that didn't shut. Candy held it for me and I washed my hands in this random sink that was sitting in the dirt and a little bar of soap. All of this experience will help me in the future when I have to camp and there are no bathrooms. Sorry, maybe that is too much information, but it's true.

After dinner we went to the train station- on the way we saw this old man using a violin string thingy to play a SAW. seriously. It was so cool. Then we caught this woman trying to take pictures of us with her cellphone. We asked her if she wanted to be in the pictures- haha. Next, we went to Love river where there were incredible fireworks. SO pretty. It was a perfect ending to the day. Oh yea, I can't forget that I got ice cream too and a massage, all in one night. Not bad, eh? We didn't get back to our friends apt. till 3 am, which was super fun. not. But, it was worth it. Sunny and I kept saying how perfect it was...and then we had to walk to the train station on sunday (after I wandered through the city, by myself to find the church), which we know appropriately call, the 'hell' walk (excuse the language). It was 40 minutes of boiling sun and sweat dripping down us. When we finally cooled down, we were so happy. And then, we got off the train at home and 5 minutes later it was pouring down rain. haha. I laughed so much. We were waiting out the rain under a big tree and then I had enough and we just walked home in it. Sunny wrapped a poncho around my backpack to protect my camera and harry potter. I love asia.

I am a teacher. Yikes.

2009-07-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

I cut myself out because I am definitely not as cute as these kids.

Here is half of the classroom. pretty fancy.

Here is one of our two bulletin boards. Haha. I wanted the class to pick a 'team name' and they all decided on Pokemon. perfect. I knew my love for that card game, show, etc. would be able to manifest itself here.

Here is the other half of the classroom.

Isn't she adorable? I mean the one on the left. Please don't look at my face. I've been tired for 3 weeks now.

Larson = crazy.
She is much, much cuter than she looks. haha.

My first grade class is so cute. Of course, they are first graders so they have some first grade issues- like freaking out and going crazy for no reason. I really have 7 students, but there are only four in the picture. I was helping them understand commas, periods, italicized words, and how to read them. Now, you can definitely hear that pause I told them to take when they come to a comma. It is so cute. They get these tokens if they catch another student using 'chinglish,' which is basically speaking english with the grammar rules of chinese. Now, everyone reads much more carefully because they don't want to be corrected by another student. I think my favorite thing that has happened though, took place today. I have been trying to get the kids to pronounce 'appropriately,' as well as some other words. As I was spelling it out on the board, I turned around and saw that Becca was writing something on her hand. I walked over to her and realized that she had written words all over her hand and one on her arm. It was all of the words that the students had trouble with...she was so cute. She just wanted to remember them and practice later.

I do feel bad for these kids. It is summertime for them, but they are still at school ALL day (as in 8am-7 pm). It seems like many of them to not get much discipline at home because they are really never at home. The discipling is expected to happen at schools, which leaves us with some CRAZY students. Basically, we are allowed to discipline the kids however we want, minus hitting (which, they aren't too strict on). The secretaries at the school do that on occasion. It is definitely a different lifestyle here. There are entrance exams into the better junior highs so kids are competing their whole lives. They are sure smart, but they miss out on so many things.

I was showing my first graders a song clip from High School Musical so they could do a writing assignment on it. The subtitles were on and after a minute or so, they tried to sing along with the song. They couldn't quite do it, but they sure looked cute trying. One of my students also pointed out that a girl on the movie was fat. I told her that was not a nice thing to say and to not say things like that about people because it hurts their feelings. Another little girl pointed out that, yes, she was fat, but she was also probably nice. haha...she also wrote that in her writing assignment. At least she realizes fat people can be nice. geez. I realized that me telling the girl to not say things like that would not be very affective. I need to figure out a different approach. Almost everyone in Taiwan is thin. They don't experience other cultures like we get to in America. I was in the computer lounge and some students were in there with a teacher watching a Michael Jackson video. The boy asked why he was black. They also think people who are tan are ugly. What a change from America... Homeless people are tan and therefore, if you are tan, you must be homeless. There are MILLIONS of scooters everywhere and all of the people riding on them cover their entire body. Being white is beautiful to them. I have decided to take my kids on a trip around the world (figuratively, of course). They think this way because they don't know any other way...so we will see what our ''trip'' does.

For Jae:

2009-07-12T05:58:00.001-07:00

(Click picture to see the bottle)

Even if you come to Taiwan, you can have Vitamin Water...it just looks a little different.

The Hospital.

2009-07-09T05:55:00.001-07:00

Sitting in the waiting room with just a little thin robe on. Sunny was not very happy at the hospital. Privacy is not really an issue here. perfect.

I covered up as much as I could.

One of the secretaries took us to the hospital and was laughing at me and taking pictures. (If you click on the picture you can see the needle in me.) You get a number (like a fast food place)...they call your number, you sit down next to a bunch of other people getting their blood drawn, they do it and you are out in 1 minute. Very efficient. They do not care if it hurts or not- which, I think is kind of good- toughens the kids.

I've never had more fun. I laughed the whole time we were there. Of course I had only been in the country for ten or so hours so I was probably a little loopy (I know, I am never like that), but still. I am applying for residency so I needed to get a physical. For some reason we had to go to the hospital. It is really cheap (as in under ten dollars with no insurance) to go basically anywhere- dentist, acupuncture, doctor visit, all prescriptions covered, and actually pretty safe and clean. I got my blood drawn, an uncomfortable x-ray, height/weight on this nifty machine, blood pressure, and I even had an interview in chinese and hand signals. Basically it was just a fun experience. My favorite part will still be sitting in the waiting room in a very thin robe with 30 people around me.

Welcome to my new home.

2009-07-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

Here is my school- Berhan Language School! I live on the fourth floor. I heard today that it is the most prestigious english school in the city. I should have known since they have me working for them.

If you are reading this, then you are probably on a picture on my wall. Also, it is a good thing that I have a mosquito net since I already have 25 bites.
Here is the rest of the room. You can call it my bachelor pad, but for a girl.

The living room. Super exciting.

the bathroom. Even more exciting.

A kitchen.

With all of the necessities.

Taiwan LOVES to recycle, everything. It takes me more time to figure out where my garbage goes then to actually eat. There is one for food garbage, trash, glass, aluminum, plastic, clean paper, and dirty paper. O yea, the garbage truck plays music that sounds like the ice cream man. It is super rad. And, they will not take your trash unless it is separated correctly. geez. I'm going green.

The classy hallway.

Washer/Dryer room/balcony minus the dryer.

My backyard. What more could you ask for? A basketball hoop, 20 bikes, and fake grass.

Part of the roof.

People love to dry their stuff on their balcony.

Our roof....just like an Asian New York City. It is a nice place to work out at 6 am when it is still semi-cool. I'm thinking about planting a garden- sans Just Like Heaven.

Our classy classy tilework.

Just a cute little toilet for the little kids. It is seriously super tiny.

My new pad is definitely different from anywhere I have ever lived before. Thankfully we have air conditioning and I keep it at 21 degrees so I can stop sweating when I've walked up the four flights of stairs in 300 percent humidity. I have 9 other roommates who are from all over- Washington, Idaho, Utah, California, Hawaii, etc. I'm going to teach kindergarten and 1st grade starting tomorrow. I might or might not have some students named Zero, Lion, and Aragon (without the r). I live in a city called Feng Yuan that has about 400,000, all Asian. I have seen one other white person besides the teachers at my school. The people here are so kind and helpful. Most people do not speak English, which makes it difficult, but also makes for some funny situations...I am determined to learn Chinese. I will be starting a Chinese class at the University and Tai Chi every week in the next month. I get a lot of good stares, mostly by old people and little kids. A lot has happened and I have seen so much already, but it will have to wait for another day. I'm still getting over jet lag. A week later.

I'm off...

2009-06-27T23:48:00.000-07:00

Peace out everyone. I feel a little numb to emotions right now and I'm sure it will hit me pretty soon. Remember me by thinking of the picture above....a highlight of my life.

Just sayin'

2009-06-24T16:59:00.001-07:00

Just thought I'd throw this picture out there. I think we'd be pretty cute together. (not meaning Jen).

Baka/T.E.A.M. = Kickball Champs

2009-06-20T15:40:00.001-07:00

Okay so we might have gotten second, but that's not too bad for upper division. Not sure how we made it this far except for the fact that we are AWESOME. I think it also had something to do with our ability to get into their heads with those handstands and constant screaming and cheering. Go us. It rained most of the game and we got nice and dirty.

I like camping.

2009-06-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

Cait and I before the hike began. Scott said it would be an easy 25-30 min hike and it was a pretty steep 51 minute hike. It was worth it though.

This is a view on the hike. Kind of pretty...
Jon frolicking around the meadow. He was trying to get people to join him, but no one was...
Cait and I in the morning looking our best.
Here is the signature group shot...we all looked really good cause we just woke up.
This is only 1/4 of the meadow. It was really so pretty.
All of the grass was wet and the wood, but don't worry...Jon the airforce man came through.
We forgot to count and ended up with 6 in the car on the way back...don't worry, it was actually comfortable.

I did it! I went camping in American Fork canyon and slept outside for the first time. We hiked through the canyon for almost an hour and then slept in this HUGE meadow. There were probably a million to a billion stars out. I saw one shooting star. We laid out a tarp and then slept right on top of it...with a sleeping bag of course. I wrapped myself up nice and tight because it was pretty cold and slept really close to Cait. Then Peter laid the tarp on top of us and tucked us in so we stayed dry during the night! Luckily we had it on top cause it kept us warmer and it rained in the morning. I think the funniest thing about the trip was Nick's decision to sleep in a hammock with only a sheet on top of him. He was running around at 5:30 am saying he was so cold and trying to start a fire. Hammocks are for beaches or mountains when it is actually over 40 degrees outside. I almost forgot...I found my first four leaf clover and my second!

Comings and Goings

2009-06-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

Roommate love for Charity on her mission. She is the queen of jumping pictures, so we did one in remembrance of her on her birthday last Friday. I sure miss her.
Redneck Olympics. Probably my favorite part of the day was going to Sonic and Cam trying to rip off his orange vest in one move in one second. It was sooo funny.
After getting a little cleaned off. We are really good at taking pictures.
My husband and I. Don't worry, I am just pregnant and he may or may not be my first cousin. No big deal.
My hot roommates. After Cath got a huge chunk of mud in her eye and we worked to clean her up. She was a good sport and Bert defended her honor by beating up the guy who did it.
Best dancer at special olympics. She came out of her shell after about 20 minutes.
I loved this little girl. She would come up to me and look at my tag and hug me. Little children are so wonderful and I can't think of anything more precious.
This guy was one of the sweetest people I have EVER met. I could feel his goodness and his pureness every time we spoke.
I miss Jen. She is a great person.

So, May and June, so far, have been filled with some great events. I went home for 2 separate trips- One for fun after graduation and then an additional one for my brother's college graduation! I did some fundraising for Special Olympics, which was a pretty good learning experience. I moved back into the Colony for a month because it felt like the best thing to do. I will be in Taiwan in two weeks, which brings a good mix of emotions. I am not sure if I am excited, nervous, sad, etc. But, I have to go now so I might as well try to be excited. I think the weirdest thing is that I am going to be a legit teacher. What are they thinking?! I will even have parent-teacher conferences. ha. what a joke. I will sure miss a lot of things back here though. I already miss my family a WHOLE lot. o geez. 8 months. It will go by fast...I just know it. And I am sure at the end I will not want to leave.

Pretzel-cracker Joy

2009-06-05T18:28:00.001-07:00

So, this one time I went on a backpacking trip. We went to Walmart beforehand to buy some treats for our journey. We saw this box and it brought quite a great surprise. Lets just say they were eaten VERY fast. Today, Megan bought some more and they were just as GOOD.

Swine Flu

2009-06-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

I have been quite ill the past week and yesterday I was tested for swine flu. A dream come true. I went into the doctor's office and put on a fancy mask, did not touch ANYTHING, and I noticed this lady backing away from me. She asked me if I had swine flu and after about 5 seconds yelled something at the person she was waiting for and DARTED out of there. I always knew I had an effect on people. One of the nurses told me not to get near her and breathe on her. People can really be too kind sometimes. Jen and I sure thought it was funny though.

Warning: Try not to be tested for swine flu because the test is quite painful- A longgg swab is put in your nose as far back as you can imagine, it's rubbed around for about 10 seconds, while burning like heck.

Either way, it was an experience and of course, I am ridiculously tough so I can handle the pain.

The great day of graduation

2009-05-20T00:51:00.001-07:00

Just imagine the cougar growls in cougar town.

So precious.

The fam and the random sign given to me by some guy...good thing I really am! (click to see sign)

Just some hot boys and girls. Missing lots of others that came to the soirée, but weren't in the picture. A killer game of four square was played that evening in the parking lot. Did I forget to mention that my dad was Jolyn's dads basketball coach 25 years ago! sheesh. They were able to reunite this evening. What a touching moment.

Another precious picture. Oh those Nicholls' boys. That Shannon's pretty hot right now too.

Grandpa # 1 smoking a cigar.

Grandpa # 2 smoking a cigar.

Man, I love being graduated. Maybe too much.

Keeping busy....

2009-05-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

I LOVE tandem bikes.

I never thought that there would be a time in my life when I had no job and no school. I got a bit of anxiety thinking about it because I love to be busy. With all this new found time, I have been able to be quite productive (in a different sort of way). I went on a four hour hike, rented a tandem and rode it all over provo, broke the tandem, fixed the tandem, went to a meeting, a bbq, helped plant a flower bed on center, mowed a lawn, painted four doors, went to a baseball game, did some fundraising, thought about learning mandarin, went biking some more, watched a little bit of planet earth, water (a movie), bride wars, and october sky, went to jdawgs with megan, talked to megan a little more, went to a wedding reception, went to a ward opening social, played ultimate frisbee, took lots of walks, cleaned the apt's fridge and freezer, went running, went to the doctors, did a dance workout, etc. All in five days.

I kind of like having very little responsibility. It makes me be more creative because I do not want to spend all of my time sitting in front of the tv. I'm sure there will be a few days until I leave where I want to go crazy, but hopefully it is a limited amount.

Halong bay, vietnam

2009-04-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

I'm in love. Good thing I'll be here in about 8 months...

Check and Done

2009-04-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

College is now checked off of my list of things to do in my life....

Okay, I still have 2 papers, 2 tests, and 1 project.

Basically I'm done.

Hooray

2009-04-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

I turned in my THESIS. See Hillary picture below and you will know how I feel right now.

I'm moving.............................to Taiwan.

2009-04-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

Here are some places I will visit while over there.

I am a little sad to go:

haha. I hate animal pictures. I tried to find one with a cat because it would be funnier, but cats can't really look sad. too bad.

But really, I am pretty excited. Here is Hillary to show my excitement.

Help.

2009-04-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is what I am doing right now. And this is what I want to be doing:

Scriptures

2009-04-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

I think that these are some of the most beautiful scriptures. What wonderful promises and gifts we all get...

Romans 8:

17 And if children, then heirs; ^aheirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we ^bsuffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

35 Who shall separate us from the ^alove of Christ? shall ^btribulation, or distress, or ^cpersecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to ^aseparate us from the ^blove of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Alma 7:

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and ^aafflictions and ^btemptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will ^ctake upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him ^adeath, that he may ^bloose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to ^csuccor his people according to their infirmities.

13 Now the Spirit ^aknoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the ^bflesh that he might ^ctake upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

Little Things

2009-04-02T21:28:00.000-07:00

So I was walking out of the Wilkinson student center talking on my phone...as I was about to reach the big clear doors, I subconsciously noticed the pull sign. I have gone to school here almost four years and have walked through those exact doors more times than I can count. That door is a PUSH door. Yet, I pulled. I followed what that little sign said. It looked so real. Then I connected...April Fools Day. I loved it. I could barely stop laughing. It really wasn't even that funny.

I always remember it is April Fools the day before, but I ALWAYS forget on the day of. Bummer. One day I am going to remember and do little things that will hopefully make people laugh like I did because it was great.

Cosmo has a crush on me

2009-03-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know how I could have forgotten to put this on my blog...Cosmo kissed me...yep, right smack dab on the lips. You are asking, how? Well, only those who witnessed it (probably about 100 volleyball fans) will be able to.

MOA...........

2009-03-05T12:50:00.000-08:00

I love the Museum of Art...I spend more daytime hours here than anywhere else.

Here are some of my favorite reasons why I love it so much...I get to look at these everyday.

I will always love this sculpture. One little boy from South Africa said that the O is diagonal because it is going to roll off, since LOVE goes on FOREVER.

Anyways, I was just thinking about how much I am going to MISS this place in a couple months. Mostly the people...

By the way, all of us in this picture slept under that dinosaur at the museum in Thanksgiving Point. One of the funniest nights ever.

O Canada...

2009-03-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

I love Canada...More than you could know.

I memorized the national anthem by other people singing it to me...so, if you hear me sing it and it is off tune...don't blame me, blame them.

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

I suggest everyone memorize the anthem. Canadians respect you more.

When we reached the border, I kissed the ground. You might say, that is weird. But I don't think that is true.

Jen's mom rocks. "Get closer girls." Oh man.

I've never seen Jen so scared in her life. She might or might not have held on to her moms leg. Really, we were all scared. This is not laughter from having fun.

I love Canada, moose, and hockey. Go Flames!

We went to Banff, Canada. Everyone should go there on their honeymoon. It is so beautiful. There are picture perfect mountains, picture perfect people (us), picture perfect town, and wonderful accents. Remember, it gets pretty cold there in the winter. I suggest going in Spring.

Here's the deal. This is me sticking my head out of an ice castle! An ice castle! Seriously, I didn't really know these things could exist. As you can see, I was pretty happy. There was also a wedding going on at that time about 5 feet away. Also, the ice castle was built on the most beautiful lake called Lake Louise, which was completely frozen!

Here is all of us in the ice castle. Right after we took this picture, Jen almost fainted. Don't worry, I walked her over to the bench. She also threw up that morning. I think she looks like a babe for having thrown up only 5 hours earlier.

Allison and I rock at taking jumping pictures. I had been jumping normal (quite successfully for me...look at me Jae!). I decided to mix it up a bit and pulled out this jump. I thought it looked a little more exciting. You can tell by my face.

Also, we drove off the freeway on the way home in Tremonton, Utah at 11 PM. I advise to not do this because it is sort of scary. But really is was quite an exciting evening. The only thing that I regret is I did not take a picture in the huge tow truck. Thank you to Elder Hunter for picking us up from Tremonton and Allison's dad for picking us up from Ogden and driving us to Provo. Also thank you Allison for not turning the car. You rock.

Please, can I go??

2009-02-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

I want to be wearing this.
While riding this.

To eat here.

On this street.

In this city.

Maybe it sounds too surreal, but boy do I want it to not be a dream.

JC4NES

2009-01-27T19:01:00.001-08:00

My brother got accepted to the Jerusalem Center! Now he can buy me everything I need/forgot to buy!

Cosmo + Me = Love

2009-01-27T18:55:00.000-08:00

One of my top five favorite moments at BYU...I got to shoot the cannon off at the last football game of the season, last touchdown, last game I would be a student. = Perfection

I have a crush on Cosmo. Seriously.

Jerusalem

2008-12-16T23:56:00.001-08:00

My heart aches for Jerusalem. I have been thinking about it a lot lately. Michael applied for next Spring/Summer, so I looked up plane tickets to go visit him. 1800 dollars. Sad day. I guess I can't go back until I am rich...wait, that will be never. I need to start saving my $$$. At least he can get me those 20 pashminas I need and possibly some olive leaves from Gethsemene, maybe some earrings, some dishware, a new hebrew ctr ring, AND possibly a new shirt and T-shirt from my friends in the Old City. There are many things I miss but especially these places:

These crazies:

My favorite place in the world...

My second favorite place in the world...

Galilee...Have you ever seen anything prettier??

And going to bed with this view outside your own window, EVERY NIGHT.

How did I get so blessed??

I LOVE finals.

2008-12-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, maybe I don't LOVE them, but they do fill the library to capacity AND allow me to see 20 girls all asleep on the couches in the bathroom on the fourth floor. Don't they know what disgusting germs live in those couches??!! I have also surprised myself with how little knowledge I have retained from the semester. Interesting how that happens. I spent nearly 50 hours on a research paper and I don't like it. I wish that teachers would have separate due dates throughout the semester to keep me on track...yes, maybe I should do that myself. But, I am pretty busy so I can't always achieve that. Now I only have 2 finals to go, which will still be hard, but come Friday night I am a free woman. And come next week, I will be in these two places, LOVING my life.

How much better could it get? Yes, it could always get better, but I need to keep myself satisfied. AND, what better way to do it then with Malibu beach and San Francisco!

Revamp

2008-11-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

I think there is a slight possibility I could be better this time around. Here's a few snippets into my life lately:

I'm really like BYU football.

Sunday drive up the Aspen Loop.

Backpacking up Little Cottonwood Candy

Tough.

I know, I dressed up as a boy. I promise it made sense. Michael is looking pretty good though.

J squared's birthdays at my favorite place.