Culture Night

Wednesday night was Culture Night. I participated in the Chinese Culture Association's performance. We had been rehearsing for a few weeks, and it was so worth it in the end :)

Here is a link to a video of our performance: Dragon Dance
We all painted our faces for the performance, but after it was over and I went to wash it off, it took forever to get off! At first, it didn't come off at all. And then it slowly started thinning out. I was afraid someone was going to come home, see my face, and think I was attacked.

During the performance, the girl who was at the very back of the dragon fell down. None of us even noticed until afterward. Luckily, she fell right before the place where we put Steven in the audience to switch with her. Kristin (my roommate who came and saw us) said that the girl faceplanted.
After the performance, she said her cheek hurt, but she was okay.

Then on Friday night, I went to the International film. It was Ponyo :) It was the third or fourth time I've seen it. But this time it was in Japanese.
Holly and Courtney had agreed to go with me before. But at the last minute, Courtney decided she didn't want to go. And Holly was asleep. So I went by myself.
Luckily, once I got there and sat down by myself, Steven spotted me and came and sat by me.

Karaoke Night

Thursday night was the combined Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Mmong/etc Association party. They hosted a big Karaoke party. I went, and it was really fun! And I got Holly to agree to come with me for a few minutes!Afterwards, me and some friends went to "The Green Screen". It's an IBC business set up in the MC where you get 15 minutes to take as many pictures as you want and put them on any background you want.
Our first picture was the four of us with my favorite band, BIGBANG.

At first, Holly was going to go with me, but at the last minute she decided she didn't want to. So I had to rush and get together a few people so I wasn't alone. Luckily Elaine and Lauren agreed to go with me, and Lauren brought her roommate Hersshey.

I'm getting along good with all my roommates. Although we all have a hard time understanding Holly. She stays up until 4 or 5am, sleeps on the couch until her first class, and then sleeps most of the day when she gets home from classes, and then stays up until 4 or 5am again.
And she kind of stares at people. Like today I was doing homework on the couch and Holly was going up the stairs, and I noticed her slow down and then stop for a few seconds, so I looked up and she was just staring at me. When she saw that I saw, she smiled quickly and continued up the stairs. Almost every day Kristin complains to me about how Holly stares at her and Trevor and it makes them feel uncomfortable.
I dunno. She's a nice girl, though.

Various Activities

For FHE two weeks ago, I was in charge of the activity. So we played Minute to Win it. It was really fun! Everyone enjoyed it.
This game was called The Elephant WalkLast Saturday, I went out to dinner with some people from CCA. We went to the new Chinese restaurant called YinYang's. As soon as we got in, Austin started talking to the waitress in Chinese. She had no idea what he was saying.
When we ordered, Austin asked her to give us bowls instead of plates, so we could eat like authentic Chinese. She was confused, but gave it to us. I was a little embarrassed, but it was cool to eat like an actual Chinese person, haha.After dinner, we went to Austin's apartment and watched Mulan in Chinese.
I met his roommate, Kyle, and now I see him everywhere. He sat by me at devotional on Tuesday.

Yesterday there was a CCA activity where we went to South Gate's lounge (which has a movie theater!) to watch Kung Fu Panda. We were going to watch it in Chinese, but there were technical difficulties so we had to watch it in English.
Kyle was there, even though he'd not interested in Chinese at all. I asked why he came, and he said he had asked Austin if I would be here or not. But then he said he was just kidding.

CCA Potluck

All of these pictures were taken by Jesse Arnold, the "official cameraman" of the Chinese Culture Association.

On Wednesday I went to the CCA potluck. I brought butterscotch oatmeal cookies :)
I was one of the first ones there, so I got to meet the other early-comers.
However, after that, a bunch of people showed up and everyone started splitting off into their own groups.
I found my friend Lauren and kind of stuck with her.
After we ate, the main event was face painting. Lauren left before that started because she had to get to a meeting. So I just kind of floated around..
I didn't get my face painted because I didn't want to have to walk all the way home like that, haha. But I watched everyone get theirs done.
By the way, that's the Korean guy (Brian) that I think is cute.
Even though I didn't really have friends to hang out with, it was still a fun activity. I really like the CCA so far. I just hope I can get to know more people.

On a side note, my roommate vomited into our sink. She cleaned it up as much as she could, but now the sink is clogged and won't drain. She even tried plunging it, haha. Any ideas on how to fix it?

Fun Night

Every other Friday, a foreign film is shown in the Spori building. First Semester I went to a German one that was suuuuper boring. Last semester I went to a Korean one that was really good. And then tonight they showed House of Flying Daggers, a Chinese film. It was a really good movie. However, the whole audience laughed at a lot of things that weren't supposed to be funny, which didn't bother me, but there was a guy in front of us who got really upset every time people laughed. But at the end I'm kind of glad they did laugh because otherwise I would've cried. It was a really sad ending.

Oh! I sat with Ray and Lee and their friends Steven and Laura.
After the movie, we gathered out in the hall to decide what to do next. One of the Chinese TA's, Austin, spotted me and said hi. He introduced me to his Chinese friend, and the three of us talked for a while. But I noticed that Ray and them were getting kind of antsy to leave, and eventually Austin noticed too, so we said "再见!"(zaijian - goodbye) and him and his friend left.

The rest of us went over to Ray and Lee's apartment, but it was full of people, so we sat at the table (and Ray and Lee on the floor) for a bit. But the Laura and Steven both suggested we go somewhere else, so we went to Rockland's lounge (Steven lives in Rockland). They have an awesome lounge, holy cow!! There's couches and a TV, Pool, Foosball, Pingpong, and even a POOL!!
So we made our rounds around the room (except for the pool). We stayed there for about two hours before me and Laura decided we needed to get home (it was around 11:30).

It was a fun night :)

My Semester So Far

This Semester has been really good so far. I really like my roommates. My room-roommate Kristin and I get along really well. We didn't talk for a long time because she'd be out all day with her boyfriend and then would get home right before curfew and I'd be asleep. But now she's been coming home earlier and we talk a lot before we go to bed. She's really fun!
And Courtney is really nice too. She's a history major but wants to change to International Studies. So we're both in International Politics. Same teacher, different time though. But we can still study together.
And then Holly is really really quiet. We say hi to each other and that's about it. I want to get to know her better, but I don't know how to start a conversation with her. But things will work out.

I really like all of my classes. I'm really excited to keep learning Chinese, our teacher speaks to us in almost all Chinese. It's really overwhelming, but it is good for us. I feel like it'll help me pick the language up faster. And then Cultural Anthropology is going to be really interesting. I really really like it so far. And International Politics started today and it sounds like it's going to be really interesting. Lots of reading, but fun.
Money management will be the most boring, definitely. But it should be an easy A.
And then Old Testament is a LOT of reading, but the teacher is great and the class is great and I'm actually pretty excited for it.

And then today the Chinese tutor came in to our class and announced that the Chinese Culture Association opening social was tonight. I knew about it last semester and never went. But I want to try and be more social and outgoing this semester, so I decided I'd go.
So I went to it and it was really fun. I met these two Korean guys (both really cute). One of them kind of ignored me, but the other was really friendly and was really impressed that I knew a little Korean. I hope he's there next week so we can talk more :)
We played a game that's kind of like Fruit Basket or Do You Love Your Neighbor, but the Chinese version, called Da Feng Chui.
After that, we split up and played different Chinese games like Mahjong or Chinese checkers. But I went to the group that was playing Chinese Chess, because that sounded like an interesting game to learn. It was interesting, I want to learn how to play it better. But it's hard because the tiles have traditional characters written on them and it's the only way to tell what their "rank" is, and I can't read them.
But then the friendly Korean guy (Brian) came over to me and said they play that game in Korea too, and he knows how to play. And apparently they play it in Japan too. With the Traditional Chinese characters and everything.
I'm definitely going to keep going! I'm excited to get involved with this group!

Jon Schmidt

I just recently got back from Jon Schmidt's concert here at BYU-Idaho. It was amazing, and definitely better than I expected. I expected it to be really good, but I didn't know how entertaining he'd be.
He played the piano upside down and backwards, he played it with his elbows, he played it with his toes, he played it with his nose, and even with his forehead. He told jokes and played gag songs and it was a really good time.

I'm sure everyone's already seen this video, but if you haven't, you should listen to it. They ended up playing this song twice--once in the set and again in the encore.

Summer!

So I've only got about two weeks of Summer left before I head back to school, so I figured I'd update before going back.
Well, by update I mostly mean post a bunch of pictures.
I got to hang out with my lovely friends all through the Summer. Definitely the highlight of being home.I've also continued working the Crossroads Theater. I love it! Best job ever!
I've gotten to see almost every movie that's come out this Summer (for free, of course). And I love all of my coworkers. They're some of the most fun people ever and I get along with all of them. I also have a great boss who never gets mad and is pretty relaxed. And a lot of the new managers are people I worked with as floor staff last Summer.
I didn't get many hours last Summer, but this time around I was working almost every day. MTWFS, that's five days a week!

For the past month me and my mom have been looking everyyyywhere for places for me to live. There was a mix up with my manager and she thought I wasn't coming back this Fall, so she didn't save me a contract. So when I called her, she put me as #1 on the list, but for a month there were no cancellations or anything, and all of the other apartments were seriously full. They even had to open up some guys' apartments to women, and they filled up right away.
But today I got a call from Shayna about a last minute cancellation, so I finally have a place to live. SnowView again. Yay :)

Harry Potter 7

For those of you who are interested, here's the trailer for Harry Potter 7
http://wbads-83.vo.llnwd.net/e1/wbmovies/deathlyhallows/pt1/trl1/HP7PT1_TRL1_1080.mov

Two months and not much to talk about

I've been home for almost two months now. I've been working about 5 days a week at the theater, and I'm now trained in all three jobs (box office, concessions, door). Besides that, I've just been hanging out with some friends. Mainly Will, Jason, Ashley, and Tera.
And besides that, there isn't really anything else, haha.

A Week of Family

Oops! I forgot to update with our Idaho vacation. Well, I can't really remember what happened on specific days, and my family has already updated about it on their blogs, so I'll just post some of the pictures from my camera.Everyone with a baby :)Jacob and Ian with their grandpa Winger.Ian roasting a hot dog.The kids really loved grandma's ancient toys. Especially that slide!
All the little kids.
After the egg hunt.
The big kids.
The snake that bit dad.

Feeding the ducks.
This goose was willing to pose for me.
Cousins.
Hanging out with grandpa.
Maybe in a few years
Tuckered out and ready for a nap
Having fun at the giant park
Fun in the pool