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.