I LIIIIIIIVE!

Don't worry people! I haven't died! I survived the Earthquake in China, I'm not going anywhere! Now that you know that I'm not dead, you probably think I'm the worst blogger ever. That very well may be true, but I'm here to redeem myself! I haven't let you people down! So I just decided I'm just going to start fresh and new. I'll update a little about the past couple of months, but I'm not really into sitting here for ages writing every single detail that has happened so I'll just give a brief overview and start new. Deal? Deal!!
Alright, here goes nothing...
So I got back from China about a month and a half ago. An opportunity of a lifetime? I'll say so! It came complete with an earthquake! How cool is that?! It was rockin'! Haha, get it Rockin'?! Okay maybe that wasn't one of my finest jokes, but it worked. Seriously though, I had a good time! Even with the earthquake! That didn't ruin my sense of fun. It did for a few days, but I got back on track once I left the city. I turned out okay in the end; no bumps of bruises. The people in the epicenter weren't as lucky as I was though. It was such a devistating destruction. So sad! A recent count has said that over 80,000 people have died from the earthquake. I will tell you that at the time the earthquake happened, I too was afraid of death, but we made it out a lot luckier than the people at the epicenter did. The area that I was in was a richer area, where the buildings were built a lot stronger than was at the epicenter. Our buildings were atleast built to withstand a 7.9 earthquake whereas at the epicenter the buildings collapsed within 5 seconds of the earthquake happening. It was a 8.0 earthquake and by the time it got to us (60 miles away) it was a 7.5. Pretty crazy stuff if you ask me! I can't believe I was there, and so close too! I loved the people there though! I've never met a kinder people before in my life! They are such good hosts. They are so thoughtful too! Seriously, it may be hard to think that a whole people could be like that, but it's true. It's just their culture. They are all so loving, kind, and caring. They are truly a Christ-like people. They are so ready for the gospel there. I loved my time there!!! Like I said, I could spend ages here telling my stories, but I don't want to be here forever and plus I think you guys might get a little board reading. Maybe I'll post later stories of my adventures in China.
So life here in the Mesa eh?? It's been good! I like being home, but it's getting harder and harder trying to find productive things to do with my time. I don't have a job so that's one time filler upper I have to find. Mostly I just spend my time doing things that I can help out with or perfect my talents and abilities with in any way shape or form. I babysit a lot for the fam, I made a quilt (which is almost done by the way and I'm super stoked to use it as my new bed spread at college; I think I'll forever be filled with accomplishment when I look at it b/c then I will remember the time I defeated the sewing machine and stuck with the job which I never have done before. I always leave sewing projects unfinished.), I play the piano a lot, read a lot (I first started reading a book about the second coming called "The Coming of Our Lord". Geez I wonder what got me thinking about the second coming?! It's really good though and I recommend it. My mom recommended it to me. I also got drug into the Twilight series by my mom and sisters. We are attending the Barnes and Nobles book opening party for the 4th book this Friday. What can I say, we are a bunch of junkies. I'm only a little bit more than half way through the first book right now, but it's definately my new frenzy right now.), I hang out with my friends a lot (they've recently hooked me on the "So you think you can Dance" episodes every Wednesday and Thursday and we watch them together), ummm and I do a bunch of other things too that I can't think of right now. I don't really want to boar you with anymore details, so I'll let it be for now. Now I'll just post some pictures from China because what would a blog be like without any pictures??? Well I'll fill you in some other time with my grand life story and hopefully I can keep up with this thing.

These photos are from the first city we visited where we had the earthquake, Chengdu. We were there for 2 1/2 weeks.

















































These pictures are from the second place we visited, Guiyang. We were there for 3 1/2 weeks.

Finals, Finals, Finals, CHINA!!!!!

I just finished my first final of the semester...LDS History. I'm going to miss that class! Not only was it interesting, but it was easy too!! All I had to do was take tests in that class...no papers, no assignments, just class and tests. I have two more finals and then I'm off for home on Monday night! Yessss! I'll be home for a week and then I'm off for China! Well basically I don't have anything else to say. That's all that's going on in my mind right now. Me and Suzanne have been studying like crazy though the past couple of days, but when we need to take a break we like laughing at dumb things together...maybe because we are so brain dead. Will somebody please tell us if you think this picture is as funny as we think it is right now.





Now here is us imitating it...

My Most Recent Life

Okay, I'm going to be quick because I have a lot of homework to do, but I just wanted to write something. I just got home from work and my back hurts really bad from standing all day, but it all good! I got to pour the smoothies today which is like the best part of the whole job! Well actually maybe not, maybe I just think that because I've been stuck back at the juices and drop box this whole time I've been there. Well anyways, that's really cool huh? I bet you all cared to know that. Yesterday I did it!! I tried out for young ambassadors!! It was really scary guys! You guys know how long I've wanted to be in young ambassadors and finally the time has come! Well I guess you could say I did the best I could with all my nerves going on and everything. I don't think I'll make call backs, but I did my best and just had fun! It was a good experience and I'm so glad that I went. It will help a lot for next year when I try out. It was a lot of fun though. I had fun even though I knew I probably wouldn't make it. So ya, I'll try out next year and hopefully do better. Ummmm...I had my folk dance performance last week. It was a lot of fun! Suzanne, Becky, and Lanae all came and saw me perform, and now they want to try out for the team. I'm sooooo excited! That would be awesome if we were all on the same team! It would be like Light all over again! I miss Light! Oh, ya that reminds me...at young ambassador try outs I got to see 5 old friends from Light that came up from Arizona to try out. That was so much fun! I got to hang out with them all yesterday! Well I have to go now because I have to get back to my stuff. I just wanted to tell you guys that I tried out! I posted some pictures of my folk dance performance also. Enjoy!

Still Don't Know What To Say...

Once again, I don't know what to say, so I'm just going to say whatever I feel like it okay?! I had a good week this past one. Like I said, on Monday I was involved in the Spring Sing singing Zippidee-doo-dah...ya that's a funny story! Well I guess you could say that it was a lot bigger then I thought it would be. Let's put it this way, my whole stake came and filled up the whole De Jong Concert Hall. It was crazy! And my ward was a little unorganized and we didn't know what we were doing so we kind of just threw something together real fast. All these wards had these big skits planned but we didn't really know what we were doing. All is well though family and friends! It all turned out okay in the end. Disney Idol went great! I threw together a quick little costume in the bathroom (I found some eyeliner and penciled in some feckles and blacked my tooth out and put in some pig tails) and I got up on stage and did my thang. It was rather funny in the end. I won the contest too so I felt rather good about my performance, and I got a good report from the "Judge" which was sweet! Anyways, that was fun. Then I came home and we had a party for Suzanne, so it wasn't likely that I was going to even START on my 8 page paper that was due on Wednesday, so I started it on Tuesday...and spent 13 long hours on it straight! Good times, good times! That's the most exciting things that happened to me this week. This weekend I stayed home from St. George (all my roommates pranced off with some friends in the ward and went there) so I could write my talk. I still had fun without them don't worry. I did some dishes by myself, I danced around by myself, I cooked for myself, I laughed by myself...okay, it was no fun without them. I missed them a lot. It was good though because I had some quality time to spend alone with myself and write my talk, which by the way went really good! I learned a lot about the topic. I really want to learn more about it so I think I'm going to take a class here about the life of the Savior (maybe New Testiment you think?). I like church history and religious history stuff a lot! I think I'm going to go far with that kind of stuff. Like I love my LDS History class that I have here with Susan Black! She's amazing! I want to be just like her when I grow up. Except I think that would be impossible since I don't have a photo copy memory like she does. Geez, that woman remembers everything! Well anyways, that's my life story for this week. Hope you enjoyed it! And I'll talk about my life again next week! I've enclosed some pictures of our folk dance costumes. We are performing in a couple weeks. The dance that we are doing is Scottish (hence the Kilts). Puujee posted these pictures of me on facebook (she took them on Wednesday at our costume fitting session thing). They make us all look really busty and large boned...

What to Say???

I don't really have much to say here other then I felt like I should say something b/c I haven't posted for a while! I'll just give a little 4-1-1 of my life right now! I just got home from church like 30 minutes ago and just found out I'm giving a talk next week in church! On Easter SUNDAY! This is great, just great! I'm really excited to learn about my topic though which is The Last Week of Jesus Christ. I was lucky enough to get to choose my topic first b/c I was spoken to first. Niiiiiiice! I could have chosen the topic of the resurrection instead and I did at first but you all know how indecisive I am and I switched it. Good choice on my part because now I get to speak first. I chose the one I did because I didn't know as much about it and it seemed like I could learn a lot from it. Well anyways, that's next Sunday. Tomorrow I get to look forward to finishing an essay (Humanities essay...it's been very difficult to get myself to write this, but I've done a lot more then half now), celebrating Suzie's b-day (we're taking her out to breakfast at 12:00 AM and I'm making her a green jello thing in a few minutes for her cake b/c her b-day is on St. Patrick's Day), and singing in the stake Spring Sing (It's a Disney theme and it's kind of like American Idol but it's Disney Idol and I'm singing "Zip-pidie-Do-Dah!". Very cool!). I'm looking forward to another week of fun filled learning here at BYU, writing essays, reading books, extending my knowledge, you know. I just got a new job at Jamba Juice everyone!!! I'm raising money for China! Woo hoo! I get free smoothies every time I work. Speaking of China, I'm very excited to go still! We started our Chinese Cultural prep class that I have to take and it's getting me more and more pumped! Everyone!! We get to teach the Chinese students there how to tap!! Cool huh?!?! We are doing a dance exchange with the Chinese. We'll learn some Chinese dances and they'll learn American dances and I think me or someone else will teach them the Shim Sham which is like the Tap Dance National Anthem. I'm stoked b/c I love tap! It's probably my favorite kind of dance! Yes, it is awesome! Well anyways I'm going to go make the jello/cake thing for Suz. I don't really have any good pictures of me doing cool things these past week so I'll just take one right now and show you what I look like.






Don't I look great everyone!!!



Okay, fine everyone this is what I really look like right now...Me and Lanae's lint brush aren't we cute!


Oh, and I found these pictures too! These are me and my friend Puujee! She' from Mongolia, she's saweet, she's in my ward, and we are on the same folk dance team! She's very cool!