Folk Dance

These are a few videos of some of the dances we have been doing in folk dance. I have a tendency to forget the names of the dances though... But the dance is still tons of fun!

I'm the second person in the line on this dance.



Third from the end on this one...



I actually remember the name for this dance... Hambo. It's lots of fun. It's somewhat similar to Vianese Waltz, but still different. I've spared you the whole song (I swear, it's half an hour long), but this should be enough to get the point...



And last, but not least, this is our Russian dance. I don't know what the name for it actually is, we just call it our Russian dance. This is the one that we are going to do for the Spring Festival of Nations on April 1. We just finished choreographing it today, and it's a work out! Hopefully someone will get a video of it when we are in our costumes so I can post the whole thing then. But until then, this will have to suffice. :-)

Waiting

Well, I'm going on a date in a little bit and I've all but run out of things to do till it's time to leave to pick my date up. Then I realized that it's been nearly a month since I last posted here on my blog. Anyway, I've been working on a research paper these past few weeks for my English class. We had our proposal for our paper due today, and like normal, I ended up procrastinating actually writing the thing out for a while. So instead of staying up really late like normal, I went to bed at like 9:30 last night (that's unheard of for me, just FYI). And then I woke up at 2:30 to compile my proposal. I got it done and I was a little worried that it wasn't going to be quite up to par for where it needed to be. But I went and talked to my teacher just after 8:00 and as she looked at it, she said it looked really good and that she was really excited to see what my paper turns out to be. I was excited that she gave me such positive feedback. Anyway, I had a test this afternoon as well that I spent some time studying for until I decided that another few min wasn't going to make a lick of difference. So I went and took the test and it took me nearly 2 hours, most of it was spent writing short answer and essay questions... Needless to say, my hand was rather tired after that.

So besides all of that wonderful stuff, as I was doing some stuff on the internet after my test, I had a though... I am taking classes this summer, why not check to see if I can get into the gymnastic class? So I looked, and there was 1 open spot left! So I snatched it up as quick as I could! I'm way excited! I finally have the opportunity that I have wanted for years! I have it Monday-Thursday at 9:00am. So I have something to get me up every day, but it's not an 8:00 class. Life is good... :-)

Ok, well, that didn't take as long as I had hoped. I still have a few min before I need to leave. Don't you just love/hate that nervous/anxious feeling before a date? I really have missed going on dates until I got back here to BYU. Anyway, I'm out of things to ramble about. Later!

Worth it

Well, to start off, I'm an idiot for having an 8:00 class every day of the week. In my defense though, I didn't intend on having my schedule the way it is at the moment. In fact, I originally had a wonderfully nice,full schedule with awesome professors. Then I changed my life goal, thus messing up my perfect schedule. So now I'm stuck with a class at 8:00 in the morning every day. One of which, is my Honors 150, or freshmen writing class. "Freshmen?", you say, "I thought you were a Junior, what's up with that?" Ya, ya, I know. It's not a good idea to fail an introductory level writing class. Though I must say, I rather enjoy this class. It is 100x better than the non-honors section that I let myself fail. Well, anyway, being an English class, and an Honors section on top of that, I often have papers that I have to write. I tend to procrastinate. This becomes a problem when my paper has to be done by 8:00 in the morning. Tuesday we had a rough draft due for said English class. So I pulled an all nighter. I finally finished at like 4:30 or so, perhaps it was already 5:00, I'm not really sure. But I realized that I had a few hours before I needed to actually start getting ready for class. So I went to my bed and laid down for a nap... Bad idea. I woke up at 1:00 in the afternoon. The final copy was due this morning though so I stayed up a little later than normal putting some finishing touches on it. Come 6:45 this morning when my alarm went off, needless to say, I didn't want too wake up. So I hit the snooze a few times. 30 min later, I pulled myself out of bed, skipped my shower and took off to class. The 20-25 min walk to class usually does a fairly proficient job of waking me up in the mornings. Once I got to class, I remembered why it is that I enjoy my class so much. Crazy though she may be, Sis. Price (my teacher) is really a lot of fun. And we always have such interesting/fun assignments! So we are starting our research papers this week. The cool part though, is that she wants us to pull our topic from something in our family history. I think it's such a unique and awesome idea! What better way to find a topic that is meaningful and interesting! So right now I just need to think of stories from my family history that I could pull an argument out of. Wither it be something informative, argumentative or problem solving, 都可以. So if anyone has a favorite story from our family history, let me know (you all know how amazing my memory is).

Oh, and also, Sis. Price made home made cinnamon rolls for us this morning. 8:00 class? WORTH IT!

School and whatnot

Well, I guess it's been a while since I updated my blog, hasn't it? Let's see... Where to start... I finally did get my stinking schedule all figured out. The only thing still missing is a job, which a guy should be calling me any day about. I have a pretty easy schedule, even if it does start early every day. I have a class at 8:00 every day, but I'm done by 10:00 except for Monday and Wednesday when I have the 2nd half of Book of Mormon at 1:00. I have an awesome teacher, Brother Bartholomew, and I found out the first day that some of my best friends are in the class too! Josh and Christie Foster, Kristen Foster and Christie's sister are all in there. It's tons of fun. Other than that, I have History 201, Honors 150 (same as English 150 except it's honors) and I'm on the 9:00 Folk Dance Team! My English class is actually a lot of fun. I had to retake English because I failed it a year ago when I just quit trying (bad semesters are NOT good for your GPA), and my friends in Nanjing last semester said that the Honors class is tons better, so I figured I would go with the Honors class. I have a really amazing teacher and it's a pretty small class. It is going to be a lot of writing and work, but I only have 9 credits this semester and I think I'm actually going to enjoy the writing, which always makes a difference. Oh, by the way Nanc, when you come to BYU in a few years, you have to take Honors 150 from this same teacher, you would love it! Besides, you'll probably be in the honors program anyway.

So the folk dance team... The first week of school I ran into some friends from back home who were trying out for folk dance and they told me I should try out as well. I figured, sure, why not? I love dance and I'm not in any dance classes this semester. So I went to tryouts and I realized that pretty much any guy that went to tryouts made it onto one of the teams. I've done dance before, but folk dance is totally different from social dance. It's still tons of fun though. Although, it is a wee bit more of a work out, which I'm ok with. We are learning all sorts of fun daces and at the end of the semester, we are going to have a performance that we get to be a part of. For that performance, we are going to be doing a Russian dance, and I'm really excited. We had an opening social for folk dance Wednesday night and it was tons of fun.

Well, I know that there's a ton of other things going on, but I'll write more about them later. Perhaps I'll actually get into a habit of posting on here, but I wouldn't get your hopes up :-).

New Year

Well, I'm back in Provo now. A HUGE thanks goes out to Aunt Terri for picking me up from the airport and taking me down here to Provo! THANKS A TON! Well, I got here with no problems. I got moved into my new apartment and have, so far, meet 2 of my 5 room mates. One of them is from Hong Kong and is going to the English Language Center. He seems pretty cool. The other room mate is from California, the Bay Area, he said. But, being me, I don't remember either of their names at the moment. It will probably not be until late next week before I can actually remember their names, if we are lucky.

So, I went up to campus to talk to a counselor to figure out my schedule and what not, then I realized that everything on campus is closed the 1st AND 2nd... Grr... So I'll just have to go back tomorrow, no big deal. But I did go and get myself a few things I wasn't able to take on the plane. I have my bags all unpacked, but not exactly organized. So that's what I get to do later this evening. But I did go over to DI and get myself a bike for $15! I think it was only $10 2 years ago when I got my last bike. But this one had a lock with it and the tires actually hold air. So as of right now, I have a working bike for only $15, no complaints here!

I know that this isn't exactly in any sort of order, except for the order that things come to my head. But anyway. I had TONS of fun at the Guison New Year Party. It was AWESOME! I saw SO many people that I haven't seen for EVER! It was tons of fun. People that I haven't seen for 4 months, people I haven't seen for 4 years (perhaps even more) and everything in between. It was a great way to end the year. It isn't ever fun to say good bye to great friends, but I am excited to be back here in Provo. Well, back at BYU at least. I'm really excited to start over. New year, new apartment, new room mates, new ward, pretty much everything is new. It's a great time get rid of old habbits and start new ones. Anyway, I'll post more later after I actually get to see what my ward is like and after I figure out what the heck I'm going to do about my classes this semester. Later!

Revisiting the Shaolin Temple

Well, I promised a movie a few months ago, and I finally got my hands on it. Not to mention a computer of my own (thanks a ton Garry!) and internet that isn't extremely slow. So here it is! Hope you enjoy it half as much as I did!

Figuring Things Out

It's been a while since I posted on here. I know I should do better, but if it's not that there isn't anything worth mentioning it's that there is too much going on that I don't know where to start. So I guess first of all, Taiwan was amazing, just as I expected it to be. It was great to get in touch with old friends and see people I haven't seen for 2-4 years. It was awesome. I remembered why it was that I love those people so much. Here's a shout out to all of my Taiwan friends, you guys ROCK!

Well, I'm home now, back in good ole' Missouri. It has been awesome to be home for Christmas with family. Man, I must be having problems with jet lag or something because this whole week I just haven't had any energy. It's just getting frustrating and rather annoying. Perhaps it will get better once I actually get myself a schedule that I actually stick to. We'll see. Well, speaking of getting back to school, I finally figured out what the heck I want to do with the rest of my life. I have decided that I want to be a High School Chinese teacher. Ya, I know High School teachers don't exactly make the big bucks, and teaching high school probably doesn't mean that I'll be sent to China to work, but I'm still really excited about it. I have always enjoyed teaching, and I (obviously) love Chinese. So I think that this is probably the best suited job for me. One of my favorite things from this past semester was helping my 同学 with any Chinese questions that they had. And I don't think I can count how many times I have been told that I should be a Chinese teacher this past semester. So I'm getting really excited about it. The only thing is, I have no idea what I'm going to do about my classes for next semester. When I registered for my classes for next semester, I was planning on doing an International Relations major, and now that that has changed, I don't know if any of the classes I have registered for are going to be needed. So one of the first things on the list of things to do when I get back to BYU is to go talk to a counselor about what the heck I should do for next semester and the rest of my College career. Anyway, I think I'm going to work on uploading pictures to somewhere on the internet so I can show people. I'll post a link on here when I eventually get them up on the internet.