It was Julie! Julie's on the other side of the planet! Hey miracles can happen!

So, I love Julie.  I really do.  She's absolutely amazing.  She apparently really likes it when I update my blog.  I guess it's not enough for her to be with me every second of every day ;-).  Not that I mind, by all means!  Please don't get me wrong!  I LOVE being around Julie too!  And those of you who have met her know why, she's just so much fun and I'm always smiling and laughing when I'm with her.  Anyway, like I said, she likes it when I update my blog because she just likes to see what I'm thinking.  I guess it is a different perspective when I'm writing to the blogosphere as opposed to talking to her directly.  Anyway, We've been having a lazy Saturday, just hanging out.  We played frisbee with some friends earlier today.  We haven't played frisbee in a long time, like all year, and she's kind of missed it.  A lot.  Julie's obsession with frisbee is akin to my obsession with China, if that puts things in perspective a little bit.  It was lots of fun.

Well, we're kind of just chilling right now.  Julie was trying to convince Steven, my room mate, that he should let her cut his hair.  He was almost going to do it, but then he decided against it for some reason.  He needs a hair cut though, he's kind of getting to the 'mop head' stage.  So I guess that idea is out.  Perhaps we'll put a movie on.  We played some Uno and Phase 10, oh and we made some cookie dough and ate probably three fourths of it...  :-D.  I love cookie dough.  As I have said, Julie just really likes it when I update my blog, so I figured I'd spend this past few min doing that just for her.  She said she would have blogged about our trip to Garry's last weekend.  I would, but I don't really have any pictures of my own to put up.  Oh, one nice thing about being 25, I can rent a car and not have to pay an arm and a leg for 'underage' drivers fees and whatnot.  The insurance is still expensive because I don't have any car insurance of my own, but still, at least I don't have those extra fees attached to it.  It really was a wonderful weekend though.  I really love my family.  As I get older, I realize more and more how truly unique my family is.  Julie noticed it as well, that we can go months without seeing each other and as soon as we are together again, it's like we've been together the entire time.  It was a lot of fun to meet Jenessa (Marshall's girl) and her sister who came down with Julie, Nanc and I.  Also, I LOVE my nieces and nephews!  They're all so cute and so much fun!  I wish I could see them more often, but at least some of them are close enough to see every once in a while.  Like everyone else in my family, I am TOTALLY excited about the upcoming reunion this Summer!  And what makes it all even better is that Julie's dad said that if she would do whatever he asked her to do over the summer (weed, mow, other miscellaneous chores) then he would buy her plane ticket to go!  YAY!  Julie's going to be a the reunion as well!  It's going to be a BLAST!

One last random update before I get off:  Steven (the same one who needs a hair cut) said I could use his computer and one of his dvd's to copy my Christmas Around the World dvd to send home!  So I'll do that within the next few days and get it in the mail the first of next week.  So those of you who are interested and live close can go check it out at my parents place!

Ok, now I'm done.  I hope you're happy now Julie ;-).  Perhaps I will get better at blogging regularly.  Or maybe I'll be able to convince Julie to start a blog of her own!  Or maybe I'll just grant her access so that she can post on here as well...  Hum... now there's an idea.....  I'll take a poll:  Those of you reading this, would you rather Julie starts her own blog, starts posting here on my blog (thus making it our blog), or are you indifferent as to the blogging habits of the girl I love so much and care immensely about?  (hint: That last option should only be chosen if you don't even know who I am, in which case, why are you voting in this pole in the first place!?!?!)


還有一件事！我正在想取個名字給我美麗的女朋友。取好名字後就會跟大家分享！

Christmas Around the World DVD!

I FINALLY got my Christmas Around the World DVD!  Yay!  It's only 2 months late...  Whatever.  I would be putting up a video of my dance right now, except my computer decided to hate me a little bit more.  As soon as I get my computer back, I'll rip the section with my dance to my computer and put it up here.  I'll also make a copy of the DVD and send it home so those of you who don't have a fast enough computer can watch it as well.  You'll be able to watch the entire program as well if you would like.  I know Grandma Willis would really enjoy it and I'm sure that there are others of you that would enjoy it as well.  But like I said, my computer hates me again.  For those of you who haven't heard about this whole fiasco, about 6 months or so ago (maybe longer), my computer screen started acting up.  Everywhere that was supposed to be black had obnoxious red lines going through it.  It was rather abrasive to the eyes.  So I sent it in.  When I got it back, guess what, the white now was turning this bright blue color!  Oh, and the red was still there.  I kind of needed my laptop for school, so I just dealt with it till January.  I couldn't watch movies because the colors were crazy.  I could hardly even write a paper without my eyes getting sore from the obnoxious colors.  Anyway.  in January, I sent it back in to Asus to fix it.  When I got it back, they decided not to send my power cord with it....  Ya, that was really happy for me.  But I borrowed a friends power cord and found that there were still really thin lines all over the place, but only when my brightness was turned all the way up.  They told me that my power cord would come back with my computer after I sent it in again.  So I sent it in, and they fixed it.  Yay!  Still no power cord.  Grumpy!  So after chewing a few people out and talking to a manager, I ended up getting my cord almost 2 weeks later.  Everything was all fine and dandy.  My battery was even lasting a little bit longer.  Then after I get home from Garry's house last Sunday night, the backlight to the screen decided that it was going to give out on me.  Ya, really happy about that.  So I sent it in again and now don't have a computer again for another week and a half or so.  So there you have it, my computer hates me again.  At least I have a 2 year warrantee on it.  So if anything else decides to go out on it or freak out on me, it had better happen before December!  Anyway, within 2 weeks probably, I should be able to get a video of my performance up.  Heck, I may have a video of our Scottish dance we're doing next week by then as well!

Julie Ann Peiffer

Well, you all know who Julie is, and if you don't, here's a previous post catching you (mostly) up to speed.  Ok, now that we're all on the same page...  For those of you who do not have access to Facebook (if there are any of you) here is one of the pictures that I promised oh so long ago of Julie and I.

Awwww.... Isn't she gorgeous!?  There are more pictures of Julie and I here if you haven't seen them.  I know, neither of us take enough pictures.  And when we do, it takes us both so stinking long to get them put anywhere where other people can see them.  Well, I know that these next few pictures aren't exactly of people, but I figured that they are worth sharing anyway.  You see, I'm kind of in love with Julie and she (for some reason) seems to love me back.  Don't believe me?  Well, here is some proof:

This was from walking her home one night.  As we were walking through a parking lot, she decided she was going to write me a message.  So I sat there as she wrote that lovely note for me in the snow.

You'll probably have to zoom in on this one to see what it actually says.  I think I may have mentioned this before, but Julie got a hold of my computer one day when I had stepped out and left all of these wonderful notes on my desktop for me!  Sadly, when I sent my computer in to get it fixed, they closed all of the notes, but that's why I took a screen shot!  Now I won't ever forget how much she loves me!  :-D

Now this is what I found on my door the morning of Valentine's Day.  Again, isn't she so cute!  I have since taken all of the harts off of my door and transfered them into my bedroom.

These next pictures are from preference.  It was a Beauty and the Beast dance (thus the first picture).

 The beautiful dress my lovely date was wearing

 Not the best picture of me, but I love Julie's smile in this picture

Not only is she gorgeous, but she's funny too!

As you can see, we both love each other very much.  We have a tendency to spend any free moment we have together.  On top of that, pretty much all of our friends think that we are just a really adorable couple.  A while ago, Sarah, one of Julie's best friends since Freshmen year, made some sort of comment about if she had a quarter for ever time we did something cute...  Now every time we kiss or do anything that the group of friends thinks is cute, we will inevitably hear at least on person say, "Quarter!"  I find it rather funny, especially when Julie plays dumb and says that she doesn't know why insert cuteness here is cute.  There really are a ton of things that I love about Julie, but I won't go into those here.  I know that most of you reading this were directed here from Facebook, and are thus waiting for the story of how it happened.  Well, you're patience shall be rewarded!

Fridays are one of Julie's busy days.  She has 6 hours of class (comprised of only two classes) starting at 8 in the morning.  Disgusting, I know.  Some friends had invited Nancyann and us over to their place for a game night, so we figured it would be easier if Julie just came over to my place after she got out of class.  My only class on Friday's are my Folk Dance class at 2.  Julie gets out of her class just before 2.  So Julie headed over to my place just as I was leaving for my class.  I happened to have a test I had to take today, so I wasn't able to head directly home from dance.  I had a minute as I was walking over to the testing center, so I figured I would check my email/Facebook.  Low and behold, I had 8 emails from Facebook telling me that people had commented on my 'changed relationship status'.  Not knowing what the heck was going on, I got on Facebook myself, and sure enough, I had apparently gone from 'In a relationship' to 'Engaged' within the past hour without my knowledge and even without me actually proposing or asking any sort of question!  No sooner did I see the word 'engaged' than I got a phone call from my sister in law wondering what in the world was going on.  I explained to her that Julie was at my house, with my computer and therein lies the answer as to how I went from merely in a relationship to engaged without a single person in my family knowing about it before it was all over Facebook.  As soon as I hung up with Sheri, my mom called.  I didn't really give her a chance to say hardly anything before I went in on the explanation of what was going on.  It's probably a good thing too, she was apparently pretty ticked that I would get engaged and post it on Facebook without actually even calling home and telling her and dad first!  I can't blame her, that would be a pretty low/stupid thing to do.  I had to go take my test after I got off the phone with her, but now, not even 12 hours later, I have received countless notifications from Facebook about people liking and commenting on my 'engagement'.

At any rate, this is my way of telling all of you that I am, in fact, not engaged.  It was merely a prank that Julie pulled on not just me, but all of you as well.  I hope that you all aren't too horribly ticked off at us/her.  I, for one, find the entire situation rather hilarious!  If you were wondering how things are going between Julie and I, the answer is things are absolutely marvelous!  She really is a wonderful girl and I love her with all of my heart.  If that's not enough, well, just think about what this post was all about and think about what you know about my brother in laws (specifically shortly before they were my brother in laws).

Well, I think I have successfully put those crazy rumors to rest.  Though, I may have gotten some of you to thinking, potentially starting even more rumors :-D.  Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little fiasco at least half as much as I have!

Pictures and a Video

Well, I posted all of the pictures that Julie and I took on facebook, but there might be a few of you who don't have facebook, so here is a link to the album that they are in.

So, being an Elementary Education major, Julie often has random, somewhat odd projects that she has to do.  Her latest project was to make a video telling a story.  She decided to tell the story of The Princess and the Pea.  We enlisted the help of my room mates and a few of her friends to take the pictures then we compiled it all yesterday and made a video out of it.  In order to turn it in, she had to post it to youtube.  So that means you all have access to it as well!  Anyway, it was really fun to do and turned out to be rather cute.  I hope you all enjoy!

Roommates

So, I don't think I've told too many of you about my awesome roommates that I have.  Marshall knows them and so does Nanc and perhaps a few other people out here at BYU that happen to feel like stalking on my blog every once in a while.  But other than that, most of you are probably rather clueless as to who my roommates are.  Ok, well, after Marshall and I came back for this semester, I got a new roommate in my room.  His name is Dalan Brown.  He's really stinking cool.  Unfortunately, as some of you know, he was in a car accident a few weeks ago and was hurt pretty bad.  Broken scapula, broken rib, lost a lot of blood, gash across his chest, stressed artery coming right out of his heart, collapsed lung...  It was pretty stinkin bad.  But he's had surgery and things are looking up.  He should have a full recovery and is leaving the hospital in the next day or so.  I didn't have a lot of time to get to know him, but I really liked him.  He would have been a really cool roommate.  He's going back home to Idaho and will be back for the fall.  So we'll see if we end up being roommates then or not.  The other guy who is 'new' is David Howard.  He has technically 'lived' here since the beginning of Fall semester.  I say 'lived' because I think I can count the number of times he's actually slept here on two hands, possibly even just one.  He apparently is pretty serious with his girlfriend and depending on how things go there, he's either going to marry her and we'll never see him again, or it'll end and he'll actually move in.  Who knows what's going on with him...  I did talk to him for about 1 1/2 hours last night and he seems like a pretty cool guy.  Then we have Devon and Steven Janke.  They're brothers from Ohio.  Steven is the oldest.  He works at FedEx early Early mornings (as in, it's not unheard of him to leave for work before I go to bed).  This is his first time moving away from home and isn't exactly a social butterfly, but he's seriously just a really good guy.  He likes computers a lot and loves playing video games, but he's a really caring happy guy.  He's always more than willing to help with whatever you need and generally doesn't really care what other's opinions of him are, he's just going to be himself.  Devon is pretty cool too.  He has an amazing voice and is extremely talented with the piano.  I know he plays the guitar as well and is good at that too, but I don't hear that quite as often as I hear him playing the piano.  Last semester his classes kind of sucked the life out of him.  We had a dance party about half way through last semester that he helped with and it kind of took me and the others who didn't already know him there off guard when we realized how fun of a personality he has.  He can be just as goofy as the next guy and is also just a genuinely happy guy.  Then there's Chris Layton.  He's really stinking funny.  He's almost always smiling and laughing about something.  This guy can seriously take pretty much any situation and find humor in it.  He was actually in the accident with Dalan and when we went to visit him this past Sunday, everyone was laughing about all sorts of random stuff he was saying.  It's always a treat when you are around people with a sense of humor and thing that life should be enjoyed, not just endured.  You can ask anyone here, my roommates are all pretty sweet guys.  They're all just really chill and fun loving.  Julie just thinks that they are amazing and I'd have to agree.  I sure have been blessed with some amazing people around me.  Hopefully next year Devon will be on a mission, but him aside, I'd love to keep my roommates who they are.  Anyway, I figured you should all know how many cool people I'm surrounded by.  I'm sure that you would all like to know how things are going with Julie and I, because, well, let's face it, everyone's always interested in others dating lives.  But I'm going to have to leave you disappointed.  I will say that I should be able to actually post some pictures of us tomorrow.  Hopefully we get a few good ones that she won't despise and will let me put up here for the world to see how gorgeous she is.  But till then, you'll just have to wait.

P.S. Sorry I'm so longwinded.  I just can't really help myself some times...  :-D

Chinese 311

I added a Chinese conversation class last minute this semester.  This is one of those classes that is different every semester and could really go either way, depending on the people in the class and more than that who is teaching and how they decide to set the class up.  So yesterday was my first time attending the class, and from the looks of it I'm going to enjoy the class.  At the beginning of class, she asked me to introduce myself and as I'm introducing myself I say that I served my mission in Taiwan.  Before I continue, you must understand something about Chinese.  Well, for one, there are tons of dialects, which greatly affect your accent (for native speakers) when speaking Mandarin.  The accent that people in Taiwan have isn't exactly hard to understand, but because they don't curl their tongue when they should, it has a tendency to sound almost as if you have a lisp.  Some missionaries, in an attempt to sound more like the people they served with, over compensate for this and just sound ridiculous.  Even those who don't overcompensate have a tendency to pick up at least a little bit of the Taiwanese accent.  Ever since I started learning Chinese, I have wanted to have accurate Chinese.  Of course, there are some things that I say that are obviously the Taiwanese pronunciation and other things that show I clearly learned Chinese in Taiwan, but that isn't the accent I wanted to pick up.  So I have worked hard to have good, accurate Chinese.  Ok, back to my class.  When I said that I served in Taiwan, my teacher didn't quite believe me.  She said, "Really?  Then why don't you sound like someone from Taiwan?!"  I take that as a compliment, a big one.  Nothing against Taiwan or the Taiwanese people, but my goal is to have accurate standard Mandarin.  It really made my day.  The rest of the class went really well too.  There were multiple times when the teacher talked about some of those consistent mistakes in pronunciation people with a Taiwanese accent and how they really just bug the crap out of her, thus reinforcing how much I appreciated the compliment she gave me earlier.  There were some people who would intentionally say things the wrong way because they thought it was funny, I thought it was about as funny as my teacher did: Not at all.  It was just obnoxious.  Anyway, aside from that, the class is really going to be a lot of fun.  Our only homework is once every couple of classes we have to make a recording of ourselves talking telling a story or whatever using the vocabulary words from that day's lesson.  We will have a vocabulary quiz every once in a while as well, but basically, that's it.  Oh, and we have to do peer reviews of their recordings as well.  But I'm excited.  It's going to be a fun class.  I'm kind of going to be in Chinese mode a lot this semester, which is more than ok by me!  But I have 3 Chinese classes this semester and I couldn't be more excited about it!

Video Competition

My roommate is doing a video competition for a scholarship website and he had me and our other roommates and some friends help him.  It turned out really awesome.  He wrote the music for it and everything!  Anyway, watch it and click like.  The link is here.