Halloween Horrors

Me and Kasia and Nicole (roommates) on Halloween. I was a Chinese woman. Woot.
Us at a ward Halloween party. Aren't we so cool? Yeah!

Half Marathon (that I didn't end up running because I was sick) with friends Ben and Jenny. We are ninja turtles.

Roommate Fun

Ronnie, my new roommate, had a birthday. So we made her a cake. If you look closely, the candles are melting into the cake as we speak.

Dinner with friends and roommates!

Aspen Grove Hike 10-23-10

Hike in the Uintas 10-16-10

I love Fall. A couple of weeks ago, I went on a hike in the High Uintas with some friends (my roommate, Kasia, and her two friends Parker and Alex- who happens to be from NC as well). It was beautiful!

Life, Change, and Goals

Goodbye Fall...here comes my last Winter in Provo:

Just a few things I want to do in my life-

• Learn to play violin
  
• Become politically informed, active - Be a good citizen
• Backpack across China
• Pray like I did on the mission - recognize answers like I did on the mission
• Go to bed at 10:30 every night
• Teach my kids to love life
• Write a book
• Love like my grandparents
• Paint a huge picture/mural of Lehi's Tree of Life vision
• Frame pictures from my mission and hang them up in my house
• Have a baby or two or three or four or five or six or more
  
• Ride horses along the beach in Mexico
  
• Live in South America and re-learn Spanish
• Learn German
• Run a half-marathon in a foreign country
• Go camping atleast once a year
• Visit all the national parks
• Always do my visiting teaching
• Actually study Isaiah
  
• Go on a second mission to somewhere in South America/Asia
• Take a photography class by National Geographic photographers
• Buy a really fancy camera and document my life

A Breath of Fresh Air, Please

Right now I'm sitting here thinking:

Wishing I was out in M.N. (mother nature) starring at this:



Feeling a little frustrated about this:
There are days when I wish I could just give up. Give up on this whole Chinese-learning thing. It is seriously one of the hardest languages ever. You think you are relatively fluent, and then you open up a wikipedia article in Chinese, can't read anything, and just want to cry. It's a goal that I feel like I will never achieve - unattainable.

This morning I had a 5 minutes presentation on "The Opening up and Reform of China" (1978). It shouldn't have been entirely difficult, but I spent hours trying to find articles in Chinese and then hours trying to "decode" them. And then hours trying to organize it for class. And then I spent hours when I should've been sleeping, sitting in my bed, anxious as I'll get out for this presentation. I. want. to give. up.

On that note, I got chosen to represent BYU in a Chinese business competition with 2-3 other Chinese-speaking students. Strangely, I accepted (mostly because it's an honor and looks good on my resume). I regretted it last night as I tried to search through millions of websites in Chinese that I don't understand. The competition will be mid-November and we (the "team" of 4 of us) will be given a case, like Harvard Law school cases and then we will have to interpret, analyze, and organize those thoughts and present it in front of 4 sets of judges. Scary.

What am I doing?

My mind recalls Elder Uchtdorf's talk about simplifying our lives. Why do I get into this mode where I think I have to always be busy? Why do I peddle as fast as I can to where ever I'm going? Why is efficiency my top priority?

"Let’s be honest; it’s rather easy to be busy. We all can think up a list of tasks that will overwhelm our schedules. Some might even think that their self-worth depends on the length of their to-do list. They flood the open spaces in their time with lists of meetings and minutia—even during times of stress and fatigue. Because they unnecessarily complicate their lives, they often feel increased frustration, diminished joy, and too little sense of meaning in their lives."

Amen, Elder Uchtdorf. A.MEN.

He then goes on to outline 4 key relationships to focus on in our lives:
1. Relationship with God
2. Relationship with Family
3. Relationship with Fellowmen
4. Relationship with Self

Powerful.

the dirty dash

10k race in the mud and slush- 5 obstacles including hay bails, tubes to climb through, mud pools to swim through - 1 fun race