MIA

So I have been missing for quite a while now. Sorry about that, life has been busy, and I really have not had time on Sunday to update people on what has been going on. I’ll try to give a brief overview to catch up everyone.

One of the biggest things that happened was getting finished with this semester. At times it felt like I could never get everything I wanted finished. In the end it all came together great. My finals went well. It looks like I will finish this semester with a 4.0, which makes me just ecstatic, especially since I am taking the hardest CS class BYU offers this semester. I am sad that I am running out of math classes though.

One of the other cool things that has happened is that the Chinese house has finally started purchasing movies. It is really fun to watch the various Chinese movies. It is ridiculously hard to understand a 100% of them, but overall I still think that they are great. I have enjoyed watching them with my roommates.

We also had a really good dumpling activity with the Chinese house. We must have wrapped five or six hundred dumplings. There are still frozen dumplings in the fridge a full month later. It was so much fun though, and I just enjoyed myself. I love how close the apartment is becoming. At first the girls didn’t seem to want anything to do with us, but now we are really coming together well.

 

Thanksgiving week was wonderful. On Tuesday of that week Serena, the Chinese house girl’s RF, was baptized. It was so wonderful. I am so happy for her. She really is a perfect match for the church.

Also that week I got henna on my arm. For those that don’t know, henna is a temporary body art that they do in India. My friend Kelsey is really good at doing henna, and drew a Chinese style dragon on my arm. I did have to wrap the entire arm afterwards while the henna dried. It made it a lot of fun to do everything ;) Luckily I had Emily and Karen of the Chinese house to help me do everything that night.

Lastly that week was Thanksgiving itself. For thanksgiving I went up with my family to our family cabin. It was great to just get up there and relax. While up there quite a few of my family freaked out about the henna, which was hilarious. I also submitted like four thousand applications for internships. Hopefully at least one of them will pan our.

 

After that pretty much everything I have done has centered around Emily Stewart, the girl that I am now dating. She is really amazing. We have so much of the same interests. We make each other laugh all the time. People think we look pretty ridiculous together because we are always so happy ;) Their just jealous =p

We have done a host of things though. Two stand out though. First just over two weeks ago we went to SLC together with Ben and Serena from the Chinese house. There we went to the temple to do baptisms. It was the first for Serena to go and do baptisms.

After the baptisms we went around and looked at the lights. It was so beautiful. They really were gorgeous. Afterwards we went and ate pizza at The Pie. I really wish there was a The Pie in Provo. Oh well. It was really a great time we had together.

The second one was a date we had to the river woods. Once again it was too see the lights (something Emily really enjoys doing.) It was beautiful, and there was someone playing the violin and it just sounded great. It was fun to snuggle up around the open fires and listen to him play.

After we were done looking at the lights we went back to my house (my family’s house) in Provo. There we made hot chocolate and watched “500 Days of Summer”. This is Emily’s favorite movie. It was a pretty cute movie. It was a really fun time! Here are some pictures from that night:

 

And that is what I have been up to these last several weeks. It really has been a wonderful time, I couldn’t have asked for a better month. Hopefully I will be able to find time to keep this blog better up to date, but we will just have to see.

Well, I hope that everyone else is enjoying this Christmas season so. I hope that we all remember the multitude of blessings that the Lord has given us. In this time of year when we are grateful for the birth of the Son of God, it is also the perfect time for us to recognize the hand of the Lord in all parts of our lives. We truly all are blessed of the Lord! I hope that we can all remember that in this season.

Quite Life, Busy Papers

Not much has actually happened these last two weeks, so there isn’t much for me to talk about. Heck, if I didn’t know my parents like reading this blog, I might not even post

 

One of the few interesting things was last Saturday, I was able to go to a middle eastern dance performance. It was very interesting. It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting, but I certainly enjoyed it. That is one of the benefits in living in Provo, there is always something to do!

For Halloween I didn’t do to much. At night I dressed up as a math test by pasting math problems all over me. It was pretty lame, but I haven’t been that into Halloween in the last couple years. I then went out with a bunch of my friends to go and get something to eat. It was just fun to get to hang out with everyone over Halloween.

This weekend I had a pretty good Saturday. In the afternoon Drew and Ryan, my old roommate, came over and we had Hotpot. It was so much fun, and it tasted wonderful. It has been quite a while since I had gotten to eat hotpot, and it is just as wonderful as I remember. What is even better was that I got to catch up with my old friends. I just wish more of my flagship friends were in Utah and we could hang like that.

Saturday night I went a celebration of the Indian Festival of Lights. It was really quite a lot of fun. The actual MCing was rather terrible, but I think that is part of what made it so enjoyable. It wasn’t the most cultural experience, but who cares if you get to spend time with your friends!

 

And that was pretty much my week. Still working on getting published, but other than that nothing much is new. Hope everyone else is having fun adventures!

Cabin Pics

So the only thing of note that I did this week was to go with a friend to watch Harry Potter in the dollar theatre.  It was great, especially since she, like me, likes to comment on movies.  It made everything just a bit more fun.

 

Other than that, nothing much happened, so instead of writing this week, I am just going to post the pictures I took while up at the cabin last week.

Cabin Trip

Well this week ended well, namely with a cabin trip.  Unfortunately it didn’t start well.  The only real problem during the week was that I had to get my car fixed.  There were some problems with the engine and overall the repairs cost me about 440 dollars.  The most annoying part was about 140 or those were not really that necessary, but the mechanic didn’t make that clear.  I probably won’t use the same place in the future because of this.

To make up for that though, the car was ready and I was able to spend Friday and Saturday at the cabin.  I really have to thank Brittany for arranging the trip.  It was a lot of fun.  Friday night involved hitting the town of Evanston (which trust me, at 10PM is fairly dead).  The next day involved Ping Pong, Hiking, BYU football, and good food.

The Hiking was a lot of fun, especially at the end when Pasha, Sean, and I took a different way back to the trail head.  We trudged through the snow (still not melted from last year I believe), climbed rocks, and just generally had a really great time.  It was so much fun.

The BYU football game was also a lot of fun.  We watched the re-broadcast at 8:00 PM since we were hiking at 2.  Since no one knew the score it was just as intense as the real thing.  I am really glad that we won.

 

Well, that has been what is new in the last two weeks.  School continues to go well.  I’ll make sure to post some pictures from the cabin soon.  Until then I hope everyone else is having great adventures!

Conference Week

Well, at the beginning of the week I finally got caught up with school.  It actually turned out ok.  It really does feel good to be caught up.  The real excitement in the week wasn’t until the weekend.  The football game this week was incredibly intense.  It was wonderful to see us move the football down the field so consistently when Riley came in.  It was great.

 

Other than that my next adventure was conference weekend.  Saturday afternoon I went with Pasha to SLC to attend conference.  We went to the standby line for the Saturday afternoon session.  Unfortunately we didn’t get in and had to go the tabernacle.  It was so terribly hot.  I nearly killed over.  It made it really hard to pay attention.

After the session I went with Pasha and Bonnie to lunch.  I then went to get in standby for Priesthood session, but the line was so large that I just went home instead.  I attended conference with my dad which was great.  I am glad I got to do that.

After priesthood I went to pick up Pasha.  After picking up Pasha, which was its own adventure, we then went to Drew’s house.  It was great seeing everyone again.  That was probably the best part of Saturday, was getting to spend time with so many of my friends.

 

On Sunday I went to my aunts house.  We went to the canyon between sessions, and it was beautiful.  After conference we went to my cousin-once-removed’s birthday party.  It was good to chill with my family.  After that I just came home and rested.

 

Overall, everything was great this weekend.  I am so grateful that I could hear the word of the Lord with so much of my friends and family.  Nothing better than that!

Orlando Conference

The biggest event in the last two weeks was the (ISC)² conference I attended in Orlando this week.  Pretty much all of the week before led up to it.  I worked like crazy to do my homework, and I still didn’t get nearly as much as I was expecting done.  It really has been rather crazy.  I did manage to get caught up, all in time for a terrible game that I will not mention again…

We had to wake up at 4AM to go to the conference.  When we got our tickets I saw the worst sight possible.  The security line was wrapped all the way around the baggage caracals and back.  Even though they were moving people through at the fastest rate I had ever seen them move people at we still ended missing our flight. 

Luckily we got re-routed, unluckily that involved first going to LA to catch a plane to Orlando.  It meant that we spent eight hours on a plane.  Not as bad as going to China, but still not the most fun ever.

Well eventually we got there, and then just went home and rested.  We were bushed.  Because of the re-route we didn’t even get to attend any of Monday’s part of the conference.  So instead we went on Tuesday.  The sessions were only so-so interesting, but I really enjoyed the networking luncheon.  It was great to talk about the projects I was working on and see real interest for people.  It is nice to know that people care about usable security.

The most exciting part of the conference was a awards Gala Wednesday night.  Really good food, and even better networking.  The guy from MITRE was falling over trying to give me and my team-mates internships.  It was actually pretty awesome.  It was great to be recognized for our victory as well.

After all that we headed home, and once again I pounded the books.  I am mostly caught up but not quite there yet.  Luckily I was able to see BYU win another football game, which is exactly what my soul need .

Well, that is all for now.  I will let you know how next week goes, and if I manage to survive my 19 credits hours of homework I missed for a week .

How can I be so busy…

I thought being a graduate student would mean that I just had oodles of time.  It probably would mean that except that I have decided to start learning Russian.  Not only did I pick a hard language, I picked one that I have absolutely no experience with.  That means I have a about 15 less hours a week of time because of the language.  It is hard to keep doing it, but I do enjoy it, and I plan to stick with it.  As long as I can get my other work done that is.

 

So, I must say getting home teaching setup is killer.  I spent about seven hours on Sunday getting everything setup, printed, and handed out.  It may have taken forever, but it is most certainly worth it, as now everyone knows who their home teacher is.  It is good, and I am glad that it can all be done, and not linger on any longer.

 

So interesting things this week… Well I did setup a mini computer lab inside of my lab, for use by the penetration testing students that would come.  I also got the chance to start playing on an intramural team.  This is my first time being on such a team.  I think that it will turn out to be a lot of fun, so I am actually pretty excited to be able to participate.  We did lose our first game, but I think we have real potential.

The sad thing of the week was BYU losing.  It was fun at first since I was with friends, and while not looking too amazing, BYU was still doing well enough.  Unfortunately in the second half Texas was really able to take advantage of the wholes in our team.  I was so sad that we lost, but that is how the cookie crumbles.

 

As for me, I am currently running around like crazy trying to get ready for the Conference I am attending in Orlando next week.  I need to talk to my teachers and figure out what to do with my homework during that time.  Hopefully it all works out without killing me.

Start of school

Sorry I didn’t write again, it just seems like life has been taking me for a run lately.  Monday and Tuesday of two weeks ago was spent finishing up the paper our lab was writing.  It is really hard writing papers for publication.  It is crazy for me to think that we put in so much work, and it most likely will still get rejected.  I have enjoyed writing though, and I do feel that we ended with a good paper.

After finishing the paper I started reading like crazy.  I finished three books in just two days.  Mostly I have been reading Brandon Sanderson’s stuff.  I must admit that I am really impressed with him.  He is a really good writer.  I have enjoyed reading all of his stuff.

On Wednesday I was able to move back into the FLSR.  It is good to be back at home.  I am excited for the coming semester.  Things have started off a little rocky though.  Our RF thought that dinner need to be two hours.  It was a little much.  It took us the whole week before we were able to get the matter cleared up.  Now it is taken care of, and I am sure things will be fine.

During that time though I have started to take Russian class.  I have really enjoyed it, and I am trying to see if I couldn’t move into the Russian house.  It would be crazy hard at first, but in the end it would really pay off.  I will have to email the language coordinator and see what they say.

 

The craziest time was this weekend.  On Friday was my grandma’s birthday.  It was great to see her, and wish her happy eightieth.  She is doing well.  I was also glad that I could see my family.  Saturday was Kashe’s sealing to my sister.  I was glad that I could be in the temple for this sealing.  I feel so blessed to have the gospel in my family, and the binding it brings to families.

After the sealing I went to Crystal’s hose for the game.  It was fun to watch it with family, but the game was so stressful.  I am glad that in the end BYU won, but they had me really worried for a while. 

Sunday was the blessing, and that was wonderful.  Bart had to talk really loud since the mic wasn’t working, but it was a good blessing.  I then helped take care of Kashe for the rest of the meeting.  I must say Crystal is amazing to keep both of her rascals happy through all of church.  After that I came home and taught Elder’s quorum.  They are an awesome group of men, and I am excited for the semester with them.

 

So that is how things have been with me.  Busy with school mainly, but still enjoying life.

Vegas and Papers

Life has been non-stop busy the last couple of weeks.  That is the reason I haven't been able to get to writing what I have been up to.  Sorry about that.

So the fun began with the beginning of August.  I was spending most all of my time preparing for DefCon in Vegas that week.  Because everyone was so paranoid about having our laptops hacked there I setup the lab’s laptop to take with me.  It was fun trying to get everything setup.  I am slowly getting used to the Mac, but I must admit it just makes me want my PC again =p

On Wednesday I drove down to Vegas.  The drive actually went pretty well.  We had rented a pretty large car, and so everyone was pretty comfortable the whole way there.  The hotel room we had was also pretty nice, though it was in a casino, which wasn’t the cleanest place.

We though that DefCon was starting on Thursday, but it turned out it didn’t really start till Saturday.  Because of this we just kind of chilled the day away.  On Friday we started the real hacking competition.  At first things went pretty slowly.  We had problems figuring out how to get our network setup.  We successfully attacked a computer that would allow us to get to the various challenges, but we were stuck on how to go from there.  Luckily it wasn’t just us that was stuck, but the rest of the teams as well.

The second day went a lot better.  It still took us quite a bit of time before we got any points, but eventually we were able to get a couple.  When we finished the day we were in fifth place.  This is actually pretty good for us have only done this a couple of weeks now.  I personally helped solve half of the problems.  None of them were too hard once you knew the trick, but some of the tricks were pretty hard to see.

On Sunday we went to church and headed back.  I almost managed to drive the whole way by myself, but towards the end I had to switch out.  When I got home everyone was pretty happy to see me.  I guess it was pretty conspicuous that I was gone for several days.

 

After DefCon was over things kept just as busy.  While I was at DefCon, Dr. Seamons found a conference he wanted us to submit a paper to.  So for the last two weeks I have been working like crazy to try and help get the paper together.  It is a lot harder then I thought it would be.  It wasn’t until this last Saturday that we even got the paper to look mostly like we wanted.  It is finally starting to look really good, which is making me awfully happy.

Other than that the only thing of note was that FLSR move outs happened.  It will be sad to see everyone move out.  Hopefully we will get some really sociable new people that move into the ward.  That would be just great. 

 

Oh yea, the best thing of all is that Drew and Cassi are back in town.  I missed them so much when they went to Hangzhou and I came back to America.  We still live in different cities now, but at least we are in the same country.  They came by to visit a week ago Saturday.  It was really awesome to see them.  We just chatted for a while, and it made my day.

 

Well that is what I have been  up to.  Things have been busy but they have all been pretty simple.  I can’t wait for school to start up again.  I have some really great classes I am signed up for, and this semester should be just wonderful! 

Blogless weeks

It seems as if these last couple of week shave been without blogs for nearly everyone.  I haven’t written and neither have any of the people that I follow.  It has been kind of strange like that.  Anyways, since it has been so long I will try to only hit the highlights of what has been happening.

 

One of the more fun things I have been able to do is play more tennis with people.  I have gotten my cousin Ryan to play with me, and even though he is a lot better than me, it is still fun.  It also gives me someone to chase after   I have also been playing with another friend from the FLSR who is just learning to play.  That has also been a lot of fun, especially since it allows me to just work on fundamentals.

 

Probably the craziest thing that happened was last week Tuesday and Wednesday.  Me and three other people competed in a security capture the flag.  It was attended by students from across the country, and involved data forensics and other techniques often associated with hacking to capture information for points.  Our team ended up winning by a pretty good margin, which felt absolutely amazing.

One of the cool things with that is that they are now paying for us to attend DefCon in Las Vegas next week.  The school is even pitching in to take care of incidental expenses.  This is great, it will be my first time attending a conference not hosted by the organization I am either working at or attending school at.  I am really excited about this.

Last weekend I also was lucky enough to have my dad come down for the afternoon.  I prepared a little picnic lunch, and we ate over at Rock Canyon Park.  It was good to be able to spend that little bit of time with him.

This last week I also finished the project that has been the main focus of the lab this whole semester.  I was able to finish fixing up the last peace, and finally everything finished coming together.  Now we can focus on writing papers, which will be very helpful for getting into better programs in another two years.  I am excited for that.

Saturday was the first time I have ever seen a movie in 3D.  I went with a friend to the movies, and since the movie we wanted to see was sold out we saw Thor in 3D instead.  It wasn’t as amazing as I had heard it made out, but it was still a lot of fun.   If we could just ditch the glasses, I think I would like it even more.  It was a fun movie, so that was good.

 

And that is the cool things that I have done recently.  A lot of little things I didn’t write about also happened, but that is just me and my busy life.  Next week I will try to write about how DefCon went.  Until then!

Slow week

Well, to be honest this week hasn’t been nearly as crazy as the others.  But it has still be fun.  July 4th was a really good start to the week.  I went to the parade with some people from the FLSR.  It was pretty fun to hang out with everyone like that.  Later that day those same people and I went to go swimming.  It was a lot of fun, and I got my first sun burn since before my mission.  It is itching like crazy, so I guess next time I will just have to put on sun screen =/

 

Other adventures this week included a random trip to Macey’s at 11PM at night for candy.  Those of us in the car then spent the next 40 minutes in my car talking and eating candy while watching the rain outside.

Wednesday night had a similar adventure in that we decided to go and get something to eat at about 11PM at night.  Wendy’s was closed so we ended up going and getting food at the Malt Shop.  While there I danced with some of the girls, and so of course that counts as a wonderful day :)  Good times!

Thursday was a rock band party at Sean’s house.  It was fun, we had 6/7 possible instruments, and it was just a blast.  Everyone had so much fun.  Really good times!

Friday saw me getting a Shake and then driving all around Utah County trying to find the Justin Bieber movie with Naomi.  I swear, whenever I am with that girl we just do the most random things possible.  Silly us, it was a lot of fun though :)

Saturday was a night with a dance party, sort of like the one I wrote about a couple weeks ago.  It was good fun, even though I didn’t personally dance as much this time.

 

So as you can see, no huge adventures like I have been having, but a lot of little small ones.  I must admit that in some ways I feel more like a 21 year old just home from my mission then I did when I when I was actually 21.  Funny how that works :)  Now, this week I just need to figure out how to stop going to bed at 2AM!

July 4th

Well, I seem to have gotten into the habit of only writing my blog every other week.  I will try to do better, but I can make no promises.  It just seems that every other Sunday is especially busy, so I have no time to write in my blog.

 

Lets see then, what has been happening.  Well two Thursdays ago (21st) we had a really fun night.  It started with several of us from the FLSR going out to play volleyball.  When we got there the courts were full, but we joined a game with another team.  It was a lot of fun to just get out and play with everyone. 

After we got back we all just talked for a while, and then we all decided to go to Sonic.  It is funny to me that I am doing stuff like this.  It feels more like I am 21 now, then when I was 21   Oh yea, that night I also asked out a girl while she was on a date with someone else.  Sure felt silly when I realized what I had done, but you know what they say, all is fair in love and war.

The next day was the date with the girl that I just mentioned.  It was a double date with someone else I knew from the FLSR.  We went up the canyon and had tin-foil dinners and roasted Marshmallows.  It was pretty much as awesome as it gets.  We had such a great time. 

As we were leaving Kari, the girl I was on the date with, said she wanted to watch a movie.  So we went to my uncle’s house and watched Frequency.  It was so fun, made especially so by the fact that Kari super reacted to everything that happened in the movie.  She was more fun to watch then the movie itself ;)

Then on Saturday I had another date.  We went for dinner at Café Pasean, which for those who do not know is like Café Rio, but with Italian food instead of Mexican food.  While there we just happened to run into Brittany and Ryan which was crazy.  After dinner we went to watch “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, performed by the Shakespeare in the Park group.  It was so much fun.  I must say overall, and amazing date with an amazing girl, the highlight of that week for sure.

 

Wednesday of the next was the next day where anything happened.  I got some people together and we watched “Howl’s Moving Castle”.  It was fun, even if some people thought it a bit over the top.  After the movie Kristen, the cousin of one of my friends in the FLSR, came over to return a guitar she had borrowed.  I then helped her listen to some of the stuff she had recorded to submit for a scholarship.  She is a really amazing musician.  There can be no better way to end a night then listening to amazing music with great people, and so that night ended wonderfully.

Saturday was also a lot of fun.  In the afternoon I had a picnic with a bunch of my family.  It was great to see everyone, even though it took quite a bit of time for everyone to trickle in, but that is just how a darling gathering works.

Later that night I was also able to go to Stadium of Fire.  It was really good.  The music and everything was just wonderful.  It is amazing how incredible fireworks are.  They seem to be able to do anything, even make a heart shape.  I then ended the night by going to the creamery with some friends, and then just talking the night away.  Wonderful.

 

So that is how life has been going for me.  Full of fun and eventfulness.  As I try to be more and more social the Lord has truly helped me to find amazing friends.  That is actually the story of my life as it sits now.  The Lord leads us and guides us, even in ways that we don’t understand.  I am not fully sure how current things will help me to accomplish my goals, but I know I am doing what the Lord wants, and I know that He will see to it that I can do all that I am supposed to.  This is truly one of the greatest blessings of the gospel.  We can have confidence that if we but do what the Lord tells us to do, that He will help us accomplish what He has promised we can accomplish!

FLSR life rocks!

Apparently I have become rather bad a posting every week.  Maybe that is good, since there is less long windedness for everyone else to listen to   Regardless, two weeks has gone by super quickly.  It seems like everyday is as long as can be, but the weeks as a whole take forever to be over.  It is strange.

 

We had a bonfire for FHE, and that as a lot of fun.  I love the smell of campfire.  Smores are always fun as well.  It was also fun because I got to hang out more with the French house, something that doesn’t happen too often.  They are a really cool set of girls, and so it is fun to get to know them better.

Tuesday was the start of our weekly ultimate Frisbee games.  It is a lot of fun to get a bunch of people together and just enjoy the exercise.  The teams are generally pretty even match, though there are a couple players who truly stand out.

On Friday I had a really fun date with one of the girls from my ward.  We went up to the park above the state mental hospital.  Up there we roasted shish kabobs and played croquet.  My date actually one with some very masterful club work.  It was pretty awesome.

After that we played some Frisbee golf.  We did end up going to two different parks so that we could play some more, but it was still a lot of fun.  LauraLee is actually pretty good at getting the Frisbee in the basket.

After that I came home and joined the French house who was having a dance party.  It was a lot of fun to get up and move.  It was a silly Wii game, but it was still a lot of fun.  We danced forever, and then when the last people were leaving we left and started having a conversation on dating.

The dating conversation lasted about an hour and a half.  What came out of it was that everyone should be less couched in what they do, and that secretly none of us thought that the other side would.  So dating as normal in Provo

Saturday was another really great day.  I had another date with another girl in the ward.  This time we went and had a picnic lunch.  We followed that up with a game of Frisbee golf, followed by some Nertz.  It was a lot of fun.

After the date I went off to the stake activity.  It was also a lot of fun, we played volleyball, ultimate Frisbee, ate catered JDogs, and watched comedy sports.  Yeah, it rocked as much as it sounds

After that event I got a text from Naomi that night, and so I spent the night with her hearing about her adventures with Bruno Mars.  I feel really lucky to have friends as wonderful as Naomi.

 

So as you can all see a week ago was pretty busy.  Luckily it was pretty busy just having fun.  The Lord has really blessed me by allowing me to be in such an awesome ward with such wonderful people this summer.

 

Well last Sunday was also really busy.  I got set apart as the Elder’s Quorum president.  Lets hope I just don’t manage to burn down the church   I did have to wait till this Sunday to get my councilors called, but luckily there wasn’t much to do that first week.

That Sunday night after ward prayer we played Nertz, and it was a fun time.  I think I won every round but one.  For me that is incredibly successful, so I felt just wonderful.  It is so wonderful to be able to spend time like this with other people.

On Monday we had another wonderful FHE.  We went to the Bishop’s house, and there roasted hot dogs, marshmallows, and swam in his pool.  Did I not mention that I have an awesome ward

A had a couple little adventures Tuesday-Thursday.  The one that was the most fun was going to the creamery with a bunch of people in the FLSR to celebrate the end of finals.  We had a fun time together, and even played translation telephone as well.  It is like the standard telephone game, except that at each person the language changes as well.

Friday continued the fun.  We invited everyone over to watch “The Next Three Days”.  There were not that many people that were able to come, but luckily we were able to get a bunch of the new people this term.  And let me tell you, the new people in our ward are pretty awesome.  I am really excited to get to know them more.

I found out one the girls, Rebecca, had never watched “Stardust”, so we decided the next day that we would watch it.  So on Saturday we got people together and watched the movie.  Everybody really loved it.  After that we just all talked for a while, and it is so great knowing these people.

 

So yea, a pretty busy but awesome week.  One more thing, Sean has decided to start teaching me Russian, so maybe in a few weeks I will be able to say some broken Russian phrases!  Oh how I love the FLSR.

I hope that you are all also rocking it wherever you are.  Thanks for reading my blog you all, I hope you like it.

A couple fun weeks

So, once again it seems that I have skipped a week of writing in my blog.  It just seems that there is always so much to do, that I don’t ever get around to finishing the blog.

 

On Sunday, as in two weeks ago Sunday, I got to give a lesson in Elder’s Quorum.  It was about proper Sunday observance.  I was really happy to be able to give this lesson.  I feel that as I have done better to properly observe the Sabbath day, my life has been greatly blessed.  I know that when we sacrifice for the Lord on this day, he gives us back much more in return.

The first real party item of the week was Thursday.  At my lab we decided to have a curry day to celebrate the progress we have been making on our project, and also that one of the Master’s students did their defense that day.  We did a curry potluck where everyone brought a different type of curry, and we stuffed ourselves on it.  I myself made a Thai coconut curry that turned out well, even if it was as strongly flavored as I would have liked.

Out professor also brought in his week and supplies for root bear floats.  So as you might imagine we got absolutely zero work done that day.  But it was so much fun just to relax and spend the day playing games and eating curry with everyone.

That night we also had a fun complex activity.  It was an open mic night.  It was really cool to see how talented a bunch of people in the FLSR where.  I even got up and performed some stuff, even though I had just barely begun to learn the guitar.  Crazy, huh.  Oh well, someday I will be able to perform something a little harder then “Puff the Magic Dragon”, and that will be a good day :)

Saturday was also another good day.  In the morning I went out with one of my old friends to the canyon.  There we walked around and had a picnic.  It was a lot of fun to catch up with her, and see how life was going for her.

In the afternoon on Saturday Sean and I got some people together to play volleyball.  It was actually pretty hard to get the requisite number of people since quite a few people were actually out of town.  Eventually we did get together 9 of us, and we had a fun little while playing volleyball.  We kept playing until it start to rain a little, and then we headed home.

 

My second week was also just as fun.  Last Sunday we had dinner at the Bishop’s house.  It was a lot of fun to go with several members of the ward over there for dinner.  It was a lot of fun to get to know those people better and just have a great time.

After that I had Brittany and Angela’s birthday parties.  They are growing up so fast!  I know I am not that much older than them, but I still remember them so clearly from when they were just little girls.  It is crazy to see them both all so grown up now.  It was also great just to be able to spend some time with my family.

Lastly on Sunday we had pie at the Spanish house.  They had made some extra apple pies, and they invited us over to eat.  I must admit, every time I am in the Spanish house I do feel a little bad that I have let my Spanish comprehension slip so much.  I really should do something to get it back… yea, that will probably never happen though…

 

On Monday the ward came over to my apartment to watch Inception.  I must say I really do have a cool ward, and I just love doing things with them.  Inception was really fun since we had it on Blue-ray and 5.1 surround sound.  It is also just great movie.

On Wednesday I had a really fun date.  We went to an acoustic guitar concert,  The bands that played were really good.  I would sure love to be that good someday.  It was just fun to be outside in the beautiful weather, enjoying good music with good company.  After the show was over we went and played a little Bocce ball.  We then came back to the FLSR.  All in a all a really good night.

Thursday saw some drama with the language coordinator of my house.  I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say it made the first part of my day pretty terrible.  At least the end was better as I had another date for Thursday night (different girl.)  We went to Rock Canyon park.  First we played Bocce ball, and got killed by the other couple that was with us.  After that we played some Croquet.  It was a lot of fun.  My date, Leah, was really good at Croquet.  She got through all of the hoops super quickly.  one of the sweetest shots was when as the stringer she took out Sean’s ball from about 10-15 feet away.  It was just an epic shot.  After that it was all I could to dodge her attempts to take me out.  Luckily I did make it to the end, and then we tried to kill each other off for the rest of the game.  Eventually she missed my ball by all of an inch, and I was able to hit her ball from that distance to end the game.

After Croquet we came back to the FLSR and went to the ice cream social that was happening for complex mingle.  There we both competed, along with Allyson from the French house, in an ice cream eating contest.  We all had a bowl of ice cream and we had to eat it with our hands behind our backs.  It was a lot of fun, and ice cream certainly got over all of our faces.  It was such a wonderful night, which is what I needed after such a terrible morning :)

 

On Friday I went up to the cabin.  I had invited several of my friends, but in the end only Ashley and Leah from the French house were able to come.  The ride up was a lot of fun as there was good conversation and good music.  Once we got up there we decided to make some German chocolate cake.  While we were waiting for it to back we watch a couple really funny divine comedy music video spoofs.  After that we played some Apples to Apples.  Overall it was just a really fun night.

 

On Saturday we made an amazing breakfast of eggs, pancakes, French toast, bacon, sausage, and orange juice.  It was just delightful.  Then the people that came up with me, as well as Ryan and Sarah and one other boy, went out for a hike.  It was a lot of fun.  Everywhere was flooded because of all the snow and rain we have been getting this year.  At one point I just had to take off my shoes and socks and walk through a new river that had formed to get where we then wanted to go.

Everything was so beautiful on the hike.  The creations of our Lord are truly magnificent, and I am grateful that I can enjoy them.  During the hike we even got to have a snowball fight that was a lot of fun, even though I did cut my leg on the snow since it had frozen ice shards in it.

After that we played Upwards for a while, and then made ourselves some Spaghetti for lunch.  Actually, for lunch, the girls did most of the work, and for that reason it probably turned out so good :)  After that we all headed home.

And yet that wasn’t the end of my Saturday.  No this was mega-Saturday!  After I got back there was the ward opening social.  It is kind of weird that we are having it now, even though in two weeks about half of the ward is leaving, but that is just how life is.

While there we started a game of ultimate Frisbee.  It was so much fun.  At fist I was playing just like normal, but then I decided to get crazy and start running down every Frisbee, even if I wasn’t sure I could catch it.  I had some sweet misses, and some even sweeter catches.  My favorite was when I had to run, jump, and then slide to grab the Frisbee, catching it with only one centimeter between it and the group.  It was pretty crazy.  That did cause a bunch of grass to go into my ear and hurt a lot, but it was worth it for that catch =p

And then to end the day I went to Orem to spend some time with family, and also to watch the season finale of The Mentalist.  It certainly did not disappoint.  I just love how everything has wrapped up.  I can’t wait to see what they plan to do next season!

 

So that is what I have been up to these last two weeks.  I assume my friends have been having as much fun.  They seem to all be doing little mini adventures before they come home from China in the next couple of weeks.  I have missed reading their blogs, but I am sure I will get to read plenty of updates soon enough (hint, hint.)

Busy enjoying life! Pt. 2+

Continue from the last post:

Then that brings me to last Sunday, when I should have written this last blog post. I probably could have found time to write my blog, but I think I did do a lot of really good stuff as well. Me and Ben first made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for our home teachess (hint: be my home teachee and get baking goods.) After that we taught the guys, and then me and Sean chilled on the lawn singing hymns together while he strummed them on the guitar.

At night we went to a regional fireside, a fireside for which we were the only BYU ward that went. Our high councilor is cute, and had just happened to hear of this fireside, and so had us crash it :) It was actually really cool. It was a Navajo convert to the church. He told us of his conversion which included the fact of how he had heard the stories that are in the Book of Mormon from his medicine man father long before he had ever even heard of the Book of Mormon. It was really interesting to hear those stories told from in their Navajo story form. It was also a testimony to see such proof that the modern descendants of Lamanites knew of these stories still. It was cool.

That night I was introduced at ward prayer. It was hard to come up with interesting stories, but still it was fun. After that I played some games with people and then headed off to bed.

On Monday I made chicken enchiladas for dinner. It took longer than I wanted, but they actually turned out really well. That night we also played ultimate Frisbee for ward FHE. It was great to get out and play with the ward. It was also great to see that my workouts are most certainly helping my cardio. I was able to keep running the whole time and be a real participant, which was really fun.

Tuesday was a fun little morning. After getting done with swimming me and Ryan went back to my place and made pancakes. We ate them covered in raspberry yogurt and watched economics rap. It was so much fun.

That night I went to a speech club. It was really interesting, really formal, but still really cool. The night did turn a little weird at the end when this guy found out I was in CS. He started telling me all his “great” programs and ideas. He just kept going, even when I would shake his hand and start leaving he would just keep following me and talking to me. It was crazy.

To end the night Sean and I got together a bunch of people and played Apples to Apples. A great way to end the night!

Thursday and Friday were not the best days for work. I ended up only going to work about 2 hours between those two days. On Thursday I slept in till 11 AM, and then spent the rest of the morning installing some custom firmware on my router. Hopefully this will help the router be a little more stable.

That night I also went to the FLSR’s dinner. I have to admit that it is a bit hard for me to enjoy those kind of dances as it is mainly just dancing around. But still I went to support the RAs. Maybe if I knew how to dance Hip Hop it would be a little better, but unfortunately I do not. I was able to actually dance 2 songs, so that was at least good.

Friday was a pretty chill day. In the afternoon I went down to SLC to take my down out for lunch for his birthday. It was good to be able to spend a bit of time with him. At night we celebrated the birthday of my roommate Michael. One of my other roommates, Ben, made a really good banana cake, and then we sang and ate. We finished the night all watching the Bourne Supremacy together. It was really just a good day.

 

Saturday was the real highlight of the two weeks.  The day was just beautiful, and while I wasn’t raptured, it was still a great day.  As most wonderful days started this also started with time in the temple.  Sean and I then spent our time getting ready for out date that night.  We managed to finish getting all of the food and everything made and packed into the car just in time.

For our date I took out Kate Erekson.  It was a triple date.  We went up to Vivian park, where we had a picnic dinner.  While waiting for the third couple to come we played some Apples to Apples.  We then had a bow tie pasta salad that Sean and I made for dinner.  We also had sun chips and watermelon, very picnicy. 

After that we played some Frisbee, culminating in a game of 500.  It was really fun, even if it did degenerate into cheating to help our dates win each round, but I guess that is what makes things fun :)  After we got worn out from that we played a little Cranium.  Kate and I did a great job as a team, and won pretty handily.  It was a lot of fun.

After the game was over we packed up and headed back to Provo.  In Provo we make some frozen yogurt.  While waiting for it to freeze we played some Rock Band.  We then had yogurt, and just talked for a while.  After that I walked my date home.  Really quite a fun date, and a great way to spend a day in which I wasn’t raptured :)

 

So that is what I have been up to these last two weeks.  It has kept me really busy, but it has been fun every second.  I am so grateful that I am a grad student, and as such have the time to do all these things.  I truly do feel blessed at this time that I could do graduate school in Utah.

I hope that all of you area also enjoying your time wherever you are.  For all of my friends in China, I have missed seeing you blogs the last couple of days, I hope to see some cool new adventures before you all come home :)

Busy enjoying life! Pt. 1

Wow, two weeks have gone by since I last wrote my blog.  That seems like forever.  A lot happens in that time, especially when I look at what my friends in China post about their adventures in China.  It is funny to see them all anxious to come home, and me just wishing I was there with them all enjoying it.  Sigh… I guess I will just have to try extra hard to get an internship there next summer.

 

Mother’s day was a good day.  In the morning I was able to give a talk about mothers, which made me really happy.  I love the subject, and I love that I get to shout from the roofs just how important they are :)  In the afternoon we had a Mother’s day celebration at my older sisters house, and I was able to thank my mom for all she did.  It was also fun to help out the mom that was my sister by holding Kashe for about 2 hours to keep him from crying.  He is so cute though, so you don’t really mind holding him :)

 

On Monday in the lab we got a new toy.  I was able to convince Dr. Seamons to buy our lab a new 1080p projector, and spent most of Monday playing with it.  I really just love toys :)

Even with those distractions things at work have been going really well.  We have been getting all of our work done.  We even met the deadlines we set, which is a real surprise because we set them almost at random.  It is going so well our professor has decided that this next Friday will be a Wii and Curry party to celebrate.  I really love my job!

Other than that most of my life these days has consisted with just hanging out with Ryan and my friends, and trying to meet new people in the ward.  I am doing my best not to be introverted, and to spend as much as my time with other people.  It has actually gone really well.  It means I hardly have time to read or play video games, but there are worse things in life :)  It is actually cool that I know the names of nearly everyone in the ward.  While it is true the ward is only a 1/3 of its normal side, it still makes me happy.

On Friday I went Salsa dancing for the first time.  It was a bit hard for me, because the instruction was done the best, and I need to really understand the basics for me to enjoy the dance, but still it was a lot of fun to go out with everyone.

Saturday saw me helping Ryan start doing some work on a tuning app that we want to write.  I feel bad that I haven’t been able to give him more of my time, but still we made some good progress on Saturday.  We got our computers all setup to develop for android, and manage to put the projector at my office to some good use in the meantime. ( I will let you figure out what I mean by that. )

After that we went back up to Orem and made some Key Lime pie.  It actually turned out really good.  We then took the pie out the FLSR and had a movie night where we watched Castaway together.  We managed to convince the French house to come over, and so I finally got to meet that house, which was a lot of fun.

 

This post got long, so I will continue this weeks accounts in the next post.

Ducks

First I just want to give a shout out to my mother, who is the reason in many ways I am what I am.  Because of her I was provided with the opportunities that have allowed me to do rather well in life.  Thank you mom!

 

Well, as for what I have been doing, on Sunday I started learning the guitar.  Really I just listened to Sean talk about it, but that was the start of me learning.  On Monday night I finally was able to track down, with the help of my cousin Brittany, what had happened to Chris’s old guitar, and I got it so that I could start practicing.  Since then I have practice at least 45 minutes a day.  My fingers are dying!!!  Even as I am writing this they hurt just a little bit.  What is the strangest thing is that they no longer hurt while I am playing, but they feel funny and will hurt at random times throughout the day.  I can’t wait until I have enough calluses so that this stops happening!

Other than that things have gone pretty smoothly at work.  We are actually looking light we might be able to make the deadlines we set, which is almost unheard of in software development.  At the rate we are going we could have this whole system up and running in another two weeks, and then I could focus time on my own research, which is something I am really looking forward to this summer.

 

So this Thursday was my birthday.  Thanks to all of you that wrote on my wall, and even those of you that were a day late, I don’t mind at all, it was great just to get the message :)  For my birthday Ryan, Sean, Song Laoshi, Brittany, Jason, and I went to go watch the “Adjustment Bureau”.  I enjoyed watching it, and even more so because I was able to watch it with all of my family.  After that we went back and we had an ice cream cake that Song Laoshi bought me.  I am really excited to have him as my roommate this next semester in the FLSR.

As kind-of an extension of my birthday the next day Ryan and I went to his house and made tacos.  We then watched the mentalist and began scheming for business apps.  I might actually get to writing some desktop and mobile apps soon.  Maybe I can get myself out of poverty again :)

 

Saturday was another awesome day.  In the early afternoon me and Sean went around the FLSR and gathered some people up and we went to go feed the ducks.  The ducks at the first pond were not that interested in our food, so we went to the smaller duck pond.  Those ducks get less attention, and were more than happy to eat the bread that we threw them.  We also had some mini water fights where we splashed each other with the freezing pond water.  It was a lot of fun.

Later that day I did my first real long term guitar practice session with Sean.  He taught me a couple new pick patterns, and I started to get a lot better at switching between chords.  I am still pretty terrible, but I think I am doing okay for having only been doing this for a week.

Lastly at night Sean and I once again got everyone together for a game night.  We ended up getting together 9 people, and we played Balderdash.  It was a lot of fun.  I ended up tying for first place because for the movie “Higher and Higher'” I put that it was the story of a prostitutes rise up the social ladder of New York City.  No one believed that any BYU student would write such a thing, and so a bunch of people voted for it.  I guess people don’t know me well enough yet =p

 

And that was my week.  Wow, being a grad student is just amazing.  It means that I have time for all of these adventures.  I just love it!  I hope that all of you are having great adventures, even if they are taking place in monsoon season!

Life as a graduate student

Okay, well maybe I don’t really know what life as a graduate student is like.  I have it all nice and plushy at the current moment.  I just moved in, and haven’t had as much time to work as I will be working, but still it has been nice so far :)

 

On Sunday I attended the FLSR ward again, this time as an actual member of it.  It was really crazy, at first there were only about six of us even there.  I had never been in a meeting that small, heck even Nanjing was bigger.  In the end we probably had about 30 students show.  It was pretty cool to be in a ward so small.  The services were all really good and I enjoyed myself.

After that I headed back home for an Easter dinner.  It was really good to be able to spend the holiday with family.  One of the best things about living in Orem recently is that when ever family happened to come by I was there to see them.  I am going to miss that a bit.

 

Well, on Monday I finally started moving into my house.  I got a good deal of packing and shopping done.  Even though I did get a lot accomplished at the end of the day it still looked as if a bomb had gone off in both my room and the living room.  It was actually kind of funny.

Tuesday saw me spending more time getting the living room setup.  By the end of the day both the living room and my room were dwellable once again.  I did have to run one speaker wire all the way across the ceiling with blue painters tape, which I do admit looked pretty silly.

On Wednesday was my friend Justin Smith’s birthday.  At his birthday we played a bit of ultimate Frisbee and soccer.  I actually scored a goal and had an assist in soccer which made me feel pretty good.  It was fun to get outside and spend some time outside.

 

On Thursday I did another one of my projects in the house.  I took everything that was on a shelf or cupboard in the kitchen and moved it to the table.  From there I proceeded to organize the entire kitchen.  It is so much better than it used to be.  We will just have to see if it will stand the test of roommates, that is the hard one to know ;)  I actually really enjoy doing this kind of stuff.  What am I going to do when I have my own house and don’t create projects to do?

 

Friday was another project in that I rewired my entire entertainment center’s setup.  I did this because BYU came in an installed IPTV to the FLSR, and while we were getting it setup it brought to my attention just how bad the wiring was.  It also allowed me to install a longer wire to the rear right speaker in the room so that I didn’t have to run the cable across the ceiling.  It was once again a lot of fun to have one of these projects to do.

At the end of that all me and Sean played Portal 2 and beat the co-op.  We were so tired by the end, but that made it all the more fun.  We were doing and saying the most ridiculous things by the end :)

 

And that was my first week as a graduate student.  Not much to do with grad school I know, but one of the best parts of grad school is that I have time to do all of these home projects, and I just love it.  Below are some pictures from this and last weeks activities:

My current setup in the FLSR

 

Dinner Ryan and I cooked last week, all from scratch:

 

Cake Ryan and I made for Uncle Rob’s birthday.  (Brittany helped with the frosting)

Graduated!!!

Woo-hoo, I am a BYU graduate.  Doesn’t feel much different, but I am really excited to be in graduate school.  I am also really excited to be back in the FLSR.  On Sunday I went back to there for the first time just for church.  Apparently the tardiness problem is still in full effect, but I am still really excited to be back there.

On Sunday I also saw Tangled for the first time.  I really like that movie.  I have got to find a girl like the one in Tangled, she absolutely rocked.  She knew what she want, and besides a little waffling at the beginning went and took it.  Besides she kicked peoples butts with a fry pan, and that was just awesome :)

Also on Sunday we played a game where it tested your survival knowledge, and I am happy to announce that years of reading fantasy and playing video games I was the one that best new how to survive in worst case scenarios.  Guess it shows you that playing video games has some use ;)

 

Monday to Wednesday I finished taking care of my finals.  None of them were really terrible, though I did very poorly on my math final’s multiple choice section.  I really do hope I get an A in that class.  If I can get all As this semester then I will graduate cum laude, which would be just awesome.

 

Thursday was the start of the various graduation activities.  I had commencement on Thursday.  I was able to sit with my cousin which made it more bearable.  Elder Scott did give a good commencement talk.

Afterwards my Grandma took all of us graduates out to dinner.  There are six of us total graduating, me, my mom, my sister, my cousins Ryan and Jason, and Jason’s wife Alysha.  It was fun all going to dinner with Grandma.  After dinner there was a little dancing, and I even danced a little with my grandma, it was a great night.

 

Friday I had to wake up really early for commencement, it started at 8:00AM.  It felt like I sat forever, but it was nice that my family could come and see me.  After that we had refreshments, and then I got to run a friend to SLC.  I then had to hurry back to the Marriot so that I could walk again with my mom in the Humanities convocation.  I barely made it back in time, I was lucky to find parking and everything.

In the end I did make it back in time, and got to sit through another convocation!  Oh joy is me!  At least it was nice for my mom to walk with me.  After that was done we took some pictures, and then we went in again for Alysha’s convocation.  The speaker at this convocation was probably the best of the bunch.

After the 7 total hours of convocation, I finally went home.  While there I got to play with my little first cousin once removed Jackson.  He is so cute, and it was fun playing him.  After that me and Ryan played some Portal 2, one of the best games to come out recently!

 

Well, being graduated, I did the only one sensible thing, I moved!  I spent all afternoon Saturday moving my stuff in the FLSR.  Crystal, the hall advisor let me check in early, and so I was able to get all my stuff in the house.  It did rain during the middle, and my stuff did get wet, but other than that things were fine.  I still need to unpack though, since I only moved my stuff in.

After moving I went home and attended a graduation party my uncle was throwing for all of our graduates.  He had the house decorated in BYU blue and and white.  We had great food and all the family came over.  I enjoyed all of the time that we could spend together.  I sure am happy that I can stay with my family for my masters degree.  It really is great.

 

And that was my week.  A great week that culminated in graduation.  It was wonderful.  So wonderful I think that I will do it two more times! ;)

Let the good times keep rolling

Things have continued to be good around here.  I was a little saddened when I saw pictures of how beautiful Hangzhou was.  I sure wish that I had the money to fly there when this semester was over and visit Drew and Cassi.  That would be the perfect end to this semester, but sigh… that probably won’t happen.

Monday and Tuesday were just normal days.  Productive, which was really good.  On Wednesday I finally finished passing off my CS 340 course work.  I am so grateful to be done with that class.  It was like taking remedial math, or something that I have been doing for years, which in this case I had :) 

On Wednesday night we had my last period of Chin 495.  We had it at the teachers house, and he made beef noodle soup for us.  It wasn’t quite as good as it is in China, but oh my goodness it was the best Chinese food I have had since coming back home.  I really do miss Chinese food, even the so-so food that classifies Nanjing.  I should find out how to get an internship in Taibei, Shanghai, or Beijing were I love the food…

 

After that Chinese high I had a really huge Chinese low.  I took the Writing Proficiency Test (WPT) on Thursday morning, and it absolutely killed me.  I just could not remember how to write enough characters to do a good job.  The worse part was that for the next several days I would remember suddenly how to write a character I had forgotten on the test.  It is most stressful because during my time in China I got rather good at writing Chinese Pros, but now I look like and idiot, all because I don’t know how to write the characters by hand, it is so frustrating!!!

Thursday night I went on a man date with my cousin, and we went to see “Unknown”.  Don’t make the same mistake!  For the first hour plus I was on my edge of my seat, and then in the last 30 minutes the directors manage to ruin the whole movie by turning it into a Jason Bourne want to be.  It was so frustrating!

 

On Friday me and my cousin went crazy with cooking.  For lunch we made ourselves some Asian barbequed chicken with grilled asparagus.  Just a little light something.  Dinner was the real treat.  We made buttermilk pancakes and syrup from scratch.  To go with that we made orange juice, hash browns and sausage, topped off with a side of fruit.  It was just heavenly.  And then we made a German chocolate cake for my uncles birthday that night.  Oh, it was great just to be domestic.  I love all of it, including the cleaning afterwards!

 

Saturday was the wonderful conclusion to my week.  In the morning I went to the temple with my cousin.  We then checked out the 24 hour fitness where he is a member.  I think I will join so that I can work out with over the summer.  I can get a 2 year membership for 300 dollars at Costco, which is a pretty good price for a membership.  And unlike BYU it would mean I could use the swimming pool at times that match my schedule.

At night we watched 剑雨(Reign of Assassins).  It is a great movie and we loved it.  The subtitles were a little fast, but we got used to it (well, I just listened to the Mandarin), and then we had a killer time.

 

Well, that was my great week.  Hopefully graduation week goes as smoothly.  It probably won’t, but I can always hope.

A productive week

So, I didn’t mention it last time, but one of my favorite things about conference Sunday, was the DDR tournament my family did afterwards.  Okay, maybe calling it a tournament is a little much, but it was fun to watch my family play DDR together.  It was really awesome.

 

As for this week, I have been crazy busy.  I was actually able to stay focused at work.  As any of my friends now, that is tantamount to the parting of the Red Sea.  It was really what I needed though.  On Monday I finished my write-up for the IEEE publication.  I came home and then also re-boxed all my Wii stuff, sold off a bunch of my video games to Amazon (great idea for Lars to keep the price of buying video games cheap in the long run), and eliminated another large garbage bag of stuff.  It was great!

On Tuesday I finished up my last major school project.  It is good to have this semester wrapping itself up so nicely.  At night I watched Midway to Heaven.  It is one of the best terrible movies I have seen recently :)  What I mean by that is that while from an artistic standpoint it is a terrible movie, but still it was fun to watch.  And besides, my cousins were extras in it!

Wednesday and Thursday I decided to refresh my javascript, so I decided to read a book on it, and I ordered a new book about something called MooTools as well.  We are hopping to rewrite the browser part of our lab projects so that they are actually understandable.  As it is now we look at what has been written and we just rub our heads in confusion.

On Friday I had a wonderful session at the temple.  There were so many missionaries there it was crazy.  They were scrambling left and right to find people that spoke and could help out with the appropriate languages as well.  There was Tongan, Samoan, French, Spanish, Italian, and several other languages all there.  And the session behind me had even more.  It was just so awesome to see missionaries that came from across the world!

 

On Saturday I took 6 hours of HSK testing.  In the morning I took the level 6 test.  I think I probably got a near perfect score on the listening section.  The reading section was a little harder, but still not bad.  And then I met the writing section, and proceeded to get my teeth kicked in.  My handwritten Chinese is just terrible. 

Later that day I took the level 5 test, and I must say in comparison to the level 6 test it is just a joke.  So for all of my classmates that might have not passed level 6, don’t worry you would pass level 5 in your sleep.  Heck, I am kinda scared to see all of you and see how great your Chinese has gotten, and how far behind mine has fallen… 

Later that night I went out with the boys from the FLSR to the cannon center.  Apparently I said plenty of things to make the little freshman stare.  It was fun.  After that I came home for a birthday party for my cousin-in-law.  All in all a really good day.

 

Well, that was my week.  I got a lot done, and that more than anything made it great.  I just need to keep this up for the rest of my life and things will be great! ;)

Mediocrity

I love conference weekend.  It is such a great opportunity to learn.  I will talk about that a little more later.

 

On Sunday we had a hymn and testimony meeting that was really good.  Everyone had the opportunity to go up and tell their favorite song, bear testimony of a principle it taught and then we should sing a verse from it.  It really was great.  I love these types of sacrament meetings!

On Tuesday I got a pair of video cards to replace my current card.  They are not really that much better than the current card but they will allow me to run all three of my monitors at once.  It should be really fun to enjoy the games like that.  Best of all the upgrade is only costing me 60 dollars.  Still a lot on my student budget, but within my range.

On Friday I finished the epic project that was packing my stuff.  Once a year I take all of my stuff out of where I keep it and spread it over the floor.  I then take the time to evaluate what I have, and either throw re-pack it, throw it away, or send it off to DI.  This year I am happy that I was able to throw out 3 large trash sacks of stuff, and send 2 large boxes off to DI.  I still have an incredible amount of stuff, but it is getting closer to the stuff that I actually should keep long term.  This next year is crazy, because except for a a small box and a half of mission stuff all my stuff will be in one house.  I haven’t done this since the I was a Junior in school.

 

Saturday and Sunday were of course conference.  I had a really good time at all of the sessions.  Saturday night after general conference our family all ate ice cream sundaes together, and then proceeded to watch skits from the onion.  It was really a lot of fun.

The next day I was surprised to see snow covering our yard, but I guess that is just life in Utah.  The apocalypse is upon us, and spring will never come…  Well, maybe that is over the top, but at times it sure feels that way.

Later that day I headed over to my sisters for dinner and several birthday parties, mine included.  It isn’t my birthday yet, but since my brother won’t be there for mine, we did a mini birthday party with it.  It was fun, and my sister did make a really good carrot cake.

So overall it was a pretty good week.  And, oh yea, I forgot, I am helping write my first paper.  We are submitting it to the IEEE for publication.  It may not get into that particular publication, but nonetheless it is great to start helping with publishing in our lab.

 

As for my thoughts on conference, there were two that really stuck out.  The first was the importance of covenants.  Several times is what stated that the power of the marriage covenant was enough to conquer problems in a marriage.  To me that is really such an amazing concept.

The second idea that hit me was that we live beyond our privilege, and a large part of that is because we are mediocre at being obedient.  At by we, I mean me :)  A lot of time it is like I am a B+ student.  I am not failing at being righteous, I am above average, and heck I am doing well, but I am not an A student.  And why not, because I am unwilling to follow all of the commandments as well as I should.

On the Sabbath, I go to church, I don’t shop, and I try to read my scriptures a little more.  But do I really not partake of weekly activities?  I may not do homework, but I do sometimes play video games.  While neither of these may seem bad, they are both activities of the week, and not really appropriate for Sunday, and yet I still partake of them.

Another example is the media I watch.  I am not entrapped in pornography, I don’t watch rated R movies, and I don’t listen to music that is full of sweating.  Yet still I watch PG-13 movies that endorse life styles that are inappropriate.  I watch shows that have sweating.

As you can see, these things are not hideous sins, but they are not living up to my full responsibilities.  Because I do not live up to those full responsibilities I also keep myself from receiving all the blessings that I could receive.

I spend so much time trying to justify why I shouldn’t do these things, instead of just doing better.  I think we all have things like this, where we are doing well, but we are not fully obedient.  We find ourselves happy to live not perfectly obedient, but somewhat obedient.  And at the same time we are living not quite up to our potential.

With conference I have made goals to try and fix some of these areas.  I hope that all of us can make goals to do a little better.  And that is why I love conference.  It gives us the chance to move our lives forward in very positive ways.

Planning for the future

This has been a pretty good week.  I started of the week trying to fix the TV Tuner at our house.  It just suddenly stopped working.  I must have tried about 30 different things to get it working.  I eventually was able to restore part of the channels by day 2, but that wasn’t good enough for my uncle, so we continued to work on the problem.  We think we came up with a solution on day 3, but then just as we were about to start trying that out, it magically started working.  Oh the wonders of electronics :)

On Tuesday I bombed my test.  I think I have only done so poorly one other time in my college career.  Usually I think of getting a 90% as bombing a test, but this time I just hope I got about an 80% :/  Pray that my teacher will be nice to me.

That day was made even more stressful by the fact that we had a group project due in one of my classes the next day, and my team was performing less then admirably.  One of the team members had done their section so poorly, that I had to do a ton of work to get the project even working.  It was just so stressful.  I can’t wait until I start graduate school, and I don’t have to take classes that are not going to help me any more.  Oh how nice life will be then.

 

Thursday is when I finally made decisions about what I am going to be doing for the next two years.  I have decided to remain at BYU and get my master’s degree here.  My professor is really excited to help me get published, and do a lot of amazing research.  It is both of our goals to help me get accepted to a top 10 program for my Ph.D.  Hopefully with a couple published papers, attending at least one high level conference, and doing a summer research internship, I should be a strong candidate for those graduate schools.

I am excited for all of this.  Like I said I have also chosen to spend two years getting my master’s degree.  I could finish it in a year, but I don’t think that is what is best in my life.  School is good, but I think that I have focused too much on it up to know.  Taking two years to finish my degree will allow me to only take 6 credit hours a semester, plus audit three of math, and maybe a religion class and a dance class.  This will be really nice in that it will  really help me finish all my work in the lab, and then just have time outside of work to do the more important things in life.

With that in mind I have really spent a lot of time settings goals for next month.  I love setting goals!  Now if only I was at good at keeping them as I am at setting them…

 

On Friday I moved where I sit in the lab.  I also took another one of the students graphics cars (with his permission), and now my whole setup is a lot sweeter.  The only thing it is missing is a third monitor, but I got the equipment I will need to set up three monitors at home, so at least I will have it in one location.

 

So that is where I am at now.  I am just in the middle of a transition phase.  Soon I will be starting off life as a graduate student.  I am excited for it, but also a little nervous as I don’t fully know what it will be like.  But, I guess that is what makes life such an adventure!

Fun times

The week started out with my back just killing me.  Apperantly sleep was not the things to help the little back discomfort I felt after our cabin trip.  I must have hurt something snowmobiling.  Sitting down became a 10 minute process of easing into a chair without dying from pain.  And for any of you that know how high my pain threshold is, you can just image how bad this was.

Wednesday was much of the same stuff.  I was just in crazy amounts of pain.  Apparently the pain also makes me stupid, as I forgot that I even had class in the afternoon.  Hard to get more air-headish then that.

The one good thing was that even though my back was killing me I was able to stay pretty focused on my school work.  I was actually able to get completely caught up in my course work.  Yah!

 

Thursday and Friday were pretty normal days.  Luckily on Thursday my back pain was starting to go down.  By then I had probably popped 20 vertebrae back in to place.  On Friday the back pain was nearly completely gone, and I danced around in joy, and promptly hurt myself again!  Ok, that was facetious, I didn’t really hurt myself.

 

Saturday, now Saturday that was a good day.  In the morning I presented research that I have been doing.  I was able to express myself rather well.  I even had one of the professors who was judging tell me he thought that my presentation was the best of the session.  I also had my professor talk about me doing some stuff to help write a paper.  This would probably be the first paper that I will get my name on.  Wish me the best of luck.

In the afternoon I tried doing some planning for the coming months.  I am thinking that I will actually not be going back to China this summer.  The reason is that I still have not found an internship, and I am not willing to wait until the last second to find one.  I have applied to several, and if they work out, then I will go through with it, otherwise I will put it off to next semester, when I am a better candidate for internships anyways.

If I do stay here, I will probably move my entrance date for Grad school up to spring/summer.  It is looking more like I will go to BYU.  I am really interested in the research I am doing, and Rochester lacks a security program.  We will see how it turns out, but this is probably for the best.  I can use my time at BYU to determine the area I want to continue researching for my Ph.D., and hopefully become more appealing to those programs.

I am also probably going to move back into the FLSR.  I really enjoyed my time there, and I still have a bunch of my friends there.  We will just have to see how things fallout.  Hopefully it all works out.

 

That night I got to watch the BYU vs. Gonzaga game.  It was really fun to watch.  BYU really played great defense, and shot wonderfully.  If we can continue to play like that I think there is a really good chance we make it into the Elite Eight and then the Final Four.  I am really hoping for this, as it would be great to see BYU’s current team make school history.

After the game I just chilled with the guys in the Russian house.  Sean suggested the craziest thing I have ever heard.  He wants me to learn the guitar, and then start a band with him, Jordan, and Pasha.  OMG, I actually think I might do it.  I am starting to think I will take two years to finish my master’s degree, which means I will have more free time, and this would certainly be something fun to do.

Maybe our band could be an opening act for the great band LCD

Fun in the snow

I had a really good week this week, with all of it culminating in a cabin trip.  The week leading up to the trip was pretty crazy though.  First I needed to get caught up in all of my work to the point that I could miss two days of classes.  I also worked 20 hours, and prepared a presentation for a research conference that I am presenting at next semester.

On Thursday I even got to help a friend do their programming homework.  It was fun to go back to the basics.  It is also fun to see just how much things have changed.  I remember things like this taking me time to think of, and now it all seems so easy.  I guess I have learned something in college ;)

 

On Friday I headed up to the family cabin.  It was really clear until we actually got to the access road that leads to the cabin.  The snow had melted and refrozen, making it a difficult drive in.  We had to push one of the cars when it got stuck, but in the end we made it just fine.

That night we didn’t do much, just settle into the house.  The next day started the wonderfulness that is the food at the cabin. In the morning we had a fabulous breakfast quiche, followed at lunch by some wonderful homemade soup, with dinner being a delightful parmesan chicken.

The day itself involved some light sledding and watching the BYU basketball game.  Even though the game was a little sad, it was great being able to relax for the rest of the time.  We ended the day by watching Just Right and a Rascal Flats concert that was broadcast on TV.

 

Sunday was quite.  We didn’t go to church because we were snowed in.  It was fun watching feet of snow fall from the roof, like mini avalanches.  We did go for a little Sunday ride.  It was just beautiful how everything look covered in the snow.  I wish I had brought my camera.

Monday was the last day at the cabin.  In the morning I went with my Uncle and some of our friends shooting.  It was an old 22 caliber pistol.  I was the first to  nock down any cans, but we all ended up hitting them quite a bit.  All good fun.  It was been a long time since I have been able to go shooting.

After that several of us went out snowmobiling.  This time was my first time going through the fresh powder.  It was so much fun, though you really have to throw your weight around to go where you want to go.  Certainly not the easiest thing. 

After that we packed up and headed home.  It was a nice and smooth drive.  Overall the weekend was just magnificent.  I feel recharged for the rest of the semester before me.  I did tweak my back a little, so hopefully it will cool down before not too long, but other than that everything is great.

 

Well, I hope you all had as enjoyable weekends as I did.  Wish you all the best!