Arriving in China

 

This is my first blog post from China. I will do everything I can to write to this blog at least once a week, if not more. I hope that in this way all my family and friends that want to know how I am doing, and what China is like, will be able to.

I left for China on Monday morning. I must admit that it was pretty hard. Right before I was about to leave I had time to spend extra time with both my family, and several of my friends. Being with them made me realize how much I would miss them while I was in China. Nonetheless this is a journey I needed to take, so at 8:30 PM I headed out.

In LA we had a 15 hour layover, so we headed to Cassi ‘s (a friend of mine) Aunt’s house. It was nice to meet them, and it was fun to see LA, at least the little bit we could see from the car. The next day we took off for China. We actually almost didn’t get let on the place because some lady didn’t understand Drew’s visa, but that got taken care of. Let me tell you, 14 hours flights are as annoying now, as they were the last time I made them. People just aren’t made to sit for that long. Other than the sitting the flight was great, especially since I had Drew and Cassi to pass the time with.

Our first stop in China was Shanghai. When I got of the play I got a good ol’ whiff of China. Luckily it only took me about 30 seconds to get used to the smell again. At the airport we all went to go and each Chinese food. It was rather good, and got me even more excited for the time I was about to spend in China.

 

 

The next leg of our flight had our plane sit on the tarmac for an hour while we waited for clearance to take off. I admit, I could no longer stay awake so I fell asleep. When we got to Nanjing we taxied in, found something to eat and conked out at 2:00 AM. That is until 5:00 AM rolled around. For some reason since I have been in Nanjing I can’t sleep past 5:00. Sun wise their 5:00 is probably about our 6:30, so maybe that is why.

Day number two saw me buying a cell phone, but still not having a SIM card. It made it really hard to actually get a hold of any of the realtors, so I was getting to a slow start buying a house. At night, several other flagship students and I all went to eat hotpot. It was really good seeing them. It also helped me knowing that I had so many close friends close by.

Funny story, when went to get our photos for all the applications we filled in on Thursday, they took our pictures then immediately set to doctor them up. Any blemishes on the body they would remove. No dark eyes, rain spots, or anything else were visible after they were done. They even shrank and widened parts of the photo so we would look better. It was just fun to see how they doctored even photos to be used in applications. It was good fun.

On Friday I have to admit I had a good little case of homesickness in the morning. It only lasted through breakfast, but I think I worried Drew and Cassi. They must have thought I was dying. After breakfast I was able to bury myself in the scriptures and feast on the word of the Lord. That solved everything. It is great how that as we look heavenward and outward, we are able to forget our own problems.

That afternoon I went to go buy a bike with Trevor Cook, another flagship student. We have lived in the FLSR together, so it was just like old times. I ended up buying a pretty nice bike for about $100 dollars. The guy started out at about $140 but I was able to talk him down and convince him to throw in some other stuff. Haggling is so fun. Trevor also got a nice bike. While we were buying bikes it started pouring rain. We waited for about an hour for it to stop but it never did, so we rode our bikes back home. We got absolutely soaked. It was great fun, and was just like the mission all over again.

 

In the afternoon my phone was finally activated so I called up a relator. After that I slept for 12 hours. Let me tell you, it felt good J I think that the sleep was also enough to finally get me fully over jet lag. Saturday was a good day, at first I was a little worried that I still hadn’t found an apartment, but in the afternoon I saw a really nice place. It is about $450 a month and really, really, really small, but it is probably the nicest apartment I have seen in China. Everything had just been remodeled a year ago, and I absolutely loved it. I will add pictures of it next week when I have finally moved on.

Saturday I also walked my but off. I must have walked for nearly 12 hours straight that day. I was trying to find houses and such, and it just took forever. At night time Trevor, Drew, Casi, and I went to go sing Karaoke. It was a little expensive but it was really fun. With the price I probably won’t do it too often, but I will certainly find ways to do it as often as possible.

And that brings me up to the present. Sorry for the long blog post, this really won’t be the norm. Now at the end of this blog I am going to do something that I have done every now and then but never enough, I am going to talk about the spiritual side of things. I have realized recently it is sad that we don’t talk enough about the things of the spirit with each other. It is such a wonderful way to grow and help others grow. If anyone is looking for just the travelogue, feel free to not read the rest. I may not do this every week, but whenever I have some thoughts I think are worth writing, I will try to add them to my blog again. And who knows, maybe somebody that really needs to read these words will someday happen across them, and can benefit from the little that I do write.

So leaving for China was especially hard because one the blessings I have been wanting for so long looked like it might actually have a chance of being fulfilled. It made me not want to go to China, but when I prayed about it the Lord made it clear that I needed to go. This was probably one of the hardest times in my life, I saw something I really wanted, I knew that the Lord approved of it, but I couldn’t even try to get it because the Lord wanted me in China. This led me think more about the faith to follow God this week.

Often when I think of the power of faith, I think that when we have faith we can do all things, and they won’t be hard. I am finding now that this is not the case. Abraham had faith in God, but I am still sure that the command to sacrifice his son broke his heart. God knew that Christ sacrifice was necessary, but yet I am sure he wept as his Son and our Savoir made that sacrifice. Faith gives us the power to do all things, but it doesn’t necessary make all things peachy. Nonetheless, the pain we feel as we do this is good, because this pain lifts our gaze heavenward. It allows us to grow even closer to our Father and our Savior.

The other benefit of trials such as these is that we truly learn something about ourselves. In the past I have wondered how I would handle certain challenges in my life. I was pretty sure that I would be able to accept the will of God and keep on going, but now I know that I would. Already being in China has taught me much about my relationship with my father. I now know that I can do anything that he requires of me, and that I will not shrink from his command. It may be hard for me, but I will do it.

In all of this I testify that God lives. I testify that he truly does love us. I know that through him all things are possible. He gives us strength when all we want to do is fall to our knees and weep. He came to earth so that we might have life, true life, life that is filled with joy. And like Elder Holland teaches, it is true that we must all take a step or two on the path of Gethsemane, the savior walked the whole path so that we need not.

I know that the Lord watches over us in our afflictions. I know that all that happens to us is used by the Lord to make us stronger. As long as when the road gets hard we do not turn inward, but rather heavenward, I testify that the power of the atonement is enough to change our lives. I testify that all who will drink of the living water will become people of great stature and power. I testify that as we do these things we prepare ourselves so that when we see him we make be like unto him. It is for this promise that I strive while I am China. This year will be a chance to be molded by the Master’s hand to become more like the Him.

End of Internship

I finished my internship this week.  On Wednesday I gave my final presentation, everything went smoothly.  On Thursday and Friday I wrapped up a few last things, and my team all went out to lunch.  With that I am finished at Microsoft for the time being.  I did get a full time job offer, and now I have to decide about that in the next month.  I would say right now I am about 60% grad school, 40% wanting to go to work.  We shall see what happens.

This Saturday I went with a bunch of friends and saw Inception.  It is a really good movie.  It blows your mind, and you have a hard time following exactly what is going on.  After that we crashed a friends family ward’s BBQ for dinner, and then went to a ward film festival.  The films were really goofy, and that is what makes them so much fun.

Today I am just wrapping everything at home up.  I should fly back home tomorrow, and then I can see most everyone (minus those that still have not returned yet.)

Week 11

I got a new hard drive this week for my laptop, so I spent a good part of my week getting my new computer setup. I decided to also try some new file management techniques. This weekend I also re-indexed all of my music. I don’t have very good genre definitions, but other than that I now have all my music sorted in a much more modern way. Hopefully everything will continue to work, and I won’t realize in a few weeks that I forgot to back some stuff up J

At work, I am just wrapping up my presentation. On Wednesday I will be giving my final presentation then I will be leaving. I am starting to wish I had put my flight date for Saturday instead of Monday, but oh well. I still need to find a place to live for the next month. Janelle and company where on vacation for the last two weeks, so I wasn’t able to talk to them, but I will call Janelle tomorrow to see if I can stay there. If not hopefully I can figure out something in Provo so I can work for the month before I leave.

Guess all that is left in seattle is to start packing up. I have figured a few things that I won’t take with me to China. If I am lucky I might even be able to reduce the amount of weight I am taking. Lets hope so.

 

P.S. – I just realized that ryan has been positing comments, I will have to read those from now on   Ryan reminded me about the zune.  I have actually fallen in love with it.  It is a great music player.  Gets 30+ hours of battery life, and with zune pass I can download unlimited music.  I absolutely love zune pass.

Week 10

This week was a good little week. I am just wrapping up the last bits of my project. On Wednesday I went to Cirque du Soliel. It was a lot of fun. It was a great mixture of acrobatics, circus performance, and music. Certainly one of the best events I have been to in my life. We also all got free Zunes. At first I wasn’t that excited about the zune, but as I use it more I am coming to realize that it is a great music player. I have already used my zune pass to download about 1500 new songs, which has been great.

On Saturday I attended puzzle day. I had a lot of fun at that event. We didn’t do as well as last year, but since the team was smaller I was able to play a bigger part. I really enjoyed working through the puzzles with everyone. My team mates did really good at guessing what the meta puzzle was talking about without a lot of the info. Only one team had less clues solved then us, and still was able to get the answer to the puzzle. We might of even had a chance at winning if we had a full team of 12 members instead of just 7.

Week 9

Not much has happened this week. I was able to finish up the charting control to the level I wanted. Pretty much all that is left is for me to experiment with how to do filtering on the data my chart is showing. All of these constitute as “stretch” goals, so even if I don’t finish them, I will still be ok.

Next week is the more interesting week. We will be seeing Cirque Des Soleil next week, and I am pretty excited about that. There is also the pig puzzle day this Saturday. Hopefully I will be able to have a blast at these last few event before I head home.

Zoo Adventures

The actual work was rather good. I have pretty much finished the work that is tied to my charting portion of my internship. I have one part left to my project, and I don’t actually have to finish it to have a successful internship. So overall, things are going very well.

On Thursday I traveled a little, and did some shopping in Seattle. I was surprised that even at 7:30pm the bridge was just packed. It was a little like a video game getting to Seattle. The people her drive very interestingly, it would just blow your minds. Luckily we made it safely; I just have to remember to avoid driving to Seattle whenever I think there will be any traffic J

On the weekend I got to go to the zoo with a bunch of other interns from BYU. I really enjoyed myself. I especially liked seeing the otters. How I would love to be able to swim around all day, with no other cares in the world. My body definitely was a little uncomfortable walking around for 5 hours, but it was good for it.

After the zoo me and my roommate went out and got some Thai food for dinner. It was pretty good, but not nearly as good as the Chinese food I have had in China or good restaurants. It just made me more excited for the fact that I will shortly be returning to China. That should be a real adventure.

Week 7

This was a tiring week. It seemed like I was exhausted every day of the week. My sleep schedule really took a turn for the worst as well. I wasn’t going to bed till midnight or later. It really made it hard to wake up before nine or ten. That pretty much screwed up my whole schedule for any given day. I think I have learned my lesson about not doing that again J

This week in church I had to give a lesson on planning for ten years in the future. As I was preparing for the talk, I realized that I have never really had a plan for ten years from now. I have had wants and dreams, but never really made any concrete plans about these things. It was good to speak about the subject. Overall I think my talk went well, and it seemed to be well received.

I also demoed my project this last week. Overall I am very happy with how the presentation went. Pretty much everything about my part of the project was going smoothly, I probably did the best out of the group. Everything is looking smooth for the rest of my internship and I am excited that that is the case.