An ice festival and a funeral

So on Sunday I had a fun little experience getting to church.  Aunt Janelle wasn’t going to church in Provo, so she decided to let me take her care so I could go.  Right as she was leaving she asked me to lock the door behind her.  Unfortunately I forgot that, and even more unfortunately I didn’t remember until I got to BYU.  I thought to myself, well I will stay around and take the sacrament, and then I will return to lock the front door.  Just as I was about to enter I remembered I had also left the front door open!

Needless to say I raced back home (obeying all the traffic laws of course).  Luckily nothing happened and I was able to lock up the house.  I ended up going to sacrament meeting at the local ward.  All in all a pretty stressful morning.

At night I went to Crystal’s for dinner.  It was good to see Koda.  He has really grown up so much since I last saw him.  I am glad that I could come home and see him.

 

Monday I went over to the Chinese house at the FLSR and talked with Ryan.  He is leaving for China this week, so it was good to talk to him before he left.  I have missed talking to him.  It seems his life is going well which was good to hear.  I even lucked out and Rob was able to give me a rid home that day.

Tuesday and Wednesday were days where I rushed to get done with homework so that I would be ready to leave for my Grandpa’s funeral on Friday.  Wednesday night was fun because I got to watch the BYU vs. SDSU game.  Jimmer was just amazing.  I really enjoyed it.  Too bad we then lost on Saturday.

 

Thursday was a race to finish my homework before it was time to leave.  Thankfully I was able to get my CS 340 finished just in time to rush and get some lunch before taking my Chinese test.  The test went well and then I raced to meet with everyone to leave to Idaho.  It took us a little longer than I would have wanted to leave, but we eventually got on the road.  The trip was the most fun when Brittany got in the car and we sung Karaoke Jericho Road and Everclear for several hours.  It was fun.

We didn’t get into Weizer until 2:00 in the morning.  Luckily the lady at the house where we were staying was still up.  The rooms were actually rather nice, and it was good to stay in a house.

 

Friday morning was the morning of the actual funeral.  The first time I real felt sad about the whole thing was this morning.  I was surprised to see how much weight grandpa had lost.  But what really broke me up was seeing how hard it was for some others, and especially my grandma.  She had found the other half of herself, and even though it is only for a little season, she still has to go this season without her husband, and it broke my heart to see that.  That is ultimately what makes death sad for those left behind, not that they won’t get to see their family again, but rather that they will not get to share that union for a small while.

It was a good service overall, and I am happy that I was here to attend it.  In the afternoon we were all together as a family, which was wonderful.  My grandma seemed to be taking things rather well, and that was good to see.  It was good just to spend time to be with her, and support her through this difficult time.

 

On Saturday most of the grandkids that came went to McCall to go and see the ice festival.  This was especially nice for me since it in some way made up for the fact that I wasn’t able to go to the Harbin ice festival.  When I went to China this time, the one thing I wanted to do most was go to the Harbin ice festival, but timing just made it impossible.  Why McCall’s ice festival can’t even come close to comparing, it was still a good trip.

My favorite part was walking out onto the frozen McCall lake.  Out there I wrote my name in Chinese characters (harder then you might think) by stomping around in the snow.  I then got some pictures of it, it was just so much fun.  It was also good to be able to do this with my family.

At night I came back and spent more time with the family.  Sunday I went to church, and then came home.  Everything went well, and I do thank the Lord for that.  It was a good weekend, just too bad that grandpa wasn’t there to spend it with him.

I love America!

I must say that I am loving it back in the US.  That is not to say that everything is perfect here, I doubt there is any place where everything is perfect.  But if I had to choose one imperfect place to be, it would certainly be here.  It is probably just because I am so used to the way everything works here, but I do love it.

 

On Monday I finally got caught up with all of my homework!  Thank goodness.  I am kind of worried about this semester.  It took me far longer to finish my homework then it should have.  I really hope that I will have time enough to do all that I should this semester.  I just want to be done.  I am really excited for grad school, and the busy work that is undergraduate studies is starting to drag on me.

Tuesday was the first day of school this week, and the first day of school where I wasn’t half asleep in my classes :)  I am also getting back into the flow at work.  I feel really blessed that I had this job to come back to.  It isn’t that great of pay, but it is something I like doing, and it is extremely flexible as far as my schedule goes.  Perfect for me.

Tuesday night also saw me getting a temp phone, until I can get a WP7 on sprint.  I was also able to watch some TV shows.  I have missed my American TV ever since it was removed from PPStream.  It is good to have Psych and the Mentalist back.  I also bought Castle Crashers to play with my friends in China. (P.S. That means Drew and Lars you need to download it!)

 

Wednesday was my first day going back to the FLSR and spending time with all of them.  It was a lot of fun.  I really wish that there was some way for me to live there again.  We will have to see how everything happens.

Thursday was more school, nothing much special.  Friday was the same.  I do have my group for CS 340 setup now.  The team I have looks like a good group of people, so hopefully the project will go really smoothly.  I also got to read Scott Robertson’s (one of my colleagues at work) thesis.  He did a really good job.  It gives me hope that grad school is doable.

 

On Saturday I found that my Grandpa Darling had passed away.  This was pretty surprising for me to hear.  I had hoped that because I had come from China early I would be able to see him again.  At least coming home has meant that I will be able to attend his funeral.

I have to admit I don’t feel to sad about this, and I don’t really know why.  It seems like such a transient thing.  I haven’t been able to see him since I was in China, and now I won’t be able to see him since he is dead.  But all of these are but temporary barriers.  I will be able to see him.  Because of this I don’t really feel that sad, but rather it actually gives me determination to live as I should.  Through living as I should I allow myself to be with him forever.  This is what I hope for, and thus my response is determination instead of sadness.  Maybe that makes me strange, but for some reason that is how I feel.

 

Even though Saturday had that sad start, the second half of the day was really good.  In the afternoon I went to the Russian house again.  I got to play RockBand with them, something I certainly miss.  It is so fun to just be around my friends.  I am really sad that soon we will all be separating.  We can still do stuff together, but it just won’t be the same then.

After a while we all went to Village Inn.  The ultimate skillet is as good as ever.  It made me so happy to sink my teeth into it.  The conversation was also heavenly.  I have missed the outings to Village Inn a lot.  We were just missing a Cassi and a Drew, and then it would have been perfect :)

After dinner I went back home for my aunt’s birthday party.  It was good just to spend the entire night with my family.  I missed them the most when I was in China, and it is wonderful to have so many opportunities to spend time with them.

Back in the US!

When I came home from my mission I was more appreciate of the US, but I didn’t really think it was that much better.  Heck, I actually thought thought that the better food might be good enough reason to live in Taiwan.  Well, this time back I was filled with a much greater sense of how amazing America is.  The clean air, the soft beds, the heated houses, just… you name it, we seemed to have it.  That isn’t to say America is perfect, but it has been nice to be home.

 

Well, on to what happened this week.  Monday was probably the longest meeting I have ever been to.  For about six and a half hours we sat around and listen to reports.  The reports themselves, and even the commentary was just fine.  It just went on much, much too long.

On Tuesday I finished packing up for heading home.  After that I went to class and had my writing final.  It was actually crazy hard.  I was not expecting that.  Well, after class I went and took care of moving out of my apartment.  Utilities cost more than I had been expecting, but I guess that is how the cookie crumbles.

For dinner I went out with my roommate, Trevor, Drew, and the Shurillas to get steak.  It was good food, and especially fun conversation.  Couldn’t think of a better way to spend my last night.  After that we headed back to the Shurillas’ place, and ate some really good chocolate covered chocolate wafers.  They did make my tummy smile.

 

Wednesday was the big trip home.  In the morning I got breakfast with Dayu, and then I headed out to the airport.  I had good conversation with the driver.  At the airport everything went smoothly until I got to security.  There I had to take apart my carry on because there were tools in it.  Apparently without thinking, I had put my bike tools inside my carry on.  I should have just let them throw away the whole thing, but instead listening to them I tried to see if I could get it on my checked bag.  Well that was already too late, so I just had to throw it away and then re-go through check-in.

The flight to Beijing was actually pretty nice, we even were served a meal.  Certainly nicer than most American domestic flights.  The next problem I hit was going through security again.  This time there was another one of my bike tools that was also unacceptable.  Gosh, I wish I had just thrown away the whole set when I had a chance…

The flight home went faster then I expected, but unforunately while Air China might have nice domestic flights, their international flights suck.  We only had two small meals, and there wasn’t even power on the plane!  It made the flight a lot more annoying then it needed to be.  I was so hungry…

Well, I made it to SFO, and everything was going pretty well.  I got back my checked bags and the first thing I did was put the rest of my bike tools in it.  Customs was fine, and then I got onto the next plane.  This time I was stopped so they could checkout the PS3 in my baggage.  You never know about those rouge PS3s…

While waiting for the next flight I met a really nice women who bought me a shake to watch her laptop.  It was perfect since I was starving, but also feeling to poor to buy airport food.  I was able to find power and internet in the terminal so it was pretty good.

Eventually I boarded the plane and we got to SLC without much problem.  After I got off I went to visit my dad.  It was good to see that he was doing better after his surgery.  Next I went home, ate some Mexican food, and then went to bed.  Wow, I knew that American beds are soft, but I forgot just how stop.  I nearly rolled off the bed when I first crawled in as it actually gave under me and let me roll, something I was not used to in China.

 

Thursday was my return to school.  Not until I was actually back at school did it feel weird to be in America.  I have to admit seeing BYU again was crazy.  The first thing I did was head into my office.  Apparently me computer form last year was still mine, and one the others gave me there pair of 24” monitors, so once again I am back in computer heaven.  It blows my mind just how nice it is to use 2 24” monitors.  I am starting to wonder how I did without them in China.

Class was crazy hard, not because of the material, but rather because it was all I could do not to fall asleep.  I was so tired thanks to jet lag.  I have never had it so bad before.  Class with Dr. Honey is even more crazy then I thought it would be.  That class is going to be interesting.

As I was preparing to get on the bus, I came to find out that the buss apparently had already left.  I am going to get a car rather quickly, the bus system in Utah is so backwards.  I wish Nanjing’s busses would come to Utah, and then maybe I could get places in reasonable amounts of time…

Friday was more of the same.  I spent most of the morning in my lab, and got all of my stuff set up.  In the afternoon I had classes.  I think I am going to be busy this semester, it seems like I have picked professors that like busy work.

 

Saturday was a day feel with pretty much only homework.  Hopefully with the holiday on Monday I will be all caught up before school starts again. 

 

So that is where I am at.  I am back in America and loving it.  The only annoying things about being home was the sheer immodesty of girls.  Man, it really blew my mind seeing what passes as acceptable attire in this country.  Luckily I was able to get to Utah pretty quickly, and things are better here, especially in Utah Valley.  Otherwise I can’t say that anything else isn’t much better then Nanjing.

I will be happy to finish my internship, but glad that I could break up my time in China.  China is a great place, but nothing quite compares with living in the US.

Last full week in China…

Wow, even though I am close to coming home for winter semester, it sure has not felt that way.  I have been so busy writing papers for finals in China, and preparing for my classes in America that I haven’t even had time to think of just how close I am to coming home.  It seems that I won’t have time to rest for a while yet.  I jump straight into classes in America, then I will jump straight back to China for an internship, and upon my return immediately start graduate school.  CRAZY!!!  I know it will work out, but a little break would be nice :)

 

On Sunday I had the opportunity to teach Sunday School.  I sure wish I hadn’t forgotten about the lesson until sacrament meeting.  Thanks to the Lord the lesson still went rather well.  People were mostly willing to contribute which certainly helped.

Monday was interesting, it was my first day of finals in China.  We originally were supposed to have class that day, but only ended up having one of the classes we were supposed to attend.  I also began writing one of my final papers.  I was able to finish most of it that day, but I did stay up a little too late that night, a habit that continued through most of this last week.

On Tuesday I finished up the paper that I had started the day before.  For dinner I went and ate Indian food with Drew.  It was rather good, but not as good as the Indian food that I had while in Seattle.  I really do want to live in that city someday, such a great place, but I digress…

 

Wednesday say me having class again, something that I am not a big fan of during finals week.  I woke up extra early thinking that class was at 10, only to find out it wasn’t until 2.  Oh well, a little less sleep can’t kill me.  Class itself wasn’t that bad.  I finished up the slides for one of my presentations that night.

On Thursday I had the first part of one of my finals.  I gave a presentation on public key encryption.  Overall I was very happy with how the presentation went.  I could have done better, but that is how I normally feel after a presentation.

Thursday was Drew’s birthday, but since we were all so busy with our finals we were not able to do anything during the day.  Too bad too, I was really looking forward to some good old karaoke.  Instead we all went out for dinner to a really good Xinjiang resturant.  The food was good and the company was better.

After dinner we all went back to the couples’ mansion and there watched “Despicable Me”.  Well most of us did at least, a bunch of the boys just played music in the back.  I really enjoyed the movie, but I couldn’t give it my full attention, because at the same time as watching I was preparing for my CS final the next day.

This was the final that I was the most worried about.  There has been so much material that we covered during this semester that I couldn’t see how I could prepare for all of it.  I did end up getting through all 1500 or so slides in my review.

Luckily the test, which was at 9am Friday morning, wasn’t nearly as bad as I was worried.  It was all on topics the teacher had spent a bit of time talking about on class, so I think I was able to answer correctly overall.  Afterwards I realized how I could have prepared better, but it is always easy to see what you should have done after a test.

After finishing my final I came home and updated my CS paper.  I realized that when I wrote it I had written up the wrong experiment.  I had written up my implementation of AES and not RSA.  Luckily I had already implemented RSA, so it was just as simple as writing a new write up.  Not terrible, but no fun to have to do last second.

 

Saturday was the day of getting my media paper.  I have to admit during the week I played a little too much Fallout New Vegas, and spent a little bit too little time preparing my media paper.  Before Saturday I had though about what I wanted to say and had a general outline.

Well on Saturday I finally sat down and just got all of it down on paper.  I was actually surprised that I was able to fill up 3000 characters without much effort.  The paper just seemed to come together smoothly.  Obviously the Lord decided to give me some help, as writing a five page paper in English would have been hard for me to do in the same amount of time.

After finishing the paper I went out to dinner.  After dinner I met up with Lars, Chris, Richard, Jonathan, Aaron, Dayu, and another native.  We went out and played bowling.  It was about 3 dollars USD a game, not bad at all.  If we had gone on a weekday in the day it is only about $1.15 a game.  I feel silly that I didn’t come and bowl more often.  I have known of the alley, just never thought to go assuming it would be too expensive.

Well anyways, it was a lot of fun.  I am still bowling really badly.  My mission seems to have killed any skills in bowling that I used to have.  luckily Lars was able to correct some of the problems in my game, and at least it feels like I have the same form I did before my mission.  Now just to stop playing terribly.

 

Well as I said, this week has been busy.  I hope that I will be able to get everything finished in time to go home.

Even though I mentioned all of that above, I think the best part of this week has been that I have found a new way of reading the Book of Mormon.  Currently I am taking it one verse at a time, and I take about 20-25 minutes studying just that one verse.  It has been amazing how much I have been able to learn in only the first 7 verses of the Book of Mormon.

I find it is helpful not only in helping me realize new principles, but also in giving me a chance to see principles I know reflected in the scriptures, and then write them down.  As I record my impressions I truly have seen an increase in the amount of revelation I receive, and it is wonderful.  If anybody is looking for a way to spice up their reading of the Book of Mormon, I heartedly suggest spending an entire study period on one verse each time.

 

That is it from me for this week.  The next time I write will be from the US (hopefully).  I don’t plan to stop writing just because I am in the US.  I think this is a good habit, and here is hoping to keeping it up.

Happy New Years!

Welcome to a new year.  At first this didn’t seem like it would mean anything, since my life still revolves around school years, but since I seem to have three parts to this year instead of one continual school year, it seems like it means something more.

 

Sunday I had another chance to translate for someone in church.  There is nothing quite like translation to make me feel like my Chinese is terrible.  It is good being able to help out people though.

Monday was not a very fun day.  I woke up with stomach cramps, and spent most of the morning staying in close proximity to the toilet.  My throat had been hurting for quite a few days, and I think whatever was causing that decided to get mad.  After my stomach settled down I had a terrible headache and a little fervor.  Not a fun way to spend the day.  I also wasn’t able to fall asleep until 3am… sigh… life in China seems to involve too much being sick.

Tuesday I spent mainly resting and recuperating.  I was finally feeling good enough that I did leave the house and got some work done.  Wednesday I woke up feeling a little sick again, so I didn’t go to service.  Luckily I felt better after too much longer.

Wednesday actually turned out to be a pretty productive day.  I worked on my computer science paper, and was actually able to get the majority of it finished.  For that night Drew, Trevor and I went to a Japanese noodle shop and got some food.  It was actually pretty good.  I really think that if I was willing to pay a bit more for food, I would enjoy what is available in the restaurants.  Nanjing’s street food isn’t very good, but some of there restaurants are really amazing.

Thursday I was busy most of the day finishing up my CS paper.  I was able to finish it up, and reviewed it with my tutor that night.  Now I just have the slides for it, and I really am done.  For lunch I went with Drew to a place called Istanbul.  It had some really good food.  I got something called a donor.  It tasted amazing, easily as good as something you could find in America.

 

Friday was New Years.  I spent the day doing laundry, and then went over to the couples’ mansion for New Years night.  There we ordered a ton of pizza, and had some pop, and just spent the night having fun.  I had a tim-tam slam instead of kissing someone at 12 (a tradition I only found out about that night anyways).  It was a fun night.

I ate so much pizza, that even when I woke up I was still filling full.  That day everyone decided to go and get all you could eat Korean BBQ.  I was a little not excited, I was still too full.  We left at about 2:30 to go and get the food.  When we got there we found out we were too late for lunch, so instead we checked out the mall.

We had a fun time checking out metro.  I watched a dunk contest on the TVs, and also had fun seeing the crazy important foods to buy.  After that we wondered through various stores in the mall.  Eventually we made it to the book store where I bought some books that are the literary classics of China.  I hope I can find the room to stick them in my bag.

Eventually we made our way back to the resturant where we proceded to gorge ourselves.  The meat was good, but even better were a lot of the veggies.  It was a delightful little meal with everyone.  In the end we were even given a bunny since this next year is the year of the bunny.

After we were done we headed back to the couples’ mansion.  There we all just chilled.  Eventually we started the movie “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief”.  It was terrible, so we were all making comments, kinda like Mystery Science Theatre.  That made it more fun.

 

Well, that was my week.  I am getting excited to see everyone soon.  I am finally in all of the classes I need to be in.  Things are looking like they will go smoothly for my return home.  Lets just hope everything works out on this end.  Anyways, happy new year to everyone!