Hare Krishna! Holi!

So there is this Hare Krishna temple in Spanish Fork and every year they have the Festival of Colors in order to celebrate the coming of Spring (some Spring! We had 3 to 4 inches of snow today!). There is a bunch of singing and dancing and at one point, in this outside courtyard where there are more than 1000 people, everyone starts throwing colored powder at each other and it's just a huge mess. I haven't had this much fun in a long time! These are the toned down pictures after I had shaken off a lot of it.

Runners: On Your Mark....Set....BANG!

Four years ago, before I went on my mission, I coached the distance runners for the Junior High track team. A few weeks ago I went on a run and thought to myself, "I really miss coaching track." So I said to myself, "Self, you should go see if they need help this season." Having congratulated myself with the excellent two-way communication between me and myself, we went to the head track coach and asked if they needed any help with the distance runners this year. They did, so I get to go to track practice everyday and help out. It's nice to be doing something worthwhile...not that school isn't, just something else.

A Lot-o-Hot Air

I was looking at scholarship applications and I came across this one with the following prompt:
In 500 words or less describe one major event that you feel has disrupted the natural flow of nature. The following is my submitted essay to said topic:

The one major event that has been key in the disruption of the natural flow of nature can be summed up in two words: bovine flatulence. The methane produced by the aforementioned bovine flatulence has had detrimental effects on the atmosphere throughout the world. The increased methane levels have depleted the ozone, which have not only subjected the world’s population to harmful UV radiation, but have also exponentially increased the damaging effects of global warming. Global warming is the main reason why the natural flow of nature has been shunted; the earth’s biological body is running a fever and will continue in such a path until it dies or until we make a difference. There are numerous ways we can decrease the levels of bovine flatulence in our atmosphere. The most manageable solution is to try and curb humans’, especially Americans’, insatiable desire for beef. By so doing, it will drastically reduce the number of cows; hence less bovine flatulence. Making everyone become a vegetarian or a vegan, my preferred choice, is both too idealistic and inconceivable. We can make a difference, one steak at a time.

Stress...

Well, it has been quite the week. From Wednesday of last week till Wednesday of this week I had 5 midterms and 1 essay. I did really well on 4 of them but bombed the last one, I think I had already had enough. So when got home today, I took a nap for about 6 hours to unwind... I think it worked!

Before and After

So while I was in China I didn't cut my hair; which, in fact, was a big deal for me since I usually get my hair cut every two or three weeks (thanks Mom!). So I was going on five months without cutting the top of my hair and after looking at Carol's post about Brandon's haircut, I decided it was about time to cut it again. Here is the before and after:

Before:

After:

(don't pay attention to the ugliness of the person, just the change in the hair)

Back Home!!!!

After four months of doing a semester abroad in Mainland China, I am finally back in the US of A!! Let me just tell you how much I absolutely loved my experience in China. As you have seen in previous posts, I went all over and saw a bunch of crazy different things. I enjoyed all of it: the trips, the schooling, the everyday life, the friends, the teachers, the culture, the prices (it's so cheap!!!!), the modes of traveling (now that I am home I can confess that I bought an electric bike while I was there; it was the awesome (I couldn't tell you earlier because my mom would have freaked out)), the purchases... It was perfect; the timing, the experience, everything, just perfect. Tricia and Elizabeth's sister-in-law, Amy, came and picked me up at the end and we traveled through mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (all very different places) for a little under three weeks. For being together for 24 hours a day for three weeks, we got along exceptionally well and I would travel with them again in a heart beat. While going about, we heard a lot about Tricia and Jon (she's so in love and it's fun to see her so happy). We got home on New Year's Eve and have been enjoying the comforts it entails ever since (dryers, mattresses, central heating, cars, homemade cooking, etc). I'm not going to paste many pictures of our trip. If you want to see them go look on Amy Hall's blog on my blog list.

One of my favorite parts of our trip was going back to the Great Wall. We went to a different part of it. We hiked it for 5 miles and zip lined off it at the end of the hike. I also loved Hong Kong. It was so different the mainland. It is modern, mostly clean, and full of parks.

We spent Christmas at Disneyland Hong Kong; it was great. They had Christmas carols throughout the streets all day long. It actually felt like Christmas. I also enjoyed going back to my mission in Taiwan. It was great to see people and just be back.

Winding Down

My class went on our last field trip a couple of weeks ago. It was nice to get out and walk around in the trees. My friends decided to use a straight iron to straighten my hair and I liked it so much that I went to a salon and put permanent straightener in my hair. What do you think?

Just us walking around the place.

This stone pagoda and the sculpture on it are over 1,400 years old. It's crazy how detailed it still is.

Here is some more scenery and me with my straight hair.