I hate Utah weather...

Sunday morning greetings....argg.

Holi (Festival of Colors)

Yesterday, we spent a good part of our day pretending that we were Indian again. The Hindu festival of colors (or Holi) was celebrated at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork. It is a celebration of the coming of Spring by throwing scented colored powder at each other. A bunch of us from our ward got together before we left and had a potluck Indian lunch. Then we all piled into the cars and drove down to Spanish Fork and waited in an eterni-line to buy our bags of powder. But after waiting in line for an hour and a half we were frozen stiff from the cold and the wind (what happened to Spring?) so we hurried inside the temple and defrosted while our friend Kapil told us the story of Holi and the names of the statues inside. Finally, the much anticipated moment had arrived - the lighting of the bonfire and the signal to start throwing powder. We quickly hurried down to the crowd (about 3 thousand people) and all of a sudden we were transported to what looked like the inside of a rainbow. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen.


Here we are waiting in line and before the colors (obviously). Notice the clean air, the distinct faces...



After the colors (obviously). Notice the hazy air, how everyone looks the same...


From left: Allison, Amanda, Kapil, Ben (the tall one), Amy, Aleks, Anil.

Some funny stuff...

Don't ask me how I find these (seriously, not my kind of movie) but the first video on here is pretty funny.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/preserve-our-planet/film-fest/film.html

And here's something for all you Lemony Snicket fans out there:

http://www.lemonysnicket.com/vilevideos/ (the 3rd video that says "don't watch please")

Around Campus, part II

So, this really wasn't on campus; I was driving home from the library and I saw these two girls playing on the sidewalk, probably about 7 or 8 years old. They were so cute running down the street, racing or something. Then all of a sudden the smaller girl tripped and fell. The older one stopped, reached down to pull her friend up, and promptly proceeded to put her arm around her and they bothed walked down the street together. It sounds corny, but it was the sweetest thing I've seen in a long time.

I was walking behind a couple and happened to hear some of their conversation. I didn't hear what the girl said but the boy answered timidly, "Well, you know, the Underground Railroad wasn't really a railroad." The girl gasped in astonishment and said, "No way! No way! My childhoood is ruined, I can't believe it...So, what is it then?" She was so loud in her response that I couldn't help choking back a snort, and the boy looked around in embarassment to see if anyone had been listening. Luckily, I don't think he saw me. Underground Railroad...and to think that girl got accepted to BYU...

Friday Night

Last night I went with a bunch of friends from our building for a girls night out. We ate dinner at Gloria's Italian Cafe in Provo. It's a very authentic hole-in-the-wall restaurant that serves "Mormon" tiramisu - I almost died from excitment :D So, after dinner we went to the BYU planetarium for the Zodiac show. It was pretty awesome, even if the host was a little dry. However, the best part of the night was when we wandered up to the observatory (which we thought was off-limits) and discovered Jeremy the lone astronomer who showed us the moon and some star clusters through the mega-telescope. It was probably one of the coolest experiences ever. Except for the part when it was my turn to look and there was about 4 inches of space between my eyes and the eye-piece, even with my heels on. Luckily, there were some movable steps just for that purpose (because, as Jeremy put it, "No offense, but you're kinda short.")

After the nerd-fest at the Planetarium we all came back and finished the night with Dan in Real Life, which is a pretty good movie if you haven't seen it yet. That's about it though. Not quite a spring break, but a good Friday night break from school, I think.

A Night Well Spent

A girl in our building put together an Indian party and we had it tonight. Several of us dressed in our Indian garb and we ate basmati rice and curry and naan bread while listening to Indian music. Then we watched the best movie I've seen in a long time - Lagaan. It was basically the Indian version of the Mighty Ducks or Remember the Titans but with singing and dancing and it was an epic. The best part was that our friend Ben brought his two friends from Nepal, Kapil and Anil. They both speak Hindi, they both like Lagaan, and they know how to play cricket (a huge part of the movie). It was a really entertaining night because they explained the game of cricket to us so that we could better understant the movie. Now we all have a new favorite sport, singing songs that we don't know the words to, and we learned the phrase "Chale chalo!" All in all, it was a night well spent.

Tengo un lugar para vivir el proximo semestre!

So, I officially have a place to live next Fall/Winter. I got in to the Foreign Language Student Residence program (let's be honest, it wasn't that hard). I'll be living with 5 other girls and at least one of them will be a native Spanish speaker. We are only allowed to speak Spanish and watch movies in Spanish in our apartment. Sundays through Thursdays we have dinner together with other apartments and we'll have assigned days to cook for everyone. I'm pretty excited!

Presidents' Day vacation

This last weekend, my roommates and I went to Boulder City for a much needed vacation/roadtrip. Aleks and Kaylee had never been to Las Vegas before so we went to see some of the sites. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera when we were on the Strip but we did end up going to Hoover Dam. I love that place. However, you can see that my pictures were somewhat focused on other things :)







What a classic Syd face:)

Asher's Blessing

This last Sunday was Asher's blessing. It was such a fun experience. He looked so cute in his crocheted blessing clothes and us "gringos" had a good time sitting in the back and trying to look as inconspicious as possible in a Spanish speaking ward. It was cool though because those who wanted some could wear headphones and listen to a translation of the meeting. Ellie was sitting next to me on the bench and found the headphones fascinating. In the middle of the meeting she turned to me and said, "I want to make myself one of these things, and then I can undertand any Spanish that I hear!" I couldn't help laughing.

The Coolest Job

My religion teacher, a Professor of Mesoamerican Archaology, is a crack-up. He's really animated, very into the subject, and puts pictures of viking action figures next to Mayan paintings in his slides. He also likes to spout random phrases in Mayan and then talk about their correlation to what we're studying. However, my favorite parts of class are when he says things like this:

"I just love BYU because you're generally surrounded by good people all the time. It's such a different animal than any other campus I've ever been to. Yeah, so the other day I was driving to Salt Lake and there's this billboard that has like a power-ranger battling Godzilla or something and it says, 'Is your job this cool?' and I was like...*shrug* yeah."

Funny Moments Around Campus

A boy on crutches and a girl on crutches both turned to enter a building. Both were injured in the same foot. Boy: "Okay, what happened."

A guy coming out of the science buidling glances furtively around as he whispers into his phone, "I would sing for you Grandma, but I'm on compus now."

I was crossing a parking lot and about to hop over a harmless looking puddle when a guy said, "Don't try it! It doesn't look bad but that is a lake my friend - like four feet deep."

Family Home Evening - Where's Waldo?

For Family Home Evening last night we teamed up with another family in our ward and had a Where's Waldo in the mall. I was the designated driver for the "actors" so I got to see them in their costumes before the activity. It was hilarious to see friends from our ward run around the mall, while the store clerks were giving us hints as to where "Waldo" was (notice that we have our very own Waldo). The actors were Amanda as the Emo, Sarah the granola fashion-guru, Aleks the scary goth, Curtis the cool Utah kid, and Todd as Waldo. Afterwards, we went back home and had refreshments and a good time was had by all :)

Snow!

I finally got the chance to play in the snow for the first time. Kaylee, Aleks, Abby, and I went to a park behind the Provo temple and went tubing for a couple of hours. It was so much fun and we had a blast. We had a snow-ball fight, I made a snow angel, Kaylee mowed down some guy on a snowboard, and Abby football tackled everyone to the ground, except for Aleks who has a hidden talent for staying on her feet. Driving today was scary though, because it snowed about 6 inches overnight and it didn't stop until about 2 in the afternoon. However, we came home and watched Sleeping Beauty (Kaylee had never seen it) and we did some homework. I'm so glad that we had a day off of school!

Disneyland!

Some Disneyland pictures from our New Year's trip.

10 Things I Learned About Snow:

1. When it's snowing, keep the hood of your coat up.
2. Double-check to make sure that your backpack is zipped up all the way.
3. Don't shake off the excess snow while you're in a stairway.
4. Depending on your footwear, it's better to creep across the ice than to wade through slush.
5. Snow sounds crunchy when you drive over it and sounds like you've just run over some small creature.
6. Fur looks great around your hood but wet fur is not fashionable.
7. Snow packs and sticks to the bottom of your shoes and makes it awkward to walk.
8. Don't take cover under a tree. Apparently the trees think it's funny to dump 50 lbs of snow on you while you're seeking refuge.
9. You never know how important the painted lines are in a parking lot until they're gone, and then some jerk has to double park so that you can't get out (It's also hard to even find your car when they're all covered in 6 inches of snow).
10. Snow is wet, cold, icy, cold, dirty, cold, and a number of other things. However, it is also one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

Christmas and Disneyland

What better way to celebrate Christmas and New Year than to go to Disneyland? Although, I must admit, I feel quite spoiled in the fact that we had a fabulous Christmas and then a fabulous trip to Disneyland on top of it. However, I did take some pictures with my new camera that I got for Christmas.


It's a Small World lit up for the Holidays.


Waiting in line for Indiana Jones. The only line I don't mind waiting in for an hour.


"Up, dang-it! Up, dang-it! Down, dang-it, I'm fallin' out, dang-it!"

...only a few will understand...


The Haunted Mansion looks great as always with its Nightmare Before Christmas holiday decor. This pumpkin patch is behind the mansion when you're in line. Halloween and Christmas...my two favorite holidays. It can't get much better ;)

The Saturday Update

Saturdays are always good days, and yesterday was even better because there was no snow. Well, there was snow on the ground but it wasn't snowing. Ahhh, que bueno. So after Karate, Sam and I weren't sure what to do with ourselves because Matthew had taken the gamecube the week before, so we had to content ourselves with playing the N64 (pathetic, I know). I also read about a quarter of the Man-Eaters of Tsavo that Uncle Todd let me borrow. It's is an excellent book, and if you haven't read it, you should. Then we bummed around until Sam's friend Kip came over and Sam, Ashley, Kip, Ashley's friend Julianne, and I played Munchkin and Munchkin Fu (fabulous card games). Sometime during all this, Matthew and Kelly came over (with the gamecube!) and they played Munchkin with us for a while. All in all, it was a very pleasant way to spend one's evening. Far more pleasant that going to a Jewish barn dance, which almost was a reality.

Triumph!!

This is the first National Geographic article that I've ever seen that expresses this viewpoint. Buahaha, the liberal monster admits its folly!! ....sort of.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Happy Hanukkah!

This weekend I went up to Logan with Audrey Crandell. We had fun visiting Mandy and hanging out with her friends, although the drive up there was a little hazardous as we were driving through a snow storm. However, we went out to eat and to get ice cream up there (why, I don't know because it was freezing) and then we played games like Mafia and Settlers of Catan (we "settled" according to Mandy's friends). The drive down was much better and we had a good time.

Yesterday was the annual Jerusalem/Hanukkah dinner at the Stubbs and we had a good time. The food was great (pita bread, hummus, latkas, talapia, etc) and then after dinner we had a great Nativity play put on by the family and directed by Ellie. Then we busted out the Von Crap Family Singers and we sang Christmas songs and hymns for almost 3 hours. We had Ashley on the keyboard, Ivan on the trumpet, and me on the cello, and everyone else sang. It was so much fun and very loud. I think we sang every Christmas hymn, then every other Christmas song we could think of, including the Hallelujah Chorus. But now it's back to school since I have several essays and projects due by Wednesday, so I hope everyone is doing well.

Let it Snow!

This weekend was pretty fun. Aleks and I went to get some Christmas decorations on Friday and we were visited by Lori and Jessica that live next door and then Manda and Ivan came to see the apartment. We had a lot of fun, decorating, drinking wassail, and eating popcorn and this amazing bread that Manda brought over. Then Aleks, Kaylee, and I watched Anna and the King because they had never seen it before (one of my favorite movies).





When I woke up Saturday (Dec 1st) to go to Karate, I was greeted by a strange sight. It had snowed all night and it didn't stop that whole day! My car was covered in snow and my roommates were so excited that they helped me clear the snow and ice from my car. Driving to Karate was quite the experience - not being able to see the lines on the road because the snow hadn't been cleared away, sliding every time I hit the breaks, almost getting stuck at Karate because we parked in the lower parking and had trouble getting back up the hill (Sam - "More gas, faster! We're gonna make it, go faster!"). It was exciting...not. Anyway, then I bumstied around the Stubbs house all day partly because Manda and Ivan were there but also because I didn't want to drive anywhere. When I finally did leave, Ivan had to help me get out of the gutter because of the ice. Here are some lovely (and gloomy) pictures of the snow:





These were taken today so a lot of the snow has melted. However, there was a ton yesterday.