Gobble Gobble Baby!

Oh it's been awhile, huh? To start I'll tell you about Thanksgiving here in East Asia. Apart from missing family and friends, we sure didn't miss out on much. There was more food that I could have dreamed of, and we got a turkey from the Hilton due to a connection with the head cook! Mmm, turkey never tasted so good, no offense Mom! Just so you have an idea of how much food there was let me give you a list: 2 turkeys, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, corn bread, rolls, macaroni and cheese, fruit salad, crackers and dip, a raw veggie plate, pineapple-cheese cassarole, green bean cassarole, corn cassarole, squash cassarole, sweet potatoe cassarole, 3 pumpkin pies, a french silk pie, an apple pie, 2 kinds of cookies, and ice cream. Phew...now you know how stuffed I was! :) We had about 20 people at our feast and afterwards we had a fun time of P&W and that night after our post-turkey nap we all got back together for leftovers and watched Elf. It was a great time for sure and wonderful to get to reflect on our many blessings and be thankful for all we have. We even got our dose of football for the weekend, which is the next most important topic! Friday we headed back up to the Du to have the 8th Annual Turkey Bowl, our traditional SEC vs. ACC football match-up. The guys here that went to SEC schools are all on a team and play against the guys that went to ACC schools. The SEC team has won every year, and as you might have guessed, they came out triumphant once again! The final score was 28-18. Being the SEC mascot was pretty fun too. I got to run through the banner with all the guys and carry the trophy out to them when the game was over, although the costume got destroyed around halftime because the other team sabotaged me! One of my friends came over and gave me what I thought was a nice innocent hug, until I felt my ankles being tied up and next my arms! I'm over it now, but it's unbelieveable how low they had to sink to save face! Sunday morning we all got up early and watched the UGA-Ga Tech game. It was pretty fun too, and I had to put on a one-man halftime show for everyone. Let's just say it was short lived when the only music I had to dance to was "Play that Funky Music." Here's a few shots of the weekend for you to enjoy though. Hope you had an equally as interesting and fun Thanksgiving holiday!

SEC East Champs!!!

Yay Dawgs! I was beginning to think they were gonna give up on me, but that just shows I had little faith! Now, what should I really tell you about? Perhaps my weekend home with a friend of mine...quite an adventure. I'll just say I've never been so cold in my life. While my friend's family had heat in their apartment, they simply won't use it until the dead of winter, and well, it's not there yet I guess, but it sure felt like it. I waddled around their house all weekend while wearing three pairs of socks, one t-shirt, two long-sleeve shirts, a sweatshirt and a fleece all at once, yet had no relief from how cold I felt. Regardless of that, it was a fun weekend. I travelled to a town that has the second largest Buddha in this country, and it was pretty big! It was really sad though to see so many people bow and pray to just an object idol. This old woman told me if I didn't pray to him that my wishes wouldn't come true, but somehow I think it's going to be ok if they don't. We were in the car for a LONG time on Saturday. I was thinking this town would only be 30-45 minutes away from my friend's home...until she informed me that the town is around 3 hours away. Yeesh. 6 hours to see a fat guy carved into a rock while her dad did some work nearby. There's nothing like having mutton soup at 8 AM either. I really can't say that it's the best meal to start the day, but I suppose they think so. Whatever works for them. All in all, I lived the lifestyle of the culture on my sleeve for the weekend. It looks better in hindsight, especially now that I'm warm!

The Utter Disappointment

Disclaimer: this post is solely about football.

HOW SAD! It has been one of the worst days I've experienced over here and all due to the fact the Bulldogs lost to stinkin Auburn by one honking point. If only.... Man, I haven't been this bummed in awhile, I'll say that. It's hard to be a good loser in situations like this. And if you happen to be an Auburn fan and/or happy that UGA got beat, I will catch the next plane to wherever you are and personally come pop you in the nose! Ok, not really. That wouldn't be very characteristic of the person I am trying to be, but hey, this girl's sad! At least my boys kept it close all game and didn't give up. I just feel awful that everyone at that game got let down, especially my dear roommate Katie that travelled all the way from Oklahoma to scream at the top of her lungs for our Alma Mater. (My lip is hanging low for her and everyone else!) BUT, we can't forget that the ugly Gators got beat by South Carolina! I never thought I'd be rooting for Spurrier's team in my life, but hey, you do what you gotta do! Now just to win out and hopefully we'll get LSU back in the SEC Championship for a big rematch from 2 years ago. Poor Bama too, I'd rather play them though...they've had such a great season. Oh how I love football. Can you tell?! Anyways, just in case you needed any reinforcement about my status as a Dawg fan, I'll be barking down those other teams until the day I die. GO DAWGS my friends, GO DAWGS!

Rockin Out!

The countdown has begun! My mom and one of my most best friends in the entire world (I think she has it in writing as "Best Pal") are coming in 30 days! I can't wait to show them what my life here in East Asia is like. I've been missing everyone a lot lately so I am encouraged that they will be here to experience the Orient for 9 days. I can't believe I've been here for almost three months now. 3/4 to go! No really, I'm loving it here and the process to consider coming back is creeping up on me, but for now the word of the day is PROCRASTINATE! Hmm..."yanhuan" is the word for that here, ok, the word of the day is Yanhuan! All day I've been singing my music at the top of my lungs. Don't get me wrong, I'm a horrible singer, and no, I'm not walking on clouds of joy (though that'd be nice), but I've definitely been experiencing some freedom and joy and just thankfulness to get to be here. So....I'm shedding some of the self-consciousness and belting out my tunes. What? It's not like most of them can understand me anyhow! They all look at me like I'm a freakshow with or without the music, and I can accept that I'm a freakshow to them; that's ok by me. Whatever it takes to get a smile, right!? I've got three midterms this week. What's going on with that? I thought I graduated nearly six months ago. (SCARY!) Ah well, one's already done and I got an 85, which wasn't bad for studying 30 minutes before class. BUT, I'm thinking the other two are little more on the tough side, so gotta get crackin. So far two of three couples I'm friends with have gotten engaged while I've been here. Is there something I'm missing? Yeah, missing them, that's for sure. Definitely nothing stirring here, you've got my word on that. Oh, the story of my life. Moving on, there was really no reason or order of thinking about this post, so my apologies, but I thought I'd just continue to allow you to enter into my foreign life! T-giving is coming up quick! Mmm, my first bites of turkey since leaving...savor the flavor.

An All-American Weekend and The Longest Tunnel

Maybe it wasn't completely an all-American weekend, but it sure felt like it! I took the weekend off to go to Chengdu and visit some friends. It was a great time. The first night I went to the new and bigger Peter's Tex/Mex Grill for dinner...oh a cheeseburger never tasted so good. So then I went with Carole to one of the big family's apartments where we watched The Amazing Race together. I got to sleep late, and the next day was filled with fun. We first headed to the New Balance store to have a look (kan yi kan), then headed to Joyce's BBQ to have some ribs (those were pretty awesome too). Then we headed to a place to buy some scrolls with characters and pictures painted on them and we played hide and seek with this little girl that lives near the shop. She was so cute, I wish I had a picture of her. Afterwards, we went to Starbucks...yes, you have read correctly, there's a Starbucks in the Du! I had my Grande Mocha Frappuccino while sitting outside enjoying watching all the people passing by and the mean employee who kept kicking people out of the Starbucks chairs outside if they hadn't bought anything from there. I guess it makes sense, but he was relentless. So next we bought some DVDs in a very shady way...we were taken upstairs in this electronics building and pulled behind closed doors to look at them and make a purchase. Slightly illegal maybe. Grilled cheeses for dinner while we watched Coach Carter together and chatted the evening away. I do have to say my four hour flight delay was pretty boring and now I'm reading some mindless book called "Confessions of a Shopaholic" which, if you know me well, doesn't really seem like it would interest me at all. In all honesty, it doesn't, I'm reading it for a little help to get to sleep at night and the chance to get my mind off of work all the time. Today I headed out to our new freshman campus...it's HUGE! To get there you have to ride a bus for 45 minutes and they go in this tunnel that's the longest one I've ever been through. It's so long, when you're in the middle you can't even see the opening of either side. It was like going under 4-5 mountains. Pretty cool I thought. I really like the campus though, it's away from the city so the air is cleaner, the grass is greener (or wait, maybe it's just that there's grass), there's no traffic, but there's also nothing to do out there besides outdoor stuff, which I would be ok with, but for 7,000 students, there's only one television in the student center and only 100 computers in the lab. Maybe they need to check the numbers, but that ratio is way off. So now refreshed and ready for some more of the week to throw it's best at me. Show me what you got.