Happy Thanksgiving!

first off, let me say, I am LOVIN' this thanksgiving break!!

so we left on tues afternoon... drove for 10 whole hours straight (with one bathroom break and a dinner break)... sang along to hundreds of songs, talked about tons of random topics, and finally... we arrived at HIGH POINT, NORTH CAROLINA!!! awesomeness.

katie's house is soooo cool. i must admit, i absolutely LOVE american homes. at least all those that i've been to. they're ALL so... wonderful! comfy. cosy. beautiful. huge. they have fireplaces! cool-lookin kitchens! huge backyards! i SO wanna live here! it's just soooo...awesome.
so we reached at like 11pm. met katie's parents and sister. they're cool :) she has a crazy fat little dog called 'mia'. which means dog hair and spit all over the house. but oh well.

so wed we went grocery shopping. made our very own dinner - pigs in a blanket and mac&cheese straight from the box. the best. they came in spiderman shapes too :)


then we watched katie's awesome TV, which has like over 1000 awesome channels!! the best tv EVER!!! every single kind of show you could ever wanna watch is right here. this is like heaven on earth. got hooked on the marathon of Baby Borrowers, a show where teenage couples get to experience taking care of babies, then toddlers, then kids, then teens, then the elderly. was so interesting. they were pretty much immature and fighting all the time and the poor kids got neglected.


we also watched Holes, which was pretty awesome too. starring pre-puberty Shia Lebeouf :)
then we climbed into the hot tub in her backyard!! for like an hour plus. was so nice and relaxing. could've stayed there for hours.

ystdy was THANKSGIVING! TGIT! THANK GOD IT'S THANKSGIVING! haha. got up at noon and started cooking. we made an ENTIRE Thanksgiving meal! i am so proud of us. made turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (it's like mashed sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows on top. the best), corn, fruit salad, bread rolls...
yup. pretty much the best thanksgiving meal ever!!! my 3rd so far this year. haha.
my first was at a lunch my friend's church prepared, second was one my wing prepared for us and the brother wing. i love thanksgiving meals. so yummy.
then we had a DDR partay :) and hot chocolate and phase 10 by the fireplace. i love fireplaces.

and today's BLACK FRIDAY!!! the best day of the year! where shops everywhere have INSANE sales!! we were gonna get up at 7.30am to rush to the mall in a kiasu fashion, but then we all kinda slept in. till noon. haha. but everything was still there when we arrived at the mall. which was PACKED. could hardly find a parking spot. got stuff from old navy, deb, forever21, bath&body works, fye, jc penneys... and now my arms hurt from carrying the bags. haha. the mall was awesome though. filled with christmas decorations and jolly cheer :)
then we had dinner at mamma mia's! yummy italian food for cheap prices and huge portions. we'll be eating leftovers for the next few days. still have turkey and stuff from last night.
watched madagascar 2 at this cheap theatre, which really wasn't that bad. and it only cost $3. was pretty nice. it was kinda funny..but also kinda lame.


And this little creature was so adorable! :)


hopefully mountain hiking tmr..but 80% chance of rain. sigh. but overall, it's been pretty good. weather's been SO nice! t-shirt weather in dec! imagine that.
God is good, all the time! :)

Why aren't there any Thanksgiving songs?

Really. Why? I've been trying to celebrate the fact that Thanksgiving break has officially started already for me! Right now! since i've saved up all my skips for tomorrow. and i wanna listen to Thanksgiving songs so i can celebrate! but NO. there are none. so my christmas playlist has been on repeat. haha. not really complaining.

Christmas, christmas time is hereeee..
time for joy and time for cheerrrrr....

ANYWAY. North Carolina, here we come!!!!!! hannah, katie and i came up with a name for ourselves - the Thanksgiving Threesome. hahaha. CAN'T WAIT! A house all to ourselves. Food that we're gonna cook ourselves (it'll be interesting since none of us cook). Black Friday (a day of crazy sale, Sale, SALE!) No homework/classes! Far, far away from Upland!

WHAT COULD BE BETTER????????
Nothing. :)

Here's a list of what i'm thankful for this Thanksgiving:
-God's faithfulness
-Family and friends who care about me and who i love!
-Awesome relationships I have here at Taylor. been getting to know so many girls on my wing better :)
-Good academics. yayy for As and learning!
-Good weather so far. it's not that cold yet! not much snow even. thank God
-That i'm getting along really well with my roomie. we didn't know each other well at all. we just roomed together cuz my roomie was leaving and her roomie was rooming with someone else. but...thank God it's been awesome!
-Awesome american TV shows!!! ANTM just ended :( but i've found its replacement! Stylista! haha. so i'm still juggling 10 TV shows (One tree hill, Stylista, Gossip Girl, House, Prison break, Ugly betty, Grey's anatomy, Private practice... and others i'm ashamed to admit i watch. haha) and everyone's constantly amazed at that. they don't know how i have time. but it's easy, really. i just multi-task - watch and do hw at the same time. very productive! :)
-Better food in the DC this year!
-Life is just pretty darned good.

Did you know?

1. Every time you sneeze, some of your brain cells die. Also, it's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
(man, i'm never sneezing again)

2. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump. ahahaha

3. No word in the English language rhymes with 'month'
(huh. how about 'want'? haha)

4. 12 newborns are given to the wrong parents EVERY DAY
(omg. that's kinda scary)

5. Ben and Jerry's send the waste from making ice cream to pig farmers to use as feed. Pigs love that stuff - all except for one flavor - mint oreo
(i love mint oreo!! it's one of my favs :)

6. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying
(now i know what i'll be doing the next time i peel onions. not that i even touch onions that often though)

7. An average person eats about 60,000 pounds of food in their lifetime. That's like 6 elephants.
(gross)

8. More Monopoly money is printed every year than real money throughout the world
(wow. what a waste of trees.)

9. One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
(whoaaa. can i be that one in four?)

10. The average person laughs 15 times a day.
(i wonder how many times i laugh. probably more since i laugh at anything and everything. haha)

So i was kinda bored. i looked up interesting facts on google. haha.
other than that, this week's been sleepless, restless and altogether tiresome.
all i can say is, drama drama drama. and i think i might be sick. not flu sick. but serious sick. arrrggghhh. scared.
still bleeding when i exercise. so i looked up causes on the internet. and one cause is like some form of cancer!
am trying not to be worried.

pray.



I won't give up
No, I won't break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And i will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When i'm standing in the dark i'll still believe
Someone's watching over me

Video!

Here's the video. of me singing. don't laugh! :) it's called 'jing jing zhua zhu ni' or 'holding on to you' by some chinese christian band.

Anw this weekend was cool..bummed around on friday and got bored. but we finally found a car to go to Payne's (a coffee place) with a fun group of pple..sitting around talking about random stuff and trying to get dan a girlfriend. hahaha. i love mini-dance parties in cars!! :) and then watched the longest/boring-est movie ever called 'Amazing Grace'. i guess it was kinda cool..about abolishing slavery and all. but it was just really long. or maybe cuz we started it at like midnight. and then had to walk back to my dorm in the pouring rain. bleh. don't like rain at all. gets my boots all wet and sloshy.

totally slept in on sat. had a korean food party then went to watch 'Quantum of Solace', which by the way, is pretty boring. so save your money if you can and skip it. although it was better than 'Casino Royale', cuz that was a complete waste of time. i realize sometimes i watch movies like James Bond, even though i'm not a huge fan, because it's a cultural thing. like, people are gonna talk about it, and i wanna be updated and in the culture and be able to participate in conversations and stuff, so that's why i watch it. haha. good reason? maybe not. but at least got to get off campus! then went to Steak n Shake afterwards at like midnight.....feeling really unhealthy now. gonna workout later!

here's my philosophy on food/exercise/health: eat healthy and workout during the week, and then splurge during the weekends! but don't indulge too much. haha. so there's something to look forward to :) not like i keep to this all the time though.

AND i just got my grades back for my perfume ad campaign, which i slaved over for endless nights........... and i got an A!!!!!! which brings my overall grade in Scriptwriting to an A!!!!! i've been having a high B for the longest time, and i was totally resigned to getting a B in that class, cuz the professor grades hard. but YAY!! now i have an A!!! now i have As in all my classes!!! ASIAN PASS! :)
and it makes me feel better about myself cuz now i know i'm not a total loser and i can actually write decent ads.
sometimes...or most of the time..i'm really harsh on myself and keep telling myself i suck at doing everything..but then i look at grades from classes and i'm getting way above average on most assignments..and then i realize maybe i'm not that much of a failure after all. heh.
it's true you are your harshest critic.

Sorry for the longest post ever

ONE MORE WEEK TILL THANKSGIVING BREAK!!!!!!!! Soooooooo psyched.
going with hannah and katie to katie's house in North Carolina!!!! SO happy to get away from campus!!! for a break!!! :))

anw last weekend was really fun. can't really remember what i did. but it was fun. haha.

ooh me, gabe and sam did our chinese song in chapel. like finally! after tons of practicing. it went pretty well. the getting up at 6am part to go to chapel for soundcheck wasn't cool, but the singing in front of Taylor pple was fun :) felt like everyone was staring at me though. saw lots of pple i recognized in the audience. beka, andrew and hannah sat right in the FIRST ROW!! haha so supportive. hannah video-ed the performance, so i'll put it up sometime!!! i actually sang a solo part!! be proud of me cuz i usually hate singing on stage..much less singing alone. but tons of pple came up to me to say how much they loved it, so that was really sweet :)

so friday night we went to ivanhoe's to celebrate shogo's bday. he's like..18? grrr. so young! but fun times. dan is seriously crazy. but in a good way. found out lots of interesting stuff about him.

oh then went to alana's apartment to watch her and cait dye and cut cartoon's hair and pluck her eyebrows. was a TOTAL experience. in every way. she completely freaked out about cutting off 1cm of hair. i've never seen anyone so obsessed with their hair! it's like her whole identity is in her long hair! it's really crazy. didn't know how to respond. she almost had a meltdown. so we were there till like 2am and had to walk back to campus in the creepy darkness.

sat went S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G!! in Indianapolis. was in a car with the fun-nest group of pple EVER! total dance/singing party in the car there and back. we sang along to the radio and i knew like almost every song from different radio stations, and everyone else was like, whoa. haha. must be all that music from the radio in our bathroom.
and oh this time shopping i HELD BACK! and only spent 100bucks! on necessities like a coat and warm stuff. loveeee charlotte russe, forever21 and H&M :) didn't know dan was such a shopaholic too. haha.

then..went back and gave my wardrobe a makeover! packed all my spring/summer clothes and took out all my warm fall/winter clothes! YAY! i'm so ready for the cold. BRING IT ON!
and then luke called! and wanted to hang out! i was pleasantly taken aback cuz haven't really seen him much this semester. so him, me and cartoon went to blockbuster and got the movie 'Mickey blue eyes' and watched it at the souphouse. was reallyyy funny. glad we got to hang out :)

sunday church was really good. the theme for this week seems to be about being tired. being burnt out. being tired of everything and not letting God take the reins. which really spoke to me. i think i've just been doing everything by my own strength and abilities, which is why i get burnt out easily. so.. i just need to learn to ask God for help and let Him help me. instead of trying to do things all on my own. argh. it's hard though. i keep trying to do things my own way. sigh
anw after our DDR partayyy we watched 'Awake'..it was pretty depressing. about this guy who gets anesthesia during a heart surgery but turns out it only paralyzes him but doesn't knock him out, so he's awake for the ENTIRE OPERATION. WHAT KINDA NIGHTMARE IS THAT??? bleh. so depressing.

so glad we had a reunion dinner on mon. juniors only! luke, levi, claire, cartoon, sarah, cait and me. wow. can't believe we've known each other for 2+ years already! i miss hanging out with them. been so busy this year no time for catching up :(

and i just got back at midnight from the Echo today. sigh! they changed the structure a little, so now hannah and i.. News Editors.. get to be there till 11.30pm to check on our stupid page. SIGH! experience, experience. i'm telling myself, i'm getting experience. and then after this year, working for the newspaper? NEVER AGAIN! haha.

...HaLLowEEn pics...

Hannah (as me) and me (as some type of schoolgirl). i think we were trying to be constipated. or maybe worried.

Asian pose!!!

Hannah's trying to be me..by reading a trashy magazine. haha. which she got from my stash.
I'm trying to be...nerdier. by reading '100 words to make you sound smart'. no kidding! this was hannah's

Three random people dressed up as japanese women

Erika as... a princess? Upi as..i have no idea. some gangster maybe.

Megan as catwoman..and Jon as the Joker. he was seriously creepy. got really into character. tried to strangle me like twice.

People at the souphouse! halloween partyyy...which i missed most of. cuz i was at Thai smile! :)

Emily the emo/goth and me :) she looks so sad!

i think someone took this when emily was falling on me. and yet i'm still happily smiling at the camera. haha

I love the girls on my wing!!

Emily the emo, me, Hannah as me, Katie as a hawaiian girl, and elise the rugby player

YAY for high school musical 3 posters in our room!! i don't really like zac efron that much. the posters just give our room some much-needed color

Hannah loves them too. we converted her from HSM 3 cynic to huge fan.

Steph as dorothy from wizard of oz, candace as a princess, and mackenzie as.. the price is right girl?

cute little kid!! i think he was a clone from star wars?

cute little girl dressed as a princess/dorothy!

adorableeeee little bunny kid!!!!

transformers kid!!! :)

History in the making!!!

So.. is it just me or is it pretty cool that Obama won? even though everyone's been assuring me of his probable win, i was still pretty excited to find out who won for sure last night. it's just... WOW! America's come so far! from slavery to civil rights to the FIRST black president ever... i think it's pretty cool our generation got to witness this. even though i didn't vote, i was still excited to see the results. haha. didn't register to vote because.. i wouldn't know who to vote for anyway. but yay! i'm glad this is over. it was pretty tense. the making fun of sarah palin stuff was funny though.

soooo many pple dressed up as sarah palin for halloween this year. i know of at least 2 pple at taylor who did that. i think the most popular characters this year were - The Joker and Sarah Palin.
seriously.

in other news, i'm thinking of applying for the LA study abroad program. haha. i know i'm fickle-minded like that. cuz i realized the only reason i wanna go to australia is because of hillsong. not for the study program. which is a lame reason. because, as i realized the other day, my dreams keep changing. first i wanted to do something with music, then i thought about going into ministry, then i wanted to be a journalist, then i wanted to do the music/soundtrack for movies/tv shows, and now i wanna..... maybe do something with magazines or movies.

which is why the LA program would be PERFECT for me!! i realize i love doing film production stuff so much more than stupid writing!! but now it's too late to change. but it's ok. writing is good too. it's just that going to LA will give me so much experience in movie production!!!!! get to do some sort of internship in HOLLYWOOD..and my friend's there right now... SHE GOT TO MEET THE CAST OF PRISON BREAK!!!!
not gonna lie, that's a major pull factor right there. plus several alumni of that LA program get to do all sorts of cool stuff now..like write the script for One Tree Hill!!
that is totally what i wanna do with my life.
just hope i get to go. what with arranging all my classes and everything. it'll be an awesome, good networking experience!! then maybe next time after i graduate i can move to LA and WORK THERE!!! totally dream job right there.

Random pictures from junior year :)

At Thai Smile (an awesome thai restaurant) for Halloween! Emily was an emo/goth, i was...i don't really know what i was. i guess an asian schoolgirl. again. well i was gonna be a nerd, hence the blouse n tie, but i didn't look very nerdy. heh.
and then hannah was ME! hahaha. she wore my green jacket and purple jeans and striped gloves :)

isn't emily such an AWESOME emo??? she's normally sooo cheerful so this was definitely different.

i'm so proud of these girls!!! they weren't gonna dress up for Halloween, but i persuaded them to. gave them ideas too. haha

elise as a rugby player, and katie as a hawaiian girl :)

me, dorothy and beka at flattop grille for beka's 20th bdae :)

yummy yummy food at the table

all the girls dressed up outside swallow (a co-ed dorm) ready for beka's partaayyy

all the international pple at our retreat in the woods... a few weeks ago

Halloween was fun! we got dressed up, saw all these CUTE, ADORABLE, did i mention CUTE little kids all dressed up in CUTE costumes!!!! there was an indiana jones, a nerd, a cheerleader, a laundry machine, a princess, a bunny... omg. sooo adorable. and they walked through our dorm trick-or-treating and asking for candy. hannah and i gave out snickers, butterfingers and kitkats. lots of girls on our wing dressed up and went to the DC for dinner. was so fun seeing everyone!!! i went with a bunch of girls to Thai Smile, then to Target and Walmart.. was so funny seeing all the stares we got from pple :)

today was such a good day. woke up leisurely at 2pm..lazed around. had a chick flick marathon with emily..watched john tucker must die and 10 things i hate about you..went to the Fall Fest at habecker (our president)'s backyard..they had donuts, caramel apples, apple cider, s'mores and some charlie brown movie playing. was kinda nice sitting around the bonfire.
oh. and i had my first caramel apple on friday! it was actually pretty good! it's a green apple coated with caramel all over and smothered with peanuts on top of the caramel. sticky, but yummy :)
I LOVE FALL!! the weather's cool but not too cold.

Surrender - to abandon oneself entirely

~You're the Lord of Creation
The Creator of all things
You're the King above all Kings
You are

You're the strength in our weakness
You're the love to the broken
You're the joy in the sadness
You are

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done in this city...~

i love chris tomlin. he's so talented. and his songs are so encouraging.
and yes, GREATER THINGS HAVE YET TO COME!!!

on another note, this week has by FAR been the craziest week of my college career.
had an article due on monday, and i totally overslept for my only class. but i haven't used any skips for that class, so it was fine. worked on my ad campaign all week..mostly at night. marketing natural perfume to rich women from their 20s-40s was hard!! had to do tons of research on them..come up with a TV ad, a magazine ad and a billboard ad. ad writing turned out to be kinda fun..but not really my type. am pretty much resigned to getting a B in Scriptwriting. the prof is just wayyy harsh. so had tons of study parties in the hallway of my wing this week.. good times. tons of popcorn and candy with my study buddies! fun but pretty unhealthy.

SO glad that huge project is OVER! heavy weight lifted off my shoulders. oh thank God. and then worked on the Echo (school newspaper) all week long. our editors-in-chief are gone this week for a conference in Kansas city, so they left me and hannah (co-news-editors) in charge. it was INSANE. well, actually it went better than we expected. but we slaved for HOURS over that stupid newspaper. i'm keeping it forever as a souvenir. haha. hannah was at the echo office for like 10hours straight. i was there for 8hours cuz i had class. we ran our budget meeting, edited EVERY SINGLE STORY a thousand times, did layout for our own pages, made sure every single detail was accurate, answered all questions from other editors..omg. i don't know how our editors-in-chief do this every week! i have so much respect for them! so we managed to get done at 1am. which was earlier than usual. thank God. pretty proud of our efforts. our very own Halloween issue of the Echo :)

and then at 1am i started writing my article due today and studying for a quiz. heh. needless to say, i ran on very little sleep this week. it was a very..surreal experience. i think i was so tired i felt like i was floating around. haha. my mind even blanked out on me completely a few times. and that's never happened! we were like discussing something in class, and i really couldn't think of anything. couldn't concentrate. no words came to mind. can't even remember what i did earlier this week. now i understand the importance of sleep. i realized i hardly ate this week too. only been to the DC (dining commons) like 3 times this entire week. granola bars were my sustenance. which is why i'm almost out of those. heh

so i'm totally crashing and sleeping in tomorrow. after i enjoy today. it's Halloween!!!
TGIF!! THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

Lessons i've learnt from movies

You know, movies, music, tv shows...all that stuff is really impactful. (at least the good, non-trashy ones are)
there have been so many times where i'm watching a movie, and something profound just strikes me, and it provokes all kinds of thoughts about life, love, people, everything. or when i'm feeling down and out, and i hear a song, and it just lifts my spirits and puts a smile on my face.
You know what? I really wanna do that for someone. be the creator THAT song, of THAT movie, of THAT something that touches other people and inspires them to greater things.
I don't know..just been doing a lot of thinking about the future lately.

so I saw 'the secret life of bees' in theaters over fall break, and there was this particular scene where one of the sisters killed herself, because she couldn't take living in this world without her twin, who had died earlier. and the two sisters left were mourning her death, and one sister said to the other something like, 'we shouldn't be selfish. we should let her go where she can be with her twin and be happy again.'

and it's kinda unrelated, but this question just popped into my mind - Am i being selfish for wanting to live out my life my own way? instead of... going the expected route. doing the normal, ordinary thing. going home and working a desk job forever. Am i selfish for wanting to break out of the norm, leave home and do something big for God? Am i selfish for upsetting people in the process of working towards what i feel God wants me to do? then why is it so hard??

and then i was watching 'The nanny diaries' today while taking a break from doing homework...and this song came on during the credits:

~wake up one morning you realize
your life is one big compromise
stuck in the job you swore was only temporary

feel like the world is passing u by
never done all the things u wanted to try
stuck in one place
got a pain in your face from all your stressing out

you ask yourself there's gotta be more than what i'm living for
you ask yourself there's gotta be something else, something more~

And i was like... i don't wanna compromise. i don't wanna settle. i had a really good conversation with a good friend of mine on friday night. we were supposed to work on an assignment, but we ended up just sitting in his car and talking for more than 2 hours. about life. he shared alot about his struggles and stuff..

and one thing he said to me was, 'you know what my greatest fear in life is? that i will settle for something instead of doing what i really want.'
That's exactly MY thoughts too! i don't wanna do something just cuz it's the right thing to do, or everyone wants me to do it, or it's the easy way out, or it's what's expected of me.

and then i watched high school musical 3 on its opening day (friday!), and the theater was swamped with little kids. haha. but anyway, i remember thinking something about the future when i watched it, but i can't remember now. haha.

so yeah. i'm just rambling. other than that, this weekend's been pretty fun. went to chili's for dinner (my first time) on fri, it was GOOD! :) and then last night went to flattop in fort wayne for beka's 20th birthday. flattop is this awesome restaurant where u pick all the ingredients and stuff u want like noodles, rice, meat, veggies, sauce, and they fry it all and mix it for u. yummy. and today we had a DDR partyyy on the wing. so basically have tons of overdue hw waiting for me.

need to go finish my ad campaign now. marketing natural perfume to older affluent women. oh joy.

Back to reality

cartoon and i waiting in line to get into Cedarpoint!

the headless horseman in cedarpoint. creeppyyyyy

we found a statue in cedarpoint that said TAYLOR! :)

upi, cartoon, me, gabe. asians!

another creepy halloween deco outside the theme park.

So. Fall break was surprisingly tiring. drove to Cleveland, Ohio in 2 vans with a bunch of international students. took like 5+++hours to get there! slept most of the way. got lost a few times. but we eventually reached the Comfort Inn, where we stayed for fri and sat night. it was....rather sketchy, to say the least. some people found a HOLE in their room, where any stranger could creep into their room from the outside. scary! there were a few creepy strangers wandering the hall too. but we squeezed like 5 people in each room, so there was power in numbers. haha. i roomed with 4 other girls. 4 of us squished on the queen sized bed, one on the cot. good bonding times! :)

Friday night we had dinner at T.G.I. Fridays! which was pretty good. never been there before. normal western food. best thing about going on a trip with ISS (international student society)? they pay for EVERYTHING! food, lodging, movie, theme park, etc. it was a great free trip :) watched 'The secret life of bees' at some mall after that. was a pretty good movie. really touching. tears were flowing. (not from me but others) dakota fanning is SUCH a good actress! and she's like, what, 12??

Sat was shopping dayyy!! bought a coat, jacket, scarf, jeans, fall clothes. cuz it's getting cold. sad! also, went to Hot Topic, this store that caters to punk/emo/goth people cuz it's all dark n scary inside. bought fake clip on purple and blue hair!! so i can finally have purple hair!!! maybe on halloween. can't wait! :)

Went to Cedarpoint, the most awesomest theme park, in the evening. was super cold, and even under my bundles and layers, i was shivering. the theme park was sooo cool. it was all decked out in halloween stuff too, since halloween is 2 weeks away. creepy people roaming the streets scaring others, creepy decorations everywhere. it was SO crowded though. only got to sit on 3 rollercoasters (which were all awesome. adrenaline rush!!!) cuz the lines everywhere were at least an hour long. oh well. good conversations came out of that :) they had this one ride, which shoots u up VERTICAL and u come down VERTICAL too. it looked SO AWESOME but no one dared to go on it with me. seriously! i need to find some friends with guts!

Sun morn we began our intense drive back. sooo tired even though i slept in the van alot. was pretty grumpy on sun night cuz i had to do interviews n stuff for another article on another important council meeting at Taylor. arrrggghhhh. but then i decided to forget it all and still be on fall break. so i ignored my work and watched 'shawshank redemption' instead. it was a really good movie!!

and today was an ok day. pretty busy. can't wait for this week to be over.

TGIB - thank God it's break

last weekend, when we went to Thai Smile for levi's bday, we got into car trouble during our 1/2 hr drive there. the car engine just started overheating and massive amounts of smoke clouded our windscreen. KINDA SCARY!!!

levi's all happy n optimistic about it. we had to stop and check out the engine and put water in some tube. (obviously i don't know anything abt cars. i just stood around n took pics) and this nice biker guy stopped and helped us.

levi and claire at thai smile! awesome thai food! actually pretty authentic! except for their supposed 'curry puffs' which were more like fried little squares with something unidentifiable inside that didn't taste like curry at all.

claire, cartoon n me.

YAYYYY!!!! my break officially started today. at noon. when my last class ended. all my classes for tmr were cancelled! awesomeness :))) so i watched Camp Rock with a bunch of girls just now. sooo cheesy but it was fun.
this week's been really relaxing! although i had a presentation on mon (which i got an A+ for!!!) and 2 tests yesterday (which were pretty easy).

omggg. NEWS OF THE WEEK. first, background info. Taylor has 2 campuses. Upland is the bigger campus, where i am. it's also in the middle of nowhere, and it's more expensive. Fort Wayne is the smaller, cheaper one, with only 500 students, about 1/4 of our size. and it's in the city.

SO. we got breaking news that Taylor Fort Wayne is CLOSING DOWN. yes, no more TUFW. kapoot. just like that. it was such shocking news!! and yet so many TU upland people didn't know or didn't care. but it affected the TUFW people SO badly. how do i know? i have a class at TUFW. why else would i know/care about this?? anw apparently they've been in debts for a while. the Upland campus has been giving them $1million a year. accumulating up to $15million right now. (and now i realize where my expensive tuition fee goes to). so Upland can't afford to keep subsidizing their costs...so they're shutting them down. next year in may. and the students will either come here or transfer somewhere else.

so they got the news on mon. we had class there on tue. naturally, all 4 of us were pretty....nervous. not sure what to expect. cuz we heard the students were pretty mad/upset. well, i would be too, if my school was freaking CLOSING DOWN all of a sudden!!
so yeah. it was a pretty interesting experience. they talked about it in class. some were angry, some upset, some bitter, some super choked up and emotional... yup. feel really bad for them.

AND another really interesting thing that happened in class... so we were sharing our personal testimonies, which we had written. not testimonies in the traditional sense, but just something significant that happened in our lives that God used to teach us/help us grow/draw us closer to Him, etc.
so this guy (one of the more normal guys in the class) comes up, and he's like, this is called my 'untestimony'. and he proceeds to talk about how he's a christian, but he doesn't really believe in God, he hasn't had any significant event with God in his life, basically i don't really think he's a christian. and we were like...uhhh ok. totally don't understand why he would choose to go to Taylor fort wayne, A TEENY CHRISTIAN SCHOOL, if he didn't believe in God n all that. the world is filled with such interesting people.

Also, the sharing testimonies part made me realize there's quite a part of my life i've never actually shared with...anyone. that revelation surprised me. i guess i'm not very open about my past. thought about sharing it on my blog, but perhaps not. it's rather impersonal to write it down here for goodness knows who to read.

anyway. CAN'T WAIT TO 'MAKE LIKE A FOETUS AND HEAD OUT' TO CEDARPOINT, OHIO ON FRI!! it's fall break!! and i'm gonna be at the best theme park in the US!!!!!! for free!!! super excited.
(the 'make like a foetus and head out' quote was courtesy of dereck. i thought it was super funny when he first said it. laughed like mad.)

VIDEOS + Pics

AIRBAND PICS!!!!

3East olson and a bunch of guys dancing to their 'rain medley' - umbrella, it's raining men, singing in the rain

This super cool group dancing hip hop to supersonic by family force 5

Gerig and their dramatic 'deliver us' from the prince of egypt. they won 2nd place. drama mama.

Dancing to 'joyful joyful' from sister act 2

The winning act - 2EZ and their awesomely funny step in time from mary poppins

Our lion king act dancing on stage. i'm the zebra in the middle.

our awesome ending. rafiki holding up little simba. she was the CUTEST little baby!!!! :)

Men in Black.

girls dancing to 'morris brown' by outkast. it was freaking awesome.

3rd place act - glowsticks n strobe lights n dancing to daft punk.

I love relaxing weekends where u just sit around and do NOTHING but catch up on tv shows!! absolutely delightful :)

so..i can't figure out how to put up videos on my blog...so i'll just put the links. the quality isn't the best, but oh..great memories. haha.
Here's our International students AIRBAND performance of the lion king medley!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amtb6L9sqtQ

and if u wanna watch, here's the winners of Airband...2nd east wengatz! with step in time from mary poppins. they're hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeuM17-2tT4

and this is a totally hilarious Airband commercial that some guys filmed. a homemade mtv to 'bleeding love' by leona lewis. haha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n30y5R6DPo

and last but not least, a totally random video from my birthday weekend. dancing in andrew's car to 'the way i are'!!! love that song.

i NEED a break

i really do. so tired of having so much work EVERY day of EVERY week!! it never stops! mostly cuz of working for the Echo. newspaper work is so tiring!! i don't know how anyone can do this for a living! but then again, i get a sense of pride in seeing my work published and my name in print. it's pretty cool to have people come up to me and be like, hey! i recognize your name! you're in the newspaper! i guess i have a love/hate relationship with writing. :)

talking about publishing, i wrote a movie review for this god-awful christian movie, The Touch, for my freelance writing class. and my prof liked it! so he sent it to Church Libraries, and they're gonna PUBLISH MY REVIEW in the december christmas issue of the magazine!!!!!!! i'm so excited. so what if i'm only getting published in small christian publications?? starting small and working up is the way to go!

oh. and if you go to www.taylor.edu, you'll see my article on my school's website!! it's called 'Council meeting gives students global perspective'. I wrote it for The Echo, and the Director of media relations at Taylor liked it, so he put it on the website!!
CLICK ON IT to read it!
i just thought it was pretty cool seeing my article on the front page of Taylor's website :)

this week been superrr busy preparing for AIRBAND!!! which was freakin awesome. we just got done doing two shows. tiring!! someone filmed us, so i'll put up the link to our performance soon!! I WAS THE ZEBRA in lion king!! haha. so glad we're done with all the rehearsals. everyone was awesome though. the dancing and performances were sooo good!! and we were the first act!!! whoo hooo!!! was on an adrenaline high just now. super tired now. only one class tmr!

PICS FROM AIRBAND :)

sarah, cait (who were in Gerig's 'Prince of Egypt - Deliver us' performance. they were AWESOME!), me (the zebra!!) and cartoon (who did Daft Punk's 'harder, better, faster, stronger' with strobe lights and glowsticks n all!!)

Dan (who was Simba!! complete with flips and jumps n crazy stuff. and he has a crazy awesome tongue stud) and mark (our fake drummer)

Jordan (she's a bird) and me

me,cartoon,dan,mark. waiting downstairs for our turn to perform!!

April (the other zebra!), anne (a creepy hyena), and me (a scared zebra)

Zebras!! with furry tails and white duct tape on our black costumes! :) everyone loved our face paint. Sooo many random people came up to me and were like, 'I LOVE ZEBRAS! you're awesome!' haha. i didn't know zebras were so popular.

Rhona (who was an awesome rafiki. just LOOK at her costume and face paint!) and me. waiting for our second performance.

Liz (who performed a super awesomely slick hip hop dance to Semisonic. they creeped me out the first time i saw it. just look at their masks!!)

me, rafiki's stick, and jordan!

Liz and Athena (she was a gazelle :)