Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Well, I've done it again. I've let my blogging get away from me.

Now I'm in Utah, feeling almost like Thailand was a dream. Midway's basically the same. Heather's still Heather, the Zurmatt's still ugly, and people are still more concerned about Swiss Days than anything else. But I...I am different. Something just doesn't feel the same in me. I find myself unable to explain to my friends what I've seen. That a world does exist outside of Midway. That the centerpiece for relief society isn't at the forefront of the world's mind. Somehow, people just don't seem to understand. I've been asked multiple times how my "trip" was. I can't find the words to explain that it wasn't a "trip". It was home.

Of course, Midway has it's benefits. Even though the news reporters are spewing nonstop about how incredibly hot it is, the night air is cool and refreshing. The stars twinkle brightly in the sky, waiting for me to pick out constellations. The food has such flavor! And this funny little neighborhood is still one of the oddest place I've ever been. I've been watching Gilmore Girls and every time the town does something quirky that seems like it would only exist on TV, I'm reminded of Midway. We have our funny cast of characters. People seem to think decorating and dressing up are the most important things in the world for little town things (Swiss Days. Seriously, guys. It's not the most important thing on this earth and you're not actually Swiss). I laughed when I saw the police truck driving, once again, to the Kelsons. No...things really haven't changed other than a few new buildings and a poorly designed new High School.

But I will never be the same.

Miles

Just a quick update on my life. I'm an aunt...again. My sister just had a super adorable little boy to go with her other super adorable little kids. These pictures are from her blog.



Love you, Linds! And your super adorable family!

In the service of her fellow beings

I generally don't like to blog about sad things. I don't like to share my troubles with the entire interweb. But this seems more important than my usual frivolous worries.

Last week, my wonderful Grandma passed away after a wonderful 93 year long life. I'm not as good of a writer as Lindsay, so it's hard for me to do justice to this loving woman. Impossible even. But she enriched everyone's lives she ever touched. No one I've talked to can ever remember her committing a harsh act or speaking an unkind word. I know I can't. Every time we went to visit she would fill to the brim with smiles and run to the kitchen for ice cream. Even being as old as she was, she would always find feed us rather than having us feed ourselves. In fact, at times the way she fed us was a bit hard to swallow (Vinegar spinach salad anyone?) Sometimes she'd try so hard to make me comfortable I felt bad ("Do you want some strawberries?" "No thanks, Grandma. I'm fine." "I'll cut some up for you!" "Uh...I don't need them cut up." "They taste better that way *cuts up strawberries*" "Oh...thanks" "How about some melon?" "No thanks." "I'll cut some up for you")

One thing that always shocked me about my Grandma was the way her mind never dimmed in the least. At 93 years old, she put my memory to shame. I remember the time she was talking to Michelle about college. She proceeded to list every class she took her first semester of college. When she couldn't remember one, she exclaimed "I know there was one more...my mind is really going!" ...I can't remember the classes I took last semester.

The point of my rambling is that Grandma was the kindest woman I'd ever met. Every moment of her life was spent in service of others. She selflessly gave everything she had if she could just make one person a bit happier.



On Monday my friends and I went to see Up, Pixar's new movie (by the way, Up is amazing. One of the best movies I've seen in years). My sister warned me that there was a death of an old woman in the beginning, but because it was the last time my group would get together, I decided I couldn't miss it. I was suspecting the death. I wasn't suspecting how beautifully it would be done. I was in tears long before we ever saw the coffin. The montague of this couple's life reminded me so strongly of my Grandma and Grandpa.

For most people, a love like the one Ellie and Carl Fredrickson shared is only the kind that exists in movies. But for Clara and Arvid Dodge, it was real. Every time I saw them, they were together. They laughed with eachother, danced with eachother, and helped eachother with everything. If they were apart, then both of them would be waiting patiently for the time they'd be together again. Thanks to the Plan of Salvation, that's the case now. The parting is only temporary, and both of them know it and are waiting patiently for their reunion.

I love my Grandma more than words can express. I'm so grateful for the truth of the gospel so that I know I'll be sitting on her lap listening to her fascinating stories soon again.

And I can't wait.

Just a quick dream

Kay, I just woke up from an awesome dream. I need to write it somewhere, so here we go!

The setting was the best part. This place was AWESOME! It was, like, never ending LARP. These people had built a gigantic fortress ruins thing in a forest...okay, there's no way I can describe the total utter 1337ness of this place. But it was awesome. Trust me. So, a bunch of us decided to go LARP. We walked in and the enterance kind of felt like a Renecance fair. But LARPier. We pulled on costumes and walked on in. There were swords inside for us to take (they were actually giant pixie sticks...). So,we each grabbed a sword and headed on in.

As we were walking through the first area, which was all forest and increadibly creepy, these people started coming in from the other side. An epic sword fight commenced until everyone was laying on the ground laughing. "You guys are pretty good for beginners!" our foes shouted. "You want to teach us?" Brian asked. Apparently they didn't because they left. I noticed that at some point during the battle, my Pixie sword had gotten a hole in it. So, I ate the delicious sugar pouring out. Then I realized the case wasn't strong enough to be a sword alone.

At some point we ended up doubling back and going to the observation area because Brian wanted to do something with his sword (I'm still not sure what). As we were heading in, one of the guys was like, "Remind Brian that this is only supposed to be an OBSERVATION area and not to climb down." I was like, "Kay" and followed. Then I looked at the edge of the observation area. A huge wall dropped in a sheer cliff. I was like, "How the heck would we climb down?" Then I realized this was a really crappy place for an observation area because the part of the forest it was overlooking was really secluded. Then a racoon/badger ran by (I couldn't decide in the dream if it was a racoon or a badger. It kind of looked like some kind of freaky mix). There was some guy playing this weird bass type instrument in the corner. It had four strings and was really tall, but each of the strings ran down its own pole. Then I noticed that the pole was kind of a bell. You could pull it out and drop it on a supporting bar and it would make a pretty sound. I was like, "that's cool." then we left the observation area.

As we were walking, we found ourselves in an odd area that seemed like some kind of fair. There were children getting their faces painted, children playing carnival games, children running around. I was like, "Children's area" and we kept moving. That's when I saw it. Possibly the biggest inflatable slide in existance. I wanted to go down it, but I figured no one else would so I didn't say anything. Then Pie was like, "I'm going on that" and started walking toward it. I was like "Me too!" and followed him, happy that someone else was responsible for holding up the rest of our group and I was just a tagalong. We went to the side were you climb up when one child seemed to have gotten confused and came flying down that side. The guy in charge was like, "Woah! Lucky no one got hit coming up!" Then I began to climb. Pie was behind me as I climbed up these twising metal stairs. Finally I reached the top. To make it more 'safe', there was this weird metal contraption. You opened the door on this side to get in, then you open the door on the other side to get out. Just as I was climbing in the contraption (which was too small by the way), I heard a commercial playing at the bottom. It was for Full House. Apparently Stephanie was in trouble with the law for having taken a beach ball from the beach that she thought was hers. The announcer was like, "Can you imagine yourself at the summit?" (like, summit of the law or something). I was like, "Oh, I can imagine myself at the summit pretty well." Pie didn't say anything so I was like, "Did you hear that commercial?" He was like, "yeah" then he climbed into the little contraption. Now, please note I'm terrified of heights. I was holding on for dear life so I asked Pie to open the door. He opened it about half way and I realized he probably couldn't reach to open my half. Just as I was trying to figure out how to menuver myself to open the door, I woke up.

When childhood nostalgia doesn't quite turn out how you expect...

Have you ever had that yearning to reminisce in your childhood? When you want to drag out that old movie you watched over and over and over again as a child and pop it in the VCR? Well, for me that favorite movie was The Brave Little Toaster.

So, ready for some childhood memories I stirred myself some warm apple cider (okay, maybe it was apple juice put in the microwave with some cinnamon in it), locked myself in my room, and began the movie.

The smile was warm on my face as I watched the five little appliances dance around the house having the time of their lives. But it began to slip as the air conditioner freaked out about how the master was never coming back and they had all been abandoned. It had been completely replaced with an 0_o expression when he actually blew up and died.

I shook my head and kept watching. But the movie kept getting more and more disturbing. I felt sorry for the flower that tried to make friends with the toaster and was left to wither. I was frightened when the vacuum seemed to have a seizure on the edge of a cliff. I was disturbed by the 'new' appliances convincing our heroes that they were obsolete. It seemed to out do itself at every turn!

You also have the opportunity to watch a little blender being torn apart for it's motor. You see sinister shadows of a man stabbing the thing with a screwdriver, ripping out chords, and snipping pieces off with our friends watching in horror the entire time. When the man leaves, you're left with the image of the screwdriver hanging off the counter and dripping oil. And who can forget the scene in the junk yard? You're able to witness cars singing about their glory days and then being graphically crushed into little tiny squares of scrap metal.

Though, by far, the most disturbing scene is the Toaster's dream sequence. There's no way to give this justice in words alone. You just have to see it.

Longpost is long.

I've gotten into a rather vicious cycle when it comes to my blog entries. I keep finding things to blog about and putting them at the end of a list that has grown far too long. I keep thinking, "Yes, I'll blog about that once I'm done blogging about this". I keep trying to find fantastic ways to word my stories. Now, I've decided I'm going to ignore this want for eloquently worded entries and just post what I've been wanting to post.

Singapore
Once I finally got my Japan entry up (which was also cut down from my original shining ideas for it), Singapore tripped me up. I wanted to explain how fascinating Singapore is. How they fine you more for chewing gum then they do for smoking. How they fumigated the entire country so there are no more mosquitos. I wanted to describe how beautiful, yet empty, it felt. I wanted to tell you about my first glimpse of Singapore. How there were hundreds of ships on the sea. How the sky was so blue that, if you focused on the horizon, the waves blurred into the sky and the ships appeared to soar away.
I wanted to tell you all that in some way that was less redundant and more articulate. But you get the idea.

Much to my surprise this year, the other schools loved our show. It was arguably the best show there. Singapore's show also rocked, which is funny because last year we were the worst of the worst and Singapore was right behind us. The workshops, however, were awful. We had to listen to the workshop leader sing every day. Then we would play clapping games. The one time he let us actually try and put toghether a scene, he talked so long about it none of us had a chance to do anything.

And poor Marian was sick as sick can be. She couldn't keep anything in her stomach and actually ended up passing out one morning. When they took her to the doctor, without any tests or anything, he told her she was pregnant. We all got a good laugh out of that.

Chaing Mai
Then I went to Chaing Mai with my siblings. I missed out on the beginning of the trip because of that stupid school thing, but the day I got there, we went to Muay Thai. It was brutal and boring at the same time. It was fun watching the guys behind us get drunker and drunker as the night went on. I kind of wanted to shoot the musicians by the end. There was a drum, a little symbol type thing, and some kind of instrument that reminded me of a clarinet, but a lot more painful. It made the most hideous noises with no melody through the entire night. The last guy to fight, though, was amazing. He was this white guy who had so much muscle! He beat the other guy all the way to Timbuctu. At one point he did this kick that I swear was only possible in movies. He jumped in a kind of circle and kicked the guy in the face, then his other foot followed and kicked the guy in the face again. It was amazing. I had no idea that would work in practice.

The next day we went on a zipline thing through the forest. It was rediculously fun. And scary. At the highest point we were 300 meters up from the ground. Yes. That's very high up. As we were getting hooked into harnesses, I hear this conversation between David (our guide. The guy who was supposed to keep us from dying) and Whitney.

Whitney: So, how long have you been doing this?
David: This is my second day!
All of us: 0_o

Anyway, it ended up being way fun. Though I did have some problems with my height. I'd get to the end of the rope and I couldn't reach the platform. The people would grab me and try and pull the rope down to unhook me, but a lot of times they thought it was funny to let me slide back toward someone else coming on the line.

Here are some pictures shamelessly stolen from Michelle's blog:


Also, apparently I look like Harry Potter. One of our guides on Flight of the Gibbons was attaching my glasses to a rope so if they fell of they wouldn't fall all the way and he gave them back and was like, "Here Harry Potter!" (But it's always pronounced Hall-EE Pott_EH). I was like, "Oh, cuz I have glasses. Clever". He kept calling me that through the entire thing. He'd be like. "Whitney go! Okay, Harry Potter!" But later we were getting a foot massage. The lady kept kind of smiling at me and finally turned to the lady next to her and said "Harry Potter". Then, a while later, we were in Phukett and some guy working at the breakfast place at the hotel was telling everyone 'Good morning'. When I walked in he was like, "Good morning Hally Potter!"

So, anyway, after all of this it was time to go back to Bangkok. Being the smart kids we are, we decided to take the train. We ended up getting there an hour early because we thought it was farther away than it was. Then, of course, the train was two hours late. Yes. We waited for three hours. We went and found a bench to hang out on. As we were sitting there, this creepy guy kept coming up to us and talking. At first we thought he was just trying to practice his english since we were the only Farangs there. But there was something about the way he stared at our bags the entire way he talked to us that was a bit unsettling. And he KEPT COMING BACK. To ask us stupid things. At one point he started asking about our Passports and Visas. We were like, "Uhh...*grab bags*"

Then at one point Michelle and Whitney went to the bathroom while Brian and I guarded our bags against creepy guy. Whitney came out to wash her hands while Michelle was still in the stall. She looked up and saw some creepy guy (a different creepy guy, mind you) staring at her in the mirror. She kind of ignored it and, when she looked up again, it kind of looked like he was flashing her multiple times. But she didn't have her glasses on so she tried to convince herself he was fanning himself. All the same, she asked Michelle to hurry. That's when creepy guy #2 started walking into the bathroom. She turned to the stall and was like, "Michelle, we are leaving NOW!" When he realized she was talking to someone in the stall and was, indeed, not alone he left.

You can imagine how creeped out we were by the end of these three hours. We wanted to be first in line to get on the train so we could have our bags directly above us. So, when the train pulled up we RAN to the end. We were in cart three. So, we ran to the cart farthest away from us that had a big 3 on it. Just as we got there, some worker came and flipped the card around so it said 1. We were like, "GAH!" and turned around and ran back to the one that used to say one and now said three. Proud of ourselves for getting the front of line, we waited while they cleaned out the train. We stood there...and stood there...and stood there. Finally, about half an hour later the people finished cleaning the train. And then, of course, the train drove away.

We were like, 'Uhhh...maybe they're just turning it around on a different track?' So, we didn't want to go sit down and give up our first place status. So we stood there...and stood there...and stood there. At one point every single Farang (who were not all in the same group) got up and left simultaniously. We were like, 'What are we missing here?". A full hour later, the train comes back and lets us on. Yes. We waited at the train station for four and a half hours so we could get on the stupid train. Finally, we all found our seats and sat down, relieved. Of course, Brian's food tray didn't work, Whitney's food tray kept falling open on her, and Michelle's seat leaning was broken. Like, she could lean it back if she pushed, but if she took any pressure off of it, it would SLAM forward with a loud CHUNK! Any time she'd start falling asleep, it would CHUNK and wake all of us up. So she tried for a while to sleep on Whitney's lap, but the food tray kept falling on her head. Hah.

Anyway, I was worried about the heat since, apparently, the ride there by the three of them was very hot. But, let me tell you, heat was the last thing I needed to worry about. They had a very nice air conditioner. A VERY NICE air conditioner. That was CRANKED to full. And it was night so there was no sun peeping through the windows. It was FREEZING. I have never been in temperatures that cold without some clothes made for playing in the snow. Seriously. I honestly don't think it ever hit higher than 40 degrees farenheit. I have literally never been that cold before. They gave us 'blankets' that were really just towels. I've never been so glad to have a jacket. I pulled the strings on my hood so that the minimum amount of skin would be revealed. And I kept trying to huddle in a little ball on the seat to try and trap some body heat, but the seat was so tiny I didn't fit. So, I kept sitting on my feet and rocking forward onto the back of Whitney's chair. After about five hours of this my legs and feet were in a lot of pain. So I'd try and put them down, but the cold air would bite my toes. The entire train looked like some refugee movie. Everyone was huddled together under their meager blankets shivering like crazy. It was too cold to sleep, so we just had to sit there and suffer. Finally, as the sun started coming up and the train started at least being BEARABLE, though not comfortable, some worker came down the aisle and took away all of our blankets! She would not let us keep them. We were like, D:


Also, the food. When the lady came down the aisle with food, Brian handed her his little "Nuts will kill me. Are there any?" paper. She turned to the people sitting across from us and asked them if they tasted any nuts. Yeah. That's comforting. Not to mention it was so hot I couldn't even try to eat it. The very smell made me nausous. So, between the four of us, we had six dewberry cookies, half a pack of mentos, and a sprite. Let me emphasize this was not a short trip. It was about thirteen hours.

Phuket/Krabbi
Okay, I'm getting sick of typing and I'm sure you're getting sick of reading, so I'm just going to tell you the biggest thing that happened to me in Phuket.

I got lost Scuba Diving.

Yeah, that's not scary at all. Visibility was horrible. We could barely see one meter. I was having a bit of trouble equalizing, and nobody saw me motioning to slow down since, you know, visibility was so bad. So, I just contented to follow a bit above everyone else and decend slowly. After a while, I lost all sight of people and was just following the bubbles. After a while of that, I lost track of the bubbles. I looked around for a bit and saw a flash of yellow. Great! Brian was wearing yellow flippers! So, I started following the yellow. About five minutes later I realized I was following a fish. You can imagine the sudden panick. I was in the middle of an ocean. Alone. I floated there for about ten minutes listening and watching. But, no matter how hard I listened or how hard I watched, the only bubbles and breathing I could see or hear were my own. Finally, I decided to surface and look around. I was next to this huge rock. And by rock I mean island. The kind you can't get onto because it's just a cliff shooting out of the water. At the other side of the island there were all these fishing boats that looked exactly like the one I had been on. I didn't have my glasses on so all I could see was that they were brown. Yeah, that was going to help me find my boat. I swam and swam and swam against the current until I finally got to the three fishing boats I had been swimming toward. None of them were mine and no one spoke english. So, I turned around and swam and swam and swam toward this huge snorkling group. I figured some of them must speak english. But they all looked like they were heading to their boat so I had to go FAST. I was wiped by the time I got over there. As I was trying to work up the courage to talk to them, I heard a voice behind me that was like, "You okay?" I turned around and, glory! It was my boat! "I got lost" I explained climbing on. About half a minute later I spotted the rest of the group swimming toward the boat.

Notice anything different? Why, yes. I have been to Japan.

After landing, I was pumped to see me some snow! This is the first snow I've seen in years. Yeah...kind of lame. It was all dirty and stuff. There was very little snow around. I felt deflated when I saw that.

But as we drove, the snow got deeper...

...and deeper...

...and deeper...

Until the fences began dissapearing beneath flurries of white and a smile began appearing across my face.

After driving for a while, we found ourseles at the Lake Sikotsu Ice Festival! It was on a big ol' lake. And it was FREEZING

There were lots of cool sculptures. That one on the sides was kind of a temple thing.

And this slide was fun. And wet.

But the coolest part was passing this really tall wall of ice, into this passage...

And finding this at the end. Those are icicles on pine trees. It was really pretty.

Shivering, I made my way back to the bus to find some of the guys enjoying ice cream.

Later we went to the Otaru Snow Light Path. It was very pretty, but we were all so cold it didn't last long.

The next day, it was time to go on a snowshoe adventure! I've never been a big fan of Snowshoeing, but it was pretty fun.

Then we did some sightseeing and went to the hotel. The hotel had an Onsen - a public bath! We were all excited, but we didn't go in the real bath since you're requiered to go naked. So, we went to the swimming pool instead. There were big slides and everything!

On Tuesday we went to experiance Ainu culture. Ainu are, like, a tribe. This guy on the right was really funny. He kept saying things really really fast and switching languages randomly.

These are the traditional tattoos of the Ainu. Why so serious?

Then we all made instruments. They kind of 'boing boing' when you pull on the string.

And so our time in the northern island was over.

Good bye Hokkiado...

And hello Tokyo!

Tokyo is the most bizzare city I've ever been in. There were all these interestingly shaped buildings and bridges. It was hard to get pictures because the windows kept fogging up.

First we went to a temple.

Then we went to Harajuku! I was super excited about Harajuku since that's the center of modern fashion. My favorite style that I'm getting into was born here. Unfortunatley, there weren't really any kids there in fashionable clothes because it was a school day. But I went to one of the cheap Lolita shops with the hope of getting this one really cute jumperskirt that I wanted online. When I got there, I discovered why the price was so cheap. It was horrible quality.

Then we went to Akihabara. Which was epic. There were walls upon walls upon walls upon walls upon walls of video games. It was intense! We spent a long time there.

The next day we went to Disneysea! It was AWESOME! I haven't been to Disneyland since I was very small. Wow, so that's what a theme park was supposed to be like. Everything was such high quality.

At 2, when we were supposed to meet, some of the Freshman were like, "We're tired. We want to go back to Harajuku and go shopping!" So, the teachers were like "Okay, then let's leave at 3." We were like, "wat?" It had taken that long to get through two rides because the lines were so long. We faught hard. Finally, they let us stay and sent the other kids with a different teacher. We stayed until the park closed down. It was amazing! There was one part where we went to a show. Of course, it was in Japanese. So they gave us these little mechanical things that were translation devices! They were like subtitles we could hold with us! I love Disney!

And that was the end of our Japanese adventures. It was awesome!

Random things that I didn't mention earlier!

Okay, I have to tell the the most painful part of the trip. We'll call him M. I swear there's something wrong with that kid. He asks so many questions. Stupid questions. Over and over again. Here are some excerpts from our conversations:

M: Have you ever seen this much snow before?
Me: Yep
M: Does it snow where you're from?
Me: Yep
M: Does it snow a lot?
Me: Yep
M: Is it cold?
Me: Yep
M: How much does it snow?
Me: About this much.
M: Does it snow every year?
Me: Yep
M: I've never seen this much snow before.
Me: hm...
M: Have you ever seen this much snow before?

(We had this conversation multiple times)



M: Why are you in Impromptu?
Me: ...I'm not.
M: You're not in Impromptu?
Me: No
M: Why aren't you in Impromptu?
Me: I don't know
M: Did you try to be in Impromptu?
Me: No
M: If you could be in Impromptu right now, would you?



Wess: So, what do you guys like to think about when you're bored?
Me: Okay, imagine this room were to flip upside down right now. What would you grab onto? (curtosy of Sierra)
Wess: Oh, that's awesome! Uh...I would grab onto this.
Me: Yeah, I think that would be the best choice in this situation. How about you M?
M: That can't happen.
Me: ...what?
M: If the earth were to flip around, gravity wouldn't change. We wouldn't even notice it!
Me: ...okay. But if gravity were to switch.
M: It can't.
Wess: ...We know it can't. But if it could.
M: Well, is the gravity coming from the core of the earth or the sky?
Me: It doesn't matter. Hypothetically speaking, if gravity were to switch, what would you grab onto?
M: What about the birds?
Wess: Birds?
M: What would happen to the birds?
Me: ...I don't know. They'd perch on the bottom of a tree branch or something. At any rate, they'd do better than you would. So what would you grab onto?
M: But gravity can't switch.

(This conversation went on for over ten minutes. We timed it)


Pictures!

They had vending machines with toys in them!

We had to dress in Yukatas one night. I felt like such a tourist.

These heat packs were amazing!

They had a Famicom in the hotel! But the controller was really small.

The Chocolate Factory!

We spent a lot of time in arcades.

This volcano is about fifty years old. It was a field and then one day it just erupted.

Everything in Japan is cute. Everything.

This is a bit hard to read. The sun was in an unfortunate place. It says:

NO!! smorking

NO!! (I'm not sure what that one says...)

NO!! tout

NO!! shoplifting!

The train was exciting.

Seven eleven and McDonalds



Japanese style room. We even slept on futons!



These arrows were odd. They were about every five feet and lit up. They just pointed to the road. Like, what? Is it supposed to be telling you where the road is?



We went to a car show.

There's so much randomness in this picture I didn't know what to make of it.