This has been the week of the malls and learning that Jordanians love malls probably even more than Americans do. Bitool (my Arabic issues class teacher) says that it is sad that the Jordanian people love the mall more than they love museums or cultural things. I know this to be true. The museum of Jordan is free for everyone who goes there right now (it only barely opened and parts are still closed off). We went last Saturday to the Jordan National Museum near downtown Amman and it was completely empty. It is a world class museum with lots of amazing things, but nevertheless, it is completely empty. We were the only people there except for the security and museum staff. It was an awesome place to tour though. The museum moves chronologically through the history of Jordan from very early prehistory to modern times. They have exhibits from ancient Mesopotamia, bedouin tribes, ancient Biblical times, Greek times, Roman times, Islamic times, Byzantine times, and modern times. All they had for modern times was displays of how they do archeological digging mixed with clips from Indiana Jones and Transformers (both have scenes where they show parts of Petra). The prehistory stuff was amazing - they had the oldest human figurine statue-like things that have even been discovered. Then, there was lots of pottery, rock drawings, basketry, etc. All that was followed by the metal ages - the age of copper, brass, steel, etc. All with their different weapons, arts, customs, traditions, etc. All the best pictures I could take of my expedition to the museum with a brief description of each are posted on Facebook, so look there if you want a taste of the experience. I could easily have spent days in the museum, but being hungry is a powerful motivation to move through the exhibits quickly.

After leaving the museum, we walked to Wast al-Balad and ate one of the most famous restaurants in all of Jordan - Hashem's. The falafel and the hummus at that place was simply out of this world, there can be no comparison. Also they just brought everything fresh on huge platters so you could pick exactly what you wanted and make sandwiches. I found the best was to stuff pickles, falafel, and tomatoes into pita bread and then dip it into hummus for each and every bite. Picture the best meal ever and times it by quite a bit and you get my experience at Hashem's. I will definitely be going back at some point (when I'm not drowning in homework but more on that later). After eating, we went to the Mecca of all movie stores, Hammouda's. They have everything, and I mean everything (including Work and the Glory - of all things). Their store has three different levels and every nook and cranny is lined with movies and each for like $1.50 or so only. It was like stepping into paradise seeing what I could get there. It is a good thing I don't have buckets of free time (or free space) or I would be bringing home 100's of new additions to my collection. As it is, I will probably be bringing home a fair few (Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America 2, lots of Disney movies in Arabic, and I will be hunting through the whole store to find Better Off Dead as well). I will find other souvenirs to bring home as well so don't worry about that. But life wouldn't be complete without some extra movies, just saying.

The other "tourist" thing I did this week was to visit many of the malls of Amman. I saw the Muchtar Mall, the Taj Mall (get it?), the City Mall, and the Mecca Mall. Again, Arabs love their malls. They are crowded and bigger than any mall that I have seen in the states - 5 or 6 floors with hundreds of stores or shops or restaurants. Muchtar Mall is a lower middle class mall. It has a Carrefour (a French WalMart type of store) and then every floor is operated by the same company with a different of department per floor. Nothing too great or exciting. City Mall is more of a American middle class mall and I mean American - Papa John's, Burger King, Popeyes, movie theater, etc. And then shops from all over the world - American, Italian, French, Russian, etc. All middle class level though so nothing too fancy so picture a mall full of Aeropostales or American Eagles and there you go. The Taj Mall is the crowning shipping center of Amman. It is the mall of the rich and famous - Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Armani, PF Chang's, fancy French bistros, the classiest of the classy in shops and foods of the world including a 3d imax theater on the top floor. I also had the best churro of my life in this mall - it was filled with Nutella then dipped in dark chocolate a couple times and then drizzled with white and milk chocolate. Delicious beyond compare and also my week's supply of chocolate or sugar. There was also a lovely balcony on the top floor to with a nice view of the city. I was out of my element in that mall, getting one or two things might have blown my entire life's savings. It was a beautiful mall but one that I cannot afford. Mecca Mall was just simply huge. It was the biggest mall I have ever seen in my entire life. It had everything you could ever want in life in one gigantic, behemoth of a building. Put Arizona Mills combined with Superstition Springs combined with Tempe Marketplace and San Tan and you might get close the size of this mall (and it was about 5 or 6 stories at least). So much stuff! I didn't know Jordanians loved shopping so much, I had no idea. But they might even beat out America for that fact of life.

Speaking about America, with yesterday being 9/11. We decided to go have some American food and do some American things to remember our great country and those that died. They have a Fuddrucker's here! We had the most delicious of burgers! Although they cook them like they do in Europe where a well done only comes out a medium to be honest (those that ordered medium rare got meat that look like it was still alive....dark, deep red...so I was glad I chose well done, thanks for telling us your stories of France for that Mom). The guacamole that came with my burger was also very good and just like any you would get with a burger in Arizona. The bacon though was not even close to the same. Beef bacon has nothing on pork bacon. I can understand they don't eat pork, but turkey bacon at least is somewhat of a better texture. Beef bacon is stringy and tough like jerky... I might have pulled that off my sandwich. Also the milkshake was more of sweet cream with vanilla flavoring but it still tasted awesome. Then we came home and watched the 80's classic that is Better Off Dead, one of my favorite movies ever. So many good quotes and opportunities to laugh.

Anyway, that was my tourist or American stuff of the week. Class and homework are seriously taking most of my time during the normal week. It is almost like being back in the MTC but with more freedom on the food we get to eat. We do language learning activities 24/7 and understand a lot of what is going on, but definitely not everything. We are supposed to talk with Arabs for two hours a day out on the street or wherever we meet them. It isn't hard to get the time, but I definitely don't understand everything they say back to me or have the words I wish I had to say back to them. I usually ask them their opinions about class topics that we have the next day. This week we talked, discussed, and debated the Arab Spring. We did Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan, etc. Our group presentation was on the start of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt. This time our presentation and the discussion that led lasted for a whole hour! I had no idea that I could even get close to doing that in Arabic!!! I know prayers and the Lord are the reason why and I am grateful for that. I really enjoy class discussions and I feel that my Arabic is slowly improving and that I am getting more and more to say. I look forward to going to class everyday and I like that the classes are small and I get the chance to say quite a bit. The two hours goes by pretty fast each day and that is a blessing as well. The translation homework is fun, but usually challenging and leaves you feeling pretty drained. Talking with people is also tiring, so I am always really tired each and every day. Kind of like being on a mission again in that way too.

The people here are the nicest people. They love to talk, all you have to do is ask the right question. They aren't closed and reserved like people are in the States, they are willing to talk and take what limited Arabic you may have and use it help you understand what they want to tell you. Having deep conversations requires a great deal of focus and concentration, but is worth it. Well, tomorrow we head to a bunch of great early Christian sites like Madaba or the place where John the Baptist was beheaded. So expect plenty of pictures and I will write about them next Friday. I love you all and hope you are doing well! Keep on keeping on!

Life couldn't possibly get any better (unless we planted a fig tree back home...)

So here goes my attempt at trying to post once a week making this post 2 of my study abroad experience. I hope you all enjoy!

This first week in Jordan has gone by in a flash. I feel like I just barely got to Jordan and have started to experience all the wonders of a new place, culture, language, etc. At the same time, I already feel like I have been here a long time. Kind of weird, huh? Either way, I am in love with the experience so it doesn't matter either way to me. What's even crazier to me is that we only have around 12 weeks of school left and then a few days of finals and then it's off to Jerusalem. Apparently, we see everything that the Jerusalem Center kids get to see, just in a much shorter amount of time so with little sleep or time to eat. That made me even more excited to be here and experience life here. The same problem still applies though because I can't get the pictures from my camera to my computer. All the ones I can post come from my cellphone, so I need to get better at taking those pictures. Anyway, here is the experiences of my first week living in Amman, Jordan.

The food. Don't even get me started. This must be akin to what they eat in heaven, end of story. Mansaf is one of my new favorite meals. I'm not sure how to explain the diverse palate of flavors that comes with this meal. I posted a picture yesterday when I was eating at the Mata'am Al-Quds (Jerusalem Restaurant) and I hope you all got to see it. It's a gigantic slab of lamb meat on top of a giant plate of delicious rice. All of this is underneath a piece of delectable bread. They bring a goat yogurt sauce in a giant bowl to the side and then you dump this over everything. Traditionally, you can only eat mansaf with your hands. However, we were at a semi-nice restaurant and so there was the convenience of modern silverware. I tried both ways though and found it to be more enjoyable to eat with my hands and mix more flavors. Don't mess with tradition and cultural practice, it's there for a reason. In this case, how to eat such an awesome meal in the best way. I'm going to eat mansaf all I can while I am here in Jordan because I know of no place in the states that serves it whatsoever. They also had a bowl of delicious olives to eat and good bread and hummus. I also tried kunafa this week and found it to be just as good. It is a common dessert in Jordan. It's like a mozzarella stick mixed with some sugary-honey sauce and then topped with delicious crumbs. Again, you really have to try it for yourself to have any idea about what it tastes like or how awesome it is. And unfortunately, it is another dish I think I can only find in Jordan. Another common dessert here is baclava, which can be found in the States. So picture the best one you have ever tasted at a Mediterranean restaurant and then times it by 10 and you get the level of baclava available here. Such a treat. Also, there is this magical Palestinian sweet bread call "baboosa". It is covered in delicious nuts, again soaked in some sort of sugary syrup. Sooooooooo good. If you thought I was going to come home extremely skinny from not eating, you are going to be sadly mistaken, just saying. I'm just hoping I don't gain too much weight, haha. I also love all the falafel, hummus, pita bread, and shwarma. Everything is so good. And everything is so cheap - you can get a meal from a nicer restaurant for only 5 dinar (about $7.50) - that was the mansaf meal price. A falafel sandwich from the restaurant across the street from Qasid Institute (where my classes are) will set you back only 40 'ursh (about 60 cents). Definitely affordable eating and living here. Visiting the fruit stand for figs, pomegranates, pears, nectarines, etc. will only cost from 2-3 dinar ($3-$4.50) for kilos of fruity goodness. Strangely (to me at least) one of my biggest expenses of this trip is going to be water.

So water, I thought I was used to living in the desert and great at conserving water. That is just not the case. I have never been limited to 2 cubic meters of water per week for seven people before and it makes life an interesting challenge. Showering at home is a 1 1/2 minute affair with absolutely no water pressure, you have to scrub the soap off of you. Washing clothes is a delicate balance of figuring out who can go which week and making your clothes last until it is your turn (good thing deoderant and cologne exist here in Jordan is the answer to that problem). Even having enough water to clean all our marble tile floors (I'm not joking when I say we live in the apartment of the rich and the famous) takes some thought. I figured out just using the Clorox cleaning wipes Mom got me was the best solution and they seemed to do the job just fine. Bottled water at restaurants is costs at least twice as much as the meal, if not three times. Bottled water from the store doesn't come too cheap either. I have found one supermarket near our place that will give us a 10 liter jug of water for 1 dinar and that is what I am going to stick with from now on.

Enough about water and food, let's get to the places I visited this week. I went and saw the Roman Ampitheater again and went to Wast al-Balad (downtown Amman) last night. We even caught an old Arab man rapping down at the Ampitheater, pretty sweet and way better than I can do. Today I went and visit the Suuq al-Jarra and Rainbow Street. the Suuq al-Jarra was kind of like a craft fair with lots of different booths and tents set up, all hawking paintings, clothes, woodwork, stonework, souvenirs, etc - with a Jordanian flair. At the food court, we got to taste test banana cookie ice cream, grape leaves stuffed with ricey and tomatoey goodness, and the best watermelon juice available on this planet. It might have been better than my last trip to Costco (and to be honest that was spectacular - I got free ahi tuna sushi that was out of this world). After visiting the markets, we wandered up and down Rainbow Street. It felt more like we were walking through some Parisian neighborhood than a Middle Eastern city. White people were everywhere along with nutella and crepe signs and cafes. It definitely is a place that caters to tourists. It was fun, but nothing overly exciting or different. The best part was we wandered off Rainbow Street into a different neighborhood and found the perfect lookout point to see the city from. We could see for miles and it was sunset and it was around 68 degrees with a faint breeze and was next to some fig trees. Picture the perfect day with the perfect weather with the perfect sunset (all colors) with the perfect view and you have what we sat and gazed at for 30 minutes at least. We also had fun taking a bunch of pictures, talk about amazing!

I also got my calling for my time here in Jordan! Sorry for my non-Mormon friends here, but here is my Mormom paragraph so bear with me (and perhaps even enjoy it!). I am going to be on the Arab branch activity committee. We plan activities bi-monthly for all the members and nonmembers of the Arab branch and just get to have a blast with them (and eat their delicious food). No other students from BYU or invited or people who speak English. It will just be about 6 of us and then 30+ Arabs playing games or throwing water balloons or whatever. It is going to be a blast. So story time. I prayed earlier this week if I should request any specific callings. Our teacher, Dil, sent out emails with options to go up to the north branch, give sacrament meeting talks, teach classes, hometeach, etc. We could reply and say what we felt comfortable doing. I prayed about it and got the response that I needed to be on the activities committee. Then I forgot to send in any email whatsoever. Dil reads out callings yesterday and come-to-find-out that I am on the activities committee! The Lord is truly aware of me, even here in Jordan. He still answers prayers and still is definitely leading and guiding my life. Attending the Arab branch was a blast today as well - I understood the vast majority (90%+) of it. I take that as a blessing from God as well. Ok enough of my Mormon moment, just know I know God lives and loves me and all of the people here in the Middle East.

Classes this week have been a stretch for me. I somehow ended up in a class with all natural talent language learners who are also brilliant. I can study a lot to learn vocab...but Arabic doesn't just come naturally to me. It is a huge struggle. So I am kind of out of my league, but I have been learning a lot. I have also been having a lot of fun. Each day was have a new topic to discuss and debate. This week we covered comparing Amman with our home cities, our hobbies and interests, who we are as a person, etc. Yesterday (our Friday) we had to give a group presentation complete with questions and discussion on American stereotypes of Arabs (hence why I Facebook messaged a lot of you and thanks for your responses). We did it all in Arabic and we went for about 25 minutes, so we did much better than I thought we were going to do. There are seven of us in the class with the teacher. We spend 8 hours a week studying and speaking foosha while doing debates and discussion on various topics. Foosha is modern standard Arabic or formal Arabic that is common across the Arab world. Then we spend two hours a week learning 'aamia (the Jordanian dialect of Arabic). We studied Egyptian before and there is quite a lot of differences. Picture the difference between Portuguese and Spanish and you get the difference between dialects in Arabic. So they can understand one another, but it takes some struggle and you can't quite speak their language right. We then have the BYU class with Dil where we go over more Jordanian Arabic situations and how to deal with them (like taking taxis or changing our standard greetings from Egyptian or formal). Then we have two (usually it takes three) hours of translation homework. We read two articles and answer questions about them, listen to an article and answer questions about it. Then we also have to translate word perfect another article. It is fun, but sometimes feels a little tedious. Then we have to talk with Arabs for at least two hours. I need to make some good Arab friends so I can just chat with them everyday. So far my best luck has been with taxi drivers and visiting the university as well as shop owners (when their shop is not busy). This schedule I think will keep me busy every week of classes, but the goal is to learn the language and I think this will help. We also have lots of extra appointments that will start up this week so that will take more time as well. Weekends are our little haven of freedom and I am going to enjoy every minute of them.

I think that is pretty much my week this week from what I can remember or think. I hope you are all having amazing lives back in the United States and school started great for those of you at BYU! Until next time!

JORDAN! Ready or not, here I come!

Assalamu Aleekum!
(You would all respond "wa aleekum assalam")
This first couple days of the my Jordan experience have been an amazing experience, although all seen through the haze of jet lag and adjusting to food and culture differences. That being said, I don't know how long this post will be because I am already starting to doze off as I write, not a good formula for creative thinking.
Traveling across the world by plane is definitely an experience. That whole get there 3 hours early thing is a joke. I only needed to really be there an hour and half early because I wasn't leaving the country until after I landed in NYC. The flight from Phoenix to NYC was pure heaven - I was sitting by the emergency exit so had an extra six inches of leg room and an extra 6 inches of width (there was no arm rest on my left side - I could easily stretch out and relax. I enjoyed watching "Million Dollar Arm" again on the flight. (That's weird the italics won't work on this...hmm). After that it was a crazy sprint to the New York airpot to get from one terminal to another and find the right train that would get me to where I needed to go. When I go there, there was only x-ray machine working so the line was about an hour and half long. I barely made boarding my flight right on time. That was exciting. The plane was ginormous with 3 seats on each side of the plane and 4 seats in the middle and a business class section, priority section, economy comfort section, economy section (that's me), and even further back economy section. No one in my surrounding area spoke any English so I gave up trying that and spent my time playing on their individual TV screens. I watched "Divergent" and "Captain America 2" as well as tried unsuccessfully to sleep. Then I landed in Paris and enjoyed another fun train experience trying to reach the right gate (what is up with trains going so fast and always heading the wrong direction, just my luck I guess haha). Then I ran into one of my friends and we spent all the hours talking until we boarded the flight and finally headed to Amman.
Arriving in the Amman airport was an experience not for the faint of heart. The first thing you have to do is wait to exchange money since it costs 40 dinar (about $60) to get a visa to enter Jordan. Without the visa, you will wait for the remainder of whatever life you have stuck behind the passport security line. The line for exchanging and working out visas took about 2 hours to get through. Then we got our bags and found Dil (the head of my program) waiting for us with our driver after we got through customs.
Let me say a word about driving in Jordan. Picture the busiest LA freeway or driving in Manhattan and then multiply it by 2 or 3 and you get what driving in Amman is like. No one follows any of the lines, they pack in close to each other as close as humanly possible and then honk like crazy so no one runs into them. Then everyone drives as fast as possible and swerves across all lanes of traffic when needed. It is CRAZY! Apparently, even our professors (or anyone sponsored remotely by the church) is not allowed to drive here ever because of how dangerous it is, so there you go. That being said, I feel almost safer here than on the streets of Mesa. Everyone is paying super close attention to driving - no one is texting or eating or adjusting the radio or turning to talk to the passengers. They are focused on one thing and one thing only - driving to the destination and not causing accidents so that they can get paid. The frenzy is kind of fun after the first couple times of shock wear off. Trying to cross the street at some of the busier areas is whole other kind of adventure. You kind of just wander into traffic whenever it remotely slows and people drive around you. Again, no one is ever hit because people are so focused. It is an interesting concept for driving and transportation is all I have to say. There are so many different types of taxis, but I have now figured out how to make sure the one I get on is the right one and how the meter works so that I don't get overcharged. It starts at .25 dinar and goes up from there. A ride across town only costs about 2 dinar (or $3.50) so taxis are much cheaper here than they are back in America.
Other than that, I have visited some sites around Amman and spent a lot of time in orientation or running errands to get supplies. I visited the Roman ampitheater in downtown Amman with some friends the first night and walked along the shops. It was awesome! To see something so old still standing in such good condition and think about what it would have been like to live back then was something else. I do have a question though, it was so tall! How does anyone in the back few rows ever hear what is happening on stage? Did they kind of just guess what the words were being said based on the action? That could be kind of fun I guess. I did take lots of fun pictures, sadly I have no way to connect my camera to my laptop so I still have to figure that out. After that we visited the shops which are set up like Canal Street would be in New York City or street shops in any major city for that matter. There was lots of men's clothes, shoes, pet stores, souvenir shops, restaurants, DVD shops (all for only around 1 dinar, I am going to beef up my collection while I am here let me tell you, also they have all the movies that are in theaters so Guardians of the Galaxy is already out and I might not have purchased it yet, but you can bet it might be something that happens soon...just saying). We ate some legit chicken schwarma that was cooked on the spit right in front of us and then headed back to our apartments.
Today we visited Iraq al-Amir which means "Cave of the Prince". They are huge set of caves just outside of Amman where people used to live thousands of years ago. There are still ancient Hebrew inscriptions carved into the rock as well as evidence of decoration in the caves that show where the people lived. Apparently they were all rick, because most of the carving looked like crown molding and according to Dil who researched these things that's what they were. (Again no pictures yet because of the camera thing, sorry). There were wild chameleons that run rampant through the caves, so one of my roommates caught one and we all got some pictures with it. Apparently they don't change colors as fast as the movies portray, but it did change colors a few times. We weren't allowed to keep it though, haha. We also saw an ancient dovecote there where people would leave out food for the birds, trap them, and then eat them. Supposedly, it was a delicious commodity. We then headed down to the actual palace that is a few miles from the caves. It was mostly toppled over, but was still very grand and impressive. They had giant stone lions and jaguars outside and the classical pillars at both of the entrances. We were allowed to go inside and explore the ruins, and that was really cool. As we were leaving, Dil purchased some fresh figs for us from the caretakers of the site. I haven't never tasted anything so good. I agree with one of the other professor's wives when she said that "figs are the forbidden fruit from the garden of Eden" - they are that good when you pick them right off the tree.
Sorry another break in the story - I learned today about the main three staples of the Levantine diet from ancient Biblical times until today and that was figs, pomegranets (sp. it won't even given me suggestions on how to fix it sorry), and olives. They were all perfect because they could be preserved in various ways to be consumed all year long. Still to this day, those are the main crops of Jordan for the same reason. Needless to say, I love all of those things and so naturally am very excited about this revelation. The actual palace itself is down in a valley where all the fertile land is so it was surrounded by groves of all those different types of trees. They use prickly pear cactus to make a natural gate around their groves for protection. They also eat the prickly pear fruit and it just barely came in season so I am going to be adventuresome and try it in any way I can. It is bigger than the stuff we grow back home.
Can I say I grew up in the perfect place to prepare for this major? Because I did. Everyone today almost died of heat stroke because it was sunny and 98 degrees. I was almost celebrating that the weather was that cool and could have stayed at all the sites much, much long with not a problem. There was even a nice breeze (not the oven death-like ones that come during the summer in Mesa) to keep me going throughout the day. I am also used to seeing dirt and dust everywhere and very little green. It's just a fact of life. A lot of other people are struggling with this concept. We'll see if they can get used to it. I am also used to drinking warm water when it's the only thing available and a lot of people struggled with this concept and might have even gotten sick now because of it. I was raised in Mesa for a reason and it was to prepare me for this so that I didn't suffer from geography/weather shock as well as culture shock.
I also found today the best falafel sandwich I have ever had in my entire life. It was like taking little bites of heave and it is right across the street from where we go to school, talk about awesome.
Anyway, I think I have just been rambling so put up with my jet lag semi-awakedness and I will try to post more coherent, straightforward posts sometime this week after seeing how classes work and I get more settled to actually living here in Amman, Jordan. It is so crazy that I am finally here, I have been dreaming about this day for the past 2 and a half years and it's finally here and so surreal. I'm still adjusting to the whole fact that this is not just a dream.
Love you all and hope I didn't bore you too much!
PS (on a blog, I know is tacky but an additional thought nonetheless) I am living in the best apartment I will probably ever be in my entire life. It was supposed to be for the landlord's kids so it is absolutely huge and has the top-of-the-line furnishings. I think it might even be bigger than my family's house in Mesa. We have four bedrooms (with one master suite), 3 1/2 bathrooms, 2 family rooms (one opens up to a dining type room), a giant kitchen, and a spacious side porch. I don't know what I did to deserve living like a king, but I will certainly enjoy it while it lasts. The one thing it is missing is air conditioning, which is killing all my roommates. I don't mind at all though, to be honest, our apartment only gets about as hot as our house does during the summer in Mesa. So warm, but 100% bearable. I need to take pictures of the whole apartment so you guys can all see.
PPS (another one I know, cut me some slack) There are so many more stories to tell so I am jotting down ideas here so I don't lose them later - limited water supply, how markets work, what "mall" means in Jordan, how cell phones work in Jordan, what all the food is made of and actually tastes like, the giant hill of death by my apartment, orientation at Qasid Institute, attending the Amman 2nd branch of the LDS church (the English speaking one), adjusting to the call to prayer that happens at 4:30 in the morning, seeing 100's of wild cats but only one domestic dog, being the person everyone gawks out because I am tall and white (although the redhead on the program sticks out even more, how Jordanian money works, finding out that we have bidets and how those work, eating fool (Egyptian beans), having a harrissa (doorman), how gas trucks play music like ice cream trucks (definitely not as exciting let me tell you)etc. Maybe those can be teasers for later!

Anything overly epic this week? Not really. But life is always fun nonetheless. This week had a lot of great activities for our ward. On Monday for FHE, we learning how to do the cha cha. I remembered all the steps from my class freshman year, so I was the one sought after to dance with so that I could teach others. It was a blast, and it makes it a ton more fun when you are not doing it for a grade. I definitely do not recommend dancing to Dynamite to Taio Cruz though, the beat is to hard to get for cha cha. Michael Jackson songs were much easier. Also, we had a Bishop's Bash this week on Friday down at a barn in Mapleton. It was a blast. We played blind kickball. Everyone was partnered up with someone of the opposite gender. Then one of the people in the team had to be blindfolded. The other "seeing" person than had to guide them through the bases, picking up the ball, and tagging others to get them out. It was a riot. Sadly, someone ran into my teammate Audrey and almost gave her a minor concussion. I am hoping to make brownies or cookies today for her to make up for it. They then fed us dinner of barbecue hamburgers, sides, and drinks. They had a cotton candy machine and an ice cream machine for dessert. We had a marshmallow gun war after that and it was a blast. I wasn't overly good at it (the guns that they gave us were cut up pool tubes, not PVC pipe, makes it much more of a challenge) but it was a blast anyway. The night finished up with watching Kung Fu Panda. I made some new friends - Ashley, Courtney, Sarina, and Christina. They were hilarious and we joked the whole time about how much kung fu you had to know in order to live in or visit their apartment. I am going to take the time to get to know them better. I need to plan a game night or something. Especially because tomorrow is not a school day so there is no rushing to finish homework for most people. Not until tomorrow night. In other news, I picked a major!!! :) Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles I know! I went to chemistry this week and just couldn't pay attention and didn't like it. But I loved my Arabic class and the other Middle Eastern classes that I was enrolled for. They are amazing! I dropped chemistry and ended up switching my major to MESA and it is going to be great! I love Arabic, Into to Islamic Humanities, Middle Eastern History to 1800, Intro to Middle Eastern Studies, and Doctrine and Covenants(the first half). My Doctrine and Covenants teacher is the best religion teacher that I have ever had. He is a crackup and super spiritual. He also talks about a million miles an hour so keeping up with him is a challenge. But a fun one. Everything he says is worth writing down and remembering. He has such great points and it rocks. Arabic is taught by Ustaaz Doug. He is awesome too. The class is difficult because he speaks Arabic as much as possible and expects all of us to do the same. As little or no English as possible. Learning by immersion, which is a sink or swim philosophy. Right now, we are all terrific drowners. I wonder how long it will take for some of us to become swimmers. Intro to Middle Eastern studies will be fun. Lots of discussion and great books to read for it. The teacher is not quite the best though. She means well but she is softspoken and doesn't allow us to fully discuss the readings. She only wants to discuss what she has decided is worthy of discussion. Narrow minded. The history teacher isn't the greatest either. He stutters over words and takes most of the class off on random tangents. The books for his class look fascinating though. Lots of writing expected for both classes, so I need to start working on that. The Islamic Humanities professor is brilliant. He loves class discussion and conducts it in an open manner that is inviting and engaging. Lots of fun readings for that class as well and lots of fun assignments. I think the best professors realize that if they have fun teaching the class, we have fun taking the class. Regardless of the workload. If they are excited, we get excited. I just don't understand why some people chose to do teaching when their heart is not in it. And they aren't excited and it seems like we are the bane of their existence. Maybe they like their research? I guess. I am going to be going to the temple every Friday after Arabic gets out. There is no wait for it. There is such a great spirit in the temple and it helps me to focus throughout the rest of the week. I do better at reading, writing, testing, speaking, socializing, you name it on the weeks that I go to the temple. I am working out every morning (or almost every morning this week). I am going to wake up at 5:50 this week so I can get down there at 6 and go till 7. I am doing great at using the weight machines, the elliptical, and the bike machine. I am hoping to convince Lora and Nathan to do a one hour swim workout once a week as well. That way my exercise will be well rounded and fulfilling. And everything will get worked, stretched, and strengthened. I am reading the scriptures every morning after doing that and I am liking the schedule that I have. I need to find another job or lots of volunteer hours to keep me busy and active. I am not allowed to be a couch potato. I think that is all that really happened this week. Oh, Utah drivers are crazy as always. Walking to and from school everyday is putting my life at risk. I almost get hit by careless and reckless drivers every time. They never watch around them. Especially the ones turning left, they just barrel on down regardless of what is in the cross walk and then they get mad at the person who is in their way. I saw Avengers this week again as well with Will, Samuel, and Aaron. Aaron is dating someone new and is extremely happy and excited. Samuel and Will are good old Samuel and Will. Always fun to be around to talk through movies with. Well, that is all for this week! :)

Flash Back to Reality and Progression in Life

I know it has been awhile. A very long while. But I wanted to start blogging again. It give me peace of mind and helps me to set up some semblance of a schedule. Plus it helps my writing skills to stay at what they should be and to improve. The more a person writes, the easier it gets. Also, I have been reading a whole lot more lately and that makes a huge difference in writing too. I start to think in the style and diction of the author that I am studying, so it crops up in my writing and speaking. To me, it is a fascinating phenomenon. Anyway, life has been all over the place as of late. I spent the past summer working at Kidz Kamp. It was the best job that I have ever had. It almost convinced me to become a grade school teacher because of how rewarding it is to work with children. I loved every second of it and can't wait to do it again in the winter and next summer. Then I got to go to Kansas City to visit Grandad and all the other relatives on the Hughes side of the family. Grandad was much more talkative than I remember, but isn't eating nearly as much as he used to. He is very gaunt and skinny. I am worried about him and where his health will continue to go from here. After that, Grandma Hughes got us a staycation at the Arizona Grand Resort. It came with passes to the huge water park. There were two huge slides, a wave pool, and pool volleyball. Lots of fun with all the cousins and close family. It was a summer of pure freedom. I read more books than I have in years, saw a ton of movies, spent uber amounts of time with family and friends, and just loved life. Sadly, reality had to set in eventually and send me careening back down to earth and normal life. That reality in this instance was school. Don't get me wrong, I love school and I love learning. I just hate having to decide where that learning has its final destination. I hate picking where my ultimate field of study and understanding is going to reside. I want to learn a foreign language, spend further time basking in music, appreciate great art across all mediums, and understand why all the grand and miniscule components of the earth work they way they do through the application of science. All that is not possible through picking a major and one course of study in a college environment. I know I can spend a lifetime learning, but I love the learning environment of classes and discussion. Research and paper writing. And oddly enough textbook reading. But I can't have everything at this point in life. I need to have a social life, a reading life, a music life, a spiritual life, and a course of study. And to fit that all in, I need to pick a major and be satisfied with it. I can do that. If nothing so that I can get enough and sleep and not lose my sanity this school year. The major I have decided to focus on at this point in time is Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic. Kind of strange, huh? I agree. But I love politics and government, those are what made the most sense to me in high school and were the easiest to study as well. I am not putting all my chips in that basket though because I am also starting out prerequisites that would lead to dental and orthodontic school. Being an orthodontist might be the greatest family job that I can think of and work with. The pay is substantial and there is a lot of left over time to spend doing family activities and outings. The perfect career. Plus it fulfills parts of my patriarchal blessing that I have not been able to make sense of until I considered that for a career. In order to fit both in and everything else that I have going on, I need to come up with some sort of daily schedule and regiment. I hate having to do such things, being spontaneous is much more fun. But now is the time for responsibility and growth, not stagnation and indecision. I am going to write my draft of a schedule up here to help me stay accountable to it and we will see how it goes form there. 6:00 A.M. - wake up and eat a light breakfast, get dressed to work out, run to gym 6:30 A.M. - Start working out at gym, spend half hour on cardio (bike and elliptical machines) and half hour on conditioning (weight machines) 7:30 A.M. - jog back to apartment 8:00 A.M. - shower and get dressed and prepared for rest of day, read scriptures for 30 minutes 8:30 A.M. - walk to school and then begin class at 9 or finish homework/projects 9:00 - 5:00 - Classes, lunch, and homework. Try to get everything done that I can so I have the evenings free to work and play 11:00 P.M. - be in bed and starting the process that it takes to fall asleep I need to also budget for another 10 hours a week of work. I need to visit the temple twice a week - once for initiatories and once for an endowment session. I need to find a group of people that will go with me for both. I need to find time to practice the cello for an hour or so a day (and rent out a practice room to do it in). I need to leave enough time for a weekly shopping trip. I need to plan some sort of project to do with freshman friends that will take up semester. I need to plan a game/movie night weekly. Leave time open for Psych night. Anyway, lots of plans that I need to stay on top of and succeed in. Also, I need to stick to some sort of budget so I don't go broke. I can allow money to carry over if need be, but must stay as close to budget as possible so I can afford living, eating, and entertainment expenses. I think I can budget about $20 a week for food, $10 a week to eat out, and $10 a week for entertainment purposes. I need to create an excel spreadsheet so that I can keep track of expenses and make sure that I do not go over. Or I will be in serious trouble. I can do this though and succeed at it. I know if I pray and fast for help, anything is possible. I am fasting for financial stability today including getting the right job to help me afford the next year of school. Oh, adventure of the week: seeing a rattlesnake. We hiked Squaw Peak yesterday and on the way back down, there he was. Courtenay was walking with me, then Lora following. There was a strange sound (not nearly as loud as I had always thought it would be) and it reared its head. We all stopped and the snake backed off a little bit farther into the undergrowth allowing us to finish walking. It then came back to the trail to finish sunning I would assume. I have always wondered what the rattle would sound like and now I know. Life experience fulfilled. And now I know that snakes love to be on the path to sun themselves and that puts them into direct association with us. I have a couple of other goals for this school year as well. I want to document it with photos as I did before. I want to have a photo of the week and lots of photos to pick it out from. That way, I can always have a documentation of everything that went down during my life spent at BYU. I have a terrible memory for long term events and so that would help me quite a great deal. I love the photos that I took freshman year and looking at them to jog my memory of friends and experiences that were amazing and wonderful. I need to start dragging my camera everywhere again and taking pictures. I need to be more social this year as well. I need to make tons and tons of friends in this new ward that I live in as well as through the friends that I currently have. Will has a lot of great friends in his ward and work and they remind me a lot of the circles I use to hang out in during high school. People who are a total blast. Samuel also has friends I should meet and associate with as well as Aaron, Regan, and Jared. Kelly Ann. Lora and her friends. Nathan and his friends. Maureen Davis is back again too and I need to hang out with her as well as Kevin before he goes off and gets married at the end of this semester. I need to go on dates (multitudes of dates) to find the right person for me. And hopefully to convince her to like me back. That is pretty much all the time I have for right now, I need to finish getting ready for church this morning and meeting with bishopbric afterward. Then having family dinner with Lora, Nathan, and Angela with a movie or a game or something. Then there is ice cream night at Samuel's tonight at 9. Then I have to be in bed by 11 so I can start my schedule off right on the first day. I am praying that all this will succeed. And that everything will work out for the best! Ryan

Too many forks in the road available, it would be much easier with just one

I finally get to write again. Yay! Writing is so sporatic this time around because I never seem to have the time. Weekends always fill up and before you know Sunday is over and I haven't written yet. It is kind of a problem. Maybe it will get better, maybe not.

This past week was quite busy, especially for only being four regular school days. I took four midterms, wrote a paper, did many homework assignments, and still managed to find time to play around and enjoy life. It was great. I think I am back to almost being the way I was at the beginning of high school - I study a ton now. A lot more hours than I ever did freshman year or senior year of high school. I enjoy it and it keeps me going. But there has to be a balance somewhere. Haven't found it yet. I swing from social to student with no buffer or break. Not the easiest switch for me. I have finally started to volunteer at a Rehabilitation Center and that has helped so far. Next semester I definitely will be working as well and volunteering and having a social life and taking many, many classes. I just do much better with life being busy. I am able to study better, focus better, sleep better, eat better, enjoy life better, you name it better. I will have to be able to correctly schedule everything out in order to have that all work out.

This past week we had 80s day on Friday. It was a blast. I got a lot of cool questions and a lot of interesting stares. A lot of people even told me that they would like to join in on the fun. I guess it could be hesistantly be termed a success pending reviews of the next few Fridays. Lora had some good games to play from the New Games book, some were kind of dorky or very special, but they were all fun. Kickback to EFY days and that social recreation leadership class (or party planning class). Also, went to a game night, watched some Psych in preparation for Psych Day this upcoming Wednesday and such.

Well, doing well on tests is definitely a blessing. Good grades are required for all the different programs or career ideas that I have been looking at. The problem is that instead of narrowing my choices, it seems to only make them wider and wider. I was able to do really, really well on a biology midterm this week. I thought everyone else did very well too, but when I got to class I learned that was not the case. Daniel Farnsworth was kind of disappointed because he had did the same as he did on the first test and he was not happy with the results. He dreams of being a pediatrician and has dedicated his whole life to working towards that occupation. I, on the other hand, don't really care one way or the other. I feel like God gave me these smarts as a talent and I am responsible to use and fully develop them for the greater good. I thought the test was relatively easy and can understand the material much better than I was giving myself credit for about a month ago. I am able to make sense of it and explain it in simpler terms. Shouldn't I use that to become a doctor or something in the scientific fields? But then the same goes for liberal arts classes, I can do very well with little effort or stress. I work hard, true, but I can understand and comprehend it at a different level than a lot of other people seem to be able to. I just don't know what to do. I guess the obvious solution is that I need to use the brain that God gave me in getting as much education as I can so that in the end I can serve as many people as I can. But there are too many pathways to to take that would fill such a desire. Lawyer, doctor, counselor, psychiatrist, and the list could go on and on. I guess I could even now add engineer to the list because all my friends seem to enjoy it and love it so much that it has opened my mind up to it. On second thought, not really. I know I don't really want to do business. Not engineering. Not English. Not a fine art like music or graphic design or whatever. Not math. Not economics. That crosses many things off of my list, but doesn't seem to narrow it nearly as much as I would wish. I will keep praying about it and hoping to stumble across the path that I am mean to take soon. In the meantime, I'll keep doing the best I can with what I have been given. You never know what might happen.

We will miss you Anna...

Well, life will never, ever get boring. Things fly at you at a million miles an hour whether you are ready or not. There is not time to slow down, take a breath, re-evaluate, and change tactics on something. It all has to be done midcourse. It keeps life moving fast pace and exciting.

The main thing to be on my mind this past week is the passing away of a dear friend. Anna Flowers. Or in reality what I call her is Great Grandma Anna. She pretty much adopted our whole family anyway. Anna is honestly one of the best people I will ever have the privilege of knowing. She contracted polio at a young age many years ago and although it didn't kill her, she lost the use of her legs. She was restrained to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Did she ever let that get her down though? NO! When I met her, we had moved into her ward. We would always run by her house and drop off food or treats or provide company for her. She was a constant guest at family events such as Christmas, Easter, birthdays, and even normal Sunday family dinners. She always fit right in. We even constructed a ramp for her so she could get up Grandma's step to the front door and into the house. She was never without a smile. Not once, no matter the pain, exhaustion, misery, or disappointment she faced. She truly accepted each day as a gift from God. You were instantly her best friend if you would take the time to talk to her and she never forgot it. She would always send birthday cards, money, treats, give you ice cream, hugs whatever. While on a mission, she wrote me faithfully every week. She was the only one who did. In fact, if she was stuck deathly ill in a hospital, she would write me three letters the next week. One to make up for the one she had missed, one for that week, and one to say how sorry she was and how much she would always love and appreciate me. They were always beautiful cards as well. Home made on her computer. They were always given the "From Anna's Card Studio" clipart image on the back. I don't know how long she spent making each one, but they were exquisite. Each picture and word was well thought out and placed with precision and care. She could find a valid reason to compliment you and express her gratitude for just about everything - holidays, simple service, the fact that it was Tuesday, a simple concert or sacrament meeting talk. It didn't matter such small acts meant the world to her and she would write faithfully to you about them zealously describing all the beauty and joy she had received at those moment in time. To receive such a card or to talk to her in person was always an uplift. She was the perfect example of facing adversity with grace. If there is anyone that I know in the world who deserves to be frustrated at life, it would have been Anna. She was stuck in the wheelchair, constantly sick with ravaging diseases, suffered from immense amounts of pain, and slowly day-by-day lost her independence. She never once complained though, not that I ever heard or that was even suggested or implied. She put on a smile, thanked the Lord for such a great day, and went about whatever activities she could manage. Every time that I was around her or thought of her, she made me want to be a better person. To not complain about the trivial and mundane aspects of life, but live with gratitude and perseverance and understanding. To always remember how much God truly loves and cares for each one of us and have perfect faith and trust in that relationship. To show that same love back to God in every action, work, word, and thought. To love others with true charity and no judgment. She was and will continue to always be in my mind - an angel in human form. She is surely an angel now and doing wonderful work for our Father in Heaven. I can only imagine the joys she has at being free from her crippled and troubled body and able to be the lady and person she always wanted to be. I will continue to strive to follow her example each and every day of my life. To become more like her. She is Christlike in every facet and meaning of the word. She is one of the role models that I will try to follow in life, in attitude, in demeanor, and in charity. I love you Great Grandma Anna and look forward to seeing you whole in the future.

I don't think I can really write anything else after that. Lora and I will be going home this next weekend in order to attend her funeral. God gave us the blessing of having it fall on President's Day weekend so we could go. Suffice it to say, everything else this week has been pretty normal college life. A lot of fun, a lot of work, a lot of happiness and smiles, and also a lot of stress. No movie this week in order to remember Anna with a minute of silence. Hope you all have a great week and I will write next time from sunny Arizona (so far it has been snowing all day here...)
A few quotes I find appropriate:
"To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." Albus Dumbledore

“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.

GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?

GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.

GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.”

The Savior's Words Comfort Us in Death
President Thomas S. Monson

"From [the] majestic world of spirits we enter the grand stage of life to prove ourselves obedient to all things commanded of God. During mortality we grow from helpless infancy to inquiring childhood and then to reflective maturity. We experience joy and sorrow, fulfillment and disappointment, success and failure. We taste the sweet, yet sample the bitter. This is mortality.

"Then to each life comes the experience known as death. None is exempt. All must pass its portals.

"To most, there is something sinister and mysterious about this unwelcome visitor called death. Perhaps it is a fear of the unknown which causes many to dread its coming. . . .

". . . [The Savior's] words to the grieving Martha and to His disciples today bring comfort to us:

" 'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: