China Bucket List

Ever since being officially accepted to go to China for Fall 2015 semester I have not been able to think about anything else. Basically all I have been doing is pinteresting and googling China travel destinations, trips, packing tips, culture tips etc. I even listened to a beginner Chinese lesson where for an hour of listening I learned a total of one word, Ninhao (spelling?) which means Hello. I really don't know how that whole living in China and not knowing any Chinese at all is going to go but it will for sure be interesting. ILP gives culture classes during the semester though so they will have Chinese classes so maybe I can learn enough to get by. I honestly don't know how I am going to get through the next 6 months (or 181 days to be exact) until August, I am just so excited! Anyway I figure that I might as well start a list of things I want to do while I am there. Just for fun. I most likely will not do all of these things I mean China is a huge country but I can try! So here is my China bucket list.

1. Walk on the Great Wall (obviously)
2. Ride an elephant
3. See the terra cotta warriors in Xian
4. See the Giant Buddha
5. Hold a baby tiger
6. Go to a Hong Kong street market
7. Go to the Geological Park in Gansu and see the rainbow mountains
8. See the Ivy Temple in Xian
9. Go to the Zhangjijie National Forest Park and see the Hallelujah mountains
10. Go to the Red Beach
11. Ride down the Yangtze River
12. See the Pearl Waterfall
13. See a terraced rice field
14. Go to the Moon Bay
15. Go to the Forbidden City in Beijing
16. Go to Shanghai
17. Ski lift up to the Great Wall and toboggan (spelling?) down
18. Go to the Pearl Market in Beijing
19. Go to the avatar mountains
20. Go to Yangshou

I will add more as I go, but there are a few that hopefully happen while I am there. And these pictures I found on pinterest could not be ignored so here they are, hopefully I will get to take my own pictures of all these things :)

-XOXO-

Motivational Friday/ Life Update

Well I think that this is a great mantra to life. I am to often scared of doing things because I'm afraid that I don't know what to expect and that it would be too hard. I need to just stop and say yes to doing amazing and exciting things. So I am really going to take this to heart this year...

I found out about this program called ilp- international language program. It is a program that sends volunteers to places around the world to teach kids english. I heard about this around September last year and I immediately was so interested by the thought. As I researched more and more about it I became obsessed with the thought of going and doing this. I remember the first night I found out about it, I couldn't sleep because my mind was filled with thoughts of how it would be to live in another country for four months. I went to a meeting that they had about it and became even more obsessed. So you go to a country (Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, Mexico or China) and you either stay with a host family or in an apartment close to the school. You teach around 3-4 hours every day with 20 minute lessons and a rotating group of kids. I was worried at first that I would have to know the language to go (not that it wouldn't help... a lot) but you don't, the lessons with the kids are just basically doing little activities and games in english. Also obviously one of the most exciting things about going to a new country will be traveling around so with ILP you get I think 2 full weeks of vacation plus weekends, so there will be time to explore the country!! Now I know what you are thinking, is this even safe? Well ILP has a head teacher over the group of volunteer teachers and there is a local coordinator who oversees your vacations, curfew time etc. Also if you go you have to agree to follow LDS standards. They do a few other things to ensure your safety and well being in the country and I think it will be a completely safe experience. Also the price is really good. I've heard of lots of programs that go to country for only around 4 weeks with the cost being more than 5,000!!! However ILP is only 2,500 (plus whatever you need for travel) and that includes housing, food, airfare, visas etc., so it really is a good price. 

Now at this point I was super excited but also a little scared of going to a new place for four months without anyone I knew. I told my cousin, Mikala, about the program and she was also really interested in going. We got our parents ok and bam, we were applying to ILP the next day. After quite a long time of getting the references and everything put together to apply, we were both accepted!! Then we had to fill out these documents and do a few more tedious things to actually hold a spot for us, but now we are officially going! We both really wanted to go to Thailand as our first option but with Thailand being an extremely popular country of the ilp program, all the spots were filled for Fall 2015. So we are on a waiting list for Thailand so if two spots open up we will go there but thats unlikely so we are probably going to China!!! Which is super exciting! I've always wanted to go to Asia, I feel like I have been blessed enough to have been able to explore Europe in my childhood so now it is time for a new country/continent! So sometime this August I will be flying off to live in China for four months how crazy amazing is that??!!? So if anyone who reads this has been to China and has any tips or anything let me know!

I'm also pretty excited that Mikala will be going with me. She has never even been on a plane before so seeing her experience all these new things associated with traveling will probably be fantastically hilarious. Also it will be great to at least know one person that will be in my group. Now of course we just have to make the money to go.... On the IlP site it talks about how if you are creative you can fundraise basically all of the program fee with things like a website, yard sales etc. So we are in the planning process of fundraising. We made a website for donations that we are going to put up on Facebook and hopefully people won't think we are demanding money or anything. Of course we made the website before we knew Thailand was full so the url has to Thailand in it but oh well haha. Anyway there is my exciting, probably super rambling explanation of my life plan. 

Motivational Monday #3...(on a Thursday)

This felt fitting for the first post of 2 0 1 5!! Happy New Year! Yes this is the time for New Years resolutions it is true, however I feel like that never truly works out very well. We all start off January with motivation and energy to achieve our goals but really is anyone on track still by February? Probably not. So I thought instead of super specific crazy goals for the year that will likely not happen I am going to make a more broad short list of things I would like to do this year.

• Be more confident
• Try to be less afraid of saying yes to new things...
• Then actually say yes to new things
• Make a realistic life plan (don't quite have that right now)
• Have fun
• Go somewhere I've never been before 
• Be better about calling and talking to my wonderful family more, especially the Kenningtons, I miss them so much :'(
• Do something to better myself as a human being
• Do something to become more healthy and fit

There you go! Theres my sorta kinda new years resolutions. 

I just had the realization a few minutes ago that 2014 was the only year that I never stepped foot in Germany, so thats a kind of sad thought. Also a very weird thought. I guess I'm not cool and foreign anymore huh? sadness.

Anyway. So along with the New Year it is a new semester! I'm not sure how I feel about that because I honestly loved all of my classes last semester (except math of course) and this semester I just feel like all my classes are just classes that I'm required to take yet have no interest in, let me just say, I hate generals, why can't we just agree that high school had enough general knowledge to round everyone out as humans and not add it to college. I am taking a yoga class which I really really REALLY suck at as I have no flexibility at all but hopefully I will get better? If anything, I do really enjoy the last 10 minutes of class when we just do the corpse pose (laying on the floor) and breathe and then sit up and say "Namaste" in unison (btw I didn't know that was actually a yoga thing I thought it was just a granola hippie thing but I guess so is yoga so it works). The only other class I semi-like is Social Problems which is like basically just arguing about problems in our society, now I'm not a great debate person so I never say anything but it is interesting to listen to everyone's take on things, except there is this one kid who has to talk every 2.5 seconds and it gets pretty annoying, not to mention he has the weirdest voice I've ever heard. So I guess overall the beginning of the semester has been good. I also have two new roommates, one is really nice and the other one....well lets just say I've only seen her once in passing and other than that I've just heard a LOT of.....interesting rumors about her. I am just ever so thankful I have a private room, as an extremely introverted person I really NEED to be alone sometimes. I don't know how I would deal if I was sharing a room. 

Just finished a real page turning book, Gone Girl, holy intenseness there was such a plot twist in there that you just cannot stop reading it. Also Unbroken was an amazing book, so heartbreaking though, I honestly cannot imagine going through the horrors of something like that, I think I would just give up. Also cannot stop listening to the Into the Woods soundtrack I now know every single word that they sing in that movie, I think by the time I actually see the movie again I will hate the songs from overplaying them. 

Oh dear I haven't even talked about the amazing NYC trip yet? hmm I think that will have to have its own post so stay tuned. Anyway it's almost midnight so it's time to be on netflix, I mean those Friends episodes will not watch themselves! Don't worry I don't have to get up until 11 tomorrow. :) Thanks for reading my ramblings if you did. 

-XOXO-