Apparently Dixie has weekly forums held in the Darford Auditorium! I did not even know this until last week when I was required to go to one for my biology lecture class. They are just hour long lectures with pictures to give us a broader look at the world, and quick little culture classes. Essentially, nobody goes to them unless it's extra credit or required for a class. This week, the forum was on....CHINA! Even more so than that, it was on the same Provinence that I had gone to so I decided to go and sit in just for fun since I had a break anyways. As fun as it was to see pictures of the same places I had gone, some similiar experiences and same funny food and chinglish things, I TOTALLLLLLLY miss China now! It got me thinking back on only a few of the hundreds of good times that I had there....

~"QUICKLY! QUICKLY!" Apparently no matter what time it was, we were ALWAYS late compared to the Chinese. They however could do no wrong. We would sit and wait an hour for them and they'd claim that we were told the wrong time, where if we were 5 minutes late it seemed to be a national crisis.

~Walking around the Birds Nest (award location for 2008 olympics) singing the National Anthem and talking about how cool it would be to be in the olympics and watch the flag get raised there being so far away from home. We started off singing as kind of a joke but it was actually a REALLY cool feeling!

~Quingmen Hostel: Beijing Round 2. There were counttttttless good times here! The building that we stayed in was where the workers lived when they built the Forbidden City so it is unbelievably old! It was ghetto and creepy and I had such a blast! This was where we thought it'd be a good idea to add extra security by pushing the trunk in front of our door so people couldn't open it....little did we realize that the door opened out the OTHER direction, and we didn't even lock it to begin with! Brushing our teeth out the window, too tired to run down to the bathroom.

~Yes I saw the Great Wall. Yes I hiked 10 miles on it. Yes I ziplined off of it.

~"YEAH?! Well guess what! My night is STILLLL worse than yours!"

~Allie and me had so much fun with the subways in Beijing! "Bunch me! Bunch me HERE! ....Bunch me softly!"

~"When do I get to taste you?"....oh Jack!

~ ERRRRRIC! I am now deteremind to go to Germany one day!

~ Flowers Hostel in Guilin was a week of the greatest nights of my life! I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe, almost peed, and literally got a bloody nose!

~"WHY ARE WE ALWAYS RUNNING?!" Seriously the story of our lives! Seems like we couldn't be on time if our lives depended on it.

~Ever been on a train with over 100 people in one cart, in over 100 degree weather? Imagine if you had HUGE bags with you that you were trying to balance between your ankles. Imagine if you were in a country where people didn't believe in personal hygiene. Imagine if you had already missed your first train so you were emotionally tired and scared because you don't actually know what these people are saying so you don't know if you're going to get to the right place. And did I mention that on top of all of this funness, you're STANDING while packed in with these people for SIIIIIX hours? Yeah....we did that! I have an all new appreciation for the Jews.



I seriously had a BLAST in China! It is hands down the greatest thing that I have ever done in my life and I'm back in one of my stages where I just miss it like crazy! I miss my kids SO bad some days that all I can do is sit and watch videos and look at pictures. The next group leaves in 2 weeks and one of the girls is asking me advice and what it was like etc. On one hand I'm happy to help but the true me is inside screaming "Eff you! Those are MY kids!" There's so many countless memories that you could not even begin to understand without having been there! I LOOOOVE the girls I went with and miss them like crazy! I know that China was where I was supposed to be. I grew incredible amounts while there, learning more and more about myself and life and other people. I grew spiritually in ways I'm still understanding. Thank you Alana and Ameri and Anna for telling me about your experiences and getting me informed and then so excited to go! :)