There are a lot of good people in this world.

Do you know what today is?

Well, today happens to be a big day ladies and gentlemen. It's thee LAST day of school for the semester.
LAST DAY. nbd.

and well, for a last day it was quite a pleasant one at that.
#1- My teacher brought us cookies (I can never get enough sugar and chocolate in class)

#2- Why am I such a grinch?
Everyone is talking about shopping, let's be honest i've been THINKING about Christmas shopping.  Have I done any yet? No. Not a single present, for not a single person. T-minus 17 days until Christmas... i'm so out of the spirit.
Then this happened.... my cute friend who i've been in a couple of classes with and we've become really good friends with, gave me a Christmas present! She is such a sweetheart and it completely caught me off guard.
Reality check #1 for the day. Be a good friend. Some people on this are just downright good people. Jordan Anderson is one of them.

#3- I love teachers that care, really really really care.
I have a marketing professor, Eric Schulz, he is one of the most excellent teachers I have had throughout my whole college experience. You know those teachers who, can just teach? (sounds stupid I know) But he can. He just has a way of engaging and sucking you in, making you believe in what he is teaching. He's incredibly successful yet passionate. Well, because of his success and somewhat bold, hilarious, personality I always thought of him as a tough guy type. Well, he surprised me today, he told us this, "success comes from love. Passion can be FAKED. Love CANNOT"
He is passionate about what he does, heck even when he said this he started tearing up. The man who is not afraid to throw shit and hell around in class and tells funny stories.
He really cares.
Thank you Eric, you really taught me not only marketing but how to pursue my dreams and be passionate about what it is I am pursuing.

So, that was my last day of class.
Let's just hope I can be as passionate of a teacher as they are.

(p.s. I so far have 2 for sure A's. YEssss)

The Holidays sure are HAPPY!

I have been looking forward to Christmas since about oooh January? I wasn't in America for Christmas last year and well... while it was really fabulous in Taiwan it just wasn't the same....

Here are some reasons that have made the Holidays FABULOUS for me so far....

#1- Bowling
It's a Thanksgiving tradition to go bowling on Thanksgiving in the Larsen family. Let me tell ya it is always quite the adventure. We're a family of real bowlers.... especially myself....
Let's just say my Grandma (82 years young mind you) won me by 40 points....
I know where my talent lies..

#2- Christmas Tree!

Alright, i'm sorry I know this picture is kinda crappy but. you get the jist of it! Can you see why I LOVE Christmas trees?
Well..... while this tree is rather grand and quite the spectacle, it was not always like that.
We cut this baby down at the Kapp tree farm in Mt. Green. Every year we kid around, like man this tree is going to fall off the car. (some years it has come disgustingly close and by the time we get home it's horizontally on the car) Well folks.....
this year, here are the Larsen's driving home with their lovely tree strapped on top, thanks to Dave Larsen. We're in Weber Canyon (this is a FREEWAY mind you) the wind starts picking up, CRACK, BOOM BASH, the tree is OFF THE CAR!
I'm pooping my pants at this point. A car runs over the tree, luckily it was ok and they just keep driving. I got out of the car and booked it as fast as my little legs would go and pulled it out of the road.
Our twine was broken..... uh.... we had nothing to tie it back onto the car with...
being the Larsen's we had a BRILLIANT idea. Shove the TWENTY FOOT tree INSIDE of the car....
So we did. i'm sure it was rather comical to those driving around us.
It was rather comical to me.
But on the bright side at least we didn't cause some 20 car pileup or something, and guess what? The tree wasn't even damaged.

#3- Dave Larsen the newest Christmas "rapper"
My dad is a funny guy.... or so he thinks so.
They went Christmas shopping this morning and my mom is already wrapping the presents.
Dave, the great man he is, thinks he should make up a Christmas rap, while they wrap.
He's been bouncing around the house rapping the most ridiculous Christmas "wrap" i've ever heard.

See why these Holidays are just Happy?
YAHOO

Ohhhhh did I really just do that?

Ya know how sometimes you have those moments where you do something and a split second later you wish nothing less than that you could just take that back?

I did that today....
and ya know, it happens to me all too often. crap.

Here's my story:

I went to the fieldhouse (Utah State's gym) today to get nice and sweaty. Well, it's just a smidge chilly outside now and I don't want to free my thighs off walking up so I put sweats on OVER my workout shorts.
Normal right? I do it all the time.
Well, I don't know if my brain in lacking on remembering how to work because I have 3 (THREE and this is Thanksgiving week. YOU SUCK professors) okay, off my soap box now or if I just am REALLY EXCITED (really) for Thanksgiving and can only think about food but I walk in, go the bathroom, this is my normal routine.
Then I walk upstairs to the little cubbies where you can put your things. Mind you these cubbies are not in private places in the gym... rather they are just on the side wall, so you have view of them from pretty much the whole gym.
I take off my coat, them I take on my pants.....
Well here's where the magic happens.....
Apparently I'm an idiot and didn't realize I had not only grabbed the elastic waistband on my sweat put also my shorts.... Uhhhhh
So there I stood with my pants and shorts to my knees. Yep, I had some pink undies on today and I just really wanted to make sure people saw them!
After it happened I wasn't sure if I should just walk out or workout. I worked out. Obviously keeping my head down and avoided eye contact at all costs!
Yep, I'm that girl that everyone thinks, "oh poor thing I feel so bad for her"
At least I made their day right?
Let's be honest it's rather comical and it made mine too!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Back in Action and FULL of GREAT news.

Uhh.. HELLO?

Want to know something so amazingly fantastic it just tickles me beyond pink?!?!?!?

I. Kailey.Jean.Larsen. Got. Accepted. To. Do. Teach. For. America.

UHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh YYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!

Do you know what this means?!
1) For the next 2 years I will be living in North Carolina
2) I will be Teaching English (possibly secondary education as well if i'm really lucky)
3) It's my first big girl job- retirement, paid-time off, salary, 401k plan, the whole nine yards
4) I will get my Masters in Education
5) This opens up oodles of doors for me for my future career (Harvard for an MBA? Most likely come 2014)
(ok ok ok it's alright for me to live in a dream world right? Ok, I will don't worry)
6) Most importantly it means i'm just really excited to be accepted to be a part of this incredible organization!!

You may be like what in the hail is Teach For America anyway Kailey. Well.... I'll tell you, did you know there is a disgusting achievement gap in America? There is, our education system in low-income communities is downright not ok. A child that does not finish High School is 8 TIMES more like to go to prison, 8 in 10 kids don't graduate from High School in low-income areas where Teach For America goes... America needs to step up their education a notch.

Every child deserves the chance to succeed. I'm going to do my VERY best to give these kids the opportunity to.

Better yet.... Will you PLEASE just watch a movie called Waiting for Superman? It's pretty much explains the missions of Teach For America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTfaro96dg

it's reeeeaallll good.

I'm reeeeaalll nervous. BUT EVEN MORE EXCITED.

I'll keep you posted.

Life is just downright funny.

So sometimes, I just do things. Ya well we all do things, your thinking Kailey, you idiot. Well..... I do things and normal people would have a thought process which they would go through BEFORE they encountered their actions. Well apparently at my 21 years of age I still don't know how to quite process my thoughts and the consequences of them BEFORE i act on them...

Here's my funny story: (keep in mind my above stupidity)

It's a lovely Friday, which I was spending at home with my lovely family. Six o'clock rolled around, and you know what that means on a Friday night? Time to go out to dinner. So my Papa, Mama, and little bro saddled up and headed to Union Station in Ogden. I was oh so excited, if you haven't been there and you have a love for onions, you need to go. There French Onion Soup=DELICIOUS!! Anyways....

We are ever so nicely seated at the table, about ready to order when: (why the font is so small... you're telling me)
A chick walks in and my dad says, "oh look that's your friend Radon" (which is this awesome SBO advisor I had in High School) We were just about to eat so I was like oh hey! I'll have to go say hello to her after we're done eating. We eat. I drank at least 5 glasses of water (which I do every time. I'm like a freaking camel when i eat out, and those dang waiters just keep filling it up!) so I needed to go to the bathroom urgently. Well apparently, how badly I needed to go to the bathroom blocked my mental ability. I walk over to what was thought to be her ba facing me. I was a little skeptical as to if it was her, and then I saw the dude sitting next to her, he looked EXACTLY like her husband and was even wearing some fire fighter like t-shirt, which her husband is.
I knew it must have been her! IT MUST HAVE! THIS LADY LOOKED EXCACTLY LIKE HER!
So, she was wearing a hoodie. I walk up behind her and put her hoodie on her head. Like fully over her head, covereing her eyes. I walk to the front of the table oh so excited to see her.... except it wasn't her.
I. felt. like. a. fool.
The people didn't even laugh and I was just dying. And said oh my gosh!! Like 8 times, and walked away. The other people were so awkward.

There ya have it people, that's why life it just funny. Things like this that keep me giggling. Sometimes I think about this story while i'm in bed and just giggle all to myself.

Uprgrade, poop-aide

Well... hello there blogging world.
I'm not taking full blame for not posting in 3 months.... considering the fact that I spent altogether about 2 da#$ hours trying to figure out how to login to stupid blogger. Thank you gmail for trying to "upgrade" me to some bigger and better internet world. About the only thing you did was a great job at chapping my ace.
BUT DON"T YOU WORRY! I FIGURED IT OUT.
I'M BACK.
BE READY.

Zigh Jian Taiwan

I fell in love with these kids.

Really truly.

I CANNOT believe it's over. Here I am sitting here at 4 in the morning at my house, trying to get over jet lag.

Where did the last 6 months go?

Why am I not telling kids to sit down, or stop throwing water around, or to not cut their hair, or tie themselves to the chair, or to stop hitting each other, or to stop painting on their clothes, or confiscating their toys and giving them back after class.

What the heck!

I left a piece of my heart in Taiwan.

I now know what it feels like to be heartbroken.

It kinda hurts.

Look at her. This is Penny I really loved her as my own.

Stanley. I can't say more other than I love him with all my heart!

Scott, this child is thee most thoughtfully cute thing you will ever meet. Seriously a stud, he's knows what's up in life. My favorite Scott expierence? Him going to the bathroom for 15 minutes and coming back soaking wet with his pants on backwards. I also love it while he sings at the top of his lungs while he goes to the bathroom.  

Tony. This picture is tells the story of Tony's whole existence.

See why I fell in love with him?

Flora of Flora.

Joe. This kid is disgustingly flexible. He seriously would pull his arms out of their sockets. It completely grossed me out. I had to threaten him with warnings because it weirded me out so much!

My blessed 3A angels! We did tye dye on one of our last days of class. What a joy! They took great joy in wearing those garbage bags and kept saying there were the garbage class. Their little werido's but I love them! So i'm really scared of cockraoches so and I had to kill a couple in class. I always made quite the scene screaming and all. So they for whatever reason called me, Mr. Ridiculous (ridiculous being a spelling word I taught them thank you very much!) cockroach. Teacher Mr. Ridiculous Cockroach, how classy.

This is Grace, the greatest person ever! She was one of our college students and she is so great. She's trying to pass some tests so she can come get her Ph.D in America. I REALLY hope she comes. Nothing would please me more.

This is Jacob. My Taiwanese crush. He is INSANE, if he could speak fluent English and was America we would be married.

My favorite boys Alex, Jacob, and Antonio. They made my whole college class teaching experience. AHH even just thinking about how much I will miss playing charades with them to try to figure out what in the devil they are saying makes me sad. I never thought coming home would be this hard. We had such deep roots there, it was my life. I had a social scene, routines, I knew the ladies at the grocery store... it's hard to leave that forever.

Lison is the most adorable person EVER! She's a ping pong champ too.

Becky. I just love her.

I know you're probably wondering if I am drunk or something right now, because i put such a HIDEOUS picture of myself up here but... it needed to be done. This was our goodbye to our dear 7-11 ladies. They were so adorable and we really got to know them (or at least tried, it's kinda hard with the intense language barrier and all) But they cried when we said goodbye. It was so sad.

Well, here I am sitting at home next to a warm fireplace. I am so glad to be home, sometime I thought the time would NEVER come when it would be time to finally come home. Now that i'm home it's so weird to me. Did I even leave? What the heck!! I think it's mostly just weird because I can't really explain the things I saw and the experiences I had to anyone and they will understand. No matter how many times I tell you about my cute bracelet man at morning market or about our cook Linda at the school, it just isn't the same as if you had met the people yourself. Oh well life goes on and I learned a LOT and I know that. That's all that really matters. I hope I can instill some of the welcoming loving Taiwanese culture that I experienced for the rest of my life

Reality Slap

(sorry again I started this post last week but, haven't had the time to finish it until now)

How did this happen?!?! 

One minute i'm unpacking and trying to find my lost baggage, the next i'm packing it up again. Seriously though. 

I've decided that while I've been in Taiwan I kinda live in la la land. I really don't live in reality. Meaning I don't understand time. While teaching here has definitely been thee HARDEST thing I've ever done in my entire life, it still is like we're on a vacation. I know this is only short term so the whole time we've been here has just felt like a daydream.

We were riding our bikes the other night and passed by this puppy. You realize that this thing is HUGE right? Well it is. And you want to know what is really is? It is a freaking huge temple for a puppet show. The puppet shows here are nuts, and for some reason they just popped this one up in the middle of our city.

They have life size dolls that spin around and it plays music. Pretty sick.

Unfortunately, this is also my reality at the moment. The reality not being my disgusting looking face. The new teachers came this week meaning we had to move out of our rooms and are staying at an apartment next door to our old one. Well Karyn and I are sleeping together. To our dismay last night we went in to go to bed, completely EXHAUSTED. Well.... we locked our key in our bedroom. crap. I was so pissed. We tried picking the lock for a good 15 minutes. Failure. So, being completely moved out we had nothing. No pillows, no blankets, nothin. So we got to sleep on the couch. Lucky. us.

Oddly though it'll be things like this that i'll miss so much about Taiwan. Our lives are ALWAYS ALWAYS some sort of crazy mess. But, it makes it really fun. I've loved flyin by the seat of my pants in everything we do here! It makes life real exciting.

Shengdun Kuila!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

Ok so I realize that is a little late.... but..... who the devil cares. This last week or two has been INSANE! We've been busier than ever and I swear I never get a chance to catch my breath, let alone write on my blog.

So here we go. Christmas In Taiwan! So as you may know already we decided to stay in Changhua for Christmas. We really wanted to go to Taroko Gorge, which is supposedly really amazing, but ya know once you travel pretty much every weekend for 6 months a person gets tired. And we are, plus we wanted to be around our friends we have made here so we had a little Christmas party. It was oh so fun. We made kiss cookies, sugar cookies, oreo truffles, and some chicken crescents. Yes I ate just about as many sweets as I would have normally. Plus one of our friends brought over a duck. It was a lovely feast!

This is Emily one of our adorable little secretaries. These were the kiss cookies that we were making. It was so cute she was so excited to roll cookies because she had never done it before.

Our Christmas feast. With karyn in all her glory.

I love these ladies with all my heart. 

I will miss them so much.

Merry Christmas! (a week late....)