BYU Language Fair

Aaaah, posting is getting too hard!! I never want to post any more because no one really cares that much about what I do anyway and when something semi-cool does happen I never want to post. I need to get back to blogging, this is only my 12th post this year, at this rate I'll only post 36 times this year and that is unacceptable.

Last week, I went to the Brigham Young University Language Fair. I'm taking Mandarin Chinese this year, and BYU has a Language fair every year. The past two years, I went for French. Pretty much they just have you go into this building where everything is in French and you can buy stuff, play games, and do competitions. Also, you can be sent to jail if you're caught speaking English. In 7th grade I got caught many times and just broke out every time (it was so much fun having college people chasing you down the hall and hiding!!), but last year they were more tight on their "security" and made you do a worksheet before they let you out. I still got caught mulitple times, it's kinda fun. Anyway, I absolutely hated taking French. The teacher was terrible and I always avoid her in the halls because I don't want her to talk to me. The actual language was fun though. So this year I decided to take Chinese for some crazy reason and I absolutely love learning it (even though I hate the class). I study a lot at home and I know a lot so far.

Last Thursday, we had to meet at the school at 6 am to go on the bus to get to BYU because it takes over an hour to get there. I set my alarm and was going to be ready extra early so I would have time to run to a gas station to buy a lunch before getting to the school. Well, I went to sleep, and then woke up to a weird buzzing noise. I recognized it as my cell phone. I opened my eyes, looked at my alarm clock, and saw that it was 6:10. I had a mini heart attack right there. I answered and it was my friend, Sammy, asking where I was. I freaked out and was about ready to cry and destroy my stupid alarm clock. I ran upstairs while talking to Sammy to wake up my mom. The bus was going to leave at 6:15. I told Sammy I just wasn't going to go, but she told me I was going and I better throw some clothes on and get my butt to school. So I did just that, five minutes later I was out the door. I got to the bus on time because my sweet Chinese teacher, Bao Laoshi is so nice and waited for me. The school was locked and I was already upset so I just left all of my stuff in my mom's car because I didn't feel like dragging all of my school and lacrosse stuff on the bus (I had a game after school). When I was on the bus, I had the pleasure of sitting by someone's dad who was making sure we knew our Chinese and had flash cards and was quizzing us. That was exciting. We made sure not to sit by him on the way home.

We got to BYU, and eventually found the building we were supposed to be in. We got passports, and got greeted by some Chinese speaking people who let us in. We then went to a table where we give them our money in exchange for their fake money which was 2 dollars for every dollar we had. I had 10 bucks so I had a nice, pink 20 paper bill. Sammy and I went inside and bought a fan and a lantern for each of us then just wandered around for a bit looking at stuff and doing activities. The trading real money for their fake money was smart, because it made the value to seem less and I had no problem spending my 20 when I probably wouldn't have if I was holding actual money. My friend, Ethan Drake, made me go to a competition where I had to have a conversation with a Chinese lady in front of a bunch of people in a big room. I felt like an idiot. I can speak and understand Chinese and write it, but I cannot understand them if they talk super fast. I did an okay job but still felt stupid, and I got 14 out of 20 and a cute certificate. Yay me. After that, Sammy and I got bored. The Chinese fair was so close together and kind of claustrophobic and not as spread out as the French Fair had been and it wasn't a place that we felt like spending the next four hours at. Therefore, we ditched and went to go find the Spanish fair. We went to the cafeteria and found some of our friends, Zack and PJ, who were at the Spanish fair so we just followed them around. We followed them to a building where they had to do a skit in Spanish for a competition so we sat and watched them and waited while a Spanish guy kept on asking us if we wanted to compete. Me and Sammy told him we were very sure that we didn't want to compete. The longest sentence I can say in Spanish is "Por favor deje nos un mensaje" I think that's right. That was my grandma's answering machine for 10 years (Hola, you have met Carol, or Joe. Por favor deje nos un mensaje.") After hanging with PJ and Zack for a while, we went back to the Chinese fair for a bit, went back to the Spanish fair, and just walked aroud a lot. It was really fun.

On the way back, we had fun sleeping and throwing mints and we got from the Chinese fair out of the bus window at people on the highway with their windows rolled down. It was entertaining.

I had a lacrosse scrimage (fake game) later which was super duper fun and hot, and then a real game the next day which we won and I almost scored at (I've scored twice this season). It's been a spiffy week.