January highlights: January 10 - Speech contest and Faiz's birthday bash

I woke up this day to a message telling me that it is snowing right that very moment. It was all that I needed to get me out of bed.

The picture above shows the small farm I always pass through covered in snow.

Here's me and Gan Lin (from China) getting ready for our turn at the podium for the speech contest.

Thanks Trisha, Mike, Faiz, Zhao, and Tienchi for coming to support me!

After the speech contest we went to a pasta restaurant at Amu to celebrate Faiz's birthday, which was actually the day after. He ran a marathon on his birthday so we moved the birthday lunch a day earlier.

(I got some of these pictures from Trisha's blog, so thanks Trisha!)

We had a blast talking and eating. Donican at one point forgot which language she should speak in, and we were asking for pizza (it was all you can eat) so frequently from the wait staff that they were dumping heaps into our plates just to keep up quiet in the end.

LOL... it was a lot of fun. :)