Flash of 2008 in photos!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

IT'S 2009! Happy New Year

I wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope that it will be another great one.
Below is a few flashback of what happened in 2008.

• January: a close family member passed away - started 3rd semester of graduate school - living in the cold winter of Utah
• February: swimming in the loads of grad school - more snow in Utah
• March: Point Reyes environmental project during Spring Break
• April: trees and flowers starting to blossom in Utah - planned fun stuff to do during the summer - General Conference translation
• May: Early Graduation ceremony at the U of U - trip to Zion National Park - camping, hiking, and 1st time rock climbing in Moab - interned at the Utah Hogle Zoo
• June: my buddy (Thierry) from home came to visit the U.S. including Utah
• July: my good friend Jenny's wedding - river rafting along Snake and the Gallatin - Yellowstone trip - reading the Twilight series
• August: became an aunt for the 2nd time - Ensign appearance :-) - completed grad school projects (small thesis, presentation ...) - trip to HAWAII (snorkeling for the first time) - started job hunting
• September: fall weather - suddenly back in touch with the missionaries who introduced the Gospel to me
• October: quick trip to Disneyland & Las Vegas - General Conference translation
• November: lots of birthdays - Twilight movie
• December: my cousin/sister came to visit me for the holidays - found a job

Please spell my name right!

I hate it when people spell my name wrong. It happens all the time! and I think I need to give it a break because it happens. Recently, I noticed that I spelled other people's name wrong, and I feel bad now. I am sure noone would want their names to be spelled wrong.
I sent a message to a friend whose name is Kristine. I just noticed that I wrote Christine instead. Another mistake, I wrote Cassandra instead of Casandra when I emailed this lady who works for an organization where I applied for a job. The thing is that when we send these messages, the name of the person is usually on the email but we fail to write it in the correct way. I guess we just need to pay more attention.

A cute story about name calling. My cousin's little boy calls me with 2 different names. He often calls me TatieDoudou (Auntie Doudou) but then when I don't pay attention, he asks his parents to call me in Malagasy. We asked him what's my name in Malagasy and he said Domoina.

My 7th Noel away!

Many say that Christmas is all about family -- spending quality time with your loved ones. I find Christmas is the hardest time of the year for me as I am far away from my family. I wish I could just get on the bus and go home. This year, I am blessed to have my cousin Hanitra with her husband and their little boy with me. They are visiting from France.

Hanitra is my cousin but we are very close and we actually consider ourselves sisters since growing up. She never had one neither I.

But I love this time of the year. Again, I had the time to reflect upon the real meaning of Christmas. I hope that everyone can feel the Savior's love during the season.