In the wise words of the great bard of our times, Mr. Troy Bolton:
This is the last chance to make our mark
History will know who we are!
This is the last game so make it count, it's
Now or Never
Well said, Mr. Bolton, well said. I have no real reason to have included that above, except perhaps as a tribute to the greatest High School Musical movie I have ever seen. Yes, I'll admit it -- I am a fan of High School Musical. I liked the songs in the first one, loved the songs in the second, and as one critic named Emily Boden raved, was "blown away" by the third. Take a winning formula of ridiculously catchy songs, a romance for the record-books, and a perfect world in suburban Albuquerque where high school kids party with their parents, give it $30 million and you've got a box office hit! So that is my take on the new HSM, which I am sure you were all greatly anticipating.
Back to reality, this week was a good one. I was very busy with homework and lots of other things, but that just makes this little entry more interesting for all of you! How about we go in chronological order this time? And for the sake of some practice, I'm going to use a little Spanish.
Lunes - Thus began the busyness. I had a major Psychology project due on Friday that was supposed to be based on an interview with someone who "works with people." You'd assume that everybody works with people, but we were supposed to find someone who could provide further insight into some of our course material. I interviewed my admissions counsellor, Cindy Blount. It went really well and I learned a lot about her and different psychological concepts. She has basically spent her entire life travelling the world, so she had a lot of valuable things to say. Later that night I went to an honors credit movie thingy. We watched Bonnie & Clyde. The title of the series is "Films that Changed America," and this one is definitely worth the label. The story was just really well done, and the characters and acting were excellent. You could just tell how ahead of its time it was they way that the violence was portrayed. To audiences in the 60s it was a major controversy, but to our polluted vision the fake blood almost looked silly. I give it two thumbs up. The last Monday highlight was throwing Zach (fellow swimmer) in the frigid waters of the creek for some birthday well-wishes.
Martes - Chapel had a gospel theme. Although any authentic gospel choir would probably laugh, the attempt was well-done and very entertaining. We watched the Harrison Ford movie, Witness, in Amish seminar that afternoon. It's a movie about Harrison Ford being himself as a hardened, brave, smart-mouth cop who goes undercover to protect an Amish boy from some sort of villain, seducing Amish women and causing all sorts of trouble along the way. We analyzed it for its portrayal of the Amish, which was not at all convincing. I spent the rest of the night at Men's Ensemble (Christmas performance in two weeks!), an audition for tonight's coffeehouse, and lots of homework in the library.
Miercoles - Starting to feel the pressure of imminent due dates fast approaching, I decided to get my priorities straight. I spent the day in classes and working, all in order to prepare for the week's main event -- High School Musical Tres! It was three guys (myself, Austin, Isaac) with one girl (Lauren). I wouldn't let that slight gender imbalance deter me from my goal, however, and as embarrassed as I felt asking the girl at the counter for a ticket to HSM, it was totally worth it.
Jueves - In short, I finished an Amish essay, handed it in, listened to the HSM 3 soundtrack, worked on a big Spanish assignment, wrote a 8 page report on the aforementioned interview, and had a wonderful phone-date with my wonderful ladyfriend.
Viernes - one word: SNOW! It wasn't a lot, mind you, but it was enough to get the whole campus bouncing in their seats. It was Friday, my work was all handed in and behind me, the weekend was ahead, the snow was on the ground, and everyone was happy. I had a nice long talk with Momma and Papa -- always a pleasure -- and watched Messiah Women's Basketball destroy Eastern University. Then I went to sleep, because on Saturday...
Sabado - Swim meet! To be totally honest, sometimes I am not all that enthused going into these events, but this one was actually a lot of fun. It was a really nice pool and I felt really good. I broke some more personal records, including down to a 57.5 in the 100 free, which, for me, is a big deal. I don't know if I've mentioned this about our meets before, but our team is determined to make a good impression at all our meets, and what better way to to do that than to pray before and after each meet. The school we were facing has a particularly obnoxious (and vulgar) cheer when they enter the pool, so instead of staring at them and being intimidated like they expected us to, we made a circle and all took a knee in prayer. And then after the meet we invited them (if they were willing) to join us as we prayed for each other and our future meets. We do that with every school, and it's just really fun to be on a team that has that sort of focus.
Domingo - All I've done today is church and the blog, so I'll tell you about church. It was amazing again. The emphasis of the service was on healing. And as I mentioned last week, my expectations were for some classic charismatic preaching and a call for heavenly healing on everything from paralysis to cancer. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised. The service had an extended time of worship, and then a panel discussion on the stage with just a few members of the congregation. They talked for a little bit about a few joyous and miraculous healings they had witnessed and then moved on to spend the majority of the time talking about a painful reality -- when people of faith are not healed. It's all great when God comes down and miraculously heals people with all sorts of ailments, but I really appreciated how they emphasized the fact that sometimes God just doesn't answer those prayers for healing. It doesn't mean the sick lack faith or have lost favour in God's eyes, it just proves we'll never understand how God works. Some real-life testimonies of church members with chronic illnesses really sent the message home. It was somber, but it was still a celebration of faith through the hard times.
And that is that. For the sake of reducing redundancy, I've deliberately omitted all mention of daily classes and swimming practices. But don't you worry, they are always there to absorb any free time that might emerge in a day.
Now I'm off to a sound-check for the coffeehouse tonight. I'm doing a song called "Save" by The Rocket Summer. Should be fun!
Love you all,
Josh
p.s. once again, I'm out of time to edit...
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Reaction
Buenas Dias!
(that's Spanish -- the language I am still working hard on learning...espanol es muy dificil.)
I think this time I am going to begin with the most recent events and work my way backwards through time. That said, I hope you will forgive the diminishing factual integrity as the blog goes on... in other words, I have a hard time remembering all that's gone on in a week, but I'll try my best to keep you all in the loop.
I'll start with this morning. Church, as usual, was excellent, but probably better than ever. I really like this pastor (Wayde Wilson is his name). The focus of the service was on the Holy Spirit, and though I feel as if I have heard many-a-sermon on the Holy Spirit, this one was probably the most enlightening. I was really eager to hear what he had to say, seeing as this church (Christian Life Assembly) essentially has its roots in the Pentacostal denomination. I half-expected a passionate and emotional appeal to all of us to burst from our pews and fill the sanctuary with cries of praise in a hundred unknown tongues. His focus for the message, however, was a Biblical look at the gifts of the Spirit.
Acknowledging that gifts of healing, prophecy, and tongues are controversial subjects, he said up front that anyone who reads 1 Corinthians 12 cannot accept gifts of knowledge or faith as valid and reject tongues and prophesying -- they are all listed together. That said, however, he spent much of the sermon focusing on the importance of discernment, including instances where he has had to awkwardly confront people to say they are not really hearing from God so much as themselves. He also spent a while stressing the importance of what Paul claims to be "orderly worship" in 1 Corinthians 14. Speaking in tongues is a gift, the Bible says, that should only be used to instruct or encourage the Church.
Anyways, I could go on for a while talking about all of that, but I will say that when he closed the service with an opportunity for all of us to just call out on our own to have the Spirit fill us, I felt a much clearer understanding of what we were really asking for -- not to be filled so we could become the resident religious radical on campus that people could seek out to find healing, but to be simply open to the Lord working through us in any and every way, whether that be a momentary glimpse of holy wisdom, or an encouraging word from the Spirit to a friend.
Alright, now I think I will juggle time a little here and jump back to Friday and let the tape roll forward. I had a big Psychology test on Friday that I think I did pretty well on, but we'll see. Weekends are peculiar around here. Come Friday, the place is alive with excitement and energy as people are all around making plans and just taking it easy, but come Friday night, the busy-bodies and chatty Cathy's are all gone. Normally there are a lot of people around still, but the crowds seem somewhat elusive. Usually, that's fine by me; there's just that much more for my friends and I to busy ourselves with. This weekend, however, a bunch of my closer friends all left on Friday for home or tournaments (including Austin). But that wasn't really a big deal, except my entire floor went camping on Friday night, but I couldn't go. So that forced me to call up some acquaintances and make them... better acquaintances.
The reason I couldn't go camping was because of our much-anticipated swim meet on Saturday. I slept 10 hours (happy, mom?) on Friday night to be well rested for our meet against Elizabethtown. Long story short, it was a fun day, everybody swam really well even though the pool was pretty crummy, and we came out on top!! That's right, first win in Messiah Swimming history, brought to you by our little inaugural, motley crew of a team. Go Messiah! (Oh and that reminds me, visit www.gomessiah.com for results.) I cut 5 seconds on my 200 freestyle and 1.5 seconds on my 100 freestyle!
Saturday night I returned to campus ready to party. A bunch of guys on the floor, however, had left for the new James Bond movie, so I called up one of my friends (Brian) to see what he was up to and guess where he was going? James Bond! Thinking quickly, I snagged a seat in the car and had a great night with Brian, his girlfriend, and my other friend Chris. We got pretty lost and ended up at WalMart at 1 AM, but I'm always up for a good adventure! The movie, if you haven't seen it, was only decent in my books. It was James Bond, so obviously it was entertaining, but I just thought the plot was sort of weak.
Hmm.. where to next? How about just an overall summary of Monday through Thursday... sound good? Overall, this week was pretty uneventful. Lots of swimming, a pretty decent amount of work, a decent amount of sleep, copious amounts of food to supplement all the swimming, and... hmm.. let's see. OH! I got one.
Monday night I went to an alternate chapel Honors Congress event thingamajig with Dr. Christine Rosen. Who is she, you might be wondering? Well, basically she is just this really smart lady who writes a lot of books and does a lot of speaking about one of the most controversial (and yet largely ignored) issues in modern society -- eugenics. Eugenics, and I can thank my English teacher, Mr. Collins, for my knowledge of this, is the study of improving human genes. The discussion covered everything from 'designer babies' to abortion. I left that talk fearful of the future of our society, but glad that I was equipped with new knowledge.
For those who might be wondering what all the kafuffle is about, pretty much all I can say is that almost all doctors now expect that if a fetus tests positive for any genetic disorder (i.e. Tay-Sachs, Downs), the mother will abort it for the "sake of society." It has gotten to the point, however, where we can test for genetic 'defects' in a baby that might lead to them developing colon cancer in their late 50s. Should the mother be held responsible for bringing a person into the world that could potentially suffer later in life, or should we just kill any infant that could ever suffer or not fully contribute to society? Those are the terrible questions people are asking these days. And there are other issues that seem much more trivial, but are problematic on other levels. For instance, a woman wanting a child can now go to any sperm bank and practically 'design her baby' -- gender, eye colour, physical attributes -- and the methods are getting more accurate every year.
So, enough of all this depressing stuff. I am very excited for Thanksgiving Break. Work has been picking up a lot and it just feels like the break will be very much deserved. BUT, it's been good times as usual. I'm excited for another week. I have a big Psych. assignment due that is based on an interview I have to conduct, a persuasive speech to prepare for Communications (about eugenics), and a paper due for my Amish seminar. We have another meet coming up this Saturday, and even though I don't think we'll be as successful as a team, I'm looking forward to shaving some more time off my personal records.
So I think that's all for now. I guess this has been a little more brief than my previous entries, but I've got a bunch to do this afternoon. The Men's Swim Team meets every Sunday night for devotions and it's my turn to share my testimony. So that'll be fun. I'm also growing a massive beard. Well.. it's not really massive, but I do think it's longer than it's ever been. Why? No-Shave-November, that's why.
Alright, once again I love you all. Feel free to contact me if you want any additional info or just want to talk!
J.m.B
p.s. I think you'll find a few errors in this one, Mom.
(that's Spanish -- the language I am still working hard on learning...espanol es muy dificil.)
I think this time I am going to begin with the most recent events and work my way backwards through time. That said, I hope you will forgive the diminishing factual integrity as the blog goes on... in other words, I have a hard time remembering all that's gone on in a week, but I'll try my best to keep you all in the loop.
I'll start with this morning. Church, as usual, was excellent, but probably better than ever. I really like this pastor (Wayde Wilson is his name). The focus of the service was on the Holy Spirit, and though I feel as if I have heard many-a-sermon on the Holy Spirit, this one was probably the most enlightening. I was really eager to hear what he had to say, seeing as this church (Christian Life Assembly) essentially has its roots in the Pentacostal denomination. I half-expected a passionate and emotional appeal to all of us to burst from our pews and fill the sanctuary with cries of praise in a hundred unknown tongues. His focus for the message, however, was a Biblical look at the gifts of the Spirit.
Acknowledging that gifts of healing, prophecy, and tongues are controversial subjects, he said up front that anyone who reads 1 Corinthians 12 cannot accept gifts of knowledge or faith as valid and reject tongues and prophesying -- they are all listed together. That said, however, he spent much of the sermon focusing on the importance of discernment, including instances where he has had to awkwardly confront people to say they are not really hearing from God so much as themselves. He also spent a while stressing the importance of what Paul claims to be "orderly worship" in 1 Corinthians 14. Speaking in tongues is a gift, the Bible says, that should only be used to instruct or encourage the Church.
Anyways, I could go on for a while talking about all of that, but I will say that when he closed the service with an opportunity for all of us to just call out on our own to have the Spirit fill us, I felt a much clearer understanding of what we were really asking for -- not to be filled so we could become the resident religious radical on campus that people could seek out to find healing, but to be simply open to the Lord working through us in any and every way, whether that be a momentary glimpse of holy wisdom, or an encouraging word from the Spirit to a friend.
Alright, now I think I will juggle time a little here and jump back to Friday and let the tape roll forward. I had a big Psychology test on Friday that I think I did pretty well on, but we'll see. Weekends are peculiar around here. Come Friday, the place is alive with excitement and energy as people are all around making plans and just taking it easy, but come Friday night, the busy-bodies and chatty Cathy's are all gone. Normally there are a lot of people around still, but the crowds seem somewhat elusive. Usually, that's fine by me; there's just that much more for my friends and I to busy ourselves with. This weekend, however, a bunch of my closer friends all left on Friday for home or tournaments (including Austin). But that wasn't really a big deal, except my entire floor went camping on Friday night, but I couldn't go. So that forced me to call up some acquaintances and make them... better acquaintances.
The reason I couldn't go camping was because of our much-anticipated swim meet on Saturday. I slept 10 hours (happy, mom?) on Friday night to be well rested for our meet against Elizabethtown. Long story short, it was a fun day, everybody swam really well even though the pool was pretty crummy, and we came out on top!! That's right, first win in Messiah Swimming history, brought to you by our little inaugural, motley crew of a team. Go Messiah! (Oh and that reminds me, visit www.gomessiah.com for results.) I cut 5 seconds on my 200 freestyle and 1.5 seconds on my 100 freestyle!
Saturday night I returned to campus ready to party. A bunch of guys on the floor, however, had left for the new James Bond movie, so I called up one of my friends (Brian) to see what he was up to and guess where he was going? James Bond! Thinking quickly, I snagged a seat in the car and had a great night with Brian, his girlfriend, and my other friend Chris. We got pretty lost and ended up at WalMart at 1 AM, but I'm always up for a good adventure! The movie, if you haven't seen it, was only decent in my books. It was James Bond, so obviously it was entertaining, but I just thought the plot was sort of weak.
Hmm.. where to next? How about just an overall summary of Monday through Thursday... sound good? Overall, this week was pretty uneventful. Lots of swimming, a pretty decent amount of work, a decent amount of sleep, copious amounts of food to supplement all the swimming, and... hmm.. let's see. OH! I got one.
Monday night I went to an alternate chapel Honors Congress event thingamajig with Dr. Christine Rosen. Who is she, you might be wondering? Well, basically she is just this really smart lady who writes a lot of books and does a lot of speaking about one of the most controversial (and yet largely ignored) issues in modern society -- eugenics. Eugenics, and I can thank my English teacher, Mr. Collins, for my knowledge of this, is the study of improving human genes. The discussion covered everything from 'designer babies' to abortion. I left that talk fearful of the future of our society, but glad that I was equipped with new knowledge.
For those who might be wondering what all the kafuffle is about, pretty much all I can say is that almost all doctors now expect that if a fetus tests positive for any genetic disorder (i.e. Tay-Sachs, Downs), the mother will abort it for the "sake of society." It has gotten to the point, however, where we can test for genetic 'defects' in a baby that might lead to them developing colon cancer in their late 50s. Should the mother be held responsible for bringing a person into the world that could potentially suffer later in life, or should we just kill any infant that could ever suffer or not fully contribute to society? Those are the terrible questions people are asking these days. And there are other issues that seem much more trivial, but are problematic on other levels. For instance, a woman wanting a child can now go to any sperm bank and practically 'design her baby' -- gender, eye colour, physical attributes -- and the methods are getting more accurate every year.
So, enough of all this depressing stuff. I am very excited for Thanksgiving Break. Work has been picking up a lot and it just feels like the break will be very much deserved. BUT, it's been good times as usual. I'm excited for another week. I have a big Psych. assignment due that is based on an interview I have to conduct, a persuasive speech to prepare for Communications (about eugenics), and a paper due for my Amish seminar. We have another meet coming up this Saturday, and even though I don't think we'll be as successful as a team, I'm looking forward to shaving some more time off my personal records.
So I think that's all for now. I guess this has been a little more brief than my previous entries, but I've got a bunch to do this afternoon. The Men's Swim Team meets every Sunday night for devotions and it's my turn to share my testimony. So that'll be fun. I'm also growing a massive beard. Well.. it's not really massive, but I do think it's longer than it's ever been. Why? No-Shave-November, that's why.
Alright, once again I love you all. Feel free to contact me if you want any additional info or just want to talk!
J.m.B
p.s. I think you'll find a few errors in this one, Mom.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Chaos
Dear World,
What a week. It was busy, productive, eventful, exciting, and, of course, fun. What could have caused such a plethora of experiences, you might ask? Well, let me tell you.
There was a lot going on around here this week with the election and different convention-type things (including the Missions Awareness Emphasis this week), so that made things really exciting. Monday was greeaatt. It was actually the perfect way to start off the week. I went to Spanish, finished early and wandered around the mission organizations area. There were some really interesting things there, but it is sort of hard to plan missions trips when you're in college. But Messiah has a lot of really great opportunities for missions through the school for people interested (myself included). Anyways, from there I went to check my mail, and was thrilled to find a wonderful package from Katrina, including a package of encouragement cards from people at church. If you are one of the people that wrote me a card, thank you soo much. It was really moving to realize that so many people are still thinking about me and praying for me back home.
Continuing with Monday, I visited the annual Career Expo that afternoon. They basically just fill one of the gyms with booths from all sorts of employers (big and small) and graduate schools from all over. It's an excellent opportunity for juniors and seniors, but I figured I would check it out anyway. Nothing leapt out at me. From there I headed to my advising session for Spring semester. I had a few ideas of courses I wanted to take, and my advisor basically just said they were good choices. I have to wait a while before I'm allowed to register, so if I can get into what I want, I'm basically just going to take more General Education courses.
Tuesday? hmm.. Tuesday was an exciting day, alright. Election Day in America, for one, but also the day of my job interview! I went to classes, filled out the application form, and then headed over to the main office building (which I've never really explored) for my interview. They call the building Old Main, and rightly so. It's nice inside, but also very old. Up on the third floor, you can actually feel the floor drooping to one side as your walking down the hall. Oh well. If that building is as old as the school, it will be 100 years old in a few months.
Anyways. The interview went smashingly! It was long -- almost an hour -- but I felt really confident, and the lady was really nice. We talked about her, we talked about me, we talked about the Student Impact Fund, we talked about Messiah in general, we talked about things that could go wrong during a call, we talked about how I handle stress and rejection, we talked about how nice it is to be paid $10/hr, and finally she told me I could start as soon as possible! That was actually really nice of her, because the min. number of hours Phonathon callers have to work in a week is 10, but she said I could start with however many hours I could fit into my schedule; if that was 0 until the Spring, she said that's fine too. So that was really exciting! I had just been offered a position on the spot with the highest paying student job on campus!
From there, it was too late to go to swimming, so I headed up to the church just off campus and cast my ballot for the ill-fated Republicans. Oh well. They tried their best. A lot of people around here were pretty upset when Obama won (and a lot were really excited). Whatever. He seems like a nice enough guy, and there's no point getting all upset about it now. Haha, but it was funny how a bunch of my friends were saying to me, "We're moving to Canada." I then informed them that if they are really trying to flee raised taxes, universal health care, pro-gay marriage, and pro-abortion legislation, they might want to look elsewhere.
Wednesday was a long, work-filled day. I had four classes, a presentation on anxiety disorders in Psychology (that actually went really well), and two big assignments due for Thursday. Not very much happened that day aside from a lot of work. Oh, but it was mine and Katrina's big one-year, nine months! Woohoo! Ha.. but I spent probably over three hours preparing for a five minute speech on Wednesday. I could have (and should have) picked a topic much smaller than 100 years of musical history, but hey, it was very informative and I learned a lot in the process of preparing it. I worked until 12:00 that night, and then woke up five hours later for swim practice.
Exhausted, I delivered my speech in Comm (and it went really well), ate, and then ran back to the room. I also had a 1000 word book review due for 1:20. So lots of reading and 995 words later, I clicked "print" at 1:10 and ran to class. But I was really happy with the final product (and it was only the editing that I finished before class, Mom, don't worry. I'm not slipping into procrastinating ways just yet...). After class, I came back, played guitar for a little, and then took a solid three hour nap. Oh man, it was nice. Other Thursday highlights included: late dinner, a really great Powerhouse (thursday night worship service), and watching a scary movie with Austin before bed (BAD idea).
Friday was nice as well. We had two really interesting visitors to our Psych. class. Tying in with our chapter on Psychological disorders, one of these guys had schitzophrenia, and the other had been abused as a child and had bad hallucinations and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They were both really articulate and extremely interesting to hear. So that was really neat. Then I enjoyed a nice, relaxing afternoon, went to dinner down the street at my Professor's house (the Amish seminar one). Then I ran back to campus and helped out with ticket swiping for the big Conor Oberst concert. Woohoo! Long story short, it was an incredible show with really energetic performances and TONS of people. We sold around 1300 tickets, and probably 1000 of them were kids from off-campus. What a night!
Yesterday, I had a nice, light Sat. morning swimming practice, then off to a service project at a local nature reservation with the team. That was definitely a great bonding experience that really made me glad I'm on the swim team. I might have to drag myself to practice sometimes, but there are a ton of bonuses to being on the team too. Austin's dad was here yesterday so later last night we threw a surprise B-day party for him... he loved it. Basically, my dinner yesterday consisted of two slices of ice cream cake, some pecan pie, brownies, and some oatmeal cookies to round out the meal. Then we all went to the regional soccer championship game, and, of course, Messiah Men won 7-0. NCAA here we come!
I was really tired last night, and even though I really wanted to go to church, I ended up sleeping in until 11:30. Oh well, it was much needed rest. I've got team bible study later tonight and I'm really looking forward to that.
Yup. So that is that. As you can see, a LOT happened this week, and I didn't even include all the alternate chapels and various other things I got to do this week. This has taken almost an hour and a half to write, so I should get on to studying for my Spanish test tomorrow. You are all very important to me, and if you want to know anything else, or you just want to contact me personally, I'd love to hear from you.
Love you all,
Josh
p.s. I didn't get a chance to read over this again, so please pardon the blaring errors.
What a week. It was busy, productive, eventful, exciting, and, of course, fun. What could have caused such a plethora of experiences, you might ask? Well, let me tell you.
There was a lot going on around here this week with the election and different convention-type things (including the Missions Awareness Emphasis this week), so that made things really exciting. Monday was greeaatt. It was actually the perfect way to start off the week. I went to Spanish, finished early and wandered around the mission organizations area. There were some really interesting things there, but it is sort of hard to plan missions trips when you're in college. But Messiah has a lot of really great opportunities for missions through the school for people interested (myself included). Anyways, from there I went to check my mail, and was thrilled to find a wonderful package from Katrina, including a package of encouragement cards from people at church. If you are one of the people that wrote me a card, thank you soo much. It was really moving to realize that so many people are still thinking about me and praying for me back home.
Continuing with Monday, I visited the annual Career Expo that afternoon. They basically just fill one of the gyms with booths from all sorts of employers (big and small) and graduate schools from all over. It's an excellent opportunity for juniors and seniors, but I figured I would check it out anyway. Nothing leapt out at me. From there I headed to my advising session for Spring semester. I had a few ideas of courses I wanted to take, and my advisor basically just said they were good choices. I have to wait a while before I'm allowed to register, so if I can get into what I want, I'm basically just going to take more General Education courses.
Tuesday? hmm.. Tuesday was an exciting day, alright. Election Day in America, for one, but also the day of my job interview! I went to classes, filled out the application form, and then headed over to the main office building (which I've never really explored) for my interview. They call the building Old Main, and rightly so. It's nice inside, but also very old. Up on the third floor, you can actually feel the floor drooping to one side as your walking down the hall. Oh well. If that building is as old as the school, it will be 100 years old in a few months.
Anyways. The interview went smashingly! It was long -- almost an hour -- but I felt really confident, and the lady was really nice. We talked about her, we talked about me, we talked about the Student Impact Fund, we talked about Messiah in general, we talked about things that could go wrong during a call, we talked about how I handle stress and rejection, we talked about how nice it is to be paid $10/hr, and finally she told me I could start as soon as possible! That was actually really nice of her, because the min. number of hours Phonathon callers have to work in a week is 10, but she said I could start with however many hours I could fit into my schedule; if that was 0 until the Spring, she said that's fine too. So that was really exciting! I had just been offered a position on the spot with the highest paying student job on campus!
From there, it was too late to go to swimming, so I headed up to the church just off campus and cast my ballot for the ill-fated Republicans. Oh well. They tried their best. A lot of people around here were pretty upset when Obama won (and a lot were really excited). Whatever. He seems like a nice enough guy, and there's no point getting all upset about it now. Haha, but it was funny how a bunch of my friends were saying to me, "We're moving to Canada." I then informed them that if they are really trying to flee raised taxes, universal health care, pro-gay marriage, and pro-abortion legislation, they might want to look elsewhere.
Wednesday was a long, work-filled day. I had four classes, a presentation on anxiety disorders in Psychology (that actually went really well), and two big assignments due for Thursday. Not very much happened that day aside from a lot of work. Oh, but it was mine and Katrina's big one-year, nine months! Woohoo! Ha.. but I spent probably over three hours preparing for a five minute speech on Wednesday. I could have (and should have) picked a topic much smaller than 100 years of musical history, but hey, it was very informative and I learned a lot in the process of preparing it. I worked until 12:00 that night, and then woke up five hours later for swim practice.
Exhausted, I delivered my speech in Comm (and it went really well), ate, and then ran back to the room. I also had a 1000 word book review due for 1:20. So lots of reading and 995 words later, I clicked "print" at 1:10 and ran to class. But I was really happy with the final product (and it was only the editing that I finished before class, Mom, don't worry. I'm not slipping into procrastinating ways just yet...). After class, I came back, played guitar for a little, and then took a solid three hour nap. Oh man, it was nice. Other Thursday highlights included: late dinner, a really great Powerhouse (thursday night worship service), and watching a scary movie with Austin before bed (BAD idea).
Friday was nice as well. We had two really interesting visitors to our Psych. class. Tying in with our chapter on Psychological disorders, one of these guys had schitzophrenia, and the other had been abused as a child and had bad hallucinations and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They were both really articulate and extremely interesting to hear. So that was really neat. Then I enjoyed a nice, relaxing afternoon, went to dinner down the street at my Professor's house (the Amish seminar one). Then I ran back to campus and helped out with ticket swiping for the big Conor Oberst concert. Woohoo! Long story short, it was an incredible show with really energetic performances and TONS of people. We sold around 1300 tickets, and probably 1000 of them were kids from off-campus. What a night!
Yesterday, I had a nice, light Sat. morning swimming practice, then off to a service project at a local nature reservation with the team. That was definitely a great bonding experience that really made me glad I'm on the swim team. I might have to drag myself to practice sometimes, but there are a ton of bonuses to being on the team too. Austin's dad was here yesterday so later last night we threw a surprise B-day party for him... he loved it. Basically, my dinner yesterday consisted of two slices of ice cream cake, some pecan pie, brownies, and some oatmeal cookies to round out the meal. Then we all went to the regional soccer championship game, and, of course, Messiah Men won 7-0. NCAA here we come!
I was really tired last night, and even though I really wanted to go to church, I ended up sleeping in until 11:30. Oh well, it was much needed rest. I've got team bible study later tonight and I'm really looking forward to that.
Yup. So that is that. As you can see, a LOT happened this week, and I didn't even include all the alternate chapels and various other things I got to do this week. This has taken almost an hour and a half to write, so I should get on to studying for my Spanish test tomorrow. You are all very important to me, and if you want to know anything else, or you just want to contact me personally, I'd love to hear from you.
Love you all,
Josh
p.s. I didn't get a chance to read over this again, so please pardon the blaring errors.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
It won't be long
Hola!
A week just does not seem complete without another blog entry. Thus begins another attempt at extracting a few special gems from a whirlwind of a routine...
Presently, my mind is occupied with a few significant thoughts/concerns. Tomorrow, I have my first-ever appointment with my academic advisor. I will enter the 15-30 minute meeting with a truckload of questions, and hope to depart with a substantially lighter load. Her job is to advise my course selection for the spring and hopefully help me map out my path for the next four years. There are two problems, however. One: I'm supposed to arrive with a list of courses I want to take in the spring. Two: I have no idea what courses I want to (or should) take in the spring. But I'm sure these advisors are used to helpless freshmen knocking on their doors, so I really hope she's ready for me. I have thought a lot about it, though, and here are a few courses I really want to take (whether these are the best choices right now, I will soon find out):
- American History to 1865 (this ought to cure my ignorance)
- Spanish 102 (while it's still fresh..)
- Problem Solving with Computers (get my math credit... and finally learn how to use Excel)
- Mass Media and Society (which one is to blame?)
- Created and Called for Community (a required course for all spring-semester freshmen)
- Problems in Philosophy (... still not sure about this one)
So I'm looking forward to figuring all of that out; it'll be nice to have some direction and start to plan how I'm going to do the whole study abroad thing. I also have a job interview on Tuesday afternoon. Yes, that's right, a job interview. Apparently I was recommended by someone, because I received an email from the lady who coordinates Annual Giving asking if I'd be interested in working for the Phonathon. Essentially, it's a telemarketing job, but everyone I've heard from says that it's one of the best jobs around campus. The pay starts at minimum wage but goes up each semester, and there are lots of bonuses for callers who do well. Basically, I'd be working ten-hours a week calling alum around the country asking them for updated information or important news and then asking if they could sponsor the Student Impact Fund (a fund that aids in scholarships and study abroad programs for students). To many of you, such an occupation might not sound too glamorous, but when you see most of the other jobs for students around here... let's just say I'm pretty excited. The plan is that I'll start in February (at the end of the swimming season).
Speaking of swimming, Messiah College hosted its first ever swim meet (against Gettysburg College) on Saturday. Over 200 people showed up to watch and cheer us on as we made history... and got utterly defeated in the process. Ha.. but it was fine. I, along with a lot of other people, beat personal records, and pretty much everybody that swam got to set some sort of school record. After that, we all went over to the Men's Soccer game against Elizabethtown. Some sort of bizarre school tradition dictates that everybody throw marshmallows whenever anything exciting happens. So after dodging sticky balls of sugar as Messiah defeated E-town 3-0, we went to a concert at the Union and heard this band from Maine that was actually really good! Check out The Wrecking if you're interested.
So that was Saturday. What about the rest of the week, you might be wondering? Umm.. well I watched a few too many scary movies, went out for dinner with Lauren's dad and the 'gang', swam a lot, did a bunch of homework, and planned some course stuff. I'm looking forward to two cancelled classes this week (back-to-back, no less), my two forementioned meetings, and Friday night. Only, the problem with Friday night is that I have a serious conflict between my obligations to the Concert Committee and the Conor Oberst concert on Friday and the swim team and our fourth meet at the same time. I'd rather help out with the concert .. and we do have 8 meets throughout the season... but I don't know. I'll let you know how this turns out.
Right now, I need to get on with some work. I also have a Men's Swimming devotional with the team later tonight. And I should probably start exercising some self-control with all this candy floating around everywhere. Thanks again for all your prayers. There is a lot to plan for right now with the Spring Semester and J-Term approaching.
Love you all and all my lovin',
Josh
p.s. I apologize for grammar errors, and thanks to those who help me spot them.
A week just does not seem complete without another blog entry. Thus begins another attempt at extracting a few special gems from a whirlwind of a routine...
Presently, my mind is occupied with a few significant thoughts/concerns. Tomorrow, I have my first-ever appointment with my academic advisor. I will enter the 15-30 minute meeting with a truckload of questions, and hope to depart with a substantially lighter load. Her job is to advise my course selection for the spring and hopefully help me map out my path for the next four years. There are two problems, however. One: I'm supposed to arrive with a list of courses I want to take in the spring. Two: I have no idea what courses I want to (or should) take in the spring. But I'm sure these advisors are used to helpless freshmen knocking on their doors, so I really hope she's ready for me. I have thought a lot about it, though, and here are a few courses I really want to take (whether these are the best choices right now, I will soon find out):
- American History to 1865 (this ought to cure my ignorance)
- Spanish 102 (while it's still fresh..)
- Problem Solving with Computers (get my math credit... and finally learn how to use Excel)
- Mass Media and Society (which one is to blame?)
- Created and Called for Community (a required course for all spring-semester freshmen)
- Problems in Philosophy (... still not sure about this one)
So I'm looking forward to figuring all of that out; it'll be nice to have some direction and start to plan how I'm going to do the whole study abroad thing. I also have a job interview on Tuesday afternoon. Yes, that's right, a job interview. Apparently I was recommended by someone, because I received an email from the lady who coordinates Annual Giving asking if I'd be interested in working for the Phonathon. Essentially, it's a telemarketing job, but everyone I've heard from says that it's one of the best jobs around campus. The pay starts at minimum wage but goes up each semester, and there are lots of bonuses for callers who do well. Basically, I'd be working ten-hours a week calling alum around the country asking them for updated information or important news and then asking if they could sponsor the Student Impact Fund (a fund that aids in scholarships and study abroad programs for students). To many of you, such an occupation might not sound too glamorous, but when you see most of the other jobs for students around here... let's just say I'm pretty excited. The plan is that I'll start in February (at the end of the swimming season).
Speaking of swimming, Messiah College hosted its first ever swim meet (against Gettysburg College) on Saturday. Over 200 people showed up to watch and cheer us on as we made history... and got utterly defeated in the process. Ha.. but it was fine. I, along with a lot of other people, beat personal records, and pretty much everybody that swam got to set some sort of school record. After that, we all went over to the Men's Soccer game against Elizabethtown. Some sort of bizarre school tradition dictates that everybody throw marshmallows whenever anything exciting happens. So after dodging sticky balls of sugar as Messiah defeated E-town 3-0, we went to a concert at the Union and heard this band from Maine that was actually really good! Check out The Wrecking if you're interested.
So that was Saturday. What about the rest of the week, you might be wondering? Umm.. well I watched a few too many scary movies, went out for dinner with Lauren's dad and the 'gang', swam a lot, did a bunch of homework, and planned some course stuff. I'm looking forward to two cancelled classes this week (back-to-back, no less), my two forementioned meetings, and Friday night. Only, the problem with Friday night is that I have a serious conflict between my obligations to the Concert Committee and the Conor Oberst concert on Friday and the swim team and our fourth meet at the same time. I'd rather help out with the concert .. and we do have 8 meets throughout the season... but I don't know. I'll let you know how this turns out.
Right now, I need to get on with some work. I also have a Men's Swimming devotional with the team later tonight. And I should probably start exercising some self-control with all this candy floating around everywhere. Thanks again for all your prayers. There is a lot to plan for right now with the Spring Semester and J-Term approaching.
Love you all and all my lovin',
Josh
p.s. I apologize for grammar errors, and thanks to those who help me spot them.
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