So, aside from Bethel Housing Horrors....

Thanksgiving break was really good. The time at home was not long enough. Time with family was much needed. Thanksgiving day was fun. Some people got miffed at small things, but that's normal, and somewhat funny... Played the "You Might Be a Redneck..." game that my brother brought over... Apparently, he is quite the redneck... And I also was able to answer some of the questions correctly by first thinking about which of the answers my brother would actually do....

The drive back today was long and visually challenging at points. It started out just gray and cold. Once I got past Indy the fog was so thick that I could only see about a tenth of a mile... and I figured that since I was going 60mph, and when a sign would pop out of the fog I counted how long until I passed it... which was between 9-12 seconds or so... It wasn't as bad as when I went down last year and couldn't see past the hood of my car for the fog...

Oh, and I finally found my missing phone charger... still plugged in to the wall here at school...

I'm overwhelmed. I really don't want to be here these last three weeks. The housing situation has blown up. Bethel is frustrating me to no end. I can't find a strong enough word to express my frustration with them right now..... Ugh...

exhaustion

I am tired and sore right now from the weekend at the Youth Specialties conference in Nashville. I got to see a bunch of great music artists, some really good speakers, and met a ton of people at the booths, and enjoyed a few good sessions, mostly relating technology and youth ministry.

I was able to hang out with my sis Mary on Saturday evening, while skipping a graduate get together that my prof said did not measure up to the recent years' events. I also got to meet her boyfriend, who will fit in quite well with the family.

I felt slightly out of place this weekend with the Bethel group. However I got to hang out with some of the Bethel people that I have not had classes with before, and got to know them. I roomed with Kelli, who Brandt has known since she was little when he was in Colorado. I also hung out with her and some of the guys that I didn't know that well before.

One hard thing about this weekend was walking all over the place. Lately, I don't know why, but my legs have been hurting below my knees on the outer side down to my ankles when I walk a while. Even getting across campus lately has been pretty painful. I don't know if it's because I probably haven't been drinking enough water, or if it's just because I'm out of shape (although I usually don't have leg pain even though I've been out of shape for a while), or what. Maybe I just need more potassium and should just eat more bananas than I do... (most of my bananas I get from the Acorn go bad before I get to them.) Anyway... I was walking slow all weekend because of that and had to keep telling those that I was walking with to slow down and wait for me. It was funny because one of the speakers talked about his son walking slowly while he always walked fast, so his son created a club called "the slow club. Basically he was talking about slowing down to notice things. Then later he had on this shirt that said "I'm in the slow club". We joked that I needed one of those shirts. It was interesting last night when we were heading back to the hotel to get our stuff and load it on the bus. I was walking back behind and Geoff and David V. were back behind me, and I could hardly breathe from trying to keep up with everyone, and trying not to cry from my legs aching so bad. I ended up stopping for a minute while everyone up ahead turned around, but then Kelli and Dave Pepin were trying to get everyone to go at my pace. I finally got over to the hotel and got some of the guys to help me get all my stuff to the bus... believe me, after a YS convention, you have a lot more stuff to take home than you came with... I got three bags from there, a dozen t-shirts, and a lot of hand outs and DVD's and some books, some stickers, and a few buttons to put on my bag. I had Shane & Shane sign my bag.

Anyway... I'm not used to what happened last night... other people advocating for me for something as simple as slowing down to keep pace with me. I want to figure out why my legs keep hurting when I walk longer distances and find out what I can do to make them stop hurting.

This weekend was not as much refreshment as I had hoped, but it was still somewhat refreshing spiritually.

I am going to get some sleep. The burdens of homework are still hanging heavy over me. I still just want to be done with this semester with grades enough to pass and get to the next one.

I am in need of grace in so many ways...

Feeling like a failure. Almost literally. This is not good. I'm stressed. I can't focus. I need to focus. I need to get these things done. Too much stuff has been put off until the last minute. Or so it seems.

Small Group
Midweek revision
the graduate level paper for Senior Sem. that I haven't really started on because I am still looking for some good research for it...
Curriculums for Disciple Making Structures.

And then there's the YS trip this weekend that, right now, I'm not even sure I'm going to be able to go on, or if I really should go just for the amount of stuff that I have to be getting done.

I also am going home next week for Thanksgiving for about 4 days. There's only three weeks of school after that!

The end of the semester is coming up far too fast.

I guess that's what I get for procrastinating.

It's so hard to focus on anything right now. Reading, studying, writing papers... I just want them all to be over with and done. I am so ready to leave this place. But to go where afterwards? I don't know where I'm going to go when I graduate. Right now this campus is very lonely. Or it's just making me lonely. I'm really bad at making new friends, especially when most people I know already have their own groups of friends. I don't really fit in here anymore. On campus or even at my church. The college group just lost its leader, because he moved to a new church to do some pastoral work there. Which is a good thing for him. But the college group that I have been going to for the last three years has mostly graduated or moved away. These days I just get up and shower and go to regular service. I don't feel like getting up before 8am because I'm usually up until midnight or after trying to work on stuff or whatever. Being stressed mentally and emotionally doesn't help anything.

So, here I am, feeling like it's gonna be a crash & burn kind of landing...

The End Is Near, But Not Near Enough

I'm ready to get out of here.

I feel stuck...



Oh, senioritis....

The semester is getting stressful.

I didn't really want to crawl out of bed and get out in the icky cold and slushy weather today to go to church, but I did anyway. During worship at church one of the pastors came up and talked about fear, and how God wanted us to put off fear for His joy. It was good to go up front and have friends pray for me... and then stomp on the cloak of fear. Fear of this lack of finances, of not knowing what I'm going to do in a few months after I graduate. Fear is debilitating and keeps us from the JOY that God has for us.

Today was not a complete cure for the fears we face. It's an everyday thing, throwing off that cloak of fear (or any other bondage that the enemy would try to put us under). Today was an encouragement.

Raising Financial Support

OK, So I am supposed to be going to a Youth Specialties conference in Nashville, TN the weekend before Thanksgiving. I am trying to raise support through a sort of non-conventional method... the internet. This is for the experience, to gain knowledge of youth ministry stuff like programs, ideas for youth groups, etc. Hopefully I can find some seminars relating to technology and youth. Anyway, down below you will see a widget from a site called "Chip In". It is a place where you can donate money to my PayPal account and help me to reach my goal of $350 for the cost of the registration/hotel/food. This is a very discounted price compaired to what some other college students are having to pay for this trip! So if you know me, or you just stumble across my blog here, and feel like donating something towards this to support me on this trip, thank you!