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...