First day of class

Well, sophomore year has officially started. Today was my first day of class. And, so far so good! I've got one more class tonight (from 7:00-8:30), but it shouldn't be too bad...I hope...anyway...life hasn't been too eventful since last post. I've been keeping myself busy, which isn't hard to do these days. My girls and I are in the process of planning a trip to a nearby movie theatre to see Hairspray - Zac Efron is just so dreamy! So far, my girls have bonded over loving to have fun, cheerleading, and Zac. And, at this particular theatre, you get a drink, popcorn, and movie ticket for 6 dollars. Pretty sweet, eh? Well, that's all for now! I'll conclude with pictures of our lovely room! Have a wonderful day!

Don't you wish you had a couch like this?

The joy of roommates and floormates

My roomie, Kara, moved in on Saturday! It was so nice to see her again, I missed her so much! And...she brought back our fish! Lucky number 7 I guess (for those of you who don't know, we managed to kill 6 fish last year. Replacement has managed to survive thus far...). Also, we have a sweet new couch! Her parents bought a van for a catering company, so they had to take a row of seats out, and Kara managed to swipe the seats, and it makes a lovely couch. It's nice to have her back and to be all moved in. I'm in the process of getting all of my pictures up on the wall. I'll post pictures of my room once I take some...

I also just want to say that my floor rocks! The girls are incredible!!!! We had a party last night complete with pizza, ice cream, and chocolate. They are all so wonderful, and are getting along amazingly well. Thank you so much for all of your prayers.

Here are a couple pictures for your viewing pleasure:

That's my roomie!

Replacement: the fish that lived

I survived move in day...barely

Well, the worst is over, as far as people moving in that is! Yesterday was quite an adventure. Mine began at 6:30 AM, and ended at 2:30 AM. All of Burritt/Dallas (my dorm) staff met in the lounge at 7:45 so we could start unloading cars and shuffling girls to their rooms. I started out the day taking girls to their rooms, so that was nice because I got to meet some of the new freshmen. Then, at about 9, one of the male staff came to the lounge and said that the guys needed help moving in. So, myself and one other girl went down to help the guys carry their stuff to their rooms. While it would have been nice to stay with the girls since I'll be living with them all year, moving guys stuff in was much easier than girls due to the significant difference in the amount of stuff they have. If only girls could be as low maintenance as guys when it comes to dorm life...anyway...I spent the next 2.5 hours of my life carrying guys stuff up four flights of stairs (sometimes only 2 or 3, but all of the guys from 4th floor seemed to move in when I got down there), in no air conditioning. It was hot, and tiring, but I got rewarded with a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, so life was good. The rest of the day was pretty much a whirlwind. I spent it answering questions and making myself available in case the students, or parents, needed me, and also spent time getting ready to present the rules to the girls later that night. I had an awesome conversation with one of the girls on my floor last night. It was awesome to get a glimpse of her life and her heart. I'm just so excited for this year. My girls are incredible. They are getting along great already. I can't wait to see what God has in store for this year. Any prayers would be appreciated. I know I can't do this on my own. I'm already exhausted, but it is a good kind of exhaustion. Stay tuned for more snippets from the life and times of 1st Burritt West/Burritt Annex (that's my floor, in case you were wondering :)! )

T minus 36 hours, 30 minutes and counting...

As I sit here and write this, the reality that in 36.5 hours the freshmen girls will be arriving! That is quite nerve wracking! I think I'm ready though. Walk About and training definitely prepared me to take on this responsibility. Walk About was awesome because it helped me identify some of my own insecurities that are preventing me from being fully confident in myself and my abilities. One thing that kept coming up during solo was the fact that I need to believe in myself and not limit myself. I'm not really sure how to explain how I place limitations on me, but I know that I do it, and I'm finally realizing that I'm just as guilty of it as a couple people in my past have been. Also on Walk About, I had multiple opportunities to confront my trust issues. When I was interviewed, I had no choice but to be vulnerable with my group. Usually, when I see that there's a need to be vulnerable, I run in the opposite direction. But this year if I want to develop a genuine and deep connection with my girls, and if I expect them to trust me and come to me, I need to be vulnerable with them. I thank my group and God for understanding and encouraging me in my weakness. Training has helped me a lot as well. They've put us in situations that have exposed me to issues I could run into this year, and they have also put me in situations that have taught me humility and grace. Every morning we start with devotions with the rest of our team, and this morning one girl that led handed out small cards that contained a verse and a saying. The saying on mine is as follows: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. That was perfect for me. If I took the time to explain the reasons why that was so perfect, my post would be as long as my last, so you'll just have to trust me on this one. I guess to sum things up, the past few weeks have been intense and trying, and have stretched me in all directions, but they have shaped my heart into one that is ready to take the year on (for the most part). There are a couple scriptures that have helped me through this process, so I'll end with those. Thanks for reading!

Psalm 36:5-7 (I had this scripture with me on accident during solo, but it turned out to be a good accident!)

Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the skies,

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,

your justice like the great deep.

O Lord, you preserve both man and beast.

How priceless is your unfailing love!

Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (I used this when I led Bible study, and it talks about trust)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make your paths straight.

Colossians 4:6 (a fellow RC gave this scripture to me to encourage me in my insecurity)

Let your conversation by always full of grace, seasoned with salt,

so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Walk About (said in your best Canadian accent)

As some of you know, I just spent 10 days backpacking in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Every year, Greenville takes a group of about 60 students and faculty up to the Smokys for fun and for leadership training. It was such an incredible experience! I'll try and spare some of the details so as not to overwhelm you, but I get long winded so I can't guarantee this will be brief!We all camp together the first night and then the next day we split off and hike with our groups. My group was awesome! We had five students and two leaders. One of my leaders, Nathan, was Canadian, er go the Canadian comment in the title. We lovingly referred to ourselves as Molasses after we had a conversation about its thick nature at 3:30 AM before we left for the mountains. Here's a picture:

From left to right: Josh, Margaret, Tim (a leader), me, Matthew, Nathan (a leader), and Megan. I couldn't have asked for a better group. They made the experience so much fun, and taught me a lot. Tim and Nathan were great; we could always tell that they had confidence in us. They pushed us to grow. Tim and I had a conversation all the way up a mountain one day about football, so that pretty much rocked! And Nathan, bless his heart, put up with all of our jokes about him being Canadian. The coolest thing about the group was that I knew that I could trust them. I have trust issues, and find it difficult to open up to people I don't know that well, but everything inside of me told me that I could trust them. I could go on forever about Molasses, but I'll continue on to the rest of the trip...

The Smokys were gorgeous! We had beautiful weather, which was a blessing because it usually pours rain when they go backpacking. Every group had a different trail to hike, and a different distance to hike. Our group actually hiked in the North Carolina part of the Smokys on the trail with bears (which we never saw any of), and we hiked the longest distance. Before we set off we were told that we would be hiking 39.5 ish miles, but when Tim and Matthew added up the correct distances for each day, we learned that we were hiking just under 50 miles! Some days were really easy with lots of downhill and shorter distances, but some days were awful. We had a couple of 8 mile hikes, and those were usually the days with the most intense uphill climbs. We all managed to survive, so that was all that mattered. Every night we all helped set up the tent, find firewood, and cook dinner. We got better at putting up our "tent" (two giant tarps) as the nights went by, so that was good. Each day we had a leader of the day, and then at night we would have the opportunity to interview the leader. They would share their testimony, and then the group members would have the opportunity to ask them any questions they wanted, both serious and random. It was an awesome opportunity to get to know everybody. The second night we stayed at a shelter so it was nice to not have to set up the tarps. There was a picnic table in the shelter, so we had a family dinner at the table, and then put our mattress pads on the roof and stargazed. The whole night was awesome! The next day after we hiked, we went on Solo. Solo is a 48 hour time period in which all the students went off by themselves with a small plastic tarp, mattress pad, and a page from the Bible. It was a time to fast, and be still and listen for God. After solo, Nathan made us pancakes, and they were so good! After pancakes we hiked, set up camp, and went swimming in a glorious mountain river! It was so cold, and felt so good. We stank so bad, so the water helped wash away some of our stench. It was Megan's birthday that night, so we turned the cheesecake into birthday cake and sang her happy birthday. And yes, I said cheesecake. We had incredible food during the week, I was quite impressed, amazed, and my stomach was very grateful! A few nights later we tried to watch a meteor shower, so we all got on this massive log in the middle of a river to get a clear view. It turned out that we missed the meteors by a night, but we had fun nonetheless. A few of us sang the entire soundtrack from the Lion King, so that was a testament to how cool, or crazy we all were, depending on how you look at it...

The last day Tim and Nathan hiked out ahead of us so that they could get showered and have a meeting with the leaders before everyone got back together. The last day was one of, if not the worst uphill climb we had, so it was good they didn't wait for us; we would have slowed them down. The 5 of us did fine, and we had fun together (in case you couldn't tell, we had fun all the time!). That night we had another shelter, so it was nice to be able to crash and not worry about setting up tarps. The next morning we had an easy hike, and then Tim and Nathan came and picked us up. It was nice to see them again, and they brought us poptarts, so that was a nice bonus! After everyone got back together, and I finally got to see, hug, and talk to one of my favorite people in the universe, Betsye (!), we had a 5 mile run (I opted to walk with Betsye so that her asthma would not go into overdrive). Then...we got to take showers! There wasn't much water pressure, but any sort of water pressure was nice after not showering for 10 days. After that we had an amazing feast of baked potatoes, salad, chicken, and steak. It was glorious! Each group then put on a skit of their experience, we worshipped together, and then we all took communion together. It was really cool. We got to offer the elements of communion to each other, so it was an incredible experience to be a servant to others and have an opportunity to lift them up in Christ. After that was over, the drivers went to bed for a few hours, and I guess most everyone else went to bed too, but Matthew and I stayed up all night in order to have an easier time sleeping on the way home the next day (I did fall asleep for about 10 minutes though). We left the Smokys at 3:30 AM on Thursday, and arrived back at Greenville at about 3 in the afternoon. The trip was incredible. I'm so glad that I got to experience it. I might write more later about what I got out of it personally, but I've blogged your face off enough, more than enough, for one post. I'll end with a couple more pictures of the week. Thanks for reading!

Family Dinner

Happy Birthday Megan!

Star gazing log

The New Adventures of Blogging

Welcome to my blog, and my attempt to share brief insights into my everyday life! After about a year of being told to get one of these, I have finally buckled down and have made my very own blog (this shows how much I love you Suz!). Hopefully those that read this will find it a tad bit interesting; I'll do my best to make it exciting (but there's only so much that can be done. I mean, I live in Greenville...). Anywho, I just got back from a 10 day hiking adventure in the Smoky mountains, so currently I'm in the recovery process (stay tuned for future posts about that). I start training Sunday night for being a Resident Chaplain (it's just like a resident assistant). I'm very excited and nervous about being an RC! Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoy reading my blog in the days to come! Until next time...